信贷：当心奇迹疗法

Credit

Beware miracle cures当心奇迹疗法

Sep 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Trust in the markets, not the politics依赖市场，而非政治

WHERE there is crisis, there is opportunity. That is something politicians surveying the wreckage of the subprime-mortgage crash know only too well. With America's Congress now back from its summer break, Democrats are scrambling to do something, anything, about the mess.

那里有危机，那里就有机会。这是那些审视次级债券风波的政客们清楚得不能再清楚的东西了。随着美国国会暑期休假的结束，民主党人又开始忙乎着为那一团乱麻做点什么，或者做任何能想象到的事。

Ideas are already piling up on the doormat like so many bailiff's letters: a rescue fund for borrowers, fines for unscrupulous lenders, federal regulation for state-supervised mortgage brokers and greater liability for buyers of mortgage-backed bonds. Wary of being outflanked, George Bush may extend mortgage insurance for some cash-strapped borrowers. Hearings starting this week are likely to lead to reams of further suggestions (see article). Some will be helpful, but most will probably do more harm than good.各种类似于行政许可证一样的建议已经在国会山的门槛前堆积如山：为借款人建立拯救基金，对不良放贷者罚款，对州调控的抵押经纪人实行联邦调控还有加大按揭抵押债券中买方责任等。乔治·布什谨慎地饶开各种阻碍，可能会延长部分现金借款的按揭保险。本周举行的听证会可能会导致进一步的建议书象雪花一样飞来。其中有些建议确有帮助，但是，大多数建议只会使事情变得更糟糕。

Nobody doubts things are bad out there. More than 2m homeowners face higher interest charges thanks to resets on adjustable-rate mortgages. Perhaps a quarter of them could lose their homes. Mortgage delinquencies have shaken global credit markets because yield-hungry investors piled into illiquid paper backed by risky loans. Banks far and wide are showing enduring signs of distress (see article). 没人会否认摆在眼前的状况很糟糕。超过200万屋主需要支付更高的房贷利息，原因在于抵押贷款的可调利率回升。他们中的四分之一可能会无家可归。由于渴求收益的投资者从风险投资领域撤回并进入不能立即兑现的证券领域，按揭贷款拖欠问题已经动摇了全球信贷市场。银行业广泛地显现出了持久的窘迫迹象。

So it is easy to see why the call for more regulation is tempting. But it is also easy to descend into caricature, portraying borrowers as victims of villainous banks, brokers, rating agencies and hedge funds. By one estimate, half of all subprime borrowers lied about their income. Many chose to ignore the risk that house prices might fall. Heaping all the blame on Wall Street and its clients ignores the role of broader forces. Ultra-low interest rates and Asia's savings glut provided much of the liquidity that inflated the bubble.

这就很容易明白，为什么呼吁更严格的调控显得那么有吸引力。但是这也很容易陷入漫画式的讽刺，即把借款人描述为道德败坏的银行、经纪人、评级机构和对冲基金的受害者。据估计，有多达一半的优等借款人在收入问题上撒谎。许多人宁可忽略房产价格可能下降的风险。却把谴责的矛头对准了华尔街和它那些忽略广泛影响力作用的客户。超低利率和亚洲的储蓄过剩提供了大量的流动资金，而这些流动资金又助长了通胀泡沫的形成。

Of course, nobody could suppose that today's regulation is fine just as it is. The failures in mortgages and the credit markets have revealed flaws. But two thoughts should stay the hands of over-eager reformers. Across the markets, self-correction is under way. Shares of the most egregious mortgage lenders have plunged and dozens have gone bust. Loan-underwriting standards are tighter. The riskiest subprime securities have almost no takers. These spasms are how the market cleans up its mistakes and learns not to repeat them. That sounds cold-hearted, but pain is a necessary part of this correction.

当 然，没人能料定现在的调控就是恰倒好处。按揭贷款市场和信贷市场上的失败刚好显示出其缺点。但是有两点想法应该能让过分热切的改革家踩一下刹车。整个市场 的自我调整正在进行。最惊人的抵押贷款贷方股票已经下降，还有数十家已经破产。贷款承保标准更加严格了。风险最高的次级证券几乎没有人持有。这些震荡是市 场修正其错误并学习不重复它们的手段。这听起来有点铁石心肠，但是疼痛是调整所必须的一部分。

When politicians seek to deaden that pain and supplant those lessons with hasty fixes of their own, they almost always blunder. Look at the Sarbanes-Oxley act, pushed through Congress in the turbulent aftermath of Enron's collapse. Although it was not all bad, the law placed a straitjacket on companies and their auditors which was so tight that it has since had to be loosened. And consider the proposal today, backed by Senator Charles Schumer, that a “suitability” standard be applied when a subprime loan is made. This may cut the risk of default, but it would also make it difficult for anyone with a blemish on his record to get a mortgage. Surely the legislators do not mean to heap still more pain on to the poor?

当政客们用自己草率的补丁，尝试着去寻找缓和这种疼痛和替代这个教训的方法时，他们几乎总是在犯错误。看看萨班斯-奥克斯利法案吧，安然公司轰动性的倒闭之后，法案才在国会获得通过。虽然这并不全是坏事，但是法律给企业和审计师穿了一个太紧的紧身衣，以至于现在不得不放松一点。再看看由参议员查尔斯·舒默现在支持的法案吧，当申请次级贷款，需要应用一个“合适性”标准。这可能会降低违约风险，但是对那些抵押贷款信用记录上有瑕疵的人来说，这使他们获取贷款变得困难了。立法机构确实无意再给穷人身上施加更多的痛苦么？

Slowly does it渐缓渐行

Rather than rushing into a bail-out of housing, politicians should give the financial authorities time to lean on the market. The government has a lousy record of doling out money in crises (think of the mess it has made in New Orleans). State-led rescues are fraught with moral hazard: what investor wouldn't take on that “liar loan”, knowing that the taxpayer is ready to jump in and help when it all goes wrong? Money should go first, and perhaps only, to those who can show they were defrauded or deceived. Encouragingly, American banking regulators this week issued guidance that should coax lenders to restructure bad debts, in part by offering to take a sympathetic view of the accounting hits that follow. Time, too, is the essential ingredient in reforming the capital markets, especially the conduct of the rating agencies, the whipping boys of the crisis right now (see article).

政客们应该给予金融界权威人士时间对市场充分了解，这比匆忙分发房产“优先股”要好的多。政府在发放救济物资方面有个声名狼藉的记录(想想它在新奥尔良州搞的那一团糟就知道了)。州引导的救援却充满了道德上的风险：投资者会不会使用“欺骗贷款”手段，当所有一切都不对头的时候，明知纳税人准备跳进陷阱，却还要推他们一把？也许仅对能够证明确实被欺诈或欺骗的放贷者来说，现金应该是首要手段。令人欣慰的是，美国银行监管机构本周发布指导意见，通过随后附录的统计采样数据，向贷款机构表达了一些同情的意见，并劝说贷款机构重组坏帐。在重整资本市场，特别是联邦证券评级机构的调控和危机的替罪羊的诸多因素中，时机也是非常重要的因素。

Above all, if legislators want to avoid unintended consequences, they should prefer information to regulation. Brokers who are getting three times the normal commission rate for selling an exotic subprime product should have to disclose that. They should also be made to spell out the terms of interest-rate resets more clearly to borrowers. And other financial markets might be less prone to catching mortgage flu if the off-balance-sheet “conduits” that buy wads of asset-backed securities had to reveal more about their exposures.

首 先，如果立法者想要避免意想不到的后果，他们应该宁可信任信息而非监管。经纪人以三倍予正常委托率出售额外最优产品，就应该把这个信息公布出来。他们还应 该向借款人讲清楚利率调节的因果关系。如果资产负债表显示购买了大量资产支持型证券，那么这个“渠道”就已经展现了更多有关其风险的信息，这样其他金融市 场估计会有更少机会去赶按揭贷款的潮流了。

Politicians say they want to help. What the financial system needs just now is the rarest of political virtues: self-restraint.

政客们说他们想要提供帮助。但是金融系统缺少的恰恰是政治上最缺乏的优点：自制。