CNN發表斯蒂格利茨評論文章
人文與社會編輯小組譯（http://wen.org.cn）
CNN前言: 約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨，現在是哥倫比亞大學的教授，2001年獲得諾貝爾經濟學獎，2008年他參加的氣候變化小組獲得諾貝爾和平獎。他支持奧巴馬，在克林頓時代是經濟顧問委員會的成員和主席，後來加入世界銀行。他和琳達·比爾姆斯合寫了《三兆美元的戰爭：伊拉克紛爭的真實代價》。
經濟學家斯蒂格利茨稱，美聯邦監督者和經營者在華爾街危機中起了推波助瀾的作用。
紐約 (CNN) -- 很多人看來都震驚於目前的經濟動蕩的廣泛性和嚴重性。我，還有幾個經濟學家，早就看到這次危機的來臨，也警告過它的風險。
要責難的方麵很多，但提出責難是為了降低類似情況複發的可能性。
布什總統不久前說了句眾所周知的話，這次的問題很簡單："造了太多房子。"對，不過這個答案太粗糙了：為什麽會出現那樣的情況呢？
可以說美聯儲失敗了兩次，一次是做為監督者，一次是做為金融政策的執行者。美聯儲的流動資產(可以低息貸出的金錢)和鬆緩的規定導致了房產泡沫。當泡沫破滅的時候，基於超額估價的資產而做出的融資過度的貸款就成為壞賬。
對於所有那些新發明的經濟手段來說，這隻是基於過度融資（或者說借貸）和金字塔結構而造成的另一起金融危機。
這些新"發明"隻是隱藏了係統化融資的規模，把風險變得比較不透明；正是這些發明才讓這次的經濟危機變得比早期的經濟危機更加戲劇化。但我們需要追問，為什麽美聯儲失敗了？
首先，關鍵的監督者們，比如阿蘭·格林斯潘，沒有真正相信監督的作用。當金融係統的不節製被指出的時候，他們提倡的是自我監督－－這個詞本身就自相矛盾。
第二，科技泡沫的破滅使得宏觀經濟陷入困境。2001年的稅率下調本意不是刺激經濟發展，而是給有錢人的慷慨禮物－－而這個社會群體在過去的4分之一世紀中，已經享受了很多好處。
伊拉克戰爭是致命的一擊，這是油價暴漲的原因之一。原來用於購買美國產品的金錢被用到海外了。美聯儲很重視保持經濟發展的任務，但它的做法是用另一個泡沫－－房產泡沫－－來取代科技泡沫。家庭存款降低到了零，這是自從1929年大蕭條以來最低水平。這樣雖然維持了經濟，但這種維持方式是短視的：美國人靠借來的時間和金錢生活。
最後，責難的中心必須放在那些金融機構本身。它們－－更嚴重的是它們的經營者－－的獎勵機製跟我們的經濟與社會的需求很不一致。
這些金融機構的經營者得到的回報很豐厚，說起來是因為他們冒了風險並且分配資本，這兩方麵被認為能提高經濟效率，因此也使得他們的高收入看起來合理。但是他們錯誤地分配了資本，他們錯誤地處理風險問題－－他們實際製造了風險。
他們的行動是基於他們的獎勵機製的：專注於短期贏利，鼓勵承擔過度風險。
這並不是我們的金融製度的第一個危機，我們也不是第一次看到那些信奉自由、不受限製市場的人向政府尋求幫助。我們可以看到一個規律，這個規律顯示著深層的係統問題，－－當然也顯示著很多不同的解決問題的方法:
第一. 我們首先需要糾正管理人員的獎勵製度，降低利益衝突的程度，提供給持股者更多關於股票期權造成的股票價格稀釋的信息。對於長期以來盛行的基於過度風險和短期利益的獎勵機製，應該加以抑製，抑製手法可以是把每年的分紅改成基於五年的收益支付的獎金。
第二. 我們需要創造一個金融產品安全委員會，以保證銀行、養老基金等等買賣的金融產品對"人類消費"來說是安全的。成年人隻要同意就可以享受高度的行動自由，但這並不意味著他們可以用其他人的錢來賭博。某些人可能會擔心這樣的措施會壓製創新。但考慮到我們過去見到的創新(也就是試圖推翻會計製度和規定)都是什麽樣的，那也許是件好事。我們需要的是針對普通美國人的需要提出的創新，讓他們能夠在經濟條件發生變化的時候仍能保持他們的住房。
第三. 我們需要簡曆一個金融係統穩定委員會來全盤處理整個金融係統，要認識到係統中各部分間的關係，並且防止我們剛剛經曆的過度融資再度出現。
第四. 我們需要施行其他提高金融係統安全和健康的製度，比如限製借貸的“限速帶”。曆史上，高速擴展的借貸造成了相當大比例的經濟危機，這次的經濟危機也不例外。
第五. 我們需要更好的法令來保護消費者，包括防止吞噬性借貸的發生。
第六. 我們需要更好的法令來規範競爭。金融機構能夠通過信用卡掠奪消費者的原因之一，就是缺乏競爭。但更重要的是，我們不應該看到一個機構“大得不可能失敗”的情況。如果一個公司變成那麽龐大，那麽它就應該被分拆。
這些改革並不能保證我們不會再次遇到危機。那些金融市場中的人們實在有著令人驚歎的本事。最後他們還是會設法規避一切的規定。但這些改革能讓另一次類似的危機變得不那麽容易再現，而且，假設這樣的情況重現的話，能讓它不那麽嚴重。
人文與社會編輯小組漢譯（http://humanities.cn）
Commentary: How to prevent the next Wall Street crisis
Story Highlights
Joseph Stiglitz: Fed pumped too much money, aiding housing bubble
New-fangled instruments hid overuse of borrowing, Stiglitz says
Executives followed short-term interests and magnified risks, he says
Stiglitz: Widespread changes needed to prevent future crises
By Joseph Stiglitz
Special to CNN
Editor's note: Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor at Columbia University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work on the economics of information and was on the climate change panel that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. Stiglitz, a supporter of Barack Obama, was a member and later chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration before joining the World Bank as chief economist and senior vice president. He is the co-author with Linda Bilmes of the "Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict."
Economist Joseph Stiglitz says federal regulators and executives helped create the Wall Street crisis.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Many seem taken aback by the depth and severity of the current financial turmoil. I was among several economists who saw it coming and warned about the risks.
There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely.
President Bush famously said, a little while ago, that the problem is simple: Too many houses were built. Yes, but the answer is too simplistic: Why did that happen?
One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour.
For all the new-fangled financial instruments, this was just another one of those financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid scheme.
The new "innovations" simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises. But one needs to push further: Why did the Fed fail?
First, key regulators like Alan Greenspan didn't really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation -- an oxymoron.
Second, the macro-economy was in bad shape with the collapse of the tech bubble. The tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy but to give a largesse to the wealthy -- the group that had been doing so well over the last quarter-century.
The coup d'grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad. The Fed took seriously its responsibility to keep the economy going.
It did this by replacing the tech bubble with a new bubble, a housing bubble. Household savings plummeted to zero, to the lowest level since the Great Depression. It managed to sustain the economy, but the way it did it was shortsighted: America was living on borrowed money and borrowed time.
Finally, at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They -- and even more their executives -- had incentives that were not well aligned with the needs of our economy and our society.
They were amply rewarded, presumably for managing risk and allocating capital, which was supposed to improve the efficiency of the economy so much that it justified their generous compensation. But they misallocated capital; they mismanaged risk -- they created risk.
They did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking.
This is not the first crisis in our financial system, not the first time that those who believe in free and unregulated markets have come running to the government for bail-outs. There is a pattern here, one that suggests deep systemic problems -- and a variety of solutions:
1. We need first to correct incentives for executives, reducing the scope for conflicts of interest and improving shareholder information about dilution in share value as a result of stock options. We should mitigate the incentives for excessive risk-taking and the short-term focus that has so long prevailed, for instance, by requiring bonuses to be paid on the basis of, say, five-year returns, rather than annual returns.
2. Secondly, we need to create a financial product safety commission, to make sure that products bought and sold by banks, pension funds, etc. are safe for "human consumption." Consenting adults should be given great freedom to do whatever they want, but that does not mean they should gamble with other people's money. Some may worry that this may stifle innovation. But that may be a good thing considering the kind of innovation we had -- attempting to subvert accounting and regulations. What we need is more innovation addressing the needs of ordinary Americans, so they can stay in their homes when economic conditions change.
3. We need to create a financial systems stability commission to take an overview of the entire financial system, recognizing the interrelations among the various parts, and to prevent the excessive systemic leveraging that we have just experienced.
4. We need to impose other regulations to improve the safety and soundness of our financial system, such as "speed bumps" to limit borrowing. Historically, rapid expansion of lending has been responsible for a large fraction of crises and this crisis is no exception.
5. We need better consumer protection laws, including laws that prevent predatory lending.
6. We need better competition laws. The financial institutions have been able to prey on consumers through credit cards partly because of the absence of competition. But even more importantly, we should not be in situations where a firm is "too big to fail." If it is that big, it should be broken up.
These reforms will not guarantee that we will not have another crisis. The ingenuity of those in the financial markets is impressive. Eventually, they will figure out how to circumvent whatever regulations are imposed. But these reforms will make another crisis of this kind less likely, and, should it occur, make it less severe than it otherwise would be.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
人文與社會編輯小組譯（http://wen.org.cn）
CNN前言: 約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨，現在是哥倫比亞大學的教授，2001年獲得諾貝爾經濟學獎，2008年他參加的氣候變化小組獲得諾貝爾和平獎。他支持奧巴馬，在克林頓時代是經濟顧問委員會的成員和主席，後來加入世界銀行。他和琳達·比爾姆斯合寫了《三兆美元的戰爭：伊拉克紛爭的真實代價》。
經濟學家斯蒂格利茨稱，美聯邦監督者和經營者在華爾街危機中起了推波助瀾的作用。
紐約 (CNN) -- 很多人看來都震驚於目前的經濟動蕩的廣泛性和嚴重性。我，還有幾個經濟學家，早就看到這次危機的來臨，也警告過它的風險。
要責難的方麵很多，但提出責難是為了降低類似情況複發的可能性。
布什總統不久前說了句眾所周知的話，這次的問題很簡單："造了太多房子。"對，不過這個答案太粗糙了：為什麽會出現那樣的情況呢？
可以說美聯儲失敗了兩次，一次是做為監督者，一次是做為金融政策的執行者。美聯儲的流動資產(可以低息貸出的金錢)和鬆緩的規定導致了房產泡沫。當泡沫破滅的時候，基於超額估價的資產而做出的融資過度的貸款就成為壞賬。
對於所有那些新發明的經濟手段來說，這隻是基於過度融資（或者說借貸）和金字塔結構而造成的另一起金融危機。
這些新"發明"隻是隱藏了係統化融資的規模，把風險變得比較不透明；正是這些發明才讓這次的經濟危機變得比早期的經濟危機更加戲劇化。但我們需要追問，為什麽美聯儲失敗了？
首先，關鍵的監督者們，比如阿蘭·格林斯潘，沒有真正相信監督的作用。當金融係統的不節製被指出的時候，他們提倡的是自我監督－－這個詞本身就自相矛盾。
第二，科技泡沫的破滅使得宏觀經濟陷入困境。2001年的稅率下調本意不是刺激經濟發展，而是給有錢人的慷慨禮物－－而這個社會群體在過去的4分之一世紀中，已經享受了很多好處。
伊拉克戰爭是致命的一擊，這是油價暴漲的原因之一。原來用於購買美國產品的金錢被用到海外了。美聯儲很重視保持經濟發展的任務，但它的做法是用另一個泡沫－－房產泡沫－－來取代科技泡沫。家庭存款降低到了零，這是自從1929年大蕭條以來最低水平。這樣雖然維持了經濟，但這種維持方式是短視的：美國人靠借來的時間和金錢生活。
最後，責難的中心必須放在那些金融機構本身。它們－－更嚴重的是它們的經營者－－的獎勵機製跟我們的經濟與社會的需求很不一致。
這些金融機構的經營者得到的回報很豐厚，說起來是因為他們冒了風險並且分配資本，這兩方麵被認為能提高經濟效率，因此也使得他們的高收入看起來合理。但是他們錯誤地分配了資本，他們錯誤地處理風險問題－－他們實際製造了風險。
他們的行動是基於他們的獎勵機製的：專注於短期贏利，鼓勵承擔過度風險。
這並不是我們的金融製度的第一個危機，我們也不是第一次看到那些信奉自由、不受限製市場的人向政府尋求幫助。我們可以看到一個規律，這個規律顯示著深層的係統問題，－－當然也顯示著很多不同的解決問題的方法:
第一. 我們首先需要糾正管理人員的獎勵製度，降低利益衝突的程度，提供給持股者更多關於股票期權造成的股票價格稀釋的信息。對於長期以來盛行的基於過度風險和短期利益的獎勵機製，應該加以抑製，抑製手法可以是把每年的分紅改成基於五年的收益支付的獎金。
第二. 我們需要創造一個金融產品安全委員會，以保證銀行、養老基金等等買賣的金融產品對"人類消費"來說是安全的。成年人隻要同意就可以享受高度的行動自由，但這並不意味著他們可以用其他人的錢來賭博。某些人可能會擔心這樣的措施會壓製創新。但考慮到我們過去見到的創新(也就是試圖推翻會計製度和規定)都是什麽樣的，那也許是件好事。我們需要的是針對普通美國人的需要提出的創新，讓他們能夠在經濟條件發生變化的時候仍能保持他們的住房。
第三. 我們需要簡曆一個金融係統穩定委員會來全盤處理整個金融係統，要認識到係統中各部分間的關係，並且防止我們剛剛經曆的過度融資再度出現。
第四. 我們需要施行其他提高金融係統安全和健康的製度，比如限製借貸的“限速帶”。曆史上，高速擴展的借貸造成了相當大比例的經濟危機，這次的經濟危機也不例外。
第五. 我們需要更好的法令來保護消費者，包括防止吞噬性借貸的發生。
第六. 我們需要更好的法令來規範競爭。金融機構能夠通過信用卡掠奪消費者的原因之一，就是缺乏競爭。但更重要的是，我們不應該看到一個機構“大得不可能失敗”的情況。如果一個公司變成那麽龐大，那麽它就應該被分拆。
這些改革並不能保證我們不會再次遇到危機。那些金融市場中的人們實在有著令人驚歎的本事。最後他們還是會設法規避一切的規定。但這些改革能讓另一次類似的危機變得不那麽容易再現，而且，假設這樣的情況重現的話，能讓它不那麽嚴重。
人文與社會編輯小組漢譯（http://humanities.cn）
Commentary: How to prevent the next Wall Street crisis
Story Highlights
Joseph Stiglitz: Fed pumped too much money, aiding housing bubble
New-fangled instruments hid overuse of borrowing, Stiglitz says
Executives followed short-term interests and magnified risks, he says
Stiglitz: Widespread changes needed to prevent future crises
By Joseph Stiglitz
Special to CNN
Editor's note: Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor at Columbia University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work on the economics of information and was on the climate change panel that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. Stiglitz, a supporter of Barack Obama, was a member and later chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration before joining the World Bank as chief economist and senior vice president. He is the co-author with Linda Bilmes of the "Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict."
Economist Joseph Stiglitz says federal regulators and executives helped create the Wall Street crisis.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Many seem taken aback by the depth and severity of the current financial turmoil. I was among several economists who saw it coming and warned about the risks.
There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely.
President Bush famously said, a little while ago, that the problem is simple: Too many houses were built. Yes, but the answer is too simplistic: Why did that happen?
One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour.
For all the new-fangled financial instruments, this was just another one of those financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid scheme.
The new "innovations" simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises. But one needs to push further: Why did the Fed fail?
First, key regulators like Alan Greenspan didn't really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation -- an oxymoron.
Second, the macro-economy was in bad shape with the collapse of the tech bubble. The tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy but to give a largesse to the wealthy -- the group that had been doing so well over the last quarter-century.
The coup d'grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad. The Fed took seriously its responsibility to keep the economy going.
It did this by replacing the tech bubble with a new bubble, a housing bubble. Household savings plummeted to zero, to the lowest level since the Great Depression. It managed to sustain the economy, but the way it did it was shortsighted: America was living on borrowed money and borrowed time.
Finally, at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They -- and even more their executives -- had incentives that were not well aligned with the needs of our economy and our society.
They were amply rewarded, presumably for managing risk and allocating capital, which was supposed to improve the efficiency of the economy so much that it justified their generous compensation. But they misallocated capital; they mismanaged risk -- they created risk.
They did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking.
This is not the first crisis in our financial system, not the first time that those who believe in free and unregulated markets have come running to the government for bail-outs. There is a pattern here, one that suggests deep systemic problems -- and a variety of solutions:
1. We need first to correct incentives for executives, reducing the scope for conflicts of interest and improving shareholder information about dilution in share value as a result of stock options. We should mitigate the incentives for excessive risk-taking and the short-term focus that has so long prevailed, for instance, by requiring bonuses to be paid on the basis of, say, five-year returns, rather than annual returns.
2. Secondly, we need to create a financial product safety commission, to make sure that products bought and sold by banks, pension funds, etc. are safe for "human consumption." Consenting adults should be given great freedom to do whatever they want, but that does not mean they should gamble with other people's money. Some may worry that this may stifle innovation. But that may be a good thing considering the kind of innovation we had -- attempting to subvert accounting and regulations. What we need is more innovation addressing the needs of ordinary Americans, so they can stay in their homes when economic conditions change.
3. We need to create a financial systems stability commission to take an overview of the entire financial system, recognizing the interrelations among the various parts, and to prevent the excessive systemic leveraging that we have just experienced.
4. We need to impose other regulations to improve the safety and soundness of our financial system, such as "speed bumps" to limit borrowing. Historically, rapid expansion of lending has been responsible for a large fraction of crises and this crisis is no exception.
5. We need better consumer protection laws, including laws that prevent predatory lending.
6. We need better competition laws. The financial institutions have been able to prey on consumers through credit cards partly because of the absence of competition. But even more importantly, we should not be in situations where a firm is "too big to fail." If it is that big, it should be broken up.
These reforms will not guarantee that we will not have another crisis. The ingenuity of those in the financial markets is impressive. Eventually, they will figure out how to circumvent whatever regulations are imposed. But these reforms will make another crisis of this kind less likely, and, should it occur, make it less severe than it otherwise would be.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
