空色一體
千江有水千江月，萬裏無雲萬裏天。
西蒙·約翰遜：自大與權威
發自華盛頓特區——
最近耳邊充斥的都是各大歐美央行主管們對自身在2008~2010年危機中所作所為的評價：“咱們幹得不錯。”在他們眼裏，正是一係列維護金融 係統的政府行為協助穩定了整個局勢。而美聯儲的資產收購行為既然已經獲得了盈利（並隨後上繳了美國國庫），那有什麽可指責的呢？
但用這種思維來界定這一事務其實是有問題的：往輕了說，是被一時的錯覺遮了耳目；往重了說，這將催生出一種傲慢自大的偏見，最終腐蝕中央銀行得以構建其權威的基石——公信力。
事實上，那場危機的真正成本根本無法用任何中央銀行的賬麵盈虧來衡量——也無法用美國財政部問題資產救助計劃（TroubledAssetReliefProgram）的一係列行動是賺是虧來進行評估。
如果要說真正的成本，那就是僅美國就失去了800萬份工作，就業率也從最高峰下跌了6%——這也是與1945年後曆次衰退最大的不同之處——如今距離危機爆發已經過去31個月了，失業率依然徘徊在低於最高峰5%的水平上。
另一項成本則是私人部門手中不斷增加的聯邦政府淨債務額——該指標是計算政府債務的最準確手段。對比美國國會預算辦公室在危機前（2008年1月）和危機後發布的中期預測，這一債務的增加額相當於GDP的40%，足以令人震驚不已了。
事實上，導致美國如今的財政危機（以及可能進一步傷害許多民眾的政府支出削減）的原因其實很簡單：各大銀行的危機使美國民眾付出了巨大的代價， 並在全球範圍內造成了巨大的負麵影響。美國和其他一些國家所出現的大部分公共債務並非源自於無節製的財政刺激政策，而是來自於本次衰退所引發的稅收銳減 （加上布什政府為最富有的那批人減稅，經費不足的老年醫療保健藥物財政補貼，還有靠借債維持的阿富汗和伊拉克戰爭都嚴重削弱了美國的遠期財政前景）。
最後一項成本則是數百萬無家可歸者和被擾亂的生活，有些影響甚至將持續一輩子。
但問題不在於美聯儲或是其他中央銀行是否應當設法阻止本國銀行係統的崩潰。如果想了解銀行危機的惡劣影響，最佳的範例莫過於1930年代（也是 伯南克擔任美聯儲主席之前的研究領域）。如果在任何特定時期隻有兩個選擇：要麽政府出手，要麽坐視其崩潰，那麽前者將是必然的選擇。
但在更廣泛的意義上，正如亞特蘭大聯邦儲備銀行主席丹尼斯·洛克哈特（DennisLockhart）上星期在該機構組織的一個公共論壇上所指 出的那樣，我們不應試圖運行一個構建在“私人得益公眾受損”原則之上的銀行係統，更何況這些損失大多由一些效率極低的行為方式所造成，而且毫無公平可言。
相反私人得到的好處則可以通過管理人員津貼的數額來直接計算得出。從2000年到2008年，全美前14家金融機構的管理者總共獲得了大約26億美元的現金津貼（包括工資，分紅和股票出售在內）。
到如今，前五位收入最高的人合共收取了近20億美元，而他們恰巧也是構建了整個高風險資產架構並險些將金融係統推入深淵的始作俑者：山迪·維爾 （建立了花旗集團，該集團在他離職不久後就爆發了危機）、漢克·保爾森（大規模擴展了高盛集團業務並說服國會允許投資銀行采取更高投資杠杆，然後又搖身一 變到美國財政部赴任去協助拯救這些銀行）、安傑羅·莫茲洛（創立美國國家金融服務公司Countrywidefinancialcorp.，是濫發抵押貸 款的主要推手），迪克·福德和傑米·卡尼（分別是雷曼兄弟和貝爾斯登的送葬者）。
相比之下公眾的損失則極為巨大：如果僅僅用聯邦政府的債務增長來評估的話，大概60億美元。但那些銀行大佬們卻依然堅持自己應當被允許運營更高杠杆的全球業務，並基於企業股票回報率來向他們支付報酬——無論出現任何風險。
為此有一批全球最頂尖的獨立金融研究者也正以長遠而嚴謹的眼光觀察這類事務，而我們近幾年的研究顯示情況比想象中更糟（詳見斯坦福大學商學院教 授安娜特·阿德瑪蒂AnatAdmati的網頁）。在他們看來，大銀行應具備更多的準備金——大概應占其資本總額的30%。但銀行家們則強烈反對這一建議 （因為這很可能減少他們的收入），而中央銀行管理者們也持有類似的立場（他們都被銀行家的抗議所說服了）。
如能有一個由遠離政界的專業人士來運作的獨立中央銀行，那是有許多好處的。但當掌管這些金融機構的人都堅持自己在危機中做得很好，宣稱所有問題都會解決，放任那些引發危機的金融巨鱷們逍遙法外，那麽他們的公信力也將不可避免地受到損害。
這一切都應當令中央銀行管理者們感到憂心，因為公信力就是他們的一切。畢竟美國憲法並不保證美聯儲的獨立。國會創造了美聯儲，也可以解散它。通過忽視高杠杆大銀行所可能造成的危害，一場“壞事變好事”的危機神話帶來的，僅僅是中央銀行身上的不斷累積政治壓力而已。
Around $2 billion was received by the five best-paid individuals, who were also central to creating the highly risky asset structures that brought the financial system to the edge of the abyss.
By Simon Johnson
WASHINGTON, DC – It is increasingly common to hear prominent American and European central bankers proclaim, with respect to the crisis of 2008-2010, the following verdict: “We did well.” Their view is that the various government actions to support the financial system helped to stabilize the situation. Indeed, what could be wrong when the United States Federal Reserve’s asset purchases may have actually made money (which is then turned over to the US Treasury)?
But to frame the issue in this way is, at best, to engage in delusion. At worst, however, it creates an image of arrogance that can only undermine the credibility on which central banks’ authority rests.
The real cost of the crisis is not measured by the profit and loss statement of any central bank – or by whether or not the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), run by the Treasury Department, made or lost money on its various activities.
The cost is eight million jobs in the US alone, with employment falling 6% from its peak and – in a major departure from other post-1945 recessions – remaining 5% below that peak today, 31 months after the crisis broke in earnest.
The cost is also the increase in net federal government debt held by the private sector – the most accurate measure of true government indebtedness. Comparing the US Congressional Budget Office’s medium-term forecasts before (in January 2008) and after the crisis, this debt increase is a staggering 40% of GDP.
Indeed, the reason there is a perceived fiscal crisis in the US today – along with spending cuts that will further hurt many people – is simple: the banks blew themselves up at great cost to the American people, with major negative global implications. Most of the public-debt increase in the US and elsewhere is not due to any kind of discretionary fiscal stimulus; it’s all about the loss of tax revenue that comes with a deep recession. (And the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the wealthiest, unfunded Medicare prescription benefit, and debt-financed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have severely weakened the long-term fiscal outlook.)
Finally, the cost of the crisis is millions of homes lost and lives damaged, some permanently.
The issue is not whether the Fed, or any central bank, should seek to prevent the collapse of its country’s banking system. To see the severe effects of a banking crisis, look no further than the 1930’s, a period that Ben Bernanke studied in detail before he became Fed chair. If the choice at any particular moment is to provide support or let the system collapse, you should choose support.
But, more broadly, as Dennis Lockhart, President of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, said last week at a public conference organized by his institution, we should not seek to operate a system based on the principle of “private gains and public losses.” And these losses are massively skewed in ways that are grossly inefficient, in addition to being completely unfair.
The private gains can be measured most directly in the form of executive compensation. From 2000 to 2008, the people running the top 14 US financial institutions received cash compensation (salary, bonus, and the value of stock sold) of around $2.6 billion.
Of this amount, around $2 billion was received by the five best-paid individuals, who were also central to creating the highly risky asset structures that brought the financial system to the edge of the abyss: Sandy Weil (built Citigroup, which blew up shortly after he left); Hank Paulson (greatly expanded Goldman Sachs, lobbied for allowing more leverage in investment banks, then moved to the US Treasury and helped save them); Angelo Mozilo (built Countrywide, a central player in irresponsible mortgage lending); Dick Fuld (ran Lehman Brothers into the ground); and Jimmy Cayne (ran Bear Stearns into the ground).
The public losses are massive in comparison: roughly $6 trillion, if we limit ourselves just to the increase in federal government debt. And leading bank executives still insist that they should be allowed to run highly leveraged global businesses, in which they are paid based on their return on equity – unadjusted for any risk.
The world’s top independent financial minds have looked long and hard at these arrangements, and, given what we have learned in recent years, have found them worse than wanting (see the Web page of Anat Admati at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business for the details). In their view, the big banks should be funded much more with equity – perhaps as much as 30% of their capitalization. But bankers strongly reject this approach (because it would likely lower their pay), as do central bankers (because they are too much persuaded by the protestation of bankers).
There are many advantages to having an independent central bank run by professionals who can keep their distance from politicians. But when the people at the apex of these institutions insist that the crisis response went well, and that everything will be fine, even as the financial behemoths that caused the crisis lumber forward, their credibility inevitably suffers.
That should worry central bankers, because their credibility is pretty much all they have. The US Constitution, after all, does not guarantee the Fed’s independence. Congress created the Fed, which means that Congress can un-create it. By assuming away the damage that highly leveraged megabanks can do, the myth of a “good crisis” merely makes political pressure on central banks all the more likely.
Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the IMF, is co-founder of a leading economics blog, http://BaselineScenario.com, a professor at MIT Sloan, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and co-author, with James Kwak, of 13 Bankers.
