阴阳师txt梦枕貘:此次危机为何不同于2008年？

2011年 08月 09日 11:18此次危机为何不同于2008年？
评论(42)引诱华尔街银行家和投资者走上歧途的是相似的事件：2011年是2008年的重演，金融动荡的历史在一个没有尽头的循环中周而复始。

正如过去的这个周末，一位大型基金的经理一边走进办公室为一个动荡的周一做准备，一边暗自低语的：似曾相识的感觉几乎令人作呕。

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专题：美债危机
那些把2011年看作“2008年续集”的人如今恰恰遭遇了自己的“雷曼时刻”。只要把上周五标准普尔(Standard &Poor's)对美国信用评级历史性的下调换成2008年9月投行雷曼兄弟的崩塌，砰！难以想象的事情发生了，你得到了雷曼事件的翻版，而且令全球市场惊慌不已。

他们在最后一点上说对了。周一投资者看起来明显惊慌不已，亚洲和欧洲股市大幅下挫，道琼斯指数暴跌643.76点，跌幅超过5%。

不过，仅仅是市场动荡并不足以证明历史在重演。

借用一下常被用作投资泡沫借口的一句话，这次是不同的，那些透过2008年棱镜看待现在的问题的银行家、投资者和公司高管可能错误地估计了全球经济面对的问题。

三年前的金融危机与这次有三个根本不同点。

让我们从最明显的说起：两次危机的起因完全不同。

上次的危机是由下向上扩散的。危机开始于过于乐观的买房人，然后沿着华尔街的证券化机器向上，在信用评级公司的推波助澜之下，最终影响到了全球经济。那次是金融业的崩溃导致了衰退。

与之相反，这次的困境却是一个由上而下的过程。全球政府难以刺激本国经济、保持良好的财政状况，他们渐渐失去了企业和金融界的信任。

这进而导致私营部门支出和投资的锐减，形成一个恶性循环，造成失业率居高不下和经济增长乏力。在这种情况下，市场和银行是受害者，而不是始作俑者。

第二点不同或许是最重要的：在2007-2008年的危机前，金融公司和家庭一直享受着毫不费力就获得的大量信贷。

当泡沫破裂时，随之而来的急速去杠杆过程造成了大规模的衰退性冲击。

这次，问题恰恰相反。经济低迷促使公司和个人将钱存起来、避开负债，造成消费和投资增长乏力。

最后一点不同是前两点不同的一个直接结果。鉴于2008年金融灾难的成因，当时有一个简单但痛苦的解决方法：政府不得不介入，以通过低利率、银行救助和向经济中注入现金提供大量流动性。

当时，一位美联储(Federal Reserve)官员称这种方法为“速战速决”（译者：shock and awe,军事用语，如伊拉克战争。)另外一名官员则一言蔽之：我们要为每样东西提供最终支持。

实施这项政策付出了不小的代价，全球各国政府共向金融系统注入了约1万亿美元。对于那些不得不为别人的过错而买单的纳税人来说，这也并不公平。但无论如何，该政策最终还是成功避免了一场全球大萧条。

不过，如今的议事日程上并没有这种应对策略。当前的问题并不是由缺乏流动性(例如，美国企业目前坐拥创纪录的现金储备)或杠杆率过高引起的。企业和个人的资产负债表上不再负债累累。

真正的问题是，金融市场的参与者彼此之间以及对政府是否有能力推动经济增长缺乏长期信任。

如果你对这一点存疑，看看金融系统“各管道”(包括回购市场和银行同业拆借等)存在的问题便知，要么你可以问问标普或购买意大利和西班牙国债的买家，看看他们对于政治领导人理清这一团乱麻有多大信心。

本次危机的独特性意味着借助上次危机中用过的武器是行不通的。

华尔街现在极力要求货币当局出手干预，希望美联储或欧洲央行(European Central Bank)为经济注入更多流动性(即第三轮量化宽松政策，QE3)。

这也太2008年了。

即使中央银行愿意这么做，向一个资金已十分充裕的经济体注入更多资金其实并不能提供什么安慰。这些天来，大型企业对银行一直颇为不满，前者在安全但闲置的账户中存入了超额资金，这一点从纽约银行(Bank of NewYork)上周采取的前所未有的举措就可见一斑，该银行竟然向准备在它这里存钱的企业收取一定的费用。

至于那些紧张不安的投资者，美国或德国政府再多印几十亿钞票可能也不足以说服他们重返股市。

2011年，金融界不能再向政府伸手要钱，希望得到救济。为摆脱目前的困境，市场将不得不依靠其内在力量，或坐等政界人士采取“既治标又治本”的举措来刺激经济增长。

由市场引导的解决办法并非不存在。当资产价格有一天变得很低时，投资者和企业的“动物本性”就会被再度唤醒。

正如沃伦?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)有一次致信股东时所说：我们通常是在大家对宏观经济的担忧达到顶点时买到了最好的东西。

另一种选择方案是，希望欧美领导人会推行重振需求和投资增长所需的财政和劳动力市场改革。但这势必要花点时间。

和以往一样，过去的情况看起来常常要比眼下的形势简单得多。但现实是，与2008年不同，政府资金在目前承受了很大压力的经济环境下毫无益处。

Why This Crisis Differs From the 2008 Version

It is a parallel that is seducing Wall Street bankers and investors:2011 as a repeat of 2008, the history of financial turmoil playing inone endless loop.

As a big fund manager muttered darkly this pastweekend while heading into the office to prepare for a tumultuousMonday, 'The sense of deja vu is almost sickening.'

Those whothink of 2011 as '2008--The Sequel' now have their very own 'Lehmanmoment.' Just substitute Friday's historic downgrade of the U.S. creditrating by Standard & Poor's for the collapse of the investment bankin September 2008, et voila, you have a carbon copy of an event thatmade the unthinkable happen and spooked markets around the globe.

Theygot the last part right. Investors looked decidedly spooked on Monday,with Asian and European bourses down sharply and the Dow tumbling 643.76points, or more than 5%.

But market turbulence alone isn't enough to prove that history repeats itself.

Toborrow a phrase often used to rationalize investment bubbles, this timeis different, and the bankers, investors and corporate executives wholook at today's problems through the prism of 2008 risk misjudging theissues confronting the global economy.

There are three fundamental differences between the financial crisis of three years ago and today's events.

Starting from the most obvious: The two crises had completely different origins.

Theolder one spread from the bottom up. It began among over-optimistichome buyers, rose through the Wall Street securitization machine, withmore than a little help from credit-rating firms, and ended up infectingthe global economy. It was the financial sector's breakdown that causedthe recession.

The current predicament, by contrast, is atop-down affair. Governments around the world, unable to stimulate theireconomies and get their houses in order, have gradually lost the trustof the business and financial communities.

That, in turn, hascaused a sharp reduction in private sector spending and investing,causing a vicious circle that leads to high unemployment and sluggishgrowth. Markets and banks, in this case, are victims, not perpetrators.

Thesecond difference is perhaps the most important: Financial companiesand households had feasted on cheap credit in the run-up to 2007-2008.

When the bubble burst, the resulting crash diet of deleveraging caused a massive recessionary shock.

Thistime around, the problem is the opposite. The economic doldrums areprompting companies and individuals to stash their cash away and steerclear of debt, resulting in anemic consumption and investment growth.

Thefinal distinction is a direct consequence of the first two. Given itsgenesis, the 2008 financial catastrophe had a simple, if painful,solution: Governments had to step in to provide liquidity in drovesthrough low interest rates, bank bailouts and injections of cash intothe economy.

A Federal Reserve official at the time called it 'shock and awe.' Another summed it up thus: 'We will backstop everything.'

Thepolicy didn't come cheap, as governments world-wide poured around $1trillion into the system. Nor was it fair to the tax-paying citizens whohad to pick up the tab for other people's sins. But it eventuallysucceeded in avoiding a global Depression.

Today, such a responseisn't on the menu. The present strains aren't caused by a lack ofliquidity--U.S. companies, for one, are sitting on record cash piles--ortoo much leverage. Both corporate and personal balance sheets are nolonger bloated with debt.

The real issue is a chronic lack ofconfidence by financial actors in one another and their governments'ability to kick-start economic growth.

If you need any proof ofthat, just look at the problems in the 'plumbing' of the financialsystem--from the 'repo' market to interbank lending--or ask S&P orbuyers of Italian and Spanish bonds, how confident they are thatpoliticians will sort out this mess.

The peculiar nature of this crisis means that reaching for the weapons used in the last one just won't work.

ConsiderWall Street's current clamor for intervention by the monetaryauthorities--be it in the form of more liquidity injections (or 'QE3')by the Fed or the European Central Bank.

So 2008.

Even ifthe central banks were inclined that way, pumping more money into aneconomy already flush with cash would provide little solace. These days,large companies are frowning all the way to the bank, depositing excessfunds in safe-but-idle accounts, as shown by Bank of New York'sunprecedented move last week to charge companies to park their cash inits vaults.

As for jittery investors, a few more billions mintedby Uncle Sam or his Frankfurt cousin are unlikely to be enough topersuade them to jump back into the market.

In 2011, thefinancial world can't go cap in hand to the political capitals, hopingfor a handout. To get out of the current impasse, markets will have torely on their inner strength or wait for politicians to take radicalmeasures to spur economic growth.

A market-led solution isn'timpossible. At some point prices of assets will become so cheap thatthey will reawaken the 'animal spirits' of both investors and companies.

AsWarren Buffett once wrote to his shareholders, 'we have usually madeour best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at apeak'.

The alternative is to hope that politicians in the U.S andEurope will introduce the fiscal and labor reforms needed to reawakendemand and investment growth. But that is bound to take time.

Asoften, the past looks a lot simpler than the present. But the reality isthat, unlike 2008, governments' money is no good in today's stressedenvironment.

Francesco Guerrera