【英语国际】美国人为何应该感谢保尔森?

双语秀   2016-05-17 03:36   88   0  

2010-5-30 11:53

小艾摘要: On October 13 2008 a public holiday in the US the Treasury Secretary of the day, Henry Hank Paulson, summoned bank bosses to a meeting and made them an offer they couldn't refuse: $125bn of taxpaye ...
On October 13 2008 – a public holiday in the US – the Treasury Secretary of the day, Henry “Hank” Paulson, summoned bank bosses to a meeting and made them an offer they couldn't refuse: $125bn of taxpayers' money in exchange for equity in nine US banks. Some banks, such as Citigroup and JP Morgan, received as much as $25bn each. The Treasury also guaranteed new issues of bank debt. It was a bail-out of enormous value to bank shareholders and bondholders, so it can hardly be a surprise that the Obama administration is planning to try to get the money back with some kind of levy.

But how much did the banks benefit from Hank Paulson's “gift”? Did the policy have the desired effect? If so, why? All these questions are answered in research carried out by Pietro Veronesi and Luigi Zingales, economists at the University of Chicago, updated last month. One fascinating conclusion is that Paulson, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, may have missed a huge money-making opportunity.

The plan apparently stabilised the financial system in the short run; in the long run, it may have the opposite effect by encouraging some future generation of bankers to take more risks. Both these effects are impossible to quantify.

Veronesi and Zingales restrict themselves to the narrower question of whether the gain to bank shareholders and bondholders outweighed the loss to the US taxpayer. (Perhaps that sounds like a low threshold. It isn't: most government protection costs the taxpayer or consumer far more than they ever benefit the beneficiaries – witness almost every trade tariff in history.) They conclude that shareholders and bondholders in the banks were about $130bn better off as a result of Paulson's gift. Taxpayers stumped up less than that, taking a loss of perhaps $20bn-$45bn. As much as $5 may have been gained for every tax dollar spent. Infuriating as it may be to those taxpayers who had no desire to write a cheque to bank bondholders, it may be some consolation that the policy was terrific value for money.

It is no surprise that injecting cash into banks would increase the wealth of their shareholders and bondholders. What is less obvious is why the effect was so large. Veronesi and Zingales believe the gift prevented runs on the banks, the risk of which was depressing bond and share prices. A bank run is a situation where a bank can be bankrupted simply on the strength of the fear that it might happen. If a government guarantee can relieve such panic, it can create great value at little cost. And, indeed, the banks that gained most from Paulson's gift are also the banks that were in imminent danger of a run.

The mix of guarantees and equity injection also appears to have been superior to most of the other ideas floating around at the time. The original idea behind the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp) was to buy assets from the banks, apparently at market value. This would have required a cool $4,000bn of purchases and subjected the taxpayer to enormous risks – and profit opportunities. A straight equity injection also looks expensive and would have required near-nationalisation of many banks.

Pats on the back all round then. But one lingering question: if the plan created such gains, why didn't Paulson ask for more from the banks, as Warren Buffett had done three weeks earlier when he invested in Goldman Sachs? Veronesi and Zingales reckon that if Paulson had secured the same terms as Buffett, the taxpayer would have made more than $40bn, a roughly even split with the banks' creditors. Easy to say now – but it would have made a big difference to the politics of the bail-out. No wonder the Treasury is drawing up a bill for services rendered.

2008年10月13日(美国公共假日),时任美国财长的汉克•保尔森(Hank Paulson)召集银行老板们开会,向他们提出了一个不可能被拒绝的提议:用1250亿美元纳税人资金交换9家美国银行的股权。花旗集团(Citigroup)和摩根大通(JP Morgan)等银行,各自接受了高达250亿美元的资金。财政部还为银行新发行的债务提供担保。这此纾困对银行股东及债券持有人有着极大的价值,因此,奥巴马(Obama)政府计划通过征收某种税项来收回资金,就不足为奇了。

但这些银行从保尔森的“礼物”中获得了多少好处?这项政策取得预期效果了吗?如果取得了,原因又何在?芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)经济学家彼得罗•韦罗内西(Pietro Veronesi)和路易吉•津加莱斯(Luigi Zingales)上月发表的最新研究报告,给出了上述所有问题的答案。一个有趣的结论是,曾任高盛(Goldman Sachs)首席执行官的保尔森可能让纳税人错过了一个巨大的盈利机会。

该计划显然在短期内稳定了金融系统;就长期而言,它可能起到了相反的效果,因为它鼓励未来的某些银行家去冒更大的风险。但这两种效果都无法量化。

于是,韦罗内西和津加莱斯只去解答了一个较为精确的问题:银行股东和债券持有人的收益是否超过了美国纳税人的损失。(这听起来或许很简单,但事实并非如此:“政府保护”让纳税人或消费者付出的代价,大多远远超出受益者得到的好处——史上历次贸易关税几乎都证明了这一点)。他们得出结论称,保尔森的礼物让银行股东和债券持有人获得了大约1300亿美元收益,纳税人付出的代价要少一些——可能损失了200亿至450亿美元。每花费1美元税收可能获得了5美元收益。尽管那些不愿为银行债券持有人买单的纳税人或许会对此感到愤怒,但令人感到一些安慰的是,这项政策非常物有所值。

显然,向银行注资会增加股东和债券持有人的财富。但不那么一目了然的是,注资为何会产生如此巨大的效果。韦罗内西和津加莱斯认为,保尔森的礼物避免了银行挤兑,风险则是打压了债券和股票价格。银行挤兑是指这样一种情况,即银行会因人们担心它破产而破产。如果政府担保能缓解此类恐慌,就能以很少的成本创造巨大的价值。实际上,从保尔森的礼物中获益匪浅的银行,也正是那些极有可能面临挤兑的银行。

此外,注资配以政府担保似乎要优于当时其它大多数想法。美国问题资产救助计划(Tarp)最初的想法,显然是以市价来购买银行资产,这将需要整整4万亿美元,并且将纳税人置于巨大的风险(和盈利机会)之中。而单纯注资的代价似乎也很高昂,并将把许多银行置于近乎国有化的境地。

事情过后,到处都是赞美之词。但一个挥之不去的问题是:如果该计划创造了如此高的收益,为何保尔森没有向银行开出更高的条件,就像沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)那之前三周投资高盛时做的那样?韦罗内西和津加莱斯估计,如果保尔森得到与巴菲特相同的条款,纳税人将收获逾400亿美元,大致相当于与银行债权人平分收益。这话现在说起来当然很容易,但当时若如此行事,可能会对纾困政治造成重大影响。难怪财政部要在现在为当时提供的服务开账单。

译者/君悦

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