【英语生活】怎样存钱？

cannot be the only person who as an adolescent was shocked to discover that banks did not have enough cash in their vaults to repay more than a small proportion of their depositors. “Fractional reserve banking”, as the system is called, arose when medieval goldsmiths discovered that they could safely relend most of the precious metals in their vaults as their depositors would not normally all ask to be repaid at the same time.The great virtue of the system was supposed to be that it economised on holdings of gold. But even when paper money came in the habit continued. One of the most sympathetic characters in Cranford by the 19th century novelist Elizabeth Gaskell lost all her money in a bank crash. The last really large UK bank run was on Overend & Gurney in 1866. There have been several near misses in modern times, such as the secondary bank crisis of the 1970s when the problems were averted by Bank of England action behind the scenes. In the US, small banks disappear every year, although deposits have normally been secured by a compulsory insurance scheme.

The US subprime lending fiasco and its repercussions on Northern Rock and international credit markets in general have brought back questions about the banking system that most macroeconomists had hoped were over and long forgotten. The confidence of what are called, rather disdainfully, “retail depositors” is not the only problem of the world monetary system, but it is still the bedrock on which everything else stands. Outside the US, deposit insurance is rarely complete and there are usually delays before reliable cheques denominated in central bank money duly arrive. In the UK it is only since October 1 this year that the Financial Services Compensation Scheme has been extended to cover eligible deposits of up to £35,000 and the new official discussion paper leaves open the possibility of raising the amount. But the implications of sweeping guarantees have not been digested. They have the dubious feature of bringing questions such as “What is a bank?” and “What is money?” into practical politics.

In fact, the fractional reserve system was severely queried by some US economists in the aftermath of the Great Depression when one-quarter of the US money stock disappeared almost overnight – a more important event than the better-known 1929 stock exchange crash. One of the principal critics was the Chicago professor Henry Simons, author of A Positive Program for Laissez Faire. At one time Simons had a great influence on Chicago economists such as Milton Friedman, but was later repudiated, presumably because he had too much positive programme and not enough laisser faire.

Simons proposed the creation of pure deposit-taking institutions holding 100 per cent reserves whose assets had to be held in currency or Federal Reserve deposits. So, barring a break-up of the US or similar disasters, a depositor could always
get his or her money back and quickly. Other financial institutions, whether or not called banks, would carry on paying interest and looking for more profitable investments.
But the ordinary citizen would
know that he was on his own if he invested in them and learn that higher returns came with higher risk.

When I mentioned this idea to one of the few British economists who understands both banking and modern macroeconomics he recoiled in horror. His main argument was that, at the slightest sign of trouble, depositors would rush in their millions from profit-making financial institutions into these “narrow banks”. This could surely be counteracted if the central bank, acting as lender of last resort, lent enough to the threatened institutions, of course at a penal rate. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently in awe of my interlocutor to postpone raising the subject.

What has finally won me over is the realisation that we nearly have in the UK a government-sponsored narrow bank, entitled National Savings and Investment. It was originally set up by the Palmerston government of 1861 as the Post Office Savings Bank. It became under the last Conservative government “an executive agency of the chancellor”. Until recently every chancellor of the exchequer put into his Budget speech a sentence of thanks to Lord Mackintosh, for a long time the head of the institution. Some of its instruments can already be cashed at short notice; and some are even indexed against inflation. Hitherto, they have been regarded as boring and dull compared with the attractions of marketable fixed interest securities; but clearly safety and risk aversion are now becoming more important. If NS&I were to become a “narrow bank”, some modest changes would be required, such as enabling depositors to write cheques against at least some of its instruments and to be less exclusively concerned with government funding. It would also need to publicise the banking nature of its facilities. It could then become equivalent to “money under the mattress”.

We urgently need a more open approach than that of the City of London figures who oppose bail-outs and government support for all other industries but condemn the Bank of England for not doing secret deals to rescue threatened financial institutions.

银行的库存现金只够支付少部分储户的提款要求。我肯定不是唯一一个在少年时期震惊地发现这一点的人。这个体系叫作“部分准备金银行制度”(Fractional reserve banking)，是在中世纪出现的。当时，金匠们发现，由于储户通常不会在同一时间要求提款，他们可以安全地将金库里的多数黄金再借出去。该体系的主要优点理应是它节省了持有黄金的数量。但即便在纸币问世后，这一习惯仍然保留了下来。在19世纪小说家伊丽莎白•盖斯凯尔(Elizabeth Gaskell)的作品《克兰福德镇》(Cranford)中，一位最值得同情的人物在银行破产时损失了她所有的存款。上一次真正大规模的英国银行挤兑事件，于1866年发生在Overend & Gurney银行身上。在近代史上，英国好几次险些发生银行挤兑，例如上世纪70年代的次级银行危机，当时英国央行(Bank of England)的幕后行动阻止了问题的发生。在美国，每年都有小银行倒闭，不过强制保险制度通常都能确保存款的安全。

美国次级抵押贷款危机及其对北岩银行（Northern Rock）和整个国际信贷市场的影响，重新唤起了人们对银行体系的一些疑问。多数宏观经济学家原本希望，这些疑问已经一去不复返，早已被人们遗忘。所谓的“零售储户”（这种称谓相当轻蔑）信心，不是全球货币体系面临的唯一问题，但它仍是其它一切赖以存在的根基。在美国以外，存款保险制度通常不甚完善，以央行资金发放的可靠支票往往姗姗来迟。在英国，直到今年10月1日开始，金融服务补偿计划(Financial Services Compensation Scheme)才将涵盖对象扩大至3.5万英镑以内的合格存款，新的官方讨论文件表明，政府有可能提高这一数额。但是，人们并未完全领会对存款进行“一刀切”保险的意义。还有可能将“什么是银行？”和“什么是金钱？”等疑问带入现实政治中。

事实上，在大萧条过后，部分准备金体系受到一些美国经济学家的严重质疑。在大萧条时期，美国四分之一的货币存量几乎在一夜之间消失殆尽——这是一个比人们更熟悉的1929年的股灾更为重要的事件。其中一位主要的批评人士是芝加哥大学教授亨利•西蒙斯(Henry Simons)——《对自由放任的一项积极规划》(A Positive Program for Laissez Faire)一书的作者。西蒙斯曾经对米尔顿•弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)等芝加哥学派经济学家产生了重大影响，但后来遭到了批判，大概是因为他有太多的积极规划，却没有足够的自由放任。

西蒙斯提议创建准备金比例为100%的纯粹提款机构，其资产必须以货币或美联储(Fed)存款的形式持有。因此，除非美国解体或发生类似的灾难，否则储户总是可以迅速提出自己的存款。其它金融机构（不管是否被称为银行）将继续支付利息，并寻求更加有利可图的投资。但普通市民会知道，如果在这些金融机构投资，风险将由自己承担，他们还会了解到，更高的回报伴随着更高的风险。

当我向少数既了解银行业、也了解现代宏观经济学的英国经济学家中的一位提及上述观点时，他避之惟恐不及。他的主要论点是，一旦有风吹草动，储户就会成群结队地从营利性金融机构涌向这些“狭义银行”(narrow banks)。如果作为最后贷款者的央行向这些受到威胁的金融机构发放足量贷款（当然是以苛刻的利率），这种情况就必定能得到缓解。不过，我对这位对话者充满了敬畏，因此我没有马上向他提及这一话题。

最终让我改变想法的，是我意识到，我们在英国几乎就有一个政府资助的狭义银行，名为英国国家储蓄及投资银行(National Savings and Investment)。它由帕默斯顿(Palmerston)政府于1861年创建，原名英国邮政储蓄银行(Post Office Savings Bank)。在上届保守党政府执政期间，该行成了“财政大臣的执行机构”。直到不久前，英国的每任财政大臣还会在预算演讲中加入一句话，感谢长年担任该机构负责人的麦金托什爵士(Lord Mackintosh)。该机构的一些工具已经可以立刻套现；还有一些工具甚至跟踪通胀指数。迄今为止，人们一直认为，与可买卖的固定利率证券的吸引力相比，这些工具枯燥而无趣；但显而易见，安全和避险目前正变得更为重要。如果要让国家储蓄及投资银行成为一家“狭义银行”，就必须对它进行一些温和的改革，例如让储户可用开具支票的形式来从至少部分工具中提取资金，并使该银行不再仅以政府融资为经营宗旨。此外，还必须广泛宣传其服务的银行业务性质。这样，该行就可以变得等同于“床垫下的钱”了。

我们迫切需要一种比伦敦金融城人物所提议的更为开放的方式。这些人反对对其它所有行业进行纾困和提供政府支持，却谴责英国央行没有达成秘密交易，挽救受困的金融机构。

译者/刘彦