【英语生活】与房贷告别 The jingle that sounds the road to recovery

This winter Patrick Honohan, the governor of Ireland’s central bank, will be listening out for “jingle mail”. It is something of a novel sound for Europe. During America’s subprime crisis of the past decade, thousands of households escaped from hefty mortgages they could not repay by abandoning their homes – and loans – after posting the keys to the lender (with a jingle).

Until recently that idea was almost entirely unknown on the other side of the Atlantic. In countries such as Ireland, it has always been difficult for individuals to abandon a debt completely, even after default.

But this month Mr Honohan revealed during a debate at the International Monetary Fund that some Irish mortgage providers were now offering “non-recourse” loans, which give them the right to repossess property in the event of default but not to pursue borrowers personally. If these experiments spread, it could change the pattern of mortgages: in future some borrowers could walk away. Jingle mail would have an Irish tone.

Is this a good idea? Some say No. Letting the irresponsible escape looks distasteful to responsible borrowers. And when Mr Honohan raised the issue at the IMF meeting, the European bankers in the room were unimpressed.

Such revulsion is natural, but it misses the point. Default is never pleasant. In the case of mortgages, it is usually more sensible for banks to restructure delinquent debt (or to avoid making unwise loans in the first place) than to create a system where borrowers can run away from bad loans. But there is one benefit to jingle mail: it draws a line in the sand. And that is something that the eurozone badly needs – in relation to debt of all kinds.

To understand why, take a look at the numbers. During the credit bubble household debt as a proportion of disposable income jumped sharply in the US. But since then the ratio has tumbled more than 20 percentage points. About two-thirds of that decline reflects default, as banks foreclosed on delinquent debtors or borrowers ran away.

However, the ratio of household debt to gross domestic product in the eurozone has risen, not fallen, since 2008. Corporate debt has also grown. To a degree that reflects Europe’s lack of growth. But lenders have also been painfully slow to resolve bad debts.

That is partly because of unrealistic optimism about the future and a shortage of bank capital to absorb write-offs. But another issue is the legal framework: many parts of Europe simply do not have the mechanisms needed to resolve bad loans quickly, be that a system akin to America’s Chapter 11 code for company reorganisation – or jingle mail.

Thus in Ireland (to name but one example), one-in-six mortgage borrowers are in default on their loans. However, two-thirds of those loans have never been restructured. Furthermore, while household debt has recently declined a little, a central bank study shows that this decline reflects the efforts of the rich to repair their balance sheets; not any real deleveraging among the poor. The latter remain in limbo.

Perhaps that will eventually change. The new, looming, round of bank stress tests from the European Central Bank could prompt lenders to get tougher. And on the ground, there are some hints of practical reform. Sean Hagan, legal counsellor of the IMF, says that in Portugal there is now a big increase in out-of-court restructurings of corporate debt (to circumvent the woefully slow court system).

In Spain, corporate debt has recently declined because banks have been more aggressive in forcing through consolidation. Banks are also selling more non-performing loans in places such as Spain, Germany and France to private equity firms, which are aggressively seeking resolution.

But what is still missing, in many quarters, is a mindset – most notably a recognition by bureaucrats and bankers that failure is an inevitable part of the market system, and that it sometimes pays to wipe the slate clean rather than endlessly sweep problems under the carpet.

Letting borrowers run away from bad loans may not be healthy; but it is even less healthy to leave a chunk of the population trapped in the virtual prison of debt that can never be repaid. For evidence of that, just look at Japan.

Or to put it another way, if attitudes towards default are now changing in Ireland – a touch – that can only be a good thing, particularly if these ideas spread in the eurozone. The tragedy is that it has taken so long.

今年冬天，爱尔兰央行行长帕特里克?霍诺汉(Patrick Honohan)将留心倾听“叮当邮件”的声音。在欧洲，“叮当邮件”还是一件新事物。过去10年美国发生次贷危机时，成千上万的家庭为了逃脱他们无法偿还的高额按揭贷款，把房子的钥匙寄还给银行（由此得名“叮当邮件”），将房子和贷款一并抛弃。

直到不久以前，大西洋彼岸的人们对这个概念几乎一无所知。在爱尔兰这样的国家，个人很难完全甩开债务，即使在发生违约后也是如此。

然而，霍诺汉本月在国际货币基金组织(IMF)的一场辩论中透露，爱尔兰一些按揭贷款提供者推出了“无追索权”贷款，让它们有权在出现违约的情况下收回房产，但无权追索借款人个人的偿债责任。如果这种试行方法推广开来，可能会改变按揭贷款的运作规律：未来，一些借款人能抛下债务一走了之。爱尔兰也将传出叮当邮件的声音。

这是个好主意吗？一些人认为不是。让不负责任的人逃脱债务，对负责任的借款人来说令人反感。当霍诺汉在IMF会议上提出这个议题时，与会的欧洲银行家并不满意。

这种厌恶情绪是正常的，但它没有抓住关键。违约从来就不是一件令人愉快的事。就按揭贷款而言，对银行来说，比起建立借款人能从不良贷款中脱身的制度，通常更明智的选择是重组不良贷款（或者从一开始就避免发放不明智的贷款）。但叮当邮件有一个好处：它划清了一条界限。这是欧元区迫切需要采纳的做法——对各类债务而言都是如此。

要理解其原因，可以看一看统计数据。在美国出现信贷泡沫时，家庭债务占可支配收入的比例大幅飙升。但此后该比例降低了20多个百分点。该降幅中三分之二的部分反映了违约，这是银行对拖欠债务者或一走了之的借款人进行止赎的结果。

然而，2008年后，欧元区内家庭债务占国内生产总值(GDP)的比例不降反升。企业债务也增加了。从某种程度上说，这反映了欧洲增长较为疲弱。但银行在处理坏账方面的行动也的确很缓慢。

部分原因是对未来的不切实际的乐观态度，以及银行缺乏资本来吸收坏账注销。但另一个问题出在法律框架方面：欧洲许多地方根本没有迅速解决不良贷款问题的机制，无论是类似于针对企业重组的美国破产法第11章(Chapter 11)，还是叮当邮件。

就以爱尔兰为例，六分之一的按揭贷款借款人已经发生了债务违约。然而，这些贷款的三分之二从未进行重组。此外，尽管爱尔兰的家庭债务最近略微下降，但央行的一项研究表明，下降原因是富人尝试修复他们的资产负债表，而不是穷人的去杠杆化进程取得了任何实质性进展。后者的问题依然被搁置。

或许这种状况最终会发生改变。欧洲央行(ECB)即将进行的新一轮银行压力测试将促使银行执行更严格的政策。在这方面，已经出现了一些实际改革的迹象。IMF法律顾问肖恩?黑根(Sean Hagan)表示，葡萄牙的企业债务庭外重组（目的是绕开办事效率极低的法庭体系）出现了大幅增加。

西班牙的企业债务最近降低了，因为银行在强迫进行债务重整方面更为强硬。西班牙、德国和法国等国家的银行将更多不良贷款卖给私人股本公司，由其积极争取清盘。

但许多圈子依旧缺失一种心态——最显著的是，官僚与银行家没能认识到失败是市场体系无法回避的一部分，而且有时候，一笔勾销比无休止地掩盖问题更值得。

让借款人从不良贷款中脱身或许并不健康；但让大量人群陷入永远无法偿清债务的困境更不利于健康。要找证据的话，只要看看日本就明白了。

换言之，如果爱尔兰对待违约的态度正在发生改变，就算只是一点点，也只会是一件好事，如果这种观念能在欧元区传播开来就更是如此。令人遗憾的是，这个过程花费的时间太长了。

译者/许雯佳