美國市政債券暴跌

????2010年12月，沉寂的市政債券市場突起波瀾，華爾街天后級的分析師梅里迪斯?惠特尼在美國哥倫比亞廣播公司（CBS）的《60分鐘》（60 Minutes）節目中宣稱市級和州級政府債券的違約規模可能達到幾千億美元。當時她估計可能有50-100宗較大規模的違約，其中很多將發生在“未來12個月內”。由于惠特尼是上次危機中最早發現問題的華爾街分析師，她的預言很快就有了追隨者。市級政府的借款成本大幅上升。市政債券市場資金外流創下了新高。投資者們都在等待著清算日的到來。

????一年之后，他們還在等待。標準普爾的數據顯示，2011年市政債券違約額不到10億美元，甚至遠低于2010年的水平。雖然沒人知道2012年會怎樣，迄今為止還沒有其他人預測會有幾千億美元的違約。可以想見，惠特尼在媒體上已不太受歡迎。到目前為止，她尚未公開更新其投資主張。

Municipal bond meltdown

????Analyst Meredith Whitney sent tremors through the sleepy municipal bond market last December when she told 60 Minutes she expected hundreds of billions of dollars worth of defaults in city and state bonds. She guessed there might be 50 to 100 sizable defaults, many occurring "within the next twelve months." And because she spotted trouble early on Wall Street during the last crisis, her words were closely followed. Borrowing costs shot up for cities. Municipal bond funds experienced record outflows. And investors waited for a day of reckoning.

????A year later, they're still waiting. Standard & Poor's said muni defaults amounted to less than $1 billion this year, far less than even the 2010 figure. And while 2012 is anyone's guess, so far no one else is predicting hundreds of billions of dollars in defaults. Whitney has predictably taken a drubbing in the press. She hasn't publicly released an update to her thesis.