新一輪金融危機潛在導火索不完全名單
????歐洲、日本和中國的經濟放緩或衰退風險也在美國金融穩定監管委員會的列表中,雖然美國監管部門對此幾乎做不了什么。Libor等借貸利率可能不夠準確,也在列表之中。造成利率操縱的原因可能多少讓人們對銀行和經濟有些過度擔心。但這里我們擔心的是銀行業。Libor被操縱的事實似乎是華爾街公開的秘密,因此很難說有哪家銀行中招了。 ????列表中的其他事情,比如洗錢,似乎都是壞事,但不是會真正導致一家大銀行倒閉的事情,除非出現大規模欺詐。但大規模欺詐并沒有出現在列表中。 ????列出這樣一個可能導致金融危機的風險因素名單最大的問題在于我們必定會出錯。導致金融危機的因素是我們沒有看到的黑天鵝。雖然美國金融穩定監管委員會沒有詳細說明哪里可能出錯,他們花了很多時間說為什么不會。或許,我們最好能跳上時光機,回到2007年初(金融危機前),讓監管部門給出一份可能導致銀行業崩潰的風險因素列表。我估計這份列表可能根本不值一提。 ????上周,美國參議員謝羅德?布朗和戴維?維特發起了一項議案,要求顯著增加銀行業手頭用于覆蓋投資損失和不良貸款的資金。目前,這個比率是9%。兩位參議員希望能增加到比如15%。我不能說我非常贊成這一議案。有些成本增加可能并不是出于本意,目前在這方面似乎沒有上限。(為什么不弄成200%?那樣就真的安全了。) ????上述兩位參議員以及支持這個議案的人們出發點是好的。我們不知道風險會來自哪里。唯一的答案是持有比我們認為必要的水平更高的資本金。不過,列表還是反映了監管部門以及銀行對當前行業狀況的總體看法。提高銀行業安全性的第一步是承認,它是一項不可能完成的任務。(財富中文網) |
????The risk of slowdowns or recession in Europe, Japan, and China are on the FSOC's list as well, even though there is little U.S. regulators can do about that. The fact that Libor and other lending rates may be inaccurate is also on the list. The reason being that manipulation may make people more-or-less worried about the banks and the economy than they should be. But what we are worried about here is banks. The fact that Libor was being manipulated seems to be one of Wall Street's worst-kept secrets, so is any banks were tricked by it. ????Other things that show up on the list like money laundering seem like bad things, but not really things that would cause a major bank to fail, unless there was a massive fraud. Widespread fraud, however, is not on the list. ????But the biggest problem with listing the things that will result in our financial doom is that inevitably we get it wrong. The things that result in our financial doom are the ones we didn't see coming -- black swans. And while the FSOC does detail what could go wrong, they spend much of their time saying why it won't. Perhaps the best thing we could do is hop a time machine back to early 2007 (the pre-financial-crisis era) and ask regulators to produce a list of things that could cause the banking sector to blow up. My guess is the list would be just as dismissive. ????This week Sherrod Brown and David Vitter proposed a bill that significantly ups the amount of money banks have to have on hand to cover bad bets and soured loans. Currently, we are at 9%. The senators would like more like 15%. I can't say I am a huge fan of this. There are unintended costs, and there seems to be no limit to the thinking. (Why not make it 200%? That's really safe.) ????The senators' point and ones who support the measure is a good one. We don't know where the risks are going to come from. The only answer is holding more capital than we think necessary. Lists, however, give the impression that regulators and banks know what's out there. The first step in making our banking sector safer is acknowledging that this is impossible. |