经济学人财经 || 经济危机后的改革将面临着严峻考验

Repo uh oh

糟了，又是回购

Financial ructions are a reminder that post-crisis reforms will face severe tests

金融动荡提醒着我们，危机后的改革将面临着严峻考验。

For anyone who lived through the global financial crisis, trouble in the market for repurchase agreements, or repos, induces a cold sweat. During the week of September 16th the repo market—the epicentre of the crisis 12 years ago—ran short of liquidity, forcing the Federal Reserve to intervene suddenly by injecting funds. By the following week fears of a reprise of the global crisis were easing, though banks remained eager recipients of Fed liquidity. But the episode was a reminder that financial dangers lurk. At some point one will give post-crisis reforms a real-world stress test. It is unclear whether they are up to the challenge.

对任何一个经历过全球金融危机的人来说，回购协议市场出现的问题都会让其吓出一身冷汗。今年9月16号的那一周，十二年前曾作为金融危机焦点的回购协议市场，流动性不足，从而迫使美联储紧急注资，进行干预。接下来的一周，尽管银行仍然迫切需要美联储流动性注资，但对全球金融危机重演的担忧已然有所减轻。然而这一小插曲仍提醒着人们，金融危机的阴霾从未散去。也许在未来的某时刻，某个危机就会给经济危机后的改革来一次现实的压力测试，不确定的是各银行是否有能力应对如此挑战呢。

注：

Repurchase agreements market 回购协议市场

回购协议市场又称为证券购回协议市场，是指通过回购协议进行短期资金融通交易的场所，市场活动由回购与逆回购组成。这里的回购协议是指资金融入方在出售证券的同时和证券购买者签订的、在一定期限内按原定价格或约定价格购回所卖证券的协议。

The financial crisis combined several storms into a single maelstrom. It was part debt-fuelled asset boom. A long run of rising home prices in America led to complacency about the risks of mortgage lending. Ever more recklessness fuelled the upward march of prices, until the mania could no longer be sustained. Borrowers began to default, saddling lenders with losses and creating a widening gyre of insolvency. Painful enough on its own, America’s housing bust became truly explosive thanks to an old-fashioned bank run.

多重风暴促成了金融危机这个大漩涡。一部分原因是债务刺激形成的资产泡沫。美国房价的持续上涨导致了对抵押贷款风险的盲目自信，更多的鲁莽行为助长了房价上行，直到这种疯狂难以为继——借贷人开始违约，放贷人损失惨重，债务破产的漩涡不断扩大。这本身就已经够痛苦了，银行挤兑进一步造成了美国房地产市场危机的爆发。

注：
1. complacency 自满，自鸣得意；忽视，懈怠

The biggest danger of today's rampant economic optimism is that it could breed complacency about the need for reforms.

而国家发展最大的危险在于大家会对经济状况的盲目乐观，这便会滋生出对改革的倦怠情绪。

2. saddle…with…使……负担…

Don't saddle me with taking care of the children.

别叫我干带孩子这种苦差事。

3. insolvency /ɪnˈsɒlvənsɪ/

有变体名词 Insolvency is the state of not having enough money to pay your debts. 无清偿能力; 破产，资不抵债

..eight mortgage companies, seven of which are on the brink of insolvency.

……8家抵押贷款公司，其中7家濒临破产。

4. Bank run 银行挤兑

银行挤兑，又称挤提，挤指的是大量民众在短时间内聚集在一起，提指的是提款，兑则是兑现。银行挤兑是指大量的银行客户同时到银行提取现金的现象。

Banks fund themselves on a short-term basis via demand deposits, but also on money markets, such as that for repos. Many bank assets, by contrast, are illiquid and long-term, such as loans to firms and homebuyers. This mismatch leaves banks vulnerable. During the Great Depression, many failed when nervous depositors demanded their cash all at once. Though government-provided deposit insurance now protects against this hazard, it did not extend to money markets. In 2008, then, questions about the health of banks and their collateral triggered a flight from those markets, leaving healthy and unhealthy banks alike unable to roll over short-term loans and at risk of imminent collapse.

银行通过短期活期存款融资，同样也通过货币市场，如回购协议市场。相比之下，许多银行资产是非流动性的、长期的，如放给公司和购房者的贷款。这种资产负债期限错配注定银行体系的脆弱。大萧条期间，多家银行的破产正是源自于惊慌的储户要求立刻取出所有的存款。尽管如今，由政府提供的存款保险可以预防该风险，但这不适用于货币市场。2008年，在对银行及抵押品健康程度的质疑下，投资者纷纷逃离这些市场，导致银行无论是否健康，都无法延期短期贷款，并存在濒临破产的风险。

These twin woes were amplified by the global financial system’s interconnectedness. Cross-border capital flows soared in the years before the crisis, from 5% of global gdp in 1990 to 20% in 2007, spreading financial excess and outstripping regulators’ capacity for oversight. Money from around the world poured into America’s mortgage market, and the resulting pain was correspondingly global. The Fed’s first crisis intervention, in August 2007, was in response to money-market turmoil prompted by financial difficulties at funds run by a French bank, bnp Paribas.

而全球金融系统交往的日益紧密，也加剧了这一双重困境。金融危机前，跨境资本流动规模不断上升，从1990年占全球GDP总值的5%飙升至2007年的 20%，传导了过度金融化并超过监管机构的监管能力。世界各地的资金涌入美国的抵押信贷市场，最终殃及全球。2007年8月，美联储实施的第一次危机介入，正是为了应对由法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)旗下一只基金的财务困境引发的货币市场动荡。

注：

financial excess：克鲁格曼(Krugman)在东南亚金融危机发生以后发表的一系列文章中，提出了金融过度的概念 ，这一概念主要是针对金融中介机构而言的。在金融机构无法进入国际市场时，过度的投资需求并不导致大规模的过度投资，而是市场利率的升高。当金融机构可以自由进出国际金融市场，金融中介机构的道德冒险会转化成为证券金融资产和房地产的过度积累，这就是金融过度。金融过度加剧了一国金融体系的脆弱性，当外部条件合适时，将导致泡沫破裂，发生危机。

Chastened by the near-death experience, governments introduced regular stress-testing and made banks adopt “living wills”: plans to wind themselves down in the event of failure without endangering the system as a whole. Central banks added credit-risk indicators to their policy dashboards. Regulators increased banks’ capital and liquidity requirements: bigger buffers against losses and liquidity droughts, respectively. In advanced economies bank balance-sheets look stronger than in 2007, and no obvious debt-fuelled bubbles have inflated.

历经这样的灭顶之灾后，各国政府吸取惨痛教训，引入了定期测压政策，规定银行立下“生前遗嘱”：在不危及整个系统的情况下，一旦遭遇失败，应自行倒闭。各国央行也纷纷增设新约条例，设置信贷风险指标。监管机构提高了银行资本和流动性监管力度：加强缓冲资本分别应对损失和流动性枯竭。经济发达国的银行资产负债表比其2007年的有所好转，没有明显膨胀的“债务泡沫”。

注：
chasten: to make someone realize that their behavior was wrong

惩戒，责罚，使改正

Yet all that is less reassuring than might be hoped. Post-crisis, both governments and markets have proved surprisingly tolerant of risky borrowing. Despite household deleveraging, companies have taken on enough debt to keep private borrowing high; at 150% of gdp in America, for instance, roughly the level of 2004. In America the market for syndicated business loans has boomed, to over $1trn in 2018, and loan standards have fallen. Many loans are packaged into debt securities, much as dodgy mortgages were before the crisis. Regulators have declined to intervene—remarkably, considering how recent was the crisis.

然而似乎上述的措施却并未如预期让人放心，后危机时代的高风险借贷出人意料的得到了政府和市场的容忍。尽管家庭借贷不断缩减，但公司借贷的增加仍使得私人债务持续走高，以美国为例，其如今的私人债务已达GDP的150%，与2004年的水平大约持平。美国银团商业贷款市场如今也发展的如火如荼，截止到2018年其规模已超1万亿美元，而贷款门槛也不断降低。如今由许多贷款打包成的债券与昔日危机前盛行的不良抵押贷款并无一二。顾及上次危机的发生仍历历在目，监管者们也早已拒绝进行显著干预，让市场自己去买单。

注：
Deleveraging：去杠杆化，面对过重的债务，经济进入去杠杆化时期，人们表现为削减支出，收入下降，去杠杆化期间，利率已经很低了，往往接近零，从而丧失刺激经济的作用。

Just as the threat of bank runs migrated from depositors to money markets, so systemic risk may now be building up in non-bank institutions. Investment funds, pension managers and insurance companies have been eager buyers of securitised bank loans. As recently noted by Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think-tank, some have begun to take on an ominously bank-like maturity mismatch. Insurers in some countries, including Japan and Korea, have been hoovering up hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign bonds, hedging the exchange-rate risk on a rolling, short-term basis. If, in a crisis, these funds cannot renew their hedges, they could be exposed to significant losses. The vulnerabilities of supposedly staid firms may be an underappreciated source of risk for big banks.

正如银行挤兑的风险从储户转移到货币市场一样，非银行机构的系统性风险现在也正在逐步加深。投资基金、养老基金经理和保险公司一直是证券化银行贷款的疯狂买家。美国智库外交关系委员会（Council >）的布拉德·赛瑟（Brad Setser）最近指出，一些非银机构已经开始出现类似银行期限错配的不祥征兆。包括日本和韩国在内的一些国家保险公司一直在购买数千亿美元的外国债券，在短期循环的基础上对冲汇率风险。如果在危机中，这些基金无法持续对冲，它们就有可能会遭受重大损失。对于大银行来说，那些看似一本正经的公司也有可能是被低估的风险来源。

These obscure dangers arise because finance remains extraordinarily globalised. Outstanding cross-border financial claims, though lower than just before the crisis, remain well above the historical norm. Money continues to slosh around the global economy, seeping into cracks beyond the reach or outside the view of national regulators. It is impossible to be sure that unanticipated turmoil in one corner of the financial system cannot spiral into something catastrophic.

正是由于资本早已处于极度全球化的状态，使得这些原本的隐藏危机，如今不断的涌现。未偿付跨境金融债权尽管略低于金融危机前的水平，但仍高于历史标准值。资本仍然在全球经济中持续游荡，渗透到监管者们难以企及的领域。无人可知，金融系统内某个角落发生的意料之外的骚动，未来是否会衍生出成灾难性的危机。

注：

1. Slosh：v. 溅，搅动，晃动

(of liquid in a container) move irregularly with a splashing sound.

Eg；‘there is so much money now sloshing around in professional tennis’

在职业网球上，现在有那么多钱在挥霍

2. Spiral：v. 使成螺旋形上升；螺旋   n. 螺旋形，漩涡

Eg: ‘a spiral of smoke’一缕烟

The gyre next time 

下一次的回旋

Troubles in repo markets illustrate the threat posed by this opacity. Market-watchers blamed the cash crunch on firms’ need to pay corporate-tax bills at the same time as sucking up more new government debt than usual. But banks were aware of these factors well ahead of time. Other, as yet poorly understood, forces seemed to have provided the nudge that tipped repo markets into disarray.

如今回购市场的困境很好的阐释了由不明晰所产生的威胁。市场的观望者们将现金短缺归咎于企业上缴企业税，吸收了比平常更多的政府债务。但是以上因素是银行们已经提前意识到的。还有一些不为了解的因素似乎在推动回购市场陷入混乱。

注释：Nugde

1. v. 轻推，轻触

Eg. He nudged me and whispered, ‘Look who's just come in.’ 他用胳膊肘碰了我一下，低声说：“瞧谁进来了。”

2.（朝某方向）轻推，渐渐推动

Eg. He nudged the conversation towards the subject of money. 他将谈话逐步引到钱这个话题上

No obvious disaster looms. But the world did not appreciate the peril it faced in 2007 until too late. There are ways to keep financial risk in check. The Great Depression convinced many people that financial capitalism was inherently dangerous, but in the 40 years that followed, crises were infrequent—a testament to draconian financial regulation and capital controls. Since the deregulation of the 1970s and 1980s, crises have been depressingly common. Just how far back the pendulum has swung will be clear only decades from now, when it becomes possible to look back and count the consequent misfortunes. Rattled once more by repo gyrations, it is tempting to say not far enough.

尽管现在还未出现明显的危机迹象。但世界也是直到2007年才意识到危机发生，却已为时已晚。有很多的方法去控制金融风险。大萧条之后，很多人坚信金融资本主义的危险是与生俱来的，然而在接下来的40年里，金融危机却并未频繁发生—这正是严格的金融监管和资本控制的证明。然而1970s到1980s 的宽松监管，使得金融危机再次频现。历史的钟摆摆了多远，我们只有几十年后才能得知。也只有到那时，人们才有机会回顾过去，丈量历史。再次被回购市场的漩涡困扰着的贪婪者们，会说这还远不够呢。

翻译组：

Olivia，教育从业者，经济学人粉丝

Summer（琚儿），女，QE在职，梦想能仗翻译/音乐/健康走天涯

Ashley，女，金融硕士，爱宠物，爱英语，爱旅游，经济学人粉丝

校对组：

Leon,  男，金融专业研究生，经济学人铁粉

Jessie Lulu, 金融从业者，爱阳光，爱细雨，爱经济学人