America’s Treasury asks Congress for $700 billion to stabilise the markets
美国财政部请求国会拨款7000亿美元以稳定市场

UNTIL this week America’s authorities clung to the hope that they could tide over the financial system with a few loans until home prices stabilised and all the bad debts were accounted for. But the destruction visited on Wall Street in the past week has dashed those aspirations and forced policymakers to consider a more sweeping response. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and AIG’s federal takeover have triggered a wholesale flight to safety that could turn illiquid institutions insolvent. Healthy corporations can no longer issue bonds. Banks can barely borrow from each other.

在本周以前，美国当局还一直坚信他们用一些贷款就能稳住金融系统直到房屋价格企稳并且所有的坏账都得以解决。但是本周对于华尔街毁灭性的打击使得他们原来的梦想破灭，迫使这些政策制定者不得不考虑更加全面的应对方法。雷曼的破产和AIG被政府接管迫使资金都流入安全港避难，从而使得那些流动性匮乏的机构濒临倒闭。现在，就连运转良好的公司也不再发行债券，银行间的同业拆解更是凤毛麟角。

The federal government, having lent hundreds of billions of dollars to banks and investment banks and AIG, now thinks it must put permanent capital into the financial system to restore confidence and stop the vicious spiral. Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, met Congressional leaders towards the end of the week. And on Saturday September 20th Mr Paulson sent a preliminary plan under which the federal government would be authorised to purchase up to $700 billion of “residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages” originated or issued on or before Wednesday. It could buy them from any financial institution headquartered in the United States.

已经给予商业银行、投行以及AIG数千亿美元的美国联邦政府认为，必须给金融系统注入永久资金来重塑信心并且停止恶性循环。财长保尔森和美联储主席伯南克将在本周末会见国会领袖。在周六（9月20日），保尔森会做出一份初步计划。这份计划要求美国联邦政府授权购入多达7000亿美元的，本周三及其以前创立的或者发行的”住房和商业抵押贷款，证券和债券以及其它基于住房抵押的或者与住房抵押有关的票据”。这将会从任何总部位于美国的金融机构买入。

America’s financial regulators had already taken some steps to restore order to the markets. On Friday it followed the example set by their British counterparts and temporarily banned the short-selling of shares in financial institutions. Short-sellers have taken the blame for some of the instability. The Treasury also announced that it would provide guarantees of $50 billion to money-market funds, where cracks are also appearing.

美国金融监管者在重整市场秩序上已经采取一些措施了。周五，美国监管者循其英国同行的先例，暂时关闭金融机构的卖空行为。有人指责卖空行为是导致市场不稳的原因之一。财政部也发表声明表示会给货币市场基金提供500亿美元的担保。货币市场基金的裂痕已经开始显现。

At the same time, the Federal Reserve announced two measures aimed at easing strains in money markets. It will buy short-term debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from primary dealers. In a sign of the acute stress in markets this week, this paper has been trading at spreads of almost three precentage points above government debt of comparable maturity despite the de facto nationalisation of the mortgage agencies two weeks ago. The Fed will also extend loans to banks to buy asset-backed commercial paper from money-market funds that face redemptions.

与此同时，美联储发布两项措施以放松货币市场的限制。美联储将会从一级交易商那里购入两房发行的短期债。在本周已经出现异常巨大压力迹象的市场，尽管两房实际上已经在两周前就被”国有化”了，但是他们发行的短期债却比与之相当的要到期的政府债券的息差要高出近三个百分点。美联储也会从货币市场买入面临赎回的有资产背景的商业票据，这相当于美联储扩大贷款范畴到银行业。

The authorities are considering two broad approaches to shore up the financial system. One is to create an institution to provide capital to weakened institutions. A proposal floated on Thursday by Charles Schumer, a Democratic senator, would recreate the Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation to “provide capital to struggling financial institutions in exchange for an equity stake.” The banks would have to let judges write down delinquent mortgages to levels homeowners could afford. Such an institution could conceivably relieve the Fed of its politically compromising loans to Bear Stearns and AIG.

美国当局正在考虑两个全面支持金融系统的方法。一种方法是建立一家新的机构给那些陷入困境的公司提供资金。这个建议由民主党参议员Charles Schumer于周二提出。这个建议会使得经济大萧条时期的复兴银行公司重现江湖。这家公司是”以换取股权的方式给陷入困境的金融机构提供资金。”这样银行就会允许被评定并减记未偿付的抵押贷款，从而使得房屋拥有者可以承受。这样一个机构可以减轻美联储的压力，美联储用于政治上的压力不得不贷款给贝尔斯登以及AIG。

The problem is that such an approach might not have much impact until bad debts drove many institutions to the brink of failure and they had nowhere else to turn. By that point, the economy would be in dire straits and the financial system in chaos. Moreover, the Bush administration has opposed forcing lenders to write down their mortgages.

但问题是这样一种方法在坏账迫使许多机构走到倒闭的边缘并且无路可走之前，可能会没有多大效果。而到那时，经济会非常困窘而且金融系统会陷入混乱状态。此外，布什政府反对强迫贷方减记其贷款。

The Treasury’s preference is to buy the mortgage securities at the heart of the problem, thereby putting a floor under their prices and removing them from the banking system. The Treasury already has the authority to purchase mortgage-backed securities underwritten by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but wants to be able to buy much dodgier mortgage securities which have become impossible to trade.

财政部比较喜欢的方法是购买是问题要害的住房抵押贷款证券，从而稳住其价格并且将其从银行系统里剔除。财政部已经开始授权购入两房承销发行的抵押贷款为背景的证券，而且还想购入更多已经开始变得无法交易的危险的抵押债券。

This approach has its problems. As Mr Schumer noted, “most troubled mortgages have been sold into complex mortgage-backed securities, which have themselves been split into pieces and sold to thousands of investors around the world.” To modify these mortgages so that homeowners could stay in their homes, the government “would have to be able to gather all of the pieces of every security and put the proverbial puzzle back together. This would be incredibly difficult.”

这个方法也有它的问题。如Schumer所说，”许多问题抵押贷款已经被包装成复杂的抵押贷款背景的证券，而且被分成好多份，卖给全世界成千上万的投资者了。”为了修改这些抵押贷款使房主能保住自己的房子，政府”必须收集到每种证券的所有份额，并将他们合到一起。这简直太难了。”

The bail-out plan’s large size is designed to provide meaningful support. As of June 30th, $10.6 trillion of home mortgages were outstanding (the vast amount current). Once authorised, the money may not be spent: mere knowledge of the fund’s existence might restore confidence. And banks don’t have to sell their mortgages to benefit; merely having a credible market price for those they hold could restore the confidence of investors. And if the Treasury is astute in its buying, it could even make money. After all, thanks to investors’ panicked flight to the safety of Treasury debt, it can now borrow for close to nothing.

拯救计划的庞大规模目的在于提供有意义的支持。在6月30日，已有10.6万亿美元住房抵押贷款未被支付（现在会更大）。即是经过授权，钱可能也不会花：现在对于这个基金的存在是否能够重塑信心尚不清楚。而且银行并不是只能将他们的抵押贷款卖给这个拯救基金；只不过有个稳定的市场价格可以重塑投资者的信心。然而，多亏投资者疯狂转向政府债券，使得政府现在能以近乎免息的代价筹集到资金。

The Treasury would have to recognise that it could lose a lot of the money too: there’s a reason no one wants this paper. At 5% of GDP, $700 billion would be larger than the net amount spent on the savings-and-loan clean-up in the early 1990s which came to around 3% of GDP. The final price tag of this bailout should be less since the government would eventually recoup some of the money owed on the mortgages. Even 5% of GDP is cheap compared to an average of 16% that banking crises around the world have cost in the past 30 years, according a recent staff study of the International Monetary Fund.

财政部必须认识到拯救计划可能会损失不少钱：因为没人想要这种票据。占GDP的5％的7000亿美元比20世纪90年代花在储蓄贷款清理的净值（占GDP 的3％）要多。这次救援最终所花的钱可能还会少些，因为政府所持的抵押贷款最终会收回一部分资金。即是GDP的5％也比过去三十年时间范围内银行危机造成的损失要小。根据国际货币基金组织最近发布的一份联合研究报告，过去三十年时间范围内银行危机造成的损失平均占GDP的16％。

Congressional leaders, who plan to go into recess at the end of next week, had previously said that consideration of such an ambitious initiative would have to wait until after the election. This week’s events have concentrated their minds. Republicans recoil at the thought of bail-outs but don’t want to accept blame for a market meltdown less than two months from an election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had been heading for another sickening fall on Thursday until news of the plans sparked a turnaround and sent it up by 4% on the day. It jumped by another 3% Friday. The Treasury and the Fed would like Congress to pass enabling legislation this week.

本打算下周休会的国会领袖以前曾说过，如此雄心勃勃的主动建议需要等到大选后再予以考虑。本周的重大事件聚集了他们的注意力。共和党人虽然对于拯救计划萎缩不前，但是绝不想在大选前两个月遭受市场崩溃的谴责。道琼斯平均工业指数在周二一直下跌，直到有这个拯救计划的消息后就掉头上涨4％。周五又上涨3％。财政部和美联储希望国会本周能通过这项救助法案。