I want your money

我要用的就是你的钱

No government bail-out of the banking system was ever going to be pretty. This one deserves support
政府对银行系统的救助永远不可能完美，但当下的这个理应得到支持。

SAVING the world is a thankless task. The only thing beyond dispute in the $700 billion plan of Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, to stem the financial crisis is that everyone can find something in it to dislike. The left accuses it of ripping off taxpayers to save Wall Street, the right damns it as socialism; economists disparage its technicalities, political scientists its sweeping powers. The administration gave ground to Congress, George Bush delivered a televised appeal and Barack Obama and John McCain suspended the presidential campaign. Even so, as The Economist went to press, the differences remained. There was a chance that Congress would say no.
拯救世界是一个费力不讨好的任务。财长鲍尔森和联储主席伯南克为了阻止金融危机而主张了7000亿美元救助计划，其中只有一点是毋庸置疑的：每个人都能从该计划中挑出些毛病来（不可能让每个人都满意—）。左翼势力控诉该计划无异于抢劫纳税人的钱财去救助华尔街，右翼势力谴责该计划为社会主义运动；经济学家鄙视计划的学术性，政治科学家崇拜它横扫一切的强大威力。执政当局向国会进行了妥协：布什发出了电视呼吁，奥巴马和麦凯恩也暂停了竞选大战。即使如此，经济学人杂志在付印时分歧仍在（还是保留了异见）。国会曾经是有机会拒绝该计划的。

Spending a sum of money that could buy you a war in Iraq should not come easily; and the notion of any bail-out is deeply troubling to any self-respecting capitalist. Against that stand two overriding arguments. First this is a plan that could work (see article). And, second, the potential costs of producing nothing, or too little too slowly, include a financial collapse and a deep recession spilling across the world: those far outweigh any plausible estimate of the bail-out’s cost.
花掉相当于伊战军费规模的一大笔银子不应该如此轻松，况且救助的理念令任何一个有自尊心的资本家都感到非常不安。但针对上述论调有两大主要反对观点：第 一，这是一个可能行之有效的方案；第二，那些毫无效果或者收效甚微的潜在支出已经大大超过了救援计划合理的成本预测，上述支出包括蔓延全球的金融崩溃和经 济萎缩所招致的损失。

Mr Market goes to Congress
让国会来判决市场

America’s financial system has two ailments: it owns a huge amount of toxic securities linked to falling house prices. And it is burdened by losses that leave it short of capital (although the world has capital, not enough has been available to the banks). For over a year, since August 2007, central bankers, principally Mr Bernanke, have been trying to make this toxic debt liquid. But by September 17th, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the nationalisation of American International Group earlier that week, the problem started to become one of the system’s solvency too. The market lost faith in a strategy that saved finance one institution at a time. The economy is not healing itself. If credit markets stay blocked, consumers and firms will enter a vicious spiral.
美国金融体系微恙有二：过量持有与狂跌房价相关的有毒债券；损失的负担致使体系内呈现出资本短缺（尽管全球拥有很多资本，但是银行可用部分确严重不足）。 自2007年8月以来的一年时间里，以伯南克为主要代表的央行一直致力于有毒债务的清偿。但截止到9月17日，紧随雷曼兄弟的破产和美国国际集团的国有 化，该难题发展成了金融体系清偿能力的麻烦之一。市场对于采取逐个机构救助的方法来挽救金融体系的策略已经失去了信心，美国经济不可能实现自救。如果信贷 市场依然一片僵局，消费者和公司必将卷入更为凶残的漩涡。

Mr Paulson’s plan relies on buying vast amounts of toxic securities. The theory is that in any auction a huge buyer like the federal government would end up paying more than today’s prices, temporarily depressed by the scarcity of buyers, and still buy the loans cheaply enough to reflect the high chance of a default. That would help recapitalise some banks—which could also set less capital aside against a cleaner balance sheet. And by creating credible, transparent prices, it would at last encourage investors to come in and repair the financial system: this week Warren Buffett and Japan’s Mitsubishi-UFJ agreed to buy stakes in Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Some banks would still not have enough capital, but under Mr Paulson’s original plan, the state could put equity in them, or, if they become insolvent, take them over and run them down.
鲍尔森先生的计划依赖于大量购买有毒债券，其理论依据在于：在任何竞价中，买家数量匮乏会造成价格的暂时性压低，虽然像联邦政府这样的大买家所付出的成交 价格很可能高于现值，但仍然会以易于形成违约的便宜价格购买贷款。此举不仅可以调整一些银行的资本，还可以减少为了调整资产负债比例而搁置的资本。建立可 靠透明的价格将会最终鼓励投资者们重新进入市场并且修复金融体系：本周巴菲特和日本三菱UFJ银行同意购买高盛和摩根斯坦利的股份。一些银行还处于资本不足的状态，但是根据鲍尔森计划的原意，国家可以向银行注资，如果他们出现了清偿问题，政府可以接管银行并阻止其继续恶化。

The economics behind this is sound. Government support to the banking system can break the cycle of panic and pessimism that threatens to suck the economy into deep recession. Intervention may help taxpayers, because they are also employees and consumers. Although $700 billion is a lot—about 6% of GDP—some of it will be earned back and it is small compared with the 16% of GDP that banking crises typically swallow and trivial compared with the Depression, when unemployment surged above 20% (compared with 6% now). Messrs Bernanke and Paulson also have done well by acting quickly: it took seven years for Japan’s regulators to set up a mechanism to take over large broke banks in the 1990s.
支撑该计划的经济形势健康度还算好，政府对于银行系统的支持可以打破人们对经济深陷衰退所产生的恐慌和悲观的恶性循环。政府干预也许会帮到纳税人，因为他 们本身也是雇员和消费者。尽管7000亿美元是一个不小的数目，几乎相当于GDP的6%，但是其中的部分时可以被拿回的，并且与银行危机所吞噬掉的GDP 的16%比较而言就小了很多；如果与上世纪的大萧条相比就更是微不足道了，那时候的失业率飚升到20%，而现在只有6%。鲍尔森和伯南克也做到了该出手时 就出手：日本的立法者在90年代时用了7年时间才建立了接管破产银行的机制。

Could the plan be better structured? Some economists want the state to focus on putting equity into the banks—arguing that it is the best way to address their lack of solvency. In theory you would need to spend less, because a dollar of new equity would support $10 in assets. Yet the banks might not take part until they were on the ropes and, if house prices later fell dramatically more, the value of the banks’ shares would collapse. The threat of the government taking stakes would scare off some private investors. And in the charged atmosphere after this bail-out meddling politicians, as part-owners, would have a tempting lever over the banks.
这个计划得架构是否可以更优化呢？一些经济学家希望政府可以向银行注入更多的资本，因为他们认为这是清偿能力缺乏的最佳解决之道。理论上而言应该减少消 费，因为注资1美元可以支撑10美元的资产。然而银行存在着不撞南墙不回头的心理，那么如果房价随后会更夸张地下跌，银行股票将会彻底崩溃。政府介入行为 所引发的恐慌也许会吓跑部分私人投资者。政客们的干预计划造成了非常紧张的气氛，所以股东们有躲避银行的倾向。

Mr Paulson’s plan also has its shortcomings. He will find it hard to stop sellers from rigging auctions, if only because no two lots of dodgy securities are exactly the same. Taxpayers may thus pay over the odds and banks may be rewarded for their stupidity. Yet these costs seem small against the benefit of putting a floor under the markets. And fine calculations about moral hazard are less pressing when investors are fleeing risk.
鲍尔森先生的计划也有弱点：该计划很难阻止卖方的提价行为，除非有两个完全一样的dodgy securities(这个我没有查到)。纳税人会因为不对等的条件而要支付更多成本，而银行会从他们的愚蠢举动中获利。投资者在规避风险的时候，道德风 险的精准计算就不那么重要了。

If the economics of Mr Paulson’s plan are broadly correct, the politics are fiendish. You are lavishing money on the people who got you into this mess. Sensible intervention cannot even buy long-term relief: the plan cannot stop house prices falling and the bloated financial sector shrinking. Although the economic risk is that the plan fails, the political risk is that the plan succeeds. Voters will scarcely notice a depression that never happened. But even as they lose their houses and their jobs, they will see Wall Street once again making millions.
如果鲍尔森先生计划的经济效果还勉强的话，那么其政治效果就应该算是极差了；因为钱已经挥霍到把你带入混乱的人的身上了。如此理性的干预甚至都不能换来长 期的缓解：该计划不能阻止房价的下跌和过度膨胀金融业的缩水，经济风险在于计划的失败，而政治风险在于计划的成功。选民们不会注意到一个永远不可能发生的 经济衰退，尽管目前失去了房屋和工作，但他们还将看到华尔街的东山再起。

Buckle a little, but do it briefly
政策紧缩一些，而且要快

In retrospect, Mr Paulson made his job harder by misreading the politics. His original plan contained no help for homeowners. And he assumed sweeping powers to spend the cash quickly. He was right to want flexibility to buy a range of assets. But flexibility does not exclude accountability. As complaints mounted, Mr Paulson and Mr Bernanke buckled—agreeing, for instance, to more oversight. Now that Messrs McCain and Obama have returned to Congress to forge a deal, more buckling may be necessary. Ideally, concessions should not outlast the crisis: temporary help for people able to stay in their houses, a brief ban on dividends in financial firms, even another fiscal package. They should not be permanent or so onerous that the programme fails for want of participants—which is why proposed limits on pay are a mistake (see article).
回顾过往，鲍尔森先生对政治的错误解读给自己的工作平添了不少难度。他的计划原本不包括对房屋所有者的救助，并且假想出可以迅速作出支出的强大权利。他对 于购买资产灵活性的需求是正确的，但是灵活性也不能牺牲应有的义务。鉴于抱怨的日益增多，鲍尔森和伯南克决定收紧政策：比如同意加强监管。现在麦凯恩和奥 巴马也同国会达成了进一步收紧政策的共识。在理想主义状态下，让步不会比危机延续更长的时间：暂时帮助人们保住自己的房产，暂时中断金融公司的分红以及其 他一揽子财政措施。但是这不应该是长期行为，而且也不应该太过繁琐，否则就会因为缺乏参与者而导致计划的失败；这就是限定支付额度的错误根源所在。

Mr Paulson’s plan is not perfect. But it is good enough and it is the plan on offer. The prospect of its failure sent credit markets once again veering towards the abyss. Congress should pass it—and soon.
鲍尔森先生的计划并不完美，但已经足够用、并且马上可以用。失败的前景会再一次让信贷市场转向深渊，所以国会应该尽快通过该方案。