At the allotted time of 2pm I am sitting at a booth at McCormick & Schmick’s seafood and steak restaurant in Chicago. My mobile phone rings. It is Ben Bernanke’s assistant. It transpires that I am not at the correct location. This is a chain of restaurants. I went to the wrong one.

约好下午2点，我坐在芝加哥麦考密克与施米克(McCormick & Schmick's)海鲜牛排餐厅的卡座上。我的手机响了。来电的是本伯南克(Ben Bernanke)的助理。从电话中，我得知自己等错了地方。这是一家连锁餐厅。我去错了分店。

Fortunately, it takes only five minutes to arrive at the right place. The restaurant is quite empty. Apart from the background music, it is quiet. The decor is heavy and dark.

幸运的是，我只花了五分钟就来到了正确地点。餐厅里没什么人。除了背景音乐，这里很安静。室内装修风格厚重，色调为深色。

Bernanke, 61, is waiting for me. He is wearing a plain brown suit and a yellow tie. I have met him often since he became a governor of the US Federal Reserve in 2002. He is always very much the deliberate and precise academic. It was a happy chance that this scholar, known for his work on the Great Depression, was chairman of the central banking system of the US during the biggest financial crisis since the early 1930s. His new book, The Courage to Act , provides a fascinating account of the effort to save the world from another such catastrophe.

61岁的伯南克正在等我。他穿着一套朴素的棕色西装，搭配黄色领带。自从他2002年成为美联储(Fed)理事后，我经常见到他。他一直是一副谨慎、一丝不苟的学者的样子。在上世纪30年代初以来最大的一场金融危机期间执掌美国中央银行系统的，是这位以《大萧条》(Great Depression)一书闻名于世的学者，这是件幸事。他的新书《行动的勇气》(The Courage to Act)生动地记述了其避免全世界再经历一场大萧条的努力。

I start by asking him how long the book tour will last. “Pretty much the whole month,” he answers. I suggest he will be delighted when it is over. “Absolutely,” he agrees. And what will he be doing afterwards? He reels off an impressive list of academic lectures. Meanwhile, he is based at the Brookings Institution, a centrist think-tank in Washington. He is doing some consulting. He is also on the speaker circuit.

我的问题以他的新书签售之旅将持续多久开始。“几乎是一整月，”他回答说。我说签售结束后想必他会很高兴。“当然，”他赞同道。之后会做什么？他随口说出一串令人印象深刻的学术讲座。同时，他现在常驻位于华盛顿的中间派智库布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)。他在做一些咨询工作，也在进行巡回演讲。

The waitress takes our orders. I choose pan-seared swordfish with fingerling potatoes, onions and Brussels sprouts. He selects grilled halibut with green beans, blue cheese and mashed potatoes. I ask him how long he took to recover after leaving the Fed last year. “About 24 hours,” he says. “Relief is a bit of a strong word but I’m very happy to be a civilian again. I follow closely what’s happening in the economy, what’s happening at the Fed. But I no longer have the responsibility to make those tough calls. That was a burden.”

女服务员过来帮我们点餐。我选了煎剑鱼配小土豆、洋葱与孢子甘蓝。他选了烤比目鱼配青豆、蓝奶酪和土豆泥。我问他，去年离开美联储之后多长时间才适应。“大概24小时，”他说。“用解脱一词形容可能有点过头，但我很高兴又成为平头老百姓。我密切关注经济动态、美联储动态。但我不用再负责做出那些艰难的决定。那是一种负担。”

So, I wonder, does he wish to advise his successors? “No, no. I have a lot of confidence in them and I’m sure that they will make some good calls. But I was involved in that for eight years and that included some very difficult decisions. I’ve more or less exhausted my interest in doing that.”

那么，我想知道，他希望给继任者们一些建议吗？“不，不。我对他们很有信心，我相信他们会做出优秀的决定。但那份工作我做了8年，其职责包括做一些非常艰难的决定。我对它的兴趣几乎已经耗尽。”

I ask him how much he was affected by the populist rage against him — governor Rick Perry of Texas evenaccused Bernanke of treason when the former was seeking the presidential nomination in 2011. “It didn’t affect me much personally,” he replies. “I knew that it was just ‘shooting from the hip’. What did concern me, though, was the possibility that the Fed would come under severe political attack or lose its independence. Personally, I never felt under any threat.”

我问他，民粹主义者的愤怒对他有多大影响——德州州长里克椠里(Rick Perry) 2011年竞选总统候选人提名资格时甚至曾指责伯南克叛国。“对我本人影响不大，”他回答说，“我知道那只是‘无心之言’。真正让我担心的倒是美联储可能遭遇严重的政治攻击或失去独立性。就我个人而言，我从未感觉受到任何威胁。”

Bernanke is married with two children. How much did the hostility affect them? He replies that they had their own lives. “But my wife tried to help me decompress and make sure that I had good food to eat and some time off once in a while. And I tried to look after myself physically.”

伯南克已婚，育有两个孩子。敌意对他的家人有多大影响？他回答说，他们有自己的生活。“但我的妻子设法帮我解压，保证我吃好，并抽时间休息。我也尽力照顾好自己的身体。”

I ask him about the hostility to the very idea of a central bank in the US. “Well, it isn’t a unique situation. Switzerland, for example, and a few other countries, have had populist reactions to the crisis. In the United States, we’ve had other episodes: most recently, the Volcker disinflation of the early 1980s. I had in my office a piece of wood, which critics mailed to Paul Volcker [then chairman] saying: cut interest rates.

有人反对美联储的存在本身，我问他对这种观点有何看法。“怎么说呢，这并非一种独特现象。例如，在瑞士及其他一些国家，都有对危机的民粹主义式反应。在美国，我们也经历过别样的情形：最近一次是上世纪80年代初的沃尔克通缩。我办公室里曾有一片木头，是批评者寄给保罗茠尔克（Paul Volcker，时任美联储主席）的，上面写着：降息。”

“One of the Federal Reserve’s key functions is to act quickly and proactively when the legislative process is too slow. And the Federal Reserve was originally set up primarily to address financial panics, not do monetary policy. So it’s part of the job description.

“美联储的主要功能之一，是在立法进程过慢时迅速、防患于未然地采取行动。美联储成立的初衷主要是为了应对金融恐慌，而非制定货币政策。因此，这是职责的一部分。”

“All that being said, the hostility concerns me. I tried my best to bring our story to the broader public. I wish I could have done more. Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have done more. But I was very much engaged in trying to put out the fire. So I don’t know what to say. It was kind of predictable. The Federal Reserve failed in the 1930s. I think we did much better than in the 1930s.”

“话虽如此，我仍然关注反对的声音。我尽力让更广泛的公众了解我们。我希望我那时做了更多。也许，现在回想起来，我那时本应做得更多。但我那时太忙于灭火了。所以，我不知道说什么好。可以说那是可预料的。上世纪30年代，美联储失败了。我认为我们做得比上世纪30年代好得多。”

At this stage, we are eating. My swordfish is firm and juicy. Bernanke eats without comment, focusing on answering the questions.

我们开始用餐。我的剑鱼肉质紧实、多汁。伯南克没有进行评价他的食物，而是专注于回答问题。

Many critics complain that the Fed saved the rich and the bankers but let ordinary people drown. How does he respond? “Rising inequality’s an important issue for the US,” he says, “but it is a long-term trend that goes back at least to the 1970s. And the notion that the Fed has somehow enriched the rich through increasing asset prices doesn’t really hold up, for a couple of reasons: one is that the Fed basically has returned asset prices and the like back to trend; another is that the reason stock prices are high is because returns are low.

许多批评人士抱怨，美联储拯救了富人和银行家，而不顾普通人死活。他如何回应？“日益加剧的不平等是美国的一个重要问题，”他说，“但这是一种至少可以追溯至上世纪70年代的长期趋势。认为美联储通过提升资产价格使富人更富的观点其实占不住脚，原因有两点：一是美联储基本上已经让资产价格之类的东西回归了趋势水平；另一个原因是，股价高的原因是回报低。”

“It’s ironic that the same people who criticise the Fed for helping the rich also criticise the Fed for hurting savers. And those two things are inconsistent. But what’s the alternative? Should the Fed not try to support a recovery?”

“具有讽刺意味的是，批评美联储帮助富人与批评美联储损害储户利益的是同一批人。而这两件事本身是相悖的。但有什么别的选择呢？难道美联储不该支持复苏？”

He continues, warming to his theme: “If people are unhappy with the effects of low interest rates, they should pressure Congress to do more on the fiscal side, and so have a less unbalanced monetary-fiscal policy mix. This is the fourth or fifth argument against quantitative easing after all the other ones have been proven to be wrong. And this is certainly not an argument for the Fed to do nothing and let unemployment stay at 10 per cent.”

他继续兴致勃勃地阐述自己的观点：“如果人们对低利率的结果不满，他们应该向国会施压，要求它在财政政策方面采取更多措施，从而得到一个不那么失衡的货币-财政政策组合。这是反对量化宽松的第4条或第5条理由，前面的那些理由都已被证明是错误的。这也当然不是美联储应该什么都不做、听任失业率保持在10%的理由。”

Other critics argue, I note, that the Fed’s intervention prevented the cathartic effects of a proper depression. He teases me by responding that I have a remarkable ability to keep a straight face while recounting what he clearly considers crazy opinions.

我指出，其他批评者认为，美联储的干预让一场货真价实的衰退能够带来的疏导效应没有了。他调侃式地回应，说我在叙述他明显认为疯狂的观点时保持一脸严肃的本领令人钦佩。

I add that many critics still expect hyperinflation any day now. “Well, we were quite confident from the beginning there would be no inflation problem. And, of course, the greater problem has been getting inflation up to target. As for allowing the economy to go into collapse, this is the Andrew Mellon [US Treasury secretary] argument from the 1930s. And I would think that, certainly among mainstream economists, it has no credibility. A Great Depression is not going to promote innovation, growth and prosperity.”

我补充说，许多批评人士仍认为如今随时都可能爆发恶性通胀。“我们从一开始就非常有信心不会出现通胀问题。当然，更大的问题在于让通胀升至目标值。至于放任经济走向崩溃，这是安德鲁蔠虨（Andrew Mellon，美国前财长）上世纪30年代的观点。我认为这种观点不可信，至少主流经济学家中的看法肯定是这样。大萧条不会推动创新、增长和繁荣。”

I cannot disagree, since I also consider such arguments mad. Nevertheless, I note, we have to recognise that neither he nor the Fed expected the meltdown. Does the blame for these mistakes lie in pre-crisis monetary policy, particularly the targeting of inflation, with which he is closely associated? Had interest rates not been kept too low for too long in the early 2000s?

我无法不同意，因为我也认为这些理由疯了。不过，我提出，我们必须承认，无论他还是美联储都没有预见到这场危机。造成这些错误的原因是否在于危机前的货币政策，尤其是与他密切相关的通胀目标？在2000年代初，利率难道不是在太长时间里保持在过低的水平上了吗？

“The first part of a response is to ask whether monetary policy was, in fact, a major contributor to the housing bubble and all that happened. Serious studies that look at it don’t find that to be the case. People such as Bob Shiller [a Nobel laureate currently serving as a Sterling professor of economics at Yale University], who has a lot of credibility on this topic, says that: it wasn’t monetary policy at all; it came from a mania, a psychological phenomenon, that took off from the tech boom and moved into housing.”

“对这个问题的回应，首先是问一问货币政策是不是实际上导致房地产泡沫及所发生一切的主要因素。严肃的研究发现并未如此。这一问题的权威专家鲍勃席勒（Bob Shiller，诺贝尔奖获得者、目前任耶鲁大学斯特林(Sterling)经济学教授）等人说：这根本不是货币政策的问题；它源于一种狂热，一种心理现象——发端于科技热潮，后转入房地产。”

Bernanke continues: “The second general argument is that, while I think the Fed had some complicity, it wasn’t so much in monetary policy but, together with the other regulators, in not constraining the bad mortgage lending and excessive risk-taking that was permeating the system. This, together with the structural vulnerabilities in the funding markets, and so on, led to the panic.”

伯南克接着说：“第二个大体而言的理由是，虽然我认为美联储在某种程度上存在过错，但这过错并非在货币政策上，而是在于它和其他监管机构都没有对普遍存在于金融系统中的不良抵押贷款和过度冒险进行限制。这两点，再加上融资市场的结构性弱点以及其他问题，导致了恐慌。”

Thus, lax regulation was to blame. Has the problem been fixed? “I think it’s an ongoing project,” he replies. “You can’t hope to identify all the vulnerabilities in advance. And so anything you can do to make the system more resilient is going to be helpful. I do think, if I had to pick a single change that has moved us in the right direction, it would be the increase in capital in the largest banks, which means they are more likely to withstand whatever the shock may be.”

因此，应该归咎于松散的监管。这一问题解决了吗？“我认为这是个持续的进程，”他回答道，“你无法指望提前找出所有漏洞。因此，你所做的任何能使这一系统更具抗压性的事都是有帮助的。我的确认为，如果我必须只选出一个让我们走向正确方向的变化，我的选择将是，大型银行提高资本金，这意味着它们更可能经受住任何可能的冲击。”

The late Hyman Minsky, I point out, argued that “stability destabilises”. So did the very notion of a “great moderation” cause the imprudent behaviour?

我指出，已故的海曼明斯基(Hyman Minsky)认为“稳定会带来破坏”。那么，是否正是“大缓和”(Great Moderation)这个概念导致了鲁莽的行为？

He replies that “individually rational behaviour can be collectively irrational. And that’s why the regulators have to do what they can to constrain individual behaviour, so that it doesn’t lead to collectively irrational outcomes.”

他回答说，“从个人角度来看理性的行为，从集体角度来看可能是非理性的。这就是为什么监管机构必须尽其所能约束个人行为，以确保不会导致从集体角度来看非理性的结果。”

Some argue that the financial sector is riddled with perverse incentives: limited liability; excessive leverage; “too-big-to-fail” banks; and a range of explicit and implicit guarantees. How far does he agree? “I think that there was, for rational or irrational reasons, an upsurge in risk-taking. And if you’re taking risks, then I have to take the same risks, or else I get left behind.

有人认为金融行业充斥着不正当的诱因：有限的责任、过度的杠杆、“大到不能倒”的银行以及一系列公开和隐性担保。他在多大程度上赞同这些说法？“出于理性或非理性的原因，我认为冒险行为在急剧升级。如果你在冒险，那我也不得不冒同样的风险，否则我就会落后。”

“There’s two ways to get rid of ‘too-big-to-fail’. One is by having a lot of capital. And the other approach is via the liquidation authority in the Dodd-Frank law [whereby the finances of failing banks can be reorganised, without a bailout].” But, he adds, “if you break the firms down to the size of community banks, you lose a lot of functionality. At the same time, you don’t necessarily stop financial panics, because we had financial panics in the 1930s.”

“有两种途径可以摆脱“大到不能倒”的局面。其一是拥有大量的资本金。其二是借助多德-弗兰克(Dodd-Frank)法案（让即将破产的银行可以进行资产重组，而无需纾困）中的清算权。”但他补充说：“如果你将这些公司分拆成社区银行的规模，就会失去很多功能。同时，你未必能阻止金融恐慌，因为我们在上世纪30年代就经历过金融恐慌。”

So how much capital should there be in banks? Some economists — Anat Admati of Stanford University, for example — think it should be 20 per cent of assets or even a third.

那么，银行应该留有多少资本金呢？有的经济学家——如斯坦福大学(Stanford University)的阿纳特阿德马蒂(Anat Admati)——认为应留足资产的20%，甚至三分之一。

“Tim Geithner was very much in favour of more capital,” he responds. “I was certainly in favour of more capital. I think we made a lot of progress. You know, though, that these are international debates and decisions. Other countries were less inclined to add capital. But I wouldn’t do it by an arbitrary number. What I would do is stress test it, because the amount of capital you should hold depends on the kind of assets and the kind of businesses you have. And if it’s a fixed leverage ratio, then you’re going to have every incentive to load up on risk.”

“蒂姆盖特纳(Tim Geithner)当时非常赞成提高资本金，”他回答道，“我当然赞成提高资本金。我认为，我们取得了很大的进步。不过，你知道，这是国际性的争论和决定。其他国家不太倾向于提高资本金。但我不会随意决定一个数字。我想做的是进行压力测试，因为你应该持有的资本金数额取决于你持有的资产和经营的业务的类型。如果设定固定的杠杆比率，那么你会有无数动机去冒更大风险。”

I ask him whether he is confident that the improvement in the resilience of the banks is adequate. “It’s a fool’s game to predict that everything is going to be fine, because either it is fine, in which case nobody remembers your prediction, or something happens, and then...” They remember your prediction, I interject.

我问他是否认为银行的抗压性得到了足够的提高。“预测一切会变好是愚蠢的，因为要么就是情况真的变好，这种情况下不会有人记得你的预测，要么就是发生了糟糕的事情，然后……”他们会记得你的预测，我插话道。

Bernanke continues: “My mentor, Dale Jorgenson [of Harvard], used to say — and Larry Summers used to say this, too — that, ‘If you never miss a plane, you’re spending too much time in airports.’ If you absolutely rule out any possibility of any kind of financial crisis, then probably you’re reducing risk too much, in terms of the growth and innovation in the economy.”

伯南克继续说：“我的导师、（哈佛大学的）戴尔吠根森(Dale Jorgenson)曾说过——拉里萨默斯(Larry Summers)也曾经这样说——‘如果你从未误过飞机，那么你在机场花的时间就太多了’。如果你杜绝了发生任何形式金融危机的可能性，那么从经济增长和创新的角度而言，你很可能将风险降得太低了。”

The waitress asks us if we would like anything more. I order a double espresso. Bernanke asks for tea. By now, our time is coming to an end. But I push a little harder on the costs of financial liberalisation. He agrees that, in light of the economic performance in the 1950s and 1960s, “I don’t think you could rule out the possibility that a more repressed financial system would give you a better trade-off of safety and dynamism.”

女侍者问我们还要不要再点些什么。我点了一杯双份意式浓缩咖啡。伯南克要了一杯茶。至此，约定的采访时间已快要到了。但是我又稍微问了一下金融自由化的代价问题。他认为，考虑到上世纪五、六十年代的经济表现，“我认为不可能排除这样的可能性，即一种受到更大约束的金融体系会带来安全与活力之间更好的平衡。”

What about the idea that if the central banks are going to expand their balance sheets so much, it would be more effective just to hand the money directly over to the people rather than operate via asset markets?

那么，他如何看待这样一种观点，即假如央行要如此大规模地扩张资产负债表，那么干脆直接把钱发到人们手上、而不是通过资本市场操作，岂不是更有效？

Having gained the nickname “Helicopter Ben” for suggesting just such a policy, he is very much aware of this idea. But he responds by saying, “Well, it doesn’t have to be put in such an off-putting form. I think a combination of tax cuts and quantitative easing is very close to being the same thing.” This is theoretically correct, provided the QE is deemed permanent.

他曾因提出与这一模一样的政策而得了个“直升机本”(Helicopter Ben)的绰号，因此他非常清楚这个想法。但他回应说，“这么说吧，没有必要采取这样一种乏味的形式。我认为减税结合量化宽松政策跟那几乎是同一回事。”这在理论上是正确的，假如量化宽松政策被认为是永久性的话。

While paying the bill I ask whether, given the weight he places on regulation, he believes it is really possible to regulate today’s complex global megabanks. “Yes,” he responds. “The Federal Reserve moved recently in the direction of enhancing its oversight of foreign subsidiaries and foreign banks that are located in the United States. So there is some movement towards so-called national treatment.

买单时，我问道，考虑到他对监管的重视，他是否相信监管当今复杂的全球大银行真的有可能。“是的，”他回答道，“美联储最近在采取行动，期望逐步加强对设立在美国的外国分支机构和外国银行的监管。因此，在朝所谓国民待遇迈进方面有一些行动。

“Banks complain that that’s going to Balkanise the capital markets. But, as Mervyn King [former governor of the Bank of England] said so beautifully, banks live globally and die locally. So, for that reason if no other, there’s some case for having regulators look at the subsidiaries of foreign firms, as well as their own domestic firms.”

“银行抱怨这将使资本市场四分五裂。但是，默文金（Mervyn King，英国前央行行长）说得好，银行在全球发展可以生存，固守本地则会倒闭。因此，如果没有其他的原因，监管机构监督外国公司的分支机构以及他们自己国内的公司不无理由。”

I turn, finally, to perhaps the biggest question about the crisis. Could they have avoided the failure of Lehman in September 2008? “No,” he responds firmly. “It was completely unavoidable. Without a buyer, there was no one to guarantee their liabilities. So no one would lend to them. There was a complete run of all the creditors, all of the counterparties, all of the customers. And if we had lent them the money and somehow conjured up some fake collateral, in violation of the law, we would have ended up owning the firm, and it would have been a non-viable firm.”

最后，我转向了也许是关于金融危机的最大问题。他们是否原本有可能避免雷曼(Lehman)在2008年9月倒闭？“不，”他坚定地回答，“完全不可避免。没有买家，就没有机构为他们的负债提供担保。所以，没有人会借钱给他们。所有债权人、所有的交易方以及所有的客户都跑了。如果我们违反法律借给他们钱，搞出一些假的抵押品，我们最终将接手这家公司，而这家公司是无法生存的。”

I add that it was only because of Lehman’s failure that they finally got the needed bailout authority from Congress (via the “Tarp” or Troubled Asset Relief Program). “Ultimately, something was going to go,” he agrees.

我补充说，正是因为雷曼的倒闭，他们才终于从国会那里——经由“问题资产救助计划”(Troubled Assets Relief Program, Tarp)——得到了所需的紧急纾困授权。“归根到底，该走的还是会走，”他同意道。

Under Bernanke’s chairmanship, the Fed, whatever its pre-crisis mistakes, helped save the US and the world from a disaster. Humanity should be grateful, I thought on leaving. Humanity, being human, mostly is not.

在主席伯南克的领导下，美联储（无论它在危机前犯过什么样的错误）帮忙把美国和世界从一场灾难中拯救了出来。在离开餐厅时，我想，人类应该感激它。但大多数人并不，这就是人性。

Martin Wolf is the FT’s chief economics commentator

马丁茠尔夫(Martin Wolf)是英国《金融时报》首席经济评论员

Illustration by James Ferguson

插图：詹姆斯弗格森(James Ferguson)

Seafood restaurant

麦考密克与施米克海鲜餐馆

McCormick & Schmick’s 1 E Upper Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL

地址：美国伊利诺伊州芝加哥上瓦克街(Upper Wacker Drive) 1E

Swordfish and fingerling potatoes $22.99

剑鱼配小土豆 22.99美元

Alaskan halibut with blue cheese and mashed potatoes $27.74

大比目鱼配蓝奶酪与土豆泥 27.74美元

Double espresso $6.99

双份意式浓缩咖啡 6.99美元

Tea $3.50

茶 3.50美元

Total (inc service) $82.65

总费用（含服务费） 82.65美元