贝莱德是否大到不能倒？

    听！你听到了吗？圣诞假期临近，你听到从美国首都华盛顿传来的响亮的钟声了吗？那是基督教组织救世军的圣诞老人的街头游行？还是教会的钟楼在播放经典的圣诞节歌曲《钟声颂歌》（Carol of the Bells）？又或者是像圣诞节经典影片《美好人生》（It's a Wonderful Life）所讲述的那样，是天使们得到了翅膀？

    都不是。它是美国游说人士投身金融行业反对金融改革的最新斗争，同时按下计时收费器的声音。我说的改革是监管规模达数万亿美元的资产管理行业的初期努力。这场斗争有望比大型银行早前针对沃尔克法则中禁止投机交易这个提议发起的斗争更激烈。

    华盛顿官场上听到的响声是政府研究团队——美国财政部金融研究办公室（Office of Financial Research, OFR）发布的一份看起来似乎无关痛痒的报告。OFR由多德-弗兰克金融改革法案创建，职责包括开展、赞助与“金融稳定”相关的研究。这么做似乎合情合理，毕竟，2008年的金融危机几乎拖垮了整个全球经济。

    OFR受到上级机构——金融稳定监督委员会（Financial Stability Oversight Council，简称FSOC）的指示，要求密切关注与资产管理公司相关的风险。FSOC是一个由全球金融机构监管者组成的国际组织。共同基金、私募资本、对冲基金、各大保险公司的资产管理部门以及银行共同管理着总额高达53万亿美元的资产。其中有10家公司的资产管理额均超过1万亿美元。贝莱德（BlackRock）是目前为止最大的资本管理公司，资本高达4.1万亿美元。

    虽然OFR的报告缺少足够的数据，不那么让人信服，但是，如果仔细分析下资产管理公司，我们就会不寒而栗地发现，他们和当年金融危机中的银行业如此相像。类似过度杠杆化（为了更多收益而不加思考的放大杠杆）、为获取收益而承担巨大风险、资产与负债比例不当、将资产隐藏在多个账户从而逃脱监管机构和大众投资者……这些毛病资产管理公司一个不落，全染上了。

    OFR发布的这份报告是不是完美无缺？不。不过话说回来，有什么事情是完美的？我认为，这份报告的根本目的不过是帮助金融稳定监督委员会拓宽视野，不要只盯着已经受到监管的银行体系，还要增进对资产管理公司的业务以及活动的了解，以便判断是否存在任何可能危及市场和经济的风险。这是金融稳定监督委员会和OFR的职责所在。

    人们（包括我在内）对大银行总是喜欢落井下石，但信不信由你，大银行并不是2008年金融危机所有问题的根源所在。资产管理公司和保险公司也同样脱不了干系。回首5年前，纳税人提心吊胆地看着联邦政府掏出上万亿美元去救助深陷泥潭的美国国际集团（ American Insurance Group，AIG），金融市场和共同基金产业，难道这些钱不会打水漂？不过，我们要明白，政府救助的不仅仅是银行业，我们还在救助非银行产业。那些持有大量银行债务，且在金融衍生品交易中作为银行对手方的机构同样受益于我们的救助。如果我们没有对银行进行救助，上述非银行机构可能会损失惨重。

    Hark. Do you hear it? That sound of ringing bells coming from the nation's capital as we enter the holiday season? Is it Salvation Army Santas taking to the street corners? Church campaniles playing "Carol of the Bells?" Or maybe angels getting their wings a la the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life?

    Nope. It's the ka-ching of K Street lobbyists ringing up the billable hours as they pile into the newest industry battle against financial reform. I am speaking of nascent efforts to regulate the multi-trillion dollar asset management industry. This war promises to be even bigger than the one megabanks have waged against the Volcker rule's proposed ban on speculative trading.

    The shot heard 'round the beltway was a seemingly innocuous report by a government research group called, appropriately, the Office of Financial Research or "OFR." The OFR was created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to -- among other things -- conduct and sponsor research related to "financial stability." That seems reasonable after the 2008 financial crisis nearly brought down the world economy.

    The OFR was asked by its parent agency, a group of major financial regulatory heads called the Financial Stability Oversight Council or "FSOC," to look at potential risks associated with asset managers. These entities -- which include mutual funds, private equity and hedge funds, as well as the asset management divisions of insurance companies and banks -- collectively control about $53 trillion of assets. Ten firms each individually control over $1 trillion in assets with the largest, by far, being BlackRock (BLK), which manages $4.1 trillion.

    While acknowledging the lack of complete data to conduct the analysis, the OFR report had, I thought, some useful observations about things asset managers do that are frighteningly similar to the kinds of things that banks did in the lead-up to the financial crisis. You know, things like excessive leverage (yes, a number of them do use significant leverage to enhance returns), taking big risks to reach for yield, mismatching assets and liabilities, and putting assets in separate accounts that are not transparent to regulators or their public investors.

    Was the report perfect? No. Is anything? But its primary purpose, as I understand it, was simply to help FSOC look outside of the regulated banking system to learn more about the business and activities of asset managers so it could determine if there were any risks that might threaten markets and the economy. That is what the FSOC and OFR are supposed to do.

    People love to beat up on the big banks (and I do my fair share), but believe it or not, they were not the root of all evil in 2008. Asset managers and insurance companies also created significant problems. As you will recall, taxpayers had to risk trillions in government support to bailout both the American Insurance Group, a.k.a. AIG (AIG), as well as the money market/mutual fund industry. What's more, it is important to understand that when we bailed out the banks, we also bailed out these nonbank institutions, as some were heavily invested in bank debt or were standing on the other side of bank derivatives trades. Without the bank bailouts, these nonbanks could have taken big losses.