美女分析师市政债务危机预言成真

    “美国各州都定期发行债券，因此他们非常在意自身的债券评级，会尽可能地阻止公众关注他们的危机，”惠特尼称。“他们甚至已经让一些城市进入破产管理，以免自身破产。但市政机构只是偶尔发行债券。相比债券市场的评级，他们更关注自身真切的痛苦。”

    阿拉巴马州的杰斐逊县事实上已破产。加利福尼亚州的斯托克顿很快也要走上同样的道路。如今，只要看看底特律——或者附近任何以某款别克（Buick）车型命名的汽车市镇——就可以看到正在上演的财政危机。看看你自家的后院，或者社区周边道路上的坑凹，可能也会产生同样的感觉。

    我们来看看3月7日我收到的前纽约州议员理查德•布劳德斯基发来的电子邮件吧，内容是关于扬克斯市长迈克•斯班诺最近组建了一个调查委员会，负责调查布劳德斯基所述的该市正在“分崩离析”。（布劳德斯基在该委员会就职。）

    “（扬克斯）预算约10亿美元，未来一年的预算缺口看来很难填上。原因很多。和很多城镇中心一样，扬克斯的制造基地已经衰落，很多中产阶级已经搬离，人们根本不能负担房地产和销售税负担。抵触税收的情绪上升，当选官员拒绝上调经常性税收。几年来，通过一些手法、一次性做法、借钱周转、出售资产以及各种各样的变通之道‘暂时延缓了问题的出现’……但如今这个城市已无计可施了。”

    他接下来说的话听起来很像惠特尼：“这就好像我们站在岸边，目睹一场海啸正在形成，但我们只是耸耸肩，希望能够安然过关……我们必须改变这种心态，如果高危城市的名单越来越长，将演变成为一个全国性的问题。（目前） 关于联邦政府规模和税赋高低的争议还只是局限于全美中小城镇的街道，学生、拾荒者、消防和治安之间将互相争夺匮乏的资源。用这种方式来解决问题太难看了。”

    2月底，惠特尼签署了一项协议，打算就这一问题写一本书，尽管她的债市预测确实失败了。书名《下调评级：下一场经济危机将是地方危机》（Downgraded: Why the Next Economic Crisis Will Be Local），计划11月份出版。

    如今的惠特尼已经没有兴趣再讨论她在《60分钟》中的预言，她要有兴趣才怪。但有一点不容辩驳，一个著名的声音成功地唤起了人们的注意，让人们更多地关注到了一个真实而紧迫的问题，同时改变了人们关注的话题。2010年新当选的36位州长听到了这一声音，或者说，至少有几位听到了——比如新泽西州的克里斯•克里斯蒂、佛罗里达州的瑞克•斯考特和印第安纳州的米切•丹尼尔斯——但他们和他们的继任者在接下来很多年里都必须奉行审慎的财政政策。

    我曾和惠特尼详细讨论，并不止一次地指出，她在电视节目上说的太细了，这是一项失误。她不同意。但在一件事情上我们的看法是一致的，即继续对这段二十多个字的预测“吹毛求疵”无异于只见树木不见森林。“看看希腊，”她说。“他们没有出现技术意义上的违约。但它出现了历史上最大规模的主权债务减记行为，这个事实无法改变。两者的实质是一样的。”

    译者：早稻米

    "States are regular bond market issuers, so they do care about their debt ratings, and have done everything they can to prevent public attention focusing on their crises," Whitney says. "They've even taken cities into receivership to prevent them from going bankrupt. But municipalities are only occasional issuers. They're much less concerned with bond market ratings than with the real pain they're already suffering."

    Alabama's Jefferson County has actually gone bankrupt. Stockton, California is all but ready to do the same. And all you have to do is look to Detroit—or any of the nearby auto towns named after a Buick model of one sort or another—and you see fiscal crisis playing out right now. Look in your own backyard—or at the potholes on your neighborhood roads—and you will likely find the same.

    Consider the email I received on March 7 from former New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky about Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano's recently formed Commission of Inquiry into what he refers to as that city's "Great Unraveling." (Brodksy is serving on the commission.)

    "[Yonkers has] a budget of about $1 billion and a budget gap in the upcoming year that looks like it can't be bridged. There are reasons aplenty. Like may urban centers the Yonkers manufacturing base disappeared, the middle-class moved out and the people simply can't afford the property and sales tax burden that ensured. Anti-tax fervor hit and elected officials refused to raise recurring revenues. Gimmicks, one-shots, borrowing for operating expenses, assets sales, and assorted maneuvers 'kicked the can down the road' for a couple of years…The city has now run out of gimmicks."

    And then he sounds very Whitney-like: "It's as though we stand on the shore and watch a tsunami gather and shrug and hope we'll get through it…That needs to change, and if the list of endangered cities gets larger this will force itself onto the national stage. [For now] the great national battle about the size of government and the level of taxation will be played out in the streets of small cities across America, with school kids, garbage pick-up, fire-protection, and safe streets competing with each other for inadequate resources. It's an ugly way to solve a problem."

    In late February, Whitney signed a deal to write a book about the trouble that isn't going anywhere, even if her bond-market prediction was a misfire. Titled Downgraded: Why the Next Economic Crisis Will Be Local, it's on a fast turnaround for November publication.

    Whitney isn't that interested in talking about her words on 60 Minutes anymore—why would she be?—but it's hard to argue with the fact that a prominent voice succeeded in bringing more focus to a real and pressing issue and helped change the conversation. Thirty-six freshly elected governors were listening in 2010. Or at least a few were—the likes of New Jersey's Chris Christie, Florida's Rick Scott, and Indiana's Mitch Daniels—but they and their successors are going to be playing the fiscal prudence game for years to come.

    I have argued at length and one more than one occasion with Whitney that she made a mistake when she got too precise on TV. She doesn't agree. But we do find common ground about the fact that continuing to play "Gotcha!" over those 20 or so words is missing the forest for the trees. "Look at Greece," she says. "They're not in technical default. That doesn't change the fact that it's the biggest sovereign debt writedown in history. It's all the same in the end."