下一任美联储主席最好是个生意人

    或者说，它可能轻松吗？

    Hedgeye首席执行官基思•麦卡洛一再观察到，政府干预所产生的最可预期而且最常见的结果并不是让事情自然而然地发展，而是加快经济周期，从而造成市场波动进一步加剧。我们不知道人们怎么衡量社会痛苦程度。但我们一直认为，和前后三位总统任职期间问题久拖不决的局面相比，沃尔克式的短期剧烈冲击要远远有益于我们的社会体系。

    我们认为，下一任总统可能会考虑对政策进行重大调整。美联储不需要经济学家来经营。掌管美联储的人甚至都不需要深入了解金融市场。随着我们推选出来的政府越来越多地放弃做出决策的责任，掌控经济的要领已经移交给了政府任命的专家们。也许美联储需要像企业一样进行运作。也许美联储需要一位在实现经营预算目标、聘用和管理员工以及把握经济走势以免超支方面有经验的人。只要能无限制地使用印钞机，人们就不必理会预算。也许我们应该选择一位大型水管供应商或者机床销售商的老板来担任下一任美联储主席。

    在各主要经济体中，中央银行都在用同样的方法来给经济提速，这给伯南克的工作带来了更大的困难。从日本到欧洲，印钞机在昼夜不停地创造流动性，以期激活全球经济。这使得伯南克无穷无尽的量化宽松成为对冲基金人士所说的“拥挤交易”。如果只有某一个聪明人买了一只便宜的股票，他就能赚钱。但是，如果所有人都采用了这个“聪明的办法”，则会先后出现两种局面：首先，股价因此上涨，造成接下来的买家无法获利，而且这只股票会吸纳市场中的流动性，造成持有者无法转手给别人。拥挤程度达到顶点时，利润就会消失，股价随之下跌，而且通常都是暴跌。

    伯南克最近一次在国会作证时表示，近期利率小幅上升让他感到意外。这种局面并不是没有根据。本周，基思撰文指出：“集中规划留下来的最后一个泡沫现在就要破裂。它的名字就是超级主权债务泡沫。”也许我们应该不谦虚地指出，伯南克应该订阅Hedgeye的研究报告了？

    在美联储的政策游戏中，有一点让人颇为费解，那就是我们实际上不知道伯南克在想什么。在这场游戏中，有精心挑选的公众舆论，也有规模与之相当的实际公开市场操作，用来增加流动性（我们知道，理论上还可以采取减少流动性的政策，但长期以来它一直被视为一种假设。伯南克就像一位从来不知道踩刹车的司机）。

    我们对伯南克工作表现的评价是他知道市场正在超过他的控制能力。问题已经不再是要不要进行量化宽松。伯南克一直都是那只带头的鸟，一路上他孜孜不倦地查看市场的反应，他把重心放在就业和楼市上，以此表明他响应了美国公众对政策的最殷切期望——现在他打算以足够缓慢的速度离去，以免整个经济体系像10层大楼遭遇地陷那样轰然倒塌。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    Or can it?

    As Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough has repeatedly observed, the most predictable and constant effect of government intervention is to increase volatility in the marketplace by accelerating economic cycles, rather than letting things play out in their own time. We do not know how one measures societal pain, but we have always been of the opinion that a Volcker-like short, sharp shock to the system would have been far healthier than the extended malaise we have lived through over nearly three presidencies.

    We think the next president may want to consider a substantive shift in policy. The Fed does not need an economist to run it. It may not even need someone with a deep understanding of the financial markets. Increasingly, as our elected government has abdicated its responsibility for decision-making, the nuts and bolts of running the economy has been handed over to appointed experts. Perhaps the Fed needs to be run like a business. Perhaps the Fed needs someone with experience meeting operating budgets, hiring and managing employees, and tracking flows in the economy to stay on budget. We never need to stay within a budget as long as we have unlimited access to the printing press. Maybe the next Fed chair should be the owner of a major plumbing supply house or a machine-tool shop.

    Bernanke's task has been made more difficult by the fact that major economies' central banks are all pushing on the same accelerator. From Japan to Europe, printing presses are running 'round the clock to create liquidity, in hopes it will stimulate the global economy. This has had the effect of making Bernanke's QE "To Infinity and Beyond" what folks in the hedge fund world call a "crowded trade." When one smart person buys a cheap stock, they can make money with it. When everyone piles into the same "smart idea," two things happen: First, it drives the price to levels where there is no more profit to be made by the next buyer, and it sucks the liquidity out of the market, leaving holders with no one to sell to. In the ultimate crowded trade, the profits vanish and the next move is down. Usually way down. Usually with a thud.

    In his most recent testimony, Bernanke expressed himself as "surprised" that interest rates have edged up recently. This is not occurring in a vacuum. This week Keith writes, "The last of the central planning bubbles left in the world is now popping. It's called the bubble in super sovereign debt." May we flatter ourselves to point out that Bernanke should have been subscribed to Hedgeye's research?

    The impenetrable aspect of the Fed policy game is that we don't actually know what Chairman Bernanke thinks. The game is played as much with carefully selected public utterances as with actual open-market transactions to add liquidity. (We know there is also a theoretical policy option to decrease liquidity, but it has long been treated as hypothetical. Bernanke is like a driver who never learned that cars have brakes.)

    Our take on Bernanke's performance is that he acknowledges the markets are moving away from his ability to control them. QE or not QE is no longer the question. Having led from the front, checking market reactions assiduously along the way -- and having apparently followed Americans' most ardent policy desire by focusing on employment and housing -- Bernanke is now trying to get out of the way gradually enough that the entire edifice does not collapse like a 10-story building into a vast sinkhole.