美国前财长蒂姆•盖特纳： 批准雷曼兄弟破产是一个局

    雷曼危在旦夕之时，这些危机救火队员正在努力突破那些在司法和政治层面限制他们阻止雷曼倒闭的障碍。但这并不是他们当时告诉局外人的状况。他们希望促进信心与安定，造成这样的印象：雷曼破产是他们做出的一个精心决定，他们坚信金融市场已为可能发生一场大灾难做好了充分准备——自6个月前贝尔斯登（Bear Stearns）接近破产，这个灾难就已经变得十分迫切。这就是美联储官员向媒体记者、他们在各个市场的联络人，甚至其他央行官员发出的信息。

    我就是曾经从美联储获得这个信息的那些记者中的一员——当然，这不能报道。因此，尽管我喜欢、尊重盖特纳，我没有被他“未被理解”的悲情所打动。此外，他将所有的指责都归咎于伯南克和保尔森有点俗。

    但现如今，我将站在盖特纳一边。他写道，美国纳税人从救助金融体系赚了钱，而不是像大多数人所认为的那样亏了数百亿，结果让自己陷入了麻烦。盖特纳认为，截至2013年底收益为1,660亿美元。

    我可以联系先前的事件讲述一下。2011年，我当时的同事多尼斯•伯克和我写了一篇题为《纳税人最终将从救助行动中获利》的文章。我们这么说的确引来了不少麻烦——但这最终证明是对的。我很高兴盖特纳指出了这一点。以我的数学计算，（纳税人获得的）收益约为3,000亿美元。

    没错，盖特纳也有“致命的弱点”。但在他《压力测试》这本书中有很多风光点——而他对于救助计划的计算就是其中一个。（财富中文网）

    By the time Lehman was on the brink, the crisis fighters were running up against the legal and political limits of their ability to stop it from going under. That, however, wasn't what they told the outside world at the time. They wanted to project confidence and calm, to give the impression that the Lehman bankruptcy was a deliberate decision they'd made out of their convictions that the financial markets were sufficiently prepared for the possibility of such a failure -- which had seemed imminent ever since the near collapse of Bear Stearns six months earlier. That was the message Fed officials voiced to reporters, their contacts in the markets, and even other central bankers.

    I'm one of the reporters who got that message from the Fed -- off the record, of course. So although I like and respect Geithner, I'm less than sympathetic to his "It's poorly understood" lament. Besides, it's tacky for him to put all the blame on Bernanke and Paulson.

    Now, though, I'll come to Geithner's defense. He's gotten grief for writing that U.S. taxpayers have made money on the bailout of the financial system, rather than losing hundreds of billions of dollars as most people believe. Geithner puts the profit at $166 billion as of year-end 2013.

    I can relate. In 2011, my then-colleague Doris Burke and I wrote that taxpayers would come out ahead on the bailout. We got a lot of grief for saying that -- but it turned out to be true. I'm glad that Geithner pointed it out. By my math, the profit is probably about $300 billion.

    Yes, Geithner has feet of clay. But he has plenty of good moments in Stress Test -- and his bailout math is one of them.