美联储会议纪要：伯南克故意放任雷曼倒闭

    美联储声称没有救助雷曼兄弟的权利，这一点更可疑，而上周五上午公布的美联储2008年会议纪要进一步削弱了这种说法。对雷曼袖手旁观的标准借口是，对面临流动性紧缩但仍具有偿还能力的银行，央行是最后的救助手段。也就是说，对于任何拥有抵押品的银行，美联储都应该出资救助。为什么不出手救助雷曼？伯南克曾经这样为自己的决定辩护，他说，他无法提供任何救助，因为雷曼兄弟已经丧失了偿还能力：

    雷曼兄弟本身可能是太大而不能倒，在某种意义上说，雷曼的倒闭会对全球金融体系产生巨大的负面影响，但我们却束手无策，因为雷曼兄弟本质上已资不抵债。

    但一家公司是资不抵债还是流动性不足，这两种情况之间并没有泾渭分明的区别，而是取决于对一群神秘资产的评估方式。近期公布的会议纪要中美联储公开市场委员会成员的意见显示，让雷曼倒闭的决定似乎缘于反对政府干预的意识形态，而不是其他原因。下面是圣路易斯联邦储备银行行长詹姆斯•布拉德于9月16日（雷曼破产后的第二天）发布的意见：

    我的政策立场是，维持联邦基金利率目标在当前的水平，等过段时间再来评估雷曼兄弟申请破产保护对国民经济的影响（如果确实有响的话）。美联储拒绝为雷曼兄弟的竞购者提供资金担保，由此已经开始重新确立一种意识，即市场不能每次一碰到苦难的关键时刻就指望政府的救助。眼下变更利率会混淆这个重要信号，抵消之前决策的大部分积极成果。

    当然，事后诸葛亮是好当，但美联储成员认为雷曼兄弟破产对经济几乎没有影响，这个观点令人震惊。而且布拉德认为，不救助雷曼兄弟的决定并非迫不得已，而是主动选择的结果。

    波士顿联邦储备银行总裁罗森格伦也许是2008年美联储理事会中最有见地的一位成员，因为他是为数不多的赞成从9月份就开始降息的人之一，而且，他还质疑过任由雷曼兄弟倒闭的决定：

    我认为，现在就判断关于雷曼兄弟的决策是否正确还言之过早。鉴于财政部不愿意提供资金，我们别无选择。但我们采取了经过精心计算的策略。如果货币市场基金出现挤兑，或者说，如果非政府第三方回购市场关闭，这个办法的效果就会打折扣。

    罗森格伦的说法是有点模糊不清。他认为让雷曼倒闭是“经过精心计算的策略”，但又说美联储“别无选择”。但是这种似是而非的说法也有点正当的理由。从金融危机调查委员会发现的电子邮件来看，我们认为美联储当时显然在考虑用2000亿美元贷款来保住雷曼兄弟。这些电子邮件称这种方式为“一场赌博”，也许值得一试。

    但美联储从来没有真正尝试过这种方式，而且似乎其中包含意识形态的原因。这就更加令人困惑，因为在过去30年中，联邦政府都会在危机时刻进行干预，以防止金融体系崩溃产生破坏性影响。有鉴于此，经济学家艾伦•梅尔策称这项决定是“美联储历史上最严重的错误之一”。5年之后的今天，从最近发布的会议纪要来看，我们没有理由不同意梅尔策的评价。（财富中文网）

    译者：Lina

    The Fed's claim that it didn't have the power to save Lehman is much more dubious, and is further weakened by transcripts released Friday morning of the central bank's 2008 meetings. The standard excuse for its inaction on Lehman is that central banks should be the lender of last resort to banks that are in a liquidity crunch, but are still solvent. That is, the Fed should lend money to any bank that has collateral to offer. When defending his decision to not intervene with Lehman, Bernanke has claimed that he could not offer anything because the bank was insolvent:

    Lehman Brothers was in itself probably too big to fail, in the sense that its failure had enormous negative impacts on the global financial system ... But there we were helpless, because it was essentially an insolvent firm.

    But the difference between a firm being insolvent and illiquid isn't cut-and-dried, and it hinges on how you value a bunch of inscrutable assets. Based on the opinions of Federal Reserve Open Market Committee members revealed in the recently released minutes, the decision to let Lehman fail seems to have much more to do with an ideological aversion to government intervention than anything else. Here's St. Louis Fed President James Bullard on Sept. 16, the day after the Lehman bankruptcy:

    My policy preference is to maintain the federal funds rate target at the current level and to wait for some time to assess the impact of the Lehman bankruptcy filing, if any, on the national economy ... By denying funding to Lehman suitors, the Fed has begun to reestablish the idea that markets should not expect help at each difficult juncture. Changing rates today would confuse that important signal and take out much of the positive part out of the previous decision.

    Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it is stunning that Fed members thought that the Lehman bankruptcy could conceivably have no effect on the economy. Notice as well that Bullard paints the decision to not save Lehman as not one of necessity but of choice.

    Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren was perhaps the most insightful member of the Fed Board in 2008, as he was one of the few in favor of lowering interest rates as early as September, and questions the wisdom of the decision to let Lehman fail:

    I think it's too soon to know whether what we did with Lehman is right. Given that the Treasury didn't want to put money in, what happened was that we had no choice. But we took a calculated bet. If we have a run on the money market funds or if the nongovernment tri-party repo market shuts down, that bet may not look nearly so good.

    Rosengren's statement is a bit murky here. He calls letting Lehman fail a "calculated bet" but then says that the Fed had "no choice." This waffling has the whiff of justification, however. In e-mailsunearthed by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, we can see that the Fed was clearly considering a $200 billion loan to help keep Lehman afloat. These emails called that approach "a gamble" that might be worth taking.

    But the Fed never took it, and it appears they did so at least partly for ideological reasons. This is all the more confusing because the federal government had spent the last 30 years intervening in crises to prevent destructive financial system meltdowns. In light of this, economist Alan Meltzer has called the decision "one of the worst blunders in Federal Reserve history." Five years later, the recently released transcripts give us no reason to disagree with Meltzer's assessment.