365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #365 | October 3, 2008 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 365 集 | 2008 年 10 月 3 日 365：另一场关于经济的可怕表演 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass Well, it's This American Life from WBEZ Chicago, distributed by Public Radio International.
序言 Ira Glass 嗯，这是芝加哥 WBEZ 的《美国生活》，由国际公共广播电台发行。
And I'm recording this on Friday afternoon, October 3.
我将在 10 月 3 日星期五下午录制这段视频。
It's a little after 3:00, just a couple of hours after the House of Representatives voted in favor of bailing out Wall Street.
现在是 3:00 刚过，距离众议院投票支持救助华尔街仅几个小时。
And I'm standing in Union Square in New York City, maybe a 15-minute subway ride from Wall Street.
我站在纽约市的联合广场，距离华尔街大约 15 分钟地铁车程。
It's been a week and two days since President Bush declared that we're in a serious economic crisis.
布什总统宣布我们陷入严重的经济危机已经一周零两天了。
It's been two weeks and a day since the Chairman of the Federal Reserve reportedly told congressional leaders that without a bailout plan we might not have an economy.
据报道，美联储主席告诉国会领导人，如果没有救助计划，我们可能就没有经济，已经过去两周又一天了。
But standing here, I think maybe for most of us going about our daily lives, it doesn't feel like we're on the edge of a disaster.
但站在这里，我想也许对于我们大多数人的日常生活来说，我们并不感觉自己正处于灾难的边缘。
There are people streaming in and out of the Virgin Megastore with packages.
人们带着包裹进出维珍大卖场。
A guy just unwrapped a cellphone that he bought in there, about three feet from me.
一个人刚刚打开了他在那里买的手机，距离我大约三英尺。
There's a huge farmer's market going in the park.
公园里有一个很大的农贸市场。
And so there's this disconnect.
所以就出现了这种脱节。
Even for people who have seen the value of their homes and their retirement plans drop, it's just hard to know what to believe about how bad things really are and how bad they might get.
即使对于那些看到自己的房屋价值和退休计划下降的人来说，也很难知道该相信事情到底有多糟糕以及事情可能会变得有多糟糕。
Well, a few months ago in our program, Alex Blumberg and NPR Economics Correspondent Adam Davidson put together an hour explaining-- in terms that anybody could understand-- how the subprime mortgage crisis happened in the first place.
几个月前，在我们的节目中，亚历克斯·布隆伯格 (Alex Blumberg) 和 NPR 经济记者亚当·戴维森 (Adam Davidson) 用一个小时的时间解释了——用任何人都能理解的方式——次贷危机最初是如何发生的。
And after that aired, we were flooded with emails about that show.
节目播出后，我们收到了大量有关该节目的电子邮件。
It was all over the internet.
互联网上到处都是。
The New York Times wrote an article about it, how helpful it was.
《纽约时报》写了一篇关于它的文章，它是多么有帮助。
And so today we asked those guys to come back and explain some of the things that have happened since that first show, including how bad are things, really?
所以今天我们请这些人回来解释自首场演出以来发生的一些事情，包括事情到底有多糟糕？
And is this bailout a good idea?
这次救助是个好主意吗？
It's another frightening hour about the economy.
这是又一个关于经济的可怕时刻。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Well, hi, fellows.
嗯，嗨，伙计们。
Adam Davidson Hey Ira.
亚当·戴维森嘿艾拉。
Hey.
嘿。
How's it going?
怎么样了？
Ira Glass Well, let's start with what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke saw that made them believe that the economy is in terrible, imminent danger.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass）：好吧，让我们从财政部长亨利·保尔森（Henry Paulson）和美联储主席本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）所看到的事情开始，这些事情使他们相信经济正处于可怕的、迫在眉睫的危险之中。
You guys did a story on All Things Considered that you've expanded to play here on our program about some events that began two weeks ago, specifically that began on Wednesday, September 17.
你们在《考虑到的所有事情》上做了一个故事，你们已经扩展到我们的节目中，讲述两周前开始的一些事件，特别是 9 月 17 日星期三开始的事件。
I'll give you a sense of what government officials saw that freaked them out.
我会让你了解一下政府官员所看到的让他们害怕的事情。
A lot of it probably had to do with conversations with people like Mark Peterson, who's not on Wall Street.
其中很大一部分可能与与马克·彼得森等不在华尔街的人的对话有关。
He's in Memphis.
他在孟菲斯。
He has nothing to do with the subprime mortgage industry.
他与次级抵押贷款行业无关。
And that week, two weeks ago, that had him shaking, almost literally.
那一周，也就是两周前，他几乎在颤抖。
I don't know.
我不知道。
For those of who have experienced an earthquake, some people say it's a soul-wrenching experience, because you realize there's a power out there that's doing something that you have no control over whatsoever.
对于那些经历过地震的人来说，有些人说这是一次令人痛苦的经历，因为你意识到有一种力量正在做一些你无法控制的事情。
And it's massively moving everything.
它正在极大地改变一切。
And that's last week.
那是上周的事了。
Last week, there was a monster that was unleashed.
上周，有一个怪物被释放了。
Now, you may be surprised to learn the name of that monster, the commercial paper market.
现在，您可能会惊讶地得知商业票据市场这个怪物的名字。
Technically, actually, it's the freezing of the commercial paper market that was the monster.
从技术上讲，实际上，商业票据市场的冻结才是真正的怪物。
Let's explain with the commercial paper market is.
我们用商业票据市场来解释一下。
It's a way for companies to borrow money, the easiest way for big companies.
这是公司借钱的一种方式，对于大公司来说是最简单的方式。
And here how it works.
这是它的工作原理。
A guy like Mark Peterson-- he's the Treasurer, sort of the money manager, for ServiceMaster International, a company which owns, among other things, a lawn care company, Merry Maids, and Terminix, which will get rid of your termites.
像马克·彼得森这样的人——他是 ServiceMaster International 的财务主管，有点像资金经理，这家公司拥有一家草坪护理公司、Merry Maids 和 Terminix，这家公司可以消灭白蚁。
Every day, Mark comes into the office at 8:00 in the morning and asks the same question.
每天，马克都会在早上 8:00 来到办公室，问同样的问题。
How much money do we have?
我们有多少钱？
Let's just say that you have Terminix come out and treat your house.
假设您有 Terminix 来处理您的房子。
You write a check.
你写一张支票。
When they deposit it in our account, they send us the information off of that check that says this person paid their bill.
当他们将其存入我们的帐户时，他们会向我们发送支票上的信息，表明此人支付了账单。
So every day, thousands or hundreds of thousands, or tens of thousands of Terminix customers, and other people, are writing checks.
因此，每天都有成千上万的 Terminix 客户和其他人在写支票。
That data then get sent to you on a daily basis.
然后，该数据每天都会发送给您。
And you have the position of what's our cash position now for the day in this company?
您知道我们现在在这家公司的现金状况是多少吗？
Yep.
是的。
Either we're going to have too much money at the end of the day or we're not going to have enough money at the end of day.
要么我们最终会拥有太多的钱，要么我们最终不会有足够的钱。
Today, do you have money or do you need money?
今天，你有钱还是需要钱？
But tomorrow they might not.
但明天他们可能不会。
Maybe they need to buy a lot of termite poison or upgrade their fleet of termite fighting vans, for example.
例如，他们可能需要购买大量白蚁毒药或升级他们的白蚁防治车车队。
It's no big deal.
没什么大不了的。
You just borrow some more money.
你再借点钱就可以了。
Every company works like this.
每个公司都是这样运作的。
Some days they have extra money, and some days they need to borrow extra money.
有时他们有多余的钱，有时他们需要借额外的钱。
And if you're a regular person and you need to borrow money, of course, you probably use your credit card.
如果您是一个普通人并且需要借钱，当然，您可能会使用信用卡。
If you're a gigantic company, you use the commercial paper market, which is basically an industrial-sized IOU.
如果你是一家大公司，你可以使用商业票据市场，这基本上是工业规模的借据。
We would say, I'm going to give you $1 million tomorrow if you give me $999,000 today.
我们会说，如果你今天给我 999,000 美元，我明天就给你 100 万美元。
So tomorrow, whoever sent the $999,000 in, he's going to get an extra $1,000 tomorrow.
所以明天，无论谁汇了 999,000 美元，他明天都会额外收到 1,000 美元。
And that's his interest rate.
这就是他的利率。
And so every day, treasurers all over America, and all over the world, are getting into their office at 8:00, they're surveying their data, and then they're going and they're issuing commercial paper.
因此，每天，美国乃至世界各地的财务主管都会在 8:00 进入办公室，调查数据，然后发行商业票据。
How much money are we talking about?
我们谈论的是多少钱？
Every day?
每天？
Mark Peterson Every single day.
马克·彼得森 每一天。
How do treasurers like Mark Peterson connect with the people who want to loan them money?
像马克·彼得森这样的财务主管如何与想要借钱的人建立联系？
They do it through banks on Wall Street.
他们通过华尔街的银行来做到这一点。
The treasurer of a big company, or someone on his staff, usually, calls some guy they know on Wall Street and says, hey, we need some money.
大公司的财务主管或他的员工通常会打电话给他们在华尔街认识的人说，嘿，我们需要一些钱。
Sell some commercial paper.
出售一些商业票据。
Issue those IOUs.
发出这些欠条。
That is the commercial paper market.
那就是商业票据市场。
And this happens every day, the US economy could hardly function without it, and yet almost no one has heard of it.
这种情况每天都在发生，没有它美国经济几乎无法运转，但几乎没有人听说过它。
Why?
为什么？
It's been a relatively boring business.
这是一件相对无聊的事情。
Your commercial paper desks, in many companies, it could be somebody down at almost a clerical level calling every single day to Merrill Lynch and saying, I need to borrow $50 million.
在许多公司中，你的商业票据柜台可能是几乎是文员级别的人，每天打电话给美林证券说，我需要借 5000 万美元。
At what rate can I borrow at?
我可以以什么利率借钱？
Post that rate, and let's get it done by 11:00 in the morning.
公布该费率，让我们在上午 11:00 之前完成。
The Merrill Lynch salespeople go off and sell the commercial paper to money market funds and trust departments and investors all across the world.
美林证券的销售人员将商业票据出售给世界各地的货币市场基金、信托部门和投资者。
They confirm that the money has been funded into the clerk's account.
他们确认这笔钱已存入职员的账户。
And then the clerk turns it over to the treasurer and says, your 50 million is here, by 11:00 in the morning.
然后店员把它交给财务主管说，你的5000万到了，上午11：00。
It's that straightforward.
就是这么简单。
Adam Davidson It stopped being boring some time this year?
亚当·戴维森 今年某个时候不再无聊了？
Well, as a good friend of mine, who is on Wall Street, made the comment, he said, I've never seen anything like this before.
嗯，正如我在华尔街的一位好朋友发表的评论，他说，我以前从未见过这样的事情。
He said, there's no bid in the market for paper.
他说，市场上没有纸张出价。
There's nobody willing to transact with each other.
没有人愿意互相交易。
The commercial paper market-- which is the most liquid market, probably, in the world for high-grade financial players-- basically froze up.
对于高级金融机构来说，商业票据市场可能是世界上最具流动性的市场，但它基本上陷入了冻结。
As a person involved in the front end, I don't think I've ever been this nervous in my career.
作为一个从事前端的人，我想我职业生涯中从来没有这么紧张过。
Because I think the financial system was so close to locking up, I think we were real close to the abyss, the ultimate freezing of the financial system.
因为我认为金融体系已经非常接近锁定，我认为我们真的非常接近深渊，金融体系最终被冻结。
This is Paul Balika, another guy with a front-seat view of this credit seize up.
这是保罗·巴利卡 (Paul Balika)，他也是对这次信贷抢占事件有最深入了解的人。
He works at Daiwa Securities.
他在大和证券工作。
And Alex and I spent a lot of time with Paul, and other traders like him, trying to get a sense of what that abyss looks like.
亚历克斯和我花了很多时间与保罗以及其他像他一样的交易者在一起，试图了解那个深渊是什么样子。
Like here, at Tradition Securities.
就像这里，在传统证券。
They're a commercial paper trading company in lower Manhattan near Wall Street.
他们是位于曼哈顿下城华尔街附近的一家商业票据贸易公司。
And I'm here to see a trader named Tom Corona.
我来这里是为了见一位名叫汤姆·科罗娜的交易员。
As I walk across the huge trading floor with my headset and microphone, traders are shouting out, Teasing Tom, asking about his new friend, which is me.
当我带着耳机和麦克风走过巨大的交易大厅时，交易员们大声喊叫，戏弄汤姆，询问他的新朋友，也就是我。
He says he's going to do an interview for the radio, and I hear one of his buddies mutter, this won't end well.
他说他要接受电台采访，我听到他的一个朋友嘀咕，这不会有好结果。
Now, most of the companies that Tom works with aren't consumer companies like ServiceMaster where Mark Peterson works.
现在，Tom 合作的大多数公司都不是像 Mark Peterson 工作的 ServiceMaster 这样的消费类公司。
They're banks, big huge banks that you've probably heard of.
它们是银行，您可能听说过的大型银行。
The treasurer's assistants at those big banks call Tom every day.
那些大银行的财务助理每天都会给汤姆打电话。
And they say, I want to borrow some money.
他们说，我想借点钱。
But since about two weeks ago, that's been almost impossible.
但自大约两周前以来，这几乎是不可能的。
A bank will call me up in the morning and say, what are you seeing in the marketplace today?
银行会早上打电话给我，问我，你今天在市场上看到了什么？
And unfortunately, at this point, I say, it's the same thing I see every day-- is the bank's trying to raise money and nobody willing to lend them money.
不幸的是，在这一点上，我说，这与我每天看到的情况是一样的——银行试图筹集资金，但没有人愿意借钱给他们。
And if you needed to get money, this is the rate you would have to pay.
如果您需要赚钱，这就是您必须支付的费用。
And even if they could get money, they could only get 50 or a $100 million.
而且就算能拿到钱，也只能拿到50、1亿美元。
Now, I don't mean to let 50 and 100 million sound like a little, but in our market, it's nothing.
现在，我不想让 50 和 1 亿听起来很小，但在我们的市场上，这不算什么。
It's so small.
它是如此之小。
These banks normally, at that spread, could raise billions in an eye blink.
通常情况下，按照这样的利差，这些银行可以眨眼间筹集数十亿美元。
And what do they say to you?
他们对你说什么？
Tom Corona Well, they're as concerned as I am.
汤姆·科罗娜：好吧，他们和我一样担心。
And you could sense the frustration in everybody's voice.
你可以感觉到每个人声音中的沮丧。
I hear constantly on the phone now, everybody having trouble sleeping.
我现在经常在电话里听到每个人都难以入睡。
They don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
他们看不到隧道尽头的光明。
And if it is a light they see, it's another train coming at them.
如果他们看到的是一道光，那就是另一列火车向他们驶来。
OK, for those keeping track, this market freeze up has been compared, so far in our story, to an oncoming train, an abyss, a monster, and an earthquake.
好吧，对于那些关注的人来说，到目前为止，在我们的故事中，市场冻结已经被比作迎面而来的火车、深渊、怪物和地震。
All we need now is a serial killer.
我们现在需要的只是一个连环杀手。
And what made this abyss, earthquake, train, monster materialize all of a sudden?
又是什么让这个深渊、地震、火车、怪物突然出现？
There was one event in particular that frightened the commercial paper market and made it seize up.
特别是有一件事件让商业票据市场受到惊吓并导致其失灵。
Explaining it, I'm afraid, means using another finance term-- although this one might be a little more familiar-- the money market mutual fund.
恐怕，解释它意味着使用另一个金融术语——尽管这个术语可能更熟悉一点——货币市场共同基金。
And we should say here, a money market mutual fund is just like a savings account.
我们应该在这里说，货币市场共同基金就像一个储蓄账户。
There's a good chance you even have one.
您很有可能拥有一个。
It is, in normal times, one of the safest places to keep your money.
在正常情况下，它是存放资金最安全的地方之一。
You put $1,000 in, you know for sure you'll get $1,000 out.
您投入 1,000 美元，您肯定会得到 1,000 美元。
Maybe even $1,010.
甚至可能是 1,010 美元。
And you're happy with just that little return because you know at least your money is secure.
而且您对这一点回报感到满意，因为您知道至少您的资金是安全的。
Now one of the main things that money market managers do to get that little return is they lend money out on the commercial paper market.
现在，货币市场管理者为了获得微薄的回报所做的主要事情之一就是在商业票据市场上放贷。
They give guys like Mark Peterson at ServiceMaster that $999,000.
他们给像 ServiceMaster 的 Mark Peterson 这样的人 999,000 美元。
He gives them $1 million back the next day.
第二天他就还给他们 100 万美元。
It's an OK return, but the main thing is it's safe.
回程还算顺利，但最重要的是它是安全的。
Their money is safe because they're lending it to huge, trusted companies, many of which have been around for decades, reliably paying back these loans.
他们的钱是安全的，因为他们把钱借给了大型、值得信赖的公司，其中许多公司已经存在了几十年，能够可靠地偿还这些贷款。
At least that's the way it was until two weeks ago, when one of the most dreaded things happened-- at least in the world of money market managers.
至少直到两周前都是这样，当时最可怕的事情之一发生了——至少在货币市场经理的世界里是这样。
It's the thing they have nightmares about.
这是他们做噩梦的事情。
One of the biggest and oldest funds, called the Reserve Fund-- that was its name.
最大、最古老的基金之一，称为储备基金——这就是它的名字。
It broke the buck.
它打破了雄鹿。
What that means is, for the first time ever, it lost its depositors money.
这意味着，它有史以来第一次失去了储户的钱。
For every dollar they put in, they were left with only $0.97.
他们每投入 1 美元，就只剩下 0.97 美元。
It's like going to your savings account and seeing that your money's gone, but you haven't made any withdrawals.
这就像你去你的储蓄账户，发现你的钱不见了，但你却没有提款。
It's a big deal.
这是一件大事。
Breaking the buck is sort of like having a serial killer in a high school.
破坏金钱有点像高中里有一个连环杀手。
It causes a little bit of panic.
这会引起一点恐慌。
Take a look at some of the returns.
看看一些回报。
People are not concerned about getting a return on capital.
人们并不关心获得资本回报。
They just want the return of capital.
他们只是想要资本的回报。
So that is panic.
所以这就是恐慌。
That is fear.
那就是恐惧。
That panic and fear caused an old-fashioned bank run.
这种恐慌和恐惧导致了传统的银行挤兑。
People, and more importantly pension funds and big endowments, called their brokers and said get me out of those funds.
人们，更重要的是养老基金和大型捐赠基金，打电话给他们的经纪人，说让我退出这些基金。
The government had to step in and guarantee the money market funds.
政府必须介入并保证货币市场资金。
And this right here, as near as we can tell, this is what freaked out Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke.
据我们所知，这正是令亨利·保尔森和本·伯南克感到害怕的原因。
Because this right here is the mortgage crisis spreading out into the rest of the world.
因为这里的抵押贷款危机正在蔓延到世界其他地区。
This fund that broke the buck, they weren't investing in risky mortgages or anything related to the housing industry.
这只基金打破了美元，他们没有投资于有风险的抵押贷款或任何与房地产行业相关的东西。
They were not freewheeling Wall Street fat cats taking big risks and hoping for a windfall.
他们并不是随心所欲、冒着巨大风险、希望获得意外之财的华尔街富豪。
They were investing in investments that those fat cats laughed at.
他们正在投资那些被那些肥猫嘲笑的投资。
These were fund managers doing everything possible to be totally safe, doing what they always did, buying very safe, very short-term commercial paper.
这些基金经理尽一切可能确保完全安全，做他们一贯做的事情，购买非常安全、期限非常短的商业票据。
It just so happened that the company they bought it from was Lehman Brothers.
碰巧他们购买的公司是雷曼兄弟。
And the day before, Lehman had gone bankrupt, in part because of its exposure to risky mortgage products.
前一天，雷曼兄弟破产了，部分原因是其抵押贷款产品存在风险。
So all the money this money market mutual fund, The Reserve Fund, had lent to Lehman was suddenly gone.
因此，这个货币市场共同基金（储备基金）借给雷曼的所有资金突然消失了。
And the Reserve Fund, a mutual fund that had nothing at all to do with mortgages or the housing market, was all of a sudden in trouble.
而储备基金，一个与抵押贷款或房地产市场毫无关系的共同基金，突然陷入了困境。
That's what caused the panic.
这就是引起恐慌的原因。
All the other money market mutual fund managers freaked out.
所有其他货币市场共同基金经理都吓坏了。
They wondered, who's going to be next?
他们想知道，下一个会是谁？
And then like a horror movie-- at least a horror movie made for money market mutual fund managers-- another fund broke the buck.
然后，就像一部恐怖电影一样——至少是一部为货币市场共同基金经理制作的恐怖电影——另一只基金却破收了。
And then AIG, the largest insurance company in the world, nearly collapsed.
然后世界上最大的保险公司AIG就差点倒闭了。
That was it.
就是这样。
Many fund managers decided, we're not lending any more money out to companies at all.
许多基金经理决定，我们不再向公司借钱。
That Wednesday and Thursday, over $100 billion flowed out of the commercial paper market.
周三和周四，超过 1000 亿美元流出商业票据市场。
Most of it went into treasury bills, government securities.
其中大部分进入了国库券和政府证券。
And that's why Tom Corona, the commercial paper trader, can't get any money for his clients.
这就是商业票据交易员汤姆·科罗纳（Tom Corona）无法为他的客户赚到钱的原因。
The people who used to lend it to them have hunkered down and stashed it in what amounts to the largest mattress in the world, the US government.
过去借给他们的人已经把它藏在相当于世界上最大的床垫的美国政府里。
The perception is, that's the only safe place to be right now.
人们的看法是，这是目前唯一安全的地方。
In the financial markets, perception is everything.
在金融市场中，感知就是一切。
They don't know who has losses and who doesn't have losses and who really is hiding losses, who has revealed all their losses.
他们不知道谁有损失，谁没有损失，谁真正隐藏了损失，谁揭露了所有损失。
Nobody trusts each other anymore.
没有人再互相信任了。
So the money funds look at each bank.
所以货币资金看各个银行。
And everybody looks with a wary eye because they don't know who's in solid footing.
每个人都用警惕的眼光看待，因为他们不知道谁站稳了脚跟。
Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson are afraid that this situation could spread even further.
本·伯南克和亨利·保尔森担心这种情况可能会进一步蔓延。
It won't just be money market mutual funds who won't want to lend money.
不仅仅是货币市场共同基金不想借钱。
Nobody will want to lend money.
没有人愿意借钱。
Here's Paul Balika.
请听保罗·巴利卡的报道。
What would happen is no one would be able to borrow money.
将会发生的情况是没有人能够借到钱。
And then, how does capitalism work if you can't borrow money?
那么，如果你借不到钱，资本主义如何运作？
You're back to bartering pretty much.
你又回到了以物易物的状态。
No working capital-- the extension of credit just almost came to a halt.
没有营运资金——信贷的扩张几乎停止了。
Just ended, period.
刚刚结束，期间。
I don't mean to be histrionic, but from my perspective, if Paulson and the government didn't step in with this plan, the banks would not be able to create enough credit to make the economy function.
我无意做作，但从我的角度来看，如果保尔森和政府不介入这一计划，银行将无法创造足够的信贷来维持经济运转。
That's all.
就这样。
The stakes are this-- Alex Blumberg Again, Mark Peterson at ServiceMaster International.
风险在于——Alex Blumberg 又是 ServiceMaster International 的 Mark Peterson。
He says, imagine a company that wants to build a new factory.
他说，想象一下一家公司想要建造一座新工厂。
Normally, they would just borrow it and pay it back over a period of time.
通常情况下，他们只是借用并在一段时间内偿还。
But if they have to now wait five years before they have enough capital to build that plant, they'll delay that.
但如果他们现在必须等待五年才能有足够的资金来建造该工厂，他们会推迟这一点。
You might sit back in your little-- here in Memphis, and say that doesn't really affect you.
你可能会坐在孟菲斯的小房子里，说这并没有真正影响你。
But if 20,000 treasurers and CFOs throughout the world are having that problem collectively because their banks are all frozen, what you've got is something that will affect every single person in America, ultimately.
但如果全世界 20,000 名财务主管和首席财务官因为银行全部冻结而集体面临这个问题，那么最终将影响到美国的每一个人。
And right now, this is starting to happen.
现在，这一切正在开始发生。
Every day there's news of companies canceling plans because they can't get loans.
每天都有公司因无法获得贷款而取消计划的消息。
There were reports that McDonald's had to postpone a plan to get latte machines in its stores because it couldn't borrow the money.
有报道称，麦当劳因无法借到资金而不得不推迟在店内安装拿铁咖啡机的计划。
The company that makes Thomas the Tank Engine toys had to cancel a merger.
生产托马斯坦克引擎玩具的公司不得不取消合并。
And General Electric, the second largest US company, owner of NBC and maker of aircraft engines and nuclear power plants, saw its stock fall nearly 10% because of concerns that it couldn't borrow the money it needed to continue to function.
美国第二大公司、NBC 的所有者以及飞机发动机和核电站制造商通用电气 (General Electric) 的股价下跌了近 10%，原因是担心无法借到继续运营所需的资金。
Now, we should say, Alex, that all of these companies deny any serious problems.
现在，亚历克斯，我们应该说，所有这些公司都否认存在任何严重问题。
And there's a lot of businesses that still seem fine.
而且有很多企业看起来仍然不错。
Mark Peterson of ServiceMaster International says banks still lend his company money at slightly higher rates than last year, but nothing his firm can't handle.
ServiceMaster International 的马克·彼得森 (Mark Peterson) 表示，银行仍然以比去年略高的利率向他的公司放贷，但没有什么是他的公司无法处理的。
Small businesses can still get lines of credit.
小企业仍然可以获得信贷额度。
People can get auto loans or mortgages or credit cards.
人们可以获得汽车贷款、抵押贷款或信用卡。
Rates might be creeping up a bit, but walking around outside, it definitely doesn't feel like the next Great Depression.
房价可能会略有上升，但在外面走走，绝对不会感觉像是下一次大萧条。
For most people.
对于大多数人来说。
And that's why for most people outside the financial sector, it's hard to grasp this dire need for a $700 billion bailout package.
这就是为什么对于金融行业以外的大多数人来说，很难理解对 7000 亿美元救助计划的迫切需求。
The doomsday scenarios are scary, but will they really happen?
世界末日的场景很可怕，但它们真的会发生吗？
It turns out even if you have a seat at the epicenter of the crisis, like Tom Corona, the commercial paper trader who's seeing firsthand how credit has frozen up for all his big clients, and who has everything to lose if the situation doesn't improve, even he has conflicted feelings about it.
事实证明，即使你身处危机的中心，就像商业票据交易员汤姆·科罗纳（Tom Corona）一样，他亲眼目睹了所有大客户的信贷如何冻结，如果情况没有改善，他将失去一切，即使他对此也有矛盾的感觉。
I'm sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, because I'm watching the career I've chosen, and it's been very good for me, but I'm watching the whole system implode.
我有点进退两难，因为我看着我选择的职业，它对我来说非常好，但我看着整个系统崩溃。
And yes, I want the bailout to save Wall Street because this is where I work.
是的，我希望救助能够拯救华尔街，因为这是我工作的地方。
But then I look at a bigger picture, what's better for the country and for my children.
但后来我看到了更大的前景，什么对国家和我的孩子来说更好。
I have three boys.
我有三个男孩。
And I do not believe this billion dollar bailout helps out my children, or anybody's children, over the long run.
从长远来看，我不相信这笔十亿美元的救助计划能够帮助我的孩子或任何人的孩子。
People made stupid loans, and now they want the government to bail them out.
人们发放了愚蠢的贷款，现在他们希望政府救助他们。
And I'm sorry.
我很抱歉。
At this point, it's my tax dollars.
此时，这是我的税金。
It's your tax dollars.
这是你的税金。
I just think we have to say no.
我只是认为我们必须说不。
And did you actually call your congressman?
你真的给你的国会议员打电话了吗？
Yes, I sent all of them emails.
是的，我给他们发了所有电子邮件。
And my email basically said I was against any sort of bailout plan, that there were other issues to deal with, and that I was a 27-year Wall Street veteran in the institutional money markets, and if he would like to discuss it any further, I would gladly take his call.
我的电子邮件基本上说我反对任何形式的救助计划，还有其他问题需要处理，而且我是在机构货币市场工作了 27 年的华尔街资深人士，如果他想进一步讨论这个问题，我很乐意接听他的电话。
Has anybody called?
有人打过电话吗？
Tom Corona Nobody has called.
汤姆·科罗娜 没有人打来电话。
I don't take it personally.
我不认为这是针对我个人的。
But to give you a sense of how fast things are changing, that tape of Tom Corona is from a week ago.
但为了让你了解事情变化的速度有多快，汤姆·科罗娜的那盘磁带是一周前的。
And when we talked to him today, he said he does support the bailout bill now, for two reasons.
当我们今天与他交谈时，他说他现在确实支持救助法案，原因有两个。
There have been changes made to the law, which he likes.
法律发生了一些变化，这是他喜欢的。
But also, and probably more importantly, he's a lot more scared now than he was just seven days ago.
但也许更重要的是，他现在比 7 天前更加害怕。
This last week has convinced him that the crisis is spreading, and that the bigger risk to his children now is doing nothing.
上周的经历让他确信危机正在蔓延，而他的孩子们现在面临的更大风险是无所作为。
Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格和 NPR 的亚当·戴维森。
Coming up, you want to know, we want to know, is this Wall Street bailout good or bad?
接下来，你想知道，我们想知道，这次华尔街救助是好是坏？
That, and a whole lot more, in a minute.
一分钟之内，还有更多。
From Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.
当我们的节目继续进行时，来自芝加哥公共广播电台和国际公共广播电台。
It's This American Life, I'm Ira Glass.
这就是美国生活，我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme.
当然，我们每周的节目都会选择一个主题，为您带来有关该主题的不同类型的故事。
Today we have another frightening program about the economy.
今天我们有另一个关于经济的可怕节目。
Today's show is a co-production with NPR News.
今天的节目是与 NPR 新闻联合制作的。
Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson return to our airwaves to explain what exactly all these complicated things that we hear about the current financial crisis really mean.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格和亚当·戴维森回到我们的广播节目，解释我们听到的有关当前金融危机的所有这些复杂的事情到底意味着什么。
And before we go any further, I want to say that there's so much happening each day in the financial news, that Alex and Adam and some colleagues at NPR have started a daily podcast explaining all this stuff.
在我们进一步讨论之前，我想说，财经新闻中每天都会发生很多事情，Alex 和 Adam 以及 NPR 的一些同事已经开始制作每日播客来解释所有这些内容。
It's called the Planet Money podcast.
这就是所谓的“星球金钱”播客。
You can find it by googling, or by going to the iTunes store.
您可以通过谷歌搜索或访问 iTunes 商店找到它。
It is free.
它是免费的。
It is very, very helpful.
这非常非常有帮助。
Right now, though, we have arrived at act two of our program.
不过，现在我们已经进入了计划的第二幕。
Act Two, Out of the Hedges and Into the Woods.
第二幕，走出树篱，走进树林。
One way that you can tell that things are really bad in this country is that you find yourself suddenly trying to understand things that you really never cared about at all.
你可以看出这个国家的情况真的很糟糕的一种方式是，你发现自己突然试图理解你根本不关心的事情。
Case in point, before we invaded Iraq, be honest, did you actually know the difference between the Sunnis and the Shias?
举个例子，在我们入侵伊拉克之前，说实话，你真的知道逊尼派和什叶派之间的区别吗？
OK, another case in point.
好吧，另一个例子。
Act one of our show today was about the commercial paper market, something I really never imagined that we'd spend much time investigating on our program.
我们今天节目的第一幕是关于商业票据市场的，我真的没想到我们会花很多时间在我们的节目上进行调查。
Now in act two, we have one more confusing financial product that is bringing down the global economy.
现在，在第二幕中，我们又看到了一种令人困惑的金融产品，它正在拖垮全球经济。
And one way to think about this product is this.
思考这个产品的一种方式是这样的。
If bad mortgages got the financial system sick, this next thing you're about to hear about helped spread the sickness into an epidemic.
如果不良抵押贷款让金融体系陷入困境，那么接下来你将听到的事情将导致这种疾病蔓延成流行病。
These are credit default swaps.
这些是信用违约掉期。
Alex explains.
亚历克斯解释道。
Like many parts of the financial system these days, credit default swaps are so complicated simple bankers couldn't have created them.
就像当今金融体系的许多部分一样，信用违约互换非常复杂，简单的银行家无法创建它们。
They were invented by people like this guy, Gregg Berman.
它们是由格雷格·伯曼这样的人发明的。
Actually, my formal training is in physics.
事实上，我的正式训练是物理。
So I studied experimental physics and nuclear physics before joining finance in 1993.
因此，在 1993 年加入金融业之前，我学习了实验物理和核物理。
Now normally when you think of physicists inventing scary things, atomic weapons come to mind.
现在，通常当你想到物理学家发明可怕的东西时，你会想到原子武器。
And in fact, credit default swaps have been called-- by no less an expert than billionaire Warren Buffett-- financial weapons of mass destruction.
事实上，信用违约掉期被亿万富翁沃伦·巴菲特等专家称为大规模杀伤性金融武器。
And just be clear, Gregg didn't actually invent these things.
需要明确的是，格雷格实际上并没有发明这些东西。
But he works for a company, Risk Metrics Group, which-- you won't be surprised to learn-- helps companies manage risk.
但他在 Risk Metrics Group 公司工作，这家公司帮助公司管理风险，你不会感到惊讶。
And so he thinks about them a lot.
所以他经常思考它们。
And he's good at explaining what they are.
他很擅长解释它们是什么。
Imagine, he says, you buy a bond from Ford for $100--
他说，想象一下，你以 100 美元从福特购买债券——
You're holding the bond and you are worried about Ford's credit.
你持有债券并且担心福特的信用。
So you enter into an agreement with another party where you say to the other party, I will pay you some money.
因此，您与另一方签订了一份协议，您对另一方说，我将付给您一些钱。
I'll pay you 2% a year, 3% a year, 4% a year.
我每年付给你2%、3%、4%。
And what you need to do is give me protection.
而你需要做的就是保护我。
If Ford should go bankrupt, then I'm going to give you back this perhaps worthless bond, and you're going to give me my $100 back.
如果福特破产了，那么我会把这张可能毫无价值的债券还给你，而你也会把我的 100 美元还给我。
In the big context of things, it looks like insurance.
从大的角度来看，它看起来就像保险。
So it sort of looks like you bought an insurance contract, and you're paying a bit of a premium, as you would if you were buying fire insurance on your home.
因此，看起来就像您购买了一份保险合同，并且您支付了一点保费，就像您为房屋购买火灾保险一样。
So insurance?
那么保险？
That's what we're talking about here?
这就是我们在这里谈论的？
People with bonds, which are already considered safe and boring, trying to make them even safer and more boring?
有债券的人，已经被认为是安全和无聊的，试图让他们变得更安全和更无聊？
Well, let's just say it didn't stay that way.
好吧，我们只是说它并没有保持这种状态。
I think Mae West once said it very, very well, when she said, "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."
我认为梅·韦斯特曾经说得非常非常好，她说：“我曾经是白雪公主，但我随波逐流。”
This is Satyajit Das.
这是萨蒂亚吉特·达斯。
He just calls himself Das.
他只称自己为达斯。
And he's a risk consultant who was around when credit default swaps first appeared.
他是一名风险顾问，信用违约掉期首次出现时他就在场。
Adam and I talked to him and heard stories from his 30 years working with hedge funds and bankers all over the world as a sort of financial hired gun.
亚当和我与他交谈，听了他作为金融雇佣兵与世界各地的对冲基金和银行家合作 30 年的故事。
And he saw firsthand how what started as insurance morphed into something else entirely.
他亲眼目睹了最初的保险是如何完全演变成其他东西的。
In the 1990's, and probably until about 2003, 2004, when I was working with this stuff, I was a great advocate of this whole movement to manage risk better, and so forth.
在 1990 年代，可能直到 2003 年、2004 年左右，当我从事这些工作时，我是整个运动的大力倡导者，以更好地管理风险，等等。
I've spent all my life in that area.
我一生都在那个地区度过。
But by about 2003, 2004, I was starting to get very nervous because what I could see was the market had gone from a very legitimate purpose to something which was much more racy and interesting, but also much more dangerous.
但到了 2003 年、2004 年左右，我开始变得非常紧张，因为我看到市场已经从一个非常合法的目的变成了更加活泼和有趣，但也更加危险的东西。
So these clearly had stopped being insurance somewhere along the way.
所以这些显然已经不再是保险了。
Oh, absolutely.
哦，绝对是。
It stopped being insurance.
它不再是保险。
And it became gambling?
还变成赌博了？
Satyajit Das Well, the line between investing and speculation, or gambling, in financial markets is always a pretty gray one.
萨蒂亚吉特·达斯（Satyajit Das）：嗯，金融市场上的投资和投机或赌博之间的界限始终是一条非常灰色的界限。
But yes.
但是是的。
So how did we get from one of the safest activities on the planet, insurance, to one of the riskiest, gambling?
那么，我们是如何从地球上最安全的活动之一（保险）发展到风险最高的活动之一（赌博）的呢？
Well, to understand, you have to understand the key difference between a real insurance policy and a credit default swap.
嗯，要理解，您必须了解真正的保险单和信用违约掉期之间的主要区别。
Here, I'll let Gregg Berman explain.
在这里，我将让格雷格·伯曼（Gregg Berman）解释一下。
The way that I first described the credit default swap is that you own the bond, and you'd like to transfer that risk to someone else.
我首先描述信用违约掉期的方式是，您拥有债券，并且您希望将该风险转移给其他人。
But what if I want to buy protection, but I don't own the bond?
但是，如果我想购买保护，但我不拥有债券怎么办？
Why would I want to buy protection-- that's like buying insurance for a house I don't own.
我为什么要购买保障——就像为我不拥有的房子购买保险一样。
It is exactly like buying insurance for a house you don't own.
这就像为你不拥有的房子购买保险一样。
So it's like, you took out fire insurance on your home.
就像，你为你的家购买了火灾保险。
And now, I also took out fire insurance on your home.
现在，我还为你的家购买了火灾保险。
And 1,000 other people took out fire insurance on your home.
还有另外 1,000 个人为您的房屋购买了火灾保险。
When that happens, what you're doing is you're betting on the house.
当这种情况发生时，你所做的就是把赌注押在庄家上。
So did you get that?
那么你明白了吗？
It's like you're using an insurance policy to make a bet.
这就像您使用保险单进行投注一样。
Like, let's say there's a guy named Frank, and he has a life insurance policy.
比如说，有一个叫弗兰克的人，他有一份人寿保险。
When he dies, the beneficiary will get $1 million.
当他去世时，受益人将获得100万美元。
Now, imagine a whole bunch of other people saying, I want $1 million if Frank dies also.
现在，想象一下一大群人说，如果弗兰克也死了，我想要 100 万美元。
And so they all take out insurance policies on him.
所以他们都给他买了保险。
And then let's say Frank starts to get sick.
然后假设弗兰克开始生病了。
More people might want an insurance policy on Frank.
更多的人可能想要为弗兰克购买一份保险。
And the closer he gets to death, the more people buy insurance policies on Frank.
弗兰克离死亡越近，购买保险的人就越多。
That's basically what happens in the credit default swap market.
这基本上就是信用违约掉期市场中发生的情况。
And here's how it works.
这是它的工作原理。
A credit default swap is what they call an over-the-counter instrument, meaning simply it's not something that's traded publicly on an exchange, like a stock.
信用违约掉期是他们所说的场外交易工具，这意味着它不是像股票那样在交易所公开交易的东西。
It's a private deal between two people.
这是两个人之间的私人交易。
Those two people can be anyone.
这两个人可以是任何人。
Well, anyone with more than $5 million.
好吧，任何拥有超过 500 万美元的人。
So that means, effectively, someone at an investment bank or a hedge fund or a big commercial bank like Citibank or Credit Suisse.
因此，这实际上意味着投资银行、对冲基金或花旗银行或瑞士信贷等大型商业银行的某人。
They all have Credit Default Swap, or CDS, desks.
他们都有信用违约掉期（CDS）服务台。
So I'm sitting at a CDS desk.
我坐在 CDS 办公桌前。
And there's a division--
还有一个部门——
Yes, you're one of the broker/dealers, or one of the major investment banks.
是的，您是经纪人/交易商之一，或者主要投资银行之一。
And how many guys like me are there?
还有，像我这样的人还有多少？
There's like, 100, 150, 1,000?
比如说，100、150、1,000？
Oh, no. There wouldn't be that many.
哦，不。不会有那么多。
There would probably be, in the bigger desks, about, say, between 15 and 30.
较大的办公桌上可能有大约 15 到 30 个。
Now, every day this desk is getting thousands of emails and calls from people wanting to enter into credit default swap contracts.
现在，这个服务台每天都会收到数千封希望签订信用违约掉期合约的电子邮件和电话。
Now, sometimes those people want it for insurance.
现在，有时这些人想要它作为保险。
They have a bond from, say, the ABC Company.
他们有来自 ABC 公司的债券。
They're a little worried about the ABC Company's financial health.
他们有点担心 ABC 公司的财务状况。
And so they'll call up and say, will you sell me credit default swap protection?
所以他们会打电话问，你能卖给我信用违约掉期保护吗？
Will you promise that if ABC Company goes down, you'll guarantee the full value of their bond?
您能否承诺，如果 ABC 公司倒闭，您将保证其债券的全部价值？
But sometimes, often, in fact, the people that are calling don't actually own the bond.
但有时，事实上，通常情况下，打电话的人实际上并不拥有债券。
They just have a hunch about ABC Company.
他们只是对ABC公司有一种预感。
So they want to essentially bet that ABC Company will default.
所以他们本质上是想打赌 ABC 公司将会违约。
So he and I agree that if ABC Company defaults, I will pay him a certain amount.
所以他和我约定，如果ABC公司违约，我将支付他一定的金额。
And in return, he pays me some fees.
作为回报，他付给我一些费用。
Das says that during his time in the industry, the amount of credit default swaps that were used for speculation grew to dwarf the amount that were actually used for insurance.
达斯表示，在他从事该行业期间，用于投机的信用违约互换数量的增长使实际用于保险的数量相形见绌。
The numbers are staggering.
数字是惊人的。
This is Andrew Ang, a professor at Columbia Business School, who studies the credit default swap market.
这是安德鲁·昂（Andrew Ang），哥伦比亚商学院教授，研究信用违约掉期市场。
The corporate bond cash market's approximately $5 trillion.
公司债券现金市场规模约为 5 万亿美元。
And the notional amount of CDS outstanding is approximately $60 trillion.
未偿还 CDS 的名义金额约为 60 万亿美元。
In other words, there are $5 trillion worth of bonds issued in the world, but the total amount that people have bet on those bonds is $60 trillion.
换句话说，全球发行了价值5万亿美元的债券，但人们押注这些债券的总金额为60万亿美元。
For every bond, there are 10 people promising to pay the full amount if the bond goes bad.
对于每张债券，都有 10 个人承诺如果债券变质，将全额支付。
Oh, and there's one more thing.
哦，还有一件事。
All of this is unregulated, partly because they wanted it to be unregulated.
所有这些都不受监管，部分原因是他们希望不受监管。
One of the reasons that they wanted it to be unregulated has to do with a word you hear a lot when you talk to finance people.
他们希望不受监管的原因之一与您与财务人员交谈时经常听到的一个词有关。
That word is leverage.
这个词就是杠杆。
Here, I'll show you.
在这里，我会告诉你。
The market had become extremely driven by its lust for leverage.
市场已经变得极度受到对杠杆的渴望的驱动。
Part of the problem with these swap contracts, they actually have extraordinarily high leverage.
这些掉期合约的部分问题在于它们实际上具有极高的杠杆率。
See what I mean?
明白我的意思吗？
Anyway, this is yet one more finance word out there that people who work with money understand instinctively.
无论如何，这又是一个与金钱打交道的人本能地理解的金融术语。
But the rest of us have only a vague notion of what it means.
但我们其他人对其含义只有一个模糊的概念。
And the way finance people talk about leverage has changed a little.
财务人员谈论杠杆的方式也发生了一些变化。
It used to be spoken of approvingly.
过去人们常常用赞许的语气来谈论它。
Now when the mention it, it's with a little more fear.
现在提起这件事，心里多了几分恐惧。
That's because leverage is one of those things that when it's going your way, it's great.
这是因为杠杆是其中之一，当它按照你的方式发展时，那就太好了。
But when it turns on you, it's all over.
但当它转向你时，一切都结束了。
And leverage is currently wreaking havoc in the credit default swap market.
目前，杠杆正在对信用违约掉期市场造成严重破坏。
Here's a very basic example of how leverage gives and how it takes away.
这是一个非常基本的例子，说明杠杆如何给予和剥夺。
Let's imagine I have a hedge fund with $100 million.
假设我有一个价值 1 亿美元的对冲基金。
And I want to make a killing in the credit default swap market.
我想在信用违约掉期市场大赚一笔。
I start calling and emailing to all those credit default swap desks and hedge funds out there, saying, I'm selling protection, who wants to buy?
我开始给所有信用违约互换柜台和对冲基金打电话和发电子邮件，说，我正在出售保护，谁想购买？
Someone calls me up and says, I have a billion-dollar bond from Lehman Brothers, and I want to insure it.
有人打电话给我说，我有雷曼兄弟的十亿美元债券，我想为它投保。
I say, great, I'll insure your bond for 2% of its value every year.
我说，太好了，我每年将为您的债券投保其价值的 2%。
You say fine.
你说好啊。
And we're in business.
我们正在做生意。
Now, let's review these numbers.
现在，让我们回顾一下这些数字。
2% of $1 billion, that's 20 million, which I'm getting every year.
10 亿美元的 2%，也就是 2000 万，我每年都会得到。
My hedge fund, $100 million.
我的对冲基金，1亿美元。
So effectively, I've signed one piece of paper, and in five years, I'll double my money.
如此有效地，我签署了一份文件，五年后，我的钱将增加一倍。
I'm psyched, my investors are psyched.
我很兴奋，我的投资者也很兴奋。
That is the upside of leverage.
这就是杠杆的好处。
I'm making profits on $1 billion, even though I only have $100 million.
尽管我只有 1 亿美元，但我却赚取了 10 亿美元的利润。
The downside of leverage is that now I'm on the hook for up to $1 billion if their bond defaults, and I don't have $1 billion.
杠杆的缺点是，如果他们的债券违约，我现在将面临高达 10 亿美元的损失，而我没有 10 亿美元。
In 2005, though, this particular bet on a Lehman Brothers bond seemed like a sure thing.
不过，在 2005 年，对雷曼兄弟债券的这一特殊押注似乎是板上钉钉的事情。
The idea that Lehman Brothers, one of the oldest and largest investment banks in the world, could possibly default seemed crazy.
世界上最古老、最大的投资银行之一雷曼兄弟可能会违约的想法似乎很疯狂。
In 2008, it became scarily, unbelievably real.
2008年，它变得可怕、令人难以置信的真实。
Just ask AIG.
问问美国国际集团就知道了。
Now, AIG, you may remember, was the big insurance company that had to be rescued by the government two weeks ago.
现在，你可能还记得，AIG 是两周前政府不得不救助的大型保险公司。
And they had to be rescued because they were about to go bankrupt.
他们必须被拯救，因为他们即将破产。
And they were about to go bankrupt-- as great reporting in the New York Times, among other places, has revealed-- because of exactly this scenario.
正如《纽约时报》和其他地方的精彩报道所揭示的那样，正是因为这种情况，他们即将破产。
They'd promised over $400 billion to people holding credit default swap agreements with them, $400 billion that they didn't have.
他们承诺向与他们签订信用违约掉期协议的人提供超过 4000 亿美元的资金，但他们并没有提供 4000 亿美元。
But the fact that the biggest insurance company in the world was brought down by these unregulated securities might not even be the scariest part.
但世界上最大的保险公司被这些不受监管的证券拖垮的事实可能还不是最可怕的部分。
Because actually, the case of AIG is anomalous.
因为实际上，AIG的案例是反常的。
Usually, people who traded them did something different than AIG did, something which was supposed to make them safer, but might possibly have made the whole system more dangerous.
通常，交易它们的人会做一些与 AIG 不同的事情，这些事情本应使它们更安全，但可能会让整个系统变得更加危险。
They did something called netting.
他们做了一种叫做“撒网”的事情。
So let's go back to my previous example.
那么让我们回到我之前的例子。
And let's start with a whole new scenario.
让我们从一个全新的场景开始。
I'm the same hedge fund.
我是同一个对冲基金。
I've got $100 million.
我有一亿美元。
And this time I have a hunch that Lehman Brothers is going to go down.
这次我有预感雷曼兄弟要倒闭了。
So I go to some company, let's just say AIG.
所以我去了一些公司，就说AIG吧。
I go to AIG, and I say, I want to buy a credit default swap.
我去 AIG，我说，我想购买信用违约掉期。
I'm not selling this time.
这次我不卖了
I'm buying.
我正在买。
I say to them, I will pay you $20 million a year.
我对他们说，我每年付给你2000万美元。
And the deal is, if Lehman goes down, you will owe me $1 billion.
协议是，如果雷曼倒闭，你将欠我 10 亿美元。
Now, over the next few months, my hunch starts to look more likely because Lehman starts looking riskier.
现在，在接下来的几个月里，我的预感开始变得更有可能，因为雷曼兄弟开始看起来风险更大。
Their profits go down, unfavorable news reports come out about them.
他们的利润下降，负面的新闻报道也随之而来。
And when this happens, they become, basically, more expensive to insure.
当这种情况发生时，基本上，它们的保险成本就会变得更高。
Just like the more traffic accidents you have, the higher your insurance premiums go.
就像你发生的交通事故越多，你的保险费就越高。
The sicker you look as a company, the more it costs to buy credit default swap protection against you.
作为一家公司，你的情况越糟糕，购买针对你的信用违约掉期保护的成本就越高。
And I, now, am perfectly poised to take advantage of this situation.
而我现在已经完全准备好利用这种情况。
I now go out on the market and I sell credit default swap protection.
我现在进入市场，出售信用违约掉期保护。
But because people are more scared about Lehman, the price is higher.
但由于人们更害怕雷曼，所以价格更高。
I can now sell it for $40 million a year.
我现在每年可以以 4000 万美元的价格出售它。
So I'm paying 20, but taking in 40, again, a net profit of $20 million a year.
所以我支付 20，但又收到 40，每年净利润为 2000 万美元。
But this time, my position is what they call hedged.
但这一次，我的头寸就是他们所谓的对冲头寸。
My position is totally safe.
我的位置是完全安全的。
If Lehman defaults, I will owe my buyer $1 billion, but AIG will owe me $1 billion.
如果雷曼兄弟违约，我将欠我的买家 10 亿美元，但 AIG 将欠我 10 亿美元。
The trade totally nets out.
交易完全净值。
And this situation, where every trade was matched on the other side with another trade, that was much more common.
而这种情况，即每笔交易都与另一方的另一笔交易相匹配，这种情况更为常见。
I would sell protection to Morgan Stanley, say, but buy it from Goldman Sachs.
比如说，我会向摩根士丹利出售保护，但从高盛购买。
Goldman Sachs would sell protection to a hedge fund, who, in turn, would buy from another hedge fund.
高盛将向一家对冲基金出售保护，而对冲基金则从另一家对冲基金购买保护。
And so on, down the line.
依此类推。
Every party netting their position with a counter party.
每一方都与对手方结清自己的头寸。
Again, here's Das.
再说一次，这是达斯。
And the real problem is that if the chain breaks down anywhere, where one party does not actually honor their contracts, then the losses multiply very rapidly.
真正的问题是，如果链条在任何地方发生故障，其中一方实际上没有履行合同，那么损失就会迅速成倍增加。
It links everybody together in this unholy chain.
它将每个人都连接在这条邪恶的链条中。
And so what happens is if somebody has a problem, then everybody else has a problem.
因此，如果有人有问题，那么其他人也会有问题。
The greatest danger-- that's a tough question.
最大的危险——这是一个很难回答的问题。
This is John Zucker, who worked at a credit default swap desk at a major bank for five years.
我是约翰·扎克 (John Zucker)，他在一家大型银行的信用违约互换部门工作了五年。
He left in 2007.
他于2007年离开。
And he-- like a lot of people I talked to, a lot of people in this field-- has a very mathematical mind.
他——就像我交谈过的很多人，这个领域的很多人一样——有很强的数学头脑。
He thinks in probabilities, risk spreads, modeling potential outcomes.
他思考概率、风险分散、对潜在结果进行建模。
And if you ask him what the greatest danger is, after careful deliberation, he arrives at a conclusion which is basically this.
如果你问他最大的危险是什么，经过深思熟虑，他得出的结论基本上就是这样。
If everyone in the chain knew the financial stability of everyone else in the chain, then all this would be fine.
如果链条中的每个人都知道链条中其他人的财务稳定性，那么这一切都会好起来的。
But the problem is because every deal is private, they don't know.
但问题是因为每笔交易都是私人的，他们不知道。
You don't know.
你不知道。
It's far from transparent.
它远非透明。
The notion is that I'm working here at a New York money center bank, and some small bank in Asia goes down.
我的想法是，我在纽约的一家货币中心银行工作，而亚洲的一些小银行倒闭了。
And suddenly it just hits the tipping point, and several other banks fail.
突然之间，它就达到了临界点，其他几家银行也倒闭了。
And suddenly it's affecting me.
突然间它影响了我。
I never had a clue.
我从来不知道。
And this, lack of information, is causing huge problems.
而信息的缺乏正在造成巨大的问题。
That's one reason credit is freezing up.
这是信贷冻结的原因之一。
Banks don't want to trade with each other because they don't know what bets anyone's made, and who they've made them with, and who those people have made them with.
银行不想互相交易，因为他们不知道任何人做了什么赌注，他们与谁进行了赌注，以及这些人与谁进行了赌注。
And this, in turn, becomes one reason that the government felt it had to step in with a bailout.
这反过来又成为政府认为必须介入救助的原因之一。
Because all these banks are linked through these credit default swap contracts.
因为所有这些银行都是通过这些信用违约掉期合约联系在一起的。
If one bank goes down, they all could.
如果一家银行倒闭，那么所有银行都可能倒闭。
I guess the question is, that I'm wondering about, basically I'm being affected by people doing this unregulated thing that is speculative in nature, and then things blow up, and then my tax dollars have to be used to come in and bail this out, and I'm mad.
我想问题是，我想知道，基本上我受到了人们做这种投机性质的不受监管的事情的影响，然后事情就爆发了，然后我的税款必须用来进来并纾困，我很生气。
First of all, is it fair for me to be mad, and who should I be mad at?
首先，我生气公平吗？我应该生谁的气？
That's a great line.
这是一条很棒的线。
"Is it fair for me to be mad, and who should I be mad at?" Um, is it fair for me to be mad?
“我生气公平吗？我该生谁的气？”嗯，我生气公平吗？
Um--
嗯——
In keeping with his analytical nature, Jon Zucker didn't answer this question right away.
乔恩·扎克（Jon Zucker）出于分析的本性，没有立即回答这个问题。
He posed hypothetical scenarios going back to the Great Depression.
他提出了追溯到大萧条时期的假设情景。
He talked about consequences that could have been foreseen versus consequences that could not have been foreseen.
他谈到了可以预见的后果和无法预见的后果。
But it didn't seem, at least to me, an attempt to dodge the question so much as an attempt to formulate, right there on the spot, an objective value for my potential outrage.
但至少对我来说，这与其说是试图回避这个问题，倒不如说是试图当场为我潜在的愤怒制定一个客观的价值。
I guess what's going through my head is everybody wants to punish the people who made money in the past 10 years on this business.
我想我脑子里想的是每个人都想惩罚过去十年在这个行业赚钱的人。
I don't care about that.
我不在乎这个。
I want people to be able to make money.
我希望人们能够赚钱。
I just don't want their mistakes to cost me.
我只是不想让他们的错误让我付出代价。
And that's all I'm asking about.
这就是我要问的全部。
So are you asking the question, can I set up a system where their mistakes will never affect you?
那么你是在问这个问题，我可以建立一个系统，让他们的错误永远不会影响到你吗？
Yeah, sorry about that.
是的，对此感到抱歉。
Alex Blumberg No, no. It's OK, it's OK.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格 不，不。没关系，没关系。
Look, I'm a quantitative guy.
瞧，我是一个定量的人。
So I tend to think of the world in terms of models.
所以我倾向于用模型来思考世界。
And the thing that I'm trying to be evenhanded about is to say that the regulators completely screwed up.
我想说的是，监管机构完全搞砸了。
There is a lot of 20/20 hindsight review of this and saying, people should have caught all this stuff.
有很多对此进行 20/20 事后评论并说，人们应该抓住所有这些东西。
I'm not 100% sure of that.
我对此不是 100% 确定。
But one thing I do know is that in terms of intent, there was no intent to regulate.
但我确实知道的一件事是，就意图而言，没有监管的意图。
And from that point of view, they should be held accountable for some of the mistakes.
从这个角度来看，他们应该为一些错误承担责任。
Well, I think the real problem is the only people who understand the system now are the technocrats at the banks, and so forth, who worked within that.
嗯，我认为真正的问题是现在唯一了解这个系统的人是银行等部门的技术官僚，他们在这个系统中工作。
Everyone I talked to agreed that someone, some regulator, someone in power, should have pushed to set up an exchange for credit default swaps, so they could be publicly traded, like options or commodity futures or all these other financial terms that you've heard of but don't understand, but that, as far as we know, are not out destabilizing the global economy.
与我交谈过的每个人都同意，某个人、某个监管者、某个掌权者应该推动建立一个信用违约掉期交易所，这样它们就可以公开交易，比如期权或商品期货或所有其他你听说过但不了解的金融术语，但据我们所知，它们不会破坏全球经济的稳定。
Professor Andrew Ang said that since they were essentially insurance, they should be regulated like insurance, where strict requirements are set for the companies that sell it.
安德鲁·洪教授表示，由于它们本质上是保险，因此应该像保险一样受到监管，对销售它的公司提出严格的要求。
But everyone also seemed to think, it's a complex world.
但每个人似乎也认为，这是一个复杂的世界。
And the people who invent these financial products are making small fortunes and employ armies of people to help them, and that the regulators-- in many cases, people working at government central banks at government salaries-- will always be playing catch up.
发明这些金融产品的人正在赚小钱，并雇用大量人员来帮助他们，而监管机构——在许多情况下，是在政府中央银行拿着政府工资工作的人——将永远在追赶。
Over the last few years, I have had quite a lot to do with central banks.
在过去的几年里，我与央行有很多关系。
And the central bankers are all very earnest.
央行行长们都非常认真。
They're very intelligent people and very well meaning.
他们是非常聪明的人，也非常善意。
But the problem is they've relied heavily on the banks to tell them what's going on.
但问题是他们严重依赖银行来告诉他们发生了什么。
And there is obviously a conflict of interest.
而且显然存在利益冲突。
And they have never quite got the full picture.
他们从来没有完全了解情况。
And often when I explain to them something quite minor, like how the CDS market works, their response is, oh, I thought it was only for hedging.
通常，当我向他们解释一些很小的事情时，比如 CDS 市场如何运作，他们的反应是，哦，我以为这只是为了对冲。
I didn't realize it was just purely speculative.
我没有意识到这纯粹是猜测。
So there is this information gap which is now having to be filled at very short notice, which is obviously extremely problematic.
因此，存在这种信息差距，现在必须在很短的时间内填补，这显然是非常有问题的。
Can I ask you, when you think about the current global crisis, is this a credit default swap crisis?
我能问你，当你思考当前的全球危机时，这是否是一场信用违约掉期危机？
Is this a mortgage backed security crisis?
这是抵押贷款支持的安全危机吗？
Is this something bigger than all of those, and they are just symptoms?
这是否比所有这些都更重要，而它们只是症状？
Oh, I very definitely think all of these are just symptoms.
哦，我非常肯定地认为所有这些都只是症状。
Essentially, the world just has far too much debt.
从本质上讲，世界的债务太多了。
What has happened over the last 30 years is essentially the amounts of debt in the financial system has exploded.
过去30年发生的事情本质上是金融体系中的债务数量爆炸式增长。
And I think the problem is the amount of debt that's been created has been made extremely complicated by the financial engineers.
我认为问题在于金融工程师使所产生的债务数额变得极其复杂。
There will be enormous, enormous losses, which will beg of belief.
将会有巨大的、巨大的损失，这是令人难以置信的。
When economic historians come to write the history of this period, they will look at this and go, my God, how did they manage to do this?
当经济史学家来书写这一时期的历史时，他们会看到这一点，天哪，他们是怎么做到这一点的？
We don't even understand the actual quantum of the problem.
我们甚至不了解问题的实际程度。
Correct.
正确的。
To give you some perspective, less than 18 months ago, Ben Bernanke gave testimony to the effect that he thought the losses from subprime would be $50 billion, and the problems were contained.
为了给大家提供一些视角，不到 18 个月前，本·伯南克 (Ben Bernanke) 作证称，他认为次贷造成的损失将达到 500 亿美元，而且问题已得到控制。
And he's not an unintelligent man.
而且他并不是一个没有智慧的人。
Right.
正确的。
In fact, he's an expert on the Great Depression.
事实上，他是研究大萧条的专家。
Exactly.
确切地。
So the fact that he could get it so wrong, that perhaps the people who think they understand and think they know perhaps know less than we think they know.
因此，事实上，他可能会犯如此大的错误，以至于那些自认为理解并认为自己知道的人可能知道的比我们认为他们知道的要少。
The thing that everyone says about Ben Bernanke is that he runs the fed very differently than his predecessor, Alan Greenspan.
人们对本·伯南克的评价是，他对美联储的管理方式与他的前任艾伦·格林斯潘截然不同。
He holds meetings that are much more open.
他举行的会议更加开放。
Dissenting opinion is encouraged.
鼓励提出不同意见。
He listens.
他听着。
He's learning.
他正在学习。
People have criticized him for this.
人们因此批评他。
But today, it might be just what we need.
但今天，这可能正是我们所需要的。
Act Three, Swap Cops.
第三幕，交换警察。
This last couple weeks, whenever anybody discusses what the government could have done to prevent this financial crisis from happening, it seems to instantly turn into partisan finger pointing in a way that doesn't seem to shed much light on anything.
在过去的几周里，每当有人讨论政府可以采取哪些措施来防止这场金融危机的发生时，似乎都会立即变成党派相互指责，而这种方式似乎并没有说明任何问题。
And so this week, I called around to a bunch of people who'd been federal regulators to try to sidestep that and understand what went wrong.
因此，本周，我打电话给一群曾经担任联邦监管机构的人，试图回避这一问题并了解出了什么问题。
And people talked about a lot of different examples.
人们谈论了很多不同的例子。
But the biggest single place that people pointed to, where there could have been regulations but there was just nothing, were these credit default swaps Alex has been talking about.
但人们指出的最大的一个地方，本来可以有监管，但什么也没有，就是亚历克斯一直在谈论的这些信用违约掉期。
Just last week, the chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox-- a man who, as we have reported on our program, has mostly sat on the sidelines as this crisis has grown-- went before congress.
就在上周，美国证券交易委员会主席克里斯托弗·考克斯（Christopher Cox）——正如我们在我们的计划中所报道的那样，随着这场危机的加剧，他几乎一直坐在场外——来到了国会。
And he said, we've got to go in and regulate what he called the CDS market, Credit Default Swaps.
他说，我们必须介入并监管他所说的 CDS 市场，即信用违约掉期。
Neither the SEC nor any regulator has authority over the CDS market, even to require minimum disclosure to the market.
美国证券交易委员会和任何监管机构都无权管理 CDS 市场，甚至要求向市场进行最低限度的披露。
As the Congress considers reform of the financial system in the current crisis, I urge you to provide in statute for regulatory authority over the CDS market.
在国会考虑当前危机中的金融体系改革时，我敦促你们在法规中规定对 CDS 市场的监管权。
In fact, lawmakers rejected this very idea, back when it could have made a difference, all the way back in 1998.
事实上，早在 1998 年，立法者就拒绝了这个想法，当时它本可以发挥作用。
In 1998, I was serving as the director of the division of trading and markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
1998年，我担任商品期货交易委员会交易和市场部主任。
That's Michael Greenberger.
那是迈克尔·格林伯格。
Now he teaches about these markets in law school and runs the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security.
现在，他在法学院教授这些市场，并负责管理马里兰大学健康与国土安全中心。
But back in 1998, during the Clinton administration, he and his boss at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission noticed that these swaps were becoming more and more prevalent.
但早在 1998 年克林顿执政期间，他和他在商品期货交易委员会的老板就注意到这些互换变得越来越普遍。
And they thought the securities was pretty clear that this market should be regulated.
他们认为证券非常清楚地表明这个市场应该受到监管。
The only question was how.
唯一的问题是如何。
And we essentially put out an extensive questionnaire to the public, including the financial services institutions, and said, we think it should be regulated.
我们基本上向公众（包括金融服务机构）发出了一份广泛的调查问卷，并表示，我们认为应该对其进行监管。
We have a lot of flexibility under our statute about how to regulate this market.
根据我们的法规，我们在如何监管这个市场方面有很大的灵活性。
And that was met with huge resistance, not only within the rest of the Clinton administration, with regard to financial regulators there, but in Congress.
这遭到了巨大的阻力，不仅在克林顿政府的其他部门内部，在金融监管机构方面，而且在国会。
And a fairly lengthy battle ensued.
接下来是一场相当漫长的战斗。
And what was the argument against regulating them?
反对监管它们的理由是什么？
The argument against regulating them was that these products are entered into by very sophisticated financial institutions.
反对对其进行监管的论点是，这些产品是由非常复杂的金融机构推出的。
You can't walk in off the street and buy them.
你不能走进街道去购买它们。
You and I couldn't buy them.
你和我都买不到它们。
But that insurance companies, endowments, pension funds, hedge funds are dealing in these products.
但保险公司、捐赠基金、养老基金、对冲基金都在经营这些产品。
And these people are very, very smart.
这些人非常非常聪明。
And it's a mistake to let government get in their way.
让政府妨碍他们是错误的。
And essentially, on that thesis, especially, if you'll recall when we were in the middle of the dot com boom, the economy was in surplus.
从本质上讲，尤其是在这个论点上，如果你还记得我们正处于互联网繁荣时期，经济就处于盈余状态。
There was not a lot of people who sided with the position that wait, these things can be very toxic and will lead to problems.
没有很多人支持等待的立场，这些东西可能非常有毒，会导致问题。
Finally, in December 2000, Congress ended the debate by passing a law that said that credit default swaps, and other swaps like them, would not be regulated.
最后，2000 年 12 月，国会通过了一项法律，规定信用违约掉期和其他类似掉期不会受到监管，从而结束了这场辩论。
And among people who want to bash Republicans and blame this whole mess on them, the way that this bill came to the floor has become something of a little legend.
对于那些想要抨击共和党并将整个混乱归咎于他们的人来说，这项法案的通过方式已经成为一个小传奇。
The bill had been debated and passed by the House of Representatives in the middle of 2000.
该法案于2000年中期在众议院进行了辩论并获得通过。
But by December, it still hadn't been introduced in the Senate and was considered dead.
但到了 12 月，它仍然没有被提交参议院，并被认为已经死亡。
Then Senator Phil Gramm entered the story.
然后参议员菲尔·格拉姆介入了这个故事。
Gramm may be a familiar name to you because, until very recently, he was John McCain's economic adviser in John McCain's presidential campaign-- until Gramm declared that our economic problems really stem from the fact that Americans are a nation of whiners.
格拉姆对你来说可能是一个熟悉的名字，因为直到最近，他还是约翰·麦凯恩总统竞选中的经济顾问——直到格拉姆宣称我们的经济问题实际上源于美国是一个爱发牢骚的国家这一事实。
Gramm got this bill back into consideration in the last few hours before Congress went on Christmas break.
格拉姆在国会圣诞假期前的最后几个小时重新考虑了这项法案。
And it is true that it was brought to the floor of the Senate for the first time on Friday evening, December 15, 2000, which was the last day of that lame-duck session of Congress.
确实，该法案于 2000 年 12 月 15 日星期五晚上首次提交参议院审议，这一天是国会跛脚鸭会议的最后一天。
And it came to the floor as a 262 page rider to an 11,000 page appropriation bill.
它是作为 11,000 页拨款法案的 262 页附加条款提交的。
There was a debate on it.
对此进行了一场辩论。
Several members of the Senate spoke.
几位参议院议员发言。
But in that environment, when the real focus was on funding the entire federal government for fiscal year 2001, there was no substantive discussion.
但在当时的环境下，当真正的焦点是为整个联邦政府 2001 财年提供资金时，没有进行任何实质性的讨论。
It passed 95 to nothing, if memory serves.
如果没记错的话，过了95就什么都没有了。
In other words, this cannot be laid at the feet of Phil Gramm.
换句话说，这不能归咎于菲尔·格拉姆的脚下。
This was a bipartisan decision, with Clinton appointees at the Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission joining Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, all saying that credit default swaps, and things like them, should not be regulated.
这是一个两党共同决定，克林顿任命的财政部和证券交易委员会的官员与美联储主席艾伦·格林斯潘一样，都表示信用违约掉期以及类似的事情不应受到监管。
Quite frankly, I think at the time, anybody who opposed it was deemed to be a little bit crazy.
坦率地说，我认为当时任何反对它的人都被认为有点疯狂。
Looking back, Greenberger thinks that regulating this market would have made a huge difference in our current situation.
回顾过去，格林伯格认为规范这个市场会对我们目前的状况产生巨大的影响。
Back in the heyday of subprime mortgages, when an investor would buy a risky subprime mortgage backed security, it was common to also buy a credit default swap that would pay him back if that security went bad.
早在次级抵押贷款的鼎盛时期，当投资者购买有风险的次级抵押贷款支持证券时，通常还会购买信用违约互换，如果该证券出现问题，该互换可以向他偿还。
It was like an insurance policy.
这就像一份保险单。
It helped drive the market.
它有助于推动市场。
But they weren't regulated like insurance policies.
但它们不像保险单那样受到监管。
If an insurance company had issued this as normal insurance, state insurance regulators would have required that they have adequate capital reserves.
如果保险公司将其作为普通保险发行，国家保险监管机构会要求其有足够的资本储备。
So if there had been regulation, there would have been capital reserves.
因此，如果有监管，就会有资本储备。
And just to be sure I understand what you're saying here, that would have helped in two ways.
为了确保我理解你在这里所说的内容，这会在两个方面有所帮助。
For one thing, there would have been money to pay back when these things went bad.
一方面，当这些事情变坏时，会有钱来偿还。
They would have had capital reserves to pay out.
他们将有资本储备来支付。
That's right.
这是正确的。
But even more than that, the one thing financial institutions hate to do is set aside capital as a reserve.
但更重要的是，金融机构最不愿意做的一件事就是留出资本作为储备。
And they didn't have to do it for these instruments because it wasn't regulated.
他们不必对这些仪器这样做，因为它不受监管。
Had they had to do it, many of them would have never gotten in the business to begin with.
如果他们不得不这样做，他们中的许多人一开始就不会进入这个行业。
If companies had to set aside capital for each credit default swap, it would have limited how many they could have done, and it would have made the ones that they did safer.
如果公司必须为每笔信用违约掉期拨出资本，那么他们可以做的事情就会受到限制，而且他们所做的事情也会变得更安全。
Now this alone would not have prevented all the mess that we're in.
现在仅凭这一点还无法阻止我们陷入的所有混乱。
Huge macroeconomic forces were at work, driving the global pool of investment into lousy mortgages.
巨大的宏观经济力量正在发挥作用，推动全球投资转向糟糕的抵押贷款。
And if investors did not have credit default swaps, they probably would have invented something else just as opaque and risky.
如果投资者没有信用违约掉期，他们可能会发明其他同样不透明和有风险的东西。
But this gets us to the bigger point.
但这让我们明白了更重要的一点。
Nobody was even trying to restrain the investors.
甚至没有人试图限制投资者。
Regulators didn't understand many of these newfangled financial instruments, and they didn't see a problem with the rest.
监管机构并不了解这些新型金融工具中的许多，而且他们也不认为其他金融工具存在问题。
If your back door is open in a dangerous neighborhood, the first thing you want to do is close it.
如果你的后门在危险的街区开着，你要做的第一件事就是关上它。
Now, you could argue that people would break windows.
现在，你可以说人们会打破窗户。
But the first thing you do is close the back door.
但你要做的第一件事就是关上后门。
And the idea that you can have $60 trillion in a financial market-- which is more than all the stock sold anywhere in the world-- and not have any oversight whatsoever, is self-evidently absurd.
如果你可以在金融市场上拥有 60 万亿美元——这比世界上任何地方出售的所有股票都多——而且不受任何监管，这种想法显然是荒谬的。
And we're seeing the end result of that today.
今天我们看到了最终结果。
[MUSIC - "BANKRUPT ON SELLING" BY MODEST MOUSE]
[音乐 - 谦虚老鼠的“出售破产”]
Act Four, Now What?
第四幕，现在怎么办？
Well, we got an email on Wednesday from a listener named Will Chen.
周三，我们收到了一封来自一位名叫威尔·陈 (Will Chen) 的听众的电子邮件。
Let me just read this.
让我读一下这个。
Dear Ira, Alex, Adam, and gang-- I hate it when they call us gang-- you are our only hope.
亲爱的艾拉、亚历克斯、亚当和帮派——我讨厌他们称我们为帮派——你们是我们唯一的希望。
Please do a show that clearly explains the question, should we support the bailout.
请做一个节目来清楚地解释这个问题：我们是否应该支持救助？
If the answer is no, what other options do we have?
如果答案是否定的，我们还有哪些其他选择？
I'm not dumb or lazy.
我不傻也不懒。
In addition to listening to NPR and the BBC religiously, I also read-- and then he lists all the publications that he reads.
除了认真地听 NPR 和 BBC 之外，我还阅读——然后他列出了他阅读的所有出版物。
There's so much confusion out there, I really don't know who to trust.
外面的事情太多了，我真的不知道该相信谁。
After a lot of soul searching in the last couple days, I realize there is only one source of information I trust without question.
经过过去几天的大量反省，我意识到我毫无疑问地相信只有一个信息来源。
And that is This American Life.
这就是《美国生活》。
That is a really sad-- poor guy.
这真是一个可悲的——可怜的家伙。
Please help us understand this bailout.
请帮助我们理解这项救助计划。
OK, so Adam?
好吧，亚当呢？
the bailout is passed.
救助计划已通过。
What's the answer?
答案是什么？
Is the bailout a good idea or not?
救助是个好主意吗？
All right, let me say what is crystal clear to me after spending the last several weeks doing nothing but reporting this crisis.
好吧，让我来说说我在过去几周除了报告这场危机之外什么也没做之后所清楚的事情。
It is a severe and scary crisis.
这是一场严重而可怕的危机。
And the more I report it, the more scared I have been.
我报告得越多，我就越害怕。
It is also clear that spending $700 billion will help.
同样明显的是，花费 7000 亿美元将会有所帮助。
I mean, you throw $700 billion at a problem, you're going to make the problem less bad.
我的意思是，你投入 7000 亿美元来解决一个问题，你会让问题变得不那么严重。
But it's also very clear that the plan we've been hearing all about, the Paulson plan, has a lot of problems.
但同样很明显的是，我们一直听到的保尔森计划存在很多问题。
There are a lot of things that a lot of people do not like about it.
有很多事情是很多人不喜欢的。
Right, and we've been hearing about that in the news.
是的，我们已经在新闻中听到过这件事。
But we want to just run through some of the big points.
但我们只想简单介绍一些要点。
Yeah, so some of the big things people don't like about the plan, the main thing is there's all these crappy assets that the banks don't want, and the US Government is about to buy them.
是的，所以人们不喜欢该计划的一些重大事情，主要是银行不想要所有这些蹩脚资产，而美国政府即将购买它们。
And so we're about to be the proud owners of $700 billion of crap.
因此，我们即将成为 7000 亿美元垃圾的自豪拥有者。
Also, these assets have absolutely no price.
而且，这些资产绝对没有价格。
That is the cause of this crisis.
这就是这场危机的原因。
These assets are not moving.
这些资产没有移动。
These are these mortgage-related investments, these mortgage-related securities that no one is willing to buy.
这些是与抵押贷款相关的投资，这些与抵押贷款相关的证券，没有人愿意购买。
And when you can't buy anything, you don't know what the price of it is.
当你买不到任何东西时，你就不知道它的价格是多少。
So by definition, the government is going to have to invent a price.
因此，根据定义，政府将不得不发明一个价格。
And if they go too low, they're going to ruin the banks.
如果利率太低，银行就会破产。
They're going to give them too little money to save them.
他们给他们的钱太少而无法拯救他们。
They're actually going to make the problem worse.
他们实际上会让问题变得更糟。
If the government pays too much, well, then the taxpayer has lost out a lot of money.
如果政府支付太多，那么纳税人就会损失很多钱。
And the banks--
还有银行——
Right.
对。
Then we're just getting ripped off.
那我们就被敲诈了。
Then we're just getting ripped off.
那我们就被敲诈了。
So you have to find this magical price that no one knows what it is, so it's really, really complicated.
所以你必须找到这个神奇的价格，没有人知道它是什么，所以它真的非常非常复杂。
So they're going to have to invent a way to do that.
所以他们必须发明一种方法来做到这一点。
And it's going to be some sort of difficult process.
这将是一个困难的过程。
Yes.
是的。
It's a very circuitous way to solve the problem.
这是解决问题的一种非常迂回的方法。
The problem is banks don't have enough money.
问题是银行没有足够的钱。
So they're not lending money.
所以他们不借钱。
And that's freezing up the economy.
这导致经济冻结。
And this is a very complicated way to get money to the banks.
这是一种非常复杂的向银行汇款的方式。
Now, for the last few weeks while Congress has been debating the Paulson plan and various versions of that, I understand that there has been another way to do the bailout.
现在，过去几周，当国会一直在讨论保尔森计划及其各种版本时，我了解到还有另一种方式来进行救助。
There's a whole different approach to doing the bailout that lots of economists say is better in a bunch of ways.
有一种完全不同的方法来进行救助，许多经济学家认为这种方法在很多方面都更好。
Yeah.
是的。
Alex and I have been surveying as many economists as we can find.
亚历克斯和我一直在调查尽可能多的经济学家。
We've been calling and reading.
我们一直在打电话和阅读。
And you can never get a whole lot of economists to agree on anything.
而且你永远不可能让很多经济学家就任何事情达成一致。
But I would say, of the economists we've surveyed-- and I mean, left wing, right wing, libertarian, more progressive-- a clear majority of the ones we've surveyed, well over half, prefer another plan.
但我想说，在我们调查过的经济学家中——我的意思是，左翼、右翼、自由主义者、进步派——我们调查过的经济学家中，明显大多数（远远超过一半）更喜欢另一个计划。
They don't like the Paulson plan as the best plan.
他们不认为保尔森计划是最好的计划。
They say there's this other thing called a stock-injection plan that is clearly better.
他们说还有一种叫做股票注入计划的东西显然更好。
OK, stock-injection plan.
好的，注资计划。
Now, how does this one work?
现在，这个是如何工作的？
All right, so in the Paulson plan, what we're doing is giving $700 billion to the banks.
好吧，在保尔森计划中，我们正在做的是向银行提供 7000 亿美元。
And then in return, we get all these toxic assets, these crappy assets.
作为回报，我们得到了所有这些有毒资产，这些蹩脚资产。
We take it off their hands.
我们把它从他们手中夺走。
Adam Davidson We take it off their hands.
亚当·戴维森 我们把它从他们手中夺走。
With the stock-injection plan, we still give something like $700 billion to the bank.
通过注资计划，我们仍然向银行提供大约 7000 亿美元的资金。
But in return, we get an ownership share of the bank.
但作为回报，我们获得了银行的所有权份额。
We get to become stockholders, owners.
我们成为股东、所有者。
The taxpayer, the government becomes stockholders and owners of the banks.
纳税人、政府成为银行的股东和所有者。
And so how is that better?
那么如何更好呢？
Adam Davidson First of all, it's just simpler.
Adam Davidson 首先，它更简单。
You avoid that whole crazy pricing of mysterious, mystical asset problem because you just give $10 billion to a bank and then you get a $10 billion share in the bank.
你可以避免神秘资产问题的疯狂定价，因为你只需向银行提供 100 亿美元，然后你就可以获得该银行 100 亿美元的股份。
It's a much simpler mathematical problem.
这是一个简单得多的数学问题。
Also, a lot of the economists I talked to say it's just fairer.
而且，我采访过的很多经济学家都说这更公平。
It's a better deal for the taxpayer.
这对纳税人来说是更好的交易。
Because in the Paulson plan, we end up owning all these lousy assets.
因为在保尔森计划中，我们最终拥有了所有这些糟糕的资产。
We don't know what they're worth.
我们不知道它们值多少钱。
If they go down in value, we're just on the hook for all of that.
如果它们的价值下降，我们就会承受这一切。
In the stock-injection plan, not only on stock, we would own something called preferred stock, which means-- it's kind of complicated how it works, but basically-- the taxpayer is the last one to lose money.
在股票注入计划中，不仅是股票，我们还将拥有一种称为优先股的东西，这意味着——它的运作方式有点复杂，但基本上——纳税人是最后一个赔钱的人。
The shareholders of the bank would lose their money before we taxpayers would lose money.
在我们纳税人赔钱之前，银行的股东就会赔钱。
So we're more protected.
所以我们受到更多保护。
We're more likely to actually make money out of this deal and less likely to lose money.
我们更有可能从这笔交易中真正赚钱，而赔钱的可能性更小。
So if this is better for the taxpayers, why wouldn't we do that?
那么，如果这对纳税人来说更好，我们为什么不这样做呢？
Who's against this?
谁反对这个？
There are a bunch of people against it.
有一群人反对它。
One big group is conservative Republicans.
保守派共和党是一大群体。
They just don't fundamentally, in their guts, don't like the idea of the US government owning shares of private companies.
他们只是从根本上来说，不喜欢美国政府持有私营公司股份的想法。
It just smells like socialism to them.
对他们来说，这就是社会主义的味道。
And they can't support it.
他们无法支持。
But maybe more importantly, banks really, really hate this idea.
但也许更重要的是，银行真的非常讨厌这个想法。
Look at what happened to AIG, the big insurance giant.
看看保险业巨头美国国际集团 (AIG) 的遭遇就知道了。
Because that's sort of what the government did.
因为这就是政府所做的。
They bought a huge share of the bank, they all but zeroed out the value of the shares.
他们购买了银行的大量股份，但他们几乎将股票的价值归零。
So all the current shareholders of AIG just lost billions of dollars.
所以AIG的所有现有股东都损失了数十亿美元。
Their stock is just worth-- Adam Davidson Yeah, virtually nothing.
他们的股票只是值钱——亚当·戴维森（Adam Davidson） 是的，几乎什么都没有。
And the government fired the chief executive of AIG, completely took it over.
政府解雇了AIG的首席执行官，完全接管了它。
See, I like that.
看吧，我喜欢这样。
I like that these guys end up getting punished under this plan.
我喜欢这些人最终根据这个计划受到惩罚。
Yeah, that's not just a moral issue or a political issue.
是的，这不仅仅是一个道德问题或政治问题。
That's an actual economic issue.
这是一个现实的经济问题。
An economy works better when people pay the cost for bad decisions.
当人们为错误决策付出代价时，经济就会运转得更好。
And the Paulson plan doesn't do that as much as a stock-injection plan.
保尔森计划的作用不如注资计划那么大。
So from the banks' perspective, this is absolutely a no-brainer.
所以从银行的角度来看，这绝对是理所当然的。
Let's say I give you two options, Ira.
假设我给你两个选择，艾拉。
One option is, I come, I give you $1,000 and I take all the crap out of your basement, and you get to keep the $1,000.
一种选择是，我来，我给你 1,000 美元，然后我把你地下室里的所有垃圾都拿出来，你就可以保留这 1,000 美元。
That's the Paulson plan.
这就是保尔森的计划。
The other option is, I come, I give you $1,000 and I get to move into your house.
另一个选择是，我来，我给你 1,000 美元，然后我就可以搬进你的房子。
I become a co-owner of the house.
我成为了这所房子的共同所有人。
I might get to kick you out of the house and take all your stuff.
我可能会把你赶出家门并拿走你所有的东西。
I mean, from the bank's perspective, from the shareholders, from the executives, it's a no-brainer.
我的意思是，从银行、股东、高管的角度来看，这是理所当然的。
Of course they like the Paulson plan.
他们当然喜欢保尔森计划。
And the bank lobby is a powerful, huge lobby.
而且银行大厅是一个气势磅礴、巨大的大厅。
You can just imagine how powerful they are, how many strings they can pull on Capitol Hill.
你可以想象他们的权力有多大，他们能在国会山拉动多少根弦。
And they would oppose anything like that?
他们会反对这样的事情吗？
I talked to a bank lobbyist.
我和一位银行游说者交谈过。
He told me there are over 600 professional lobbying groups, thousands of people are working hard to promote the Paulson plan and to weaken any stock-injection plan.
他告诉我，有超过600个专业游说团体，数千人正在努力推动保尔森计划并削弱任何注资计划。
Well, weaken-- that is, as if it were ever actually seriously considered.
好吧，削弱——也就是说，就好像它曾经被认真考虑过一样。
Well, that's what's interesting.
嗯，这就是有趣的地方。
Until last night, Thursday, I, and everyone-- all the experts I talked to, all the people on Capitol Hill-- were under the impression the stock injection plan was simply not on the table.
直到昨晚，周四，我和每个人——所有与我交谈过的专家，所有国会山的人——都认为股票注入计划根本没有提上台面。
You and I worked late last night.
你和我昨晚工作到很晚。
I was in a cab on the way home.
我在回家的路上乘坐出租车。
I got a call from a guy I know who's pretty well-connected right around midnight.
午夜时分，我接到一个我认识的人打来的电话，他人脉很广。
And he told me guess what, the stock-injection plan is in the Senate bill that was passed, and it's in the House bill.
他告诉我，你猜怎么着，注资计划包含在已通过的参议院法案中，也包含在众议院法案中。
I woke up this morning, and I still could barely believe it.
今天早上我醒来，我仍然不敢相信。
I've been calling around.
我一直在打电话。
It was kind of a dramatic morning.
这是一个戏剧性的早晨。
The first few people I called said, no, that's ridiculous.
我打电话的前几个人说，不，这太荒谬了。
There's no way that could have gotten in.
根本就没有办法进去。
It's impossible.
这是不可能的。
Over the course of the morning, I got more and more confirmation.
整个上午，我得到了越来越多的确认。
And basically, what happened is someone, and we still don't know who, put in very subtle language, into the Senate bill, that gives this as an option to the Treasury Secretary.
基本上，发生的事情是某个人，我们仍然不知道是谁，用非常微妙的语言将其写入参议院法案中，将其作为财政部长的一个选择。
And so is this in the bill that got taken up in the House on Friday-- you and I are talking Friday afternoon at around 4:30 Eastern time-- and that the President just signed into law?
周五下午美国东部时间 4:30 左右，你和我正在讨论这个法案，并且总统刚刚签署成为法律，这是否包含在周五众议院审议的法案中？
Is it in that bill that got signed into law?
该法案是否已签署成为法律？
That's our understanding, yeah.
这是我们的理解，是的。
There's still the main plan, which is buying the crappy assets.
还有一个主要计划，那就是购买劣质资产。
That's still the core idea.
这仍然是核心思想。
But the Treasury Secretary has, as an option, at his discretion, the ability to do this other plan, the one that many economists prefer, the stock-injection plan.
但作为一种选择，财政部长可以自行决定实施另一项计划，即许多经济学家更喜欢的计划，即注资计划。
OK, so at least that's in there.
好吧，至少里面有这些。
But to get back to the original question, this thing has now been signed into law, how should we feel about this?
但回到最初的问题，这件事现在已经签署成为法律，我们对此有何感受？
It is not hyperbole to say that there is a severe financial crisis.
说出现严重的金融危机并不夸张。
All these dire warnings you're hearing, this is not Wall Street fat cats trying to make some money.
你听到的所有这些可怕的警告，这并不是华尔街的肥猫想赚钱。
This is serious.
这很严重。
Alex and I have seen it.
亚历克斯和我都看到了。
This week we saw the crisis spread to Europe, which had been saying that they were immune to it.
本周，我们看到危机蔓延到欧洲，欧洲一直声称自己不会受到影响。
It's already seeping out to Main Street, or whatever cliche you want.
它已经渗透到大街上，或者任何你想要的陈词滥调。
Right, in the ways that we reported earlier in the show.
是的，就像我们在节目前面报道的那样。
In the ways we've been telling you about.
以我们已经告诉过你的方式。
The majority of economists I have talked to would say the following.
我采访过的大多数经济学家都会这么说。
This crisis is severe.
这场危机是严重的。
It's going to get worse.
情况会变得更糟。
Something needs to be done.
需要做点什么。
The original plan was not great.
原来的计划并不美好。
This plan is a lot better.
这个计划好很多。
This plan is probably the best we can get.
这个计划可能是我们能得到的最好的计划。
And something has to happen sooner than later.
迟早要发生一些事情。
Well, Adam, thank you for another frightening hour.
好吧，亚当，谢谢你又度过了一个令人恐惧的时刻。
Yeah, this one scares me a lot more than the last one.
是的，这个比上一个更让我害怕。
Well, our program was produced today by Alex Blumberg, with Jane Feltes, Sarah Koenig, Lisa Pollak, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike.
今天我们的节目由 Alex Blumberg 与 Jane Feltes、Sarah Koenig、Lisa Pollak、Robyn Semien、Alissa Shipp 和 Nancy Updike 共同制作。
Our senior producer is Julie Snyder.
我们的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Adrianne Mathiowetz runs our website.
阿德琳娜·马修韦茨 (Adrianne Mathiowetz) 负责运营我们的网站。
Production help from Molly Messick, Seth Lind, and P.J.
Molly Messick、Seth Lind 和 P.J. 为制作提供帮助
Vogt.
沃格特。
Music help from Jessica Hopper.
杰西卡·霍珀的音乐帮助。
Today's show was a co-production with NPR News.
今天的节目是与 NPR 新闻联合制作的。
Our website is thisamericanlife.org.
我们的网站是 thisamericanlife.org。
The Planet Money podcast, you can find it on the web at npr.org/blogs/money.
Planet Money 播客，您可以在 npr.org/blogs/money 网站上找到它。
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
[致谢]《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
[FUNDING CREDITS] WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia, who explains his behavior at last year's Christmas party this way.
[资金来源] 我们的老板 Torey Malatia 先生对我们的项目进行了 WBEZ 管理监督，他这样解释了他在去年圣诞晚会上的行为。
"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."
“我曾经是白雪公主，但我却漂泊了。”
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
back next week with more stories of This American Life.
下周我们将带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。