股闻天下：救助方案能刺激借贷吗？
Heard On The Street: Can Bailout Spur Lending?2008年10月07日 10时28分00秒
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(10/4) Heard On The Street: Can Bailout Spur Lending?
Strong balance sheets breed confidence. It doesn't work the other way around.
That is why the House's second-try approval of the bailout legislation isn't likely to get banks, and debt investors, lending freely again Monday morning.
The bailout bill doesn't directly inject capital into banks and, through its indiscriminate backing of institutions, fails to cull the diseased herd. As the weak linger, questions will continue hanging over all banks, harming even those that would otherwise struggle through.
These shortcomings are potentially fatal flaws given the lack of faith in bank balance sheets. That is reflected in interbank lending rates, which have spiked to levels unseen since the early 1980s.
Given that banks don't trust one another, it shouldn't be surprising that investors are acting as if the entire banking system could be insolvent. They fear bank capital is actually a mirage because firms haven't adequately reflected losses.
Recent deals, like the sale of Washington Mutual's assets, have hammered that point home. In buying WaMu assets, J.P. Morgan Chase had to mark some loans down by about 20%. A similar scene played out when Bank of America bought Countrywide.
Yet the bailout bill doesn't force banks to more realistically mark their books, or raise capital. Nor is it clear how the Treasury will price purchases of bad assets from banks, muddying any potential impact on capital from these actions.
The bill also is unlikely to reverse the pullback in lending to nonfinancial companies. That means companies could face more trouble in coming months rolling their debt.
The result could be rising defaults that lead to a deeper and longer recession than investors expect. If that is the case, Congress may soon find itself haggling over another, bigger bailout plan.
股闻天下：救助方案能刺激借贷吗？
2008年10月07日 10时28分00秒
【大 中 小】【关闭窗口】
--强劲的资产负债表能够催生投资者的信心，但这个命题反过来却不成立。
这也是为什么在美国国会最终批准救助方案之后、银行和债券投资者周一仍不太可能恢复大规模放贷的原因。
美国政府的救助方案并不直接向银行注资，另外救助计划对所有金融机构提供无差别帮助也不利于优胜劣汰。在弱者苟延残喘的同时，整个银行系统都将继续遭到质疑，那些本来有望度过难关的金融机构也可能因此受到牵连。
鉴于投资者对银行的资产负债表缺乏信心，救助方案的上述缺陷可能演变成致命漏洞。这一点已经反映在银行间拆借利率上，该利率目前飙升至上世纪80年代初以来的最高水平。
考虑到银行之间都缺乏信任，投资者怀疑整个银行体系可能崩溃也不足为奇。投资者担心银行的资本是虚幻的，因为银行并没有充分反映自己的损失。
最近类似Washington Mutual出售资产的交易证实了投资者的担忧。摩根大通(J.P. Morgan Chase)在购买Washington Mutual资产时不得不将部分贷款减记约20%。这一幕与美国银行(Bank of America)收购Countrywide时如出一辙。
救助方案没有强迫银行以更加务实的态度来标记资产或筹集资本，而美国财政部(Treasury)在从银行手中收购不良资产时将如何定价也不清楚，这使得投资者难以判断救助措施会对资本市场产生什么影响。
此外，救助方案也不太可能扭转非金融类机构借贷难的趋势，也就是说，未来几个月非金融机构的债务展期将更加困难。
如果发生这种情况，其结果将是违约率继续上升并导致经济陷入更深层、更长久的衰退旋涡。到时候，美国国会或许又要纠缠于另一个规模更大的救助方案。
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