US Geithner: My Plan For Bad Bank Assets

Timothy Geithner美国和全球许多地方的经济目前都面临极大的挑战，而要面对这些挑战就需要继续采取非同寻常的行动。当前这种程度的危机起因绝不简单，也不会只有一个，但我们整个国家都负债太多，让我们的金融体系承担了难以负担的风险水平。那些决定造成了极大的损害，而这种损害在很大程度上落到了谨慎负责的普通美国人和小企业主头上。这种情况从本质上说是不公平的，美国人有理由对此感到愤怒和失望。公众的愤怒程度和这次危机的严重程度要求我们所实施的每项政策都要接受最严格的检验：即它能否让我们的金融系统恢复正常的业务，向工薪家庭和有活力的企业提供贷款，并防止将来再度出现危机。过去的六周里，我们在复苏与再投资计划(Recovery and Reinvestment Program)之外还出台了一系列财政措施，为经济的复苏打下财政基础。我们实施了广泛的计划，鼓励降低抵押贷款利率，令数百万人更容易进行转按揭并避免止赎，从而稳定房市。我们制定了新的资本计划，保护银行不致陷入更深的衰退。向人们注入信心，让他们相信即便前景比预期的要差，银行仍会有足够水平的资本金；通过这样做，让经济能以更低的利率获得更多贷款，降低人们所担心的将会出现更糟糕的经济情况的可能。Associated Press我们同美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve)新启动了一项重要的贷款计划，将针对对消费者和小企业贷款至关重要的证券化市场采取行动。上周，我们宣布了额外的措施，通过直接购买由美国小企业局(Small Business Administration)贷款支持的证券，支持向小企业的放贷。美联储过去几个月的行动加上政府的这类举措累积起来已经开始产生影响。它们帮助把抵押贷款利率降到了历史低点附近。仅仅本月，我们就看到了抵押贷款转按揭增长了30%，意味着数百万美国人正在利用较低的利率。这既有利于房屋所有者，也有利于经济。与美联储联手推出的新贷款计划在上周带来了近90亿美元的新证券化产品，比此前4个月的总和还要多。不过总体来说，金融体系仍在对抗复苏。很多银行仍背负着糟糕的放贷决策带来的重压，它们纷纷缩减信贷规模。金融机构持有的很多资产（所谓的遗留资产）的市场价格要么是不确定的，要么是低迷的。由于银行的资产负债状况存在这些压力，信贷仍是一种稀缺商品，而可以获得的信贷对借款人来说成本很高。今天，我们宣布了计划的另外一个重要部分，以增加信贷流扩大流动性。我们新的公私合营投资计划(Public-Private Investment Program)将设立基金，为当前压在金融系统上的遗留贷款和证券提供一个市场。公私合营投资计划将从银行手中买进房地产类贷款，从更广泛的市场上买进证券。银行将有能力向专门的基金出售贷款，投资者将相互竞争，以获得参与这些基金利用政府提供的融资的能力。根据这个计划组建的基金将有3个主要设计特点。首先，它们将利用政府资源──包括财政部资金美国联邦存款保险公司(FDIC)和美联储的融资──动员私人投资者的资金。其次，公私合营投资计划将确保私营领域参与者与纳税人一道分担风险，并且保证纳税人分享从这些投资获得的利润。这些基金将对退休基金等所有类型的投资者开放，这样广大范围内的美国人都可以参与。再次，私营领域的购买者将确定根据这个计划收购的贷款和证券的价值，从而保护政府不会为这些资产支付过高的价格。新的公私合营投资计划最初将提供5,000亿美元资金，并可能逐步扩大到最多1万亿美元。这占了衰退前发放的房地产类资产的相当大一部分，目前这部分资产正阻碍着我们的金融体系正常发挥作用。通过向这些资产提供目前并不存在的市场，这项计划将逐步改善资产价值，增加银行的放贷能力，降低银行资产负债表中有关亏损程度的不确定因素。向这只基金出售资产的能力将使银行更容易筹集私人资本，从而加快其替代财政部提供的资本投资的能力。这项计划旨在解决遗留贷款和证券，它也是尽可能迅速有效地以让纳税人付出最低代价的方式解决危机的总体战略的组成部分。这项公私合营投资计划比让政府直接单独从仍在运营并承担大部分亏损的银行购买此类资产的做法更有利于纳税人。我们的做法与私营部门分担风险，有效利用了纳税人的资金，并利用了私营部门的竞争以确定目前停止流动的资产的市场价格。单纯地寄希望于银行逐步解决掉这类资产可能延长危机的时间，重蹈日本的覆辙。在前进的道路上，作为一个国家必须共同努力，在需要促进公众信任和审慎地利用纳税人的资金加强金融体系之间取得适当的平衡，同时也要确保这些市场参与者的信任，我们需要他们尽其所能让信贷流向这个国家的工薪家庭和大大小小的企业。这就要求私营部门的那些人记住，政府的援助是一种特别待遇，而不是一种权利。当金融机构来向我们寻求直接财政援助时，我们的政府有责任确保这些资金用到了扩大对经济的信贷流动上面，而不是让高管或股东中饱私囊。这些规定制定和实施的方式应不会阻碍私营部门参与到这种旨在稳定房地产市场启动信贷市场并消除银行的遗留资产的普遍性的计划当中。我们不能在投资者不用承担风险的情况下化解危机。虽然这场危机是由于银行过于冒险造成的，但现在的危险却在于它们不愿承担风险。在与国会合作建立防止滥用纳税人援助资金的严格条款时，我们需要非常谨慎，不要打击经济从衰退中复苏所需的这些投资。法律法规会增强有责任感的企业家和投资者在我们国家投资和创造就业机会的信心。从第一任财政部长亚历山大•汉密尔顿(Alexander Hamilton)开始，我们国家就承诺奉行促进信心和稳定的经济政策。他第一个明确指出，我们的政府是说到做到的。尽管我们面临着这样的挑战，我们仍有着多元化和复原能力很强的金融体系。修复过程需要时间，而且前进过程中也不会一帆风顺，会不时面临紧张与脆弱。但这些政策将会奏效。我们已经看到，在我们的政府提供支持和资助的领域，贷款的成本降低了，也更容易获得了。但是，在我们同目前的危机作斗争时，我们也必须开始这样一个进程，就是确保这类危机不会再次发生。正如奥巴马总统所说的，我们不能再用20世纪的规定维持21世纪的市场。对于一方面接受雷曼兄弟这样的企业破产带来的灾难性的损失，另一方面被迫向美国国际集团(AIG)注入成百上千亿纳税人的资金，确保经济免受更大规模损失的做法而言，我们的国家应该会有更好的选择。缺乏适当的现代化的监管体系和解决权限是导致这场危机的原因之一，而且它还将继续制约我们应对未来危机的能力，除非我们能够进行彻底的改革。我们的目标必须是一个更强有力的体系，它能够提供经济复苏所需的信贷，而且还可以确保我们永远不会再次陷入到这种金融危机之中。我们正在迅速采取行动以实现这些目标，在我们做到这点之前我们将会一直为此努力。（编者按：盖特纳为美国财政部长。）（更新完成）相关阅读盖特纳：同私企合作才能化解金融危机 2009-03-23信不信由你 美国财政部确有救市药方 2009-03-20盖特纳是否该辞职？ 2009-03-19


Timothy GeithnerThe American economy and much of the world now face extraordinary challenges, and confronting these challenges will continue to require extraordinary actions.No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk. Those decisions have caused enormous suffering, and much of the damage has fallen on ordinary Americans and small-business owners who were careful and responsible. This is fundamentally unfair, and Americans are justifiably angry and frustrated.The depth of public anger and the gravity of this crisis require that every policy we take be held to the most serious test: whether it gets our financial system back to the business of providing credit to working families and viable businesses, and helps prevent future crises.Over the past six weeks we have put in place a series of financial initiatives, alongside the Recovery and Reinvestment Program, to help lay the financial foundation for economic recovery. We launched a broad program to stabilize the housing market by encouraging lower mortgage rates and making it easier for millions to refinance and avoid foreclosure. We established a new capital program to provide banks with a safeguard against a deeper recession. By providing confidence that banks will have a sufficient level of capital even if the outlook is worse than expected, more credit will be available to the economy at lower interest rates today -- making it less likely that the more negative economy they fear will take place.We started a major new lending program with the Federal Reserve targeted at the securitization markets critical for consumer and small business lending. Last week, we announced additional actions to support lending to small businesses by directly purchasing securities backed by Small Business Administration loans.Together, actions over the last several months by the Federal Reserve and these initiatives by this administration are already starting to make a difference. They have helped to bring mortgage interest rates near historic lows. Just this month, we saw a 30% increase in refinancing of mortgages, which means millions of Americans are taking advantage of the lower rates. This is good for homeowners, and it's good for the economy. The new joint lending program with the Federal Reserve led to almost $9 billion of new securitizations last week, more than in the last four months combined.However, the financial system as a whole is still working against recovery. Many banks, still burdened by bad lending decisions, are holding back on providing credit. Market prices for many assets held by financial institutions -- so-called legacy assets -- are either uncertain or depressed. With these pressures at work on bank balance sheets, credit remains a scarce commodity, and credit that is available carries a high cost for borrowers.Today, we are announcing another critical piece of our plan to increase the flow of credit and expand liquidity. Our new Public-Private Investment Program will set up funds to provide a market for the legacy loans and securities that currently burden the financial system.The Public-Private Investment Program will purchase real-estate related loans from banks and securities from the broader markets. Banks will have the ability to sell pools of loans to dedicated funds, and investors will compete to have the ability to participate in those funds and take advantage of the financing provided by the government.The funds established under this program will have three essential design features. First, they will use government resources in the form of capital from the Treasury, and financing from the FDIC and Federal Reserve, to mobilize capital from private investors. Second, the Public-Private Investment Program will ensure that private-sector participants share the risks alongside the taxpayer, and that the taxpayer shares in the profits from these investments. These funds will be open to investors of all types, such as pension funds, so that a broad range of Americans can participate.Third, private-sector purchasers will establish the value of the loans and securities purchased under the program, which will protect the government from overpaying for these assets.The new Public-Private Investment Program will initially provide financing for $500 billion with the potential to expand up to $1 trillion over time, which is a substantial share of real-estate related assets originated before the recession that are now clogging our financial system. Over time, by providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this program will help improve asset values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets. The ability to sell assets to this fund will make it easier for banks to raise private capital, which will accelerate their ability to replace the capital investments provided by the Treasury.This program to address legacy loans and securities is part of an overall strategy to resolve the crisis as quickly and effectively as possible at least cost to the taxpayer. The Public-Private Investment Program is better for the taxpayer than having the government alone directly purchase the assets from banks that are still operating and assume a larger share of the losses. Our approach shares risk with the private sector, efficiently leverages taxpayer dollars, and deploys private-sector competition to determine market prices for currently illiquid assets. Simply hoping for banks to work these assets off over time risks prolonging the crisis in a repeat of the Japanese experience.Moving forward, we as a nation must work together to strike the right balance between our need to promote the public trust and using taxpayer money prudently to strengthen the financial system, while also ensuring the trust of those market participants who we need to do their part to get credit flowing to working families and businesses -- large and small -- across this nation.This requires those in the private sector to remember that government assistance is a privilege, not a right. When financial institutions come to us for direct financial assistance, our government has a responsibility to ensure these funds are deployed to expand the flow of credit to the economy, not to enrich executives or shareholders. These provisions need to be designed and applied in a way that does not deter the participation by the private sector in generally available programs to stabilize the housing markets, jump-start the credit markets, and rid banks of legacy assets.We cannot solve this crisis without making it possible for investors to take risks. While this crisis was caused by banks taking too much risk, the danger now is that they will take too little. In working with Congress to put in place strong conditions to prevent misuse of taxpayer assistance, we need to be very careful not to discourage those investments the economy needs to recover from recession. The rule of law gives responsible entrepreneurs and investors the confidence to invest and create jobs in our nation. Our nation's commitment to pursue economic policies that promote confidence and stability dates back to the very first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who first made it clear that when our government gives its word we mean it.For all the challenges we face, we still have a diverse and resilient financial system. The process of repair will take time, and progress will be uneven, with periods of stress and fragility. But these policies will work. We have already seen that where our government has provided support and financing, credit is more available at lower costs.But as we fight the current crisis, we must also start the process of ensuring a crisis like this never happens again. As President Obama has said, we can no longer sustain 21st century markets with 20th century regulations. Our nation deserves better choices than, on one hand, accepting the catastrophic damage caused by a failure like Lehman Brothers, or on the other hand being forced to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into an institution like AIG to protect the economy against that scale of damage. The lack of an appropriate and modern regulatory regime and resolution authority helped cause this crisis, and it will continue to constrain our capacity to address future crises until we put in place fundamental reforms.Our goal must be a stronger system that can provide the credit necessary for recovery, and that also ensures that we never find ourselves in this type of financial crisis again. We are moving quickly to achieve those goals, and we will keep at it until we have done so.(Editor's Note: Mr. Geithner is the U.S. Treasury secretary.)