What pawnbrokers can teach central banks
警惕“安全资产陷阱”
广州经济翻译公司：邰蒂：安全资产的匮乏，正在形成一种自我强化的、引发恐慌情绪的恶性循环，最终将会让经济增长陷入停滞。
Three decades ago, the club of triple A-rated American corporate borrowers was a busy place. About 60 big companies, ranging from Pfizer to General Motors, were deemed so “safe” that they held this coveted tag from the credit rating agencies.
30年前，隶属“AAA评级俱乐部”的美国企业不胜枚举。从辉瑞(Pfizer)到通用汽车(General Motors)等约60家大公司，均被认定为十分“安全”，从而获得了信用评级机构的顶级信用评级。广州经济翻译公司。
No longer. Standard & Poor’s has just stripped the mighty ExxonMobil of its triple-A rank because of understandable concerns about falling oil prices and mounting energy sector debt.
今非昔比。鉴于石油价格暴跌及能源行业债务飙升，标准普尔(Standard Poor's)不久前撤销了石油业巨头埃克森美孚(ExxonMobile)的AAA信用评级。
This leaves just two — yes, two — American companies still in that triple-A club: the unlikely duo of Microsoft and healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson.
如今，AAA俱乐部仅有2两家美国公司尚存，这对“难兄难弟”就是微软(Microsoft)与医疗保健业巨头强生(Johnson & Johnson)。
Does this matter? Not for company executives, perhaps. Some Wall Street economists, such as Henry Kaufman, fear American companies are becoming feckless with debt; but in practical terms, the cost of funding triple-A debt today is roughly the same as that of double-A debt. For Exxon, in other words, the “pain” is primarily symbolic.
这有什么关系呢？对公司的管理者来说，可能无关紧要。华尔街的一些经济学家，如亨利•考夫曼(Henry Kaufman)担心，美国企业在债务问题上正变得越来越不负责任。但实际上，AAA级债务的融资成本与AA级债务不相上下。换言之，对埃克森来说，信用评级下降的影响主要是象征性的。广州经济翻译公司。
The much more interesting question is what this shrinkage means for investors. If you are a risk-averse private investor — or a nervous public pension fund — who favours ultra-safe bonds, your choices in the corporate world are now very small. And this highlights a much bigger point: what has happened in corporate debt is just one tiny sign of a global shortage of “safe” assets.
高评级企业的锐减，对投资者的影响更值得探究。如果你是一个厌恶风险的谨慎型私人投资者，或患得患失的公共养老金，偏爱超级安全的债券，那么，在企业领域你可选择的投资对象少之又少。企业债的窘境又突显出一个更严重的现实：全球“安全”资产的短缺由此可见一斑。
Think about it. A couple of decades ago, risk-averse investors seeking triple-A bonds had three routes to pursue. First, there was the club of triple-A corporate debt. Second — and the most important source of safe debt albeit a shrinking one — was sovereign debt. Then, from the late 1990s, financiers produced another option: repackaged mortgage-backed bonds.
试想一下。二三十前，谨慎型投资者可通过三种渠道投资AAA级债券。首先是AAA俱乐部的企业债券。其次是政府债券，这是安全债券最主要的来源，不过这种安全债券在减少。到了20世纪90年代末，金融家们又打造出第三种选择：重新打包的抵押支持债券。广州经济翻译公司。
Since 2007, those triple-A mortgage-backed securities have disappeared. Meanwhile, less of that sovereign debt is now deemed super safe; just look at what has happened to bonds from Italy, Greece and Portugal.
从2007年起，那些AAA级抵押支持债券已销声匿迹。与此同时，如今被认为超级安全的政府债券也有所减少；看看意大利、希腊及葡萄牙的债务危机便可知晓。
Indeed, economics professors Ricardo Caballero and Emmanuel Farhi calculate, using data from Barclays, that between 2007 and 2011, the value of safe assets fell from $20.5tn to $12.2tn, equivalent to a drop from 36.9 per cent of global gross domestic product to a mere 18.1 per cent.
经济学教授理查德•卡巴里洛(Ricardo Caballero)和埃马努埃尔•法利(Emmanuel Farhi)基于巴克莱(Barclays)数据的计算显示，2007年至2011年间，安全资产的价值从20.5万亿美元跌至12.2万亿美元，与全球GDP之比从36.9%降至18.1%。
That is startling — doubly so since investor demand for safe assets has exploded. The financial crisis prompted investors to dash into havens. Meanwhile, post-crisis regulatory reforms have forced financial institutions to load up with “safe” assets, too, to be used as collateral for deals.
不可思议——何况投资者对安全资产的需求已呈白热化。金融危机促使投资者对安全资产趋之若鹜。而危机过后的监管改革又迫使金融机构增加“安全”资产，作为交易的抵押物。广州经济翻译公司。
And what has made this imbalance worse — and government policy even more perverse — is that regulators are tightening the screws at the same time as central banks have gobbled up safe assets with the aim of loosening monetary policy.
那么是什么加剧了这种失衡，同时令政策越发走偏呢？那就是在央行收购安全资产以达到放松货币政策目的的同时，监管却在收紧。
The net result is a dire squeeze on safe assets. Indeed, Prof Caballero and Prof Farhi argue the imbalance is so severe that the problem confronting the world today is not a “liquidity” trap but a “safety trap”: the shortage is creating a self-reinforcing, panicky cycle that is contributing to stagnant growth.
然而，这些举措最终对安全资产产生了严重的紧缩效应。诚如卡巴里洛教授和法利教授所言，失衡如此严峻，当今世界面临的问题不是“流动性陷阱”(liquidity trap)，而是“安全性陷阱”(safety trap)：安全资产匮乏正在形成一种自我强化的、引发恐慌情绪的恶性循环，最终令增长停滞。广州经济翻译公司。
Is there a solution? In the long term, the only sensible option would be for central banks to stop sucking up those government bonds so voraciously; this is distorting the system to such a degree that it is harming, not helping, investor psychology.
对此可有解决办法？从长远看，唯一明智的选择就是央行停止如饥似渴地买入政府债券；这正严重扭曲着整个体系，对投资者心理更是有弊无益。
Another option, which is favoured by economists such as Paul Krugman, and has been supported by some economists at the Bank for International Settlements, would be for the government to sell more safe debt.
另有一种方案，受到保罗•克鲁格曼(Paul Krugman)等经济学家的推崇，同时国际清算银行的一些经济学者也表示赞同。那就是由政府发行更多的安全债券。广州经济翻译公司。
In the long run that might seem self-defeating; if debt loads rise, ratings will slip. But, in the short term, higher issuance would at least reduce the squeeze, enabling the safe asset market to feel less distorted.
长远看来，这也许会适得其反；债务增加会令信用评级下滑。但就短期效果而言，增加政府债券发行量至少会缓解安全资产的紧缩，令市场不那么扭曲。
However, there is a third option: regulators could stop forcing private institutions to gobble up “safe” debt. Mervyn King, the former British central bank governor, for example, suggests in his book, The End of Alchemy, that instead of forcing banks to load up on safe assets, central banks should act like “pawn­brokers”, lending against a wide range of collateral at preset discounts.
然而，还有第三种方案：监管者可以不再强制私人机构吸纳“安全”债务。例如，英国央行前行长默文•金(Mervyn King)在其所著《炼金术的终结》(The End of Alchemy)一书中就提到，不应要求银行大量购入安全资产，央行本身应该采取像“典当行”一样的做法，接受种类广泛的抵押物，以预先定好的折扣发放贷款。广州经济翻译公司。
But none of those three policies seems likely to emerge soon. As a result, the risk is that the imbalance between supply and demand will grow worse, not better.
但是上述三种对策似乎都不会立即出台，现实情况是供需不平衡的状况可能还将持续恶化，而不会好转。
Little wonder, then, that global interest rates remain so astonishingly low. This is a symptom — and not a cause — of a deeply distorted financial world; an era where the idea of safety is creating dangers that nobody could have imagined three decades ago.
那么，全球利率仍然如此惊人之低也就不足为奇了。这是一个严重扭曲的金融体系的外在表现，而非成因；而30年前，谁曾想，安全竟能造成危机。
