The current situation embodies two narratives that seem contradictory, but are not. One speaks to the reality that most large companies with access to capital markets have no problem securing new funding. In fact, they have been remarkably successful in lengthening their debt maturities, accumulating cash, and lowering their future interest payments. In sum, they now have “fortress” balance sheets.
The other narrative speaks to an opposing, but equally valid reality. Too many small companies and households still find it difficult to borrow at reasonable terms. This includes those reliant on bank credit, as well as many mortgage holders with very high legacy interest rates and balances that exceed their homes’ market value.
From every angle, the extremity of this state of affairs – in which those with access to credit do not need it, and those who do cannot get it – is highly problematic. If left unattended, it leads to a gradual, and then accelerated, renewed deleveraging of the economic system, with the highest first-round costs – a longer unemployment and growth crisis – borne disproportionately by those least able to suffer them. In the next round, as the system slowly implodes, even those with healthy balance sheets would be impacted, accelerating their disengagement from a deleveraging world economy.
All of this slows social mobility, tears already-stretched safety nets, worsens inequality, and accentuates genuine concerns about the functioning and sustainability of today’s global economic system.
This is not just about socio-economic issues. There is also a political angle. With two competing, yet simultaneously valid narratives, ideological extremes harden. The result is even greater dysfunction in both process and content, ruling out any sustained policy attempt to make things better.
The problem has become acute in Europe, whose crisis has been belatedly recognized as reflecting something more than turmoil in the eurozone’s weakest countries. It also reflects broad-based contamination, resulting, most recently, in France’s loss of its vaunted AAA sovereign credit rating.
In the process, the efficacy of pan-European rescue mechanisms is being undermined. And, as fragilities increase – and as a financial wedge is driven into the eurozone’s core (Germany and France) – growth and employment prospects dim.
Central banks have recognized all of this for some time, prompting them to take enormous reputational and operational risks to slow the process. They have implemented a host of “unconventional policies” that previously would have been deemed unthinkable, even outrageous – and that can be seen in the enormous growth in their balance sheets.
In the last four years, the United States Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has more than tripled, from under $1 trillion to a mammoth $3 trillion. The growth relative to the size of the economy is even more stunning – from slightly more than 5% of GDP to 20%. The Bank of England’s balance sheet is also at 20% of GDP. And both seem to be itching to do even more.
The European Central Bank is often viewed as a laggard. No longer. Its balance sheet has now doubled, to a whopping 30% of GDP – and it, too, appears set to do even more. Mario Draghi, the ECB’s new president, recently said that he expects heavy take-up on the next three-year long-term refinancing operation, a powerful tool to pump cheap liquidity into the banks.
Unfortunately, the economic outcomes have come nowhere close to matching the intensity of these efforts. Effectively, the central banks have been unconventional bridges to nowhere, owing mainly to their imperfect tools and other government agencies’ inability or unwillingness to act. At some point – and we are nearing it – bridges to nowhere become a standalone risk: they can topple over.
Rather than just pumping liquidity into clogged pipes, countries can and should do more to build a more effective network of compensating conduits. In doing so, their main objective (indeed, the test for effectiveness) would be the extent to which new private-sector investment is “crowded in.”
It is high time to move on five fronts, simultaneously:
· Countries such as Spain and the US need to be more forceful in unblocking the housing sector by making overdue decisions on burden sharing, refinancing, and conversion of idle and foreclosed housing stock.
· Countries with excessive debt, such as Greece and Portugal, need to impose sizeable “haircuts” on creditors in order to have a reasonable chance to restore medium-term debt sustainability and growth.
· In several Western countries, public-private partnerships should be formed to finance urgently needed infrastructure investment.
· Regulators should stop bickering about the future configuration of key financial institutions, and instead set a clearer multi-year vision that is also consistent across borders.
· Finally, governments should inform their electorates explicitly and comprehensively that a few contracts written during the inadvisable “great age” of leverage, debt, and credit entitlements cannot be met, and must be rewritten in a transparent way that strikes a balance between generations, labor and capital, and recipients and taxpayers.
Such policies would allow healthy balance sheets around the world, both public and private, to engage in a pro-growth and pro-jobs process. They require leadership, focus, and education. Absent that, plumbing problems will become more acute, and the repairs more complex and threatening to virtually everyone – including both the “one percenters” and those who worrisomely are struggling at the margins of society.
Mohamed A. El-Erian is CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, and author
of When Markets Collide.
Mohamed A.
El-Erian: 修補全球金融渠道
全球經濟危機爆發至今已歷3年，但我們的世界依然面臨著棘手的渠道堵塞問題。信貸管道依舊不甚通暢，只有靠中央銀行來回疏通，然而這些央行的能力也正逐漸減弱，使得被增長率過低，失業率過高，收入不平等惡化以及錯位債務絆住了手腳的西方經濟體面臨著另一系列的風險。但幸運的是，我們還有機會去建立更多的管道來補償和替代這個受損的體制。
當前的狀況中存在著兩種看似互相矛盾卻同時存在的述事。第一種述事描述了這樣一個現實：大多數大型企業都能毫不費力地從資本市場獲得新融資。它們成功地延長了自身債務的到期日，積累了現金，還降低了未來所要支付的利息數額。總而言之，它們的資產負債表如今“堅如磬石”。
而另一種述事則描述了一個截然相反卻同樣符合邏輯的現實。太多小型企業和家庭依然無法以合理的條件獲得貸款。這包括那些依靠銀行信貸的企業以及許多過去高利率抵押貸款的持有者，有些人的剩余還貸額甚至比房子當前的市場價格還高。
從各個角度看來，這種事態的窘迫境地——那些能融資者的不屑一顧，融不到資者的求之不得——本身就意味著巨大的問題。如果不加理會的話，就將引發一個逐步成形並隨後加速的經濟重新去杠杆化過程，同時還伴隨著最為高昂的首輪成本——更漫長的失業和增長危機——不相稱地降臨在那些最缺乏承受能力的人身上。而在接著那一輪進程中，隨著這個系統逐漸解體，即便是那些擁有健康資產負債表的人們也會遭到波及，並加速他們脫離這個去杠杆化世界經濟的進程。
而上述這一切都將減緩社會流動，撕裂原本已經出現漏洞的社會安全網，使收入不平等狀況進一步惡化，並令人嚴重憂慮當今全球金融系統的運作功能和穩定性。
這可不僅僅是社會-經濟事務，同時也是一個政治視角。在兩種互相競爭又同時合理存在的述事之下，意識形態的極端性被不斷強化。結果將是政治進程和議程內容兩方面的進一步機能失調，使任何著眼長遠的政治嘗試都被排除在外。
這個問題已經惡化到一定程度的歐洲，人們花了很長時間才意識到這場危機可不僅僅反映了歐元區某些最弱勢國家的混亂。它同時也反映了大範圍的金融危機傳染狀況，而最近的後果則是導致法國失去了其最引以為豪的AAA級主權信用評級。
在程序上，泛歐洲拯救機制的效力已經遭到了腐蝕。而隨著脆弱性不斷上升——也隨著一個金融楔子正被插入歐元區的核心地帶（德國和法國）——增長和就業的前景都逐漸黯淡。
各國中央銀行意識到上述這些問題已經有一段時間了，也冒著極大的聲譽和操作風險去減緩這一進程。它們實施了一系列原本根本無法想像，甚至離經叛道的“非常規政策”，而這在他們資產負債表的巨大增長中也有所體現了。
例如在過去四年中，美聯儲的資產負債表已經膨脹了三倍，從近1萬億美元增長到無比龐大的3萬億美元。而這個增長與經濟規模相比之下則更令人震驚——從相當於GDP的5%上升到20%。英格蘭銀行的資產負債表也相當於GDP的20%。而兩者似乎還意猶未盡。
歐洲中央銀行常常被視為慢人一步。但這種情況已經不復存在了。它的資產負債表也已經翻了一番，擁有相當於GDP30%的龐大比例——同時似乎也擁有更大的胃口。該行的新行長馬裡奧·德拉吉最近說希望在下一個三年長期重新融資運作中大展拳腳，而該運作則是一個向銀行系統注入廉價流動性的有力工具。
但不幸的是，這些密集出台的行動卻沒能產生與之相稱的經濟成效。這主要是因為工具的不完善以及其他政府機構的無能或者不情願，使得各國中央銀行都有點異乎尋常地找不著方向。在某些點上——而我們也在接近這些點——找不著方向將成為一個獨立的風險：它們會引發崩潰。
而與其單純向淤塞的管道注入流動性，各國可以也應當付出更多的努力去建立一個更有實效的補充性導管網絡。通過這樣做，它們的主要目標（實際上也是對其成效的檢測）應該是要實現新的私人部門投資“充斥著”整個渠道。
因此也是時候在五個方面同時展開行動：
·類似西班牙和美國這樣的國家必須實施更有力的措施，通過在負擔分享，重新融資方面做出遲來的決定，同時將空置和銀行提前收回的房屋儲備實現轉化，來為住房部門解鎖。
·那些債務負擔過高的國家，比如希腊和葡萄牙，必須對債權人實施相當規模的“減免”以獲取一個合理的機會去重新獲得中期的債務可持續性和經濟增長。
·在各大西方國家，應該組建公共-私人伙伴關系來為急需的基礎設施投資提供資金。
·監管者們應該停止為主要金融機構的未來架構而爭吵，轉而設置一個更清晰的多年期遠景，並確保這個遠景能在各國之間一視同仁地推行。
·最後，各國政府應當明確而全面地告知自己的選民：一些在不理智的“偉大時代”時所簽訂的杠杆，債務和信用授權合同都將無法履行，而且必須通過某種透明公開的方式來重新簽訂另一套合約，並在不同年齡層次，勞動力和資本，接受者和納稅人等因素之間取得平衡。
這些政策應該令到全世界各國的資產負債表（無論是公共還是私人）都恢復健康，並因此孕育一個促進增長和就業的環境。這些政策需要領導力，專注和教育。如果缺乏這些的話，世界的渠道堵塞問題將進一步惡化，並使修復工作變得更為復雜並實際上威脅到每一個人——那些在社會邊緣掙扎的人們，還有那些“富有的1%”。
作者為美國大型債券經紀公司太平洋投資管理有限公司(PIMCO)首席執行官兼聯席首席投資官，著有"When
Markets Collide"一書