The economic crisis has spread into many areas of the U.S. economy--banks, investment firms, insurance companies, and even the oil markets. Experts seem to agree that the trouble started with bad loans in the housing industry, and grew into a widespread crisis of confidence.
美国的经济危机已经扩散到许多领域，包括银行业、投资公司、保险公司，甚至石油市场。专家们似乎一致认为，所有麻烦都起源于房屋市场的坏债，然后逐步发展成范围广泛的信心危机。
Gus Faucher, the Director of Macroeconomics at the economic website Moody's Economy.com, is one of many experts who say the crisis began in the U.S. housing market. He says prices rose unrealistically high and credit was given too easily. "We had people who, in retrospect, were given mortgage loans but should not have been given mortgage loans because they really could not afford them. So now we are seeing the effects of that," he said.
穆迪经济网站宏观经济主任格斯·福谢是许多认为眼下的经济危机最初始于美国房屋市场的专家之一。他说，房价涨得远远超出实际价格，而借贷又太容易。福谢说：“现在回头看一看，有些得到房屋贷款的人根本就不应该得到，因为他们根本就无法偿还。所以我们现在就看到了后果。”
International economist Robert Scott, at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, blames the Federal Reserve--the U.S. central bank--for allowing housing prices to rise too high. "For the last seven or eight years, until just the last year or so, Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that the housing market was sound, that there was nothing wrong with the rise in housing prices, (which) many, many economists were saying was unsustainable. So he let that bubble build up, he did nothing about it, and he bears a lot of responsibility for this crisis," Scott said.
设在华盛顿的经济政策研究所的国际经济学家罗伯特·斯考特怪罪美国中央银行“美联储”放任房价无节制地增长。斯考特说：“在过去七八年里，美联储主席格林斯潘一直在说，房屋市场是健康的，房价上涨也没有任何问题。但是许多经济学家却认为，这样高的房价是难以维持的。因此，是格林斯潘放任泡沫越吹越大，他要对眼下的危机承担很大的责任。”
But that may not be the whole reason. Ted Truman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says while the financial woes started in the mortgage lending industry, the causes of those problems have been afflicting other financial markets. "Everybody calls it a subprime crisis, in the sense that if no subprime mortgages had ever been made, we would not have had a crisis. And even the thought that it is all about housing, I think, is an exaggeration. It is about easy credit, and financial engineering that went wild, and people who thought that the good times would never come to an end and were planning accordingly," Truman said.
但是这并不是所有的原因。彼特森国际经济研究所的资深研究员泰德·杜鲁门说，虽然麻烦始于房贷业，但是其他金融市场也问题重重。杜鲁门说：“每个人都说这是一场次级房贷危机，意思是说如果次级房贷没有出现麻烦，就不会出现现在的危机。我认为，即使把它说成整个房屋市场的麻烦，也是夸大其词。问题的根源在于金融机构滥发信贷，让人们感到经济的大好时光无边无际，并基于这种认识来计划投资。”
According to Faucher, the bad loans that were handed out by mortgage lenders are still causing trouble for consumers and for financial institutions. "There are simply a lot of bad housing-related securities out there. Those are falling in value. The problem is, we are not sure who is holding all of those. And as we find out about institutions that are holding them, those institutions start to fail, and that is causing problems throughout the entire financial system."
Faucher says banks are reluctant to lend to one another, because they are not sure which institutions are holding bad debt. He says the banks are also reluctant to make loans, so the entire system is coming to a halt. According to Faucher, worries that one failing financial institution could drag down others led the U.S. government to buy out most of the huge insurance company A.I.G.
"The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department were concerned that A.I.G. is involved in many different financial markets. And they were concerned that if A.I.G. failed, that would bring down the entire financial system. So therefore, they decided to step in and have, essentially, the federal government take over the firm."
Many economists, including Scott, believe tighter regulation could have prevented the crisis. "Mistake number one was failing to regulate the financial sector. We should have required them to hold much greater reserves. They are not required to hold any reserves now. Secondly, we should have limited which they can invest in these high-risk assets," Scott said.
包括经济政策研究所的罗伯特·斯考特在内的许多经济学家都认为，强化监管有可能防止眼下经济危机的发生。斯考特说：“最大的错误在于失去了对金融行业的监管。我们本应当要求他们增加储备金。按照法规，他们现在不需要有任何的储备金。第二个错误是，我们本应当对哪些人可以在高风险领域进行投资加以限制。”
Robert Reich, who was Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton, says the troubles have worsened to this point because there was not enough regulation of the financial industry between 2002 and 2006, when the economy was strong.
克林顿总统任内的美国劳工部长罗伯特·赖克说，麻烦越来越大的根本原因在于从2002年到2006年，当美国经济状况很好的时候，对金融行业没有足够的监管。
"Wall Street increased its borrowing dramatically. Our financial institutions increased borrowing much faster than economic growth. Individuals increased their borrowing, also, much faster than economic growth. But nobody was minding the store. Our regulators were not overseeing the system to make sure that there was adequate disclosure (and) capital requirements, so that information could get to the right people at the right time. The system was no longer transparent," he said.
赖克说：“华尔街大把大把地借钱，金融机构的借贷大大地超过了经济增长的速度。个人借贷也大大超过了经济的增长。没有人查看收支平衡。我们的监管人员也没有尽职尽责地监督我们的体系，保证有足够的信息公布和融资要求，以便让相关信息在正确的时候达到决策者手中。整个制度不再透明。”
Reich says America's financial markets need to adhere to the same standards that the U.S. encourages in other countries. "The United States continues to tell developing nations, as the I.M.F. and World Bank continue to tell developing nations, that they have to have a transparent capital market before capital will be attracted to them. Well, the same principle applies to the United States. Unless our markets are transparent, capital, at some point, is going to be afraid and start stampeding out of those markets, and that is exactly what has happened," he said.
In recent days, both U.S. presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have advocated tighter regulation of financial institutions. And U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is said to be considering creating an institution to deal with troubled banks and investments.
近日来，两位总统候选人--共和党的麦凯恩和民主党的奥巴马--都在提倡加强对金融机构的监管。据称，美国财政部长保尔森正在考虑建立一个专门的机构，来处理身陷困境的银行和投资公司。 |