2022年经济学人 人人都想买卖国债（2）（在线收听）

The fixes fall into three buckets: let the banks trade more bonds with investors, let investors trade more bonds with each other, or let investors trade or swap more bonds with the Federal Reserve.

有三个解决方案：一，让银行与投资者交易更多债券；二，让投资者彼此交易更多债券；三，让投资者与美联储交易或互换更多债券。

Start with letting the banks do more.

首先来看第一个方案。

The solution would be to exempt Treasuries and other safe assets, like bank reserves, from inclusion in leverage ratios.

这个方案要免除美国国债和其他安全资产，如银行准备金，使其不被纳入杠杆率。

The Fed and other bank regulators did this for a year from March 2020 to help ease market chaos.

美联储和其他银行监管机构自2020年3月开始的一年内采用了这个方案，以帮助缓解市场混乱。

The logic behind the move was sound enough.

此举背后的逻辑是足够合理的。

Treasuries are not risky assets, likely to default, and so they do not require much capital to be held against them.

国债不是风险资产，也不容易违约，因此不需要持有太多资本来应对风险。

Still, the leverage ratio is appealing because it is simple to administer and cannot be gamed.

尽管如此，杠杆率仍然很有吸引力，因为它易于管理，且不能被操纵。

And with Democratic bank regulators in charge, who do not want to appear to be undoing financial regulation, the idea is a non-starter.

而且在民主党银行监管机构掌权的情况下，这个想法是不可能的，因为他们不想让自己看起来像是在破坏金融监管。

How about letting investors deal more with one another?

那第二个方案呢？

Portfolio managers at PIMCO, a large bond investment firm, have proposed that investors should trade on a platform where asset managers, dealers and non-bank liquidity providers can trade on a “level playing field, with equal access to information”, akin to how stocks are traded.

大型债券投资公司太平洋投资管理公司的投资组合经理提议，投资者进行交易的平台应该能够让资产管理公司、交易商和非银行流动性提供者在“公平竞争的环境下，平等地获得信息”，类似于股票的交易方式。

This could be good, if it is actually possible.

这是个好方案，前提是这真的可行。

Matching buyers and sellers of Treasuries is harder than matching buyers and sellers of stocks.

匹配国债的买家和卖家比匹配股票的买家和卖家更难。

All shares in Microsoft are the same; there are dozens of Treasuries that have roughly five years to maturity.

微软的所有股票都是一样的；还有几十只美国国债大约还有五年就到期了。

A final fix would be to let investors do more with the Fed.

最后一个方案是让投资者与美联储交易或互换更多债券。

Last year the central bank created a standing repo facility, which allows a Treasury to be swapped overnight for cash.

去年，美联储创立了一项常设回购工具，允许人们隔夜将美国国债兑换为现金。

But the facility is only for primary dealers, which do not always pass on the liquidity.

但这项工具只供一级交易商使用，它们并不总是释放流动性。

Opening it to more participants would address this problem.

向更多的参与者开放这项工具将能解决这个问题。

It would also expose the Fed to a range of riskier counterparties—but that could be mitigated by requiring firms to swap a greater value in Treasuries than the central bank gives out in cash.

这也会让美联储面临一系列风险更高的交易对手--但这可以通过要求企业交换比央行发放的现金价值更高的国债来缓解。

The problem is not a shortage of plausible reforms.

问题并不在于缺乏貌似合理的改革。

It is that none of them have been implemented.

而是在于这些改革都没有得到实施。

The heady bull market has collided with the reality of high inflation and much higher interest rates.

令人兴奋的牛市与高通胀和更高利率的现实发生了冲突。

Financial markets have already entered a new phase in which volatility, stress and fear have returned.

金融市场已经进入了一个新阶段，波动、压力和恐惧再次出现了。

Any grand plans to overhaul the Treasury market cannot be implemented on the fly, in the midst of a burgeoning crisis.

任何全面改革国债市场的宏伟计划都不可能在危机快速蔓延的情况下迅速实施。

If the Treasury market seizes up again—as the market for British government bonds did after ministers announced a package of unfunded tax cuts on September 23rd—the task of fixing it will fall on the Fed and its bond-buying schemes.

如果美国国债市场再次失灵--就像英国政府债券市场在9月23日部长们宣布一揽子无资金支持的减税计划后那样--修复它的任务将落在美联储及其债券购买计划的身上。

Relaunching asset purchases at the same time as raising rates to combat inflation would be very uncomfortable.

在提高利率以对抗通胀的同时重新启动资产购买，会让人非常不舒服。

Since regulators failed to fix the Treasury market when they had the chance, they may end up with little choice.

由于监管机构在有机会的时候没能修复美国国债市场，他们最终可能别无选择。