When asset prices fall the maestro becomes fair game. Former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan presided over two of the greatest bubbles in U.S. history. But despite more than two decades in the public spotlight, he remains an elusive figure. On matters relating to monetary policy, it’s difficult to know where he really stood. Ben Bernanke is more thoughtful, articulate and consistent than his predecessor. If you want to understand where the Fed went wrong over recent years, it’s better to examine Bernanke’s theory than Greenspan’s practice.
在去华盛顿之前，格林斯潘赢得了他作为经济预测的保留，远离象牙塔。在美联储，他的公众观点通常是不透明的，有时是可变的。在20世纪90年代末，他在谴责“非理性富裕”之间翻转，并拥抱新的经济。房屋繁荣起飞后，格林斯潘首先否认了房地产泡沫的可能性，然后后来看到了区域住房市场的“泡沫”。相比之下，当前美联储董事长不太容易发生地位。Bernanke的一切都说关于货币政策的理论，正如普林斯顿大学经济部门的前负责人一样。
Bernanke’s perspective on Wall Street is limited by the tunnel vision of economic theory. At heart Bernanke is a rationalist. In his Essays on the Great Depression (Princeton University Press, 2000), he displays a reluctance to depart from “the assumption of rational economic behavior.” In a footnote he adds: “I do not deny the possible importance of irrationality in economic life; however, it seems that the best research strategy is to push the rationality postulate as far as it will go.” That may be a useful exercise in the classroom, but it’s another matter when you are running the world’s central bank.
His belief in rationality probably explains why Bernanke has long maintained that it is impossible to identify asset bubbles before they pop. It follows from this that the central bank shouldn’t attempt to prick a bubble; rather, Bernanke argues, the Fed should step in to deal with the aftermath. His academic work on this subject helped provide a justification for Greenspan’s failure to rein in the dot-com mania at the turn of the century. In 2002, Bernanke was appointed a Federal Reserve governor.
事实证明，美联储的处理爆发技术泡沫的尝试具有膨胀甚至更大的副作用。自然而然，伯南克未能认识到巨大的房屋泡沫的出现，而是争论的房价上涨简单地反映了繁荣。他还建议消费者债务的增长并不担心，因为房价上涨改善了家庭资产负债表。
伯南克,在他的学校工作,是智慧关注h the problem of deflation. In November 2002 he delivered a celebrated speech entitled “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here.” The newly appointed Fed governor told his startled audience that “deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system.” Helicopter Ben had taken off. In the same speech he asserted that in extremity the Fed might manipulate long-term rates to keep them from rising. Wall Street woke up. Bernanke appeared to be guaranteeing the profitability of the carry trade, which involves borrowing short and investing in longer-dated securities. The “Bernanke put” revived debt markets. Bonds climbed in value, spreads narrowed, and the credit bubble started to inflate.
伯南克关于通货紧缩的观点的麻烦是，他没有明确区分“糟糕的”通货紧缩，损害经济，从生产力和其他供应方改善上升的“良好”通货紧缩。他不是第一个发出这个错误的。在20世纪20年代的美联储也遵循了由于技术进步而在消费者成本拒绝的时间稳定的政策。因此，利率设定得如此之低，以至于他们鼓励过度的信贷增长并刺激房地产繁荣。日本央行在20世纪80年代后期追求了类似的课程，遭到灾难性的后果。Greenspan和Bernanke下的美联储复制了这个错误。近年来，防止了良好的通货紧缩，但在狂野的信贷扩张的成本下。
伯南克似乎相信，恶劣的通货紧缩来自于19世纪30年代初的糟糕的政策，例如遵守黄金标准。这是某种事项，但他削弱了爆破信贷泡沫对促进通货紧缩的影响。他在大萧条上的散文载于20世纪20年代后期的信贷的增长和过度债务在随后的萧条中发挥的作用非常少。在他看来，银行在20世纪30年代没有失败，因为他们已经贷款糟糕了。相反，伯南克责备美联储以先发制人试图在1928年刺激投机泡沫。
简而言之，伯南克考虑了金钱和价格稳定，但似乎对信贷太少的关注了，以及对财务不稳定的贡献。他建议他的论文之一，即20世纪30年代初的债务金字塔的崩溃是“非常间接的（如果有的话（如果有的话）与美国工业生产的道路。”这是一个令人惊讶的结论。欧洲中央银行的研究人员最近发现，“高成本”审理趋于在强大的信用增长和房地产繁荣之后发生。
Greenspan’s critics tend to see Bernanke as the patsy who was handed a poisoned chalice on assuming the Fed’s chair. That’s probably too generous. After all, Bernanke rationalized the recent expansion of credit as a reflection of economic and structural improvements to the financial system. He hailed the “Great Moderation” (the result of improved policymaking, in his view) but failed to recognize the increasingly reckless behavior on Wall Street. The greatest excesses of subprime and leveraged-buyout lending occurred after Bernanke took office on February 1, 2006.
Bernanke also excused the debt-fueled consumption binge in the U.S. as a by-product of a so-called “global savings glut.” Countries with trade surpluses reinvested their money in the U.S. because, he said in a 2005 speech, it was a more attractive “investment destination.” He failed to note that the recycling of foreign export dollars had created an indiscriminate demand for U.S. securities, including subprime loans. After the housing market turned down, Bernanke was slow to observe the dangers posed by the fallout. He initially held that subprime problems were “contained,” and he vastly underestimated likely losses.
When the credit crunch hit last summer, Bernanke didn’t seem at first to grasp the seriousness of the problem. But as the crisis has dragged on, that has changed. Not only did Bernanke cut rates by 1.25 percentage points in January, but the Fed is now lending to banks against a broader range of collateral, including securitized loans containing subprime mortgages.
博纳克撰写大萧条，博尔纳克描述了“试图了解经验没有准备过的事件的事件”的倒霉的政策制定者。“在过去十年的菲尔德的每一个错误的举动中提供了一个知识理由，伯南克现在是“不合说政策制定者”，谁必须让我们摆脱他和格林斯潘为我们挖掘的洞。
Edward Chancellor是Devil的作者，以GMO的资产分配团队的Hindmest和高级成员带走。