金融危机的一些教训 2008年11月17日11:47 Stephen Schwarzman 眼下我们正身处几十年来最严重的一场金融危机中。我们使出浑身解数想把自己从危机中解救出来，但却鲜少关注今後该如何避免重蹈覆辙。 与其坐以待毙，不如现在就着手做些事情避免再次发生这样的危机，或者至少在危机来临时减弱它的冲击力。以下是我的七项原则，全球金融监管和控制体系都该以此为基础： 第一，我们需要制定一套全世界通用的会计准则。在全球市场上，你不能仅仅因为金融机构的总部设在不同的国家就遵循不同的会计准则和信息披露标准。 第二，世界主要市场的金融监管体制需要具有大体相同的结构。每个国家都要在政治层面上设一位财政部长，还要有央行，以及一个权限很广的单独的金融服务监管机构。 美国监管机构规模太小、集中程度过低、常常难以应对蔓延整个系统的危机。监管机构的参差不齐也让金融机构有机会钻监管的空子，转向那些最宽松、最肯通融的监管者。任何主要金融市场都承受不起这种做法带来的後果。 第三，财务报告要完全透明。任何信息都不应该被遗漏。那些突然出现在表内并造成严重破坏的表外金融工具是对信息披露原则的一大嘲讽。 第四，所有金融工具的全部信息都要向监管机构披露。如果金融市场有很大一部分对监管机构是“隐形”的，那麽任何监管机构都无法对市场风险和整体健康水平进行评估。监管机构必须能监督所有的衍生品，比如60万亿美元的信用违约掉期(CDS)。 第五，监管机构应该对参与市场的所有金融机构进行监督，无论它们的章程、所在地和法律地位如何。举例来讲，如果你担心金融系统中的借贷水平，但却把对冲基金等主要借款人排除在监管之外，这就说不通了。 第六，我们需要停止对难以估值的资产采用按市价核算的方法。现在，有越来越多的人开始意识到按市价核算的会计准则在这次危机中起了推波助澜的作用。我所说的并不是市值一目了然的公开上市股票，而是那些出於投资目的而持有的证券，以及那些在经济周期中的特定时期没有显而易见的市场的投资工具。这些证券和投资工具的信息应该一五一十地向监管者进行披露。不过，金融机构也不应该被迫以虚假的、大甩卖的价格马上进行巨额冲减，进而加剧金融的不稳定性。 最後，我们必须转向基於原则的监管体系，而不是基於具体规则的体系。一个由具体规则和规定构成的系统绝对无法应对现代金融体系的发展速度和复杂程度。目前证券交易委员会(SEC)和银行的监管工作无法化解这场危机。 如果我们要把各类金融机构一古脑儿地置於单一一个监管者手中，那麽这个监管者必须有能力通过提出一套指导原则而不是颁布一系列越来越复杂的条款来进行监管。如果这些指导原则再加上强有力的信息披露和监管，那麽监管机构就会获得所需的灵活性，应对一个不断变化的金融格局，并为被监管机构提供一个明确的方向。 在这场危机之前，美国金融服务业的创新性和灵活性一直是世界所艳 的。我们不应该创造一个用不断复杂的条款来扼杀创新的监管体系。萨班斯－奥克斯利法案(Sarbanes-Oxley)用对复杂条款的恪守取代了良好的判断力。这并没有令美国企业更加稳定或是盈利能力更强，反而损害了我们的竞争力，削弱了我们的国内金融市场。我们不能再重蹈覆辙了。 最後，为了实施一个新的全球金融监管和控制体系，我们需要一个新的全球监管者组织。我们生活在全球市场中，然而世界主要经济体的监管机构却大多各自为政。 这一新的世界金融监管者的组织将设全职人员，并经常召开会议。通过这个组织，世界主要经济体的监管机构可以交换本国市场形势的详细信息。该组织的全职工作人员将迅速收集、分析并公布这类信息，帮助投资者和监管者及时纠正问题，防止问题变得更加严重。 那些在某一行业风险敞口过高或是在高风险金融工具上增长过快的市场通常是最先出现问题的，然而我们似乎从来没有及时发现其中的问题、采取补救措施。从世界各个市场获得了信息的监管机构和它们的同行将能采取更加明智的行动。 在未来的几周或几个月里，我们无疑会花很多时间试图分析我们为何会落到这步田地。然而更重要的是，我们接下来该怎麽做。怨天尤人可能会让我们感觉好受一点儿，但是为了未来而修补我们的体系则会令我们更加安全。 （编者按：苏世民(Stephen Schwarzman)为百仕通集团(Blackstone Group)董事长、联合创始人兼首席执行长。） Some Lessons Of The Financial Crisis 2008年11月17日11:47 Stephen Schwarzman (Editor's Note: Mr. Schwarzman is chairman, cofounder and CEO of the Blackstone Group, an investment and advisory firm.) We are in the middle of the worst financial crisis in recent memory. Vast efforts are being made to extricate us from it, but there is little focus on preventing the next one. Rather than wait, there are things we can do now to avoid another crisis, or at least cushion the blow when it comes. I have seven principles that should underlie any system of global financial regulation and monitoring: First, we need to finalize a common set of accounting principles across borders. In global markets, you cannot have global institutions abiding by differing standards of accounting and disclosure simply because they are headquartered in different countries. Second, the financial regulatory regimes in the world's major markets need to be structured along broadly the same lines. Each country needs a finance minister at the political level, a central bank and one single financial services regulator with a very broad mandate. The regulatory agencies in the U.S. are too small, too fragmented and often not powerful enough to cope with a system-wide crisis. Our hodgepodge of regulatory agencies also encourages financial institutions to play regulatory arbitrage, seeking the most compliant and accommodating regulator. No major financial market can afford that. Third, you need full transparency for financial statements. Nothing should be eliminated. Off-balance-sheet vehicles that suddenly return to the balance sheet to wreak havoc make a mockery of principles of disclosure. Fourth, you need full disclosure of all financial instruments to the regulator. No regulator can do its job of assessing risk and systemic soundness if large parts of the financial markets are invisible to it. A regulator must be able to monitor all derivatives, including, for example, $60 trillion in credit default swaps. Fifth, the regulator should have oversight over all financial institutions that participate in the markets, regardless of their charter, location or legal status. For example, it makes no sense if you are worried about leverage in the system to exclude major categories of borrowers, such as hedge funds. Sixth, we need to abolish mark-to-market accounting for hard-to-value assets. There is now emerging a broad realization that mark-to-market accounting has exacerbated the current crisis. We are not talking about publicly traded equities with a readily ascertainable value. The problem involves securities held for investment purposes, and those instruments during certain times of the cycle for which there is no readily observable market. These securities and instruments would be fully disclosed to the regulator. However, a financial institution would not be forced to suddenly take huge write downs at artificial, fire-sale prices and thus contribute to financial instability. Finally, we have to move to a principles-based regulatory system rather than a rules-based system. A system of rules and regulations is utterly incapable of dealing with the speed and complexity of the modern financial system. Current SEC and bank regulation was unable to stem the current crisis. If we are to sweep a vast array of financial institutions into the net of a single regulator, then that regulator has to be able to regulate not by promulgating a blizzard of ever more complex rules, but by enunciating a set of guiding principles. If these principles are coupled with strong disclosure and oversight, they will give the regulator the flexibility needed to cope with an ever-changing financial landscape, and to provide a clear direction for the regulated institutions. Until the current crisis, the American financial services industry had been the envy of the world for its creativity and nimbleness. We must not create a new system of regulation that throttles innovation through the ever-increasing complexity of its rules. Sarbanes-Oxley has made a fetish of compliance with complex regulations as a substitute for good judgment. This has not made American corporations any more stable or profitable, but it has damaged our competitiveness and weakened our domestic financial markets. We must not make the same mistake. Finally, to implement a new system of global financial regulation and monitoring we need a new global organization of regulators. We live in global markets, but the regulators of the world's major economies are largely operating independently. This new international organization of financial regulators would be permanently staffed and constantly in session. Through it, the regulators of the world's major economies could exchange detailed information on what is happening in their respective markets. The organization's permanent staff would collect, analyze and publish that information quickly, helping investors, and helping regulators correct incipient problems before they become serious. Markets with excess exposures to any one sector or with excessive growth in risky financial instruments are the ones that implode first, yet we never seem to discover them in time to take remedial action. Regulators with input from the world's markets and their fellow regulators will be able to act more wisely. In the weeks and months to come we will no doubt spend a lot of time discovering how we got to this financial crisis. More important is what we do next. Affixing blame may make us feel better; fixing the system for the future will make us so much safer. --

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