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  • Jacob: Welcome to Crash Course Economics. My name is Jacob Clifford.

    歡迎來到速成班經濟學,我是克里夫。

  • Adrienne: And I'm Adrienne Hill. And today we're going to do something a little different.

    我是愛德蓮,今天我們要講一些不一樣的。

  • We're going to explore one moment in history in depth. We're going to talk about how the

    我們要深入探討歷史上一個重大事件。我們要聊聊

  • 2008 Financial Crisis happened and the government response to it in the United States.

    2008年金融危機為何發生,還有美國政府的應對。

  • Jacob: So let's get started.

    讓我們開始吧。

  • [Theme Music]

    [主題曲]

  • Jacob: The 2008 Financial Crisis was a big deal. Ben Bernanke said it could have resulted

    2008年的金融危機是個大事。柏南奇說它原本可能會以

  • in a 1930s style global financial and economic meltdown with catastrophic implications. But

    1930年經濟大恐慌模式的財務及經濟下滑,最後災難性收場。

  • what happened? Why did it happen? And why aren't we all huddled around burning trash

    但究竟發生甚麼事?如何發生?為什麼我們不圍在燃燒的

  • cans forming a raiding party to go steal gas from other tribes in the wasteland?

    垃圾桶旁,組成暴動軍團搶奪這座荒島上其他部落的石油?

  • By the way, if you're actually doing that, you probably didn't hear we survived the financial

    順道一提,如果你真的做了,你可能還不知道我們已經撐過

  • crisis. Things got better. Seriously. Put down your crossbows.

    金融危機。事情已好轉,沒騙你,放下你的弓。

  • Adrienne: To explain what happened, first we have to do a quick explainer about mortgages.

    要解釋事情經過,首先我們要快速聊聊房貸。

  • And you might already know this, but basically someone that wants to buy a house will often

    你可能已經認識它了,但基本上一個人如果要買房子,他會

  • borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank. In return, the bank gets a piece of

    向銀行借上千萬的金額。銀行則會收到

  • paper, called a mortgage.

    一張紙,叫做抵押件。

  • Every month, the homeowner has to pay back a portion of the principal, plus interest,

    每個月,屋主需要償還一部分的本金,加利息,

  • to whomever holds the piece of paper. If they stop paying, that's called a default. And

    給擁有抵押件的人,如果它停止還賬,這就叫做違約。

  • whomever holds that piece of paper gets the house.

    擁有抵押件的人就擁有房子。

  • The reason I'm saying whomever holds the paper, rather than the bank, is because the bank,

    為什麼我剛剛說擁有抵押件的人,不說銀行。因為銀行,

  • the original lender, often sells that mortgage to some third party. And the reason I say

    這個最初的債權人,常常將抵押件賣給他方。我會說常常

  • often is because this happens all the time. I've had my house for nine months, and three

    是因為這經常發生。我持有房子九個月,有三間

  • different banks have had the mortgage.

    不同的銀行同時擁有抵押件。

  • Traditionally, it was pretty hard to get a mortgage if you had bad credit or didn't have

    原本,要得到抵押件是很困難的。如果你信用差,沒有

  • a steady job. Lenders just didn't want to take the risk that you might "default" on

    穩定工作的話。債權人大都不希望承擔你可能違約

  • your loan, but all that started to change in the 2000s.

    的風險,但在2000年後,一切都變了。

  • And before we go further, a quick aside here. The story gets complicated fast, and it's

    在我們進一步說下去前,先盡快提醒一下。這個故事突然變得很複雜,但是

  • a fascinating story. But we're trying to keep it relatively simple. So, I've asked Stan if

    很有趣。我們會試著說簡單些。所以,我問過史坦

  • we could put some additional resources in the YouTube description. And Stan said "Yes." Thanks Stan!

    可不可以在youtube連結放些其他資源,他說可以。謝咯,史坦。

  • Anyway, back to our story. In the 2000s, investors in the U.S. and abroad looking for a low risk,

    回到我們的故事。在2000年初,美國跟國外的投資者都在找尋低風險,

  • high return investment started throwing their money at the U.S. housing market. The thinking

    高報酬的投資品,並開始向美國房市撒錢。這思維

  • was they could get a better return from the interest rates home owners paid on mortgages,

    主要是他們可以藉由屋主償還的利率得到更好的報酬,

  • than they could by investing in things like Treasury Bonds, which were paying very, very low interest.

    比起投資其他像利率非常非常低國庫券的金融商品,要好得多。

  • But big money, global investors didn't want to just buy up my mortgage, and Stan's mortgage.

    但是大金主,全球的投資者不想只買我的抵押件或史坦的抵押件。

  • It's too much hassle to deal with us as individuals. I mean, we're pains. Instead, they bought

    處理個人的抵押件太過麻煩,換句話說,我們將是痛苦來源。他們買入

  • investments called mortgage backed-securities. Mortgage backed-securities are created when

    叫做MBS(不動產抵押貸款證券)的投資商品。MBS源自一些

  • large financial institutions securitize mortgages. Basically, they buy up thousands of individual

    大型金融機構證券化抵押件。基本上,他們買入上千人的

  • mortgages, bundle them together, and sell shares of that pool to investors.

    抵押件,將它們套為一組,最後將部分賣給投資者。

  • Investors gobbled these mortgage backed-securities up. Again, they paid a higher rate of return

    投資者因此狂買MBS。再重述一次,它們的投資報酬率

  • than investors could get in other places and they looked like really safe bets. For one,

    比其他金融商品高,有如安全、風險低的賭注。後面的一個結果是,

  • home prices were going up and up. So lenders thought, worse case scenario, the borrower

    房價不斷上升。所以債權人開始思考,投資商品組合每況愈下,債務人

  • defaults on the mortgage, we can just sell the house for more money.

    不再支付房貸,我們只能將房子賣掉賺更多錢。

  • At the same time, credit ratings agencies were telling investors these mortgage backed-securities

    同時,信用評級機構卻不斷告訴投資者MBS

  • were safe investments. They gave a lot of these mortgage backed-securities AAA Ratings--the

    很安全。他們把許多MBS都評為3A等級,也就是

  • best of the best. And back when mortgages were only for borrowers with good credit,

    投資中的極品。然而在那個房屋款項只貸予信用良好人的時代,

  • mortgage debt was a good investment.

    抵押債務(房貸)是個不錯的投資。

  • Anyway, investors were desperate to buy more and more and more of these securities. So,

    投資人如飢似渴買下證券。債權人

  • lenders did their best to help create more of them. But to create more of them, they

    因而全力發行更多。為了發行,他們

  • needed more mortgages. So lenders loosened their standards and made loans to people with

    需要更多抵押件,所以債權人寬鬆標準,將錢借給那些低收入

  • low income and poor credit. You'll hear these called sub-prime mortgages.

    信用差的人。也就是所謂的次級房貸。

  • Eventually, some institutions even started using what are called predatory lending practices

    最終,有些機構甚至開始使用掠奪性貸款

  • to generate mortgages. They made loans without verifying income and offered absurd, adjustable

    產生更多抵押件。他們發放貸款時不再衡量收入,提供不合理的

  • rate mortgages with payments people could afford at first, but quickly ballooned beyond their means.

    可調利率抵押貸款(ARM),一開始申請人能承擔費用,但很快的,價格急遽飆漲。

  • But these new sub-prime lending practices were brand new. That meant credit agencies

    然而,這些新的次級貸款剛出爐,意味著信用評級機構

  • could still point to historical data that indicated mortgage debt was a safe bet. But

    可以藉由歷史數據證明房貸很安全,事實卻非如此。

  • it wasn't. These investments were becoming less and less safe all the time. But investors

    這些投資顯得越來越不安全,但投資者

  • trusted the ratings, and kept pouring in their money.

    依然相信評級,不斷撒錢

  • Traders also started selling an even riskier product, called collateralized debt obligations,

    貿易市場的人也開始販賣風險更高的產品,叫做擔保債務憑證

  • or CDOs. And again, some of these investments were given the highest credit ratings from

    或CDO。這些投資商品竟再度被給予

  • the ratings agencies, even though many of them were made up of these incredibly risky loans.

    最高評級,儘管它們大多數是由風險極高的貸款組成。

  • While, the investors and traders and bankers were throwing money into the U.S. housing

    在投資群、貿易商和銀行業者不斷向美國房市撒錢的同時,

  • market, the U.S. price of homes was going up and up and up. The new lax lending requirements

    美國房價不斷上漲。新的寬鬆借貸門檻

  • and low interest rates drove housing prices higher, which only made the mortgage backed

    和低利率則使房貸提升更高,卻也只顯得MBS

  • securities and CDOs seem like an even better investment. If the borrowers defaulted, the

    和CDO好像是更好的投資。如果債務人違約,

  • bank would still have this super valuable house, right? No. Wrong. Let's go to the Thought Bubble.

    銀行還是會持有這個價值高的房子,對吧?不,大錯特錯,讓我們進入思考泡泡。

  • Actually, let's go to the Housing Bubble. You remember bubbles, right? Rapid price increases,

    事實上,讓我們看看房屋泡沫。記得泡沫吧? 價格迅速上漲,

  • driven by irrational decisions. Well, this was a bubble, and bubbles have an annoying

    因於不理性的決策。這是個泡泡,泡泡

  • tendency to burst. And this one did. People just couldn't pay for their incredibly expensive

    遲早會破滅,房屋也是。人們無法償還這些價格暴高的

  • houses, or keep up with their ballooning mortgage payments.

    房債,趕上飆漲的房貸費用。

  • Borrowers started defaulting, which put more houses back on the market for sale. But there

    債務人開始違約,房屋回歸市場拍賣。但根本

  • weren't buyers. So supply was up, demand was down, and home prices started collapsing.

    沒有買家。因此,供給提升,需求下降,房價開始下跌。

  • As prices fell, some borrowers suddenly had a mortgage for way more than their home was

    當價格下跌,一些債務人持有的抵押件價值比房子

  • currently worth. Some stopped paying. That led to more defaults, pushing prices down further.

    還高。一些人停止償還費用,使得違約不斷,價格急遽下降。

  • As this was happening, the big financial institutions stopped buying sub-prime mortgages and sub-prime

    此時,巨大金融機構停止購買次級房貸,次級房貸的

  • lenders were getting stuck with bad loans. By 2007, some really big lenders had declared

    業者受困於呆帳間。2007年,一些有名的次級房貸業者最終宣布

  • bankruptcy. The problems spread to the big investors, who'd poured money into these mortgage

    破產。問題蔓延至原本不斷撒錢購買MBS和CDO

  • backed securities and CDOs. And they started losing money on their investments. A bunch

    的投資群。他們開始虧損,損失

  • of money. But wait. There's more.

    一堆錢。等等,還沒完呢!

  • There was another financial instrument that financial institutions had on their books

    有一項許多金融機構滯留帳上的投資商品

  • that exacerbated all of these problems--unregulated, over-the-counter derivatives, including something

    使問題惡化,也就是那些未管制,場外交易的衍生危機,包括

  • called credit default swaps, that were basically sold as insurance against mortgage backed securities.

    信用違約交換制度(基本上以保險形式發行,抗衡MBS)

  • Does AIG ring a bell? It sold tens of millions of dollars of these insurance policies, without

    還記得美國國際集團嗎?在這個保險商品上,它賣掉的總價錢超過千萬,

  • money to back them up when things went wrong. And as we mentioned, things went terribly

    而且在一切變混亂時,沒有應急費用。事情愈來愈糟。

  • wrong. These credit default swaps were also turned into other securities -- that essentially allowed

    這些信用違約交換也被轉換為證券,卻又讓

  • traders to bet huge amounts of money on whether the values of mortgage securities would go up or down.

    貿易業者注入大量金錢看這些證券價值是否會提升。

  • All these bets, these financial instruments, resulted in an incredibly complicated web

    這些賭注,金融商品演變成資產,債務和風險

  • of assets, liabilities, and risks. So that when things went bad, they went bad for the

    的連帶關係。當一切直轉而下時,整個金融系統

  • entire financial system. Thanks Thought Bubble.

    也連帶被影響。謝謝思考泡泡。

  • Some major financial players declared bankruptcy, like Lehman Brothers. Others were forced into

    許多主要金融鉅子宣告破產,像雷曼兄弟。其他則被迫

  • mergers, or needed to be bailed out by the government. No one knew exactly how bad the

    被合併,或需要政府援助。沒人知道到底

  • balance sheets at some of these financial institutions really were--these complicated,

    這幾間金融機構的資產負債表有多糟,這些複雜、

  • unregulated assets made it hard to tell.

    未管制的資產讓一切都難講。

  • Panic set in. Trading and the credit markets froze. The stock market crashed. And the U.S.

    人民驚慌失措,貿易和借貸市場停擺。股市崩盤,美國經濟

  • economy suddenly found itself in a disastrous recession.

    陷入大恐慌。

  • Jacob: So what did the government do? Well, it did a lot. The Federal Reserve stepped

    所以政府做了甚麼?事實上,做了很多。美國聯邦儲備委員會介入

  • in and offered to make emergency loans to banks. The idea was to prevent fundamentally

    提供銀行緊急借貸。這個提議主要為了預防主要的

  • sound banks from collapsing just because their lenders were panicking. The government enacted

    大型銀行倒閉,只因他們的債權人慌了。政府制定一個

  • a program called TARP, the troubled assets relief program, and which the rest of us call

    決策叫做TARP, 問題資產救助計劃,我們則稱它為

  • the bank bailout. This initially earmarked $700 billion to shore up the banks. It actually

    銀行救助。這個起初計畫以7兆元救助銀行的方案

  • ended up spending $250 billion bailing out the banks, and was later expanded to help

    最終以2兆5千億收場,之後還順勢幫助了

  • auto makers, AIG, and homeowners.

    汽車商,AIG(美國國際集團)和屋主。

  • In combination with lending by The Fed, this helped stop the cascade of panic in the financial

    跟FED合作後,平緩了金融系統的

  • system. The treasury also conducted stress tests on the largest Wall Street banks. Government

    恐慌。財政部還對華爾街最大的銀行進行壓力測試。政府

  • accountants swarmed over bank balance sheets and publicly announced which ones were sound

    會計師還掃過各間銀行的資產負債表,並公開宣布那些狀況良好,

  • and which ones needed to raise more money. This eliminated some of the uncertainties

    那些需要籌更多錢。這消弭許多讓機構間借貸

  • that had paralyzed lending among institutions.

    停擺的不安。

  • Congress also passed a huge stimulus package in January 2009. This pumped over $800 billion

    2009年一月,國會也祭出大型經濟刺激計畫,對整個經濟體

  • into the economy, through new spending and tax cuts. This helped slow the free fall of

    注入8000億元,透過刪減財務及稅收的幫助。這也平緩財務支出、

  • spending, output and employment.

    輸出和就業率下降的速度。

  • Adrienne: In 2010, Congress passed a financial reform, called the Dodd-Frank law. It took

    2010年時,國會推出財務改革,多德-弗蘭克法案。

  • steps to increase transparency and prevent banks from taking on so much risk. Dodd-Frank

    它增加了透明性,也預防銀行承擔太多風險。多德-弗蘭克法案

  • did a lot of things. It set up a consumer protection bureau to reduce predatory lending.

    幫助很大。它設立了消保局,抑止掠奪性借貸。

  • It required that financial derivatives be traded in exchanges that all market participants

    它要求衍生性金融商品得在所有市場參與者的觀察下

  • can observe. And it put mechanisms in place for large banks to fail in a controlled predictable manor.

    交易,並為此設立了機制,以免銀行無法控管大局。

  • But, there's no consensus on whether this regulation is enough to prevent future crises.

    但在是否能預防未來危機時尚未達成共識。

  • Jacob: So, what have we learned from all this? Well, one key factor that led to the 2008

    所以我們到底學到甚麼? 其實,導致金融危機的重大因素

  • financial crisis was perverse incentives. A perverse incentive is when a policy ends

    就是不當誘因。不當誘因就是當一個決策

  • up having a negative effect, opposite of what was intended. Like, mortgages brokers got bonuses

    最後引發負面效應,跟原本動機反其道而行。就像,抵押貸款經紀人透過

  • for lending out more money, but that encouraged them to make risky loans, which hurt profits in the end.

    借出更多錢得到收益,但卻刺激他們最出風險更高的借貸,反倒減少獲益。

  • That leads us to moral hazard. This is when one person takes on more risk, because someone

    這跟道德風險有關,道德風險是指一個人願意承擔更多風險,因為有其他人

  • else bears the burden of that risk. Banks and lenders were willing to lend to sub-prime borrowers because

    承載這個風險的負擔。銀行和債權人願意借款給次級借貸者

  • they planned to sell mortgages to somebody else. Everyone thought they could pass the risk up the line.

    因為他們計畫將抵押件賣給他人。每個人都覺得可以通過風險測試。

  • The phrase "too big to fail" is a perfect example of moral hazard. If banks know that they're

    「大到不能倒」這個俗語是道德風險的最佳例子。如果銀行知道他們即將

  • going to be bailed out by the government, they have incentive to make risky, or perhaps unwise bets.

    得到政府補助,他們就有誘因做出具風險或者是不明智的賭注。

  • Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan summed it up really nicely when he said,

    前美聯儲主席,格林斯潘歸納出一個貼切的結論,他說道

  • "If they're too big to fail, they're too big."

    「如果他們大到不能倒,他們就真的太大了。」

  • Adrienne: When something terrible happens, people naturally look for someone to blame.

    當不好的事情發生,人們自然而然會怪罪他人。

  • In the case of the 2008 financial crisis, no one had to look very far because the blame

    在2008年金融危機中,

  • and the pain was spread throughout the U.S. economy.

    和痛苦已經遍佈全美經濟體。

  • The government failed to regulate and supervise the financial system. To quote the bi-partisan,

    政府在控制和監督金融系統上失策。引述兩黨

  • financial crisis inquiry commission report, "the sentries were not at their posts, in

    金融危機調查報告,「哨兵沒有堅守崗位,主要

  • no small part due to the widely accepted faith in the self-correcting nature of the markets,

    是因為市場上廣為接受的自我調節機制,

  • and the ability of financial institutions to effectively police themselves."

    還有金融機構有效管理自己的能力。」

  • The report placed some of the blame on the years of deregulation in the financial industry.

    這份報告將錯誤怪罪於金融行業幾年來的管理疏忽。

  • And blamed regulators themselves for not doing more. The financial industry failed. Everyone

    也怪罪管理者不積極。金融行業倒閉。每個人

  • in the system was borrowing too much money and taking too much risk, from the big financial

    都借太多錢、承擔太多風險,從巨大金融機構

  • institutions to individual borrowers. The institutions were taking on huge debt loads

    到個人借貸。這些機構承受巨大債務負擔

  • to invest in risky assets. And huge numbers of home owners were taking on mortgages they couldn't afford.

    投資風險性資產。而且許多房屋所有人辦理無法負擔的房貸金額。

  • But the thing to remember about this massive systemic failure, is that it happened in a

    但要記住關於大型系統性失敗的事情就是,它源於

  • system made up of humans, with human failing. Some didn't understand what was happening.

    由人組成的系統,因為人的失誤。有些人不知道發生甚麼事。

  • Some willfully ignored the problems. And some were simply unethical, motivated by the massive

    有些人自願忽略問題。有些就是不道德,被龐大金額

  • amounts of money involved.

    所影響。

  • I think we should give the last word today to the financial crisis inquiry commission

    我覺得我們應該在金融危機報告書方面

  • report. To paraphrase Shakespeare, they wrote, "The fault lies not in the stars, but in us."

    留下最後一句話。重述莎士比亞的話,他們寫道「錯誤不存於繁星當中,而是在我們當中。」

  • Thanks for watching.

    謝謝收看。

  • Crash Course Economics is made with the help of all of these nice people. We're able to

    速成班經濟學是由這些好心的人所創立。我們可以每個月

  • stave off our own financial crisis each month, thanks to your support at Patreon. You can

    擊敗自己的金融危機,謝謝你在Patreon的支持。你可以

  • help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, and get great rewards at patreon.com.

    讓速成班經濟學永久免收費,並在patreon.com得到回饋。

  • And given today's subject, be exuberant, but keep it rational.

    今天的課到這裡,記得放大夢想,但要保持理性。

Jacob: Welcome to Crash Course Economics. My name is Jacob Clifford.

歡迎來到速成班經濟學,我是克里夫。

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