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Deleveraging in America
美国“去杠杆化”进程
Debt calm
债务削减
Consumers are borrowing again, but the economy has been slow to respond
虽然消费者们再次把手伸向了“信用卡”，但经济增长的回应却很慢
ECONOMISTS trying to explain the feeble pace of America's recovery regularly blame deleveraging: the multi-year process of paying off the debts accumulated before the crisis. Yet for households, at any rate, deleveraging has stopped. Mortgage debt bottomed out in the middle of last year and is now rising again. Student and car loans are rising briskly. Only home-equity and consumer loans continue to shrivel. In absolute terms, household debt is rising again (see chart). Relative to household income, it peaked at 135% in 2007, fell to 109% at the end of 2012, and has roughly stabilised around that level.
那些想要解释美国经济复苏进程放缓的经济学家们，一如既往地表示该问题的罪魁祸首乃“去杠杆化”一个长年以来的过程，以偿还经济危机发生之前所积累的债务。然而对于普通民众来说，无论从何种角度来看，“去杠杆化”已成过去。抵押信贷规模在去年中期触底反弹，而今年则再次呈现出增长的态势。学生贷款和车辆贷款量迅速上升。而只有房屋抵押贷款和消费信贷仍保持“萎靡不振”。如果按绝对量来计算，美国家庭信贷负担再次处于上升阶段。相对于家庭收入水平而言，2007年上述绝对量的指标为现有的135%，而到了2012年末则跌至现有的109%，并随即粗略地稳定在该水平。
Banks, after years spent rebuilding capital and appeasing regulators, are ramping up lending. Total bank credit grew at a 7.5% annual rate in the second quarter, the fastest since 2007, with growth in most categories of loans. “There are lots of people out there, lots of banks out there with a lot of liquidity, competing for loans,” the chief financial officer of Wells Fargo, one of the country's biggest lenders, recently told analysts. Competition to lend to car buyers has become so fierce that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a regulator, has warned of deteriorating standards, with loans routinely exceeding 100% of the car's value.
多年来，银行一直都在重新积累资本，都在对市场监管者进行安抚工作，而现在则开始扩大自己的信贷业务规模。在本年第二个季度里，银行总放贷量录得7.5%的提升，且大部分资金级别的贷款业务均得到了增长，而这是自2007年以来的单季最高增长速度。富国银行的CFO近日向分析师透露：“现在不仅有着大量需要贷款的人，同时也有大批具有充足流动性并且能够提供贷款的银行存在，后者要通过竞争来抢夺客户。”目前，汽车贷款市场的竞争已经十分激烈，作为监管者的美国货币监理署正警告着信贷机构，要他们留意日益下降的放贷审核标准，因为汽车贷款的规模已经一如既往地突破了车辆销售总额。
That borrowing is on the rise again should come as no surprise. Two studies, one by two economists, Carmen and Vincent Reinhart, and one by the McKinsey Global Institute, a think-tank within a consultancy, both found that prior episodes of post-crisis deleveraging lasted six to seven years on average—just like the present one.
信贷总量的再次攀升并不应该让人感到惊讶。一份由两位经济学家Carmen和Vincent Reinhart完成的报告，以及另一份由麦肯锡公司内部的智库麦肯锡全球研究所所完成的报告，两份资料都发现了在上一次的“后经济危机时期”当中，“去杠杆化”的债务削减总体来说持续了六到七年，正如此次经济危机所发生的一样。
In theory, deleveraging should end when debts are at a sustainable level, but that is difficult to measure. A recent working paper by three economists at the European Central Bank points out that the debt consumers can bear varies with interest rates, house prices, the rate of home-ownership, the share of the population aged 35-54, the deposit first-time house-buyers are required to make and the foreclosure rate. American debt exceeded the “equilibrium” level by some 25% of household income at the start of the recovery. Since then an improvement in many of these variables has raised the equilibrium even as debt has fallen, bringing the two into line.
理论上来说，债务削减应该在负担的债务本身能够持续周转为基准，在该标准下停止进行，但这是很难衡量的一件事。一份由三位欧洲中央银行的经济学家所完成的工作报告中指出，消费者们能够负担的债务各自不同，而影响该结果的因素包含了利率、房屋价格、住房拥有率、35岁至54岁人口的比例、购房首期款的支付率和房屋赎回率等等。美国人们的债务规模超过了“均衡”收入水平，在经济复苏的初期负债总量超过了全国人民总收入的25%。从那时开始，上述影响信贷的因素都在逐渐向好的一面发展，而随着债务水平的下降，收入与贷款的平衡也开始逐渐恢复。
The end of deleveraging has not stoked the economy as much as many hoped. In the first quarter of the year the economy shrank by 2.1% on an annualised basis. But there may just be a lag: growth is the second quarter was a much perkier 4%. Goldman Sachs projects that debt will rise faster than income over the next few years, keeping growth above 3%.
信贷削减的终结并没有像许多人所期待的那样给经济体打下强心针。在本年的第一季度里，经济总量下降的幅度约为年化2.1%。但这也许只是发生了滞后的现象：第二季度的经济增长态势比前面一个季度要好得多，达到了4%。高盛集团（Goldman Sachs）预计债务总量将会在未来几年里取得比收入增长更高的增速，将保持在3%以上。
However, Richard Dobbs of McKinsey points out that although consumers are no longer cutting back, the public sector is only just beginning to tighten its belt and businesses never stopped adding to their debts. He reckons overall deleveraging, including firms and government, could go on for another four or five years.
然而，麦肯锡公司的Richard Dobbs表示，虽然消费者们不再省吃俭用地过日子，但社会公共部门的财政紧缩计划只是刚开始，而企业们也不会停止增加自身的负债。他认为，包括公司和政府在内的机构，都会在未来的四年或者五年内保持“去杠杠化”的状态。
