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The financial scene is familiar, the stuff of films like Inside Job and The Big Short. Rocket-scientist financiers buy up billions of dollars of risky loans and repackage them into complex investments with multiple layers of debt. Credit rating agencies classify the top layers as triple A. Institutional investors, including pension funds and charitable organisations, flock to buy these apparently risk-free yet high-yielding investments. Tension builds.
这幅金融景象非常熟悉，都是《监守自盗》(Inside Job) 和《大空头》(The Big Short，见上图)等电影中的场景。金融能手们购买了数十亿美元的高风险贷款，并将它们重新打包为带有多层次债务的复杂投资产品。信用评级机构将最高层债务评为AAA。包括养老基金和慈善组织在内的机构投资者竞相购买这些貌似无风险但高收益的投资产品。紧张不断加剧。
But the year is not 2006 or 2007. It is today. While the US administration talks of repealing Dodd-Frank, the reality is that regulators have been flouting that law for years and now the shadow financial markets are frothing. Almost a decade after the global financial crisis, the sequel has arrived.
但这不是2006年或者2007年的情景，而是现在。尽管美国政府谈论废除《多德-弗兰克法案》(Dodd-Frank Act)，但现实情况是，监管机构多年来一直无视这部法律，现在影子金融市场出现了泡沫。在全球金融危机爆发近十年后，续集来了。
The central culprit this time is the collateralised loan obligation. Like its earlier esoteric cousins, a CLO bundles risky low-grade loans into attractive packages and high credit ratings. In May, there were two deals of more than $1bn each, and experts estimate that $75bn worth are coming this year. Antares Capital recently closed a $2.1bn CLO, the largest in the US since 2006 and the third-largest in history. Although most of the loans underlying these deals are of “junk” status, more than half the new debt is rated triple A. Sound familiar?
这次的罪魁祸首是“贷款抵押债券”（collateralised loan obligation，简称CLO）。与早先晦涩难懂的产品一样，CLO是将高风险的低评级贷款打包为具有吸引力和高评级的投资产品。今年5月有两笔CLO发行，每笔都超过10亿美元，专家们估计今年还会有价值750亿美元的CLO发行。Antares Capital最近完成了一笔21亿美元的CLO发行，这是美国自2006年以来规模最大、历史上第三大的CLO交易。尽管这些协议中的大多数贷款是“垃圾”级别，但逾半数新债券是AAA评级。听起来很熟悉是吧？
During the early 2000s, similar highly rated deals called collateralised debt obligations were popular. At first, they seemed harmless, or at least not so big that their collapse could cause financial contagion. But when regulators ignored their growth, they became more opaque and more profitable, with credit ratings disconnected from reality. Like cracks in a building’s foundation, the risks seemed minor at first. But high ratings hid the instability of the entire structure. Until it was too late.
在本世纪初，名为“债务抵押债券”（collateralised debt obligation，简称CBO）的类似高评级产品非常流行。最初，它们似乎没啥危害，或者至少危害没有大到它们的崩盘可能蔓延至整个金融行业的程度。但是在监管机构忽视其增长的时候，它们越来越不透明，而且利润越来越高，信用评级与现实脱节。与房屋地基出现裂缝一样，这些风险最初似乎很小。但高评级掩盖了整个结构的不稳定性。直到最后为时已晚。
Dodd-Frank was supposed to stop these credit-rating ploys. But the Securities and Exchange Commission has permitted the agencies to dodge that law. While Dodd-Frank imposed liability on the agencies for false ratings, the SEC exempted them. Likewise, Congress barred the agencies from getting inside information about issuers they rate, but the SEC permitted that, too. As CLOs grow, the cracks are spreading again.
《多德-弗兰克法案》本有望阻止这些信用评级的花招。但美国证交会(SEC)允许这些机构规避该法。尽管《多德-弗兰克法案》会让这些机构为错误评级承担责任，但证交会免除了它们的责任。同样，国会禁止这些机构获取有关它们所评级的发行人的内部信息，但证交会同样允许这么做。随着CLO的发展，裂缝再次扩散。
Last Christmas Eve, the so-called risk-retention rule of Dodd-Frank took effect, requiring that arrangers of these complex deals keep a slice of the downside. But clever financiers arranged for third parties to take on this risk.
在去年圣诞节前夕，《多德-弗兰克法案》的所谓风险自留规则生效，要求这些复杂协议的组织者承担一部分风险。但聪明的金融家安排第三方来承担这种风险。
The credit rating agencies, particularly Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings, are the central actors in this story, just as in the original. The computer programs they use to assign triple-A ratings remain flawed. Because loan defaults can come in waves, mathematical models should account for “correlation risk”, the chance that defaults might occur simultaneously. But the models for CLOs assume correlations are low. When defaults occur at the same time, these supposed triple-A investments will be wiped out. CLOs are just CDOs in new wrapping.
信用评级机构，尤其是穆迪投资者服务公司(Moody's Investors Service)和标普全球评级(S&P Global Ratings)，是这种故事的主角，就像原版金融危机一样。它们用来评定AAA评级的计算机程序依然存在缺陷。因为贷款违约可能蜂拥而来，数学模型应该考虑“关联风险”，即违约同时爆发的可能性。但CLO的模型假定关联风险很低。当违约同时出现的时候，这些所谓的AAA投资产品将会血本无归。CLO只是换了包装的CDO。
Some experts say this time it is different. Earlier this month, Ashish Shah, a managing director of Madison Capital Funding, a subsidiary of New York Life, told a roundtable of CLO experts they should not worry about defaults in 2017. “The appetite for assets is ferocious,” he said. Pension funds, insurance companies and university endowments are demanding both safety and high returns. CLOs seem to offer both.
一些专家说，这次有所不同。7月早些时候，隶属纽约人寿保险(New York Life)旗下的麦迪逊资本融资(Madison Capital Funding)的董事总经理阿希什?沙阿(Ashish Shah)告诉一众CLO专家们，他们在2017年不必担心违约问题。他说：“人们对资产的渴望非常强烈。”养老基金、保险公司和大学捐赠基金会既要求安全性，又要求高回报。CLO似乎满足这两个要求。
A new Office of Credit Ratings within the SEC is supposed to provide a check on this appetite. But when I sent a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking to identify which credit rating agencies have been found to violate SEC rules, the regulators refused to divulge names. Violators remain anonymous.
美国证交会内部新设立的一个信用评级办公室本应为这种渴望把关。但是当我依据《信息自由法》(Freedom of Information Act)发出询问函，寻求确认哪些信用评级机构被发现违反了证交会法规的时候，监管机构拒绝透露名字。违规者依然没有被公诸于众。
It is hard to police the financial markets. New business school graduates are inevitably one step ahead of their regulator counterparts, and many of the least creditworthy businesses find it easy to borrow, because their loans can be quickly repackaged and sold. During the debates about Dodd-Frank repeal, legislators should keep their eyes on these complex investments and the agencies that facilitate them.
金融市场很难管。商学院的新毕业生必然比监管机构的新人领先一步，许多最没有信誉的企业之所以发现很容易借到钱，是因为它们的贷款可以被迅速重新打包卖出。在围绕《多德-弗兰克法案》废除与否的辩论中，立法者应该密切关注这些复杂的投资产品，以及助长这些投资产品的机构们。
Some might claim CLOs are different or smaller, or that regulators are better prepared today, or that business loans could not possibly default all at once, as home mortgage loans did. But similar arguments were made about risks during the early 2000s, before they spread to the major banks and AIG, and the markets spiralled out of control.
一些人可能宣称，CLO有所不同，或者规模较小，或者监管机构如今准备更为充分，或者企业贷款不可能像住房抵押贷款那样同时违约。但在本世纪初，在风险蔓延至大银行和美国国际集团(AIG)、市场逐渐失控之前也存在类似的观点。
To avoid an even bigger crisis, regulators should heed warnings about financial dysfunction and hidden risks now, before the cracks spread.
为了避免一场更大危机的到来，监管机构应该在裂缝扩散前注意金融市场失灵和隐藏风险的迹象。
