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Welcome to Crash Course Economics. My name is Jacob Clifford.
欢迎收看经济速成班。我是雅各布·克利福德。
And I'm Adrienne Hill. And today we're going to do something a little different.
我是埃德因·希尔。今天，我们要做点儿不同的事情。
We're going to explore one moment in history in depth.
我们将深入探讨一个历史时刻。
We're going to talk about how the 2008 Financial Crisis happened
我们将讨论2008年的金融危机是如何发生的，
and the government response to it in the United States. So let's get started.
以及美国政府的反应。所以，我们开始吧。
The 2008 Financial Crisis was a big deal.
2008年的金融危机是件大事。
Ben Bernanke said it could have resulted in a 1930s style global financial
本·伯南克(Ben Bernanke)表示，它可能导致了上世纪30年代风格的全球金融危机
and economic meltdown with catastrophic implications.
以及具有灾难性影响的经济崩溃。
But what happened? Why did it happen?
但发生了什么事？它为什么会发生？
And why aren't we all huddled around burning trash cans forming a raiding party
我们为什么不都挤在燃烧的垃圾桶旁，组成一个突袭队
to go steal gas from other tribes in the wasteland?
去荒原上的其他部落偷取天然气呢？
By the way, if you're actually doing that, you probably didn't hear we survived the financial crisis.
顺便提一下，如果你真这么做了，可能就听不见我们挺过金融危机的消息了。
Things got better. Seriously. Put down your crossbows.
事情变好了。严肃点儿。放下你的石弓。
To explain what happened, first we have to do a quick explainer about mortgages.
要想解释发生了什么，我们先要快速解释一下抵押贷款。
And you might already know this,
你可能已经知道它了，
but basically someone that wants to buy a house will often borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank.
基本上就是，想买房子的人通常会从银行借数十万美元。
In return, the bank gets a piece of paper, called a mortgage.
作为回报，银行会得到叫做抵押贷款的单据。
Every month, the homeowner has to pay back a portion of the principle, plus interest,
每个月，房主都要偿还一部分本金和利息
to whomever holds the piece of paper.
给持有那张单据的一方。
If they stop paying, that's called a default.
如果他们停止付款，就是违约。
And whomever holds that piece of paper gets the house.
任何持有单据的人都能得到房子。
The reason I'm saying whomever holds the paper, rather than the bank,
我说持有单据的任何人而非银行
is because the bank, the original lender, often sells that mortgage to some third party.
是因为初始借方——银行经常把抵押贷款卖给第三方。
And the reason I say often is because this happens all the time.
我之所以说经常，是因为这种事总在发生。
I've had my house for nine months, and three different banks have had the mortgage.
我买房子已经有9个月了，3个不同的银行曾持有该抵押贷款。
Traditionally, it was pretty hard to get a mortgage if you had bad credit or didn't have a steady job.
传统上，如果你有不良贷款或者没有稳定工作的话，很难获得抵押贷款。
Lenders just didn't want to take the risk that you might "default" on your loan,
贷款人不想承担你的贷款违约风险，
but all that started to change in the 2000s.
但在2000年，一切都开始变了。
And before we go further, a quick aside here.
在我们进一步讲之前，说个题外话。
The story gets complicated fast, and it's a fascinating story.
这个故事很快就会变复杂，引人入胜。
But we're trying to keep it relatively simple.
但我们会试着保持相对简单。
So, I've asked Stan if we could put some additional resources in the You-Tube description.
所以，我已经问过斯坦，我们是否可以在You-Tube描述中添加一些额外资源。
And Stan said "Yes." Thanks Stan!
斯坦说可以。谢谢斯坦！
Anyway, back to our story.
不管怎样，回到我们的故事上。
In the 2000s, investors in the U.S. and abroad looking for a low risk, high return investment
在2000年，寻求低风险、高回报的美国和海外投资者
started throwing their money at the U.S. housing market.
开始把钱投到美国房地产市场。
The thinking was they could get a better return from the interest rates home owners paid on their interest rates,
他们的想法是，他们可以从房主支付的利息中得到更好的回报
than they could by investing in things like Treasury Bonds, which were paying very, very low interest.
而不是依靠投资利率非常低的国债等获得收益。
But big money, global investors didn't want to just buy up my mortgage, and Stan's mortgage.
但是，全球投资者的大笔金钱并不想仅仅购买我的抵押贷款和斯坦的抵押贷款。
It's too much hassle to deal with us as individuals. I mean, we're pains.
和我们个人打交道实在是太麻烦了。我的意思是，我们是一种痛苦。
Instead, they bought investments called mortgage backed-securities.
相反，他们投资了抵押贷款支持证券。
Mortgage backed-securities are created when large financial institutions securitize mortgages.
抵押贷款支持证券是大型金融机构将抵押贷款证券化时产生的。
Basically, they buy up thousands of individual mortgages, bundle them together,
基本上，他们购买成千上万的个人抵押贷款，把它们捆绑在一起，
and sell shares of that pool to investors.
并向投资者出售该股票。
Investors gobbled these mortgage backed-securities up.
投资者们把这些抵押贷款支持证券抢购一空。
Again, they paid a higher rate of return than investors could get in other places
同样，他们支付的回报率比投资者从其他地方获得的回报率都高。
and they looked like really safe bets.
而且它们看起来稳赢。
For one, home prices were going up and up.
首先，房价在不断上涨。
So lenders thought, worse case scenario, the borrower defaults on the mortgage,
所以，贷款人认为，更糟糕的情况就是借款人拖欠抵押贷款，
we can just sell the house for more money.
这样的话，我们就可以卖房子赚更多的钱了。
At the same time, credit ratings agencies were telling investors
与此同时，信用评级机构也在告诉投资者
these mortgage backed-securities were safe investments.
这些抵押贷款支持证券是安全投资。
They gave a lot of these mortgage backed-securities AAA Ratings, the best of the best.
他们给了很多抵押贷款支持证券AAA评级，也就是最佳评级。
And back when mortgages were only for borrowers with good credit, mortgage debt was a good investment.
当抵押贷款只适用于信用良好的借款人时，抵押贷款支持证券是项不错的投资。
Anyway, investors were desperate to buy more and more and more of these securities.
不管怎么说，投资者都急于购买越来越多的抵押贷款支持证券。
So, lenders did their best to help create more of them.
因此，贷款人尽其所能地帮助产生更多的抵押贷款支持证券。
But to create more of them, they needed more mortgages.
但为了产生更多的抵押贷款支持证券，他们需要更多的抵押贷款。
So lenders loosened their standards and made loans to people with low income and poor credit.
因此，贷款人放松了他们的标准，向低收入和信用差的人发放贷款。
You'll hear these called sub-prime mortgages.
你会听到这些叫做次级抵押贷款。
Eventually, some institutions even started using what are called predatory ending practices to generate mortgages.
最终，一些机构甚至开始使用掠夺性终结的做法来产生抵押贷款。
They made loans without verifying income
起初，他们在不核实收入的情况下发放贷款，
and offered absurd, adjustable rate mortgages with payments people could afford at first
并提供荒谬的、人们可付得起的可调性利率抵押贷款，
but quickly ballooned beyond their means.
但很快，情况就超出了他们的能力范围。
But these new sub-prime lending practices were brand new.
这些新的次级贷款做法是全新的。
That meant credit agencies could still point to historical data that indicated mortgage debt was a safe bet.
这意味着信贷机构仍指着历史数据，表明抵押贷款债务稳赢。
But it wasn't. These investments were becoming less and less safe all the time.
但它不是。这些投资变得越来越不安全。
But investors trusted the ratings, and kept pouring in their money.
但投资者信任评级，并不断投入资金。
Traders also started selling an even riskier product, called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.
交易员们也开始销售一种风险更大的产品，叫做债务抵押债券（CDOs）.
And again, some of these investments were given the highest credit ratings from the ratings agencies,
一些投资再次获得了评级机构的最高信用评级，
even though many of them were made up of these incredibly risky loans.
尽管其中有很多都是由令人难以置信的高风险贷款组成的。
While, the investors and traders and bankers were throwing money into the U.S. housing market,
然而，投资者、交易员和银行家们都在向美国房地产市场投钱，
the U.S. price of homes was going up and up and up.
美国的房价不断上涨。
The new lax lending requirements and low interest rates drove housing prices higher,
新的宽松贷款要求和低利率推动了房价上涨，
which only made the mortgage backed-securities and CDOs seem like an even better investment.
使得抵押贷款支持证券和债务抵押债券看起来是更好的投资。
If the borrowers defaulted, the bank would still have this super valuable house, right?
如果借款人违约，银行还能得到这座超有价值的房子，对吧？
No. Wrong. Let's go to the Thought Bubble.
不，你错了，我们去看“Thought Bubble”。
Actually, let's go to the Housing Bubble.
实际上，我们来看看房地产泡沫。
You remember bubbles, right?
你还记得泡沫，对吧？
Rapid increases, driven by irrational decisions.
它是由非理性决定驱动的快速增长。
Well, this was a bubble, and bubbles have an annoying tendency to burst. And this one did.
嗯，这是个泡沫，而泡沫有一种恼人的破裂倾向。这个就破了。
People just couldn't pay for their incredibly expensive houses,
人们无法支付贵得离奇的房子，
or keep up with their ballooning mortgage payments.
或者跟上他们不断膨胀的抵押贷款付款。
Borrowers started defaulting, which put more houses back on the market for sale.
借款人开始违约，导致更多的房屋重新挂牌出售。
But there weren't buyers. So supply was up, demand was down, and home prices started collapsing.
但没有买家。供给上升，需求下降，房屋价格开始崩溃。
As prices fell, some borrowers suddenly had a mortgage for way more than their home was currently worth.
随着价格下跌，一些借款人突然有了比房子更值钱的抵押贷款。
Some stopped paying. That led to more defaults, pushing prices down further.
一些人停止支付。这导致了更多的违约，拉动房价进一步下滑。
As this was happening, the big financial institutions stopped buying sub-prime mortgages
当这种情况发生时，大型金融机构停止购买次级抵押贷款，
and sub-prime lenders were getting stuck with bad loans.
于是次级贷款者也陷入了坏账困境。
By 2007, some really big lenders had declared bankruptcy.
到了2007年，有些真正的大银行已经宣布破产了。
The problems spread to the big investors,
这些问题扩散到大投资者身上，
who'd poured money into these mortgage backed-securities and CDOs.
他们都把资金投入到了这些抵押贷款支持证券和债务抵押债券中。
And they started losing money on their investments. A bunch of money.
他们的投资开始缩水，损失了很多钱。
But wait. There's more. There was another financial instrument that financial institutions had on their books
等一下，还有更多。金融机构账簿上还有另一种金融工具，
that exacerbated all of these problems,
加剧了所有这些问题，
unregulated, over-the-counter derivatives, including something called credit default swaps,
那就是不受监管的场外衍生品，包括信用违约掉期，
that were basically sold as insurance against mortgage backed securities.
它们基本上是作为抵押贷款支持证券的保险售卖的。
Does AIG ring a bell?
你是否熟悉美国国际集团？
It sold tens of millions of dollars of these insurance policies,
它卖了数千万美元的保单，
without money to back them up when things went wrong.
如果事情出了问题，没钱支持他们。
And as we mentioned, things went terribly wrong.
正如我们所说，事情变得非常糟糕。
These credit default swaps were also turned into other securities,
这些信用违约掉期也变成了其他证券，
that essentially allowed traders to bet huge amounts of money on
它们允许交易员押注巨额资金在上面，
whether the values of mortgage securities would go up or down.
不管抵押贷款支持证券的价值是上升还是下降。
All these bets, these financial instruments,
所有这些赌注及金融工具，
resulted in an incredibly complicated web of assets, liabilities and risks.
都导致了难以置信的复杂资产、负债和风险。
So that when things went bad, they went bad for the entire financial system.
所以当情况变糟时，它们会对整个金融体系不利。
Thanks Thought Bubble.
感谢“Thought Bubble”。
Some major financial players declared bankruptcy, like Lehman Brothers.
一些主要金融机构宣布破产，就像雷曼兄弟一样。
Others were forced into mergers, or needed to be bailed out by the government.
其他机构被迫合并，或者需要政府救助。
No one knew exactly how bad the balance sheets at some of these financial institutions really were,
没有人知道这些金融机构的资产负债表到底有多糟糕，
these complicated, unregulated assets made it hard to tell.
这些复杂、不受监管的资产让人难以分辨。
Panic set in. Trading and the credit markets froze. The stock market crashed.
恐慌来临。交易和信贷市场冻结。股市暴跌。
And the U.S. economy suddenly found itself in a disastrous recession.
美国经济突然陷入了灾难性衰退。
So what did the government do? Well, it did a lot.
那么政府做了什么呢？嗯，它做了很多事。
The Federal Reserve stepped in and offered to make emergency loans to banks.
美联储介入并提出向银行提供紧急贷款。
The idea was to prevent fundamentally sound banks from collapsing just because their lenders were panicking.
这一想法从根本上是为了防止健全银行破产，因为它们的借款人在恐慌。
The government enacted a program called TARP, the troubled assets relief program,
政府颁布了一个问题资产救助计划（TARP），
and which the rest of us call the bank bailout.
我们称之为银行救助。
This initially earmarked 700 billion dollars to shore up the banks.
这一计划最初拨出7000亿美元来支撑银行。
It actually ended up spending 250 billion dollars bailing out the banks,
它最终花费了2500亿美元救助银行，
and was later expanded to help auto makers, AIG, and homeowners.
后来又扩大到帮助汽车制造商、美国国际集团和房主。
In combination with lending by the FED, this helped stop the cascade of panic in the financial system.
它与美联储的贷款相结合，帮助阻止金融体系的恐慌级联。
The treasury also conducted stress tests on the largest Wall Street banks.
财政部还对最大的华尔街银行进行了压力测试。
Government accountants swarmed over bank balance sheets
政府的会计人员涌入监察银行的资产负债表
and publicly announced which ones were sound and which ones needed to raise more money.
并且公开宣布哪些健全，哪些需要筹集更多资金。
This eliminated some of the uncertainties that had paralyzed lending among institutions.
这消除了一些导致机构间贷款瘫痪的不确定因素。
Congress also passed a huge stimulus package in January 2009.
国会也在2009年1月通过了一项庞大的经济刺激计划。
This pumped over 800 billion dollars into the economy, through new spending and tax cuts.
通过新支出和减税，这一计划为经济注入了8000多亿美元。
This helped slow the free fall of spending, output and employment.
这有助于减缓支出、产出和就业的自由下降。
In 2010, Congress passed a financial reform, called the Dodd-Frank law.
2010年，国会通过了一项名为《多德-弗兰克法案》(Dodd-Frank law)的金融改革法案。
It took steps to increase transparency and prevent banks from taking on so much risk.
它采取措施提高透明度，防止银行承担如此大的风险。
Dodd-Frank did a lot of things.
多德-弗兰克法案做了很多事情。
It set up a consumer protection bureau to reduce predatory lending.
它成立了一个消费者保护局以减少掠夺性贷款。
It required that financial derivatives be traded in exchanges that all market participants can observe.
它要求金融衍生品在交易所交易，所有市场参与者都可以观察。
And it put mechanisms in place for large banks to fail in a controlled predictable manor.
它还为在受控的可预测庄园方面失败的大型银行建立了机制。
But, there's no consensus on whether this regulation is enough to prevent future crises.
但是，对于这一规定是否能防止未来危机，人们还没有达成共识。
So, what have we learned from all this?
那么，我们从这一切中学到了什么呢？
Well, one key factor that led to the 2008 financial crisis was perverse incentives.
导致2008年金融危机的一个关键因素是不当激励。
A perverse incentive is when a policy ends up having a negative effect, opposite of what was intended.
不当激励是当一项政策最终产生负面影响时，其结果与预期相反。
Like, mortgages brokers got bonuses for lending out more money,
比如，抵押贷款经纪人通过发放更多的贷款获得奖金，
but that encouraged them to make risky loans, which hurt profits in the end.
这举措鼓励了他们进行高风险贷款，最终损害了利润。
That leads us to moral hazard.
它导致了道德风险。
This is when one person takes on more risk, because someone else bears the burden of that risk.
这发生在一个人承担更多风险的时候，因为其他人分担了这种风险压力。
Banks and lenders were willing to lend to sub-prime borrowers
银行和贷款人愿意贷款给次级借款人
because they planned to sell mortgages to somebody else.
是因为他们打算把抵押贷款卖给别人。
Everyone thought they could pass the risk up the line.
每个人都认为他们可以把风险转嫁给消费者。
The phrase "Too big to fail" is a perfect example of moral hazard.
“大而不倒”这句话是道德风险的完美例子。
If banks know they are going to be bailed out by the government,
如果银行知道他们将得到政府救助，
they have incentive to make risky, or perhaps unwise bets.
他们就有动机去冒险，或者进行不明智的赌注。
Former FED Chairman, Alan Greenspan summed it up really nicely when he said,
美联储前主席艾伦·格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)在讲话中总结得非常好，他说
"If they're too big to fail, they're too big."
“如果它们大而不倒，那么它们就太大了。”
When something terrible happens, people naturally look for someone to blame.
当事情变糟时，人们自然会找替罪羊。
In the case of the 2008 financial crisis,
就2008年的金融危机而言，
no one had to look very far because the blame and the pain was spread throughout the U.S. economy.
没有人必须看未来，因为指责和痛苦在整个美国经济中蔓延。
The government failed to regulate and supervise the financial system.
政府没有对金融体系进行监管和监督。
To quote the bi-partisan, financial crisis inquiry commission report,
引用两党的金融危机调查委员会的报告词就是
"the sentries were not at their posts,
“哨兵们不在他们的岗位上，
in no small part due to the widely accepted faith in the self-correcting nature of the markets,
很大程度上是由于人们普遍相信市场的自我修正本性
and the ability of financial institutions to effectively police themselves."
以及金融机构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.
该报告将部分责任归咎于金融行业多年来的放松管制。
And blamed regulators themselves for not doing more.
并指责监管机构自己没有采取更多措施。
The financial industry failed.
金融行业失败了。
Everyone in the system was borrowing too much money and taking too much risk,
金融体系中的每个人都借了太多的钱，承担了太多风险。
from the big financial institutions to individual borrowers.
从大型金融机构到个人借款人都是。
The institutions were taking on huge debt loads to invest in risky assets.
这些机构正在承担巨额债务，以投资风险资产。
And huge numbers of home owners were taking on mortgages they couldn't afford.
大量的房屋拥有者承担了他们无力承担的抵押贷款。
But the thing to remember about this massive systemic failure,
但是要记住，这个巨大系统故障的发生
is that it happened in a system made up of humans, with human failing.
在于它发生在人类组成的体系中，由人类失败引起。
Some didn't understand what was happening.
有些人不明白发生了什么。
Some willfully ignored the problems.
有些人故意忽略了这些问题。
And some were simply unethical, motivated by the massive amounts of money involved.
还有一些人是不道德的，被大量金钱所驱使。
I think we should give the last word today to the financial crisis inquiry commission report.
我认为我们今天应该把金融危机调查委员会报告作为结束语。
To paraphrase Shakespeare, they wrote, "The fault lies not in the stars, but in us."
他们套用莎士比亚的说法，写道“错误不在星星，而在我们。”
Thanks for watching.
感谢收看。
Crash Course Economics is made with the help of all of these nice people.
经济速成班是由一群好心人制作的。
We're able to stave off our own financial crisis each month, thanks to your support at Patreon.
多亏了Patreon的支持，我们每个月才能避免金融危机。
You can help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever,
你可以帮助支持Patreon的速成课程，让它们向所有人永远免费开放，
and get great rewards at patreon.com.
并在patreon.com.上获得奖励。
And given today's subject, be exuberant, but keep it rational.
鉴于今天的主题，我们要充满活力，但要保持理性。
