TED演讲：银行是如何被掏空的？

So our task is to educate ourselves so that we can understand why we have these recurrent,intensifying financial crises,and how we can prevent them in the future.

所以我们的当务之急是好好学习，长长见识，搞清楚金融危机一再出现并且愈演愈烈的原因，以及未来如何防范。

And the answer to that is that we have to stop epidemics of control fraud.

答案就是我们需要制止大面积的管理欺诈行为。

Control fraud is what happens when the people who control,typically a CEO,a seemingly legitimate entity,use it as a weapon to defraud.

何为管理欺诈？管理人员，通常是CEO在管理一个貌似合法的金融机构时，把这个机构当成武器来使，搞诈骗。

And these are the weapons of mass destruction in the financial world.

这些算是金融界的大规模杀伤性武器。

They also follow in finance a particular strategy,because the weapon of choice in finance is accounting,and there is a recipe for accounting control fraud, and how it occurs.

在金融领域，他们还采取一种特定的策略，因为他们所使用的武器是会计，这是金融领域的不二之选。会计管理欺诈行为及其发生都有固定的“套路”。

And we discovered this recipe in quite an odd way that I'll come back to in a moment.

我们发现这一点也是不期而然。我稍后再谈。

First ingredient in the recipe: grow like crazy;

这一套路不可缺少的“原料”：首先是疯狂地膨胀扩张。

Second, by making or buying really crappy loans, but loans that are made at a very high interest rate or yield;

其次是放出或者购买“垃圾贷款”，不过这种贷款的利率或者收益非常之高。

Three, while employing extreme leverage that just means a lot of debt compared to your equity;

第三，大肆利用金融杠杆，也就是相对于资产而言不成比例的大量债务。

And four, while providing only trivial loss reserves against the inevitable losses.

第四，为应对必然发生的坏账提供少之又少的准备金。

If you follow those four simple steps,and any bank can follow them,then you are mathematically guaranteed to have three things occur.

只要遵循这四个简单的步骤，任何银行都做得到，就会确定无疑地出现以下三种情况。

The first thing is you will report record bank profits not just high, record.

第一，银行的账面利润将会是史无前例的高不是一般的高，是史无前例的高。

Two, the CEO will immediately be made incredibly wealthy by modern executive compensation.

第二，鉴于现代的高管薪酬结构，CEO会一夜暴富。

And three, farther down the road,the bank will suffer catastrophic losses and will fail unless it is bailed out.

第三，长此以往银行就会遭受巨额损失，除非获得救助，不然就将倒闭。

And that's a hint as to how we discovered this recipe,because we discovered it through an autopsy process.

因为我们对整个流程进行了“解剖”。顺藤摸瓜我们才发现了这个固定的套路。

During the savings and loan debacle in 1984,we looked at every single failure,and we looked for common characteristics,

1984年储贷危机期间，我们仔细研究了每一个破产案例。寻找其中的共同点。

And we discovered this recipe was common to each of these frauds.

我们发现这一套路在每个欺诈案例中都存在。

In other words, a coroner could find these things because this is a fatal recipe that will destroy the banks as well as the economy.

换言之，验尸官能够找到这些东西。因为这是致命的“毒方”不仅会毁掉银行，也会毁掉我们的经济。

And it also turns out to be precisely what could have stopped this crisis, the one that cost us 11 trillion dollars just in the household sector.

这也正是可以阻止这场危机发生的东西，这一危机仅在经济的私人部门就让我们损失11万亿。

Yhat cost us 10 million jobs, was the easiest financial crisis by far to have avoided completely if we had simply learned the lessons of epidemics of control fraud,particularly using this recipe.

丢掉1000万个工作岗位，如果我们能够运用这一固定套路从大面积的管理欺诈行为中吸取教训，我们就可以轻而易举地避免这场危机的发生。

So let's go to this crisis, and the two huge epidemics of loan origination fraud that drove the crisis appraisal fraud and liar's loans.

现在我们来看看这场危机以及导致它发生的两种大面积借贷欺诈行为：估价欺诈和欺骗性贷款。

and what we're going to see in looking at both of these is we got warnings that were incredibly early about these frauds.

研究这两者，我们发现：第一，对于这些欺诈行为，我们接到的预警信号非常之早。

We got warnings that we could have taken advantage of easily,because back in the savings and loan debacle,we had figured out how to respond and prevent these crises.

第二，我们可以轻而易举地利用这些预警信号采取措施，因为早在储贷危机时期，我们就知道了如何应对，从而避免危机的发生。

And three, the warnings were unambiguous.

第三，这些预警信号确切不疑。

They were obvious that what was going on was an epidemic of accounting control fraud building up.

它们清楚地表明了大面积的会计管理欺诈行为正在升级。

Let's take appraisal fraud first.

我们先来看估价欺诈

This is simply where you inflate the value of the home that is being pledged as security for the loan.

简单地说，估价欺诈就是夸大用作贷款担保的房屋的价值。

In 2000, the year 2000,that is over a year before Enron fails, by the way,the honest appraisers got together a formal petition begging the federal government to act.

在2000年，也就是安然破产一年多前，有节操的估价师聚在一起，起草了一份正式的请愿书。要求联邦政府采取措施，

And the industry to act,to stop this epidemic of appraisal fraud.

要求行业自身采取措施，制止这种大面积的估价欺诈行为。

And the appraisers explained how it was occurring,that banks were demanding that appraisers inflate the appraisal,

这些估价师解释问题是如何发生的：银行要求估价师弄虚作假夸大估值。

and that if the appraisers refused to do so,they, the banks, would blacklist honest appraisers and refuse to use them.

一旦估价师拒绝配合，银行就把这些有节操的估价师拉入黑名单，不再雇佣他们。

Now, we've seen this before in the savings and loan debacle,and we know that this kind of fraud can only originate from the lenders.

在储贷危机期间，我们就遇到过这种情况，我们知道这种欺诈行为的罪魁祸首就是借方。

and that no honest lender would ever inflate the appraisal,because it's the great protection against loss.

有节操的借方绝对不会为估值灌水，因为拒绝灌水才是防止损失的上策。

So this was an incredibly early warning, 2000.

所以说，预警信号早在2000年就已出现。

It was something we'd seen before,and it was completely unambiguous.

这是我们之前见到过，并且确切不疑。

This was an epidemic of accounting control fraud led by the banks.

这就是银行主导的大面积会计管理欺诈行为。

What about liar's loans?

欺骗性贷款又是神马呢？

Well, that warning actually comes earlier.

实际上，它的预警信号来得更早。

The savings and loan debacle is basically the early 1980s through 1993,and in the midst of fighting that wave of accounting control fraud.

储贷危机基本上从1980年代早期开始持续到1993年，在打击那波会计管理欺诈的行动中，

In 1990, we found that a second front of fraud was being started.

我们在1990年发现欺诈行为出现了第二波。

And like all good financial frauds in America,it began in Orange County, California.

果不其然，和美国的所有牛逼的金融欺诈行为一样，发源地又是加州橙县。

And we happened to be the regional regulators for it.

我们刚好是当地的监管机构。

And our examiners said,they are making loans without even checking what the borrower's income is.

我们的检查人员说，当地银行根本不核实借款人的收入情况直接就发放借款。

This is insane, it has to lead to massive losses,and it only makes sense for entities engaged in these accounting control frauds.

这太没底线了，必然会导致大规模损失，这种情况只可能是金融机构进行了会计管理欺诈行为。

And we said, yeah, you're absolutely right,and we drove those liar's loans out of the industry in 1990 and 1991.

我们对检查人员说，没错，你们说的对，然后就在90、91年，我们在银行业取缔了这些欺诈性的贷款。

But we could only deal with the industry we had jurisdiction over, which was savings and loans,

但是我们只能处理我们有权管理的业务，也就是储蓄和贷款业务。

And so the biggest and the baddest of the frauds, Long Beach Savings, voluntarily gave up its federal savings and loan charter, gave up federal deposit insurance.

业内最大最狡猾的诈骗银行长滩储蓄主动放弃联邦政府颁发的储蓄和借贷执照，放弃联邦存款保险。

Converted to become a mortgage bank for the sole purpose of escaping our jurisdiction,

变身一家抵押银行煞费苦心，只为了逃避我们的监管，

and changed its name to Ameriquest,and became the most notorious of the liar's loans frauds early on.

长滩储蓄后来更名为Ameriquest，是早期欺骗性借贷欺诈行为最为臭名昭著的。

and to add to that,they deliberately predated upon minorities.

此外，他们还故意欺骗美国的少数族裔。

So we knew again about this crisis.

所以这样的诈骗性贷款危机也是我们所了解的，

We'd seen it before. We'd stopped it before.

我们之前见过，我们之前也阻止过。

We had incredibly early warnings of it,and it was absolutely unambiguous that no honest lender would make loans in this fashion.

我们接到的预警信号非常之早，预警信号确切不疑：有节操的借方绝不会这样放款。

So let's take a look at the reaction of the industry and the regulators and the prosecutors to these clear early warnings that could have prevented the crisis.

我们来看看面对这些完全可以阻止危机发生的清晰预警信号，从行业自身、监管机构到检调人员都做了些什么。

Start with the industry.

先看行业本身。

The industry responded between 2003 and 2006 by increasing liar's loans by over 500 percent.

从2003年到2006年，金融行业的欺骗性借贷业务增加了5倍之多。

These were the loans that hyperinflated the bubble and produced the economic crisis.

正是这些贷款使泡沫飞速膨大，造成了经济危机。

By 2006, half of all the loans called subprime were also liar's loans.

截至2006年，半数被称为次贷的借款，同时也是欺骗性借贷。

They're not mutually exclusive, it's just that together,they're the most toxic combination you can possibly imagine.

这两者并不互斥，而是交织在一起共同构成你所能想象出的最坏组合。

By 2006, 40 percent of all the loans made that year, all the home loans made that year,were liar's loans,40 percent.

截至2006年，当年发放的所有贷款，当年的所有房屋贷款中四成是欺骗性贷款。高达四成啊，亲。

And this is despite a warning from the industry's own antifraud experts that said that these loans were an open invitation to fraudsters, and that they had a fraud incidence of 90 percent,nine zero.

行业自身的反欺诈专家曾经警告，这些贷款简直是引狼入室，诈骗率高达九成，百分之九十。尽管有这些警告，问题还是发生了。

In response to that, the industry first started calling these loans liar's loans, which lacks a certain subtlety, and second, massively increased them, and no government regulator ever required or encouraged any lender to make a liar's loan or anyone to purchase a liar's loan,and that explicitly includes Fannie and Freddie.

作为回应，金融行业首先开始称呼这些贷款为欺骗性借贷，听上去不太悦耳。其次，大幅增加这种贷款。没有任何政府监管机构要求或者鼓励任何借方放出欺骗性贷款要求或鼓励任何人去购买欺骗性借贷，这当然也包括房利美和房地美。

This came from the lenders because of the fraud recipe.

由于欺诈的成因和模式，借方难辞其咎。

What happened to appraisal fraud?

估价欺诈行为又是怎样呢？

It expanded remarkably as well.

同样膨胀得非常了得。

By 2007, when a survey of appraisers was done,90 percent of appraisers reported that they had been subject to coercion from the lenders trying to get them to inflate an appraisal.

2007年，有份针对估价师的调查，9成受访的估价师表示，他们受到借方的胁迫，要求他们对估值进行灌水（夸大价值）。

In other words, both forms of fraud became absolutely endemic and normal,and this is what drove the bubble.

换言之，两种形式的欺诈行为成为常态，疯狂肆虐，泡沫于是成型。

What happened in the governmental sector?

政府部门的情况呢？

Well, the government, as I told you,when we were the savings and loan regulators,we could only deal with our industry,and if people gave up their federal deposit insurance,we couldn't do anything to them.

政府啊，不提也罢，说多了都是泪，我们监管储贷的时候，我们只能处理我们负责的行业，如果借方放弃他们的联邦存款保险，我们就将束手无策。

Congress, it may strike you as impossible, but actually did something intelligent in 1994,and passed the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act that gave the Fed, and only the Federal Reserve,the explicit, statutory authority to ban liar's loans by every lender,whether or not they had federal deposit insurance.

国会，说起来你们可能不信，在1994年实际上倒是干了点实事，通过了《房屋所有权和股权保护法》，法案赋权美联储，仅限美联储明确的法律权力去取缔来自任何借方的欺骗性贷款业务，无论这些借方有无联邦存款保险。

So what did Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan,as chairs of the Fed, do when they got these warnings that these were massively fraudulent loans and that they were being sold to the secondary market?

在接到这些预警信号：这些大面积的欺诈性贷款这些要转售给次级市场的欺骗性贷款作为美联储主席到底做了些什么？

Remember, there's no fraud exorcist.

请记住，没有神人能将这些欺诈行为消失。

Once it starts out a fraudulent loan, it can only be sold to the secondary market through more frauds, lying about the reps and warrantees,and then those people are going to produce mortgage-backed securities and exotic derivatives which are also going to be supposedly backed by those fraudulent loans.

欺骗性贷款一旦出现，只能通过更多的欺诈行为，如编造合约声明和保证条款把这一借款转售给次级市场。然后借方再推出抵押贷款证券和衍生产品，而为这些产品进行担保的正是欺骗性借款。

So the fraud is going to progress through the entire system,hyperinflate the bubble, produce a disaster.

欺诈行为将贯穿整个系统的始终，使泡沫急剧膨胀，进而造成灾难。

And remember, we had experience with this.

想想看，这事我们之前经历过。

We had seen significant losses,and we had experience of competent regulators in stopping it.

我们遭受了巨大的损失，职能监管机构也有阻止危机出现的先例。

Greenspan and Bernanke refused to use the authority under the statute to stop liar's loans.

但是格林斯潘和伯南克拒绝使用法律赋予他们的权力来取缔欺骗性借贷。

And this was a matter first of dogma.

首先，这完全是意识形态在作祟。

They're just horrifically opposed to anything regulatory.

他们反对任何形式的监管措施令人震惊和深恶痛绝。

But it is also the international competition in laxity, the race to the bottom between the United States and the United Kingdom, the city of London, in particular,and the city of London won that race to the bottom, but it meant that all regulation in the West was completely degraded in this stupid competition to be who could have the weakest regulation.

但同时也是国际上放松监管的竞争，力争下游。这场竞争在美国和英国，确切说是伦敦之间展开，伦敦获胜，监管最松。这也意味着，从这场看谁的监控最松的愚蠢竞争中可以看出在西方社会监管措施是多么的不受待见。

So that was the regulatory response.

这就是监管层面的反应。

What about the response of the prosecutors after the crisis, after 11 trillion dollars in losses,after 10 million jobs lost,a crisis in which the losses and the frauds were more than 70 times larger than the savings and loan debacle?

这场让我们损失11万亿1000万个工作岗位，损失和欺诈规模超过储贷危机70倍的危机之后，检调人员又做了些什么呢？

Well, in the savings and loan debacle,our agency that regulated savings and loans, OTS,made over 30,000 criminal referrals,produced over 1,000 felony convictions just in cases designated as major,and that understates the degree of prioritization, because we worked with the FBI to create the list of the top 100 fraud schemes,the absolute worst of the worst, nationwide.

在储贷危机中，负责储贷监管的机构-储蓄管理局提出3万起刑事诉讼1千人被判以重罪，这还仅是大案要案方面，而且还没反映问题的严重性，因为我们跟联邦调查局携手，开列了一个清单，上面是全国范围内最没节操最无底线的100种诈骗伎俩。

Roughly 300 savings and loans involved,roughly 600 senior officials.

差不多300个储贷机构，600个高级官员涉案。

Virtually all of them were prosecuted.

几乎全被起诉，

We had a 90 percent conviction rate.

定罪率9成。

It's the greatest success against elite white collar criminals ever,and it was because of this understanding of control fraud and the accounting control fraud mechanism.

堪称针对白领精英犯罪的一场漂亮仗，史无前例，原因无他，我们掌握了管理欺诈及会计管理欺诈的内幕和伎俩。

Flash forward to the current crisis.

再回到当前的这场危机。

The same agency, Office of Thrift Supervision,which was supposed to regulate many of the largest makers of liar's loans in the country,has made, even today it no longer exists, but as of a year ago,it had made zero criminal referrals.

同一个机构-储蓄管理局，本应该监管全国欺骗性贷款祸首的各大银行。到今天，什么都没做，好像一切不曾发生过，一年前，提出的刑事诉讼案件数还是零。

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency,which is supposed to regulate the largest national banks,has made zero criminal referrals.

负责全国性大银行监管任务的金融管理局，提出的刑事诉讼案件数同样为零。

The Fed appears to have made zero criminal referrals.

美联储提出的刑事诉讼案件貌似也是零。

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is smart enough to refuse to answer the question.

联邦存款保险公司更刁钻，顾左右而言他，根本不回答这个问题。

Without any guidance from the regulators,there's no expertise in the FBI to investigate complex frauds.

没有监管机构的协助，联邦调查局在调查复杂的欺诈案件上无能为力。

It isn't simply that they've had to reinvent the wheel of how to do these prosecutions;they've forgotten that the wheel exists.

提出诉讼不是什么难事，不过是举手之劳，易如反掌。只是他们忘了怎么举，忘了怎么反。

And therefore, we have zero prosecutions, and of course, zero convictions,of any of the elite bank frauds,the Wall Street types,that drove this crisis.

因而，造成这场危机的华尔街顶尖银行诈骗犯们没有一个被起诉没有一个被定罪。

With no expertise coming from the regulators,the FBI formed what it calls a partnership with the Mortgage Bankers Association in 2007.

监管机构不愿伸出援手，联邦调查局2007年与抵押贷款银行家协会携起手来。

The Mortgage Bankers Association is the trade association of the perps.

抵押贷款银行家协会是这些祸首的行业组织。

And the Mortgage Bankers Association set out, it had the audacity and the success to con the FBI.

抵押贷款银行家协会出手了，他们不仅有能力也有动机去欺骗联邦调查局。

It had created a supposed definition of mortgage fraud, in which, guess what its members are always the victim and never the perpetrators.

抵押贷款银行家协会为抵押欺诈行为下了个定义，不出所料，按照这个定义，这个协会的成员都是欺诈行为的受害者没一个是欺诈行为的加害者。

And the FBI has bought this hook, line, sinker, rod, reel and the boat they rode out in.

联邦调查局不疑有他照单全收。

And so the FBI, under the leadership of an attorney general who is African-American and a president of the United States who is African-American,have adopted the Tea Party definition of the crisis,in which it is the first virgin crisis in history,conceived without sin in the executive ranks.

就这样，在一个非裔司法部长和一个非裔美国总统的领导之下，联邦调查局完全相信了茶党对这场危机的说辞，成了破天荒的圣女生子案，高管层人人清白。

And it's those oh-so-clever hairdressers who were able to defraud the poor, pitiful banks,who lack any financial sophistication.

问题出在狡猾的临时工身上，他们在欺骗穷人，他们在欺骗对金融行业一无所知的银行业者。

It is the silliest story you can conceive of,and so they go and they prosecute the hairdressers,and they leave the banksters alone entirely.

这简直是最奇葩的谎话，然后他们把临时工抓起来了，银行家们毫发未损。

And so, while lions are roaming the campsite,

就这样，满地西瓜

the FBI is chasing mice.

联邦调查局却在那里捡芝麻。

What do we need to do?

我们该怎么办？

What can we do in all of this?

面对这一切，我们能做什么？

We need to change the perverse incentive structures that produce these recurrent epidemics of accounting control fraud that are driving our crises.

我们需要改革不正常的激励机制，正是这种机制在催生一再出现的大面积会计管理欺诈行为，进而导致危机的发生。

So we have to first get rid of the systemically dangerous institutions.

第一，我们要排除这种具有系统性危险的金融机构。

These are the so-called too-big-to-fail institutions.

所谓尾大不掉的金融机构。

We need to shrink them to the point,within the next five years,that they no longer pose a systemic risk.

在接下来的五年里，我们要给它们大幅瘦身，让它们不再具有系统性风险。

Right now, they are ticking time bombs that will cause a global crisis as soon as the next one fails not if, when.

现在，它们就是定时炸弹，其中一个破产倒闭，就会引发全球性危机。而且问题还不是会不会倒，而是什么时候倒的问题。

Second thing we need to do is completely reform modern executive and professional compensation,which is what they use to suborn the appraisers.

第二，我们要彻底改革当前的高管人员薪酬制度，这也是他们用来胁迫估价师的工具和手段。

Remember, they were pressuring the appraisers through the compensation system, trying to produce what we call a Gresham's dynamic,in which bad ethics drives good ethics out of the marketplace.

想想看，他们在通过薪酬体系向估价师施压，造成劣币驱逐良币的格雷欣效应，市场上道德节操无人问津。

And they largely succeeded, which is how the fraud became endemic.

很大程度上，他们得逞了。这就是为什么欺诈行为如此猖獗。

And the third thing that we need to do is deal with what we call the three D's:

第三，我们要解决三无问题：无规章制度、无有效监管

deregulation, desupervision, and the de facto decriminalization.

出事后，无人担责被绳之以法的问题。

Because we can make all three of these changes, and if we do so,we can dramatically reduce how often we have a crisis and how severe those crises are.

因为我们可以从这三方面进行改革，只要我们这样做，就能大幅降低危机发生的频率和危机发生后的危害程度。

That is not simply critical to our economy.

这不仅事关我们的经济。

You can see what these crises do to inequality and what they do to our democracy.

看看这些危机对贫富差距的影响，对我们的民主制度的破坏。

They have produced crony capitalism, American-style,in which the largest financial institutions are the leading financial donors of both parties,and that's the reason why even after this crisis,70 times larger than the savings and loan crisis, we have no meaningful reforms in any of the three areas that I've talked about,other than banning liar's loans,which is good,but that's just one form of ammunition for this fraud weapon.

危机产生了裙带资本主义，有美国特色的裙带资本主义，最大的金融机构是两党的最大金主。这就是为什么这场比储贷危机严重70倍的危机发生之后，在我提到的三个方面依然没有任何实质性的改革。除了欺骗性贷款被取缔，这当然是好事但欺骗性贷款只是他们手中的一种武器。

There are many forms of ammunition they can use.

他们可用的武器还很多。

That's why we need to learn what the bankers have learned:

这就是为什么我们需要求教银行家的地方：

the recipe for the best way to rob a bank,so that we can stop that recipe,because our legislators,who are dependent on political contributions, will not do it on their own.

抢银行的最佳秘方，这样我们才能除掉它。因为我们的国会议员离不开政治献金，所以他们不会主动来做这一切。

Thank you very much.

谢谢，多谢。

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