The Morning

: The bank failures, explained

《早晨》：銀行倒閉的解釋

March 14, 2023

by German Lopez

2023年3月14日

作者：哲爾曼?洛佩斯

Good morning. Deregulation contributed to Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.

早上好。放松監(jiān)管導(dǎo)致了硅谷銀行的倒閉。

Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, Calif.

Jim Wilson /

The New York Times

加利福尼亞州圣克拉拉的硅谷銀行。

吉姆·威爾遜 /《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》 Stopping the fallout

阻止余波

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and others — and the government’s rescue over the weekend — left many of us again rushing to understand the arcane details of the financial system. It can be maddeningly complex, so I want to use today’s newsletter to explain some of the basics. 硅谷銀行（Silicon Valley Bank）等銀行的倒閉——以及周末政府的紓困——讓我們?cè)S多人再次急于了解金融體系的神秘細(xì)節(jié)。它可能非常復(fù)雜，所以我想用今天的時(shí)事通訊來解釋一些基礎(chǔ)知識(shí)。 First, the latest: Bank stocks plummeted yesterday, hitting midsize and smaller institutions in particular. Other financial markets gyrated as well, despite U.S. policymakers’ emergency help for customers of the closed banks. “It didn’t put calm back in the system,” said my colleague Maureen Farrell, who covers business. 首先是最新的消息：銀行類股票昨日大幅下跌，尤其打擊了中小型機(jī)構(gòu)。 其他金融市場(chǎng)也出現(xiàn)了震蕩，盡管美國政策制定者為關(guān)閉銀行的客戶提供了緊急援助。 我的同事、負(fù)責(zé)商業(yè)報(bào)道的莫林·法雷爾（Maureen Farrell）說：“這并沒有讓整個(gè)體系恢復(fù)平靜?！?Why does this matter to everyday Americans? After all, SVB is relatively small and most of us keep no money in it. 為什么這對(duì)每一個(gè)美國人都很重要？畢竟SVB相對(duì)較小，我們大多數(shù)人都沒有把錢存在里面。 The short answer is the potential for wider fallout. When banks collapse, other people sometimes fear that their own banks and investments will follow. Even healthy banks don’t keep enough cash on hand to pay out all depositors, so if too many people panic at once and pull out their money — a classic bank run — it could lead to broader financial and economic calamity. And that is what the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve are trying to stop: a financial crisis largely prompted by plunging confidence. 簡而言之，這件事可能會(huì)帶來更廣泛的影響。當(dāng)銀行倒閉時(shí)，其他人有時(shí)會(huì)擔(dān)心他們自己的銀行和投資也會(huì)隨之倒閉。即使是健康的銀行也沒有足夠的現(xiàn)金來支付所有的儲(chǔ)戶，所以如果太多人同時(shí)感到恐慌并提取他們的錢——典型的銀行擠兌——這可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致更廣泛的金融和經(jīng)濟(jì)災(zāi)難。而這正是拜登政府和美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)正在努力阻止的：一場(chǎng)主要由信心暴跌引發(fā)的金融危機(jī)。 The collapse

崩潰

How did we get to this point? To answer that, I need to dive into more detail about Silicon Valley Bank. 我們是怎么走到這一步的？要回答這個(gè)問題，需要深入了解硅谷銀行的更多細(xì)節(jié)。 As its name suggests, the bank portrayed itself as focused on the leading edge of technology. And it served thousands of tech firms. Yet SVB invested their money in something much less exciting, as Paul Krugman wrote: U.S. bonds, effectively I.O.U.s from the federal government. 顧名思義，這家銀行將自己描繪成專注于技術(shù)前沿的公司。 它服務(wù)了數(shù)千家科技企業(yè)。 然而SVB把他們的錢投資在一些不那么振奮人心的東西上，正如保羅·克魯格曼（Paul Krugman）所寫的：美國國債，實(shí)際上就是聯(lián)邦政府的欠條。 Because the federal government has always paid its bills, U.S. bonds are widely considered the safest investment. SVB’s experience shows there are moments when even these safe investments may not pay off. The details get technical, but they’re worth unpacking to understand what went wrong. 由于聯(lián)邦政府一直在償還債務(wù)，美國國債被廣泛認(rèn)為是最安全的投資。SVB的經(jīng)驗(yàn)表明，有時(shí)即使是這些安全的投資也可能得不到回報(bào)。細(xì)節(jié)變得很有技術(shù)含量，但為了了解問題出在哪里，有必要把它們拆開來分析。 Bonds are effectively money that the government borrows from buyers — the public — before paying them back later, with interest. Market conditions and the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, help determine that interest rate. 國債實(shí)際上是政府從買家（公眾）那里借來的錢，然后再連同利息一起償還。市場(chǎng)條件和美國的中央銀行美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)有助于決定利率。 When SVB bought bonds, interest rates were very low. Since then, the Federal Reserve, which sets certain influential rates, increased those to combat rising prices. Now, new bonds can carry interest multiple times higher than those SVB bought. SVB購買債券時(shí)，利率非常低。自那以后，負(fù)責(zé)設(shè)定某些有影響力的國債利率的美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)（Federal Reserve）將利率提高，以遏制不斷上漲的物價(jià)?，F(xiàn)在，新債券的利息可能比SVB購買的債券高數(shù)倍。 Imagine, then, that you want to buy bonds today. You would want the newer bonds because they have a higher payout. So when SVB needed to sell bonds, to raise cash that it could use for its customers’ withdrawals, it could do so only for a discount, taking a loss. 想象一下，你今天想買債券。你當(dāng)然會(huì)想要新債券，因?yàn)樗鼈冇懈叩膱?bào)酬。因此，當(dāng)SVB需要出售債券來籌集現(xiàn)金以供其客戶提款時(shí)，它只能以打折的方式出售，并承擔(dān)損失。 The bank failed to follow basic financial advice: Diversify your portfolio. “It’s not fraud,” said Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “But it’s an extremely risky, and obviously risky, strategy.” 這家銀行沒有遵循基本的理財(cái)建議：分散投資組合。“這不是欺詐，” 彼得森國際經(jīng)濟(jì)研究所（Peterson Institute for International Economics）的高級(jí)研究員約瑟夫·加格農(nóng)（Joseph Gagnon）說，“但這是一種非常冒險(xiǎn)的策略，顯然是冒險(xiǎn)的。” In the past few weeks, venture capitalists and other wealthy customers on social media and in private chats started discussing concerns that SVB could no longer pay its depositors. Some began to move their money out of the bank, and the situation spiraled quickly. “Once you start asking, ‘Are we having a bank run?, ’ it’s too late,” my colleague David Enrich, a business editor, said. 過去幾周，風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資家和其他富有的客戶在社交媒體上和私下聊天中開始討論SVB無法再支付儲(chǔ)戶的擔(dān)憂。 一些人開始把他們的錢轉(zhuǎn)出銀行，情況迅速惡化。 “一旦你開始問：‘我們正在發(fā)生銀行擠兌嗎？’，就為時(shí)已晚了。” 我的同事戴維?里奇（David Enrich），一名商業(yè)編輯說道。 A regulatory failure

監(jiān)管的失敗

Financial regulations are supposed to stop these kinds of crises. But Silicon Valley Bank’s problems were not caught until it was too late — which many experts say was a result of insufficient oversight. 金融監(jiān)管本應(yīng)阻止這類危機(jī)。 但硅谷銀行的問題直到為時(shí)已晚才被發(fā)現(xiàn)——許多專家表示，這是監(jiān)管不足的結(jié)果。 Under pressure from banks in 2018, Congress passed bipartisan legislation that Donald Trump signed into law shielding smaller banks, like SVB, from more stringent rules. The banks argued that they were so small that they posed little risk to the broader financial system. 2018年，在銀行的壓力下，美國國會(huì)通過了兩黨立法，經(jīng)唐納德·特朗普簽署成為法律，保護(hù)SVB等小銀行免受更嚴(yán)格的規(guī)定。 這些銀行辯稱，它們規(guī)模很小，對(duì)更廣泛的金融體系構(gòu)成的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)很小。 SVB’s collapse and the aftermath suggest the banks’ claims were wrong: Even smaller bank failures can threaten the financial system as a whole, prompting some experts — but not all — to call for the federal government to get more involved. SVB的倒閉及其后果表明，這些銀行的說法是錯(cuò)誤的：即使規(guī)模較小的銀行倒閉也可能威脅到整個(gè)金融系統(tǒng)，這促使一些專家（但不是全部）呼吁聯(lián)邦政府更多地參與進(jìn)來。 Controlled slowdown

控制下的減速

To readers of this newsletter, the Federal Reserve’s involvement in containing the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse may be puzzling. The Fed, after all, has been raising interest rates to slow the economy. An economic slowdown inherently involves businesses, including banks, failing. 對(duì)于本通訊的讀者來說，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)參與遏制硅谷銀行倒閉的后果可能令人費(fèi)解。 畢竟，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)一直在提高利率以減緩經(jīng)濟(jì)增長速率。經(jīng)濟(jì)放緩必然會(huì)導(dǎo)致包括銀行在內(nèi)的企業(yè)倒閉。 The Fed’s concern is that the bank collapses could go too far and pose bigger systemic risks beyond SVB. Think of it this way: You can stop a runaway car by blowing out its tires, potentially causing a crash. But it would be better if the car stopped by simply braking. Officials are trying to get the economy to brake to a safer speed — one in which inflation isn’t so high. 美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)擔(dān)心的是，銀行倒閉可能會(huì)走得太遠(yuǎn)，造成比SVB更大的系統(tǒng)性風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。可以這樣想：你可以通過爆胎來阻止一輛失控的汽車，這可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致撞車。但如果汽車只是剎車就能停下來，那就更好了。官員們正試圖讓經(jīng)濟(jì)減速到一個(gè)更安全的速度——一個(gè)通貨膨脹不那么高的速度。 The economic slowdown that the Fed hopes for would still affect everyday Americans, in both lower prices and also potentially higher unemployment rates. But that outcome is better than an uncontrolled bank run that topples the financial system and takes the rest of the economy, and your 401(k), down with it. 美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)所希望的經(jīng)濟(jì)放緩仍然會(huì)影響到普通美國人，包括物價(jià)下跌和可能的失業(yè)率上升。但這樣的結(jié)果總比不受控制的銀行擠兌好，銀行擠兌會(huì)推翻金融體系，殃及經(jīng)濟(jì)的其余部分，包括你40.1萬的退休金計(jì)劃。

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

— German

謝謝你早上花時(shí)間看《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》。明天見。

——哲爾曼

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

馬修·卡倫、勞倫·哈德、勞倫·杰克遜、克萊爾·摩西、伊恩·普拉薩德·菲爾布里克、湯姆·賴特-皮爾桑蒂和阿什利·吳為《早晨》雜志撰稿。您可以通過themorning@nytimes.com與團(tuán)隊(duì)聯(lián)系。

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