美联储失败的货币政策

伯南克和我很少有共同之处，但是有一种观点我们都认同：任何形式的恢复都是建立在信心之上。消费者信心的恢复会增加消费，尤其是汽车、房子、家具等大宗消费；企业信心的恢复对于增加新厂房、设备投资、企业创新性和增加就业都很有必要，企业需要信心去投资价格合理的新项目。不确定性抑制了就业的增长。

我们的分歧在于如何恢复信心。他的观点是，当前的通货膨胀率太低，而高通胀有利于就业。高通胀可以通过国库购买（债券）等方式给经济注入资金。他指出：“经验表明，我们以前的证券购买计划可以成功的降低长期利率，从而有利于经济复苏。”尽管这或许有可能降低长期利率，但是他说的有利于经济复苏，是如何得出的？低利率可以创造就业机会？不；低利率可以激发投资？不；可以提高消费者信心？不。

量化宽松政策（QE）迄今取得了什么进展？

快速浏览一下美联储的资产负债表你会发现，美联储在2008年9月至2010年3月之间向金融系统注入了1.4万亿的流动性
 
我们看一下美联储措施的效果如何：失业率上升而不是按照预期的下降。
 
其原因在于银行贷款。银行资产自2008年9月快速上升，紧接着影子银行系统的崩溃，贷款和租赁逐渐缩水，跌幅超过一万亿美元。这清楚的表明商业投资也没有上升。
 
作为银行资产的一部分，证券化贷款也包括在内。
货币刺激政策并没有阻止银行信贷的收缩。那么，资金去哪了？ 1万亿左右的美元作为超额准备金又回到了美联储。剩下的资金被银行投资在国债和机构证券。这些资金都没有流入到私人投资者的口袋。
 
关键的两个S（stimulus刺激，stability稳定）

美联储似乎还没有意识到经济刺激不是解决方法。在过去的三十年中，它使尽浑身解数试图去操控经济的发展，成功的让经济波动起来但是却始终谈不是去控制经济发展。美联储成功的击败了保守派的投资策略，同时又导致了投机行为的大规模盛行。

恢复信心的核心是稳定。企业需要稳定的经济环境来提升投资信心。利率的不断变化和就业率的恶化，使得企业无法准确的估算出产出成本；只有在经济稳定的情况下，消费者才能有足够的财务能力对未来的支出做出预算；低通货膨胀环境也有利于投资者，他们可以投资金融产品，不用担心他们的资金会被美联储蚕食。
这要求目前看起来有点高，但是我们需要的是一个对经济稳定的长期承诺。以中等利率（平衡利率）为目标，并为之不懈努力，实现经济长期平稳发展。

要把信贷的增长视为威胁而不是目标。过去出现了大量的房地产泡沫、股市泡沫、甚至证券市场泡沫，本质上这些都是债务泡沫。如果没有低利率促使信贷的快速增长，那么任何形式的泡沫都将不复存在。如果你单独的调查过去这些年市场的运作情况，任何情况下都是货币政策的扩张刺激促进某一种资产的繁荣。资产种类可以有所不同，但是最根本的原因都是由宽松的货币政策和低利率。

如果你单独调查的狂热，市场已经如此戏称，多年来，在任何情况下，它是生成的热潮在资产扩张性货币政策。该特定资产变化从一个臂到另一个。但基本的底层传播是过于宽松的货币政策和过低的利率.....
〜美国货币史  安娜•施瓦茨、米尔顿•弗里德曼（1963年）。

经济发展越稳定，私人投资规模就会越大，企业发展也会越好、长期的就业也就越稳定---有别于政府经济刺激政策带来的一时的就业增长。

问题是，美联储一直使用相同的货币工具（由联邦公开市场委员会监督公开市场操作）这么久，他们已成为盘踞在系统中。他们甚至不打算承认，他们的工具不再有效。如果一味地坚持使用他们，我们正在走向更大的灾难。

联邦公开市场委员会的确立

美联储自成立以来一直采用同样的货币政策（公开市场操作），它也不准备承认这一政策无法发挥作用。如果美联储一直延续该作法，那么我们将陷入更大的灾难中。
 
虽然利率差不多已经接近零，但是银行的借贷规模仍然持续的缩减，失业率也在上升。从上面的国债表中我们可以看到，美联储已经没有调控市场的空间了。自20世纪80年代初，每一个经济低谷都要求更低的利率刺激其发展。现在利率已经接近零，但经济发展丝毫没有反映。美联储主席没有因此怀疑公开市场操作的有效性，而是采取行动提升通货膨胀率，为促进借贷做最后的努力。

核心措施

如果银行不放贷、企业不借贷，美联储将如何提高通货膨胀率？美联储的最后措施是直接从政府购买国债而不是从私人投资者。世纪上，美联储也在大量发行货币以弥补财政赤字。这不是长久之计，效果也只是将经济从一个泡沫带到了另一个泡沫中。通货膨胀会进一步侵蚀“信心”，并导致经济更加的不稳定。美联储所采取的这一措施在日本近二十年期间都没产生效果，在美国也不会适用。

大萧条不是天灾也不是由资本主义社会固有矛盾引起的，直接的原因是经济政策制订者错误决策，一些是在20世纪20年代，另外一些是在第一危机发生后，不管以何种标准判断，大萧条都是金融官员对经济运行规律的错误判断累积而成的。

大萧条是不是神的一些行为和资本主义的一些深层次矛盾的结果，而是一系列的误判经济政策制定者的直接结果，取得了一些早在20世纪20年代，别人的第一危机后，在设置 - 按任何标准的集体失误的最引人注目的序列有史以来财政官员。比什么都重要，因此，大萧条是由发生故障的智力意志，缺乏了解有关如何对经济运行造成的。
金融之王  利雅卡特•艾哈迈德

The Fed's Failed Monetary Policy
Ben Bernanke and I have little in common, but we share the view that any form of recovery is dependent on confidence. Recovery of consumer confidence would lead to an increase in consumer spending, especially on big ticket items like cars, homes and furniture. Business confidence is likewise a necessity to increase investment in new plant and equipment and new ventures that lift employment. Investor confidence is also needed for business to finance new investment at a reasonable cost. Uncertainty inhibits jobs growth.
Where we differ is in how to restore confidence. His view is that inflation is too low and that higher inflation would encourage creation of new jobs. And could be achieved by injecting further money into the system, through Treasury purchases. He recently observed: "Empirical evidence suggests that our previous program of securities purchases was successful in bringing down longer-term interest rates and thereby supporting the economic recovery." While asset purchases may have lowered longer-term interest rates, what does he mean by itsupported the economic recovery? Did lower interest rates create new jobs? No. Did it spur new investment? No. Did it raise consumer confidence? No.
What has QE achieved so far?
A quick look at the Fed's balance sheet shows that they injected $1.4 trillion into the financial system between September 2008 and March 2010.
Lets see how well that worked. The jobless rate climbed instead of falling as projected.
The reason for that lies with bank lending. Since the dramatic rise in bank assets in September 2008, following the collapse of the shadow banking system, loans and leases have steadily shrunk*, falling more than a trillion dollars. That clearly indicates there has been no up-turn in business investment.
Monetary stimulus did not arrest the contraction of bank credit. So where did the money go? About $1 trillion was deposited back with the Fed as excess reserve deposits. And another half trillion was invested by banks in Treasury and Agency Securities. None of this flowed into new private investment.
The S-word
What the Fed does not seem to realize is that stimulus is not the answer. In their attempts to manipulate the economy for the last three decades, with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop, they have succeeded in fostering massive volatility which is now proving difficult to tame. Destroying conservative investment strategies and encouraging speculation on a massive scale.
The key to restoring confidence is stability. Businesses need a stable environment in which to invest with confidence. It is impossible for them to make accurate forecasts with unstable exchange rates, uncertain input costs, volatile inflation rates and worsening employment levels. Consumers also need a stable employment environment before they can take on additional financial commitments. And both need a stable interest rate environment so the rug is not pulled out from under their feet when they are committed. Investors also thrive in a stable, low inflation environment — where they can invest in financial assets without fear of their capital beingtermited by the Fed.
That may seem a tall order in the present environment, but what is needed is a long-term commitment to stability. Target a mid-range (equilibrium) interest rate and stick to it. Resist the temptation to juice up the economy when it is flat, so they will not be forced to slam on the brakes when it overheats.
View rapid debt growth as a threat, not an objective. A great deal has been written in recent years about real estate bubbles, stock market bubbles and even bond market bubbles. But there is really only one kind of bubble — that is a debt bubble. Without low interest rates fueling rapid debt growth any form of bubble would wither on the vine.
If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset. The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates .....

~ Anna Schwartz co-author with Milton Friedman of A Monetary History of the United States (1963).
The more you foster stability, the more you will encourage private investment and business expansion. And the more you will generate permanent jobs — not the here-today-gone-tomorrow kind conjured up by government stimulus programs.
FOMC entrenched
The problem is that the Fed has been using the same monetary tools (open-market operations supervised by the FOMC) for so long that they have become entrenched in the system. They are not even prepared to acknowledge that their tools no longer work. If they blindly persist with them, we are headed for even greater disaster.
Having lowered interest rates to practically zero, bank lending continues to contract and the jobless rate is rising. The Fed is running out of room to maneuver, as we can see from the above chart of Treasury yields. Since the early 1980s, each successive trough required lower short-term interest rates to stimulate the economy. Now rates are close to zero and the economy is not responding. Rather than question the efficacy of their strategy, however, the chairman is now advocating that the Fed take action to lift the inflation rate — in a last ditch effort to induce further borrowing.
The nuclear option
How can the Fed lift the inflation rate if banks won't lend and businesses won't borrow? Their last available resort is the nuclear option, buying Treasurys directly from the government, rather than from private investors. In effect the Fed prints new money to fund the federal budget deficit. But creating another bubble to save us from the consequences of the last one is not a long-term solution. Inflation will further erode confidence and generate even greater instability. The path being followed by the Fed failed to work in Japan for the last two decades and is unlikely to work here.
The Great Depression was not some Act of God or the result of some deep-rooted contradictions of capitalism, but the direct result of a series of misjudgements by economic policy makers, some made back in the 1920s, others after the first crises set in — by any measure the most dramatic sequence of collective blunders ever made by financial officials. More than anything else, therefore, the Great Depression was caused by a failure of intellectual will, a lack of understanding about how the economy operated.

~ Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

本文翻译由兄弟财经提供，文章来源：http://www.incrediblecharts.com/economy/fed_monetary_policy.php