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Central bankers 各国央行的总裁

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CENTRAL bankers were compelling figures in the 1920s, not least because they preferred to operate in secret. The cloak was peculiarly attractive to Sir Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England (pictured above, right), who adopted a false identity when he travelled, though this sometimes attracted attention rather than deflecting it. Asked for his reasons for promoting a policy, Norman replied: “I don’t have reasons. I have instincts.” Benjamin Strong, Norman’s principal collaborator, ran the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which was responsible for America’s international financial relationships. In the mid-1920s, Strong decided the American economy was sufficiently prosperous that he could widen his brief to promote economic stability. Liaquat Ahamed suggests that Strong more than anyone else “invented the modern central banker”.

央行总裁在20年代是让人敬畏的人物,不只是因为他们偏好黑箱作业。英国银行总裁,蒙塔古˙诺曼爵士(Sir Montagu Norman) (上方照片右侧),似乎有着遮掩的特殊癖好。他旅行时喜欢用假名,不过不但未能避开眼线,却反而因之招惹嫌疑。问他因何鼓吹某项政策,诺曼会答以,”我没有理由,只有直觉”。班杰明˙史强(Benjamin Strong),是纽约联储银行的总裁,负责美国对外的金融关系,也是诺曼的主要合作伙伴。在20年代中期,史强认为美国已有足够的经济实力,因而决定要扩展其影响力来促进经济稳定。艾哈迈德(Liaquat Ahamed)认为,史强在”确立现代央行总裁的职权”上,比任何其他人都更有贡献。

Norman and Strong were wedded to the gold standard. Emile Moreau, the less clubable governor of the Banque de France, was an obsessive hoarder of gold and tended to do his nation’s own thing. The arrogant Hjalmar Schacht (above left), a spiky German nationalist who headed the Reichsbank, had, by a remarkable sleight of hand, ended Germany’s hyperinflation in 1923, but he was unable to persuade his fellow central bankers to forget reparations, even though they all appreciated that heavy post-war payments were “bleeding Germany white”.

诺曼和史强当年彻底服膺金本位的货币制度。较不擅长社交的法国银行总裁艾米˙蒙若(Emile Moreau),也坚持囤积黄金,不过倾向于自行其道。德国国立银行的总裁耶马尔˙沙赫特(Hjalmar Schacht)(上方照片左侧),是一个傲慢、尖锐的国家主义者,他在1923年时曾经施展高超的技巧弥平德国失控的通胀危机。不过尽管其他央行总裁能理解第一次大战后的赔款”正吸干德国的血”,他却无法说服他们解除这个负担。

The quartet, united by a belief that they knew best, had persuaded the great powers to leave the fate of their economies to the antique workings of the gold standard—“a barbarous relic” in the view of John Maynard Keynes. They had the power, in a legendary phrase, to “crucify mankind upon a cross of gold”, and they did so. The problem was that there was not enough gold to finance world trade. Stocks were concentrated in America and France, and countries like Britain, where it was scarce, had to borrow heavily, and to adjust interest rates and government spending at the expense of employment in order to replenish gold reserves.

这四个因自以为是而联合的人,说服了当时四个强权将其国家的经济命脉交在一个古董级,被凯因斯(John Maynard Keynes)称为”野蛮时代残余”,的金本位制度上。在凯因斯著名的句中说,他们有这个权力,可以”将人类钉到黄金的十字架上”,而他们也的确这么做了。问题出在没有足够的黄金可提供世界贸易所需的资金。黄金库存主要集中在美国和法国。像英国这样缺少黄金的国家就得大量的借入黄金。不只如此,为了回补黄金准备,只好调高利率和减少政府开支而牺牲就业人口。

A loan organised by Strong enabled Norman to get Britain back onto the gold standard in 1926 (it had slipped off during the first world war). Norman’s advice helped persuade Strong to lower interest rates in 1927, which only increased irrational exuberance on Wall Street.

在得到史强所安排的借款之后,诺曼在1926年将英国的货币重新与黄金挂勾(在一次大战时,英镑和黄金脱钩了一阵子)。在诺曼的推波助澜下,史强在1927年将利率调低,而更助长了华尔街非理性的繁荣。

These early central bankers were an odd lot. Norman, who dabbled with spiritualism, apparently informed a colleague that he could walk through walls. He suffered regular nervous breakdowns, and was actually on sick leave when Britain left the gold standard again in 1931. Strong suffered from permanent ill health and was often affected by the generous use of morphine to control pain. He died in October 1928 before the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression, but Mr Ahamed does not appear to believe that things would have turned out any differently had he lived: in a crushing conclusion, he writes that the Great Depression was “the direct result of a series of misjudgments by economic policymakers…by any measure the most dramatic series of collective blunders ever made by financial officials.” Looking back in 1948, Norman’s judgment was no less harsh. “We achieved absolutely nothing,” he said, “except that we collected a lot of money from a lot of poor devils and gave it to the four winds.”

这些早期的央行总裁是一群怪异的人。诺曼有涉猎通灵论,据传他向同事说他可以穿越墙壁。他经常精神崩溃。当1931年英镑再次与黄金脱钩时,他事实上是病假在外的。史强有长期的健康问题,因使用太多吗啡来减轻疼痛而神智经常受到影响。他在1928年10月去世,那时华尔街崩盘和大萧条还未发生。不过艾哈迈德先生似乎不认为,如果那时史强还活着,事情会有所不同: 在他有力的结论中,他写道,经济大萧条是”经济政策拟定者一连串错误判断的直接结果...不论如何看都是金融官员有史以来最严重的一系列集体失策”。在1948年时,诺曼的自我回顾也一样严厉,”我们完全没有成就任何事情”,”我们只从一些可怜的家伙那里收了很多钱,然后任由金融风暴将之卷走”。

Politicians were left to clear up the mess they left. One of them was Hitler, who readily instigated a series of measures to combat German unemployment which were similar to those Gordon Brown is adopting today. (Schacht later joined the anti-Hitler resistance.) Britain’s prospects brightened as soon as the gold standard was dropped. The French, less troubled, remained loyal to gold until 1936.

这烂摊最后是留给政客来收拾。其中之一是希特勒,他毫不犹豫的策动了一系列措施来提高德国的就业状况,和今天戈登˙布朗采用的措施没太大差别。(沙赫特之后加入了反希特勒的阵营)。英国的状况在与黄金脱勾后就立刻开始好转。法国由于状况较佳,一直与黄金挂勾到1936年。

But the most original solution was that of President Franklin Roosevelt, soon after his inauguration in 1933. Mr Ahamed resurrects a 59-year-old agricultural economist from Cornell University by the name of George Warren, whose study of long-term trends in commodity prices led him to believe that, since falling prices were associated with depression, recovery ought to be encouraged by rising prices. The president liked the idea and decided to devalue the dollar—despite vigorous opposition from the gold bugs—simply by increasing the gold price. One of his own economic advisers lamented: “This is the end of Western civilisation.” For a number of weeks, the president would consult his advisers over boiled eggs at breakfast and randomly drive up the gold price, beginning at $31.36 an ounce until it settled at $35. By then a recovery was under way.

但最有原创性的解决方案是罗斯福总统在1933年就任后不久所实施的。艾哈迈德先生从历史文献中找出了乔治˙华伦,一位五十九岁康乃尔大学的农业经济学家。这位学者从研究长期原物料价格趋势中得到一个结论: 由于大萧条和通货紧缩有关,那么抬高物价应可促进经济复苏。罗斯福认为这意见很好,因而不顾那些黄金癫狂者的强烈反对,决定以抬高黄金价格的方式让美元贬值。他的一位经济幕僚哀叹说,”这是西方文明的末日”。连续几周的时间,这位总统会和他的幕僚共进有水煮蛋的早餐,在饮食之间随意的抬高黄金价格,从每盎司$31.36美元开始,直到最后落在每盎司$35美元。还没完成抬价,经济复苏就已开始。

This absorbing study of the first collective of central bankers is provocative, not least because it is still relevant. Mr Ahamed, who was a World Bank economist and now manages investments in America, likens central bankers to Sisyphus. This was the man whom the gods condemned to roll a large stone up a steep hill only for it to roll down again when it reached the peak. These great central bankers were so wedded to a dogma that they were incapable of imagining its failure.

这些对第一代央行总裁的研究是引人入胜而又惹人争议的,也不只是因为其内容和今日世界仍息息相关。曾任世银经济学家,而现在在美国以管理投资为业的艾哈迈德先生,将央行总裁比做是薛西佛斯。神话中,薛西佛斯被希腊神祉所诅咒,必须不断将大石推上陡峭的山坡,而到达山顶时却又得任其滚回原地。这些央行的总裁被教条绑住以致于不能想象该教条也有失败的可能。

Perhaps this kind of single-mindedness is endemic to central bankers; since the early 1990s the idea of controlling inflation at all costs has been so compelling that central bankers have ignored such unintended consequences as bubbles in the housing and stock markets. But these were big enough, when they burst, to trigger a worldwide slump. Not lords of finance surely; more like high priests. 更多信息请访问:http://www.24en.com/

也许这种专一的情结是央行总裁所特有的; 自1990年代初期以来,不计代价控制通胀的这种想法变得凌驾一切,以致于央行总裁忽略了像房市和股市泡沫这种意料之外的后果。但是这些泡沫是大到当其破灭时,可以导致全球的不景气。他们绝对不是金融的主宰,比较像笃信教义的大祭司。

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