主题：【原创】新年政治经济展望之四：金融资本（一） -- 井底望天
家园 西班牙有革命的觉悟了 家园 二条消息值得关注 2010年03月04日
美国七种武器欲封锁中国资本出海 害怕重蹈英国覆辙
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家园 欧盟要废美国的评级公司rating agencies 自立门户。德国报纸Handelsblatt先发声，已经连报三天，英文媒体基本无视。
家园 英文报纸当然不会报道了 这种要砸自家哥们饭碗的事当然不会大肆声张了，又不是骂tg、捍卫人权这种政治正确的事，西霉当然不会争先恐后地上。。。
家园 无需废，只要严格监管，抑制金融交易，尤其是投机性的 降低整个金融市场的交易活跃程度，足矣。
家园 it took hundred years to build expertise, talents and evaluation system in this industry.
Germany/France could not establish credible raters overnight. They can not compete against Anglo-Jewish in this industry.
家园 外行，不懂，但是哪个BUBBLE不是这些机构 RATE出来的。
新的再差不会把金融衍生物垃圾RATE成好东西吧。
所以再差也不会比现在差了。
家园 I know ratings well, so let me put some facts here.
1. First, the bubble was not created by rating agencies per se. One of the main contributor is actually Federal Reserve with its easy monetary policies.
USD/Euro is global reserve currency and Fed/ECB low rates actually create a low-rate environment for all nations. China is one victim too.
Therefore, the real estate bubble of 2002-2008 is global--in US, UK, Canada, Spain, Italy, all Eastern Europe... esp., in China.
You can not blame China bubble on raters, because there is none.
2.Rating agencies mainly provide three ratings: corporate ratings, sovereignty bond rating, structural finance product ratings.
During this crisis, corporate ratings proved to be reliable--because rating agencies already have 100 years and at least 10 business cycle experience to improve its models.
For structural finance products, rating agencies have only 20 years of data (two small recessions) to rely on. And the housing price fluctuated most dramatically during this 1997-2007 cycle--the volatility has never been so high before. Please google Case Schiller housing index.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1115323
This article also gives very good insights.
Rating agencies should be shy away from structural products for which their expertise is not great enough. I do not think raters intentionally created this bubble--lack of competence, model problem, lack of historical data are main reasons.
If you live in Europe or North America, you will know that credit ratings have been used in all kinds of gov. regulations, fed/state law, fund bylaws, private contracts, bank loan contracts...
If you totally eliminate credit rating industry, then who can provide independent service to investors in the fixed-income securities? FI market is actually 2 times the size of stock market! How to regulate all those pension/mutual funds/banks? The whole Basel II regulations were built on rating-based capital charge.
Keep in mind: it is easier to destroy an old imperfect world, but it is difficult to build a better new world without imperfection. At this stage, Congress really have no idea how to deal with those rating agencies. The debate has been going on ever since 2001 and nobody knows what is the best solution at all.
新的再差不会把金融衍生物垃圾RATE成好东西吧。
所以再差也不会比现在差了。
--you never know. It is an empirical question. Obama promised "change" before 2009. One year passed, I saw no positive change at all.
通宝推：SkyWalkerJ,家园 外行，不过看你说得挺有道理。 能解释一下为啥PIGS国债降级，而国债远超GDP的日本却没被降级吗？是不是政治因素也是评级的依据之一？
家园 日本应该是被降级过很多次 看你说到这儿，俺似乎有点印象，就去查了一下。
2002年06月21日上月底，国际信用评级机构穆迪公司宣布，将日本国债的信用等级下调２级，降至Ａ２级，并将其排在同是Ａ２级的希腊、波兰和南非之后，名列第４。在此前后，标准普尔也将日本国债的信用等级下调至ＡＡ—。从１９９８年１１月以来，穆迪和标准普尔两大信用评级机构接连不断地将日本国债信用等级从最高的ＡＡＡ级直线下调６级。一向财大气粗的日本政府，以及部分政治家和经济专家，开始几年颇不以为然，这次终于恼羞成怒。先是日本财务省、现任大臣盐川正十郎表示强烈不满，指责穆迪公司的评级毫无根据。其后又两次行文，反驳穆迪的评语。之后，日本一些银行及不少专家学者站出来指责穆迪公司评级过严，不符合日本的实际情况等。尽管日本全国一致不满，但穆迪公司仍坚持其评定结果并声称，如今后几个月日本政府拿不出切实可行的改革措施，不排除再次给日本降级的可能性。
据日本财务省５月２５日公布的数字，到２００１年末，“国家借入金”比上一年增加１１．６％，达到５８２万亿日元，更新了日本过去的最高记录。根据经合组织对３０个成员国财政状况的评估，由于世界经济景气恶化，税收减少，各国财政状况普遍恶化，其中日本政府的债务对ＧＤＰ的比率超过意大利，达到１４１．５％，是３０个成员国中最差的。依据这些事实，穆迪公司认为，累积债务总额与ＧＤＰ的比率和债务对年财政收入的比率，这两项相比较，意大利大为改善，而日本一直恶化，并且在今后数年内看不到改善前景。仅仅由于日本对外债务甚少，尚无丧失举债能力的风险，因此定为Ａ２级（其后还有Ａ３级）。日本各界对穆迪等的评级不服，反驳说，日本是世界最大的债权国，政府对外举债几乎为零，不存在偿债能力的风险。同时，日本拥有４０００亿美元以上的外汇储备和１４００万亿日元的个人金融资产，何来国家资信不足。的确，日本是拥有巨大的金融资产，眼下仍看不出日本经济有崩溃的危险。但是日本为什么不能使用这么庞大的个人资产、国家储备来解决几乎处于危机状态的财政问题呢？从桥本龙太郎任首相以来，历届日本政府官员大叫财政改革，减少国债发行，为什么到今天，国债发行越来越大，财政累积赤字日益恶化，今后３年～５年也见不到改善的兆头呢？对此，没有一位政治家和有影响的财界人士，能够从正面给穆迪公司一个有说服力的说明。
现在日本国债S&P给的是AA，Fitch给的是AA-，而且前不久都发表了负面的展望。
家园 I provide some links here http://v3.moodys.com/researchandratings/methodology/003006001/rating-methodologies/methodology/003006001/4294966628/4294966848/0/0/-/0/rr
http://www.moodys.com.br/brasil/pdf/SovGuide2006.pdf
Sovereign rating manual of Moody's
I think S&P posted similar documents online.
I am expert on corporate issue rating, not expert on Sovereign ratings. But some general principles will apply.
1.annual deficit (just like corporate profitability ratio)
2.accumulated debt deflated by total assets or total revenue (here it is debt/GDP ratio since gov. does not provide balance sheet asset info).
3.debt currency issue (foreign currency issue rating is ALWAYS LOWER than domestic currency issue--because of many foreign buyers)
US deficit ratio is as bad as Greece (both around 12%, 11% for Portugal and 9.3% for Spain. Italy is safest, 5.5%), but US public debt/GDP ratio is only 54%, while Greece is around 125%(if you still believe its revised ratio from its highly corrupted statistics department--Greece is worse than China in its public administration).
Both US/Greek government debts are mainly sold to foreigners (Greece has been like that for many years, US has 70% debts sold to Chinese and Japanese since 2003). But US has the credibility of safe haven that Greece does not have. During 2008 financial crisis, all global capital flooded into American gov. bonds and for a while, the implicit interest rate is even negative...
US still has the global reserve currency status, which allows it to use printing press to temporarily solve its problem. Greece does not have that capability yet.
能解释一下为啥PIGS国债降级，而国债远超GDP的日本却没被降级吗？
--2009 Japan gov. deficit=1% of GDP.
--I remember Debt/GDP ratios are 200%(Japan), 125%(Greece), 120%(Italy), 80%(Portugal), 55%(Spain--much better than all Latin peers, only drawback is the deficit and loss of competitiveness). Japan has high saving rate while all those Latin European nations have little domestic savings (they know how to enjoy life--Joie de vivre). When you have your debt in your currency and most buyers are your nationals, your rating will be better.
日本却没被降级吗？
--I remember one rater actually downgraded Japan and other 2 put Japan under negative watch for downgrades. Keep in mind, there are three raters: S&P, Moody's and Fitch. They do not act together.
是不是政治因素也是评级的依据之一？
--Political stability FOR SURE is a major rating factor. That's why Ukraine's rating is always bad--the PM just resigned after losing a political fight and the gov. still has no budget for the new year. Same problem for Argentina.
--In terms of US rating of "AAA", actually it is not just for USA. Canada/Germany/US now all enjoy AAA ratings. Canada/Germany deserve that though both nations ran higher deficit in 2009 (3% and 5.5% respectively). US has one-time deficit of 12%. US still has a low debt/GDP ratio (54%, lower than Canada), but this ratio is going up quickly under lavish budgets of the Obama administration.
If we look at long-term prospect--given the Obama high deficit plans for next 10 years, US might lose the AAA rating soon. Moody's has warned US gov. publicly.
BTW, 90% is the threshold for Debt/GDP ratio based on Carmen Reinhart study. After that, one nation became very vulnerable and the debt service cost will signficantly weaken the public finance of that nation.
America is marching towards that danger zone under our great blah-blah promiser leader Hussein Obama.
家园 多谢指教，明白了。