《多德 弗蘭克法》爭議爲何如此之大?

Jeb Hensarling did not hold back last week, when asked on CNBC about the flaws of Dodd-Frank.

上週，在美國財經新聞頻道CNBC上被問及《多德-弗蘭克法》(Dodd-Frank Act)的缺陷時，傑布?亨薩林(Jeb Hensarling)毫不客氣。

“It clogs the arteries of capitalism in our system. It hurts working people. It hurts consumers. It needs to go,” said the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, about the signature piece of financial regulation of the Obama era.

對於奧巴馬時代的標誌性金融法規，這位衆議院金融服務委員會(House Financial Services Committee)主席表示：“它在我們的體系中堵塞了資本主義的動脈，傷害了工薪階層，傷害了消費者。它需要廢止。”

“You can’t get a healthy economy as long as you have Dodd-Frank on the books.”

“只要《多德-弗蘭克法》還在生效，就不可能擁有健康的經濟。”

The Republican from Texas is expected to present an alternative set of rules in coming days, one that could undo many of the reforms put in place seven years ago.

這位來自德克薩斯州的共和黨人預計會在今後幾天提出一套替代規則，可能會逆轉七年前出臺的許多改革措施。

But is he right? Did the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in July 2010, go too far by preventing banks from lending?

但是，他的看法到底對不對？2010年7月通過的《多德-弗蘭克華爾街改革和消費者保護法》(Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act)，是否走得太遠，阻止了銀行放貸？

The headline data do not suggest that loans are too hard to obtain. Figures from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation show that gross loans across the US’s commercial banks have grown pretty steadily for at least three years, spread across all categories except home-equity lines of credit and loans to other banks.

整體數據並未顯示貸款難以獲得。美國聯邦儲蓄保險公司(Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)的數據顯示，至少在三年期間，全美商業銀行的總放貸規模穩步增長；除房屋淨值信用額度和銀行間放貸以外，增長勢頭涵蓋所有類別。

Loans were relatively flat between 2010 and 2012 but the overall stock has risen from about $7.5tn to $9.24tn since then. That is about 6 per cent a year, roughly twice the nominal growth rate of the economy.

2010年到2012年期間貸款規模相對持平，但是自那以來貸款規模已從大約7.5萬億美元增至9.24萬億美元。這相當於每年增長6%左右，是美國經濟名義增長率的大約兩倍。

“We’re up like everyone else,” said Wells Fargo’s finance chief John Shrewsberry at a conference in Miami last week, noting loan growth of 7 per cent last year.

富國銀行(Wells Fargo)財務總監約翰?施魯斯伯裏(John Shrewsberry)上週在邁阿密的一個會議上表示：“我行像其他銀行一樣出現增長。”他指出，去年該行貸款增長了7%。

“Loan growth remains robust,” said Marianne Lake, his counterpart at JPMorgan Chase, while presenting record annual net income of $24.7bn last month.

摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)財務總監瑪麗安?雷克(Marianne Lake)在上月報告該行實現247億美元創紀錄年度淨利潤時表示：“貸款增長保持穩健。”

Beyond the headlines, there are signs that certain segments have been squeezed.

而在整體數據之外，有跡象表明某些領域的業務受到了擠壓。

In products such as credit cards and personal loans, for example, analysts say activity has been damped by fear of censure by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB was one of the agencies spawned by Dodd-Frank; it enforces 19 federal consumer protection statutes covering everything from home finance to student loans, credit cards and banking practices.

比如，分析師們表示，對美國消費者金融保護局(US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)打擊的擔憂，抑制着信用卡和個人貸款等產品的業務活動。消費者金融保護局是《多德-弗蘭克法》催生的機構之一，負責執行19項聯邦消費者保護法規——從住房金融到學生貸款，從信用卡到銀行業務實踐。

Dodd-Frank ordered the agency to look out for “unfair, deceptive or abusive” practices in any financial product or service offered to a consumer.

《多德-弗蘭克法》要求該局監管面向消費者提供的金融產品或服務，打擊“不公、欺騙或濫用”行爲。

That may have caused banks to be wary of customers on low incomes and with thin credit files, says Justin Schardin, director of financial regulatory reform at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He cites a study last year showing that customers with non-prime credit scores were awarded less than one-fifth of new credit-card accounts in 2015, down from 29 per cent in 2007.

兩黨政策中心(Bipartisan Policy Center)金融監管改革部門主任賈斯廷?沙爾丁(Justin Schardin)表示，這可能導致了銀行對低收入和信貸歷史較短的客戶抱有戒心。他提到，去年的一項研究顯示，2015年次級信用分數的客戶獲准開設的新信用卡賬戶在此類賬戶總數中的佔比不到五分之一，低於2007年的29%。

In residential mortgages, too, banks and lobby groups complain about the new requirement to determine that the consumer has a “reasonable ability” to repay the loan, based on credit history, income, obligations, debt-to-income ratio, employment status and other information. That has caused a pile-up of paperwork.

就住房抵押貸款而言，銀行和遊說團體也抱怨稱，新規要求綜合考慮消費者的信貸歷史、收入、現有償付義務、債務/收入比率、就業狀況以及其他信息，以確定其是否有“合理能力”償還貸款。這導致了一大堆的文書工作。

“You used to walk out with a folder; now you walk out with a binder,” says Sushil Patel, Dallas-based president of State Bank of Texas, which has just broken through the $1bn-in-assets barrier by buying a bust bank in Chicago.

德克薩斯州立銀行(State Bank of Texas)常駐達拉斯的總裁蘇希爾?帕特爾(Sushil Patel)表示：“你過去帶一個文件夾就能出門，現在你得帶一個活頁夾。”該行通過收購芝加哥一家破產銀行，跨過了10億美元資產門檻。

But Laurie Goodman, co-director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a liberal think-tank, argues that other factors have had a greater effect.

但是，自由派智庫“城市研究所”(Urban Institute)住房金融政策中心(Housing Finance Policy Center)聯席主任勞麗?古德曼(Laurie Goodman)辯稱，其他因素產生了更大的影響。

Credit remains “extremely tight”, she says, because lenders are worried by the representations and warranties they need to make to Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage buyer, and the high cost of servicing delinquent loans, among other factors. None of that was in Dodd-Frank.

她表示，信貸依然“極度偏緊”，因爲各銀行對多個因素感到擔憂，包括它們需要向政府支持的抵押貸款買家——房利美(Fannie Mae)做出的陳述和保證，以及承擔不良貸款的高昂成本。所有這些都與《多德-弗蘭克法》無關。

Small-business lending is a mixed picture too. Non-mortgage loans of less than $1m to non-farm businesses peaked at $375bn in 2007, according to FDIC data, and have since fallen to $284bn.

面向小企業的放貸也是好壞參半。聯邦存款保險公司的數據顯示，向非農企業發放的100萬美元以下的非抵押貸款在2007年達到3750億美元的峯值，現已下降至2840億美元。

To Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a centre-right think-tank, that is a sign of the extra burdens of compliance.

在中右翼智庫“美國行動論壇”(American Action Forum)的總裁道格拉斯?霍爾茨-埃金(Douglas Holtz-Eakin)看來，這是合規帶來額外負擔的一個跡象。

But other analysts say it is hard to disentangle Dodd-Frank effects from extra caution as banks rebuilt capital; a relatively sluggish economy; and competition from a host of nonbank platforms. Some note that the main piece of Dodd-Frank targeting small-business loans ― which requires banks to collect and report more data ― has yet to take effect.

但是其他分析師表示，很難區分《多德-弗蘭克法》與其它因素（銀行重建資本期間的格外謹慎；相對疲弱的經濟；以及各種非銀行平臺的競爭）之間的影響。一些人指出，該法針對小企業貸款的主要內容——要求銀行收集和報告更多數據——迄今並未生效。

Even if the evidence of Dodd-Frank hurting bank lending is unpersuasive, says Michael Barr, a professor at the University of Michigan, that will not stop Republicans determined to unwind it.

密歇根大學(University of Michigan)教授邁克爾?巴爾(Michael Barr)表示，即便該法妨礙銀行放貸的證據缺乏說服力，那也阻止不了共和黨人廢止它的決心。

Mr Barr, who helped craft Dodd-Frank while at Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department from 2009 to 2010, says talk of helping banks write more loans is a ruse to win support for a package of reforms that favours Wall Street more than Main Street.

從2009年至2010年，巴爾在蒂姆?蓋特納(Tim Geithner)領導的財政部工作期間，幫助設計了《多德-弗蘭克法》。他說，幫助銀行發放更多貸款的言論是一種策略，目的是贏得對一攬子改革方案的支持，這些改革有利於華爾街，而非普通民衆。

He notes that lobbyists are already talking about scrapping the Volcker ban on proprietary trading, and abolishing the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which was supposed to monitor risks developing outside the deposit-taking banks.

他指出，遊說人士已經在談論廢除當年沃爾克提出的自營交易禁令，並撤銷金融穩定監督委員會(Financial Stability Oversight Council)，後者的職責是監督存款類銀行以外蓄積的風險。

None of this has much to do with easing the flow of credit.

這一切都與釋放信貸流動沒有多大關係。

Mr Hensarling’s Dodd-Frank alternative, known in its first iteration as the Financial Choice Act, is unlikely to bring “changes for the better for the country”, he says.

巴爾稱，亨薩林提出的多德-弗蘭克替代規則——其初版被稱爲《金融選擇法案》(Financial Choice Act)——不太可能帶來“讓國家更美好的變化”。

“We really run a risk of rolling back the clock to the eve of the financial crisis and doing it all over again.”

“我們真的面臨着回到金融危機前夕、重蹈覆轍的風險。”