感谢Aubie Baltin的授权转载。虽然我们高度重视作者的分析，但我们不一定同意作者作出的一切结论/预测。作为读者，我们应进行自己的研究。
在明智的讨论利率之前，我们首先要定义一下我们讨论的是什么，因为媒体的主流言论或是华尔街的分析师似乎都不明白利率是什么，有什么作用：电视屏幕上不断游说的经济学家似乎也不知道利率的主要功能，那么他们怎么会知道是该提高或降低利率呢？
什么是利率？
利率只是形容价格的另外一个词。利率是借款的价格，并且应该像别的商品、服务价格一样通过供求关系被确定下来。
然而，和别的商品或服务不同的是，利率和资金并不是在市场上自由运作的。利率和资金的供给受到美联储的控制。美联储通过公开市场操作（买卖国债）、改变其存储在银行的资金量（直接影响银行的借贷能力）来控制银行系统的资金量（供给量）。同时，美联储也通过古老而时尚的方法供给资金——印刷纸币。
利率的作用有哪些？
1、利率决定人们储蓄或消费的倾向：当利率被操控（美联储），它影响了人们是否原因消费的程度。如果利率被调控得过低，像现在的一样，人们就不愿意存储资金。当利率变为负值（低于通货膨胀率），也就意味银行付给人们利息，促使人们借贷。这样一来，借贷量和风险都会猛增。相反的，如果利率很高，比如80年代早期，人们会放弃当前消费并把资金存储在银行以获得高额利息回报。
2、在高利率的情况下，人们对于资金的需求就会非常低。人们迫不及待的存储自己的每一分钱，以换取高额的利息。然而，当利率低的时候，人们就会倾向于持有资金，因为1%或2%的利率不足以人们为之放弃任何消费。
3、利率水平在很大程度上影响资金的周转速度，进而影响资金的供给量计算。当利率不在正常的范围内，美联储将很难计算资金的周转速度。最后，美联储会陷入利率难题，因为自己也无法确定资金真实的供给量是多少。
4、根据投资回报率，利率也决定了应该进行何种投资。当利率过低，很多投资风险将会产生，因为经济的一丝衰退迹象将会使这些可怜的投资失败，或在利率最终回升之后被迫破产。这就是商业周期背后的主要原因。经济中的不均衡（资源浪费）在经济恢复稳定之前必须被清算，这样被浪费的资源才能在下一轮经济增长中被利用。
5、中性利率既不刺激也不阻碍经济的发展。格林斯潘和伯南克遇到了一个难题：不知道这个利率具体是什么数值。之前，这个利率被认为是比通货膨胀利率高1.5%~3%。（根据最新的消费者物价指数5%，贴现率至少应该为6.5%）。在过去，美联储只在经济发展极端的时候才会操纵利率。自由市场的交互作用可以实现利率的自然平衡。可是现在，美国居民储备几乎为零、物价指数和利率被过度操控，美联储对中性利率的数值一点线索都没有。
6、当银行法定储备不足时，便需要以贴现率从没联储贷款。美联储成立的最初目的就是充当最后借款人的作用，为银行提供足够的流通性。贴现率曾是一个处罚性利率：该利率比联邦基金利率略高（银行之间的为了满足隔夜存款储备金要求的借款利率）。但现在，贴现率高于联邦基金利率，大大的降低了银行的资金成本：银行需要付给存款者很低的利率。因此，银行可以大量的向美联储借款，而不需要担心需求的增加会使利率升高，银行凭空创造货币的能力也大幅增加：不需要担心供求关系影响利率。这打破了自由市场的利率自我调节功能，并促成了套利交易的产生。这样一来，联邦政府完全失去了对银行和货币供给的控制能力。这直接影响到证券、股票市场和房地产市场泡沫的产生，很有可能在15年后达到顶峰并使美国陷入经济危机。
很长一段时间以来，尽管贷款需求和17¼％折现率的不断增加，但是长期贷款利率由于套利交易的原因并没有升高，因而反映市场的真实状况。
美联储的困境
美联储主席伯南克和前任主席格林斯潘，都提出了短期利率和长期利率差之间的难题。在2004年1月7日，10年国债的利率是4.4%，低于6月份4.6%的长期利率，而联邦基金利率仅为1%。他们指责导致联邦基金利率和长期利率差的神秘力量。然而，仔细观察后可以发现，根本就不存在神秘力量，所谓的神秘力量只是日本央行和美联储宽松的货币政策。
经济中最重要的是资金供给量，而不是所说的联邦利率。例如，为了维持经济快速发展过程中的既定利率，美联储必须不断的向社会注入资金以免联邦基金利率高于既定利率。然而，这却导致了长期利率的降低。如果美国经济进入一段时间疲软期，相反的情况将会发生。最终，美联储的一系列措施只会使经济恶化，而不是抑制经济波动。自从2004年6月，尽管联邦基金利率从1%提高到5¼％，但实际上，美联储正大量的向经济中投入资金，并导致了负收益曲线的产生。虽然美联储一直口气强硬，但是实际上扮演的是第五大街的一个无精打采的步行者形象。
时间的滞后性
似乎没有人意识到，每当美联储或政府有任何的政策变化，不论是税收，货币供应量或是提高邮件，总会存在时间滞后性。自由市场需要时间把变化传递给每一个参与者。美联储的基金政策变化和由此带来的工业增产的平均估计时间是12~36个月。因此，虽然美联储在2004年6月采取货币紧缩政策，但是之前的宽松货币政策的影响一直持续了30个月。因此，尽管长期利率增加¼ %，工业生产增长率一直稳定增加到2007年。有利于经济发展的宽松的货币政策，不利于联邦基金利率的稳定。因此，美联储一直通过增加货币供给来防止联邦基金利率高于既定利率。这种货币政策不利于经济的长期增长，同时也阻碍了长期利率的升高。
通货膨胀
米尔顿•弗里德曼通认为货膨胀任何时候都是一种货币现象。如果你从1994年以后就开始以比经济增长高10%的速度发行货币，那么通货膨胀必然发生。它首先出现在证券市场，随后出现在股票市场，最后影响房地产市场。如果世界经济充斥着货币，那么这最终会影响商品价格，企业收购、消费物价指数（CPI），并造成金价和白银的价格暴涨。尽管政府努力的说服大家（通过巧妙的操控CPI）没有发生通货膨胀，但是通货膨胀已经显露出丑恶的嘴脸，不久的将来，我们就会看到通货膨胀的真实水平。幸运的是，不像别的政治家那样专注于过去，伯南克更关注的是未来将会发生什么。
总结
在我看来，伯南克可能是美联储唯一的一个意识到，避免通货膨胀爆发的唯一方法是把利率提升到前所未有的高水平：即使这将带来经济下滑。无论华尔街或是政治家反应如何，他知道经济不会在相当长一段时间内维持高增长，通货膨胀必然发生。他意识到，无论是美国还是世界的经济都已失去平衡，并处于历史以来（包括1929年经济危机）最大的经济泡沫中。他意识到我们唯一的希望就是通过温和的放缓经济的发展来避免世界性的股票，证券和房地产市场的经济危机。
他和世界上仅有的几个人意识到，降息，尤其是提高贷款标准情况下，不会挽救房地产市场，只会导致经济大萧条。美元体系的破裂将会影响整个世界经济，这将是毁灭性的。他深知利率政策通常滞后18个月，并最终将导致经济萧条，而如果不这么做的话，经济有可能在接下来的1~3个月就可能衰退。我们希望美联储不要像以前一样因政策的滞后性把问题扩大化，从而无法实现自己的既定目标。
同时，2004年6月份提高的利率，最终会影响长期利率并瓦解由格林斯潘的宽松货币带来的股票、证券和房地产市场泡沫。在经济即将崩溃的边缘发挥调控作用，并让市场自我纠正经济发展的不平衡。
格林斯潘清楚的知道经济发展得越繁荣，泡沫破裂的危害性也就越大：他的目标是把必将发生的经济危机推后到下一任主席任期内，以此来彰显他对美国经济的贡献。在卸任之前，他也试着提高利率，使经济保持在不景气的状态，从而避免经济危机的发生：不过该来的总会到来。起初与2001年一样，采取的措施有限且不及时。在2001年，我们谈论联合政府、利用大规模的财政盈余来减少税收征收，从而抑制经济衰退局面。但这次，美国面临的不仅是“军事和经济并重”，而且是巨大的贸易和赤字并存。现在民主党控制着国会，意味着以后将不会通过减税来挽救经济危机。一个迫在眉睫的更大危险是，正如国会谈论的那样，我们即将面临税收的提高，而这将会有悖于新政的相关政策。
让我们祈祷我的猜测是对的，但愿伯南克聪明和幸运并存。因为只有他才能带领我们避免巨大的金融灾难。
INTEREST RATES, RECESSION OR DEPRESSION?
Reproduced with kind permission from Aubie Baltin. Whilst we have high regard for the author's analysis we do not necessarily agree with all conclusions/projections made. Readers are urged to conduct their own research.
The right man in the right place at the right time
Before we can even begin to discuss interest rates intelligently, we must first define what it is that we are actually talking about, since it appears that all the talking Media Heads and Wall Street analysts don’t seem to understand what interest rates are or how they work: The constant barrage of economists parading across our TV screens don’t seem to know what interest rate’s primary functions are, so how can they know whether to raise them or not?
WHAT ARE INTEREST RATES?
#1 Interest rate is just another word for price. It is the price to borrow money and its price is supposed to be determined exactly the same way as the price of any other commodity, product or service is - through the interaction of supply and demand.
#2 However, unlike every other product, commodity or service, interest rates and money do not operate in a Free Market. Interest rates and the supply of money are manipulated (controlled) by the Fed. They do this by controlling the amount (supply) of money that is available in the banking system through their Open Market Operations (buying & selling treasury bonds in the open market) and by changing their deposits that they hold with their individual member banks, directly affecting their reserves and thus their ability to lend. They also increase the money supply the good old fashioned way, by printing it.
WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF INTEREST RATES?
#1 Interest rates determine the propensity of people to either save or consume: When interest rates are manipulated (by the Fed), it influences the degree that people are willing to defer present consumption, i.e. save. If interest rates are manipulated too low, like they are now, people are no longer willing to save. When the interest rate becomes negative (the interest rate is lower than the inflation rate) people, since they are now being paid to go into debt, take on excessive debt as well as excessive risk because that is exactly what they are being paid to do. Conversely, when interest rates are high, such as in the early 80’s, people were willing to forego current consumption in order to avail themselves of the ultra high interest rates and we ended up having high saving rates.
#2 When interest rates are high, the demand for cash is extremely low. People can’t wait to deposit every cent that they can spare so as to earn that high rate of interest. However when rates are low, the propensity to hold cash is very high because at a 1% or 2% interest there is not much to be forgone by keeping extra cash in your pockets.
#3 The Velocity of money (how many times the money supply turns over during the year) and therefore the calculation of the money supply itself is greatly affected by the level of interest rates. When rates are outside the normal range, the FED cannot calculate the velocity until long after the fact and thus they lose track of what the money supply really is and its effect on the economy, leading to the interest rate conundrum.
#4 Interest rates also determine which investments should or should not be made, according to the investment’s expected rates of return. When interest rates are manipulated too low, a great many investments and risks are undertaken that should not have been, because these poor investments will fail at the first signs of weakness in the economy or be forced into bankruptcy with the eventual return to rising interest rates. This is the main underlying cause behind the business cycle. The imbalances (wasted resources) in the economy must be liquidated before the economy can stabilize enough so that the misused scarce resources become available for the next growth phase.
#5 A neutral rate of interest is the rate that neither stimulates nor restricts the economy. Greenspan was and Bernanke is in a conundrum as to what that rate is or should be. Previously, that rate was thought to be 1.5% to 3% over the inflation rate. (According to the latest CPI report (5%) the Discount Rate should be at least 6.5%.) In the past, when the Fed did not manipulate the rates except at the extremes, the market was able to determine what that rate should be through the interactions of the Free Market. But today with US savings nearly zero and the CPI and interest rates being highly manipulated, the Fed is unable to measure the Velocity of Money and with negative interest rates, the Fed does not have a clue as what the neutral rate should be.
#6 The Discount Rate is the rate that the Fed charges Banks who need to borrow money from the Fed to meet their reserve requirements. The FED was originally created to be “the Lender of Last Resort”, avoiding bank runs and liquidity squeezes. The Discount Rate charged used to be a Punitive Rate; a rate that was somewhat above the Fed Funds Rates (the rate at which Banks lend to each other in order to meet their overnight reserve requirements). But today, the discount rate is above the Fed Funds rate, drastically lowering the banks’ cost of money and reducing the amount of interest they are willing to pay for deposits: so that now massive amounts of money are being borrowed from the FED without having to worry about the excess demand increasing interest rates, greatly increasing the banks’ ability to create money out of thin air: Completely negating the supply/demand function in setting interest rates. This break down in the function of a free market has led to the creation of “The Carry Trade.” In so doing, the Fed has completely lost control over the banks and near banks’ (FNM, FRE, GE, GMAC etc.) ability to create money and have therefore lost control over the money supply. This has led directly to the creation of the Stock and Bond Market Bubbles as well as to the Real Estate Bubble that has, after 15 years, most probably topped out and is in the process of rolling over into a crash.
For a long time now, regardless of the ever increasing demand for loans and the seventeen ¼% Discount Rate increases, Long Term rates, because of the ongoing Carry trades, refuse to go up and reflect the true conditions of the market.
THE FED’S CONUNDRUM
Fed Chairman Bernanke like Greenspan before him once again raised the conundrum of the divergence between short term and long term rates. At the end of Jan 07, the yield on the 10-year Treasury-Note stood at 4.4% still below the 4.6% rate in June of 2004, the year when the Fed funds rate was only 1%. Bernanke like Greenspan before him blames some mysterious 'pressures' for the divergence between the Federal funds rate and long-term rates. However careful examination shows that there is no mystery. The so called mysterious pressure is in fact the natural outcome of the BOJ and the Fed's own easy money policies.
When it comes to the economy, what matters most is the availability of money and not the purported interest rate stance of the Fed. For example, in order to maintain a given interest rate target in the midst of a strong economy, the Fed is forced to push more and more money into the system to prevent the Fed funds rate from rising above its targeted rate. This in turn causes long term rates to fall. The opposite will happen should the economy go through a period of weakness. Since they are always behind the curve, they end up exacerbating the problem rather than dampening the fluctuations. Since June 2004, despite raising the Fed-funds rate from 1% to 5 ¼%, the Fed has actually hiked the pace of pumping money into the system, creating a negative yield curve. In short, the Fed has been talking tough while acting like a very loose $5 street walker.
TIME LAGS:
Nobody seems to realize that there are always time lags whenever there are any changes in FED or Government policy, whether they be Taxes, Money Supply or even High Oil prices or ??? . It takes time for the Free Market to send its signals through to every participant and it then takes time for every participant to react. The estimated average time lag between changes in the Fed Funds policies and the growth momentum of industrial production is on average 12 to 36 months. Hence, at the same time as the FED’S attempted tighter stance (beginning June 2004), the effect of the previous and continuing loose money stance was still in force and continuing its influence for the following 30 months. So in spite of their regular ¼ % increases, the yearly rate of growth of industrial production stayed strong into 2007. However the strong economic activity made possible by its loose money policy, had made the FED Funds rate targets unsustainable—so the Fed had to continue to increase the money supply to prevent the Fed Funds rate from overshooting their stated targets. This monetary pumping has thus far prevented the growth momentum of the economy from slowing, also preventing any meaningful rise in long-term interest rates.
INFLATION:
According to Milton Friedman, inflation is at all times a monetary phenomenon. If you keep printing money (beginning in 1994) at a rate that is 10% a year above the economy’s real rate of growth, inflation must eventually ensue and it has. It first showed up in the stock market, then found its way into the Bond market and eventually into Real Estate. Now that the world economy is awash in Fiat cash, it’s finally finding its way into commodities, takeovers and corporate buyouts. Now with nothing much left to inflate, the money is finally finding its way into the CPI. Witness the price explosion of Gold and Silver: Even though the government has thus far managed to convince everyone (through their ingenious manipulation of the CPI) that there was and is no inflation, Nevertheless, inflation has already begun to rear its ugly face and it won’t be much longer before we see just how high inflation really is. Bernanke, to his credit, is now looking to the future while the rest of our esteemed talking heads are still focusing on their rear view mirror.
CONCLUSION
THE RIGHT MAN IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME
In my opinion, Bernanke is possibly the only man at the Fed who realizes that he has no other choice but to push interest rates even higher than most would now even dream of in order to try and head off an explosion in inflation: Even if it’s in the face of the economy’s growth momentum starting to trend down. Like it or not and despite what Wall Street and the politicians want, he knows that the economy cannot continue growing above trend for any more sizeable length of time without going into rampant inflation. He realizes that both the USA’s and the world’s economies are now more out of balance and are in the biggest bubble mode than in 1929 or any other time in world history. He realizes (at least I hope he does) that our only HOPE is to engineer a recession, hopefully it will only be a mild one, so as to avoid a combined Stock, Bond, Real Estate and Take-over CRASH, which would lead to a world wide depression.
He and only a few other people in the world realize that cutting interest rates now, especially in the face of tightening lending standards, would not only do nothing to save the real estate market, but would actually bring on the depression by causing the US Dollar to tank. A crashing dollar would set the world’s financial system on it ear; the results of which would be devastating. He knows full well the lag effect of the last 18 months of interest rate policies will eventually end up setting in motion a depressing effect on economic activity which will begin to take effect, more than likely, within the next 1 to 3 months if it has not already done so. Let us hope that the FED, because of the lag effect will NOT, as they always have in the past, doesn’t overshoot their targets and exacerbate the problem that they themselves have created.
In the meantime, the lag effect of the higher interest rate policies since June 2004 will eventually finding its way into rising long term rates, undermining the stock, bond and real estate markets that sprang up on the back of Greenspan’s FED ultra loose monetary policy, setting in motion a much needed controlled economic slowdown instead of a Bust, giving the economy a chance to self correct its huge imbalances.
Greenspan realized full well that the bigger the boom the bigger the inevitable bust: His main objective was to push the time of the inevitable crash into the next Chairman’s term and thus preserve his legacy. To give him his due, he was also trying to raise interest rates high enough before Bernanke finally took over so that the FED would then have some ammunition to hopefully slow down the crash and keep it in only a Recession mode.: However “IT” will be, when “IT” comes, at first similar to 2001, too little and too late. In 2001, we were sitting on projected massive budget surpluses and unified government so Bush was able to get massive tax cuts passed and succeeded in stopping the recession in its tracts; but this time around the US is not only in a “Guns and Butter Economy” but with both massive trade and budget deficits instead. With the Democrats now in control of Congress, there will be NO new tax cuts coming to save the day and stop the Crash. A looming and even bigger danger is that we may actually face tax increases and a return to job destroying NEW DEAL policies which are even now being bandied about in Congress.
Let us pray that I’m right and Bernanke is not only smart but lucky as well, he is our only chance to prevent a major financial catastrophe.
本文翻译由兄弟财经提供。
文章来源：http://www.incrediblecharts.com/economy/interest_rates_recession_depression.php