學 院 專 欄 FACULTY COLUMN 人(特別是NINJA「三無借款人」，無收入、無 工作、無資產）無法償還樓宇貸款。更糟糕的 是，借款人的按揭合同充斥大量艱深晦澀的專 業術語，令他們誤以為還房貸的代價很低。但 他們顯然不知道，世上「沒有免費午餐」的道 理同樣適用於金融市場。比如不同於常規的每 月償還本息安排：有些要求借款人開始時只需 償還利息，但在還款期末則需償還大額本金。 這帶來的連鎖效應就是，SPV無法定期向投資 者支付證券投資收益，以致證券化過程最後 的CDO-CDO股本系列最先違約，之後是中級 系列，然後是倒數第二個CDO-CDO，如此類 推。這也是為什麼在雷曼兄弟破產之後，「迷 你債券」事件牽涉不同金額的賠償，這正是因 為投資者所持證券的級別不同的原因。 SPV倒閉後，銷售CDS的FI也因無法代違約 方償還巨額債務而倒閉；又因為SPV屬於FI， 所以銀行也隨之關門大吉。最終剩下銷售了大 量CDS的AIG，還有那些「大到不能倒」（簡稱 TBTF）的大規模銀行，不得不由美國政府通過 各種融資渠道（如「問題資產救助計劃」TARP） 出手相救，全世界一片恐慌。俗語有云：現金 為王！倖免於難的機構自然也不願意借錢。這 樣一來，全球都陷入資金短缺的境地。 2008年11月美聯儲啟動首輪「量化寬鬆」（簡稱 QE1）。這個看似充滿創意的新名詞說白了就 是「印鈔票」的意思，之後幾年我們陸續目睹了 QE2和QE3的出台。當城門失火的美國殃及歐 洲池魚的時候，歐洲中央銀行開始推出「長期 再融資計劃」（簡稱LTRO）以及「歐洲金融穩定 基金計劃」(SFSF（) 這一短期計劃將被相對長期 的「歐洲穩定機制」ESM 取代），冀解救在困境 中的歐盟國家於水火。 這其中牽涉的字母還有很多很多，姑且再舉幾 個比較常聽的吧：REIT是「房地產投資信託」； CFC是「遠期貨幣合約」；ETF代表「交易型開 放式指數基金」；CLO 是指「貸款抵押債券」； CLN表示「信用連結票 券」；OTC合約意為「場 外交易合約」；ISDA全 稱是「國際掉期與衍生 工具協會」⋯⋯這些縮 寫字母表有多長，完全 取決於金融工程師們的創意有多少。 那這些和澳門有什麼關係呢？雖然澳 門沒有金融市場，但全球有任何風吹 草動都可能對澳門的微觀經濟產生 What went wrong during the crisis? Because of interest rate increases in the mid-2000, mortgagors could no longer pay mortgages. This was especially true for those NINJA (the mortgagors who have “no income, no job and assets”)! What is worse was that their mortgages were written with strange terms that they did not understand, and many people thought that their mortgage payments would be inexpensive. They obviously did not know the famous !nance maxim: “No free lunch!” For instance, there were some that required only interest payments at the beginning, but a major sum of principal at the end of the mortgage period, as opposed to the normal mortgage of monthly interest-plus-principal repayment. The chain effect then became SPVs not being able to pay periodic returns to the investors of the securities. The equity tranche of the last CDO-CDO in the securitization series defaulted !rst, followed by the mezzanine tranche, on to the second last CDO-CDO and so on. This is why the mini-bond case after the collapse of the Lehman Brothers included different compensations according to the tranches the investors held. When the SPVs collapsed, the FIs that sold CDS also collapsed because they could not afford to pay the huge debts on behalf of the default parties. And because the SPVs belonged to the FIs such as the big banks, these big banks also failed. Finally AIG, which sold a lot of CDS and other big banks that were “too big to fail” (TBTF) were bailed out by the USA government through various funding channels such as TARP (“Troubled Asset Relief Program”). The whole world panicked, cash was “king”, and institutions that were not in trouble were not willing to lend money to others. As a result, there was a global shortage of funds. In November 2008, the Fed started the !rst round of Quantitative Easing, dubbed QE1, an innovative term that really just means printing money. For the rest of the years in between, many of us heard about QE2 and the recent QE3 in the USA. When the problem spread to Europe, the European Central Bank started the “Long Term Re!nancing Operations” (LTRO), and the European Financial Stability Facility (SFSF), which is a short-term programme, and will be replaced by the longer-term European Stability Mechanism (ESM), all to help the ailing EU countries. To extend the list of abbreviations, here are some more commonly heard terms – REITs for “real estate investment trusts”, CFC for “currency forward contracts”, ETFs for “exchange traded funds”, CLOs for “collateralized loan obligations”, CMOs for “collateralized mortgage obligations”, CLNs for “credit linked notes”, OTC contracts for “over-the-counter contracts”, and ISDA for “International Swaps and Derivatives Association”. The list may go on and on, depending on how innovative the !nancial engineers are. So how does this story affect Macao? For better or for worse, Macao does not have a !nancial market. Yet the local micro-economy is easily prone to impacts from whatever happens around the globe. The most recent incident happened on 13 September 2012, when Ben Bernanke, president of the USA Federal Reserve, announced 44 umagazine | issue 07
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