硅谷银行引发的银行倒闭潮，与30多年前的储贷危机惊人相似
萨缪尔·克莱门斯，也就是大名鼎鼎的马克·吐温，有生之年没有经历过1929年的银行挤兑和市场崩溃，没有见证过1987年的“黑色星期一”（Black Monday）和2008年的经济大衰退（Great Recession），更不知道最近硅谷银行（Silicon Valley Bank）倒闭所引发的银行业危机。但他有一句名言：“历史不会重演，但总是惊人的相似。”这句话却能够非常精准地总结从他生活的时代至今出现过的金融恐慌。
硅谷银行倒闭在银行系统产生的影响，与20世纪80年代末的储贷危机所引发的恐慌，似乎惊人的相似。无论当时还是现在，美联储（Federal Reserve）都进行了快速加息，以应对恶性通胀。这种策略当初发挥了作用，现在似乎依旧有效，但却是以对利息敏感的资产贬值为代价，例如美国国债和抵押贷款担保证券等，这些资产在许多银行的资产负债表中占有很大的比重。除了宽松的监管以外，银行还存在高管管理不善和过度依赖一类储户等问题，而储贷危机的噩梦再现的可能性，令许多区域银行的高管夜不能寐。
2008年和大金融危机（Great Financial Crisis）的记忆，影响了监管部门对新危机的应对，尤其是放宽在2010年通过的《多德-弗兰德华尔街改革和消费者保护法案》（Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act）的监管，被认为是硅谷银行倒闭的罪魁祸首。但正如亿万富翁投资者瑞·达里欧和拉里·芬克在危机发生后不久所说的那样，硅谷银行倒闭后引发区域银行倒闭潮的可能性，令我们回想起储贷危机的诸多细节。
芬克上周在一年一度给股东的信中写道，“我们尚不清楚”，最近这次危机的后果是否“会蔓延到整个美国区域银行业（与储贷危机类似），使更多的银行被接管和倒闭。”但与20世纪80年代的储贷危机一样，最近硅谷银行以及银门银行（Silvergate Bank）和签名银行（Signature Bank）的倒闭，都是美国区域银行的损失，所引发的系统性风险，可能令美国政府冒险动用纳税人的钱。
由于社交媒体的崛起，已经破产的硅谷银行和签名银行，还要面临20世纪80年代储贷危机时的首席执行官们可能从未想象过的问题。但正如投资公司Sanders Morris Harris的董事长乔治·鲍尔在接受《财富》杂志采访时所说的那样：
“硅谷银行的危机可能在许多方面，与储贷危机有巨大区别，但这场危机背后却存在一个同样的算数问题——当储户或者贷款商失去信心时，长期杠杆一定会立即引发灾难。”
《财富》杂志就历史上的金融危机和当前银行业动荡之间的相似之处和差异，采访了经济学家、美联储的前官员和投资经理等。加息再加上中小型区域金融机构倒闭带来的系统性风险，与储贷危机有许多相似之处。这种金融历史上的相似之处值得警惕，因为按照美国政府问责办公室（U.S. General Accountability Office）统计，储贷危机导致1980年至1995年的15年间，全美1,000多家贷款机构破产，最终使纳税人损失超过1,600亿美元。
历史回顾和道德风险
一条简单的历史教训：储贷协会最早于1831年成立于宾夕法尼亚州，当时银行还不提供住房抵押贷款。这些机构又被称为“储贷机构”，支持社区联合，相互帮助购买住房。
许多储贷机构提供的抵押贷款利率低于银行，但相应地存款利率也更低。这些贷款机构凭借低成本，在美国银行系统中的地位日益提高，到1932年，美国通过了《联邦住房贷款银行法案》（Federal Home Loan Bank Act），旨在监管储贷行业，以帮助低收入美国人实现拥有住房的目标。两年后，联邦储蓄和贷款保险公司（Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation）成立，为持续扩张的储贷机构提供存款保险。
到1980年，美国已经有接近4,000家储贷机构，总资产达到6,000亿美元，其中包括当时美国接近一半未偿还的住房抵押贷款。1979年，保罗·沃尔克担任美联储主席时，决心解决现在经济学家们所说的“大通胀”（Great Inflation）。沃尔克开始以前所未有的速度和力度加息，导致时任美国总统吉米·卡特在其唯一一个任期后期不得不承受残酷的经济衰退。现任美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔似乎主要也采取了这种策略来应对通胀。几年内（并且经过有一次短期衰退后），美国进入了物价稳定的“大缓和”（Great Moderation）时期，但在那之前，储贷机构的一切都发生了变化。
康拉德·阿尔特指出，随着利率大幅上涨，储贷机构持有的以抵押贷款为主的固定利率资产贬值。阿尔特曾经担任美国参议院银行业委员会（U.S. Senate Banking Committee）的顾问，在1989年至1996年期间曾经担任美国货币监理署（Office of the Comptroller of the Currency）的幕僚长和高级副主计长，是终结储贷危机的功臣之一。“与此同时，他们的融资成本上涨，因此为了吸引存款而不得不增加支出。最终形成了我们所说的负利差。”这意味着这些储贷机构开始亏损，并无力偿债。
阿尔特后来成立了投资公司Klaros集团（Klaros Group）。他表示，当时作为一名年轻律师，他参与了应对储贷危机，并且他发现“在几乎每一家储贷机构，都存在许多非常不完善的行为，比如非常轻率的贷款等活动。”有越来越多与硅谷银行有关的令人讨厌的消息曝出，例如为吸引湾区的客户，赠送高档红酒和报销滑雪旅行的所有费用等。同样，储贷机构招揽客户的手段是“以赛马、高尔夫课程和艺术品作为抵押提供贷款”，他们生活奢侈，“购买公务机，这些都是真实存在的情况。”
阿尔特称，他认为在20世纪80年代，储贷机构普遍存在管理不善的问题，因为这些垂死挣扎的公司，获得了监管者毫不动摇的支持，而储贷机构的高管们都很清楚这一点。
他说：“如果你有一家公司既没有股权也没有经济价值，为什么不赌一把呢？如果你赌输了，存款保险机构[联邦储蓄和贷款保险公司]可以兜底，毕竟你没有在公司中投入任何资金，因此也就不会蒙受任何损失。如果你赌赢了，你可以说：‘嘿，太好了，运气真好。’因此这种行为在储贷行业变得日益猖獗。”
阿尔特表示，如果他现在是一名银行监管者，他肯定就会担心“道德风险”问题，即政府救助倒闭的银行会鼓励银行领导者承担过多风险。与硅谷银行的情况一样，银行所有者和管理者知道其已经资不抵债，尤其是他们很清楚政府不会允许他们破产。阿尔特称，这可能导致管理者“承担过多风险”。
熟悉的宏观经济方程
2021年，在新冠疫苗问世后，美国经济重启，恰逢美国通胀率达到自20世纪80年代沃尔克上任以来的最高水平，而为了给经济降温和抑制通胀，鲍威尔采取了快速加息的策略，加息速度超过了任何前任。与20世纪80年代一样，随着利率上涨，固定利率资产（国债和抵押贷款担保证券）在银行资产负债表中的比重下降。因此，据美国联邦存款保险公司（FDIC）统计，截至2022年年底，美国银行的贷款组合损失超过6,000亿美元。
硅谷银行的资产贬值尤其严重。到2022年年底，在硅谷银行的长期抵押贷款担保证券中，90%的债券资产收益率低于2%。利率上涨意味着现在这些债券的价值更低，因此在今年3月初，当担心硅谷银行倒闭的储户争相到该银行取款时，它却没有足够的现金。
康拉德·阿尔特指出，目前，银行再一次面临利率上涨、长期固定利率资产贬值和存款存在压力的局面。“因此，我们正在重蹈覆辙。回顾这条路，你可能会产生这样合理的猜测：‘嗯，这开始变得与储贷危机有许多相似之处。’”
致命的业务过度集中
储贷危机和硅谷银行与签名银行面临的问题还有另外一个重要的相似之处，那就是业务过度集中于一个行业。储贷机构几乎完全专注于提供抵押贷款，在20世纪80年代，当利率上浮导致房价下跌时，这种策略开始出现问题。而硅谷银行主要服务科技公司，这些公司通常没有经受过考验，也没有盈利，因此当利率上涨和风投融资速度放慢时，它们就会面临风险。Sanders Morris Harris公司的鲍尔称，银行业务过度集中于任何一个行业，“最终会导致金融过度，引发大灾难”。
他还表示，硅谷银行与储贷机构的状况有一个关键的相似之处，引发了最近的银行挤兑。
他说：“储贷危机时期的银行贷款机构和硅谷银行等科技贷款机构，将自己树立成经济中的典型，它们都心照不宣地要求贷款方将存款存在贷款机构。”他解释道，为了让储户继续投资，储贷机构和硅谷银行都额外提供了许多华而不实的条件。“你不能强迫借款人将资金存到你的贷款机构，因为这是违法的，但你能够通过不断劝说，影响他们这样做。”比如，硅谷银行向客户提供亚马逊（Amazon）的云计算信用积分、DocuSign服务折扣，甚至高档红酒。
鲍尔表示，这种经营策略使硅谷银行能够迅速吸引存款，因为其储户集中，主要是人脉广泛的科技公司开立的大额储蓄账户。“拥有大额存款的储户在听到银行倒闭的传闻后，选择分散存款，突然之间，银行的存款状况从四分之三满的杯子变成了只有八分之一满。这时，银行变得无力偿债。”
一些关键区别
虽然储贷危机和当前的银行业动荡有许多相似之处，但两者之间还是存在一些重要的区别。或许最重要的区别是，现在的监管机构有能力介入危机，挽救局面。
1983年，在储贷危机期间，监管机构估计，为了偿付存在倒闭的贷款机构的有保险储户，大约需要250亿美元。但美联储历史学家表示，储贷机构的保险基金、联邦储蓄和贷款保险公司仅有60亿美元储备资金。
科罗拉多大学丹佛分校（University of Colorado-Denver）的讲师、Econ One Research的总经理迈克尔·J·奥兰多对《财富》杂志表示：“当时，面对迅速恶化的问题，这些机构的存款保险严重不足，这影响了监管者的选择。”但奥兰多称，现在，监管者有大量“灭火的手段”，至少在近期内可以帮助减少银行倒闭产生的经济影响。奥兰多同时是美国联邦储备系统（Federal Reserve System）的研究经济学家。
储贷危机与硅谷银行和签名银行破产之间的另外一个区别是最近银行挤兑的速度。社交媒体和银行业应用程序的流行，让储户能够快速发现银行的问题，并取走资金。
科罗拉多州立大学（Colorado State University）的经济学教授斯蒂芬·韦勒告诉《财富》杂志：“[硅谷银行]的挤兑主要来自科技行业，科技行业的从业者精通社交媒体，而且他们有强大的能力在48小时内取走所有可用现金。而在储贷危机期间，挤兑的时间长达数周、数月甚至数年。这是一个慢速崩溃过程。”
有专家甚至指出，硅谷银行可能经历了史上第一次因社交媒体导致的银行挤兑，他们说，知名风险投资者曾经迅速警告投资组合公司取走存款。Bahnsen Group的首席投资官大卫·巴恩森对《财富》杂志表示，他认为“毫无疑问”，是强大的风险投资者“助长了银行挤兑”。这是一个快速的过程。
后果：大规模整合
韦勒教授是区域经济发展研究所（Regional Economic Development Institute）的联席所长。他警告，在所有金融机构当中，最近的危机可能对小型银行的影响最为严重。硅谷银行倒闭暴露出联邦存款保险公司有限的保险只能够为小型金融机构兜底，无法为更具有系统重要性的机构提供保障。联邦存款保险公司的保险对储户的保额不超过25万美元。他说：“大银行拥有小银行不具备的优势，”那就是几乎“一定”会得到政府的全力救助。“大而不能倒，使大银行拥有压倒性的吸引力。”
自从储贷危机爆发以来，小型社区银行的数量持续减少。据联邦存款保险公司统计，1980年，全美由联邦存款保险公司承保的银行超过14,000家，2021年却不足4,500家。
韦勒表示，这是一个严重的问题。他在一项研究中分析了社区和区域银行对美国经济的积极影响，尤其是在大型金融机构覆盖不足的农村地区。
2022年，韦勒与贝尔蒙特大学（Belmont University）的卢克·佩塔克以及威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校（University of Wisconsin-Madison）的特莎·康罗伊联合发表了一篇论文。韦勒发现，拥有更多社区银行的地区“整体上区域经济更繁荣，并且提高了区域经济承受宏观经济冲击的韧性。”社区银行带来的好处包括企业倒闭减少，房价更有弹性，就业增长更强劲。
他说：“我们的研究显示，[资产规模]10亿美元以下的社区银行，实际上对于创业和就业增长至关重要，尤其是在美国农村地区。正是这些银行，可能因为此次危机而最终倒闭。”
然而，今年3月21日，美国财政部的部长珍妮特·耶伦对游说团体美国银行家协会（American Bankers Association）表示，如果“小型银行机构”面临“存款挤兑可能导致危机蔓延”，她可能会采取“类似措施”来阻止储户挤兑。
《财富》杂志采访的多位专家称，可悲的是，小银行的悲剧是可以避免的。阿尔特曾经在储贷危机后协助监管机构起草立法。他表示，他的建议在20世纪80年代末和90年代初经常被忽视，而且那些错失的机会目前正在对美国经济产生影响。
他提到曾经在立法中要求银行测试加息环境下的资产负债表状况。他说：“这个要求被写入法律。但实际上没有机构执行。现在，立法中依旧没有与利率风险有关的内容。因此，这就是一条我们很快就会忘记的教训。事实上，我们早已知道一直以来都存在监管空白，这应该引起监管机构的重视，但事实却并非如此。”
在最近的银行倒闭风波之后，回顾储贷危机得到的教训就是，监管机构、高管和投资者会忘记金融业历史上最重要的教训，并重蹈覆辙。
鲍尔说：“经济记忆的半衰期约为三至五年。之后人们就会忘记以前的风险，重新开始盲目借贷的循环。”（财富中文网）
译者：刘进龙
审校：汪皓
萨缪尔·克莱门斯，也就是大名鼎鼎的马克·吐温，有生之年没有经历过1929年的银行挤兑和市场崩溃，没有见证过1987年的“黑色星期一”（Black Monday）和2008年的经济大衰退（Great Recession），更不知道最近硅谷银行（Silicon Valley Bank）倒闭所引发的银行业危机。但他有一句名言：“历史不会重演，但总是惊人的相似。”这句话却能够非常精准地总结从他生活的时代至今出现过的金融恐慌。
硅谷银行倒闭在银行系统产生的影响，与20世纪80年代末的储贷危机所引发的恐慌，似乎惊人的相似。无论当时还是现在，美联储（Federal Reserve）都进行了快速加息，以应对恶性通胀。这种策略当初发挥了作用，现在似乎依旧有效，但却是以对利息敏感的资产贬值为代价，例如美国国债和抵押贷款担保证券等，这些资产在许多银行的资产负债表中占有很大的比重。除了宽松的监管以外，银行还存在高管管理不善和过度依赖一类储户等问题，而储贷危机的噩梦再现的可能性，令许多区域银行的高管夜不能寐。
2008年和大金融危机（Great Financial Crisis）的记忆，影响了监管部门对新危机的应对，尤其是放宽在2010年通过的《多德-弗兰德华尔街改革和消费者保护法案》（Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act）的监管，被认为是硅谷银行倒闭的罪魁祸首。但正如亿万富翁投资者瑞·达里欧和拉里·芬克在危机发生后不久所说的那样，硅谷银行倒闭后引发区域银行倒闭潮的可能性，令我们回想起储贷危机的诸多细节。
芬克上周在一年一度给股东的信中写道，“我们尚不清楚”，最近这次危机的后果是否“会蔓延到整个美国区域银行业（与储贷危机类似），使更多的银行被接管和倒闭。”但与20世纪80年代的储贷危机一样，最近硅谷银行以及银门银行（Silvergate Bank）和签名银行（Signature Bank）的倒闭，都是美国区域银行的损失，所引发的系统性风险，可能令美国政府冒险动用纳税人的钱。
由于社交媒体的崛起，已经破产的硅谷银行和签名银行，还要面临20世纪80年代储贷危机时的首席执行官们可能从未想象过的问题。但正如投资公司Sanders Morris Harris的董事长乔治·鲍尔在接受《财富》杂志采访时所说的那样：
“硅谷银行的危机可能在许多方面，与储贷危机有巨大区别，但这场危机背后却存在一个同样的算数问题——当储户或者贷款商失去信心时，长期杠杆一定会立即引发灾难。”
《财富》杂志就历史上的金融危机和当前银行业动荡之间的相似之处和差异，采访了经济学家、美联储的前官员和投资经理等。加息再加上中小型区域金融机构倒闭带来的系统性风险，与储贷危机有许多相似之处。这种金融历史上的相似之处值得警惕，因为按照美国政府问责办公室（U.S. General Accountability Office）统计，储贷危机导致1980年至1995年的15年间，全美1,000多家贷款机构破产，最终使纳税人损失超过1,600亿美元。
历史回顾和道德风险
一条简单的历史教训：储贷协会最早于1831年成立于宾夕法尼亚州，当时银行还不提供住房抵押贷款。这些机构又被称为“储贷机构”，支持社区联合，相互帮助购买住房。
许多储贷机构提供的抵押贷款利率低于银行，但相应地存款利率也更低。这些贷款机构凭借低成本，在美国银行系统中的地位日益提高，到1932年，美国通过了《联邦住房贷款银行法案》（Federal Home Loan Bank Act），旨在监管储贷行业，以帮助低收入美国人实现拥有住房的目标。两年后，联邦储蓄和贷款保险公司（Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation）成立，为持续扩张的储贷机构提供存款保险。
到1980年，美国已经有接近4,000家储贷机构，总资产达到6,000亿美元，其中包括当时美国接近一半未偿还的住房抵押贷款。1979年，保罗·沃尔克担任美联储主席时，决心解决现在经济学家们所说的“大通胀”（Great Inflation）。沃尔克开始以前所未有的速度和力度加息，导致时任美国总统吉米·卡特在其唯一一个任期后期不得不承受残酷的经济衰退。现任美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔似乎主要也采取了这种策略来应对通胀。几年内（并且经过有一次短期衰退后），美国进入了物价稳定的“大缓和”（Great Moderation）时期，但在那之前，储贷机构的一切都发生了变化。
康拉德·阿尔特指出，随着利率大幅上涨，储贷机构持有的以抵押贷款为主的固定利率资产贬值。阿尔特曾经担任美国参议院银行业委员会（U.S. Senate Banking Committee）的顾问，在1989年至1996年期间曾经担任美国货币监理署（Office of the Comptroller of the Currency）的幕僚长和高级副主计长，是终结储贷危机的功臣之一。“与此同时，他们的融资成本上涨，因此为了吸引存款而不得不增加支出。最终形成了我们所说的负利差。”这意味着这些储贷机构开始亏损，并无力偿债。
阿尔特后来成立了投资公司Klaros集团（Klaros Group）。他表示，当时作为一名年轻律师，他参与了应对储贷危机，并且他发现“在几乎每一家储贷机构，都存在许多非常不完善的行为，比如非常轻率的贷款等活动。”有越来越多与硅谷银行有关的令人讨厌的消息曝出，例如为吸引湾区的客户，赠送高档红酒和报销滑雪旅行的所有费用等。同样，储贷机构招揽客户的手段是“以赛马、高尔夫课程和艺术品作为抵押提供贷款”，他们生活奢侈，“购买公务机，这些都是真实存在的情况。”
阿尔特称，他认为在20世纪80年代，储贷机构普遍存在管理不善的问题，因为这些垂死挣扎的公司，获得了监管者毫不动摇的支持，而储贷机构的高管们都很清楚这一点。
他说：“如果你有一家公司既没有股权也没有经济价值，为什么不赌一把呢？如果你赌输了，存款保险机构[联邦储蓄和贷款保险公司]可以兜底，毕竟你没有在公司中投入任何资金，因此也就不会蒙受任何损失。如果你赌赢了，你可以说：‘嘿，太好了，运气真好。’因此这种行为在储贷行业变得日益猖獗。”
阿尔特表示，如果他现在是一名银行监管者，他肯定就会担心“道德风险”问题，即政府救助倒闭的银行会鼓励银行领导者承担过多风险。与硅谷银行的情况一样，银行所有者和管理者知道其已经资不抵债，尤其是他们很清楚政府不会允许他们破产。阿尔特称，这可能导致管理者“承担过多风险”。
熟悉的宏观经济方程
2021年，在新冠疫苗问世后，美国经济重启，恰逢美国通胀率达到自20世纪80年代沃尔克上任以来的最高水平，而为了给经济降温和抑制通胀，鲍威尔采取了快速加息的策略，加息速度超过了任何前任。与20世纪80年代一样，随着利率上涨，固定利率资产（国债和抵押贷款担保证券）在银行资产负债表中的比重下降。因此，据美国联邦存款保险公司（FDIC）统计，截至2022年年底，美国银行的贷款组合损失超过6,000亿美元。
硅谷银行的资产贬值尤其严重。到2022年年底，在硅谷银行的长期抵押贷款担保证券中，90%的债券资产收益率低于2%。利率上涨意味着现在这些债券的价值更低，因此在今年3月初，当担心硅谷银行倒闭的储户争相到该银行取款时，它却没有足够的现金。
康拉德·阿尔特指出，目前，银行再一次面临利率上涨、长期固定利率资产贬值和存款存在压力的局面。“因此，我们正在重蹈覆辙。回顾这条路，你可能会产生这样合理的猜测：‘嗯，这开始变得与储贷危机有许多相似之处。’”
致命的业务过度集中
储贷危机和硅谷银行与签名银行面临的问题还有另外一个重要的相似之处，那就是业务过度集中于一个行业。储贷机构几乎完全专注于提供抵押贷款，在20世纪80年代，当利率上浮导致房价下跌时，这种策略开始出现问题。而硅谷银行主要服务科技公司，这些公司通常没有经受过考验，也没有盈利，因此当利率上涨和风投融资速度放慢时，它们就会面临风险。Sanders Morris Harris公司的鲍尔称，银行业务过度集中于任何一个行业，“最终会导致金融过度，引发大灾难”。
他还表示，硅谷银行与储贷机构的状况有一个关键的相似之处，引发了最近的银行挤兑。
他说：“储贷危机时期的银行贷款机构和硅谷银行等科技贷款机构，将自己树立成经济中的典型，它们都心照不宣地要求贷款方将存款存在贷款机构。”他解释道，为了让储户继续投资，储贷机构和硅谷银行都额外提供了许多华而不实的条件。“你不能强迫借款人将资金存到你的贷款机构，因为这是违法的，但你能够通过不断劝说，影响他们这样做。”比如，硅谷银行向客户提供亚马逊（Amazon）的云计算信用积分、DocuSign服务折扣，甚至高档红酒。
鲍尔表示，这种经营策略使硅谷银行能够迅速吸引存款，因为其储户集中，主要是人脉广泛的科技公司开立的大额储蓄账户。“拥有大额存款的储户在听到银行倒闭的传闻后，选择分散存款，突然之间，银行的存款状况从四分之三满的杯子变成了只有八分之一满。这时，银行变得无力偿债。”
一些关键区别
虽然储贷危机和当前的银行业动荡有许多相似之处，但两者之间还是存在一些重要的区别。或许最重要的区别是，现在的监管机构有能力介入危机，挽救局面。
1983年，在储贷危机期间，监管机构估计，为了偿付存在倒闭的贷款机构的有保险储户，大约需要250亿美元。但美联储历史学家表示，储贷机构的保险基金、联邦储蓄和贷款保险公司仅有60亿美元储备资金。
科罗拉多大学丹佛分校（University of Colorado-Denver）的讲师、Econ One Research的总经理迈克尔·J·奥兰多对《财富》杂志表示：“当时，面对迅速恶化的问题，这些机构的存款保险严重不足，这影响了监管者的选择。”但奥兰多称，现在，监管者有大量“灭火的手段”，至少在近期内可以帮助减少银行倒闭产生的经济影响。奥兰多同时是美国联邦储备系统（Federal Reserve System）的研究经济学家。
储贷危机与硅谷银行和签名银行破产之间的另外一个区别是最近银行挤兑的速度。社交媒体和银行业应用程序的流行，让储户能够快速发现银行的问题，并取走资金。
科罗拉多州立大学（Colorado State University）的经济学教授斯蒂芬·韦勒告诉《财富》杂志：“[硅谷银行]的挤兑主要来自科技行业，科技行业的从业者精通社交媒体，而且他们有强大的能力在48小时内取走所有可用现金。而在储贷危机期间，挤兑的时间长达数周、数月甚至数年。这是一个慢速崩溃过程。”
有专家甚至指出，硅谷银行可能经历了史上第一次因社交媒体导致的银行挤兑，他们说，知名风险投资者曾经迅速警告投资组合公司取走存款。Bahnsen Group的首席投资官大卫·巴恩森对《财富》杂志表示，他认为“毫无疑问”，是强大的风险投资者“助长了银行挤兑”。这是一个快速的过程。
后果：大规模整合
韦勒教授是区域经济发展研究所（Regional Economic Development Institute）的联席所长。他警告，在所有金融机构当中，最近的危机可能对小型银行的影响最为严重。硅谷银行倒闭暴露出联邦存款保险公司有限的保险只能够为小型金融机构兜底，无法为更具有系统重要性的机构提供保障。联邦存款保险公司的保险对储户的保额不超过25万美元。他说：“大银行拥有小银行不具备的优势，”那就是几乎“一定”会得到政府的全力救助。“大而不能倒，使大银行拥有压倒性的吸引力。”
自从储贷危机爆发以来，小型社区银行的数量持续减少。据联邦存款保险公司统计，1980年，全美由联邦存款保险公司承保的银行超过14,000家，2021年却不足4,500家。
韦勒表示，这是一个严重的问题。他在一项研究中分析了社区和区域银行对美国经济的积极影响，尤其是在大型金融机构覆盖不足的农村地区。
2022年，韦勒与贝尔蒙特大学（Belmont University）的卢克·佩塔克以及威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校（University of Wisconsin-Madison）的特莎·康罗伊联合发表了一篇论文。韦勒发现，拥有更多社区银行的地区“整体上区域经济更繁荣，并且提高了区域经济承受宏观经济冲击的韧性。”社区银行带来的好处包括企业倒闭减少，房价更有弹性，就业增长更强劲。
他说：“我们的研究显示，[资产规模]10亿美元以下的社区银行，实际上对于创业和就业增长至关重要，尤其是在美国农村地区。正是这些银行，可能因为此次危机而最终倒闭。”
然而，今年3月21日，美国财政部的部长珍妮特·耶伦对游说团体美国银行家协会（American Bankers Association）表示，如果“小型银行机构”面临“存款挤兑可能导致危机蔓延”，她可能会采取“类似措施”来阻止储户挤兑。
《财富》杂志采访的多位专家称，可悲的是，小银行的悲剧是可以避免的。阿尔特曾经在储贷危机后协助监管机构起草立法。他表示，他的建议在20世纪80年代末和90年代初经常被忽视，而且那些错失的机会目前正在对美国经济产生影响。
他提到曾经在立法中要求银行测试加息环境下的资产负债表状况。他说：“这个要求被写入法律。但实际上没有机构执行。现在，立法中依旧没有与利率风险有关的内容。因此，这就是一条我们很快就会忘记的教训。事实上，我们早已知道一直以来都存在监管空白，这应该引起监管机构的重视，但事实却并非如此。”
在最近的银行倒闭风波之后，回顾储贷危机得到的教训就是，监管机构、高管和投资者会忘记金融业历史上最重要的教训，并重蹈覆辙。
鲍尔说：“经济记忆的半衰期约为三至五年。之后人们就会忘记以前的风险，重新开始盲目借贷的循环。”（财富中文网）
译者：刘进龙
审校：汪皓
Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, didn’t live to see the bank runs and market crash of 1929, nor was he around for 1987’s “Black Monday,” the Great Recession of 2008, or the latest banking crisis centered on the demise of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). But a famous aphorism often ascribed to Twain sums up the financial panics that have come and gone since his time: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
The reverberations that have spread through the banking system after SVB’s collapse seem to rhyme very closely with a particular panic from the late 1980s: the savings and loan (S&L) crisis. Both then and now, the Federal Reserve was rapidly hiking interest rates to fight stubborn inflation. The ploy worked—and appears to be working again today—but at the cost of devaluing interest rate-sensitive assets, like the U.S Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities that make up a large portion of many banks’ balance sheets. Add to that lax regulations, executive mismanagement, and an overreliance on a single type of depositor, and a potential repeat of the nightmare S&L crisis is creating sleepless nights for many of today’s regional bank executives.
The memory of 2008 and the Great Financial Crisis is coloring regulators’ response to the new crisis, particularly with relaxations of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act being blamed for SVB’s demise. But the possibility of regional bank contagion after SVB’s collapse recalls the specifics of the S&L crisis more than anything, as the billionaire investors Ray Dalio and Larry Fink both pointed out soon after it started.
For his part, Fink wrote in his annual shareholder letter last week that “we don’t know yet” whether the consequences of the latest crisis “will cascade throughout the U.S. regional banking sector (akin to the S&L Crisis) with more seizures and shutdowns coming.” But like the S&Ls of the ‘80s, the recent failures of SVB, as well as Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank, add up to the loss of regional institutions that, taken together, posed such a systemic risk that D.C. put taxpayer money on the line.
The now-defunct SVB and Signature Bank also faced issues that the CEOs of S&Ls in the ‘80s couldn’t have imagined due to the rise of social media. But as George Ball, chairman of the investment firm Sanders Morris Harris, put it in an interview with Fortune:
“The case of SVB may be very different from the S&Ls in some ways, but the arithmetic behind it was timeless—long leverage, with depositors or lenders losing faith, creates instant catastrophe, no matter what.”
Fortune spoke with economists, former Fed officials, investment managers, and more about the similarities and differences between financial crises of the past and today’s banking instability. The combination of rising interest rates and the systemic risk posed by the failure of small and medium-sized regional financial institutions drew comparisons to the S&L crisis from every one of them. And it’s worth being alert to this rhyme of financial history because the S&L crisis saw more than 1,000 lenders go bust nationwide over a 15-year period between 1980 and 1995 during the S&L crisis, as the U.S. General Accountability Office has calculated, ultimately costing taxpayers more than $160 billion.
A brief history and a moral hazard
A short history lesson: Savings and loan associations were first established in Pennsylvania in 1831, when banks didn’t offer residential mortgages. These institutions, also called “thrifts,” allowed communities to band together to help each other purchase homes.
Many S&Ls came to provide lower mortgage rates than banks, but correspondingly paid out lower rates on deposits. The status of these lenders in the U.S. banking system grew over the coming years due to their low costs, and by 1932, the Federal Home Loan Bank Act was established to supervise the S&L industry with the goal of helping lower-income Americans achieve home ownership. Two years later, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) was created to insure deposits at S&Ls as they expanded.
By 1980, there were almost 4,000 S&Ls nationwide with total assets of $600 billion—including roughly half of all outstanding U.S. home mortgages at the time. But when Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker took office in 1979, he was determined to slay what economists have now come to call “the Great Inflation.” In a model that current Fed Chair Jerome Powell seems to have taken to heart, Volcker jacked up interest rates with unprecedented speed and aggression, leading President Jimmy Carter to endure a brutal recession toward the end of his only term in office. Within a few years (and after another brief recession), a period of price stability called the “Great Moderation” set in, but not before everything changed for S&Ls.
As interest rates rose sharply, the value of the fixed rate assets—mainly mortgages—that were held by the S&Ls declined, said Konrad Alt, who had a front-row seat to the end of the S&L crisis as counsel to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and later as Chief of Staff and Senior Deputy Comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency between 1989 and 1996. “At the same time, the cost of their funding rose, so they had to pay more money to attract deposits. Eventually, they developed what we call negative spread,” which essentially means they all started to lose money and become insolvent.
Alt, who has since founded the investment firm Klaros Group, said that he was a young lawyer by the time he got involved in the S&L crisis, and what he saw “in almost every one of them was a lot of really sketchy behavior—very imprudent loans, other kinds of activities.” Just as with some of the more unsavory revelations about SVB giving out fine wines and all-expenses-paid ski trips to woo Bay Area clientele, S&Ls pulled in clients with “lending against racehorses, golf courses, and artwork” and lived lavish lifestyles—“the corporate jets, all that stuff was real.”
Alt said he thinks mismanagement at S&Ls was common during the late ‘80s because these were dying businesses that had the unwavering support of regulators—and S&L executives were well aware of that.
“If you have a business with no equity and no economic value, why not gamble? If you lose, the deposit insurer [FSLIC] takes over, and you didn’t have any money in it anyways, so you haven’t really lost anything. If you win, ‘Hey, that’s great, Bonanza,’” he said. “And so that kind of behavior became rampant in the S&L industry.”
If he was a bank supervisor now, Alt said he’d definitely worry about the “moral hazard” issue in which a government bailout of a failed bank incentivizes excessive risk-taking by its leadership. Bank owners and managers who know their business is insolvent—as appeared to be the case with SVB—essentially know they won’t be allowed to fail by the government. Alt said that fact could lead to an attitude where managers “throw the long bomb and take risks.”
A familiar macroeconomic equation
The U.S. economy’s reopening in 2021 after coronavirus vaccines became available coincided with the highest inflation since Volcker’s tenure in the ‘80s, and Powell has responded by raising rates faster than any of his predecessors in hopes of cooling the economy and quashing it. And just as in the 1980s, as interest rates have risen, the value of the fixed rate assets on banks’ balance sheets (Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities) has gone down. As a result, U.S. banks were sitting on over $600 billion in losses in their loan portfolios as of the end of 2022, according to the FDIC.
The deterioration of value was especially bad at SVB. By the end of last year, the bank had over 90% of its bond holdings in long-dated mortgage-backed securities that were yielding less than 2%. Rising interest rates meant those bonds were now worth a lot less, so when depositors flooded the bank in early March to ask for their money back amid fears it would collapse, SVB didn’t have enough cash on hand to give them.
Konrad Alt noted that banks are now once again in a situation where interest rates are rising, long-dated fixed rate assets are losing value, and deposits are under pressure. “So, we’re on track there. And if you look down that track, you might reasonably say, ‘Hmm, this could start to look a lot like the S&L crisis.’”
A deadly overconcentration
Another key similarity between the S&L crisis and the problems at SVB and Signature Bank is overconcentration on one sector. S&Ls almost entirely focused on providing mortgages, which led to problems when home values declined in the ‘80s amid rising interest rates. Meanwhile, SVB largely served tech companies that were often untested and unprofitable, leaving them at risk as rates rose and VC funding slowed. Ball, from Sanders Morris Harris, said that overconcentration by banks on any one sector will “ultimately create excesses that end up in catastrophe.”
He also noted that there was a key similarity between the situation at SVB and what happened to S&Ls that made the latest bank run happen fast.
“The bank lenders in the S&L era and the tech lenders personifying them in today’s economy—like at SVB—both tacitly required their lenders to keep their deposits with the lending organization,” he said, explaining that both the S&Ls and SVB offered lots of extra bells and whistles to keep depositors invested. “You can’t force a borrower to do that, it’s against the law, but you can use persuasion and influence them to do that.” For example, SVB handed out Amazon cloud computing credits, discounts on DocuSign services, and even fine wines to clients.
Ball argued that this way of doing business led deposits at SVB to be pulled quickly because its depositor base was so concentrated in large accounts of well-connected tech companies. “People with those big deposits looked to diversify them when they heard rumors, and then suddenly, the well was not three-quarters full, it was only one-eighth full. And at that point, you had insolvency.”
Some key differences
While the S&L crisis and the current era of banking instability may share many similarities, there are also a few key differences. Perhaps the most important of those is the ability of today’s regulators to step in and save the day.
In 1983, during the midst of the S&L crisis, regulators estimated it would cost roughly $25 billion to pay off the insured depositors at failed lenders. But the S&Ls’ insurance fund, FSLIC, had reserves of just $6 billion, according to Fed historians.
“Deposit insurance for those institutions back then was woefully inadequate for the scale of the problem as fast as it came, and that affected the choices of the regulators,” Michael J. Orlando, a lecturer at the University of Colorado-Denver and managing director of Econ One Research, told Fortune. But these days, said Orlando, who also served as a research economist in the Federal Reserve System, regulators have plenty of “water to bring to the fire,” which should help reduce the economic fallout from recent bank failures—at least in the near term.
Another thing that differentiates the S&L crisis from the failures at SVB and Signature was the speed of the latest bank runs. The rise of social media and banking apps has enabled depositors to quickly recognize when there is an issue with their bank and withdraw their funds.
“[SVB] was a run largely in the technology sector that’s full of people well versed in social media, and their ability to wipe out all of the available cash within 48 hours was really tremendous,” Stephan Weiler, professor of economics at Colorado State University, told Fortune. “Whereas, in the savings and loan crisis, it took weeks, months, years. It was kind of a crash in slow motion.”
Some experts have even argued that SVB could be the first social-media led bank run in history, noting that well-known venture capitalists had quickly warned their portfolio companies to pull their money. David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, told Fortune that he believes there is “no question” that powerful venture capitalists helped “foster a run on the bank.” Slow motion, this was not.
The fallout: The great consolidation
Prof. Weiler, who also serves as co-director of the Regional Economic Development Institute, warned that of all financial institutions, smaller banks are likely to be hurt the most by the latest crisis. SVB’s collapse exposed how limited FDIC insurance, which protects depositors up to $250,000, is for smaller institutions compared with more systemically important ones. “The big banks have something that the little banks don’t,” he said—a near “guarantee” of a full bailout. “Too big to fail makes the attraction of bigger banks pretty overwhelming.”
Smaller community banks have been declining in number ever since the S&L crisis. In 1980, there were more than 14,000 FDIC insured banks nationwide, but in 2021, there were less than 4,500, according to the FDIC.
Weiler says that’s a big problem, pointing to his research that breaks down the positive impacts that community and regional banks have on the U.S. economy, particularly in rural areas often underserved by larger institutions.
In a study published last year alongside Belmont University’s Luke Petach and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Tessa Conroy, Weiler found that areas with more community banks have “improved regional economic prospects, both generally and in terms of their resilience to macroeconomic shocks.” Benefits include fewer business closures, more resilient home prices, and better employment growth.
“We’ve done studies that show that community banks that have [assets of] $1 billion or less are actually crucial to entrepreneurship and job growth, especially in rural America,” he said. “But it’s precisely those banks that may end up getting shut out because of this crisis.”
However, on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the lobbying group the American Bankers Association that she could take “similar actions” to backstop depositors at “smaller institutions” if they “suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion.”
The sad part is small banks’ pain was likely avoidable, according to multiple experts Fortune spoke with. Alt, who helped write legislation for regulators after the S&L crisis, said that his recommendations were often ignored in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and the U.S. economy is facing the repercussions of those missed opportunities today.
He gave the example of when he put into legislation a requirement for banks to test their balance sheets in a rising interest rate environment. “That was in statute. None of the agencies actually implemented that,” he said. “Today, there is still no interest rate risk component. So that was a lesson learned and quickly forgotten. And the fact is, we’ve known that this was a gap for a long time….regulators should have caught it, and they didn’t catch it.”
The takeaway from looking back at the S&L crisis in the wake of recent bank failures may well be that regulators, executives, and investors tend to forget the most important lessons from financial history and repeat the same mistakes.
“The half-life of economic memory is about three to five years,” Ball said. “After that, everyone becomes oblivious to old risks and the cycle of uninformed lending begins again.”
