| 摘要 | Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, called the Federal Reserve’s proposed regulations of sub-prime mortgages “deeply disappointing.” Barney Frank, his counterpart in the House, offered a more original sound bite. “We now have confirmation of two facts. One, the Federal Reserve system is not a strong advocate for consumers, and two, there is no Santa Claus. People who are surprised by the one are presumably surprised by the other.”
But less partisan observers – those who understand that the Fed is under great pressure to triangulate between Congressional Democrats’ current nostalgia for New Deal-style regulation and the Bush Administration’s reflexive distaste for anything labeled consumer protection – might well conclude that the proposal is the best that could be expected. Indeed, while we fear that the Fed is giving too little consideration to the potential collateral damage in attempting to rid the mortgage market of ill-advised loans, the regulations do look pretty good.
The late lamented housing boom, in which borrowers largely forgot that prices can go down as well as up, attracted myriad sleazy brokers to the parade. Untold numbers of Americans with marginal credit were sold mortgages with terms they didn’t understand — and could only afford if house prices kept rising or interest rates stayed low. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of them will be unable to keep up their payments when the “teaser rates” ratchet up in the next year.
Hardly anybody directly involved comes out smelling sweet – not regulators, not mortgage brokers, not institutional investors. Also, not Washington. After an embarrassing attempt to prop up the mortgage securities markets with pep talks and hints of a federal bailout, the Bush Administration chose to limit its damage-control efforts to jawboning lenders into freezing teaser rates. The effect of such a freeze (provided lenders actually follow through on their vague promises) will be to make banks think twice before offering such low rates in the future, for fear that they will again be frozen if something bad happens. For their part, House Democrats passed legislation that, if it managed to get past a more skeptical Senate and a hostile White House, would regulate away high-risk mortgages. Both of these “reforms” come at the potential risk of making it far more difficult for moderate-income families to buy houses.
The Fed’s role (and its obligations) here are both broader and more complicated. Late to the party, it moved decisively in tandem with other central banks to prevent the collapse of the global market for mortgage-based securities from cascading through markets for business credit. On the other hand, the Fed is in no position to undo the damage to innocent bystanders in the mortgage market – or, for that matter, even to figure out who, among the millions of mortgagees trapped by the puncturing of the housing bubble, really is innocent. What it is trying to do instead is to restore some order to mortgage-lending, and in the process head off Congress’ inclination to regulate away innovation and risk-taking in housing lending.
Some parts of the Fed’s plan (which is still open to public comment and modification) seem a no-brainer. For example, the new rules would require mortgage brokers to disclose the fact if their fees are linked to the interest rates they charge. In the same spirit, the Fed would bar lenders from advertising teaser rates in foreign languages to immigrant communities while making legal disclosures in English.
But other pieces are problematic. Among the important legal changes, lenders would be obliged to base origination decisions on the ability of borrowers to make monthly payments (rather than the value of their collateral), to create escrow accounts for owners’ tax and insurance payments, and to end prepayment penalties before adjustable-rate mortgages reset for the first time.
Each of these market interventions could, in theory, be justified on objective economic grounds. Take the case of the escrow accounts. As a group, lenders may benefit from the obligation to quote inclusive monthly payments because it means fewer misunderstandings about who owes what. And some borrowers may benefit as well because it should reduce the chance that they will default on loans. But without the imposition of that collective obligation, the markets could be subject to a classic “race to the bottom” – one in which most lenders are reluctant to impose escrow provisions because some home buyers apparently look no further than the one monthly-payment number offered by the broker.
The point that regulation-minded politicians conveniently ignore is that these interventions plainly have costs as well as benefits. For example, barring mortgages not strictly tied to ability to pay may prevent borrowers from taking rational risks – say, by gambling that they will be able to get a better-paying job in the near future.
Such considerations can’t be easily quantified the way highway safety regulators compare the value of lives saved by requiring anti-skid brakes against the costs of the equipment. But we wish the Fed had quantified what it could. It would be nice to estimate, for example, how many moderate-income families would likely be denied access to mortgages if the ability-to-pay rule is imposed.
All that said, it would be foolish to make the best the enemy of the good. At the very least, the Fed’s proposed rules are likely to head off far more costly legislation, especially if foreclosure rates head for the stratosphere in coming months. |
