二○○八年十月三日
世界金融大乱，消息天天不同，分析性的文字不容易写：动笔写这边，那边改变了。写专栏不是报道消息。三天前美国众议院否决了七千亿救灾，明天此文发表后可能通过。为什么不停一下让我先写一篇呢？以不变应万变，我想到一封美国经济学者不久前发表的公开信。此信反对财政部长保尔森的救灾计划。评论这封信是停下来说一下的好办法。
该信看来出自芝加哥大学。签名的学者来自各方，人数不断地加上去，几天前是一百六十多个，没有再跟进，今天可能近二百了。有几个曾获经济学诺奖的，有些我四十年前认识，佩服。信是学者手笔，观点明确，原文如下：
To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President protempore of the Senate:
As economists,we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis.We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function.We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1)Its fairness.The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers'expense.Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses.Not every business failure carries systemic risk.The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry,able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers,without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2)Its ambiguity.Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear.If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers,the terms,occasions,and methods of such purchase must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3)Its long-term effects.If the plan isenacted,its effects will be with us for a generation,for all their recent troubles,America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity.Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.
For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush,to hold appropriate hearings,and to carefully consider the right course of action,and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. econom