一个和尚从另外两个和尚那里抢水，一口气喝光，然后便有耐心地盘腿坐下，等这两个和尚下山去打水；两个刚遭了抢的，当然不愿意傻乎乎打了水再倒一次霉，于是也盘腿坐下；于是大家一起铁了心干等。这就是目前美国有关各方面对金融危机的态度。

显而易见，损失已经产生，保尔森提交国会的法案是解决谁来承担多少损失的方案。金融界不断呼吁、报纸上连篇累牍的“如果不行动损失会更大”云云，其实是要求美国政府代表全体纳税人来承担金融界造成的损失。国会议员的反对派票则是常识性反应：纳税人当然会损失，但金融界为什么不能自己内部解决呢？

哈佛知名破产法教授Elizabeth Warren给出了更加清晰的质疑。她认为金融危机不是仅仅因为金融市场环境的一时恶化而已，而肇始于政府疏于管制房屋贷款市场–金融业毫无节制的贪婪利用了该市场基本规则的缺位推出高风险次贷产品，并将风险转嫁给普通人。如果这是实情，现在纳税人出7000亿美元帮金融机构渡过危机对问题解决来说就是杯水车薪，因为从次贷开始暴露的劣质金融资产可能多达数万亿美元；甚至是南辕北辙，因为现在把有限的资源拿来给几家金融机构，只会浪费了本可以投入解决实质问题的有限资源。

Warren教授的分析为不少法学家赞同，但她对国会方案的彻底反对意见却不为旁人欢迎。例如在今天晚上法学院举办的研讨中，除Warren之外，其他三位大牌教授——证券法教授Howell Jackon、 证券法教授Hal Scott和公司法教授Lucian Bebchuk——都同意国会的方案，当然各有保留意见。讨论过程中，Bebchuk对方案的经济分析一语道出国会方案背后的算计：7000亿美元方案之所以能对解决多达数万亿美元的问题资产奏效，是因为这些问题资产的损失有两方承担，即银行和贷款人；7000亿只须帮助银行一方，贷款人一方将会加倍工作承担其余的损失。这个经济分析倒是更增加了Warren意见的分量。

（研讨会见：The Financial Crisis: Causes and Cures）

普通纳税人就是遭算计的贷款人，他们当然不愿意看着银行被政府注资安然无恙，而自己却得加倍工作、横遭白眼还可能随时破产。与其如此，不如现在逼着这些银行吐出过去赚得钱来共同渡过难关。纳税人能有的手段，就是投票反对那些支持法案的国会议员；议员众目睽睽之下自然不敢鲁莽，于是只好投票反对法案。于是形成现在“干等”的局面。究竟谁可以打破僵局？变数很多，还不好判断。

延伸阅读：

“And now we face the Mother of All Bailouts—a government purchase of dangerous financial instruments based on subprime mortgages, taking speculators off the hook and leaving taxpayers with the bill. Once
again, the story is that we must do this because otherwise the worldwide financial system will crumble. And once again, the blame falls on subprime lending and the culture of deregulation that fostered it.

Lost in the headlines are the families who signed their names to subprime mortgages, not knowing or caring that the pieces of paper they signed would become one of the cards in the house of cards that now threatens the U.S. economy. No less visible are the people who have lost jobs as the economy reverses, the students who can’t pay for college without taking on ruinous loans and the millions of families who turned to credit cards and payday loans as they have been caught in the squeeze between declining wages and skyrocketing costs. They are casualties of a financial system that saw them not as customers, but as prey.”

– Elizabeth Warren in an op-ed entitled, “Who will bail out American Families?” published in the Chicago Tribune on September 22, 2008.