There are two ways finance can inflict disaster upon us. The first involves the collapse of a large, systemic institution: the Knickerbocker Trust at the start of the last century, Lehman Brothers at the start of this one. The second involves a convulsion in a particular market: tulips in 1637, various forms of “shadow banking” in 2008. The past three years have brought much debate and modest progress on regulating the megabanks, and the Libor scandal has added fresh impetus to these efforts. But shadow-bank reform has remained, well, shadowy. This is because nobody wants to grapple with the basic question of what money really is.
金融可通過兩種方式給我們帶來災難。其一涉及有系統重要性的大型金融機構倒閉：例如上世紀初的尼克波克信託公司(Knickerbocker Trust Company)和本世紀初的雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)。其二則涉及某一特定市場爆發動盪：例如1673年的鬱金香市場和2008年以各種形式存在的「影子銀行」。過去三年，對大型銀行監管問題的討論很多，但進展卻有限。近期爆出的倫敦銀行間同業拆借利率(Libor)醜聞有助於增強推進銀行監管的動力。但影子銀行改革一直停滯不前，這是由於沒有人願意認真思考「錢究竟是什麼」這一基本問題。