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.
金融可通过两种方式给我们带来灾难。其一涉及有系统重要性的大型金融机构倒闭：例如上世纪初的尼克波克信托公司(Knickerbocker Trust Company)和本世纪初的雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)。其二则涉及某一特定市场爆发动荡：例如1673年的郁金香市场和2008年以各种形式存在的“影子银行”。过去三年，对大型银行监管问题的讨论很多，但进展却有限。近期爆出的伦敦银行间同业拆借利率(Libor)丑闻有助于增强推进银行监管的动力。但影子银行改革一直停滞不前，这是由于没有人愿意认真思考“钱究竟是什么”这一基本问题。