Freddie and Fannie have changed that equation only slightly. Their importance lies in what their rescue says about the financial system. At Fannie and Freddie-and, shockingly, at the investment banks-the profits were privatised, but the risks were socialised. One Republican senator complained that he thought he had “woken up in France”. Mr Paulson was still right to intervene: the collapse of Fannie and Freddie would have been a catastrophe. But by not formally nationalising them, he has let down taxpayers and made the same deeply uncapitalist mistake the British government initially made with Northern Rock, a failed mortgage bank it tried to prop up.
　　二房危机轻微地打破了这种平衡。这两家机构的重要性，从政府救市对于金融体系的意义中就可见一斑。房地美和房利美——以及投资银行（这让人触目惊心）——利润私有化，但风险却社会化了。一位共和党参议员抱怨说，他以为自己当时是“在法国醒来。”保尔森插手干预仍是明智之举：二房的倒闭将会酿成一场灾难。可是，他未能将之正式国有化，因而辜负了纳税人，犯了和英国同样严重的非资本主义的错误——英国政府之前力图挽救濒临倒闭的北岩抵押房贷银行。

　　Mark to market, or market to Marx?
　　市场还是计划？

　　The debt is what matters with Fannie and Freddie, but the shares were the trigger. When investors realised they would eventually need more money to cover their looming losses, there was a run on the stock. This rapidly became a test of a tacit government pledge to back their debt. Had the government hinted that it wanted to wriggle free from its vague promises, the debt would have crashed; the banking system would have been crippled by new losses; foreign investors would have fled a country that broke its word; and the housing market, a trifle short of lenders just now, would have lost its main backers. Mr Paulson vowed to lend Fannie and Freddie money and buy their shares if necessary. They could also borrow from the Fed. The next day investors queued up to buy Freddie’s bonds.
　　二房的债务是关键所在，但股价乃为诱因。投资人在意识到最终需要更多的资金才能弥补迫在眉睫的损失时，便在股市上狂抛撤资。这很快成为了检测政府是否暗中允诺插手纾困的手段。如果政府此前暗示要转变暧昧的态度，便宜行事，那么高举的债务早已崩塌，银行系统业已陷入新的亏损，外国投资者业已然逃离这个言而无信的国家；而之前贷方略显不足的房市，也已失去了主要的支撑者。保尔森先生誓言要贷款给二房，并在必要的时候收购其股票。两家机构也可从联储会借款。翌日，投资人排起长龙，争购房地美的债券。

　　That is plainly not the end of it for the taxpayer. It seems quaint that critics once complained that finance was all about untrammelled markets and deregulation. On July 11th regulators took over IndyMac Bancorp, a Californian thrift, after the second-biggest bank failure in American history. After the rescue of Bear Stearns in March, the Fed agreed to back investment banks with its balance sheet. Congress is chewing over a small subsidy to troubled mortgage owners. If another large bank became vulnerable, more rescues would beckon.
　　对于纳税人来说，这还不是真正的结束。批评家曾经抱怨金融业务都在围绕着不受制约的市场和违规行为打转，眼下这倒显得奇怪。7月11日，在印地麦克（IndyMac）这一美国历史上第二宗最大规模的银行倒闭案后，监理机构接管了这家位于加州的存贷公司。继今年3月援手贝尔斯登之后，联储会此次同意直接注资支持投行。国会正反复考虑向身陷困境的抵押人提供小额补贴。如果再有一家大型银行撑不住了，更多的援救计划也指日可待。

　　Capitalism rests on a clear principle: those who get the profits should take the pain. For the system to work, bankers sometimes need to lose their jobs and investors their shirts. Yet were a collapsing Bear Stearns or Fannie Mae to sow destruction for the sake of a principle, it would impose a terrible price in lost jobs and output on everyone else. The unpalatable truth is that by the time a financial crisis hits, the state often has to compromise-to impose as much pain as it can, of course, but to shoulder a large part of the losses nonetheless.
　　资本主义建基于一个清晰的原则，即获利者应付出代价。为了让这一体系运转下去，银行家有时要丢掉饭碗，投资人可能会倾家荡产。但是，如果摇摇欲坠的贝尔斯登或房利美为了一个原则而走向灭亡，那么由此导致的失业和经济产量下跌等极高的代价都将平摊到其他所有人身上。这正是令人不快的真相：金融危机来袭之时，国家常常不得不妥协——尽可能多地让人付出代价，但也承担起一大部分的损失。

　　That formula comes at a heavy price. Fannie and Freddie were supposed to help Americans buy their own homes, by making the mortgage market work better. But it has been an awful deal for the taxpayer-a Fed economist calculated the implicit debt-guarantee was worth a one-off sum of between $122 billion and $182 billion. Because Fannie and Freddie barely lowered the cost of borrowing, little of this subsidy went towards boosting home ownership. Instead, just over half-about $79 billion-went straight to their shareholders.
　　这么做代价不小。二房本该帮助美国人购置房产，保持房贷市场的健康运转，但事实上，这对纳税人来说却是一笔糟糕的交易——根据联储会一名经济学家的计算，二房暗中持有的债务担保，其一次性总额价值在1220到1820亿美元之间。由于两家企业几乎没怎么降低借贷的成本，这些补贴中只有很少的一部分用于促进房贷业务，而超过一半——大约790亿美元——直接由其股东收益。

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