金融危機時，沒新聞就是最好的消息。冰島崩潰屢屢登上頭條，而加拿大特別穩定的銀行，則不太上報紙。
然而當世界把焦點從金融紓困轉向到金融改革時，無聲的成功案例應該和驚人的失敗享有同等版面。我們需要向成功的國家學習，而最佳範例就是我們的北方鄰居。現在，加拿大是個重要典範。
我知道，加拿大總被認為很無聊。新共和雜誌曾經宣布，「值得提倡的加拿大創新」是史上最無聊的新聞標題（這是1980年代紐約時報的一則評論標題）。但我一直覺得加拿大非常引人入勝，這個國家和美國極度相似，但不盡相同。因為太相似了，兩國的發展經驗一旦不同，很可能是出自政策差異，不是文化或經濟結構的差別。
而且，銀行業無聊就是件好事。
先來談一點背景。過去十年來，美國與加拿大都面臨相同的全球環境，都面對亞洲廉價貨品與低廉資金大舉湧入。兩國的經濟學家都喜孜孜宣布，經濟大衰退已成歷史。
但當狀況開始惡化，兩國的遭遇卻截然不同。美國出現房貸違約暴增、幾家主要金融機構崩潰，其他則要靠政府鉅額紓困才能存活。加拿大沒遇上這些問題。兩國遭遇為何如此不同？
不是因為利率。許多評論者都批評聯準會把利息降到太低，維持低利太久，形成災難性的泡沫。但是加拿大的利率基本上緊跟著美國，所以看來，光是低利率並不足以造成金融危機。
加拿大的經驗看來也反對伏克爾的看法，這位讓人敬仰的前聯準會主席認為，金融危機的病兆起於金融業太大，範圍太廣，變成「大到不能倒」。但在加拿大，每家銀行基本上都是大到不能倒：因為只有五家銀行壟斷了金融市場。
另一方面，加拿大的經驗看來支持華倫女士（Elizabeth Warren）的看法。這位國會金融紓困監督委員會的主席認為，這波危機的起因是金融公司的欺騙性放貸。加拿大有一個獨立的金融消費保護局（Financial Consumer Agency），該機構大大限縮了次級信貸。
最後，加拿大經驗看來支持，要讓銀行業保持安全，最好的就是保持金融業的無趣；也就是說，限制銀行的涉險業務範圍。美國也曾有過無聊的銀行體系，但雷根時期的解除管制讓銀行業變得危險刺激。加拿大則繼續享有快樂的乏味。
更具體來說，加拿大比美國更嚴格限制銀行的金融槓桿，也就是限制他們借錢牟利的規模。加拿大也限縮了證券化市場，這種市場讓銀行把眾多放貸包裹出售。銀行宣稱證券能分散減少風險，但實際上是讓銀行用別人的錢愈賭愈大。
毫無疑問，加拿大的保守讓銀行家無法像在美國那樣，發揮他們的聰明創意；但到頭來證明，這終究是件好事。
所以，美國有機會仿效加拿大的成功範例嗎？
事實上，眾議院去年12月通過的金融改革法案，原有機會讓美國變得更像加拿大。這個法案要成立個獨立的金融消費保護局，限制槓桿比例，並且透過要求銀行留下一部分的放貸，從而限縮證券化市場。
但任何法案都要60票才能過關的參議院能否通過金改法案，則是大有疑問。共和黨顯然死命反對任何實質的金融改革（沒有任何一位共和黨人投票贊成眾議院法案），而一些民主黨人也模稜兩可。
所以，我們很可能什麼都不作，或作得不足以防止下一場金融危機。但這可不是因為我們不知道該怎麼作，隔壁鄰居已經明確說明，要怎樣才能安定銀行體系。
（作者Paul Krugman是普林斯頓大學教授、紐約時報專欄作家）
Good and Boring
In times of crisis, good news is no news. Iceland’s meltdown made headlines; the remarkable stability of Canada’s banks, not so much.
Yet as the world’s attention shifts from financial rescue to financial reform, the quiet success stories deserve at least as much attention as the spectacular failures. We need to learn from those countries that evidently did it right. And leading that list is our neighbor to the north. Right now, Canada is a very important role model.
Yes, I know, Canada is supposed to be dull. The New Republic famously pronounced “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” (from a Times Op-Ed column in the ’80s) the world’s most boring headline. But I’ve always considered Canada fascinating, precisely because it’s similar to the United States in many but not all ways. The point is that when Canadian and U.S. experience diverge, it’s a very good bet that policy differences, rather than differences in culture or economic structure, are responsible for that divergence.
And anyway, when it comes to banking, boring is good.
First, some background. Over the past decade the United States and Canada faced the same global environment. Both were confronted with the same flood of cheap goods and cheap money from Asia. Economists in both countries cheerfully declared that the era of severe recessions was over.
But when things fell apart, the consequences were very different here and there. In the United States, mortgage defaults soared, some major financial institutions collapsed, and others survived only thanks to huge government bailouts. In Canada, none of that happened. What did the Canadians do differently?
It wasn’t interest rate policy. Many commentators have blamed the Federal Reserve for the financial crisis, claiming that the Fed created a disastrous bubble by keeping interest rates too low for too long. But Canadian interest rates have tracked U.S. rates quite closely, so it seems that low rates aren’t enough by themselves to produce a financial crisis.
Canada’s experience also seems to refute the view, forcefully pushed by Paul Volcker, the formidable former Fed chairman, that the roots of our crisis lay in the scale and scope of our financial institutions — in the existence of banks that were “too big to fail.” For in Canada essentially all the banks are too big to fail: just five banking groups dominate the financial scene.
On the other hand, Canada’s experience does seem to support the views of people like Elizabeth Warren, the head of the Congressional panel overseeing the bank bailout, who place much of the blame for the crisis on failure to protect consumers from deceptive lending. Canada has an independent Financial Consumer Agency, and it has sharply restricted subprime-type lending.
Above all, Canada’s experience seems to support those who say that the way to keep banking safe is to keep it boring — that is, to limit the extent to which banks can take on risk. The United States used to have a boring banking system, but Reagan-era deregulation made things dangerously interesting. Canada, by contrast, has maintained a happy tedium.
More specifically, Canada has been much stricter about limiting banks’ leverage, the extent to which they can rely on borrowed funds. It has also limited the process of securitization, in which banks package and resell claims on their loans outstanding — a process that was supposed to help banks reduce their risk by spreading it, but has turned out in practice to be a way for banks to make ever-bigger wagers with other people’s money.
There’s no question that in recent years these restrictions meant fewer opportunities for bankers to come up with clever ideas than would have been available if Canada had emulated America’s deregulatory zeal. But that, it turns out, was all to the good.
So what are the chances that the United States will learn from Canada’s success?
Actually, the financial reform bill that the House of Representatives passed in December would significantly Canadianize the U.S. system. It would create an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, it would establish limits on leverage, and it would limit securitization by requiring that lenders hold on to some of their loans.
But prospects for a comparable bill getting the 60 votes now needed to push anything through the Senate are doubtful. Republicans are clearly dead set against any significant financial reform — not a single Republican voted for the House bill — and some Democrats are ambivalent, too.
So there’s a good chance that we’ll do nothing, or nothing much, to prevent future banking crises. But it won’t be because we don’t know what to do: we’ve got a clear example of how to keep banking safe sitting right next door.
