VOA常速英语2007年-Experts Blame Poor Regulation For US Mortgage P

By Barry Wood
Washington
13 November 2007

With world credit markets still not functioning smoothly¹, experts say inadequate² US regulation is largely to blame for the home loan related credit squeeze that surfaced last August. VOA's Barry Wood has more.

Respected investment banker Henry Kaufman says U.S. state and federal regulators failed to do their job in safeguarding the financial system. Writing in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Kaufman says the recent integration³ of the banking⁴, insurance, and brokerage business made existing, fragmented supervision⁵ obsolete⁶. He says broader, coordinated⁷ regulation is needed.

At a conference at the American Enterprise Institute Tuesday, financial services lawyer James Sivon agreed that lax supervision contributed to the subprime debacle. "Clearly, there were gaps in regulation. There were bad practices that occurred in many cases where consumers were treated unfairly," he said.

In the United States there is one government regulator for banks, another for insurance companies, and another for brokerages. The credit squeeze occurred when the market for packages of subprime or higher risk mortgages, called collateralized debt obligations, froze up when home buyers were unable to keep current with their monthly payments. These high yielding secondary loans had been sold as high grade assets to financial institutions all over the world. With the market for subprime loans barely functioning, financial institutions don't know what value to attach to the loans and are taking big losses on them. Huge unexpected losses at America's biggest brokerage, Merrill Lynch, and biggest bank, Citigroup, have led to the resignations of their chief executive officers.

Robert Litan of Washington's Brookings Institution, blames the New York-based credit rating agencies, Standard and Poors and Moodys, for rating subprime debt obligations as AAA or high quality.

"I have to think that people would say how is this possible. Isn't there a lot of junk that doesn't have AAA that is residual⁸, that is the crap that is left over? And isn't all of this going to blow up somehow. And what do we do about this ? "

Henry Kaufman says reckless lending practices created a credit bubble in the early part of this decade. That bubble, he says, has now burst and the consequences are both painful and not yet complete. He believes that a contraction⁹ in lending is now slowing the economy and could lead to an actual downturn or recession.

1 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

2 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

3 integration   

n.一体化，联合，结合

参考例句：

• We are working to bring about closer political integration in the EU.我们正在努力实现欧盟內部更加紧密的政治一体化。
• This was the greatest event in the annals of European integration.这是欧洲统一史上最重大的事件。

4 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

5 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

6 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。

7 coordinated   

adj.协调的

参考例句：

• The sound has to be coordinated with the picture. 声音必须和画面协调一致。
• The numerous existing statutes are complicated and poorly coordinated. 目前繁多的法令既十分复杂又缺乏快调。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

8 residual   

adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的

参考例句：

• There are still a few residual problems with the computer program.电脑程序还有一些残留问题。
• The resulting residual chromatism is known as secondary spectrum.所得到的剩余色差叫做二次光谱。

9 contraction   

n.缩略词，缩写式，害病

参考例句：

• The contraction of this muscle raises the lower arm.肌肉的收缩使前臂抬起。
• The forces of expansion are balanced by forces of contraction.扩张力和收缩力相互平衡。