经济学人下载:自由交流:疯狂，恐慌和ICO(2)

This looks like irrationality in action, bound to end in tears.
这看上去想是行动方面的不理性，注定要在泪水中收场。

Why, then, should the party continue?
那么，为什么这场盛宴应当继续下去呢？

Manias are as old as finance, and economists have devoted plenty of time to studying them.
狂热如金融一样古老，经济学家投入了大把的时间去研究它们。

Though often blamed on easy credit, human nature alone can goad a raging bull.
尽管经常被归罪于宽松信贷，但是，单单是人性就能够激发出一头疯牛。

As Charles Kindleberger explained in his book “Manias, Panics and Crashes”, enthusiasm for new markets or technologies frequently results in excessive optimism, which ultimately collides with reality in a spectacular crash.
正如查尔斯·金德尔伯格(Charles Kindleberger)在他的《疯狂、恐慌与崩溃》一书中所解释了的那样，对于新市场或是新技术的热情经常在过度的乐观中走向终点，最终在一场壮观的崩溃中与现实相碰撞

That seems at odds with the idea of an efficient market, in which asset prices reflect the discounted value of expected future profits, and in which easy, risk-free money is a rarity.
这似乎有违有效市场思想。有效市场思想认为，资产价格反映的预期未来盈利的贴现价值；低息、无风险的钱是一件稀世珍宝。

But economists have learned that efficiency is a somewhat loose constraint on markets.
但是，经济学家清楚，有效是加在市场头上的一种多少有些宽松的紧箍咒。

The discounted value of dividends, for instance, varies by much less over time than stockmarket indices, meaning that people's views of the state of the world gyrate more than history suggests they should.
例如，相比股市指数，红利的贴现价值更少地随时间而变化。这表明，人们有关世界状况的观点，波动地比历史所揭示的还要大。

Markets are better at setting prices for individual stocks than in aggregate—in Paul Samuelson's words, they are “micro-efficient and macro-inefficient”.
较之总体，市场更擅长给单支股票定价——用保罗·萨缪尔森的话说就是，它们是“微观有效，宏观低效”。

Yet that may be because individual stocks are more likely to provide well-informed investors with opportunities for a quick no-risk profit.
然而，这可能是因为单支股票更有可能给消息灵通的投资者提供快速无风险获利的机会。

The ICO craze certainly appears to entail a departure from reasonable values.
ICO狂热无疑会导致对合理价值的背离。

Such deviations can happen when taking the pessimistic side of a bet is difficult—shorting stocks, for instance (ie, selling securities the investor does not own in the hope the price will fall).
这类偏差可能在接受一项赌注的悲观面是很难的时候发生——例如，卖空股票（即带着价格将要下跌的希望卖出投资者不拥有的股票）。

In some accounts of the tech boom of the 1990s, the small float of many new tech stocks made shorting them nearly impossible; as issuance increased, however, bears could have their say, and markets tanked.
在有关上世纪90年代科技泡沫的一些报道中，许多新技术股票的微量流通股使得卖空几乎不可能；然而，随着发行增加，熊市可能有了发言权。结果，股市一泻千里。

Housing, too, is famously hard to short; in the global crisis those few financiers who found vehicles to bet against mortgage-backed securities eventually made a fortune.
房产也是出了名地难以做空；在全球危机中，发现了对赌按揭证券工具的少数几位金融大佬最终都挣了一大笔。

There are some opportunities to short cryptocurrencies, but essentially none for ICO tokens (something those intending to buy might reflect on, if reflection is their thing).
虽然存在着一些卖空加密货币的机会，但是，就各种ICO代币而言，基本上是毫无机会的（那些有意买入的人）。