[转帖] [2011.11.26]Is this really the end? 难道这真是欧元的末日？

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http://www.ecocn.org/bbs.php?mod=viewthread&tid=61140
The euro zone
欧元区

Is this really the end?
难道这真是欧元的末日？

Unless Germany and the ECB move quickly, the single currency’s collapse is looming
除非德国和欧洲央行当机立断，否则欧元单一货币区的分崩离析将不可避免

Nov 26th 2011 | from the print edition


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EVEN as the euro zone hurtles towards a crash, most people are assuming that, in the end, European leaders will do whatever it takes to save the single currency. That is because the consequences of the euro’s destruction are so catastrophic that no sensible policymaker could stand by and let it happen.

即使欧元区正走向崩溃，大多数人依然认为欧洲的领导们最终会竭尽所能来拯救单一货币体系。这是因为欧元的解体会带来灾难性的后果，理智的决策者决不可能对此袖手旁观，任其发生。

A euro break-up would cause a global bust worse even than the one in 2008-09. The world’s most financially integrated region would be ripped apart by defaults, bank failures and the imposition of capital controls (see article). The euro zone could shatter into different pieces, or a large block in the north and a fragmented south. Amid the recriminations and broken treaties after the failure of the European Union’s biggest economic project, wild currency swings between those in the core and those in the periphery would almost certainly bring the single market to a shuddering halt. The survival of the EU itself would be in doubt.

欧元的解体所造成的全球性震荡甚至会比08-09年那次更为强烈。这个世界上金融整合度最高的区域将会被债务违约、银行倒闭和资本管制弄得分崩离析。欧元区可能会变得支离破碎，或者是演变成欧洲北部形成一个大的联盟和欧洲南部的碎片化。这个欧盟最大的经济项目的失败会带来一片指责声和失效的条约，核心国家和边缘国家间的剧烈汇率变动将几乎如同一脚急刹车，迫使单一市场的进程戛然而止。这样，欧盟自身也将前途茫茫。

Yet the threat of a disaster does not always stop it from happening. The chances of the euro zone being smashed apart have risen alarmingly, thanks to financial panic, a rapidly weakening economic outlook and pigheaded brinkmanship. The odds of a safe landing are dwindling fast.

然而灾难利剑高悬并不总能让人防止其的落下。由于金融恐慌、急剧恶化的经济前景和对边缘政策（brinkmanship，译注一）的愚蠢坚持，欧元区解体的可能性已经上升到令人吃惊的程度。欧元区经济安全着陆的机会正在加速流逝。

Markets, manias and panics
市场、狂热和恐慌

Investors’ growing fears of a euro break-up have fed a run from the assets of weaker economies, a stampede that even strong actions by their governments cannot seem to stop. The latest example is Spain. Despite a sweeping election victory on November 20th for the People’s Party, committed to reform and austerity, the country’s borrowing costs have surged again. The government has just had to pay a 5.1% yield on three-month paper, more than twice as much as a month ago. Yields on ten-year bonds are above 6.5%. Italy’s new technocratic government under Mario Monti has not seen any relief either: ten-year yields remain well above 6%. Belgian and French borrowing costs are rising. And this week, an auction of German government Bunds flopped.

投资者对欧元解体的日益加剧的担忧已经引发了一波资本逃离较弱的经济体的风潮，这种逃离是相关政府即使采取强硬措施也无法阻止的。西班牙是最新的一个例子。虽然致力于改革和经济紧缩的西班牙人民党在11月20日的选举中大获全胜，该国的借贷成本再次飙升。该国政府最近被迫要为三个月期票据支付5.1%的平均收益率，这比一个月前的收益率翻了一番还多。十年期债券的收益率超过了6.5%。马里奥·蒙蒂领导下的意大利新的技术官僚政府也没有见到任何积极的迹象：十年期债券的收益率依旧远高于6%。比利时和法国的借贷成本也在上升。同时本周德国政府债券的一次拍卖也以失败告终（译注二）。

The panic engulfing Europe’s banks is no less alarming. Their access to wholesale funding markets has dried up, and the interbank market is increasingly stressed, as banks refuse to lend to each other. Firms are pulling deposits from peripheral countries’ banks. This backdoor run is forcing banks to sell assets and squeeze lending; the credit crunch could be deeper than the one Europe suffered after Lehman Brothers collapsed.

席卷欧洲银行的恐慌也同样让人震惊。他们进入大规模融资市场(wholesale funding markets)的路已经被堵死，银行同业市场的压力日益增加，因为银行间不愿意互相借贷。公司正从边缘国家（peripheral countries，译注三）的银行收回存款。这种行为正强迫银行出售资产和紧缩贷款；当前的信贷紧缩程度可能要比雷曼兄弟倒闭后的那次更深。

Add the ever greater fiscal austerity being imposed across Europe and a collapse in business and consumer confidence, and there is little doubt that the euro zone will see a deep recession in 2012—with a fall in output of perhaps as much as 2%. That will lead to a vicious feedback loop in which recession widens budget deficits, swells government debts and feeds popular opposition to austerity and reform. Fear of the consequences will then drive investors even faster towards the exits.

随着有史以来力度最大的金融紧缩席卷整个欧洲，以及企业和消费者的信心崩溃，毫无疑问欧元区将在2012年面临严重的经济衰退---以及一个可高达2%的产出下降。这将导致一个恶性循环：衰退扩大了预算赤字和政府债务，同时滋生了大众对经济紧缩和改革的反对。那时对这些后果的担忧将会加速投资者的逃离。

Past financial crises show that this downward spiral can be arrested only by bold policies to regain market confidence. But Europe’s policymakers seem unable or unwilling to be bold enough. The much-ballyhooed leveraging of the euro-zone rescue fund agreed on in October is going nowhere. Euro-zone leaders have become adept at talking up grand long-term plans to safeguard their currency—more intrusive fiscal supervision, new treaties to advance political integration. But they offer almost no ideas for containing today’s conflagration.

过去的金融危机表明只有依靠大胆的政策以获取市场信心才能打破这种恶性循环。但是欧盟的决策者们似乎不能或者不愿有大胆的举动。除了被大肆宣传，10月份达成的那份欧元区拯救基金计划毫无进展。欧元区的领导人们已经转向利用对长期计划的夸夸其谈来护卫他们的货币---他们谈论更加深入的财政监管、推动政治一体化的新条约。但是他们对如何解决当下的燃眉之急几乎哑口无言。

Germany’s cautious chancellor, Angela Merkel, can be ruthlessly efficient in politics: witness the way she helped to pull the rug from under Silvio Berlusconi. A credit crunch is harder to manipulate. Along with leaders of other creditor countries, she refuses to acknowledge the extent of the markets’ panic (see article). The European Central Bank (ECB) rejects the idea of acting as a lender of last resort to embattled, but solvent, governments. The fear of creating moral hazard, under which the offer of help eases the pressure on debtor countries to embrace reform, is seemingly enough to stop all rescue plans in their tracks. Yet that only reinforces investors’ nervousness about all euro-zone bonds, even Germany’s, and makes an eventual collapse of the currency more likely.

谨慎的德国总理默克尔在政治上可以做到强硬高效：看看她是如何对贝卢斯科尼政府釜底抽薪的。不过执行信贷紧缩政策则更为困难。和其他债权国的领导人一样，她对市场恐慌的程度不予承认。欧洲中央银行可以成为麻烦缠身但尚有偿债能力的政府的最后债权人，但是它拒绝了这个建议。对引发道德风险的担忧---如果欧洲央行担当最后债权人，这将会减轻债务国进行改革的压力---看起来足够强大到使其停止所有进行中的救援计划。不过欧洲央行的行为仅仅会加剧投资者对所有欧元区债券---甚至是德国的债券---的担忧，这就如同对最终压垮欧元再加上一根稻草。

This cannot go on for much longer. Without a dramatic change of heart by the ECB and by European leaders, the single currency could break up within weeks. Any number of events, from the failure of a big bank to the collapse of a government to more dud bond auctions, could cause its demise. In the last week of January, Italy must refinance more than