[转帖] [2011.11.12]A very short history of the crisis 欧债危机简史

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http://www.ecocn.org/thread-60273-1-1.html
The causes
追根溯源
A very short history of the crisis
欧债危机简史
To understand the politics of the euro, it is necessary to look at its causes
要理解欧元政治逻辑，我们需要探寻它的形成

Nov 12th 2011 | from the print edition

IN GERMAN EYES this crisis is all about profligacy. Greece set the tone when it lied about its circumstances and lived beyond its means (see map and charts).
在德国人的眼中，这场危机完全是挥霍闯下的祸。当希腊隐瞒了自己的真实情况并且过度透支时便为自己落下了话根（见图与表）。

There is no disputing Greek dissipation, nor the fact that the euro zone’s troubled members, which also include Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy, must now pay a heavy price. But those other troubled countries were not exactly profligate. Before the crisis the governments of both Ireland and Spain ran budget surpluses. Both meticulously kept within the limits for deficits and debts set down by the stability and growth pact—unlike Germany, which flouted the rules for four years from 2003 (and avoided punishment). Nor did Italy lurch into extravagance.
没有人指责希腊的挥霍无度，也没有事实表明欧元区出现问题的成员国（还包括葡萄牙、爱尔兰、西班牙、意大利）现在必须要付出惨重的代价。但是其他出现问题的国家也并不是绝对意义上的挥霍者。在欧债危机出现之前，爱尔兰和西班牙的政府都存在着预算盈余。二者都小心地将赤字控制在限度之内，并且都根据稳定与增长协议偿还债务——不像德国，自2003年以来，四年都将条约置之不理（并且也逃避了惩罚）。而意大利也并没有突然就变得喜欢上透支消费。


Debt in these countries has become a burden not because of government profligacy but because each enjoyed a decade of low interest rates and was then hit by the financial crisis. Easy credit fuelled debt in households and the financial sector. The European Central Bank oversaw a binge of cross-border lending. In the crisis unemployment and hardship have deepened, increasing the bill for welfare. Some countries, such as Ireland and Spain, have needed to find money to prop up their banks. These new expenses fell on the state just when tax receipts collapsed—catastrophically in countries that had seen a property boom.
这些国家的债务成为一项负担并不是因为政府的挥霍，而是因为它们都长期享受着低利率而后又遭遇了金融危机的冲击。宽松的信贷政策刺激了家庭与金融部门的负债增加。欧洲央行监测到大量的跨境借贷。在危机期间，失业和困境进一步加深，增加了福利救济的账单。像爱尔兰、西班牙等一些国家需要寻找资金来支撑它们的银行体系。这些新的支出伴随着税收的崩溃，这对那些刚刚经历房地产市场繁荣的国家来说是一场巨大的灾难。

At the same time interest rates surged. Before the crisis investors assumed no euro-zone government would default on its debt. However, as Peter Boone and Simon Johnson of the Peterson Institute in Washington, DC, explain, Germany then signalled that defaults could happen and that investors would have to bear a share of the losses—a reasonable demand, but a hard one to introduce in the middle of a crisis. Some investors asked to be rewarded for the extra risk and others, unwilling to start paying for credit research, just walked away. This set off a spiral of falling bond prices, weakening banks and slowing growth.
利率也随之猛增。危机之前投资者们都预期欧元区国家的债券不会违约。然而正如华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所的 Peter Boone 和 Simon Johnson 所说明的那样，德国发出债务可能违约的信号，而投资者则不得不承担一部分损失——这样的要求是合理的，但是在危机期间则难以令投资者接受。一些投资者要求对额外增加的风险进行补偿，而另一些不愿意拿钱去支持信用调查，直接退出了市场。这引发了债券价格的螺旋下降，削弱了银行体系，减缓了经济增长。

Even where troubled euro-zone countries had not been profligate, they have been running unsustainable current-account deficits. Low interest rates fuelled domestic spending and spurred inflation in wages and goods, which in turn made their exports more expensive and left imports relatively cheaper. But it was also because Germany was recycling the surpluses produced by its export machine, financing their consumption.即使在欧元区的那些没有过度透支的问题国家里，他们也存在着不可持续的经常账户赤字。低利率刺激了国内消费，并引发了工资与商品的通胀，这反过来使他们出口的商品更贵而进口的商品相对更便宜。但是这也是因为德国循环利用它的制造业出口盈余来为他们的消费融资。

Germany’s economy is remarkable in many ways, but it was as unbalanced as the euro zone’s peripheral economies. In their determination to save, Germans seemed to forget that in the long run the point of exports is to pay for imports. They must now regret having invested their savings abroad in American subprime mortgages and Greek government debt.
德国的经济在许多方面都表现出色，但是相对于欧元区内其他的经济体来说则形成了不平衡的状态。德国在坚持储蓄的时候似乎忘记了从长期来看，出口的目的是为了支付进口的商品。他们现在一定很后悔将他们的存款投资到美国的次级债以及希腊的国债上。

Your debt, your fault
你的债务你负责

To end the crisis, the euro zone members agreed last month to write down half of the Greek debt owned by the private sector, recapitalise Europe’s banks and boost the fund created as a firewall to protect solvent euro-zone governments. It is an ambitious plan, but Greece may need even more help and the firewall does not look strong enough to withstand a bout of contagion.
为了结束这场危机，欧元区成员国上个月同意将私人部门持有的希腊债券减记一半，重组欧洲的银行系统，提高准备金以建立一个欧元区国家偿债能力的“防火墙”。这是一项雄心勃勃的计划，但是希腊也许会需要更多的帮助，而这道“防火墙”似乎也难以承受住危机蔓延的冲击。

And even when the crisis has abated, restoring Europe to health will take many years. That is because the troubled countries need to control their government deficits and to re-establish sound current accounts by improving their competitiveness. Germans feel that the responsibility for this lengthy adjustment lies exclusively with borrowers, which must urgently restore budget discipline. Significantly, the German word for debt, Schulden, is the plural of Schuld, meaning guilt or fault.
即使这场危机减退，欧洲也需要数年的时间才能恢复健康的经济状况。因为这些出现问题的国家都需要去控制他们的财政赤字，并且通过提高他们的竞争力来重建一个平衡的经常账户。德国认为这项长期的调整主要针对债务国家，他们必须尽快恢复预算纪律。需要强调的是，德语里债务这个词“Schulden”是“Schuld”的复数形式，后者的意思是罪恶或者错误。


However, this strategy risks being self-defeating. By pushing for immediate austerity the euro zone is deepening recession in the troubled economies, which will only make their debt harder to service. Germany’s approach suffers from a fallacy of composition. It is not possible for everyone to save their way to prosperity. As Keynes argued after the Depression, someone, somewhere must be consuming. In Europe that should be countries such as Germany and the Netherlands that were running vast current-account surpluses during the boom. But the creditors are loth to accept that they are part of the problem.
然而，这项措施可能会弄巧成拙。欧元区直接的紧缩政策可能使已经问题重重的经济陷入更进一步的衰退，这只会使他们的债务更难偿还。德国提出的方案是一个合成谬误。不可能每一个人都为了经济的繁荣而选择储蓄。正如凯恩斯在大萧条后阐述的那样，必然存在着“某些人”在某些地方进行着消费。在欧洲，他们是像德国、荷兰这样在经济繁荣时保持着经常账户盈余的国家。但是债权人不会愿意承认他们也是问题的一部分。

Creditor governments, most of all Germany, face a dilemma. They need to save troubled governments in order to prevent contagion. On the other hand they also want to keep up market pressure for reforms and to establish the principle that governments are on their own—so that German taxpayers will not be landed with the bill every time some EU country goes on a spending spree. So far Germany is trying to have it both ways, and succeeding only in getting everyone deeper into the mire.
债权国家，尤其是德国，处在进退两难的境地。为了防止危机的蔓延他们需要向出现问题的国家伸出援手。而另一方面，他们又想保持市场改革压力来建立标准使国家保持他们的独立性——这样德国的纳税人就不需要每一次都为欧盟其他国家在消费热潮中的超支买单。目前德国正试图维持这两方面的进展，但是使所有人都更加深入泥潭。

译注：
（1）fallacy of composition 合成谬误
合成谬误是萨缪尔森提出来的。意思是说，它是一种谬误，对局部说来是对的东西，仅仅由于它对局部而言是对的，便说它对总体而言也必然是对的。在经济学领域中，十分肯定的是：微观上而言是对的东西，在宏观上并不总是对的；反之，在宏观上是对的东西，在微观上可能是十分错误的。换句话说，“每一个局部的正确，组合在一起就形成整体的谬误”
（2）spending spree: 消费热潮

（3）current account 经常账户
　　国际收支中的经常账户是指贸易收支的总和（商品和服务的出口减去进口），减去生产要素收入（例如利息和股息），然后减去转移支付（例如外国援助）。经常项目顺差(盈余)增加了一个国家相应金额的外国资本净额；经常项目逆差(赤字)则恰好相反。

（4）contagion
The likelihood of significant economic changes in one country spreading to other countries. This can refer to either economic booms or economic crises. An infamous example is the "Asian Contagion" that occurred in 1997 and started in Thailand. The economic crisis in Thailand spread to bordering southeast Asian countries and then eventually spilled over to Latin America.

（5）the Peterson Institute in Washington, DC 华盛顿智库彼得森国际经济研究所
华盛顿智库彼得森国际经济研究所是一个私营的、非营利的、无党派的研究所，致力于研究国际经济政策。1981年以来，该研究所对广泛的国际经济问题给于了及时客观的分析。