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Sovereign debt and the euro
All for one
Eurocrats(欧共体官员) offer up half-baked ideas to prevent a future sovereign-debt scare
Mar 11th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
NOW that Greece has given in to(屈服于) pressure from its peers for a more austere(严峻的) budget (紧缩财政,紧缩预算), the euro zone’s policy brass suddenly seems more sympathetic towards its most troubled member. On reflection(经过思考), perhaps the fault with Greece’s parlous(危险的，靠不住的) public finances lay not just with its budgetary profligacy but also elsewhere: in the absence of a central euro-zone authority for helping out cash-strapped(没有足够资本的，缺钱的) countries; or with the credit-rating agencies that had unhelpfully downgraded Greek government bonds; or with the amoral(不知是非的) speculators who had bet against(打赌某事不会发生) those bonds and helped drive up borrowing costs.
【希腊目前经济形势不容乐观。或许是因为希腊的窘迫并非完全由自身的不足造成，欧盟对其意外的仁慈】
It was mildly surprising that(mildly在这儿是什么意思呢?) some of the messages of support came from Germany, where fiscal indiscipline is least tolerated. On March 7th the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, floated the idea() of a European Monetary Fund (EMF) to act as a lender of last resort to euro-zone countries that could not raise funds in capital markets on tolerable terms. He offered few details about how an EMF would be financed or how it would operate. It would not be a “competitor” to the IMF, based in Washington, DC, though it would seek to police the fiscal policies of lax member countries.
【出人意料的是，境况最佳的德国居然也同意伸出援手，并建议EMF给希腊贷款以解其困境。】
Cynics suggested this was a ploy(手段,策略) to talk down Greece’s borrowing costs—a pledge of concrete action made in the knowledge that agreement on such a body could not be brokered quickly, if at all(如果真有的话). The idea was swiftly (迅速地，敏捷地)drenched in cold water. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said an EMF could not be set up without a change to the EU treaty, a daunting task. Axel Weber, the head of Germany’s central bank, dismissed the idea as a “sideshow”(小插曲) The French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, said it was not an “absolute priority”(绝对优先权).
【然而这只是一个小插曲】
Progress on such a scheme is always likely to stall(停止，熄火)
because euro-zone countries are reluctant to cede any control of their public finances. That makes agreement on financing a common fund tricky. It also means it is hard to punish countries that run slack fiscal policies. In any case, a safety net big enough to persuade investors that all euro-zone sovereign bonds were safe would leave lax countries with little incentive to control their budgets.
【这个提议不被采纳是在清理之中的。只要有足够的保障保障整体的欧盟区国债的安全，那些经济不景气的国家就没什么控制预算的动力。】
If harmony on a bail-out fund is elusive(.躲避的), ministers have found something on which they can all agree: the dastardly(欺善怕恶的；懦弱的) role played in Greece’s recent troubles by “speculators”. They are accused of buying credit-default swaps (CDSs), a form of insurance against default, in order to drive up Greece’s borrowing costs and then to profit from the ensuing(继而发生的) panic. France and Germany have echoed calls for a ban on the so-called “naked” trading of sovereign CDSs, where investors do not hold the bonds they have bought insurance on, and asked the European Commission to look into the matter. The possibility that gyrations(波动) in Greek bond yields could be explained by uncertainty about its public finances is, oddly, ignored.
【虽然提供救援资金貌似是不可能的，但是各国都同意是所谓的投机者提高了希腊的借贷成本，并且要求欧盟彻查此事。】
The rating-agency issue is more grounded in reality. From next year bonds will again only be eligible(符合条件的, 合格的) as collateral(平行的，旁系的) at the European Central Bank if they are rated A- or above by at least one of the three big rating firms. If Greece loses its remaining A rating from Moody’s, its bonds will be less prized by banks, raising its borrowing costs. But as Mr Weber says, the ECB could choose to lend against lower-rated bonds on more punitive terms. This at least is a real problem with a sensible solution.
【但是如果希腊保不住其国债的评级水平,情况仍然会很糟糕】 | 
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楼主: xingfuhbj
发表于 2010-4-29 15:42:26
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