Home and dry 安然无恙？岌岌可危！

Europe in limbo 迷途的欧洲Home and dry 安然无恙？岌岌可危！Europe’s weaker economies are in the grip of a worsening credit crunch 欧洲经济本已弱风扶柳，怎奈又陷入愈演愈烈的信贷危机May 26th 2012 | LONDON, MADRID AND ROME | from the print edition  THE joke recounted by the boss of a large Italian bank is an old one, but it captures the moment. Two hikers are picnicking when a bear appears. When one laces up his boots to run, his friend scoffs that he can’t outrun a bear. The shod hiker retorts that it is not the bear he needs to outrun, merely his fellow hiker. “We’re sitting at the picnic with our boots still on,” says the bank boss. 一家意大利大银行老板讲了一个笑话，虽然笑话老掉牙了，但是正切合现在的状况。两名登山者正在享受野餐，一只熊出现了。其中一个立刻穿上鞋子准备逃命，他的朋友却嘲笑他不可能跑得过熊。前者却反驳道，他不用跑得过熊，只要跑得过他的同伴就够了。这个银行老板说：“我们现在就是穿着鞋子在野餐。” As policymakers and pundits try to work out the effects of a Greek exit, banks and investors have already been taking precautions. One course of action has been to pull money out of more fragile markets. Never mind the weakest economies like Greece, Ireland and Portugal; Spain and Italy have also lost foreign bank deposits of about €45 billion ($56 billion) and €100 billion respectively from their peaks. Add in things like sales of government bonds by foreigners (see chart 1), and capital flight is probably equal to about 10% of GDP in those countries, say Citigroup analysts. Such outflows are hard to stop. 政治决策人和专家们正在努力想办法解决希腊脱离欧盟带来的影响，而银行和投资商早已未雨绸缪，做好了预防措施。第一步，先把资金从相对脆弱的市场中抽走。希腊，爱尔兰，葡萄牙这几个最弱的经济体就不说了，甚至西班牙和意大利也流失了大量外资银行存款，与各自最高存款金额相比，分别损失了450亿欧元（约合560美元）和1000亿欧元。花旗银行分析师说，再加上其他种种，如外放政府债券的锐减（见表一），估计上述国家外流的资金很可能达到GDP的百分之十。外流量如此之高，想要收线，可没那么容易。 The European Central Bank (ECB) has filled this funding gap by providing liquidity to the banks. But that has in turn reinforced the second precautionary tactic: matching assets and liabilities within countries as much as possible. It is a common refrain from bankers that the euro area no longer functions as a single financial market, although that has the paradoxical advantage of making a break-up less destructive. Banks have used ECB loans to borrow from the national central banks of the countries in which they have assets; that should mean that both sides of the balance-sheet would getredenominated in the event of a euro exit. 欧洲中央银行（ECB）向银行提供流动资金，以填补资金空缺。这样做却反而增援了预防措施第二步，即在上述国家尽全力实施资产与负债配对。银行家们反复念叨欧元区已经不再是一个单一的金融市场成为普遍现象，即使这意味着减少破产影响这一自相矛盾的优势。银行利用ECB贷款向上述各国中央银行借钱，而他们原本就拥有央行的资产，这就意味着负债资产表双方可能需要发行新货币。 Much of that ECB liquidity is meant to find its way into the real economy, of course. But the third precautionary technique, for both lenders and borrowers, is to hang fire while uncertainty is so high. The Economist has compiled credit-crunch index, comprising a number of measures on everything from bank lending to the cost of buying insurance against default for banks, firms and sovereigns in the euro zone. A single index disguises big differences between weaker and stronger states, but it shows that credit is crunchier now than it was at the height of the banking crisis in 2008 (see chart 2). ECB当然想要把大部分流动资金投入到实体经济中。但是，借贷双方保护措施第三步，就是在极其不确定的情况下，按兵不动。《经济学家》编辑了一份信贷紧缩指数，其中包含若干各种数据，从银行贷款额，到防止欧元区银行、公司和国家违约而投入的保险费。一组小小的数据掩饰了强弱国家之间不小的差距，然而，这组数据却显示出，当下的信贷危机比08年银行危机最严重时更严重。（见表二） Much economic activity is being strangled as a result. In Spain firms have put bond issues and asset sales on hold. Volatility makes it almost impossible to value an asset, bankers say. The Catalan government failed to sell 26 buildings in Barcelona earlier this year for about €450m because one of the bidders wanted to introduce a clause that said rents would be paid in dollars in the event of a euro break-up; the other bidder pulled out because it had been told by headquarters to hold off on deals in southern Europe. 结果，很多经济活动胎死腹中。西班牙各个公司暂停了债券的发行和资产的销售。银行家称，鉴于如今局面不稳定，资产评估只能是望洋兴叹。今年早些时候，加泰罗尼亚政府未能成功卖出位于巴塞罗那的26栋建筑，其价值约为四亿五千万欧元，究其原因，有一位投标人想要建立一项新条款，条款规定，租金将由美元支付，因为欧元面临解体；还有一位投标人选择退出，因为其总部要求暂停南欧市场的交易。 The number of Spanish companies filing for bankruptcy climbed by 21.5% in the first quarter. Nearly a third of these were in the property or construction industries, but the rot is spreading. Alestis, an aeronautical supplier to aircraft manufacturers, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after failing to reach an agreement with banks to refinance its debts. 今年第一季度，申请破产的西班牙公司数量攀升了21.5%。其中，将近三分之一是房产公司和建筑公司，然而，破产还是同瘟疫一般传染开来。不乏就有一家叫Alestis的航空产品制造供应商在本月初申请了破产，因为该公司于银行达不成债务再融资的协议。 The sound of credit crunching can also be heard next door in Portugal, where loans to non-financial companies fell by 5% in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, and credit to households by 3.6%. One of the conditions of the country’s bail-out programme is that banks should reduce their total loans to 120% of assets. The quickest way to do that is to avoid making loans. 信贷危机的召唤，在葡萄牙也得到呼应。与去年同期相比，在今年第一季度，葡萄牙非财务公司银行贷款下滑了5%，家庭贷款下滑了3.6%。在葡萄牙的纾困计划中，条件之一就是将银行总贷款额减少至其资产的120%。避免再向外贷款是实现这一目标的最佳捷径。 Conditions are little better in Italy. The province of Varese, near Milan, is a manufacturing heartland: its factories make plastics, textiles and a range of engineering products. Once firms there griped about poor infrastructure and red tape; now the credit squeeze is their main complaint. The local bosses’ association says that 40% of firms were hit by lowered borrowing ceilings between January and March, and 15% were told to pay back loans. Banks turned down 45% of requests for new funding. 意大利的情况稍微乐观一点。瓦雷泽省，毗邻米兰，是意大利工业中心之一，这里的工厂主要生产塑料，纺织品和各种工程产品。原来，这里的公司老是埋怨基础设备落后，官僚气息严重；而现在，他们主要抱怨贷款紧缩。当地领导联盟表示，今年一至三月，有40%的公司因贷款上限下降受挫，银行要求15%的公司偿还贷款，并下调45%新贷款申请通过数目。 Those loans that are extended carry hefty interest rates, in part because higher sovereign-borrowing costs have a knock-on effect on banks’ funding costs. Differences in sovereign rates can be self-reinforcing, especially when German firms across the border are rivals. “A marginal northern Italian company competing against an equal company in Bavaria will go bust,” says the boss of one bank. “Then the cost of risk goes up and has to be shared by all the other small companies.” 扩展贷款的利率稳健，部分原因是较高的国债成本会对银行集资成本产生连锁影响。国债利率不同反而能增加本国的竞争力，尤其是当竞争对手是边境以外的德国公司。“一家意大利北部边界的公司想要和位于德国巴伐利亚的对手竞争，无疑是自取灭亡，”一家银行老板说，“然后风险成本随之上升，其他小公司就必须分担这些成本。” If firms cannot borrow from banks they lengthen payment terms to their suppliers, exacerbating the credit problem, says Michele Tronconi of Sistema Moda Italia, a body representing textiles and clothing firms. Fashion is Italy’s second-largest export industry, but no sector has a higher level of non-performing loans. 意大利纺织服装协会，是纺织服装公司的主要行情代表。协会主管米歇尔•特隆科尼(Michele Tronconi)称，如果公司从银行借不到钱，他们就会拉长给供应商的付款周期，造成信贷问题进一步恶化。时尚业是意大利第二大出口产业，幸好没有任何时尚部门被较高层次的不良信贷缠身。 This credit squeeze will have tightened since Greece’s inconclusive election this month. That further dents growth prospects: estimates by Now-Casting, a forecasting firm, suggests that euro-zone GDP will contract by 0.2% in the second quarter. That in turn risks worsening the debt dynamics of the zone’s peripheral countries at just the wrong time. Policymakers keep trying to buy time to solve the crisis, but they may be only speeding the end they are trying to avoid. 由于本月希腊选举不了了之，信贷紧缩问题更是雪上加霜。发展前景进一步削弱：据预测公司Now-Casting 估算表明，在今年第二季度，欧元区GDP将会下滑0.2%。这反而使欧元区外围国家的贷款活力在这个错误的时间遭受恶化的风险。决策人奋力争取更多的时间来化解这场危机，然而却可能适得其反，他们全力避免的恶果可能更早降临。