【英语科技】欧洲债务危机威胁全球信心

Looking at the economy from Australia is like falling through Alice in Wonderland's looking glass.

Unlike the U.S. and Europe, Australia is at full employment (5.4% unemployment) and its central bank is raising interest rates (now 4.5%) to cool off the economy. It has things that China can't get enough of -- iron ore and coal. And its bankers and their regulators fret that there aren't enough government bonds for banks to buy to meet new liquidity rules; government deficits have been too small to produce a lot of government debt.

So why do Australian officials look so worried? Well, the Australian dollar is down 13% since mid-April and the Australian stock market is down 15%.

What happens in Europe, it turns out, doesn't stay in Europe.

When the Australian central bank's policy committee met May 4, members spent 'considerable time discussing the disturbances in financial markets arising from concerns about sovereign debt in parts of Europe, with their focus particularly, but not only, on Greece,' recently released minutes of the meeting reveal. 'So far at least, there had not been significant contagion to debt markets outside Europe.'

But since then, reaction to Europe's struggles in places as far away as Sydney, Beijing and New York has turned from schadenfreude to angst about a double-dip recession.

Part of this is the simple story: If European government austerity and credit crunches slow growth, Europe will buy less from the rest of the world. But Europe accounts for less than 9% of Australia's exports. Europe does buy about 20% of U.S. exports, but exports are a much smaller slice of the mighty U.S. economy. Yet it's easy to predict improvements in the domestic U.S. economy, do a little arithmetic, predict that slower growth or even recession in Europe would shave a few tenths of a percentage point off U.S. growth and find other things to worry about -- like the Koreas.

But that's the kind of logic that led almost all forecasters to shrug off the subprime mortgage debacle as too small to sink the U.S. economy.

The global finance crisis -- they call it 'the GFC' in Australia, and are startled to discover that a visiting American doesn't recognize the acronym -- taught a few enduring lessons: Financial markets are very efficient at spreading anxiety from one continent to another. The market mood can swing from cautious optimism to panic very quickly. When banks, institutional lenders and other big-money investors all grow cautious, the rest of us have a hard time borrowing and the economy sputters. And the worst-case scenario is worse and more likely than most of us imagined.

The past few weeks in Europe have hardly inspired confidence. Watching European leaders respond to doubts about their governments' ability to repay debts, the health of their banks and the viability of the euro itself has been like watching a bunch of firefighters hold a conference call before dispatching firetrucks. Doubts about the true health of Europe's big banks persist, and Europe hasn't found a way to bolster confidence in them or boost their capital cushions the way the U.S. did with the much-maligned, now much-celebrated 'stress tests' of 2009.

In one important way, the global reaction helps the U.S. Money is fleeing other places -- Australia and Europe -- for the safety of the U.S., pushing down the yields on Treasury debt. That makes it cheaper for the U.S. government to finance its big deficit. It pulls rates on 30-year fixed-rate U.S. mortgages toward 4.5%, which should buoy house prices and prompt refinancing, which, in turns, provides a little oomph to consumer spending.

But, unfortunately, those effects may be offset by a bigger one: The reluctance of investors and lenders to take risks. All the gauges that measure financial anxiety are turning up. Banks are charging more to lend to each other, for instance. Risky U.S. companies have to pay more to sell junk bonds. Anxiety isn't back to the levels of fall 2008, but it's worse than it was six weeks ago -- and no one can be sure whether this is a blip or a step toward something even more significant.

The route to a double-dip recession runs through the banks and other lenders. If they pull back, either because they can't get money because no one trusts them or because they are hoarding money because they're uneasy about the future, then there will be less fuel for growth. This time, unlike fall 2008, world governments are unlikely to offset that with another massive round of tax cuts and spending increases, or world central banks with more interest-rate cuts and monetary expansion. They see themselves as tapped out.

Confidence is an important and fragile commodity. Confidence in big U.S. banks and the resilience of the U.S. economy and in the remarkable vigor of China and other Asia economies was bolstering confidence and beginning to breed a self-fulfilling optimism from Australia to America. Europe has undermined that, prompted a 'here we go again' sense in markets and bank lending committees that will -- unless reversed -- hurt economic growth around the world. Even in Australia.

旁观澳大利亚的经济就像是透过《爱丽丝梦游仙境》(Alice in Wonderland)中的镜子看世界，一切如此扑朔迷离。

与美国和欧洲不同，澳大利亚实现了充分就业（5.4%的失业率），为了给经济降温，央行提高了利率（现在为4.5%）。它拥有中国所缺乏的资源──铁矿石和煤。其银行家及监管者担心没有足够的政府债券可供银行购买以满足新的流动性规定；政府赤字太小，不足以创造大量的政府债券。

那么为什么澳大利亚官员看起来如此焦虑？因为自4月中旬以来，澳元贬值13%，澳大利亚股市下跌15%。

结果证明，欧洲危机的影响并不仅限于欧洲境内。

澳大利亚央行政策委员会于5月4日举行了会议。最近公布的会议记录披露，委员们花了“相当多的时间讨论金融市场的动荡局面。这种动荡局面源自于对欧洲部分地区主权债务的担忧，特别是希腊的问题，但焦点并不仅限于此。至少到目前为止，希腊债务危机还未向欧洲之外的债市蔓延。

但从那时起，面对欧洲的苦苦挣扎，远至悉尼、北京和纽约等地的反应已经从幸灾乐祸变成了对双底衰退的焦虑。

在一定程度上道理很简单：如果欧洲政府缓慢加强其财政和信贷紧缩措施，欧洲从世界其它地区进口的商品将会减少。但澳大利亚对欧洲市场的出口占其总出口量的9%。美国约20%的出口也进入欧洲市场，但相对于美国强大的经济总量而言，出口只占极小的份额。然而预测美国国内经济的好转是很容易的事，再做些运算，预测出欧洲的缓慢增长甚至于衰退将对美国的经济增长造成千分之几的拖累，那么我们就很容易发现其它事更需要我们担心，比如朝鲜半岛问题。

但就是这种逻辑曾导致几乎所有的预测者对次贷问题不屑一顾，认为次贷崩溃造成的麻烦太小，不会拖垮美国经济。

全球金融危机给我们几条长期的教训：金融市场是非常高效的传播器，善于把焦虑气氛从一个大陆传播到另一个大陆。市场情绪能够非常快速地从谨慎乐观变成恐慌。一旦银行、贷款机构和其它大型投资机构都变得谨小慎微，其它人就难以借到款，经济便会下行。最坏的情况很可能会比大多数人相像的还要糟。(澳大利亚人把全球金融危机缩写成GFC。他们发现美国人不认识这个缩写时吓了一跳。)

过去几周欧洲的情形难以令人产生信心。外界怀疑欧洲国家政府的偿债能力、银行的健康度及欧元自身的生存能力，看着欧洲的领导人对这些质疑做出回应就像是看着大批救火队员在分配救火车之前举行电话会议。对欧洲大银行真正健康度的疑虑犹存，而欧洲却未找出办法增强外界对它们的信心或加大其资本缓冲。而类似的办法美国已经用过。美国在2009年所做的银行业“压力测试”曾遭受多方批评，如今却受到众人的赞扬。

全球投资者对欧洲危机的反应以一种很重要的方式帮助了美国。资金正逃离澳大利亚和欧洲等其它地区，涌入相对安全的美国。这压低了美国国债的收益率，进而使美国政府能够以更低的价格为其巨额赤字融资。美国30年期定息房贷利率被拉高到接近4.5%的水平，这一趋势应当会提升房价并促进再融资，从而对消费者支出小有裨益。

但不幸的是，一个更严重的后果或许会抵消上述效果：投资者和贷款机构不愿冒险。所有衡量金融焦虑度的指标均在上升。例如，银行间拆借利率上涨。有风险的美国公司不得不以更高的利率出售垃圾债券。市场上的焦虑程度还未增强到2008年秋季的水平，但比六周之前更为严重，而且没人能够肯定这究竟只是暂时现象还是事态已向着更严重的方向发展。

双底衰退之路经由各银行及其它贷款机构。如果他们撤退，无论是由于无人信任他们而造成他们无法筹到资金，还是由于他们对未来感到担忧从而囤积资金，那么经济增长的动力就会减少。与2008年秋天不同，这一次世界各国政府不太可能利用另一轮大规模减税或增加支出来抵消这些影响，各国央行也不太可能通过再一次减息或货币扩张政策来增强市场的流动性。他们认为自己也没钱了。

信心是一种重要但脆弱的商品。对美国大银行及美国经济恢复力的信心以及对中国及亚洲其它国家经济的非凡活力的信心曾支撑着市场的信心，并曾开始产生一种自我实现的乐观情绪，范围从澳大利亚到美国。欧洲的危机破坏了这种信心，促使市场和各银行贷款委员会产生了一种“我们又要重蹈覆辙”的感觉。除非情况逆转，否则这种感觉将会对全球的经济增长造成损害。甚至澳大利亚也不能幸免。