中国和希腊金融大戏的启示 Complacency and incrementalism are traps to avoid

Against a backdrop of slow and diminishing growth forecasts, recent months and especially recent weeks have seen an extraordinary level of financial drama. While not

在增长预期下降并且越来越低的背景下，近几个月（尤其是近几周）上演了一场规模宏大的“金融大戏”。尽管并未发酵成2008年那样的系统性全球危机，也不能与20世纪90年代末那段存在巨大不确定性的时期——亚洲、俄罗斯和巴西都陷入危机，还有长期资本管理公司所引发的危机——相提并论，但世界各地的市场状况似乎正在挫伤政治抱负。

rising to the level of the systemic global crisis of 2008, or the period of great uncertainty in the late 1990s around the Asia-Russia-Brazil-Long-Term Capital Management crises, markets everywhere seem to be thwarting political aspirations.

希腊与欧元区的关系已经演变成了一场持续数月、短期内不太可能结束的金融肥皂剧。对德国在欧洲主导地位的担忧达到了七十年来最强烈的程度。

Greece’s relationship with the euro area has been a financial soap opera for months, and it is one that is unlikely to end anytime soon. Concerns about German dominance of Europe are now more salient than they have been at any time in the past 70 years.

中国的股市如过山车般跌宕起伏，尽管——或许也可以说正是由于——政府实施了规模非常大（即使对中国来说）的干预。同时，中国政府实现经济快速增长的能力——其合法性越来越依赖于这一点——存在很大疑问。

China’s stock market has been a rollercoaster despite — or perhaps because of — a remarkable (even for China) level of government involvement. And the ability of the Chinese government to deliver the rapid growth on which its legitimacy increasingly depends is very much open to question.

在美国，由于医疗费用大幅削减，联邦政府的财政状况可以说是多年以来最健康的，然而其海外领地波多黎各却面临着美国历史上最大规模的市政债违约。

In the US, while the fiscal picture at the federal level appears healthier than it has in a long time, thanks to a marked slowdown in healthcare costs, Puerto Rico is on the brink of the largest municipal bond default in American history.

托尔斯泰(Tolstoy)曾说：“幸福的家庭都是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸”。同样地，上述问题也各有各的成因。然而，对于金融政策制定者及其背后的政治家来说，可以从这一系列危机中吸取几点共同的教训。其中有两点尤为重要。

Tolstoy observed that all happy families are alike but each unhappy family is miserable in its own way. In the same way, each of these situations is driven by its own dynamics. But their concatenation does warrant reflection on some common lessons for financial policymakers and their political masters. Two stand out.

首先，经济法则像自然法则一样，存在且不受政治意志的支配。金融危机、大衰退以及不平等程度的急剧上升，都促使人们从负面的角度对不受约束的自由市场进行重新审视。这情有可原。然而，不能据此认为政府可以依靠指令使经济按自己意愿运行。诚然，希腊问题与其失败的经济政策有关。希腊的财政紧缩幅度超过了其GDP的20%，导致了其经济的萧条。然而，对于一个无法自由地采取宽松的货币政策，或者实现货币贬值的经济体来说，这并不足为奇。即使政策制定者想要改变局势，他们也无能为力。

First, there are economic laws like there are physical laws and, as with physical laws, economic laws do not yield to political will. The financial crisis, the great recession and sharp increases in inequality have all properly led to a negative reassessment of the functionality of unfettered free markets. It does not follow, however, that governments can bring about economic outcomes they prefer by fiat. Greece’s problems, of course, relate to the failings of Greek economic policy. But it should come as no surprise that a fiscal contraction in excess of 20 per cent of gross domestic product in an economy that does not have the freedom to loosen monetary policy or to de-value its 挀甀爀爀攀渀挀礀 leads to depression, even if policymakers wish otherwise.

有句话说得好，你可能欺骗所有人一时，也可能欺骗一些人一世，却不可能欺骗所有人一世。同理，市场可能会失去效率，导致价格与基本价值背离，市场也可能有时会受制于政府操纵。然而，只有不明智的政府才会以为它能够始终把投机性的价格维持在政治适宜的水平上。中国政府可能很快就会发现这一点。

Famously, while you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. In the same way, markets may well be inefficient and diverge from fundamental value, and they may well be subject to government manipulation for significant intervals, but it is a foolish government that supposes it can indefinitely maintain speculative prices at politically convenient levels, as the Chinese authorities may soon discover.

同样的，当无法控制债务违约时，人们就倾向于假定它不会发生。2010年欧洲坚称希腊的债务永远不可能重组。这个明显的谬误带来了危险的后果——使债权人变得自满，让债务人积累了巨额的债务，导致后者失去了进行积极改革的动力。

Likewise, if a default cannot be managed, it is tempting to assume that it cannot occur. This is an obvious fallacy demonstrated most recently by European insistence in 2010 that Greek debt would never be restructured. It dangerously invites complacency on the part of creditors and leaves debtors with such large overhangs that they have little motivation to carry out constructive reform.

其次，根本性的失衡和问题需要根本性的解决方案。在所有领域，采取渐进式的政策制定方法都极具诱惑力。渐进主义在政治上更温和；它在这个不确定的世界为未来保留了灵活性；它通常较少需要承认以往的错误；它看起来更为谨慎。然而，对于甘愿屈服于渐进主义诱惑的人来说，美国在越南的经历值得他们警醒。每一步，政策制定者所做的都足以避免灾难的降临，但都不足以让人们看到成功解决问题的前景——直到直升机从西贡大使馆离开，标志着美国的政策以失败告终。