World on the edge
命悬一线的世界

Whatever happens in Congress, the crisis is now global; that means governments must work together
无论美国会意思如何，此次危机已经是演变为全球性的了；这就意味着各国政府必须协同作战。

AMERICA’S Congress is not used to being second-guessed. But as lawmakers wrestled in the Capitol, world stockmarkets have been giving real-time odds on the Bush administration’s $700 billion bail-out becoming law. After the plan’s thrashing by the House of Representatives on September 29th, spurred on by voters’ loathing of “casino capitalism”, investors panicked. Yet as The Economist went to press, they were optimistic that, after winning the Senate’s approval on October 1st, the plan would pass.
美国国会还没有习惯被猜来猜去（不曾被猜测过），但随着法律制定者们在国会大厦中的角力，全球股市都在时时关注布什政府7000亿美元救助法案的进程。9月29日救助计划因选民们对“赌场资本主义”的痛恨而遭到众院拒绝，这个消息让投资者陷入一片恐慌之中。不过在经济学家付印的时候他们还是很乐观的，因为他们在10月1日赢得了参院的批准，该方案应该会通过。

Even if it does, that should not be a cause for optimism. Look beyond the stockmarkets, especially at the seized-up money markets, and there is little to see except bank failures, emergency rescues and high anxiety in the credit markets. These forces are drawing the financial system closer to disaster and the rich world to the edge of a nasty recession (see article). The bail-out package should mitigate the problems, but it will not avert them.
即使方案（放案）通过了，人们也没有理由变得乐观：如果目光放远些，不单单盯着股市、特别是已然停顿的货币市场，那么就除了银行倒闭、紧急救助和充斥焦虑的信贷市场外，就别奢望能看到别的景象了。这些力量正将金融系统拖向灾难，也正将发达国家拽向凶残的经济萧条边缘。整体救助计划（异化）应该可以缓解问题，但却无法完全避免。

The crisis is spreading in two directions—across the Atlantic to Europe, and out of the financial markets into the real economy. Governments have been dealing with it disaster by disaster. They have struggled to gain control not just because of the speed of contagion but also because policymakers, and the public they serve, have failed fully to grasp the breadth and depth of the crisis.
危机向着两个方向展开：地缘上越过大西洋到达欧洲，范围上突破金融市场进入实体经济领域。政府一直应对这接二连三的灾难，他们努力进行控制的原因不仅是因为危机蔓延的速度，还因为政府所服务的决策者和公众完全没有领会到此次危机的深度和广度。

What’s the Icelandic for “domino”?
冰岛人也明白骨牌效应

Step forward, Peer Steinbrück, Germany’s finance minister, who rashly declared on September 25th that America was “the source…and the focus of the crisis”, before heralding the end of its role as the financial superpower. Within days, the focus shifted and Mr Steinbrück and his officials were obliged to arrange a Euro35 billion ($51 billion) loan from German banks and the German government to save Hypo Real Estate, the country’s second-biggest property lender.
德国财长施泰因布吕克在9月25日站出来鲁莽的宣称美国在结束超级金融大国地位之前一直是“危机的源泉和中心”。而数日内该中心旋即发生了转移，施泰恩布 吕克先生和他的同僚们从德国银行和德国政府强行安排了350亿欧元（约合510亿美元），用以拯救Hypo Real Estate这个全国第二大的抵押贷款银行。

The hapless Mr Steinbrück is not alone. European banks were collapsing at a dizzying pace even as Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, declared that “there is no drama in front of us.” Hypo Real Estate was just one of five banks in seven European countries bailed out in three days. Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands carved up Fortis, a big bancassurer; Britain nationalised Bradford & Bingley; Belgium, France and Luxembourg saved Dexia; and Iceland rescued Glitnir. Separately, Ireland took Euro 400 billion of contingent liabilities onto the national balance sheet, when it stood behind the deposits and debts of its six large banks and building societies. You have to wonder what Mr Noyer regards as dramatic.
倒霉的施泰因布吕克先生却并不孤单：即使法国央行理事Christian Noyer,宣布“我们面前没有什么悲剧”，但欧洲银行还是以令人晕眩的速度进入崩塌状态。Hypo Real Estate只是三天内欧洲七国进行救助的五家银行之一。何比卢三国共同救助了大型银行保险服务商——Fortis；英国抵押贷款供应商Bradford & Bingley变身国有化；法比卢又救助了比利时德克夏银行；冰岛救助了格里特利尔银行。除此以外，爱尔兰使用国家资产承担了价值4000亿欧元的或有性 负债，当然这是因为六家大银行以及房屋社团提供了存款和债务作为后盾。至此，人们不得不思考一下Noyer先生所谓的悲剧性到底指什么。

By some measures, many European banks look more vulnerable than their American counterparts do—and that is saying quite something, given the past week’s forced sale of Washington Mutual, America’s biggest thrift, and Wachovia, its fourth-biggest commercial bank. In America, outside Wall Street, the banks have lent 96 cents for each $1 of deposits. Continental European banks have lent roughly Euro1.40 for each Euro1 of deposits. They have to borrow the rest from money-market investors, who are not especially confident just now. Some Europeans, including the British, Irish and Spanish banks, have housing busts of their own. And they must contend with the toxic American securities they bought by the billion, as well as their own slowing economies.
从某些方面看来，欧洲银行看起来比他们的美国同行要脆弱得多：鉴于在过去的一周里，全美最大的互助储蓄银行华互以及第四大商业银行瓦霍维亚银行先后被强行 拍卖，这很说明问题。在美国除华尔街以外的其它银行中，每一美元的存款被放贷支出96美分；欧洲中央银行基于1欧元的储蓄却几乎贷出了1.4欧元，因此他 们不得不从金融市场投资者那里借入存贷差额部分，而后者目前却是格外的不自信。包括英国、爱尔兰和西班牙在内的欧洲银行都遭受房市萧条的影响；同时还必须 （满足）对抗花费数十亿购买的美国不良资产和自己缓慢发展的经济。

Western Europe is not the limit of this: the panic has also struck banks in Hong Kong, Russia and now India. And it is not just the geographical breadth of this crisis that is alarming, but also its economic depth. Because it is rooted in the money markets (see article and article), it will feed through to businesses and households in every economy it hits.
如此的境况不仅限于西欧：包括香港、俄罗斯和印度等国都陷入恐慌中。此次危机所预警的并不仅仅是地域的宽度，还包含经济层面的深度。由于根源于金融市场，它必将直接影响到所有受打击经济中的企业和家庭。

Take a deep breath
深吸一口气，做好准备

Most of the time nobody notices the credit flowing through the lungs of the economy, any more than people notice the air they breathe. But everyone knows when credit stops circulating freely through markets to banks, businesses and consumers. For almost a year the markets had worried about banks’ liquidity and solvency. After the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers last month, amid confusion about whom the state would save and on what terms, they panicked. The markets for three-, six- and 12-month paper are shut, so banks must borrow even more money overnight than usual.
大多数时间没有人会留意到流通在经济中的信贷，一如没有什么人会留意他们呼吸的空气；但是当信贷无法自由的通过市场循环到银行、企业和消费者的时候，每个 人都觉察到了问题。在过去几乎一年的时间里，市场一直为银行的流动性和清偿能力而忧虑。上个月雷曼兄弟倒下后，由于对政府会以什么样的条件救助什么样的银 行充满困惑，市场完全恐慌了。于是季度、半年和一年期的票据市场完全关闭了，这就意味着银行必须在短时间内比以往筹集到更多的现金。

Banks used to borrow from each other at about 0.08 percentage points above official rates; on September 30th they paid more than four percentage points more. In one auction to get dollar funds overnight from the European Central Bank, banks were prepared to pay interest of 11%, five times the pre-crisis rate. Astonishingly, rates scaled these extremes even as the Federal Reserve promised $620 billion of extra funding.
银行间过去以高于（低于）官 方利率十万分之八的利率进行同业拆借；而9月30日他们却要多付百分之四。一次为了在短时间内从欧洲央行得到美元基金进行的竞拍中，银行甚至准备以11% 的利率出价，这相当于危机前5倍的价格。令人震惊的是，在联储承诺6200亿美元的额外基金后，利率仍然朝着这种极端攀升。

Bankers have always earned their crust by committing money for long periods and financing that with short-term deposits and borrowing. Today, that model has warped into self-parody: many of the banks’ assets are unsellable even as they have to return to the market each day to ask for lenders to vote on their survival. No wonder they are hoarding cash.
银行通常用短期储蓄和借贷来满足资金需求，并通过这种运作形成积累；如今这种模式已经扭曲成了滑稽的自我模仿：很多银行资产都没有销路，正如他们每天都必须回到市场上央求贷款者帮助他们存活下去。无疑他们需要储蓄现金。

This is why those politicians who set the interests of Main Street against those of Wall Street are so wrong. Sooner or later the money markets affect every business. Companies face higher interest charges and the fear that they may one day lose access to bank loans altogether. So they, too, hoard cash, cancelling acquisitions and investments, in order to pay down debt. Managers delay new products, leave factories unbuilt, pull the plug on loss-making divisions, and cut costs and jobs. Carmakers and other manufacturers will no longer extend credit (see article) and loans will become elusive and expensive. Consumers will suffer. Unemployment will rise. Even if the credit markets work well, the rich economies will slow as the asset-price bubble pops. If credit is choked off, that slowdown could turn into a deep recession.
这就是那些政客为了小企业利益而牺牲大公司想法的错误所在：金融市场早晚会影响到所有的企业。那些承受高利率成本的公司也惧怕某天他们会无法从银行得到贷款，于是他们也开始储备现金，为了减少负债甚至取消了收购和投资；管理层 停止新品推出，暂缓工厂扩建，关闭不盈利机构，削减成本以及进行裁员；汽车及其它制造商不再延长消费信用，贷款销售将变得难得并且昂贵；最终受罪的是消费 者，失业率必将上升。即使信贷市场运转正常，发达国家的经济发展也会由于资产价格泡沫的破裂而放缓；如果信贷市场阻塞，那么经济的放缓将会发展成深度经济 萧条。

Financial markets need governments to set rules for them; and when markets fail, governments are often best placed to get them going again. That’s pragmatism, not socialism. Helping bankers is not an end in itself. If the government could save the credit markets without bailing out the bankers, it should do so. But it cannot. Main Street needs Wall Street; and both need Washington. Politicians—and President George Bush is the most culpable among them (see article)—have failed to explain this.
金融市场需要政府来设定规则；当市场失败的时候，政府常常已经准备好了使之继续前行：这是使用主义，不是社会主义。对银行的救助不是最终目的，如果政府不 救助银行就能挽救信贷市场，那么他应该这样做；但是他却无法实现这个目的。小企业也需要大公司，他们都需要政府。政客们没有阐明这一点，而布什总统是他们 中最应受到责备的。

Governments need not just to communicate, but also to co-ordinate. Past banking crises show that late, piecemeal rescues cost more and work less well. Ad hoc mergers work for a while, but demands for help tend to recur. Inconsistency sows uncertainty. Cross-border banking can make one country’s policies awkward for the neighbours: the Irish government’s guarantee of all deposits threatens to suck in money from poorly protected British banks. France’s suggestion on October 1st that Europe’s governments should work together was a good one; Germany’s rejection of it was wrong.
政府需要做的不仅仅是沟通，还有协调。过往的银行危机证明了迟到而零散的救助不仅成本更高，而且效果更差。临时整合短时间内有效，但是需要持续才能有效。矛盾必然传播不确定性结果。跨国银行可以让一国政策威胁到邻国：爱尔兰政府通过从保护措施少的可怜的英国银行吸纳现金来确保自己的存款不受威胁；法国在10月1日建议欧盟各国政府应该齐心协力，而德国政府对此表示出的反对是不正确的。

Central banks have co-ordinated their liquidity operations. Now that oil prices have plunged and worries about inflation are receding, interest-rate cuts are possible. They would be more powerful if co-ordinated. But it is not only central banks that need to combine. Whatever America’s Congress does, governments should work together on principles to stabilise and recapitalise banks—not just to stem panic but also to save money. Even if, as the Europeans claim, the crisis was made in America, it now belongs to everyone.
央行已经协调他们的流动性部门。目前油价下跌，通胀的 忧虑也有所减轻，削减利率的可能性加大。相互协调的能量会更大，但需要团结在一起的不光是央行。不管美国国会的意思如何，政府都应该以稳定和向银行注资为 原则而共同努力，不光为了消除恐慌，更是为了拯救经济。即使像欧洲人宣称的那样，危机源于美国，但现在已经是每一个人的问题了。