英國之病,誰人能救大綱

Suffering from persistently weak economies, governments and central banks are experimenting with ever more aggressive – some say dangerous – monetary treatments. Countries are being enrolled, like it or not, in the economic equivalent of clinical trials.

由於患上了長期經濟萎靡之症，各國政府和央行都在以前所未有的力度試驗激進的貨幣療法（有人會稱之爲危險的療法）。無論願意與否，各國紛紛開始了經濟“臨牀試驗”。

Before embarking on a new course of treatment, the doctors ought to inspect the patients in the wards next door. I found myself last month visiting two countries following diametrically opposite courses of treatment: Portugal, perhaps the least demonstrative sufferer on the eurozone periphery; and Argentina, which has long injected economic drugs not registered elsewhere. Both are instructive – and discouraging.

醫生們在採取新療法之前，不妨看一下隔壁病房患者的病情。上個月，我去了兩個所用療法截然相反的國家：一個是葡萄牙，這可能是受困的歐元區外圍最死氣沉沉的國家；另一個是阿根廷，該國長期以來都在注射其他地區不敢用的經濟“藥物”。這兩個例子都有啓示意義，也都令人沮喪。

Portugal belongs to a strong currency bloc – its money functions as a real store of value, and convertibility is not in question. But the place is stony broke, and these advantages, so dear in the abstract to business people, have little appeal to residents with no money at all. The new roads built with EU funds are deserted, since they carry a toll; traffic has been displaced on to the roads they were designed to relieve. People prefer double-parking their ageing cars in the narrow streets to paying a euro or two at the shiny new car park. The receptionist in the empty hotel arrives, after a long wait, to serve you a drink in the bar; he later turns up as a waiter in the restaurant. Though they have the gentlest manners in Europe, the Portuguese have begun to express their frustration in a frank and vivid style of graffiti. Everything is on sale and no one is buying.

葡萄牙屬於一個強勢貨幣區，其貨幣可充當真正的保值物，可兌換性也不成問題。但葡萄牙一貧如洗，商務人士非常看重的那些抽象優勢，對於口袋空空的當地居民根本沒有吸引力。用歐盟(EU)資金建造的新公路無人問津，因爲那是收費公路；新路本希望分流交通流量的老路，卻引來了許多車輛。人們喜歡把自家老舊的轎車並排停放在狹窄的街道上，而不願花上一兩歐元把車開進明亮的新停車場。酒店裏空蕩蕩的，等上好久後前臺接待才珊珊到來，到酒吧間給顧客端上一杯飲料；後來，此人又成了餐廳的侍者。儘管葡萄牙人的溫文爾雅當屬歐洲之最，但他們已開始用直白、生動的塗鴉來表達內心的沮喪。各種商品都在打折銷售，但買者寥寥無幾。

So poor Patient Fado, placed on an austerity-plus regime, is semi-comatose. The state spends as little as it can, and tries to extract ever more from its citizens, who seem to spend most of their time working out how to avoid paying. Fado’s ratios of indebtedness remain stubbornly high but the expensive foreign doctors believe a higher dose of the present medicine will, in the end, prove to be the right answer.

也就是說，在極度緊縮政策的作用下，可憐的病人法多（Patient Fado，指葡萄牙）已陷入“半昏迷”狀態。政府儘可能減少開支，並努力從國民身上榨取越來越多的財富，而國民似乎把大部分時間用於算計如何避免花錢。法多的債務比率仍居高不下，但收費高的外國醫生認爲，只要加大當前用藥的劑量，最終可以治好法多的病。

In Argentina, by contrast, the currency is on a managed slide. There is plenty of it, though, and since it is fast losing its internal value – the government says inflation is at roughly 10 per cent a year; everyone else tells you it is more than 25 per cent – people are in a hurry to spend it. It is rather like Britain in the 1970s: you can buy air tickets and holiday packages in your own currency at the official exchange rate but you have no foreign currency to use once you arrive abroad. There are no new money flows coming into the country (though companies reinvest the profits they make there), Argentina has few external assets earning foreign currency, and it has no access to the credit markets, following a default still fuelling lawsuits 10 years later. So minor fluctuations in the trade account, which the government is obliged to micromanage, are all-determining. Banks are required to lend a substantial proportion of their deposit base at 15 per cent for “productive investment”: no pussy-footing about with persuasion here.

與此形成反差的是，阿根廷貨幣一直處於有管理的貶值中。不過貨幣量很充足，而且隨着貨幣快速失去內在價值（政府表示，每年的通脹率大概爲10%；但其他人都會告訴你，通脹率高於25%），大家都急匆匆地把錢花掉。這跟上世紀70年代的英國很相似：你可以按官方匯率使用本國貨幣購買飛機票和度假套餐，但出國之後沒有外幣可用。沒有新的資金流入阿根廷（儘管企業把在那裏賺到的利潤進行再投資），也幾乎沒有能賺取外匯的外部資產，同時由於10年前違約引發的官司至今未了結，該國被信貸市場拒之門外。所以，即使貿易賬戶（政府不得不對其實施微觀管理）發生細微的波動，也能產生決定性的影響。銀行必須把很大一部分存款以15%的利率貸給“生產性投資”項目；這裏可沒有循循善誘的勸說。

Patient Tango receives repeated stimulation. She is economically hyperactive, rushing to get her constantly increasing wages in the hospital shop (she is rarely allowed to go out). Her doctors say her ratios are wonderfully improved since her debt restructuring. Rather like Britain’s Patient Morris – now in a seedy hospital after a spell in the casualty department – she had been living way beyond her means. In the eurozone, Fado has been forced to stop and seems barely to be living at all. Tango has tried a different response, deciding those to whom she owes money are vultures, and it would be outrageous to pay them back, which has done wonders for her debt-to-gross domestic product number. They, in turn, do not seem that keen to pay for her treatment.

病人探戈（Tango，指阿根廷）不斷接受刺激療法。現在她患上了經濟“多動症”，雖然薪水不斷升高，但一拿到手就往醫院的商店跑（她幾乎不能離開醫院）。她的醫生表示，自從實施債務重組以來，她的債務比率已神奇地大幅降低。與英國病人莫里斯（Patient Morris）很相像的是，探戈以前花錢如流水，過着入不敷出的生活；莫里斯經急救科診療一段時間後，已被轉到一家破舊的醫院。在歐元區，法多被迫停止，看上去毫無生氣。探戈則嘗試了不同的診治思路，她認定自己的債權人是趁火打劫的傢伙，還債給他們是沒有道理的，於是，其債務對國內生產總值(GDP)比率奇蹟般地降低。反過來，債權人似乎也不願意爲她支付治療費用。

Morris has been for many years a patient under Dr King, an old-fashioned GP who used to tell him he was in fair health while warning him not to eat and drink so much. Now, after his heart attack, Dr King says he had been urging him to lose weight for years. Dr King is retiring and Dr Carney, new to the practice, is considering electroconvulsive therapy. He believes patients feel better if they are told they will be flat on their back for a long time. From time to time the saturnine registrar, a Mr Osborne, drops in and discusses amputation.

多年來，莫里斯一直在接受金醫生(Dr King)的診治。金醫生總是一邊告訴莫里斯他的身體非常健康，一邊又警告他不要暴飲暴食。如今，在莫里斯心臟病發作之後，金醫生說，自己多年來一直在敦促他減肥。金醫生就要退休了，即將上任的卡尼醫生(Dr Carney)正在考慮施用電休克療法。卡尼醫生相信，如果告訴病人們他們需要臥牀很長時間，他們會感覺好一些。每隔一段時間，臉色陰鬱的專科住院醫生奧斯本(Osborne)會過來查房，討論是否要截肢。

Dear old Morris was put on a version of Fado’s regime, but with a much lower dose. Unlike Fado, he is not in a near-comatose state but he is not getting much stronger either. The temptation to switch to something more like Tango therapy, though without the un-British excess of default, is clearly growing.

吃盡了苦頭的老莫里斯被迫接受了法多那樣的療法，但用藥劑量要低得多。與法多不同的是，莫里斯還沒到接近昏迷的狀態，但他也沒有變得更有氣力。對莫里斯來說，探戈式療法（剔除違約這種英國人不齒的過激行爲之後）的誘惑力顯然在不斷增長。

In Portugal, the quantity and velocity of money in circulation are both down; in Argentina, both are rising rapidly. Neither presents an attractive example. In Britain the Bank of England has prevented the quantity from falling too far, but seems unable to get the money moving. A little well-targeted fiscal relaxation feels less risky at this stage than more monetary experimentation. Doctors are enjoined, above all, to do no harm.

在葡萄牙，貨幣流通量和流通速度都在下降；在阿根廷，兩者都在快速上升。這兩種狀況都不令人嚮往。在英國，英國央行已採取措施阻止貨幣流通量下降太多，但似乎無力加快貨幣流通速度。現階段實施少量有針對性的財政寬鬆政策，比更多貨幣政策試驗的風險要低一些。畢竟，醫生的使命首先是不加重病情。