有史以来规模最大的金融危机正在从私人部门向主权实体蔓延。最好的情况下，这将损及欧洲的复苏，而欧元的大幅贬值将削弱欧洲主要贸易伙伴的经济增长。而最糟的结果，是欧元土崩瓦解，或者一波混乱无序的主权违约可能致使金融体系失常，并引发双底经济衰退。
事情是如何发展到这一地步的？从上世纪70年代开始，金融自由化与金融创新减轻了对公共及私人部门的信贷限制。发达经济体的家庭部门——其实际收入增长疲软无力——可以通过举债，进行超出自己财力的消费。监管越来越宽松，政府和国际货币基金组织(IMF)为了应对日益频繁、成本也越来越高昂的危机，进行着同样频繁、且成本高昂的纾困，加之上世纪90年代延续至今的宽松货币政策，这一切都助长了这一过程。2000年之后，对信贷及住房所有权民主化的政治支持，进一步加剧了这种趋势。
为了证明这种债务驱动型全球增长的合理性，人们求助于范式转变(paradigm shifts)：冷战格局为华盛顿共识(Washington Consensus)所取代；新兴市场被重新纳入全球经济；高增长与低通胀这种不冷不热刚刚好的“金发姑娘”(Goldilocks)组合；在建立欧洲货币联盟之前被大肆宣传的趋同进程；以及迅速的金融创新。
其结果是，赤字国家出现了消费狂潮，而盈余国家则出口激增，由卖家为买家的慷慨埋单。全球经济产出与增长、企业利润、家庭收入与财富、公共收入和开支，一时间都激增至均衡水平之上。人们一厢情愿的想法，将资产价格推升至荒谬的高度，也将风险溢价推低至难以置信的低点。当信贷和资产泡沫破灭时，显然，世界将面临低于我们期望值的增长限速。
现在，各国政府正通过再杠杆化，将私营部门的损失社会化。但归根结底，公共债务是一种私人负担：政府要通过向私人收入和财富征税维持下去，要么就是通过通货膨胀或直接违约这种终极的资本征税形式。最终，政府也必须降低杠杆比率，否则公共债务将出现爆炸式增长，进一步引发更为严重的公共及私人部门危机。在危机的前沿——欧洲主权债务危机中——已经出现了这种情况。希腊是第一个翻船的国家；爱尔兰、葡萄牙和西班牙紧随其后。意大利尽管还没有丧失流动性，但已面临偿付能力的风险。就连法国和德国的赤字都不断增加。英国已经开始削减财政预算。最终美国也将不得不这么做。
在危机的初期阶段，各国政府联合行动，以恢复市场信心和经济活动。在经历了2008至2009年的挫败之后，20国集团(G20)重新合作；我们现在都在同一条船上，而且这条船正迅速下沉。
但到了2010年，本国要务再次占据上风。目前世界缺乏协调合作：德国单方面禁止裸卖空行为，而美国也在推进自己的金融部门改革。盈余国家不愿意刺激消费，而赤字国家则在积累难以持续的公共债务。
欧元区就应对系统性危机时的禁忌行为，提供了一堂实物教学课。2008年，当欧元区成员国根据国家利益瓜分各大泛欧洲银行时，就已经开始各行其是了。对于希腊，欧洲领导人先是优柔寡断、否认事实，接着又进行了一场惊人的实力展示；7500亿欧元的纾困计划，仅仅为市场信心提供了一天的支撑。但规则完全被抛诸脑后。“不救助”规定的例外条款，为主权救助行动提供了合法性，但这个例外条款是为不可抗因素、而不是人为造成债务准备的。欧洲央行(ECB)开始买入政府债券，而就在几天之前，该行还坚称自己不会这样做。人们已经能够觉察到法德轴心的紧张关系。
我们需要为这个全球性问题找到一个全面解决之道，而不是七零八落的局部应对措施。
首先，欧元区必须团结一致、共同行动。对于南欧，必须放松监管、推行自由化和改革；对于北欧，则必须刺激需求，以恢复经济的活力与增长。欧元区还必须采取宽松的货币政策，以防止通缩、增强竞争力；施行主权债务重组机制，以限制救助计划可能产生的道德风险；并暂缓欧元区扩张计划。
第二，债权国必须承担损失，而债务国则需要进行调整。这是一个偿付能力的问题，需要一套宏大的解决方案。希腊只是冰山一角；西班牙及欧洲其它国家的银行，都被不良贷款的泥沼没过了膝盖，与此同时，美国住宅市场和全球商业地产市场的问题依然存在。
第三，必须恢复财政上的可持续性，将重点放在收入及支出的时间表和情景推想、老龄化问题相关成本以及未来冲击的应急方案上，而不是财政规则。
第四，是时候对金融业进行彻底改革了。现有的大多数改革提案，都不够充分或切题。必须对大型金融机构进行分拆；它们的规模过于庞大、关联过于紧密、结构过于复杂，让人难以管理。投资者和客户可以从专业化公司那里，获得他们所需的一切服务，包括传统银行、投资银行、对冲基金、共同基金以及保险服务。我们必须回归极致的《格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案》(Glass-Steagal)。
最后，必须恢复全球经济的平衡。赤字国家必须增加储蓄与投资；盈余国家则必须刺激消费。作为财政与金融改革的交换条件，赤字国家必须放松对产品、服务和劳动力市场的监管，以增加盈余国家的收入。
努里埃尔•鲁比尼是鲁比尼全球经济咨询公司(Roubini Global Economics)董事长，阿那布•达斯是该公司负责市场研究与战略的董事总经理。
译者/管婧
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032913
The largest financial crisis in history is spreading from private to sovereign entities. At best, Europe's recovery will suffer and the collapsing euro will subtract from growth in its key trading partners. At worst, a disintegration of the single currency or a wave of disorderly defaults could unhinge the financial system and precipitate a double-dip recession.
How did it come to this? Starting in the 1970s, financial liberalisation and innovation eased credit constraints on the public and private sectors. Households in advanced economies – where real income growth was anaemic – could use debt to spend beyond their means. The process was fed by ever laxer regulation, increasingly frequent and expensive government and International Monetary Fund bail-outs in response to increasingly frequent and expensive crises, and easy monetary policy from the 1990s. Political support for this democratisation of credit and home-ownership compounded the trend after 2000.
Paradigm shifts were invoked to justify debt-fuelled global growth: the transition from cold war to Washington Consensus; the re-integration of emerging markets into the global economy; the “Goldilocks” combination of high growth and low inflation; a much-ballyhooed convergence ahead of monetary union across Europe; and rapid financial innovation.
The result was a consumption binge in deficit countries and an export surge in surplus countries, with vendor financing courtesy of the latter. Global output and growth, corporate profits, household income and wealth, and public revenue and spending temporarily shot well above equilibrium. Wishful thinking allowed asset prices to reach absurd heights and pushed risk premiums to incredible lows. When the asset and credit bubbles burst, it became clear that the world faced a lower speed limit on growth than we had banked on.
Now, governments everywhere are releveraging to socialise private losses. But public debt is ultimately a private burden: governments subsist by taxing private income and wealth, or through the ultimate capital levy of inflation or outright default. Eventually governments must deleverage too, or else public debt will explode, precipitating further, deeper public and private-sector crises. This is already happening in the front-line of the crisis, eurozone sovereign debt. Greece is first over the edge; Ireland, Portugal and Spain trail close behind. Italy, while not yet illiquid, faces solvency risks. Even France and Germany have rising deficits. UK budget cuts are starting. Eventually the US will have to cut too.
In the early part of the crisis, governments acted in unison to restore confidence and economic activity. The Group of 20 coalesced after the crash of 2008-09; we all were in the same boat together, sinking fast.
But in 2010, national imperatives reasserted themselves. Co-ordination is now lacking: Germany is banning naked short selling unilaterally and the US is pursuing its own financial sector reform. Surplus countries are unwilling to stimulate consumption, while deficit countries are building unsustainable public debt.
The eurozone offers an object lesson in how not to respond to a systemic crisis. Member states started going it alone when they carved up pan-European banks along national lines in 2008. After much dithering and denial over Greece, leaders orchestrated an overwhelming show of force; a €750bn bail-out bolstered confidence for one day. But the rules went out of the window. Sovereign rescues are legitimised by an escape clause from the “no bail-out” rule intended for acts of God, not man-made debt. The European Central Bank began buying government bonds days after insisting it would not. Tensions in the Franco-German axis are palpable.
Instead of Balkanised local responses, we need a comprehensive solution to this global problem.
First, the eurozone must get its act together. It must deregulate, liberalise, reform the south and stoke demand in the north to restore dynamism and growth; ease monetary policy to prevent deflation and boost competitiveness; implement sovereign debt restructuring mechanisms to limit moral hazard from bail-outs; and put expansion of the eurozone on ice.
Second, creditors need to take a hit, and debtors adjust. This is a solvency problem, demanding a grand work-out. Greece is the tip of the iceberg; banks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe stand knee-deep in bad debt, while problems persist in US residential and global commercial property.
Third, fiscal sustainability must be restored, with a focus on timetables and scenarios for revenues and spending, ageing-related costs and contingencies for future shocks, rather than on fiscal rules.
Fourth, it is time for radical reform of finance. The majority of proposals on the table are inadequate or irrelevant. Large financial institutions must be unbundled; they are too big, interconnected and complex to manage. Investors and customers can find all the traditional banking, investment banking, hedge fund, mutual fund and insurance services they need in specialised firms. We need to go back to Glass-Steagal on steroids.
Last, the global economy must be rebalanced. Deficit countries need to boost savings and investment; surplus countries to stimulate consumption. The quid pro quo for fiscal and financial reform in deficit countries must be deregulation of product, service and labour markets to boost incomes in surplus countries.
Nouriel Roubini is founder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics. Arnab Das is RGE's managing director for market research and strategy
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