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导读：市场与民主政治之间是一种不融洽的关系。有一种观点认为，投资者的影响力要大于选民，对此选民心里愤愤不平。 Buttonwood 梧桐树 Voting but not counting 只有投票权没有决定权 The uneasy relationship between electors and investors 选民与市场之间的紧张关系 Mar 2nd 2013 |From the print edition IF THE financial markets had cast all the votes, Mario Monti, Italy's outgoing prime minister, would have romped to victory in this week's general election. Instead ordinary Italians ranked him fourth, a long way behind a party run by a comedian, Beppe Grillo. 如果完全由金融市场来投票，意大利看守政府总理马里奥·蒙蒂可能会在本周的议会大选中轻松取胜。与此相反的是，意大利老百姓把蒙蒂排在第四位，远远落后于由喜剧演员贝佩·格里洛领导的政党。 The relationship between markets and democracies is an uneasy one. Voters resent the idea that investors appear to have power over them—that a sell-off in the bond or currency markets can cause an economic crisis. 市场与民主政治之间是一种不融洽的关系。有一种观点认为，投资者的影响力好像要大于选民，以至于债券市场或外汇市场上的抛售行为能导致经济危机。对此，选民心里愤愤不平。 But the way to become independent of the markets is for the government to balance its budget and for the country to avoid a trade deficit. Achieving those goals usually involves imposing the very policies that the markets favour and the voters resent. 但是，对于政府来说，独立于市场的办法是平衡预算；对于国家来说，不受市场影响的办法是避免贸易赤字。为了到达上述目标，政府或国家需要推行一些政策，而这些政策往往正是受市场推崇而遭选民诅咒的政策。 That said, markets are fickle. For the first decade of the euro's existence they were relaxed about Greek public spending and the potential exposure of the Irish government to its banks. They have acted a bit like a bartender who keeps serving a guest drinks in a rural bar, and then takes away his car keys on the ground that he is not fit to drive home. 尽管如此，市场仍就是靠不住的。在欧元诞生以来的第一个十年中，市场对希腊的公共开支放任自流，对爱尔兰政府在银行业的可能敞口不加约束。这些所作所为有点像乡下酒馆中的酒保，他们一边给顾客不停地倒酒，一边又以酒后不宜开车为由，将顾客的车钥匙拿走。 Nor have investors been consistent in their recent budgetary conservatism. The prospect of America falling over the “fiscal cliff”, thereby triggering big spending cuts and tax hikes, alarmed them at the end of last year. 同时，投资者最近在预算问题上也没有坚持一贯的保守主义立场。在去年年底的时候，由于预期到美国跌落“财政悬崖”将引发大规模的开支消减和税赋提高，市场惶恐不安。 The degree of fiscal tightening that might follow the sequester, another round of spending cuts slated to take place on March 1st, is another concern. Like St Augustine, the markets want virtue, but not yet. 对于在3月1日开始实施的新一轮开支消减，即实施财产扣押财之后的财政紧缩力度，市场再度心神不宁。正如圣奥古斯汀所言：市场要的是美德，但不是现在。 The financial crisis has also highlighted the importance of a third party: central banks. After the stagflation of the 1970s, the trend in the 1980s and 1990s was for central banks to be given greater independence to set interest rates, along with an inflation target. 另外，金融危机还突显出第三方即央行的重要性。在经历了上世纪七十年代的滞涨后，到八、九十年代的时候，央行在制定基准利率和通胀目标方面享有更大的独立性成为了一种趋势。 The idea was that politicians could not be trusted with monetary policy, lest they use their power to boost their electoral chances. 这种理念认为，不能把货币政策交给毫无信誉的政客，以免他们利用手中的权力来提升当选的机会。 The implication was that technocrats were better at running economies than elected officials. That notion has resurfaced during the euro crisis with the temporary appointments of Lucas Papademos (a former central banker) and Mr Monti (a former EU commissioner) as prime ministers of Greece and Italy respectively. 这种理念隐含的意思就是：在管理经济方面，技术官僚要强于经选举产生的官员。随着卢卡斯·巴帕德莫斯（一位央行的前官员）和蒙蒂（一位欧盟委员会的前委员）分别被临时任命为希腊和意大利两国的总理，这种理念在欧元危机期间再视江湖。 Central banks have indeed proved enormously influential, first by providing liquidity to the commercial banks and then by using quantitative easing (QE) to buy government bonds, making it easier for countries to finance their deficits. 先是向商业银行提供流动性，然后又利用量化宽松政策（QE）购买政府债券，让国家可以更容易地为财政赤字进行融资，央行以此证明自己的影响力确实非同一般。 This has made their role politically controversial, with Republican leaders in Congress calling on the Federal Reserve to halt QE and with Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 presidential candidate, declaring that he would not reappoint Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman when his term expires next year. 不过，央行的这种角色也带来了政治上的争议，如美国国会的共和党领袖就呼吁美联储停止执行QE，2012年共和党总统候选人米特·罗姆尼也宣称，在本·伯南克的任期于明年到期后，他不会再次提名他为美联储主席。 The European Central Bank was perceived to have saved the day last year by promising to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, including buying government debt. Mario Draghi, the ECB's head, clearly saw the policy as a way of giving politicians breathing space to sort out their country's problems. Ironically, the sharp fall in Spanish and Italian bond yields since last summer has reduced the pressure on elected leaders to act. 由于在去年做出了包括购买政府债券在内的“尽一切可能”拯救欧元的承诺，欧洲央行成功地挽救了危局。欧洲央行行长马里奥·蒙蒂明显地是把这个政策当做是一种解决问题的方法，通过让政客们获得喘息空间来解决各自国家问题。具有讽刺意味的是，随着西班牙和意大利的国债收益率自去年夏天以来快速下跌，当选领导人采取行动的压力反而减轻了。 Spain has not applied for a bail-out (which would involve agreeing to an approved reform programme) and a majority of Italy's voters felt able to plump for anti-austerity parties this week. The contrast with the second Greek election of 2012, when an air of impending crisis prompted voters to support pro-bail-out parties, is striking. 从那以后，西班牙就一直没有申请救助（其内容涉及通过一项已经被批准的改革计划），而大多数的意大利选民也自以为能在本周的选举中投票支持反对紧缩的政党。当前的这种局势同希腊在2012年重新举行大选时的情况相比简直是天壤之别，当时那种危机迫在眉睫的氛围促使选民选择了支持救助的政党。 That is why some people think Italy's economic problems will only be resolved if the markets push up the country's borrowing costs, as they did in the immediate aftermath of the poll. “Things have to get worse before they get better,” says Richard McGuire of Rabobank, a Dutch bank. 有鉴于此，人们才提出这样一种看法：只要市场像民调刚刚发布之后那样将意大利的借债成本推高，该国的经济问题就能得到解决。荷兰拉波银行的理查德·麦奎尔称：“事情在变好之前需要先变得差一些。” Many argue that permanent improvement will come in Europe only if steps are taken towards a fiscal union, such as the issue of jointly-guaranteed debt. But such a solution drags you back to the difficulty of reconciling markets and voters. 多数人认为，只要欧洲迈出走向财政联盟的步子，如发行由各国联合担保的债券，危机就会迎来永久性的改观。但是，这样一种解决方案将人们又拖回到如何调和市场与选民的难题之上。 Voters in the creditor countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, show little sign of wanting to make such an explicit commitment to support their southern European neighbours. Even less evidence suggests that southern European voters are willing to allow the external control of their fiscal policies that such an arrangement would imply. 几乎没有迹象显示，德国和荷兰等债权国的选民愿意做出支持南欧兄弟的明确承诺。相比之下，南欧选民同意把他们的财政政策按照这样一种安排交给外人来控制的意愿更是少的可怜。 Political leaders may press ahead anyway. But if voters’ views were to be of little account in determining fiscal as well as monetary policy, democracy would start to look like a sham. 不管局势如何发展，政治领导人都会延续他们的政策。但是，如果选民的观点在制定财政和货币政策时不受重视的话，民主制度可能会越看越像是一场骗局。 【日积月累】 fickle adj.浮躁的 bartender n.酒吧侍者 tax hike 赋税增加 technocrat n.技术统治论者 plump for 选中 |
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