How to avoid the doom loop? The eurozone could easily fall into a self-reinforcing cycle of bank and government debt default. Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund has a solution: more bank capital. There is a better way.
如何避免灾难循环？欧元区很可能会陷入一个自我强化的银行、政府债务违约循环。国际货币基金组织(IMF)总裁克里斯蒂娜•拉加德(Christine Lagarde)给出的解决办法是增加银行资本金。这里有一个更好的办法。
The cycle could start if sovereign debt worries cut off the supply of bank funding (the money needed to support operations). Morgan Stanley calculates that European banks need €80bn before the end of the year. That is not even 1 per cent of the outstanding sovereign debt in the European Union, but a shortfall could start a downward spiral of bank failures – if neither governments nor the European Central Bank were willing to replace fearful private investors.
如果对主权债务的担忧切断了银行的资金（支撑其运营所必需的资金）供应，就会启动这个循环。据摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)估算，欧洲银行业今年年底前需要800亿欧元。这个数字连欧盟国家未偿主权债务的1%都不到，但资金缺口却可能开启银行破产的恶性循环——假如欧洲各国政府和欧洲央行(ECB)都不愿替代恐慌的私人部门投资者的话。