As I prepare to step down from Pimco at the end of March, emerging markets are once again in the news for all the wrong reasons. In Argentina the currency has collapsed, Thailand and Ukraine are riven with political conflict, and Turkey is shaky.
当我准备在今年3月底从太平洋投资管理公司(Pimco)卸任时，新兴市场再次成为新闻焦点，但原因却令人尴尬。阿根廷汇率大跌，泰国和乌克兰充斥着政治冲突，土耳其正摇摇欲坠。
These developments are reminiscent of the turmoil in January 1998 when I first moved to the private financial sector after 15 years at the International Monetary Fund. Then, Thailand was reeling, South Korea was on the ropes, and both Russia and Argentina were on their way to sovereign defaults.
这些动态让人想起1998年1月的动荡，当时的我在国际货币基金组织(IMF)供职15年之后，刚刚投身于私营金融业。当时，泰国正步履蹒跚，韩国岌岌可危，俄罗斯和阿根廷都即将陷入主权违约。
A recurrence of the blues in emerging markets is not what conventional wisdom expected just a short while ago. For years experts had argued that these once-ailing economies had grown strong. Bank balance sheets had been strengthened. International reserves were much larger and government debt lower. Institutions were no longer financing themselves by issuing lots of short term debt that had to be repeatedly refinanced. Governments had enacted sensible reforms. Even in the harsh winds of the 2008 crisis, the emerging world did not catch a dreadful cold.
新兴市场正再次布满阴云，不久之前人们普遍没有预料到这一点。多年来，专家们一直辩称，这些曾境况不佳的经济体已变得强大起来。银行资产负债表得以巩固。国际储备规模扩大很多，政府债务有所减少。机构不再通过发行大量短期债券为自己融资，而这些短期债券必须不断再融资。政府施行了明智的改革。即便在2008年危机的刺骨寒风之中，新兴市场也没有患上重感冒。
Excessive enthusiasm for emerging markets is far from the only intellectual fashion that I have seen come and go during the past 16 years. Another was the view that western central banks possessed all the tools necessary to secure a great economic and financial moderation; one that guarantees sustained growth, jobs and price stability. But it is in characterising the role of banks in a modern market economy that commentators have been at their most faddish.
过去16年里，我看到了一些忽来忽去的流行观点，对新兴市场的过分热情远非其中唯一。另一个流行观点是，西方央行拥有实现经济和金融大调整所必要的所有工具；这会保证长期增长、就业和物价稳定。但评论人士中最热衷的是描述银行业在现代市场经济中的作用。