欧洲银行状况良好

    2011年7月，一家银行通过了欧洲银行管理局（European Banking Authority）的压力测试，于是发布了一份新闻稿，以示庆贺，标题是《2011年欧盟压力测试结果：德克夏银行（Dexia）无需补充资本金》（2011 EU-wide Stress Test Results: No Need for Dexia to Raise Additional Capital）。三个月后，这家总部位于布鲁塞尔的银行濒于倒闭，只能请求政府救助。

    这就是2011年夏天的压力测试：它不太像一场真正的测试，更像一场声势浩大的走过场。批评人士抨击欧洲银行管理局给德克夏银行和其他银行出具了健康证明，虽然即便是最宽松的会计标准都显示事实正好相反。这自然让投资者想起了一年前的欧洲银行业压力测试，当时也有很多银行通过了测试，包括后来很快就陷入了极度困境的爱尔兰银行（Bank of Ireland）和爱尔兰联合银行（Allied Irish Banks）。

The banks are healthy

    In July, one of the banks passing the European Banking Authority's stress tests sent out a press release cheering the results. "2011 EU-wide Stress Test Results: No Need for Dexia to Raise Additional Capital," it read. Three months later, the Brussels-based bank required a government bailout to avoid collapse.

    So was the story of the summer's stress tests: they seemed less a true test than a giant charade. Critics jumped on the EBA for giving Drexia and others a clean bill of health for 2011 when anything but the most generous kind of accounting showed the opposite. No doubt investors were reminded of the European stress tests just a year prior, when a group of banks who passed stress tests, including Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks, soon floundered.