乌云笼罩意大利

    眼下的欧洲一片混乱，很难搞明白应该重点关注哪儿。周日希腊公布的议会选举初步统计结果显示，希腊选民给予支持救助方案的新民主党（New Democracy）略微多数支持。上上周，西班牙10年期国债收益率创下了7%的欧元区纪录，这样岌岌可危的收益率水平曾迫使希腊、葡萄牙和爱尔兰寻求代价高昂且颜面尽失的主权救助。但在所有这些乱象中，欧洲最大的问题可能是意大利。这个国家实在是大到救不了。

    如果想避免意大利金融和银行危机的全面爆发，欧盟领导人最终必须认真对待如何建立一个真正的财政和政治联盟。与此同时，意大利人也必须拿出态度，认真对待疲弱的国内经济和分裂的政治体系。如果双方不迅速作出回应，债券民团将就此施压，可能令欧元陷入混乱，并将欧洲推入更深的经济衰退。

    上上周末，在马德里宣布的1,000亿欧元西班牙银行救助方案本应安抚市场，降低整个欧洲的利率。但这个糟糕的计划并没有糊弄过市场——西班牙和其他欧元区国家的借贷利率并没有出现下跌，而是继续走高。

    如今人们越来越担心，由马里奥•蒙蒂领导的、未经选举产生的技术官僚政府可能不会以足够快的速度来实施经济改革，帮助支离破碎的经济回复正轨。还有人担心，一旦蒙蒂将政府控制权交回意大利腐败的政治党派，蒙蒂推行的积极改革可能会被逆转，这一幕最早会在明年春季出现。

    这些天，意大利人的日子显然不好过。首先，令人失望的经济数据显示，今年一季度意大利经济萎缩0.8%，连续第三个季度负增长。上周晚些时候，意大利财政部（Italian Treasury）不得不为1年期主权债券支付高达4%的收益率来吸引投资者，大大高于上个月的2.3%。与此同时，公开市场上的意大利10年期国债收益率涨至6.2%，远高于3月份的仅4.8%。日前，直言快语的奥地利财政部长玛丽亚•费科特的一句话震惊了市场，她说意大利可能需要救助。这造成意大利国债收益率再次飙升，投资者要求获得5.3%的收益率来购买意大利3年期国债，大大高于上个月3.9%的收益率。

    意大利国债收益率的跃升，部分与西班牙危机相关，但主要还是因为担心意大利自己的问题。意大利的债务/GDP比率已达到 123%（而且还在攀升），债务总额正在快速逼近2万亿欧元，意大利确实有些麻烦了。

    投资者正在要求更高的收益率，因为如果意大利出现问题，欧洲救助基金根本没办法相助。欧洲金融稳定基金（EFSF）和欧洲稳定机制（ESM）手头所有的资金加起来仅及意大利债务总额的一半，而且这还没有考虑两项救助基金已经对爱尔兰、希腊、葡萄牙以及将来可能将拯救的西班牙做出的承诺。

    There is so much turmoil in Europe right now, it's hard to know where to focus. It looks like Greek voters have given the pro-bailout New Democracy party a slim lead according to early returns on Sunday, while Spanish 10-year bond yields hit a euro record high of 7% last week, an ominous level that prompted Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek costly and humiliating sovereign bailouts. But amid all of this, Europe's biggest problem may actually be Italy. The country is simply too big to bail.

    European Union leaders must finally get serious about creating a true fiscal and political union if they want to head off an all-out Italian financial and banking crisis. At the same time, the Italians need to do their part by showing the market that they are serious about growing and modernizing the country's anemic economy and fractured political system. Without a quicker response from both sides, the bond vigilantes will end up forcing the issue, which could bring a chaotic end to the euro and plunge the continent into an even deeper recession.

    The 100 billion euro Spanish banking bailout announced in Madrid last weekend was supposed to bring calm to the markets and help lower borrowing rates across the continent. But the poorly constructed plan did not fool the markets – borrowing rates in Spain and in other eurozone countries went up instead of down.

    Now there is growing concern that the unelected technocrat government in Italy led by Mario Monti isn't moving fast enough to implement economic reforms that would help put that cracked economy back together again. There is also concern that any positive reforms Monti ends up making will simply be reversed once he returns control of the government back to Italy's notoriously corrupt political parties, which could occur as early as the spring of next year.

    It has certainly been a tough week for Italy. First there was the gloomy economic data release showing that Italy's economy shrank 0.8% in the first quarter of the year, marking the third consecutive quarter of negative growth for Italy. Later in the week, the Italian Treasury watched in horror as it had to pay a whopping 4% yield on its one-year sovereign bonds to attract investors, up from 2.3% last month. At the same time, Italian 10-year bond rates rose to 6.2% on the open market, up from just 4.8% in March. Then yesterday, Maria Fekter, the outspoken Austrian finance minister, shocked the markets when she said that Italy may be in need of a bailout. This caused Italian yields to shoot up again with investors demanding a high 5.3% yield to buy Italian 3-year bonds, up sharply from the 3.9% they garnered just last month.

    The jumps in yields were partially related to the troubles going on in Spain, but the bulk of the concern was centered squarely on Italy's own internal problems. With a debt-to GDP ratio of 123% (and rising) and a total debt load quickly approaching two trillion euros, Italy is in some serious trouble.

    Investors are demanding the extra yield because if Italy experiences problems there is no way the European bailout fund can come to its rescue. Both the EFSF and ESA have a combined firepower that is half that of Italy's total debt load – and that's before counting bailout commitments already made to Ireland, Greece, Portugal and a possible future bailout of Spain.