怎么从欧洲赚到钱

    美国前国务卿亨利•基辛格有句名言：“如果我想给欧洲打电话，该打给谁？”当然，据自称知情的人讲，基辛格可能并没有这样说过。

    这句话指的是一个处于无组织状态的欧洲。几十年后，欧盟有了27个成员国。欧元区这个货币俱乐部——“联盟”一词在这里显得言过其实——也有了统一的货币，单一的央行以及17种不同的经济政策。或者说，不是17种不同的经济政策，而是17个不同的国家，每个国家内部都在争论应该执行什么样的经济政策，更不用说这17个国家坐在一起时会出现什么样的情形了。

    欧元区的历史表明，不会有什么令人惊讶的变化能在突然之间让所有成员国的政策协调一致。它需要所有国家都愿意做出牺牲，而这个货币“联盟”——这是欧元区一直坚持的自我称谓——则长期处于自说自话、相互指责的状态：富国（比如德国）认为是穷国一贯铺张浪费是造成经济走势低迷的原因，穷国则将富国（还是德国）称为小气鬼。

    对欧元区政策的争议一直是改善经济的主要障碍，欧元区成员国也一直无法达成共识。更严重的是，许多成员国都觉得自己受到了那些较富裕国家的不公正对待。

    这样的僵局所产生的一个不利结果就是无法有效应对通胀或通缩——二者都时不时地作势要突破欧洲央行设定的目标水平。

    总的来说，欧元区的经济政策处于瘫痪状态。欧元区就像一只受伤的羔羊，只有健康的新鲜血液自由流动到伤口才能让它痊愈。但由于目前政策面僵持不下，绝不会出现这样的情况。以德国为首的核心国家恢复健康前，那些“外围国家”，也就是可能更需要援助、而且经济实力较差的成员国将无法摆脱困境。欧元区的产值已经连续六个季度出现滑坡，欧洲央行和国际货币基金组织（IMF）均下调了对欧元区经济的预测值。但新的预期也许还不够悲观，也就是说，欧元区经济可能会长期陷入低迷。

    失业水平依然会维持高得惊人的水平，这真的非常有可能造就“失去的一代”。由于信贷不再唾手可得，房地产行业崩盘，建筑和非技术性体力劳动领域那些很容易上手的工作随之消失（还记得“波兰水管工”这个词吗，它是指欧盟颁布《内部市场服务业指令》后来自中欧的廉价劳动力）。执行紧缩政策造成政府工作岗位急剧减少，配额、语言障碍和文化差异则影响了劳动力的跨国流动，而且语言障碍和文化差异真的会带来问题。举例来说，长期以来，积极进行培训一直是德国的文化传统。如果来自其他国家的劳动者没有在这样的环境中成长过，他们在这样一个培训系统中的表现就不会很出色，尽管这个体系在德国一直是如此的成功。来自其他文化的年轻人觉得技术型体力劳动受到了轻视，实际情况已经证明这是移民就业的一个主要障碍。

    需要迫切急需指出的是，长期而言，大量待业青年还会成为重大社会骚乱的原因。这种不满情绪曾引发阿拉伯之春和西班牙的“愤怒者”运动（人们将其视为“占领华尔街”运动的导火索），而今又在伊斯坦布尔掀起波澜，它很容易让年轻人对上一代的失误感到愤怒。

    高负债和赤字也将继续存在下去，信贷匮乏将在今后很长一段时间内阻碍中小企业的发展。由于初创型中小企业提供了大多数新增就业岗位，目前这个下行经济周期在创造就业机会和组建企业方面的表现看来将会延续下去。

    Kissinger famously said -- or maybe didn't say, according to people who claim to know -- "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?"

    The comment referred to the disorganized entity known as Europe. Decades later, the EU has 27 members, while the currency club -- "union" would be too strong a word -- known as the Eurozone has 17 members with a common currency, a single central bank… and seventeen different economic policies. That's not seventeen different economic policies -- it's 17 different nations, each of which is internally arguing over what their economic policy should be, to say nothing of what happens when all seventeen sit down together at the same table.

    The Eurozone history indicates there will not be any startling changes that will all of a sudden harmonize policy across the membership. That would require a common willingness to make sacrifices, and the monetary "union," as it insists on calling itself, remains beset by multi-lingual finger-pointing where the rich nations (read: Germany) blame economic weakness on the profligate habits of poorer nations; meanwhile the poor nations blame the rich (again, Germany) for being stingy.

    The Eurozone policy debate remains a major stumbling block to making any economic progress. The inability of the members to reach consensus continues to drag on, all the more so when many members feel badly handled by their more flush fellows.

    One negative outcome of this logjam has been an inability to effectively confront inflation -- or deflation -- both of which periodically threaten to break through ECB target levels.

    And in general, economic policy is sclerotic. Like a wounded limb, the Eurozone will only heal when healthy fresh blood pumps freely through the affected parts, and under the present political stalemate, that is simply not happening. The "periphery" -- the weaker economies more likely to need bailouts -- can not heal before the core economies, principally Germany. Eurozone output has declined for 6 consecutive quarters, and the ECB and the IMF have both revised their outlook downward. But these new forecasts may not be pessimistic enough, in which case the Eurozone's GDP could remain weak for a protracted period.

    Unemployment should remain staggeringly high, with the very real risk of a "lost generation." The easy jobs in construction and unskilled manual labor (remember the "Polish plumber"?) vanished with the evaporation of easy credit and the real estate implosion. Administrative jobs have been drastically reduced through austerity, and cross-border labor migration suffers from quotas, and linguistic barriers and cultural difference that can pose real problems. Germany, for example, has a longstanding cultural tradition of robust training in the trades. Workers from other countries who were not raised in this environment don't do well in the apprenticeship system that has been so successful in Germany. The disdain for skilled manual labor felt by youths from other cultures has proven to be a stumbling block to employment immigration.

    We hasten to point out that large numbers of unemployed young people also becomes a recipe for major social unrest in the longer term. The discontent that sparked such movements as the Arab Spring, Spain's "Indignados" (credited as the impetus for Occupy Wall Street) -- and that is now bubbling over in Istanbul -- can easily provide the spark for a generation sullen over the failures of their elders.

    High debt levels and deficits will persist, and the lack of availability of credit will hamper small and mid-sized business growth for a very long time to come. Since most new jobs are created by start-up small and mid-sized businesses, the employment and business formation end of this dreary cycle looks set to continue.