“僵尸银行”成欧洲最新经济刺激行动中的定时炸弹

    欧洲央行（European Central Bank）的经济复苏火力瞄错了方向。

    上周，欧洲央行发布了一系列经济刺激政策，旨在诱使银行将更多的现金运作起来。但意图“迫使”银行放贷的政策就算能奏效，也很罕见，特别是在这些银行缺乏偿付能力的情况下。欧洲需要认真对待所谓的“僵尸银行”问题，同时承受因为疏通贷款机器而带来的冲击。在这个问题上抹更多的润滑油不会让这些齿轮松快起来，反而更有可能因润滑油泛滥引发火灾。

    欧洲央行行长马里奥•德拉吉两年前就曾信誓旦旦地表示，他将“采取一些手段”来拯救欧元。这项声明掷地有声，有效终结了危及欧元区主权债市场的两年信心危机。一夜之间，主权债收益率下跌，投资者和银行都涌向这一市场。

    德拉吉的的确确做到了他承诺的事情。他的做法基本上是只要当地银行（主要是西班牙和意大利银行）能将相关资金用于购买主权债，欧洲央行就能为这些银行免费提供现金。实际上，德拉吉将这些银行作为渠道以稳定欧元区债券市场。

    两年过去了，欧元仍屹立不倒。不幸的是，欧元区经济仍一团糟。鉴于欧元得到拯救并保持稳定，现在德拉吉把他的目光投向如何提升欧元区乏力的经济增长。

    必须申明的一点是，通缩并不是疾病本身，它只是一个症状。目标是刺激经济，而不是对抗通缩。

    德拉吉正准备再次利用这些银行作为渠道实现他的目标。但不是迫使银行购买、持有劣质主权债，他将迫使它们向私营企业放贷。

    他会通过两种方式来达到这个目的。第一种方式已获得媒体非常非常多的关注，是对银行向欧洲央行缴存的超额准备金收取费用，这也就是“负”存款利率的含义。德拉吉希望通过这么做，银行能将它们通常缴存在欧洲央行的全部超额现金取出来，贷给企业。但这么做的前提是假定企业难以获得贷款（几乎没有证据证明这一点），而且这些银行为避免产生费用，不会将超额准备金从欧洲央行取出后转而放进自己的金库。

    这项政策并不像一些人认为的那样没有先例。实际上，丹麦几年前在尝试刺激经济增长的时候就曾经这么干过。这个国家最近在4月份推翻了这项政策，因为它不起作用。成本仍然高得离谱，在哥本哈根买一瓶水要3美元或4美元。丹麦出口仍然没有机会。

    而对于欧洲央行上周四宣布的第二种更麻烦的方式，鲜有人讨论。欧洲央行将尝试把它借给这些银行的免费资金以及类似资金与这些银行放贷给公众的金额挂钩。这些银行放贷数额越多，它们从欧洲央行获得的现金就越多。

    但通过对这些钱设定条件，欧洲央行实际上可以拒绝这些银行急需的资本。这些所谓的“僵尸”银行在金融危机和主权债务危机中损失了大量的钱，如今随着它们从欧洲央行获得贷款支持，它们又活了过来。

    这个新政策的风险在于，它可能打破平衡，按放贷能力将系统中的弱势银行暴露在风险之中。无论什么原因，不进行放贷的那些银行被视为“僵尸”。投资者最终将惊恐地逃离这些银行，加剧这些半死不活的银行存在的资本短缺问题。

    因此，德拉吉在制订这项政策时认定，欧元区银行手头有充足的资本，能满足欧元区银行10%的最低资本金要求；能继续购买主权债以支撑欧元；能弥补仍然困扰着欧洲的各种投资泡沫破裂所产生的损失；有足够的资本进行放贷以“刺激”经济增长；能赚取足够的利润使之值得尝试。

    The European Central Bank has pointed its economic bazooka in the wrong direction.

    The ECB announced a series of economic stimulus measures on Thursday designed to induce banks to put more of their cash to work. But policies intended to “force” banks to lend rarely, if ever, work, especially if those banks are barely solvent. Europe needs to get real about its so-called “zombie bank” problem and take the hits needed to unclog its lending machine. Throwing more grease on the problem won’t loosen up the gears — it’s probably more likely to start a grease fire.

    Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, famously promised two years ago that he’d do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. That statement was so powerful it effectively ended a two-year crisis of confidence that had infected the eurozone sovereign debt market. Overnight, sovereign bond yields fell as investors and banks poured back into the market.

    Draghi did exactly what he set out to do. He did this by basically making it free for local banks to borrow cash from the central bank–provided that the banks, mostly those in Spain and Italy, use those funds to buy up sovereign debt. In effect, Draghi used the banks as a pass-through vehicle to stabilize the eurozone debt market.

    Two years on, the euro is still standing. Unfortunately, the eurozone economy remains down in the dumps. With the euro saved and stable, Draghi has now set his sights on boosting the zone’s anemic economic growth rate.

    For the record, deflation isn’t the disease here–it’s just a symptom. The goal is to stimulate the economy, not to fight deflation.

    Draghi is attempting to do this by once again using the banks as a pass-through to achieve his goals. But instead of forcing the banks to buy and hold dodgy sovereign bonds, he will now force them to lend to the private sector.

    He is doing this in two ways. The first, which has received way too much attention in the media, is to charge the banks a fee to park their excess reserves with the central bank. That’s what’s meant by a “negative” deposit rate. By doing this, Draghi hopes that the banks would take all their excess cash that they normally park at the central bank and lend it out to businesses. But this assumes that businesses are having a hard time getting loans (for which there is little evidence) and that the banks won’t just take their reserves out of the ECB and put them in their vaults to avoid a fee.

    This policy isn’t as unprecedented as some believe. Indeed, Denmark did it a couple years ago in an attempt to stimulate growth. It recently reversed that policy in April because it didn’t work. It still costs something ridiculous like $3 or $4 to buy a bottle of water in Copenhagen. Danish exports still don’t have a chance.

    Few are talking about the second, more troubling measure announced by the ECB on Thursday. The central bank will attempt to link proportionally all the free money the ECB has been lending to the banks, plus some more with a new acronym, to how much the banks lend out to the public. The more money banks lend, the more cash they get from the ECB.

    But by placing conditions on that money, the ECB could effectively deny much-needed capital to banks in need. These so-called “zombie” banks are the ones that lost tons of money during the financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis and are alive today because of the lending life support they have received from the ECB.

    This new policy risks upsetting that balance and would expose the weak banks in the system based on lending capacity. Those banks that, for whatever reason, aren’t lending could be identified as zombies. Investors could then end up running away from these banks in horror, exacerbating the capital shortfall at these half-dead banks.

    So in instituting this policy, Draghi is betting that eurozone banks are now strong enough to keep an adequate amount of capital on hand to meet the required 10% eurozone bank capital minimum; continue buying sovereign bonds to prop up the euro; cover the losses associated with the various busted investing bubbles still haunting the continent; lend out just enough capital to “stimulate” growth; and make enough profit to make it all worthwhile.