希腊“有序违约”，后果吉凶难测

    但对于希腊，经济界人士认为，救助计划所要求的财政紧缩措施将会拉低其经济增长速度，削弱该国在未来多年内的竞争力。另外，工业化国家实行有序违约没有先例，这也是欧元区事态令投资者感到担忧的原因之一。

    “人们曾认为，工业化国家的债务是安全的。这种观点是债券市场的主要支柱之一，”彼得森国际经济研究所（Peterson Institute for International Economics）的雅各布•柯克加德说。“但现在市场开始怀疑，如果希腊国债存在风险，那么其他工业化国家的国债也可能会面临同样的问题。”

祈祷软着陆

    人们希望，如果欧债危机恶化，将催生更大规模的救助资金，比如大幅扩大欧洲金融稳定基金（the European Financial Stability Facility）。意大利是欧元区最大的债务人之一，其沉重的债务令欧洲银行的健康状况受到质疑，因为这些银行购买了大量的意大利国债。现在的问题在于，欧洲的紧急救助资金远远不够，仅能支持希腊、葡萄牙和爱尔兰这样的小国。

    金融家兼商人乔治•索罗斯说，欧债危机曝露了欧元的一个明显弱点，也就是在欧元的结构中缺乏一个共同的金库。虽然欧洲金融稳定基金的任务就是为整个欧元区提供安全保障，但它却只能筹集资金；至于这笔钱如何使用，则是成员国政府说了算。

    “这使得欧洲金融稳定基金在应对危机方面毫无用处。它必须等待成员国发号施令，”索罗斯本月早些时候在《纽约书评》（The New York Review of Books）上撰文称。

    毫无疑问，欧元区领导人确实在某种程度上扩大了欧洲金融稳定基金，但在7月份举行的峰会上，他们拒绝了更大胆的扩充方案。大规模扩大欧洲金融稳定基金将有助于使全球市场相信，该基金有能力应对任何问题——甚至是意大利的债务。但包括法国和德国在内的几个关键国家反对扩大该基金。这是可以理解的，因为如果向陷入困境的欧洲国家注入更多资金，某些国家的财政状况就会吃紧，而面临着选民不满情绪的国家则可能出现政治动荡。

    然而，国际国币基金组织（International Monetary Fund）向欧元区领导人强调，大规模扩大欧洲金融稳定基金势在必行。虽然目前还不知道国际货币基金组织的言论会有多大影响力，但该组织或许会在解决欧债危机方面分担部分融资压力，而这种可能性会为大规模扩大欧洲金融稳定基金争取到更多的支持。

    无论是有序还是无序违约，都无法安抚市场。但扩大欧洲金融稳定基金却有可能让焦虑不安的投资者平静下来。

    译者：千牛絮

    But for Greece, economists believe austerity measures attached to its rescue package will slow economic growth and weaken the country's competitiveness for years to come. What's more, orderly defaults in industrialized nations are essentially unprecedented, which partly explains why investors are so spooked by what's happening in the eurozone.

    "One of the founding pillars is this concept that the debt of industrialized countries is risk free," says Jacob Funk Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Markets are asking if it turns out there's risk in Greece maybe there are other countries in the industrialized world that face the same issues."

Hope for a soft landing

    One of the big hopes, if the eurozone's debt crisis worsens, is that it would force a larger rescue fund, such as dramatic expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility. Italy is one of the eurozone's biggest debtors and its heavy debts have raised questions about the health of European banks, which have bought bundles of Italian bonds. The problem is that Europe's emergency bailout resources are far from enough to support anything more than smaller countries such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

    One of the glaring weaknesses that the debt crisis has exposed is the lack of a common treasury in the construction of the euro, financier and businessman George Soros has said. While the EFSF is tasked with providing a safety net for the eurozone as a whole, the fund merely has the ability to raise money, leaving governments of member countries with authority over how to spend it.

    "This renders the EFSF useless in responding to a crisis; it has to await instruction from the member countries," Soros wrote earlier this month in The New York Review of Books.

    To be sure, eurozone leaders did widen the EFSF some but refused other bigger expansions during a summit in July. Committing much more money would likely have helped convince global markets that the fund is big enough to can handle just about anything -- even Italy. Several key governments, including France and Berlin, oppose strengthening the fund. And understandably so, since agreeing to pledging ever-growing sums of money to weak European states could strain the finances of some governments while causing political havoc for those dealing with disgruntled voters.

    Nevertheless, the International Monetary Fund has urged eurozone leaders that a much bigger fund is needed. It remains to be seen how much influence the global lender has, but perhaps the possibility that the organization might share some of the financial burden in resolving the crisis could bring more support for a much grander EFSF.

    A default -- however orderly or disorderly -- hasn't been able to calm markets. Spooked investors might likely find calm in an expanded EFSF.