法国新政可能自毁长城

    欧盟拒绝与美国合作，协调统一银行架构问题，事实上已经否决了《沃克尔法则》。这或许是因为欧盟想对该法则进行微调，又或许是希望进行彻底的改变，推动商业银行与投资银行业务完全分拆。无论如何，法国银行都会遭受打击。花旗（Citibank）的一项分析显示，实施《沃克尔法则》式的法规可能造成法国银行业损失共5亿欧元利润；如果按《格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案》进行业务分拆，这些银行将损失共15亿欧元的潜在利润。业务分拆将对法国大银行在华尔街的地位构成深远影响。没了巴黎的大船，不清楚它们能否延续在纽约和伦敦的交易业务。

    眼下，法国银行进行这类分拆并不是时候，目前它们仍持有几十亿欧元的坏账，涵盖了从希腊的信用卡债务到西班牙的按揭贷款等不同种类。银行业务结构的改变将暴露资产负债表中的巨大漏洞，可能导致市场反应过激，像一群饥饿的食人鱼一样将它们撕成碎片。

    法国现在是社会党的天下。他们已经决定提高税收来填补法国预算缺口。但明年，光靠加税已经不能满足需要。在经济衰退周期早期，强迫银行分拆可能弊大于利。大银行危机隐现可能会迫使法国政府出手干预，以免人心惶惶，为此法国政府可能需要付出更高的代价。未来几个星期，评级公司非常关键，所有的评级公司现在都不约而同地给予法了国前景负面评级，同时密切关注事态发展。如果法国政府因赤字预算持续而延长还款时间表，法国主权债务评级遭显著下调就将是情理之中的事，它将使法国成为欧洲金融危机的下一个主要受害国。

    译者：早稻米

    The European Union has already rejected the Volcker rule when it refused to work with the US in harmonizing banking structures. It could be that they wanted to either tweak the rule or totally change things up and go for a complete split of commercial and investment banking. Either way, French banks will take a pummeling. Implementing a Volcker-like rule could wipe a collective 500 million euros in profits for French banks, according to an analysis by Citibank, which also said that a Glass-Stegall-like split could cost the banks 1.5 billion euros in potential profit. A split would have a profound impact on the French megabank's sizable presence on Wall Street. It is unclear if their trading operations in New York and in London can survive without the mothership back in Paris.

    This kind of split would come at a bad time for the French banks as they are still carrying billions of euros of bad loans, ranging from Greek credit card debt to Spanish mortgages. Changes to their structure could reveal massive holes in their balance sheet, which could in turn cause the market to potentially overact and chew them apart like a school of hungry piranhas.

    It is now game time for the Socialist Party. The decision has been made to raise taxes to fill the hole in their national budget. But next year, taxes won't suffice. Forcing banks to break up this early in the recessionary cycle will probably cause more trouble than it's worth. Signs of weakness at a megabank will force France to intervene to stave off a panic, which would probably cost the government more money. The next few weeks will be critical with all the credit rating agencies, which all have a negative outlook on France, watching the situation intently. If the government eases its debt shedding timeline to accommodate further empty spending, then it wouldn't be surprising to see a major downgrade in French sovereign debt, setting the country up to become the next major victim of the European financial crisis.