Europe in limbo;Home anddry 迷途的欧洲;安然无恙?岌岌可危! Europe s weaker economies are in the grip of aworsening credit crunch; 欧洲经济本已弱风扶柳,怎奈又陷入愈演愈烈的信贷危机; The joke recounted by the boss of a large Italianbank is an old one, but it captures the moment.Two hikers are picnicking when a bear appears.When one laces up his boots to run, his friend scoffsthat he can t outrun a bear. The shod hiker retorts that it is not the bear he needs to outrun,merely his fellow hiker. We re sitting at the picnic with our boots still on, says the bankboss. 一家意大利大银行老板讲了一个笑话,虽然笑话老掉牙了,但是正切合现在的状况。两名背包客正在享受野餐,一只熊出现了。其中一个立刻穿上靴子准备逃命,他的朋友却嘲笑他不可能跑得过熊。前者却反驳道,他不用跑得过熊,只要跑得过他的同伴就够了。这个银行老板说:我们现在就是穿着鞋子野餐。 As policymakers and pundits try to work out the effects of a Greek exit, banks and investorshave already been taking precautions. One course of action has been to pull money out ofmore fragile markets. Never mind the weakest economies like Greece, Ireland and Portugal;Spain and Italy have also lost foreign bank deposits of about 45 billion Euroand 100 billion Euro respectively from their peaks. Add in things like sales of governmentbonds by foreigners , and capital flight is probably equal to about 10% of GDP inthose countries, say Citigroup analysts. Such outflows are hard to stop. |