俄經濟如今已經得救還是死緩
Russia just saved its currency and its banks–or, more precisely, gave them a stay of execution.
No, it didn’t throw a hatful of hard currency at them. No, it didn’t say it would inject more capital into them (at least not till next year). What it did was to suspend (or, for the cynics, abandon) pretty much all the prudential standards that define whether or not they’re solvent. In layman’s terms, it’s letting them pretend–for an unspecified period of time–that they’ll be repaid by the companies that have their money.
俄羅斯既沒有向銀行系統投入大量硬通貨，也沒有許諾會注入更多資金（至少在明年之前不會），它所做的，只是放鬆了（在憤世嫉俗者看來，是放棄了）大部分用於判定是否具有償付能力的審慎標準。通俗點說，就是讓銀行無限期的假裝它們將收到借款公司的還款。Before we go any further, a lot of very respectable opinion says that relaxing prudential standards is exactly what you should do at a time of crisis, to stop the risks in a weak banking system from crystallizing all at once, and making things worse than they need to be. The case for doing so is all the stronger when you have good reason to think the crisis is likely to be short-lived, and that all you have is a liquidity crisis, rather than a solvency one. It’s an argument that the U.S. and Europe have been thrashing out ever since 2008.
在我們繼續深入討論之前，很多非常受人尊敬的觀點表示，放寬審慎標準恰恰是危機時期所應採取的行動，這可以避免風險在脆弱的銀行體系內驟然凸顯，從而使得情勢不必要的惡化。當你有理由相信危機可能只是暫時的，你所面對的只不過是流動性危機，而非償付危機時，就更有理由這麼做。這是美國和歐洲自2008年以來反覆討論得出的結論。
Russia thinks its crisis will be temporary, because it’s caused by an oil market that is currently overshooting in reaction to a supply shock and will, in time, return to a price level closer to the long-term average, one which will allow the economy to carry on as normal (albeit with a bit of belt-tightening). Hence the current liquidity squeeze on banks from panicked customers is just something that has to be ridden out. It’ll all be alright in the end.
俄羅斯認爲，其危機只是暫時的，是由於石油市場面對供給衝擊反應過度所造成的，而油價終究會迴歸長期均衡的水平，使得俄羅斯經濟得以恢復正常（雖然需要稍微緊縮開支）。因此，當前因客戶恐慌造成的銀行流動性短缺必須被克服，最終一切將安然無恙。In this spirit, banks will no longer have to mark their bond portfolios to market prices. They can pretend their holdings are worth 100 cents on the dollar, rather than the 20 cents they’d get if forced to liquidate today. They’ll be able to book foreign currency loans at exchange rates that are three months out of date. Both measures reduce the amount of (ruble-denominated) capital that they have to hold to meet legal norms.
本着這種精神，俄羅斯銀行再也不用按市場價格對其債券投資組合進行計價。它們可以假裝自己所持有的頭寸一美元仍然價值100美分，儘管事實上，如果現在它們被迫清償，其持有的頭寸一美元僅能作價20美分。銀行還能夠按照三個月前的匯率記錄外幣貸款。這兩項措施降低了銀行爲滿足法定標準必須持有的（盧布標價）資金額。It gets better. You can now transfer all of your foreign currency-denominated credit risk to the Central Bank, which will now accept FX claims on companies as collateral for loans in dollars. In other words, let the CBR worry about getting the money out of a Cyprus-based trading affiliate in the bankruptcy proceedings if the worst comes to the worst. Strictly speaking, the credit risk is not directly transferred as it would be under an outright sale, but the effect is much the same: you get the cash today, and we’ll worry about the loan quality another day.
更棒的是，現在你還可以將所有外幣標價的信用風險轉嫁給俄羅斯中央銀行，央行現在將接受外匯債券作爲企業美元貸款的抵押。換言之，如果情況糟糕到極點，怎麼從正在破產程序中的某塞浦路斯貿易分公司拿到錢這種事，就讓俄羅斯央行來擔心吧。嚴格來說，信用風險不能像賣斷那樣直接轉移，但影響卻大致相同：你先得到現金，日後我們再來擔心貸款質量。Banks will also be allowed to offer higher rates on deposits to encourage people to keep their money in the system. That breaks with the previous logic that banned super-elevated deposit rates because they’re normally the last resort of a bank that’s going under.
銀行也獲准提高存款利率，以鼓勵人們將資金留在銀行系統。這打破了之前的邏輯，即禁止超高存款利率，因爲其通常是即將破產的銀行壓箱底的最後一招。But the pièce de résistance here is the very distillation of what debt crisis junkies call “Extend and Pretend.” Even if you have to restructure your loans, delaying repayment, changing their currency and cutting the interest rate, you still won’t have to change the risk-weighting you give to that loan (so you still won’t have to hold more capital against it).
但是，這裏的重點是債務危機迷們所說的“貸款延期、假裝沒事”（Extend and Pretend）的精髓。即使你不得不重組貸款、推遲還款、改變幣種並降低利率，你依然無需改變你給予此項貸款的風險權重（因此，你仍然無需爲這些貸款預備更多資金）。This gives state-backed companies (whose local-currency debts largely carry a zero risk-weighting under Basel III rules) carte blanche to default to domestic banks, because the lenders will be able to pretend nothing has happened (as regards holding capital against the loans). Loss recognition, be damned! President Vladimir Putin has often talked of his country’s pivot to China – here it is in glorious action.
這使得俄羅斯國家支持的企業（按照巴塞爾協定III的規則，這些企業的本幣債務風險權重大都爲零）能隨心所欲的對國內銀行違約，因爲（就針對貸款的準備金而言），貸款機構將能假裝什麼事都沒有發生。Another provision has much the same effect, suspending risk-weightings on loans to companies affected by sanctions. Heck, even if you do have to recognize a loss on a loan, the CBR will now give you two years, rather than one, to provision against it.
另一項規定的效果大致相同，暫停受制裁影響企業的風險權重。即使你不得不承認貸款發生損失，俄羅斯央行現在將給你兩年，而非一年的時間爲貸款進行撥備。As noted, this can all make a degree of sense on one basic assumption: the crisis is temporary, and your clients will actually stay in Russia and work out their problems honestly.
如上所述，這些都在一定程度上有道理，但必須基於一個基本假設，即危機是暫時的，而且你的客戶都將留在俄羅斯，真正解決他們的問題。
