2014
年
TE
旧文
VLADIMIR PUTIN has successfully suppressed dissent, squeezed outopposition and clamped down on the media, but he has not been able to controlglobal financial markets. In recent days the rouble has collapsed; it has lostalmost 40% of its value over three weeks. This is the biggest crisis of MrPutin's reign—and it is entirely his fault.
普京成功地压制了异见，挤走了对手，取缔了媒体；但是，他未能控制全球金融市场。在这几天中，卢布已经崩盘了——三周内贬值近
40
％。这是普京执政的最大危机，而且错在自己。
Mr Putin will no doubt blame all the usual suspects—Western speculators who bet against his currency, Western imperialistswho imposed sanctions on his economy, Western economists who failed to forecast that the oil price (down by half over six months) would fall as far as it hasand, of course, Western newspapers that told him that his policies would leadto disaster. But the crisis is the inevitable consequence of Putinism—of aggression abroad and a corrupt-and-control economy at home.
不用问，普京会把责任推到所有的惯犯身上。如，拿他的货币来赌博的西方投机者，对他的经济加以制裁的西方帝国主义者，未能能预测在过去半年中跌幅超过一半的油价会如此快速下跌的西方经济学家。当然，还有曾经告诉他，他的政策会导致灾难的西方报纸。但是，危机是外侵内窃的普京主义不可避免的结果。
The sanctions were imposed by the West because of his conduct in the Ukraine, where he has, among many things, seized territory, engineered a war and refused to investigate the shooting down of acivilian airliner. Meanwhile, he has failed to reform Russia's economy, leaving it dependent on the energy industry that he has carved up among his friends.Had he chosen to build an economy based on the rule of law and competition ratherthan patronage and corruption, things would have looked very different.
制裁之为西方所施加，盖因他在乌克兰的种种行为：攫取领土，挑起战争，拒绝调查击落民航客机的行为。与此同时，他未能改革俄罗斯经济，致使该国经济过于依赖由他和他的朋友瓜分的能源行业。倘若他的选择是构建一个基于法治和竞争而非恩赐和腐败的经济体，事情会是截然不同的另外一个样子。
In the short term, there is not a great deal that Mr Putin can do to get his country out of the mess that he has made. Ahuge interest-rate rise this week, following previous large increases, has not worked. Capital controls are not the answer. They can sometimes be effectively employed against short-term speculation, but in this case investors are rightly worried about an economy that is so reliant on one sector. Anyway, in such a lawless place, capital controls would be porous and could trigger runs on the banks which the country could ill afford. Russia still has reserves of $370 billion, but it also has foreign-currency debts of more than $600 billion.
从短期来看，普京没有太多的办法让他的国家走出他一手造成的乱局。在之前的数次大幅加息后，本周的巨幅加息没有起到作用。资本控制不是答案。资本控制有时能够有效地打击短期投机。但是，这一次，投资者对如此依赖于单个部门的经济体的担心是对的。再者，在这样一个不讲法律的地方，资本控制如同一个筛子，它能引发这个国家难以承受的银行挤兑潮。俄罗斯仍然拥有
3,700
亿美元的外汇储备，但是它的外币债务也由
6,000
多亿美元。
To improve the long-term prospects of an economy that is heading into a deep recession, two bigger changes are needed.The first is that Russia should pull back from eastern Ukraine and seek some accommodation with the government in Kiev and the West that could lead to the lifting of sanctions. The second is a change to the country's economic model. Mr Putin needs to take advantage of the fall in the value of the currency to diversify away from excess dependence on oil and gas, which make up two-thirds of exports; to improve the competitiveness of manufacturing and high-tech industry; to strengthen the rule of law; and to clean up corruption. To implement all this he should replace his pliant prime minister (and previous president), Dmitry Medvedev, with a credible economist such as Alexei Kudrin,who was a respected finance minister for 11 years. His oligarch chums might not like this, but Russians would be better off.
为改善这个正在走向深度衰退的经济体的长期前景，两大变化是必需的。一，俄罗斯应当从乌克兰东部撤回来，力争同基辅政府和西方达成一些可以令制裁取消的和解。二，变革俄罗斯的经济模式。普京需要充分利用货币贬值之机，摆脱对占出口三分之二的石油和天然气的过度依赖，提高制造业和高科技行业的竞争力，加强法治，肃清腐败。为此，他应当更换唯命是从的前总统现总理德米特里·梅德韦杰夫，启用一位可靠的经济学家。如，曾经当过
