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  3. Time To Panic? Nobody needed to read George Bush’s lips

Time To Panic? Nobody needed to read George Bush’s lips

游客2024-02-16  25
问题                      Time To Panic?
    Nobody needed to read George Bush’s lips when he visited Russia recently as the guest of Goldman  Sachs to mark the opening of the U.S. investment bank’s Moscow outpost. Bush declared his faith in "the power of freedom" and of free markets. "I am optimistic," he proclaimed. "I believe Russia is going to thrive. "Bush may yet be proved right. But coming as the country’s stock market hit a new record low and interest rates leapt skyward, the former President’s speech was ill-timed. For anyone who has invested in Russia, this is the summer of sleepless nights as the dreaded word deval’vatsiya--Russian for devaluation— makes an unwelcome comeback. "It’s taboo to say it," says one prominent Russian banker, "but this threat hangs over us like a nightmare." Last week, Finance  Minister Mikhail Zadornov declared devaluation unavoidable unless tax collection improves "by a third" in the coming months. With billions of dollars in unpaid taxes, the government has launched yet another desperate crackdown on tax evaders, even freezing the assets of the country’ s top debtor, gas giant Gazprom which owes some $ 2.5 billion. The showdown was dramatic, with the tax police storming Gazprom’s Moscow skyscraper and salivating over its vast collection of yachts, planes and holiday villas. But within hours, the confrontation was over. On Friday, Gazprom’s CEO Rem Vyakhirev  won a private audience with President Boris Yeltsin, where he defused attempts to rip up the agreement granting him control of 35 % of the state’s 40% stake in Gazprom and promised, in due time, to pay off the debt.
    But as every sentient observer knows, the clock is ticking fast. "When treasury bill rates rise to 80 %, it means we’ re in a pre-collapse state," says Vladimir Potanin, so-called oligarch and founder of Unexim Bank, one of Russia’s largest. "It’s logical what could come next: devaluation, the crash of the banking system, huge’ lines of people trying to get their money out, unpaid wages and heightened social tension." Everybody agrees that a devaluation would devastate Russia as it struggles  to retain its fragile financial credibility earned over six years of haphazard reform. Particularly hard hit would be Russia’ s banking system, which has debts of at least $ ,200 billion and dangerously  few assets. What assets the banks do have could be wiped out thanks to their exposure to so-called "dollar forward contracts" signed with Western banks. "If there’ s a devaluation," says Potanin, "it’ s clear that there is this massive amount of future obligations that will have to be paid off, and of course the method will be by defaulting."
    Little wonder then that the crisis has reduced Russia’s financial elite, once a pride of chest-beating  fat cats, to a threatened species screeching about the coming apocalypse. Their counterparts in the political arena are no less panicked. On June 23, Yeltsin warned his opponents in parliament that if an austerity package was not passed before they recessed on July 16, he would resort to "other means’--a hint that he would rule by decree. Yet last week, the Russian President informed his subjects and stunned international observers: "We have no crisis." Yeltsin may be the only person in Russia who believes that, as devaluation rumors hit fever pitch. "This week," predicts a top financial  journalist, who boasts close ties to the Central Bank. Even as they brace for the coming storm, many are looking to the International Monetary Fund to save the day. After twice delaying it, on June 25 the IMF, citing its faith in the cabinet of Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, released a $ 670 million tranche of a previous $ 9.2 billion credit. But Russia’s chances for a world-class bailout--the $ 10-15 billion that Anatoli Chubais, Yeltsin’s envoy to the IMF talks, deems the bare minimum Russia needs to escape catastrophe--look slim.
    In the meantime, Kiriyenko is fighting to hang on to his new job, and his blueprint for rescuing Russia. By midweek, the beleaguered Prime Minister had submitted his anti-crisis plan to the Duma including measures to cut corporate taxes and introduce a single value-added tax of’ 20%. The package,  Western financial experts warned, is long on generalities, short on implementation. The Duma, however, has other ideas. Sergei Baburin, the Communist vice speaker, denounced the proposed laws as "lethal medicine cooked up by vengeful Western economists." Some optimists are looking to the long term. "We’ ve been able to get more cuts out of this new government," muses one IMF official  in private, "than we did from the Chernomyrdin government in the last three years." But in the short term, the crisis threatens to consume everything in its path. Among those clamoring loudest for a bailout are the Western bankers who find themselves embarrassingly exposed. Of Russia’ s $ 72.2 billion in outstanding loans, German banks alone hold $ 30.5 billion.
    At home, the so-called oligarchs are also running scared. With the conflagration encroaching, they have put aside personal rivalry to form a "cooperation council" to advise Kiriyenko. But Yeltsin has yet to give his blessing to this "shadow cabinet."
    Although there have been no runs on Russian banks so far, there are reasons to fear a panic: the stock market has plunged by 63% since January; Russia’s debt pyramid of compounding treasury bills has grown dangerously; interest rates hover above 80%; while more than a third of the budget goes to service the government’s burgeoning debt. In July, Russia will have to pay out $ 6.5 billion to redeem maturing loans, while cash reserves have sunk to $ 11.5 billion. The government is finding  it difficult to raise new funds and has had to cancel its latest treasury bill auctions. "No one believes  in this paper," says the head of one of Russia’s largest banks.
    Those fretting the loudest may be the foreigners--the fund managers and deal makers who rail against  the "fools in Washington" who tend to Asia’ s woes while ignoring Russia’ s. They warn darkly of the danger of "losing Russia." Without help from abroad, they claim, the pro-reform Kiriyenko cabinet will fall and in the post-crash wake a "nationalist-patriot’ will rise. A dark scenario, but one taken seriously of late. As a senior IMF official, who’d love to see Western governments give large loans to Russia, puts it: "No doubt about it, a bailout is expensive, but it’ s our cheapest insurance policy." Maybe, but just the premiums on such a policy could prove extortionate. [br] To counter the coming economic crisis, many are expecting to seek help from_________.
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答案 the Internationa Monetary Fund
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