In the last few days the financial press has been dominated by the collapse of the pound and the subsequent spike in UK short bond yields. Much blame has been heaped on the proposals of chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, with Twitter wags talking about the “KamiKwasi budget,” and so on. This may or may not be deserved; Unhedged is even more out of its depth than usual on that topic. Certainly the latest leg down in the pound looks like a direct response to the budget, as Katie Martin points out. And unfunded tax cuts in the face of inflation seem batty to us. But the overarching point is that the UK is not alone.
過去幾天，英鎊暴跌和隨之而來的英國短期債券收益率飆升主導著金融媒體。很多人將其歸咎于英國財政大臣夸西?克沃滕(Kwasi Kwarteng)出臺的新預算，Twitter上有人調侃說這是“神風特工隊夸西預算”(KamiKwasi budget)。這也許是他應得的，也許不是；這個話題超出本專欄的評論能力。最新一輪英鎊下跌看上去肯定像是對預算的直接回應，就像凱蒂?馬丁(Katie Martin)指出的那樣。面對通脹，進行沒有資金來源的減稅看上去確實很冒失。但最重要的一點在于英國并非孤例。