In the words of a veteran investor, watching the U.S. bond market today is like sitting in a packed theater and smelling smoke. You look around for signs of other nervous sniffers. But everyone else seems oblivious.

正如一位资深投资者所说的，看着眼下的美国债市就像是坐在一个观众满堂的影院里闻到烟味。你左顾右盼，看看周围是否有其他不安的人在嗅来嗅去。但其他每个人看起来都像是没事人一样。

Yes, the federal government shut down this week. Yes, we are just two weeks away from the point when the Treasury secretary says he will run out of cash if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Yes, bond king Bill Gross has been on TV warning that a default by the government would be 'catastrophic.' Yet the yield on a 10-year Treasury note has fallen slightly over the past month (though short-term T-bill rates ticked up this week).

没错，美国联邦政府上周关了门。没错，如果债务上限不上调，还有两周，我们就会面临财政部长所说的现金告罄的局面。没错，债券之王格罗斯(Bill Gross)一直在电视上警告政府违约将造成“灾难性”的后果。然而，10年期美国国债的收益率过去一个月仅有小幅下滑（不过短期国债收益率上周上升）。

Part of the reason people aren't rushing for the exits is that the comedy they are watching is so horribly fascinating. In his vain attempt to stop the Senate striking out the defunding of ObamaCare from the last version of the continuing resolution, freshman Sen. Ted Cruz managed to quote Doctor Seuss while re-enacting a scene from the classic movie 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'

人们之所以没有冲向出口，原因之一在于他们正在观看的喜剧太引人入胜了。目前仍在讨论之中的决议的上一个版本中曾提出取消向奥巴马医改提供资金，参议院删除了这一项内容，担任参议员第一年的克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)曾试图阻止参议院这样做，但没有成功。他当时重新演绎了经典影片《华府风云》(Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)中的一个场景，并引用了瑟斯博士(Doctor Seuss)的话。

Meanwhile, President Obama has become the Hamlet of the West Wing: One minute he's for bombing Syria, the next he's not; one minute Larry Summers will succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the next he won't; one minute the president is jetting off to Asia, the next he's not. To be in charge, or not to be in charge: that is indeed the question.

与此同时，美国总统奥巴马成了白宫西厅的哈姆雷特：这一刻他支持轰炸叙利亚，下一刻又反对这样做；这一刻萨默斯(Larry Summers)将接替贝南克(Ben Bernanke)担任美联储(Federal Reserve)主席，下一刻又不是他了；这一刻奥巴马将飞往亚洲，下一刻他又不去了。执掌大权，还是不执掌大权，这确实是个问题。

According to conventional wisdom, the key to what is going on is a Republican Party increasingly at the mercy of the tea party. I agree that it was politically inept to seek to block ObamaCare by these means. This is not the way to win back the White House and Senate. But responsibility also lies with the president, who has consistently failed to understand that a key function of the head of the executive branch is to twist the arms of legislators on both sides. It was not the tea party that shot down Mr. Summers's nomination as Fed chairman; it was Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the new face of the American left.

根据传统智慧判断，形势发展的关键在于一个越来越受茶党支配的共和党。我也认为，寻求利用这些手段阻止奥巴马医改是拙劣的政治伎俩。这样做并不能赢回白宫和参议院。但责任也在总统，奥巴马总统一直没有弄明白行政首脑的一项主要职能是说服双方的议员做出让步。搅黄萨默斯作为美联储主席提名人选的并不是茶党；而是像沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)这样的民主党参议员、这样的美国新左派。

Yet, entertaining as all this political drama may seem, the theater itself is indeed burning. For the fiscal position of the federal government is in fact much worse today than is commonly realized. As anyone can see who reads the most recent long-term budget outlook-published last month by the Congressional Budget Office, and almost entirely ignored by the media-the question is not if the United States will default but when and on which of its rapidly spiraling liabilities.

然而，尽管这些政治戏让人看的似乎津津有味，但影院本身却真的在着火。因为目前联邦政府的财政状况实际上比外界普遍认识到的要糟糕得多。国会预算办公室(Congressional Budget Office)上个月发布的长期预算展望几乎被媒体完全忽视。正如任何看了长期预算展望的人可以看到的，问题并不是美国是否会违约，而是何时会违约，以及其迅速增加的债务中哪些会违约。

True, the federal deficit has fallen to about 4% of GDP this year from its 10% peak in 2009. The bad news is that, even as discretionary expenditure has been slashed, spending on entitlements has continued to rise-and will rise inexorably in the coming years, driving the deficit back up above 6% by 2038.

诚然，今年的联邦赤字降至GDP的约4%，大大低于2009年10%的高点。但坏消息是，就在非必需支出被削减之际，福利支出仍在上升，未来几年还会坚定不移地继续上升，2038年前将赤字推高至GDP的6%以上。

A very striking feature of the latest CBO report is how much worse it is than last year's. A year ago, the CBO's extended baseline series for the federal debt in public hands projected a figure of 52% of GDP by 2038. That figure has very nearly doubled to 100%. A year ago the debt was supposed to glide down to zero by the 2070s. This year's long-run projection for 2076 is above 200%. In this devastating reassessment, a crucial role is played here by the more realistic growth assumptions used this year.

国会预算办公室最新报告中有一个非常惊人的特点，那就是情况比去年糟糕了很多。一年前，国会预算办公室预测，如果延续现行做法，2038年前公众手中持有的联邦债务将占GDP的52%。今年这一比例上升了近一倍至100%。一年前，预计本世纪70年代前债务将降为零。今年对2076年的长期预测为200%以上。在今年灾难性的重新评估中，一个关键因素是使用了更为实际的增长假设。

As the CBO noted last month in its 2013 'Long-Term Budget Outlook,' echoing the work of Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff: 'The increase in debt relative to the size of the economy, combined with an increase in marginal tax rates (the rates that would apply to an additional dollar of income), would reduce output and raise interest rates relative to the benchmark economic projections that CBO used in producing the extended baseline. Those economic differences would lead to lower federal revenues and higher interest payments. . . .

CBO上个月在其2013年度“长期预算前景”(Long-Term Budget Outlook)中的强调呼应了哈佛经济学家莱因哈特(Carmen Reinhart)和罗格夫(Ken Rogoff)的研究结果：债务相对经济规模的增长，加上边际税率（适用于额外收入的税率）的上升，将会降低经济产出，并提高与基准经济预测有关的利率，CBO利用这些预测得出扩大的基线。这些经济差异将会导致联邦收入下降、利息支付增加……

'At some point, investors would begin to doubt the government's willingness or ability to pay U.S. debt obligations, making it more difficult or more expensive for the government to borrow money. Moreover, even before that point was reached, the high and rising amount of debt that CBO projects under the extended baseline would have significant negative consequences for both the economy and the federal budget.'

到了一定程度，投资者将开始怀疑政府是否有意愿或有能力支付美国债券，从而增加政府借贷的难度或提高其成本。此外，即使在达到这种程度之前，CBO依照扩大的基线所预测的庞大且不断增长的债务规模也会对经济和联邦预算产生重大不利影响。

Just how negative becomes clear when one considers the full range of scenarios offered by CBO for the period from now until 2038. Only in three of 13 scenarios-two of which imagine politically highly unlikely spending cuts or tax hikes-does the debt shrink from its current level of 73% of GDP. In all the others it increases to between 77% and 190% of GDP. It should be noted that this last figure can reasonably be considered among the more likely of the scenarios, since it combines the alternative fiscal scenario, in which politicians in Washington behave as they have done in the past, raising spending more than taxation.

只要考虑一下CBO针对从现在到2038年这一时期所设想的所有情景，就能清楚地了解这种不利影响的程度。在其设想的13个情景中，只有三个情景出现了债务水平较当前缩减的情况（当前债务相当于GDP的73%），而其中两个情景还设想了开支缩减和加税（这在政治上可能性很小）。在所有其他情景中，债务水平上升到GDP的77%至190%之间。值得注意的是，190%这个数字有理由被认为是所有情景中可能性比较大的，因为它综合了另外的财政情形，即华盛顿的政客们像以往一样行事，扩大开支而不是增税。

Only a fantasist can seriously believe 'this is not a crisis.' The fiscal arithmetic of excessive federal borrowing is nasty even when relatively optimistic assumptions are made about growth and interest rates. Currently, net interest payments on the federal debt are around 8% of revenues. But under the CBO's extended baseline scenario, that share could rise to 20% by 2026, 30% by 2049, and 40% by 2072. By 2088, the last date for which the CBO now offers projections, interest payments would-absent any changes in current policy-absorb just under half of all tax revenues. That is another way of saying that policy is unsustainable.

只有幻想家才能真心相信“这不是一场危机”。即使对经济增长和利率做出相对乐观的假设，过度联邦借贷的财政计算结果仍然极其糟糕。目前，联邦债务的 利息支付约占联邦收入的8%。但依照CBO所设想的扩大基线的情形，这一比例到2026年可能增加到20%，2049年为30%，2072年为40%。到2088年（CBO目前给出预测的最远期限），利率支付（在当前政策不发生任何变化的情况下）将占到所有税收收入的将近一半。换句话说，这一政策是不可持续的。

The question is what on earth can be done to prevent the debt explosion. The CBO has a clear answer: '[B]ringing debt back down to 39 percent of GDP in 2038-as it was at the end of 2008-would require a combination of increases in revenues and cuts in noninterest spending (relative to current law) totaling 2 percent of GDP for the next 25 years. . . .

问题是，到底能做些什么来防止债务爆炸。CBO给出了明确的答案：2038年将债务水平下降到GDP的39%（与2008年底的水平相当），将需要在未来25年里增加收入并削减总计达到GDP的2%的非利息支出（相对于现行规定）。

'If those changes came entirely from revenues, they would represent an increase of 11 percent relative to the amount of revenues projected for the 2014-2038 period; if the changes came entirely from spending, they would represent a cut of 10½ percent in noninterest spending from the amount projected for that period.'

CBO的报告中说，如果这些变化完全来自收入方面，那就意味着收入相对2014至2038年预测的收入要增加11%；如果这些变化完全来自开支方面，则意味着这一期间预测的非利息开支要削减10.5%。

Anyone watching this week's political shenanigans in Washington will grasp at once the tiny probability of tax hikes or spending cuts on this scale.

任何人如果关注本周在华盛顿上演的政治闹剧，都会马上注意到如此大规模的增税或减支的可能性微乎其微。

It should now be clear that what we are watching in Washington is not a comedy but a game of Russian roulette with the federal government's creditworthiness. So long as the Federal Reserve continues with the policies of near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing, the gun will likely continue to fire blanks. After all, Fed purchases of Treasurys, if continued at their current level until the end of the year, will account for three quarters of new government borrowing.

现在我们应当明了，我们在华盛顿看到的不是一场喜剧，而是关乎联邦政府信誉的俄罗斯轮盘赌。只要美联储继续近零利率和量化宽松政策，这把枪可能就会继续放空枪。毕竟，美联储购买美国国债的行动（如果继续当前水平直到年底）将占政府新借贷的四分之三。

But the mere prospect of a taper, beginning in late May, was already enough to raise long-term interest rates by more than 100 basis points. Fact (according to data in the latest 'Economic Report of the President'): More than half the federal debt in public hands is held by foreigners. Fact: Just under a third of the debt has a maturity of less than a year.

但从5月底开始，仅仅是逐渐缩减购债行动的可能就已经足以将长期利率提高逾100个基点。想想看（根据最新的“总统经济报告”(Economic Report of the President)）：一半以上的联邦公共债务掌握在外国人手中。再想想看：接近三分之一的债务还有不到一年就将到期。

Hey, does anyone else smell something burning?

喂，有没有人闻到什么东西糊了的味道？