????這是上周美國銀行美林（Bank of America Merrill Lynch）的一份報告所傳遞出的信息。報告建議，要從愚蠢而又缺乏自制的美國財政政策中賺錢，應押注美元下跌——而不是像格羅斯的Pimco Total Return基金那樣大量拋售美國國債。

????美國銀行美林的利率策略師大衛?吳表示，盡管目前美元指數徘徊于3年低點，盡管歐元已漸漸逼近1.50美元（上次達到這一水平是在2008年巔峰時期），但有跡象表明，市場可能低估了未來幾個月美元大幅下挫的風險。

????他說，華盛頓上演的荒誕劇加大了投資者拋售美元的可能性，因為美國聯邦政府顯然還沒有準備好要戒掉借債支出之癮。

????在我們的風險情境中，財政層面無所改進將加大爆發財政危機以及美聯儲（Fed）成為最后買家的可能性。這將加速美元作為全球儲備貨幣的地位下降，導致美元無序下跌。

????不過，這不是吳的預期。他信任蒂姆?蓋特納，他說美國共和黨人和民主黨人將彌合很多分歧，在7月份美國政府關門前提高負債上限；雙方可能還會就一些方案達成一致，展現至少是“醉酒水手”的支出自律。

????相應地，吳預計美元/歐元將反彈，歐元區有自己的問題，年中歐元可能跌至1.30美元。

????但政客們日日的唇槍舌戰仍讓市場不安，吳警告這可能引發對美國預算狀況的極度擔憂。

????雖然高盛(Goldman)和其他地方的經濟學家們一直寬慰我們，私營部門的弱勢復蘇勢頭正在得到改善，但吳指出這股復蘇勢頭“高度依賴擴張性財政政策，2008年底以來美國居民的年化可支配收入增加8,500億美元，其中有一半是源于美國家庭獲得的社會福利凈增。”

????他指出，過去十年，社會凈福利——即救濟、食品券、失業保險和醫保等政府支出與納稅人向這些賬戶的繳款差額——占居民收入比重已提高了一倍多，最近達到12%。這也是過去40年來的最高值。

????與此同時，美國是唯一一個未遭遇地震、核輻射等大災難但財政赤字要持續擴大的主要國家。吳寫到，由于全球經濟中其他吱吱作響的齒輪，市場未能集中關注這個問題——但遲早，他們會意識到這一點。

????雖然格羅斯等人不斷告訴我們債市肯定會出大事，吳的看法正好相反。他的理由是美聯儲結束購買美國國債，將推高美國國債的風險溢價——但美國國債的名義收益率可能不會大幅上升，因為投資者終于意識到每個人都指望的今年經濟增長4%可能不會實現。

????而且，如果美國經濟走弱，美國國債的海外需求低迷，美聯儲被迫再度買入國債，撤離美元的步伐肯定會加快。目前這只是一種可能，但未來在市場有限的注意力集中時間內可能成為焦點，市場的注意力集中時間甚至可能短于美國國會。

????“金融市場的多任務處理能力較差，”吳寫到。隨大流吧。

????That's the implication of a note out this week from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. It advises clients that the way to make money on rampant U.S. fiscal stupidity is to bet against the swooning dollar -- not on a massive selloff in government bonds, a la Gross' Pimco Total Return fund.

????Rates strategist David Woo says that even with the dollar index trading at a three-year low and the euro creeping up on $1.50 – a level also last seen in that banner year of 2008 – there are signs that markets are underestimating the risk that the dollar could swing sharply lower in coming months.

????He says the theater of the absurd playing out in Washington makes it likelier that investors will dump the dollar as it becomes apparent that progress on a fix to our national spending addiction is not in train.

????In our risk scenario, little progress on the fiscal front raises the probability of a fiscal crisis and the odds that the Fed becomes the buyer of the last resort. This would accelerate the process of the USD's demise as the global reserve currency and cause it to decline in a disorderly manner.

????This is not what Woo expects to happen, mind you. He believes Tim Geithner when he says Republicans and Democrats will patch over their many differences long enough to raise the debt ceiling before the government goes splat in July, and perhaps to agree on some sort of plan to impose on Congress at least the spending discipline of drunken sailors.

????Accordingly, he forecasts that the dollar will bounce back against the euro, whose users have problems of their own, and rise to $1.30 against the euro by midyear.

????But the sound of political gunfire being exchanged daily is not reassuring to markets, which Woo warns will eventually catch on to the full horror of the U.S. budget position.

????While economists at Goldman and elsewhere keep assuring us that a weak private sector recovery is gaining steam, Woo notes that it "has been so dependent on expansionary fiscal policy that as much as half of the $850bn increase in annualized US household disposable income since the end of 2008 was due to increased net social benefits to households."

????Over the past decade, he notes, the share of household income coming from net social benefits – the difference between government payouts on things like welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance and healthcare, and the amount taxpayers pay into those programs – has more than doubled to a recent 12%. That is by far the highest number in the past 40 years.

????Meanwhile, the United States is the only major nation that hasn't recently been hit by a massive earthquake and nuclear catastrophe to increase its fiscal deficit from last year. The markets have failed to zero in on this problem, he writes, because of all the other squeaky wheels in the global economy -- but sooner or later, latch on they will.

????While the likes of Gross keep telling us this car wreck would surely play out in the bond market, Woo takes the opposite tack. He reasons that the end of Fed bond purchases will drive up the risk premium on Treasury securities -- yet nominal Treasury yields may not rise substantially as investors belatedly come around to the observation that the 4% growth everyone was hoping for this year is not going to arrive.

????And if the Fed is forced by a weakening economy and soft overseas demand for Treasuries to resume bond purchases, the flight from the dollar would surely accelerate. This is merely a risk for now, but it could come to dominate the market's attention span, which if anything is possibly even shorter than Congress' own.

????"Financial markets are poor multi-taskers," Woo writes. Join the crowd.