歐洲銀行狀況良好

????2011年7月，一家銀行通過了歐洲銀行管理局（European Banking Authority）的壓力測試，于是發布了一份新聞稿，以示慶賀，標題是《2011年歐盟壓力測試結果：德克夏銀行（Dexia）無需補充資本金》（2011 EU-wide Stress Test Results: No Need for Dexia to Raise Additional Capital）。三個月后，這家總部位于布魯塞爾的銀行瀕于倒閉，只能請求政府救助。

????這就是2011年夏天的壓力測試：它不太像一場真正的測試，更像一場聲勢浩大的走過場。批評人士抨擊歐洲銀行管理局給德克夏銀行和其他銀行出具了健康證明，雖然即便是最寬松的會計標準都顯示事實正好相反。這自然讓投資者想起了一年前的歐洲銀行業壓力測試，當時也有很多銀行通過了測試，包括后來很快就陷入了極度困境的愛爾蘭銀行（Bank of Ireland）和愛爾蘭聯合銀行（Allied Irish Banks）。

The banks are healthy

????In July, one of the banks passing the European Banking Authority's stress tests sent out a press release cheering the results. "2011 EU-wide Stress Test Results: No Need for Dexia to Raise Additional Capital," it read. Three months later, the Brussels-based bank required a government bailout to avoid collapse.

????So was the story of the summer's stress tests: they seemed less a true test than a giant charade. Critics jumped on the EBA for giving Drexia and others a clean bill of health for 2011 when anything but the most generous kind of accounting showed the opposite. No doubt investors were reminded of the European stress tests just a year prior, when a group of banks who passed stress tests, including Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks, soon floundered.