There is obviously something peculiar about a global financial system in which the richest country in the world, the United States, borrows more than $2 billion a day from poorer countries – even as it lectures them on principles of good governance and fiscal responsibility. So the stakes for the IMF, which is charged with ensuring global financial stability, are high: if other countries eventually lose confidence in an increasingly indebted US, the potential disturbances in the world’s financial markets would be massive.
在全球经济体系中，美国这个最富有的国家每天向其他国家的借款要超过20亿美元——尽管他们已经接受过关于良好管理原则以及财政责任的教育。因此，对于肩负着保证全球经济稳定的国际货币基金组织来说，存在着非常高的风险：如果其他国家对债务日益增多的美国失去信心，那么世界金融市场将出现巨大的动荡。