美国《华盛顿邮报》资深专栏作家John Pomfret7月23日刊文称，美军方决定恢复与印度尼西亚特种部队的军事联系引起了人权人士的强烈批评。人权观察组织（Human Rights Watch）中国问题负责人理查德（Sophie Richardson）表示说：“在布什时期，政府曾为了反恐战争，在寻找盟友时不顾其是否有不良的人权记录；而奥巴马政府为了应对中国，在寻找军事同盟时，也不再顾及盟友糟糕的人权状况
《紐約時報》6月8日的分析文章 “Five Possible Paths to a War in Korea” 提及，以下的幾個因素將可能導致朝鮮半島區域的再度爆發戰事。如黃海（西海）的北方限制線區域再度爆發戰鬥、沿著停戰線爆發兩韓間的砲擊、北韓爆發權力鬥爭或政變、北韓發生經濟困難引發政權瓦解、或北韓執意進行核武擴散引起美國干涉等。筆者願再加一項因素，即「大國外交調解失利」的情況，也必須納入考量。其中黃海（西海）附近衝突以及北韓發生經濟困難而形成「內爆」（implosion）則較為可能，「大國外交」目前中共美國正在全力施行，以期朝鮮半島終究可以「鬥而不破」，亦即兩韓「可以揮舞拳頭叫罵，但決不可以打架」，將摩擦管控於可以接受的範圍內，以免情勢失控或將大國拖下水。
译者/怀川AN ABC OF FINANCIAL SHOCKS AND FISCAL AFTERSHOCKS
“Is the crisis over, Daddy?”
“Not really, Bobby. Just look at the news of market turmoil.”
“Why isn't it over, Daddy?”
“The crisis began in August 2007 and reached its worst in autumn of 2008. By historical standards, that is not so long for such a big crisis.”
“Not so long, Daddy? Did you not say that the guarantees and capital injections, the money-printing by central banks – ‘unconventional policy', you called it – and the borrowing by governments had fixed the crisis?”
“Bobby, you don't pay enough attention,” replied his father, a bit impatiently. “What I said is that these actions would stop the crisis from becoming a depression. I was right, as usual.”
Bobby smiled, affectionately.
“Stop smirking,” said his father. “Take the rich western countries: their output shrank by 3.3 per cent last year – the worst performance since the second world war. You do know about the war, don't you?”
“Oh yes. We have studied it at least three times at school.”
“Well, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – I know, that's a mouthful – said this week that the output of the rich countries might grow by 2.7 per cent this year. The world economy is forecast to grow 4.6 per cent after a 0.9 per cent decline in 2009. This is better than almost anybody expected even half a year ago.”
“If that's true,” replied the boy, “why do all these people talk about ‘instability'? What's that about?”
“You know about aftershocks following earthquakes. Well, fiscal crises can be the aftershocks of financial crises. And then they can cause financial aftershocks, in their turn.”
Bobby was beginning to find this lecture interesting, to his surprise. “So how does that work, Daddy?”
“Well, think about what happened before the financial earthquake of 2007-09: there were huge rises in property prices and booms in construction; there was an explosion of private debt; and there was a big increase in financial complexity. So, when property prices fell, we had the big panic. But two other things happened: governments received more revenue than they had expected, most of which they spent; and they borrowed easily, too.
“In the new eurozone, all governments found they could borrow as if they were Germany's. Households and businesses could also borrow on German terms. So they bought and built. In the good times, wages also soared.”
Bobby yawned. His father drove on.
“So what happened after the crisis? Fiscal deficits exploded to levels never before seen in peacetime, particularly in countries affected by the bubbles – the US, UK, Ireland and Spain. So the threat of a fiscal crisis emerged.
“What triggered this aftershock was the revelation that Greece had lied about its fiscal position, followed by the inability of the eurozone to respond: Germans were outraged at the idea that they should rescue irresponsible profligates; others thought the Germans inflexible bullies. So the Europeans made the same mistake as the Americans had made when responding to financial worries: they let the crisis get ahead of them.”
“But they bailed out Greece,” said the boy. “So why all the turbulence?”
“The big point is that investors are not altogether stupid: they know these are temporary patches; they know Greek indebtedness is going to worsen; they know that other countries in peripheral Europe will find it hard to grow out of their plight; they know that solidarity among eurozone member countries is fraying; they know Germans are very angry; and they know that inadequately capitalised banks are vulnerable to sovereign risks. All this makes the euro seem a worse bet. So it has fallen in value.”
“I understand that,” replied Bobby. “But won't that help the eurozone?”
“Yes,” agreed his father. “But it will worsen prospects elsewhere – in the UK and US, for example. And then there's the worry that these countries have huge fiscal difficulties, too. The markets don't seem to mind now. But they might change their view. Worse, they don't know what to fear: will it end up in deflation, default, inflation, financial shocks, or all of these? Markets are unpredictable, like children.”
Bobby decided not to respond to this teasing. “So,” he asked thoughtfully, “what's going to happen next?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn't be a mere economic journalist,” his father said.
Bobby smiled: a familiar remark.
His father did not notice. “Maybe, the momentum gained by the US and the big emerging markets, especially China, will let the world ride through the shocks. The OECD calls the outlook ‘moderately encouraging'.
“Alternatively, you could argue that the massive fiscal deficits are unsustainable and that attempts to rein them in, in the eurozone and UK, are going to cause renewed recession and political strife. We have also barely begun reducing private debts, which will take years. The banks are far too big and have too many doubtful assets on their books. Meanwhile, emerging countries are too small and weak to be locomotives for the world. Some people worry that China is overheating or suffering from huge asset price bubbles, too, though I disagree. And then there is geopolitical uncertainty over North Korea and Iran. In short, markets are volatile because of all the uncertainty out there.”
Bobby was beginning to find this familiar: his father tended to see the gloomy side. But he could be wrong, as his mother enjoyed pointing out.
“Anyway,” concluded his father, “these aftershocks are likely to go on for years, with fiscal worries undermining confidence in the financial sector and back again. It will affect you, too: western governments are going to be short of money for decades. It's going to be miserable. But you can learn Chinese and go east.”
Bobby groaned. It sounded like hard work. But he went off quietly to bed. What nightmares disturbed him?
*1998年《外交事务》5/6月刊，《资本神话》(The Capital Myth) www.foreignaffairs.com
译者/君悦The grasshoppers and the ants – elucidating the fable
Fables seek to illuminate reality. The goal of the one I told last week – concerning “the grasshoppers and the ants” – was to provide a simplified account of the world economy. Today I wish to address two questions: who benefits from the trade flows between import-surplus grasshoppers and export-surplus ants? Can the two co-exist fruitfully?
First, who benefits? My colleague, Robin Harding, raised this question in response to my advice to ants: “If you want to accumulate enduring wealth, do not lend to grasshoppers.” He asked: what about the gains for the grasshoppers?
The traditional answer is that both sides should gain from any voluntary exchange. That includes these “inter-temporal exchanges” – in which ants offer goods to grasshoppers now in return for future repayment.
Yet this assumes that the decisions are well informed, markets are flexible and contracts are enforced. None of these assumptions seems all that plausible. A reason people may not make informed decisions is, readers argue, that what some call “locusts” (financial capitalists) fool both grasshoppers and ants. At best, agency and information problems in financial markets make it hard for ants or grasshoppers to understand what is going on. At worst, locusts use their wealth and knowledge to rig the game to their advantage.
Financial markets are certainly subject to cycles of euphoria and panic. A big role is played by the property market. In good times, rising land prices provide collateral for leverage and an incentive for risk-taking. In bad times, a collapse in land prices may lead to mass bankruptcy and threaten to destroy leveraged financial institutions.
Some economists question whether the benefits of trade in goods and services apply to trade in finance at all. Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University wrote a famous article on these lines in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. In this he decried what he called the “Wall Street-Treasury complex”.*
In sum, we cannot assume that cross-border finance allows ants and grasshoppers to make wise decisions about the timing of lending and spending. Ants are likely to find that their funds have been consumed or invested in production of non-tradeable assets, such as housing. They are also likely to find it hard indeed to extract repayment from grasshopper colonies. True, inside the eurozone, powerful ant nations may be able to put the countries in trouble under central control, though even that would only be possible with smaller countries. But the equivalent will be impossible vis-a-vis the US – the biggest net debtor.
The implication seems to be that grasshoppers should at least benefit from an inflow of often unrequited resources. But that assumption is unwarranted if the outcome is unsustainable levels of consumption and underinvestment in capacity to produce tradeable goods and services. The economic collapse, when inflows of capital halt, can be very painful – even more so if a fixed exchange rate (or currency union) demands a period of falling nominal wages and prices. That, in turn, tends to raise the real value of debt, worsening the plight of the grossly overindebted grasshoppers.
In all, large-scale net flows of debt finance from ants to grasshoppers seem unlikely to do either side much good. Ants, it is true, do build up their productive capacity. But they also accumulate poor-quality assets and become dependent on what may well be unsustainable grasshopper demand. The economies of grasshopper colonies, in turn, come to depend on unsustainable capital inflows and excessive consumption. When the glorious party ends, both sides end up with big headaches.
This leads to the next question: is there a way to ensure ants and grasshoppers coexist harmoniously?
A part of the answer must be to reduce the instability of financial markets. This is the focus of the debate on regulation – a topic I have discussed previously. I would add two points here: first, seek to reduce the extremes of the property cycle by taxing the rental value of land; second, remove incentives for leverage from the tax code.
Yet the biggest single problem of the global system, in my view, is the attempt by ants to provide so much “vendor finance” to grasshoppers. In the end, both ants and grasshoppers have ended up disappointed. A more productive use of the surplus savings and productive capacity of ageing ant nests would be to lend to younger ones. So finance should flow to emerging countries, in general, and fixed investment in emerging countries, in particular. It is in the latter that the best opportunities for new investment should exist. It is the latter that are also most likely to generate the ability to service and repay the loans they have received.
This seemingly sensible proposition runs up against two huge difficulties: the first is that almost every attempt to generate large net flows of capital to emerging countries over the past three decades has ended up in a crisis; the second is that, as a result, the emerging world has decided to run current account surpluses and recycle those surpluses into ever larger foreign exchange reserves: in 2010, for example, according to the International Monetary Fund, the current account surplus of emerging countries will be $420bn, with an accumulation of reserves of $630bn.
Thus, in aggregate, emerging countries are recycling current account surpluses, plus the net private capital inflow, into reserves. Nearly all of these surpluses are generated by emerging Asia, in general, and China, in particular, though these countries have the best investment opportunities.
So long as this remains true, the grasshopper colonies of the developed world are likely to remain net recipients of capital, which they will surely continue to waste. Yet, under the pressure of the crisis itself, many erstwhile grasshopper colonies are being forced to become more “ant-like”. If today's rich ant nests do not change their behaviour, potential surpluses will be huge. Either the emerging world as a whole starts to absorb these surpluses into potentially productive younger nests, or the world will be stuck in a demand trap, with everybody seeking export surpluses.
Flows of finance from export-driven ant nests to advanced grasshopper colonies end in tears. Flows of finance from old ant nests to young ones have not worked out either. If a way is not found to fix these failures, the open global economy itself may disappear.
* The Capital Myth, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1998, www.foreignaffairs.com
译者/君悦THE GRASSHOPPERS AND THE ANTS – A CONTEMPORARY FABLE
Everybody in the west knows the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper is lazy and sings away the summer, while the ant piles up stores for the winter. When the cold weather comes, the grasshopper begs the ant for food. The ant refuses and the grasshopper starves. The moral of this story? Idleness brings want.
Yet life is more complex than in Aesop's fable. Today, the ants are Germans, Chinese and Japanese, while the grasshoppers are American, British, Greek, Irish and Spanish. Ants produce enticing goods grasshoppers want to buy. The latter ask whether the former want something in return. “No,” reply the ants. “You do not have anything we want, except, maybe, a spot by the sea. We will lend you the money. That way, you enjoy our goods and we accumulate stores.”
Ants and grasshoppers are happy. Being frugal and cautious, the ants deposit their surplus earnings in supposedly safe banks, which relend to grasshoppers. The latter, in turn, no longer need to make goods, since ants supply them so cheaply. But ants do not sell them houses, shopping malls or offices. So grasshoppers make these, instead. They even ask ants to come and do the work. Grasshoppers find that with all the money flowing in, the price of land rises. So they borrow more, build more and spend more.
The ants look at the prosperity of grasshopper colonies and tell their bankers: “Lend even more to grasshoppers, since we ants do not want to borrow.” Ants are far better at making real products than at assessing financial ones. So grasshoppers discover clever ways of packaging their grasshopper loans into enticing assets for ant banks.
Now, the German ant nest is very close to some small colonies of grasshoppers. German ants say: “We want to be friends. So why do we not all use the same money? But, first, you must promise to behave like ants forever.” So grasshoppers have to pass a test: behave like ants for a few years. The grasshoppers do so and are then allowed to adopt the European money.
Everyone lives happily, for a while. The German ants look at their loans to grasshoppers and feel rich. Meanwhile, in grasshopper colonies, their governments look at their healthy accounts and say: “Look, we are better at sticking to the fiscal rules than ants.” Ants find this embarrassing. So they say nothing about the fact that wages and prices are rising fast in grasshopper colonies, making their goods more expensive, while lowering the real burden of interest, so encouraging yet more borrowing and building.
Wise German ants insist, gloomily, that “trees do not grow to the sky”. Land prices finally peak in the grasshopper colonies. Ant banks duly become nervous and ask for their money back. So grasshopper debtors are forced to sell. This creates a chain of bankruptcy. It also halts construction in the grasshopper colonies and grasshopper spending on ant goods. Jobs disappear in both grasshopper colonies and ant nests and fiscal deficits soar, especially in grasshopper colonies.
German ants realise that their stores of wealth are not worth much since grasshoppers cannot provide them with anything they want, except for cheap houses in the sun. Ant banks either have to write off bad loans or they must persuade ant governments to give even more ant money to the grasshopper colonies. Ant governments are afraid to admit that they have allowed their banks to lose the ants' money. So they prefer the latter course, called a “bail-out”. Meanwhile, they order the governments of the grasshoppers to raise taxes and slash spending. Now, they say, you must really behave like ants. So the grasshopper colonies go into a deep recession. But grasshoppers still cannot make anything ants want to buy, because they do not know how to do so. Since grasshoppers can no longer borrow, to buy goods from ants, they starve. The German ants finally write off their loans to grasshoppers. But, having learnt little from this experience, they sell their goods, in return for yet more debt, elsewhere.
As it happens, in the wider world, there are other ant nests. Asia, in particular, is full of them. There is a rich nest, rather like Germany, called Japan. There is also a huge, but poorer, nest called China. These also want to become rich by selling goods to grasshoppers at low prices and building up claims on grasshopper colonies. The Chinese nest even fixes the foreign price of its currency at a level that guarantees the extreme cheapness of its goods. Fortunately, for the Asians, or so it seems, there happens to be a very big and exceptionally industrious grasshopper colony, called America. Indeed, the only way you would know it is a grasshopper colony is that its motto is: “In shopping we trust”. Asian nests develop a relationship with America similar to Germany's with its neighbours. Asian ants build up piles of grasshopper debt and feel rich.
Yet there is a difference. When the crash comes to America and households stop borrowing and spending and the fiscal deficit explodes, the government does not say to itself: “This is dangerous; we must cut back spending.” Instead, it says: “We must spend even more, to keep the economy humming.” So the fiscal deficit becomes enormous.
This makes the Asians nervous. So the leader of China's nest tells America: “We, your creditors, insist you stop borrowing, just as European grasshoppers are now doing.” The leader of the American colony laughs: “We did not ask you to lend us this money. In fact, we told you it was a folly. We are going to make sure American grasshoppers have jobs. If you do not want to lend us money, raise the price of your currency. Then we will make what we used to buy and you will no longer have to lend to us.” So America teaches creditors a lesson from a dead sage: “If you owe your bank $100, you have a problem; but if you owe $100m, it does.”
The Chinese leader does not want to admit that his nest's huge pile of American debt is not going to be worth what it cost. Chinese people also want to go on making cheap goods for foreigners. So China decides to buy yet more American debt, after all. But, decades later, the Chinese finally say to the Americans: “Now we would like you to provide us with goods in return for your debt to us. Thereupon, the American grasshoppers laugh and promptly reduce the debt's value. The ants lose the value off their savings and some of them then starve to death.
What is the moral of this fable? If you want to accumulate enduring wealth, do not lend to grasshoppers.
發表文章
