中國金融危機難以避免

2015/08/27 瀏覽次數:4 收藏
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  8月27日口譯文章:經濟學家告誡中國金融危急難以免

  肯尼思·羅格夫(Kenneth Rogoff)早就對中國潛伏的金融危急發出過告誡。

  羅格夫是哈佛大學的經濟學傳授,他曾精確地猜測了歐元區的債務危急,多年來他也一向在對人們說,中國將給環球經濟帶來下一個大的威逼。這回,他又看起來是對的了。

  “就經濟上的工作而言,其產生所需的時光比你以為的要長,但產生的速率比你以為大概的要快,”羅格夫周一在馬薩諸塞州的坎布裏奇,重述了德國經濟學家魯迪·多恩布什(Rudi Dornbusch)常說的一句話(羅格夫1977年曾在麻省理工學院旁聽過量恩布什的課)。

  羅格夫照樣國際象棋特級巨匠,他把研討金融危急看成平生的職業。2008年的金融危急以後,羅格夫與別人合著了一部具備龐大意思的書《此次分歧》(This Time Is Different),書中商量了八個世紀裏產生的金融危急。

  他和書的配合作者卡門·M·萊因哈特(Carmen M. Reinhart)得出的結論是,每次經濟危急都源於統一個簡略的題目:太多的債務。

  要想懂得比來幾天美國及天下股市猖狂暗地裏的緣故原由,你不須要更多的常識,只要看看中國驚人的債務累贅和灰心的經濟就夠了,再便是中國影響天下各地的才能。

  羅格夫說,“中國事《此次分歧》的一個典範故事。”他枚舉了中國全部分歧的、用來講服本身和很多其別人的理性說明,為何中國可讓債務賡續增加,卻有某種方法能讓本身不受經濟學紀律的限定。他枚舉的來由包含,當局對市場的掌握、數百萬農人工進城,和高達人都可安排收入30%的海內儲備率,聽說這些都是人們以為中國經濟不會緊張闌珊的來由。

  “今朝的經濟一發千鈞,”羅格夫彌補道。“有大批的債務。”

  鑒於中國市場的不透明度,債務若幹的題目仍舊沒有定論。咨詢公司麥肯錫(McKinsey& Company)中國公司本年早些時刻宣布的一份申報稱,中國的債務累贅從2007年的7萬億美元增長到2014年中期的28萬億美元。“中國的債務範圍是海內臨盆總值(GDP)的282%,這個比例固然位於可控狀況,但高於美國或德國,”麥肯錫的研討稱。“有幾個身分使人擔心:一半的貸款都和中國的房地產市場有直接或間接接洽,不受羈系的影子銀行占了新增貸款的快要一半,很多處所當局的債務大概缺少可連續性。”

  是以題目變成,中國經濟與天下其他地域有甚麽樣的聯系關系。這恰是投資者們在曩昔幾周裏,眼看著中國當局采用讓國民幣貶值、並試圖穩固股市大跌但終極失敗等做法時,一向試圖搞明確的題目。股市的下跌進一步惡化,這部門是債務釀成的,由於乞貸買股票的中國投契者曾過分貸款,而現正他們被迫出售股票,構成惡性輪回。

  “全部這些給新興市場帶來了如何的反彈呢?”羅格夫在評論辯論中國經濟放緩對巴西等大批商品臨盆國的影響時問道,巴西的經濟情形今朝一片淩亂。“看看俄羅斯吧。驚人的是,他們竟然尚未產生金融危急。”

  羅格夫並非認定中國存在潛伏危害的第一人。本年早些時刻,本欄目曾先容過前財務部長、親中國人士小亨利·M·保爾森(Henry M. Paulson Jr.)的概念,他說,“坦白地講,中國金融系統將面對一次總清理,不能不對於一輪信貸喪失和債務重組題目,這不是會不會產生、而是什麽時候產生的題目。”而對沖基金司理詹姆斯·S·查諾斯(James S. Chanos)多年來一向在對中國的題目發出告誡,他比來傳播鼓吹,“無論你大概如何以為,都只會更糟。”

  中國須要說服天下和本國國民,它能治理本國震動的金融市場和經濟增加放緩的題目,固然是有顯著的政治緣故原由的。“金融危急致使社會瓦解,從而致使政治危急,”羅格夫說。“這才是真正恐怖的工作。”

  羅格夫指出,給中國金融制作題目的另有另外一種身分。

  “天津的危急也助長了這個題目,”他說,他指的是8月12日產生在這個口岸都會的致命爆炸,事宜已造成100多人滅亡。羅格夫說,爆炸搗毀了中國當局的公信力,由於很多題目至今仍沒有謎底,並且當局對爆炸的相應很不充足。

  那末說,羅格夫是不是以為,中國正在走向一個恐怖的“硬著陸”,並將致使環球經濟闌珊呢?

  這個嘛,只管市場湧現動蕩,他也曾賡續發出告誡,羅格夫說他以為,曩昔幾周已提出了龐大危急的大概性題目。但斟酌到中國仍稀有萬億美元的外匯貯備,他以為中國大概有充足的對象來防備災害舒展到天下各地,最少今朝如斯。

  羅格夫說,“假如必需賭博的話,照樣賭他們能解脫逆境為宜。”

  【參考譯文】

  Kenneth Rogoff has long warned of a potential financial crisis in China.

  Mr. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University, accurately predicted the eurozone debt crisis and for years has been telling anyone who would listen that China posed the next big threat to the global economy. He is starting to look right, again.

  “In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could,” Mr. Rogoff said on Monday from Cambridge, Mass., repeating a favorite line from Rudi Dornbusch, the German economist. (Mr. Rogoff sat in on Mr. Dornbusch’s class at M.I.T. in 1977.)

  Mr. Rogoff, who is a chess grandmaster, has made a career of studying financial crises. After the 2008 financial crisis, Mr. Rogoff co-wrote “This Time Is Different,” a seminal book that examined eight centuries of financial crises.

  Every financial crisis, he and his co-author, Carmen M. Reinhart, concluded, stems from the same simple problem: too much debt.

  To understand the wild machinations of the stock market in recent days in the United States and abroad, you need to look no further than China’s astounding debt load and sputtering economy — and its ability to infect the rest of the world.

  “China is the classic ‘This time is different’ story,” Mr. Rogoff said, rattling off all the different rationalizations for why the country convinced itself — and many others — that it could load up on debt but was somehow immune to the laws of economic gravity. He cited the government’s control over the markets, the hundreds of millions of workers migrating to cities and the country’s saving rate of about 30 percent of disposable income as just some of the reasons China was said to be impervious to a severe downturn.

  “It’s very vulnerable,” Mr. Rogoff added. “There is a lot of debt.”

  How much debt remains an open question, given the opacity of China’s market. The country’s debt load rose from $7 trillion in 2007 to $28 trillion by mid-2014, according to a report published earlier this year by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, China. “At 282 percent of G.D.P., China’s debt as a share of G.D.P., while manageable, is larger than that of the United States or Germany,” said the McKinsey study. “Several factors are worrisome: Half of loans are linked directly or indirectly to China’s real estate market, unregulated shadow banking accounts for nearly half of new lending, and the debt of many local governments is likely unsustainable.”

  The question then becomes how interconnected China’s economy is to the rest of the world. That’s exactly what investors have been trying to determine over the last several weeks as China’s government has devalued its currency and tried — and failed — to stabilize its plummeting stock market. The drop has been worsened, in part, by debt as overextended Chinese speculators who borrowed money to buy stocks are now being forced to sell, creating a vicious cycle.

  “How does all that ricochet to emerging markets?” Mr. Rogoff said in discussing the effect of China’s slowdown on commodity producers like Brazil, whose economy is in a tailspin. “Look at Russia. It’s amazing they haven’t had a financial crisis yet.”

  Mr. Rogoff is not the first person to identify China as a potential risk. Earlier this year, this column highlighted the views of Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former Treasury secretary and a Sinophile, who said, “Frankly, it’s not a question of if, but when, China’s financial system will face a reckoning and have to contend with a wave of credit losses and debt restructurings.” And the hedge fund manager James Chanos has been sounding the alarm on China for years, recently declaring, “Whatever you might think, it’s worse.”

  There are, of course, significant political reasons China needs to convince the world and its own citizens that it can manage its convulsing financial markets and slowing economy. “Financial meltdown leads to a social meltdown, which leads to a political meltdown,” Mr. Rogoff said. “That’s the real fear.”

  Mr. Rogoff pointed to another factor that has contributed to China’s financial woes.

  “The crisis in Tianjin fed into the mix,” he said, referring to the deadly explosion on Aug. 12 in the port city, which killed more than 100 people. Mr. Rogoff said the explosion had undermined the credibility of the Chinese government because so many questions remained unanswered, and the response had been inadequate.

  So does Mr. Rogoff believe that China is headed for a terrible “hard landing” that will lead to a global recession?

  Well, despite the market tumult and his persistent warnings, Mr. Rogoff says he believes that the last several weeks have raised the prospects of a meaningful crisis. But with China’s trillions of dollars in reserves, he thinks the country may have sufficient tools to prevent a calamity that spreads across the globe — at least for now.

  “If you had to bet,” Mr. Rogoff said, “you’d still bet they’d pull it out.”