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by Liang Jing Whichever candidate, Obama or McCain, comes to power in the present US presidential election will be faced with a mass of problems. The biggest dilemma is not the war in Iraq, but Americans' over-consumption, the enormous inertia of living beyond their means. If Obama is elected, this issue may become more serious, because a decisive force allowing him to win will have been low-income people hoping for more government assistance. Obama is of course clear about this challenge; the problem is that not only will he be restricted by his campaign promises: he must also face a Congress absolutely dominated by the Democratic Party. For this reason, even if McCain came to power, the political space to resolve this problem would be very limited. The core philosophy of the Republican Party is in principle to encourage frugality and investment. Why then, given that George W. Bush has been in power for eight years, are Americans more spoiled than ever, living more beyond their means? Major problems emerged in US economic decision-making over the past decade; otherwise today's grave economic situation, and the global financial disaster created by the US alone, are inexplicable. In that case, what was the US policy-makers' most serious mistake? A popular view at present is that Greenspan dealt poorly with the US stock market bubble, repeatedly cutting interest rates, which stimulated a still greater bubble—the real estate bubble. Such accounts, including those about US financial regulatory failure, may make some sense, but deeper explanations are clearly needed. America's excess liquidity and low interest rate environment is not only the result of mistaken monetary policy: it has a huge global background, one of the most important aspects of which is that China not only has a massive trade surplus, it also had a huge outflow of low-interest capital, making borrowing money from China difficult for Americans to resist. It now appears that a serious mistake of the US elite was, under pressure from China's double surplus, the decision to provide loan support for the poor to buy housing. The decision was in line with Margaret Thatcher's conservative ideals: building a society in which all are owners. The problem, as Andy Xie has pointed out, was that the US wasn't a country with a housing shortage, it was rich in land resources and the housing conditions of the poor had ceased to be a real obstacle to their development. As a result, if the US government had not at the outset drawn in credit resources to support poor Americans buying houses, but rather had supported improving their education and business environment, we may not have had today's serious consequences. Facts have proven that the approach of giving the poor loans to buy housing is most unwise and counterproductive. It would have been more cost-effective, given the huge costs paid by the whole world in terms of loss of financial order, to directly donate money and housing to America's poor. Gaining or keeping power in a democracy places American political elites under political pressure from the poor to expand welfare. Under normal circumstances, this requires them to "rob the rich and give to the poor," and engage in income redistribution, but there is political risk for politicians in doing so. Thanks to China's "rise," US politicians have, over the past 10 years, found new ways to solve this problem: let China pick up the bill for welfare for the poor. However, money that comes too easily can entice people to make mistakes, and the sub-prime loan crisis was a case in point. The question is, why did the Chinese keep sending money to Americans to spend? I have finally got it clear that China had its own problems. On the surface, China's problem is high savings and low consumption. But why should Chinese people lower their own consumption? People have now finally seen what the majority of China's poor have is not high savings so much as lack of money to consume. China's real problem is that the political power of the poor to distribute wealth is too small, while the US may have the opposite problem, in that the political power of the poor to distribute wealth is too great. Economic globalization has brought China's poor more opportunities to create wealth, but they did not get a bigger share of wealth and political power, with the result that the economic imbalance between the two countries was aggravated by their trade imbalance. In that case, will the financial crisis that is currently sweeping the globe bring the US a chance to reverse its serious economic imbalance? The present indications are that the moves by political elites in the US and China, at least in the short term, will. Rather than correct the original distortion, maintain and even aggravate it. The reason is simple—faced with economic crisis, the power of America's poor to redistribute wealth increases, while that of China's poor may be reduced. This judgment gains support from the strong support for the Democratic Party in the current US election; how about the Chinese case? Didn't the recent Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee vow to solve the problems of China's peasantry and the urban-rural duality? The CPC's attitude to China's peasantry has always been one of paying mere lip service. The only exception was in a few brief early reform years. At that time, a number of reform leaders fought for the rights of the peasantry. But how did things turn out? Didn't these leaders, like all those in the past who speak on behalf of the peasantry, ultimately pay a heavy political price for it? Hypocritical schemers like Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, having long ago fathomed the inner workings of CPC history, would never put themselves on the line politically to really plead on behalf of the peasants' interests. Facts have shown that the CCP's decisionmaking in response to the current global financial crisis, as always, tends to protect the bureaucracy, the cities, and the rich. The Party has announced the resumption of financial support for exports, additional large-scale investment in railways; at the same time, local governments at all levels are investing unprecedented resources to subsidize housing purchases by urbanites. It is estimated that poor people with incomes of less than two US dollars a day are more than 40% of China's total population, and Chinese people's consumption, which in the 1970s accounted for about two-thirds of GDP, is down to less than 40 per cent GDP, or even one-third. I believe that after the global financial crisis, American's GDP share of consumption will rise further, while that of the Chinese will further decline, and China's poor will still have to foot the bill for the Americans' living beyond their means. (translated by David Kelly) 梁京： “美国的难题与中国的难题” 此次美国大选，无论奥巴马上台还是麦凯恩上台，都要面对成堆的难题。难题中最大者，并非伊拉克战争，而是美国人过度消费，寅吃卯粮的巨大惯性。若奥巴马当 选，这个问题有可能会更加严重，因为令他获胜的决定性力量，就是希望得到更多政府援助的低收入民众。奥巴马对这一挑战当然清楚，问题是他不仅将受到竞选承 诺的制约，还要面对民主党占绝对优势的国会。正因如此，即便麦凯恩上台，他要想解决这一难题的政治空间也十分有限。 按理说，共和党的核心理念鼓励节俭和投资，那为什么小布什执政八年，美国人反而被惯得更厉害，更加入不敷出了呢?过去十年，美国的经济决策，出了大问题， 否则不能解释今天严峻的经济局面，更不能解释美国一手造成的全球金融灾难。 那么，美国决策者最严重的失误究竟是什么呢?现在比较流行的说法，就是当年格林斯潘处理美国股市泡沫不当，连续降息，刺激了更大的泡沫——房地产泡沫。 这种说法，包括美国金融监管失败的说法，虽然都有道理，但显然需要更深的解释。 美国流动性过剩和低利率环境，不仅是货币政策失误的结果，还有巨大的全球背景，其中一个重要背景，就是中国不仅有大量贸易顺差，还有巨额的低息资本输出， 让美国人想不借中国人的钱都难。现在看来，在中国双顺差的压力下，美国精英一个严重错误，就是决定为穷人买房提供贷款支持。这个决定符合撒切尔夫人保守主 义的理想——构建人人都是业主的社会。问题是，正如谢国忠指出，美国并不是一个住房短缺的国家，美国土地资源丰富，穷人的住房条件早已不是他们发展的真正 障碍。 因此，当初美国政府如果不是引导信贷资源支持美国穷人买房，而是去支持改善穷人的教育和创业环境，或不至有今天这样严重的后果。事实证明，贷款给穷人买房 的方针，是一个非常愚蠢，得不偿失的方针。整个世界金融失序付出的代价之大，还不如直接送钱和送房子给美国穷人更合算。 在民主制度下，美国政治精英要获得权力或保住权力，就必须面对穷人扩大福利的政治压力。正常情况下，这就要求他们“劫富济贫”，搞收入再分配，但这样做对 政客也有政治风险。过去十年来美国政客发现，由于中国的“崛起”，解决这个难题有了新途径，那就是让中国为美国穷人的福利买单。不过，钱来的太容易，就会 诱人出错，次贷危机就是一个明证。 问题是，中国人为什么老要送钱给美国人花?我终于想清楚了，中国也有自己的难题。表面上看，中国的难题是高储蓄，低消费。但中国人为什么要如此压低自己的 消费呢?现在人们终于看到，对于多数中国穷人来说，并不存在什么高储蓄的问题，而是根本没钱消费。中国真正的难题，是穷人分配财富的政治权力太小，而美国 的难题可能正好相反，穷人分配财富的政治权力太大。经济全球化，给中国穷人带来了更多创造财富的机会，但中国穷人并没有因此获得分享更多财富的政治权力， 结果是，通过不平衡的贸易，加剧了两国经济的失衡。 那么，目前这一场席卷全球的金融危机，会不会给美中各自扭转严重的经济失衡带来转机呢?目前的事态表明，至少短期内美中两国政治精英的举措不是纠正原来的 扭曲，而是维持甚至加剧扭曲。道理很简单，当经济面临危机的时候，美国穷人分配财富的权力上升，而中国穷人分配财富的权力则可能更小。 民主党在此次美国大选中的强势应该说支持上述判断，那中国呢?最近中共十七届三中全会不是信誓旦旦要解决中国农民问题，解决城乡二元结构问题吗? 中共对农民的态度，历来是口惠而实不至。 唯一的例外是改革初期短暂的几年。 当时确有一批改革领导人为农民争权益，但结果如何呢?这些领导人不是像过去所有替农民说话的人一样，最后也付出惨重的政治代价吗?伪善乖巧如胡温者，早已 从中共的历史悟到其中玄机，因此，绝不会冒政治风险，真去为农民请命。 事实也表明，中共目前应对全球金融危机的决策，一如既往，还是倾向保护官僚，保护城里人，保护富人。中共已经宣布，恢复对出口的财政支持，大规模追加铁路投资，同时，各级地方政府，正在投入空前的资源补助城里人购买住房。 有人估计，中国目前低于每天两美元收入的穷人，已超过总人口40%，中国居民的消费比例，已经从七十年代占GDP约三分之二，降低到低于GDP百分之四十甚至三分之一。 我相信，这场全球金融危机过后，美国居民的消费比例会进一步上升，而中国居民的消费比例会进一步下降，中国的穷人还是要为美国人寅吃卯粮买单。 © Copyright 2008 by Boxun News Top of Page |
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