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That Old Greenspan Magic Seems to be Fading
For the best part of 20 years, Alan Greenspan has been a symbol of the stupidity of ageism. He became chairman of the US Federal Reserve at 61, when plenty of workers have already been tossed on the scrapheap and many others are preparing to wind down for retirement. His golden years in charge of the US economy were when he was pushing 70 and he's still there aged 78. Greenspan is the doyen of central bankers, still talked about in almost reverential terms by his peers. The fact that the Fed chairman rarely gives interviews and makes public pronouncements that are to economics what Finnegans Wake is to literature only adds to the mystique.
It is, then, with some trepidation that the question has to be asked: has Big Alan finally lost the plot? At the start of last week, Greenspan presided over a meeting of the Fed which kept interest rates on hold at 1%, the level they have been pegged at for nearly a year. A statement accompanying the decision said the risks to inflation were balanced, which means the Fed thinks there is as much chance of the lost of living going up as going down. On Thursday, new joblessness claims in the US fell to their lowest level in getting on for four years, and the picture of a recovering labour market was underlined by Friday's non-farm payrolls which showed an increase of 288,000, above what had been expected. The economy is expanding at an annual rate of 4.5%, surveys of both manufacturing and the service sector are strong, the housing market is booming, inflation has started to pick up.
Hardly surprisingly, Greenspan's call on inflation is now coming under the microscope, even by those on the Kenyesian left who tend to favor expansionary macroeconomic policies. "Show me something, other than computers, where the price is falling," says Dean Baker of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Washington. Baker is right. Clearly, risks to inflation are on the upside, and massively so. The economy has been injected with a cocktail of three growth-inducing drugs-negative real interest rates, a rising budget deficit and a falling currency. Oil prices have touched $40 a barrel and the labour market is tightening. It is hard to believe that Greenspan, a junkie for economic data no matter how seemingly trivial, has not spotted all this. Rates in the US are far below a neutral level, which would probably be around 5%, yet Greenspan is in no hurry to act.
参考译文
格林斯潘的魔力正在消失
在过去20多年最风光的时间里，艾伦·格林斯潘代表了一种形象，证明了“人老不中用”的看法是多么的愚蠢。在他61岁那年，他成为了美联储主席，而很多同龄人早已被淘汰，还有很多人正准备着退休。在年近70时他迎来了掌管美国经济的黄金岁月，而现今78岁的他地位依然牢不可破。格林斯潘是中央银行家中的老字辈了，时至今日，同僚们提起他还肃然起敬。这位美联储的主席很少接受采访，也很少在公共场合讲话，如同文学界中神秘的《为芬尼根守灵》一样，这一作风更增添了他在经济界的高深莫测。
但是，人们还是不禁战战兢兢地要问：难道老谋深算的艾伦最终还是失算了吗?上周初，格林斯潘主持了美联储的一个会议，决定将利率控制在1％的水平，这一水平他们已经坚持了近一年的时间。随决定发布的一项声明宣称通货膨胀的风险已经被控制住了，这就意味着美联储认为生活水准上升或下滑的几率大致相同。周四公布的失业率已接近四年来的最低水平，而周五非农业就业人数增加了288，000人，劳动力市场呈现出一片复苏的景象，这超过了人们的预期。经济以每年4.5％的速度增长。制造业和服务业的调查表明增长势头强劲，房地产市场愈加繁荣，通货膨胀已经露出了苗头。
格林斯潘对通货膨胀采取的方式受到百般挑剔也就不足为怪了。甚至于那些倾向于扩张性宏观经济政策的凯恩斯左派人士也加入了挑剔的行业。“除了计算机以外，难道还有其他的东西在降价吗?”华盛顿经济政策研究中心的迪安·贝克问道。贝克是正确的。显而易见，通货膨胀的风险呈上升趋势，而且上升幅度很大。美国经济已经被注入了三合一的增长剂：实际利率的降低，不断增长的预算赤字和货币的贬值。油价已经达到了每桶40美元，劳动力市场也在紧缩。人们还是很难相信像格林斯潘这样一位精通数字的经济学家，不管数字是多么地微不足道，居然没有察觉到这一点。美国利率的中等水平约为5％，而目前的利率远远低于这一标准，但格林斯潘却并不急于采取行动。
George Soros the Financial Crocodile
"The US governs the international system to protect its own economy. It is not in charge of protecting other economies. "Soros says. "So when America goes into recession, you have anti- recessionary policies. When other countries are in recession, they don't have the ability to engage in anti-recessionary policies because they can't have a permissive monetary policy, because money would flee. " In person, he has the air of a philosophy professor rather than a gimlet-eyed financier. In a soft voice which bears the faces of his native Hungary, he argues that it is time to rewrite the so-called Washington consensus-the cocktail of liberalization, privatization and fiscal rectitude which the IMF has been preaching for 15 years. Developing countries no longer have the freedom to run their own economies, he argues, even when they follow perfectly sound policies. He cites Brazil, which although it has a floating currency and manageable public debt was paying ten times over the odds to borrow from capital markets.
Soros credits the anti-globalization movement for having made companies more sensitive to their wider responsibilities. "I think [the protesters] have made an important contribution by making people aware of the flaws of the system," he says. "People on the street had an impact on public opinion and corporations which sell to the public responded to that." Because the IMF has abandoned billion dollar bailouts for troubled economies, he thinks a repeat of the Asian crisis is unlikely. The funds new "tough love" policy-for which Argentina is the guinea pig--has other consequences. The bailouts were a welfare system for Wall Street, with western taxpayers rescuing the banks from the consequences of unwise lending to emerging economies. Now the IMF has drawn a line in the sand, credit to poor countries is drying up. "It has created a new problem-the inadequacy of the flow of capital from center to the periphery," he says.
The one economy Soros is not losing any sleep about is the US. "I am much more positive about the underlying economy than I am about the market, because we are waging war not only on terrorism but also on recession." he says. "I have not yet seen an economy in recession when you are gearing up for war." He worries that the world's largest economic power is not living up to its responsibilities. "I would like the United States to live up to the responsibilities of its hegemonic(霸权的) power because it is not going to give up its hegemonic power, " he says. "The only thing that is realistic is for the United States to become aware that it is in its enlightened self- interest to ensure that the rest of the world benefits from their role."
参考译文
金融大鳄乔治·索罗斯
索罗斯说：“美国管理国际经济体系，是为了保护本国经济，并不负责保护其他国家的经济。美国经济一旦陷入衰退，可以出台反衰退政策，而其他国家经济衰退，却无力这样做，因为这些国家不能采取自由的货币政策，否则资本就会外流。”索罗斯本人具有哲学教授的风度，不太像目光敏锐的金融家。说话轻声细语，略带匈牙利口音，认为修改所谓的“华盛顿共识”正当其时。“华盛顿共识”是指经济自由化、私人化和财政透明的综合体制；这一体制国际货币基金组织已倡导了15年。索罗斯认为，发展中国家即便贯彻了完善健全的经济政策，也不再能自由地控制本国经济。他举例说，巴西实行了浮动汇率制和可控国债，却付出比正常情况高出10倍的代价从资本市场借贷。
索罗斯赞扬反全球化运动使各公司更加认识到自己更广泛的责任。他说：“我认为反对者功不可没，让人们意识到这一体制有缺陷。普通民众对公众舆论产生了重要影响，而公司以大众为销售对象，对此也做出了反应。”国际货币基金组织不再提供10亿美元援助经济困难的国家，索罗斯因此认为亚洲金融危机不可能重现。国际货币基金组织这种“又严又爱”的政策(阿根廷是这一政策的试验品)产生了别的后果：西方纳税人挽救了银行，将其从盲目向新兴工业国家提供贷款的恶果中解脱出来，而资金援助成为华尔街提供福利的方法。如今国际货币基金组织就好像是在沙滩上划了一条分界线，向贫困国家提供的贷款日益枯竭。索罗斯说：“这产生了新问题，即资金从中心向周边流动不足。”
索罗斯唯对美国经济高枕无忧。他说：“我对美国经济潜力的信心比对市场更足。我们不只向恐怖主义开战，也向经济衰退开战。我还没见过哪个国家全力备战时经济停滞不前。”他担心世界上最大的经济强国不能尽到责任，说道：“我希望美国承担起其霸权应承担的责任，因为美国不会放弃霸权地位。美国应该意识到，美国自身要获得利益，就必须保证其他国家从其扮演的角色中受益。这是唯一的现实。”