「經濟合作暨發展組織」(OECD)呼籲：決策者應該中止追求經濟復甦，轉而開始調升利率，同時削減開支。在歐元國家債信危機中，我們也看到，希臘、義大利、西班牙與葡萄牙都通過遵節開支的法案。 連非歐元區的英國，新政府也宣示要解少赤字。

希臘、義大利、西班牙的樽節開支
新國會開議－女王演說：減少赤字為政府首要任務

從二房風暴以來，美國政府提出了高達7000億美元的紓困計劃─TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program)，但是7000億美元應該不夠花.....

• 房利美（Fannie Mae）、房地美（Freddie Mac）2大房貸機構紓困將無上限，必要時，注資金援可超過先前設定每家2000億美元（6.45兆元台幣)，合計4000億美元（12.9兆元台幣）額度。
• 美國政府金援AIG金額加碼到1500億美元。
• 美國財政部宣佈金援美國銀行1380億美元。
• 花旗在金融風暴衝擊下，接受美國政府高達450億美元（1.45兆元台幣）的金援。
• 通用汽車就倚賴美國政府提供的134億美元貸款維持營運。
• ........
• .....
  

我試著在網路上找看看有沒有統計的數據，但是只有一個政府TARP與民間共花了23,700億美元。(Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky所表示。)

今年則有：日本通過了一兆美元的振興經濟方案。(2010.3.24)
             捍衛歐元 歐盟財長決議投入7,500億歐元 (2010.5.10)

每個國家都花那麼多錢，錢要向誰借呢？自己印大概比較快。所以「經濟合作暨發展組織」(OECD)呼籲，看起來很有道裡。

可是美國的諾貝爾經濟學獎得主克魯曼(Paul KRUGMAN)卻有完全相反的見解。

OECD的呼籲，以個人的處境來裡解即可，一個負債的人是應該要遵節開支。但是克魯曼的觀點是否也可以套到個人身上呢？一個負債的人不應遵節開支，而要去借更多錢來廣結善緣，做生意，好快點賺錢來還。



May 30, 2010

The Pain Caucus

By PAUL KRUGMAN

What’s the greatest threat to our still-fragile economic recovery? Dangers abound, of course. But what I currently find most ominous is the spread of a destructive idea: the view that now, less than a year into a weak recovery from the worst slump since World War II, is the time for policy makers to stop helping the jobless and start inflicting pain.

When the financial crisis first struck, most of the world’s policy makers responded appropriately, cutting interest rates and allowing deficits to rise. And by doing the right thing, by applying the lessons learned from the 1930s, they managed to limit the damage: It was terrible, but it wasn’t a second Great Depression.

Now, however, demands that governments switch from supporting their economies to punishing them have been proliferating in op-eds, speeches and reports from international organizations. Indeed, the idea that what depressed economies really need is even more suffering seems to be the new conventional wisdom, which John Kenneth Galbraith famously defined as “the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability.”

The extent to which inflicting economic pain has become the accepted thing was driven home to me by the latest report on the economic outlook from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an influential Paris-based think tank supported by the governments of the world’s advanced economies. The O.E.C.D. is a deeply cautious organization; what it says at any given time virtually defines that moment’s conventional wisdom. And what the O.E.C.D. is saying right now is that policy makers should stop promoting economic recovery and instead begin raising interest rates and slashing spending.

What’s particularly remarkable about this recommendation is that it seems disconnected not only from the real needs of the world economy, but from the organization’s own economic projections.

Thus, the O.E.C.D. declares that interest rates in the United States and other nations should rise sharply over the next year and a half, so as to head off inflation. Yet inflation is low and declining, and the O.E.C.D.’s own forecasts show no hint of an inflationary threat. So why raise rates?

The answer, as best I can make it out, is that the organization believes that we must worry about the chance that markets might start expecting inflation, even though they shouldn’t and currently don’t: We must guard against “the possibility that longer-term inflation expectations could become unanchored in the O.E.C.D. economies, contrary to what is assumed in the central projection.”

A similar argument is used to justify fiscal austerity. Both textbook economics and experience say that slashing spending when you’re still suffering from high unemployment is a really bad idea — not only does it deepen the slump, but it does little to improve the budget outlook, because much of what governments save by spending less they lose as a weaker economy depresses tax receipts. And the O.E.C.D. predicts that high unemployment will persist for years. Nonetheless, the organization demands both that governments cancel any further plans for economic stimulus and that they begin “fiscal consolidation” next year.

Why do this? Again, to give markets something they shouldn’t want and currently don’t. Right now, investors don’t seem at all worried about the solvency of the U.S. government; the interest rates on federal bonds are near historic lows. And even if markets were worried about U.S. fiscal prospects, spending cuts in the face of a depressed economy would do little to improve those prospects. But cut we must, says the O.E.C.D., because inadequate consolidation efforts “would risk adverse reactions in financial markets.”

The best summary I’ve seen of all this comes from Martin Wolf of The Financial Times, who describes the new conventional wisdom as being that “giving the markets what we think they may want in future — even though they show little sign of insisting on it now — should be the ruling idea in policy.”

Put that way, it sounds crazy. And it is. Yet it’s a view that’s spreading. And it’s already having ugly consequences. Last week conservative members of the House, invoking the new deficit fears, scaled back a bill extending aid to the long-term unemployed — and the Senate left town without acting on even the inadequate measures that remained. As a result, many American families are about to lose unemployment benefits, health insurance, or both — and as these families are forced to slash spending, they will endanger the jobs of many more.

And that’s just the beginning. More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/opinion/31krugman.html

【陳世欽譯】

美國經濟復甦面臨的最大威脅何在？當然危機四伏。不過我認為，最不祥的徵兆是，一種極具破壞力的看法正在迅速蔓延。那就是，美國經濟陷入大蕭條以來所見最嚴重的衰退，終於出現微弱復甦跡象不到一年的今天，決策者必須中止協助失業者，開始施加痛苦。

金融海嘯發威之初，全球各國的決策者大多採取適當的因應之策，具體手段包括降息，允許赤字增加。他們記取1930年代的慘痛教訓，盡量將衝擊降到最低限度。

如今，許多專欄文章、演講及部分國際組織發表的報告已經不再呼籲各國政府全力支撐各該國的經濟，轉而主張予以嚴懲。的確，所謂低迷經濟體必須承受更多痛苦的說法似乎已經成為新顯學。前哈佛大學華伯格經濟學講座名譽教授高伯瑞曾經表示，這種觀點「因為可以為人接受而總是受到敬重」。

巴黎智庫「經濟合作暨發展組織」（OECD）最近發表的經濟展望報告採用這種已廣為各界認同的主張。OECD由全球的幾個先進國家贊助，行事一向極為審慎，任何時候發表的意見及主張實際上等於同時期傳統智慧的定義。它當前的見解是，決策者應該中止追求經濟復甦，轉而開始調升利率，同時削減開支。

這項主張的特別之處是，它似乎不僅與全球經濟的真正需求脫節，而且與OECD的經濟展望評估背道而馳。

OECD表示，美國與其他國家必須於未來一年半大幅升息，以化解通膨於未然。然而當前的通膨不但低，而且不斷減緩，OECD的評估報告並未顯示通膨可能再度出現。如此說來，為什麼要升息？

我個人的看法是，OECD認為，我們必須顧及市場可能開始預期通膨的可能性，即使它們不應該，當前也無此等預期心理亦然；與主要的預估結果相反，我們必須提防OECD各經濟體出現長期通膨預期心理的可能性。
另一種類似的論點被用於為財政緊縮政策辯護。根據經濟學教科書與經驗，主政者切忌在失業率居高不下的非常時期削減開支，否則不但足以導致衰退更加嚴重，而且不足以有效改善預算的施展空間，因為政府撙節開支將付出更疲弱的經濟導致稅收減少的代價。OECD認為，失業率居高不下的現象將持續數年，各國政府必須打消推出後續經濟振興方案的念頭，明年並應展開「強化財政」。

為什麼這麼做？為市場提供不該要求、當前也無需求的工具。投資人目前似乎並不擔心美國政府的償付能力；聯邦債券的利率接近歷史最低。即使市場擔心美國的財政前景，在經濟低迷的大環境下削減開支無助於改善這項問題。然而OECD認為，我們必須削減開支，因為鞏固力道不足「勢必導致金融市場出現負面反應」。

關於這一切，我所見最周延的結論來自金融時報首席經濟評論員馬丁‧沃夫（Martin Wolf）。他表示，所謂新流行說法的主要論點是，「即使目前並無明顯的堅持跡象，決策者仍應給予市場未來可能需要的工具，預判的根據來自決策者本身」。

這聽起來相當瘋狂。的確也是如此。然而這種看法正在迅速蔓延，而且已經產生負面後果。保守派的國會眾議員上星期收回擴大救濟長期失業者的法案，參議院甚至未處理所剩的不足方案。結果是，許多美國家庭即將失去失業補貼、健保，或者兩者俱失。一旦這些家庭被迫節衣縮食，更多人的工作將岌岌可危。

這只是開始。新顯學認為，最負責的作法是讓失業者吃苦。施加痛苦的好處是幻覺，痛苦卻是如假包換。



May 20, 2010

Lost Decade Looming?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Despite a chorus of voices claiming otherwise, we aren’t Greece. We are, however, looking more and more like Japan.

For the past few months, much commentary on the economy — some of it posing as reporting — has had one central theme: policy makers are doing too much. Governments need to stop spending, we’re told. Greece is held up as a cautionary tale, and every uptick in the interest rate on U.S. government bonds is treated as an indication that markets are turning on America over its deficits. Meanwhile, there are continual warnings that inflation is just around the corner, and that the Fed needs to pull back from its efforts to support the economy and get started on its “exit strategy,” tightening credit by selling off assets and raising interest rates.

And what about near-record unemployment, with long-term unemployment worse than at any time since the 1930s? What about the fact that the employment gains of the past few months, although welcome, have, so far, brought back fewer than 500,000 of the more than 8 million jobs lost in the wake of the financial crisis? Hey, worrying about the unemployed is just so 2009.

But the truth is that policy makers aren’t doing too much; they’re doing too little. Recent data don’t suggest that America is heading for a Greece-style collapse of investor confidence. Instead, they suggest that we may be heading for a Japan-style lost decade, trapped in a prolonged era of high unemployment and slow growth.

Let’s talk first about those interest rates. On several occasions over the past year, we’ve been told, after some modest rise in rates, that the bond vigilantes had arrived, that America had better slash its deficit right away or else. Each time, rates soon slid back down. Most recently, in March, there was much ado about the interest rate on U.S. 10-year bonds, which had risen from 3.6 percent to almost 4 percent. “Debt fears send rates up” was the headline at The Wall Street Journal, although there wasn’t actually any evidence that debt fears were responsible.

Since then, however, rates have retraced that rise and then some. As of Thursday, the 10-year rate was below 3.3 percent. I wish I could say that falling interest rates reflect a surge of optimism about U.S. federal finances. What they actually reflect, however, is a surge of pessimism about the prospects for economic recovery, pessimism that has sent investors fleeing out of anything that looks risky — hence, the plunge in the stock market — into the perceived safety of U.S. government debt.

What’s behind this new pessimism? It partly reflects the troubles in Europe, which have less to do with government debt than you’ve heard; the real problem is that by creating the euro, Europe’s leaders imposed a single currency on economies that weren’t ready for such a move. But there are also warning signs at home, most recently Wednesday’s report on consumer prices, which showed a key measure of inflation falling below 1 percent, bringing it to a 44-year low.

This isn’t really surprising: you expect inflation to fall in the face of mass unemployment and excess capacity. But it is nonetheless really bad news. Low inflation, or worse yet deflation, tends to perpetuate an economic slump, because it encourages people to hoard cash rather than spend, which keeps the economy depressed, which leads to more deflation. That vicious circle isn’t hypothetical: just ask the Japanese, who entered a deflationary trap in the 1990s and, despite occasional episodes of growth, still can’t get out. And it could happen here.

So what we should really be asking right now isn’t whether we’re about to turn into Greece. We should, instead, be asking what we’re doing to avoid turning Japanese. And the answer is, nothing.

It’s not that nobody understands the risk. I strongly suspect that some officials at the Fed see the Japan parallels all too clearly and wish they could do more to support the economy. But in practice it’s all they can do to contain the tightening impulses of their colleagues, who (like central bankers in the 1930s) remain desperately afraid of inflation despite the absence of any evidence of rising prices. I also suspect that Obama administration economists would very much like to see another stimulus plan. But they know that such a plan would have no chance of getting through a Congress that has been spooked by the deficit hawks.

In short, fear of imaginary threats has prevented any effective response to the real danger facing our economy.

Will the worst happen? Not necessarily. Maybe the economic measures already taken will end up doing the trick, jump-starting a self-sustaining recovery. Certainly, that’s what we’re all hoping. But hope is not a plan.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/opinion/21krugman.html