战争才能拯救美国
翻译:李红英 日期:2010-10-15
费尔德斯坦,克鲁格曼一致认为:也许另外一场战争的爆发能是美国参议双方从即将面临的持续而严重的失业状态中走出来。
作者:Michael Hirsh 2010年10月5日,星期二
两次世界大战是不够的。
两位杰出的经济学家,一个保守主义者,一个自由主义者,今天都认为:美国的经济前景如此不景气,而政府却毫无对策,也许只有在爆发一场大规模的战争,才能将美国从长期的高失业和低增长中拯救出来。
关于对未来的看法,保罗.克鲁格曼和马丁。费尔德斯坦在华盛顿举行的经济论坛上取得了————的共识,他们前者是一位诺贝尔奖获得者,美国纽约时报的专栏作家,后者则来自哈佛大学,是里根总统政府经济顾问的前任主席。而他们的观点与另一位经济学家,高盛公司的Jan Hatzius相同。Jan认为他唯一能想象得到的经济状况不是“很坏”,就是“更坏”。
至于能否实现充分就业,克鲁格曼的判断是基本上不可能。因为近来没有任何明显的迹象表明会那样。克鲁格曼认为美国现在正处于经济萧条的低谷时期,而情况如此严重,以至于我们认为,日本十年的失落相比之下还算是一个成功。
克鲁格曼和费尔德斯坦,虽然在政府的财政政策和税收政策方面经常观点相反,但两人似乎一直认为:华盛顿政府的瘫痪无能使必要的财政和货币激励政策已不起作用。也许只有一种强烈的外部冲击力量才能打破这种格局,比如一场严重的战争,类似于克鲁格曼所说的合理的财政扩张,就像第二次世界大战一样。“我们并不愿发动一场反对人类的战争",在左倾论坛上,克鲁格曼以中华总半开玩笑的口气遗憾地说。美国的财政政策有四个智囊团来决定。“保罗是对的,正是财政政策让我们从上一次经济衰退中走出,与这次相比,那是大萧条。”
两个人反复强调了他们不成熟的,备受争议的看法:认为奥巴马政府的救市方案对于填补产出缺口力量太微弱。费尔德斯坦谨慎地表达了他的乐观态度:如果政府什么也不做,人们不再迷信华盛顿,由此导致的全球范围的美元大幅贬值,也许可能会增加出口,提高经济。但Hatzius不这样认为。他认为“对美元信心的丧失,同时会引起其他市场的不稳定”,而那可能会完全抵消掉由货币贬值带来的经济好处。她认为最可能发生的结果——“较坏的结果”是,在2011年的前几个月,失业率以1%-2%的增长速度上升到10%以上,而在2014年之前不会回落到充分就业。而“更坏的结果”可能发生的几率是25%-30%:在未来的6-9个月里,经济将加倍下降。而克鲁格曼又增加了一种灾难性的可能结局:未来两内,企业破产的可能是50%,尤其是随着期中竞选的即将到来,该竞选有望壮大右倾主义的共和党,其将更加右倾。
此次讨论已由Demos,The Century Foundation,, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities出版,书名叫做:《预算政策:短期复苏和长期增长》,讨论的参与者对现实状况如此悲观,永远不可能解决短期复苏或长期增长的任何问题。
“Feldstein, Krugman Agree: Another War Would Help
Economists From Both Sides Of The Political Spectrum Envision Grim Employment Scenarios For Years To Come
by Michael Hirsh
Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010
Two wars are not enough.
America\'s economic outlook is so grim, and political solutions are so utterly absent, that only another large-scale war might be enough to lift the nation out of chronic high unemployment and slow growth, two prominent economists, a conservative and a liberal, said today.
Nobelist Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, and Harvard\'s Martin Feldstein, the former chairman of President Reagan\'s Council of Economic Advisers, achieved an unnerving degree of consensus about the future during an economic forum in Washington. Their views were shared by a third economist, Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs, who said the only economic scenarios he could visualize were either \"pretty bad\" or \"very bad.\"
As far as returning to full employment, Krugman said his estimate is \"basically never. There is nothing visible on the horizon that will make that happen.\" Krugman said the United States is caught in a post-recession trough so bleak that \"we\'re going to look at Japan\'s \'lost decade\' as a success story\" by comparison.
Krugman and Feldstein, though often on opposite sides of the political fence on fiscal and tax policy, both appeared to share the view that political paralysis in Washington has rendered the necessary fiscal and monetary stimulus out of the question. Only a high-impact \"exogenous\" shock like a major war -- something similar to what Krugman called the \"coordinated fiscal expansion known as World War II\" -- would be enough to break the cycle. \"I don\'t think we\'re about to launch a war against anybody,\" Feldstein said with tongue-in-cheek regret at the left-leaning forum, \"America\'s Fiscal Choices,\" sponsored by four think tanks. \"But Paul is right. That was the fiscal move that got us out\" of the last downturn comparable to this one, the Great Depression.
Both reiterated their previously argued views that the Obama administration\'s stimulus was far too small to fill the output gap. Feldstein expressed a cautious optimism that if government did nothing, then a dramatic dollar depreciation around the world -- driven, ironically, by a lack of faith in Washington -- might boost exports and the economy. But Krugman and Hatzius appeared to disagree. \"A loss of confidence in the dollar would coincide with instability in other markets,\" Hatzius said, and that would wipe out whatever economic benefits depreciation might supply. Hatzius said the most likely of his scenarios -- the \"pretty bad\" one -- called for unemployment to climb again to somewhere over 10 percent on growth of 1 percent to 2 percent through the early months of 2011, and no return to full employment before 2014. But he gave a 25 percent to 30 percent chance that his \"very bad\" alternative could develop: a double-dip recession over the next six to nine months.
Krugman added a third \"catastrophic\" alternative involving \"a 50 percent probability of a government shutdown in the next two years,\" especially with the upcoming midterm elections expected to empower an even more right-leaning Republican Party.
The discussion -- put on by Demos, the Century Foundation, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities -- was entitled \"Budget Policy, Short-Term Recovery and Long-Term Growth.\" The participants were so caught up in the pessimism of the moment that they never got to questions about budget policy or long-term growth.“
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ec_20101005_5357.php