据2009年3月13日新华社报道,温家宝说:借钱给美国,有点担心: ——对于《华尔街日报》记者关于对美债权是否担心的问题,温家宝总理坦言,确实非常关心这些资产的安全。温家宝说,中国确实是美国最大的债权国,美国又是世界上最大的经济体,我们十分关注美国经济的发展。奥巴马总统的新政府采取了一系列的应对金融危机的措施,我们对于这些措施的效果予以期待。温总理说,我们把巨额资金借给美国,当然关心我们资产的安全。说句老实话,我确实有些担心。因而我想通过你再次重申要求美国保持信用,信守承诺,保证中国资产的安全。温家宝表示,任何国家不能对人民币升值或贬值施加压力。(新华手机报3月13日两会特刊) 对于这“有点担心”,美国欧洲太平洋资本有限公司总裁彼得?希夫(Peter Schiff,president of Euro Pacific Capital)毫不留情地给了当头一盆冷水:别指望美国会还这八千亿美元的国债,中国只能当是打水漂了。(见附录:彼得?希夫2009年7月12日在米塞斯研究院的演讲《为什么我们不应对金融危机感到意外》(Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One)演讲摘要) 彼得?希夫真是直言不讳:明明白白告诉你美国国债就是个大规模的庞氏骗局,你中国买了就是肉包子打狗——有去无回。见识了人家的逻辑才真正见识了人家的“普世价值”——借债不还还振振有词倒打一耙:“你们是食利者!放高利贷者!我们需要修改游戏规则,我们要打破债务枷锁!你们明知我们还不了,还借给我们那么多钱!这不是我们的错!”“我们为什么还要在意中国人怎么想?华盛顿难道会得罪选民,去取悦非选民?”
======================================= 附录:美国欧洲太平洋资本有限公司总裁彼得.希夫(Peter Schiff,president of Euro Pacific Capital)2009年7月12日在米塞斯研究院的演讲《为什么我们不应对金融危机感到意外》(Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One)摘要
Because the Chinese just mentioned yesterday that they were getting a little concerned about all the money they loaned us and that just maybe we won\'t pay them back. I\'m sure they\'re a lot more than just a little concerned, because that\'s what they said publicly. Imagine what they\'re saying privately. Because they know we\'re not going to pay them back. Of course we\'re not going to pay the Chinese back their money. It\'s impossible. We can\'t. We can\'t possibly.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine if President Obama, giving the following type of speech to the American citizens.
He\'ll give a national televised address and say, My fellow Americans, I\'ve got a little news for you today. We\'re going to have to have a massive, across-the-board tax increase on average working Americans. Any American that still has a job is going to have to pay much higher income taxes. And, as a matter of fact, we\'re going to have to cut Social Security across the board. Forget the Social Security check, we\'re going to have to reduce it. And remember all my plans about more education and health care for everybody and energy independence, we got to put all those plans on hold, because the Chinese need their money.
We borrowed a lot of money from the Chinese and we\'re good for our debts. They worked hard for that money and they loaned it us to and we\'re going to pay it back. And that\'s going to require a big sacrifice on our part.
Does anyone think that we\'re going to do that? What are they, kidding me? Do you know what we\'re going to tell the Chinese? We\'re going to say, You guys are predators, predator lenders. We need a modification program. We need a cramdown on this. You never should have lent us all this money. You know we can\'t pay it back. It\'s not our fault.
The Chinese know this. The Chinese, they can\'t even vote in our elections. Why are we going to care what they think? We\'re going to tax voters to pay non-voters?
So the Chinese know they\'re in this box. The US government, we don\'t pay our bills. We\'re like Bernie Madoff. People loan us money. How do we pay it back? We borrow more.
If somebody came to Bernie Madoff a couple years ago and wanted their money, they got it. Why did they get it? Because they were able to take in new money. They found another sucker who didn\'t know it was a Ponzi scheme.
Same thing the US government does. Every time a bond matures, we just go sell another one. And every time we need to pay interest on the national debt, we go borrow that too. Well, it works until nobody wants to lend us any more money, then we\'re going to have to default, just like Bernie did. And there\'s only two ways we can default. We just legitimately don\'t pay, or we print money. That\'s it. There\'s only two ways to repudiate your debt. There\'s no way we\'re going to pay the debt; the Chinese have to know that, and we\'re going to figure that out.
And, of course, I said, instead of putting Bernie Madoff in jail, we should just make him Secretary of the Treasury. Because he\'s got a lot of experience, exactly the kind that we need, running a Ponzi scheme.