经济决战：华盛顿对失败的经济的回答是：更多的战争

经济决战：华盛顿对失败的经济的回答是：更多的战争（组内翻译稿）

21世纪的第二个十年伊始，美国经济仍未从2007年12月开始的大衰退中恢复过来。此前美国已经采取了历史上最大的财政和货币刺激举措。投入了7000亿救市资金，7000亿刺激计划，并且采取了上万亿的量化宽松政策，以债务货币化，即印钱的方式维持政府支出。美联储的资产负债表膨胀了好几万亿美元，因为它购买了陷入困境的抵押债券和衍生品以维持金融系统的流动性和运转。根据参议员Bernie Sanders发表的审计总署的审计报告，联储曾秘密借给美国及外国的银行16万亿美元，这比美国国内生产总值还多。

但即使采取了这么大的财政和货币刺激政策，经济状况仍是死气沉沉不见希望。2011年联邦政府年度支出占了整个国家预算的43%。换句话说，在2011财政年度里，43%的国家支出须靠美国政府通过向美联储借贷和美联储印钱来维持。但史无前例的刺激政策仍不能使经济恢复。

21世纪第一个十年接近尾声的时候，联邦对汽车和房屋购买的补贴措施使得经济下滑暂时止住了脚步。新婚夫妇在购置新房时可以得到8000美金的补贴，这笔钱在低迷的房市里占了首付款的很大部分。而购车补贴则是将未来的需求挪到了现在。但是，这些补贴措施一旦失效，那么对经济的支持也将消失。

反映失业，通胀和国内生产总值情况的统计报告存在问题，它掩盖了逐渐恶化的经济状况。季节性调整一贯是使得整年的数据走势显得平滑，但它似乎并未在设计时把冗长的衰退考虑进去。美国劳工统计局（BLS）使用的生灭模型（birth/death model）也不能反映问题。这个模型是用以估计新创业公司新增的未登记的工作岗位和随公司停业而消失的工作岗位。这个模型适用于经济增长时期，在经济衰退时它会过高估计新增工作岗位的数量。另外，消费者物价指数(CPI)里假定的替代效应，即消费者会因物价升高而转而购买廉价的替代商品，会低估通胀。比如，纽约牛脊的涨价不会反映在消费者物价指数里，因为物价指数假定人们会去购买更便宜的排骨。

粉饰账目

被广泛采用的核心通胀排除了食品和能源价格。如果谁想力图展示对未来前景的极其乐观估计，那就采用它好了。因此政府据此可低估通胀，高估实际GDP的增长，创造虚幻的繁荣前景。

同样，用U.3可以低估失业率。媒体标题党反映的2011年6月的失业率为9.2%。但它不包括颓废的失业人群，它指的是那些因为没有工作可做而放弃找工作的那类人群。这类人群不在U.3统计里。联邦政府可能觉得这太假了，所以也采用U.6统计，它包括了短期的颓废失业人群。这个甚少为媒体所报道的数字，反映出2011年6月的失业率为16.2%。Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) 更进一步，采用1980年官方采用的统计方法，它的统计包括了长期颓废失业人群，这样，这个失业率就变为了22.7%。换句话说，实际2011年美国失业率介于20%到25%之间。

2011年接下来的日子里，美国面临三个经济危机，而且会同步发生。原因是美国失业人口上升，GDP萎缩，消费者收入下降，以及因公司离岸外包供应美国市场的生产活动而引起的税收减少。美国公司非但没有雇佣本国劳动力在本国生产，以支持美国的就业，给州和地方政府提供税源，相反，它们把这些好处给了中国，印度和印尼这些国家。这样一来，经济刺激措施就无法提振美国经济，因为工作岗位外流他国，不可能给本地美国人了。

另一个危机是由放松监管，舞弊，贪婪以及房贷证券化引起的金融危机。放贷者没有兴趣去检查房贷人的资质，因为房贷合同被卖给第三方，然后第三方又把这些资产组合交叉卖给另外的投资者。卖掉房贷合同可以赚钱，那么放贷机构就会发放更多的抵押贷款，从而可以赚更多的钱。为此放贷机构甚至伪造贷款人的信用记录。随着房市蓬勃发展，很多人借房贷以倒卖赚钱。随着房价急剧上涨，首付款和信贷资质变得让人担心起来。金融危机因投行通过杠杆放大债务，逃避资本充足要求而加剧恶化。当所有泡沫破裂，房市就崩盘了。

经济大决战

第三个危机是1万5千亿美元的年度联邦预算赤字。要是没有美联储的债务货币化措施，即通过购买财政部发行的新发行的短中长期国债来筹措资金，并把发行的钱放在一个新建的活期存款账户上，则联邦政府的维持开支将难以为继。滥发的财政部债务引起了对美元汇率，美元的储币地位以及通胀的担忧。美元汇率下降，而金银价格上升。

前面三个危机中的任何一个都是严重的危机。它们一起预示着金融大动荡的到来。

看起来没有什么明显的出路，就算有，政府也会把注意力集中在其他地方：战争。

美国和北约一直以来对伊拉克，阿富汗，巴基斯坦，也门和索马里持续进行军事打击，2011年3月19日又对利比亚进行军事袭击。战争进行到现在，对利比亚的侵略的真实目的一直无法被确认，但目的已渐渐清晰，就是把中国在东利比亚的石油投资驱逐出去。和之前的阿拉伯抗议活动不同，利比亚反政府军是武装的造反派，背后有中情局的黑手。

利比亚战争增加了风险，因为在阿拉伯地区抗议活动的背后是美国对抗中国。类似的，对叙利亚反对派的支持也是为了打击俄国在塔尔图斯的海军基地。推翻阿萨德政府，扶持亲美政权将结束俄海军在地中海的军事存在。

通过掩盖对利比亚和叙利亚行动的真实目的，华盛顿力图避免和中俄进行正面冲突。但中俄都明白华盛顿在敲打它们的利益。这增加了美国对两个核大国进攻性政策的鲁莽程度。其中一个还是美国外债最大的持有人。

中国在安哥拉和尼日利亚的投资是美国的另一个目标。为了阻止中国在非洲的渗透，美国在前几年成立了美军非洲司令部。因担忧中国的日益强盛，美国采取措施阻止中国获得独立的能源来源。这种大游戏在以往总是引起战争冲突，现在又来了。

911事件为美国提供了取代苏联威胁的新的借口。来自苏联的威胁自91年起就消失了，但接下来的10年里军事和安全预算并未降低。911事件使此项预算得以急剧增长。再10年之后，此项预算膨胀到高达1.1万亿美元，占联邦赤字的70%。赤字使得美元贬值，威胁到美国的评级。

美国集中于中东的战事，却丢掉了经济战

随着2011年对经济复苏的希望渐渐消失，战争的迫切性在加剧。（见Antiwar.com, “Sen. Graham ‘Very Close’ to War.”）

作者简介：Paul Craig Roberts博士,曾任华尔街日报副编，商业周刊的专栏作家，曾在参议院人事委员会任职。里根政府时期曾担任经济政策财政司助理秘书。受聘于六所大学，曾获美国财政部银色勋章及法国总统荣誉勋章。

 

"Economic Armageddon": Washington/>/>’s Response to a Failed Ecomomy: More War

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

 

As the second decade of the 21st century began, the US/>/> economy had not recovered from the Great Recession that began in December 2007.

 

The economy’s failure to recover was despite the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus in the country’s history. There was a $700 billion bank bailout, a $700 billion stimulus program, a couple of trillion in “quantitative easing,” that is, in debt monetization or the printing of money to finance the government’s expenditures. In addition the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet had expanded by trillions of dollars as the Fed purchased troubled mortgage bonds and derivatives in its effort to keep the financial system solvent and functioning. According to the Government Accountability Office’s audit of the Federal Reserve released by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Federal Reserve provided secret loans to US and foreign banks totaling $16.1 trillion, a sum larger than US Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

 

Despite the enormous fiscal and monetary stimulus, the economy remained dead in the water.

 

 

In 2011 the deficit in the federal government’s annual expenditures was 43 percent of the budget. In other words, the US/>/> government had to borrow, or the Fed had to monetize, 43 percent of federal expenditures during fiscal year 2011. Despite this unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, the economy did not recover.

 

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the economy’s decline was temporarily halted by federal subsidies for car and home purchases. The $8,000 housing subsidy helped newlyweds purchase starter homes as the subsidy was a big chunk of the down payment in a depressed housing market. The car purchase subsidy moved future demand into the present. When these subsidies expired, the economy’s life support was turned off.

 

Problems with the statistical reporting of unemployment, inflation, and GDP disguised the worsening economy. Seasonal adjustments used to smooth the data over the course of the year were not designed for prolonged recession. Neither was the “birth-death” model used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to estimate non-reported jobs from new start-up companies and losses from companies that have gone out of business. The birth-death model was designed for a growing economy and during downturns overestimates the number of new jobs created.

 

The “substitution effect” used in the consumer price index (CPI) underestimates inflation by assuming that consumers substitute cheaper foods for those that rise in price. For example, if the price of New York/>/> strip steak rises, this does not show up in the CPI, because of the assumption that people shift their purchases to a less expensive cut such as round steak.

 

COOKING THE BOOKS

 

The widely used “core inflation” measure does not include food or energy. Core inflation is a useful measure for those who want to put an optimistic spin on the outlook.

 

By underestimating inflation, the government can overestimate real GDP growth, thus creating a fictional rosy outlook. Similarly, by using the employment measure known as U.3, the government underestimates unemployment.

 

The “headline” unemployment rate, the one emphasized by the media and the financial press, stood at 9.2 percent in June, 2011. But this rate does not include any discouraged workers. A discouraged worker is a person who has ceased looking for a job, because there are no jobs to be found. A discouraged worker is not considered to be in the work force and is not counted among the U.3 unemployed.

 

The federal government knows that this is phony and has a U.6 measure of unemployment that counts the short- term discouraged. This measure, seldom reported by the media, stood at 16.2 percent in June, 2011.

 

Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) continues to count also the long-term discouraged workers according to the way it was officially done in 1980. In June, 2011, this full measure of the US/>/> unemployment rate was 22.7 percent.

 

In other words, by 2011 between one-fifth and one-fourth of the US/>/> work force were without jobs.

 

As 2011 progressed, the United States/>/> faced three simultaneous economic crises. One crisis arose from the loss of US jobs, GDP, consumer income, and tax base caused by corporations offshoring their production for the US/>/> market. Instead of making their products at home with American labor and providing Americans with jobs and states and localities with tax revenues, US corporations provided countries such as China, India, and Indonesia with GDP, jobs, consumer income and a tax base. This practice meant that economic stimulus was unable to revive the US/>/> economy as Americans cannot be called back to work jobs that have been moved abroad.

 

Another crisis was the financial crisis resulting from deregulation, fraud, and greed. Securitization of mortgages meant that issuers of mortgages no longer had any incentive to ascertain the credit worthiness of the borrower, because the issuers sold the mortgages to third parties who combined the mortgages with others and sold them to investors.

 

As mortgages were issued for fees, the more mortgages issued, the higher the income from fees. In order to collect fee income, some issuers faked credit reports for borrowers. With the housing market booming, many people took mortgages in order to make money on the resale of the properties. With housing prices rising rapidly, down payments and credit worthiness became concerns of the past. The financial crisis was made worse by the ability of investment banks to get around capital requirements and, thereby, leverage their equity by incurring enormous debt. When all the bubbles burst, the house of cards collapsed.

 

ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON

 

The third crisis was the $1.5+ trillion annual federal budget deficits, which were too large to be financed without the Federal Reserve buying the Treasury’s new debt issues. Known as monetizing debt, the Federal Reserve purchased the Treasury’s bills, notes, and bonds by creating a checking account, which the Treasury would then draw upon to pay the government’s bills. The outpouring of Treasury debt raised concerns about the dollar’s exchange value and role as reserve currency, and it raised fears of inflation. Gold and silver prices rose as the dollar declined in foreign exchange markets.

 

Any one of these crises was serious. All together, they implied economic armageddon.

 

There was no obvious way out, but even if one could be found, the government was focused elsewhere — on wars.

 

In addition to ongoing military operations in Iraq/>, Afghanistan/>, Pakistan/>, Yemen/> and Somalia/>, the US/> and NATO began military operations against Libya/>/> on March 19, 2011. As with the existing wars, the real purpose of the aggression against Libya/> was not acknowledged, but it became clear that the war’s purpose was to evict China/> from its oil investments in eastern Libya/>/>. Unlike the previous Arab protests, the Libyan rebellion was an armed uprising in which some saw the CIA’s hand.

 

The Libyan war upped the risk, because although hiding behind the veil of Arab protest, the US/> was actually confronting China/>/>. Similarly, in the US-supported armed rebellion in Syria/>, Washington/>/>’s target was the Russian naval base at Tartus. Overthrowing the Assad government in Syria/> and installing a US/> friendly regime would put paid to Russia/>’s naval presence in the Mediterranean/>.

 

By hiding its purposes behind Arab protests in Libya/> and Syria/> that it might have initiated, Washington/> avoided face-to-face conflicts with China/> and Russia/>, but nevertheless the two powers understood that Washington/>/> was striking at their interests. This elevated the recklessness of Washington/>’s aggressive policies by initiating confrontation with two nuclear powers, one of which held financial power over the US/> as America/>/>’s largest foreign creditor.

 

China/>’s oil investments in Angola/> and Nigeria/>/> were another target. To counter China/>’s economic penetration of Africa, the US/>/> created the American African Command in the closing years of the first decade of the 21st century. Disturbed by China/>’s rise, the US/> undertook to prevent China/>/> from having independent sources of energy. The great game that in the past has always led to war is being played out once again.

 

September 11, 2001, provided Washington/>/> with a new “threat” to replace the Soviet threat, which had expired in 1991. Despite the absence of the Soviet threat, the military/ security budget had been kept alive for a decade. September 11, 2001, injected rapid growth into the military/security bud- get. A decade later the budget stood at approximately $1.1 trillion annually, or approximately 70 percent of the federal deficit which was crippling the dollar and threatening the US Treasury’s credit rating.

 

Focused on Middle Eastern wars, Washington/> was losing the war for the US/>/> economy.

 

As the expectation of economic recovery evaporated over the course of 2011, the need for war became more imperative. (See Antiwar.com, “Sen. Graham ‘Very Close’ to War.”)

 

Former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts served on personal and committee staffs in the House and Senate, and served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He has held academic appointments in six universities. He was awarded the US Treasury Silver Medal and the Legion of Honor by the President of France.