聪敏的美国人是这么看问题的。



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送交者: jxh 于 2005-7-21, 20:31:18:

回答: 书袋大家掉:“A trip of 1,000 miles begins with the first step”.  由 Latino2 于 2005-7-21, 18:41:30:

May 20, 2005
The Chinese Connection
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Stories about the new Treasury report condemning China's currency
policy probably had most readers going, "Huh?" Frankly, this is an
issue that confuses professional economists, too. But let me try to
explain what's going on.

Over the last few years China, for its own reasons, has acted as an
enabler both of U.S. fiscal irresponsibility and of a return to
Nasdaq-style speculative mania, this time in the housing market. Now
the U.S. government is finally admitting that there's a problem - but
it's asserting that the problem is China's, not ours.

And there's no sign that anyone in the administration has faced up to
an unpleasant reality: the U.S. economy has become dependent on
low-interest loans from China and other foreign governments, and it's
likely to have major problems when those loans are no longer
forthcoming.

Here's how the U.S.-China economic relationship currently works:

Money is pouring into China, both because of its rapidly rising trade
surplus and because of investments by Western and Japanese companies.
Normally, this inflow of funds would be self-correcting: both China's
trade surplus and the foreign investment pouring in would push up the
value of the yuan, China's currency, making China's exports less
competitive and shrinking its trade surplus.

But the Chinese government, unwilling to let that happen, has kept the
yuan down by shipping the incoming funds right back out again, buying
huge quantities of dollar assets - about $200 billion worth in 2004,
and possibly as much as $300 billion worth this year. This is
economically perverse: China, a poor country where capital is still
scarce by Western standards, is lending vast sums at low interest
rates to the United States.

Yet the U.S. has become dependent on this perverse behavior. Dollar
purchases by China and other foreign governments have temporarily
insulated the U.S. economy from the effects of huge budget deficits.
This money flowing in from abroad has kept U.S. interest rates low
despite the enormous government borrowing required to cover the budget
deficit.

Low interest rates, in turn, have been crucial to America's housing
boom. And soaring house prices don't just create construction jobs;
they also support consumer spending because many homeowners have
converted rising house values into cash by refinancing their
mortgages.

So why is the U.S. government complaining? The Treasury report says
nothing at all about how China's currency policy affects the United
States - all it offers on the domestic side is the usual sycophantic
praise for administration policy. Instead, it focuses on the
disadvantages of Chinese policy for the Chinese themselves. Since when
is that a major U.S. concern?

In reality, of course, the administration doesn't care about the
Chinese economy. It's complaining about the yuan because of political
pressure from U.S. manufacturers, which are angry about those Chinese
trade surpluses. So it's all politics. And that's the problem: when
policy decisions are made on purely political grounds, nobody thinks
through their real-world consequences.

Here's what I think will happen if and when China changes its currency
policy, and those cheap loans are no longer available. U.S. interest
rates will rise; the housing bubble will probably burst; construction
employment and consumer spending will both fall; falling home prices
may lead to a wave of bankruptcies. And we'll suddenly wonder why
anyone thought financing the budget deficit was easy.

In other words, we've developed an addiction to Chinese dollar
purchases, and will suffer painful withdrawal symptoms when they come
to an end.

I'm not saying we should try to maintain the status quo. Addictions
must be broken, and the sooner the better. After all, one of these
days China will stop buying dollars of its own accord. And the housing
bubble will eventually burst whatever we do. Besides, in the long run,
ending our dependence on foreign dollar purchases will give us a
healthier economy. In particular, a rise in the yuan and other Asian
currencies will eventually make U.S. manufacturing, which has lost
three million jobs since 2000, more competitive.

But the negative effects of a change in Chinese currency policy will
probably be immediate, while the positive effects may take years to
materialize. And as far as I can tell, nobody in a position of power
is thinking about how we'll deal with the consequences if China
actually gives in to U.S. demands, and lets the yuan rise.




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