u***r
发帖数: 4825 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/opinion/krugman-will-china-br
Consider the following picture: Recent growth has relied on a huge
construction boom fueled by surging real estate prices, and exhibiting all
the classic signs of a bubble. There was rapid growth in credit — with much
of that growth taking place not through traditional banking but rather
through unregulated “shadow banking” neither subject to government
supervision nor backed by government guarantees. Now the bubble is bursting
— and there are real reasons to fear financial and economic crisis.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
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Am I describing Japan at the end of the 1980s? Or am I describing America in
2007? I could be. But right now I’m talking about China, which is emerging
as another danger spot in a world economy that really, really doesn’t need
this right now.
I’ve been reluctant to weigh in on the Chinese situation, in part because
it’s so hard to know what’s really happening. All economic statistics are
best seen as a peculiarly boring form of science fiction, but China’s
numbers are more fictional than most. I’d turn to real China experts for
guidance, but no two experts seem to be telling the same story.
Still, even the official data are troubling — and recent news is
sufficiently dramatic to ring alarm bells.
The most striking thing about the Chinese economy over the past decade was
the way household consumption, although rising, lagged behind overall growth
. At this point consumer spending is only about 35 percent of G.D.P., about
half the level in the United States.
So who’s buying the goods and services China produces? Part of the answer
is, well, we are: as the consumer share of the economy declined, China
increasingly relied on trade surpluses to keep manufacturing afloat. But the
bigger story from China’s point of view is investment spending, which has
soared to almost half of G.D.P.
The obvious question is, with consumer demand relatively weak, what
motivated all that investment? And the answer, to an important extent, is
that it depended on an ever-inflating real estate bubble. Real estate
investment has roughly doubled as a share of G.D.P. since 2000, accounting
directly for more than half of the overall rise in investment. And surely
much of the rest of the increase was from firms expanding to sell to the
burgeoning construction industry.
Do we actually know that real estate was a bubble? It exhibited all the
signs: not just rising prices, but also the kind of speculative fever all
too familiar from our own experiences just a few years back — think coastal
Florida.
And there was another parallel with U.S. experience: as credit boomed, much
of it came not from banks but from an unsupervised, unprotected shadow
banking system. There were huge differences in detail: shadow banking
American style tended to involve prestigious Wall Street firms and complex
financial instruments, while the Chinese version tends to run through
underground banks and even pawnshops. Yet the consequences were similar: in
China as in America a few years ago, the financial system may be much more
vulnerable than data on conventional banking reveal.
Now the bubble is visibly bursting. How much damage will it do to the
Chinese economy — and the world?
Some commentators say not to worry, that China has strong, smart leaders who
will do whatever is necessary to cope with a downturn. Implied though not
often stated is the thought that China can do what it takes because it doesn
’t have to worry about democratic niceties.
To me, however, these sound like famous last words. After all, I remember
very well getting similar assurances about Japan in the 1980s, where the
brilliant bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance supposedly had everything
under control. And later, there were assurances that America would never,
ever, repeat the mistakes that led to Japan’s lost decade — when we are,
in reality, doing even worse than Japan did.
For what it’s worth, statements about economic policy from Chinese
officials don’t strike me as being especially clear-headed. In particular,
the way China has been lashing out at foreigners — among other things,
imposing a punitive tariff on imports of U.S.-made autos that will do
nothing to help its economy but will help poison trade relations — does not
sound like a mature government that knows what it’s doing.
And anecdotal evidence suggests that while China’s government may not be
constrained by rule of law, it is constrained by pervasive corruption, which
means that what actually happens at the local level may bear little
resemblance to what is ordered in Beijing.
I hope that I’m being needlessly alarmist here. But it’s impossible not to
be worried: China’s story just sounds too much like the crack-ups we’ve
already seen elsewhere. And a world economy already suffering from the mess
in Europe really, really doesn’t need a new epicenter of crisis. | y***l
发帖数: 6963 | 2 through
much
bursting
【在 u***r 的大作中提到】
: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/opinion/krugman-will-china-br
: Consider the following picture: Recent growth has relied on a huge
: construction boom fueled by surging real estate prices, and exhibiting all
: the classic signs of a bubble. There was rapid growth in credit — with much
: of that growth taking place not through traditional banking but rather
: through unregulated “shadow banking” neither subject to government
: supervision nor backed by government guarantees. Now the bubble is bursting
: — and there are real reasons to fear financial and economic crisis.
: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
: Paul Krugman
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