日本的債務惡夢

2011年02月09日 06:59 AM

清醒认识日本债务问题

Press pause on Japan’s debt disaster movie

作者：英国《金融时报》 彼得•塔斯克 报道

Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Japan’s credit rating raises a disturbing prospect. Is this stage two of the global credit crisis, featuring a chain of sovereign defaults among the largest economies? No less a figure than Kaoru Yosano, Japan’s new minister for economic and fiscal affairs, seems to think so. “We face a dreadful dream,” he told the Financial Times last week.	标准普尔(Standard & Poor's)下调日本信用评级之举，引发了令人担忧的前景。这是不是全球信贷危机的第二阶段——其特征是一连串规模最大的经济体出现主权违约？日本经济 财政大臣与谢野馨(Kaoru Yosano)如此重量级的人物似乎这么认为。他上周告诉英国《金融时报》：“我们面临着一个噩梦”。
After the disasters of 2008, such fears are understandable, but misguided. The risk is they lead to policies that, far from solving the world’s economic problems, make them a whole lot worse.	在2008年的灾难之后，这样的担忧可以理解，但却被误导了。它们有可能促成这样的政策：非但无法解决世界各种经济问题，反而使其变得更为糟糕。
The case for the prosecution is simple. Japan’s ratio of government debt to gross domestic product is above 100 per cent and shows no sign of declining. The political system seems gridlocked, with a succession of uninspiring leaders coming and going with bewildering rapidity.	标普调降日本评级的理由十分简单。该国政府债务占国内生产总值(GDP)的比重已超过100%，且没有下降的迹象。政治体系似乎已陷入僵局，一连串让人提不起精神的领导人走马灯似的来了又去。
On this reading, Greece and Ireland were just the hors d’oeuvre. The main course is yet to come. Japan is still the world’s third-largest economy, and the aftershock from a bond market crash would be like the fall of Lehman cubed.	就此而言，希腊与爱尔兰仅仅是开胃小菜。主菜尚未呈上。日本仍然是全球第三大经济体，其债券市场崩塌的余震，冲击力将会与雷曼(Lehman)倒闭一样。
But a key piece is missing from this picture. Unlike the spendthrifts of euroland’s periphery, Japan is entirely self-financing. The state may be in deficit, but the cash-rich private sector saves enough to cover domestic needs and, in addition, to export capital equivalent to about 3 per cent of output every year. The result is a vast nest-egg of overseas assets.	但这幅图景缺了一块关键的内容。与挥霍无度的欧洲外围国家不同，日本在融资上完全是自力更生。政府或许是处于赤字状态，但现金富裕的私人部门有足够的储蓄满足国内需求，而且每年还可输出相当于产出3%左右的资本。其结果就是巨大的海外资产储备。
In this respect Japan resembles not Greece or Ireland but another small European country. Belgium has sported a government debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 100 per cent for the best part of two decades. At the same time, it has been in current account surplus year after year, 2008 excepted.	在这方面，日本可不像希腊或爱尔兰，而更像另外一个欧洲小国。过去20年的大部分时间里，比利时政府债务占GDP比重都超过100%。但同期内，除2008年以外的每一年，该国的经常账户都处于盈余状态。
Citizens of deficit countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal – or indeed the US and the UK – are in the reverse position. They must pay dividends and interest to foreigners, including Belgians and Japanese, who own their liabilities.	那些赤字国家（包括希腊、爱尔兰与葡萄牙，甚至英美等国）的公民，则处于相反的境况。他们必须向持有本国债务的外国人（包括比利时人和日本人）支付红利和利息。
But surely such dizzying levels of government debt are unsustainable? If so, nobody has told the markets. As Japan’s debt has snowballed, the interest rate demanded by investors has fallen ever lower. Last year, as yields on Greek debt soared into double digits, Japan’s 10-year bond yields plunged to a paltry 0.8 per cent.	但这种令人眩目的政府债务水平肯定无法持续吗？如果是这样，没有人告诉过市场。在日本债务越滚越大的同时，投资者要求的利率却不断下降。去年，当希腊债券的收益飙升至两位数的时候，10年期日本债券的收益率却降至微不足道的0.8%。
Rather than a “dreadful dream” Japan’s leaders face an enticing reality. They have the opportunity to issue more and more bonds at the lowest interest rates seen since the Babylonians invented accounting.	日本领导人面对的并非“噩梦”，而是一个迷人的现实。他们有机会以巴比伦人发明会计制度以来最低的利率，发行越来越多的债券。
The smart move would be to copy Britain’s funding of the Napoleonic wars and issue perpetual bonds. That would make explicit what everyone knows. Government debt is never going to be “paid back” – just rolled over ad infinitum. As long as the interest payments can be comfortably serviced, no problem need arise.	聪明的做法将是效仿英国对拿破仑战争的融资，发行永久债券。这将让所有人都知道的东西明确化。政府债务永远不会得到“偿还”——它只会越滚越多、直至无穷。只要能够轻松地支付利息，就不会出什么问题。
The way to ensure this happens is not by demand-shrinking austerity measures but by durable economic growth – which requires a combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus and structural reform. A higher consumption tax, Mr Yosano’s favoured remedy, would probably mean less consumption. This is what happened in 1997, in spite of the finance ministry’s Pollyanna-ish view that consumers would be enthused by fiscal rectitude and go on a spending spree. Instead, a deep recession eroded tax revenues further and left an even bigger budget deficit.	确保上述情况发生的办法，不是通过收缩需求的紧缩措施，而是通过持久的经济增长——这 需要将财政与货币刺激措施和结构性改革结合起来。与谢野馨所青睐的提高消费税的举措，可能意味着减少消费。这种情况在1997年曾经出现过——尽管这位财 政大臣盲目乐观地认为，消费者将受到财政紧缩的鼓舞，继续大肆支出。相反，深层衰退进一步侵蚀了税收收入，并造成了越来越大的预算赤字。
The reality is that in ageing, high-saving countries such as Japan and Belgium there is consistent demand for low-risk financial assets such as government bonds. Private-sector assets and public-sector liabilities are two sides of the same Godzilla-sized balance sheet.	现实情况是：在日本、比利时等人口日益老龄化的高储蓄国家，对政府债券等低风险金融资产的需求持续存在。私人部门资产与公共部门债务，是同一张庞大资产负债表的两面。
Upsetting this delicate equilibrium could have dire international consequences. If major surplus countries squeeze domestic demand, there is no hope of righting the global imbalances that contributed to the credit crisis. More trouble will follow.	打乱这种微妙的平衡，可能会产生可怕的国际性影响。如果各大顺差国限制国内需求，纠正引发了信贷危机的全球失衡就没有指望。更多的麻烦将会接踵而至。
With the deficit countries having used most of their policy bullets, the next phase is likely to feature protectionism, a rollback of globalisation and a rise in nationalist and nativist political movements – a prospect as stomach-churning as a sushi waffle.	考虑到赤字国家的政策“弹药”已经快打光，下一阶段可能主要以贸易保护主义、全球化逆转、民族主义与本土主义政治运动的兴起为特征——这样的前景简直与寿司华夫饼一样令人作呕。
Japan needs to forget about the credit agencies, which have not had a terribly good track record recently, and concentrate on exiting deflation. That’s the only way to wake up from Mr Yosano’s “dreadful dream”.	日本必须忘记那些信用评级机构——最近它们自己的记录也好不到哪儿去——专注于摆脱滞胀。这是唯一从与谢野馨所说的“噩梦”中苏醒过来的方式。
	译者/何黎