Or, again in the Middle East, there has been the blind eye endlessly turned to Israel’s actual possession of nuclear weapons, in contrast to the response to Iran’s possible early moves in that direction.	还有，同样是在中东，美国对以色列实际拥有核武器视而不见，而对伊朗有核化的可能早期举动一惊一乍。


And there was the 2008 agreement to trade nuclear material and technology with India, despite its unwillingness to accept serious new disarmament or non-proliferation commitments.	还有2008年同意与印度交易核材料和技术，尽管后者不愿接受严肃的新削减核武器和核不扩散承诺。


To be fair to the US, such double standards abound among other major powers as well.	平心而论，美国的这些双重标准在其他大国身上也存在。


Russia’s invocation of the “responsibility to protect” to justify its 2008 invasion of Georgia was met with incredulity at the time, and rendered even more cynical by its resolute failure since 2011 to condemn the Syrian regime for mass-atrocity crimes against its own people.	2008年俄罗斯借口“保护责任”入侵格鲁吉亚就受到了质疑，而自2011年以来，俄罗斯断然拒绝谴责叙利亚政府对本国人民犯下了严重大规模伤害罪行，这引起了更多的抨击。


China’s strategic aspirations in the South China Sea, and its unwillingness to embrace a maritime code of conduct there, sit uncomfortably with its stated concern for sovereign boundaries and the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes.	中国在南海的战略雄心，及其不愿用海洋法解决南海问题，都与其关注主权边界和和平解决领土争端的说法不符。


And every one of the nuclear-armed states has been guilty of “do as I say, not as I do” in insisting on non-proliferation while making no serious commitment to disarmament.	每个有核国家都有“照我说的做，别照我做的做”的罪��，在坚持核不扩散的同时不愿许下严肃的核裁军承诺。


To be fair to diplomatic policymakers everywhere, it is often the case that hard choices between competing moral values – for example, justice and peace – simply have to be made.	平心而论，各国外交决策者经常必须在相互矛盾的道德价值之间——比如公正和和平——做出艰难抉择。


And positions that are claimed to embody double standards are often nothing of the kind.	被认为采纳双重标准的立场通常不是此类。


A good example is the allegation that the “responsibility to protect” principle is inherently flawed, because the major powers will always be immune from intervention, not only because five of them can exercise a Security Council veto, but also because of their inherent military strength.	一个很好的例子是指责“保护责任”原则具有天然缺陷，因为大国永远对干涉免疫，不仅是因为五常拥有安理会否决权，也是因为它们所具有的的军事优势。


But this ignores the principle that no military intervention will ever be legitimate unless it satisfies, among other criteria, the test of diminishing, not augmenting, human suffering.  And going to war against any of the major powers to protect a suffering minority would certainly trigger a much wider conflagration.	但这忽略了一个原则：军事干预永远是不合法的，除非它经受减少而不是增加人道灾难的考验，并且符合其他一系列标准。 而为了保护受难的少数派而向大国选战必然会触发更大的战火。


The bottom line is that values matter in international relations, and states that place great emphasis on the promotion of values are extremely vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy.	总之，价值在国际关系中有作用，极力强调推进价值的国家极易受到伪善的指责。


No state that aspires to win the support or cooperation of others can afford to be seen to be comfortable with unambiguous double standards.	没有哪个想赢得他国支持和合作的国家能接受被视为安然采取暧昧的双重标准的国家。


And worst of all is to be perceived as being soft on those who, like Egypt’s current military rulers, commit mass-atrocity crimes against their own citizens.	其中最糟糕的指责要数对那些犯有针对本国人民的大规模暴行的人立场软弱——比如埃及目前的军事统治者。


Why America Will Lead the “Asian Century”	美国为什么能够领导“亚洲世纪”


SINGAPORE – Not a week passes, it seems, without a big-picture thinker releasing a big-picture book or giving a big-picture sermon describing the gradual eclipse of American hegemony in Asia.	新加坡——似乎每个礼拜都有一位着眼于全局的思想家发表一部着眼于全局的著作，或者进行一次着眼于全局的演讲，绘声绘色的描述美国逐步丧失亚洲霸权的过程。


True, American power will inevitably decline in relative terms as Asian giants such as China and India rise.	没错，随着中国和印度等亚洲巨人的崛起，美国的力量相对下降将成为一种不可避免的趋势。


But, at least as far as Asia is concerned, arguments about the end of American hegemony ring hollow.	但至少在亚洲这块土地上，有关美国霸权终结的论断显得空洞无力。


For one thing, the United States was never a hegemon in Asia.	首先，美国从来就不是亚洲霸主。


Only some American post-Cold War triumphalists thought it was.	只有美国冷战后某些胜利主义者才这样认为。


The nature of US power and the exercise of its influence was always much more clever and subtle than most assume.	美国权力的性质及其影响力的行使从来就比多数人想象中更明智、也更敏锐。


In fact, as India and China rise, the US could actually find itself in a stronger position.	事实上，随着印度和中国的崛起，美国在亚洲的地位可能会更加稳固。


How can this be?	为什么会是这样？


After all, power and influence are built on the back of economic success.	归根结底，经济领域的成功才是权力和影响力的根基。


The Chinese economy has been doubling in size every ten years since 1978.	中国经济总量从1978年以后每10年都以翻番的速度增长。


The Indian economy has been doing the same since 1991.	而印度经济从1991年后也实现了同样的增长速度。


In contrast, it takes about two decades for the US economy to double in size.	相反，美国经济翻番需要大约20年。


Doesn’t this surely mean that Asia is rushing toward a state of multi-polarity – a configuration of roughly equal great powers balancing against each other – while American influence is on the wane?	这难道不意味着亚洲正快速实现多极化——形成大致对等的强国相互制约的格局——同时美国的影响力正在日益削弱？


The seemingly obvious conclusion would be true but for the fact that Asia has a unique kind of hierarchical security system that came about partly by accident and partly by design.	如果不是部分出于偶然部分出于设计的亚洲独特的多级安全体系，这个看上去似乎显而易见的结论可能会是真的。


No power can be preeminent if it cannot maintain its military advantage over rivals.	如果不能相对于对手保持军事优势，就没有哪个大国能够一枝独秀。


Yet, despite the fact that America spends more on defense than the next ten powers combined, it has never been a regional hegemon because it actually relies on the cooperation of other states to remain predominant.	不过尽管美国在国防领域的开支超过紧随其后的十大强国，但它从来没有成为地区霸主，因为它实际上有赖于其他国家的合作来维持其优势地位。


Without cooperation from allies such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines, the US could not retain its forward military positions in the West Pacific.	没有日本、韩国、新加坡、菲律宾等盟国的合作，美国就无法在西太平洋保持其先进的军事地位。


Likewise, the US needs the cooperation of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand to host its critical radar infrastructure.	同样，美国需要印尼、马来西亚和泰国的合作，来容纳其至关重要的雷达设施。


Moreover, in remaining preeminent, America requires other key states and regional groupings, such as ASEAN, to acquiesce in its security relationships.	此外，为保持优势地位，美国需要其他重要国家和东盟等地区组织对其安全关系持默许态度。


Thus, there is broad-based regional approval of US alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, as well as with partners such as the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and India.	因此，亚洲地区已经就美国与日本、韩国和澳大利联盟以及与菲律宾、新加坡、泰国和印度的伙伴关系达成了的广泛共识。


The key to the effectiveness of these bilateral relationships is that they enjoy widespread support (and thus legitimacy) in the region as stabilizing arrangements.	上述双边关系有效性的关键之处在于它们在区域内享有非常广泛的支持（以及合法性），被公认为是维护稳定的因素。


The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.	且加在一起的维稳效果大于各部分之和。


Combined with the raw military capacity that the US brings to the table, this means that America is powerful enough to enforce the peace and provide stability for commerce to thrive.	与美国的强硬军力相结合，这意味着美国拥有足够的力量维护和平与稳定，并实现商业繁荣。


America’s presence and bilateral partnerships are complementary to Asian states’ obsession with counter-dominance and non-interference in the region.	美国的势力和双边合作关系构成了对亚洲国家在本地区内反控制反干涉目标的补充。


This dynamic “liberal order” – largely fair, flexible, and open enough to welcome new entrants as they rise – will continue to serve Asia well.	这种动态的“自由秩序”将继续在亚洲起到很好的作用，它在大体上做到了公平、灵活、开放，而且欢迎新崛起的国家加入。


For example, even China has been a major beneficiary of the public goods provided by the US-led hierarchical system.	举例来讲，就连中国都成为由美国领导的多级安全体系的主要受益者。


This interdependent relationship means that the US is not so powerful, that it can readily ignore the wishes of key states, and it is here that its apparent weakness is actually strength.	这种相互依存的关系意味着美国并没有强大到可以轻易无视关键国家的愿望，也正是在这方面，这种表面看上去的弱点其实正是其优势所在。


America is not a Hobbesian Leviathan with absolute authority and power.	美国不是霍布斯哲学中手握绝对权力的集权主义庞然大物。


Indeed, China’s strategists are frequently puzzled by the lack of “balancing” that takes place against the US in the region.	实际上，亚洲地区在对美问题上“平衡”的缺乏经常困扰着中国的战略学者。


But it is puzzling only if we characterize Asia as being multi-polar rather than hierarchical.	但只有当我们把亚洲看作多极化而非多级体系的时候，这个问题才令人感到困惑。


In fact, any balancing tends to take place in order to preserve the hierarchy, not to replace or supersede it.	事实上，任何平衡行为的出现都是为了 保护 这种多级体系，而不是接替或者取代它。


Other states tend to resist bids by any Asian power – be it Japan, China or India – to rise to the top of the pyramid.	其他国家似乎对任何亚洲国家，无论是日本、中国还是印度上升到金字塔顶端的努力抱有一种抗拒的态度。


As a foreign-based power, the US needs the cooperation of Asian partners.	作为一股外来力量，美国需要得到亚洲伙伴的合作。


This keeps the top dog in check.	这使得领头者必须受到约束。


Were an Asian country like China to rise to the top, it would not need the same level of regional cooperation and acquiescence to maintain its position and military footholds.	如果一个中国这样的亚洲国家坐上头把交椅，它不会需要同样水平的地区合作和认可来保持自己的地位，或拥有军事上的立足之处。


As China and India rise, and Japan becomes more “normal,” they will balance each other within the US-led hierarchy to ensure that the US remains on top and one or the other doesn’t dominate.	随着中国和印度的崛起，以及日本逐渐“正常化”，它们将会在美国领导的多级体系中相互制衡，保证由美国占据领导地位，其他任何国家都无法成为主导。


If China makes a bid for regional hegemony, it will find it difficult to resist the structural constraints placed on it within this hierarchy.	如果中国试图争取地区霸权，它会发现在现有多级制度下的结构性限制很难克服。


US power is in relative decline, but that is no bad thing.	美国的权力正在相对衰落，但这并不是什么坏事。


False triumphalism breeds poor discipline.	虚假的必胜信念带来纪律上的松弛。


But a sense of strategic vulnerability breeds interdependency, which has always been the key to successful US leadership in Asia.	但战略上的脆弱感却能促进相互依赖，而这正是美国成功领导亚洲的关键所在。


China without North Korea	不再支持朝鲜的中国


NOTTINGHAM – North Korea’s third nuclear test is a game changer not only for the United States and Japan, but also for the regime’s last ally, China.	发自诺丁汉——朝鲜的第三次核试验不仅对美国和日本来说改变了游戏规则，对其仅剩的盟友中国来说也是如此。


The official Chinese reaction to North Korea’s latest provocation was stern: China is “strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” to the test, and it is calling for the resumption of international talks.	对朝鲜的最新挑衅中国官方反应极为严厉：中国对核试验“表示强烈不满并坚决反对”，并呼吁重启国际谈判。


But China’s stance lacks meaningful bite, because its leaders fail to recognize that they no longer need to succumb to their unruly neighbor’s blackmail.	但这一立场却并未造成任何重大影响，因为中国领导人依然未能意识到：他们已经没必要再继续屈从于这个恶邻居的讹诈了。


In carrying out the test, the North Koreans have once again compromised China’s national interests.	通过这场核实验，朝鲜再一次损害了中国的国家利益。


The international community is again firmly focused on China’s relationship with its rogue ally, and expects that, as an emerging superpower seeking to reassure the world of its peaceful rise, China will play a constructive role.	国际社会又开始密切关注中国与其难以控制的盟友之间的关系，并希望中国作为一个想要向世界昭示自身和平崛起的新兴超级大国能发挥建设性的作用。


However limited China’s influence may be, the North Korean regime can sustain itself only with Chinese backing.	不管中国的影响是多么有限，朝鲜政权只有在中国的支持下才得以维持下去。


With North Korea’s latest nuclear test coming so quickly after its rocket launch in December, the United Nations has good reason to ask China, a permanent Security Council member, to take the diplomatic lead.	鉴于朝鲜在去年12月发射火箭后如此短的时间内又再度进行核试验，联合国有充分的理由要求中国这个常任理事国带头发起外交行动。


It is simply not enough for China to call, as its official statement does, for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks with South Korea, China, the US, Japan, and Russia.	仅仅呼吁朝鲜重启六方会谈（与韩国、中国、美国、日本和俄罗斯）——正如中方的官方声明那样——是不够的。


That framework has been thoroughly discredited by North Korea’s repeated violation of past agreements.	由于朝鲜屡次推翻过去的协议，六方会谈框架早已毫无信誉可言了。


China must warn North Korea that it will not be pressured into providing support even when Chinese national interests have been undermined.	中国必须警告朝鲜：它宁可让自身国家利益受损也不会为朝鲜提供帮助。


Indeed, China should make clear that, much as it would prefer North Korea to survive and prosper, it could afford to allow its erstwhile ally to implode.	事实上，中国应当表明态度，尽管也很希望朝鲜能继续存在并走向繁荣，但倘若后者一意孤行，它也有能力承担这个昔日盟友土崩瓦解的后果。


Simply put, the conventional wisdom that North Korea’s collapse would be disastrous for China is misconceived. Any crisis sparked by North Korean refugees fleeing across the Chinese border would be short-lived, and international assistance would be readily available.	简而言之，认为朝鲜瓦解会给中国带来灾难性影响的一般理念是错误的。 由涌入中国边境的朝鲜难民引发的所有危机都是暂时的，而且也很容易得到国际援助。


Likewise, China need not fear a South Korea-led unification of the peninsula.	同样，中国不需要担心韩国会牵头促进朝鲜半岛统一。


China already enjoys a smoother relationship with the South than it does with the North.	中国与韩国的关系现在比它与朝鲜的关系要平稳顺利。


Unification would occupy the Korean people for the next two decades, with Japan and the US compelled to inject a huge amount of aid to rebuild and reintegrate the North.	半岛统一能让朝鲜半岛上的人们忙上二十年，而日本和美国在此期间将不得不注入大量的援助来重建并整合北朝鲜。


This hardly runs counter to China’s interests as it continues its own advance toward becoming the world’s largest economy.	这几乎不会伤及中国的利益，也无碍其走向世界第一经济大国的进程。


Indeed, if this process were to unfold, the US rationale for keeping its own military forces in South Korea would disappear.	的确，如果这个进程被展开，美国就不再有理由继续在韩国驻军。


A phased reduction of the American presence would follow. If the US wished to maintain bases in Korea in the longer term, it would have to secure permission from a proud and newly united Korean nation – hardly a forgone conclusion.	接下来就是分阶段的美军撤退。 如果美国想要在朝鲜半岛继续安插军事基地，就需要征得扬眉吐气且新近统一的朝鲜国许可——但这几乎是不可能的。


Moreover, a united Korea will have inherited the North’s nuclear weapons.	此外，统一后的朝鲜国将会继承前朝鲜的核武器。


This will pose challenges to US-Korea relations, which should work to China’s advantage.	这将对美国与新政权之间的关系提出了挑战，却对中国有利。


The US will remain committed to de-nuclearizing the peninsula, while the Korean government will be tempted to retain the North’s nuclear capabilities.	美国将会继续致力于对朝鲜半岛进行去核武器化，而新政权则倾向于保留上述核能力。


This strain further reduces the risk of having US troops stationed on the Korean side of China’s border.	这就进一步降低了美军驻扎在中朝边境朝鲜一侧的风险。


China must also consider the implications of North Korea’s actions on its own fractious relations with Japan.	中国也必须考虑朝鲜的行为对中日紧张关系的影响。


Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top foreign-policy priority is to force the Japanese government to acknowledge, if not accept, China’s territorial claims in the two countries’ dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.	中国国家主席习近平的外交政策最高方略是迫使日本政府承认——如果不是接受的话——中国对东海上有争议的钓鱼岛/尖阁列岛的领土要求。


Chinese naval ships have already trained their weapons on a Japanese destroyer and a Japanese naval helicopter.	为此中国军舰已经把炮口瞄准了一艘日本驱逐舰和一架日本海军直升机。


In these incidents, the single most important reason for Japanese restraint has been its military’s own rules of engagement.	而在这些事件中，日本一直因其军事交战规则而保持克制。


Under current law, Japanese security forces are forbidden from firing their weapons unless clearly fired upon, which means that the country’s Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels can do little when targeted by Chinese naval radar.	根据现行法律，日本保安部队除非遭到攻击，否则不能主动开火，这就意味着日本海军自卫队舰艇即便遭到中国海军火控雷达照射也只能束手无策。


And revising the rules to allow Japan’s military to, say, destroy a North Korean missile before it reaches Japanese air space would increase the risk of conflict between Chinese and Japanese naval and air forces.	而一旦修改规则允许日本军方在朝鲜导弹到达领空之前将其击落的话，中日海空军间爆发冲突的风险必然随之增大。


If the Chinese leadership can think beyond its usual default response to North Korean misbehavior – abstract condemnation followed by a call for dialogue – it can apply real pressure on the North Korean regime in full view of the international community.	如果中国领导人的想法能超越其对朝鲜违约行为的一贯回应——抽象的谴责及要求举行对话——就能在国际社会面前对朝鲜政权施加真正的压力。


North Korea’s last ally should give it one last chance. And then it should be prepared to pull the plug.	作为朝鲜的最后一个盟友，中国只能给朝鲜最后一次机会，并且随时准备终止两国之间的关系。


Apple’s Cash-Flow Problem	苹果的现金流问题


CAMBRIDGE – I recently examined the problem of corporate short-termism from two nonstandard angles.	美国剑桥—最近我用两个非标准角度解释了企业短视的问题。


One was that some short-termism is sensible.	一是某些短视是明智的。


Large firms face an increasingly fluid economic, technological, and political environment – owing to more global and competitive markets, to the greater potential of technological change to alter firms’ business environment, and to governments’ growing influence over what makes business sense.	大企业面临着日以多变的经济、技术和政治环境——其原因包括日渐全球化、竞争日渐激烈的市场、技术变化改变企业经营环境潜力的日渐提高以及政府对商业利益影响的日渐增加。


In this fluid environment, large companies must be cautious before making large, long-term commitments.	在这一多变的环境下，大公司必须在做出长期大型决策之前三思而后行。


Second, I described how emerging data could suggest measurement problems with the conventional wisdom that more rapid trading in financial markets is making them more oriented to the short term than ever before.	第二，我描述了新出现的数据如何意味着传统智慧——更快的金融市场交易让它们比以前更加偏向于短视——的度量问题。


Proponents of this view point to furious trading in New York and London, with average holding periods for major stocks diminishing in recent decades.	这一观点的支持者指出，纽约和伦敦交易频繁，大公司股票的平均持有期在最近几十年来逐步缩短。


In fact, the change may be driven by a rapidly trading minority, and not by major stockholders shortening their holding periods.	事实上，这一变化可能是由一小撮快速交易者导致的，而不是因大股东缩短持有期造成的。


Indeed, the average holding period for America’s core shareholders, like Fidelity and Vanguard, has increased in recent decades.	事实上，美国核心股东——如富达基金公司和先锋基金公司——在最近几十年里平均持有期有所增加。


(I examine these issues in greater depth in a longer forthcoming article.)	（我将在更长的后续文章中深度解释这一问题）。


The shareholder activism around Apple highlights the importance and controversy of the short-term problem.	围绕苹果公司的股东积极主义凸显出短视问题的重要性和争议性。


Apple has been spectacularly successful in the past decade.	苹果公司在过去十年中取得了令人惊异的成功。


Its products, from iPhones to iPads to MacBooks, have captured consumers’ imaginations, remade markets, and earned the company and its shareholders huge sums of money.	从iPhone到iPad再到MacBook，苹果公司的产品抓住了消费者的想象力，重新创造了市场，也为公司及其股东带来了大把利润。


Apple’s stock capitalization has soared, and it became the first trillion-dollar company.	苹果股票市值出现了飙升，成为首家万亿美元公司。


As Apple’s profits have grown, it has amassed $137 billion in cash, according to a recent count – more than it can profitably use (at least for now) in its operations.	随着利润的增加，据最新统计，苹果囤积了1370亿美元现金——超过了它能够盈利经营的规模（至少就目前而言）。


So the company has wisely left its cash invested in global financial accounts, not business operations.	因此，苹果公司明智地把现金投资于全球金融账户而不是业务经营。


Meanwhile, its staggeringly successful products are generating still more cash to handle and stockpile.	与此同时，它大获成功的产品仍在源源不断地创造更多现金。


Enter shareholder activist David Einhorn, whose hedge fund Greenlight Capital has been pressing Apple to distribute a healthy fraction of that cash.	股东积极主义者大卫·埃因霍恩（David Einhorn）出场了。 他的对冲基金——绿光资本（Greenlight Capital）一直施压苹果公司派发合适比例的现金。


Much commentary on the foray has been negative: Einhorn’s proposal is a short-run, financial-engineering idea for a company that has gone from success to success, it is said – American stock-market short-termism at its worst.	对于这一行为，许多评论持负面态度：埃因霍恩的建议是短视的金融工程思维，而其针对的是一家从成功走向成功的公司——最糟糕的美国股市短视行为。


Maybe it is.	或许诚然如此。


Maybe investors are being too quick to pressure a great company.	或许投资者关于伟大公司的论断下得太草率了。


But, odd as it might seem, getting its cash out could be a good long-term strategy for Apple.	但是，尽管听起来十分奇怪，派发现金对于苹果公司来说或许是高明的长期战略。


There has long been a life cycle for firms: young firms innovate, are cash-hungry, and have to scramble for financing.	长期以来，企业的生命周期一直是：年轻公司具有创新性，短缺现金，不得不疲于融资。


Some succeed, sell their products, and find themselves pulling in more cash than they need.	一些企业获得了成功，卖出了产品，收入的现金超过了它们的需要。


Great companies take that cash and invest it in even better products, taking the firm to new heights.	伟大的公司收获这笔现金并投资于更优良的场频，把企业带向新高峰。


Apple has been one of those companies.	苹果就是这类公司之一。


But, inevitably, the firm’s technologies become standardized and commoditized.	但是，不可避免地，其技术会变得标准化和商品化。


New, hotter technologies come along, and the firm no longer attracts the best people to work for it, because, well, it’s no longer the next new thing.	新的、更火爆的技术会随之出现，企业无法吸引最优秀的人才为其工作，因为它已不再是伟大的新新事物。


New products stall, old products are not as profitable as they once were (because competitors figure out how to make something better), and markets and consumers move on.	新产品陷入停滞，老产品不再像过去那样盈利丰厚（因为竞争对手学会了如何让产品更好），而市场和消费者会喜新厌旧。


Firms that reach that point, and that know themselves, then return more of their cash hoard to their investors, who invest it elsewhere.	走到这一步并了解自己的企业会把更多的所屯现金返还投资者，让投资者投资于别处。


In the 1980’s and 1990’s, large swaths of American industry – especially the domestic oil industry – faced this problem, described by the economist Michael Jensen as the managerial challenge of handling free cash flow well.	20是八九十年代，美国诸多行业——特别是国内石油行业——面临着这一问题，经济学家迈克尔·延森（Michael Jensen）将这描述为合理处理自由现金流的管理挑战。


Where is Apple in that company life cycle?	苹果公司现在位于生命周期的哪个位置？


Is it still in its youth, cash-starved with more ideas than it can finance?	仍处于年轻的、新思想比融资能力发展更快因而困于现金的阶段？


Is it middle-aged, but nimble and able to remake itself, as it did several times during Steve Jobs’ tenure?	还是中年期但仍然相当灵活能够自我再生的阶段（就像乔布斯主政时期多次发生的那样）？


Does it need $137 billion to engineer and finance a large-scale Apple TV that will be even more successful than iPhones and iPads?	它需要1370亿美元启动和融资大规模苹果电视并使其比iPhone和iPad更成功？


Or has the company peaked?	或者，苹果公司已经达到了巅峰期？


Could the rollout last fall of the inferior Apple Maps, which sent people to the wrong destination – causing severe public embarrassment and leading to a managerial shakeup – foreshadow a time when Apple’s best days are behind it?	去年秋天苹果地图的拙劣表现把许多人引向了错误的方向，造成了严重的公众不满和一次管理层地震，这是否意味着苹果的最好时代已经过去了？


The company could be at a high plateau and could stay there for years, even decades, but does it really need $137 billion in cash for new investments?	苹果公司可能已经登上高原并在此停留多年甚至几十年，但它是否真需要1370亿美元做新投资？


Here is another way of looking at the Apple problem: If Apple continues to succeed, won’t it generate the cash that it needs for innovation from its super-products, like the iPad, the iPhone, and the MacBook?	也可以从另一个角度看待苹果问题：如果苹果继续成功，它难道不能从它的巨星产品中——如iPad、iPhone和MacBook——获得创新所需要的现金吗？


Roughly 70% of Apple’s revenues come from the iPhone and the iPad.	苹果公司大约七成的收入来自iPhone和iPad。


Will those products last, or will they be superseded?	这些产品会一直成功下去，还是会被取代？


Were those products’ success the result of a unique Apple asset, namely Steve Jobs, or is the company well positioned to produce the next big thing?	这些产品的成功是苹果独一无二的资产——史蒂夫·乔布斯的结果，还是因为该公司在生产下一个热门产品的竞争中卡到了最佳身位？


Could it be too tempting in the short run to Apple’s management to have that $137 billion in the bank, so that it spends some or all of it on investments that fail to pan out in the long run?	短期诱惑会不会太大以至于苹果公司管理层不愿把这1370亿美元放在银行，而是把一部分甚至全部投资于无法获得长期成功的项目中？


It is at least possible – maybe even likely – that Apple’s best long-term move would be to release a hefty portion of its unused cash to its shareholders, who would then plow it back into the economy.	没准——甚至极有可能——苹果公司的最佳长期动作是把这笔未使用现金的一大部分拿出来还给股东，让后者把它们重新投入到经济中。


Meanwhile, it can finance its next new thing from the cash that its great products will continue to generate.	与此同时，它还可以通过伟大产品继续带来的现金为下一个热门产品融资。


What is being criticized as short-termism could well be a long-term financial strategy that is just right for Apple.	饱受批评的短视或许是正适合苹果公司的长期财务战略。


Why Are Good Policies Bad Politics?	好政策为何难过政治关？


BERKELEY – From the day after the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year, the policies followed by the United States Treasury, the US Federal Reserve, and the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been sound and helpful. The alternative – standing back and letting the markets handle things – would have brought America and the world higher unemployment than now exists.	伯克利－


The fact that investment bankers did not go bankrupt last December and are profiting immensely this year is a side issue.	自去年雷曼兄弟银行倒闭之日起，美国财政部、美联储以及布什、奥巴马两届政府所奉行的政策一直是稳健有益的。


Every extra percentage point of unemployment lasting for two years costs $400 billion.	如果政府部门袖手旁观，任由市场左右局面，那么美国和世界当下的失业水平会更高。


A recession twice as deep as the one we have had would have cost the US roughly $2 trillion – and cost the world as a whole four times as much.	放松信贷和支持银行体系的政策避免了局势严重恶化，对经济大有助益。


In comparison, the bonuses at Goldman Sachs are a rounding error.	虽然投资银行家们去年12月没有倾家荡产，今年又赚得盆盈钵满，但这只是枝节问题。


And any attempt to make investment bankers suffer more last fall and winter would have put the entire support operation at risk.	失业率每增加一个百分点，并持续两年以上，就会造成4000亿美元的损失。


As Fed Vice Chairman Don Kohn said, ensuring that a few thousand investment bankers receive their just financial punishment is a non-starter when attempts to do so put the jobs of millions of Americans – and tens of millions outside the US – at risk.	如果经济衰退的深度达到本次衰退实际深度的两倍，美国就会遭受约2万亿美元的损失，而全世界的损失总额更会四倍于此。


The Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus has also significantly helped the economy.	相比之下，高盛的奖金如同四舍五入中的误差般无足轻重。


Though the jury is still out on the effect of the tax cuts in the stimulus, aid to states has been a job-saving success, and the flow of government spending on a whole variety of relatively useful projects is set to boost production and employment in the same way that consumer spending boosts production and employment.	去年秋冬时分，任何让投资银行家受到更大打击的尝试都会令整个经济救援行动面临风险。 正如美联储副主席唐·科恩（Don Kohn）所说，为了让区区几千名投资银行家在经济上受到应有的惩罚，就可能会使数以百万计的美国人和数以千万计的外国人丢掉工作，这种做法根本行不通。


And the cost of carrying the extra debt incurred is extraordinarily low: $12 billion a year of extra taxes would be enough to finance the fiscal-stimulus program at current interest rates.	奥巴马政府的财政刺激措施也对经济大有助益。 虽然其中减税措施的效力还难以判断，但联邦政府对各州的资助却成功地保住了大量就业。


For that price, American taxpayers will get an extra $1 trillion of goods and services, and employment will be higher by about ten million job-years.	而且，政府支出注入了众多颇为有益的项目，正如消费支出能够刺激生产和就业，这些政府支出同样会刺激生产和就业。


The valid complaints about fiscal policy over the past 14 months are not that it has run up the national debt and rewarded the princes of Wall Street, but rather that it has been too limited – that we ought to have done more.	而且，由此带来的新增债务的成本却低得出奇：在当前的利率之下，每年增税120亿美元就足以满足财政刺激项目的资金需求。


Yet these policies are political losers now: nobody is proposing more stimulus.	只需如此微薄的代价，美国纳税人就可以额外得到1万亿美元的产品与服务，每年额外增加的就业人数累计可达1000万。


This is strange, because usually when something works the natural impulse is to do it again.	如果说过去14个月间的财政政策确实有缺陷，那么缺陷并不在于增加国家负债和厚待华尔街骄子，而在于政策力度太小，我们原本可以做得更多。


Good policies that are boosting production and employment without causing inflation ought to be politically popular, right?	而今，这些政策却成了政治输家：现在无人提议采取更多刺激措施。


With respect to Obama’s stimulus package, it seems to me that there has been extraordinary intellectual and political dishonesty on the American right, which the press refuses to see.	说来不可思议，如果政策奏效，人们的本能反应往往是再做一次。 提振生产和就业而又不会引发通胀的好政策在政治上理应大受欢迎，不是吗？


Sometimes spending rises because there is more disposable cash in the economy, and sometimes because changes in opportunity costs – the cost of forgoing some other action, such as saving – make people want to spend the cash they have more rapidly. Sometimes and to some degree these increases show up as increases in prices, and sometimes and to some degree as increases in production and employment.	依我看，对于奥巴马的经济刺激措施，美国知识界和政界右翼人士的态度极不诚实，而媒体则对此视而不见。


But, whatever the cause or effect, spending always goes up whenever groups decide to spend more – and government decisions to spend more are as good as anybody else’s.	两个半世纪以来，经济学家一直认为，只要一些人群决定增加开支，那么经济体的支出流就会上升。 支出上升的原因有时在于可支配现金的增加，有时在于机会成本（即放弃某种做法、例如放弃储蓄的成本）的变化令人们愿意加快花钱的速度。


They are as good as the decisions of mortgage companies and new homebuyers to spend more on new houses during the housing bubble of the mid-2000’s, or of the princes of Silicon Valley to spend more building new companies during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990’s.	在某些时期以及某种程度上，支出的增长表现为物价上涨； 在某些时期以及某种��度上，支出的增长又会表现为生产与就业的增长。


Obama’s Republican opponents, who claim that fiscal stimulus cannot work, rely on arguments that are incoherent at best, and usually simply wrong, if not mendacious.	然而，无论原因和效果如何，只要人们决定增加开支，经济体的支出总会增长――和其他人一样，政府决定增加开支也是好事。


Remember that back in 1993, when the Clinton administration’s analyses led it to seek to spend less and reduce the deficit, the Republicans said that that would destroy the economy, too.	正如抵押贷款公司和购房者在2005年前后的住房泡沫时期决定增加购房支出，以及上世纪90年代末硅谷精英决定增加创业投资一样，增加开支的政府决策也是好事。


Such claims were as wrong then as they are now.	奥巴马的共和党对头声称，财政刺激措施不可能奏效，但他们的论证总免不了自相矛盾，而且，纵然不是说谎，也往往是大错特错。


But how many media reports make even a cursory effort to evaluate them?	回想1993年，克林顿政府经过分析，决定减少开支、削减赤字，当时共和党人同样声称其做法会摧毁美国经济。


A stronger argument, though not by much, is that the fiscal stimulus is boosting employment and production, but at too great a long-run cost because it has produced too large a boost in America's national debt. If interest rates on US Treasury securities were high and rising rapidly as the debt grew, I would agree with this argument.	正如现在一样，诸如此类的指责一向不合理。


But interest rates on US Treasury securities are very low and are not rising. Every single Treasury auction, at which the market gobbles up huge new tranches of US Treasury debt at high prices, belies the argument that the economy has too much debt.	但又有多少媒体报道稍稍考虑过这些观点是否成立？


Those who claim that America has a debt problem, and that a debt problem cannot be cured with more debt, ignore (sometimes deliberately) that private debt and US Treasury debt have been very different animals – moving in different directions and behaving in different ways – since the start of the financial crisis.	但事实上，美国国债利率极低，而且并未上升。 美国财政部每次拍卖国债，市场都会以高价将其一扫而空，这一次又一次地批驳了认为美国负债过高的观点。


What the market is saying is not that the economy has too much debt, but that it has too much private debt, which is why prices of corporate bonds are low and firms find financing expensive. The market is also saying – clearly and repeatedly – that the economy has too little public US government debt, which is why everyone wants to hold it.	声称美国存在债务问题、而且增发债务不能解决此问题的人忽视（有时是有意忽视）了一个事实：私人债务和美国国债绝非同类，自本次金融危机爆发起，二者的走势和行为就大相径庭。


Why Are Governments Paralyzed?	为什么政府如此无能？


MILAN – It is no secret that the global economy is struggling.	米兰—全球经济步履蹒跚，这已经不是什么秘密了。


Europe is in the midst of a crisis whose root cause is a structurally flawed monetary and economic union.	欧洲正在危机中挣扎，这场危机的根源在于具有结构性缺陷的货币和经济联盟。


The United States, emerging slowly from a financial crisis and widespread deleveraging, is experiencing a growth slowdown, a persistent employment problem, an adverse shift in income distribution, and structural challenges, with little effective or decisive policy action.	美国正在从金融危机和大规模去杠杆化中慢慢恢复，仍在经历缓慢增长、持续失业、收入分配状况恶化以及结构性挑战，也没有拿出多少有效或坚决的政策动作。


Meanwhile, among the major emerging economies, China’s reform process is on hold, pending a leadership transition this fall that will clarify various internal interests’ goals and power relationships.	与此同时，在主要新兴经济体，中国的改革进程陷入了停顿，今年秋天的领导人交接将厘清不少内部利益目标和权力关系。


India, which has lost reform momentum, is experiencing an economic slowdown and a potential loss of investor confidence.	印度早已失去改革动力，现在正在经历经济放缓和投资者信心潜力丧失。


The negative effects of these problems are now interacting, feeding back on themselves, and spreading to the rest of the global economy.	这些问题的不利影响相互交织、相互强化，并传向整个全球经济。


And yet, despite a palpable sense of concern that something is very wrong, the prognosis for significant change is bleak – and deteriorating.	尽管人们显然已经知道一定有东西出了大问题，但对重大变化的预判却十分缺乏，而且都没有说到点子上。


What accounts for the apparent lack of effective policy action across a broad range of countries and regions?	为什么如此多的国家和地区都显然没有拿出有效的政策措施？


One line of thinking blames a “leadership vacuum” – a common diagnosis in Europe.	一种思路将矛头指向“领导真空”，这是对欧洲的普遍看法。


Elsewhere – especially in the US – polarization and ugly zero-sum politics are thought to discourage potentially capable political leadership.	在其他地区，特别是美国，分化和丑陋的零和政治被认为是阻止拥有潜在能力政治领袖上台的原因。


But, absent further analysis, the leadership vacuum becomes a catchall explanation.	但是，如果不进行进一步分析，领导真空无非是一种万能借口。


What we need to know is why new political leadership in democracies like France, Britain, Japan, and the US has produced so little change.	我们需要知道的是，为什么在法国、英国、日本和美国这样的民主国家，新政治领袖不能带来变革。


A second explanation addresses that question: While bold action is required, the complexity of economic conditions, and disagreement about the right policy responses, implies a risk of serious error.	第二个解释便是为了解决这个问题：尽管我们需要果断行动，但经济条件的复杂性以及在什么才是正确的政策应对这一问题上的分歧意味着出现重大失误的风险很高。


For professional politicians and policymakers in such circumstances, less may be more.	在这样的环境下，职业政客和决策者会觉得少即是多。


On this view, risk aversion both reflects and reinforces a divergence between individual incentives (the desire to be reelected, reappointed, or promoted) and collective needs (fixing problems).	如此看来，风险厌恶反映并强化了个人激励（连任、保位和升职的渴望）和集体需求（解决问题）之间的分歧。


A third answer is that policy instruments are simply ineffective in today’s conditions.	第三个答案是，在当今的环境下，政策工具根本起不了作用。


There is some merit to this claim.	这种说法不无道理。


Economic deleveraging takes time.	经济去杠杆化需要时间。


The restoration of sustainable patterns of growth requires years, not months.	重塑可持续增长模式需要多年，而不是几个月。


Expectations may be out of line with the underlying reality.	预期也许已经远远超越了现实基础。


But the absence of a quick solution does not mean that nothing can be done to improve the speed and quality of recovery.	但速效药的缺乏并不意味着在改善复苏速度和质量方面束手无策。


Vested interests may also play a role.	既得利益也在起作用。


Technological innovation and global market forces have produced a decisive shift in income toward capital and the upper 20% of the income distribution, often at the expense of middle-income groups, the unemployed, and the young.	技术进步和全球市场力量产生了决定性的变化：收入向资本和收入分配的前20%人群集中，而因此牺牲的通常是中产阶级、失业者和年轻人。


The beneficiaries of these trends may have accumulated enough political influence to maintain the status quo, highlighting distributional issues that have generally received too little attention in understanding policy responses or their absence.	这一趋势的受益者积累了足够的政治影响力来维持现状，凸显出在理解政策反应及其缺位的问题中受到太少关注的分配问题。


There are structural explanations for policy inaction as well.	在政策不作为方面也存在结构性解释。


Governance systems and constitutional structures differ in the extent to which they require broad consensus for official action, or to change policy direction in response to shocks or shifting conditions.	各地区治理制度和宪法结构各有不同，必须形成广泛一致才能产生正式行动或是随冲击和条件的变化改变政策方向。


Some argue that the more constraining political systems work well in stable times, but perform poorly under volatile conditions like those prevailing today.	有人指出，更具约束性的政治制度在稳定时期效果很好，但在如今这样的普遍波动时期效果会很差。


Others support constrained government on the grounds that it protects everyone from waste, rent-seeking, and interference with freedom of choice, and that, when needed, inspired leadership can build the required consensus to address changing circumstances.	也有人支持有约束的政府，他们的出发点是这能杜绝浪费、寻租和干预自由选择从而保护所有人，此外，必要时令人鼓舞的领导者可以造就必须的共识纠正变化的环境。


High hurdles to major shifts in policy direction force officials to make a convincing case.	在重大政策方向变化方面的巨大困难能迫使官员拿出令人信服的表现。


That is an inherently difficult task at a time when rapid change in the global economy has left many still trying to understand what is happening and what it all means for growth, stability, the distribution of income, and employment.	全球经济的快速变化让很多人一下子无法理解正在发生什么、这对增长、稳定、收入分配和就业意味着什么。 在这样的情况下，困难再自然不过了。


In the face of such complexity, it is not surprising that genuine policy disagreements lead to extended debate and relatively little action.	面对如此复杂性，毫不奇怪实实在在的政策分歧会导致没完没了的争论和相对极少的行动。


Moreover, the technocratic elements of government must often be balanced against democratic accountability.	此外，政府中的技术官僚元素必须时刻用民主可问责性来平衡。


In every society, individuals with special training and expertise are appointed to perform technically complex functions.	在每个国家都有受过专门训练、拥有专长的个人被任命对付在技术上颇为复杂的问题。


Their freedom of action is constrained by time limits and reappointment procedures that determine the nature and degree of their accountability to elected officials and the public.	他们采取行动的自由有时间界限和连任程序的约束，后两者决定了当选官员和公众是否及在多大程度上对他们可以问责。


There can be too little freedom of action (populism) or too little accountability (autocracy).	可能出现行动重重受限的局面（民粹主义），也可能出现无法问责的情况（专制独裁）。


The necessary balance may vary according to local conditions.	所需要的平衡可能因地方条件的不同而不同。


For example, many China observers believe that accountability there needs to increase at this stage of the country’s economic, social, and political evolution.	比如，许多中国观察者认为，从该国的经济、社会和政治演进阶段出发，可问责性需要加强。


Others argue that Western democracies have the opposite problem: a surfeit of narrow, politically assertive interests leads to underinvestment and poor tradeoffs between present and future opportunities and performance.	其他人则认为，西方民主存在相反的问题：狭隘、政治一根筋的利益太大，导致投资不足以及当前和未来机会和表现权衡失策。


This brings us to a crucial obstacle: Government, business, financial, and academic elites are not trusted.	这就引出了关键性障碍：政府、商界、金融界和学术精英不受信任。


Lack of trust in elites is probably healthy at some level, but numerous polls indicate that it is in rapid decline, which surely increases citizens’ reluctance to delegate authority to navigate an uncertain global economic environment.	对精英的信任缺失在某种程度上并非坏事，但大量民调显示，精英的信誉正在快速降低，而这显然增加了公民对授权给他们领导应对不确定的全球经济环境的抵制。


Loss of trust probably has multiple causes, including analytical failure: central banks, regulators, market participants, rating agencies, and economists almost all failed to detect rising systemic risk in the years preceding the current crisis, much less to take appropriate corrective action.	信任缺失的源头是多样的，其中就包括分析失灵：中央银行、监管者、市场参与者、评级机构和经济学家几乎全都没有在危机爆发前的几年中看到系统性风险的上升，更不用说采取适当的正确行动了。


But a more important cause is a suspicion that elites are placing their own interests above shared social values.	但更重要的源头在于人们怀疑精英将自己的利益置于社会共同价值之上。


Claims that our leadership, institutions, analyses, or policy instruments are inadequate to the task at hand surely contain a kernel of truth.	毫无疑问，宣称我们的领导曾、制度、分析和政策工具不足以应对当前任务触及了真相的核心。


But the deeper problem is a breakdown in precisely such values and goals – that is, a weakening of social cohesion.	但更深层次的问题是这些价值和目标的崩溃，即社会凝聚力的弱化。


Restoring it will require analysts, policymakers, business leaders, and civil-society groups to clarify causes, share blame for mistakes, pursue flexible solutions in which costs are shared equitably, and, most important, explain that hard problems cannot be solved overnight.	重塑社会凝聚力需要分析师、决策者、商界领袖和公民社会团体厘清原因、共担错误责任、追求成本被公平分担的灵活方案，最重要的是，必须澄清这一难题无法在一夜之间得到解决。


The Long Mystery of Low Interest Rates	低利率的长期秘密


CAMBRIDGE – As policymakers and investors continue to fret over the risks posed by today’s ultra-low global interest rates, academic economists continue to debate the underlying causes.  By now, everyone accepts some version of US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s statement in 2005 that a “global savings glut” is at the root of the problem.	美国剑桥—决策者和投资者仍对当今极低的全球利率而不安，学界经济学家则仍在争论背后的原因。 目前，所有人都在某种程度上同意美联储主席伯南克2005年的讲话：“全球储蓄过剩”是问题的根源。


But economists disagree on why we have the glut, how long it will last, and, most fundamentally, on whether it is a good thing.	但经济学家就过剩的原因、过剩会持续多久以及更基本的，过剩是否事件好事等问题存在分歧。


Bernanke’s original speech emphasized several factors – some that decreased the demand for global savings, and some that increased supply.	伯南克的原始讲话强调了几个因素——一些因素降低了全球储蓄需求，另一些因素增加了供给。


Either way, interest rates would have to fall in order for world bond markets to clear.	无论如何，利率必须降低，以使世界债券市场出清。


He pointed to how the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990’s caused the region’s voracious investment demand to collapse, while simultaneously inducing Asian governments to stockpile liquid assets as a hedge against another crisis.	他指出，20世纪90年代末的亚洲金融危机导致了该地区巨大的投资需求崩溃，同时导致亚洲各国纷纷囤积流动性资产作为下一场危机的对冲手段。


Bernanke also pointed to increased retirement saving by aging populations in Germany and Japan, as well as to saving by oil-exporting countries, with their rapidly growing populations and concerns about oil revenues in the long term.	伯南克还提到了德国和日本老龄人口退休储蓄的增加，以及人口快速增长、担心长期石油收入的石油出口国的储蓄。


Monetary policy, incidentally, did not feature prominently in Bernanke’s diagnosis.	而货币政策并非伯南克诊断书的主要内容。


Like most economists, he believes that if policymakers try to keep interest rates at artificially low levels for too long, eventually demand will soar and inflation will jump.	与大部分经济学家一样，他认为如果决策者试图将利率人为地压低太长时间，需求终将激增，通胀会快速抬头。


So, if inflation is low and stable, central banks cannot be blamed for low long-term rates.	因此，只要通胀维持在稳定低水平，央行就不必为低长期利率担责。


In fact, I strongly suspect that if one polled investors, monetary policy would be at the top of the list, not absent from it, as an explanation of low global long-term interest rates.	事实上，我强烈质疑，如果你对投资者做一番调查就会发现，货币政策赫然居于全球低长期利率原因清单的榜首而非无人提及。


The fact that so many investors hold this view ought to make one think twice before absolving monetary policy of all responsibility.	如此之多的投资者作如是观这一事实理应让人在为货币政策开脱之前三思。


Nevertheless, I share Bernanke’s instinct that, while central banks do set very short-term interest rates, they have virtually no influence over long-term real (inflation-adjusted) rates, other than a modest effect through portfolio management policies (for example, “quantitative easing”).	尽管如此，我仍同意伯南克的直觉，即央行确实决定着极短期利率，但它们对长期真实（经通胀调整）利率几无影响力，只能通过投资组合管理政策（比如“量化宽松”）略微施加影响。


A lot has changed since 2005.	2005年以来，世界改变了许多。


We had the financial crisis, and some of the factors cited by Bernanke have substantially reversed.	我们经历了金融危机，伯南克所提到的某些因素发生了彻底逆转。


For example, Asian investment is booming again, led by China.	比如，亚洲投资在中国的带领下再次井喷。


And yet global interest rates are even lower now than they were then.	但全球利率甚至比当年更低了。


Why?	这是为什么？


There are several competing theories, most of them quite elegant, but none of them entirely satisfactory.	解释这一现象的理论有很多，大多颇为漂亮，但没有一个彻底令人满意。


One view holds that long-term growth risks have been on the rise, raising the premium on assets that are perceived to be relatively safe, and raising precautionary saving in general.	一种观点是长期增长风险在上升，提高了被认为相对安全的资产的溢价，也提高了总体预防性储蓄。


(Of course, no one should think that any government bonds are completely safe, particularly from inflation and financial repression.)	（当然，政府债券���并非完全安全，特别是考虑到通胀和金融抑制的情况。


Certainly, the 2008 financial crisis should have been a wakeup call to proponents of the “Great Moderation” view that long-term volatility has fallen.	）毫无疑问，2008年金融危机不啻对“大稳健”观点（长期波动性下降）的警钟。


Many studies suggest that it is becoming more difficult than ever to anchor expectations about long-term growth trends.	许多研究表明，锚定长期增长趋势预期正变得前所未有地困难。


Witness, for example, the active debate about whether technological progress is accelerating or decelerating.	比如，关于技术进步在加速还是在减速的问题就存在激烈争论。


Shifting geopolitical power also breeds uncertainty.	地缘政治实力的变迁也在滋生不确定性。


Another class of academic theories follows Bernanke (and, even earlier, Michael Dooley, David  Folkerts-Landau, and Peter Garber) in attributing low long-term interest rates to the growing importance of emerging economies, but with the major emphasis on private savings rather than public savings.	另一组学术理论支持伯南克（或为时更早的杜雷（Michael Dooley）、福克尔茨-朗道（David Folkerts-Landau）和加珀（Peter Garber）），将低长期利率归因于新兴经济体重要性的增加，但他们更强调私人储蓄，而非公共储蓄。


Because emerging economies have relatively weak asset markets, their citizens seek safe haven in advanced-country government bonds.	新兴经济体的资产市场相对较弱，因此其国民转向发达国家政府债券寻找安全港。


A related theory is that emerging economies’ citizens find it difficult to diversify the huge risk inherent in their fast-growing but volatile environments, and feel particularly vulnerable as a result of weak social safety nets.	一个相关的理论是，新兴经济体的国民发现难以分散其快速增长但波动性高的环境所蕴含的巨大风险，社会安全网的不足尤其让他们感到脆弱。


So they save massively.	因此他们大量储蓄。


These explanations have some merit, but one should recognize that central banks and sovereign wealth funds, not private citizens, are the players most directly responsible for the big savings surpluses.	这些解释不无道理，但你得清楚，央行和主权财富基金，而不是私人国民，才是巨大储蓄盈余的最直接原因。


It is a strain to think that governments have the same motivations as private citizens.	认为政府和私人国民有着相同动机是一个局限。


Besides, on closer inspection, the emerging-market explanation, though convenient, is not quite as compelling as it might seem.	此外，更细致地观察就会发现，新兴市场解释尽管很方便，但并不像看起来那样令人信服。


Emerging economies are growing much faster than the advanced countries, which neoclassical growth models suggest should push global interest rates up, not down.	新兴经济体比发达国家增长更快，在新古典增长模型看来，这应该推高而不是压低全球利率。


Similarly, the integration of emerging-market countries into the global economy has brought with it a flood of labor.	同样，新兴市场国家融入全球经济给后者带来了巨大的劳动力。


According to standard trade theory, a global labor glut ought to imply an increased rate of return on capital, which again pushes interest rates up, not down.	根据标准贸易理论，全球劳动力过剩应该导致资本回报率上升，而这也会推高而不是压低利率。


Surely, any explanation must include the global constriction of credit, especially for small and medium-size businesses.	当然，不论怎样解释，都必须考虑全球信用压缩的事实，特别是中小企业信用。


Tighter regulation of lending standards has shut out an important source of global investment demand, putting downward pressure on interest rates.	收紧贷款标准监管关闭了一个重要的全球投资需求阀门，给利率造成了下行压力。


My best guess is that when global uncertainty fades and global growth picks up, global interest rates will start to rise, too.	我的猜想是，当全球不确定性消除，全球增长抬头时，全球利率也会开始上升。


But predicting the timing of this transition is difficult.	但预测这一变化何时到来十分困难。


The puzzle of the global savings glut may live on for several years to come.	全球储蓄过剩之谜或许还得在维持几年。


Why Are Savings Patterns So Different?	储蓄模式为何如此迥异?


BEIJING – Ever since the integration of emerging markets into the global economy began in the early 1990’s, three striking trends have emerged: a divergence in private savings rates between the industrialized core and the emerging periphery (the former experiencing a sharp rise, and the latter a steady decline); large global imbalances between the two regions; and a drop in interest rates worldwide.	发自北京——自从新兴市场在1990年代初整合进全球经济以来出现了三大引人注目的趋势：核心发达工业国与外围新兴国家在个人储蓄率上的分化（前者大幅上升而后者稳步下降）； 两个区域之间的巨额全球不平衡；


But, while global imbalances have preoccupied many observers, few have sought to explain the divergence in world savings behavior.	以及全球各地的利率下调。 而当全球不平衡状况吸引了许多观察者的目光之时，只有很少人尝试去解释世界各地储蓄模式的分化。


In 1988, the household savings rate in China and the United States was roughly equal, at about 5%.	在1988年，中美两国的家庭储蓄率基本持平，大概在5%左右。


Yet, by 2007, China’s household savings rate had risen to a staggering 30%, compared to just 2.5% in the US.	但到了2007年，中国家庭的储蓄率已经上升到令人吃惊的30%，而美国仅有2.


The pattern is not uncharacteristic of other industrialized countries relative to emerging markets over the last two decades (Figure 1).	5%。 这个模式在过去20年间其他发达工业国与新兴市场的比较中是不具备典型性的（表一）。


Savings behavior invariably reacts to changes in interest rates, which have fallen steadily over the last two decades to today’s record-low levels.	储蓄行为总是与利率的变化相对应，而后者在过去20年间持续走低到今时今日的破纪录水平。


But how can savings patterns be so different – often opposite – in globalized economies that are well integrated into world capital markets?	但在这些完全融入世界资本市场的全球化经济体之间为何会出现如此显著——往往相反的——储蓄模式差异呢？


The answer may be that credit markets are more developed in advanced economies than they are in emerging countries, particularly in terms of the degree to which households are able to borrow.	答案或许是发达国家的信贷市场比新兴国家发展得更为完善，尤其是在家庭可借贷数额的程度上。


Of course, one might argue that Asian thrift and American profligacy merely reflect asymmetric demands for credit: Asians are intrinsically more reluctant to borrow.	当然，有人会提出亚洲的节约和美国的挥霍仅仅是反映了对信贷的不对称需求：亚洲人骨子里更不愿意去借钱。


In that case, however, the vast differences in household debt (Figure 2) – ranging from 25% of GDP in emerging Asia (Southeast Asia, China, India, Hong Kong, and South Korea) to more than 90% in the US and other Anglo-Saxon economies (including Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) – would reflect only a dissimilarity in taste.	照这样说来，家庭负债的显著差异（表二）——从新兴亚洲国家（东南亚、中国、印度，香港和韩国）的25%到美国以及其他盅格鲁-撒克逊经济体（包括澳大利亚、加拿大、爱尔兰，新西兰和英国）的超过90%——就只是些偏好上的差异。


A more plausible explanation is that institutional differences in the ability to borrow dictate to some extent the disparity in savings rates across countries.	而另一个更能令人信服的解释就是在借贷能力上的制度差异在某种程度上决定着各国之间储蓄率的不一致性。


The argument is simple: All economies have both borrowers and savers, and changes in the cost of borrowing (or the return to saving) affect them differently.	理由很简单，所有经济体内部都有贷款者和存款者，而借款成本（或者储蓄回报）的变动会对他们造成不一样的影响。


When interest rates decline, borrowers are able to borrow more. Savers, on the other hand, may be compelled to save more in the face of shrinking interest income.	当利率走低时，贷款者就能贷更多的钱，相反存款者可能不得不在利息收入下降时储蓄更多。


At the macro level, a less credit-constrained economy (with a large mass of effective borrowers) could then experience a fall in the savings rate as borrowing rose.	在宏观层面，一个贷款限制较少（因此拥有大量有效贷款者）的经济体会在贷款增加时出现储蓄减少的情况。


However, in a country with a large mass of effective savers, the savings rate can rise, rather than fall.	然而一个拥有大量有效存款者的国家，存款率会不降反升。


This asymmetry in savings patterns might thus reflect the simple fact that credit-constrained economies are less sensitive to drops in the cost of borrowing relative to less constrained economies.	这种储蓄模式的不对称可能因此体现出一个简单的事实：限制贷款的经济体相对于较少限制贷款的经济体来说对贷款成本的下降更加不敏感。


In joint research with Nicolas Coeurdacier and Stéphane Guibaud, we show that economic data supports this view.	在笔者与尼古拉斯·科尔达西埃（Nicolas Coeurdacier）和史黛芬妮·居堡（ Stéphane Guibaud）的联合研究中，我们找到了经济数据来支持上述观点。


Borrowers and savers are naturally grouped by age.	贷款者和储蓄者通过年龄分组。


The young normally face low, current wage income, but faster growth in future income, and would ideally borrow against future income to augment consumption today and to invest in education.	年轻人通常拥有较低的当前工资收入，但在未来收入方面增长较快，并适合透支未来收入以扩大当前消费并在教育方面投资。


The middle-aged, preparing for retirement, are likely to be the economy’s savers.	而准备退休的中年人更可能是经济体中的储蓄者。


If asymmetric credit constraints are indeed important, young borrowers and middle-aged savers will display distinct patterns in constrained versus less-constrained economies.	如果信贷限制的不一致确实是重要因素的话，那么年轻贷款者和中年储蓄者就将在限制贷款和较少限制贷款经济体的比较中表现出截然不同的行为模式。


In fact, there was a remarkable contrast in savings behavior across age groups in China and the US in the period 1992-2009.	事实上，中美两国在1992至2009年间不同年龄段的储蓄行为之间存在着显著差异。


For young Americans (those under 25), the borrowing rate rose by ten percentage pointsmore than the borrowing rate of young Chinese, while the savings rate of the Chinese working-age population (ages 35-54) rose by about 17 percentage points more than the savings rate of their American counterparts.	年轻美国人（25岁以下）比年轻中国人的贷款率高出10%，而参加工作后的中国人（35-54岁）在储蓄率方面比同龄的美国人高出17%。


Another implication of this view is that the steep rise in savings in China is largely driven by a rise in the savings rate of middle-aged Chinese (rather than a fall in the borrowing rate of the young).	这个观点的另一个含义就是中国储蓄的急剧上升在很大程度上是由中年中国人储蓄率的上升（而不是年轻人贷款率下降）所导致的。


Conversely, the fall in savings in the US is largely due to higher borrowing by the young (rather than a fall in middle-aged Americans’ savings rate).	相反，美国储蓄率的减少则主要来自于年轻人更多的贷款（而不是中年美国人储蓄率的下降）。


Indeed, of the 20.2-percentage-point increase in aggregate household savings (as a share of GDP) in China from 1992 to 2009, the middle-aged cohort accounted for more than 60% (the remainder was largely attributable to the elderly).	事实上，在中国1992至2009年家庭总储蓄率（作为GDP的一部分）所增加的20. 2%中，中年人群体占了超过60%（余下部分主要由老年人贡献）。


In the US, which experienced a 1.8-percentage-point decline in aggregate savings as a share of GDP, the savings-to-GDP ratio among the young declined by 1.25 percentage points, whereas the figure for middle-aged savers actually increased by about 1.5 percentage points.	8%中，年轻群体中的储蓄/GDP比率下降了1. 25%，而中年储蓄者的数据实际上是上升了大约1.


Apart from accounting for the global divergence in savings rates, tight credit constraints in China might explain the country’s high, and rising, savings rate – especially as the large rise in national savings is attributable mostly to household savings.	除了考虑在储蓄率方面的全球差异之外，中国的严格信贷限制可能有助于解释该国较高且不断增加的储蓄率——尤其是巨额国家储蓄主要来自于家庭储蓄的情况下。


This would mean that China’s much-publicized effort to boost domestic consumption might in fact call for appropriate credit-market reforms.	这将意味着中国大肆宣扬的刺激国内消费计划可能需要呼唤适当的信贷市场改革。


US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke’s notion of a “global savings glut” is a commonly cited explanation for falling world interest rates.	美联储主席本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）所提到的“全球储蓄过量”概念经常被用来解释世界各地利率下降的状况。


Credit constraints in fast-growing developing economies may be the reason why the glut emerged in the first place.	而高增长发展中国家的信贷限制可能就是为何过量首先会出现在这些地方的原因。


Europe’s Path to Disunity	欧洲的分裂之路


MUNICH – The motto of the United States of America is: “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one).	慕尼黑—美国的座右铭：合众为一。


The European Union’s motto is “In varietate concordia,” which is officially translated as “United in diversity.”	欧盟的座右铭：多样统一。


It is difficult to express the differences between the US and the European model any more clearly than this.	用来解释美国和欧洲模式的区别，没有比这两句话更清楚的了。


The US is a melting pot, whereas Europe is a mosaic of different peoples and cultures that has developed over the course of its long history.	美国是一个熔炉，而欧洲是一张历史悠久的由不同民族和文化组成的马赛克。


That difference raises the question of whether it is worth striving for a United States of Europe – a concept that many refuse to accept, because they do not believe in the possibility of a unified European identity.	这一不同引出了一个问题：是否值得为欧罗巴合众国而奋斗。 许多人拒绝欧罗巴合众国这一概念，因为他们不相信欧洲有可能会产生同一的身份。


A single political system like that of the US, they insist, presupposes a common language and a single nationality.	他们坚持认为，像美国那样的单一政治体系需以共同语言和单一民族成分为条件。


Perhaps the idea of a United States of Europe, the dream of post-war children like me, can never be realized.	或许欧罗巴合众国这一我等战后一代欧洲人的梦想永远都不可能实现。


But I am not so sure.	但我也不能把话说死。


After all, deeper European integration and the creation of a single political system offer solid, practical advantages that do not require a common identity or language.	毕竟，更深层次的欧洲一体化和单一政治体系的建立能够提供必须要共同身份和语言的坚实而实际的进步。


These advantages include the right to move freely across borders, the free movement of goods and services, legal certainty for cross-border economic activities, Europe-wide transportation infrastructure, and, not least, common security arrangements.	这些进步包括自由跨国迁徙、自由商品和服务流、跨国经济活动的法律环境的确定性、泛欧洲交通基础设施以及共同防务安排。


Banking regulation is the most topical area in which collective action makes sense.	银行监管是有意义集体行动的最热门领域。


If banks are regulated at the national level, but do business internationally, national regulatory authorities have a permanent incentive to set lax standards to avoid driving business to other countries and to lure it from them instead.	如果银行在国家水平监管而从事国际业务，那么国家监管当局就永远有放松监管标准以防业务外流、吸引业务流入的激励。


Regulatory competition thus degenerates into a race to the bottom, since the benefits of lax regulation translate into profits at home, while the losses lie with bank creditors around the world.	于是，监管竞争就退化为争相放松的竞争，因为放松监管的好处是将利润留在国内，而损失则由全世界银行债权人承担。


There are many similar examples from the fields of standards, competition policy, and taxation that are applicable here.	在监管标准、竞争政策和税收政策等方面，有许多相似的例子。


So, fundamental considerations speak for deeper European integration, extending even to the creation of a single European state.	因此，更深层次的欧洲一体化——甚至到建立单一欧洲国家的程度——需要基础性的考虑。


The danger of following such a path always lies in the fact that collective decision-making bodies not only provide services that are useful to everybody, but also may abuse their power to redistribute resources among the participating countries.	这条路存在永远的风险：集体决策机构不但提供对所有人都有用的服务，也会滥用手里的权力，在参与国之间重新分配资源。


Even democratic bodies are not immune to this danger.	即使民主也不能对这一风险免疫。


On the contrary, they make it possible for majorities to exploit minorities.	相反，民主可能会导致多数人掠夺少数人。


To counter this threat, democratic bodies invariably need special rules to protect minorities, such as the requirement of qualified majority voting or unanimous decision-making.	为了解决这一威胁，民主免不了需要特殊的规则保护少数人，如条件多数表决或一致意见决策。


The decisions taken by the European Central Bank are a particularly dramatic example of this problem, taken as they are by a simple majority of a body that is not even democratically elected.	欧洲央行的决策是这一问题的生动写照，这是一个简单多数胜出的机构，甚至都不是通过选举而产生的。


The ECB’s decisions lead to a massive redistribution of wealth and risk among the eurozone’s member states, as well as from stable countries’ taxpayers, who have little stake in the crisis, to global investors directly affected by it.	欧洲央行的决策导致了欧元区成员国之间大规模的财富和风险重新分配，慷稳定国纳税人之慨（他们与危机无甚关系），救直接受危机影响的全球投资者。


The ECB has been providing virtually all of its refinancing credit to the eurozone’s five crisis-stricken countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland.	欧洲央行几乎将所有再融资信用都给了欧元区五大危机国：意大利、西班牙、葡萄牙、希腊和爱尔兰。


All the money circulating in the eurozone originated in these five countries and was then largely used to buy goods and assets in the northern member countries and redeem foreign debt taken from them.	流通于欧元区的所有资金都产生于这五个国家，并随后大部分用于购买北欧成员国商品和资产以及偿还外国债务。


The US Federal Reserve would never be allowed to conduct such a regionally imbalanced policy.	美联储永远不可能允许实施如此地区不平衡的政策。


The Fed cannot even provide credit to specific regions, let alone states on the verge of bankruptcy (for example, California).	美联储甚至不能为具体的地区提供信用，更不用说向处于破产边缘的州（如加州）注资了。


And now European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, backed by most of the troubled eurozone countries, is again proposing Eurobonds and debt-mutualization schemes.	而如今，欧洲委员会主席范龙佩在大部分受困欧元区国家的支持下，再次提议欧元债券和债务共同化机制。


These ideas go well beyond the American system.	这些方案已经超过了美国政策的边界。


The kind of fiscal integration and centralized power that they would require do not even remotely resemble those in place in the US.	财政一体化及其所要求的权力集中和美国的情形毫无相似之处。


Van Rompuy’s proposals are extremely dangerous and could destroy Europe.	范龙佩的方案是极其危险的，可能会毁掉欧洲。


The path toward a union based on joint liabilities, against the wishes of large parts of its population, is not leading to a federal state in the true sense of the term – that is, to an alliance of equals, who freely decide to unite and promise to protect each other.	走向基于共同债务的联盟之路违背了欧洲大部分人民的意愿，是不可能通往真正意义上的联邦国家的，即无法产生平等的联盟，各成员国自由决定是否联合并承诺互相保护。


Nor can this path lead to a United States of Europe, simply because a large part of Europe refuses to follow it.	这条道路也不可能通往欧罗巴合众国，因为很大一部分欧洲国家拒绝如此。


Europe is not identical with the eurozone.	欧洲并不等同于欧元区。


It contains many more countries than those that use the euro.	它还包括很多不使用欧元的国家。


As useful as the euro could be for Europe’s prosperity if its obvious flaws were corrected, the way that the eurozone is now developing will split the EU and undermine the idea of unity in diversity.	修正了显而易见的缺陷后，欧元将对欧洲的繁荣有大助益，但与此同时，欧元区现在的发展方向是分裂欧盟，破坏多样统一的前景。


The assertion that the eurozone could be transformed into a United States of Europe is no longer convincing.	欧元区可以转化为欧罗巴合众国的设想已不再令人信服。


The path toward joint liability is far more likely to lead to a deep rift within Europe, because turning the eurozone into a transfer and debt union that can prevent the insolvency of any of its members would require more central power than currently exists in the US.	走向共同债务更有可能导致欧洲内部的分裂，因为将欧元区转变为转移和债务联盟从而防止任何成员国出现无力偿债的情形要求很大中央权力，远超美国当前存在的程度。


Austerity and Demoralization	紧缩和士气低落


NEW HAVEN – The high unemployment that we have today in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere is a tragedy, not just because of the aggregate output loss that it entails, but also because of the personal and emotional cost to the unemployed of not being a part of working society.	纽黑文—如今在欧洲、美国和其他地区出现的高失业是一场悲剧，不仅是因为这意味着总产出损失，也因为不再成为工作社会的一部分给失业者带来的个人和心理成本。


Austerity, according to some of its promoters, is supposed to improve morale.	用某些支持者的话说，紧缩是为了增进士气。


British Prime Minister David Cameron, an austerity advocate, says he believes that his program reduces “welfare dependency,” restores “rigor,” and encourages the “the doers, the creators, the life-affirmers.”	英国首相卡梅伦是紧缩支持者之一，他说他认为他的方案减少了“财富依赖”，重塑了“刻苦”，鼓励了“实干者、创作者和生活肯定者”。


Likewise, US Congressman Paul Ryan says that his program is part of a plan to promote “creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.”	类似地，美国众议员保罗·莱恩说他的方案是刺激“创新力和企业家精神”的计划的一部分。


Some kinds of austerity programs may indeed boost morale.	某些类型的紧缩计划也许确实增进了士气。


Monks find their life’s meaning in a most austere environment, and military boot camps are thought to build character.	僧人在极端简朴的环境中寻求生命意义，军训也被视为塑造性格的良方。


But the kind of fiscal austerity that is being practiced now has the immediate effect of rendering people jobless and filling their lives with nothing but a sense of rejection and exclusion.	但现在所实施的财政紧缩有一个马上产生的效果——让人们失业，导致他们只能用被拒绝和被排斥的感觉填充他们的生活。


One could imagine that a spell of unemployment might be a time of reflection, reestablishment of personal connections, and getting back to fundamental values.	你可以想象，一段时间的失业或许可以用来反思、重建个人人际网络和回归基本价值。


Some economists even thought long ago that we would be enjoying much more leisure by this point.	很久以前，一些经济学家甚至认为我们可以因此享受更多的闲暇。


John Maynard Keynes, in his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” speculated that, within a hundred years, that is, by 2030, higher incomes would reduce the average workday to a mere three hours, for a total workweek of only 15 hours.	凯恩斯在其1930年的论文《我们孙辈的经济可能》（“Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”）中猜测，不出100年，也就是说，到2030年，更高的收入将把平均工作日时长缩减至三小时，工作周时长缩减至15小时。


While there are still 17 years to go, it appears that Keynes was way off the mark.	距离2030年还有17年，但凯恩斯的话看来是无法实现了。


So was Robert Theobald, who, in his 1963 book Free Men and Free Markets questioned the public’s repugnance toward high unemployment.	提奥巴德（Robert Theobald）的预测亦然——在其1963年的著作《自由的人和自由市场》（Free Men and Free Markets），他质疑了公众对高失业的厌恶之情。


He asserted that “we can have meaningful leisure rather than destructive unemployment,” and that we do not need “a whirling-dervish economy dependent on compulsive consumption.”	他认为“我们可以获得有意义的闲暇，而不是破坏性的失业”，并且我们不需要“依赖强制性消费的漩涡性的经济”。


But finding something satisfying to do with our time seems inevitably to entail doing some sort of work: “meaningful leisure” wears thin after a while.	找到能让我们满意地消耗时间的途径免不了包括做些工作：“有意义的闲暇”不消多久便消散了。


People seem to want to work more than three hours a day, even if it is assembly-line work.	人们似乎渴望每天超过三小时的工作时间，即便它是流水线上的工作。


And the opportunity to work should be a basic freedom.	而工作机会也应该是基本自由之一。


Unemployment is a product of capitalism: people who are no longer needed are simply made redundant.	失业是资本主义的产物：不再需要你，你就是多余的。


On the traditional family farm, there was no unemployment.	在传统家庭农庄中不存在失业。


Austerity exposes the modern economy’s lack of interpersonal connectedness and the morale costs that this implies.	紧缩暴露了现代社会人际网络的缺乏及其隐含的士气成本。


Work-sharing might keep more people marginally attached to their jobs in an economic slump, thereby preserving their self-esteem.	工作分担使得更多的人在经济衰退期间部分地保住工作，从而保留了他们的自尊。


Instead of laying off 25% of its workforce in a recession, a company could temporarily reduce workers’ hours from, say, eight per day to six.	公司可以不在衰退期间裁掉25%的员工，而是临时性地削减工时，比如从每天八小时削减至六小时。


Everyone would remain employed, and all would come a little closer to Keynes’s ideal.	每个人都能保住工作，所有人都会向着凯恩斯的理想迈进一步。


Some countries, notably Germany, have encouraged this approach.	一些国家（最令人注目的是德国）鼓励这种做法。


But work-sharing raises technical problems if increased suddenly to deal with an economic crisis like the one we are now experiencing.	但工作分担产生了技术问题，如果其力度被突然加大以应对我们目前所经历的这种级别的经济危机的话。


These problems preclude the sudden movement toward the ideal of greater leisure that thinkers like Keynes and Theobald proclaimed.	这些问题阻止人们可以一下子进入凯恩斯和提奥巴德等思想家所认为的更多闲暇的理想状态。


One problem is that workers have fixed costs, such as transportation to work or a health plan, that do not decline when hours (and thus pay) are cut.	一个问题是工人有不因工作时长（从而薪酬）削减而减少的固定成本，比如通勤成本和医疗成本。


Their debts and obligations are similarly fixed.	他们的债务和义务也有类似的固定性。


They could have bought a smaller house had they known that their hours would be reduced, but now it is difficult to downsize the one that they did buy.	如果他们知道工时可能被削减，当初就会买更小的房子，但现在要减少已经购买的规模十分困难。


Another problem is that it may be difficult to reduce everyone’s job by the same amount, because some jobs scale up and down with production, while others do not.	另一个问题是可能很难以同等程度减少每个人的工时，因为一些岗位与产量呈正比关系，一些则否。


In his book Why Wages Don’t Fall During a Recession, Truman Bewley of Yale University reported on an extensive set of interviews with business managers involved with wage-setting and layoffs.	在其著作《为什么工资不会在衰退中降低》（Why Wages Don’t Fall During a Recession）中，耶鲁大学的勃利（Truman Bewley）报告了大量对负责工资设定和裁员的企业经理的采访。


He found that they believed that a serious morale problem would result from reducing everyone’s hours and pay during a recession.	他发现他们认为在衰退中减少每个人的工时和工资会带来严重的士气问题。


Then all employees would begin to feel as if they did not have a real job.	随后所有雇员都会觉得他们没有真正的工作岗位似的。


In his interviews with managers, he was told that it is best (at least from a manager’s point of view) if the pain of reduced employment is concentrated on a few people, whose grumbling is not heard by the remaining employees.	在对经理的采访中，他得知最好的办法（至少用经理的眼光看是如此）是把裁员的痛苦集中到少数人身上，不让其他雇员听到他们的抱怨。


Employers worry about workplace morale, not about the morale of the employees they lay off.	雇主担心工作士气，而不关心被裁雇员的士气。


Their damaged morale certainly affects others as a sort of externality, which matters very much; but it does not matter to the firm that has laid them off.	他们的士气低落显然会影响到其他人，此乃外部性，所涉体大； 但只要企业把他们裁掉，便万事大吉。


We could perhaps all be happy working fewer hours if the decline reflected gradual social progress.	或许人人都会对更少地工作感到愉快，如果工作时长减少反映社会逐渐进步的话。


But we are not happy with unemployment that results from a sudden fiscal crisis.	但我们不会对因突发财政危机导致的失业感到愉快。


That is why sudden austerity cannot be a morale builder.	这就是突然紧缩不可能成为士气驱动力的原因。


For morale, we need a social compact that finds a purpose for everyone, a way to show oneself to be part of society by being a worker of some sort.	比如，我们需要一份社会契约为每一个人找到一个目标、一条通过身为工人或类似的办法证明自己是社会一部分的道路。


And for that we need fiscal stimulus – ideally, the debt-friendly stimulus that raises taxes and expenditures equally.	因此我们需要财政刺激——理想状况是同步提高税收和支出的债务友好型财政刺激。


The increased tax burden for all who are employed is analogous to the reduced hours in work-sharing.	所有有工作者增加的债务负担便是工作分担所减少的工作时长。


But, if tax increases are not politically expedient, policymakers should proceed with old-fashioned deficit spending.	但是，如果增税并非政治权宜之计，决策者就应该求助老式预算支出法。


The important thing is to achieve any fiscal stimulus that boosts job creation and puts the unemployed back to work.	重要的是要实现提振就业创造、让失业者回到工作中来的财政刺激，不管什么形式。


End Austerity Now	马上结束紧缩


EDINBURGH – In recent weeks, talk about a budding recovery in the eurozone has gained traction, with key indices pointing to expansion in the core countries – data that many are citing as evidence that austerity is finally working.	爱丁堡—最近几周，关于欧元区复苏萌芽的讨论声音建起，关键指标表明核心国已步入扩张——很多人将这些数据作为紧缩最终奏效的证据。


Money-market funds from the United States are returning, albeit cautiously, to resume funding of European bank debt.	来自美国的货币市场基金又开始为欧洲银行债务提供资金了，尽管动作极为谨慎。


Even Goldman Sachs is now bullishly piling into European equities.	就连高盛目前也看好欧洲股市。


But is a recovery really underway?	但复苏真的已经开始了吗？


Cynics recall that a European recovery was supposed to take hold as early as the fourth quarter of 2010, and that every International Monetary Fund projection since then has predicted recovery “by the end of the year.”	怀疑派还记得，关于欧洲复苏的预期早在2010年第四季度就已经出现，自此以后，IMF次次都会预测“年底”复苏。


Instead, GDP has collapsed, with the Spanish and Italian economies expected to contract by close to 2% this year.	但是，GDP出现了崩溃，西班牙和意大利经济今年预计将收缩2%。


Portugal’s economy is set to shrink by more than 2%, and Greece’s output will fall by more than 4%.	葡萄牙经济将收缩超过2%，希腊产出可能下降4%。


Moreover, unemployment in the eurozone has skyrocketed to an average rate of roughly 12%, with more than 50% youth unemployment in the periphery countries implying a long-term loss of talent and erosion of the tax base.	此外，欧元区失业率水平达到了惊人的程度，平均为12%左右，外围国年轻人失业率更是超过了50%，这意味着人才的长期损失和税基的侵蚀。


And, despite the spike in unemployment, productivity growth in the eurozone is decidedly negative.	而尽管欧元区失业率居高不下，生产率水平却稳稳地处于负区间。


More significant, over the last year, the public debt/GDP ratio rose by seven percentage points in Italy, 11 in Ireland, and 15 in Portugal and Spain.	更重要的是，去年一年，公债/GDP比率在意大利上升了七个百分点，在爱尔兰上升了11个百分点，在葡萄牙和西班牙上升了15个百分点。


If the sine qua non of recovery via austerity is the stabilization and reduction of debt, the cynics’ case appears to have been made.	如果通过紧缩实现复苏的必要条件是债务水平的稳定和下降，那么怀疑派显然握有强大的证据。


Against this background, the return of US investors to provide short-term dollar funding for European bank debt smacks of a desperate hunt for yield that relies on European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s promise to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro.	与此相对的是，美国投资者的归来为欧洲银行债务提供了短期美元资金，他们背靠欧洲央行行长德拉吉“竭尽全力”拯救欧元的承诺，疯狂地追逐收益率。


As for Goldman’s equity play, as bond-market guru Bill Blain put it, “the words ‘buy cheap, sell a bit dearer on the up, and then dump and run’ spring to mind.”	债券市场大亨布莱恩（Bill Blain）这样评论高盛的股票买入行为：“脑海中突然浮现出‘买在地位，稍稍上涨后卖掉，出货完毕逃之夭夭。 ’这句话。


In fact, any talk of recovery is premature until the losses incurred by austerity are recouped.	事实上，除非由紧缩引起的损失得到弥补，否则就无从谈论复苏。


As it stands, every country that has implemented an austerity program without imposing losses on private creditors has more debt now than when it started.	任何实施了紧缩计划但又没有强迫私人债权人承担损失的国家，其债务水平都比开始时高。


For example, according to official estimates, Spain’s public debt, which amounted to only about 36% of GDP when the crisis began, has almost tripled – and the actual figure may be much higher.	比如，根据官方统计数据，西班牙公债水平在危机肇始时只占GDP的36%左右，目前增加了近两倍，实际数字可能比这大得多。


More telling, the countries that cut expenditure the most experienced the largest bond-yield spikes and the most significant debt growth.	更具说明性是，削减支出最多的国家经历了最大幅度的债券收益率升高和最显著的债务增长。


The explanation for this is simple.	为什么会这样？ 原因很简单。


When a country gives up its monetary sovereignty, its banks are effectively borrowing in a foreign currency, making them exceptionally vulnerable to liquidity shocks, like that which sparked turmoil in Europe’s banking system in 2010-2011.	当一国放弃其货币主权时，其银行实际上用外币借款，这让它们极易受到流动性冲击，比如2010—2011年引起欧洲银行系统大动荡的那种。


The government, unable to print money to bail out the banks or increase export competitiveness through currency devaluation, is left with only two options: default or deflation (austerity).	政府无法印钱援助银行或通过货币贬值增加出口竞争力，于是只有两个选择：违约或通缩（紧缩）。


Austerity’s underlying logic is that budget cuts, by reducing the debt burden and restoring confidence, ultimately enhance stability and support growth.	紧缩的基本逻辑是，削减赤字通过降低债务负担和重塑信心最终能够增强稳定、支持增长。


But, when countries pursue austerity simultaneously with their main trading partners, overall demand plummets, causing all of their economies to contract and, in turn, increasing their debt/GDP ratios.	但是，当一国与其主要贸易伙伴一起追求紧缩时，总需求会下降，导致所有它们的经济全都收缩，而这反过来提高了债务/GDP比率。


But the problem with austerity in the eurozone is more fundamental: policymakers are attempting to address a sovereign-debt crisis, though the real problem is a banking crisis.	但欧元区紧缩的问题更加基础：决策者在试图解决主权债务危机，尽管真正的原因是银行危机。


With Europe’s banking system triple the size and twice as leveraged as its US counterpart, and the ECB lacking genuine lender-of-last-resort authority, the sudden halt in capital flows to peripheral countries in 2009 created a liquidity-starved system that was too big to bail out.	欧洲银行系统规模是美国的三倍，杠杆是美国的两倍，欧洲央行也没有真正意义上的最后贷款人权力，因此2009年外围国家的资本突然断流导就造成了一个太大而救不了的流动性枯竭的系统。


As holders of euro-denominated assets recognized this situation, they turned to the ECB for insurance (which the ECB could not deliver under its previous president, Jean-Claude Trichet, whose leadership was defined by his commitment to maintaining price stability).	欧元计价资产持有者意识到了这���状况，他们转而要求欧洲央行做出担保（在前任央行特里谢治下，欧洲央行无法做出担保，因为特里谢的领导权来自他对维持价格稳定的承诺。


Investors’ subsequent efforts to price in the risk of a eurozone breakup – not the volume of sovereign debt – caused bond yields to spike.	）投资者随后开始考虑欧元区崩溃——而不是主权债务量——的风险，这导致债券收益率飙升。


But the financial-market turmoil fueled a panic among eurozone leaders, leading them to misdiagnose the malady and prescribe the wrong medicine, which has served only to generate new symptoms.	但金融市场动荡催生了欧元区领导人之间的恐慌，导致他们错判了病根，开错了药方，结果是造成了新的病症。


While Draghi’s promise, embodied by the ECB’s “outright monetary transactions” program – as well as its long-term refinancing operation and emergency liquidity assistance program – has bought time and lowered yields, the eurozone’s banking crisis persists.	尽管德拉吉所承诺的欧洲央行“直接货币交易”计划——及其长期再融资操作和紧急流动性援助计划——买来了时间和收益率的降低，但欧元区银行危机仍然没有消除。


Eurozone leaders must recognize that spending cuts will do nothing to stabilize the balance sheets of core-country banks that are over-exposed to peripheral countries’ sovereign debt.	欧元区领导人必须认识到，支出削减对稳定核心国银行资产负债表无济于事——它们在外围国主权债务上的敞口太大。


Until Europe rejects austerity in favor of a growth-oriented approach, all signs of recovery will prove illusory.	除非欧洲为了增长导向方针拒绝紧缩，否则所有复苏迹象都将是一场梦。


Why Barack Obama?	为什么要选择巴拉克·奥巴马？


NEW YORK – The winner of America’s presidential election will inherit a perfect storm of problems, both economic and international.	纽约——美国总统选举的获胜者将在经济以及国际领域继承由一系列问题组成的完美风暴。


He will face the most difficult opening-day agenda of any president since – and I say this in all seriousness – the man who saved the Union, Abraham Lincoln.	我可以严肃的讲，他将面临着自挽救联邦的亚伯拉罕·林肯总统以后最艰巨的就职任务。


But a more instructive precedent is 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt offered inspiring rhetoric and “bold experimentation” to a nation facing economic meltdown and a breakdown in public confidence.	但1933年的先例能给我们以某种启示，当时富兰克林·罗斯福为一个处在经济灾难和公众信心崩溃边缘的民族奉献了鼓舞人心的讲演和“大胆的实验”。


For me, the choice is simple – and not only because I am, by temperament and history, a Democrat.	对于我而言，选择非常简单——这不光是因为我从天性和历史上看都是个不折不扣的民主党。


The long and intense political campaign has revealed huge differences in the two candidates’ positions, style, and personal qualities. And the conclusion seems clear.	漫长而激烈的政治竞选过程已经暴露了两位候选人在立场、作风和个人素质之间的巨大差异。


Judgment .	判断力。


John McCain has shown throughout his career a penchant for risk-taking; in his memoirs, he proudly calls himself a gambler.	纵观约翰·麦凯恩的职业生涯，他一贯表现出非常强烈的风险偏好，甚至在回忆录中骄傲地称自己为赌徒。


His selection of Sarah Palin, a charismatic but spectacularly unqualified candidate, as his running mate, is just the most glaring of many examples of the real McCain.	他选择拥有超凡魅力却根本达不到候选人要求的萨拉·佩林作为自己的竞选伙伴，这一突出例证恰好能够反映出麦凯恩的真实个性。


His bravery in combat attests to his patriotism, courage, and toughness, but his judgment has been found sorely lacking time and time again over his career.	他在战斗中的勇敢证明了他的爱国、勇气和坚定，但在他的职业生涯中，却时常表现出判断力的极度匮乏的弊病。


Barack Obama is tough, too, but in a different way.	巴拉克·奥巴马也非常坚定，但他的方式却有所不同。


No one should underestimate how difficult it was to travel his road, against incredible odds, to the cusp of the presidency.	谁也不该低估他所遇到的困难，面对着令人难以置信的种种不平等，他终于登上了总统竞选的巅峰。


But where McCain is impulsive and emotional, Obama is low-key and unemotional.	但如果说麦凯恩是冲动而感情用事，那么奥巴马的风格则是低调而理性。


He makes his judgments in a calm and methodical manner; McCain’s impulsiveness is anathema to Obama, and rightly so – one cannot play craps with history.	他以一种冷静而系统的方式做出决策，厌恶麦凯恩个性中的那种冲动，这种厌恶自有其道理——因为任何人都不能拿历史当赌注。


Having seen so many political leaders falter under pressure, I prize this ability above most others.	因为曾经看到过如此多的政治领袖在压力面前动摇和畏缩，我把这种素质看得比其它多数能力更重。


And Barack Obama has it.	而巴拉克·奥巴马身上就具备这样的素质。


The economy .	经济。


The first priority of the new president will be the economy and the financial crisis.	应对经济和金融危机将成为新总统的首要任务。


Since the crisis hit, Obama has been calm and, indeed, presidential.	危机袭来后，奥巴马一直保持冷静，的确颇具总统之风。


He consulted the best advisory team in the nation, weighed each course of action carefully, and then issued a series of precise, calm statements.	他咨询了国内最高水平的顾问团队，仔细权衡了各种可能的行动，而后发表了一系列准确、冷静的声明。


Meanwhile, McCain has veered bizarrely, issuing contradictory statements, “suspending” his campaign (while continuing to campaign), and urging that the first debate be canceled (when it was all the more needed).	同时，麦凯恩却莫名其妙地改变态度，做出的声明都相互矛盾，他宣布“暂停”竞选活动（而同时却继续竞选），并（在首次竞选辩论的必要性越来越迫切的时候）敦促取消这次辩论。


Advantage Obama.	麦凯恩的自相矛盾让奥巴马占尽了上风。


Foreign policy .	外交政策。


The most explicit disagreements between the candidates are over Iraq, Iran, and Russia.	候选人之间最明显的分歧是伊拉克、伊朗和俄罗斯政策。


But there are deeper differences.	但他们之间还有更深层次的差异。


McCain’s positions, with the notable exception of climate change, suggest that he would simply try to carry out George W. Bush’s policies more effectively.	麦凯恩的立场除去气候变化这个特殊问题外，表明他只会试图更有效地执行乔治·W·布什的政策。


Obama offers a different approach to foreign policy.	而奥巴马则会以一种完全不同的方式来处理外交问题。


By starting to draw down combat troops in Iraq, Obama would change the image and policies of America immediately.	通过开始减少在伊拉克的作战部队，奥巴马将立即改变美国的形象和政策。


By engaging Iran in talks that would cover not only the nuclear issue but other aspects of Iran’s destabilizing role in the region, he would either reach agreements that lowered the dangers from Iran, or he would mobilize a stronger international coalition to isolate Iran.	通过邀请伊朗参与不仅商讨核问题而且涉及伊朗在该地区其它领域所起不稳定作用的谈判，奥巴马或者能够达成降低伊朗危险性的协议，或者能够动员更强大的国际联盟来孤立伊朗。


Either way, engaging Iran is the right policy, and it is hard to understand why Bush and McCain have continued to hold out against such an obvious change of course, which, if carried out with firmness, will not compromise American or Israeli national security.	无论怎样，与伊朗保持接触都是正确的决定，很难理解布什和麦凯恩为什么一直坚持反对如此明显的路线变化。 如果新路线得到坚定不移的贯彻，将不会损害到美国或以色列的国家安全。


On Russia since its invasion of Georgia, Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden (who was the first member of Congress to visit Georgia after the invasion), emphasize helping Georgia rebuild its economy and maintain its independence in the face of a continuing Russian campaign against it.	俄国入侵格鲁吉亚后，奥巴马和他的竞选伙伴乔·拜登（入侵后第一位访问格鲁吉亚的参议员），强调帮助格鲁吉亚重建国内经济，并在不断爆发的对俄战斗中保持自己的独立性。


McCain, on the other hand, wants to punish Russia by such actions as expelling it from the G-8.	另一方面，麦凯恩却希望通过诸如将俄国赶出八国集团这样的方式来惩罚俄国对格鲁吉亚的入侵。


Such measures may ultimately be necessary, but they will not help Georgia survive as an independent democracy.	采取这样的措施可能最终确有必要，但它们却丝毫无助于格鲁吉亚作为独立民主政体的生存。


Moreover, even after the outrage in Georgia, there are issues of common interest – such as energy, climate change, and Iran – on which the West and the Kremlin must cooperate.	此外，即便在格鲁吉亚暴行发生以后，西方和克里姆林之间仍然拥有需要合作维护的共同利益——比如能源、气候变化和伊朗问题等等。


This was true even during the Cold War, and remains true today, yet McCain seems not to recognize it.	这样的现实即便在冷战期间也无法改变，今天也同样如此，可麦凯恩却似乎拒不承认。


Leadership .	领导力。


In the end, all presidential elections come down to the intangibles of leadership.	最终，所有的总统选举全部归结为无形的领导力。


The vote for a president is a sort of private contract directly between each voter and his or her preferred choice.	总统投票是每位选民和他或她所喜爱的领导人之间一份直接的私人合同。


Who do you want to see on your television screen for the next four years?	今后四年你希望在电视屏幕上看到谁的身影？


To whom do you wish to entrust the nation’s fate?&	你希望把国家的命运交给谁来掌控？


Here again, the contrasting styles of Obama and McCain offer a clear choice between a calm and confident man and a highly emotional one, between a major change in the nation’s direction and a minor one, between a conciliatory style and a more combative one.	说到这儿，奥巴马和麦凯恩迥异的风格让你有机会在冷静自信和高度情绪化的两个男人间做出明确的选择，你可以选择让国家方向做出重大变化，也可以选择在大体上维持原来的路线。 你还可以在温和与好斗的行为模式之间做出选择。


Effectiveness .	有效性。


Finally, in a year in which the Democrats are certain to increase their majority in both houses of Congress, an Obama victory would offer the Democrats control of both the legislative and executive branches for the first time since 1994, and with it the possibility of legislative achievement after years of stalemate.	最后，在一个民主党人确定会在参众两院扩大领先优势的年份，奥巴马获胜会使民主党人从1994年以后第一次控制立法和行政机构，从而在多年僵局之后出现取得立法进展的可能性。


After so many years of polarization at home and unilateralism abroad, the choice for president seems clear.	在这么多年的国内分化和国外单边主义之后，很明显该选择谁来担任总统。


Why Big Banks Will Get Bigger	为什么大银行成了危机赢家


FLORENCE – Severe banking crises bring painful and long-lasting disruptions.	佛罗伦萨 —— 我们都认识历次银行大危机的一个产物：痛苦而长期的经济干扰；


But they also lead to surprises.	但它们的另一些产物却出人意料。


The lessons learned in the immediate aftermath bear little relationship to the eventual outcome.	危机当头，人们都会总结出若干教训，但危机后的世界如何演变，跟这些教训往往没啥关系。


There are immediate and obvious answers to the question of who was to blame, but they rarely correspond with the new shape of the financial landscape that ultimately emerges.	谁是危机的罪魁祸首，回答这个问题似乎再容易不过，但不论谁受到谴责，这种谴责都不会影响到最终出现的金融新格局。


The crisis that began in 2007 originated in the sub-prime mortgage sector in the United States, and in US banks that were “too big to fail,” prompting many observers at the outset to predict the end of American financial capitalism.	肇始于 2007 年美国次贷危机的这一轮金融海啸，起源地是美国一些“大到倒不得”的银行。 危机伊始，不少观察家便由此断定，它标志着美国式金融资本主义的终结。


But the banks that were most affected were elsewhere, and the long-term winners will be a few American banks – including some of the most notoriously weak banks – which will get bigger as a result of the crisis.	然而，如今看来，美国的银行反倒不是危机的最大受害者，其中颇有一些 —— 包括几家出了名的问题银行 —— 居然在危机中坐大，成了长时段上的赢家。


Fueled by the injection of taxpayers’ money, American capitalism is back in force.	用大把纳税人的钱输了血以后，美式资本主义卷土重来。


The explanation of why the obvious lessons of the crisis are being not drawn lies in the curious character of financial activity.	为什么危机的教训明明摆在那里，人们偏偏不吸取？ 根源在于金融活动的一个奇怪特性。


Banking is inherently competitive; but at the same time, it is not an industry where competition ever worked very well.	银行业固然是个存在竞争的行业，但这个行业的竞争，从来都是不充分的。


The core of financial activity depends on reputation, information networks, and the ability to make markets as well as trade on them.	金融活动的核心在于信誉、信息网、从事市场交易以及营造市场（做市）的能力。


The result is that there are indisputable advantages to being big, as well as the disadvantages that have become obvious over the past two years.	因此，规模大的金融机构，虽然也具有过去两年所暴露出来的一些劣势，但它们所拥有的优势更是无可争议的。


The market tends to be dominated by a relatively small number of firms.	金融市场天然倾向于寡头主导。


In the old days, when banking was stable and regulated securely in a national setting, three or four leading banks tended to form an oligopoly: Barclays, Lloyds, Midland, and National Westminster in the United Kingdom; Commerzbank, Deutsche, and Dresdner in Germany.	过去，金融业在国家层面上受到稳妥监管，整体比较稳定，往往是三四家大银行形成寡头垄断：英国有巴克莱（ Barclays ）、劳埃德（ Lloyds ）、米德兰（ Midland ）和国民威斯特敏斯特（ National Westminster ）； 德国有商业银行（ Commerzbank ）、德意志（ Deutsche ）和德累斯顿（ Dresdner ）。


There were always suspicions of formal or informal banking cartels, which would agree on conditions and interest rates.	一直有人怀疑，存在着正式或非正式的银行业卡特尔，操纵着市场上的放贷条件和利率水平。


Regulators generally turned a blind eye to these suspicions.	对于此类怀疑，监管者的普遍态度是睁一只眼闭一只眼。


In the 1990’s and 2000’s, internationalization promised to produce a new landscape, in which a small handful of banks would once again divide up a single global market.	最近二十年，金融国际化趋势渐渐催生一种新格局：一小撮银行瓜分全球大市场。


Banks maneuvered to get the best position to take advantage of financial globalization, which usually meant locating themselves where the regulatory regime was least restrictive.	各大银行不择手段，抢占有利地形，欲占金融全球化鳌头 —— 最常见的伎俩则是，向金融监管最松弛的地区转移。


Banks got much bigger very quickly, and bigness brought problems.	银行规模急剧扩张，扩张的规模则带来麻烦。


As they grew, banks found it difficult to manage the multiplicity of their divergent activities.	伴随着体量疯涨，许多银行都发觉，要管理千头万绪的庞杂业务越来越让人头疼。


They were beset with incompatible computer software systems, rogue employees, and the need to account for the different national cultures in which they were now operating.	电脑软件系统总是差口气，员工工作效率总嫌不够高，跨国运营所遭遇的文化差异也令人疲于应付。


Almost inevitably, the biggest banks in the world got into trouble.	于是，银行巨无霸陷入困境，几乎成了一种宿命。


In the 1990’s, the largest banks were mostly Japanese. Who now remembers Daiichi Kangyo?	20 世纪 90 年代，世界上最大的银行几乎都是日资银行，可如今谁还记得第一劝业（ Dai-Ichi Kangyo ）？


The financial crisis has produced a new answer to where the greatest competitive advantages lie.	什么才是金融业最大的竞争优势？ 这一轮金融危机给出了一个全新的答案。


From banks’ perspective, the most obvious lesson was the need for a strong national government to bear the potential costs of a rescue.	银行这回认识到，国家政府负担金融业救助成本的能力至关重要。


It is no longer best to be subject to the most favorable regulatory regime, but to be where the state has the deepest pockets.	它们现在想的，不再是到哪个岛国上去享用最宽松的监管，而是如何去傍一个荷包鼓鼓的大款政府。


Very large banks in small territories with small-scale governments are vulnerable.	小国家、小政府管辖下的大银行很脆弱。


The US is big enough to handle behemoths like Bank of America or Citigroup.	美国够大，可以帮美银（ America ）和花旗（ Citigroup ）这样的大恐龙擦屁股。


China can handle its large banks, even if they have large portfolios of poor credits.	中国也能罩着它的大银行，虽然后者的资产组合里颇有一些呆坏账。


European banks are in a more precarious situation.	欧洲银行的处境就可怜一些。


Ireland and Iceland have become notorious cases where a financial sector metastasized and destroyed the host country.	爱尔兰和冰岛的金融业畸形膨胀，压垮了自己的国家，让全世界看得目瞪口呆。


Even in France and Germany, large and internationally active banks potentially exceed the government’s capacity to mount a rescue.	就连法国和德国这样的欧洲大国，政府救助金融业的能力也是有限的，未必招架得住那些跨国大银行惹的麻烦。


In addition, there is the complexity of disentangling which country is responsible for what part of a rescue, when, for instance, Central European banks are controlled by an Austrian bank that is bought by a German bank that is then bought by an Italian bank.	此外，要搞清楚哪个政府该救哪一块，也是个麻烦事儿，举个例子：几家中欧的银行，由一家奥地利银行控股，这家奥地利银��被一家德国银行收购，那家德国银行的老板又是一家意大利银行 —— 谁能理清这一团乱麻？


As a result, the big transnational institutions are lobbying hard for a pan-European approach to banking supervision and regulation (and implicitly for fiscal bailouts should that supervision and regulation fail).	所以，几家跨国大行目前正在苦苦游说欧洲各国，希望建立其一个泛欧洲的银行业监管规制体系（言外之意，如果那样的监管和规制再失灵，财政救助也就是整个欧洲的事儿了）。


In the case of the banks that required state rescues, European competition rules are requiring divestment and downsizing.	至于已经申请国家救助的那些银行，根据欧盟的竞争法规，要对他们进行撤资和瘦身。


Institutions such as Royal Bank of Scotland, which for a time in 2009 headed the list of the world’s largest international banks, are being pruned by the EU’s Directorate General for Competition.	一度位居国际大行排行榜榜首苏格兰皇家银行（ Royal Bank of Scotland ）这样一棵大树，也正受欧盟委员会竞争总署（ Directorate General for Competition ）的修剪。


Even the stronger banks are being pressed to increase their capital reserves.	就连相对健康的银行也被迫充实其资本金。


In most cases, this means that they will continue to cut back on lending, worsening the impact of the financial crisis on the rest of the economy.	这通常会促使它们继续收缩放贷规模，这对饱受金融危机创伤的世界经济可不是什么好消息。


By contrast, in the US, the government pushed big banks into buying up smaller and vulnerable banks, and is now doing everything it can to press them to lend more.	相反，美国政府正在怂恿大银行兼并弱小和生病的银行，并且用尽一切手段逼它们放贷。


Government reactions are full of paradoxes.	政府干预的后果十分诡异。


The more we insist that a banking system should be competitive, the greater the risks that individual banks will take.	越是鼓励银行体系放开竞争，个别银行就越是会盲目冒险。


The more governments are prepared to step in, and the greater the resources of those governments, the more big banks and big countries will be favored.	政府越是出手干预，干预的能力越是强，就越是有利于大银行和大国。


The last 20 years of globalization saw the emergence of small, open economies as global leaders.	最近二十年的全球化见证了小型开放经济崛起为全球领先者的奇迹。


The next 20 years will see a different globalization, in which the winners are large, powerful countries that mobilize government resources in the interest of creating winners in the race for financial supremacy.	未来二十年将会是另一种逻辑的全球化，将来的赢家会是那些大国强国，只有它们才能动员庞大的政府资源，扶植自己的嫡系部队，在金融争霸赛中胜出。


Why Bipartisanship is Good Politics	为什么两党合作是治国良方


LONDON – Bipartisanship seems to have taken a drubbing in Washington since President Barack Obama got to the White House.	伦敦-自奥巴马入主白宫以来，在华盛顿的两党合作似乎遭到了重创。


Like most recent American presidents, Obama campaigned on a promise to work with his political opponents for the greater good of the country.	像最近几任美国总统一样，奥巴马竞选中承诺说为了更大的国家利益要与他的政治对手们合作。


Bill Clinton said much the same thing before he was elected, and then spent his first term in a knockdown fight with Newt Gingrich’s Republican majority in Congress, and his second term fighting off impeachment.	克林顿在他当选之前也说了同样的话，然而在他当选后的第一任期中对纽特·金里奇领导的在国会占多数的共和党进行打击，在他的第二个任期中忙于击退对他的弹劾。


George W. Bush also said that he would reach out to those who disagreed with him.	布什也曾说，他将和不同意见的人合作。


He then turned into the most partisan and ideological president of modern times, egged on by his vice-president, Dick Cheney.	但后来他却变成了现代史上最具有党派观念和善于空谈的总统，并和他的副总统切尼一唱一和。


Obama already appears to have gone further in the pursuit of bipartisanship than his predecessors.	比起他的前任们来，奥巴马似乎在追求两党合作方面走得更进了一步。


His selection of Republicans for key posts – including retaining Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense – has raised a few eyebrows among his supporters.	他选择的担任重要职位的共和党人-包括保留罗伯特·盖茨担任国防部长-着实让一些他的支持者吃惊。


But, above all, he has tried hard to secure Republican support for his efforts to prevent the economy from disappearing into a deep recessionary hole.	但是，最重要的是，在为了防止经济滑向衰退的无底洞的努力上，他已尽力地争取共和党对他的支持。


Only three maverick Republican Senators went along with Obama’s proposals to get the plan accepted.	只有三位特立独行的共和党参议员同意奥巴马的方案被通过。


And in the House of Representatives, the Republicans unanimously rejected every amendment, every compromise, and every courtesy that he offered.	在众议院，全体共和党人一致拒绝奥巴马提出的每一项修正方案、每一个妥协的方案以及每一个礼貌的姿态。


Some commentators suggest that Obama made a bad mistake.	一些评论家认为，奥巴马犯了严重的错误。


First, he promised bipartisanship, but got heavily rebuffed.	首先，他承诺要进行两党合作，但却遭遇了沉重的挫折。


Second, he and his administration were so busy trying to build consensus that they watered down some of the vital ingredients of the stimulus package, and failed to defend it robustly from Republican attack.	第二，他和他的政府如此急于要建立共识而淡化了其刺激方案中一些关键因素，在共和党的攻击下没法捍卫其刺激方案。


There may sometimes be a downside in trying to woo your opponents.	当你试图去讨好对手的时候，有时会产生负面影响。


When they are plainly wrong, why let them off the hook?	当你的对手明显错误的时候，为什么不反击他们呢？


Here we have had Republicans criticizing an increase in America’s budget deficit after doubling America’s national debt in the Bush presidency’s eight years.	当美国的国债在布什总统当政的八年里增加了一倍之后，我们却看到共和党人在批评美国的预算赤字的增加。


Moreover, Republicans’ belief that only tax cuts, not public spending, will delivery recovery is a sad example of blinkered ideology.	此外，共和党人认为只有减税而不是公共开支才能带来复苏，这是不开化脑筋的一个可悲的例子。


But there are more positive reasons for Obama effort at bipartisanship.	但奥巴马在争取两党合作上的努力也有更积极的理由。


In any democratic system of checks and balances, leaders usually require coalitions in order to get what they want done.	任何民主的制衡制度，领导人通常需要形成联盟以完成他们想要做的事情。


Moreover, a consensual style is good politics.	此外，在协商一致的风格是治国的良方。


Most voters – certainly swing voters, who usually decide elections – do not like partisan battles as much as some politicians and their supporters do.	大多数选民-当然包括摇摆不定的选民，而通常是他们的票数最后决定了选举的结果-和政客以及其追随者不一样，他们不那么喜欢党派斗争。


After all, the wise, the moderate, and the floating voter do not switch on the radio to listen to archconservatives like the American broadcaster Rush Limbaugh.	毕竟，那些明智的、温和的和无党派的流动选民们不会打开收音机听极端保守派们如美国的全国联网电台主持人拉什·林堡的节目。


When things get tough in politics, as will happen in most of the world as we struggle with the impact of the global recession, every sensible government will try to hang on to the benefit of doubt. It is the most important attribute in politics.	当治理国家很困难的时候，世界上大多数国家在为应付全球经济衰退带来的影响的时候会将会发生这样的情况，每一个明智的政府都会极力抓住遇事宁愿往好处想的大众心理，这是政治最重要的特性。


Citizens know that running a country, especially in a time like this, is tough.	公民们都知道，管理一个国家，尤其是在这样的时刻，是很难的。


They are prepared to spare governments from too much criticism, if they think they are trying to do what is right for everyone.	如果他们认为政府在为之努力的事情对每一个人都是有好处的，他们也准备不对政府过于苛求。


They bridle at a government that must do unpopular things and that also looks narrow and mean-spirited.	他们为之生气的是尽管政府必须做不讨人喜欢的事，但这个政府看上去心胸狭隘且卑鄙。


There is also a lot to be said for making political argument more civil.	在让政治争论更心平气和方面，也很值得一谈。


Ronald Reagan had a strong ideological bent.	罗纳德·里根有着强烈的意识形态的倾向。


He reshaped American politics, pulling the center firmly to the right.	他改变了美国的政治，他坚定地把中间派拉向了右派。


But he did so without ever seeming to despise his opponents or disparage their intentions.	但他似乎从来也没有瞧不起他的对手或贬低他们的意旨。


Obama’s aides have confessed that he modeled his own election program on the sunny and optimistic decency of the Republican actor.	奥巴马的助手曾承认，奥巴马自己的竞选规划是他模仿这位共和党演员的阳光和乐观的正派作风的而制定的。


Civility in politics is not simply political confectionery.	政治中的礼貌态度不仅是政治糖果。


A leader who respects his or her opponents is more likely to earn respect himself than one who doubts their patriotism and resents their criticism.	尊重其对手的领袖，比起怀疑他人的爱国主义和憎恶批评的人，更有可能为自己赢得尊重。


One reason for the widespread respect felt for Nelson Mandela is that years of imprisonment did not embitter him.	纳尔逊·曼德拉普遍受到尊敬的一个原因是，多年的监禁并没有使他产生怨恨。


Jawaharlal Nehru was hugely popular because he was known to cherish free speech, take seriously the views of his critics, and defend their right to disagree with him.	贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁非常受欢迎的原因是因为大家知道他珍惜言论自由，认真对待批评他的人的意见，并捍卫他们和他持不同意见的权利。


His role in establishing enduring democracy in India, despite the tensions of caste, ethnicity, religion, and regional loyalties, made him one of the towering figures of the twentieth century.	他在把印度建成巩固持久的民主国家方面所起的作用，尽管有种姓、种族、宗教和区域忠诚方面的紧张关系，仍然使他成为20世纪的伟人之一。


So my own hope is that Obama will not be dissuaded from trying to work with his opponents, to build consensus, and to deal courteously even with those whose views he may thoroughly dislike.	所以我自己怀有的希望是，奥巴马不会被说服停止与对手的合作和共识的建立，也不会不再有礼貌地与即使持让他及其厌恶的意见的人打交道。


Personally, I do not think that those whose philosophy deplores the whole idea of government, except when it is required to bail out businesses or banks, and who purport to offer a better future by stitching together the shreds and tatters of policies that helped produce today’s economic disaster, will have much respect or support from voters.	就个人而言，那些对政府的作用不屑一顾（除了在需要政府为企业或银行摆脱困境的时候）而把那些导致目前的经济大灾难的政策缝缝补补后就声称可以创造更美好的未来的人们，将会获得选民的多大的尊重和支持。


Even in Washington, there is not much to be said for being partisan, unpopular, and wrong.	即使在华盛顿，关于那些热衷党派斗争而变得不受欢迎和错误百出的现象，也没有什么值得一说的。


Did the Bankers Do It?	真是银行家干的？


NEW DELHI – Few areas of economic activity in the United States are more politicized than housing finance.	新德里—在美国，没有什么经济活动领域比住房融资更加政治化了。


Yet the intellectual left has gone to great lengths to absolve regulators, government lending mandates, and agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of any responsibility for the housing boom and the subsequent bust.	但思想左翼在为监管者、政府借贷指令、房利美和房地美等机构开脱造成房地产泡沫及随后的破灭的责任方面走得很远。


The rationale is clear: if these officials, institutions, and policies were held accountable, the reform agenda would necessarily shift from regulating greedy bankers and their bonuses to asking broader questions.	逻辑是明确的：既然这批官员、机构和政策都是可问责的，那么改革日程就应该从监管贪婪银行家及其奖金转为质疑更宏大的问题。


Might government mandates contribute to bad behavior by private players?	政府放权有可能是私人行为人不良行为的帮凶吗？


Can regulators be trusted to make appropriate trade-offs between financial stability and mandates that have wide political support?	可以放心让监管者做出金融稳定和政治支持度高的授权之间的权衡吗？


Indeed, can central bankers be truly independent?	中央银行真的是独立的吗？


Unquestioning acceptance of a greater government role in taming markets would, in short, give way to asking whether that role can sometimes be part of the problem.	简言之，不置疑地接受政府在驯服市场上扮演更大作用不禁让人疑问，这样的作用有时也可能成为问题的一部分。


The left has had an easy task in dominating the debate, partly because the intellectual right’s attempt to place all the blame for the crisis on government is thoroughly implausible.	左派轻而易举地就主导了争论，这部分是因为思想右派将所有危机肇因归咎于政府的做法实在站不住脚。


It is far more defensible and correct to argue that everyone – bankers, households, regulators, and politicians – contributed to (and took credit for) the boom while it lasted, only to point fingers at one another when it collapsed.	更有力也更正确的观点是，所有人——银行家、家庭、监管者和政客——都在泡沫的持续发展中起了作用，当泡沫破裂时，他们开始玩起相互指责的游戏来。


But bankers’ political tin ear in the aftermath of the crisis – first taking public bailouts and then paying themselves huge bonuses as if nothing had changed – ensured that they got the lion’s share of the blame, with everyone else willing to pose as their unwitting victims.	但银行家在危机之后的政治不正确——在接受了公共援助后为自己发放大笔奖金，好像什么都没有发生变化似的——使得他们遭受了最大的指责，所有其他人都乐意担任他们的不知情的受害者。


As a result, the public-policy response has been dominated by “the bankers did it” narrative.	结果，公共政策反应被“这是银行家干的”的论调所主导。


The risk is that this approach is incomplete – and thus unlikely to be effective.	这其中的风险在于，这一观点是不完善的，因此也不可能是正确的。


It is therefore refreshing to see a careful econometric study take on an assertion by Paul Krugman, perhaps the most influential left-leaning US economist, that “the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was irrelevant to the subprime boom.”	因此，一份仔细的计量经济学研究对也许是美国最有影响力的左倾经济学家的克鲁格曼的“1977年社区再投资法（Community Reinvestment Act，CRA）与次贷繁荣不相关”论点所做的批评令人眼前一亮。


The CRA instructs federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage the institutions that they regulate to help the communities in which they are chartered to meet their credit needs, while also conforming to “safe and sound” standards.	作为CRA要求联邦金融监督机构鼓励其所监管的机构帮助所在社区满足信用需求，同时需满足“安全稳固”标准。


In practice, regulators measure the volume of lending to CRA target tracts – poor areas with median income less than 80% of the median income of the local community – as well as to low-income and minority borrowers in non-CRA tracts to verify compliance with the Act.	在实践中，监管者所使用的该法执行检查指标包括CRA目标区域——中位收入低于当地社区中位收入80%的贫困地区——的贷款量以及非CRA目标区域中低收入和少数族裔借款人的贷款量。


The left has dismissed any claim that the CRA played a role in the housing boom by pointing out that it was enacted in 1977, while the subprime boom played out in the early 2000’s.	左派拒绝承认所有CRA在1977年实施后催生了房地产繁荣的观点，而次贷繁荣在21世纪初结束。


But this ignores the possibility that regulators may have started to enforce the CRA rigorously only later.	但这忽略了一种可能性：监管者只能在之后大力推进CRA。


To enforce the statute, regulators periodically examine banks for CRA compliance.	为了加强执法，监管者定期检查银行的CRA执行情况。


To hone in on the “regulatory enforcement” effect, the recent study compares the behavior of banks that are undergoing examination (which takes place over several quarters) to that of banks that are not undergoing examination in a particular tract in a particular month.	为了增强“监管强化”效果，最新研究比较了被检查的银行（在几个季度中）和在某个月的某个目标区域没有受到检查的银行的行为区别。


The findings are clear.	结论是清晰的。


Compared to banks that are not undergoing examination, the volume of loans by banks in the six quarters surrounding a CRA examination is 5% higher, and these loans are 15% more likely to be delinquent one year after origination.	与没有受到检查的银行相比，六个季度中受到CRA检查的银行的贷款量要高出5%，且这些贷款在发出一年后被拖欠的可能性要高15%。


In other words, banks undergoing examination lend more and make riskier loans – and these findings are even more pronounced in CRA-eligible tracts.	换句话说，接受检查的银行贷款更多，贷款风险也更大，这一发现在符合条件的CRA目标区域更加显著。


Good econometric studies examine secondary effects to persuade readers that the main effect is what it is.	优秀的计量经济学研究还考察了次级效应，以说服读者主要效应确有其事。


Regulators’ primary tool to enforce compliance was their authority to reject non-CRA-compliant banks’ requests for new branches or mergers.	监管者强化执行的主要工具是拒绝不执行CRA的银行开设新分行或开展兼并活动的权力。


During the subprime boom, large banks were more likely to want to expand, and thus had greater incentive to comply.	在次贷繁荣期，大银行更可能渴望扩张，因此由更大的激励执行CRA。


The study finds that CRA lending by larger banks does indeed respond more to a CRA examination.	研究发现，大银行的CRA贷款事实上对CRA检查反应更大。


At the height of the lending frenzy (2004-2006), the study finds that banks loaned even more in response to an examination, and that the outcomes were even worse.	在贷款疯（2004—2006年）高峰期，研究表明银行因检查而增加的贷款规模更大了，结果也更加糟糕。


The authors speculate that easier loan securitization may have made risky CRA-compliant loans seem less costly.	作者推测，贷款证券化更加容易可能是为执行CRA而发放的高风险贷款成本下降的原因。


Finally, like all good studies, this one explains why the authors more careful analysis produces results that differ from those in previous studies.	最后，与所有优秀研究一样，该研究解释了为何作者更仔细的研究产生了与此前研究不同的结果。