Op-Ed Columnist
Springtime for Bankers
May 22, 2014
專欄作者
復蘇的只是華爾街
保羅·克魯格曼 2014年05月22日
By any normal
standard, economic policy since the onset of the financial crisis has
been a dismal failure. It’s true that we avoided a full replay of the
Great Depression. But employment has taken more than six years
to claw its way back to pre-crisis levels — years when we should have
been adding millions of jobs just to keep up with a rising population.
Long-term unemployment is still almost three times as high as it was in 2007; young people, often burdened by college debt, face a highly uncertain future.
Now Timothy
Geithner, who was Treasury secretary for four of those six years, has
published a book, “Stress Test,” about his experiences. And basically,
he thinks he did a heckuva job.
蒂莫西·蓋特納(Timothy Geithner)最近發表了一本名為《壓力測試》(Stress Test)的書，講述了他的經歷。這六年間，有四年他在擔任財政部長。總體而言，他認為自己極其出色地完成了任務。
He’s not unique in his self-approbation. Policy makers in Europe,
where employment has barely recovered at all and a number of countries
are in fact experiencing Depression-level distress, have even less to
boast about. Yet they too are patting themselves on the back.
他的這種自我肯定並非獨一無二。可供歐洲政策制定者吹噓的成果更少。在歐洲，就業基本沒有任何起色，而且還有好幾個國家其實正處於蕭條程度的困境中。不過，他們也在自我褒獎着。
How can people feel
good about track records that are objectively so bad? Partly it’s the
normal human tendency to make excuses, to argue that you did the best
you could under the circumstances. And Mr. Geithner can indeed blame
much though not all of what went wrong on scorched-earth Republican
obstructionism.
面對客觀上如此糟糕的記錄，怎麼能夠感覺良好？某種程度上，這或許是因為人的正常傾向，去找借口，去辯解自己已經做出了各種局限下的最大努力。而且，蓋特納的確可以把許多問題——儘管不是所有問題——歸咎於共和黨「焦土政策」式的阻撓。
But there’s also
something else going on. In both Europe and America, economic policy has
to a large extent been governed by the implicit slogan “Save the
bankers, save the world” — that is, restore confidence in the financial
system and prosperity will follow. And government actions have indeed
restored financial confidence. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for
the promised prosperity.
然而，還存在一些另外的情況。在歐洲和美
國，很大程度上主導經濟政策的是這樣一種隱含的口號：「挽救銀行從業者，就挽救了全世界」——也就是說，恢復了金融體系的信心，經濟繁榮就會隨之而來。政
府採取的行動的確已經恢復了金融信心。不幸的是，我們依然在等待許諾中的經濟繁榮。
Much of Mr.
Geithner’s book is devoted to a defense of the U.S. financial bailout,
which he sees as a huge success story — which it was, if financial
confidence is viewed as an end in itself. Credit markets, which seized up after Lehman fell, mostly returned to normal during Mr. Geithner’s first year in office. Stock indexes rebounded, and have hit new records. Even subprime-backed securities — the infamous “toxic waste” that was poisoning the financial system — eventually regained a significant part of their value.
Thanks to this
financial recovery, bailing out Wall Street didn’t even end up costing a
lot of taxpayer money: resurgent banks were able to repay their loans,
and the government was able to sell its equity stakes at a profit.
由於這種金融復蘇，救援華爾街的行動最終甚至沒有花費納稅人多少錢：復蘇後的銀行有能力償還借款，而政府得以售出股權，還獲得了利潤。
But where is the rebound in the real economy? Where are the jobs? Saving Wall Street, it seems, wasn’t nearly enough. Why?
然而，實體經濟的反彈體現在哪裡？工作崗位又在哪裡？看起來，僅拯救華爾街還遠遠不夠。原因何在？
One reason for
sluggish recovery is that U.S. policy “pivoted,” far too early, from a
focus on jobs to a focus on budget deficits. Mr. Geithner denies that he
bears any responsibility for this pivot, declaring “I was not an
austerian.” In his version, the administration got all it could in the
face of Republican opposition. That doesn’t match independent reporting,
which portrays Mr. Geithner ridiculing fiscal stimulus as “sugar” that would yield no long-term benefit.
經濟復蘇步履蹣跚的一個理由是，美國政策
過早地「轉向」，將關注點從就業轉到預算赤字。蓋納特否認他對這種轉向負有任何責任，反而宣稱：「我不屬於緊縮派。」按照他的說法，面對共和黨人的反對，
奧巴馬政府已竭盡所能。這種論調與獨立報道相左：在這些報道中，蓋特納曾嘲笑，財政刺激是不會產生長期效益的「糖果」。
But fiscal
austerity wasn’t the only reason recovery has been so disappointing.
Many analysts believe that the burden of high household debt, a legacy
of the housing bubble, has been a big drag on the economy. And there
was, arguably, a lot the Obama administration could have done to reduce
debt burdens without Congressional approval. But it didn’t; it didn’t even spend funds specifically allocated for that purpose. Why? According to many accounts, the biggest roadblock was Mr. Geithner’s consistent opposition to mortgage debt relief — he was, if you like, all for bailing out banks but against bailing out families.
然而，財政緊縮並非經濟復蘇如此令人失望的唯一原因。許多分析人士認為，地產泡沫的遺留問題——巨大的家庭債務負擔——對經濟構成嚴重拖累。可以說，即使不經過國會批准，奧巴馬政府本也能夠採取多種措施來減少債務負擔。但是，它卻沒有這樣做，甚至沒有支出為此撥付的專向資金。為什麼呢？根據許多說法，最大的障礙在於，蓋特納始終反對減免住房抵押貸款的債務。這可以理解為，他全力支持救援銀行，但卻反對向普通家庭施以援手。
“Stress Test”
asserts that no conceivable amount of mortgage debt relief could have
done much to boost the economy. But the leading experts on this subject
are the economists Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, whose just-published book
“House of Debt” argues very much the contrary. On their blog, Mr. Mian
and Mr. Sufi point out
that Mr. Geithner’s arithmetic on the issue seems weirdly wrong — order
of magnitude wrong — giving much less weight to the role of debt in
holding back spending than the consensus of economic research. And that
doesn’t even take into account the further benefits that would have
flowed from a sharp reduction in foreclosures.
《壓力測試》中強調，任何合理規模的按揭
債務減免都不可能對經濟有多少促進作用。然而，從事這方面研究的著名專家阿蒂夫·米安(Atif Mian)和阿米爾·蘇菲(Amir
Sufi)剛剛出版了新書《債務屋》(House of Debt)，其中的觀點與之大相徑庭。米安和蘇菲在博客中指出，蓋特納在這個問題上的計算錯得離譜——是數量級有誤——在量化債務在阻礙支出方面的作用時，他賦予債務的權重遠遠低於經濟學研究中的共識。而且他還沒有考慮到，止贖事件大幅減少本可能帶來的更多好處。
In the end, the
story of economic policy since 2008 has been that of a remarkable double
standard. Bad loans always involve mistakes on both sides — if
borrowers were irresponsible, so were the people who lent them money.
But when crisis came, bankers were held harmless for their errors while
families paid full price.
說到底，對2008年以來的經濟政策的描述一直帶有驚人的雙重標準。不良貸款必定涉及借貸雙方——如果說借款人不負責任，那麼向他們放款的機構也是不負責任的。可是，危機襲來時，銀行從業者犯了錯誤能毫髮無損，而普通家庭卻要承擔全部後果。
And refusing to
help families in debt, it turns out, wasn’t just unfair; it was bad
economics. Wall Street is back, but America isn’t, and the double
standard is the main reason.
事實證明，拒絕幫助負債家庭非但不公平，而且也對經濟極為不利。華爾街又回來了，整個美國卻沒有，其中的主要原因就是這種雙重標準。
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