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雷达卡
Impending Destruction of the US Economy
即将毁灭的美国经济
By Paul Craig Roberts
作者：保罗克雷格罗伯茨
2007.11.28 “信息交流中心”--
华盛顿的经济政策制定者大都十分骄傲自大，因此，在政策的制定过程仍中，他们会忽略其中的许多陷井。如果次级抵押贷款危机发展到预期一半糟糕的话，那么，为了控制此危机，美国政府就不得不降低利率，然而如果美元的情况同预期的一半坏，并且其他外国人继续持有美金，并为美国政府预算和贸易逆差提供资金，这就需要提高利率。
那么政府又会采取何种手段，是放弃其国内金融体制，或是国内那些过盛的购买者，还是投资财政赤字的能力。
The answer seems obvious. Everything will be sacrificed in order to protect Washington’s ability to borrow abroad. Without the ability to borrow abroad, Washington cannot conduct its wars of aggression, and Americans cannot continue to consume $800 billion dollars more each year than the economy produces.
答案似乎明显。为了保护华盛顿政府向国外借款的能力，一切都可以将被牺牲。没有能力在国外借款，华盛顿不能发动侵略战争，每年美国人也消费能力也不会超过8，000亿美元，这一数字高于其生产总值。
A few years ago the euro was worth 85 cents. Today it is worth $1.48. This is an enormous decline in the exchange value of the US dollar. Foreigners who finance the US budget and trade deficits have experienced a huge drop in the value of their dollar holdings. The interest rate on US Treasury bonds does not come close to compensating foreigners for the decline in the value of the dollar against other traded currencies. Investment returns from real estate and equities do not offset the losses from the decline in the dollar’s value.
几年以前一欧元约合85分。而如今已达到了1.48 美元。美元兑换价值的大幅下降。对于那些投资于美国财政预算和贸易逆差国外投资者来说，他们所持有的美元野大幅贬值。与其他交易货币相比，美国财政部所公布的利率过低，这无法补偿投资者因美元贬值而造成的损失。并且，地产和股票方面的回报也不能补偿这种损失。
China holds over one trillion dollars, and Japan almost one trillion, in dollar-denominated assets. Other countries have lesser but still substantial amounts. As the US dollar is the reserve currency, the entire world’s investment portfolio is over-weighted in dollars.
中国拥有超过1万亿美元形式的资产，日本有将近1万亿，而一些其他国家有大量此种形式的资产，尽管数量少于中国和日本。较小但是安静一定量。因为美元是储备货币，所以全世界的投资证券组合在美元方面过于加重。
No country wants to hold a depreciating asset, and no country wants to acquire more depreciating ssets. In order to reassure itself, Wall Street claims that foreign countries are locked into accumulating dollars in rder to protect the value of their existing dollar holdings. But this is utter nonsense. The US dollar has lost 60% of its value during the current administration. Obviously, countries are not locked into accumulating dollars.
每个国家都不想拥有，且不想要更多的贬值的资产，为了保障自身利益，华尔街声称禁止那些为了保护他们现持的美元价值而不断进行美元积累的国家，已经陷入一种困境。但是这是完全的废话。在现在的管理期间美元的跌幅已达60%。显而易见，没有哪个国家因不断积累美元而陷入困境。
The reason the dollar has not completely collapsed is that there is no clear alternative as reserve currency. The euro is a currency without a country. It is the monetary unit of the European Union, but the countries of Europe have not surrendered their sovereignty to the EU. Moreover, the UK, a member of the EU, retains the British pound. The fact that a currency as politically exposed as the euro can rise in value so rapidly against the US dollar is powerful evidence of the weakness of the US dollar.
因为没有更好的选择，所以美元还保持着其作为储备货币的地位，欧元是一种不属于任何某一国家的货币，它是欧盟的货币单位，而欧洲的国家没把他们的主权交出到欧盟。事实，一种货币象欧元能对美元的价值上涨如此迅速，这也暴露了美元的弱势。
Japan and China have willingly accumulated dollars as the counterpart of their penetration and capture of US domestic markets. Japan and China have viewed the productive capacity and wealth created in their domestic economies by the success of their exports as compensation for the decline in the value of their dollar holdings.However, both countries have seen the writing on the wall, ignored by Washington and American economists: By offshoring production for US markets, the US has no prospect of closing its trade deficit. The offshored production of US firms counts as imports when it returns to the US to be marketed. The more US production moves abroad, the less there is to export and the higher imports rise.
日本和中国都十分乐意于吸纳和积累美金，以此逐步渗透并占领美国市场，因为成功的向国外出口产品，中国和日本因美元贬值因为成功的向国外出口产品，中国和日本因美元贬值所造成的损失也得到了补偿，两国的生产能力和财富都相应增加。此外，有一显而美国政府和经济学家们忽略了一个显而易见的事实，由于美国公司海外生产，美国对中日的贸易始终是逆差，那些在海外生产的产品以进口的形式再返销回美国，美国的生产转移规模越大，其所出口的产品越少，而进口的商品越多。
Japan and China, indeed, the entire world, realize that they cannot continue forever to give Americans real goods and services in exchange for depreciating paper dollars. China is endeavoring to turn its development inward and to rely on its potentially huge domestic market. Japan is pinning hopes on participating in Asia’s economic development.
事实上，日本和中国早已认识到，他们不能仅依靠向美国出口真正的货物和服务来赚取不断贬值的美元。中国正尽力向内发展，其庞大的国内市场存在着巨大潜力。而日本则寄希望于参与亚洲的经济发展。
The dollar’s decline has resulted from foreigners accumulating new dollars at a lower rate. They still accumulate dollars, but fewer. As new dollars are still being produced at high rates, their value has dropped.
美元之所以下跌，是由于外国人以更低的比率积累美元。现在他们仍再积累美元，但只是数量更少了。因为新美元仍然正被以高的速度生产，但他们的价值已经下降。
If foreigners were to stop accumulating new dollars, the dollar’s value would plummet. If foreigners were to reduce their existing holdings of dollars, superpower America would instantly disappear.
如果外国人停止积累新美元，美元的价值将会一落千丈。如果外国人减少他们现有的美元储备，那么超级大国美国将即可消失。
Foreigners have continued to accumulate dollars in the expectation that sooner or later Washington would address its trade and budget deficits. However, now these deficits seem to have passed the point of no return.
外国人只所以仍在不断积累美元，是因为他们觉得美国政府迟早会采取措施来遏制其贸易和预算赤字。不过，现在这些赤字好像已经超过了政府控制范围之内。
The sharp decline in the dollar has not closed the trade deficit by increasing exports and decreasing imports. Offshoring prevents the possibility of exports reducing the trade deficit, and Americans are now dependent on imports (including offshored production) for which there are no longer any domestically produced alternatives. The US trade deficit will close when foreigners cease to finance it.
The budget deficit cannot be closed by taxation without driving up unemployment and poverty. American median family incomes have experienced no real increase during the 21st century. Moreover, if the huge bonuses paid to CEOs for offshoring their corporations’ production and to Wall Street for marketing subprime derivatives are removed from the income figures, Americans have experienced a decline in real income. Some studies, such as the Economic Mobility Project, find long-term declines in the real median incomes of some US population groups and a decline in upward mobility.
尽管美国不断增加出口并且减少进口，但这并无法阻挡因美元急剧贬值而造成的贸易逆差。生产转移阻止了美国通过出口来降低贸易逆差的可能，美国人现在已经依赖于井口商品（包括被生产被转移到国外后，那些公司所生产的产品），而国内有美元任何一家企业可以生产同样的产品。当国外投资者投资对其投资时，美国的贸易逆差也会终止。政府无法通过税收来阻止预算赤字，减少失业率和贫困。在21世纪期间，美国中等的家庭收入并没有真正的增加。而且，那些负责海外生产的首席执行官和和华尔街销售次级金融产品的人都获得了巨大红利，如果将此部分刨除在外，那么美国人的实际收入下降了。某些关于此方面的研究，如经济地位调查项目，其研究结果表明，在美国中低收入的人群中，有许多人的收入长期下降，并且此幅度在不断增大。
The situation may be even more dire. Recent work by Susan Houseman concludes that US statistical data systems, which were set in place prior to the development of offshoring, are counting some foreign production as part of US productivity and GDP growth, thus overstating the actual performance of the US economy.
形势可能更加可怕。最近由苏珊豪斯曼通过研究总结出，美国的数据统计系统一直将海外生产发展作为优先考虑，一直将此部分生产作为美国生产能力和国民生产总值的一部分，因此夸大了美国经济的实际成就。
The falling dollar has pushed oil to $100 a barrel, which in turn will drive up other prices. The falling dollar means that the imports and offshored production on which Americans are dependent will rise in price. This is not a formula to produce a rise in US real incomes.
美元不断贬值推动油价上涨，现已增至每桶100美元，这也将会带动其它商品价格上长。在美元不断贬值的同时，美国人所依赖的进口商品和海外生产产品价格将会上涨，而事实上美国人的收入并没有增加。
In the 21st century, the US economy has been driven by consumers going deeper in debt. Consumption fueled by increases in debt received its greatest boost from Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s low interest rate policy. Greenspan covered up the adverse effects of offshoring on the US economy by engineering a housing boom. The boom created employment in construction and financial firms and pushed up home prices, thus creating equity for consumers to spend to keep consumer demand growing.
在21世纪，美国经济因受消费者驱动，负债越来越深，即使这样，格林斯潘利用降息政策刺激了人民消费，他还通过策划房屋住宅热在来掩盖生产外移的负面影响。这种热潮创造了大量的建筑和金融方面的就业机会，同时也推动了房价上升，其所创造的价值满足了消费能力不断增长的消费者们的需求。
This source of US economic growth is exhausted and imploding. The full consequences of the housing bust remain to be realized. American consumers lack discretionary income and can pay higher taxes only by reducing their consumption. The service industries, which have provided the only source of new jobs in the 21st century, are already experiencing falling demand. A tax increase would cause widespread distress.
美国经济增长的这个来正在枯竭并爆聚，房屋热潮的结果还没有完全显现出来，美国消费者的收入并不高，因此他们只能通过降低消费来支付更高的税款。而服务业，21世纪唯一的工作来源，其需求也已经下降。另外，增税将带给更多美国人带来的痛苦。
As John Maynard Keynes and his followers made clear, a tax increase on a recessionary economy is a recipe for falling tax revenues as well as economic hardship.
正如约翰·梅纳德凯恩斯和他的支持者们所明确的那样，当经济衰退时提高税收，只能造成税收收入下降和经济恶化。
Superpower America is a ship of fools in denial of their plight. While offshoring kills American economic prospects, “free market economists” sing its praises. While war imposes enormous costs on a bankrupt country, neoconservatives call for more war, and Republicans and Democrats appropriate war funds which can only be obtained by borrowing abroad.
超级大国美国如同一条处于困境中的船只，而穿上的傻瓜们却拒绝承认自己处于逆境中。当生产转移正在谋杀美国经济前景时，"自由市场经济学家"却还歌颂它。当一个破产的国家已为战争投入了征收巨大的费用时，那些新保守派却要求发动更多的战争，共和党人和民主党人只能通过向国外借钱来为战争拨款。
By focusing America on war in the Middle East, the purpose of which is to guarantee Israel’s territorial expansion, the executive and legislative branches, along with the media, have let slip the last opportunities the US had to put its financial house in order. We have arrived at the point where it is no longer bold to say that nothing now can be done. Unless the rest of the world decides to underwrite our economic rescue, the chips will fall where they may.
美国将自己的精力聚集到了发生在中东的这场战争上，其目的是保证以色列的领土扩张，而与此同时，美国的行政部，立法部，及媒体却已经错过调整美国金融秩序的最后机会。现在，我们已经对于一切，我们已无能为力了，除全世界都来救济我们，否则我们的天空就真的倒塌了。
[此贴子已经被作者于2008-5-1 11:30:59编辑过]
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