紐約時(shí)報(bào)：美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)是如何走向全面破產(chǎn)的

http://cn.nytimes.com/article/opinion/2013/04/04/c04stockman/

上周四，道瓊斯(Dow Jones)和標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾500指數(shù)(Standard & Poor’s 500)都沖破紀(jì)錄，股市自2007年上一次高峰以來(lái)遭受的損失被一掃而光。但我們不該為此雀躍，反而應(yīng)該十分擔(dān)心。

過(guò)去13年中，股市曾兩次崩潰并引發(fā)衰退：美國(guó)家庭在2000年互聯(lián)網(wǎng)泡沫破滅之時(shí)損失了5萬(wàn)億美元，又在2007年房地產(chǎn)崩潰時(shí)損失了超過(guò)7萬(wàn)億美元。我預(yù)計(jì)，近來(lái)的華爾街泡沫也會(huì)在未來(lái)幾年之內(nèi)破滅，這次的華爾街泡沫是靠美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)(Federal Reserve)惡意發(fā)行大量空頭貨幣吹起來(lái)的，基礎(chǔ)并不是真正的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)。

自標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾500指數(shù)于2000年3月首次達(dá)到目前水平以來(lái)，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)瘋狂的印鈔機(jī)已將他們的資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表擴(kuò)張了六倍（從5千億美元增至3.2萬(wàn)億美元）。然而，在此期間，經(jīng)濟(jì)產(chǎn)出年均增幅只有1.7%（這是內(nèi)戰(zhàn)以來(lái)最慢的增速）；真實(shí)商業(yè)投資的年增長(zhǎng)率只有0.8%；正式就業(yè)崗位數(shù)量的年增長(zhǎng)率也只有微不足道的0.1% 。家庭真實(shí)收入中位數(shù)增長(zhǎng)下降了8%，中產(chǎn)階級(jí)全職工作崗位數(shù)量下降了6%。收入“最低”的90%人口的真實(shí)凈值下降了四分之一。領(lǐng)取食品補(bǔ)助券和殘疾救助的人數(shù)翻了一番還多，達(dá)到5900萬(wàn)，約占美國(guó)人口的五分之一。

由此看來(lái)，實(shí)體經(jīng)濟(jì)仍在不斷下滑，而華盛頓還在不斷給后代堆積債務(wù)，沒(méi)有能力控制戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)預(yù)算或者福利支出，也沒(méi)有能力提高償付國(guó)家債務(wù)所需的稅收。自然而然，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)乞靈于未曾用過(guò)的激進(jìn)措施，開(kāi)始大肆印鈔。然而，大量增加的流動(dòng)性不但沒(méi)有刺激銀行貸款或者企業(yè)支出，反而一直被困在華爾街的深淵之中，正在發(fā)酵成又一輪無(wú)法持續(xù)的泡沫。

這輪泡沫一旦破裂，美國(guó)銀行將不會(huì)再得到像2008年那樣的新一輪救援方案。相反，美國(guó)將會(huì)墮入一個(gè)零和緊縮與惡性政治沖突交織的時(shí)代，就連目前這種經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)的微小殘痕也會(huì)消失殆盡。

這種失調(diào)前景源自政府的胡作非為。過(guò)去80年來(lái)，除了幾次短暫的中斷以外，美國(guó)一直在奉行越來(lái)越瘋狂的財(cái)政和貨幣干預(yù)政策，試圖以此對(duì)抗自由市場(chǎng)的周期性問(wèn)題，及其減少工作機(jī)會(huì)和經(jīng)濟(jì)產(chǎn)出的可能趨勢(shì)。這樣做的代價(jià)十分慘重。

聯(lián)邦政府及其央行伙伴美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)嘗試了一個(gè)又一個(gè)目標(biāo)——理順商業(yè)周期、將通貨膨脹率和失業(yè)率同時(shí)降到最低、鋪開(kāi)巨大的社會(huì)保障網(wǎng)、提高住房擁有率、提供醫(yī)療補(bǔ)貼、扶持傳統(tǒng)產(chǎn)業(yè)（農(nóng)業(yè)、汽車行業(yè)）并促進(jìn)新行業(yè)（“清潔”能源、生物技術(shù)）的發(fā)展，最重要的是，為華爾街提供救援。如今它們已經(jīng)被過(guò)重的負(fù)荷、過(guò)大的壓力和強(qiáng)勢(shì)利益團(tuán)體的外圍緊逼壓得喘不過(guò)氣來(lái)。在關(guān)于刺激“需求”的空洞儀式咒語(yǔ)中，奉行現(xiàn)代凱恩斯主義的美國(guó)已經(jīng)破產(chǎn)、癱瘓、陷入爛泥，哪怕它孕育了一種讓最有錢的1%人口定期坐享投機(jī)暴利的異型裙帶資本主義。

兩黨都是罪魁禍?zhǔn)祝阌肋h(yuǎn)不會(huì)從那些被大家視為當(dāng)今政治議程的連篇廢話中猜到這一點(diǎn) 。政府的胡作非為始于1933年，當(dāng)時(shí)，富蘭克林·D·羅斯福( Franklin D. Roosevelt)選擇了不兌現(xiàn)貨幣（不以黃金儲(chǔ)備為基礎(chǔ)的貨幣）、經(jīng)濟(jì)民族主義和工農(nóng)業(yè)領(lǐng)域的資本主義聯(lián)合企業(yè)。

在二戰(zhàn)（ 二戰(zhàn)對(duì)結(jié)束大蕭條的貢獻(xiàn)遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)強(qiáng)于新政）的緊急關(guān)頭，美國(guó)政府變得極為臃腫膨脹，但很了不起的是，在德懷特·D·艾森豪威爾(Dwight D. Eisenhower)執(zhí)掌白宮和小威廉·麥克切斯尼·馬丁(William McChesney Martin Jr)掌管美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的20世紀(jì)中期，美國(guó)迎來(lái)了健全貨幣和財(cái)政清廉的黃金時(shí)代，這樣的膨脹由此得到了短暫的遏制。

接下來(lái)，林登·B·約翰遜總統(tǒng)(Lyndon B. Johnson)帶來(lái)了“大炮加黃油”的過(guò)激政策，到了1971年，在一個(gè)背信棄義的周末，這一傾向在馬里蘭州戴維營(yíng)得到了進(jìn)一步加強(qiáng)。當(dāng)時(shí)，理查德·M·尼克松(Richard M. Nixon)最終決定黃金和美元之間不能進(jìn)行兌換，實(shí)質(zhì)上等于賴掉了本國(guó)的債務(wù) 。這一舉動(dòng)——可以說(shuō)是比水門事件更嚴(yán)重的罪過(guò)——意味著國(guó)家金融紀(jì)律的覆滅和長(zhǎng)達(dá)40年的狂歡的開(kāi)始。在這40年間，我們生活奢侈，將經(jīng)常賬目赤字累積到了8萬(wàn)億美元之多。實(shí)際上，美國(guó)經(jīng)歷了一次內(nèi)部杠桿收購(gòu)，把總債務(wù)（公共和私人）和經(jīng)濟(jì)產(chǎn)出之間的比率從約為1.6的歷史水平增加到了約3.6。由此而來(lái)的是30萬(wàn)億美元的超額債務(wù)（超過(guò)了總債務(wù)56萬(wàn)億美元的一半），至今還威脅著美國(guó)的經(jīng)濟(jì)。

這樣的債務(wù)爆炸是流動(dòng)資金把戲的產(chǎn)物，這種把戲是米爾頓·弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)在尼克松當(dāng)政期間發(fā)明的。弗里德曼是所謂的自由市場(chǎng)經(jīng)濟(jì)英雄，實(shí)際上卻為貨幣供應(yīng)的無(wú)止境擴(kuò)張播下了種子。今年慶祝百年華誕的美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)在上世紀(jì)70年代推動(dòng)了貨物和商品的極度通脹，全靠保羅·A·沃爾克(Paul A. Volcker)的鋼鐵意志，這樣的局勢(shì)才得到了控制。沃爾克是1979到1987年間的美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)主席。

在他的繼任者、蒙羞的英雄艾倫·格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)的管理下，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)把弗里德曼的那些孱弱的貨幣擴(kuò)張規(guī)則拋在一邊，在過(guò)長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間里，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)把利息率維持在過(guò)低的水平，并向華爾街注入了大量新發(fā)行貨幣。最終以“格林斯潘對(duì)策”(Greenspan put)命名的央行理念由于美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)1998年對(duì)對(duì)沖基金長(zhǎng)期資本管理公司(Long-Term Capital Managemen)的援助這一不可原諒之舉，而得到了強(qiáng)化。“格林斯潘對(duì)策”指的是美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的不成文承諾，即如果市場(chǎng)資產(chǎn)價(jià)格下跌，它將會(huì)介入，就像他們?cè)?987年的股災(zāi)發(fā)生后做得那樣。

格林斯潘的寬松貨幣政策之所以沒(méi)有引發(fā)通貨膨脹，僅僅是因?yàn)閲?guó)內(nèi)的商品和勞動(dòng)力價(jià)格被來(lái)自亞洲工廠的大量進(jìn)口產(chǎn)品所壓制。通過(guò)離岸外包美國(guó)的可交易貨物業(yè)務(wù)，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)遏制住了消費(fèi)者價(jià)格指數(shù)(Consumer Price Index)，可是由此引發(fā)的流動(dòng)性過(guò)剩也導(dǎo)致金融資產(chǎn)領(lǐng)域的價(jià)格飆升。格林斯潘的縱容態(tài)度催生了美國(guó)歷史上最繁榮的股市，自1987年發(fā)生股災(zāi)到2000年互聯(lián)網(wǎng)泡沫破裂，美國(guó)的股指上漲了五倍。

美國(guó)人很快停止儲(chǔ)蓄，花掉了他們所賺到的每分錢和能借到的每筆款。受到1997年的金融危機(jī)重創(chuàng)的亞洲國(guó)家也非常配合。這些國(guó)家，尤其是中國(guó)和日本，積累了大量的美元儲(chǔ)備，它們的中央銀行變成了一系列的貨幣“捕蟑盒”，主權(quán)債務(wù)在那里只進(jìn)不出。我們一直在靠借貸度日，而且是在花亞洲人借出的錢。

這種變化強(qiáng)化了里根派的陳腐觀念，即“赤字不要緊”，它還強(qiáng)化了一個(gè)現(xiàn)實(shí)，即美國(guó) “公開(kāi)持有”的12萬(wàn)億美元國(guó)債里，有近5萬(wàn)億國(guó)債實(shí)際上是藏在各國(guó)中央銀行的保險(xiǎn)庫(kù)里的。在羅納德·里根(Ronald Reagan)任內(nèi)實(shí)施的多個(gè)引人側(cè)目的舉措中，遠(yuǎn)離謹(jǐn)慎財(cái)政是后果最嚴(yán)重的一項(xiàng)，這也是身為里根政府預(yù)算主管的我在1985年辭職的一個(gè)原因。此舉為共和黨人徹底拋棄卡爾文·柯立芝(Calvin Coolidge)的平衡預(yù)算政策打造了一個(gè)樣板，也讓喬治·W·布什走上了不歸路，他用兩場(chǎng)師出無(wú)名的昂貴戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)、聯(lián)邦醫(yī)療保險(xiǎn)(Medicare)的大肆擴(kuò)張，以及針對(duì)富人的一系列減稅措施，把美國(guó)送入了破產(chǎn)境地。華盛頓的說(shuō)客們變成了國(guó)家稅收政策的實(shí)際操控者。共和黨的確奉行的是凱恩斯主義，只不過(guò)這是針對(duì)富人的凱恩斯主義。

對(duì)于房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)的爆炸性增長(zhǎng)，我們有諸多翔實(shí)記錄。虛假的信用評(píng)級(jí)、證劵化欺詐、以及抵押貸款放貸人、原始債權(quán)人和經(jīng)紀(jì)人有意為之的不當(dāng)操作都幫助引發(fā)了這種增長(zhǎng)。更鮮為人知的是，截止到2008年的八年中，華爾街十大銀行的資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表出現(xiàn)大規(guī)模擴(kuò)張。盡管銀行的微薄股本幾乎沒(méi)有增長(zhǎng)，可是他們對(duì)不穩(wěn)定的“熱錢”的依賴度卻在飆升，這是因?yàn)椋瑏?lái)自大蕭條(Depression)時(shí)期的優(yōu)秀監(jiān)管利器《格拉斯-斯蒂格爾法案》(Glass-Steagall Act)被徹底廢除了。

2008年9月，雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破產(chǎn)，華爾街把槍抵在華盛頓的腦袋上，后者幾周之內(nèi)就開(kāi)始給哀鴻遍野的金融業(yè)輸血，實(shí)施了一番驚慌失措的混亂救援和印鈔行動(dòng)。這是美國(guó)金融史上最可恥的一章。

與2006年起擔(dān)任美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)主席的本·S·伯南克(Ben S. Bernanke)發(fā)出的嚴(yán)重警告相反，當(dāng)時(shí)的威脅遠(yuǎn)不到“新版大蕭條”或“金融核冬天”的地步。“大恐慌”(Great Fear)純屬華爾街一手造成的，它在眾議院未能投票通過(guò)《問(wèn)題資產(chǎn)救助計(jì)劃》(TARP)之后，導(dǎo)致股市狂跌，眾議院后來(lái)做出讓步，最終通過(guò)了該救援計(jì)劃。假如布什總統(tǒng)和他的高盛(Goldman Sachs)顧問(wèn)（即財(cái)政部長(zhǎng)）小亨利·M·保爾森(Henry M. Paulson Jr.)立場(chǎng)堅(jiān)定，這場(chǎng)危機(jī)會(huì)自行平息，并讓投機(jī)者承擔(dān)他們罪有應(yīng)得的損失。實(shí)體銀行體系根本從未陷入嚴(yán)重危機(jī)，自動(dòng)取款機(jī)不會(huì)關(guān)停，金融業(yè)也不會(huì)從內(nèi)部垮掉。

然而，剛好相反，白宮、國(guó)會(huì)、美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)、布什和接下來(lái)的奧巴馬總統(tǒng)鋌而走險(xiǎn)，采取了一系列不計(jì)后果的舉措，這不僅毫無(wú)必要，還會(huì)帶來(lái)惡劣后果。比方說(shuō)，汽車行業(yè)的救援無(wú)非是在工作崗位上拆東墻補(bǔ)西墻——尤其是往人口老齡化、但有重要選舉意義的“鐵銹地帶”補(bǔ)——但并沒(méi)有保住崗位。奧巴馬經(jīng)濟(jì)刺激計(jì)劃的“綠色能源”部分基本是把近10億美元拱手送給裙帶資本家，比如風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資人約翰·多爾(John Doerr)和自詡為太空夢(mèng)想家的埃隆·馬斯科(Elon Musk)之流，目的是給富人打造新玩具。

奧巴馬8000億美元的經(jīng)濟(jì)刺激計(jì)劃中，僅有不到5%流向了真正需要食品券和勞動(dòng)所得稅抵免等形式的扶貧計(jì)劃的人群。其絕大部分卻成為了撒向州級(jí)和地方政府的大筆金錢、政治分贓式的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施項(xiàng)目、營(yíng)業(yè)稅漏洞和不分青紅皂白的中產(chǎn)階級(jí)稅收減免。民主黨凱恩斯主義者與他們的共和黨同仁一樣才智枯竭（盡管不及后者那么偽善），他們把借來(lái)的錢送到消費(fèi)者手中，希望他們買個(gè)除草機(jī)、平板電視，或者至少去紅龍蝦(Red Lobster)下個(gè)館子什么的，除此之外根本無(wú)計(jì)可施。

但即使是奧巴馬無(wú)可救藥的輕率政策也無(wú)法與美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的肆無(wú)忌憚相提并論，后者把利率降為零，然后以每小時(shí)6億美元的驚人速度印刷新幣。多虧了美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)，短期投機(jī)者一直在“購(gòu)買”大量國(guó)債和住房貸款抵押證券，用的幾乎全是以實(shí)際為零的利率借得的短期隔夜資金。伯南克叔叔讓他們收入不菲。

美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)如今誓稱，只要通貨膨脹率不超過(guò)2.5%，他們就能把失業(yè)率降到6.5%以下，但該機(jī)構(gòu)哪怕只是暗示要縮減資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表，也會(huì)引起沽盤的狂潮，因?yàn)閭瘍r(jià)格即使是微微下降也會(huì)徹底消滅套利者的利潤(rùn)。盡管伯南克保證最終會(huì)逐漸平穩(wěn)退出，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)已經(jīng)置身自己打造的貨幣政策囚牢之中。

在美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)進(jìn)行盲目調(diào)整之時(shí)，國(guó)會(huì)則心急如焚。自詡的財(cái)政鷹派人士、眾議院預(yù)算委員會(huì)(House Budget Committee)主席保羅·D·瑞安(Paul D. Ryan)不敢透露真相：10年期赤字實(shí)際上在15萬(wàn)億美元到20萬(wàn)億美元之間，大大超過(guò)了國(guó)會(huì)預(yù)算辦公室估計(jì)的7萬(wàn)億美元。根據(jù)國(guó)會(huì)的最新預(yù)計(jì)，未來(lái)10年將會(huì)涌現(xiàn)1640萬(wàn)新工作崗位，而在過(guò)去10年只出現(xiàn)了250萬(wàn)個(gè)新崗位，這個(gè)數(shù)字只是華盛頓較為極端的妄想的一個(gè)例證。

就連所謂的“大膽”措施——把社會(huì)安全福利金的生活費(fèi)調(diào)整和另一種通貨膨脹指數(shù)聯(lián)系在一起——也只能在10年的時(shí)間里節(jié)省2000億美元，還不足填補(bǔ)赤字的1%。瑞恩的最新預(yù)算無(wú)恥地放過(guò)了社會(huì)安全福利和聯(lián)邦醫(yī)療保險(xiǎn)，雖然用于這兩個(gè)社會(huì)福利項(xiàng)目的將近19萬(wàn)億美元的費(fèi)用中有相當(dāng)一部分被富有的年老階層享用。同時(shí)，他提議在未來(lái)10年對(duì)價(jià)值7萬(wàn)億美元的安全網(wǎng)——聯(lián)邦醫(yī)療補(bǔ)助(Medicaid)、食品券和勞動(dòng)所得稅抵免——進(jìn)行30%的苛刻削減，這是共和黨針對(duì)美國(guó)99%人口的又一個(gè)戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)。

在沒(méi)有任何變動(dòng)的情況下，在接下來(lái)大約10年里，目前接近17萬(wàn)億美元的聯(lián)邦債務(wù)總額，將沖高至30萬(wàn)億美元，并從今天的國(guó)內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值的105%，飆升到150%。因?yàn)槊绹?guó)的政治系統(tǒng)的僵局排除了任何“大妥協(xié)”的可能性，這個(gè)國(guó)家的財(cái)政崩潰將逐步發(fā)生，就像希臘/塞浦路斯的悲劇一樣，其表現(xiàn)形式就是一系列可以預(yù)見(jiàn)到的關(guān)于舉債上限的危機(jī)、后續(xù)解決方案和臨時(shí)的預(yù)算補(bǔ)救措施。

美國(guó)的前景相當(dāng)黯淡。中國(guó)曾在過(guò)去15年里大舉投資基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施建設(shè)，但由此造就的有史以來(lái)最大的建筑熱潮正在放緩。巴西、印度、俄羅斯、土耳其、南非和所有其他增長(zhǎng)中的中等收入國(guó)家都無(wú)法彌補(bǔ)這個(gè)需求上的缺口。美國(guó)的貨幣和財(cái)政刺激機(jī)制已經(jīng)到達(dá)了極限。日本正在陷入老年破產(chǎn)期，歐洲也在沉入福利國(guó)家的衰老期。在北京，去年上臺(tái)的新掌權(quán)者們明白，在經(jīng)歷了20年的瘋狂放貸、投機(jī)和建設(shè)之后，即便是他們也終將面對(duì)好日子終結(jié)的那一天。

未來(lái)的國(guó)家凋敝慘景與伯南克在2004年宣布的“大緩和”(Great Moderation)可謂有天壤之別，當(dāng)時(shí)他預(yù)測(cè)經(jīng)濟(jì)繁榮將會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)持續(xù)下去，因?yàn)槊缆?lián)儲(chǔ)已經(jīng)掌控了商業(yè)周期；直到2007年3月，他還在證言中說(shuō)次貸危機(jī)的影響“看上去可以得到控制”。可現(xiàn)在的經(jīng)濟(jì)并非是“緩和”而是“大畸形”，其制造者正是一個(gè)慫恿華爾街大肆賭博的央行，它走入了邪路，把儲(chǔ)戶釘死在“零利率”的十字架上，并引發(fā)了全球大宗商品泡沫。這個(gè)泡沫通過(guò)提高食品和能源價(jià)格來(lái)侵蝕民眾的生活標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，而對(duì)于這種形式的通貨膨脹，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)在計(jì)算通貨膨脹率時(shí)不負(fù)責(zé)任地將之摒棄一邊。

這些政策已經(jīng)使得美國(guó)病入膏肓。而解決的方案太過(guò)激進(jìn)以至于不可能發(fā)生。我們必須讓國(guó)家和市場(chǎng)經(jīng)濟(jì)徹底脫鉤，還將需要放棄裙帶資本主義及其近親——所有形式的凱恩斯主義經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)。這個(gè)國(guó)家必須摒棄其極端自滿的心態(tài)、經(jīng)濟(jì)刺激及社會(huì)保險(xiǎn)，并將其關(guān)注點(diǎn)轉(zhuǎn)移到對(duì)一個(gè)高效、廉價(jià)、審查資格的安全網(wǎng)進(jìn)行管理和融資。

所有這一切都需要政治系統(tǒng)大幅縮減其覆蓋范圍，并要廢除總統(tǒng)連任制，因?yàn)檎畽C(jī)構(gòu)和競(jìng)選連任者的團(tuán)隊(duì)已經(jīng)變得密不可分。分離這兩者將需要對(duì)憲法做出大幅修改：添加修正案，賦予總統(tǒng)和國(guó)會(huì)議員單一的六年任期，不能連任；為候選人提供100%的公共資金支持；嚴(yán)格限制競(jìng)選活動(dòng)持續(xù)的時(shí)間（比如，最多八周）；并且終生禁止任何曾效力立法和行政部門的人士從事游說(shuō)活動(dòng)。此外，還需要完全推翻對(duì)“聯(lián)合公民案”的判決，并要求國(guó)會(huì)通過(guò)平衡的預(yù)算方案，否則就面對(duì)自動(dòng)開(kāi)支削減。

我們還需要清除掉具有腐蝕性影響的金融化機(jī)制， 從20世紀(jì)70年代以來(lái)，這種金融化已將美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)變成了一個(gè)巨型賭場(chǎng)。這也就意味著，要讓華爾街的大型銀行為自己的行為負(fù)責(zé)，讓他們像自由企業(yè)一樣去競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，并承擔(dān)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，而不再為它們提供廉價(jià)的美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)貸款或存款保險(xiǎn)。銀行可以接受存款，并發(fā)放商業(yè)貸款，但應(yīng)該被禁止進(jìn)行交易、擔(dān)保及各種形式的理財(cái)業(yè)務(wù)。

最后，我們還需要讓美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的核心決策者走下賽場(chǎng)，恢復(fù)這個(gè)央行原本的職責(zé)：在危機(jī)期間提供流動(dòng)性，但絕不能購(gòu)買政府債務(wù)，或試圖對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)進(jìn)行微觀管理。將美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)從金融市場(chǎng)上剔除出去的唯一方法就是，讓資本主義制度重新轉(zhuǎn)向自由市場(chǎng)和真正的財(cái)富創(chuàng)造 。

當(dāng)然，這些將永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)發(fā)生，因?yàn)槊缆?lián)儲(chǔ)壓低利率的做法已經(jīng)人為地?fù)纹鹆藬?shù)萬(wàn)億美元的資產(chǎn)，從上海的摩天大樓到《財(cái)富》(Fortune)1000強(qiáng)的股票，再到最近的樓市“復(fù)蘇”。在財(cái)政、道德，及學(xué)術(shù)理論層面，美國(guó)都已破產(chǎn)。美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)已經(jīng)點(diǎn)燃了一場(chǎng)將顛覆自身的全球貨幣戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。日本已經(jīng)報(bào)名參加，巴西和中國(guó)都十分憤怒，而以德國(guó)為主導(dǎo)的歐元區(qū)正搖搖欲墜。一旦最近這次泡沫破滅，將沒(méi)有任何力量能阻止這場(chǎng)崩潰。如果這聽(tīng)起來(lái)像是個(gè)逃離市場(chǎng)并儲(chǔ)備現(xiàn)金的建議，它的確如此。

戴維·A·斯托克曼(David A. Stockman)是密歇根州前共和黨國(guó)會(huì)議員，曾在1981年至1985年期間擔(dān)任羅納德·里根(Ronald Reagan)總統(tǒng)的預(yù)算辦公室主任，最近著有新書《大變形：美國(guó)資本主義的腐敗》(The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America)。

State-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
By DAVID A. STOCKMAN April 04, 2013

The Dow Jones and Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes reached record highs on Thursday, having completely erased the losses since the stock market’s last peak, in 2007. But instead of cheering, we should be very afraid.

Over the last 13 years, the stock market has twice crashed and touched off a recession: American households lost $5 trillion in the 2000 dot-com bust and more than $7 trillion in the 2007 housing crash. Sooner or later — within a few years, I predict — this latest Wall Street bubble, inflated by an egregious flood of phony money from the Federal Reserve rather than real economic gains, will explode, too.

Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.

When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.

THIS dyspeptic prospect results from the fact that we are now state-wrecked. With only brief interruptions, we’ve had eight decades of increasingly frenetic fiscal and monetary policy activism intended to counter the cyclical bumps and grinds of the free market and its purported tendency to underproduce jobs and economic output. The toll has been heavy.

As the federal government and its central-bank sidekick, the Fed, have groped for one goal after another — smoothing out the business cycle, minimizing inflation and unemployment at the same time, rolling out a giant social insurance blanket, promoting homeownership, subsidizing medical care, propping up old industries (agriculture, automobiles) and fostering new ones (“clean” energy, biotechnology) and, above all, bailing out Wall Street — they have now succumbed to overload, overreach and outside capture by powerful interests. The modern Keynesian state is broke, paralyzed and mired in empty ritual incantations about stimulating “demand,” even as it fosters a mutant crony capitalism that periodically lavishes the top 1 percent with speculative windfalls.

The culprits are bipartisan, though you’d never guess that from the blather that passes for political discourse these days. The state-wreck originated in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt opted for fiat money (currency not fundamentally backed by gold), economic nationalism and capitalist cartels in agriculture and industry.

Under the exigencies of World War II (which did far more to end the Depression than the New Deal did), the state got hugely bloated, but remarkably, the bloat was put into brief remission during a midcentury golden era of sound money and fiscal rectitude with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House and William McChesney Martin Jr. at the Fed.

Then came Lyndon B. Johnson’s “guns and butter” excesses, which were intensified over one perfidious weekend at Camp David, Md., in 1971, when Richard M. Nixon essentially defaulted on the nation’s debt obligations by finally ending the convertibility of gold to the dollar. That one act — arguably a sin graver than Watergate — meant the end of national financial discipline and the start of a four-decade spree during which we have lived high on the hog, running a cumulative $8 trillion current-account deficit. In effect, America underwent an internal leveraged buyout, raising our ratio of total debt (public and private) to economic output to about 3.6 from its historic level of about 1.6. Hence the $30 trillion in excess debt (more than half the total debt, $56 trillion) that hangs over the American economy today.

This explosion of borrowing was the stepchild of the floating-money contraption deposited in the Nixon White House by Milton Friedman, the supposed hero of free-market economics who in fact sowed the seed for a never-ending expansion of the money supply. The Fed, which celebrates its centenary this year, fueled a roaring inflation in goods and commodities during the 1970s that was brought under control only by the iron resolve of Paul A. Volcker, its chairman from 1979 to 1987.

Under his successor, the lapsed hero Alan Greenspan, the Fed dropped Friedman’s penurious rules for monetary expansion, keeping interest rates too low for too long and flooding Wall Street with freshly minted cash. What became known as the “Greenspan put” — the implicit assumption that the Fed would step in if asset prices dropped, as they did after the 1987 stock-market crash — was reinforced by the Fed’s unforgivable 1998 bailout of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

That Mr. Greenspan’s loose monetary policies didn’t set off inflation was only because domestic prices for goods and labor were crushed by the huge flow of imports from the factories of Asia. By offshoring America’s tradable-goods sector, the Fed kept the Consumer Price Index contained, but also permitted the excess liquidity to foster a roaring inflation in financial assets. Mr. Greenspan’s pandering incited the greatest equity boom in history, with the stock market rising fivefold between the 1987 crash and the 2000 dot-com bust.

Soon Americans stopped saving and consumed everything they earned and all they could borrow. The Asians, burned by their own 1997 financial crisis, were happy to oblige us. They — China and Japan above all — accumulated huge dollar reserves, transforming their central banks into a string of monetary roach motels where sovereign debt goes in but never comes out. We’ve been living on borrowed time — and spending Asians’ borrowed dimes.

This dynamic reinforced the Reaganite shibboleth that “deficits don’t matter” and the fact that nearly $5 trillion of the nation’s $12 trillion in “publicly held” debt is actually sequestered in the vaults of central banks. The destruction of fiscal rectitude under Ronald Reagan — one reason I resigned as his budget chief in 1985 — was the greatest of his many dramatic acts. It created a template for the Republicans’ utter abandonment of the balanced-budget policies of Calvin Coolidge and allowed George W. Bush to dive into the deep end, bankrupting the nation through two misbegotten and unfinanced wars, a giant expansion of Medicare and a tax-cutting spree for the wealthy that turned K Street lobbyists into the de facto office of national tax policy. In effect, the G.O.P. embraced Keynesianism — for the wealthy.

The explosion of the housing market, abetted by phony credit ratings, securitization shenanigans and willful malpractice by mortgage lenders, originators and brokers, has been well documented. Less known is the balance-sheet explosion among the top 10 Wall Street banks during the eight years ending in 2008. Though their tiny sliver of equity capital hardly grew, their dependence on unstable “hot money” soared as the regulatory harness the Glass-Steagall Act had wisely imposed during the Depression was totally dismantled.

Within weeks of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, Washington, with Wall Street’s gun to its head, propped up the remnants of this financial mess in a panic-stricken melee of bailouts and money-printing that is the single most shameful chapter in American financial history.

There was never a remote threat of a Great Depression 2.0 or of a financial nuclear winter, contrary to the dire warnings of Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman since 2006. The Great Fear — manifested by the stock market plunge when the House voted down the TARP bailout before caving and passing it — was purely another Wall Street concoction. Had President Bush and his Goldman Sachs adviser (a k a Treasury Secretary) Henry M. Paulson Jr. stood firm, the crisis would have burned out on its own and meted out to speculators the losses they so richly deserved. The Main Street banking system was never in serious jeopardy, ATMs were not going dark and the money market industry was not imploding.

Instead, the White House, Congress and the Fed, under Mr. Bush and then President Obama, made a series of desperate, reckless maneuvers that were not only unnecessary but ruinous. The auto bailouts, for example, simply shifted jobs around — particularly to the aging, electorally vital Rust Belt — rather than saving them. The “green energy” component of Mr. Obama’s stimulus was mainly a nearly $1 billion giveaway to crony capitalists, like the venture capitalist John Doerr and the self-proclaimed outer-space visionary Elon Musk, to make new toys for the affluent.

Less than 5 percent of the $800 billion Obama stimulus went to the truly needy for food stamps, earned-income tax credits and other forms of poverty relief. The preponderant share ended up in money dumps to state and local governments, pork-barrel infrastructure projects, business tax loopholes and indiscriminate middle-class tax cuts. The Democratic Keynesians, as intellectually bankrupt as their Republican counterparts (though less hypocritical), had no solution beyond handing out borrowed money to consumers, hoping they would buy a lawn mower, a flat-screen TV or, at least, dinner at Red Lobster.

But even Mr. Obama’s hopelessly glib policies could not match the audacity of the Fed, which dropped interest rates to zero and then digitally printed new money at the astounding rate of $600 million per hour. Fast-money speculators have been “purchasing” giant piles of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities, almost entirely by using short-term overnight money borrowed at essentially zero cost, thanks to the Fed. Uncle Ben has lined their pockets.

If and when the Fed — which now promises to get unemployment below 6.5 percent as long as inflation doesn’t exceed 2.5 percent — even hints at shrinking its balance sheet, it will elicit a tidal wave of sell orders, because even a modest drop in bond prices would destroy the arbitrageurs’ profits. Notwithstanding Mr. Bernanke’s assurances about eventually, gradually making a smooth exit, the Fed is domiciled in a monetary prison of its own making.

While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns. Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth: that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington’s delusions.

Even a supposedly “bold” measure — linking the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security payments to a different kind of inflation index — would save just $200 billion over a decade, amounting to hardly 1 percent of the problem. Mr. Ryan’s latest budget shamelessly gives Social Security and Medicare a 10-year pass, notwithstanding that a fair portion of their nearly $19 trillion cost over that decade would go to the affluent elderly. At the same time, his proposal for draconian 30 percent cuts over a decade on the $7 trillion safety net — Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income tax credit — is another front in the G.O.P.’s war against the 99 percent.

Without any changes, over the next decade or so, the gross federal debt, now nearly $17 trillion, will hurtle toward $30 trillion and soar to 150 percent of gross domestic product from around 105 percent today. Since our constitutional stasis rules out any prospect of a “grand bargain,” the nation’s fiscal collapse will play out incrementally, like a Greek/Cypriot tragedy, in carefully choreographed crises over debt ceilings, continuing resolutions and temporary budgetary patches.

The future is bleak. The greatest construction boom in recorded history — China’s money dump on infrastructure over the last 15 years — is slowing. Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and all the other growing middle-income nations cannot make up for the shortfall in demand. The American machinery of monetary and fiscal stimulus has reached its limits. Japan is sinking into old-age bankruptcy and Europe into welfare-state senescence. The new rulers enthroned in Beijing last year know that after two decades of wild lending, speculation and building, even they will face a day of reckoning, too.

THE state-wreck ahead is a far cry from the “Great Moderation” proclaimed in 2004 by Mr. Bernanke, who predicted that prosperity would be everlasting because the Fed had tamed the business cycle and, as late as March 2007, testified that the impact of the subprime meltdown “seems likely to be contained.” Instead of moderation, what’s at hand is a Great Deformation, arising from a rogue central bank that has abetted the Wall Street casino, crucified savers on a cross of zero interest rates and fueled a global commodity bubble that erodes Main Street living standards through rising food and energy prices — a form of inflation that the Fed fecklessly disregards in calculating inflation.

These policies have brought America to an end-stage metastasis. The way out would be so radical it can’t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy. It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.

All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Prying them apart would entail sweeping constitutional surgery: amendments to give the president and members of Congress a single six-year term, with no re-election; providing 100 percent public financing for candidates; strictly limiting the duration of campaigns (say, to eight weeks); and prohibiting, for life, lobbying by anyone who has been on a legislative or executive payroll. It would also require overturning Citizens United and mandating that Congress pass a balanced budget, or face an automatic sequester of spending.

It would also require purging the corrosive financialization that has turned the economy into a giant casino since the 1970s. This would mean putting the great Wall Street banks out in the cold to compete as at-risk free enterprises, without access to cheap Fed loans or deposit insurance. Banks would be able to take deposits and make commercial loans, but be banned from trading, underwriting and money management in all its forms.

It would require, finally, benching the Fed’s central planners, and restoring the central bank’s original mission: to provide liquidity in times of crisis but never to buy government debt or try to micromanage the economy. Getting the Fed out of the financial markets is the only way to put free markets and genuine wealth creation back into capitalism.

That, of course, will never happen because there are trillions of dollars of assets, from Shanghai skyscrapers to Fortune 1000 stocks to the latest housing market “recovery,” artificially propped up by the Fed’s interest-rate repression. The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is.

David A. Stockman is a former Republican congressman from Michigan, President Ronald Reagan’s budget director from 1981 to 1985 and the author, most recently, of “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America.”

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