克鲁曼对OBAMA经济振兴计划放狠话

February 6, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
On the Edge
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world.

Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans.

Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners.
Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall.

It’s no wonder, then, that most economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. Some private analysts predict double-digit unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office is slightly more sanguine, but its director, nonetheless, recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy ... the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.”

Worst of all is the possibility that the economy will, as it did in the ’30s, end up stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap.

We’re already closer to outright deflation than at any point since the Great Depression. In particular, the private sector is experiencing widespread wage cuts for the first time since the 1930s, and there will be much more of that if the economy continues to weaken.

As the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out almost 80 years ago, deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on.

And deflationary traps can go on for a long time. Japan experienced a “lost decade” of deflation and stagnation in the 1990s — and the only thing that let Japan escape from its trap was a global boom that boosted the nation’s exports. Who will rescue America from a similar trap now that the whole world is slumping at the same time?

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.


在步向經濟復甦的路上，出了不太好玩的事。過去兩周，原本應屬關於如何拯救陷於絕境的經濟的極嚴肅辯論，卻演變成老掉牙的政治戲碼，共和黨人高談闊論有關政府支出流於浪費和減稅具有神效的陳腔濫調。

好像過去八年悲慘的經濟失敗從未發生，民主黨人卻不可置信地處於挨打地位。即便參院通過一項重大振興經濟法案，很有可能原始方案的重要內容，尤其是對州政府和地方政府的援助將被閹割。

華府對此事關係之重大，已經失去了判斷力。實際情況是我們很可能落入經濟深淵，倘若如此，要脫身難上加難。我們的經濟困境大到無以復加。這場危機始於房市，但布希時代房市泡沫的破滅，不僅在美國推倒經濟骨牌，也殃及全世界。

消費者的財富縮水，房價崩跌和股市下滑，動搖了消費者的信心，他們縮減花費，大幅增加儲蓄，長期來看是好事，但此時對經濟卻是一大打擊。商業房地產開發商看著房租下跌和貸款成本激增，大砍他們的投資計畫。企業取消擴大產能計畫，因為他們的銷售業績還達不到他們原有的產能。出口是過去幾年美國少數強項之一，現在因金融危機重創我們的貿易夥伴而大幅下滑。

在此同時，我們對抗經濟衰退的主要防線──聯準會通常能藉由降低利率支撐經濟──也被用濫了。聯準會已將能掌控的利率降到接近零，經濟仍直線下滑。

這也難怪，大部分經濟預測警告說，政府若不拿出行動，我們將步入長期深度衰退。一些民間分析家預測失業率將達兩位數字。國會預算局稍稍樂觀些，但局長最近警告說，「財政政策若不改變，美國產值和產能之間的落差，將是自1930年以來最大的」。

更糟的是，經濟可能重蹈30年代覆轍，陷入長期通貨緊縮困境。我們已是自大蕭條以來最接近完全緊縮的時期。尤其是，民營企業自1930年代以來首度普遍減薪，如果經濟繼續走弱，將有更多企業減薪。

偉大的美國經濟學家費雪（Irving Fisher）在近80年前指出，通貨緊縮一旦開始，就會如滾雪球一般。面對衰退的經濟，以美元計價的收入縮水，債務包袱更難承擔，預期物價會繼續下跌的心理，減少投資支出。這些通貨緊縮效應使經濟衰退惡化，導致通貨更緊縮，如此惡性循環下去。
通貨緊縮困境可能延續很長時間。日本在1990年代經歷通貨緊縮和經濟停滯的「失落的十年」，唯一能讓日本脫離困境的是全球經濟繁榮帶動日本出口。現在全世界同時不景氣，誰能拯救美國脫離同樣的困境？

歐巴馬的經濟計畫若通過立法，將保證美國不會有失落的十年？未必。包括我在內的許多經濟學家認為此計畫有所不足，規模應大幅擴大。但歐巴馬的計畫肯定會增加我們的勝算。正因如此，共和黨人試圖把這項計畫縮小和效力減小，變得比另一次布希式減稅好不了多少，會有極大的殺傷力。

歐巴馬該怎麼做？我也是認為總統一開始就犯了大錯者之一，他企圖超越黨派之爭，結果卻使聽命於保守派政論家林博的共和黨人聲勢壯大。不過現在最要緊的是，他接下來會怎麼做。

歐巴馬該採取攻勢了。他必須勇於指出，那些打著彆腳經濟理論名號阻礙他計畫的人，是把國家前途置於險境。美國經濟正處於災難邊緣，共和黨的大部分作為是試圖把經濟推入災難。 （作者克魯曼是紐約時報專欄作家）