中國，你在看嗎？ ------ 中國應從美國金融危機中吸取的教訓

中國，你在看嗎？

------ 中國應從美國金融危機中吸取的教訓

作者： 羅傑 （ Roger Snyder ） 翻譯： 羅玲

09/19/2008

這還是不久前，中國曾是個中央集權的經濟。然而，過去三十年，中國已經大踏步地完成了其向世界和她的公民的經濟開放。這種開放讓數以億計的人民擺脫了貧困，進入一個以消費 電視機，手機和汽車等商品而驅動的世界經濟。她把識字率提高到了世界上最高水準的國家之一。人們的壽命也極大地增加。她在穀物，肉類和水產品等方麵的農業發展非常穩定。這些對中國及其人民都是好事。它創造財富和提高本國公民的生活水平。

然而，當中國從半個世界之遙注視美國，看著我們的金融危機時，他們應該憂心這會如何影響他們。 因為他們最大的出口市場（美國）可能是進入了一個長期的經濟衰退。我會建議中國你應該關注。

但是，我強烈敦促中國，應該長期關注的不是我們美國已經為自己製造的金融混亂，而是中國將來如何才能避免這種自己造成的混亂。

中國的金融市場已經開放了一段時間，隨著自己的股票市場，建立金融債券和類似債務工具和巨大的主權財富基金到美國和歐洲投資外幣資產（主要是美元和歐元）。其中有些投資已被證明是非常糟糕的投資。可以吸取什麽教訓呢？

第一個教訓是千萬不要仿效美國的榜樣，放開這麽多金融市場，不要讓金融機構創造如此複雜的金融市場。否則其結果就是這個金融市場的發明人自己都搞不清楚是怎麽回事了。雖然作為一個訓練有素的美國經濟學家，我理解企業和經濟的所有不同社會指標，並相信自由市場 -- 我隻在一定程度上相信自由市場。市場需要規範不僅保護的是消費者，還有市場的創造者。資本主義是好的。但沒有規範的資本主義就是一個絕對的災難 - 正如在過去的 2 年裏美國已經顯示給我們看的。

第二個教訓 : 中國應該在其銀行係統之上設置一層監管機構，以保護存款人免受銀行領導人的不良決定帶來的後果。一個人隻能偷這麽多錢。但是，如果他們作出錯誤的投資決定，他們可能會失去這一切 - 就像雷曼兄弟公司 - 它可以消失得很快，實際上變成稀薄的空氣仿佛從未存在。

第三個教訓：中國為公民和企業應該創立堅實的信貸決策模型，這樣銀行（及其規範機構）就可以有一個係統的辦法，基於曆史先例而作出貸款決定。美國在這方麵有很好的模式。然而，美國的問題始於開始建立 “ 新的 ” 模式（次級抵押貸款），其中，對正在發放的貸款會否被償還，對貸款收取多少利息，以及如何保證貸款並沒有曆史先例來衡量（這就是拖垮美國國際集團的原因）。從本質上講，美國有過很好的模式，但因了我們的“貪婪”以及成桶成桶的傾倒進市場裏的錢得有個去處，華爾街的 “ 專家 ” 就為這個 “ 放開 ” 的金融市場創立了“次級抵押貸款”。該市場目前是失敗的，因為沒有曆史證明這些貸款將如何表現。這有點像一家人壽保險公司，而你沒有數據顯示某個人將活多久。所以，你對 30 歲的人收取的人壽保險價格與對 80 歲的人收取的價格相同。顯而易見，你在 80 歲的人身上是肯定會賠錢的。所以，這基本上就是次級抵押貸款市場正在發生的情況。

第四個教訓，中國應利用其大規模的外匯儲備（美元，歐元和日元）投放在自己的基礎設施上。你投資在自己身上永遠不會出差錯並且你也避免別人為你賠錢的機會 - 這就是投資在美國發生的結果。中國，其巨大的外幣儲蓄擁有一個很好的機會，就是利用其公民出色的情報成為創立替代能源技術的世界領袖。

雖然我是美利堅合眾國一個自豪的公民，我的父親在菲律賓與日本打了 4 年仗，為的是結束他們在這一地區（主要在中國）的壓迫和侵略。我對我們的領導很失望。失望於我們的領導不力，以及我們對這些經濟問題的操作不當給數以百萬計的美國人和世界其他各地所造成的影響。

我要告訴中國，你有絕好的機會看到 “ 肆無忌憚的 ” 資本主義最糟糕透頂的時候。目睹美國正在經曆的金融動蕩。從中吸取教訓吧！你不會感到後悔的。作為一個經濟強國，你應該為你們的公民乃至全世界著想而不重複我們已經犯下的錯誤。

（譯者注：作者為譯者美國夫婿，譯者忙碌中抽空翻譯，可能有不足之處，敬請諒解，目的是與廣大華裔同胞分享心得）

英語原文：

CHINA : ARE YOU WATCHING

Lessons China learn from the U.S. financial meltdown

Roger Snyder ( US)

09/19/2008

It hasn’t been that long ago that China was a controlled centralized economy. However, in the past thirty years China has made great strides in opening up its economy to the world and to its citizens as well. This opening up has brought hundreds of millions of its own people out of poverty and into a consumer driven world economy with televisions, cell phones and automobiles. It has increased its literacy rate to one of the highest in the world and seen the life span of its people increase enormously. Its agricultural development of grains, meats and aquatic products has been stellar. These are all good things for China and its people. It creates wealth as well as raises the standard of living of its citizens.

However, as China peers at the U.S. from half a world away and watches our financial meltdown they have to feel concerned about how it will affect them since their largest export market (the USA) may be entering a prolonged economic recession. I would advise China you should be concerned.

However, I would strongly urge China that the long term concern isn’t the financial mess we’ve made for ourselves but rather how China can avoid such messes of its own in the future.

China ’s financial markets have been opened for sometime with the advent of their own stock markets, the creation of financials like bonds and debt instruments and huge sovereign wealth funds to invest foreign currency holdings (mainly dollars and euro’s) in the USA and Europe. Some of those investments have turned out to be exceptionally poor investments. What lesson can be learned there?

The first lesson would be NOT to follow the U.S. example and deregulate the financial markets so much and not allow financial institutions to create such complex financial markets that in the end nobody, even the creators, knows exactly what is going on. While as a U.S. trained economist I understand business and all the different social metrics of an economy and believe in free markets – I only believe in free markets to a certain degree. The markets need regulating not only to protect consumers but also the creators of the market as well. Capitalism is good. Unregulated capitalism can be an absolute disaster – as the USA has been showing us for the past 2 years or so.

The second lesson for China would be to main a layer of agencies over its banking system to protect its depositors from bad decisions of the bank leaders. People can only steal so much money. However, if they’re making bad investment decisions they can lose it all – just like Lehman Brothers – and it can all be gone very quickly, literally into thin air as if it never existed.

The third lesson for China would be to create solid credit decision models for its citizens and businesses so that banks ( and the regulating agencies ) would have a systematic approach to making loan decisions that is based on historical precedence. The USA has great models on this. However, the USA problems started when we created “new” models ( SUBPRIME LOANS ) which had no historical precedent to gauge if the loans being made would be repaid, how much interest to charge for the loan, and how to insure the loan ( which is what brought AIG down ). Essentially, the USA had a great model, but our ‘GREED’ and the buckets of money being pored into the markets had to go somewhere so the Wall Street “experts” created SUBPRIME LOANS – because of the “deregulation” of the financial markets. The markets are now failing because there was no history on how those loans would perform. It’s a little like being a life insurance company but you have no data on how long someone will live. So, you charge the same price for life insurance to someone 80 years old as you would to someone 30 years old. The obvious is obvious. You’ll lose money on the 80 year old for sure. Well, basically this is what happened in the subprime market.

The fourth lesson for China would be to utilize their massive foreign currency holdings ( dollars, euro’s and yen ) in their own infrastructure. You never go wrong with an investment in yourself and you avoid the chance that someone else will lose money for you – as has happened with investments in the USA. China, with its massive foreign currency treasure has a great opportunity to utilize the wonderful intelligence of its citizenry to be the world leader in creating technologies for alternative energy sources.

While I am a proud citizen of these United States of America, and my father fought the Japanese for 4 years in the Philippines to end their oppression and aggression in the region (mainly in China) I am disappointed in our leadership and the affect that the poor leadership will have on millions and millions of Americans and others around the world with our mishandling of these economic issues.

I say to China, you have a wonderful chance to see “unbridled” capitalism at its worst by witnessing the financial upheavals the USA is experiencing. Learn from it. You won’t regret it. As an economic power yourself you owe it to your citizens, and indeed the world, to not repeat the mistakes we have made.