美國經濟衰退會持續多久？（2）

讀了“Fortune”雜誌的文章“How long will the recession last?”之後，我對作者的觀點表示疑問。我感覺，這次美國的經濟衰退比2001年dot com泡沫引起的衰退要嚴重的多。 這一次由次級貸為導火索引起的經濟危機，已經造成了金融機構和銀行的破產，倒閉以及重組。造成了紅火了近十年的房地產價格的下降。全球經濟一體化使得不少美國的加工，製造產業，轉移到了包括中國在內的發展中國家。 甚至高科技行業也部分外包到勞動成本低的國家了。伊拉克戰爭進一步增加了政府巨額財政赤字， 美國老百姓拿自己的住房當提款機，靠信用卡欠債過的日子已經走到了盡頭。 一但金融業萎縮，還有什麽行業能撐的起美國的經濟呢？ 銀行收緊信貸，必然會造成各個行業流動資金周轉的困難，造成經濟規模的收縮，以及失業率增加的連鎖反應。 這一過程才剛剛開始，我不相信在今後的六個月裏衰退就能結束。 即使在經濟概念上衰退結束了，但從個人方麵，可能很長時間都不會感覺到經濟的增長和生活水平的提高的影響。

也許這次的經濟衰退不至於達到1929年大蕭條的嚴重程度，但是我認為，走出衰退的過程有多長還是可以參照過去的曆史經驗的。帶著這個疑問，我給一個美國朋友Bob寫了封email，以了解他對於此次美國經濟衰退的看法。 Bob曾經對我提起過他剛讀了一本關於1929年經濟大蕭條的書。 下麵是我的問題和Bob的回信。 Bob的回信中所提到1929年大蕭條的起因與我們當前所麵臨的經濟衰退有許多相似之處，也提到這兩次經濟危機的不同的地方，對我很有啟發。 Bob還談到，在那個年代沒有人雇傭40歲以上的人 …但願這種情形在今天不至於重演。

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Hi, Bob,
How are you doing? Here is an article “How long will the recession last?” from Fortune magazine.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/03/news/economy/karydakis.recession.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008120312

It says that the 1929 recession lasted 43 months. I remember you told me that only the war (the Second World War) dug the US out of the slump （1929 Depression）. What do you think about this article? According to what you have read, what happened between 1933 (the end of the Depression) to 1939 in terms of economy and people’s lives?

Thanks

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Dear xxq,

I have been reading about the Great Depression, two thick books –

Robert S. McElvaine: The Great Depression: America , 1929-1941
David M. Kennedy: Freedom From Fear : the American People in Depression and war
two of the best history books I have ever read. They are each very long, and when you finish them you wish they had been longer.

Then I read a book on popular culture during the period:

The Nickel and Dime Decade, American Popular Culture During the 1930s by Gary Dean Best (1993)

and a number of articles on the subject. I have also listened to many of the “Fireside Chats”, which were radio programs delivered by Roosevelt during the period. These are on the internet.

Also on the internet are interviews by a Chicago journalist Studs Terkel, interviews with ordinary people about their experiences. Some of these will make you want to cry. One thing which interested me was how articulate many of these ordinary people were. There is an interview with a coal miner, who spent 16 hours a day on his knees digging coal 200 feet below the earth. But his language was fluent, precise, genuine.

The article in Fortune you sent me by Anthony Karydakis seems reasonable to me, as a guess based on the length of other recessions. Hopefully he is right, the economy will stop contracting by next year. But no one knows. He is right that there is much different about this situation compared with the depression; bank failures will not affect people as they did last time. And we know how to solve the problem, by government spending, as we did in World War II. The level of unemployment came down to its 1929 level only in the middle of the war, 1943. Although it was not his intention, Roosevelt brought us out of the depression by deficit spending on boats, planes and tanks. While most people in the world were starving and dying in wars, Americans were enjoying great prosperity, except for the men actually fighting.

According to one author (McElvaine), the root cause of the depression was inequality. In the 1920s Americans began consuming all kinds of new goods. But because the wealth was so unequal—as a result of government by Republicans for most of the century—there was a limit to how much we as a whole could consume. It was only a matter of time before consumption would fall, and the economy begin contracting. That time was postponed by borrowing (one of the financial innovations of the 1920s was the “installment plan”) but eventually the inevitable time came, and consumer demand fell.

Although McElvaine’s book was written in the 1980s, this cause of the first depression as he saw it seems very much like the situation now. Reagan and his successors increased income inequality, shamefully in my opinion, and demand has been maintained only by bubbles and borrowing. Americans are now so much in debt that I wonder if we can really begin spending again next year. People will have to save more—many have lost more than half of their retirement savings in stocks—and too much saving will delay recovery (although making recovery stronger when it comes). Karydakis does not mention housing, the value of which which continues to fall, and continues to wipe out individual savings. He says banks will have to eliminate toxic assets, that is, reduce debt, but consumers will have to as well. Can this really be resolved in a year? I hope so, but I am not hopeful.

One of the authors I read said that while older people were devastated by the depression--no one would hire a 40 year old—young people (like my father who was 15 in 1929) learned toughness and determination from their experiences.

Best wishes,

Bob