不和谐，而且不符合我的意愿，本来不想发。坚定信心促发展。我们可以利用老美歇菜的机会崛起，只是不要惹上战事。 By Barry Eichengreen|Kevin H. O’Rourke|Apr 6, 2009|Author's Website Often cited comparisons – which look only at the US – find that today’s crisis is milder than the Great Depression. In this column, two leading economic historians show that the world economy is now plummeting as it did in the Great Depression; indeed, world industrial production, trade and stock markets are diving faster now than during 1929-30. Fortunately, the policy response to date is much better. The parallels between the Great Depression of the 1930s and our current Great Recession have been widely remarked upon. Paul Krugman has compared the fall in US industrial production from its mid-1929 and late-2007 peaks, showing that it has been milder this time. On this basis he refers to the current situation, with characteristic black humour, as only “half a Great Depression.” The “Four Bad Bears” graph comparing the Dow in 1929-30 and S&P 500 in 2008-9 has similarly had wide circulation (Short 2009). It shows the US stock market since late 2007 falling just about as fast as in 1929-30. Comparing the Great Depression to now for the world, not just the US This and most other commentary contrasting the two episodes compares America then and now. This, however, is a misleading picture. The Great Depression was a global phenomenon. Even if it originated, in some sense, in the US, it was transmitted internationally by trade flows, capital flows and commodity prices. That said, different countries were affected differently. The US is not representative of their experiences. Our Great Recession is every bit as global, earlier hopes for decoupling in Asia and Europe notwithstanding. Increasingly there is awareness that events have taken an even uglier turn outside the US, with even larger falls in manufacturing production, exports and equity prices. In fact, when we look globally, as in Figure 1, the decline in industrial production in the last nine months has been at least as severe as in the nine months following the 1929 peak. (All graphs in this column track behaviour after the peaks in world industrial production, which occurred in June 1929 and April 2008.) Here, then, is a first illustration of how the global picture provides a very different and, indeed, more disturbing perspective than the US case considered by Krugman, which as noted earlier shows a smaller decline in manufacturing production now than then. Figure 1. World Industrial Output, Now vs Then: Source: Eichengreen and O’Rourke (2009). Similarly, while the fall in US stock market has tracked 1929, global stock markets are falling even faster now than in the Great Depression (Figure 2). Again this is contrary to the impression left by those who, basing their comparison on the US market alone, suggest that the current crash is no more serious than that of 1929-30. Figure 2. World Stock Markets, Now vs Then: Source: Global Financial Database. Another area where we are “surpassing” our forbearers is in destroying trade. World trade is falling much faster now than in 1929-30 (Figure 3). This is highly alarming given the prominence attached in the historical literature to trade destruction as a factor compounding the Great Depression. Figure 3. The Volume of World Trade, Now vs Then: Sources: League of Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, http://www.cpb.nl/eng/research/sector2/data/trademonitor.html It’s a Depression alright To sum up, globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression, whether the metric is industrial production, exports or equity valuations. Focusing on the US causes one to minimize this alarming fact. The “Great Recession” label may turn out to be too optimistic. This is a Depression-sized event. That said, we are only one year into the current crisis, whereas after 1929 the world economy continued to shrink for three successive years. What matters now is that policy makers arrest the decline. We therefore turn to the policy response. Policy responses: Then and now Figure 4 shows a GDP-weighted average of central bank discount rates for 7 countries. As can be seen, in both crises there was a lag of five or six months before discount rates responded to the passing of the peak, although in the present crisis rates have been cut more rapidly and from a lower level. There is more at work here than simply the difference between George Harrison and Ben Bernanke. The central bank response has differed globally. Figure 4. Central Bank Discount Rates, Now vs Then (7 country average): Source: Bernanke and Mihov (2000); Bank of England, ECB, Bank of Japan, St. Louis Fed, National Bank of Poland, Sveriges Riksbank. Figure 5 shows money supply for a GDP-weighted average of 19 countries accounting for more than half of world GDP in 2004. Clearly, monetary expansion was more rapid in the run-up to the 2008 crisis than during 1925-29, which is a reminder that the stage-setting events were not the same in the two cases. Moreover, the global money supply continued to grow rapidly in 2008, unlike in 1929 when it levelled off and then underwent a catastrophic decline. Figure 5. Money Supplies, 19 Countries, Now vs Then: Source: Bordo et al. (2001), IMF International Financial Statistics, OECD Monthly Economic Indicators. Figure 6 is the analogous picture for fiscal policy, in this case for 24 countries. The interwar measure is the fiscal surplus as a percentage of GDP. The current data include the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Update forecasts for 2009 and 2010. As can be seen, fiscal deficits expanded after 1929 but only modestly. Clearly, willingness to run deficits today is considerably greater. Figure 6. Government Budget Surpluses, Now vs Then: Source: Bordo et al. (2001), IMF World Economic Outlook, January 2009. Conclusion To summarize: the world is currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-30. Looking just at the US leads one to overlook how alarming the current situation is even in comparison with 1929-30. The good news, of course, is that the policy response is very different. The question now is whether that policy response will work. For the answer, stay tuned for our next column. References Eichengreen, B. and K.H. O’Rourke. 2009. “A Tale of Two Depressions.” In progress. Bernanke, B.S. 2000. Bernanke, B.S. and I. Mihov. 2000. “Deflation and Monetary Contraction in the Great Depression: An Analysis by Simple Ratios.” In B.S. Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bordo, M.D., B. Eichengreen, D. Klingebiel and M.S. Martinez-Peria. 2001. “Is the Crisis Problem Growing More Severe?” Economic Policy32: 51-82. Paul Krugman, “The Great Recession versus the Great Depression,” Conscience of a Liberal (20 March 2009). Doug Short, “Four Bad Bears, ”DShort: Financial Lifecycle Planning” (20 March 2009).
weijian兄，做的是图片链接。 --------------------------------- 不少对冲基金在06年的时候就开始准备应对这次的情况了，尽管刚开始有失误，但是调整后都赚了不少。 --------------------------------- 我现在担心的，不是杀敌一万，自损三千，而是杀敌一万，自损五千，剩下的五千，也得病的得病，中毒的中毒，马上将派当伙夫，粮草被奸人拨占近半。建帐篷的要挟着财务官。而皇帝因为七公主在敌人手里优柔寡断，当初护送公主的老妈子们也都给皇帝吹耳边风，他们知道不这么强调七公主安危的重要性他们肯定就会实打实地被确认责任，依历治罪。另外还一个是最关键的，尽管表面上声势浩大，似乎可以战必胜，但是骨子里从皇帝到大臣都在害怕，两军对垒，怯阵者，士气已去一半，自然也就缺乏要战则胜的决心。 其实，这个时候是改革的最好时机，往往这个时候改革阻力和反对派的实力是最弱的，谁都怕担责任；而一片升平的时候，想改可不容易。结构转型，不过如魔方旋转一样罢了，是换个方式对接而已。经济的魅力在于利益的驱动，在利益驱动下，结构会相当快的进行转变和优化，而完全不是船大掉头难的状况，是魔方的旋转，不同色块的对接。魔方旋转的越快越好，崛起取胜的机会就越大。皇帝和大臣都在害怕，那魔方也就不会自转，他们所怕的，是所谓的损失，利益的和统治的。建帐篷的要挟了财务官也是利用了这点。但是想想，如果肉烂了，去掉，是有损失，而且还会带些好肉，但是不去，则整块肉都会受到污染。况且，去掉的肉，还可以有其它方法进行加工再利用。至于建帐篷的，这次他们成功了，那不就是皇帝和大臣们对他们行为的鼓励，他们拿到钱了，你猜会做什么？还是建帐篷呀，因为这个有利可图，而且不会赔，那不是会有更多的官员，甚至清官也被拉下水？其实害怕财务官有事，而财务官又是皇帝和大臣们的亲戚，是皇帝和大臣们考虑的，也是建帐篷的所利用的。可是那样实际上是保护了腐败的亲戚，并不利于财务官的发展和完善。也不用担心建帐篷的没有钱赚，加强成本管理就行了，会有淘汰，但是淘汰很正常。倒是监工那里容易出问题，可是用他一辈子甚至可能被治罪来为建帐篷的谋利益，显然是不值的，尤其在公开透明，终身追溯的条件下。而除了当兵的，万民最关心的是自己的生存和自己的那一点儿小利益，其他的其实都不关心，那要满足他们不就很容易？所以这方面不用担心。 另一方面是将才，选将用人，虽然对出身、名师、科举已经有所放松，但不少官职以及官号的要求依旧是那纸文凭，皇帝和大臣也都不会出来澄清文凭不一定重要，切实需要的是出将入相的人，觉得没有必要。可是上意不传，下情难达，何以实施。而且可能还会有名牌书院的面子问题。实际上用不用名牌的书院出来的，还是海外深造的，还是高学历的，对庙堂和商号都没什么区别，关键不是能不能治国安邦、经人济世么，那么用哪里的不是一样么，只要找能力好的不就行了。而且，要转魔方，关键的关节，没有实打实的真功夫的零件在，不是更容易出问题？ 信心是药，不过这剂药是治标不治本的药，是缓解疼痛的麻醉药，一瓶药，剂量终归有限，等到药劲儿过去了，想让人好起来，还是要治一些本的。