In that brief moment when the rising tide was indeed rising, millions of people believed that they might have a fair chance of realizing the “American Dream.” Now those dreams, too, are receding. By 2011, the savings of those who had lost their jobs in 2008 or 2009 had been spent. Unemployment checks had run out. Headlines announcing new hiring – still not enough to keep pace with the number of those who would normally have entered the labor force – meant little to the 50 year olds with little hope of ever holding a job again.
Indeed, middle-aged people who thought that they would be unemployed for a few months have now realized that they were, in fact, forcibly retired. Young people who graduated from college with tens of thousands of dollars of education debt cannot find any jobs at all. People who moved in with friends and relatives have become homeless. Houses bought during the property boom are still on the market or have been sold at a loss. More than seven million American families have lost their homes.
The dark underbelly of the previous decade’s financial boom has been fully exposed in Europe as well. Dithering over Greece and key national governments’ devotion to austerity began to exact a heavy toll last year. Contagion spread to Italy. Spain’s unemployment, which had been near 20% since the beginning of the recession, crept even higher. The unthinkable – the end of the euro – began to seem like a real possibility.
This year is set to be even worse. It is possible, of course, that the United States will solve its political problems and finally adopt the stimulus measures that it needs to bring down unemployment to 6% or 7% (the pre-crisis level of 4% or 5% is too much to hope for). But this is as unlikely as it is that Europe will figure out that austerity alone will not solve its problems. On the contrary, austerity will only exacerbate the economic slowdown. Without growth, the debt crisis – and the euro crisis – will only worsen. And the long crisis that began with the collapse of the housing bubble in 2007 and the subsequent recession will continue.
Moreover, the major emerging-market countries, which steered successfully through the storms of 2008 and 2009, may not cope as well with the problems looming on the horizon. Brazil’s growth has already stalled, fueling anxiety among its neighbors in Latin America.
Meanwhile, long-term problems – including climate change and other environmental threats, and increasing inequality in most countries around the world – have not gone away. Some have grown more severe. For example, high unemployment has depressed wages and increased poverty.
The good news is that addressing these long-term problems would actually help to solve the short-term problems. Increased investment to retrofit the economy for global warming would help to stimulate economic activity, growth, and job creation. More progressive taxation, in effect redistributing income from the top to the middle and bottom, would simultaneously reduce inequality and increase employment by boosting total demand. Higher taxes at the top could generate revenues to finance needed public investment, and to provide some social protection for those at the bottom, including the unemployed.
Even without widening the fiscal deficit, such “balanced budget” increases in taxes and spending would lower unemployment and increase output. The worry, however, is that politics and ideology on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially in the US, will not allow any of this to occur. Fixation on the deficit will induce cutbacks in social spending, worsening inequality. Likewise, the enduring attraction of supply-side economics, despite all of the evidence against it (especially in a period in which there is high unemployment), will prevent raising taxes at the top.
Even before the crisis, there was a rebalancing of economic power – in fact, a correction of a 200-year historical anomaly, in which Asia’s share of global GDP fell from nearly 50% to, at one point, below 10%. The pragmatic commitment to growth that one sees in Asia and other emerging markets today stands in contrast to the West’s misguided policies, which, driven by a combination of ideology and vested interests, almost seem to reflect a commitment not to grow.
As a result, global economic rebalancing is likely to accelerate, almost inevitably giving rise to political tensions. With all of the problems confronting the global economy, we will be lucky if these strains do not begin to manifest themselves within the next twelve months.
Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia
University,
a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author of Freefall: Free Markets and
the Sinking of the Global Economy.
Joseph E. Stiglitz: 2012的危機
許多美國人都會銘記2011年這一年，因為在這一年裡許多曾經樂觀的美國人都開始放棄了希望。肯尼迪總統曾經說過水漲船高這句話。但是現如今，在不斷縮水的經濟發展過程中，美國人不僅開始看到了那些擁有較高桅杆的人們可以爬得更高，而且還看到了那些較小的船只最終被浪花拍打地粉碎。
當經濟確實在增長的短暫時期裡，上百萬的美國人相信他們可能會有一次公平的機會去實現“美國夢想”。但現如今，這種夢想也隨之減弱。到了2011年，那些在2008年或者2009年失業的人們，已經花光了所有的積蓄。失業保險也已經到期。報紙的頭條刊登著各種各樣的新的就業信息，但這仍然滿足不了那些即將步入勞動市場的年輕人的就業需要。這些消息對那些想要再次獲得就業機會的50歲左右的人們來意義並不是很大。
事實上，那些認為自己只是短暫失業幾個月的中年人現在已經意識到了他們實際上已經處於長期失業的狀態。剛剛畢業的年輕大學生，身上還背負著上萬美元的教育貸款，卻根本找不到工作。那些無家可歸的人只好搬到朋友或者親戚家一起住。在房地產業繁榮時期購買的房子有的仍然在市場上等待出售，而有的已經虧本賣出。超過700萬的美國家庭已經失去了自己的房子。
在歐洲，過去十年經濟繁榮時期裡隱藏著的最脆弱的部分現在也已經暴露了出來。希腊和一些主要國家的政府致力於緊縮政策，隨之引起的動蕩從去年開始就產生了巨大的副作用。這種副作用蔓延到了意大利。自從積極危機爆發以來，西班牙的失業率一直處在20%左右，隨著副作用的蔓延，這一數字甚至在不斷上漲。歐元的瓦解，這一無法想像的事情似乎也有了成為事實的可能性。
今年的情況注定會變得更糟。當然，美國很有可能解決其政治難題，最終采取所必需的刺激手段，使失業率下降到6%到7%（經濟危機前的失業率是4%到5%，但在這一時期，這是不敢奢望的數字）。但是，就像歐洲明白僅僅依靠緊縮政策是無法解決問題一樣，美國采取這種手段的可能性是比較小的。相反，緊縮政策僅僅會加劇經濟衰退。經濟得不到增漲，債務危機，以及歐元危機只會變得越發嚴重。隨著2007年房價泡沫破裂所引發的時間持續長久的危機和其所帶來的經濟蕭條仍會繼續。
再者，主要的新興市場國家，成功地避開了2008年和2009年的金融風暴，也同樣可能不會插手解決即將來臨的問題。巴西的經濟增長已經擱淺，這使得其拉丁美洲的鄰邦國家平添了幾分憂慮。
與此同時，一些長期的問題，包括氣候變化和其他環境問題，以及在世界大多數國家中日益增長的不平等問題仍舊沒有得到解決。一些問題甚至變得更加難以解決。例如，居高不下的失業率使工資下降，增加了貧困人群。
解決這些長期問題實際上會有助於解決一些短期問題，這無疑是一個好消息。增加在全球變暖問題上的投資，不斷變化經濟模式，會有助於活躍經濟，刺激經濟增長，創造更多的就業崗位。增加累進所得稅，有效地將財富從高收入人群到中等收入人群再到低收入人群進行重新分配，同時通過促進整體需求降低不公平性，增加了就業率。對高收入人群收取更多的所得稅可以產生收入，用來資助所需的公共投資，同樣也為那些包括失業人口在內的底層人民提供一些社會保障。
甚至不需要進一步擴大財政赤字，這種在稅收和開支方面的“平衡預算”也會降低失業率，增加出口量。但是，有人擔心大西洋兩岸的政治和思想意識，尤其是美國方面，不會允許這種情況出現。對赤字的依賴會導致社會開支的削減，從而使不公平性問題惡化。同樣地，供應方經濟體具有長久的吸引力，盡管有很多證據反駁這一觀點（尤其是在失業率居高不下的時期），這會阻止向高收入人群征得更多的稅收。
甚至在經濟危機爆發以前，就存在著對經濟力量進行重新平衡的趨勢。這種平衡事實上是對200年來歷史的反常行為的一種糾正。期間，亞洲地區在全球國民生產總值的份額下降了近50%，曾經一度不到全球國民生產總值的10%。可以看到，目前整個亞洲和一些新興國家正在致力於增長國家的實際經濟實力，這和西方國家誤導民眾的政策產生了鮮明的對比。這些政策被思想體系和既定的利益驅使著，這些政策反映出的是一種不求增長的堅定態度。
結果是，全球經濟重新平衡很有可能會加劇政治緊張局面，導致了這場幾乎不可避免的政治緊張局面。伴隨著全球經濟所面臨的種種問題，倘若在未來的十二個月裡，這些緊張的壓力沒有開始顯現出來，那麼我們無疑是幸運兒。
作者為哥倫比亞大學教授、諾貝爾經濟學獎得主，著有Freefall：Free
Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy一書。
