通胀仍是中国“心病”

飞雪寒冰

There’s one extreme method of dealing with inflation. That is to ban it. This month, Unilever agreed to pay a fine of $300,000 after China’s National Development and Reform Commission accused the Anglo-Dutch company of creating panic by announcing its intention to increase detergent and soap prices. Such reckless behaviour was described as an “ugly habit” that “seriously distorted market order”.
对付通胀有一种极端的办法，那就是禁止涨价。本月，联合利华(Unilever)同意支付30万美元的罚金，此前，中国发改委(NDRC)指责这家英荷公司通过宣布日化产品涨价的意向，制造市场恐慌。这种不计后果的做法被描述为一种“严重扰乱市场秩序”的“丑陋行径”。

But even in a planned economy, such “ugliness” is hard to airbrush out. Inflation stayed stubbornly high in April in spite of the state’s best efforts. In April, the consumer price index rose 5.3 per cent from a year earlier, a tiny improvement on the 5.4 per cent of the previous month, but still higher than expected.
然而，即便是在计划经济体制中，这种“丑陋”也很难避免。尽管政府尽了最大努力，但4月份的通胀率仍居高不下。当月，中国消费者价格指数(CPI)同比上涨5.3%，略低于3月份的5.4%，但仍高于预期水平。

飞雪寒冰

Even if they can’t put prices up overtly, many companies have ways of getting around price controls. Manufacturers of soft drinks, crisps, milk and yoghurt have resorted to the old ruse of shrinking the packet size but keeping the price the same.
即使无法公然提价，很多企业也有办法绕过价格管控措施。一些软饮、薯片、牛奶和酸奶制造商便采取了缩小包装但价格不变的传统伎俩。

Inflation is causing anxiety at the very top of the Communist party. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, who likes to portray himself as a man of the people, says he checks the price of basics such as pork, rice and flour every day. If you ever spot him scouring the supermarket shelves, that is probably what he is doing. Mr Wen has declared the battle against inflation this year’s top priority. The government was even prepared to allow the renminbi to appreciate to this end, he said.
通胀正引发中国***高层的忧虑。喜欢塑造自己亲民形象的中国国务院总理温Jiabao表示，他每天都查看猪肉、大米和面粉等生活必需品的价格。万一你发现他在查看超市货架，那么可能就是在做这件事情。温Jiabao已经宣布，抗击通胀将是今年的首要任务。他表示，为此中国政府甚至做好了允许人民币升值的准备。

飞雪寒冰

It is only natural the party should worry about inflation. After all, it was concerns about spiralling prices that first stirred protests in the run-up to the 1989 occupation of Tiananmen Square. The price of food, which accounts for one-third of the disposable income of the average Chinese household, is again rising much faster than headline CPI. Food prices are galloping along at about 11.5 per cent annually. That could quickly make millions of families feel poorer in a country where the state’s implicit contract with its people is to raise living standards each year.
中国***担心通胀问题，是再自然不过的事情。毕竟，在1989年****之前，正是民众对于物价螺旋式上涨的担忧首次引发了抗议活动。占中国普通家庭可支配收入三分之一的食品价格的涨幅，再一次远远超过总体CPI。目前，食品价格正以每年11.5%左右的速度上涨。这可能很快会让数百万中国家庭感到生活水准下降。而在中国，政府与民众之间有某种默契：即生活水平每年会不断上升。

The government has tried to blame external factors. It railed against the Federal Reserve’s second wave of quantitative easing, launched in November, for pushing up prices around the world. It also blamed high commodity prices, although these are partly a function of Chinese demand.
中国政府试图将通胀归咎于外部因素。中国曾严厉谴责美联储(Fed)去年11月份推出的第二轮定量宽松政策推升了全球物价。中国还将矛头指向大宗商品价格高企，尽管这在一定程度上受到了中国需求的推动。

飞雪寒冰

The more likely causes, however, lie closer to home. The first is Beijing’s new emphasis – explicitly laid out in the latest five-year plan – of allowing wages to outpace growth. In the past year, wages for factory workers have risen by 20, 30 or even 40 per cent, with the government’s implicit blessing. The thrust of that policy is correct. The share of national income going to wages has fallen progressively for many years, undermining the stated aim of rebalancing growth towards household consumption. But higher wages without higher productivity inevitably causes prices to rise.
然而，根源更有可能在国内。首先，是中国政府在最新的五年计划中明确提出的新工作重心——允许薪资涨幅超过经济增速。过去一年，在政府的默许之下，制造业工人的薪资已上涨20%、30%甚至40%。这项政策的主旨是正确的。多年来，薪资占国民收入的比例一直不断下降，影响到了政府提出的让经济增长向家庭消费转型的目标。但在生产率没有提高的情况下，薪资上涨必然会造成物价上涨。

An even bigger likely cause of inflation is the massive increase in credit since the Lehman shock, when Beijing sought to substitute domestic investment for dwindling exports. The authorities have encouraged banks massively to increase their lending. Even when they have sought to rein this in, banks have been adept at finding off-balance sheet ways of extending credit. The upshot, says the International Monetary Fund, is that M2, a measure of money in circulation plus bank deposits, is up a whopping 52 per cent in the past two years. With so much money sloshing around, no wonder prices have been rising.
可能引发通胀的一个更重要的原因，是自雷曼兄弟(Lehman)破产以来信贷的大规模增长——当时中国政府试图用国内投资来取代日益萎靡的出口。中国政府鼓励银行大举增加放贷规模。甚至当中国政府试图控制信贷增速时，银行仍老练地通过表外方式继续放贷。国际货币基金组织(IMF)表示，其结果是过去两年，衡量流通中的现金以及银行存款的指标——广义货币供应量(M2)大增52%。如此多的资金在市场上游荡，难怪价格不断上涨。

Nouriel Roubini, an economist who specialises in spotting the next crisis, says the problem lies in the Chinese government’s attempt to keep the economy going through a huge increase in fixed investment. “No country can be productive enough to reinvest 50 per cent of gross domestic product in new capital stock without eventually facing immense overcapacity and a staggering non-performing loan problem,” he wrote recently.
专门研究下一场危机可能在何处爆发的经济学家鲁里埃尔•鲁比尼(Nouriel Roubini)表示，问题在于中国政府试图通过固定投资的大幅增长，来保持经济的运行。他最近写道：“任何国家的生产率都不可能高到足以将50%的国内生产总值(GDP)用于重新投资，同时最终避免遭遇巨大的产能过剩和令人忧心的不良贷款问题。”

Prof Roubini predicts a short-term rise in inflation, followed by deflationary pressure as too much capacity comes on stream. That, in turn, would be followed by a hard landing in 2013, he predicts. He argues that the only way out is to shift more income to households, for example by changing tax and interest-rate incentives.
鲁比尼预言，短期内通胀将抬头，随后出现通缩压力，因为过多的产能将纷至沓来。他预测，这进而将导致（中国）经济在2013年遭遇硬着陆。他辩称，唯一的出路是将更多收入转移到家庭，例如通过改变税收政策和利率激励等手段。

People have lost a lot of money betting against China’s planners. But, at the very least, they face a classic dilemma of having to choose between growth and inflation. Indeed, the Communist party has said it is willing to see growth fall in return for greater stability. Since October, it has raised interest rates on four occasions and tightened up rules for bank reserves eight times. In response, industrial growth has fallen and retail spending has slowed to its weakest level in six years.
在押注中国经济规划者将落败方面，人们已亏掉了很多钱。但最起码，他们面临着一个经典困境：必须在增长和通胀之间进行抉择。实际上，中国***已经表态，愿意以牺牲经济增长为代价，来换取更大的稳定。自去年10月以来，中国已4次加息，8次上调银行存款准备金率。其结果是，工业增速有所放缓，零售支出滑落至6年来的最低水平。

But the results of the war on inflation are not always predictable. GaveKal, an economic consultancy, says electricity price controls have led to energy shortages. Producers have cut output because tariffs have not kept pace with the rising cost of coal. Incentives to increase vegetable supplies have worked – too well. Farmers have been unable to unload extra cabbages, which have rotted in the field. The state’s concerns about inflation are rational. However the consequences of its actions are not always so. Just ask Unilever.
但抑制通胀的结果并非总是可以预测的。经济咨询公司GaveKal称，电力价格管制已导致能源短缺。发电厂减少了发电量，因为电费没有与煤炭价格同步不断上涨。增加蔬菜供应的激励举措已然奏效——只是效果过于好了。农民卖不掉多余的卷心菜，只好任其烂在地里。中国政府对于通胀的担忧是合理的。但政府行动的结果却并非总那么合理——不妨去问问联合利华。


译者/何黎

雷肝

嗯，虽然路过。
利率网还是厚道的顶一下