（原文标题直译：冠状病毒终结经济过剩时代——痛苦但亟需的一个过程）
• 全球经济及其由信贷驱动的市场还会有很长的一段下跌，疫情过后都不会恢复“常态”；消费并不能扮演救星角色
• 寄望各国政府在被迫花钱提振经济之时，能以可持续方式投资于福利、教育和其他旨在解决不平等的领域
作者：安东尼·罗利
2020年3月9日
（香港观塘佐敦谷公园，2020年2月9日，段晓冬摄）
如果你在离地很远的高处表演踩钢丝骑单车，还站在车把上玩杂耍，你就要不惜一切代价保持自己的动能，并竭力避免外力冲击。一旦车速有任何减慢或遇到任何颠婆摆动，你就很可能摔到地面，令这场高空杂技戛然而止，让你狼狈不堪、苦不堪言。
这实在很像当下在金融市场和全球经济中发生的事情。如果不是已经高高在上、摇摇欲坠，即使像冠状病毒这样可怕的瘟疫也不可能让经济如何迅猛地崩溃。
可惜许多人似乎都忽略了这一点。他们每天都在新闻媒体上寻找任何显示疫情传播放缓的证据，以便让他们相信，情况可以很快恢复“常态”，金融市场能够重拾升势，商业热情可以重燃。
但这并不会发生。经济和金融市场需要两次大跌：第一次是由于冠状病毒的冲击；第二次是由于它们在疫情出现之前已经达到的不可持续的高位，而导致高位的因素包括看来无穷无尽的货币宽松、低利率、资产价格膨胀以及由信贷刺激的消费。
这意味着，目前的大跌才是刚刚开始，而一直以来“高空杂耍”玩得最为出神入化的经济体——即美国——将见证最为剧烈的跌势。正如俗话所说，“飞得越高，跌得越惨。”（用广东话说就是“有几多风流就有几多折堕”）
研究机构每天都有大量相关的经济分析出炉，都指出宏观经济伤痕累累。这些机构包括国际货币基金组织、经济合作与发展组织、联合国贸易与发展会议、国际金融研究所，还包括美国加州的一家数据分析公司J.D. Power，后者的一份研究报告尤其令人担忧。
这份报告指出：“三分之二的美国成年人担心它[冠状病毒]会伤害其财务状况——[因]出现意料之外的医疗费用，无法工作足够的时间，股票投资组合价值降低。消费者正计划减少旅行，少去餐馆。”
报告还说：“随着美国股市持续下跌——美联储为阻止经济下滑而紧急降息也无济于事——对许多美国人来说，疫情对个人财务的短期和长期影响正成为一个严重忧虑。”
这不仅与美国总统特朗普最近对美国消费者仍然“十分强劲”的描述背道而驰，而且对许多发达经济体和发展中经济体都是一个严峻的提醒：个人消费下降的连锁反应可以令宏观经济十分脆弱。
美国、中国、日本、东盟和欧洲的工业生产已经因供应链的中断而急剧放缓——供应链先是受到特朗普发动的贸易战影响，现在则因冠状病毒乱象而受到更加猛烈的冲击。库存大幅增加，现金流几近枯竭。
第二轮影响是：消费者因担心收入减少而出现信心萎缩，再加上疫情对物流的冲击，令商品和服务支出直线下降，消费受到重创。“强劲的消费者”不堪一击。
更可怕的是，大部分消费热潮——特别是在美国、中国、韩国、东南亚和英国——是基于从银行和其他金融机构获得的创纪录的个人借贷水平。家庭债务违约可能激增。
抛开这对金融体系的冲击（因不良贷款大增）不谈，在私人投资信心已经受到重创的情况下，消费者的角色从宏观经济中撤离可能会给全球GDP再来致命一击。
听起来日益绝望的央行们正在祭出大规模宽松措施，但在经济活动和就业——尤其是在服务业——面临的严重威胁挥之不去的时候，没有任何货币宽松手段能够将消费刺激到基本必需品以外的范围。
毫无疑问，刺激经济的重担将从货币政策转到财政政策身上——在美国、中国、日本，甚至在有些不情愿的德国这样的国家，以及在亚洲和其他地区，都是如此。这将把已经处于历史高位的政府债务进一步推向前所未有的水平。现在，各国政府根本不敢不去撒钱。
当这场可能发生的经济崩溃尘埃落定后——尽管在此之前还有一段很长的下跌之路——隧道尽头会出现光亮，我们在一片灰暗中也应该会开始看到这场危机带来的一些正面影响。
其中一个有益的影响是：一种由信贷推动下的消费和对消费行业的过度看重所引领的经济繁荣应该让位于一种更多由“可持续投资”引领的经济增长——投资对象是基础设施以及其他诸如卫生、福利、教育等旨在减少不平等的行业领域。
在此过程中可能会经历许多金融和经济面的痛苦，但若想避免那种一路奔向过度负债、过度消费、资产过高定价和过度追求享受的万劫不复，总要发生某件事情让我们悬崖勒马。如果这件事就是冠状病毒，那就由它吧。
译者：段晓冬
The coronavirus is bringing a painful but much-needed end to an era of economic excess
• The global economy and its credit-fuelled markets have a long way to fall and things will not return to normal after the epidemic; consumption will not ride to the rescue
• The hope is that governments, forced to spend to boost the economy, will invest sustainably in welfare, education and other sectors that target inequality
Anthony Rowley
9 Mar, 2020
If you are riding a bicycle across a tightrope high above the ground while standing on the handlebars and doing a juggling act as you go, you need to maintain momentum and avoid shocks at all costs. Any slowing or wobbling could send you crashing and bring the high wire act to an abrupt and painful end.
That’s a pretty good analogy of what’s happening in financial markets and to the global economy. Even a pestilence as virulent as the coronavirus could not be bringing down the economy so quickly and dramatically if it were not already riding precariously high.
This is a point many people appear to be missing as they scan the headlines daily for any evidence that the coronavirus spread is slowing and that, therefore, things can revert to “normal” fairly soon with financial markets resuming their ascent and business activity picking up.
This will not happen. The economy and financial markets need to take a double fall, first from the coronavirus shock, then from the unsustainable highs they had reached on the back of seemingly endless monetary easing, low interest rates, inflated asset values and credit-fuelled consumption.
That is a long way to fall and the economy that has been performing the most impressive and death-defying balancing act of all – that of the United States – stands to fall most precipitously. As they say, “the bigger (or taller) they are, the harder they fall.”
Amid a plethora of economic analyses pouring out almost daily from the likes of the International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, UN Conference on Trade and Development and Institute of International Finance, all cataloguing the woes of the macro economy, one from data analytics company J.D. Power in California was particularly ominous.
It noted that “two-thirds of US adults are worried that [the coronavirus] will hurt their financial situation [owing to] unexpected medical expenses, inability to work enough hours and declining value of stock portfolios. Consumers are planning to travel less and limit visits to restaurants.”
The report added that “as US stocks continue to fall – shrugging off a Federal Reserve rate cut that was initiated to stem the economic fallout – the short- and long-term effects of the coronavirus epidemic on individual finances [are] becoming a significant concern for many Americans”.
This not only gives the lie to US President Donald Trump’s recent claim that the US consumer remains “very strong”, it is also a profound statement on the vulnerability of many advanced and emerging economies to the knock-on effects of falling personal consumption in the macro economy.
We have seen industrial production in the US, China, Japan, Asean and Europe slow sharply under the impact of disruptions to supply chains caused initially by Trump’s trade wars and now, more dramatically, by the coronavirus chaos. Inventories have built up and cash flows have slumped.
The secondary impact comes as slumping confidence, caused by fears of shrinking incomes hitting consumption already hampered by the logistical impact of the epidemic, causes spending on products and services to enter a tailspin. So much for the “strong consumer”.
What is rather more scary still is that so much of the consumption boom – in the US, China, South Korea, Southeast Asia and Britain especially – is predicated on record levels of personal borrowing from banks and other financial institutions. Household debt defaults could soar.
Leaving aside the impact this could have on the financial system by way of a surge in non-performing loans, the withdrawal of consumers from the macroeconomic mix when private investment has already taken a heavy hit to confidence could be another nail in the coffin of global GDP.
No amount of monetary easing, of the kind being unleashed by increasingly desperate-sounding central banks, will spur consumption beyond basic necessities while threats to economic activity and employment – especially in the services sector – continue to loom large.
The burden will shift decisively from monetary to fiscal stimulus – in the US, China, Japan and even the likes of a grudging Germany, as well as in Asia and beyond, pushing already historically high government debt to further unprecedented levels. Governments dare not avoid spending more now.
As the smoke clears from a threatened economic crash – although there is still a long slide down before that happens – there will be light at the end of the tunnel and some salutary effects should begin to emerge though the gloom.
For one, an economic boom led by credit-fuelled consumption and an arguable overemphasis on consumer industries should give way to growth led more by “sustainable investment” in infrastructure and other sectors such as health and welfare, education and other inequality-reducing areas.
There could be much financial and economic pain along the road but something had to happen to halt the headlong rush towards the perdition of overindebtedness, overconsumption, overpriced assets and general overindulgence. If that is the coronavirus, then so be it.
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