阅读：0
听报道
Several years ago, a British MP remarked, while visiting Tokyo, "If
this is a recession, I want one." I know what he meant. Each time I
visit Japan, I ask myself, "When can we live like the
Japanese?"
Too much has been written by serious observers, as well as analytical tourists, on Japan's two lost decades, and the misery of an aging population, social dislocation, and a looming debt crisis. We were told, again and again, that Japan was hopeless.
Then came a refreshing and well-researched rebuttal in "Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival" by David Pilling, the Asia Editor of the Financial Times.
Pilling points out that, despite a sharp slowdown in the last two decades, Japan remains the world's third biggest economy, equivalent to the sum of the UK and France, or three times the Indian economy. In per capita terms, Japan is eight times as affluent as China.
In a world obsessed with rankings, Pilling asks the question, quoting his interviewees in Japan, "Why does Japan have to be number three or number 10 or even 15?" In the next two decades, no matter what happens to Japan as a country, it will remain very wealthy, just like a giant Switzerland. Is there anything wrong with that?
Economists often speak of "population dividends", as if population growth were a leading indicator of success. But Pilling echoed the sentiment of his colleague Victor Mallet who has written convincingly about "population disaster" as part of a great volume edited by Mckinsey & Company, "Reimagining India." Pilling asks, the Pakistani population has quadrupled since 1960, but where is the correlation with economic growth and, more importantly, the wellbeing of its citizens? Indeed, most of the third world today (including China) is deeply troubled by overpopulation.
Despite the collapse of Japan's economic growth in 1991, Japan did not do too badly compared to the US and the UK even in growth terms. Pilling points out, stripping out inflation (or deflation) and population changes, Japan did only slightly worse than the US and the UK in these two decades. Rebased to 100 in 1989, Japan's per-capita real income in 2013 would be 127, compared to 137 in the US and 144 in the UK. In a more recent decade (2002-12), Japan even outperformed the US and UK.
It is true that Japan suffers many social ills. But that's true of all countries. In most other countries, the problem is only more severe. By most common measures, Japan boasts the cleanest environment, least amount of inequality, and lowest crime rate.
Pilling attributes Japan's two "lost" decades to the asset bubble in the late 1980s, and his advice for Japan and other countries is never get into an asset bubble in the first place. I am skeptical about his diagnosis and the subsequent prescription. Is it possible that the collapse of the bubble in Japan was as inevitable as the subprime crisis in the US?
In the wake of the US crisis, everyone has pinned blame on greedy bankers and clueless regulators. But when are bankers not greedy and regulators not clueless? The real origin of the crisis, in my view, may lie in capitalism itself. As Karl Marx asserted long ago, productivity gains would lead to overproduction, economic crisis, and the destruction of the surplus production. In other words, three steps forward and two steps back is a built-in stabilizer in capitalism.
Pilling agrees with most observers that low economic growth coupled with an aging population make Japan's already high public debt increasingly hard to service. But what makes Japan different is that over 90 percent of its debt is owed to its own citizens. So, as Pilling points out, when rating agencies downgraded the ratings of the Japanese government bonds a few years ago, the prices of these bonds went up, not down - another sign that even the smartest observers often do not get it.
But still, Japan will eventually have to find a way out of the growing debt pile. While Pilling does not speculate on possible solutions, I have a half-baked idea. If Japan creates a large number of state-owned enterprises funded by the printing press of the Bank of Japan, it may kill two birds with one stone: boosting economic activity and creating inflation. When inflation arrives, debts will soon fade into historical irrelevance.
The same formula may even work in the Eurozone. But that is an ideological taboo. However, the West has broken many such taboos in the wake of the global subprime crisis so why not this taboo? In the past three decades, China has ignored the independence of the central bank, and that seemed to work in creating economic activity and generating inflation. Maybe it is worth a try in the west in exceptional circumstances?
The writer is the chairman of China Smartpay Group, and an advisor to Haitong International Securities.
Too much has been written by serious observers, as well as analytical tourists, on Japan's two lost decades, and the misery of an aging population, social dislocation, and a looming debt crisis. We were told, again and again, that Japan was hopeless.
Then came a refreshing and well-researched rebuttal in "Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival" by David Pilling, the Asia Editor of the Financial Times.
Pilling points out that, despite a sharp slowdown in the last two decades, Japan remains the world's third biggest economy, equivalent to the sum of the UK and France, or three times the Indian economy. In per capita terms, Japan is eight times as affluent as China.
In a world obsessed with rankings, Pilling asks the question, quoting his interviewees in Japan, "Why does Japan have to be number three or number 10 or even 15?" In the next two decades, no matter what happens to Japan as a country, it will remain very wealthy, just like a giant Switzerland. Is there anything wrong with that?
Economists often speak of "population dividends", as if population growth were a leading indicator of success. But Pilling echoed the sentiment of his colleague Victor Mallet who has written convincingly about "population disaster" as part of a great volume edited by Mckinsey & Company, "Reimagining India." Pilling asks, the Pakistani population has quadrupled since 1960, but where is the correlation with economic growth and, more importantly, the wellbeing of its citizens? Indeed, most of the third world today (including China) is deeply troubled by overpopulation.
Despite the collapse of Japan's economic growth in 1991, Japan did not do too badly compared to the US and the UK even in growth terms. Pilling points out, stripping out inflation (or deflation) and population changes, Japan did only slightly worse than the US and the UK in these two decades. Rebased to 100 in 1989, Japan's per-capita real income in 2013 would be 127, compared to 137 in the US and 144 in the UK. In a more recent decade (2002-12), Japan even outperformed the US and UK.
It is true that Japan suffers many social ills. But that's true of all countries. In most other countries, the problem is only more severe. By most common measures, Japan boasts the cleanest environment, least amount of inequality, and lowest crime rate.
Pilling attributes Japan's two "lost" decades to the asset bubble in the late 1980s, and his advice for Japan and other countries is never get into an asset bubble in the first place. I am skeptical about his diagnosis and the subsequent prescription. Is it possible that the collapse of the bubble in Japan was as inevitable as the subprime crisis in the US?
In the wake of the US crisis, everyone has pinned blame on greedy bankers and clueless regulators. But when are bankers not greedy and regulators not clueless? The real origin of the crisis, in my view, may lie in capitalism itself. As Karl Marx asserted long ago, productivity gains would lead to overproduction, economic crisis, and the destruction of the surplus production. In other words, three steps forward and two steps back is a built-in stabilizer in capitalism.
Pilling agrees with most observers that low economic growth coupled with an aging population make Japan's already high public debt increasingly hard to service. But what makes Japan different is that over 90 percent of its debt is owed to its own citizens. So, as Pilling points out, when rating agencies downgraded the ratings of the Japanese government bonds a few years ago, the prices of these bonds went up, not down - another sign that even the smartest observers often do not get it.
But still, Japan will eventually have to find a way out of the growing debt pile. While Pilling does not speculate on possible solutions, I have a half-baked idea. If Japan creates a large number of state-owned enterprises funded by the printing press of the Bank of Japan, it may kill two birds with one stone: boosting economic activity and creating inflation. When inflation arrives, debts will soon fade into historical irrelevance.
The same formula may even work in the Eurozone. But that is an ideological taboo. However, the West has broken many such taboos in the wake of the global subprime crisis so why not this taboo? In the past three decades, China has ignored the independence of the central bank, and that seemed to work in creating economic activity and generating inflation. Maybe it is worth a try in the west in exceptional circumstances?
The writer is the chairman of China Smartpay Group, and an advisor to Haitong International Securities.
分享：
喜欢
0
赠金笔
话题：
0
推荐
财新博客版权声明：财新博客所发布文章及图片之版权属博主本人及/或相关权利人所有，未经博主及/或相关权利人单独授权，任何网站、平面媒体不得予以转载。财新网对相关媒体的网站信息内容转载授权并不包括财新博客的文章及图片。博客文章均为作者个人观点，不代表财新网的立场和观点。
京公网安备 11010502034662号 