精神錯亂的美歐日央行 Central banks prove Einstein's theory

Albert Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By failing to change their way of thinking since the global financial crisis, the world’s main central banks are proving Einstein right.

據說阿爾伯特•愛因斯坦(Albert Einstein)曾給“精神錯亂”(insanity)下了個定義：一遍又一遍地重複做同一件事，卻期待出現不同的結果。自全球金融危機爆發以來，世界各大央行從未改變過自己的思路，用它們的實際行動證明了愛因斯坦的正確。

Many in the markets worry that central banks are running out of ammunition to boost global growth and generate inflation. They are not. The Bank of Japan’s adoption of negative interest rates, the European Central Bank’s extension of its quantitative easing (QE) programme and the Federal Reserve’s decision to slow the normalisation of US interest rates show that policymakers can still draw on plenty of firepower.

許多市場人士擔心各大央行爲了推動全球經濟增長和通貨膨脹即將耗光彈藥。其實不然。日本央行(BoJ)採取了負利率政策，歐洲央行(ECB)擴大了量化寬鬆(QE)計劃，美聯儲(Fed)決定延緩美元利率正常化，這一切都表明政策制定者仍有充足的火力。

So it is not that central banks are not doing enough. It is that their policies are misguided and are hampering global rebalancing. In particular, investors should be worried that policymakers have failed to learn three main lessons from the subpar performance of the global economy since the 2008-09 crisis.

所以，問題並不是各央行做得還不夠，而是它們的政策是錯的，而且這些錯誤的政策阻礙了全球經濟恢復平衡。投資者尤其應該擔心的是，政策制定者們沒能從2008-09年危機後全球經濟的欠佳表現中學到以下三大教訓。

First, if an economy is drowning in debt, the solution is not to pile on even more debt. That is why the ECB’s offer, under the terms of its new targeted longer term refinancing operations, to pay eurozone banks to increase their lending is badly judged. The ECB is right to do QE, but at the same time it should use its new powers as the supervisor of eurozone banks to force a swifter write-off of bad debts. Almost 20 per cent of Italian bank loans are non-performing. Until now, the ECB has counted on QE to work by weakening the euro. Its strategy instead should be to use QE to buy time to cleanse bank balance sheets.

首先，如果一個經濟體已經債臺高築，解決之道不是往上面堆積更多債務。因此歐洲央行向歐元區銀行付息以鼓勵它們增加放貸的做法——根據其新的定向長期再融資操作(TLTRO)——是失策之舉。歐洲央行在量化寬鬆上是正確的，但同時應利用其身爲歐元區銀行監督者所獲得的新權力，推動壞賬加速覈銷。意大利銀行貸款有近20%爲不良貸款。到目前爲止，歐洲央行一直指望量化寬鬆通過削弱歐元來發揮作用。它應該改變策略，利用量化寬鬆來爭取時間，以清理銀行的資產負債表。

Second, no one wins from competitive devaluation when global consumer demand is weak because of excessive savings, as is the case today. The Bank of Japan has deployed the big battalions in the currency wars. Abenomics, the economic strategy of prime minister Shinzo Abe, was meant to combine monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reform. Instead, in the past two years it has boiled down to a devaluation of the yen. On that narrow criterion, Abenomics might be judged a success — the yen has become so undervalued as a result of the BoJ’s loose monetary policy that traders are snapping it up.

其次，當全球消費需求因過度儲蓄而疲軟時，競爭性貶值不會給任何人帶來好處，現在的情況正是如此。日本央行已爲這場匯率大戰佈下重兵。作爲日本首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)的經濟戰略，安倍經濟學(Abenomics)的初衷是要打出貨幣寬鬆、財政刺激和結構改革的組合拳。結果過去兩年這一戰略卻造成日元貶值。單從這一點來判斷，安倍經濟學或許算得上成功——由於日本央行寬鬆的貨幣政策，導致日元被嚴重低估，交易員正在爭相吸納日元。

But in fact the BoJ’s policy is as ill-thought-out as the ECB’s. Japan’s biggest economic imbalance is that too much income flows to companies, which sit on mountains of cash instead of investing it or returning it to shareholders. A cheaper yen compounds this problem. By boosting export earnings and making imports dearer, a weaker exchange rate transfers ever more income from households to the corporate sector. So the BoJ should welcome the recent recovery in the yen.

但實際上日本央行的政策就像歐洲央行的一樣考慮欠妥。日本最大的經濟失衡在於過多的收入流向企業，而企業則坐守金山，既不投資也不返回給股東。日元貶值令這一問題更加嚴重。匯率貶值通過提高出口收入，推升進口價格，將更多家庭收入轉移到企業部門。因此，對於近期日元的回升，日本央行應予以歡迎。

Unfortunately, the central bank has waited far too long to do the right thing. A financial crisis in Japan is now a matter of when, not if. As unlikely as it sounds in an economy fighting falling prices, the crisis will take the form of inflation. That will happen when Japanese banks run out of government bonds to sell to the BoJ, which will be forced to increase its purchases from insurers and other non-bank financial institutions. The result will be a rapid expansion in broad money, unmatched by growth in the real economy. That will unnerve domestic investors and spark a flight into US Treasuries and other overseas assets, sapping the yen. If the crunch comes in the next year or two the rest of the world will be too weak to withstand it.

不幸的是，該央行等了太久，以致做不了正確的事情。對日本來說，現在的問題已經不是金融危機是否會發生，而是金融危機何時會發生。對於一個奮力應對物價下滑的經濟體而言，儘管聽上去不大可能，但這場危機會以通脹的形式出現。當日本的銀行沒有了可以賣給日本央行的政府債券、從而迫使央行增加從保險公司和其他非銀行金融機構購買資產的時候，就是危機爆發之時。其結果是廣義貨幣快速擴張，與實體經濟增長不匹配。這會讓國內投資者感到不安，促使資金向美國國債和其他海外資產轉移，從而壓低日元。如果危機在未來一兩年到來，以世界其他地方的疲弱狀況，將無法承受衝擊。

Third, tepid growth since the crisis shows that a short, sharp adjustment and purging of past excesses is better in the long term than prolonged attempts to preserve the economic status quo. The Fed should have stuck to its plan to raise interest rates four times in 2016 instead of worrying that higher rates might hurt the rest of the world or asset markets might throw a tantrum. An upbeat message that higher borrowing costs were justified by positive domestic economic trends, notably a strong labour market, would have given US consumers the confidence to spend their windfall gains from cheaper oil.

第三，危機後的緩慢增長表明，從長遠來看，對過去的過度行爲進行短暫、有力的調整和清理比曠日持久地試圖維持經濟現狀要好。美聯儲本應該堅持在2016年加息4次的計劃，而不是擔憂加息可能損及世界其他地區，或者資產市場可能興風作浪。積極的國內經濟趨勢，尤其是強勁的就業市場會證明更高的借貸成本是合理的，這樣的樂觀訊息會給美國消費者注入信心，使他們願意把因爲油價下降而省下來的錢花出去。

In short, the ECB, the BoJ and the Fed have missed a golden opportunity this month to make much-needed course corrections. As a result, the euro area and Japan remain fragile while the US is not making the most of much-improved fundamentals, so the global economy is still perilously unbalanced. The world might muddle through for another year, but its leading central banks have failed to banish the risk of a calamitous 2017.

簡而言之，歐洲央行、日本央行和美聯儲在本月錯失了一個進行亟需的路徑修正的絕佳機會。結果是，歐元區和日本依然脆弱，美國也沒有最大化利用大有改善的經濟基本面，因此全球經濟依然極爲不平衡，這很危險。今年世界或許又能勉強對付過去，但各大央行未能消除可能使2017年成爲災難性的一年的風險。