今天在保罗·克鲁格曼博客上看到他的博文 《美国成了第三世界国家?》,以下是全文及翻译。 Third world America? One thing I learned way back in grad school was that there was a big difference between the assets of first-world, mature-country central banks and those in rickety developing economies. The Fed and its peers had clean balance sheets, with basically nothing but Treasury bills on the asset side. Third world central banks, on the other hand, did a lot of direct lending to the private sector, and had all sorts of dodgy assets on their books. Now the Fed is in the business of directly buying commercial paper, in some cases unsecured. Wow. I’m not saying this is a bad idea—until Treasury comes back with a bailout plan that actually makes sense, Bernanke has to try everything he can to hold the system together. But it is shocking how fast things have gone downwill. 我曾经在学校学过,第一世界发达国家央行的资产与那些风雨飘摇的发展中国家央行资产有着非常大的区别。美联储以及其它发达国家的央行,有着资产项几乎完全是国债的低负债资产负债表。第三世界的央行则直接向私人部门提供贷款,以至于它们的账簿上满是各式各样的不良资产。 现在美联储开始直接买入商业票据,其中很多还是无担保票据。Wow. 我并不是说这样做不好——伯南克必须使出浑身解数维护金融系统的稳定,直到财政部推出确实有效的救市计划;但经济衰退之快令人震惊。 注:保罗·克鲁格曼(PAUL KRUGMAN)现为美国普林斯顿大学公共事务和国际事务学院的经济学教授。他曾经是斯坦福大学的教授和麻省理工学院的教授。1991年,年轻的克鲁格曼获得美国经济学会克拉克奖,名声大噪,克拉克奖被视为诺贝尔奖的重要指针,因此,保罗·克鲁格曼是诺贝尔奖的当然候选人。大约十年前,他的著作《萧条经济学的回归》发表,一时洛阳纸贵。克鲁格曼在1996年的《流行国际主义》一书中准确预言了亚洲金融危机。这是他的博客地址:http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
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