看书的目的就是拓展思维。

夸大也好，错误也罢。起码让人知道了利益的残酷和货币的能量。
跟末日电影一样，有时候看个热闹也就罢了。

宋太高看那些银行家了，一般政局有什么大变动，先杀的就是这些人。
货币战争每天都上演但不是他书里的内容。无论是投行还是基金都是利益摆中间的，没谁会以一己之力对抗央行，92那次对英镑的战役德国央行是始作俑者，98年对香港一战被描述的生龙活虎，在那之后金融大鳄就集体阳痿了,两大主力：老虎基金破产，索罗斯也风光不再，再没听说过他袭击过谁。说到底他们都是配角，中美欧日才是永远的主角

这个是中文版：http://www.xschina.org/show.php?id=6011


发放主权信贷，促进国内发展
　　第一章 美元霸权的形成过程

　　自从冷战结束之后，由于尼克松总统采取缓和型贸易政策推动国内经济发展在全球经济中的影响开始减小，因为超级大国通过提供援助的方式竞相争取世人的好感和支持。美国财政赤字持续增加迫使黄金支持美元的固定汇率机制布莱顿森林体系（Bretton Woods）瓦解。在此基础上建立起来的国际金融体系从此将全球发展的发动机局限在了螺旋上上升的国际贸易一途，导致所有国内发展的增长长期停滞不前。

　　吸取1930年代大萧条的教训，二战以后的经济学家普遍认为国际资本流动对一个国家的发展是有害的，不必要的。在多数国家经济中占相对较少份额的贸易一般通过黄金支持的美元的固定汇率机制处理。这些固定的汇率只是进行缓慢的定期的调整来显示参与国际贸易的经济体相对的实力。虽然人们期待汇率变化能够增加国民经济，但是这个增加是有限的。汇率的影响仅仅局限于国际贸易融资。人们并不期待外汇汇率调整支配用来支持国内经济发展的国内货币或财政政策，这些政策才是而且被看作不容外来干预的国家主权的象征。

　　经济全球化是包括一切的，非常复杂的体系，贸易只是其中一个因素。但是经济学家和政策制定者鼓动新自由主义全球化被看作全球经济整体本身，削弱与贸易无关的国内发展的重要性。新自由主义者鼓吹市场极端主义作为国民经济发展的唯一和不可分割的道路，尽管在过去20年里有充足的证据说明贸易全球化容易破坏国内经济发展的平衡，不仅伤害发展中国家，而且对发达国家也有危害。贸易自由全球化分配的后果往往对任何国家的穷人，失业者和经济上的弱势群体非常不利。关税降低导致用于公共开支的税收减少，这些开支本来都是用来帮助穷人和需要保护的弱势群体，以及处于困境中的国内产业。虽然国际贸易自由化的财富分配后果非常复杂，而且各个国家情况不同，但是总体的趋势一直是拉大贫富差距，最终导致及经济发展失衡和政治不稳定。

　　在美国这个自由市场企业的圣地，中央集权下经济统制的部分（the statist sectors）公共金融，国防，卫生保健，社会保障，公共教育是一直让经济在不断出现的，长期的停滞，而企业界如商业金融，保险，高科技企业，航空公司，电信，也连续萧条停滞。没有管理的市场自然出现垄断性的集中和公司管理和金融上的滥权。不容否认的是“自由”市场天生的就是对自由的自我破坏。自由市场依赖开明的国家管理来确保自由竞争同时避免市场的失效。任何政府，不管是君主制还是民主制，为了维持社会政治稳定和公正的社会经济秩序都要保护弱者不受强者欺凌。

　　现行的国际金融体系是以美元作为主要储存货比为基础的，美元占全球货币储存的比例从10年前的51%增长到现在的68%。外汇交易的80%是通过美元进行的。而且国际货币基金组织（IMF）的所有贷款都是以美元的形式，就像大部分外国货币贷款一样。但是在2003年，美国占全球商品和服务出口的比例只有11%(世界总量是9.1兆美元，美国总量为1兆美元)，进口的比例只有13.8%(1.260 兆美元)商品价格和汇率的变化导致世界商品贸易价值2003年比2002年提高了10.5%。自1995年以来，农产品和工业品的美元价格第一次全面提高。世界商品出口人均在2004年达到1,562美元，或者每天4.30美元。而64亿世界人口中有30%生活费用一天不到一美元，不足人均出口商品价值的四分之一。

　　自从1971年布莱顿森林体系崩溃后，美元就一直是全球储存货币，美国只有美国有权能够生产而且不需要黄金支持。尽管最近有些修改，美元的汇率仍然在 18年贸易权重的高位，尽管美国创纪录的美国财政和经常账户赤字（current-account and fiscal deficits）和作为世界最大债务国的地位。美国的国债2004年9月15日是$7.38兆，同一时期以每天16.9亿的速度增加，同期其国民生产总值只有$8.73兆。

　　世界贸易成了这样一个游戏，美国生产美元，世界其他地方生产美元可以购买的商品和服务。世界的相互联系的经济不再是贸易要抓住经济学家李嘉图式（Ricardian）的相对优势，他们相互竞争出口为了得到需要的美元来服务美元体现的外债，以及积蓄美元储备来稳定本国货币在世界货币市场上的价值。为了防止投机和对本国货币的操纵和袭击，世界各国政府的中央银行必须获得和保持美元储备以承受本国货币在流通中的市场压力。市场要求货币贬值的压力越大，该国中央银行必须储备的美元就要越多。只有美国的美联储没有这个压力，因为美国财政部可以想印刷多少就印刷多少，几乎没有什么限制。这就造成了内在支持强势美元，进而强迫各国中央银行获得更多的美元储备，让美元更加强势。这个现象就是美元霸权。这是由于地缘政治特征的关键商品，最著名的就是石油是以美元为货币单位造成的。人们都用美元，是因为它可以购买石油。

　　石油美元对其他美元财产的循环是美国容忍1973年石油输出国组织提出的价格。一国货币的交易价值不再决定于发行这个货币的经济生产力，而取决于该国中央银行储存美元的规模。

　　从定义上看，美元储备必须投资在购买美元资产上，这就造成美元经济自动的资本账面盈余。即使经过长期的严厉的修改后，美国股票价值仍然位于25来的高度，以交易量56%收益率56%高居榜首，如果和新出现的市场平均值比较的话。1996年到2003年间，美国股票资产的价值增长80%，欧洲的60%，日本的降低30%。1997年亚洲金融危机让亚洲股票贬值超过一半，有些甚至在国家大幅贬值本国货币后如果按美元算仍然贬值80%。即使美国自从1986 年以来已经是纯粹的债务国，其净收入在国际投资市场上的地位仍然是正面的，因为美国投资海外的回报率继续高于国外投资在美国的回报率。这就反映了美国经济的总体实力，这个实力来源于美国是唯一的国家可以享受主权信用的好处，同时大量增加外债，主要归功于美元霸权。信用推动经济，而不是债务。债务是显示信用的镜子。即使最准确的镜子也会对表现的对称造成破坏。为什么镜子将一个人的形象左右颠倒，而不像照相机的镜头让形象上下颠倒？科学的回答是镜子中的形象不是人们普遍认为的右边变成左边而是前面转移到了后面。但是我们往往接受这个改变了的形象是没有任何变化的真实，我们完全不加思考地认为歪曲的镜像就是准确地再现。

　　用经济学的语言，债权和债务是相反的，但是并不等值。实际上，债权和债务以相反的方向运行。债权有求正面的净价值，债务就没有这个要求。一个人可以有良好的信用，但不借债。借债越多，你的信用等级就越低。如果人们了解了信用，就会明白现代金融经济背后的主要力量是由信用推动，被债务限制的。从行为上来说，债务歪曲边际效用计算（marginal utility calculations），并重新组织可支配收入。债务让公司的股票变成吉芬品（Giffen goods）, 如果他们的价格升高就会带动对这种股票的需求，创造美联储主席格林斯潘（Alan Greenspan）所说的“非理性繁荣”，经济人发疯了。货币经济学家认为政府发行的货币是一种主权债务工具，是零期限（zero maturity），历史上看来源于自由银行中的兑换券。这种观点只适用于金属货币（specie money），是一种债务凭证，据此可以要求规定数量的黄金或别的物品。但是主权国家发行的法定货币（fiat money）不是主权债务，而是主权信用工具（sovereign credit instrument）。主权国家政府债券是主权债务，而地方政府债券只是机构债务，不是主权债务，因为地方政府尽管拥有征税的部分权力，却不能发行货币，货币发行权是联邦政府或者中央政府的专门权力。当货币购买债券时，交易代表的是主权信用取消了公共或者公司债务。这种关系是非常直接的，但是非常重要。

　　政府正式授权发行的货币是所有现代国民经济中的独特的法定工具。货币国家理论（The State Theory of Money(Chartalism)认为人们普遍接受政府发行的货币根本原因在于政府有权征税。政府愿意接受其发行的货币用税收支付让货币在一国范围之有效的保证。货币是税收债务的主权信用。可以用政府以授权发行的货币的信用工具冲销。当发行授权货币的时候，政府除了接受货币作为缴税工具的保证以外不欠任何人东西。国家的中央银行就是按政府授权发行的货币就是主权信用的概念操作的。中央银行实际上是作为国家银行系统的最后的借出者，收回的是主权信用。美国前总统杰斐逊（Thomas Jefferson）预估“如果美国人听任银行控制货币发行权，首先让货币贬值，然后再让货币升值，银行和与其勾结的公司就可以把人民的所有财富洗劫一空，直到他们的孩子一夜醒来发现父亲占有的大洲上没有自己的立足之地。货币发行权应该从银行手中收回返还给国会，和国会代表的人民手中。”这个警告同样适用于世界上其他地方的人民。政府征税不是为了支付政府运作的费用，而是为它发行的主权信用工具的货币提供价值。如果愿意，政府可以完全依靠使用者支付费用的方式负担起政府运作费用，就像有些财政保守派建议的那样。政府根本不需要向公众借钱。政府债务作为私人债务市场压舱物的一部分，而不是政府需要钱。从技术上说，一个国家的主权政府根本不需要借钱。它可以发行授权货币形式的税收信用来抵消所有的债务。只有主权国家才可以发行主权信用的法定货币。

　　如果法定货币不再是主权债务，金融资本主义的整个概念框架就需要做出改变，就像当一个人的世界观发生改变，由于意识到地球不是静止的，地球不是宇宙的中心后，物理学就要发生改变一样。为了社会的发展需要资本的说法将被证明是个天大的骗局，因为主权信用可以支付所有社会发展的费用，根本不存在任何问题，并不需要私人储蓄来支付公公的社会经济发展。因为私人储蓄不需要主权信用的支持。因此国家的国民储蓄与公共金融之间的关系最多也是间接的。主权信用可以为经济提供金融支持，这样的经济中根本就没有失业问题，工资不断增长是让消费者购买力不断增长防止生产过剩。经济蓬勃发展是因为有持续的劳动力短缺，推动工资增长来减少生产过剩。私人储蓄只是个人用来进行没有内在社会目的或价值的私人投资。储蓄率高却没有全面就业是通货萎缩，因为储蓄减少了当前消费水平，为了提供投资增加将来的供应。这对于一个缺乏需求的生产过剩经济来说是不需要的，因为它是低工资和高失业率造成的。赛恩（Say）的供应创造需求的规律是个非常特别的情形，只有在高工资，全就业时出现。这个规律忽视了在供应和需求之间关键的时间间隔，在现在迅速变化的现代经济中的现金流量需求是严重问题的。储蓄需要支付利息，两者的结合肯定让任何一个金融机构难以持久维持。任何宗教都禁止高利贷是有实际原因的。

　　资产和负债的关系被表现为以义务的流动决定的债权和债务。从资产到负债的流动成为债权，相反的为债务。债权人是减少负债增加资产的人，包括接收他的债务人的债务的权利。主权债务是个虚假的游戏让以授权货币形式体现的私人货币债务进行交易。

　　代表人民行使权力的主权国家拥有国家的分配给个人拥有的财产以外的所有资产。不管这个国家是资本主义的还是社会主义的，道理都是一样的。因此国家的资产就是国家财富减去支付税款后的私人财富部分，加上主权权利对私人领域的其他要求。高工资是国家财富的决定性因素。私有化一般来说减少国家资产但同时增加税收收入。只要主权国家存在，它的信用就只局限在国家财富。如果主权信用被用来增加国家财富，主权信用就没有任何限制了，只要国家财富的增长与主权信用的增长保持同步就行了。

　　当一个主权国家发行法定货币（legal tender），它是在发行包括征税在内的主权支持的货币工具。主权国家从来不用欠国内债，除非要自愿这样做。当一个主权国家借钱来避免征税或提高税率，那时政治姿态，而不是经济上的需要。当主权国家以出售自己货币体现的主权债券，实际上是在从金融体系手中收回从前发行的主权信用。当一个主权国家借外国货币的债务，实际上剥夺了自己主权信用的特权，把自己贬低位普通的债务人因为没有哪个主权国家可以发行外国货币。

　　政府债券充当从私人领域收回主权信用吸收者的角色。美国政府债券，通过美元霸权享受最高程度的信用等级，位于国际国家和企业债务市场信用风险金字塔的顶端。美元霸权是个地缘政治现象，其中一个国家的授权货币充当了国际金融体系中最主要的储蓄货币。金融体系是个艺术，审美的标准建立在道德上的善，但是当今的国际金融体系显然缺乏这一点。因此美元霸权是应该遭受谴责的，不仅因为美元作为一国的授权货币篡夺了不应有的地位，而且因为它对缺乏善的国际社会产生的负面影响，因为它破坏了主权国家包括美国在内使用主权信用支持本国经济发展，强迫他们出口以赚取美元储备来保持本国货币的交换价值。

　　主权国家发行的货币是主权专有的，但是债务不是。任何有可以接受的信用等级的人都可以借入或借出，但是只有主权国家能够发行国家货币。当一个主权国家政府发行货币，实际上是发行了主权信用凭证，消除政府施加在国民身上的税负。私人发行的货币只有在政府允许和授权的情况下才能存在，而且和政府发行的货币根本不同，它只是发行者的欠条而已，说明发行者欠持有者一定数目的钱。但是政府货币并不是政府欠你的债，因为这钱由持有者以税负的形式体现的潜在的债支撑。政府授权发行的作为法定货币的钱是法律规定的解决所有的债务，不管是个人的还是公共的。任何人如果拒绝在美国接受美元作为支付债务的货币都是违反美国法律的。支付债务的工具就是信用工具。

　　用政府发行的授权货币购买主权债券是政府向经济中投放更多的主权信用。按照逻辑推断，一个经济中货币供应量不是政府负债，因为如果如果增加货币供应就是国家债务的话，减少货币供应就从经济中收回信用。但是现实情况显示正相反：货币供应减少反而增加了信用的需求。因此如果政府授权货币增加信用，主权政府发行的货币是信用工具。

　　经济学家明斯基（Hyman Minsky）说得好，任何时候发行信用，货币就随之诞生。信用发行在对方身上造成债务，但是债务不是钱，信用才是。债务是负面的钱，是金融界的反物质（antimatter）。物理学家知道物质和反物质之间的关系。爱因斯坦认为物质来源于能量的集聚，保罗·狄拉克（Paul Dirac）提出反物质副产品的概念，通过从能量中创造物质。物质和反物质的碰撞产生毁灭，重新把物质和反物质变成纯粹的能量。信用和债务的关系也是如此，两者有密切联系但是正好相反。他们用分别的方式从金融能量中创造出来物质（信用）反物质（债务）。信用和债务的冲突将产生破坏，回到为了人类的利益不受约束的纯粹金融能量的后果。债务的清偿就算终止了金融互动。

　　货币债务可以用货币支付。主权国家并不因为发行法定货币就变成债务人，在美国就是联邦储蓄券（Federal Reserve note）的形式，而不是普通的银行券。“银行”这个词并不出现在美元上。零期限货币（Zero maturity money ZMM)的美元经济从1971年尼克松总统宣布美元与黄金标准脱钩的5500亿美元增加到2004年的$6.6兆。这不是联邦债务。占美国11.64兆 GDP的65%，稍微低于同期国家债务$7.38兆的水平。主权信用是给予美国经济内在力量的东西。

　　查特主义货币理论（The Chartalist）声称政府有权力征税，用发行的货币作为缴税手段的，根本不需要外来融资。因此主权信用能够让政府支持全面就业的经济，即使在控制下的市场经济中。该派的逻辑是过低的税率将造成货币需求减弱，持续的政府财政盈余在经济上来说是有反效果的，而且不能持久，因为它不断从经济中吸收信用。英国在非洲的殖民地政府过去常常使用土地税来刺激悠闲的当地人利用货币，从事金融生产。

　　因此按照这个理论，一国的经济可以用主权信贷支付国内经济发展的需要，达到全面就业的目标，最大化均衡发展繁荣，同时不需要主权债务，或者国外贷款或投资。不需要超级通货膨胀（hyperinflation）的惩罚。但是查特主义货币理论只有在基本上封闭的国内货币国家内才能出现。参与新自由国际“自由贸易”在没有干预的全球金融和货币市场幌子下的国家这个原则无法起作用，因为外汇交易的两难处境。任何政府发行自己的货币支持合法的国内需求，超过了它外汇储备的规模的话，很快就会发现它的可兑换货币在外汇市场上遭到攻击，不管这个货币是针对某个货币的固定汇率，还是浮动汇率机制。因此，所有非美元经济被迫吸引美元为主的外国资本，甚至用来满足国内需要。但是非美元经济需要先集聚美元储备才能吸引外资。

　　即使实行资本控制，外资只能投资在可以赚美元收入的出口领域。但是出口经济从贸易盈余中集聚的美元只能投资买美元资产，剥夺了非美元经济将资本用在国内发展的迫切需要上来。唯一对付国内货币遭受的袭击的保护方式就是延缓全面可兑换的过程，因为那样的话就把外来投资都赶走了。所以美元霸权，将所有别的货币都置于美元之下让美元作为主要储蓄货币的，让非美元经济一直迫切需要外资，因为剥夺了该国政府发行主权信用促进多内发展的机会。

　　在查特主义原则下，外资成为帝国主义议程外的非有用的多种目的。美元霸权基本上将美国贸易伙伴用本国货币为国内发展融资的能力消除了，强迫他们寻求以美元为形式的外国贷款和投资。这些只有美国可以不受限制的想发行多少就发行多少。

　　罗伯特·蒙代尔（Robert Mundell）在1999年获得诺贝尔奖的蒙代尔--弗莱明假说（The Mundell-Fleming thesis）认为在国际金融领域，一个政府有下面三个选择：１）固定汇率，2）国际资本流动，3）国内政策自主（全面就业，利率政策，反循环的财政支出等counter-cyclical fiscal spending）。由于无限制的全球金融市场，政府其实只剩下两个选择。

　　通过美元霸权，美国成为唯一可以对抗蒙代尔--弗莱明假说的国家。从冷战结束后的十多年来，美国持续让美元远远高于其本身的经济价值，吸引资本账面盈余，利用美元霸权支配的全球金融体系实行单边的政策自主性。造成这个情况的原因是复杂的，但是最重要的一个原因是所有重要的商品包括石油，都是用美元来表示的。这基本上是超级大国地缘政治影响力的延伸。这是美元霸权成为可能的基石。美国金融霸权让美国例外主义和美国单边主义成为可能。

　　2004年第一季度末期外国投资者持有的著名大企业公司债券$6.63兆中的$1.61兆，占24.3%，2003年同期的比例是22.1%，90年代是13.5%，80年代是11.9%。美国的人寿保险公司拥有公司债务的比例最高是$1.62兆,或者说在市场的24.4%。但是这个领先很快就会被外国人超过。不断增加的美国贸易赤字将继续增加所有美国证券中的外国持有者比例。外国经济中得到的贸易盈余以美元形式出现的，又投资在了美国政府和机构发行的债券或公司股票和债券上。美国贸易赤字2004年6月达到创纪录的新高$558亿，再一次聚光到美国经济上升的外债上。尽管最近以美元与主要货币兑换率来看外债下降了20%，美国的贸易赤字从2003年12月的$427亿增加到2004年6月的$558亿。测量美国外债趋势的经常性账面赤字继续在增加。支付差额在2003年是$5420亿，大大超过了2002年的$4810亿的纪录，按现在的增长规模，2004年的支付差额将超过$6000亿，达到占 GDP的5.2%的让人担心的新高。

　　自从2002年第一季度以来的美元每年贬值9.7%的趋势对减少贸易赤字几乎没有什么影响。美元对欧元的比价比于其他货币的比价下降了很多(按名义价值计算38%)。但是2004年上半年美国对西欧的贸易赤字增加了16.9%。亚洲国家采用大力干预外汇市场的做法防止美元汇率的下降。中国大陆和香港都采用固定汇率制度。

　　美联储主席格林斯潘曾经表达了这样的观点，弱势的美元最终可以帮助减少贸易赤字，但是警告说“逐渐增加的贸易保护主义”可能让全球金融体系的灵活性受到损害。格林斯潘感觉到全球金融体系将能够支持美国的支付差额，因为每天流入美国的资本达到15亿到20亿美元。如果政府没有贸易和金融限制措施的话。美国的国债以每天$16.9亿的速度增长。净资本流入量每年高达$7300亿。如果或者当这个资本流动因为任何的原因逆转，马上就会发生巨大的经济危机。美联储显示的资金流入数据显示美国金融市场越来越依赖国外资本的涌入。这个外国资本基本上是由于美国外债循环产生的，而不是储蓄。外国政府提供了2004年第一季度资本流入总量的86%，其中94%来自亚洲。格林斯潘同时否认存在房地产泡沫，指出美国房地产市场是分散的。但是居民抵押贷款市场是非地域相关的。几十年前罗斯福新政期间国会创造的联邦抵挡金库（Fanny Mae）让中低收入者可以使用住房贷款，现在进行调查的关于违反监督部门普遍接受的会计原则，向全世界推销抵押贷款支持的债券，从交易中获得大规模的利益回报。最近这些年国内价格的稳定增长基本上被成本很低的，债务变股票率很高的来自外国债权人的抵押贷款支撑。

　　2003年第四季度，外国债权人借给美国债务人空前的$8480亿，相当于所有信用市场贷款的三分之一。2003年全年，外国债权人占美国新贷款净额的22.6%，比例从1%增加到10.9%。2000年到2003年，外国投资者拥有的信用市场工具规模（美国政府债券，机构债务，公司债券，和商业债券）增加了50%以上。主要是购买公司和财政部的债券，外国投资者占用美国信用市场工具在2003年飙升到创纪录的$6112亿，比前两年的总和还多。2003年10月到12月，外国投资者购买了美国财政部发行的净新债券的89%，美国公司债券的40%。为了稳定本国货币在美元贬值下保持稳定，亚洲中央银行大量购买美元以防止本国货币升值，只好用来购买美国主权和私人债务。这个过程的一个后果，中央银行和别的外国公共机构在2003年第四季度占据了美国债券的三分之二。这个趋势在2004年将继续下去。

　　攀升的美国外债，加上$6000亿的贸易赤字，加上联邦政府创纪录的超过$5000亿的预算赤字，已经让人们担心外国投资者失去信心，开始撤回投资，或者至少减缓投资的规模。同时也有一个持续的风险—不断增加的经常性帐面赤字导致美国保护主义措施，和过分的质疑美元作为主要储存货币的地位。世界经济总体继续增长关键依赖于美国经济的持续扩张，但是这个扩张又取决于继续产生日益高涨的内债和外债。美国经济把世界上的所有剩余资本抽空来购买其攀升的债务，剥夺了其他经济国内经济发展需要的资本。尽管美元霸权防止其他经济使用主权信用，中国的强大制造业领域在2003年吸引了535亿美元的外国直接投资 (FDI) 比2002年的527亿美元有所增加。传统上作为最大外国直接投资接受者的美国在2003年投资减少53%达到12年来的最低点300亿美元。但是美国的 FDI支持了美国的经济，但是几乎所有的中国迅速增长的FDI都集中在出口领域，基本上还是支持美元经济，而不是中国的国内发展或者人民币经济。

　　利率，至少是联邦基金（Fed Funds rate (FFR)控制的短期利率是不能仅仅通过观察市场走向预测的，因为FFR不是被市场基本原则决定而是由美联储需要控制通货膨胀的，加上需要反循环货币刺激（counter-cyclical monetary stimulation）的判断以稳定货币的理念决定。唯一预测FFR水平的方法是进入格林斯潘，或者任何一个美联储主席的脑子里。

　　但是低利率并没有阻碍外国人对美国投资，只不过推动外国人从利息低的美国政府债券转向利息高的公司债券市场。如果外国人停止支持美国债券，联邦政府可以发行更多的美元弥补差额。正如美联储副主席伯南克（Ben S. Bernanke）公开暗示的。用通货膨胀的一个石头击中高油价和巨额债务两只鸟。但是外国人从对美贸易盈余中积累的美元不能兑换成本国的货币，否则就要造成本国货币的升值，那样的话就减少了出口商的美元盈余。这就是美元霸权的循环陷阱。而且如果出口商出售从贸易中积累的美元只会造成美元进一步贬值，让外国人得不偿失，因为他们剩余的美元储备将会失去更多外汇价值。

　　如果中国2004年9月拥有的$4850亿外汇储备销售100亿美元换回人民币，或欧元，或日元，来防止美元贬值造成的损失，那么剩下的$4750亿美元的损失将比出售100亿美元获得的利益更多，而且增加美元继续贬值的压力。因此拥有美元的外国人在美元经济的困境中动弹不得。但是这并不是说，这些美元会返回地理意义上的美国，有些可能继续以欧元的形式存在，（与欧元没有任何关系，是个抵消美元的说法）。主要在亚洲出现的欧元的增加，意味着美元经济吞噬了亚洲，把亚洲变成了美元的经济殖民地，美国可以想印多少美元就印多少美元。美元霸权对美元经济是好的，但是对美国经济未必就是好的。那些仍然拥有工作，在美国收入比美国以外其它地方多的人很快就成为跨国公司跨国工资差额均衡趋势的受害者。寻找投资最高回报的工人养老金基金（Worker pension funds）从能够从跨国公司跨国工资均衡获得最高收益的做法非常愚蠢地剥夺了未来退休金领取者的高工资工作，迫使他们过早退休，而且收益明显减少。美国的失业率会继续增加，来支持跨国公司继续获得最大的工资差额利益。首先是纺织业，其次是制造业，其次是高科技企业，接着就是金融服务业。渴望工作的25岁投资银行家和海外操作员很高兴接受每年1百万的工资而不是纽约银行家要求的三百万的薪水。跨国工资差额只有在跨国购买力差额（cross-border purchasing power parity (PPP) 减少的时候才会减少。但是在美国霸权情形下跨国购买力差额几乎是汇率无法克服的难题。

　　美国利率在可以预见的未来将继续保持低于市场的水平，除非美元霸权终结。美元霸权是否终结就看中国有没有远见开创一个新的国际金融体系。到现在为止没有迹象显示中国有这样的智慧，只会沾沾自喜的计算中国拥有的美元数量，并没有意识到中国拥有的美元越多，中国经济的损失就越大，因为从人民币经济中出口了越多的真正财富到了美元经济中，就像日本在冷战刚结束的时候一样。希望中国新一代领导人得到更多关于美元霸权途径的了解。另一方面，美国最终会毁在美元上就像沙特阿拉伯毁在自己拥有的石油财富上一样。

　　美元霸权把美国降低为如果按国际标准来看全国工人工资都过高的国家。尽管格林斯潘为美国的高工资辩护说生产率的继续提高，但是这个增长是由于外国工人最终作了大部分的工作，生产率不可能通过不工作来提高。唯一不会被外来者取代的是那些地域限制得比如饮食服务业，照看疾病者，小孩和老人，地毯清洗，刷厕所，或摘水果。这样的工作不算在美国经济活的工资里面，美国的非法移民将从事这些工作。格林斯潘的警告美国逐渐出现的贸易保护主义等于在失去高工资工作和得到低利息债务之间徘徊。

　　外国人购买美国公司的债务，而不是股权。为了支付双重的赤字，美国经济继续依赖外国的不断投资。2004年2月外国人购买了净公债613.3亿美元公司债券213亿美元，但是没有股权，拥有股权的只有1亿美元。即使那个时候，私人投资者购买公债下降了一般达到100亿美元，剩下的被不受高风险投资政策限制的外国中央银行买去。对股权没有兴趣表明外国人对美国经济的持续发展没有信心，意识到美国破产的政府更愿意别人购买债务而不是股权。

　　2004年2月流入美国的证券投资高达834 亿美元，虽然比1月份的923 亿稍低，但是几乎是美国经常性帐面赤字需要的每月450亿美元的两倍。这个事实证实了格林斯潘的说法美国在筹集外来赤字（external deficit）方面没有麻烦，但是美国的工人如果想保住高工资的工作将变得困难。

　　为了国内发展发放主权信贷

　　第二章 中国与国际金融体系

　　美元霸权是一种地缘政治现象，美国的法定货币美元在国际金融体系中成为首要的储存货币。尽管为了方便国际贸易的需要不断证明其合理性，但是美元霸权绝非是无辜的。它不可避免地造成全球国际贸易上的纠纷增加，通过推动汇率操纵为主要工具进行出口竞争。

　　中国的对美贸易从物质上影响全球的经济。关于中国货币和美元挂钩，虽然人民币元不能自由兑换的讨论已经很多。经常可以听到人民币升值的呼吁。如果增加的价格直接进入提高国内需求的居民收入，也许担心中国出口价格高升的担心是有道理的，但是重新评估人民币或任何别的货币的逻辑作为平抑贸易的手段是错误的。汇率调整影响进口和出口的价格，但是他们对贸易平衡的影响只是改变贸易的总量，而不是贸易的货币价值。如果人民币强势，中国的商品和服务出口到美国的就少些，但是价格高了，更多的美国商品和服务将会以比较低的价格出口到中国。货币价值的贸易不平衡将保持不变。历史数据显示美国公司往往通过汇率手段提高美国出口商品的价格。结果只能是美国的高通货膨胀率，最终使全球经济的通货膨胀。

　　中国对国际贸易的过分依赖已经严重歪曲了经济发展，这可以从国际贸易在GDP中的高比例看出，2004年的估计达到90%。中国高速增长的东南沿海严重依赖国际贸易。2000年东南沿海12省市平均国际贸易依赖度是74.5%，中西部19省份及自治区的比例是10%。2003年深圳和上海飙升了 356.3% 和148.7%。这种贸易的很大一部分是以低工资组装再出口的形式，虽然趋势是走向纵深的机械制造，但是加工再出口的比例仍然占主导地位。中国出口总量的 54%都是外来投资者的出口。

　　中国的贸易市场不是多元化的。中国与三大贸易伙伴---美国，日本和欧盟的贸易占据全部贸易的一半。这些主要贸易伙伴的经济情况不仅严重影响他们对中国的贸易，而且影响中国与世界其他地区的贸易，这中间中国的贸易赤字连续不断的增加。中美贸易1997年占中国GDP的5.4%，到了2003年这个比例上升到了1.4兆美元的 13%，贸易总量是1810亿美元，美国总的贸易赤字是1240亿美元。因为中国2003年总的贸易赤字是5亿美元，美国对中国的贸易赤字全部转移到了中国之外的其他国家，多数是发展中国家。但是这种不正常地对美国贸易的依赖，加上不断增加的贸易差额，是导致中美贸易纠纷不断增加的结构性原因。美国对中国贸易的赤字是世界上最大的。2004年6月中国一家就占了美国非石油贸易赤字的53%。美国从中国进口的价值是美国向中国出口的商品价值的5倍，成为美国最不平衡的贸易关系。尽管如此，美国贸易政策限制“军民两用”的技术出口到中国也加剧了这个不平衡。成熟的经济如美国，欧盟，日本相对缓慢的发展速度，不能维持中国出口的高速增长。而且，这三个经济体都积极投入中国低工资的再加工出口，所以促使中国出口数据的歪曲性变化。

　　贸易依存度是有很多因素决定的，包括GDP计算，汇率扭曲，一个国家贸易或者贸易竞争力的计算方法等。但是中国的以美元为结算单位的贸易盈余对美元经济有利，而不是对人民币经济有利。它造成了中国国内发展的资金严重缺乏，把需要的资金都虹吸到外汇保存上去了。

　　中国2004年的进口有望超过5000亿美元，全部贸易超过1兆美元，消费品和资本品（capital goods）总额达到1.83兆美元，看起来颇为壮观，但是如果平均到每人身上只有1,306美元。由于巨大的贸易依存度，3300亿美元的商品在 2004年有望从2003年增长8%达到1.5兆美元的GDP中体现不出来。第二季度经济增长9.6%，比第一季度的9.8%稍低，在政府采取贷款限制阻碍造成电力短缺，基础设施瓶颈，通货膨胀加剧的投资过热。政府2004年早期的目标增长率是7%。中国会继续进口先进的技术设备，高科技产品，基本原材料和消费品，但是距离达到充分发展的中国国内市场还有很长一段路要走。中国贸易在2003年达到创纪录的8510亿美元，出口增长34.6%达到4380亿美元，进口增长39.9% 达到4130亿美元。在2004年前8个月中国的贸易赤字是9.5亿美元，出口增长35.8% 达到3610亿美元，进口增长40.8% 达到3620亿美元。中国的外汇储备在贸易赤字扩大的情况下继续攀升，说明中国的国内经济部分在补贴出口经济部分，协调其贸易赤字增加外汇储备。财富逐渐从人民币经济流向美元经济。

　　贸易对能源消耗造成的分配后果是巨大的。对美国来说，GDP 1美元的能源消耗从欧佩克（OPEC ）石油禁运的1973年的17,440 Btu（热量单位）到2003年的9,460 Btu。这个下降部分归功于进口消耗大量能源的产品。不像其他发展中国家如印度，南韩，巴西，中国GDP一美元的能源消耗量在过去20年里大幅下降。但是中国1999年GDP 1美元的能源消耗是35,000 Btu。在过去10年每年GDP增长率都在7-8%，能源消耗增长率部分降低，中国已经在减少能源的消耗。这在很大程度上是归功于政府保护能源的努力，改进工厂机器设备。中国的能源保护法1998年1月1号实施。政府鼓励从严重依赖能源的服务转向高附加值的产品，同时鼓励进口能源丰富的产品（energy -intensive products）。在能源消耗和二氧化碳排放仅次于美国排名第二的中国，人均能源消耗量和二氧化碳排放量比世界平均值低很多。2001年，美国每人能源消耗量是341.8 million Btu，是世界平均消耗量的5.2倍，中国的11倍。每人二氧化碳排放量和能源消耗量相似，美国每人5.5 公吨，世界平均值1.1公吨，中国0.6 公吨。

　　中国的石油进口在2004年前8个月增长了39% 达到 0.799亿吨。据说中国计划投资120亿美元在俄国的能源工业，有兴趣购买俄国石油巨头尤科斯（Yukos）的部分。中国从尤科斯购买石油占总量的7%，已经因为切断的供应，因为俄国公司不能支付9月份的运输费用。据说中国被迫预先支付尤科斯运输费用以防止石油供应中断。这些能源的很大一部分是出口企业使用的。

　　中国需要刺激国内市场来平衡过分膨胀的对外贸易。中国经济可以通过加大对国内发展和增长的主权信贷获得很大的好处，尤其是发展缓慢的中西部地区。主权信贷可以被用来刺激国内需求比如提高工资，改善农民收入，推动国有企业改造和银行改革，增加必需的基础设施建设，推动教育和医疗卫生事业的发展，改革社会保障体系，保护环境和振兴文化等。在继续控制汇率的同时，中国可以把经济从美元霸权的支配中解放出来，采取平衡发展的策略，利用主权信用减少对出口换取美元的严重依赖。主权信用可以推动全面就业工资增长14亿人的中国经济，在非常短的时间内让中国成为世界最大的经济体，也许在5年之内。国内经济的发展让中国出口更多，同时让她大量进口不需要担心持续的扩大的贸易赤字。中国经济发展的潜力是巨大的，但是出口赚美元绝对不是出路。

　　中国处在一个有利的位置可以开创新的国际金融体系，更好地为国际贸易服务。中国可以选择让人民币元成为世界贸易储存货币的选择，只是很简单的通过把中国的所有出口按人民币结算就行了。这个保护主权的行动完全有中国单方面就可以随时决定。中国国务院需要做的只是宣布从某个日起开始所有的中国出口产品必须以人民币支付，任何中国出口商接受别的货币都是违法。这个举动就会造成世界各地中国商品进口商按国家外汇管理局（State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE)的汇率购买人民币。让人民币元成为强势市场需求的优先货币。拥有人民币储蓄的公司不需要换成美元，因为元由中国出口的价值支持，很快将成为贸易中普遍接受的货币。从中国进口大量商品的欧佩克成员国将愿意接受元作为石油支付货币。俄国也一样。这些都可以在元不与美元脱钩的情况下进行。国家外汇管理局可以继续保持元与其他货币兑换的唯一窗口地位，不需要新的货币控制规定。那样的话，元的汇率中国就可以按中国的情况而不是按对美国的出口来决定了。

　　如果中国的出口按人民币支付，中国就没有必要储存大量的外汇，现在中国的外汇存底超过4800亿美元。如果港币和元挂钩而不是和美元挂钩，香港的 1200亿美元外汇储备也可以用来进行香港的重建和发展。中国的贸易盈余将保存在元经济中。中国是正在走向世界经济大国的巨人，但是因为美元的霸权，中国的金融力量远远没有被发挥出来。

　　没有人阻止中国成为制造业的发动机。许多亚洲国家陷入持续的金融危机因为过分依赖外币债务，由于掠夺性货币贬值造成真正出口收入的下降。美国操纵的国际货币基金组织（IMF)来帮助这些处于困境的经济往往有个超出保护7国集团债权人利益之外的新的议题。这个新议题就是开放亚众市场给美国的跨国公司并购处于困境的亚洲公司，这样外资注入的亚洲子公司可以在亚洲区域内生产和销售产品就像是国内企业一样，可以摆脱贸易保护主义措施的限制。美国通过国际货币基金组织目的还在打破亚洲区域内的传统封闭的金融体系。这个系统动用巨额的居民储蓄支持工业政策为大工业集团融资，大量投资集中在出口领域。美国控制的 IMF目的就是摧毁这些传统的亚洲金融模式强迫亚洲人采用感到陌生的全球模式，以开放的市场，开放的金融产品和服务为特征。核心当然在中国，因为美国的政策制定者知道，只要中国作了，亚洲其他国家都会跟进。

　　美元霸权的新自由主义一体化贸易已经让亚洲国家处于难以持续的依赖以美元为主导的外来贷款和资本支持出口领域，完全看国外市场的，同时忽略了国内发展已形成生产性力量支持国内消费市场的。在亚洲，除了一小部分精英买办分子外，多数人根本买不起他们生产的东西，都用来出口了，当然更买不起从国外进口的高价商品了。亚洲一个普通的工人以非常低的工资需要工作好多天生产几百双鞋子，才能赚到足够的钱为家人买个麦当劳汉堡包。而跨国公司的代理人可以在五星级豪华宾馆招待他们的外资合伙人从美国欧马哈市（Omaha）进口的新鲜牛排（prime steaks）。亚洲之外的市场增长没有足够的快能够满足亚洲人口众多的经济的发展需要。因此推动国内经济发展的区域内贸易需要成为经济发展的核心目标，因为经济上的半殖民地往往不可避免地导致政治不稳定的。

　　中国经济在迅速向贸易价值链条的上方移动，在先进的电子，电信，空间科学天然的军民两用的技术方面。美国出于战略恐惧将发挥所有的影响力保持全球市场军民两用技术向中国关闭。因此对美国来说“自由贸易”和贸易自由是根本不同的。世界许多国家越来越多地从同一个全球技术市场采购军事物资。剥夺任何国家得到军民两用技术都不会增加国家的安全，因为被剥夺权利的国家可以很容易的转移失衡的福利制度，比传统的军火更容易造成动荡。但是中国不可避免地成为主要的全球性角色，在知识产业，因为其庞大的人力资源宝库。即使在美国，其科学家中的很高比例都是华裔人士。随着中国教育体系的改善发展，在未来十年，中国将成为人才第一大国。高科技的世界领导者如因特尔和微软已经在亚洲尤其是中国和印度部署跨国研发工资仲裁？（cross-border R&D wage-arbitrage）。

　　随着中国不断在技术的阶梯上前进，加上经济增长造成的消费需求增加，全球贸易将受到影响，修改全球化20年来的掠夺性竞争游戏，在亚洲出口上获取美元，投资美元经济，转向贸易赚取自己的货币，以便为了国内的发展。

　　亚洲经济会发现中国是个更加可靠值得信赖的贸易伙伴，可以通过象征性的贸易政策，提供结构贸易的更大空间增加多内发展，在沿着合并区域利益和团结的道路上。亚洲生活水平的提高将改变历史的前进方向，重新把亚洲当作先进文明的中心，结束两个世纪西方经济和文化帝国主义和支配的历史。

　　在过去20年来新自由一体化中采取国际贸易策略的国家已经为全球贸易体系的破坏起到了作用。所有国家从出口转向国内萧条和贫穷是不可能的也是不理智的。国家战略工业政策与新自由的开放市场体系之间的矛盾将会在美国和所有贸易伙伴之间产生摩擦，在区域贸易区和贸易区之间的竞争者之间。美国参加贸易全球化是为了巩固其超级大国地位，而不是为了削弱。因此美国并不是在寻求平等的贸易伙伴。以经济制裁位外交政策，美国已经阻止或试图阻止越来越多的美国跨国公司，与美国贸易的外国公司与华盛顿定义的流氓国家做生意。贸易流向不是到最需要的地方，而是到最能为美国国家安全利益服务的地方。

　　新自由全球化鼓吹贸易是双赢的幻想，基于比较竞争力李嘉图贸易理论。但是经济学家指出因为没有全球性的全部就业，比较竞争力只是赛恩（Say）规律的国际化.。赛恩说供应产生需求，但是只有在全部就业的情况下，但是这个前提往往被支持供应理论的人所忽略。20年过去了，这个神话被具体的数据所打破：贫穷在全球范围内增加，全球的工资，本身就很低，自从1997年亚洲金融危机后都在下降，有些国家如印度尼西亚下降了45%。

　　但是美元霸权下的对美国出口只是这样一个安排：出口国家为了获得美元购买以美元结算的需要的商品，支付美元贷款，他们被迫给美国的消费者提供资金，因为需要把贸易盈余赚得美元进行投资，作为外汇储备，造成美国高额的资本账面盈余解决高额的经常性帐面赤字。

　　而且这些贸易盈余不是贸易条款的优势获得的，而是完全否认基本的国内需要，和国内发展必须的关键进口为代价的。为了那些损害穷人的特权，出口国家降低了劳动力工资，破坏了环境，消耗了自然资源。结果让美元经济更加富裕，在此过程中强化了美元霸权的地位，对美国经济也造成危害。因此出口国家任凭自己的最基本国内发展需要都被剥夺，如教育，卫生，或者其他社会基础设施。为了支持出口欠下大量外债，同时渴望更多的外资投入在出口领域，提供更多的优惠措施如减免税，增加国内经济的日益增长的社会负担。但是世界上许多小国家没有别的选择只好继续依赖美元霸权就像吸毒者离不开毒品一样。

　　日本就是一个绝佳的例子，这样一个充满活力的，成功的出口机器也不能生产出健康的经济。日本很清楚需要改造自己的国内经济，摆脱出口依赖，提升国内过分工作的人民的生活水平，改变国内的消费结构。但是日本由于美元霸权的陷阱动弹不得。

　　日本看到其主权信用被国际评估机构降低，虽然它仍然是世界上最大的债权国。穆迪投资服务公司（Moody's Investor Service）降低日本政府债券两个等级达到A2,或者说比博茨瓦纳还低一级，更不要说智利和匈牙利了。日本2004年7月有世界上最高的外汇储备 8190亿美元，最高的国内储蓄11.4 兆美元 (美国2003年GDP是11 兆美元)，和1兆美元的海外投资。95%的主权债都是本国居民持有，所以就像阿根廷一样没有不兑现的风险。日本给予一半人口患上艾滋病的博茨瓦纳1千2百万美元的援助和1.02亿美元的贷款。

　　为什么纽约的评估机构更喜欢博茨瓦纳而不是日本呢？博茨瓦纳的政府预算被外国钻石开采业控制要保护他们在矿山的投资。博茨瓦纳不需要预算赤字来发展国内经济，或者帮助在贫穷中煎熬的人民。因此博茨瓦纳被认为对外国投资者贷款或投资来说是安全的。但是日本被迫承受高利息成本的低信用等级是因为政府试图通过赤字融资解决国家经济中的问题，这是由于过分依赖出口造成的。美元霸权甚至对世界上美元储备最多的国家也不给予好的信用等级评价。

　　亚太贸易体系的成立是为了服务亚洲以外的市场，通过提供低工资的制造业。这让美国能够不需要通货膨胀，不需要提高国内工资就可以消费更多的东西。亚洲经济体获得的所有贸易盈余最终都成为支付美元债务的泡沫，从长期看甚至对美国经济不利。低工资进口让美国国内工资无法提高，否则就要降低购买力，造成美国国内收入和财富的更大差距，购买力越来越多的来自得到的外来资本的支持而不是增加的工资。结果是不管攀升的股价收益率造成的股权收益泡沫破灭，工资过低无法保持经济不受财富效应坍塌造成的经济衰败。

　　尽管通过危机部分的金融操纵彻底搞垮了亚洲经济，美元霸权现在企图穿透剩余的相对封闭的亚洲市场日本，中国，和南韩。控制这些市场成为贸易条件不好，工业发展扭曲的亚洲的主要工具。这个策略首先在日本已经获得成功，在亚洲四小龙上不同程度的复制成功，保护主义将继续长期留在亚洲经济中，即使它们正式加入世贸组织后很久。

　　一旦摆脱美元霸权，中国就可以不需要外来贷款和投资筹集国内发展的资金。中国经济就不再需要过分依赖出口来赚取美元被扭曲，从定义上说这些美元都应该投资在美元资产上，而不是人民币资产上。发展的目标是提高工资水平，而不是降低工资水平以便增加出口的竞争力。但是在美院霸权的情况下工资水平就必须下降，这个经济还必须永远的处在发展的低水平上。“开放”这类词汇需要重新定义，而不能根据新自由文化霸权赋予的意义来解释。全球化和基于领土主权的国家和社会政治力量的冲突是过去现在和将来国际政治的基本框架。

　　全球化根本不是什么新鲜玩艺儿。任何帝国创立的时候都自然而然采取的政策。全球化开始于大英帝国时代的现代资本主义，以和中国进行鸦片战争五年后 1846年的谷物法的废除（repeal of the Corn Laws）为标志，1848年革命前2年。大不列颠采取系统地推行自由贸易，选择依赖进口食品，给予经济帝国适者生存优胜劣汰的逻辑。法国1860年采取自由贸易政策，10年之内巴黎公社（Paris Commune）被法国资产阶级残酷镇压，杀死2万工人农民，包括孩子。虽然遭到针对保护性关税在英国，荷兰，比利时的破坏，19世纪全球经济的特点就是商品跨国界的高速流动。由于欧洲采取政治上民族主义，国际贸易自由化继续发展直到1914年世界大战爆发，1929年大萧条和第二次世界大战导致自由贸易的临时中断。1899年国务卿海约翰（John Hay）提出的中国革命前的“门户开放”政策，就是在美国获得菲律宾成为东亚大国以后，保护美国商业利益的全球化过程的一部分，防止欧洲和日本把中国瓜分完毕。门户开放政策根源于最惠国待遇条款，西方列强强加在中国头上的不平等条约。

　　像现在的美国一样，英国在18世纪结束的时候也是主要的进口经济。虽然工业革命造成了制造业产品出口的扩张，进口原材料，食品，消费品在价值上增长快于工业制成品和煤炭的出口。维持这个贸易不平衡的主要因素是英镑的主导地位，就像当今美元对世界金融的影响一样。英国海上运输和金融服务霸权（不同货币间贸易融资和保险）为英国赚取了大量外汇，可以在伦敦的货币市场上销售给阿根廷的牛肉进口上，加拿大的火腿进口商。国际信用和资本市场都集中在伦敦。出口的金融服务和资本产生要素收益（factor income）可以用来作为缓解贸易赤字的隐藏的盈余。为了确保金融霸权，英国维持其世界各地殖民地各自独立的货币，在英镑霸权的前提下。这种金融霸权现在在纽约，美元为基本货币。亚洲四小龙出口到美国，他们都得到美国财政部和美国公司发行的债券，而不是在亚洲的直接投资。亚洲劳动力实际上以低廉的工资工作主要是促成了美元经济的扩张。

　　资本主义的现代委婉语市场极端主义就成为必要的了，因为19世纪初英国和现在美国的金融霸权强加在世界上的金融体系。当发展中国家呼吁国际金融新体系，这正是他们真正在做的事情。外汇市场确保贫穷的出口国家对美元资本的无休止的需求，永远也无法满足。英国经济学家约翰霍布森（John A Hobson）指出核心经济的资本盈余以及出口到贫穷地区的需要，是帝国主义的物质基础。对于21世纪的新帝国主义，这个真理仍然发挥作用。

　　现在国际经济依赖于国家货币体系。英国1816年采取黄金标准，1870年欧洲大陆和美国纷纷仿效。直到1914年大部分货币的汇率都是高度稳定的，除了受到严重破坏的半殖民地的土耳其和中国以外。黄金标准虽然方便了自由贸易，却对不产黄金的国家造成很大困难，以黄金为基础的货币体系基本上是在紧缩的，（直到在南非，加州，阿拉斯加等地发现黄金后）对资本非常有利。威廉詹宁斯布赖恩（William Jenning Bryan） 1896年对世界宣称“不应该被钉死在黄金的十字架上。”但是英国50年黄金标准让伦敦成为世界金融业的中心。世界的资本被吸引到伦敦，再以得到高额回报的投资的形式分散到各地。世界各地的债务人都被降低为玩掠夺游戏竞相争取资本的人。

　　资本主义背景下出现了众多经济学为这个全球体系寻找合理性，要证明它是自然真理。从劳动工资价值理论向边际效应理论的根本转变是建立在资本神圣的虚假结构上虚假特征的自我价值循环论证。马克思指出资本不能离开劳动力而存在，除非资产被用来创造劳动生产率，否则都是没有用的资产。

　　合并和并购成为时尚。1880到1890期间众多小企业消失破产。工人和小企业发现他们不是在和邻居竞争，而是和世界另一边的人，完全不同的社会经济体系中的人在竞争。最开始用来方便私人拥有铁路而成立的公司，成为大工业和大商业挑选的组织形式，发行股票和债券吸收在正常情况下通过个别企业家融资根本无法完成的庞大资本需要。

　　这个过程增加了银行和金融机构的权利，并产生了金融资本主义。卡特尔和信托公司合并了，通过水平和垂直融合的形式消灭竞争，操纵市场，和经济中不同领域的总体价格。中产阶级主要集中在公司的靠工资生活的人，工人阶级在工厂里基本上是挣小时工资。1848年革命是现代史的第一次无产阶级革命。创造世界统一的市场，在欧洲之外经济的金融和发展，欧洲人生活水平的提高是19世纪没有管理的资本主义的巨大成就。20世纪这个过程持续，但是经过两次世界大战，中心转移到了美国。

　　经济学家李斯特（Friedrich List）在其《政治经济学的国民体系》（National System of Political Economy 1841)说英国那个时期的政治经济远非普遍和具有科学合理性的，只不过是英国国民的意见，只是符合英国的历史背景罢了。李斯特学院派经济学认为自由贸易的主张是为了保持英国的富裕和强大，在损失贸易伙伴的前提下必须与弱小国家的保护性的关税和其他经济上的民族主义措施斗争。李斯特的经济民族主义影响了亚洲领导人包括孙中山，他提出通过国家信用融资支持工业发展的政策。李斯特还是日本1868年明治维新的推动力量。美国财政部长汉密尔顿（Alexander Hamilton）在1791 年公债报告中提出美国财政部使用税收收入支付联邦政府欠下的公债。通过建立一个国家银行，提供新国家用纸币形式发行主权信用推动经济发展。

　　新自由全球化市场极端主义的垮台给亚洲提供了一个难得的机遇，为自己和世界其他地方建立比较公平的经济关系。美国作为两边都靠大洋的国家，必须对待亚太国家作为平等的亚太经济共同体的成员，在新的世界经济秩序中，这个秩序让经济民族主义变得不需要。

　　中国作为亚太区域未来最大的经济体，应该在这个新的世界经济秩序中发挥关键的作用。为了做到这一点，中国必须眼光放得远一点，不要局限于加入正在走向衰落的全球出口市场经济，提供一个国内发展的模式，对外贸易被重新放回经济中本来的地位上，而不是现在全部以消费为唯一考虑。中国朝这个方向前进的第一步就是摆脱美元霸权，通过发放主权信贷项目推动国内发展。

　　【译自：Liberating Sovereign Credit for Domestic Development Henry C.K. Liu （廖子光）

　　Part I: The Curse of Dollar Hegemony By

　　Part II: China and a New International Finance Architecture

　　原作注释：

　　The Coming Trade warhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/Henry.html

　　Central Bankinghttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/banking-bunkum.html

　　Oilhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE26Dj02.html

　　Greenspanhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/bubbleland.html

　　Economics of Global Empirehttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/DH14Dj01.html

　　China vs the Mighty Dollarhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DG23Ad04.html

　　Chinese Bank Reformhttp://www.atimes.com/china/DF01Ad05.html

　　RMBhttp://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FK06Ad01.html

　　Henry C.K. Liu157 East 62nd StreetNew York, N.Y. 10021USAhliu@mindspring.com】

zz: http://henryckl.ipower.com/page3.html

Liberating Sovereign Credit for Domestic Development

Part I: The Curse of Dollar Hegemony
By
Henry C.K. Liu


Ever since the end of the Cold War, which actually began winding down with President Nixon’s policy of Détente, trade has overwhelmed domestic development in the global economy, as superpower competition to win the hearts and minds of the world in the form of aid subsided. Persistent US fiscal deficits forced the abandonment in 1971 of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates linked to a gold-back dollar. The flawed international finance architecture that resulted has since limited the global growth engine to operating with only the one cylinder of international trade, leaving all other cylinders of domestic development in a state of permanent stagnation.

Drawing lessons from the 1930s Great Depression, economics thinking prevalent immediately after WWII had deemed international capital flow undesirable and unnecessary for national development. Trade, a relatively small aspect of most national economies, was to be mediated through fixed exchange rates pegged to a gold-backed dollar. These fixed exchange rates were to be adjusted only gradually and periodically to reflect the relative strength of the economies participating in international trade, which was expected to augment but not overwhelm the national economies. The impact of exchange rates was limited to the financing of international trade. Exchange rate considerations were not expected to dictate domestic monetary and fiscal policies, the chief function of which was to support domestic development and regarded as the inviolable province of national sovereignty.

The global economy is a comprehensive and complex system of which trade is only one sector. Yet economists and policy-makers promoting neoliberal globalization tend to view trade as the entire global economy itself, downplaying the importance of non-trade-related domestic development. Neoliberals promote market fundamentalism as the sole, indispensable path for national economic growth, despite ample evidence in the past two decades that trade globalization tends to distort balanced domestic development in ways that hurt not only the less developed, but also the developed economies. The distributional consequences of global trade liberalization frequently work against the poor, the unemployed and the financially weak in all economies. Reductions in tariffs reduce tax revenues for public spending that helps poor people and weaken needed protection for endangered domestic industries. While distributional consequences of trade liberalization are complex and country-specific, the general trend has been to exacerbate income disparity everywhere, which in turn leads to economic underperformance and political instability.

In the United States, the Mecca of free-market entrepreneurship, the statist sectors - public finance, defense, health care, social security and public education – have kept the economy afloat in recurring, protracted recessions, while entrepreneurial ventures such as corporate finance, insurance, high-tech manufacturing, airlines and communication languish in extended doldrums. Unregulated markets lead naturally to monopolistic centralization and abuses in corporate governance and finance. It is undeniable that "free" markets are inherently self-destructive of their own freedom. Free markets depend on enlightened statist regulations to remain free and to prevent them from turning into failed markets. Government, from monarchy to democracy, exists to protect the weak from the strong and to maintain socio-political stability with a just socio-economic order.

The current international finance architecture is based on the US dollar as the dominant reserve currency, which now accounts for 68 percent of global currency reserves, up from 51 percent a decade ago. Some 80 percent of all foreign exchange transactions involve dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars, as are most foreign currency loans. Yet in 2003, the US share of global exports of goods and services was only 11% (US$1 trillion out of a world total of $9.1 trillion) and its share of global imports was 13.8% ($1.260 trillion). Commodity price and exchange rate changes led to a 10.5% rise in world merchandise trade value in 2003 above 2002. For the first time since 1995, dollar prices increased for both agricultural and manufactured products. World merchandise exports per capita will amount to $1,562 in 2004, or $4.30 per day, while 30 percent of the world's population of 6.4 billion lives on less than $1 a day, less than one-quarter of per capita export value.

Since the 1971 collapse of the Bretton Woods regime, the dollar has been a global monetary reserve instrument that the US, and only the US, can produce by fiat, not backed by gold. Despite recent corrections, the exchange value of the dollar is still at an 18-year trade-weighted high, notwithstanding record US current-account and fiscal deficits and the status of the US as the world’s leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of September 15, 2004 was $7.38 trillion, rising at the rate of $1.69 billion per day, against a gross domestic product (GDP) of $8.73 trillion for the same period.

World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy. The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture Ricardian comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to stabilize the value of their currencies in world currency markets. To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, central banks of all governments must acquire and hold dollar reserves in amounts that can withstand market pressure on their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. Only the Federal Reserve is exempt from this pressure, because the US Treasury can print dollars at will with relative immunity. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making the dollar even stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by a geopolitically-constructed peculiarity through which critical commodities, among the most notable being oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars into other dollar assets is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance for the oil-exporting cartel since 1973. The trade value of a currency is no longer tied to the productivity of its issuing economy, but to the size of dollar reserves held by its central bank.

By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in dollar assets, creating an automatic capital-accounts surplus for the dollar economy. Even after a protracted period of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56% premium compared with emerging market averages. Between 1996 and 2003, the value of US equities rose around 80% compared with 60% for European and a decline of 30% for Japanese. The 1997 Asian financial crisis cut Asia equities values by more than half, some as much as 80% in dollar terms even after drastic devaluation of local currencies. Even though the US has been a net debtor since 1986, its net income on the international investment position has remained positive, as the rate of return on US investments abroad continues to exceed that on foreign investments in the US. This reflects the overall strength of the US economy, and that strength is derived from the US being the only nation that can enjoy the benefits of sovereign credit utilization while amassing external debt, largely due to dollar hegemony.

Credit drives the economy, not debt. Debt is the mirror reflection of credit. Even the most accurate mirror does violence to the symmetry of its reflection. Why does a mirror turn an image right to left and not upside down as the lens of a camera does? The scientific answer is that a mirror image transforms front to back rather than left to right as commonly assumed. Yet we often accept this aberrant mirror distortion as uncolored truth and we unthinkingly consider the distorted reflection in the mirror as a perfect representation.

In the language of economics, credit and debt are opposites but not identical. In fact, credit and debt operate in reverse relations. Credit requires a positive net worth and debt does not. One can have good credit and no debt. High debt lowers credit rating. When one understands credit, one understands the main force behind the modern finance economy, which is driven by credit and stalled by debt. Behaviorally, debt distorts marginal utility calculations and rearranges disposable income. Debt turns corporate shares into Giffen goods, demand for which increases when their prices go up, and creates what Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan calls "irrational exuberance", the economic man gone mad.

Monetary economists view government-issued money as a sovereign debt instrument with zero maturity, historically derived from the bill of exchange in free banking. This view is valid only for specie money, which is a debt certificate that can claim on demand a prescribed amount of gold or other specie of value. But fiat money issued by a sovereign government is not a sovereign debt but a sovereign credit instrument. Sovereign government bonds are sovereign debt while local government bonds are agency debt but not sovereign debt, because local governments, while they possess limited power to tax, cannot print money, which is the exclusive authority of the Federal government or a central government. When money buys bonds, the transaction represents sovereign credit canceling public or corporate debt. This relationship is rather straightforward but is of fundamental importance.

Money issued by government fiat is now exclusive legal tender in all modern national economies. The State Theory of Money (Chartalism) holds that the general acceptance of government-issued fiat currency rests fundamentally on government's authority to tax. Government's willingness to accept the fiat currency it issues for payment of taxes gives such issuance currency within a national economy. That currency is sovereign credit for tax liabilities, which are dischargeable by credit instruments issued by government in the form of fiat money. When issuing fiat money, the government owes no one anything except to make good a promise to accept its money for tax payment. A central banking regime operates on the notion of government-issued fiat money as sovereign credit. A central bank operates essentially as a lender of last resort to a nation’s banking system, drawing on sovereign credit.

Thomas Jefferson prophesied: "If the American people allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied ... The issuing power of money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs." This warning applies to other peoples in the world as well.

Government levies taxes not to finance its operations, but to give value to its fiat money as sovereign credit instruments. If it chooses to, government can finance its operation entirely through user fees, as some fiscal conservatives suggest. Government needs never be indebted to the public. It creates a government debt component to anchor the private debt market, not because it needs money. Technically, a sovereign government needs never borrow. It can issue tax credit in the form of fiat money to meet all its liabilities. And only a sovereign government can issue fiat money as sovereign credit.

If fiat money is not sovereign debt, then the entire conceptual structure of finance capitalism is subject to reordering, just as physics was subject to reordering when man's worldview changed with the realization that the earth is not stationary nor is it the center of the universe. The need for capital formation to finance socially-useful development will be exposed as a cruel hoax, as sovereign credit can finance all socially-useful development without problem. Private savings are not necessary to finance public socio-economic development, since private savings are not required for the supply of sovereign credit. Thus the relationship between national private savings rate and public finance is at best indirect. Sovereign credit can finance an economy in which unemployment is unknown, with wages constantly rising to provide consumer buying power to prevent production overcapacity. A vibrant economy is one in which there is persistent labor shortages that push up wages to reduce overcapacity. Private savings are needed only for private investment that has no intrinsic social purpose or value. Savings without full employment are deflationary, as savings reduces current consumption to provide investment to increase future supply, which is not needed in an economy with overcapacity created by lack of demand, which in turn has been created by low wages and unemployment. Say's Law of supply creating its own demand is a very special situation that is operative only under full employment with high wages. Say's Law ignores a critical time lag between supply and demand that can be fatally problematic to the cash-flow needs in a fast-moving modern economy. Savings require interest payments, the compounding of which will regressively make any financial scheme unsustainable. The religions forbade usury for very practical reasons.

The relationship between assets and liabilities is expressed as credit and debt, with the designation determined by the flow of obligation. A flow from asset to liability is known as credit, the reverse is known as debt. A creditor is one who reduces his liability to increase his assets, which include the right of collection on the liabilities of his debtors. Sovereign debt is a pretend game to make private monetary debts denominated in fiat money tradable.

The sovereign state, representing the people, owns all assets of a nation not assigned to the private sector. This is true regardless whether the state operates on socialist or capitalist principles. Thus the state's assets is the national wealth less that portion of private sector wealth after tax liabilities, plus all other claims on the private sector by sovereign right. High wages are the key determinant of national wealth. Privatization generally reduces state assets while it may increase tax revenue. As long as a sovereign state exists, its credit is limited only by the national wealth. If sovereign credit is used to increase national wealth, then sovereign credit is limitless as long as the growth of national wealth keeps pace with the growth of sovereign credit.

When a sovereign state issues money as legal tender, it issues a monetary instrument backed by its sovereign rights, which includes taxation. A sovereign state never owes domestic debts except by design voluntarily. When a sovereign state borrows in order to avoid levying or raising taxes, it is a political expedience, not a financial necessity. When a sovereign state borrows, through the selling of sovereign bonds denominated in its own currency, it is withdrawing previously-issued sovereign credit from the financial system. When a sovereign state borrows foreign currency, it forfeits its sovereign credit privilege and reduces itself to an ordinary debtor because no sovereign state can issue foreign currency.

Government bonds act as absorbers of sovereign credit from the private sector. US Government bonds, through dollar hegemony, enjoy the highest credit rating, topping a credit risk pyramid in international sovereign and institutional debt markets. Dollar hegemony is a geopolitical phenomenon in which the US dollar, a fiat currency, assumes the status of primary reserve currency in the international finance architecture. Architecture is an art the aesthetics of which is based on moral goodness, of which the current international finance architecture is visibly deficient. Thus dollar hegemony is objectionable not only because the dollar, as a fiat currency, usurps a role it does not deserve, but also because its effect on the world community is devoid of moral goodness, because it destroys the ability of sovereign governments beside the US to use sovereign credit to finance the development their domestic economies, and forces them to export to earn dollar reserves to maintain the exchange value of their own currencies.

Money issued by sovereign government fiat is a sovereign monopoly while debt is not. Anyone with acceptable credit rating can borrow or lend, but only sovereign government can issue fiat money as legal tender. When sovereign government issues fiat money, it issues certificates of its sovereign credit good for discharging tax liabilities imposed by sovereign government on its citizens. Privately-issued money can exist only with the grace and permission of the sovereign, and is different from sovereign government-issued money in that privately issued money is an IOU from the issuer, with the issuer owing the holder the content of the money's backing. But sovereign government-issued fiat money is not a debt from the government because the money is backed by a potential debt from the holder in the form of tax liabilities. Money issued by sovereign government by fiat as legal tender is good by law for settling all debts, private and public. Anyone refusing to accept dollars in the US for payment of debt is in violation of US law. Instruments used for settling debts are credit instruments.

Buying up sovereign bonds with government-issued fiat money is one of the ways government releases more sovereign credit into the economy. By logic, the money supply in an economy is not government debt because, if increasing the money supply means increasing the national debt, then monetary easing would contract credit from the economy. But empirical evidence suggests otherwise: monetary ease increases the supply of credit. Thus if fiat money creation by sovereign government increases credit, money issued by sovereign government fiat is a credit instrument.

Economist Hyman Minsky rightly noted that whenever credit is issued, money is created. The issuing of credit creates debt on the part of the counterparty; but debt is not money, credit is. Debt is negative money, a form of financial antimatter. Physicists understand the relationship between matter and antimatter. Einstein theorized that matter results from concentration of energy and Paul Dirac conceptualized the by-product creation of antimatter through the creation of matter out of energy. The collision of matter and antimatter produces annihilation that returns matter and antimatter to pure energy. The same is true with credit and debt, which are related but opposite. They are created in separate forms out of financial energy to produce matter (credit) and antimatter (debt). The collision of credit and debt will produce annihilation and return the resultant union to pure financial energy un-harnessed for human benefit. The paying off of debt terminates financial interaction.

Monetary debt is repayable with money. Sovereign government does not become a debtor by issuing fiat money, which, in the US, takes the form of a Federal Reserve note, not an ordinary bank note. The word "bank" does not appear on US dollars. Zero maturity money (ZMM) in the dollar economy, which grew from $550 billion in 1971 when President Nixon took the dollar off a gold standard, to $6.6 trillion as of June 2004, is not a federal debt. It amounts to about 65% of US GDP of $11.64 trillion, slightly below the national debt of $7.38 trillion at the same point in time. Sovereign credit is what gives the US economy its inherent strength.

A holder of fiat money is a holder of sovereign credit. The holder of fiat money is not a creditor to the state, as some monetary economists mistakenly claim. Fiat money only entitles its holder a replacement of the same money from government, nothing more. The dollar, being a Federal Reserve note, entitles the holder to exchange the note to another identical note at a Federal Reserve Bank, and nothing else. The holder of fiat money is acting as a state agent, with the full faith and credit of the state behind the instrument, which is good for paying taxes and is legal tender for all debt public and private. Fiat money, like a passport, entitles the holder to the protection of the state in enforcing sovereign credit. It is a certificate of state financial power inherent in sovereignty.

The Chartalist theory of money claims that government, by virtual of its power to levy taxes payable with government-designated legal tender, does not need external financing. Accordingly, sovereign credit enables the government to finance a full-employment economy even in a regulated market economy. The logic of Chartalism reasons that an excessively low tax rate will result in a low demand for currency and that a chronic government fiscal surplus is economically counterproductive and unsustainable because it drains credit from the economy continuously. The colonial administration in British Africa used land taxes to induce the carefree natives to use its currency and engage in financial productivity.

Thus, according to Chartalist theory, an economy can finance with sovereign credit its domestic developmental needs, to achieve full employment and maximize balanced growth with prosperity without any need for sovereign debt or foreign loans or investment, and without the penalty of hyperinflation. But Chartalist theory is operative only in predominantly closed domestic monetary regimes. Countries participating in neo-liberal international “free trade” under the aegis of unregulated global financial and currency markets cannot operate on Chartalist principles because of the foreign-exchange dilemma. Any government printing its own currency to finance legitimate domestic needs beyond the size of its foreign-exchange reserves will soon find its convertible currency under attack in the foreign-exchange markets, regardless of whether the currency is pegged at a fixed exchanged rate to another currency, or is free-floating. Thus all non-dollar economies are forced to attract foreign capital denominated in dollars even to meet domestic needs. But non-dollar economies must accumulate dollars reserves before they can attract foreign capital. Even with capital control, foreign capital will only invest in the export sector where dollar revenue can be earned. But the dollars that exporting economies accumulate from trade surpluses can only be invested in dollar assets, depriving the non-dollar economies of needed capital in domestic sectors. The only protection from such attacks on domestic currency is to suspend full convertibility, which then will keep foreign investment away. Thus dollar hegemony, the subjugation of all other fiat currencies to the dollar as the key reserve currency, starves non-dollar economies of needed capital by depriving their governments of the power to issue sovereign credit for domestic development.

Under principles of Chartalism, foreign capital serves no useful domestic purpose outside of an imperialistic agenda. Dollar hegemony essentially taxes away the ability of the trading partners of the US to finance their own domestic development in their own currencies, and forces them to seek foreign loans and investment denominated in dollars, which the US, and only the US, can print at will with relative immunity.

The Mundell-Fleming thesis, for which Robert Mundell won the 1999 Nobel Prize, states that in international finance, a government has the choice among (1) stable exchange rates, (2) international capital mobility and (3) domestic policy autonomy (full employment, interest rate policies, counter-cyclical fiscal spending, etc). With unregulated global financial markets, a government can have only two of the three options.

Through dollar hegemony, the United States is the only country that can defy the Mundell-Fleming thesis. For more than a decade since the end of the Cold War, the US has kept the fiat dollar significantly above its real economic value, attracted capital account surpluses and exercised unilateral policy autonomy within a globalized financial system dictated by dollar hegemony. The reasons for this are complex but the single most important reason is that all major commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars, mostly as an extension of superpower geopolitics. This fact is the anchor for dollar hegemony which makes possible US finance hegemony, which makes possible US exceptionism and unilateralism.

Foreign investors held $1.61 trillion, or 24.3 percent, of the $6.63 trillion of outstanding corporate bonds at the end of the first quarter of 2004, up from 22.1 percent in the first quarter of 2003, 13.5 percent on average throughout the 1990s and 11.9 percent in the 1980s. US life insurance companies held a slim lead as the largest owners of corporate debt, with $1.62 trillion, or 24.4 percent of the market, but that lead is expected to be overtaken soon by foreigners. The rising US trade deficits will continue to increase foreign ownership of all types of US securities. The dollar-denominated trade surplus for foreign economies is invested in US government and agency securities and corporate stocks and bonds. The jump in the US trade deficit to a record high of $55.8 billion for June 2004 has once again refocused the spotlight on the rising external indebtedness of the US economy. Despite the recent fall of some 20 percent in the exchange value of the dollar against other major currencies, the US trade gap increased to $55.8 billion in June 2004 from $42.7 billion in December 2003. The current account deficit trend, which measures the rate at which the US is going into external debt, continues to rise. The payments gap was $542 billion for 2003, easily eclipsing the previous high of $481 billion recorded in 2002. At current rate, the trade gap for 2004 will exceed $600 billion, an unsettling level of 5.2% of GDP.

The 9.7% annual decline in the real value of the U.S. dollar since the first quarter of 2002 has little effect in reducing the trade deficit. The dollar fell much more against the Euro (38% in nominal terms) than other currencies. The U.S. deficit with Western Europe rose 16.9% in the first half of 2004. Asian nations engaged in heavy intervention in foreign exchange markets in order to prevent the dollar from falling against their currencies. China and Hong Kong peg their currencies to the dollar at a fixed rate.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed the view that the weaker dollar should eventually help narrow the trade deficit, with a warning that “creeping protectionism” could endanger the flexibility of the global financial system. Greenspan feels that global financial markets will be able to finance the US payments gap with a daily capital inflow of between $1.5 - 2 billion, provided trade and finance restrictions are not imposed by government measures. The national debt is rising at the rate of $1.69 billion per day. Net capital inflow requirement adds up to $730 billion annually. If and when this inflow of funds should reverse for any number of reasons, a major financial crisis could erupt. Flow of Funds data released by the Federal Reserve shows that US financial markets are becoming ever more dependent on inflows of foreign capital. This foreign capital has essentially been created by recycling US external debt, not savings. Foreign governments provided 86% of total capital inflows in the first quarter of 2004, 94% of which from Asia.

Greenspan has also denied the existence of a housing bubble, by noting that the US housing market is disaggregated. Yet the residential mortgage market is non-placed related. Fanny Mae, created by Congress during the New Deal decades ago to make home mortgages available to middle and low income buyers, and current under inquiry on violation of generally accepted accounting principles from supervisory authorities, markets its mortgage-backed securities worldwide and engages in large scale interest rate derivative trading. The stratospheric rise in home prices in recent years has been largely financed by low-cost, high debt-to-equity ratio mortgages sourced from foreign creditors.

During the fourth quarter of 2003, foreign creditors loaned US borrowers an unprecedented $848 billion annualized, an amount equal to one-third of all credit market lending. For 2003 as a whole, foreign investors accounted for 22.6 percent of net new lending in US markets and raised their share of outstanding credit market debt by a percentage point to 10.9 percent. Between 2000 and 2003, the volume of credit market instruments (US government securities, agency debt, corporate bonds and commercial papers) owned by foreign investors expanded by more than half. Mainly as a result of purchases of corporate and Treasury debt, foreign acquisitions of US credit market instruments soared to a record $611.2 billion in 2003, more than acquisitions in the previous two years combined. Between October and December of 2003, foreign investors bought 89 percent of net new securities issued by the US Treasury and 40 percent of bonds issued by US corporations. In a bid to stabilize their own currencies against a falling dollar, Asian central banks have been purchasing dollars to keep their currencies from rising, with which they then use to buy US sovereign and private debt. Largely as a result of this process, central banks and other foreign public agencies accounted for two thirds of the acquisitions of US Treasury securities during the fourth quarter of 2003. The trend is expected to increase for 2004.

The rising US external debt, fuelled by a $600 billion trade deficit coupled with record federal budget deficit of more than $500 billion, has prompted concerns that, at some point, foreign investors are going to lose confidence and begin withdrawing funds or at least slowing the inflow. There is also the nagging risk that ever-growing current account deficits would lead to US protectionist measures and an overdue questioning of the role of the dollar as a primary reserve currency. World economic growth as a whole continues to depend critically on expansion of the US economy, but this expansion is dependent on and continues to generate ever-increasing levels of domestic and external debt. The US economy is vacuuming up the world's surplus capital to finance its rising debt, depraving other economies of needed capital for domestic development, while dollar hegemony prevent non-dollar economies from utilizing sovereign credit. China's strong manufacturing sector attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) worth $53.5 billion in 2003, compared with US$52.7 billion in 2002. The US, traditionally the largest recipient of FDI, saw such investment plunge by 53% in 2003 to reach $30 billion - the lowest in 12 years. But while FDI in the US supports the dollar economy, almost all of China’s fast rising FDI is concentrated in the export sector, which operates to support the dollar economy, not China’s domestic development or the yuan economy.

Interest rates, at least short term rate controlled by the Fed Funds rate (FFR) target, are not predictable by merely observing market trends since the FFR is determined not by market fundamentals but by Federal Reserve ideology of sound money as dictated by the Fed’s institutional role of fighting inflation, modified by its judgment on the need for counter-cyclical monetary stimulation. The only way to predict FFR level is to get into the mind of Greenspan, or whoever happens to be Chairman of the Fed.

But low interest rates does not stop foreigners from investing in the US, it only pushes foreigners from low-yield US Treasuries into higher-yield corporate bond markets. If foreigners should stop funding US debts, the Fed can make up the slack by printing more dollars, as Fed Vice Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has publicly suggested, killing the two birds of high oil price and massive debts with one inflationary stone. But the dollars that foreigners have accumulated from trade surpluses from the US cannot be converted back into their own currencies without causing their own currencies to appreciate against the dollar, thus reducing foreign exporters’ trade surplus in dollars. This is part of the circular trap of dollar hegemony. Also, foreign exporters selling the dollars they have accumulated from trade will only cause the dollar to fall further, causing these foreigners to lose more than they gain as their remaining dollar holdings will lose foreign exchange value against their own currencies.

Thus if China which as of September 2004 holds over $485 billion in foreign reserves sells $10 billion for yuan, or euro, or yen to try prevent loss from a falling dollar, the remaining $475 billion will be worth less than the gain (or stop-loss) from the $10 billion sale, which adds downward pressure on the dollar. Thus foreign-owned dollars are trapped with nowhere to go except to stay in the dollar economy. It does not mean however, that these dollars will all return to the US geographically; some will remain as euro-dollars (which has nothing to do with euros, but is a term meaning offshore dollars). The expansion of euro-dollars, mostly in Asia, will mean that the dollar economy is swallowing up Asia, turning it into a financial colony of the dollar which the US can print at will with relative immunity.

Dollar hegemony may be good for the dollar economy, but it is not necessarily good even for the US economy. Those who still have jobs or income in the US that earn more than their counterparts outside of the US will fall victim to outsourcing brought about by corporate arbitrage on cross-border wage disparity. Worker pension funds, in search of highest return on investment from transnational corporations that maximize their profit from cross-border wage arbitrage, are unwittingly depriving the future pensioners of their high-wage jobs, pushing them into early involuntary retirement with reduced annuity. Unemployment in the US will continue to rise to support transnational corporate profit maximization from outsourcing. First textile, than manufacturing, then high-tech and next will be financial services, beyond back office outsourcing, but hungry 25-year-old investment bankers and traders overseas who will settle happily for $1 million a year instead of the $3 million demanded by bankers and traders in New York. Cross-border wage disparity will not moderate until cross-border purchasing power parity (PPP) gap moderates, and PPP gap is mostly a dysfunctionality of the exchange rate regime under dollar hegemony.

US interest rates will stay below market for the foreseeable future, until dollar hegemony ends. Whether dollar hegemony ends depends on whether China has enough foresight to kick start a new international finance architecture. So far, there is no sign that China has the wits to do much, except complacently counting the dollars China accumulates while not realizing the more dollars China holds, the more the Chinese economy loses by exporting real wealth from the yuan economy to the dollar economy, as Japan has done since the end of the Cold War. Hopefully the new generation of Chinese leaders will be better advised about the curse of dollar hegemony. On the other side, the US is getting to be like Saudi Arabia, which has been ruined by its oil riches denominated in dollars, saddling the country with a whole generation of citizens with no marketable skills at competitive wages. The only difference is that while Saudi Arabia pumps oil, the US prints dollars.

Dollar hegemony is reducing the US to a country whose workers are overpaid across the board by international standards. While Greenspan justifies US high wages by citing continuous rise in productivity, such rise is achieved essentially by foreign workers doing most of the producing. Ultimately, productivity cannot be increased by not working. The only jobs that will not be outsourced will be those that are location-tied, such as cooking and serving meals, caring for the sick, the young and the aged, vacuuming carpets, cleaning toilets and picking fruits. Such jobs do not pay a living wage in the US turbo economy, and to fill them the US imports illegal immigrants. Greenspan’s warning about creeping US trade protectionism amounts to a trade-off between losing high-pay jobs and defaulting on low-interest foreign debts.

Foreigners are buying US corporate debt, not equities. To fund its twin deficits, the US economy continues to rely on sustained foreign funding. Foreigners purchased net public debt of $61.33 billion and $21.3 billion of corporate bonds in February 2004, but practically no equities, only $100 million. Even then, private investor purchases of public debt fell by half to $10 billion, the rest bought by foreign central banks which are constrained by policy on high-risk investment. The lack of interest in equity suggests that foreigners have little faith in the continuing growth of the US economy and are aware that the US bankruptcy regime grants preference to debt before equity.

Net portfolio inflows into the US of $83.4 billion in February 2004, although slightly lower than $92.3 billion in January, were almost double the $45 billion a month required to fund the US current account deficit. This validates Greenspan’s assertion that the US has no trouble funding its external deficit. US workers, however, will have trouble holding on to their high-paying jobs.

Liberating Sovereign Credit for Domestic Development

Part II: China and a New International Finance Architecture

By
Henry C.K. Liu



Dollar hegemony is a geopolitical phenomenon in which the US dollar, a fiat currency, assumes the status of primary reserve currency in the international finance architecture. While frequently rationalized as necessary for facilitating world trade, dollar hegemony is not benign. It inevitably contributes to increasing trade friction in the global trading system, by pushing exchange rates manipulation as the main tool of competition in export trade.

China’s trading relationship with the US impacts the entire global economy materially. Much has been made about China’s pegging its currency to the dollar even though the yuan is not freely convertible. Calls for upward revaluation of the Chinese yuan are heard frequently. There may be a case for arguing for higher prices for Chinese exports, if the increase is passed directly onto wages to increase domestic demand. But the logic of revaluing the yuan, or any currency, as a means of balancing trade is flawed. Exchange rate moves affect the price of both import and export, but their impact on trade balance may only result in changes in the volume of trade rather the monetary value of trade. With a stronger yuan, less Chinese goods and services may be exported to the US, but at a higher price; and more US goods and services may be exported to China at a lower price, but the trade imbalance in monetary value may remain the same after initial adjustments. Historical data suggest that US firm will take advantage of the exchange rate move to raise prices of US exports. The result may merely be higher inflation rate for the US and eventually for the global economy.

China's excessive dependence on foreign trade has significantly distorted its economic growth, as indicated by the high percentage of foreign trade to its gross domestic product (GDP), estimated to reach near 90% in 2004. China’s high-growth coastal east and south depend heavily on foreign trade. The average rate of foreign trade dependence of the 12 provinces and municipalities in coastal east and south China was 74.5% in 2000 while the rate in the 19 provinces and autonomous regions in the interior central and western regions was only 10%. In 2003, Shenzhen and Shanghai scored 356.3% and 148.7% respectively. Much of this trade takes the form of low-wage assembly for re-export, and although the trend is changing toward vertically integrated manufacturing, the re-export aspect remains dominant. Some 54% of China’s total exports were being traded by foreign investors.

China does not have a diversified trade market. Trade between China and its three biggest trade partners - the US, Japan and the European Union - accounts for about one half of its total. The economic performances of these major trade partners not only critically affect their trade with China, but also affect Chinese trade with the rest of the world in which China incurs a persistent, small but rising deficit. Trade between China and the US constituted 5.4% of China's GDP in 1997. The ratio climbed to 13% of the $1.4 trillion GDP in 2003 when trade volume was $181 billion with a US deficit of $124 billion. Since China incurred an overall trade deficit of $500 million in 2003, the entire US trade deficit with China was transferred to other economies outside China, mostly in developing economies. Yet the abnormally high reliance on trade with the US, with an ever-widening trade gap, is a structural cause for rising Sino-US trade conflicts. The US trade deficit with China is now the largest in the world. China alone was responsible for 53% of the increase in US non-oil trade deficit through June 2004. US imports from China are now five times the value of US exports to China, making this the most imbalanced trading relationship for the US, albeit US trade policy limiting “dual use” technology export to China also contributed to this imbalance. The relatively low growth rate of the matured economies, such as the US, EU and Japan, cannot sustain the high growth rate of Chinese export trade. Also, all three of these countries are actively engaged in using low-wage manufacturing in China for world-wide re-export, distorting Chinese export data.

Trade reliance ratio is determined by many factors, including GDP calculation, exchange rate distortions, methods of trade and trade competence of a nation. Nevertheless, one fact stands out: China’s dollar-denominated trade surplus benefits the dollars economy and not the yuan economy. It contributes significantly to China’s capital shortage for domestic development, siphoning needed capital to its foreign reserves.

China’s import for 2004 is expected to exceed $500 billion and total trade could exceed $1 trillion, with total sales of consumer goods and capital goods reaching $1.83 trillion, which appears impressive until when it translates to only $1,306 per person. Because of high trade reliance ratio, some $330 billion of goods will fail to show up in 2004 Chinese GDP, which is expected to rise around 8% from 2003 to $1.5 trillion. The economy grew 9.6% in second quarter, slowing from 9.8% in the first quarter after the government imposed lending curbs to cool an overinvestment boom that caused power shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks and escalating inflation. The government targeted growth at 7% earlier for 2004. China will continue to import advanced technology equipment, high-tech products, basic raw materials and consumer goods, but it has a long way to go before reaching the full potential of a developed Chinese domestic market.

Chinese trade reached a record high of $851 billion in 2003 with a GDP of $1.4 billion; exports rose 34.6% to $438 billion against a rise in imports of 39.9% to $413 billion. In the first eight months of 2004, China recorded a trade deficit of $950 million; exports rose 35.8% to $361 billion while imports increased 40.8% to $362 billion. The continuing increase in China’s foreign exchange reserves in the face of a trade deficit means that China’s domestic sector is subsidizing its export sector to the tune of its trade deficit plus its foreign exchange reserves growth. Wealth has left the yuan economy into the dollar economy.

The distributional consequences of trade on energy consumption are significant. For the US, energy consumption per dollar of GDP dropped from 17,440 Btu in 1973, year of the OPEC oil embargo, to 9,460 Btu in 2003. The drop was achieved partly by importing energy-intensive products. Unlike other developing countries such as India, South Korea and Brazil, the amount of energy consumed per dollar of GDP has decreased dramatically in China over the past two decades. Still, China consumed 35,000 Btu per dollar of GDP in 1999. With average annual GDP growth rates around 7-8% over the last decade and energy consumption growth rates somewhat lower, China has been reducing its energy intensity. This is in large part a result of government efforts to conserve energy, and the updating of industrial plant equipment. China's Energy Conservation Law entered into force on January 1, 1998. The government has promoted a shift towards less energy-intensive services and higher value-added products, as well as encouraged the import of energy-intensive products. While China ranks second in the world behind the United States in total energy consumption and carbon emissions, its per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions are much lower than the world average. In 2001, the US had a per capita energy consumption of 341.8 million Btu, greater than 5.2 times the world's per capita energy consumption and slightly over 11 times China's. Per capita carbon emissions are similar to energy consumption patterns, with the United States emitting 5.5 metric tons of carbon per person, the world on average 1.1 metric tons, and China 0.6 metric tons of carbon.

China’s oil imports for the first eight months of 2004 were up 39% cent at 79.9 million tons. China is reported to be planning to invest $12 billion in the Russian energy industry, with an interest in buying parts of Yukos, the embattled Russian oil giant. China takes about 7% of its oil from Yukos, already suffered a cut to its supplies because the Russian company cannot pay transport costs in September. China is reported to be forced to prepay transportation costs to Yukos to avoid supply interruption. Much of this energy is needed only by the export sector.

China needs to activate its domestic market to balance its overblown foreign trade. The Chinese economy can benefit enormously by the aggressive deployment of sovereign credit for domestic development and growth, particularly in the slow-growth western and central regions. Sovereign credit can be used to stimulate domestic demand by raising wage levels, improve farm income, promote state-owned-enterprise restructuring and bank reform, build needed infrastructure, promote education and health care, re-order the pension system, restore the environment and promote a cultural renaissance. While exchange control continues, China can free its economy from the dictate of dollar hegemony, adopt a strategy of balanced development financed by sovereign credit and wean itself from excess dependence on export for dollars. Sovereign credit can finance full employment with rising wages in the Chinese economy of 1.4 billion people and project it towards the largest economy in the world within a very short time, possibly in less than five years. The expansion of its domestic economy will enable China to import more, thus also allowing it to export more without excessive and persistent trade gaps. Much needs to be done, and can be done to develop the full potential of China’s economy, but exporting for dollars is not the way to do it.

China is in the position to kick start a new international finance architecture that will serve international trade better. China has the option of making the yuan an alternative reserve currency in world trade by simply denominating all Chinese export in yuan. This sovereign action can be taken unilaterally at any time of China's choosing. All the Chinese State Council has to do is to announce that as of a certain date all Chinese exports must be paid for in yuan, making it illegal for Chinese exporters to accept payment in any other currencies. This will set off a frantic scramble by importers of Chinese goods around the world to buy yuan at the State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE), making the yuan a preferred currency with ready market demand. Companies with yuan revenue no longer need to exchange yuan into dollars, as the yuan, backed by the value of Chinese exports, becomes universally accepted in trade. Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which import sizable amount of Chinese goods, would accept yuan for payment for their oil, so will Russia. This can be done without de-pegging the yuan from the dollar and SAFE can retain it position as the exclusive window for trading yuans for other currencies without any need for new currency control regulations. The proper exchange rate of the yuan can then be set by China not based on export to the US, but on Chinese conditions.

If Chinese exports are paid in yuan, China will have no need to hold foreign reserves, which currently stand at more than $480 billion. And if the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the yuan instead of the dollar, Hong Kong's $120 billion foreign-exchange reserves can also be freed for domestic restructuring and development. Chinese trade surplus would stay in the yuan economy. China is on the way to becoming a world economic giant but it has yet to assert its rightful financial power because of dollar hegemony.

There is no stopping China from being a powerhouse in manufacturing. Many Asian economies are trapped in protracted financial crisis from excessive foreign-currency debts and falling real export revenue resulting from predatory currency devaluation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), orchestrated by the US, has come to the "rescue" of these distressed economies with a new agenda beyond the usual IMF conditionalities of austerity to protect Group of Seven (G7) creditors. This new agenda aims to open Asian markets for US transnational corporations to acquire distressed Asian companies so that the foreign-acquired Asian subsidiaries can produce and market goods and services inside Asian national borders as domestic enterprises, thus skirting potential protectionist measures. The United States, through the IMF, aims to break down the traditionally closed financial systems all over Asia. This system mobilizes high national savings to finance industrial policies to serve giant national industrial conglomerates with massive investment in targeted export sectors. The IMF, controlled by the US, aims at dismantling these traditional Asian financial systems and forcing Asians to replace them with a structurally alien global system, characterized by open markets for products and services and crucially, for financial products and services. The focus is of course on China, for as US policymakers know: as China goes, so goes the rest of Asia.

Trade flows under neoliberal globalization in the context of dollar hegemony have put Asian countries in a position of unsustainable dependency on foreign, dollar-denominated loans and capital to finance export sectors that are at the mercy of saturated foreign markets while neglecting domestic development to foster productive forces and to support budding domestic consumer markets. In Asia, outside the small elite circle of well-heeled compradores, most people cannot afford the products they produce in abundance for export, nor can they afford high-cost imports. An average worker in Asia would have to work days making hundreds of pairs of shoes at low wages to earn enough to buy one McDonald's hamburger meal for his family while Asian compradores entertain their foreign backers in luxurious five-star hotels with prime steaks imported from Omaha. Markets outside of Asia cannot grow fast enough to satisfy the developmental needs of the populous Asian economies. Thus intra-region trade to promote domestic development within Asia needs to be the main focus of growth if Asia is ever to rise above the level of semi-colonial subsistence that will inevitably translate into political instability.

The Chinese economy will move quickly up the trade-value chain, in advanced electronics, telecommunications, and aerospace, which are inherently "dual use" technologies with military implications. Strategic phobia will push the US to exert all its influence to keep the global market for "dual use" technologies closed to China. Thus "free trade" for the US is not the same as freedom to trade. Increasingly, the world’s nations will all procure their military needs from the same global technology market. Depriving any nation access to dual-use technology will not enhance national security as the deprived nation can easily shift to asymmetrical warfare which is more destabilizing than conventional armament.

Still, China will inevitably be a major global player in the knowledge industries because of its abundant supply of raw human potential. Even in the US, a high percentage of its scientists are of Chinese ethnicity. With an updated educational system, China will be a top producer of brain power within another decade. World leaders in high-tech, such as Intel and Microsoft, are actively pursuing cross-border R&D wage-arbitrage in Asia, primarily in China and India. As China moves up the technology ladder, coupled with rising consumer demand in tandem with a growth economy, global trade flow will be affected, modifying the "race to the bottom" predatory competitive game of two decades of globalization among Asian exporters to acquire dollars to invest in the dollar economy, toward trade to earn their own currencies for investment in domestic development.

Asian economies will find in China a preferred alternative trading partner, possibly with more symbiotic trading terms, providing more room to structure trade to enhance domestic development along the path of converging regional interest and solidarity. The rise in living standards in all of Asia will change the path of history, restoring Asia as a center of advanced civilization, putting an end to two centuries of Western economic and cultural imperialism and dominance.

The foreign-trade strategies of all trading nations in recent decades of neoliberal globalization have contributed to the destabilizing of the global trading system. It is not possible or rational for all countries to export themselves out of domestic recessions or poverty. The contradictions between national strategic industrial policies and neoliberal open-market systems will generate friction between the US and all its trading partners, as well as among regional trade blocs and inter-region competitors. The US engages in global trade to enhance its superpower status, not to undermine it. Thus the US does not seek equal partners as a matter of course. With economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy, the US has been preventing, or trying to prevent, an increasing number of US transnational companies, and foreign companies trading with the US, from doing business in an increasing number of countries deemed rogue by Washington. Trade flows not where it is needed most, but to where it best serves the US national security interest.

Neoliberal globalization has promoted the illusion that trade is a win-win transaction for all, based on the Ricardian model of comparative advantage. Yet economists recognize that without global full employment, comparative advantage is merely Say's Law internationalized. Say's Law states that supply creates its own demand, but only under full employment, a pre-condition supply-siders conveniently ignore. After two decades, this illusion has been shattered by concrete data: poverty has increased worldwide and global wages, already low to begin with, have declined since the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and by 45 percent in some countries, such as Indonesia.

Yet export to the US under dollar hegemony is merely an arrangement in which the exporting nations, in order to earn dollars to buy needed commodities denominated in dollars and to service dollar loans, are forced to finance the consumption of US consumers by the need to invest their trade surplus dollars in dollar assets as foreign-exchange reserves, giving the US a rising capital account surplus to finance its rising current account deficit.

Furthermore, the trade surpluses are achieved not by an advantage in the terms of trade, but by sheer self-denial of basic domestic needs and critical imports necessary for domestic development. Not only are the exporting nations debasing the value of their labor, degrading their environment and depleting their natural resources for the privilege of running on the poverty treadmill, they are enriching the dollar economy and strengthening dollar hegemony in the process, and causing harm also to the US economy. Thus the exporting nations allow themselves to be robbed of needed capital for critical domestic development in such vital areas as education, health and other social infrastructure, by assuming heavy foreign debt to finance export, while they beg for even more foreign investment in the export sector by offering still more exorbitant returns and tax exemptions, putting incre