标题: (转贴)The Rising Yen is Sinking Japan Currency [打印本页] 作者: KK999 时间: 2009-11-27 13:57 标题: (转贴)The Rising Yen is Sinking Japan Currency The Rising Yen is Sinking Japan Currency appreciation is exposing the new government's ineptitude.
日圆升值弄沉日本
货币升值正暴露日本政府的颟顸
补充: 这篇外电呼应了我们日前对于日圆升值相关冲击的看法 http://www.wretch.cc/blog/izaax/13168970
特此转录与翻译和大家分享!
By JESPER KOLL
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The U.S. dollar's decline has created upward pressure on many major Asian currencies, not least the yen, which is up 20% versus the dollar since the September 2008 Lehman shock. The new Democratic Party of Japan-led government argues this trend is a boon, but in fact it's just the opposite: The rising yen is a significant contributing factor to the sinking of the world's second-largest economy.
美元贬值营造了众多主要亚洲货币的升值压力，日圆也不例外，从2008年九月雷曼事件冲击以来，兑美元已经升值了2成。日本的民主党新政府宣称这是个利多，但事实上刚好相反：强势日圆正是这个世界第二大经济体衰退的重要原因。
Japan is once again in a deflationary spiral, as the Bank of Japan is expected to announce today. Markets for goods, services, labor and capital are registering across-the-board, accelerated price declines. Consumer prices fell 2.3% in September compared to the previous year—the seventh straight month of decline. Producer prices show a similar trend. Land prices are falling at a double-digit rate. Wages are also falling, while unemployment is rising. Little wonder Japan`s broad-based TOPIX stock market index is now the only major developed-country stock market that is in negative territory this year. 日行今天发表的数据将显示，日本再度陷入通缩循环。各层面的商品、服务、劳动与资本市场显示价格下跌已加速。和前一年相比。九月份的消费物价下跌了2.3%---这已是连续七个月的下跌。生产者物价亦显示类似的趋势。地价则是双位数的下跌。失业率的提高的同时，薪资却是下降。这就不难想见日经指数成为所有已开发国家中，今年以来唯一股市投资报酬率仍为负值的国家。
In response, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government has argued that a strong yen could be good for Japan because it should help reallocate resources away from exporters to domestic services. What's more, Mr. Hatoyama's team floated the idea in October that a strong yen could help stimulate domestic demand—long a weak spot of Japan's export-dependent economy. (U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, by the way, concurs; in Tokyo last week, he said Japan showed "early signs of a stronger domestic demand-led economy.")
对此，鸠山政府宣称强势日圆有益日本，因为它有助于“资源重配”---从出口商移至国内服务业。此外，鸠山团队于十月时提出其观点:强势日圆可以刺激“内需”---这长期以来皆是日本这出口依赖国的弱点。(美财政长盖特纳上周于东京亦表示赞同，他说日本经济显示“强劲内需驱动型经济的早期征兆”。)
The idea that a strong currency has benefits has merit, but only in a growing economy. When an economy is expanding, a strengthening currency encourages manufacturers to invest in more productive machinery, focus on raising productivity, and remain on the competitive edge of their industry. It is an elegant economic tool that keep corporate leaders from getting complacent, and forces them to innovate. This is what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, when Japan was exporting its way to prosperity.
“强势货币有益”的看法有其中肯之处，但仅适用于成长型经济体。当经济正在扩张的同时，货币走强将鼓励制造商投资更具生产力的制程，聚焦于提高生产力，并持续保持产业中的竞争优势。这(强势货币)是个精妙的经济工具---用以迫使领先企业不自满，持续创新。60和70年代的日本正是如此，那时日本以出口换取了繁荣。
However, this cycle is virtuous only when companies make money, when cash flow is healthy, and when banks are willing lenders. Japan today doesn't enjoy such a benevolent economic clime. Prices are falling and profits are plunging. Yen strength in this environment is suffocating big exporters like Nissan, which has frozen hiring in Japan until further notice, and Sony, which has slashed thousands of jobs to cope. And remember, the current cyclical deterioration comes on top of a decade-long spell of almost no economic growth. Industrial companies are investing outside Japan to find growth markets, as are service companies like retailers, outsourcers and Internet firms.
但是，只有在企业赚钱，资金流动正常，且银行乐意借贷的情况下，上述循环才能奏效。现今日本并不享有如此善意的经济气候。价格正在下跌，盈利正在缩水。这种环境下的强劲日元正在扼杀大型出口商如日产(已无限期冻结新增雇员计划)和新力(为因应日圆升值冲击已裁减数千职位)。更别忘了，当前的循环性衰退承继于过往十年的经济零增长上，工业厂商及至于服务业厂商(如零售商，外包商和网路公司)因而投资日本以外地区---寻找更具成长性的市场。
When a country is in deflation, like Japan is today, a strong currency must be countered by more stimulative fiscal, monetary or regulatory policies—or some combination of all three. The DPJ government is advocating just the opposite tack. Since taking office in October, Mr. Hatoyama's team has floated tighter financial-sector regulations, tighter fiscal policy in the form of smaller budgets, and an early exit from the Bank of Japan's super-loose monetary policy, known as quantitative easing. The budget cuts in the 2010 budget are poised to drag down GDP by almost 2% as Mr. Hatoyama's firstbudget follows on from his predecessor's massive emergency spending enacted last summer. As if this is not deflationary enough, add yen strength to the equation, and Japan's recession may soon turn into a full-fledged depression.
当一个国家(如今日日本)陷入通缩，强势货币必须搭配更具刺激性的财政、货币或监管政策---或三者并用。但日民主党政府却支持了相反的行动。自从10月取得政权来，鸠山团队推出更严格的财金监管，更限缩的财政政策(体现在缩小的预算规模)以及提早结束日行的超宽松货币政策---也就是所谓的“量化宽松”。相对于前任首相于夏季提出的巨额紧急支出，鸠山的2010年预算删减估计会拉低整体GDP几近两个百分点。日新政府似乎嫌这样还通缩的不够一样，现在又把强势日圆搬上台面，那么，日本的经济“衰退”或许很快会成为成熟的经济“萧条”。
Japan doesn't need a stronger yen. Japan needs deregulation of its labor and capital market, privatization of state-owned industries, and a more pragmatic, progrowth domestic industrial policy focused on excising vested interests and the rigidities of domestic service industries. The promotion of growth and entrepreneurship is the only way to generate the kind of employment that the DPJ promised on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, this kind of policy path is particularly difficult for Mr. Hatoyama's government, which is heavily reliant on labor unions for political support.
日本不需要强势日圆。日本需要松绑其劳动和资本市场，国营事业民营化和更贴近实际能促进国内成长需求的产业政策(聚焦于优惠利率运用和僵化的国内服务产业)。促进成长和创业家精神，是制造出如民主党在选战中宣称之就业机会的唯一方式。这政策对于鸠山政府来说无宁是个格外困难的途径，因为其政权相当仰赖工会的支持。
That may be the one virtue of the rising yen and the destruction it wreaks: It is exposing the ineptitude of the Hatoyama administration's economic policies. The question is, how high a price will Japan pay in the meantime? 或许日圆升值 和其衍生的破坏不全是坏事，至少我们学到一点，它暴露了鸠山政府的经济政策的颟顸。问题是，日本到底得为此付出多大的代价呢?
Mr. Koll is president of Tantallon Research Japan. This article is part of an occasional series on the dollar's impact on Asia-Pacific economies.