主题：南方系对中国经济政策的忽悠是当今中国最大的危险 -- 思想的行者

When Bo Xilai, the rising Chinese Communist Party official who was purged in March, gave his last public comments before disappearing into detention, he was wrong about a lot of things. That bit about not being under investigation, for instance. But one line he uttered has the clear ring of truth, and it poses a serious issue for China’s leadership as it attempts to navigate this year’s political transition, the economic slowdown and the ripples loosed by Bo’s removal. Bo revealed that China’s Gini coefficient — a statistic that measures the gap between rich and poor — had entered into worrying territory. He described the number, which hasn’t been made public in more than a decade, as over 0.46. Anything higher than 0.4 is considered dangerously high and capable of fueling unrest.

In Chongqing, where Bo was Communist Party secretary for 4 years, he made building economic protections like subsidized housing for the megacity’s poorest residents one of the tenets of his “Chongqing model.” The wholesale corruption he and his family have been accused of may have steered the wealth gap in the wrong direction, but Bo understood the political importance of appearing to care about the problem, just as he knew the appeal of cracking down on crime and reviving Mao-era culture.

It’s a point that many other officials seem to have missed, mindful perhaps of Deng Xiaoping’s declaration that “some will get rich first,” but forgetting the coda that their prosperity would then spread to all. China’s growth in recent decades has been astonishing, and surveys like the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project have found high levels of satisfaction and optimism in China. But there is more to those numbers. A deeper examination of Chinese citizens’ levels of satisfaction indicates that while the country’s richest are increasingly content, the poor are growing more and more unhappy.

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That’s one of the conclusions of a new paper by a team from the University of Southern California headed by economist Richard Easterlin and published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PDF copy here). The group looked at several surveys of personal happiness in China dating back to 1990 and found that overall there was little change and perhaps even a decline when the past two decades are considered as a whole. The 1990s in particular saw a significant decline, which the authors say mirrors the unemployment rate as state-owned enterprises laid off huge numbers of workers as part of economic reforms. Following a 2000–05 trough, happiness numbers rebounded to somewhere at or below early 1990s levels. They write:

Despite an unprecedented rate of economic growth, China’s life satisfaction over the past two decades has largely followed the trajectory seen in the central- and eastern-European transition countries — a decline followed by a recovery, with no change or a declining trend over the period as a whole. There is no evidence of a marked increase in life satisfaction in China of the magnitude that might have been expected based on the fourfold increase in the level of per capita consumption during that period. In its transition, China has shifted from one of the most egalitarian countries in terms of distribution of life satisfaction to one of the least egalitarian. Life satisfaction has declined markedly in the lowest-income and least-educated segments of the population, while rising somewhat in the upper (socioeconomic status) stratum.

While China’s poorest are increasingly unhappy, it’s unlikely that the country will see Arab Spring–like unrest and revolt. The problems are too diffuse and the state security organs too adept at clamping down on acts of dissent that have the potential for wider appeal. But on a local level, protest is widespread, averaging about 500 a day nationwide, according to economist Niu Wenyuan, an adviser to China’s State Council. Last week, a suicide bombing tore through a government office in the southern province of Yunnan, killing four. The culprit and the motivation behind the attack have been subject to widespread debate online, but the target — a bureau where residents received compensation for demolished housing — has fueled the belief that the attack was driven by anger over forced relocation. China may be getting richer by the day, but there is plenty of anger too.

美国冷战时期的坚定伙伴韩国被金融风暴扫到之后，向美国伸出求援之手，不曾想美国的拒绝来的如此之快和如此的坚决。在国际银行家看来，与韩国的亲密关系已经成为冷战遗留的残骸。美国政府对于此事进行了激烈的辩论，以国务卿奥布赖特和国家安全顾问的意见是应该伸手拉小兄弟一把，代表华尔街的财政部则坚决反对，甚至指斥奥布赖特不懂经济学。最后，克林顿服从了财政部的看法。

在财政部长鲁宾看来，这个危机正是踹开韩国经济大门的绝佳时机，他严令国际货币基金组织对韩国施加比传统的苛刻条件更加严厉的措施来对待这个乞援的昔日盟友。IMF 在美国财政部的压力之下，对“援助”韩国的条件层层加码，包括韩国必须立刻以对美国有利的条件解决与美国之间的所有贸易纠纷，韩国人愤怒地指责，IMF 总在为美国提出种种不合理的条件。

世界银行的首席经济学家斯蒂格利茨认为，韩国陷入金融危机源于美国财政部当初竭尽全力地逼迫韩国进行全面和快速的金融资本市场开放。作为克林顿首席经济顾问的斯蒂格利茨坚决反对这种鲁莽行为，他认为这种开放无助于美国的安全利益，而有利于华尔街的银行家。

■■■■■韩国政府被迫接受了美国的诸多苛刻条件，允许美国建立银行分支机构，外国公司可以拥有上市公司的股份从26%上升到50%，外国个人可拥有公司的股份从7%上升到50%，韩国企业必须使用国际会计原则，金融机构必须接受国际会计事务所的审计，韩国中央银行必须独立运作，完全资本项下的货币自由兑换，进口许可证程序透明化，公司结构监督，劳工市场改革等。美国银行家对韩国企业早已垂涎三尺，只待韩国签署协议，就准备蜂拥而入将猎物撕得粉碎。

但是，国际银行家小看了韩国人的强烈的民族意识，有这种意识支撑的国家很难被外来势力所统治。陷于孤立无援境地的韩国人纷纷向国家捐献自己的黄金和白银，在耗尽全部外汇储备的情况下，黄金和白银这两种金钱的最终支付手段，毫无阻碍地成为外国债权人非常乐于接受的偿债方式。令国际银行家更为吃惊的是，韩国居然没有出现他们设想中的大规模公司和银行的倒闭潮，西方公司几乎没能收购到任何大型韩国企业。■■■■■当韩国终于挺过了最难熬的1998 年春天，韩国的出口赢余迅速回升，已经彻底看透华尔街把戏的韩国政府，毅然决然地抛弃了IMF 那几副毒药。所有准备申请破产的大型企业案件一律冻结，政府果断出面从银行系统中冲销了700 到1500 亿美元的坏帐，当政府接手这些坏账之时，银行的控制权重新掌握在政府手中，从而将IMF 排除在银行系统重建之外。

国际银行家和美国财政部不仅空欢喜了一场，而且使韩国更加清醒地认识到政府主导经济的绝对必要性。微软并吞韩国最大软件公司的图谋落空了，8 家韩国地方软件公司最终得手。福特收购韩国KIA 汽车公司的计划夭折了，本地公司打破了福特的好梦。外国银行接管两家大型地方银行的行动被中止了，韩国政府暂时把两家银行管理起来。在政府的全力主导下，韩国的经济强劲回升。

滑稽的是，韩国竟然被国际货币基金组织当作成功挽救的典型到处宣扬。

当2003 年，泰国提前偿清120 亿美元债务，终于从国际货币基金组织赎身后，泰国总理他信站在巨大的国旗前面发誓,泰国将“永远不能再做(国际资本)受伤的猎物”，决不会再乞求国际货币基金组织的“援助”。泰国政府甚至私下鼓励泰国企业拒绝偿还国际银行家的债务，以报复1997 年外国银行的疯狂掠夺。2006年9 月，泰国发动军事政变，他信下台。