What Greece Means

By PAUL KRUGMAN

So Greece has officially defaulted on its debt to private lenders. It was an “orderly” default, negotiated rather than simply announced, which I guess is a good thing. Still, the story is far from over. Even with this debt relief, Greece — like other European nations forced to impose austerity in a depressed economy — seems doomed to many more years of suffering.

And that’s a tale that needs telling. For the past two years, the Greek story has, as one recent paper on economic policy put it, been “interpreted as a parable of the risks of fiscal profligacy.” Not a day goes by without some politician or pundit intoning, with the air of a man conveying great wisdom, that we must slash government spending right away or find ourselves turning into Greece, Greece I tell you.

Just to take one recent example, when Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, delivered the Republican reply to the State of the Union address, he insisted that “we’re only a short distance behind Greece, Spain and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe.” By the way, apparently nobody told him that Spain had low government debt and a budget surplus on the eve of the crisis; it’s in trouble thanks to private-sector, not public-sector, excess.

But what Greek experience actually shows is that while running deficits in good times can get you in trouble — which is indeed the story for Greece, although not for Spain — trying to eliminate deficits once you’re already in trouble is a recipe for depression.

These days, austerity-induced depressions are visible all around Europe’s periphery. Greece is the worst case, with unemployment soaring to 20 percent even as public services, including health care, collapse. But Ireland, which has done everything the austerity crowd wanted, is in terrible shape too, with unemployment near 15 percent and real G.D.P. down by double digits. Portugal and Spain are in similarly dire straits.

And austerity in a slump doesn’t just inflict vast suffering. There is growing evidence that it is self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms, as the combination of falling revenues due to a depressed economy and worsened long-term prospects actually reduces market confidence and makes the future debt burden harder to handle. You have to wonder how countries that are systematically denying a future to their young people — youth unemployment in Ireland, which used to be lower than in the United States, is now almost 30 percent, while it’s near 50 percent in Greece — are supposed to achieve enough growth to service their debt.

This was not what was supposed to happen. Two years ago, as many policy makers and pundits began calling for a pivot from stimulus to austerity, they promised big gains in return for the pain. “The idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect,” Jean-Claude Trichet, then the president of the European Central Bank, declared in June 2010. Instead, he insisted, fiscal discipline would inspire confidence, and this would lead to economic growth.

And every slight uptick in an austerity economy has been hailed as proof that the policy works. Irish austerity has been proclaimed a success story not once but twice, first in the summer of 2010, then again last fall; each time the supposed good news quickly evaporated.

You may ask what alternative countries like Greece and Ireland had, and the answer is that they had and have no good alternatives short of leaving the euro, an extreme step that, realistically, their leaders cannot take until all other options have failed — a state of affairs that, if you ask me, Greece is rapidly approaching.

Germany and the European Central Bank could take action to make that extreme step less necessary, both by demanding less austerity and doing more to boost the European economy as a whole. But the main point is that America does have an alternative: we have our own currency, and we can borrow long-term at historically low interest rates, so we don’t need to enter a downward spiral of austerity and economic contraction.

So it is time to stop invoking Greece as a cautionary tale about the dangers of deficits; from an American point of view, Greece should instead be seen as a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to reduce deficits too quickly, while the economy is still deeply depressed. (And yes, despite some better news lately, our economy is still deeply depressed.)

The truth is that if you want to know who is really trying to turn America into Greece, it’s not those urging more stimulus for our still-depressed economy; it’s the people demanding that we emulate Greek-style austerity even though we don’t face Greek-style borrowing constraints, and thereby plunge ourselves into a Greek-style depression.

別讓美國變成下一個希臘

希臘對民間債權人已經正式構成債務違約。這是一種經過協商、而非簡單宣布的「有秩序」違約，在我看來是好事。但是故事還沒結束。即使希臘可以暫時喘口氣，這個國家仍像其他被迫在經濟衰退時緊縮財政的歐洲國家一樣，似乎註定要承受多年的痛苦。

這才是需要闡述的故事。就像最近一篇談論經濟政策的研究所說，過去兩年來，希臘故事一直「被解釋成一個關於財政揮霍風險的寓言」。

每天都有政治人物或自認權威的人，以一種吟詠哲理的方式，高談闊論指示我們應該馬上刪減政府支出，否則我們將變成下一個希臘。

舉最近一個例子來說，當印地安納州長丹尼爾斯（Mitch Daniels）代表共和黨回應2012年國情咨文的時候，他堅稱「我們只在希臘、西班牙和其他身陷經濟災難的歐洲國家後面不遠處」。很顯然沒人告訴他，西班牙陷入危機之前，政府債務低，而且預算有盈餘；這個國家會陷入麻煩，是因為民間部門的舖張浪費，不是公部門。

希臘經驗真正凸顯的是，雖然承平時期財政入不敷出會給自己惹麻煩（這是希臘的故事，西班牙又是另一回事），然而若試圖在已經受困的時候削減赤字，將是帶來經濟衰退的最好方法。

這些日子以來，歐洲周邊國家明顯出現由撙節措施引發的經濟衰退。希臘是最糟的例子，健保等公共服務崩解，失業率飆破20%。愛爾蘭雖然落實所有人想看到的撙節措施，依舊受困，當地失業率逼近15%、實質國內生產毛額（GDP）跌幅達雙位數。葡萄牙、西班牙也身陷一樣可怕的處境。

在經濟衰退時勒緊褲帶，不只帶來巨大的痛苦。愈來愈多證據顯示，即使單就財政數據來看，財政緊縮也會弄巧成拙，因為經濟衰退和長期經濟展望惡化會拖累一國的歲入，實質上削弱市場信心，讓未來的債務負擔變得更棘手。人們會感到困惑：一個有系統地否決年輕人未來的國家 — 愛爾蘭青年失業率逼近30%，希臘逼近50% — 要怎麼實現足以償付債務的經濟成長。

這不是註定該發生的事。兩年前，當許多決策者和自認有識之士呼籲從財政刺激轉向財政緊縮，他們承諾痛苦會有收穫。時任歐洲央行（ECB）總裁的特里謝，在2010年6月說：「撙節措施會導致不景氣的觀念並不正確。」相反地，他堅持財政緊縮能提升信心，進而促進成長。

從此以後，每個厲行財政緊縮的經濟體只要有些微的成長，就會被當成政策奏效的證據。愛爾蘭的財政緊縮不只一次被當作成功的故事，2010年夏天如此，去年秋天亦然；但這種想像中的好消息，往往轉眼間就消失無蹤。

你可能會問，像希臘和愛爾蘭這樣的國家，當時還有什麼選擇，我的答案是，除了退出歐元區別無選擇。這個手段激烈得讓他們的領導人難以接受，但如果你問我，我會說，現在的希臘正迅速走向這一步。

德國和歐洲央行可以讓希臘不必非得採取這麼激烈的手段，他們可以放寬對希臘緊縮財政的要求，並且更努力刺激歐洲整體經濟。但關鍵在於美國有別的選擇：我們有自己的貨幣，而且我們可以用史上超低利率借到長期貸款，所以我們沒有必要走入財政緊縮和經濟萎縮的雙重惡性循環。

也因此，我們不該再把希臘當成告誡赤字風險的故事；從美國的角度來看，在美國經濟還深陷衰退時，希臘反應被當成不必太快削減赤字的警示性寓言。（是的，雖然最近有些好消息，但美國經濟仍深陷衰退。）

真相是，如果你想知道真正試圖把美國變成希臘的人是誰，答案不是那些想為美國困頓的經濟施加更多刺激措施的人，而是即使我們並未面臨希臘式的融資壓力，卻高呼仿效希臘式撙節、因而讓我們陷入希臘式衰退的人。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/opinion/krugman-what-greece-means.html

2012-03-13/經濟日報/A5版/國際焦點 編譯余曉惠