末日博士看空中国经济

“末日博士”鲁里埃尔?鲁比尼(Nouriel Roubini)对中国及其当前的增长模式持悲观看法或许没什么可惊讶的。基于近期对中国的“两次访问”，这位神奇的博士给出了毁灭性的预测。

那么，这位以预测出美国住房市场崩盘及随后的全球信贷危机而闻名的奇人，是不是会再捧回一个诺查丹玛斯预言奖呢？

让我们感受一下他对中国的看法吧，该文最初发表在Project Syndicate上：

“中国内部到处充斥着在实物资本、基础设施和不动产方面的过量投资。在一个访问者眼中，证据就是那些光鲜靓丽却旅客寥寥的机场和高速列车（这将减少45个计划兴建中的机场的客流量），通往偏僻之地的高速公路，数千座高大的中央与地方政府建筑，空无一人的新城区，以及被迫关闭以避免引发全球价格下跌的崭新铝冶炼厂。

“中国大概会在2013年后遭遇一场硬着陆。事实上所有与过度投资有关的历史场景——包括上世纪90年代的东亚地区所发生的一切——都会以一场金融危机和/或长期的低增长来谢幕。”

鲁比尼竟然给伟大中国的崩盘确定了一个时间，真是胆大。过去20年间，有许多人做过类似的尝试，但都遭遇惨败。鲁比尼很聪明，他并没有限死具体时间，而且如果你对他的话进行重新措辞，你会发现他实际上是在说自己认为未来两年中国不会遭遇硬着陆。

有人对他的悲观分析提出了反驳，指出中国的过度建设与过度投资已经持续了十几年，而且每当投资与基础设施似乎已经超量时，经济增长又追赶了上来，消化了闲置产能。毕竟中国人口众多。

另一些人或许还会指出，大部分建设项目的质量很差，这意味着不到十年或二十年，老旧的基础设施就不得不被拆除，进行重建。

但鲁比尼很可能是正确的，他关于中国对过度投资的沉迷最终将造成巨大浪费并导致未来经济增长大幅放缓的论述也相当有说服力。

“任何国家都不可能拥有足够的发展速度，足以在将50%的GDP重新投资的情况下最终避免遭遇巨大的产能过剩和令人忧心的不良贷款问题。”

“继续沿着这条投资导向的道路走下去，将使已经暴露出来的制造业、房地产和基础设施产能饱和现象进一步恶化，并在固定资产投资增长无法继续扩大的情况下加剧未来的经济放缓。但直到2012-13年领导层换届之前，中国的政策制定者们或许都能在继续罔顾可以预见的巨额成本的情况下，维持一个高增长率。”

他对于中国政府十二五计划的看法同样悲观。

他正确的指出，十二五计划与上一个五年计划惊人的相似，都宣称要实现经济平衡发展，提高消费占GDP的比重，但这两个目标政府都未实现。

鲁比尼还说，计划细节显示出经济增长依然要仰仗投资（包括兴建公共住房）来推动。这个看法也是正确的。

他开出的药方是一套综合性改革措施，包括：实施更迅速的货币升值，面向家庭的大规模财政转移支付，税收和/或国有企业的私有化，解除户口制度限制以及放宽财政管制。

北京的中央官员们显然了解、而且或许也赞同鲁比尼的许多观点，但由于上述这些改革措施实施起来相当困难，他们不太可能对他的建议给予太多关注。

It probably comes as nosurprise that Nouriel Roubini – also known as Dr Doom – is bearish onChina and its current growth model. Based on “two trips” to Chinarecently the good doctor has come up with a devastating prognosis.

So is the man famous for predicting the downfall of the US housingmarket and subsequent global credit crisis about to notch up a secondnostradamus award?

Here’s a taste of his views on China, as first published on Project Syndicate:

“China is rife with overinvestment in physical capital,infrastructure and property. To a visitor, this is evident in sleek butempty airports and bullet trains (which will reduce the need for the 45planned airports), highways to nowhere, thousands of colossal newcentral and provincial government buildings, ghost towns and brand-newaluminium smelters kept closed to prevent global prices from plunging.”

“Eventually, most likely after 2013,China will suffer a hard landing. All historical episodes of excessiveinvestment – including East Asia in the 1990s – have ended with afinancial crisis and/or a long period of slow growth.”

Mr Roubini is a brave soul to put a date on the great China collapse.Many have tried and failed miserably to do the same thing over the lasttwo decades. He cleverly leaves the exact timing open and if yourephrased his comments they would actually say he thinks China will notsuffer a hard landing in the next two years.

Some people counter his grim analysis by pointing out China has beenover-building and over-investing for well over a decade and every timeit looks like there is too much investment or infrastructure, growthcatches up and spare capacity disappears. There are a lot of people inChina after all.

Others might also argue that the poor quality of much of theconstruction also means that within a decade or two all the oldinfrastructure will have to be torn down and rebuilt.

But Mr Roubini may well be right and makes a convincing argument thatChina’s addiction to over-investment will eventually cause massivewaste and much slower growth down the road.

“No country can be productive enough to reinvest half of GDP in newcapital stock without eventually facing immense overcapacity and astaggering non-performing loan problem.”

“Continuing down the investment-led growth path will exacerbate thevisible glut of capacity in manufacturing, property and infrastructure,and thus will intensify the coming economic slowdown once furtherfixed-investment growth becomes impossible. Until the change ofpolitical leadership in 2012-13, China’s policymakers may be able tomaintain high growth rates, but at a very high foreseeable cost.”

His assessment of the government’s latest five-year plan (2011-2015) is equally gloomy.

He points out, correctly, that the latest five-year plan looksremarkably similar to the last one, with its rhetoric on rebalancing theeconomy and increasing the share of consumption in GDP, both goalswhere the government failed miserably.

Mr Roubini is also right when he says the plan’s details revealcontinued reliance on investment, especially public housing to boostgrowth.

His prescription is a mix of reforms including: faster currencyappreciation, substantial fiscal transfers to households, taxationand/or privatisation of state-owned enterprises, liberalisation of thehousehold registration, or hukou, system, and an easing of financialrepression.

The Mandarins in Beijing are certainly aware of and probably agreewith many of the points Mr Roubini is making, but because of thedifficulties in implementing any of these reforms they are unlikely topay much attention to his advice.