制造业大崩溃

The collapse of manufacturing

（2月19日《经济学人》封面文章）

　　金融危机引发了产业危机。各国政府该怎么做？

　　零美元，不算燃油附加费和港口操作费：这就是目前一只集装箱从中国华南地区运到欧洲最低的费用。回看2007年夏季，同样一单货物，运费可高达1400美元。半空的货舱正是世界制造业崩溃的一个信号。德国去年12月机床订单同比减少40%。中国大陆的9000多家玩具出口企业半数倒闭。中国台湾地区今年1月笔记本电脑发货量环比下跌三分之一。在美国组装的汽车数量则比2008年1月减少60%。
　　金融危机的全球破坏力已在去年显现。而制造业危机的严峻性才刚刚露头，这很大程度上是因为，人们总是以民族眼光——说真的，甚至常常是民族主义的眼光——看待制造业。可实际上，一场全球范围的旋风也席卷了制造业。
　　美国和英国近三个月工业产值分别下降了3.6%和4.4%（折合年率分别为13.8%和16.4%的负增长）。两国都有人把这归咎于华尔街和伦敦金融城。但在那些对制造业出口因而也就等于对债务国的消费依赖程度较高的国家，产业崩溃的形势更严重。2008年第四季度，德国的工业产值下降了6.8%；台湾地区下降了21.7%；日本下降了12%——有助于解释为什么日本的GDP如今下降得比1990年代早期还要快,工业产值固然是易于波动的，但自从1970年代的第一次石油危机至今，全世界还没有经历过这样剧烈的产业萎缩，即便是石油危机那一回，其波及范围也没有今天这么广泛。不论是东欧、巴西、马来西亚还是土耳其，都在经历产业崩溃。华南的废弃工厂，如今数以千计。这些厂的工人1月里回农村老家过年，好几百万人过了年就不回来了.
　　各国政府已出手帮银行业脱困，现在又听到了救助产业的呼声。相比狡诈的银行家，产业工人似乎更值得拯救。制造业仍然是个大雇主，而且由于有底特律、斯图加特和广州这样的聚集地，其萧条往往非常显眼。著名制造企业如通用汽车的失败，会沉重打击民众对自身前途的信心，而信心不足已经是经济的一个拖累了。那么，向产业提供特殊支援，肯定错不了吧？

　　被夷平的工厂

　　尽管制造业哀鸿遍野，回答却是“不！”固然一切选择都是痛苦的，但产业救助有两大弊端。一是政府制定和修改方案总是要大费周章，难以应对制造业领域复杂多变的困难。当前的困扰之一是贸易融资的枯竭。没人知道它会持续多久。另一问题来自企业降低库存（中国企业的部分库存源于北京奥运会前的囤积）。库存调整效应肯定只是暂时的，但同样没人知道它会有多大规模，会持续多久。
　　另一大弊端是，按行业划分的救助，无法解决危机的根本原因——需求下降，不仅是对制造品的需求，而是对一切东西的需求。由于产能过剩（汽车工业尤甚），就算政府提供再多的救助，一些企业也必然要关闭。政府如何知道哪些企业该救，某个产业的“恰当”规模应是多大呢？还是得取决于消费者的选择。哪个产业声音最大，谁的说客最能说会道，就给谁钱，这样既不公平又不经济。引导需求转向那些获得救助的走运行业而冷落那些没得到救助的行业，只会加剧纷扰。当一个国家对某个产业格外偏袒，就容易激起外国以保护主义来回敬，从而导致本国的长期增长放缓，因为资源都被锁死在低效率的企业里了。

　　没什么可失去的，除了它们的供应链

　　有人说制造业具有特殊性，经济的其他部分都以它为基础。可实际上，经济更像是一个处处相连的网络，每个生产者同时也是消费者。真正重要的区别不是某个行业是制造业还是服务业，而是那些工作岗位有生产力还是没生产力。
　　一些制造业企业对这一点没话说，但立即又想出另一个理由：本轮危机已经威胁到了有生产力的熟练技术工人，这就有些过头了吧。现代的产业供应链是环环相扣的。汽车生产商举了一个例子，一家塑料型件供应商的倒闭，重创了通用汽车推出新款Camaro的计划。汽车行业认为通用汽车的亏损会使北美供应链遭到永久性损伤. 它们声称，政府救助能够帮健康企业重整旗鼓，以利再战。
　　尽管某些供应链确实存在瓶颈，但以此为理由来一般性地主张行业救助，则不够充分。按照规律，供应商应多找几家客户，客户也应多找几家供应商，这样就比单纯依靠一个大集团更具有抗风险能力。来自中国的消息显示，目前的需求萎缩已经挤压出不少剩余产能，如果你的供应商倒闭了，在那儿可以很快找到新的。即便某个零部件只有非常专业的供应商能够提供，很难另谋他求，那也有比要求国家救助更有效的对策，比如改善管理。最出色的公司都会密切监控其核心供应商，零部件也不止从一家采购，哪怕会多付些成本。在极端情况下，公司还可以出手支援落难的供应商，帮助它们筹资或向其注资。
　　既然行业救助是不经济的，为什么还要救援银行体系？当然不是为了救银行家，也不是因为国家救助能够提高金融业效率。即使是有缺陷的银行拯救和财政刺激计划，比如贝拉克·奥巴马本周签署生效的法案，针对的也是困扰经济的根本性难题：挽救银行——哪怕它们是咎由自取——是为了让资金继续流向所有企业；财政刺激是为了提振总体需求。就算制造业正在崩溃，政府也不该在行业救助计划上过多纠缠。政府真正的任务涉及面更广，而且同样刻不容缓：继续扩大支出，搞活资金融通。

英文原文及练接如下：http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13144864&source=most_commented

The collapse of manufacturing
　　Feb 19th 2009
　　From The Economist print edition
　　The financial crisis has created an industrial crisis. What should governments do about it?
　　Alamy$0.00, not counting fuel and handling: that is the cheapest quote right now if you want to ship a container from southern China to Europe. Back in the summer of 2007 the shipper would have charged $1,400. Half-empty freighters are just one sign of a worldwide collapse in manufacturing. In Germany December’s machine-tool orders were 40% lower than a year earlier. Half of China’s 9,000 or so toy exporters have gone bust. Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January. The number of cars being assembled in America was 60% below January 2008.
　　The destructive global power of the financial crisis became clear last year. The immensity of the manufacturing crisis is still sinking in, largely because it is seen in national terms—indeed, often nationalistic ones. In fact manufacturing is also caught up in a global whirlwind.
　　Industrial production fell in the latest three months by 3.6% and 4.4% respectively in America and Britain (equivalent to annual declines of 13.8% and 16.4%). Some locals blame that on Wall Street and the City. But the collapse is much worse in countries more dependent on manufacturing exports, which have come to rely on consumers in debtor countries. Germany’s industrial production in the fourth quarter fell by 6.8%; Taiwan’s by 21.7%; Japan’s by 12%—which helps to explain why GDP is falling even faster there than it did in the early 1990s (see article). Industrial production is volatile, but the world has not seen a contraction like this since the first oil shock in the 1970s—and even that was not so widespread. Industry is collapsing in eastern Europe, as it is in Brazil, Malaysia and Turkey. Thousands of factories in southern China are now abandoned. Their workers went home to the countryside for the new year in January. Millions never came back (see article).
　　Factories floored
　　Having bailed out the financial system, governments are now being called on to save industry, too. Next to scheming bankers, factory workers look positively deserving. Manufacturing is still a big employer and it tends to be a very visible one, concentrated in places like Detroit, Stuttgart and Guangzhou. The failure of a famous manufacturer like General Motors (GM) would be a severe blow to people’s faith in their own prospects when a lack of confidence is already dragging down the economy. So surely it is right to give industry special support?
　　Despite manufacturing’s woes, the answer is no. There are no painless choices, but industrial aid suffers from two big drawbacks. One is that government programmes, which are slow to design and amend, are too cumbersome to deal with the varied, constantly changing difficulties of the world’s manufacturing industries. Part of the problem has been a drying-up of trade finance. Nobody knows how long that will last. Another part has come as firms have run down their inventories (in China some of these were stockpiles amassed before the Beijing Olympics). The inventory effect should be temporary, but, again, nobody knows how big or lasting it will be.
　　The other drawback is that sectoral aid does not address the underlying cause of the crisis—a fall in demand, not just for manufactured goods, but for everything. Because there is too much capacity (far too much in the car industry), some businesses must close however much aid the government pumps in. How can governments know which firms to save or the “right” size of any industry? That is for consumers to decide. Giving money to the industries with the loudest voices and cleverest lobbyists would be unjust and wasteful. Shifting demand to the fortunate sector that has won aid from the unfortunate one that has not will only exacerbate the upheaval. One country’s preference for a given industry risks provoking a protectionist backlash abroad and will slow the long-run growth rate at home by locking up resources in inefficient firms.
　　Nothing to lose but their supply chains
　　Some say that manufacturing is special, because the rest of the economy depends on it. In fact, the economy is more like a network in which everything is connected to everything else, and in which every producer is also a consumer. The important distinction is not between manufacturing and services, but between productive and unproductive jobs.
　　Some manufacturers accept that, but proceed immediately to another argument: that the current crisis is needlessly endangering productive, highly skilled manufacturing jobs. Nowadays each link in the supply chain depends on all the others. Carmakers cite GM’s new Camaro, threatened after a firm that makes moulded-plastic parts went bankrupt. The car industry argues that the loss of GM itself would permanently wreck the North American supply chain (see article). Aid, they say, can save good firms to fight another day.
　　Although some supply chains have choke points, that is a weak general argument for sectoral aid. As a rule, suppliers with several customers, and customers with several suppliers, should be more resilient than if they were a dependent captive of a large group. The evidence from China is that today’s lack of demand creates the spare capacity that allows customers to find a new supplier quickly if theirs goes out of business. When that is hard, because a parts supplier is highly specialised, say, good management is likely to be more effective than state aid. The best firms monitor their vital suppliers closely and buy parts from more than one source, even if it costs money. In the extreme, firms can support vulnerable suppliers by helping them raise cash or by investing in them.
　　If sectoral aid is wasteful, why then save the banking system? Not for the sake of the bankers, certainly; nor because state aid will create an efficient financial industry. Even flawed bank rescues and stimulus plans, like the one Barack Obama signed into law this week, are aimed at the roots of the economy’s problems: saving the banks, no matter how undeserving they are, is supposed to keep finance flowing to all firms; fiscal stimulus is supposed to lift demand across the board. As manufacturing collapses, governments should not fiddle with sectoral plans. Their proper task is broader but no less urgent: to get on with spending and with freeing up finance.

[此贴子已经被作者于2009-3-3 23:50:45编辑过]

mysky321  金钱 +50  奖励 2009-3-4 21:27:23