大型债务危机还有多远?

冠肺炎疫情对全球经济社会带来严重冲击。

财政支出快速增长,经济停滞,不仅影响了存量债务的正常还本付息,也对债务增量形成压力。

如无法尽早有效应对,可能形成全球范围广泛的债务危机,对各国经济社会产生深远的负面影响。

1、资源重新配置的产物

本质上,债务关系是时间与空间资源重新配置的产物。借债行为本身是资源处置权利的临时性转让。

一般来讲,债务的形成有两种模式:

一种是在纵向时间轴上的预支未来的财富或收入,用以满足当前的消费或投资需求,即所谓的“寅吃卯粮”。

一种是在横向空间轴上的金融资源流动,资本从较为充裕的地区或行业领域流向相对稀缺的地区或行业领域。债务人通过借债增强自身发展,债权人则期待通过放债获得稳定现金流。

按照债权债务关系中主体的性质,可以由政府、企业、个人、金融机构、国际组织等等组成复杂的网络关系。尽管可以把债务大致分为公共债务和私营部门债务两类,各方在确定相关统计边界时却难以完全一致。

以反映政府借债意愿的“公共债务”为例,有狭义、广义和最广义三个层面。狭义的公共债务为中央政府的借债;广义的公共债务指的是广义政府(中央政府、地方政府、预算外单位和社会保障基金)的借债;而最广义的公共债务更在广义政府的借债基础上,进一步将公共非金融公司和包括中央银行在内的公共金融公司,以及公共担保债务(公共部门有义务偿还的债务)和外部公共债务包含了进来。

值得注意的是,普通的债务在变身为金融市场的交易产品后,又会通过全球金融网络将更多的主体包络进来,分拆变幻、螺旋迭代,使得债权债务关系变得异常复杂。一旦跨国债务出现偿还或支付困难,在不同法律和规范约束下处理的难度可想而知。

显然,借债是要支付成本的。债务人不仅需要还本,还要支付资金占用的成本——利息。债务的可持续对债权债务双方都有要求。理性的债务人要考虑如何使得付出利息成本借来的资金产生比利息更多的价值(比如投资于效益更好的领域),理性的债权人则要综合考虑出借资金的成本和风险,对高风险的债务人要求其支付更高的利息。

如果上述循环无法延续,就会形成债务违约。大规模、大面积的债务违约,则可能造成债务危机,不仅造成债务人信用评级下降、破产,还会带来债权人的资金流断裂和出借资金能力、意愿的明显下降。

由于资金实力占优、在风险管理和控制上经验更为丰富,加之具有众多的风险转移和化解渠道,发达经济体的债务危机相对较少(欧债危机是其中为数不多的危机之一)。迄今为止,债务危机的爆发主要发生在新兴市场和发展中经济体。

据IMF统计,1970-2009年期间,新兴市场和发展中经济体经历了三波广泛的债务积累,均以债务危机的爆发并造成严重的经济社会冲击、停滞乃至后退而落幕。

20世纪70年代,低实际利率和快速发展的银团贷款市场提供了资金,拉美和撒哈拉以南非洲的低收入国家大量举债并在80年代初引发金融危机,阿根廷等国家随后几十年在国际市场融资困难、经济下滑。

20世纪最后10年,金融和资本市场自由化快速推进,东亚、太平洋、欧洲和中亚地区政府得以大量借入外币债务,1997年东南亚金融危机导致投资者情绪恶化和经济衰退。

21世纪前10年,欧洲和中亚从总部位于欧盟的大型银行融资,但在美国次贷危机的冲击下无法继续融资,经济陷入衰退。

 

2、阴影,早已出现在地平线上

其实,债务危机一直没有离我们远去,2008年国际经济危机的爆发仅仅导致债务上升的短暂停滞。2010年,新一轮的债务积累以远超历史的规模和速度快速增加,私营部门借债的增长尤为迅猛。2014至2015年国际市场价格暴跌后,大宗商品出口国出现公共部门债务明显增长的情况。

IMF和世界银行的统计显示,2010年以来,新兴市场和发展中经济体的债务总额占GDP的比重上升了60个百分点,2019年债务占GDP比重超过170%。

相比而言,1970年以来的前三次债务危机中,债务规模占GDP的比重均在100%左右。而且,与2010年相比,80%的新兴市场和发展中经济体2018年的债务总额都要更高。不包括中国,新兴市场和发展中经济体,2019年债务占GDP的比重上升了20个百分点,平均占比为108%。

与前面几轮债务危机相似,2010年以来的债务积累增加也发生在全球利率整体处于低水平的阶段,较低的借债成本刺激了借债需求。国际市场可供借贷的金融资本供给充沛,甚至导致债权人通过放松借债约束条件相互竞争。2008年国际经济危机后,市场的逐步复苏也在一定程度上增强了债权人和债务人对未来偿还债务的信心,扩大了债务增长的空间。

但是,此轮的债务积累也有一些新特点:

比如,2010年以来,部分新兴市场和发展中经济体的债务占GDP比重的年均增幅将近7个百分点,远超历史。

再如,此次债务规模的上升是全球性的,而此前的债务危机都发生在区域之内。

又如,债务规模的快速增长广泛扩展到非金融体系,私营部门借债占比迅速超过公共债务,使得债务影响更加广泛,牵一发而动全身。

 

3、“灰犀牛”奋蹄奔来

新冠肺炎疫情的突然暴发和广泛传播给全球经济出了一道难题,各国政府则首当其冲,面临大考。除了公共卫生防疫措施外,如何利用金融资源减缓疫情冲击、止损乃至复苏经济,成为各国政府的重要工作。

据IMF统计,截至2020年9月11日,新冠肺炎疫情和相关封锁措施已使各国实施了总额达11.7万亿美元(约合77.6万亿元人民币)规模空前的财政措施,接近全球GDP的12%。这些财政举措的资金来源无非包括政府现有“储蓄”,以未来收入为抵押从本国居民处借债,以及从非本国居民的国家或投资者处借债三条路径。

但是,在多数经济体国内经济大幅受挫、居民收入减少,而且全球范围内资金需求快速增加的情势下,三条路径的资金供应规模都较为有限。各国政府的财政举措中,一半是增加支出或放弃收入(包括临时性减税),另一半是流动性支持,包括贷款、担保和公共部门注资等。

各国政府对于疫情冲击的快速、强力响应不仅挽救了生命,为弱势群体和企业提供了支持,还减轻了经济活动受到的影响。然而,这场危机对全球范围内的政府财政已经产生并将继续产生持续性的损害。

据IMF测算,各国政府2020年的财政赤字占GDP比率平均将上升9个百分点,而全球公共债务规模预计将接近GDP的100%,创历史新高,主要经济体的公共债务压力都显著上升。

以二十国集团为例,发达经济体中,政府提供的流动性支持占GDP的比重从高到低分别为意大利(33.0%)、日本(23.7%)、英国(16.6%)、西班牙(14.2%)、韩国(10.3%)、欧盟(6.9%)、加拿大(4.3%)、美国(2.5%)和澳大利亚(1.8%);新兴市场经济体中,从高到低分别为土耳其(13.0%)、巴西(6.3%)、印度(5.2%)、南非(4.3%)、阿根廷(2.1%)、中国(1.3%)、印尼(1.2%)、俄罗斯(1.0%)、沙特(0.9%)和墨西哥(0.5%)。

在经济活动稳步反弹、利率稳定维持低位的基线假设下,全球(除中国和美国)平均公共债务比率预计将在2021年稳定下来。但各国还需开展更多工作,以应对日益严重的贫困、失业和不平等问题,同时推动经济复苏。

美国自2020年3月27日开始实行应对疫情的《冠状病毒支持、缓解和经济安全(CARES)法案》,通过总额超过2万亿美元(约合13.1万亿元人民币)的经济支持,减少受影响的个人、企业因疫情受到的损害。CARES法案使得美国政府的债务出现快速增长。美国财政部数据显示,截至11月30日,美国政府的债务总计约27万亿美元(约合176.8万亿元人民币),比3月时的债务增长了4万亿美元(约合26.2万亿元人民币)。

新冠肺炎疫情后,全球范围债务压力的严峻性还表现为,私营部门债务存量处于历史高位。疫情产生的经济活动停滞,很可能导致大量企业破产,从而使得复杂的跨国债务网络出现破损,造成跨部门的广泛冲击,破坏经济复苏的能力。

在各国政府、私营部门都面临偿债困难的局面下,跨国的资源调配和债务处置空间也被大大压缩。一旦全球性债务危机出现,解决问题的进程将会相当漫长和困难,不仅金融市场系统性风险将显著上升、引发货币的竞争性贬值,而且将对实体经济产生严重冲击,造成产业链和供应链的损伤,破坏国际贸易网络。

 

4、如何减少连带伤害?

公共债务的可持续是增强经济发展动力的重要保障。IMF基于跨国数据和40万家企业样本的实证估计表明,在高度不确定的时期,公共投资可以对GDP增长和就业产生巨大影响。

对于发达和新兴市场经济体,财政乘数将在两年后达到超过2的峰值。在这些经济体中,公共投资增加GDP的1%将直接创造700万个就业机会。如果考虑对宏观经济的间接影响,其将总共创造2000万至3300万个就业机会。

 

【注:财政乘数,一般指财政支出乘数、税收乘数、平衡预算乘数的统称,用于解释政府支出和税收的变动对GDP增加或减少的影响。】

 

一方面要发挥借债对经济发展的促进作用,另一方面又要尽量减少过高债务的负面影响,各方需要在债务筹划上更为审慎和协同。

对于债务国而言,防范债务危机先要依靠自身的能力提升和管理优化,合理处理存量债务和增量债务之间的关系:

首先,新的借款应根据财务状况谨慎确定,在赤字管理上设定红线,保持公共债务的可持续。

其次,合理评估疫情对经济的影响,伴随疫情形势的改善及时调整债务管理目标基线,以发展经济学的角度全面考虑借债的收益,并与债务存量的成本进行比较。做好平衡,增加生产性基础设施支出的相关债务。

再次,各国应在中期债务管理范围内增强对债务信息的准确把握,应尽量做到最广义公共债务统计,包括公共担保债务。

而解决全球债务危机的风险和压力则远远超过了一国的能力范围,需要以更多的国际协调减少债务过快、不可逆的扩张,为债务压力的缓解赢得时间。除了在债务的管理、规范方面加强国际协同外,发展也是解决现有问题的重要出路。疫情加快了传统经济向数字经济的转型。低碳、绿色的可持续发展理念得到越来越多国家的认可和积极推动。新技术创造的发展空间有可能在现有的资源要素条件下进一步释放增长潜力,提高经济体的生产效率和盈利能力。

全球供应链的重构加速,围绕消费市场和需求的调整,适应国际经贸协定的新环境,经济复苏所带来的动能有助于为私营部门增加活力,通过资金周转的加速使得偿债变得更为可能。

在全球化的新时代,以邻为壑的发展策略只能为本国创造临时的温室,只有与国际经贸网络中的伙伴采取积极协同合作的发展模式,才可能把市场的蛋糕越做越大。作为资源跨越时间、空间调配的产物,债务势必将持续伴随人类社会的发展。

全球各国各类债务占GDP的比重会触顶下降还是高位徘徊甚至再向上突破?

是否会演变成为危机,进而对经济社会造成广泛而深刻的负面影响?

金融市场开放和创新是否能够成为识别、预警、处置和中断债务危机的利器,或者反过来成为债务危机的助推器?

大概这些问题还需要时间来回答。

不断变化的世界秩序—桥水基金达利欧

我相信,尽管与历史上许多其它时代相似,但未来的时代将与我们一生中迄今为止经历的任何时代都截然不同。

我之所以这么认为,是因为大约18个月前,我进行了一项有关帝国、及其储备货币和其市场的兴衰研究,这是由于我看到了我一生中从未发生过的许多不寻常的事态发展,但我知道这种事在历史上发生过无数次。最重要的是,我看到的:

  • 1、高负债率和极低利率的汇合,这限制了中央银行刺激经济的权力;
  • 2、国家内部巨大的贫富差距和政治分歧,导致社会和政治的冲突增加 ;
  • 3、崛起的世界大国(chi*a)正企图挑战已过度扩张的世界霸权(美国),从而导致外部冲突。最近的类似时间是1930年至1945年。这让我非常担忧。

 

 

以下英文原文,后续会全部翻译成中文。

I believe that the times ahead will be radically different from the times we have experienced so far in our lifetimes, though similar to many other times in history.

I believe this because about 18 months ago I undertook a study of the rises and declines of empires, their reserve currencies, and their markets, prompted by my seeing a number of unusual developments that hadn’t happened before in my lifetime but that I knew had occurred numerous times in history. Most importantly, I was seeing the confluence of 1) high levels of indebtedness and extremely low interest rates, which limits central banks’ powers to stimulate the economy, 2) large wealth gaps and political divisions within countries, which leads to increased social and political conflicts, and 3) a rising world power (China) challenging the overextended existing world power (the US), which causes external conflict.  The most recent analogous time was the period from 1930 to 1945.  This was very concerning to me.

As I studied history, I saw that this confluence of events was typical of periods that existed as roughly 10- to 20-year transition phases between big economic and political cycles that occurred over many years (e.g., 50-100 years).  These big cycles were comprised of swings between 1) happy and prosperous periods in which wealth is pursued and created productively and those with power work harmoniously to facilitate this and 2) miserable, depressing periods in which there are fights over wealth and power that disrupt harmony and productivity and sometimes lead to revolutions/wars. These bad periods were like cleansing storms that got rid of weaknesses and excesses, such as too much debt, and returned the fundamentals to a sounder footing, albeit painfully. They eventually caused adaptations that made the whole stronger, though they typically changed who was on top and the prevailing world order.

The answers to this question can only be found by studying the mechanics behind similar cases in history—the 1930-45 period but also the rise and fall of the British and Dutch empires, the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties, and others—to unlock an understanding of what is happening and what is likely to happen.[1] That was the purpose of this study.  Then the pandemic came along, which was another one of those big events that never happened to me but happened many times before my lifetime that I needed to understand better.

My Approach

While it might seem odd that an investment manager who is required to make investment decisions on short time frames would pay so much attention to long-term history, through my experiences I have learned that I need this perspective to do my job well.  My biggest mistakes in my career came from missing big market moves that hadn’t happened in my lifetime but had happened many times before.  These mistakes taught me that I needed to understand how economies and markets have worked throughout history and in faraway placesso that I could learn the timeless and universal mechanics underlying them and develop timeless and universal principles for dealing with them well.

The first of these big surprises for me came in 1971 when I was 22 years old and clerking on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as a summer job.  On a Sunday night, August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that the US would renege on its promise to allow paper dollars to be turned in for gold.  This led the dollar to plummet.  As I listened to Nixon speak, I realized that the US government had defaulted on a promise and that money as we knew it had ceased to exist.  That couldn’t be good, I thought.  So on Monday morning I walked onto the floor of the exchange expecting pandemonium as stocks took a dive. There was pandemonium all right, but not the sort I expected.  Instead of falling, the stock market jumped about 4 percent.  I was shocked.  That is because I hadn’t experienced a currency devaluation before.  In the days that followed, I dug into history and saw that there were many cases of currency devaluations that had similar effects on stock markets.  By studying further, I figured out why, and I learned something valuable that would help me many times in my future.  It took a few more of those painful surprises to beat into my head the realization that I needed to understand all the big economic and market moves that had happened in the last 100+ years and in all major countries.

In other words, if some big and important event had happened in the past (like the Great Depression of the 1930s), I couldn’t say for sure that it wouldn’t happen to me, so I had to figure out how it worked and be prepared to deal with it well. Through my research I saw that there were many cases of the same type of thing happening (e.g., depressions) and that by studying them just like a doctor studies many cases of a particular type of disease, I could gain a deeper understanding of how they work.  The way I work is to study as many of the important cases of a particular thing I can find and then to form a picture of a typical one, which I call an archetype. The archetype helps me see the cause-effect relationships that drive how these cases typically progress. Then I compare how the specific cases transpire relative to the archetypical one to understand what causes the differences between each case and the archetype.  This process helps me refine my understanding of the cause-effect relationships to the point where I can create decision-making rules in the form of “if/then” statements—i.e., if X happens, then make Y bet. Then I watch actual events transpire relative to that template and what we are expecting.  I do these things in a very systematic way with my partners at Bridgewater Associates.[1a] If events are on track we continue to bet on what typically comes next, and if events start to deviate we try to understand why and course correct.

My approach is not an academic one created for scholarly purposes; it is a very practical one that I follow in order to do my job well.  You see, as a global macro investor, the game I play requires me to understand what is likely to happen to economies better than the competition does.  From my years of wrestling with the markets and trying to come up with principles for doing it well, I’ve learned that 1) one’s ability to anticipate and deal well with the future depends on one’s understanding of the cause-effect relationships that make things change and 2) one’s ability to understand these cause-effect relationships comes from studying how they have played out in the past.  How practical this approach has been can be measured in Bridgewater’s performance track record over several decades.

This Approach Affects How I See Everything

Having done many such studies in pursuit of timeless and universal principles, I’ve learned that most things—e.g., prosperous periods, depressions, wars, revolutions, bull markets, bear markets, etc.—happen repeatedly through time.  They come about for basically the same reasons, typically in cycles, and often in cycles that are as long or longer than our lifetimes.  This has helped me come to see most everything as “another one of those,” just like a biologist, upon encountering a creature in the wild, would identify what species (or “one of those”) the creature belongs to, think about how that species of thing works, and try to have and use timeless and universal principles for dealing with it effectively.

Seeing events in this way helped shift my perspective from being caught in the blizzard of things coming at me to stepping above them to see their patterns through time.[2] The more related things I could understand in this way, the more I could see how they influence each other—e.g., how the economic cycle works with the political one—and how they interact over longer periods of time.  I also learned that when I paid attention to the details I couldn’t see the big picture and when I paid attention to the big picture I couldn’t see the details.  Yet in order to understand the patterns and the cause-effect relationships behind them, I needed to see with a higher-level, bigger-picture perspective and a lower-level, detailed perspective simultaneously, looking at the interrelationships between the most important forces over long periods of time.  To me it appears that most things evolve upward (improve over time) with cycles around them, like an upward-pointing corkscrew:

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For example, over time our living standards rise because we learn more, which leads to higher productivity, but we have ups and downs in the economy because we have debt cycles that drive actual economic activity up and down around that uptrend.

I believe that the reason people typically missthe big moments of evolution coming at them in life is that we each experience only tiny pieces of what’s happening.  We are like ants preoccupied with our jobs of carrying crumbs in our minuscule lifetimes instead of having a broader perspective of the big-picture patterns and cycles, the important interrelated things driving them, and where we are within the cycles and what’s likely to transpire. From gaining this perspective, I’ve come to believe that there are only a limited number of personality types going down a limited number of paths that lead them to encounter a limited number of situations to produce only a limited number of stories that repeat over time.[3]

The only things that change are the clothes the characters are wearing and the technologies they’re using.

This Study & How I Came to Do It

One study led to another that led me to do this study.  More specifically:

  • Studying money and credit cycles throughout history made me aware of the long-term debt cycle (which typically lasts about 50-100 years), which led me to view what is happening now in a very different way than if I hadn’t gained that perspective.  For example, before interest rates hit 0% and central banks printed money and bought financial assets in response to the 2008-09 financial crisis I had studied that happening in the 1930s, which helped us navigate that crisis well.  From that research, I also saw how and why these central bank actions pushed financial asset prices and the economy up, which widened the wealth gap and led to an era of populism and conflict.  We are now seeing the same forces at play in the post-2009 period.
  • In 2014, I wanted to forecast economic growth rates in a number of countries because they were relevant to our investment decisions.  I used the same approach of studying many cases to find the drivers of growth and come up with timeless and universal indicators for anticipating countries’ growth rates over 10-year periods.  Through this process, I developed a deeper understanding of why some countries did well and others did poorly.  I combined these indicators into gauges and equations that we use to produce 10-year growth estimates across the 20 largest economies.  Besides being helpful to us, I saw that this study could help economic policy makers because, by seeing these timeless and universal cause-effect relationships, they could know that if they changed X, it would have Y effect in the future.  I also saw how these 10-year leading economic indicators (such as the quality of education and the level of indebtedness) were worsening for the US relative to big emerging countries such as China and India.  This study is called “Productivity and Structural Reform: Why Countries Succeed and Fail, and What Should Be Done So Failing Countries Succeed.”
  • Soon after the Trump election in 2016 and with increases in populism in developed countries becoming more apparent, I began a study of populism.  That highlighted for me how gaps in wealth and values led to deep social and political conflicts in the 1930s that are similar to those that exist now.  It also showed me how and why populists of the left and populists of the right were more nationalistic, militaristic, protectionist, and confrontational—and what such approaches led to.  I saw how strong the conflict between the economic/political left and right could become and the strong impact this conflict has on economies, markets, wealth, and power, which gave me a better understanding of events that were and still are transpiring.
  • From doing these studies, and from observing numerous things that were happening around me, I saw that America was experiencing very large gaps in people’s economic conditions that were obscured by looking only at economic averages. So I divided the economy into quintiles—i.e., looking at the top 20% of income earners, the next 20%, and so on down to the bottom 20%—and examined the conditions of these populations individually.  This resulted in two studies.  In “Our Biggest Economic, Social, and Political Issue: The Two Economies—The Top 40% and the Bottom 60%,” I saw the dramatic differences in conditions between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” which helped me understand the greater polarity and populism I saw emerging.  Those findings, as well as the intimate contact my wife and I were having through her philanthropic work with the reality of wealth and opportunity gaps in Connecticut communities and their schools, led to the research that became my “Why and How Capitalism Needs to Be Reformed” study.
  • At the same time, through my many years of international dealings in and research of other countries, I saw huge global economic and geopolitical shifts taking place, especially in China.  I have been going to China a lot over the last 35 years and am lucky enough to have become well-acquainted with its top policy makers.  This has helped me see up close how remarkable the advances in China have been and how excellent the capabilities and historical perspectives that were behind them are.  These excellent capabilities and perspectives have led China to become an effective competitor with the US in production, trade, technology, geopolitics, and world capital markets.

By the way you can read these studies for free at www.economicprinciples.org.

So, whatyou are now reading came about because of my need to understand important things that are now happening that hadn’t happened in my lifetime but have happened many times before that.  These things are the result of three big forces and the questions they prompt.

1) THE LONG-TERM MONEY AND DEBT CYCLE

At no point in our lifetimes have interest rates been so low or negative on so much debt as they are today.  At the start of 2020, more than $10 trillion of debt was at negative interest rates and an unusually large amount of additional new debt will soon need to be sold to finance deficits.  This is happening at the same time as huge pension and healthcare obligations are coming due.  These circumstances raised some interesting questions for me.  Naturally I wondered why anyone would want to hold debt yielding a negative interest rate and how much lower interest rates can be pushed.  I also wondered what will happen to economies and markets when they can’t be pushed lower and how central banks could be stimulative when the next downturn inevitably came.  Would central banks print a lot more currency, causing its value to go down? What would happen if the currency that the debt is denominated in goes down while interest rates are so low?  These questions led me to ask what central banks will do if investors flee debt denominated in the world’s reserve currencies (i.e., the dollar, the euro, and the yen), which would be expected if the money that they are being paid back in is both depreciating in value and paying interest rates that are so low.

In case you don’t know, a reserve currency is a currency that is accepted around the world for transactions and savings. The country that gets to print the world’s primary currency (now the US) is in a very privileged and powerful position, and debt that is denominated in the world’s reserve currency (i.e., US dollar-denominated debt) is the most fundamental building block for the world’s capital markets and the world’s economies.  It is also the case that all reserve currencies in the past have ceased to be reserve currencies, often coming to traumatic ends for the countries that enjoyed this special privilege.  So I also began to wonder whether, when, and why the dollar will decline as the world’s leading reserve currency—and how that would change the world as we know it.

2) THE DOMESTIC WEALTH AND POWER CYCLE  

Wealth, values, and political gaps are now larger than at any other time during my lifetime.  By studying the 1930s and other prior eras when polarity was also high, I’ve learned that which side wins out (i.e., left or right) will have very big impacts on economies and markets.  So naturally I wondered what these gaps will lead to in our time.  My examinations of history have taught me that, as a principle, when wealth and values gaps are large and there is an economic downturn, it is likely that there will be lot of conflict about how to divide the pie. How will people and policy makers be with each other when the next economic downturn arrives? I am especially concerned because of the previously mentioned limitations on central banks’ abilities to cut interest adequately to stimulate the economy.  In addition to these traditional tools being ineffective, printing money and buying financial assets (now called “quantitative easing”) also widen the wealth gap because buying financial assets pushes up their prices, which benefits the wealthy who hold more financial assets than the poor.

3)  THE INTERNATIONAL WEALTH AND POWER CYCLE 

For the first time in my lifetime, the United States is encountering a rival power.  China has become a competitive power to the United States in a number of ways and is growing at a faster rate than the US.  If trends continue, it will be stronger than the United States in most of the most important ways that an empire becomes dominant.  (Or at the very least, it will become a worthy competitor.)  I have seen both countries up close for most of my life, and I now see how conflict is increasing fast, especially in the areas of trade, technology, geopolitics, capital, and economic/political/social ideologies.  I can’t help but wonder how these conflicts, and the changes in the world order that will result from them, will transpire in the years ahead and what effects that will have on us all.

The confluence of these three factors piques my curiosity and most draws my attention to similar periods such as the 1930-45 period and numerous others before that. More specifically, in 2008-09 like in 1929-32, there were serious debt and economic crises.  In both cases, interest rates hit 0% which limited central banks’ ability to use interest rate cuts to stimulate the economy, so, in both cases, central banks printed a lot of money to buy financial assets which, in both cases, caused financial asset prices to rise and widened the wealth gap.  In both periods, wide wealth and income gaps led to a high level of political polarization that took the form of greater populism and battles between ardent socialist-led populists of the left and ardent capitalist-led populists of the right.  These domestic conflicts stewed while emerging powers (Germany and Japan in the 1930s) increasingly challenged the existing world power.  And finally, just like today, the confluence of these factors meant that it was impossible to understand any one of them without also understanding the overlapping influences among them.

As I studied these factors, I knew that the short-term debt cycle was getting late and I knew that a downturn would eventually come.  I did not expect the global pandemic to be what brought it about, though I did know that past pandemics and other acts of nature (like droughts and floods) have sometimes been important contributors to these seismic shifts.

To gain the perspective I needed about these factors and what their confluence might mean, I looked at the rises and declines of all the major empires and their currencies over the last 500 years, focusing most closely on the three biggest ones: the US empire and the US dollar which are most important now, the British Empire and the British pound which were most important before that, and the Dutch Empire and the Dutch guilder before that.  I also focused less closely on the other six other significant, though less dominant, empires of Germany, France, Russia, Japan, China, and India.  Of those six, I gave China the most attention and looked at its history back to the year 600 because 1) China was so important throughout history, it’s so important now, and it will likely be even more important in the future and 2) it provides many cases of dynasties rising and declining to look at to help me better understand the patterns and the forces behind them.  In these cases, a clearer picture emerged of how other influences, most importantly technology and acts of nature, played significant roles.  From examining all these cases across empires and across time, I saw that important empires typically lasted roughly 250 years, give or take 150 years, with big economic, debt, and political cycles within them lasting about 50-100 years.  By studying how these rises and declines worked individually, I could see how they worked on average in an archetypical way, and then I could examine how they worked differently and why.  Doing that taught me a lot. My challenge is in trying to convey it well.

Remember That What I Don’t Know Is Much Greater Than What I Know

In asking these questions, from the outset I felt like an ant trying to understand the universe.  I had many more questions than answers, and I knew that I was delving into numerous areas that others have devoted their lives to studying.  So I aggressively and humbly drew on knowledge of some remarkable scholars and practitioners, who each had in-depth perspectives on some piece of the puzzle, though none had the holistic understanding that I needed in order to adequately answer all my questions.  In order to understand all the cause-effect relationships behind these cycles, I combined my triangulation with historians (who specialized in different parts of this big, complicated history) and policy makers (who had both practical experiences and historical perspectives) with an examination of statistics drawn out of ancient and contemporary archives by my excellent research team and by reading a number of superb books on history.

While I have learned an enormous amount that I will put to good use, I recognize that what I know is still only a tiny portion of what I’d like to know in order to be confident about my outlook for the future.  Still, I also know from experience that if I waited to learn enough to be satisfied with my knowledge, I’d never be able to use or convey what I have learned.  So please understand that while this study will provide you with my very top-down, big-picture perspective on what I’ve learned and my very low-confidence outlook for the future, you should approach my conclusions as theories rather than facts.  But please keep in mind that even with all of this, I have been wrong more times than I can remember, which is why I value diversification of my bets above all else. So, whenever I provide you with what I think, as I’m doing in this study, please realize that I’m just doing the best I can to openly convey to you my thinking.

It’s up to you to assess for yourself what I’ve learned and do what you like with it.

How This Study Is Organized

As with all my studies, I will attempt to convey what I learned in both a very short, simple way and in a much longer, more comprehensive way.  To do so, I wrote this book in two parts.

Part 1 summarizes all that I learned in one very simplified archetype of the rises and declines of empires, drawing from all my research of specific cases.  In order to make the most important concepts easy to understand, I will write in the vernacular, favoring clarity over precision.  As a result, some of my wording will be by and large accurate but not always precisely so. (I will also highlight key sentences in bold so that you can just read these and skip the rest to quickly get the big picture.)  I will first distill my findings into an index of total power of empires, which provides an overview of the ebbs and flows of different powers, that is constituted from eight indexes of different types of power.  Then I go into an explanation of these different types of power so you can understand how they work, and finally I discuss what I believe it all means for the future.

Part 2 shows all the individual cases in greater depth, sharing the same indices for all the major empires over the last 500 years.  Providing the information this way allows you to getthe gist of how I believe these rises and declines work by reading Part 1 and then to choose whether or not to go into Part 2 to see these interesting cases individually, in relation to each other, and in relation to the template explained in Part 1.  I suggest that you read both parts because I expect that you will find the grand story of the evolutions of these countries over the last 500 years in Part 2 fascinating.  That story presents a sequential picture of the world’s evolution via the events that led the Dutch empire to rise and decline into the British empire, the British empire to rise and decline into the US empire, and the US empire to rise and enter its early decline into the rise of the Chinese empire.  It also compares these three empires with those of Germany, France, Russia, Japan, China, and India.  As you will see in the examinations of each of them, they all broadly followed the script, though not exactly.  Additionally, I expect that you will find fascinating and invaluable the stories of the rises and declines of the Chinese dynasties since the year 600 just like I did.  Studying the dynasties showed me what in China has been similar to the other rises and declines (which is most everything), helped me to see what was different (which is what makes China different from the West), and gave me an understanding of the perspectives of the Chinese leaders who all study these dynasties carefully for the lessons they provide.

Frankly, I don’t know how I’d be able to navigate what is happening now and what will be coming at us without having studied all this history.  But before we get into these fascinating individual cases, let’s delve into the archetypical case.

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[1]To be clear, while I am describing these cycles of the past, I’m not one of those people who believe that what happened in the past will necessarily continue into the future without understanding the cause-effect mechanics that drive changes.  My objective above all else is to have you join with me in looking at the cause-effect relationships and then to use that understanding to explore what might be coming at us and agree on principles to handle it in the best possible way.

[1a]For example, I have followed this approach for debt cycles because I’ve had to navigate many of them over the last 50 years and they are the most important force driving big shifts in economies and markets.  If you are interested in understanding my template for understanding big debt crises and seeing all the cases that made it up, you can get Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crisesin free digital form at www.economicprinciples.org or in print form for sale in bookstores or online.  It was that perspective that allowed Bridgewater to navigate the 2008 financial crisis well when others struggled.  I’ve studied many big, important things (e.g., depressions, hyperinflation, wars, balance of payments crises, etc.) by following this approach, usually because I was compelled to understand unusual things that appeared to be germinating around me.

[2]I approach seeing just about everything this way.  For example, in building and running my business, I had to understand the realities of how people think and learn principles for dealing with these realities well, which I did using this same approach.  If you are interested in what I learned about such non-economic and non-market things, I conveyed it in my book Principles: Life and Work, which is free in an app called “Principles in Action” available on the Apple App Store or is for sale in the usual bookstores.

[3]In my book Principles: Life and Work, I shared my thinking about these different ways of thinking.  I won’t describe them here but will direct you there should you be interested.

海航可能成为第二个乐视

截止今天,乐视已经连续7个跌停,如果我买了乐视,我还真可能要为贾跃亭同志的梦想“窒息”!

今天查阅停牌股票,发现海航和旗下关联公司几乎全部停牌(只有港交所的三家公司未停牌,你懂滴),惊愕之余看了一下负债率……差点尿都吓出来了!

子公司、负债率、交易状态
渤海金控:88.34% 停牌
海航控股:59.84% 停牌
天海投资:85.12% 停牌
海航基础:51% 停牌
供销大集:43.39% 停牌
海航创新:61.12% 停牌
海越股份:82.51%
海越投资:57.52%
凯撒旅游:58.19% 停牌
东北电气:48.85%
海航总资产约12000亿,在大陆和港股上市公司总负债5800亿,其中有四分之一是一年内到期的短期借款,手上持有现金1850亿。

相当于这家公司一半的资产都是从银行借来的,并且手上的现金只够还今年的短期借款……钱都还贷款了,员工特么不需要发工资啊!
按照这个趋势……如果银行不批新的借款,或者资方没有新的资金注入……海航恐怕就要搞出大事了!

再补充一下,今年收缩银根,银行绝对不会给海航新开贷款,即便是把旧的贷款还上了,也不会给新的贷款额度……剩下只能看投资方了。
海航在2017年 《财富》杂志世界500强排名 170名 ,搞了半天这个世界500强是借债借出来的啊!

不扯犊子了!
各位投资海航及海航子公司的亲们:祝你们新年快乐!

越南是否处在类似中国改革开放初期的阶段

越南是否处在类似我国改革开放初期的阶段?
越南是一个最喜欢学习中国的国家,即便曾经发生对越自卫还击战的80年代,越南也依然做了类似大陆改革开放政策(1986年越领导层决定实施效仿中国的“革新开放”),并且小有成就,但是越南是否就处在类似我国改革开放初期的阶段呢?最近这个问题屡次被提起,或许国内民众的投资热情真的太高了吧!

大陆搞改革开放时手里有两弹一星,外加核潜艇。不仅可以敲打邻国,还可以裁军百万。一个人想好好学习是有前提的:没有不爱学习的人来打搅你,也没有比你聪明、成绩还比你好的人来打扰你!其次,你还要跟对一个好老师。
我们时不时就因为南海问题增兵广西、云南,上一次被逼急了,越南总理阮晋勇就签发了全国动员令。
韩国搞汉江奇迹的时候,美国驻军从未离开过半岛。越南曾经的苏联爸爸已经埋葬了自己。一个外部忧虑无法解决的小国家,即使想要安心发展经济,也会被大国以各种理由敲打!这样的小国家发展经济只能从大陆接收低端产业的皮毛,难有大陆的产业成就!

越南并不具备中国大陆搞改革开放的外部条件,其次越南近几年民族主义和反华声音很大。印尼是越南的第一大投资方,台湾是第二大投资方,上次反华游行暴乱的时候台湾工厂全部停工关闭放假,台商损失很大的!

奉劝各位,想做投资宁可去非洲,不要去越南,太危险!