不待鞭扬蹄自奋--天凉好个哈糗的说

新闻A：

Bush, Republicans Find Strong Economy Doesn't Win Middle Class

By Brendan Murray

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Representative Gil Gutknecht is talking up the strong economy in the closing days of a tight re-election campaign. The problem: Middle-class voters in his southern Minnesota district aren't inclined to celebrate upbeat economic statistics.

Gutknecht, a six-term House member, isn't alone. Republicans who planned to use low unemployment, cheaper gasoline and a surging stock market as a shield against discontent over the Iraq war and congressional scandals are discovering that there's little protection to be had.

The reason, some analysts say, is the gap between a statistically strong five-year expansion and strapped family budgets. Middle-class households' finances are getting stretched as workers struggle with higher costs for health care, education, home heating and property taxes.

``The story used to be a rising tide raises all boats, and now it just raises all yachts,'' says Edward Tufte, a political scientist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ``The benefits of a good economy are much more narrowly focused now on the top 20 percent.''

In the face of growing concerns about income inequality, experts like Tufte say, it should be no surprise that voters aren't swayed when Republicans argue that President George W. Bush's $2 trillion tax cuts have produced a sizzling economy.

Worsened Under Bush

In the most recent Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll, conducted Oct. 20-23 among 3,630 voters in five electoral battleground states, 48 percent of respondents earning between $40,000 and $75,000 annually said the economy has worsened under Bush, while 26 percent said it has improved.

Among those voters, 46 percent said Democrats would do a better job handing gasoline prices, compared with 19 percent who said Republicans would be superior. Nationally, the $40,000 to $75,000 group represents 21.6 percent of all income-tax filers, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.

The skeptical mood among such voters has undermined the strategy outlined by White House political adviser Karl Rove in a May 15 speech previewing his party's electoral battle plan. Rove said then that the continued strength of the economy would override the ``sour'' national mood created by the Iraq war.

The `Middle-Class Squeeze'

Instead, it is the Democrats who are scoring points on the economy by reviving a theme of former President Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign: easing the ``middle-class squeeze.''

Places like New Richland, Minnesota, a farm town of 1,200 in Gutknecht's district, provide a receptive audience. Gutknecht, 55, won re-election in 2004 with 60 percent of the vote. This year, he faces Democrat Tim Walz, a 42-year-old high-school geography teacher who is attempting to harness economic angst to unseat him.

The latest poll by RT Strategies/Constituent Dynamics shows the incumbent tied with Walz, who tells voters that the stock market's ascent isn't benefiting many working families. In New Richland, he doesn't have to look far for folks who agree.

Matt Groskreutz, 22, says over lunch at the Du Drop Inn last week that he works on his family's farm during the day and has a night job at a grain elevator, where he makes $9.50 an hour. The two jobs, he says, are essential for him to ``get by.''

Joyce Hanson, 66, the diner's owner, says that ``it's tough right now on Main Street. Business ain't like it used to be; there's nothing here.''

Lost Jobs

While unemployment in the region has hovered around 3.8 percent this year, below the national average, Walz points to 1,100 factory jobs lost in one county during the past four years. He says they were replaced by 1,300 service-industry jobs that pay about $10,000 a year less.

``My opponent will say this is the best economy we've ever seen, and then I watch the faces across the room,'' Walz said in an interview. ``I don't even have to rebut it, because they know it's not true.''

Gutknecht paints a very different picture of the district, which is home to the Mayo Clinic, an International Business Machines Corp. plant and a thriving ethanol industry. ``The economy in southern Minnesota has never been better,'' he says. ``If people vote on the economy, I think I'm going to win 55 percent to 45 percent. If they vote their fears about Iraq or whatever, then it's going to be much tighter.''

Left Behind

To counter Republican assertions that low taxes are the key to growth, Democrats like Walz are focusing on middle-class voters -- many of them Republican-leaning independents -- who feel left behind by prosperity.

U.S. employers are paying less of their profits in the form of wages and salaries than at any time since the Great Depression, according to Commerce Department data. Wages earned by private-sector workers fell to 51 percent of gross profits in the second quarter of this year, down from 55.5 percent at the start of Bush's presidency.

At the same time, corporate profits reached a record $1.62 trillion in the second quarter, or 13.8 percent of national income at an annual rate. That's up from 9.9 percent in 2000, according to Federal Reserve figures. During the same period, total compensation of workers, which includes wages and benefits, fell to 64.2 percent, compared with 71.7 percent in 2000.

`Not So Spectacular'

While the economic picture ``looks pretty good'' when judged by broad gauges, ``if you look at measures like real income growth, it's not so spectacular,'' says Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. Even some of those broad gauges aren't looking quite as rosy; the Commerce Department reported Oct. 27 that gross domestic product accelerated at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the weakest pace in more than three years.

Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, says that the public's pessimism about the economy ``is a bit of a frustration'' because ``employment is very tight and still growing.'' Higher wages should follow, he said in an interview last week.

Even if he's right, a wage bounce may come too late for embattled Republicans like Chris Chocola, 44, who's fighting for his seat in a northern Indiana rematch with 51-year-old Democrat Joe Donnelly, whom he beat 54 percent to 45 percent two years ago. The Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter in Washington, rates the contest as leaning Democratic.

In Colorado, Republican Rick O'Donnell, 36, is struggling to hold an open seat even though the unemployment rate there is around 4.3 percent. Retiring Republican Bob Beauprez won 55 percent of the vote in 2004; Rothenberg says the district is leaning toward Democratic contender Ed Perlmutter, 53, this year.

In Indiana and Colorado, as in the Minnesota contest, Democrats seek to use middle-class concerns about job insecurity and stagnant wages to put Republicans on the defensive.

Middle-class voters are ``caught in that perfect storm of rising costs and stagnant wages,'' says Walz, the Minnesota Democrat. ``For the vast majority of us, when the Dow crosses 12,000, it doesn't matter as much as what our paychecks look like.''



新闻B：

救救全球化的输家

作者：美国前财政部长拉里•萨默斯(Larry Summers)
2006年10月31日 星期二


尽管困难重重，但我们仍生活在一个繁荣的时代。无论是2001年9•11事件的余波，还是上涨了两倍的油价，都未能阻碍世界经济过去5年的迅猛发展，其增长速度超过了有记载的经济史上任何一个5年时期。

鉴于近年的这种经济表现和全球市场对乐观前景的认可，人们可能会认为，对于市场体系和全球一体化而言，这是一个充满激情的时刻。

然而，在全球的许多角落，理想破灭的情况日益增多。从多哈(Doha)回合贸易谈判的失败，到沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)的广受谴责，从俄罗斯的大规模国有化，到拉美和东欧民粹主义政界人物的成功，我们都可以看到，对市场体系的担忧达到了自柏林墙倒塌以来（甚至可能在此之前很久）从未有过的程度。



为什么会有这种理想破灭的情况呢？某些反全球化情绪，可被视为抵制美国的表现，而这源自布什(Bush)政府外交政策的灾难。但还有一个更令人不安的缘由：人们越来越认识到，全球大量的中产阶级，没有分享到当前经济增长期的益处——它们分得的“馅饼”甚至可能在不断缩小。

有两个人群在合适的时间处在了合适的地点，可以从全球化和技术变革中获益。首先是那些能融入全球体系、生活在低收入国家的人，主要是亚洲国家，特别是中国。低工资、可传播的技术、进入全球产品及金融市场的能力，这些因素结合，引发了这些国家经济的爆炸型增长。

有一点需要记住：英国和欧洲大陆18世纪末至19世纪初的这段时期被称为工业革命(Industrial Revolution)是有原因的。在人类历史上首次出现了一代人的生活水平明显好于上一代的情况：在一个人的一生中，实际人均收入翻了一番，然后又翻了一番。看看过去30年中国的经济增长率就会知道，中国人的生活水平达到这样一种提高速度：在一个人的一生中可以改善一百倍。这种影响怎么强调都不过分。

其次，对于已经拥有宝贵资产的人来说，这是个黄金时代。稀缺大宗商品的拥有者，看到了自己的回报大幅上升。能够利用全球化获得廉价劳动力并将产品出售给大市场的企业经营者，其收入的增长比一般人快得多。当然，那些身处金融领域、能够从全球化带来的资产重估中获益的人，都发了大财。

其他人的境遇不可同日而语。在庞大、高效率的企业引擎利用前沿科技和廉价劳动力获得成功之际，普通的中产阶级劳动者及其雇主——无论他们生活在美国中西部、鲁尔谷 (Ruhr valley)、拉美或是东欧——被排挤在外。为什么美国家庭收入中值远远落后于生产率增长？为什么墨西哥平均家庭收入自《北美自由贸易协定》 (North American Free Trade Agreement)通过以来的13年里几乎没有增长？为什么缺乏自然资源的中等收入国家难以找到比较优势领域？这就是其中的根本原因。

正是这个庞大的群体缺乏从全球化中受益的资本，迫切希望寻求安慰或变革。然而，如果没有该群体的支持，现有的全球经济秩序能否得以维持是一个巨大的疑问。

坦言之，外界向焦虑的全球中产阶级所描述的，往往感觉“单薄”。全球化不可避免、保护主义适得其反的双重主张，固然正确，但不能给全球化进程的输家带来多少安慰。这些主张也无法凝聚共识，为保持全球化进程提供政策支持，更不用说推进这一进程了。

经济学家们强调，像其它形式的进步一样，贸易能让大家以更低廉的价格购买商品，从而使每个人都更为富裕。这种说法固然正确，但难以给那些担心失业的人带来安慰。

教育对任何经济战略都很重要，但它对40岁以上工人所起的作用有限。在印度熟练计算机程序员的月薪不足2000美元时，教育也不能完全解决问题。

经济学家高伯瑞(John Kenneth Galbraith)曾经发现：“所有伟大的领袖都有一个共同特点，那就是愿意直面自己所处时代人民的主要忧虑。这一点，而非其它因素，就是领导力的本质。”这是正确的。满足焦虑的全球中产阶级的需求，正是我们这个时代所面临的经济挑战。

在美国，政治的钟摆正摆向左侧。进步传统的精华部分，与市场体系并不矛盾；它们会改进市场自然产生的结果。这正是我们目前所需要的。

这里没有现成的答案。自由、全球化和科技水平发达的资本主义，从经济逻辑出发，很可能会将更多财富转移至全球最富裕和部分最贫困的人，同时压榨处于中层的人们。

二战后，美国联邦住房管理局(Federal Housing Administration)力争让更多人有自己的住宅，这是“马歇尔计划”(Marshall Plan)得以推行的政策方法中至关重要的一环。同样，我们能否在推进全球一体化方面取得成功，也将取决于我们能为全球大量的中产阶级做些什么。

我们的反应，不仅会影响数以百万计的同胞的生活，还会影响正在继续的全球化的前景，以及全球化有望带来的繁荣和稳定。