Look at some things in the market with conspiracy theories.
Recommend an article to the landlord, and you will understand after reading it.
Think less about currency wars and learn more about finance.
● The public needs to understand finance, and the theory is gray. You might as well read a book on financial unofficial history.
● If you jump out of the framework of interest groups and analyze the basic logic of economic decision-making, you will have a new view. It is a typical economic behavior to restrain the appreciation of RMB.
● Whether we can cooperate with leading countries to seek longer-term, deeper and more fields of development mainly depends on each other's wishes, but at least we can't act as the terminator of this round of globalization.
Last year, several books about international financial conspiracy and national economic security were very popular and interesting to read. I didn't take it seriously at that time, just as an anecdote and happy after dinner. Later, I happened to participate in a discussion with the author of a book and related people. I was surprised. This is the first time I have come into contact with such intellectuals, although I have long heard that there is such a group in Beijing. "Give the US$ 800 billion to help it solve the subprime mortgage problem at the expense of Taiwan Province Province", "Throw out the US dollar part of foreign exchange reserves and crush the US dollar", "When the exchange rate of the US dollar against the euro reaches 1.4, the Iranian war will surely break out" and "Destroy the hegemonic position of the US dollar by restoring the gold standard"-all kinds of network thinking seem ready to launch a currency war at any time.
World view of "financial conspiracy theory"
There is a strict academic distinction between politics, economy and security. Political scientists who love to talk about economic issues and economists who love to talk about political issues are not really insightful scholars in this field. In front of half-baked economic experts who emphasize "safety", rationality, logic and argumentation are meaningless. They don't believe that we live in a basically honest world, don't believe in the goodness of human nature, only believe in conspiracy, and can only hide in the dark blindfolded and peek at this Lang Lang Gan Kun.
"Conspiracy theory" is a self-circulating, self-fulfilling and unverifiable worldview, and it is difficult for non-conspiracy theorists to talk to conspiracy theorists. There are conspiracy theorists in all fields, "'9? The bizarre view that "1 1' was written and performed by the Bush administration" has many fans abroad. There is a long-standing saying that our world is manipulated by a handful of financial conspirators. 1903, the Russian secret police fabricated the Protocol of Jewish Sages, which demonstrated the existence of some kind of "international Jewish financial conspiracy" and "Jewish banker characteristics" and advocated that Jewish financial groups and rabbis tried to control the world through globalization. In 1930s, Hitler claimed that Jewish financial groups were trying to drag Europe into war. Hitler said, "If they want to wage war, we will destroy them. "Later, in Hitler's view, the Jews really started the war, and it was logical to push them into the crematorium.
At present, the reasons for the emergence of "financial conspiracy theory" in China are complicated: First, the financial theory itself is not perfect. When there are some complicated phenomena in the financial field at home and abroad, it is difficult to coordinate the conflicts between different policy objectives and policy tools, and there are no ready-made answers to some questions in theory, so quacks have a place to play. Second, the financial policy has an increasing impact on the actual interests of the public. There is anxiety, fear and distrust of the regulatory authorities in the market. Some people feel weak, controlled and teased. Conspiracy theories fit the psychological cues of these people. Third, the public lacks financial knowledge. The US central bank originated from private banks, and Wall Street was once associated with the Nazis. These are all new to everyone. The public needs to understand finance, and the theory is gray. It is better to read a financial unofficial history; It seems very happy to spy on the evil behind wealth, the blood in the pores and the dirty things.
1997 the Asian financial crisis is the biggest talk of conspiracy theorists. They believe that hedge fund managers are "financial terrorists" and attacking a country's currency or financial market is "financial terrorism" and should be brought to justice. The author has no intention of repeating the old tune about the defects of East Asian economies before the crisis. I just want to mention a simple fact: When there is an obvious depreciation trend of Thai baht, should the foreign exchange traders of China Bank (60 1988) follow the market trend and sell Thai baht (if there was Thai baht trading in China Bank at that time) to safeguard the company's interests? China Bank's act of throwing out Thai baht will inevitably aggravate the devaluation of Thai baht, so is China Bank also an accomplice of "terrorists"? There are many similar examples. During the period of 1998, hedge funds attacked the Hong Kong dollar by hedging the stock market and foreign exchange market, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority took a large number of orders on the Stock Exchange to maintain the market index. At that time, the market was very pessimistic, and a lot of selling came from local investors. Should these investors be brought to justice? Don? Gifford has windmills as enemies, but the initiators of the financial war on terrorism don't, because they want to be enemies of the market.
Jump out of the framework of interest groups and analyze it from the logic of economic decision-making
Although people often pursue their own interests in the form of groups, there are not many meaningful conclusions from the perspective of interest groups. The analysis method of interest groups is vulgarization of class and stratum views. The view of class is highly refined. The whole society is divided into two opposing classes, and class struggle is the whole content of social life. The society dissected from the viewpoint of class is flaky, and there are still differences between them. Interest groups in society are "blocky": an interest group may be composed of people of different classes and strata; Different interest groups may not compete with each other. Arsenal workers and consortium bosses may form a "military interest group" and ask the government to increase military spending; Many retail investors and investment bankers in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets will also improvise to form "financial interest groups" and oppose the increase of stamp duty.
It is better to talk about class struggle than interest groups; If we don't talk about class struggle, we should calmly face the situation of interest group disputes. Our own aversion to capital has also led to a detour in national development. The principle that financial groups pursue their own interests is no different from selling charcoal. The characteristics of individual financial groups are not worse than those of arms manufacturers and chemical plants that discharge pollutants at will.
The views of interest groups sometimes make the structural analysis of society completely disoriented. For example, from the perspective of interest groups, if we examine the views of the United States on the issue of RMB appreciation, we will fall into the debate about which factors are strong and which are weak in the United States. There are many opinions about whether the RMB should appreciate, between American importers and domestic producers, between consumers and ideological bigots, between "rust belt" and agricultural areas, and between economists and politicians. Which factor is dominant in the end depends on the sum of welfare functions that human IQ can't complete.
If we jump out of the framework of interest groups and analyze the basic logic of economic decision-making, we will have new views. It is a typical economic behavior to restrain the appreciation of RMB. The reason why the US government made this decision is because the authorities believe that the wealth created by the recovery of competitiveness and long-term stable economic growth brought about by the depreciation of the US dollar is greater than the loss of trade interests and the loss of asset price underestimation brought about by the current depreciation. The scale of wealth increment created in the future depends on the adjustment ability of the American economy itself. The discount rate depends on the preference of the US government. The role of interest groups is to support someone to enter the government to change the preferences of the administrative authorities. For example, the finance minister from Wall Street advocates a strong dollar to safeguard the interests of financial groups, and the finance minister from Detroit advocates a weak dollar to improve the competitiveness of American manufacturing.
If China's economic decision-making process is similar to that of the United States, then the relevant decisions on RMB appreciation should basically follow the same logic. While China's economy is in a transitional period, there is great uncertainty about the scale of future wealth loss caused by RMB appreciation. Therefore, some people in the society speculate that the government is simplifying decision-making according to the principle of "what the United States wants is what I don't want". If it doesn't appreciate, it can control the rate of appreciation. Even so, we can only think that there is a "currency dispute" between China and the United States about whether to appreciate the exchange rate, and "currency war" is out of the question.
Contrary to the expectations of war debaters, the views on RMB exchange rate between China and the United States are gradually approaching, and the view that appreciation will not help solve the deficit problem has been accepted by mainstream American intellectuals. A considerable number of policy makers have added inflation to the annual appreciation of RMB, and within a few years, the appreciation of RMB effective exchange rate will reach the level expected by some American think tanks.
In the past trade disputes between China and the United States, in order to defend their respective national interests, the two sides launched a fierce contest in intelligence, will and even physical strength. So is the contest between RMB appreciation and non-appreciation. The United States once forced the yen to appreciate, and also forced the German mark to appreciate. The route of RMB appreciation is similar to that of Mark, that's all. Walking to the job fair for graduates in Beijing, to the labor-intensive factories in the south, and to the small and medium-sized towns in the central and western regions, the significance of export to China's economy is vivid. Relative to growth and employment, the problem of hot money caused by creeping appreciation, the difficulty of write-off caused by intervention in the foreign exchange market, and the problem of excess liquidity are all minor problems. Everything has advantages and disadvantages, and it is human nature to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. However, in the case of advantages and disadvantages, it is necessary to compare the advantages and disadvantages objectively. China, as a developing country, at present, it is better to grow too fast than too slow. Too much foreign exchange reserves is better than too little. This is the truth, we can't confuse it.
China needs dollars, and the United States needs China to hold dollars.
Although the idea of fighting a currency war is very exciting, so far, no one has pointed out what kind of behavior belongs to a currency war. I understand, maybe they are referring to acts that undermine the five basic functions of the other country's currency. In the golden age, prohibiting the export of domestic precious metals was an important part of the financial control of belligerents (destroying the function of "means of payment" of currency). After entering the era of virtual currency, counterfeit money from the other country is smuggled to the other country from time to time (which destroys the function of "value scale" and "circulation means" of enemy currency). In the tug-of-war, it is a common practice to overestimate the value of the local currency and underestimate the value of the enemy's currency, and use the war gap to snap up materials (which destroys the functions of "circulation means" and "storage means"). But these are real wars before finance was used as an auxiliary means of war.
In peacetime, it is unheard of to provoke a currency war by destroying the value scale and the function of circulation means of the other country (there are rumors that a country counterfeiting dollars is an exception). Recently, quite a few ideas have damaged the function of the other country's currency as a "storage means" and a "world currency", such as throwing out US dollar assets in China's foreign exchange reserves. These practices have gambled on the fate of the country for decades, which is a broken jar of rogue proletarians and a "one-shot deal" when the American economy and the dollar are about to collapse.
Why covet the global status of the dollar? The benefits of seigniorage and the effect of strengthening domestic fiscal and monetary policies are the by-products of functions of money provided by the United States for the whole ball. In view of the troubles brought by the global currency status to the American economic management authorities, no economic currency tries to take the dollar instead. Every institutional development itself contains self-denial factors, and the international financial system is no exception. Many things in the future will not depend on the will of Americans, nor will they depend on our will. At present, China needs the United States and dollars; The United States also needs China and China to hold dollars. A basic judgment is that even if the RMB is regionalized in the future, the US dollar is needed as an endorsement of RMB credit.
It is nonsense that the Fed takes advantage of the status of the US dollar to plunder the world's wealth by adopting the strategy of periodic appreciation and depreciation, raising interest rates and lowering interest rates. Take China's foreign exchange reserves as an example. When the Fed decides to raise interest rates and cut interest rates, it will never consider the impact on the value of China's foreign exchange reserves. The view of "one policy means, one policy goal" has a far-reaching impact on the Fed. The main reference indicators for raising interest rates are economic growth rate and inflation rate, not the dollar exchange rate and asset price. In recent years, there is a lack of correlation between the federal funds rate and the market yield of US Treasury bonds mainly purchased by foreign governments. As for the argument that the appreciation of RMB leads to the depreciation of China's foreign exchange reserves, there is a lack of basic common sense. Intervening in the foreign exchange market is the basic function of foreign exchange management in most economies. The authorities just want to buy money under the pressure of depreciation, sell money under the pressure of appreciation, and do business at a loss to stabilize the market.
Can not act as the terminator of this round of globalization.
At present, the international financial environment facing China is unprecedentedly complicated. The crux lies in the conflict between the independence of monetary policy, crawling peg exchange rate system (approved by IMF) and one-way effective capital account control. This contradiction is unavoidable in any open economy, nor can it be solved only by domestic institutional adjustment. Therefore, the design of financial policy should focus more closely on the needs of the real economy. The focus of monetary policy is to fight inflation, and whether to raise interest rates should not pay attention to the impact on asset prices, let alone the interest rate parity relationship with the US dollar. The basis of exchange rate policy adjustment is still the impact of appreciation on growth and export sectors. If there is definite evidence that it can be faster or slower, we might as well try. In the short term, it may be necessary to abandon the goal of free capital flow and strictly control the pace of capital account opening.
Generally speaking, currency debaters may be good people, but they are not necessarily useful. They have no malice towards the country and want to remind them that they are afraid of being bullied. Therefore, they should still defend their right to express their views. They are unlikely to have an impact on financial stability and economic security, but arguing with them can popularize the basic knowledge of international finance. Since the reform and opening up, there have been some alarmist stories about China's economic security almost every few years, which were later proved to be fleeting. With regard to the threat of China to the economic security of the United States, some people in the United States often put forward some ideas that make us sound inexplicable, and most of them end up entertaining themselves.
Peace and development are the themes of the times, and market economy is the only way. These big judgments cannot be overturned. China is one of the main beneficiary countries under the current international political and economic system. Whether we can cooperate with leading countries to seek a longer-term, deeper and more fields depends mainly on each other's wishes, but at least we can't act as the terminator of this round of globalization. I believe that the decision-makers have fully studied the financial opening-up and financial security, and reached a convincing conclusion, which will not be shaken.
A little less war thinking is good for everyone.
(Author: Institute of Foreign Economic Research, National Development and Reform Commission)