自从11月6日奥巴马在美国总统大选中击败米特·罗姆尼以来，金融市场就开始出现下挫。11月7、8日，道琼斯指数下跌了3%，9日看来还会继续走低。是的，美国历史上每当现任总统赢得连任时，金融市场总是会走低，但这次下跌还是让很多华尔街人士感到不安。不是疲弱的公司业绩，不是袭击美国东海岸的反常飓风，也不是欧洲问题重现——不，这次下跌完全是因为正在逼近的财政悬崖。或者，我们预计正在逼近的财政悬崖。

    没错，财政悬崖问题和美国不断膨胀的国家债务一样真真切切——理论上糟糕，但还没有糟糕到能让华盛顿心甘情愿承受短期的经济痛楚。毕竟，两年后美国众议院就将重新选举，哪一方都不愿在展开大选竞选时，还要奋力捍卫为什么政府制定了抑制经济增长的缩支加税政策。这些政策的目的是解决一些债务负担问题，但目前债务融资并无没有问题，投资者仍然愿意以接近零利率的收益率提供融资。

    上周四，无党派的美国国会预算办公室（Congressional Budget Office，以下简称CBO）公布了最新的美国经济短期和长期预测。鉴于财政悬崖引发的所有争议，CBO列出了两种对立的经济观点：一是美国政府掉落财政悬崖，根据现行法律，必须得这样；二是美国政府转向，在不负责任的财政道路上越走越远。

    如果美国政府陷入党派僵局，所有布什时期的减税政策将于1月2日到期，包括资本所得税和股息税(这也是为何本周股市如此疲弱的原因之一)。由于美国国会“超级委员会”没能按去年夏天通过的《预算控制法案》（Budget Control Act）要求、列出未来十年至少1万亿美元的开支缩减，将会自动削减6,000亿美元的必需和可选支出，以及6,000亿美元的国防相关支出（这被称为“扣押”)。加税和减支共同作用，将构成可怕的财政悬崖。

    如果掉下财政悬崖，美国经济将会怎样表现？简言之，CBO预计短期内将带来较大的痛苦，而长期效益也相对有限。联邦税收增加、联邦支出减少，将把预算赤字(政府收支差额）从去年的1.1万亿美元降至减少到2013财年的6,410亿美元，削减约5,000亿美元。自从1969年以后，美国这样的预算赤字削减还从来没有出现过这么大的幅度(占GDP比例）。那一年，保守的理查德·尼克松将大手大脚的林登·约翰逊从白宫中赶了出去。

    The markets have taken a beating since President Obama trounced Mitt Romney in Tuesday's election. The Dow is down 3% in the last two trading sessions and looks to be headed further south on Friday. While it is true that the markets historically take a dive after an incumbent president wins reelection, this latest drop has many on Wall Street on edge. Forget the weak corporate earnings, the freak hurricane that hit the East Coast and renewed troubles in Europe – no, this is all because of one thing: the looming fiscal cliff. Or that is what we are to believe.

    Indeed, the fiscal cliff is about as real of a problem as the nation's burgeoning national debt – it's theoretically bad, but it isn't bad enough for Washington to risk making the short term any more economically unpleasant than it has to be. After all, there will be elections for the House in just two short years, so neither side wants to go into that election cycle trying to defend why the government instituted growth killing spending cuts while allowing taxes to shoot up to address some arbitrary debt load that investors continue to fund for next to nothing.

    Thursday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its latest short and long-term economic forecasts for the country. Given all the hubbub over the fiscal cliff, the government bean counters so kindly presented two contrasting views of the economy – one in which the government drives off the fiscal cliff, which it must under current law, and one in which the government turns and just continues to drive on the edge of fiscal irresponsibility.

    If the government gets caught up in partisan gridlock, all the Bush era tax cuts end on January 2nd – including those on capital gains and dividends (hence why the equity markets are in such a tizzy this week). Since the Congressional "super committee" failed to lay out at least $1 trillion in spending cuts over ten years as required under the Budget Control Act passed last summer, there will automatically be $600 billion in cuts to discretionary and mandatory spending and another $600 billion in defense-related spending (this is called the "sequester"). Together, the increase in taxes and the decrease in spending is what make up the dreaded fiscal cliff.

    So how does the U.S. economy fare down the rabbit hole? In a nutshell, the CBO projects that it would produce some major short-term pain with relatively little long-term benefits. The increase in federal taxes and the reductions in federal spending would cut the budget deficit (the difference between how much revenue the government takes in how much it spends) from $1.1 trillion last year to $641 billion in fiscal 2013, roughly a $500 billion cut. That represents a reduction in the budget deficit (as a percentage share of GDP) not seen since 1969 when the conservative Richard Nixon booted the free-spending Lyndon Johnson out of the White House.

    削减支出和增加税收，将导致成千上万人瞬间失业（几百万美国人的工作都直接或间接地源于联邦政府的支出)，推动全美失业率从7.9%上升至9.1%。为此，CBO预测2013年实际GDP将下降0.5%，远不如2012年2.1%的增幅。预计明年上半年实际GDP将同比下降2.9%，将整个国家推入衰退，CBO估计其幅度堪比20世纪90年代初第一次海湾战争后美国经历的那次经济衰退(很不幸，有些人没有熬过那段苦日子）。CBO预计美联储将再次启动量化宽松，在公开市场买入美国国债，保持低利率——具有讽刺意味的是这个目的将通过凭空印钞完成(但似乎除了众议员罗恩·保罗，华盛顿没人在乎。)这个举措能够抵消政府支出缩减的影响，有助于提振市场，但可能还不足以抵消股息税和资本增值税增加的负面影响。

    这些听上去都很令人担忧，但CBO表示，美国将开始迅速调整、应对财政悬崖，如果政府没有掉下财政悬崖，预计2014年和2015年的经济增长将“重现活力”，推动经济产值回到它预测的水平。失业率将继续保持高位，但2014年第四季度将回到8.4%，然后继续慢慢下降，到2017年底降至更合理的5.7%。

    财政悬崖引发了很多恐慌，但它似乎并不是什么世界末日。不过，经济双重探底的短期冲击可能会带来一些意想不到的后果，CBO在预测中没有进行充分地量化分析。

    因此，如果什么也不干，美国国会和总统就假装从未有过《2011年国会预算案》(Congressional Budget Act of 2011）这回事，结果又会怎样？他们可以这么干，他们可以投票决定(无限期）延迟实施这个预算案，也可以通过另一部法案来取代预算案。要知道，美国国会是自加镣铐——它是有钥匙的，随时可以开锁。如果真的什么也不做，CBO预测美国经济2013年的增长率将为0.1%-3.3%。是的，范围很大，但这样的结果显然要好于财政悬崖情景下可能出现的0.5%降幅。失业率将保持约8%的水平直到2013年，然后逐步下降，到2014年底降至约7%。

    如果不掉下悬崖，CBO估计未来十年的赤字将总计增加7.7万亿美元（注意，单位可是“万亿”）。由此，美国的总负债到2023年将升至约24万亿美元，达到GDP的90%（这将是很高的负债比）。如果我们掉下悬崖，也别指望从此无债一身轻，到2023年美国的财政赤字仍将达到GDP的58%，因为社会保障和医疗保险相关成本猛增，将导致必需支出大增。

    因此，很难衡量掉下悬崖的好处。既然美国仍然会有相当高的预算赤字，全美负债可能仍会在今天的水平附近，掉下财政悬崖、承受短期的痛苦还值得吗？

    The cuts in spending and the increased taxes will cause thousands of people to lose their jobs pretty much overnight (millions of Americans owe their jobs directly or indirectly to federal government spending). This would push unemployment up across the country from 7.9% to 9.1%. As a result, the CBO projects that real GDP would drop by 0.5% in 2013 after growing by 2.1% in 2012. Real GDP would fall at an annual rate of 2.9% in the first half of next year, tipping the nation into a recession that the CBO figures would be similar in magnitude to the one the nation experienced following the first Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s (for those who didn't live through that, it was bad). The CBO anticipates that the Federal Reserve would engage in another round of quantitative easing and buy up bonds in the open markets to keep rates low – this would ironically be done by printing money out of thin air (but no one in Washington, save Rep. Ron Paul, seems to care about that). This counterweight to the spending cuts should help support the markets, but it probably won't be enough to counter the negative impact associated with the tax increases on dividends and capital gains.

    That all sounds pretty grim, but the CBO suggests that the nation would begin to rapidly adjust to the fiscal cliff, projecting that economic growth would "be brisk" in 2014 and 2015, pushing economic output back to where it projects it will be if the government doesn't head down the fiscal cliff. Unemployment would remain elevated but would fall back to 8.4% in the last quarter of 2014 and then drift down slowly to a more reasonable 5.7% by the end of 2017.

    For all the panic that the fiscal cliff has set off, it doesn't seem like the end of the world. But the short-term pain of having a double-dip recession could have a host of unintended consequences that aren't fully quantified in the CBO's projections.

    So what if nothing is done and Congress and the President just pretend that the Congressional Budget Act of 2011 never happened? They can do that by basically voting to extend implementation (indefinitely) or by just passing another law that would replace the Budget Act. Remember, it was Congress that handcuffed itself -- it still has the key to unlock the cuffs at any moment. If it does and nothing changes, then the CBO projects the economy would grow between 0.1% to 3.3% in 2013 – a wide margin, no doubt, but clearly a more desirable outcome than a 0.5% contraction associated with the fiscal cliff scenario. Unemployment would stall at around 8% through 2013 before eventually falling to around 7% by the end of 2014.

    By not going off the cliff, the CBO estimates that deficits over the next decade would rise by a total of $7.7 trillion (that's "trillion" with a "T"). That would bring the total national debt somewhere to around $24 trillion by 2023 which is equal to 90% of GDP (that's pretty high). If we go off the cliff, don't expect a clean slate, though, as the nation would still have a significant budget deficit equal to 58% of GDP in 2023 due to all the mandatory spending associated with the impeding explosion in costs emanating from Social Security and Medicare.

    This is where it becomes difficult to gauge the benefits of going over the cliff. Given that the nation would still be running a significant budget deficit, with a national debt that would probably still be around where it is today, is going over the fiscal cliff worth all the short-term pain?

    CBO相信如果什么也不做，十年内美国的赤字将更高，导致私营部门投资减少，资本效率下降。相比掉落悬崖，产值和薪资水平将更低。CBO这一预测的前提是人们工作和增加储蓄的动力，不会超出债务减少带来的国民储蓄和投资下降。CBO试图量化净效益和成本，结果发现十年后仍是方向难料——实际GDP的变动幅度从下降2%到增长2.1%不等。

    这是削减预算观点的最大问题——即便是长期来看，也不知道减少支出、控制预算赤字，是否真的值得。我们知道短期内不值得，因为它会对整个系统构成冲击，但即便是长期，值不值得也不清楚。CBO预计2022年以后，预算赤字增长（如果不掉落悬崖，赤字将累积）对GDP的负面影响将更大，推动利率上升。但它估计，3个月和10年期美国国债的利率只会上升0.4个百分点——0.4%。，真的吗？整个国家承受几年的痛苦，就得到了这些？避免利率上升了0.4%？

    预测是预测，很多时候它们都错得很离谱——特别是，如果当人们试图预测的是十年后的事情。CBO有一个观点，债务/GDP比率上升意味着投资和融资的难度加大。“真实世界”（对于你和我）的情况是这样，但对美国而言并不是这样。出于这样或那样的理由，华尔街、普通民众和全世界都相信，美国能过了这道关。去年标准普尔(S&P）下调了美国的信用评级，理由是美国的高负债率以及运转失灵的政府损害了它在全世界的地位。但市场不以为然，将美国国债的收益率推到了前所未有的低位——短期美国国债事实上已为负利率。这意味着就算今年美国的负债再增加1.1万亿美元，由于超低利率，其他的偿债金额反而会减少。

    但市场多变，大门随时可能关上。如果由于某种原因，某位债券经理一早醒来决定做空美国国债，他/她可能触发美国国债的巨大抛售，几天内就将收益率推至高位。在欧洲就曾经出现有过这样的情况：1个月前意大利支付的收益率还在2%左右，下一个月就要接近7%了。当你的债务收入比上升时，市场拒绝你的可能性会上升，但不一定。

    因此，在削减支出的好处依然不明的时候，政客们很难以削减支出为由、将整个国家推入深度衰退。事实是，《2011年预算控制法案》是一出政治剧戏码，共和党人希望藉此安抚“茶党”选民——而随着经济改善，如今这类选民基本上已消失。至于讨论上调最富有2%人群的边际税率，则纯粹是政治花招。事实上，多项研究（包括CBO的研究）都显示，上调边际税率能增加的收入不多(不同于民主党观点），也不会对经济造成真正的伤害(不同于共和党观点）。说到底，如果将最富有2%人群的边际税率从35%提高到39.6%，就能完全解决财政悬崖难题，相信各方早就就此达成一致了。

    The CBO believes that the higher deficit that the nation would have in 10 years if it did nothing would lead to less private investment, which would lower productive capital therefore reducing output and wages relative to where they would be by going over the cliff. It bases this on the belief that people's incentive to work and save by keeping more of their money would not outweigh an assumed decrease in national savings and investment that comes from having lower debt. The CBO tried to quantify the net benefits and costs and they found that after 10 years it still could go either way – spanning a range for real GDP from a decrease of 2% to an increase of 2.1%.

    This is the biggest problem with getting on the budget-cutting bandwagon – even in the long term it is unclear if sacrificing spending to check budget deficits really pays off. We know it won't in the short term, given the shock to the system, but even in the long term it's unclear. The CBO suggests that beyond 2022, rising budget deficits, accrued by not going over the cliff, would lead to larger negative impacts on GDP and cause interest rates to rise. But it estimates that the interest rates on 3-month Treasury bills and 10-year Treasury notes would just be 0.4 percentage points higher - 0.4%, really? That's all the nation gets for incurring a terrible couple of years – a lousy 0.4% reduction?

    Projections are projections, and they are spectacularly wrong most of the time – especially when trying to forecast out 10 years. The message the CBO is sending makes sense – a higher debt to income ratio means that it will be harder to invest and harder to obtain credit. That's how it works in the "real world" (i.e. for you and me), but not for the US. Wall Street, Main Street and the world believe that the US, for some reason, gets a pass. S&P downgraded the credit rating of the US last year noting the nation's high debt ratio and its dysfunctional government was hurting its standing in the world. But the markets didn't care, pushing yields on US treasuries to their lowest point ever – short term bills were actually negative. This means that even though the US tacked on an extra $1.1 trillion to that national debt this year its debt payment went down because of the super low rates.

    But the market is fickle and can turn on you at any time. If for some reason a bond manager wakes up one morning and decides to short US debt, he or she could set off a huge sell off in Treasuries that could eventually send yields sky high in a matter of days. We saw that in Europe where Italy was paying yields around 2% one month and then close to 7% the next. The chance that the market moves against you increases as your debt to income ratio rises, but not necessarily.

    It is therefore hard for politicians to so brazenly throw the nation into a deep recession to reduce spending when the benefits of acting are so intangible. The fact is that the Budget Control Act of 2011 was political theater in which the Republicans tried to appease "Tea Party" voters – a constituency that has basically been wiped out as the economy has improved. Discussions around raising the marginal tax rate on the top 2% are simply just political fodder. Indeed, multiple studies, including ones by the CBO say that it would raise an insignificant amount of money (a negative for the Democratic view) but would also cause no real harm to the economy (a negative for the Republican view). In the end, if it takes changing the top 2% rate from 35% to 39.6% to end this whole fiscal cliff charade, you can bet it has already been agreed to.

    这听上去或许有些愤世嫉俗，但在华盛顿还能以很低的成本借到钱的时候，让任何一方大动干戈地去解决这个问题都是不太现实的。正如我们在欧洲看到的那样，哪个国家都不会主动吞下紧缩苦药，除非市场逼迫它不得已而为之。因此，即便股市对财政悬崖仍感到紧张不安，如果美国国债收益率保持接近历史低点，仍然是不足以让美国国会或总统做出任何真正的长期妥协。只有当借贷成本变得过高，才会看到政府采取实质性的措施来解决一个国家的长期财政问题，早一秒都没戏。

    译者：早稻米

    As cynical as it may sound, it is simply irrational for either side to address the deficit in any meaningful way given how cheaply it is for Washington to borrow money. As we have seen in Europe, nations won't swallow the bitter pill of austerity unless the markets force them to. So while the equity markets are jittery about the fiscal cliff that is not enough for Congress or the President to present any real long-term compromise if the yields on Treasuries remain at near all-time lows. It will only be when it becomes too expensive to borrow that you will see the government act in any meaningful way to address the nation's long term fiscal issues, not a second before.