Friday, March 28, 2008
(2008.03.25)从世界大变看中国通胀
是不容易解释的通胀现象。如果佛利民仍在,有我在旁提点「怪」处,一下子他也不容易说出道理来。人民币量的增长率无疑过高,但为什么央行出尽八宝也不能把通胀压下去呢?单是去年,国内银行的储备金率提升了十一次,破了世界纪录,而利息率则记不起加了多少次。这些不是上选的压制通胀的方法,但西方的经验,是这些方法历来生效。然而,这一轮的中国通胀,老生常谈的杀手锏不灵光!另一方面,我们没有理由怀疑北京当局要压制通胀的决心:上述的两项货币政策大手下笔,其它宏观调控的措施五花八门。然而,中国的通胀我行我素!北京当局是不能也,非不为也。
还有另一个不容易理解的现象。目前人民币在国际上甚强,而强货币是不容易有通胀的。当然,如果让人民币大幅上升,到了某一点通胀必会终止。这样做愚不可及:日本昔日的经验是前车可鉴,何况今天的中国要面对印度、越南等廉价劳力地区的竞争。问题是,历史的经验说,只要币值强劲,不升值也不会有通胀。换言之,像人民币那样强劲而还有百分之八的通胀率,人类历史没有出现过。我们要怎样解释目前中国的情况呢?
六十年代在芝大跟进当时吵得热闹的货币理论时,以佛老为首的芝加哥学派认为物价上升与通胀是两回事。他们认为通胀带来物价上升,但物价上升了不一定含意着通胀。佛老认为,通胀永远是货币的现象,必然牵涉到通胀预期(inflationary expectation)这个重要但在观察上难以捉摸的话题。这是说,一次过的物价上升,没有带来再上升的预期,不是通胀。话题不肤浅,这里不详述。
我认为目前中国的通胀,主要的一部分是物价上升,不算是通胀,所以除非央行转用一篮子物品与人民币挂钩,采用西方的货币政策不容易生效。另一方面,很头痛,物价的不断上升会引起通胀预期,不是通胀也会变为通胀了。
首先要重复说过几次的:中国的农产品价格上升是好事。目前中国的通胀,绝大部分是农产品价格上升使然。想想吧,中国农民的劳动人口,十之七八转到工商业去,农产品相对非农产品的物价,怎可以不上升呢?另一方面,中国的人均农地那么少,农产品之价不升农民的生活怎可以改进呢?关心农民的炎黄子孙,还是多花一块几毫购买农民的蔬菜,多花十元八块购买他们的猪肉吧。
细看中国农产品的价格上升,可不是那么简单。中国农民的生活急速改进,始于二○○○,农产品价格明显地上升,则起自二○○三。可能由中国带动,自二○○五年起,举世的农产品价格也在急升。我们农转工,经济成就举世瞩目,其它落后之邦也跟着农转工。以心为心,我们要向他们拍掌。如此一来,举世的农产品价格也因而急升了。严格来说是物价上升,不是通胀,虽然目前我无从估计,中国农产品的物价上升,多少是起于农转工,多少是起于人民币量的变动,也无从估计这上升有多少是因为农产品的进口价格急升而上升的。
今年二月,非农产品的物价只上升了百分之一点六。真的是上升了吗?还是下降了?相对价格当然是下降了,但我认为实质上也是下降了的。这是因为原料的价格,尤其是金属那方面,进口的,这些日子上升得非常快!这几年中国低下阶层的收入上升大有可观,在进口原料价格急升的情况下,非农产品的价格一年来只升了百分之一点六,反映着劳动的生产力也正在急升。从工业那方面看,中国不仅没有通胀,工人的生产力正在急升,抵消了一部分的原料升价,虽然最近的新劳动法是把这发展搞乱了。
上述是说,今天中国的通货膨胀,一个主要原因是昔日的落后之邦,正在一起农转工地发展起来。无疑是由中国带动,没有理由反对大家的生活一起好起来。这个发展无可避免地导致农产品的相对价格上升,而工业需要的原料,尤其是金属性的,这些年的价格上升以倍数计。
外来的物价大变对中国当然有影响,但更头痛是两个其它问题。其一是金价与油价上升得很不正常:前者达每盎司美元一千;后者达每桶美元一百一十。这样的升幅是不可以用农转工来解释的。有两个其它解释,你选哪一个?一、中东局势不稳,伊朗战争随时可发;二、举世出现了通胀预期,而这预期最明显是反映在金价与油价的变动上。不懂政治,但从报章读到的局势变动消息衡量,近来金价与油价的变动与中东局势无关。余下来的就是这样的一个大麻烦:通胀预期是地球性地出现了。有传染性,不少外资跑到中国来找避难所。
地球性的通胀预期何自起?起自美元急泻。这是第二个头痛问题。从一九五三到父亲的店子学做生意到今天,我没有见过美元跌得那么厉害。一九九一波斯湾之战后,美元一直强劲,举世争持美元,但五年前再攻伊拉克,这强势不再,跟着是倒转过来,弱势变得明显了。这其中美国的议员严重地做错了一件事:他们强迫人民币升值,人民币于是与美元脱钩,转钩一篮子货币。跟进人民币的国际汇率的朋友会知道,其后美元在那篮子的外币中的比重,逐步减低了。如果人民币继续单钩美元,美元不会跌到哪里去。如果人民币不钩美元,只钩其它,美元不知会跌到哪里去。如果局部钩美元,美元下跌,人民币兑美元上升,但对其他主要货币却下降了,是给美元拉下去的。后者不是经济学,是小学生的算术课程吧。
美国的经济历来举足轻重。世界经济大变,伊拉克之战显然打不过。政治我不懂,但在物价调整后,每天算,今天伊战比昔日越战的费用高出一倍。我同意佛利民说的,攻伊是大错。不同意佛老,认为财政上美国负担得起。能否负担不是问题所在——问题是费用或成本总要与利益比较一下。此比也,目前看,尤其是看美元与金、油价的走势,此战是输局。
如果美元继续下跌,美国的通胀急升是无可避免的。目前这通胀不明显,经济不景是原因。次按风暴当然不幸,但协助了美国债券还没有大跌。如果长期债券大跌,等于长线利率大升,联储局是无能为力的。昔日越战后的经验,岂不可鉴乎?这些可能的不幸我早就看到,但没有写出来。二○○六年五月十六日我还是发表了建议港元转钩人民币的文章,在同一天就给某评论骂了。不听老人言是要付代价的。今天我不建议港元转钩,因为时日有别,局限是转变了。
世界大变,中国稳定自己可以协助稳定世界——虽然比不上美国那样重要。央行要做的还是我提出过的三点。一、约束钞票的发行量,不要多管钞票之外的货币量;二、把人民币与一篮子物品挂钩,但要让这篮子的物价指数每年上升百分之三左右;三、解除汇管,把人民币放出去。这后者可以立刻舒缓人民币的上升压力,困难是一旦解除汇管,人民币的钞票发行量的上升率应该是多少,要眼观六路才知道。我的水晶球说,如果新劳动法不变,目前中国的外贸顺差会在一年内变为逆差。到那时才放人民币出去,与今天相比亏蚀甚巨。
是世界大变吗?还是世界大乱了?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sociable, and Smart
For the past two decades, Kay E. Holekamp has been chronicling the lives of spotted hyenas on the savannas of southern Kenya. She has watched cubs emerge from their dens and take their place in the hyena hierarchy; she has seen alliances form and collapse. She has observed clan wars, in which dozens of hyenas have joined together to defend their hunting grounds against invaders.
Sharleen Sakai and Brad Arsznov
NETWORKING Using a scan of a hyena skull, scientists can determine brain structure. Primates with a big frontal cortex tend to live in groups.
“It’s like following a soap opera,” said Dr. Holekamp, a professor at Michigan State University.
Throughout her career, Dr. Holekamp has remained vigilant against anthropocentrism. She does not think of the hyenas as long-eared people running around on all fours. But the lives of spotted hyenas, she has concluded, share some profound similarities with our own. In both species, a complex social world has driven the evolution of a big, complex brain.
Scientists have long puzzled over the enormous size of the human brain. It is seven times larger than one would predict for an average mammal of our size. Many of our extra neurons are in a region called the frontal cortex, where much of the most sophisticated thought takes place.
To understand how we ended up with such a strange organ, many scientists have turned to our fellow primates. They also have large brains, although not as large as our own. It turns out that primates with a big frontal cortex tend to live in large groups.
Primates may be pushed into larger groups thanks to predators or to patchy sources of food like fruit trees. As their numbers grow, natural selection may favor social intelligence. The primates form long-term alliances with each other and compete with rivals. They begin to keep track of a larger and larger social network.
A boost in social intelligence can lead to an evolutionary edge for primates. Well-connected female baboons, for example, dominate their bands. They have more babies than lower-ranking females, and their babies enjoy better health and faster growth.
Brain imaging studies have revealed that when people think about other people, parts of the frontal cortex become active. Advocates of the social brain hypothesis say the frontal cortex expanded in our ancestors because natural selection favored social intelligence.
Most of the research on the social brain hypothesis has focused on primates. One reason for that bias, Dr. Holekamp said, is many scientists thought that no other animals were worth studying. “Primatologists have argued for years,” she said, “that primates are unique in terms of the complexity of their social lives.”
From her experience with hyenas, Dr. Holekamp had her doubts. So she began to run experiments on spotted hyenas similar to the ones run on primates. She would play recordings of hyenas, for example, to see if other hyenas recognized them individually. They did. She soon came to see the primates-only view of the social brain as deeply flawed.
“I would argue that’s not true at all: spotted hyenas live in a society just as large and just as complex as a baboon,” Dr. Holekamp said, noting that spotted hyenas live in the largest social groups of any carnivore. “We’re talking about 60 to 80 individuals who all know each other individually.”
To understand the social intelligence of hyenas, Dr. Holekamp and her colleagues track the animals from birth to death. Their work begins in the communal dens where the cubs live for their first few months. Crawling into the dens, a network of underground chambers, is Dr. Holekamp’s least favorite part of her job.
“The hyenas are the least of your trouble,” she said. “You know when the mom’s there and when she’s not. But is there also a warthog in there that’s going to take off your face with its tusks? Is it a cobra?”
Older spotted hyenas pay regular visits to the dens, giving the cubs an opportunity to learn about the rigid hierarchy in which they live. Spotted hyena societies have one dominant female at the top, and a series of hyenas below her. Each cub learns exactly where it fits into the hierarchy, and where all the other spotted hyenas fit as well.
The hierarchy reveals itself most vividly when it is time to eat. When one or two hyenas make a kill, other members of the clan will join them to fight over the prey. But the dominant female always wins.
“An alpha female,” Dr. Holekamp said, “can waltz into any kill and eat as much she wants.”
There are times, however, when the entire group of hyenas comes together. Spotted hyena clans patrol the borders of their territory together, marking it with their urine. A kill near a border can provoke a conflict with a neighboring clan. “When the whole group territory is on the line,” Dr. Holekamp said, “all these unrelated individuals join forces and engage in a clan war.”
What makes the social complexity of spotted hyenas particularly enlightening, Dr. Holekamp said, are their relatives. They belong to a family of four species, and the other three live in strikingly different societies.
Brown hyenas, for instance, live in much smaller clans that range up to about 14 animals. Although scientists do not know much about brown hyenas, it seems that some clans live in a hierarchy, while in others, the hyenas enjoy more equality.
Striped hyenas live in even smaller groups of a single female and no more than three adult males. The males mate with the female, but they seem not to have much else to do with her.
The most solitary of all the spotted hyena’s relatives is the aardwolf. Instead of hunting or scavenging meat, they have shifted to a diet of termites. A male and female aardwolf will live as a monogamous pair, caring for their young and defending their termite mounds from intruders.
Dr. Holekamp wonders if this range of social arrangements is reflected in the structure of hyena brains. It was not an easy idea to test. “Their brains certainly aren’t just lying out on the savanna,” she said. “It’s really very hard to get hold of them.”
While it may be difficult for scientists to get their hands on intact hyena brains, hyena skulls are not so hard to come by. From a CT-scan of a hyena skull, it is possible to reconstruct the three-dimension structure of the brain it held. “You can see all the indentations and protuberances on the surface of the brain,” Dr. Holekamp said.
In recent months, Dr. Holekamp has been working with Sharleen Sakai and Barbara Lundrigan, both at Michigan State, to survey dozens of skulls from all four species in the hyena family. Their preliminary results indicate hyenas follow the same rule as primates.
“It’s just what the social complexity hypothesis would predict,” Dr. Holekamp said. “The hyenas with the simplest social systems have the tiniest frontal cortices. The spotted hyena, which lives in the most complex societies, has far and away the largest frontal cortex.”
The brown and striped hyenas, with intermediate social systems, have intermediate brains. “There’s a spectrum,” Dr. Holekamp said.
Joan Silk, an expert on monkey societies at the University of California, Los Angeles, praises Dr. Holekamp’s research, calling it “directly relevant to our understanding of the origins of social complexity and intelligence.”
While the intelligence of hyenas may be similar to that of primates, Dr. Holekamp is also struck by the differences. Primates are immensely curious, but she does not see much evidence of inventiveness in hyenas.
“But maybe that’s not a fair question,” she said. “Maybe we’ll have to ask about this in relation to other carnivores, where you would expect hyenas to be very curious and innovative.”
To get an answer to that question, Dr. Holekamp and her colleagues are running intelligence tests on wild hyenas. They are putting meat into boxes and placing them on the savanna.
“The animal can see it and smell it,” Dr. Holekamp said, “but it can’t get it unless it can figure out how to slide a bolt from right to left to open the door.”
Dr. Holekamp hopes to determine how innovative hyenas are compared with other carnivores. It is possible that, along with social complexity, intelligence can also evolve in other ways.
“An animal is going to be favored to be innovative if that will help it get food, regardless of whether it lives in a group,” Dr. Holekamp said.
By comparing hyenas and primates, as well as other mammals, Dr. Holekamp believes it will be possible to get a full picture of how intelligence evolves.
“There’s a tremendous support for the social brain hypothesis,” she said, “but I think that in order to understand the origin of intelligence we have to think more broadly than that.”