警惕日本投资风险

• 警惕日本投资风险
• 2011-4-25    文章来源于《证券市场周刊》证券市场周刊订阅
• 日本股市有折价，如通过基金来实现获利，很可能连汇率损失都覆盖不了。

• 【《证券市场周刊》特约作者 杰夫・甘农】据我所知，日本封闭式基金和交易所交易基金（ETF）目前的折扣/溢价低于正常水平。实际上，他们买入基金与其风险承受力一点都不匹配，而且也不见得就表现好。通常，较为缓慢的市场下跌意味着可能出现的反弹趋势。

  我正在对100多只日本的股票进行研究，这些都是完全基于其10年期利润记录亲自选出的具体个股。我很可能是从中选择自己的投资组合而不是买入基金。但是，由于经纪人的不同，投资者亲自选择投资组合的代价可能非常昂贵。

  我如何决定自己在日本投资的头寸？是否会设定投资上限？

  我估计会有25%的净资产投资于日本股票。如果股价与现有水平相比降幅较大，并且我发现有不错的个股的话，那么我会将50%的净资产投资于日本。日本有足够多让我感兴趣的上市公司，如果这些公司的股票价格足够低，我愿意将投资比例提高至100%。

  我自己的投资组合中日本股票的比例很快就会达到25%至50%。

  但是，我不会毫无差别地购买，我也不会购买基金，而是从最便宜的日本股票自选组合中购买。

  我通常是根据购买力平价评判货币风险，并且假设我可以以目前汇率或者购买力平价中的较低值将所持有的外国货币兑换为美元。因此，我会摒弃高估的货币，但是也不会认为低估的货币更具有吸引力，这使得我会远离一些国家的货币，除非这些国家的股票比丹麦、瑞典、挪威等国家的更便宜，这样说让人感到非常悲哀，但事实确实如此。

  日本与美国的购买力平价是109日元兑换1美元。因此，如果是80日元兑换1美元，日元相对于美国美元来说就会高估36%。换句话说，当你将日元兑换为美元时会损失27%。基本上，你应该将标的股票的回报率下调27%。

  对于我自己所保持的记录来说，实际上我会以购买力平价或者市场汇率中的较低值持有外国头寸，这与公司计算存货价值的方式相同，即成本或者市值中的较低者。我认为，市场汇率高于购买力平价的部分完全是一种投机。因此，投资者应该将所投资日本股票的预期利润下调27%，作为日本货币的损失计提。

  我并不是说日元币值会从目前的水平下降27%，而只是说我在购买日本股票时会这样假设，因为日本的股价高于美国，并且认为保守型投资永远都不应该基于一个国家的股价会高于其他国家的假设。每笔国外投资都需要根据购买力平价验证其合理性。

  因此，日本股价比美国股价便宜27%，仅仅是为了对其高估的货币以及由此而产生的风险进行补偿。

  日元的高估看起来已经非常明显，我正在寻求如何对冲日元风险。

  我猜测，在"正常"情况下，1美元应该购买90至110日元，这意味着仅仅由于货币原因就会使得投资日本股市遭受10%至30%的损失。

  作者为美国著名财经作家，有白宫及美国特勤局特许权

  本刊记者 石伟/译

Is Jim Chanos Right About A China Real Estate Bubble?

Sinocism

China in the 21st Century

Is Jim Chanos Right About A China Real Estate Bubble?

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Hedge fund manager James Chanos recently sat down with Charlie Rose to discuss his short China thesis. You can watch the interview here, and read the transcript here. An excerpt:

JAMES CHANOS: Well, again, the perception seems to be that China will grow into this real estate problem. But there's a problem with that argument, and that is the real estate that's being built is not being built for the masses. This is not affordable housing for the middle-class. This is high-end condos in major urban areas and high-end office buildings.

Just to give you an idea, right now construction costs in China are starting to hit $100 to $150 in some of the cities. That doesn't sound a lot by western standard ― per square foot, by the way. The typical Chinese condo is 100 square meters, about 1,100 square feet.

So that means a condominium that is basically presented to you with no floors, no walls, no appliances, costs the average Chinese two-income couple $100 to $150 U.S. Now, that Chinese two-income couple in their 30s probably makes combined $7,000 or $8,000 a year.

Now, you do the math. Incomes are about $3,500 per capita in China, urban areas slightly higher. Even if they were making $10,000 to $15,000 a year, you couldn't carry a $150,000 condo. This is very similar to someone making $40,000 in the U.S. at the height of our bubble and buying an $800,000 house. And we know how that ended.

Chanos, the founder of Kynikos Associates Ltd, has a terrific track-record. He makes some compelling points, especially about commercial office and retail real estate. However, I am not convinced by his bearishness about residential property, and I think he is making a mistake by looking at China as one unified real estate market.  There are significant variances between cities, and I think Chanos is underestimating the poor quality of current housing (has he spent a night in local Beijing housing yet?), the pent up demand to upgrade, and the increasing urbanization of rural suburbs.

In the case of Beijing, residential real estate (disclosure: I have property inside the Third Ring Road) may be getting ahead of itself but not yet be a bubble. That said, I would not be a buyer right now given the policy risk. Here is why I think Beijing may not yet be in a crazy bubble:

1. Beijing is the capital city of the largest country in the world with the fastest growing major economy;

2. Beijing's housing market is really a nationwide housing market. Every person with means in China wants to buy in Beijing. Beijing is the center of power, it has the best education system in the country and it has the best health system; UPDATE2: This point may not hold much water for a while, as new rules limit purchases of non-residents-never underestimate policy risk in China.

3. As the capital of China Beijing attracts rich buyers from the global Chinese diaspora;

4. As I wrote recently, the skyrocketing relocation compensation costs within central Beijing's make any new constructive extremely expensive. UPDATE1: News reports today state that the relocation compensation for the Tongzhou New City exceeds 15,000 RMB/m;

5. Prime developments inside the Third Ring Road are still less than $1000 square foot equivalent; compare to similar locations in New York, Tokyo or London;

6. Using official statistics to calculate average Beijing income to show that real estate is overpriced is misleading. Rich people from all over China buy here, and the official income statistics understate how much money Beijingers have at their disposal;

7. Beijing's population just hit 22 million, a number it was supposed to reach in 2020;

8. We are starting to see the emergence of a Greater Beijing Metropolitan Area, along the lines of the Greater Tokyo Area, stretching east, north and south into Hebei and Tianjin. The eastern expansion of CBD and the Tongzhou New City (video here, in Chinese but with lots of pictures) are just two examples of this sprawl, a trend that will likely make central Beijing property even more desirable and expensive. The government is massively upgrading the public transportation network (see a map of the planned subway expansion) as part of this expansion of Greater Beijing.

The rising prices in Beijing are very painful for many Beijingers. But I think we are watching Beijing evolve into a truly world-class city, along the lines of New York, Tokyo or London. How many New Yorkers or Londoners or Tokyo residents can afford to live in the city center as opposed to commuting in from a suburb? The same dynamic is at play in Beijing.

There are professional investors who are not as worried as Chanos about a China real estate bubble. In December 2009 Pimco issued a report comparing Japan's experiences with China's-The Chinese Real Estate Market: A Comparison with Japan's Bubble. The author does not believe that real estate market in China is anything like Japan's was near the height of the Japanese bubble, though he points out that there may be future risks:

Overall, the basic economic conditions in present-day China are substantially different from those of late-1980s Japan or the post-bubble U.S. (Chart 6).

…We see little risk in the foreseeable future that increases in loans to the real estate sector will pose a threat to the financial system. That said, a rapid increase in lending could lead to a rise in bad debt in the future, a risk of which Chinese regulators seem well aware.

An expansion in mass-market housing is vital for China to realize growth powered by domestic demand. A high percentage of home purchases in China are carried out in cash (down payments are generally around half of the purchase value), and the amount of home mortgages remains relatively small. This is related to the nation's high savings rate, but as middle-class housing becomes more available, the younger generations may rely more on loans. Increased demand for homes and durable goods may help promote a healthy cycle in domestic demand as a reduction in the savings rate may lead to higher personal consumption.

Given China's potential growth, its real estate market has plenty of room for enlargement over the long term, which stands in clear contrast to Japan's real estate bubble. That said, the current situation seems to have some characteristics of a future asset bubble. A key theme in the months ahead will likely be whether and how the Chinese government is able to contain the potential overheating in the market and shift the focus of housing supply towards the mass market.

On April 12 US Global Investors issued a more sanguine report titled "No Housing Bubble in China". The US Global Investors analysts believe that the relatively low amount of debt to disposable income and the government's efforts to rein in excessive speculation should keep China's real estate market from blowing into a full scale bubble:

Leverage is also an important indicator in judging how susceptible a housing market is to growing into a bubble. The chart below, also from BCA Research, shows debt as a percentage of disposable income in China and in a number of developed-market countries. More than half of the developed countries had debt in excess of income, with Denmark and Ireland pushing 200 percent.

China is at the far other end, with debt totaling just 44 percent of disposable income. Furthermore, homebuyers in China put down at least 20 percent as a down payment (30 percent for a first-time buyer and 40 percent for a second-home buyer to damp down speculation). These buyers rarely fall behind on their mortgage payments.

It's obviously true that there has been rapid price appreciation in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing. Prices have risen above the affordability level for most families in these cities, and that is why the government is acting to let some air out of those markets before dangerous bubbles form…

Where does the China housing market go from here? Home inventories are low in major cities � at the current sales pace, there are only a few months worth of inventory in Shanghai, and the situation isn't much better in Beijing or Shenzhen.

But demand is still strong. A recent survey by the Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA found that 56 percent of China's middle-class families are considering buying a new home � despite the higher prices many families can pay a 30 percent down payment because of their higher savings.

Our own research shows that property developers, coming off a good 2009, are expanding into second- and third-tier cities, where housing markets are also growing and prices are more affordable.

This widening of opportunity, combined with the government's early recognition that decisive measures were needed, together will raise the probability that it will achieve its goal of slowing down home price increases without causing the market to collapse.

Who is right? It may take a while to find out. The stock market at least seems to have made an early judgement, as Maoxian has pointed out at his excellent blog, where he compares year-over-year changes in Chinese property prices (not yet updated to include the March 2010 11.7% rise) with an index of Chinese real estate stocks.

In the meantime, China should should show it is still a socialist country and build more affordable housing, as an article in Xinhua yesterday suggests: China to boost low-income housing building: housing authorities. UPDATE3: The government announced more measures Saturday, detailed here, that contributed to a 4% drop in the Shanghai stock market Monday.

I assume Jim Chanos must be hoping the government will be unable to rein in a potential bubble in time to ward off a full-scale crash.

Please tell me what you think in the comments.

You can subscribe to this blog's RSS feed here, get my more frequent Twitter updates @niubi, and see my Sina Weibo updates here. You can also follow my blogging on digital media and the Internet in China at DigiCha. And if you want cupcakes or custom cakes in Beijing, please check out my girlfriend's CCSweets bakery. CCSweets has locations in Central Park in CBD and the Village North in Sanlitun, and you can always order online.

Mulling a Play by Superman

By ASSIF SHAMEEN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Billionaire Li Ka-Shing has packaged some Beijing holdings into a new REIT, Hui Xian, with both currency and real-estate plays. What's the outlook?

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Emerging Markets

Hong Kong property billionaire Li Ka-Shing has been dubbed Superman for his daredevil feats of turning seemingly dud investments into gold. He is also known for an incredible sense of timing―pouncing on bargains at the bottom of the cycle and selling, trimming his stakes or raising cash for his firms just as a bull market is maturing. So last week when he packaged his Beijing retail, office, hotel and residential complex, Oriental Plaza, into a real-estate investment trust, Hui Xian REIT (ticker: 87001.Hong Kong), and raised US$1.6 billion, there were bound to be raised eyebrows. Was Li seeing something that others were missing? Was the IPO a sign that Asia's savviest investor had sniffed a real-estate bubble in China?

Not quite. If indeed he has sensed anything, it's the start of the new boom―in Chinese yuan-denominated equities. Hui Xian REIT's IPO in Hong Kong is the first offering outside mainland China denominated in yuan. Investors are getting a double play: exposure to prime Beijing real estate at decent yields and a chance to ride on the coattails of the undervalued yuan, which is likely to gradually appreciate against major currencies over the next few years.

The Hui Xian IPO is a key milestone in the development of an offshore yuan market. In recent years, China has moved toward greater use of its currency, one of the world's most tightly controlled, for global trade and some types of finance. Beijing began allowing cross-border-trade yuan settlement in 2009. Chinese banks can settle yuan trades in Hong Kong and are expected to begin doing so in Singapore soon. London is expected to be next international financial center where large Chinese banks will be allowed to settle yuan trades. "Offshore yuan centers are likely to help speed up the eventual process of the Chinese currency's internationalization," notes Aaron Boesky, CEO of Marco Polo Asset Management in Hong Kong.

THOUGH LI RAISED $1.6 BILLION from the sale of near 40% in Hui Xian REIT, investors' response was tepid. While investors were hot on the IPO's "yuan exposure" aspect, they were decidedly lukewarm on the Beijing property exposure. In recent months, Beijing has tried to curb real-estate speculation through a slew of measures including regulating land supply, imposing property taxes, bank lending restrictions and higher interest rates. The measures have made little dent. Average nationwide property prices in 70 major Chinese cities rose 5.2% in March from a year earlier, down from 5.7% year-on-year growth in February.

While China is serious about reining in runaway real-estate prices in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where there has been some speculative buying, it doesn't want to destroy real demand for housing in second- and third-tier cities. "The long-term structural trend for China's real estate is up, so long as its economy continues to grow at 8% to 10% per year," says Kevin Gin, a veteran Asian real-estate analyst, now head of Greater China Property Research at Yuanta Securities in Hong Kong. He adds that "1.3 billion people, increasing affluence and more rural-to-urban migration can only mean higher demand for housing and generally higher real-estate prices."

While investors may get their short-term timing wrong, says Gin, those who take a long-term bullish view on Chinese real estate are unlikely to go wrong. "At any given time, some areas may be overpriced or have an element of speculation, but is there is no nationwide real-estate bubble in China."

Seoul Ascends

Korean stocks hit record highs last week. Strong Intel and IBM forecasts helped.

ASSIF SHAMEEN covers Asian capital markets from Singapore.

Bad News, Good News on Batteries

By JACQUELINE DOHERTY | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

The nascent electric-vehicle market isn't likely to do much for A123, Ener1 and Altair Nanotechnologies. But it could provide a boon for specialty-chemical producer OM Group.

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Electric cars are rolling off the assembly lines, but that's not great news for American battery makers like A123, Ener1 and Altair Nanotechnologies. Their shares have run out of juice, and may not be energized soon, because aggressive, mainly Asian, rivals are dominating the battery business.

Conversely, Cleveland-based OM Group (ticker: OMG), a 20-year-old specialty-chemical producer, could be a winner. One of its businesses is supplying chemicals for lithium-ion batteries, used in everything from cellphones to electric cars. OM doesn't disclose its electric-vehicle customers' names and implies that EVs accounted for less than $10 million of its $1.2 billion in sales last year. But if electric vehicles take off, its stock would get a jolt. At a recent 33.54, it could double in two years, particularly if the company repurchases shares, says a portfolio manager who owns the stock. Observes Saul Ludwig, a Northcoast Research Partners analyst who rates the shares Neutral, "Clients look at OM Group as a call option on future battery technology."

THE ELECTRIC-VEHICLE INDUSTRY is in its infancy. But thanks to $110-a-barrel oil, improved batteries, and government subsidies, it has a decent chance of sticking around. Indeed, the $2.7 billion annual market for lithium-ion batteries in cars and electric bikes could rise at a compounded yearly 34% through 2016, to $11.6 billion, says Lux Research, a firm specializing in emerging technologies.

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GM

The Chevy Volt's 380-pound, 5½-foot-long rechargeable battery (shown here minus its housing) is made by Korea's LG Chem, which beat out U.S. vendor A123.

The industry has two business models. In one, the battery is sold with the vehicle. In the second, it's rented. Better Place, a private Palo Alto company, rents batteries to owners of Renault electric cars. When a battery is discharged, it can be switched for a fully charged one at automated stations the company runs. By renting rather than buying a battery, which can cost $10,000 to $12,000, consumers avoid a big upfront cost. Better Place's initial facility just opened in Israel and is expected to be joined by others, there and in Denmark, later this year. The batteries come from AESC, a joint venture between Nissan Motor, NEC (NIPNF) and NEC Tokin.

Renault doesn't sell cars in the U.S., where the only mass-market EVs�the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt�are sold with their batteries included in the price.

The Leaf's battery comes from the AESC joint venture. The battery for the Volt -- which has an onboard gasoline-powered generator to extend its range far beyond a pure EV's -- comes from Korea's LG Chem (which beat out A123). Sales of both autos have been ramping up slowly since they began a few months ago. Through March, 1,210 Volts and 452 Leafs had been delivered this year. (Last week, Nissan said it would repair more than 5,000 Leafs in Japan and the U.S., to fix a software flaw.)

Tesla, a specialty high-end electric-car manufacturer, says Panasonic is one of its major suppliers. BMW chose SB LiMotive, a joint venture between Bosch and Samsung SDI, to supply the battery to its i3 electric vehicles, which might debut in 2013. The electric version of the Ford Focus�expected at the end of 2011 -- will use a battery from Compact Power, a subsidiary of LG Chem.

If the industry takes off, more car makers will produce electric vehicles, probably giving the U.S. battery makers an opportunity to win business. But so far, the EV projects haven't gained traction, despite federal aid, and neither have their efforts to build industrial batteries for utilities.

According to the Department of Energy, A123 (AONE) was awarded a $249 million grant as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; EnerDel, a unit of Ener1 (HEV), got $118 million. The DOE has granted $2.4 billion for battery and electric-car development, but U.S. battery companies have had to seek more funding. "

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"They all seem to be overvalued and under-delivering," says Steven Minnihan, a Lux Research analyst. Earlier this month, A123 raised $253.9 million by selling 20 million shares and $143.8 million of convertible debt. Its stock, which traded in the low 20s after its 2009 IPO, recently was at $6.05. Analysts expect the company, which lost $1.46 a share last year, to lose $1.52 this year and 94 cents in 2012.

Ener1's story is similar. It developed batteries for start-up urban electric vehicle manufacturer Think City, in which Ener1 has an investment. It also developed a battery for the Volvo C30 electric vehicle, which has yet to go on sale, according to Ener1's annual report. Sales to Think Global have represented nearly all of Ener1's automotive revenue. But in January, Think Global stopped buying batteries as it "rebalanced its overall inventory levels" of cars in Europe and the U.S.

Ener1 raised $25 million in January by selling stock and debt. That followed similar sales last year that generated more than $160 million. Its shares, which in 2008 were bouncing between $7 and $8, now are below $3.00. Ener1 lost 48 cents a share last year and is expected to lose 25 cents this year and 16 cents in 2012.

Altair shares (ALTI) traded north of $10 in 2007, but have slid to under $2.00. It makes a battery used in an electric bus made by Proterra, a private firm. But only five buses have been sold (six are on order). It has also has agreed to license its technology to Cannon, an Asian company that bought 51% of Altair for 38.82 cents a share. With no earnings, Altair in March raised $6.4 million (before fees) by selling shares at $1.784. It's likely to lose 39 cents a share this year, after losing 84 cents last year. Officials of all three -- A123, Ener1 and Altair -- declined to speak with Barron's.

ONE WAY TO INVEST in the battery space is to buy into OM Group. Its specialty is processing cobalt, a material that's mined along with nickel. "We have relationships with many of the folks making [batteries for] electric vehicles today," says Troy Dewar, OM's investor-relations chief.

OM's stock now is around 34, about 13% below its 2010 close. Reason: Cobalt prices have fallen to about $16 a pound, down from around $19 recently although modestly above the long-term average of $15, and traders expect supplies to grow as new nickel mines come online. Over the years, cobalt has traded anywhere between $6 and $45.

OM is also exposed to the battery industry through its 2010 purchase of EaglePicher Technologies for $172 million�a deal that was expensive, says Northcoast's Ludwig. EaglePicher designs batteries for the defense, aerospace and medical industries. It's also developing batteries that wind- and solar-power systems could use to store energy.

The Bottom Line

If the electric-vehicle market takes off, OM Group shares could double in two years. But the outlook remains gloomy for A123, Ener1 and Altair, all of which are losing money.

Fortunately, OM Group has other businesses that throw off oodles of cash. For one, it provides products that improve vehicles' rust resistance. Its chemicals are also used in circuit boards, paint and steel.

OM is expected to earn $2.70 a share this year and $2.84 next, giving its stock an 12 multiple on 2012 earnings. But what really gets some institutional investors excited is its $400.6 million of cash, against just $30 million of debt.Since the company has only 30.65 million shares (fully diluted), it has enough money to pay a sizeable dividend or buy back about a quarter of its outstanding stock.

However, OM Group does much of its manufacturing in Finland, so roughly $350 million of the total is overseas. It would have to pay income taxes on any cash repatriated. So, says Dewar, "our priority is going to be on acquisitions." 

Tesla's Stock Looks Overcharged

One of the electric-vehicle makers that has generated the most excitement -- and debate -- is Tesla Motors. Its sleek roadsters and sedans are undeniably attractive. Its stock…well, that's another matter.

After an initial public offering in June 2010 at $17, Tesla's shares (ticker: TSLA) raced to $36 before settling down to a recent $27.

The company, which isn't expected to report net income until 2014, has sold only 1,500 cars, none of which it has assembled entirely on its own. Analysts see it posting per-share losses of $2.10 this year and $1.54 in 2012, on annual revenue of $170 million and $598 million, respectively. And Tesla is expected to tap the capital markets to fund future operations. Yet it boasts a stock-market value of $2.6 billion. The rosiest Wall Street research report comes from Morgan Stanley, which has a Overweight rating and a $70 one-year target. In projecting the stock's future value, the investment firm uses a 15-year discounted cash-flow model. By 2020, Morgan Stanley forecasts $9.5 billion of sales and $1.2 billion of operating profit for the company.

Carter Driscoll, a clean-technology analyst at Capstone Investments, is less optimistic. "On any meaningful, objective valuation, it's overvalued," he asserts. Driscoll has a Sell recommendation and a $19 stock-price target, and says that the bulls are dramatically underestimating the auto business's voracious appetite for capital.

Tesla officials declined to comment on financials.

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Tesla Motors

Tesla's roadster, which has a starting price around $109,000, has found favor with some eco-conscious celebrities.

The company currently sells Tesla Roadsters, made primarily by Lotus, with a starting price of $109,000. In mid-2012, Tesla hopes to add the Model S, a $50,000 luxury sedan to be built at its California plant. And the people's Tesla -- the Model X -- is supposed to arrive in 2014. Its projected starting price: around $30,000.

Of course, Nissan is already selling an electric car for the masses, the Leaf, with a starting price below $33,000. And just about every luxury-car maker is considering selling some form of electric vehicle. "There is plenty of room in the marketplace for all of us for at least five years," says Kurt Kelty, Tesla's director of battery technology.

One plus for Tesla: Both Toyota and Daimler have equity stakes in the company, so it's always possible that it will be acquired. But, even if it is, the price paid could very well be more fit for a Hyundai than for a Rolls.

From China, the Next Great Tablet

By LESLIE P. NORTON | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Lenovo, the world's fourth-largest maker of personal computers, is deploying a brutal "Protect and Attack" strategy. Why its sortie into iPad territory might just hit the mark.

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Like any good magician, Yang Yuanqing knows how to build suspense. First, he shows a visitor how his new creation functions as a basic laptop, which is exactly what it looks like. Surely there is more―and Yang does not disappoint. He suddenly pops the screen clear off the base and -- presto! -- he's holding a sleek, stand-alone tablet computer, complete with its own operating system. "Two systems," the CEO of China-based Lenovo announces with pleasure. "Windows in the base, Android in the screen." His audience of one is duly impressed.

Meet the LePad, as the company is calling it ("Le" stands for Lenovo and, in Chinese, stands for happiness). Yang has huge ambitions for LePad. He figures the device, recently launched in China, will soon grab 10% of the country's tablet sales. Within two years, he says, the share will grow to 20%. The device could be a hit in other markets too; a U.S. debut is slated for this summer.

Lenovo (ticker: 992.Hong Kong) faces plenty of competition. Some 100-plus tablets have been launched by 60 rivals in the past few months, each hoping to chip away at the dominance of the Apple's iPad. But if anyone can muscle into the market in a big way, it may well be Lenovo, the world's fourth-largest manufacturer of personal computers.

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Chris Casaburi for Barron's

CEO Yang Yuanqing figures the LePad will grab 20% of China's tablet market.

Even as growth in the personal-computer market slows, Lenovo has been scarfing up market share -- both in China, where it dominates with a third of the market, and elsewhere around the globe. In each of the past six quarters, it was fastest-growing PC maker of the world's top five, its 16.3% growth rate eclipsing the market's 3.2% decline.

Lenovo's strategy -- which it calls "Protect and Attack" -- is to boost profits in mature markets and China and ruthlessly amass market share in the emerging world. The plan was developed by Yang in 2008, after the company lost huge chunks of market share during the global downturn.

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The LePad could play a prominent role in Lenovo's attacking. The hybrid device is not only versatile but attractively priced; at about $1,000 it's in the midrange for laptops, with the tablet coming as a bonus. That should play well in China, developed nations and corporate users in emerging markets. Emerging markets are another story: While tablet sales have hurt laptops in many parts of the world, laptops are still selling better than ever in emerging economies.

Lenovo doesn't have the laptop/tablet market completely to itself. Dell (DELL) has launched its own model, but it's inferior to LePad on some key points. It's chunky when in tablet mode -- the screen folds face-up onto the base rather than detaching -- and it doesn't have Android, which was developed by Google (GOOG), is great for touch-screen devices and has a wide array of available apps.

With many consumers struggling to choose between laptops and tablets. the LePad has "a very good chance" of securing a top spot in world-wide tablet sales after Apple (AAPL), says Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group, a digital-media research firm.

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As with its other products, Lenovo may have the greatest success with corporate users. The firm is No. 1 in notebooks among large companies and public-sector institutions, thanks in part to the ThinkPad line of laptops, a former IBM brand that has long been a favorite of corporations. Big companies are still in the so-called PC refresh cycle after the launch of Windows 7 in mid-2009; Yang figures there's another year or two left. Lenovo is also going after smaller businesses. This month it began selling PCs at Best Buy (BBY), a good move since the chain accounts for a third of all PCs sold in the U.S., says David Daoud of research firm IDC.

At the moment, Lenovo's operating margins are thinner than those of most rivals -- 2.2% overall, versus 7.3% for Dell. That's a sore point with some investors. But Lenovo is growing much faster than its rivals, and as Yang tells it, profitability is improving nicely. Margins in China are already a relatively fat 5%-plus.

"We're starting to recover in Western Europe and North America. We're getting decent profit margins there -- very similar to China," he says. Now Lenovo has to improve the picture in emerging markets, where the push for market share has produced losses.

The Bottom Line

Lenovo's shares could climb 43% as the company grabs more market share in developing countries and begins to improve profit margins.

Lenovo's stock may look expensive, trading at 22 times estimated earnings for the year ahead. But if you exclude a huge $3.2 billion of net cash, the P/E drops to just 6.7. And Lenovo's earnings are firmly on the rise; they're expected to come in at 2.7 cents per share for the fiscal year that ended in March and 3.8 centsthis year.

Bulls think Lenovo's shares could jump 43% to 6.50 Hong Kong dollars (84 U.S. cents). American depositary receipts are also available, under the ticker LNVGY.

Says James Weir, who manages Guinness Atkinson China & Hong Kong Fund: "If Lenovo can keep its market share in China, and the corporate refresh cycle comes through, there is good value in the stock." For investors, Lenovo could be a LeWinner. 

Built for the Long Run

By CHRISTOPHER C. WILLIAMS | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

The athletic-shoe company's short-term problems are creating a buying opportunity for long-term investors. How it's battling rising material costs and Wall Street's lowered expectations.

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Hard-charging Nike has tripped over higher input and freight costs. The stock dropped more than 9% last month after the athletic-products giant reported disappointing third-quarter results. But Nike is a marathoner, not a sprinter, and it will get back on track over the next year.

The drop in the stock (ticker: NKE), from an all-time high of 92 to a recent 80, is giving investors the chance to snap up shares of the dominant player in the growing athletic sneaker and apparel markets for a still-reasonable 16 times estimated forward earnings. Nike's long-term goals, which include boosting revenue to $27 billion by the end of fiscal year 2015 from $19 billion now, remain realistic; the balance sheet, ironclad. The company's operations threw off close to $6 a share of free cash flow last year, providing a juicy cash-flow yield of 9%.

DESPITE THE NEAR-TERM HEADWINDS, the Beaverton, Ore., sneaker king's earnings per share are likely to grow by double digits this year, and demand for Nike's swoosh-emblazoned products remains hot across the globe, especially in emerging markets, including China. Concern over rising material costs have obscured the 9% third-quarter rise in orders for Nike products scheduled for delivery over the next five months, reflecting impressive top-line momentum. And that figure excludes the currency-exchange boost that a weaker dollar is providing.

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Nike

A Nike Free women's running shoe, designed to simulate barefoot running.

Nike management acknowledges that higher bills for oil, cotton and labor could continue to put pressure on the company over the next year. But they expect to offset this by pushing through across-the-board price increases on sneakers and apparel in coming months. In the meantime, Nike is leveraging its supply chain and controlling costs to bolster its bottom line.

After slipping to 75 following the disappointing earnings report, Nike has recovered to 80, down 6% for the year. Bulls, like Marie Driscoll of Standard & Poor's, think that the stock could surpass its previous high over the next 12 to 18 months, if the price increases stick and consumer spending remains stable. "Nike is one of the better-situated companies to deal with cost pressures, given its strong brands, deep relationship with vendors, pricing power and economies of scale," comments Driscoll, who has a Buy rating on the stock.

Nike, co-founded in 1972 by Chairman Phil Knight, who retains a more than 25% stake, rode the blast-off popularity surge of basketball great Michael Jordan to sole dominance. But while the company's signature Air Jordans remain best sellers, Nike is much more than high-priced performance kicks. Footwear generates 62% of revenue, but apparel, which produces 31% of sales, is growing faster. U.S. apparel is up 18% this year. Equipment chips in 6% of sales. Nike also markets the brands like Cole Haan and Converse.

But while most of its businesses grew in the recent quarter -- overall sales were up 7% -- higher input costs held results below expectations and chased some investors to the exits.

On March 17, Nike said that its gross margin had fallen by 110 basis points -- 1.1 percentage points -- to 45.8% during the quarter, which ended on Feb. 28. Among other things, the footwear maker blamed higher freight costs, incurred, ironically, to satisfy strong demand for its products.

NIKE OFFICIALS DECLINED TO COMMENT for this article. But if they're sweating their ability to eventually beat rising costs, Chief Executive Mark Parker and other company executives didn't show it on their third-quarter conference call with analysts. "We're using our size and scale to leverage our supply chain and negotiate costs to help maintain profitability in challenging environments," Parker said.

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Although Nike has already started pushing through selected price increases, in advance of the general increases on a broad array of products to be shipped in the second half of 2011, some critics knock the company for being slow to execute. The current round of new prices won't be reflected in profit-and-loss statements for three to nine months, say analysts. Still, the prices should stick because Nike's core customers are young, fashion-conscious and not easily dissuaded by having to pay a few bucks more for what they really like.

In addition, Nike is increasing production modestly, which, along with controlling costs, should help stabilize results. Analysts think that a gradual shift to apparel should also support margins. Some analysts look for Nike's overall gross margin to recover to 46.1% by fiscal 2013, which begins on June 1, 2012, from an estimated 45.7% this fiscal year. And Morningstar analyst Paul Swinand contends that operating margins eventually will grow to 14%, from 13% now, owing to increased product-development, supply-chain and distribution efficiencies and increased scale in emerging markets.

Driscoll expects Nike to post solid earnings growth this fiscal year, to $4.19 a share, from $3.86 last year. That will be driven in large part by an 8% uptick in revenue, to around $21 billion. The analyst sees higher international, direct-to-consumer and apparel businesses boosting the top line.

Improved pricing could help earnings jump to $4.86 a share next year, on $22 billion of sales.

The Bottom Line

After hitting a record 92 late last year, Nike is at 80.19. Bulls think that it could reach a new high over the next 18 months, if, as seemly likely, it can raise prices without hurting sales.

NIKE AND WALL STREET are also betting that the general sports-sneaker and apparel markets continue to expand amid the slowly recovering economy. Sneaker sales in the U.S., for example, climbed almost 8% last year, to $20 billion, according to Charlotte, N.C.-based marketing and research firm SportsOneSource. Nike has 35% of that market, well ahead of Skechers (SKX) at just 6%.

Improving industry sales and strong quarterly results helped Nike's stock recover after falling to 66 last summer, and some investors used Nike's third-quarter earnings miss -- its first quarterly shortfall since 2006 -- as a reason to take profits.

Goldman Sachs analyst Michelle Tan cut her rating on Nike to Neutral from Buy, following the earnings release. Tan noted that Nike's stock tends to lag behind the overall market when the company's annual gross profit growth falls below 10%, which the analyst expects to happen for the first half of the 2012 fiscal year.

Susquehanna analyst Christopher Svezia asserts that the stock could even fall to 70, or about 13% below the current level, if management misses on fourth-quarter results and gives a "weak" outlook, which is possible. "They're going into tough comparisons with significant production cost headwinds and [likely] higher SG&A [sales, general and administrative costs] with the start of the buildup to the 2012 Olympics," says Svezia, who has a Neutral rating on the stock. Nike will outfit several athletes at the Olympics, which will be held in London.

Some critics also sniff that Nike's price-to-earnings ratio, which exceeds analysts' long-term earnings growth expectations of 12% to 15% annually, is too lofty for a dented growth stock with near-term cost issues. But Nike's valuation is generally in line with the average for peers such as Under Armour (UA) and Deckers Outdoor (DECK). Bulls like S&P's Driscoll argue that Nike -- with its savvy management, excellent performance history and diverse portfolio of leading brands -- deserves a premium.

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Nike is trying to ramp up its sales of high-margin apparel.

Furthermore, while smaller rivals such as Under Armour might be growing faster, Nike's propensity to return cash to shareholders make it a "safe" bet, says Driscoll, who sees the stock trading at 99 in 12 months, or 20 times her fiscal 2012 estimate.

Over the past three years, Nike has doubled its quarterly dividend, to 31 cents a share, and repurchased about $3.4 billion worth of its shares.

Nike also offers outsize exposure to emerging markets, in which its sales grew 19% in the third quarter. Sales in China, where Nike is the leading sports brand, rose more than 20%, to $554 million. The China total is expected to hit $2.3 billion by fiscal 2012, analysts estimate. But business in North America wasn't a slouch either, growing at a 9% clip in the quarter.

Nike might be winded, but the sneaker maker and its stock are built for the long run.

Talking to the neighbours

Astrophysics and alien intelligence 天文物理学与外星智慧 
 
Talking to the neighbours
 与"邻居们"交谈

 

A modest proposal for an interstellar communications network
 对于星际通讯网络的小小建议

 

Apr 7th 2011 | from the print edition

 

 

 

 ALMOST as soon as radios were invented, people speculated about using them to listen to―and maybe even talk to―extraterrestrial civilisations. Since the 1960s attempts have been made to do so by sifting through signals from outer space in search of alien chit-chat. More recently, the use of lasers in telecommunications has suggested to some that they might be a better way to communicate across vast distances, so searching for telltale flashes from the sky is now in vogue.
 几乎是在无线电被发明的同时，人们就在思索如何用它们来倾听――甚至可能是对话――地外文明。而自上世纪六十年代起，人们就在不断尝试通过过滤来自外太空无线电信号来搜寻外星人的片言只语。近来，激光在电信上的应用已经显示出在某些方面它们可能是一种更合适的超远距离通信方式，这导致找寻天空的隐秘"闪光"成为一股时兴潮流。

 

 But techniques that work well on Earth are not necessarily ideal for talking across the vast chasms that separate stars. And for several years John Learned of the University of Hawaii and Anthony Zee of the University of California, Santa Barbara, have been promulgating what they believe is a better idea. They suggest that any alien civilisation worth its salt would alight not on the photons of the electromagnetic spectrum―whether optical or radio-frequency―to send messages to other solar systems. Rather, it would focus its attention on a different fundamental particle, one that is rather neglected by human technologists. That particle is the neutrino.
 但是在地球上行之有效的技术未必能在跨星际遥远距离的通话中理想运作。这些年来夏威夷大学的约翰・伦德（John Learned）和圣巴巴拉市加州大学的安东尼・徐（Anthony Zee）一直在宣传他们认为更加有效的方法。他们指出，任何有头脑的外星文明都不会发射电磁波谱中的光子――无论是可见光波段还是射频波段――向另一个太阳系传送信息。相反，其所关注的是另一种基本粒子，这种粒子被人类的技术专家长期忽视。它就是中微子。

 

 Neutrinos, it must be confessed, are neglected for a reason. Though abundant (the universe probably contains more of them than any other sort of particle except photons), they are fiendishly difficult to detect. That is because they interact only occasionally with other forms of matter. But that is precisely why Dr Learned and Dr Zee like the look of them. Light and radio waves are absorbed and scattered by interstellar gas and dust. Neutrinos would pass straight through such obstacles, and could easily be detected by neutrino telescopes on Earth (which typically consist of giant vats of water or, more recently, huge chunks of Antarctic ice).
 必须承认，中微子遭到忽视是有原因的。虽然含量丰富（除了光子以外，它在宇宙中的含量比所有其他类型的粒子都要多），但要探测到它们却难于登天。那是因为它们仅仅是在非常偶然的情况下才会与其他物质发生反应。而这恰恰是伦德博士和徐博士对它们如此看重的原因。光波和无线电波能被星际气体和尘埃吸收及散射。中微子却可以直接穿透这些障碍，使地球上的中微子望远镜（通常有巨大的水槽，近来也有采用体积庞大的南极洲冰块的）能方便地检测出来。

 

 The two researchers go further. They argue that powerful beams of neutrinos could be used to turn entire stars into flashing beacons, broadcasting information across the galaxy. Outlandish as this sounds, it is an idea that can easily be checked, for astronomers are already sitting on the data that might contain these extraterrestrial messages. They just need to analyse those data from a new perspective. Dr Learned and Dr Zee are therefore trying to persuade someone who studies the data in question to take their idea seriously and spend a little time having a look.
 而这两位研究者走得更远。他们指出，强大的中微子束能把整颗恒星变成闪亮的灯塔，向整个星系广播信息。听起来匪夷所思，但这个设想很容易得到验证，因为天文学家们早已拥有包含此类地外信息的数据。他们要做的仅仅是以一个全新的角度去分析这些数据。因此，伦德博士和徐博士试图说服研究这些可疑信息的研究人员认真对待他们的观点，花一点点时间去尝试分析。

 

Motes and beams
 星尘与粒子束

 

 To detect artificial neutrinos using existing telescopes means screening out the natural neutrino background. Fortunately, much of that is produced by nuclear reactions in stars, and such stellar neutrinos have relatively low energies. If the aliens made their beams out of neutrinos that were a billion times more energetic than the ones emanating from stars (something the researchers argue is not completely beyond the bounds of current technological imagination), the background noise would disappear. At high enough energies the rest of the galaxy is so quiet that if someone detected even a couple of energetic neutrinos arriving from the same direction, it would almost certainly mean they were artificial.
 采用现有的望远镜去检测人为的中微子意味着要将自然产生的中微子从背景中剔除出去。幸运的是，自然产生的中微子多半是由恒星核反应所产生的，而且此类恒星中微子能量相当低。如果外星人制造出比恒星所发射的中微子还要高十亿倍能量的中微子粒子束（研究人员指出，这并非完全超出现有技术所能想象的范畴之外），那么背景噪音将淡化至消失。以足够高的能量范畴，星系中的其余部分显得如此安静，以至于甚至只要检测出来自同样方向的数个高能中微子，就基本能断定它们是人为制造的。

 

 Moreover, Dr Learned proposes a specific energy that aliens might favour. The magic number is 6.3 quadrillion electron-volts. (An electron-volt is the energy with which a one-volt battery can accelerate an electron.) A neutrino with this energy has a good chance of producing a particle known as a W- when it passes through a detector. The W- particle will then decay in a characteristic way, leaving an unambiguous record of the neutrino's passage.
 而且，伦德博士提出，外星人可能对某个确定的能级情有独钟。这个神奇数字是6.3亿亿亿电子伏特（一个电子伏特是指一个电子在1伏特的电压下加速所获得的能量）。当这一能级的中微子通过检测器时有很大概率产生一种被称为W-的粒子。该W-粒子以一种独特的方式衰变，能留下明显的中微子轨道痕迹。

 

 This is not the first time that beams of neutrinos have been proposed as a means of interstellar communication. But past suggestions required enormous energies (of the order of the entire output of the sun) to create a sufficiently intense beam. Dr Learned and Dr Zee have come up with a design for a particle accelerator that would do the job a good deal more modestly, using another type of subatomic particle, the pion, as an intermediary. According to their estimates, this should require no more energy than a typical Earth-bound power station can provide. Aliens might therefore be willing to give it a go―as, indeed, might humanity, if that were thought wise.
 使用中微子束作为星际通信手段并非是首创。但过去的方法要求用巨大的能量（要求太阳整体能量输出的同等能级）去制造足够强度的粒子束。伦德博士和徐博士已经提出一种粒子加速器的设计，用小得多的适宜能量就能把此项工作做好，它采用的媒介是另一种亚原子粒子――介子。据他们测算，其需要的能量将不会超过一座常规地面发电站所能提供的能量。如果那是个好办法，外星人则可能愿意尝试一下――实际上，人类也不妨一试。

 

 Once a civilisation has mastered the trick of generating high-energy neutrinos, though, Dr Learned's imagination suggests it might signal its existence to the waiting universe another way―and this is where the existing astronomical archives come in. For 100 years astronomers have paid particular attention to a class of variable star known as the Cepheids. These are important because they produce regular pulses of light and the period of those pulses is precisely related to the luminosity of the star. A Cepheid's distance can thus be calculated with great accuracy. And, since individual Cepheids are bright enough to be seen in other galaxies, they were the first tool used to estimate the distances to such galaxies.
 然而在伦德博士的设想中，一旦某个文明精通了制造高能中微子的技巧，它可能成为在茫茫宇宙中标识自身存在的另一种手段――也就是现存的天文档案该发挥作用的时候了。一个世纪以来，天文学家对所谓的"造父变星"注【1】格外关注。其之所以重要是因为它们发出有规律的光脉冲，而且这些脉冲的周期与该星的亮度精确对应。因而一颗"造父变星"的距离能够由此以很大的精确度得以计算出来。且由于在另一个星系中的单颗"造父变星"的亮度就足于使其被观测到，所以它们是测算类似星系距离的首选工具。

 

 Dr Learned, however, reckons the pulse-period of a Cepheid could be modulated by a suitable beam of neutrinos. Such a beam would easily penetrate the star's outer layer, but the stellar core would be sufficiently dense to absorb part of it. That would be enough to heat the core slightly and this heating would, in turn, accelerate the Cepheid's pulse rate. Time the beam right and the star could be turned, in effect, into an FM transmitter―broadcasting to the universe on the underlying carrier-wave of the Cepheid's pulsation.
 而且，伦德博士测算出"造父变星"的脉动周期能够用适当的微中子束加以调整。这样的粒子束将轻而易举地穿透恒星外壳，但足够致密的星核能够将其部分吸收。这将足于稍微加热星核，而其温度上升将随之加速"造父变星"的脉动率。只要恰当地控制粒子束的照射时间，该恒星将有效地成为一台调频电台――以"造父变星"的脉冲为基础载波向宇宙广播。

 

Tickling a star
 "燎"动星辰

 

 Admittedly, the energy needed to produce a Cepheid-modulating neutrino beam really would be a sizeable fraction of the output of the sun. But putting aside such minor engineering challenges, the point Dr Learned is keen to make is that because Cepheids have been so thoroughly examined, looking for transmissions from the Betelgeuse Broadcasting Corporation might just be a matter of re-examining the archives. If an intergalactic version of "Yesterday in Parliament" showed up in such a trawl it might not demonstrate the existence of truly intelligent aliens. By contrast, coverage of the cricket on "Test Match Special" would surely be proof positive.
 应当承认，制造用来调整"造父变星"的中微子束所需要的能量确实将相当于太阳整体输出能量的大部分份额。但是且不管这个次要的能量障碍，伦德博士急于表述的重点是，由于"造父变星"已经被如此严密地审查过，搜寻来自"参宿四广播公司"的节目所要做的仅仅是要对档案进行重新审核而已。如果星际版"昨日议会"的节目出现在这样的拉网式搜索中，可能还不能证明存在真实智能的外星人。相反，板球的"预赛专题"新闻报道必将成为确凿的证据。

 

 

 

 注【1】：
 造父变星是一种周期性脉动的变星，它的光变周期与绝对星等的变化具有确定的关系，即周光关系。仙王座δ是这类变星中第一颗被证认出的，由于它的中文名是造父一，因此这类变星得名"造父变星"。造父变星利用周光关系可以测量恒星和星系的距离。

Decaying faster

Decaying faster
 迅速衰减

 

 Last year's reprieve for the nuclear-power industry was too good to last
 去年对核电力工业的缓刑判刑无法持续

 

 SIX months ago Germany's four biggest power companies thought they had a deal: the lives of their 17 nuclear plants would be extended for an average of 12 years. In return they would pay a nuclear-fuel tax totalling euro14 billion ($20 billion) over six years and contribute euro200m-300m annually to a renewable-energy fund. But after Japan's disaster last month the German government told them to shut their seven oldest plants. They will probably never reopen, and the lives of the others are likely to be shortened. A government commission on the nuclear plants will report its findings at the end of May.

 

 六个月前，德国的四家最大的电力公司认为，他们有协议：他们的17家核电厂的使用寿命将会平均延期12年。作为回报，他们六年将支付超过140亿欧元折合200亿美元的核燃料税，每年捐出两千万到三千万欧元的可持续能源基金。但在上月日本的灾难后，德国政府关闭的七最古老的核电站。他们可能永远不会重新开放，其他核电站的使用寿命也可能会缩短。一个核电站政府委员会将在五月底宣布调查结果。

 

 On April 1st RWE, which runs five nuclear plants, challenged the shutdown in a court in Hesse, a state which is home to two of them. E.ON, which operates six plants, says it may still challenge the nuclear-fuel tax; but it tacitly supports the shutdown. So do Vattenfall of Sweden, which operates two, and EnBW, which runs four.

 

 4月1日，有五个核电厂运行的RWE在在黑森州质疑核电站的关闭，而该州是公司两个核电站的所在地。 E. ON公司经营六家核电长，该厂表示，可能仍将挑战核燃油税，但公司默默地支持关闭核电站。瑞典Vattenfall公司也是如此，该公司有两个核电站，EnBW也赞同，该公司有四个核电站。

 

 It is not clear that the nuclear operators are losing much from the standstill. As summer approaches they have enough capacity in conventional and renewable power or can buy from abroad: recently, imports have uncharacteristically outstripped exports. Yet electricity-futures prices on EEX, the Leipzig energy exchange, have risen by about 10% since mid-March and industrial power consumers are spooked by the uncertainty, wondering whether to hedge now or wait.

 

 目前尚不明了的是，核运营商在僵持的过程中正在失去越来越多的东西。随着夏季的来临，他们有足够能力生产常规和可再生能源，也可以从国外购买能源：最近，一反常态地进口超过出口。然而，在EEX和莱比锡能量交换场地电力期货价格自三月中旬已经上涨了约10％，工业电源消费者受不确定性的惊吓，不知道是应该买入对冲工具，还是进一步观其走势。

 

 The medium-term outlook for the power companies is bleaker. RWE and E.ON have joint plans to build up to four nuclear-power plants in Britain, but the taste for new nuclear may desert even the British. All four big German operators are working hard to replace their nuclear capacity (about a quarter of their combined total) with renewable power or gas-fired plants. But the real challenge for Germany is to create an efficient grid to deliver power from future wind-farms in the north and solar arrays in the south to the industrial heartland around the Rhine and the south-west. About 4,500km (2,800 miles) of new high-voltage lines are needed, which would cost around euro11 billion to build. The obstacles are bureaucracy and nimbyism. So far, only 80km have been built.

 

 电力公司的中期前景更加暗淡。 RWE和E. ON公司已经推出联合计划，在英国建立四个核电站，但是对新的核的喜爱已经消退，甚至英国也是如此。德国所有的四家核电运营商正在努力，用可再生能源以及气电发电厂来替换他们的核发电能力（这是合计发电总数的四分之一）。但是德国真正的挑战是在北部建立风电传送在南部建立太阳能发电传送的有效电网，电网将电力输送到莱茵河和西南部的工业腹地。需要约4500公里的新型高压线路（2,800英里），建设要花费大约11亿欧元。障碍是官僚主义和居民排斥。到目前为止，已建成仅有80公里。

The real fight begins

The real fight begins
 真正的战斗打响了

 

As a government shutdown looms, an attempt to grapple with America's long-term deficit problems is at last under way
 政府关门之危迫在眉睫，最终总算有人挺身而出解决美国长期的赤字问题了

 

Apr 7th 2011 | WASHINGTON, DC| from the print edition

 

 

 

 CONGRESS may not be very good at passing budgets, but that is not for lack of discussion of them. This week it was by three overlapping budgetary debates: about a "continuing resolution" to keep the government up and running for the rest of this fiscal year, about next year's budget and about whether to raise the legal limit on the federal government's debt. Lawmakers have just under six months to sort out next year's budget, and under six weeks before America's debt reaches the current ceiling. But without a new resolution, the government's authority to spend will expire at midnight on April 8th, forcing much of it to shut up shop. As The Economist went to press, the Republicans who run the House of Representatives, the Democrats who run the Senate and Barack Obama himself were holding last-ditch talks, but also warning their staffs to prepare for a shutdown.

 

 国会可能并不是很擅长通过预算，但这并不是因为议员之间缺乏讨论沟通。本周国会将同时忙于三场关于预算的辩论：有关"延续性决议"的辩论，以维持政府运转直至本财政年度结束；有关下一年度预算的辩论；有关是否应提升联邦政府债务法定上限的辩论。立法人员仅有不到六个月的时间整理下一年度的预算，更是仅有不到六周的时间美国的债务就到达当前的上限了。但在没有新决议的情况下，政府开支之权将在4月8日午夜12点废止，政府大部分部门将被迫关门。截至本期《经济学人》付梓之时，共和党控制的众议院、民主党控制的参议院及贝拉克・奥巴马总统本人在举行最后的会谈，同时也警告各自职员为政府关门做好准备。

 

 This cliffhanger is the culmination of months of fiscal bickering, punctuated by stopgap continuing resolutions. Since February the Republicans have been holding out for $61 billion in cuts to this year's budget, including assaults on favoured Democratic causes such as public broadcasting (see article). The Democrats argue that their proposal is too extreme, too political, and too narrowly focused. The previous two continuing resolutions, which had lifespans of two and three weeks respectively, were intended to allow the two sides enough time to hammer out a compromise for the rest of the year.

 

 这一悬念标志着数月以来关于财政的争吵，在"延续性决议"这一权宜之计的推波助澜下达到顶峰。自二月份以来，共和党人一直坚持削减本年度财政预算610亿美元，包括攻击民主党倡导的、备受民众欢迎的众多事业，例如公共广播项目（见文章）。民主党则认为共和党人的建议苛刻、政见强烈、目光狭隘。前两个延续性决议分别为期2周和3周，目的是为双方提供足够的时间达成妥协，度过本财政年度剩余的几个月。

 

 Predictably, much of that time was instead spent grandstanding. The House recently passed a bill stating that if the Senate did not pass a budget of its own, the House's $61 billion cut, which the Senate had already rejected, should become law anyway. Needless to say, the Senate did not embrace this idea. House Republicans then took to protesting on the Senate steps each day, calling on the Democrats' leader in that chamber, Harry Reid, to resign. Meanwhile, a group of tea-party activists threatened dire vengeance on any Republicans who voted for anything less than the full $61 billion of cuts. A bipartisan group of 64 of the 100 senators sent Mr Obama a letter asking him to find a solution to their problems. Mr Obama called Congress's failure to pass a budget "inexcusable" and said that he would summon the leaders of its two chambers to the White House every day for talks until a deal was done.

 

 不难预测，大部分时间都被浪费在哗众取宠上了。众议院最近通过了一项议案，该议案指出：如果参议院否决众议院的预算――实际上参议院早已否决该预算――那该预算必将通过，具有法律效力。无需多言，参议院不接受这一建议。众议院的共和党人随后每天都抗议参议院的决议，要求参议院民主党领导人哈里・瑞德辞职。同时，一群茶党思想的激进分子威胁称将对任何支持610亿美元以下预算削减方案的共和党人实施极端报复。由100位参议员中的64位组成的两党联立组织向奥巴马总统致信一封，要求总统寻求问题的解决方案。奥巴马总统则称国会未能通过预算方案"难辞其咎"，并表示以后每天他将召见参众两院领导人到白宫进行商讨，直至达成协议之日。

 

A man with a plan
 谋略之士

 

 

 

 It was into this maelstrom that Paul Ryan, the Republican who heads the House Budget Committee, released his proposed budget for next year on April 5th. He claimed it would slash spending by $6.2 trillion over the next ten years and the projected deficit by $4.4 trillion relative to the proposal the president unveiled in February (see chart). All of this would place America's finances on a sounder path―though critics note that Mr Ryan's figures are based on some highly implausible assumptions, such as a prompt collapse in the unemployment rate and a surge in growth thanks to lower taxes. Whereas under the president's plan debt would continue to rise steadily towards 100% of GDP, Mr Ryan's would supposedly see it peak just shy of 75% of GDP in 2013 and decline thereafter.

 

 正是在这一大混乱背景之下，共和党人保罗・瑞恩――众议院预算委员会主席――于4月5日提出了下一年度的财政预算方案。他表示该方案将在未来十年内大幅削减政府支出，减幅达6.2万亿美元；与奥巴马总统今年二月份提出的方案相比，该方案预计将削减赤字达4.4万亿美元（见上表）。所有这些措施都将使美国财政回归平稳运行轨道――尽管批评家指责瑞恩先生的数据是基于可信度极低的假设之上的――例如降低税率带来的失业率迅速下降、经济上涨。而在总统的计划中，债务将持续稳步增长至与国内生产总值相当的水平。瑞恩先生的方案中，债务占国内生产总值的比重最高峰将于2013年勉强达到75%，随后开始下降。

 

 The Republicans claim to be able to achieve this feat by taking an axe to two of the biggest and most politically sensitive items in the budget: Medicare, government subsidised health-care for the elderly, and Medicaid, its equivalent for the poor. (There are limits to the number of live rails Mr Ryan is willing to grasp at once: his budget leaves intact the biggest single item in the budget, Social Security, the state pension scheme). These three "entitlements" already account for over 40% of government spending and are growing so fast that they will theoretically consume all government revenue within a few decades.

 

 共和党人声称有能力完成这一壮举，但需对预算中开支最大、政治敏感度最高的两个项目进行大刀阔斧的改革。这两大项目就是：医疗改革项目――政府针对老年人实行的医疗津贴项目，和医疗补助项目――政府针对贫困人口的医疗补助项目。（瑞恩先生欲一次解决问题的数量有限：他的预算方案未触及另外一个最大的项目――社会保障制度，国家养老金方案）。这三大"公民应得权利"就占据了全部政府开支的40%以上，而且增长速度极快，理论上讲，不消几十年就将消耗全部政府财政收入。

 

 However, the Republican proposal does nothing actually to cut the cost of health care. Instead, it transfers the burden to the states, in the case of Medicaid, and to the elderly themselves, in the case of Medicare. Medicaid would be transformed into a "block grant" to the states, allowing them much more discretion over how the money is spent. But the size of each state's handout would be tied not to runaway medical inflation, but to the much more sedate general price index. This would trim the federal government's projected outlay by a third within a decade and half within two, obliging unfortunate state governments either to cough up far more themselves or to reduce coverage.

 

 然而，共和党人的建议对于削减医疗改革支出毫无实效。相反，在医疗补助项目方面，方案将负担转移到了各州政府身上；在医疗改革项目方面，方案将负担转移到了老年人个人身上。医疗补助项目将以"整笔补助金"的形式转移到各州政府，允许各州政府自行决断如何支配该项资金。但各州发放补助的大小并不与失控的医疗通胀挂钩，而是与更加稳定的基本物价水平挂钩。在十年内联邦政府预计开支将因此削减三分之一，在二十年内则削减一半；而不幸的各州政府要么被迫交出本不该交的资金，要么缩小医疗补助覆盖范围。

 

 By the same token, under the Republicans' plans for Medicare, the federal government would subsidise private health insurance for the elderly, instead of itself paying most of the cost of treating them directly to hospitals and doctors. Mr Ryan claims that the resulting competition among insurance firms would lower the overall cost of treatment. But the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office disagrees, arguing that private coverage tends to cost more than public, and that both would continue to suffer from cantering inflation. This would have a doubly pernicious effect for patients: not only would the overall cost of treatment rise, but so would the proportion of it they have to pay.

 

 出于同样原因，在共和党人的医疗改革方案中，联邦政府将为老年人向私营医疗保险公司提供补贴，而不是政府直接出资，为老年人住院看病买单。瑞恩先生声称改革将使各保险公司相互竞争，从而降低治疗的总体费用。但无党派的国会预算办公室持不同意见，认为私营公司的支出将比公共支出还高，双方应继续忍受长期通货膨胀的折磨。这对病人来讲有双重恶性影响：不仅治疗的总体费用会上升，而且病人承担的比重也会增加。

 

 Such measures would be devastatingly unpopular. In a poll last month by the Pew Research Centre, two-thirds of respondents opposed any changes to Medicare and Social Security. Republicans themselves made hay at the last election with the much more modest cuts the Democrats' health-care reforms made to Medicare (remember "death panels"?). Democrats are returning the favour by depicting the Republican plan as the complete unravelling of America's Great Society safety net. That is not so far from the mark: two-thirds of the proposed savings would come from programmes to help the poor, according to the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think-tank. Among the casualties of Mr Ryan's axe would be Mr Obama's health reforms, aimed at helping the uninsured get health cover.

 

 这类措施定会受到民众的强烈反对。上个月Pew Research Centre 发布的一项民调显示，三分之二的受访者反对对医疗改革方案和社会保障制度做任何改变。共和党人在上次选举中充分抓住了机遇，提出了更为谨慎的削减支出方案，正如民主党人充分利用机会提出针对医疗改革的方案（还记得"死亡小组"吗？）。民主党回敬共和党称共和党人的方案目的是建立"完全分散"的美国大社会安全网络。这还并未偏离标准太远――根据智库预算和政策优先事项中心的数据，三分之二的预期收入将来源于旨在帮助穷人的项目。瑞恩先生改革大斧砍伤的将是奥巴马总统的医疗改革方案――该方案旨在为未加入医疗保险的人提供援助。

 

 Mr Ryan's plan also ignores the received wisdom in Washington that any grand deficit-reduction package will have to include bitter medicine for both parties, in the form of cuts to the entitlements particularly cherished by Democrats and revenue-raising measures that are anathema to Republicans. Instead, it would use the savings it would garner by eliminating many of the loopholes and exemptions in America's tax code to pay for big tax cuts, not deficit reduction. These will mainly help the better-off.

 

 瑞恩先生的方案也忽视了华盛顿政客们公认的看法，即任何大型的赤字削减一揽子计划都是让两党服苦药――削减民主党人尤为珍视的应得利益，采用共和党人深恶痛绝的增加收入之措。实际上，按照该方案，通过堵住美国税收制度的漏洞和取消众多免税权这两种方法增加的收入将用于为大型减税项目买单，而不是为削减赤字买单。这主要是肥了富人。

 

 Indeed, the Ryan budget contains many affronts to Democrats, from repealing their prized health-care reform to instituting over the long run cuts to discretionary spending far deeper than those the Democrats are so doggedly resisting in the row about this year's budget. So it will never get through the Senate, and if it did, it would be vetoed by Mr Obama.

 

 实际上，瑞恩先生的预算暗含公开侮辱民主党之意，从废止民主党人引以为豪的医疗改革方案，到制定长期削减支出方案，再到大肆挥霍，莫不如是。民主党人挥霍严重程度远超民主党人承受程度――民主党人在本年度财政预算问题上一直强烈反抗大肆挥霍。所以该议案定遭参议院否决，如果确实通过，那奥巴马总统也会否决该议案。

 

 Not all of Congress, however, has declared total partisan war. Three Democrats and three Republicans in the Senate, nicknamed the "Gang of Six", continue to discuss a budget deal based on the magic formula of cutting spending on entitlements as well as discretionary items while raising revenue in the guise of tax reform. The letter the 64 senators sent to Mr Obama explicitly endorsed this approach, despite the flak the gang's Republicans have received for so much as mentioning the idea of raising government revenue.

 

 然而并不是国会所有成员都参加了这场党派之战。被昵称为"六人帮"的三位民主党人士和三位共和党人士仍在商讨预算方案，企图假借税制改革之外衣增加财政收入，同时削减津贴支出及自由支配项目支出。64位参议院致奥巴马总统的信明确支持此方法，尽管"六人帮"中的共和党人因提倡增加政府收入而遭到猛烈抨击。

 

 Alas, there is no guarantee that their efforts will bear fruit. The rancour of the debate about this year's budget has done little to calm tempers in Congress. Moreover, there are more nerve-racking deadlines to come. By May 16th at the latest, the Treasury says, America's debt will have reached the limit set on it by Congress. Given the impossibility of erasing the deficit by then, the ceiling will have to be lifted. But many Republicans have said they will not do so unless Democrats endorse cuts of a much greater magnitude than the ones they were resisting this week. The fiscal melodrama has a few more weeks to run before its electrifying final act.

 

 遗憾的是，他们的努力并并不一定会开花结果。因本年度财政预算进行的辩论引发的怨恨并未平息国会内的愤懑。此外，伤脑筋的截止日期接踵而至。财政部表示，最早到5月16日，美国的债务就可能达到国会设定的上限。到那时赤字仍无望消除，因此债务上限就不得不提高。但是诸多共和党人士表示他们不会这样做，除非民主党人支持的支出削减方案比本周共和党人所反对的方案幅度更大。在决案震撼出炉之前，这场财政闹剧还会持续几周