Passage 3 The Secret of Stability
宏观调控与经济危机 《新闻周刊》

[00:01]One year ago, the world seemed as if it might be coming apart.
[00:06]The global financial system,
[00:09]which had fueled a great expansion of capitalism and trade across the world,
[00:15]was crumbling. All the certainties of the age of globalization
[00:21]about the virtues of free markets, trade,
[00:25]and technology were being called into question.
[00:29]Faith in the American model had collapsed. The financial industry had crumbled.
[00:36]Pundits whose bearishness had been proved predicted we were doomed to a long,
[00:41]painful bust, with continual failures in sector after sector,
[00:46]country after country.
[00:49]People predicted that these economic shocks would lead to political instability
[00:55]and violence in the worst-hit countries.
[00:59]At his confirmation hearing in February,
[01:02]the new U.S. director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair,
[01:08]cautioned that "the financial crisis and global recession
[01:14]are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging-market nations
[01:21]over the next year."
[01:24]Of one thing everyone was sure: nothing would ever be the same again.
[01:29]Not the financial industry, not capitalism, not globalization.
[01:35]One year later, how much has the world really changed? Well,
[01:40]Wall Street is home to two fewer investment banks.
[01:44]Some regional banks have gone bust. Severe problems remain,
[01:50]like high unemployment in the West,
[01:53]and we face new problems caused by responses to the crisis oaring debt
[01:59]and fears of inflation. But overall,
[02:04]things look nothing like they did in the 1930s.
[02:08]The predictions of economic and political collapse have not materialized at all.
[02:15]A key measure of fear and fragility is the ability of poor
[02:20]and unstable countries to borrow money on the debt markets.
[02:25]So consider this: the sovereign bonds of tottering Pakistan
[02:31]have returned 168 percent so far this year.
[02:35]All this doesn't add up to a recovery yet,
[02:39]but it does reflect a return to some level of normalcy.
[02:44]This revival did not happen because markets managed to stabilize themselves
[02:50]on their own. Rather, governments,
[02:53]having learned the lessons of the Great Depression,
[02:57]were determined not to repeat the same mistakes once this crisis hit.
[03:03]By massively expanding state support for the economy
[03:08]through central banks and national treasuries
[03:11]they buffered the worst of the damage.
[03:15]The extensive social safety nets
[03:17]that have been established across the industrialized world
[03:22]also cushioned the pain felt by many. Times are still tough,
[03:28]but things are nowhere near as bad as in the 1930s,
[03:33]when governments played a tiny role in national economies.
[03:38]It's true that the massive state interventions of the past year
[03:43]may be fueling some new bubbles:
[03:46]the cheap cash and government guarantees provided to banks, companies,
[03:51]and consumers have fueled some irrational enthusiasm in stock and bond markets.
[03:58]Yet these rallies also demonstrate the return of confidence,
[04:03]and confidence is a very powerful economic force.