來源網站: 經濟學人 點此
Partying on a precipice 懸崖上的狂歡舞會
The holiday provides no respite from economic and political woe
經濟和政治上的苦難沒有假期
JANUARY is a languid(懶洋洋的) month in Brazil. Beyond the hullabaloo(喧鬧) at samba schools—practising for their bawdy(淫穢的) annual face-off during Carnival, which starts on February 5th—business pauses while Brazilians go on holiday in the scorching(烤焦的) southern summer. Fewer cars clog streets; more bodies throng the beaches.
在巴西，一月是一個懶洋洋的月份，除了在森巴學校傳來的喧囂，準備今年二月五日展開的狂歡節期。炎炎的南國夏日，在這巴西人的假期中，一切商業活動停止，街上的車潮減少，人們蜂擁到海灘。
Politicians customarily switch off along with everyone else. Congressmen return from their Christmas break on February 2nd, but will probably do little until after Mardi Gras a week later. Neither they nor the president, Dilma Rousseff, will be able to relax, though. A frightening mosquito-borne disease has put the health authorities on high alert. Meanwhile, Brazil’s political and economic crises are deepening. When politicians return to work they may regret the time they took off from attempting to solve them.
政客們也跟其他的人一起放假了。國會議員2月2日的從聖誕假期返回，可能會做一點點工，直到一週後的狂歡節。然而不管是國會議員或是總統迪爾瑪·羅塞夫都無法放鬆，因為一個可怕的蚊子傳播的疾病已經使得衛生當局進入高度戒備。與此同時，巴西的政治和經濟危機正在加深。當政客們返回工作崗位，他們可能會後悔自己曾經離開過。
The economic slide continues. The number of jobs in the formal sector fell by 1.5m in 2015, the fastest pace of job destruction since comparable records began in 1992. Another 1m could be lost this year, analysts reckon. Sales of vehicles dropped by a fifth last year. The IMF now predicts that GDP will shrink by 3.5% in 2016, more than three times as much as it expected in October. Despite the recession, inflation has risen to nearly 11%, its highest level since 2002
經濟下滑仍在繼續。就業機會在正規部門的人數在2015年下降了一百五十萬，就業破壞的速度是1992年以來最快的，今年可能還會下降一百萬，分析師估計汽車銷售量在去年下降了五分之一。國際貨幣基金組織（IMF）預測，國內生產總值將會在 2016 年萎縮 3.5％，是去年十月的預估的三倍之多。儘管經濟衰退，通貨膨脹率 11% 是自2002年以來最高的水平。
Male breadwinners make up a higher proportion of the newly unemployed than in previous downturns, which mainly affected female and young workers, notes Naercio Menezes of Insper, a university in São Paulo. That means that the hardship caused by the current recession will be greater. For the relatively young, joblessness is a novelty(新奇的事物). Many entered the formal labour market during the commodity boom of 2003-13. No one knows how they will react to their misfortune, warns Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Brazilian president who is also a sociologist.
聖保羅 Insper 大學的 Naercio Menezes 指出，前次的不景氣的失業人口主要是女性和年輕人，而新近失業人口中男性養家糊口占極大的比例，這意味著這次的經濟衰退所面對的困難將會更大。對於年輕族群，失業是一個新事物，他們之中許多人是在 2003-13 繁榮時期進入正規勞動力市場。沒有人知道他們將如何面對這一次的不幸。
As misery grows, the government’s capacity to tackle its causes is diminishing. Prosecutors(檢察官) investigating the vast bribery scandal centred on Petrobras( 巴西國家石油公司), the state-controlled oil-and-gas giant, are expected to file additional charges against senior figures in Ms Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (PT), which has already been badly tarnished(玷污) by the affair. An even bigger worry for Ms Rousseff is the threat of impeachment(彈劾) against her on unrelated allegations(指控) that she assented to the use of accounting tricks to hide the true size of Brazil’s fiscal deficit.
隨著苦難的增長，政府應對的能力也逐漸流失。檢察官正著手調查巴西國家石油公司的賄賂醜聞，這是一家石油和天然氣的大型國營企業，預計將提告某些羅塞夫工人黨（PT）的資深黨員，羅塞夫工人黨的名聲在此次事件中受到嚴重傷害。羅塞夫的隱憂是在對她的彈劾案上，她被控同意使用了一些會計伎倆來隱藏巴西的財政赤字。
Her weakness makes her more dependent on the goodwill of the PT and trade unions aligned with it, which are viscerally(發自內心的) opposed to the reforms needed to steady the economy. This month Ms Rousseff dared to acknowledge that Brazilians retire too early (at 55 for men, on average). In effect she admitted that the government cannot stabilise its finances if it continues to devote 40% of (non-interest) spending to pensions. But she backtracked in the face of resistance from her party and the unions. Raising the retirement age would be unacceptable, declared the PT this week.
她的弱點使她更加依賴PT，並促使工會服膺工黨，然而這對於穩定經濟的所需要的改革是一種倒行逆施。本月羅塞夫承認，巴西人退休年齡過早（男性平均為 55 歲），意即她同意如果持續投入40％的支出(不含稅) 在養老金上，政府將不能穩定其財政，此項言論等於公然反對她的政黨和工會。工黨在本週提出，提高退休年齡是不能接受的。
This will make it much harder for Nelson Barbosa, the newly appointed finance minister, to contain the budget deficit, which is close to 10% of GDP. His main idea is to reintroduce a financial-transactions tax(金融交易稅), which is loathed by business but popular among Ms Rousseff’s left-wing allies(左翼盟友). But this would raise just 10 billion reais ($2.5 billion) in extra revenue, a fraction of net government borrowing, expected to be 500 billion reais this year. Ms Rousseff wants to summon back a council of wise men and women, which she disbanded during her first term, to suggest reforms. That looks like a delaying tactic(緩兵之計).
這也將使得新上任的財務大臣尼爾森 - 巴博薩，更難以控制接近 10% GDP 的預算赤字。他的主要思想是重新引入的金融交易稅，這項措施受到企業排斥，卻受到羅塞夫的左翼盟友的歡迎。然而此舉僅將提高 100 億雷亞爾 ( 約 25 億美金) 的額外收入，只占今年預估的淨政府債務 5000 億雷亞爾的一小部分。羅塞夫想要召喚回她她在第一個任期內所解散會員並提出改革，然而這似乎只是一個緩兵之計。
While fiscal policy (財政政策) wobbles, economists are starting to fret about monetary policy, too. After weeks of hinting that it would raise interest rates to fight inflation, the Central Bank decided on January 20th to hold them steady at 14.25%. The decision may have been justified: higher rates would weaken the economy further and make it still harder to control the fiscal deficit. But it looked like a surrender to political pressure. The Central Bank’s president, Alexandre Tombini, met Ms Rousseff two days before the interest-rate decision. Then he foreshadowed(諭示) the bank’s U-turn by pointing to the IMF’s gloomier predictions of Brazilian and global growth, which by that point should have been no surprise. Rather than shoring(支撐) up Brazil’s financial credibility(可信度), the Central Bank thus damaged it all the more.
由於財政政策搖擺不定，經濟學家也開始煩惱貨幣政策了。經過數週將升息以對抗通脹的暗示之後，央行於1月20日決定將之維持在14.25％。這一決定或許是有道理的：較高的利率將會進一步削弱經濟並使其難以控制財政赤字。但此舉看起來卻像是對於政治壓力的屈服，就在宣布利率決策之前兩天，中央銀行的總裁亞歷山大·Tombini的與羅塞夫會面，並提出國際貨幣基金組織對於巴西以及全球經濟成長的悲觀預測，預表在政策上將有大轉彎。央行不僅沒有支撐巴西的金融信譽，卻更進一步的損害它。
There is little prospect that congressmen will take measures to repair it when they return to work. Those who are pushing for Ms Rousseff’s impeachment concede privately that they are unlikely to muster(集結) the two-thirds majority needed in the lower house to send the motion to the Senate. But they plan to drag out the proceeding as long as the (vague) legal deadlines permit. That will accomplish their goal of undermining the president. It will do nothing to buck up Brazil.
預料當國會重返工作崗位時會對這些措施進行補救，推動羅塞夫彈劾案的國會議員私下承認，他們不太可能鼓動三分之二的下院派的議員以通過議案來送交參議院，但是他們計劃進行拖延程序到法定期限。此舉將可以達成削弱總統勢力的目標，但對振興巴西將沒有任何幫助。
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