[2009.02.19]The collapse of manufacturing 制造业的崩溃 collapse, The, 制造业

dqzxf

[2009.02.19] The economy 经济

The collapse of manufacturing
制造业的崩溃

Feb 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition

The financial crisis has created an industrial crisis. What should governments do about it?
金融危机导致工业危机。政府该如何出手哪？



$0.00, not counting fuel and handling: that is the cheapest quote right now if you want to ship a container from southern China to Europe. Back in the summer of 2007 the shipper would have charged $1,400. Half-empty freighters are just one sign of a worldwide collapse in manufacturing. In Germany December’s machine-tool orders were 40% lower than a year earlier. Half of China’s 9,000 or so toy exporters have gone bust. Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January. The number of cars being assembled in America was 60% below January 2008.

0美元，这是目前从中国南方船运集装箱到欧洲的最低报价。当然燃料费和手续费得自负。而2007年夏其报价可能高达1400美元。从这些半空的货船就可了解制造业全球崩溃的状况。在德国去年12月的机床订单比一年前减少了40%。中国的9000家玩具出口商约半数已经破产。台湾的笔记本电脑1月份发货量下降了1/3在美国1月份的轿车产量比2008年同期下降了60%。

The destructive global power of the financial crisis became clear last year. The immensity of the manufacturing crisis is still sinking in, largely because it is seen in national terms—indeed, often nationalistic ones. In fact manufacturing is also caught up in a global whirlwind.

这场金融危机的全球性破坏力在去年就显露出来了。这场制造业危机看起来如此深重，主要是由于统计是以单个国家—经常是以民族国家（注1）为单位进行的。但制造业确实正在被卷入一场全球漩涡中，难以自拔。

Industrial production fell in the latest three months by 3.6% and 4.4% respectively in America and Britain (equivalent to annual declines of 13.8% and 16.4%). Some locals blame that on Wall Street and the City. But the collapse is much worse in countries more dependent on manufacturing exports, which have come to rely on consumers in debtor countries. Germany’s industrial production in the fourth quarter fell by 6.8%; Taiwan’s by 21.7%; Japan’s by 12%—which helps to explain why GDP is falling even faster there than it did in the early 1990s (see article). Industrial production is volatile, but the world has not seen a contraction like this since the first oil shock in the 1970s—and even that was not so widespread. Industry is collapsing in eastern Europe, as it is in Brazil, Malaysia and Turkey. Thousands of factories in southern China are now abandoned. Their workers went home to the countryside for the new year in January. Millions never came back (see article).

在美国和英国，工业生产在最近的三个月内分别下降了3.6%和4.4%（相当于分别年下降了13.8%和16.4%）。一些人将此归罪于华尔街和伦敦的金融城。然而，在一些更依赖于制造业出口的国家，情况更为糟糕。它们的出口对象都是些靠举债消费的国家。德国的工业生产在去年第四季度下降了6.8%；台湾下降了21.7%；日本下降了12%。日本制造业的这种急剧下滑揭示了日本GDP的下降比上世纪90年代还要大的原因。工业生产当然总是起伏不定，但自从上世纪70年代的石油危机后世界工业再也没有如此大规模的萎缩过。即使那时，波及的范围也没有如此之广。工业生产在东欧，在巴西、马来西亚和土耳其都正在陷入崩溃。在中国南方数以千计的工厂现在空无一人。工人们都在1月份返回了农村的家过春节。但数百万人却再也回不去了。

Factories floored
亟待救助的工厂

Having bailed out the financial system, governments are now being called on to save industry, too. Next to scheming bankers, factory workers look positively deserving. Manufacturing is still a big employer and it tends to be a very visible one, concentrated in places like Detroit, Stuttgart and Guangzhou. The failure of a famous manufacturer like General Motors (GM) would be a severe blow to people’s faith in their own prospects when a lack of confidence is already dragging down the economy. So surely it is right to give industry special support?

各国政府一直忙于救助金融系统，目前呼唤也要救助工业企业的声音渐起。与狡诈的银行家相比，工厂的工人们绝对应该救助。制造业仍然是就业岗位的大户，可见的将来也是如此。目前全球制造业主要集中在像底特律、斯图加特、广州这样一些地方。像通用汽车公司这样的著名制造企业的倒闭，将严重打击人们对于自己前途的信心。而缺乏信心已经拖垮了经济。那么给工业企业以特别的支持是绝对正确吗？

Despite manufacturing’s woes, the answer is no. There are no painless choices, but industrial aid suffers from two big drawbacks. One is that government programmes, which are slow to design and amend, are too cumbersome to deal with the varied, constantly changing difficulties of the world’s manufacturing industries. Part of the problem has been a drying-up of trade finance. Nobody knows how long that will last. Another part has come as firms have run down their inventories (in China some of these were stockpiles amassed before the Beijing Olympics). The inventory effect should be temporary, but, again, nobody knows how big or lasting it will be.

尽管制造业一片哀鸣，答案依然是否。做出救与不救的选择是痛苦的，但救助工业企业确实存在二大弊端。首先政府的救助计划就是一大难题。计划的编制与修改需要时间，而要编制一个能够适用于制造业各行业的庞大计划，其节奏难以适应全球制造业不断变化的困难。而部分困难是由于贸易资金的枯竭引起的。没有人知道这种资金缺乏的局面会持续多久。而另一部分困难是由于企业用尽库存的策略引起的（在中国，一些库存是在奥运会之前积累的）。库存的影响虽然是短时的，但同样没有人知道它的影响有多大，会持续多长时间。

The other drawback is that sectoral aid does not address the underlying cause of the crisis—a fall in demand, not just for manufactured goods, but for everything. Because there is too much capacity (far too much in the car industry), some businesses must close however much aid the government pumps in. How can governments know which firms to save or the “right” size of any industry? That is for consumers to decide. Giving money to the industries with the loudest voices and cleverest lobbyists would be unjust and wasteful. Shifting demand to the fortunate sector that has won aid from the unfortunate one that has not will only exacerbate the upheaval. One country’s preference for a given industry risks provoking a protectionist backlash abroad and will slow the long-run growth rate at home by locking up resources in inefficient firms.

另一弊端是撒豆一样的救援没有触及危机的根本——需求下降。不是仅对制成品的需求下降，而是一种全面的需求下降。由于制造业身躯过于庞大（轿车工业就更不用说了），不管政府输入多少救助都填不饱其胃口。一些企业不可避免还要倒闭。政府怎么可能知道各行业的“身材”要多少才合标准？那家企业应该救助？这应该是由消费者决定的事情。叫苦叫得最响，游说最有手段的行业得到救助最多是不公平的，是在乱花纳税人的钱。运气好的行业夺得救助，急需救助的行业却得不到救助的状况只会加剧目前的混乱局面。一国政府对某些行业的偏袒性政策将会激怒它国，使之采取相应的保护措施，从而引发贸易战。同时将资源大量投入效率低下的企业也将影响国内经济的长期增长。

Nothing to lose but their supply chains
只是供应链断了

Some say that manufacturing is special, because the rest of the economy depends on it. In fact, the economy is more like a network in which everything is connected to everything else, and in which every producer is also a consumer. The important distinction is not between manufacturing and services, but between productive and unproductive jobs.

一些人认为制造业很特殊，因为其它经济依赖它的运行。而事实上，经济更像是个网络，环环相扣。每一个生产者同时也是消费者。区别重在其运行效率的高低。而不是制造业与服务业的差异。

Some manufacturers accept that, but proceed immediately to another argument: that the current crisis is needlessly endangering productive, highly skilled manufacturing jobs. Nowadays each link in the supply chain depends on all the others. Carmakers cite GM’s new Camaro, threatened after a firm that makes moulded-plastic parts went bankrupt. The car industry argues that the loss of GM itself would permanently wreck the North American supply chain (see article). Aid, they say, can save good firms to fight another day.

一些制造业人士接受此观点。但马上又提出：目前的经济危机不会危及高科技、高效率的制造业就业岗位。事实真是如此吗？现今在全球经济的供给链上的每一环与其它环节都是连在一起的。例如通用汽车公司的新雪弗兰制造厂，就由于生产塑模零件的厂家的倒闭而面临威胁。轿车业人士指出：通用汽车公司的损失将对北美的供给链产生永久性破坏；此外，还将使目前运营良好的企业陷入困境。

Although some supply chains have choke points, that is a weak general argument for sectoral aid. As a rule, suppliers with several customers, and customers with several suppliers, should be more resilient than if they were a dependent captive of a large group. The evidence from China is that today’s lack of demand creates the spare capacity that allows customers to find a new supplier quickly if theirs goes out of business. When that is hard, because a parts supplier is highly specialised, say, good management is likely to be more effective than state aid. The best firms monitor their vital suppliers closely and buy parts from more than one source, even if it costs money. In the extreme, firms can support vulnerable suppliers by helping them raise cash or by investing in them.

虽然目前经济的供给链中只有个别节点运转不灵，但呼吁都抹一点油的声音依然响亮。通常，供给者都有几个消费者，而消费者又都有几个供给者，这种情况比只有单一的供给者或消费者更有弹性。从中国的市场可以得出的结论是，目前的需求不足导致生产能力闲置。如果一个消费者的供应商歇业，则该消费费者能够很快找到一个新的供应商。但如果是涉及特种零部件的话，并非总能轻易找到上家。此时政府资金救助就远不如协调管理好供给链更有效。最优秀的企业总是密切关注企业关键的供应商的运营状况。即使成本提高，它们也要由多个渠道购进零部件。迫不得已情况下，企业甚至会帮助出现困难的上游企业集资或直接投资于该企业。

If sectoral aid is wasteful, why then save the banking system? Not for the sake of the bankers, certainly; nor because state aid will create an efficient financial industry. Even flawed bank rescues and stimulus plans, like the one Barack Obama signed into law this week, are aimed at the roots of the economy’s problems: saving the banks, no matter how undeserving they are, is supposed to keep finance flowing to all firms; fiscal stimulus is supposed to lift demand across the board. As manufacturing collapses, governments should not fiddle with sectoral plans. Their proper task is broader but no less urgent: to get on with spending and with freeing up finance.

如果说撒豆式救助是在挥霍钱财，那么为什么不拿这笔钱去救助银行系统哪？当然肯定不是要去救助那些银行家；同样也不是政府救助就可能产生有效的金融业。像奥巴马总统本周签署的法律，目标是从根本上解决经济问题。银行不管值不值得，都要救助，目的是要使资金流向所有的企业。财政刺激计划是要全面提升需求。由于制造业已经崩溃，政府不应再咬文嚼字于计划了，他们的当务之急是打开金库，赶快花钱。

注1：作者显然是把台湾算作一个国家了。







《经济学人》（The Economist ( http://www.economist.com ))
仅同意本网站翻译其杂志内容，并未对上述翻译内容进行任何审阅查对

shiyi18

Wall Street and the City   the City 伦敦的金融城

dqzxf

2# shiyi18
多谢指点。知识还要学啊。马上修改。

钱大牙

第一段：

Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January.

台湾的笔记本电脑1月份发货量下降了30%。

降了三分之一，而非30%！

第二段：

The immensity of the manufacturing crisis is still sinking in, largely because it is seen in national terms—indeed, often nationalistic ones.
这场制造业危机看起来如此深重，主要是由于统计是以单个国家—经常是以民族国家（注1）为单位进行的。

跟台湾有什么关系？我不大明白
sink in 的词条： When a statement or fact sinks in, you finally understand or realize it fully.




第二节第二段：

Another part has come as firms have run down their inventories (in China some of these were stockpiles amassed before the Beijing Olympics).
而另一部分困难是由于企业用尽库存的策略引起的（在中国，一些库存是在奥运会之前积累的）。

这里不是指企业用尽库存，而是指销售公司减少库存量，上上期的TE有专文谈这个问题。

第三段：

Because there is too much capacity
由于制造业身躯过于庞大

不够准确，capacity用在制造工厂上指的是产能。

dqzxf

首先谢谢大牙。
第一段：
Taiwan’s shipments of notebook computers fell by a third in the month of January.

台湾的笔记本电脑1月份发货量下降了30%。
降了三分之一，而非30%！
看得仔细。这里疏忽了，马上修改。

第二段：
The immensity of the manufacturing crisis is still sinking in, largely because it is seen in national terms—indeed, often nationalistic ones.
这场制造业危机看起来如此深重，主要是由于统计是以单个国家—经常是以民族国家（注1）为单位进行的。
跟台湾有什么关系？我不大明白
上文中提到台湾经济统计数字，此处又间接称台湾为一民族国家。

第二节第二段：
Another part has come as firms have run down their inventories (in China some of these were stockpiles amassed before the Beijing Olympics).
而另一部分困难是由于企业用尽库存的策略引起的（在中国，一些库存是在奥运会之前积累的）。
这里不是指企业用尽库存，而是指销售公司减少库存量，上上期的TE有专文谈这个问题。
销售公司也是企业，不是吗？
第三段：
Because there is too much capacity
由于制造业身躯过于庞大
不够准确，capacity用在制造工厂上指的是产能。
产能大的企业一般规模也大。此处由于与下文一道要用形象地比喻，故用“身躯庞大”一词。

wq197893

很正常，在西方除了非常正式的官方场合，基本上台湾都被视为一个独立于大陆国家。

azulejo

The other drawback is that sectoral aid does not address the underlying cause of the crisis—a fall in demand, not just for manufactured goods, but for everything.
这里大的sectoral aid 应该翻译为行业救助

dqzxf

The other drawback is that sectoral aid does not address the underlying cause of the crisis—a fall in demand, not just for manufactured goods, but for everything.
这里大的sectoral aid 应该翻译为行业 ...
azulejo 发表于 2009-2-23 11:26

我的理解:sectoral 一词有局部或行业的意思,也有扇形的意思,那么就取后一意思吧,用"撒豆式"援助指代援助没有重点,各行业都有一点,落到哪里那里捡着。这也符合上下文的观点。

我的理解不一定正确，欢迎拍砖。

jdlyyy

第二节第一段
The important distinction is not between manufacturing and services, but between productive and unproductive jobs.
“productive and unproductive ”应该说的是生产性和非生产性的区别，而不是说运行效率的高低。

第二节最后一段
If sectoral aid is wasteful, why then save the banking system?
并不是说“为什么不拿这笔钱去救助银行系统哪？”，应该是“为什么还要拿这笔钱去救助银行系统？”

dqzxf

9# jdlyyy

呵呵，我想还是您理解有误吧？
欢迎拍砖。