Misaligned exchange rates are more often than not a prelude to trade friction. Yet so far, in spite of sporadic outbreaks of warlike political rhetoric between the US and China, currency misalignments between the world's surplus savings countries and the world's borrowers and spenders have not ended in disaster. Buy America provisions and bail-outs for bankrupt motor companies are less damag- ing than trade barriers of the kind erected by the Smoot-Hawley Act in the 1930s. Yet the reality, in this financial crisis, is that we have protectionism by the financial backdoor and may soon have it by the front door.
汇率失调往往是贸易摩擦的前奏。但迄今为止，尽管中美两国之间不时出现带有敌意的政治言论，但manbetx app苹果 储蓄盈余国与借款国及消费国之间的汇率失调并未招致灾难。购买美国货条款以及为破产汽车企业纾困所造成的破坏力，远不及上世纪30年代《司莫特-郝利关税法》(Smoot-Hawley Act)制造出的贸易壁垒。不过，在此次金融危机中，实际情况是，我们在私下施行了金融保护主义，或许很快就将公开推行保护主义。