When viewing the US fiscal stand-off from Europe, it all looks eerily familiar. The US has become very European. But for me the main problem is not an inability to deal with the structural deficit, as the Economist argued in its latest cover story, but rather the contrary. I fear that the US is blindly rushing into semi-automated austerity, which is exactly the mistake we have made in Europe. The problem is not the size of the national debt as such, which is manageable in both cases, but our policies in dealing with it.
从欧洲角度审视美国财政僵局时,一切都似曾相识得令人恐怖。美国已变得非常像欧洲。但我认为,美国的主要问题并非最新一期《manbetx20客户端下载 学家》(Economist)的封面报道所述,无法消除结构性赤字,而是恰恰相反。我担心美国会盲目、草率地推行半自动的紧缩措施——这正是欧洲国家所犯下的错误。问题不在于国家债务的规模(美欧的债务规模都是可控制的),而在于我们用以应对赤字的政策。