幕小后 2008-5-2 23:59
Buttonwood: The fragility of perfection 脆弱的完美
[2008.05.03]Buttonwood: The fragility of perfection 脆弱的完美[size=3][color=red]Buttonwood金融市场[/color]
[size=4][b]The fragility of perfection 脆弱的完美[/b][/size]
May 1st 2008
From The Economist print edition
[b]When supply chains go wrong 如果供应链出现问题[/b]
ONLY connect. The words of the novelist E. M. Forster sum up globalisation. An international company may buy its software from California, send its data to India, purchase its electronic equipment from China and staff its canteen with workers from eastern Europe.
“无他，但联系耳。”小说家E. M. Forster的这句话可以用来总结全球化。拿一家国际公司来说，其所用的软件可能购自加利福尼亚，数据可能发送到印度，电子设备可能来自中国，餐厅则雇佣东欧员工。
The theory dates back to the economist Adam Smith and the principle of specialisation. The productivity of a pin factory can be improved if production is broken down into its component parts. Similarly, companies (and countries) should specialise in fields where they have a comparative advantage The revenues can be used to buy the other goods and services the company needs, at a cheaper cost than it could manage in-house.
这一理论的源头可以上溯到亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）和专业分工原理（the principle of specialisation）。制针厂可以通过将生产流程分成几个组成部分提高生产率。相似地，企业（以及国家）也应该专注于其拥有比较优势（comparative advantage）的领域。其他所需的商品和服务可以用收入去购买，这要比自己生产便宜。
But specialisation depends on one critical factor: the reliability of supply. A bicycle maker may turn out fantastic handlebars but if his supplier produces wonky wheels (or no wheels at all, because of a strike or other disruption), he will not sell a single bike.
但专业分工依赖一个关键因素：供给的可靠性。一家自行车制造商也许能够生产上乘的把手，但如果供应商提供的轮子质量低下（或者由于罢工或其他原因无法提供轮子），那最后可能连一辆自行车都卖不出去。
David Bowers of Absolute Strategy Research, a consultancy, thinks this makes the global industrial system vulnerable. He draws an analogy with the boom in structured finance, which saw banks distribute risk to specialist vehicles like conduits. They worried less about the creditworthiness of borrowers as a consequence. But when the subprime crisis broke, the risks ended up back on the banks' balance sheets after all. “Just as the banks mispriced credit risk, so companies have misjudged strategic risk,” he says.
在Absolute Strategy Research（一家顾问机构）的David Bowers看来，对供给的可靠性的依赖使得世界产业系统十分脆弱。他用结构化金融的繁荣做类比：银行把风险分散到专业的投资工具如管道（conduit）工具中，如此一来就不必再为贷款人的信用水平担心了。然而次级贷款危机爆发后，风险最终又返回到银行的资产负债表上。David Bowers说：“正如银行没能给信用风险正确地定价，公司也没能正确地判断战略风险。”
In particular, Mr Bowers thinks that loose monetary policy in America is leading, via the currency markets, to inflation in developing countries. That may end up undermining the cost advantages of outsourcing, as the prices of raw materials and labour rise.
特别地，Bowers认为美国放松银根的政策通过外汇市场导致了发展中国家的通货膨胀。这最终会通过推高原材料和劳动力价格削弱外包的成本优势。
In the long run, disruption to supply chains may be a huge strategic risk. Energy is one obvious area. Britain has just shown how a two-day strike at a Scottish refinery affected deliveries to petrol stations and, more seriously, disrupted oil output. “Just-in-time” inventory levels normally create savings—unless suppliers do not deliver just in time, when they extract a huge cost. American companies such as Mattel, a toy company, have also discovered that their brand names can be tainted if goods made by overseas suppliers (particularly from China) turn out to be bad for consumers' health.
从长期看，供应链断裂可能成为巨大的战略风险。能源领域就是明证。英国人已经看到，一家苏格兰炼油厂持续两天的罢工就能影响加油站的燃油供应，更严重的是，这还影响了石油产出。一般情况下，“恰好（just-in-time）”的存货水平可以节省开支，但如果供应商无法按时交货，这反而会造成巨大的损失。美泰（Mattel）玩具公司等美国企业也发现，一旦海外供应商（尤其是中国厂商）的产品有害消费者健康，其商标名誉就会大受影响。
The problem could be called the “fragility of perfection”. The greater the interdependence within the system, the wider the effects of disruption in one part of it. In finance the “originate and distribute” model of bank lending may have dispersed risk, but it also meant that a problem in the American housing market damaged banks all over the world. Similarly, a supply disruption in China, which might have been ignored ten years ago, could prove to be catastrophic in many countries today.
这一问题可以被称作“脆弱的完美（fragility of perfection）”。系统内各部分的相互依赖程度越高，其中某一部分出问题所产生的影响范围就越广。在金融领域，“贷款并证券化（originate and distribute）”的银行借贷模式能够分散风险，但也意味着只要美国房地产市场出现问题，全世界的银行都要受到损害。类似地，中国供给吃紧在十年前可能可以完全忽略不计，但现在足以在许多国家引起灾难性后果。
Globalisation has been disrupted before, of course. John Maynard Keynes wrote that, before the first world war, “the inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep.”
当然，全球化的起伏并非新鲜事。约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）在第一次世界大战以前就写道：“伦敦居民可以一边呷着早茶，一边打电话订购全球任意地方任意数量的商品，然后心安理得地等着它们快递到自己家门口。”
In a remarkably short time afterwards, Britain was attempting to blockade products to Germany and vice versa; the country's dependence on imported raw materials was one of its greatest weaknesses. Even without any sign of war, recent months have seen a number of countries either ban, or attempt to tax, food exports in an attempt to safeguard supplies for the local population.
凯恩斯话音刚落，英国就对德国实施了产品进出口封锁，因为德国最大弱点就是对进口原材料的依赖。最近几个月并没有任何发生战争的迹象，但仍有许多国家对粮食出口实施了禁止或课税措施，以保证对本国人口的粮食供应。
The nationalisation of energy resources is also proving to be a global problem, given that it has dissuaded foreign investors from helping to develop new sources of supply. High energy prices also lead to potential political conflicts. European nations worry about their dependency on Russian gas, particularly in the light of previous pipeline closures. And China's desire to secure energy supplies has led it to do deals with governments that western powers consider unsavoury.
能源的国有化堵死了国外投资者协助开发新供应源的途径，业已成为另一个全球问题。高企的能源价格还会导致潜在政治冲突。欧洲国家因其对俄罗斯天然气的依赖而忧心忡忡，尤其是在俄罗斯数次关闭输气管到之后。而中国为了保证能源供应，已经开始与西方势力眼中的不良政府做买卖。
Meanwhile, displays of nationalism or religious solidarity have led to consumer boycotts in the Middle East and Asia. Such protests could conceivably turn into import bans.
此外，民族主义和宗教团结的高涨使得中东和亚洲出现了消费者抵制运动。此类抗议行动很可能导致进口禁令。
Companies have made enormous gains through globalisation, which in many countries has meant that profits have risen as a share of GDP. But those benefits are potentially fragile. If they start to crack, the resulting financial and economic losses could be far greater than anything dished out by the subprime-mortgage crisis.
企业在全球化中获益良多，在许多国家中，这体现在利润占GDP比重节节攀升。但这些好处具有潜在的脆弱性。企业情况恶化所造成的财政和金融损失会远远大于次级抵押贷款危机。[/size]
