Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University and Chief Economist at the Roosevelt Institute. His most recent book is People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.
作者是诺贝尔经济学奖得主约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨（Joseph E. Stiglitz）、哥伦比亚大学的一级教授和罗斯福研究所的首席经济学家。他的最新著作是《人、权力和利润：一个牢骚时代的进步资本主义》。
It is becoming conventional wisdom that US President Donald Trump will be tough to beat in November, because, whatever reservations about him voters may have, he has been good for the American economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
人们趋向于接受的一个常识，是美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在11月总统选举时将很难被击败，因为不管选民们对他有什么不满，他对美国经济是有作为的。实际上，没有什么比这种看法与事实更相悖了。
As the world’s business elites trek to Davos for their annual gathering, people should be asking a simple question: Have they overcome their infatuation with US President Donald Trump?
当全球商界精英前往达沃斯参加年度聚会时，人们应该问一个简单的问题：他们是否过了对美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的痴迷期了？
Two years ago, a few rare corporate leaders were concerned about climate change, or upset at Trump’s misogyny and bigotry. Most, however, were celebrating the president’s tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and looking forward to his efforts to deregulate the economy. That would allow businesses to pollute the air more, get more Americans hooked on opioids, entice more children to eat their diabetes-inducing foods, and engage in the sort of financial shenanigans that brought on the 2008 crisis.
两年前，只有很少一些企业领袖担心气候变化，或为特朗普仇视女性和偏狭习性烦恼。大多数企业家当时都在庆祝总统为亿万富翁和企业做的减税，并期待着他继续放松经济管制。松绑经济管制将使企业得以更多地污染空气、使更多的美国人迷上鸦片药物、诱使更多的孩子吃诱发糖尿病的食物、和让人们鼓捣那些曾经导致2008年危机的金融把戏。
Today, many corporate bosses are still talking about the continued GDP growth and record stock prices. But neither GDP nor the Dow is a good measure of economic performance. Neither tells us what’s happening to ordinary citizens’ living standards or anything about sustainability. In fact, US economic performance over the past four years is Exhibit A in the indictment against relying on these indicators.
今天，许多企业老板仍在谈论GDP的持续增长和创纪录的股价。但是，GDP和道琼斯指数都不是衡量经济表现的良好指标。两者都不告诉我们普通民众的生活水平正在发生什么变化或是否有任何可持续性。
To get a good reading on a country’s economic health, start by looking at the health of its citizens. If they are happy and prosperous, they will be healthy and live longer. Among developed countries, America sits at the bottom in this regard. US life expectancy, already relatively low, fell in each of the first two years of Trump’s presidency, and in 2017, midlife mortality reached its highest rate since World War II. This is not a surprise, because no president has worked harder to make sure that more Americans lack health insurance. Millions have lost their coverage, and the uninsured rate has risen, in just two years, from 10.9% to 13.7%.
要对一个国家的经济健康状况有一个很好的了解，首先要看其公民的健康状况。如果他们快乐幸福，他们就会健康长寿。在发达国家中，美国在这方面排在最后。美国的预期寿命本来就相对较低，在特朗普担任总统的头两年还下滑了，并且在2017年，中年死亡率达到了第二次世界大战以来的最高水平。这不足为奇，因为没有哪个总统比特朗普更玩命地致力于确保更多的美国人缺少健康保险。在短短两年内，数以百万计的人失去了保险，未保险率内从10.9％上升到13.7％。
One reason for declining life expectancy in America is what Anne Case and Nobel laureate economist Angus Deaton call deaths of despair, caused by alcohol, drug overdoses, and suicide. In 2017 (the most recent year for which good data are available), such deaths stood at almost four times their 1999 level.
美国预期寿命下降的原因之一，是安妮·凯斯（Anne Case）和诺贝尔经济学奖获得者安格斯·迪顿（Angus Deaton）描述为由于酒精，药物过量和自杀造成的绝望性死亡。在2017年（可获得良好数据的最近一年）中，绝望性死亡几乎是1999年水平的四倍。
The only time I have seen anything like these declines in health – outside of war or epidemics – was when I was chief economist of the World Bank and found out that mortality and morbidity data confirmed what our economic indicators suggested about the dismal state of the post-Soviet Russian economy.
除了战争或流行病原因之外，我唯一一次见到过类似的健康恶化现象，是我担任世界银行的首席经济学家时发现，死亡率和发病率数据可以印证经济指标预示的苏联经济的惨淡状况。
Trump may be a good president for the top 1% – and especially for the top 0.1% – but he has not been good for everyone else. If fully implemented, the 2017 tax cut will result in tax increases for most households in the second, third, and fourth income quintiles.
特朗普可能是收入最高的1％的人群的好总统，尤其是收入最高的0.1％的人群的好总统，但并不是所有其他人的好总统。如果全面实施，2017年的特朗普减税将导致收入位于第二，第三和第四个25%级别的大多数家庭的交税负担增加。
Given tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the ultrarich and corporations, it should come as no surprise that there was no significant change in the median US household’s disposable income between 2017 and 2018 (again, the most recent year with good data). The lion’s share of the increase in GDP is also going to those at the top. Real median weekly earnings are just 2.6% above their level when Trump took office. And these increases have not offset long periods of wage stagnation. For example, the median wage of a full-time male worker (and those with full-time jobs are the lucky ones) is still more than 3% below what it was 40 years ago. Nor has there been much progress on reducing racial disparities: in the third quarter of 2019, median weekly earnings for black men working full-time were less than three-quarters the level for white men.
鉴于特朗普的减税政策不成比例地有益于超级富翁和企业，因此美国家庭的可支配收入中位数在2017年至2018年之间并无显著增加也就不足为奇了。在GDP增长中的最大份额也归于高层。实际的平均周薪仅比特朗普上任时的水平高2.6％。这些增长并不能抵消长期的工资停滞。例如，全职男性工人的平均工资（而这些有全职工作的工人还算是幸运的）仍然比40年前低了3％以上。在减少种族差异方面也没有取得太大进展：2019年第三季度，全职工作的黑人男子的周薪中位数不到白人的四分之三。
Making matters worse, the growth that has occurred is not environmentally sustainable – and even less so thanks to the Trump administration’s gutting of regulations that have passed stringent cost-benefit analyses. The air will be less breathable, the water less drinkable, and the planet more subject to climate change. In fact, losses related to climate change have already reached new highs in the US, which has suffered more property damage than any other country – reaching some 1.5% of GDP in 2017.
更糟糕的是，已经发生的增长在环境上是不可持续的。由于特朗普当局废止了本来通过了严格的成本效益分析的环境保护规章，我们的空气将变得更脏、水更不宜饮用、地球更容易受到气候变化的影响。实际上，与气候变化有关的损失在美国已经达到了新高，美国遭受的跟气候变化相关的财产损失比任何其他国家都多，在2017年约占GDP的1.5％。
The tax cuts were supposed to spur a new wave of investment. Instead, they triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018 – by some of America’s most profitable companies, and led to record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019) in a country supposedly near full employment. And even with weak investment, the US had to borrow massively abroad: the most recent data show foreign borrowing at nearly $500 billion a year, with an increase of more than 10% in America’s net indebtedness position in one year alone.
减税本应刺激新一波投资。相反，它们引发了一些美国最赚钱的公司的股票回购，创历史新高 ——2018年约回购了8000亿美元，并导致美国在接近充分就业的情况下创纪录的和平时期赤字（2019财年将近1万亿美元）。在企业把减税用于回购公司股票而导致弱投资的情况下，美国不得不巨额借外债，最近的数据显示对外借款一年近5千亿美元。仅一年内，美国的债务净额增幅超过10％。
Likewise, Trump’s trade wars, for all their sound and fury, have not reduced the US trade deficit, which was one-quarter higher in 2018 than it was in 2016. The 2018 goods deficit was the largest on record. Even the deficit in trade with China was up almost a quarter from 2016. The US did get a new North American trade agreement, without the investment agreement provisions that the Business Roundtable wanted, without the provisions raising drug prices that the pharmaceutical companies wanted, and with better labor and environmental provisions. Trump, a self-proclaimed master deal maker, lost on almost every front in his negotiations with congressional Democrats, resulting in a slightly improved trade arrangement.
同样，特朗普的贸易战，尽管显得雷霆万钧的样子，并没有减少美国的贸易赤字，美国的贸易赤字在2018年比2016年增加了四分之一。2018年的货物赤字是有史以来最大的。甚至与中国的贸易逆差也比 2016 年增加了近四分之一。美国确实获得了新的北美贸易协议，没有商业圆桌会议想要的投资协议条款，也没有提高制药公司想要的药品价格的条款，以及有更好的劳工和环境规定。特朗普自称是谈判交易大师，但在与国会民主党人的谈判中几乎在所有方面都失败了，得到少许改善的贸易安排。
And despite Trump’s vaunted promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, the increase in manufacturing employment is still lower than it was under his predecessor, Barack Obama, once the post-2008 recovery set in, and is still markedly below its pre-crisis level. Even the unemployment rate, at a 50-year low, masks economic fragility. The employment rate for working-age males and females, while rising, has increased less than during the Obama recovery, and is still significantly below that of other developed countries. The pace of job creation is also markedly slower than it was under Obama.
尽管特朗普大胆地承诺要把制造业工作带回美国，但制造业就业人数的增长仍然低于他的前任巴拉克·奥巴马任职期间在2008年复苏开始之后的水平，并且显著低于危机前的水平。即使是当前处于50年低位的失业率，也掩盖着经济的脆弱性。劳动年龄男性和女性的就业率虽然上升，但增幅低于奥巴马复苏期间的增幅，并且显著低于其他发达国家。创造就业的步伐也明显慢于奥巴马时期。
Again, the low employment rate is not a surprise, not least because unhealthy people can’t work. Moreover, those on disability benefits, in prison – the US incarceration rate has increased more than sixfold since 1970, with some two million people currently behind bars – or so discouraged that they are not actively seeking jobs are not counted as “unemployed.” But, of course, they are not employed. Nor is it a surprise that a country that doesn’t provide affordable childcare or guarantee family leave would have lower female employment – adjusted for population, more than ten percentage points lower – than other developed countries.
特朗普执政期的低就业率也同样不足为奇，一个原因是不健康的人无法工作。此外，那些享受残障津贴的人、坐牢的人（自1970年以来，美国的监禁率已增加了六倍多，目前有约200万人被关押）、或灰心丧气以致于他们没有积极寻求工作，因此不算为“失业” 的人们。但是他们本应算作失去工作的人群的。还有，美国不提供一般人可以负担的儿童保育，也不能保证生育休假，女性就业率会较低（与其他发达国家相比要低10个百分点）也就不足为奇了。
Even judging by GDP, the Trump economy falls short. Last quarter’s growth was just 2.1%, far less than the 4%, 5%, or even 6% Trump promised to deliver, and even less than the 2.4% average of Obama’s second term. That is a remarkably poor performance considering the stimulus provided by the $1 trillion deficit and ultra-low interest rates. This is not an accident, or just a matter of bad luck: Trump’s brand is uncertainty, volatility, and prevarication, whereas trust, stability, and confidence are essential for growth. So is equality, according to the International Monetary Fund.
即使以GDP来衡量，特朗普经济也有短板。上个季度的增长率仅为2.1％，远远低于特朗普承诺的4％，5％或6％的增长率，甚至还不到奥巴马第二任时期的2.4％平均增长率。考虑到1万亿美元的赤字和超低利率所提供的刺激，这是非常糟糕的表现。这种糟糕表现不是什么事故造成，也不是运气不好造成：特朗普的品牌形象是不确定性、动荡性、和推诿搪塞习性；而信任，稳定和信心才是对经济增长至关重要的要素。如果根据国际货币基金组织的说法，经济增长至关重要的要素还包括平等。
So, Trump deserves failing grades not just on essential tasks like upholding democracy and preserving our planet. He should not get a pass on the economy, either.
因此，特朗普不仅在几项最基本的工作（比如维护民主和维护我们的地球）上成绩不及格，他在经济上的成绩也不应该可以说及格。