The Cost To US Of 'Petrodollar Recycling'

With so many economic threats facing the U.S., consider for a moment an old worry: the fear that oil-producing nations wouldn't be able to 'recycle' all the money they were collecting, to the detriment of the global economy.

Angst about 'petrodollar recycling' made headlines in the 1970s. It's a worry that seems quaint today as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority trades the proceeds of roughly 75 million barrels of oil -- about a week's worth of U.S. oil imports -- for a 4.9% stake in Citigroup.

Still, three decades ago there was genuine concern that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries wouldn't know what to do with the windfall from the first oil shock. And there was fear that oil-importing countries, especially in the developing world, might try to compensate for their growing oil-induced trade deficits by reducing other imports.

The International Monetary Fund set up special 'oil facilities' to lend to oil-thirsty developing nations that were that running up huge trade gaps. U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon lobbied oil producers to deposit petrodollars in U.S. banks and discouraged them from direct investment in U.S. companies -- amid talk Iran might buy a stake in ailing airline Pan Am, which is now defunct.

OPEC, it turned out, went on a buying binge. The money it did save, before oil prices fell, went into government securities or bank deposits. Commercial banks, in turn, increased lending to Latin America and other developing countries to bankers' later regret. With that prominent exception, though, 'Recycling was carried out quite successfully in 1974-78, retired Federal Reserve economist Robert Solomon wrote in a monetary history of the period. 'The problem turned out to be manageable after all.'

Now oil prices are up, and money again is flowing from consumers in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China and India to producers who are -- as Edwin Truman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics puts it -- 'taking wealth out of the ground and putting it above ground.' Even if oil falls back to $70 a barrel, oil producers have nearly $2 billion to invest every day. So why so little worry about recycling petrodollars?

For starters, the global economy of the early 2000s, has been far healthier than the stagflationary 1970s. The world has largely weaned itself off rigid foreign-exchange regimes, though not entirely, a problem for Middle Eastern countries whose dollar-linked currencies are sinking with the U.S. dollar when fundamentals suggest they should be rising. Global financial markets are far bigger than they were then.

The prospect of huge trade deficits doesn't seem as unsettling as it once did, perhaps because the U.S. has managed to maintain a large and (until recently) growing trade gap longer than doomsayers thought possible. And the biggest emerging markets are far more robust than they were 30 years ago. Indeed, China is running a huge trade surplus despite its hefty oil imports. And the IMF projects that, within a few years, funds managed by the investment arms of Asian governments and foreign-exchange reserves will be far bigger than OPEC's hoards.

It's clear oil producers are far more sophisticated investors than they were in the 1970s, though no one really knows where all the money is going. Simon Johnson, chief IMF economist, says only half the oil producers' windfall is accounted for. About 20% of their investing -- as opposed to spending on buildings or baubles -- is going into banks, much of that lent to emerging markets, the IMF says. Another 30% shows up in U.S. Treasury reports as going into various U.S. securities. But those reports are incomplete -- partly because Saudi money managed in London and invested in U.S. stocks shows up as British, not Saudi. Much of the rest is believed to be going into stock markets around the world.

But there's only one big borrower in the global economy these days: the U.S. 'The U.S. has been the ultimate destination -- even if has not been the direct destination -- for petrodollars recycled into the international financial markets,' a trio of New York Fed economists wrote a few months ago. Other oil importers, taken together, have curtailed consumer spending, boosted saving or reduced investment to avoid huge U.S.-style trade deficits that require financing from abroad.

Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate with some distinctly unconventional economic ideas, has this one right: 'Right now we owe foreigners $2.7 trillion,' he said in a recent debate. 'No wonder they have money to come back in here and buy stuff up. And then we object . . . but that is a natural consequence of what happens when you live beyond your means.'

So is all of this good or bad? Well, this money has helped keep U.S. interest rates one-half to three-quarters of a percentage point lower than they would otherwise be, a welcome counterweight to the economic harm done by higher oil prices. And, as the Citigroup deal illustrates, it's nice to have someone with capital to invest when American financial institutions suddenly need it, even if it is costly.

Yet every day, the U.S. economy sells a bit more of itself to oil producers and thrifty Asian economies because it doesn't save enough to finance its investment. In exchange, future profits from those assets will flow abroad instead of staying home.

在美国经济面临如此多的威胁之际，让我们好好思考一个老问题：若石油美元无法完全从产油国回流到全球经济，将给全球经济带来怎样的损害？

“石油美元再循环”是上世纪七十年代的一个热门话题。由于阿联酋阿布扎比政府投资部门刚刚斥资75亿美元（大约相当于美国一周进口原油量，即7,500万桶原油的售价）收购了花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)4.9%的股份，现在提出这个问题似乎有些莫名其妙。

然而，三十年前世界却曾实实在在地担心石油输出国组织(OPEC)成员国不知如何使用在第一次石油危机中聚敛的大笔财富。此外，人们还担心石油进口国，特别是发展中国家可能会通过压缩其他商品进口的方式来收窄因油价上涨而不断膨胀的贸易逆差。

国际货币基金组织(IMF)为此专门设立了“石油贷款”(Oil Facility)来向那些急需石油、但又背负着沉重贸易逆差负担的发展中国家提供贷款。时任美国财长的威廉•西蒙(William Simon)游说产油国将石油美元存入美国的银行，并劝阻他们不要直接投资美国公司，因为在当时传言称伊朗打算入股已陷入困境的泛美航空公司(Pan American World Airways)，而今这家公司早已作古。

从此以后，OPEC开始了大买特买。这些国家在油价回落前积攒的收益被拿来购买国债或是存入银行。商业银行继而加大了向拉美和其他发展中国家的贷款力度，不过它们日后对此悔之不已。尽管后来的发展让人始料不及，美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve)已退休的经济学家罗伯特•所罗门在谈到这段时期的货币历史时称：“石油美元再循环在1974至1978年间运行得很成功。毕竟事态终于得到了控制。”

如今石油价格高企，资金再度从美国、欧洲、日本、中国和印度流向产油国──就像彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)的爱德温•杜鲁门(Edwin Truman)所说的那样，这些产油国是将财宝从地里挖出来堆在地上。即使油价回落至每桶70美元，产油国每天仍有将近20亿美元可供投资。那眼下为何人们对石油美元再循环的担心如此之少？

首先，21世纪初的全球经济已经要比上世纪七十年代陷于滞胀时健康得多；全球已基本摆脱了僵化汇率体系的束缚，对那些本货与美元挂钩的中东国家来说是个很大的解脱；而且全球金融市场的规模也要比当初大许多。

如今，巨额贸易逆差也不像过去那样令人感到乌云压顶，这或许是因为人们看到美国能一直和庞大、且直到最近还在不断增加的贸易逆差“相安无事”，持续的时间比那些悲观论者预言的要长久。此外，当前在新兴市场中领跑的经济体也比30年前的领头羊更“健壮”。实际上，中国在大量进口石油的情况下，仍维持巨额的贸易顺差。并且IMF预计，未来短短几年内，亚洲各国政府下设的投资机构以及国家外汇储备所管理的资金规模将大大超过OPEC。

如今的产油国在投资方面明显要比七十年代更成熟老练，尽管没有人能真正知道所有这些钱的去向。IMF首席经济学家西蒙•约翰逊(Simon Johnson)称，产油国的财富中只有一半有迹可寻。他们用这些钱进行了投资，而不是挥霍在大兴土木和无关紧要的东西上。银行存款在他们的投资中占到了20%，其中许多用来向新兴市场发放贷款。另外30%则用来购买各种美国证券资产，这从美国财政部的报告中不难找到踪影。不过这些报告也不全面，原因之一就在于沙特阿拉伯的资金是由伦敦方面负责管理，但却用来购买美国股票。在报告中，这部分资金是算在英国的名下，而不是沙特阿拉伯。剩下的那五成，据信是流入了全球各地的股市。

但是，当今世界负债累累的国家只有一个，那就是美国。数月前一份由纽约联邦储备银行(New York Fed)三位经济学家共同署名的报告称，虽然并非所有在国际金融市场再循环的石油美元都直接流向了美国，但美国却是它们的最终目的地。与此同时，其他石油进口国都在削减消费支出、增加储蓄、减少投资，以避免像美国一样出现需要靠外资来填补的巨额贸易赤字。

共和党总统候选人罗恩•保罗(Ron Paul)在经济上的某些观点显然带有反常规的色彩，其中有一点是正确的：他在最近一次辩论中指出，“现在美国欠外国2.7万亿美元；所以他们把钱带回美国、再买下所有东西就不足为奇了。虽然我们想反对......但美国人不顾收入、超前消费就自然会走到这一步。”

那这究竟是好是坏？正是这些外来资金压低了美国的利率（否则的话会比现在高出0.5到0.75个百分点），从而抵消了油价高企对经济的损害。再有，花旗集团这桩交易也凸现出，在美国金融机构突然需要资金时有人肯出手相救毕竟是件好事，尽管其代价是高昂的。

然而，美国经济每天都会一点点地被产油国和饥渴的亚洲国家 食，原因就在于美国没有储备足够的资金来满足自己的投资需求。作为代价，这些资产未来的收入也不会待在美国，而是流往海外，落入他人之手。

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