观点：为什么说莫迪的废钞赌博是“史诗级大失败” [英国媒体]

Viewpoint: Why Modi's currency gamble was'epic failure'

观点：为什么说莫迪的废钞赌博是“史诗级大失败”

30 August 2017 India

2017年8月30日，印度



Indians were forced to queue up in largenumbers at banks across the country

全印度的居民们都被迫在银行前面排起了大长队

India's attempt to flush out undeclaredwealth did not work, central bank figures show. The move, known as"demonetisation", was a flagship policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Economic analyst Vivek Kaul looks at what went wrong.

印度央行的数据显示，印度政府尝试消灭未公开财产的努力没有成功。这项被称为“废钞令”的举动是印度总理纳兰德拉·莫迪最重要的政策。经济分析家维崴克·考为您揭示问题究竟出在哪里。

The devil, as they say, is in the detail.

像人们所说的那样，恶魔存在于细节之中。

On page 195 of this year's ReserveBank of India (RBI) annual report lies the answer to the question manyIndians have been asking for close to 10 months.

在印度储备银行（RBI）年度报告的第195页，有一个答案，可以解答在许多印度人心头萦绕了差不多10个月的一个疑问。

Has demonetisation been a success or afailure? As per the RBI data, it's safe to say that demonetisation has been afailure of epic proportions.

废钞令究竟是成功了还是失败了？根据印度央行数据，我们可以安全地断定，废钞令遭遇了史诗级大失败。

On 8 November last year, the Modigovernment decided to demonetise 500 ($7; ￡6) rupee and 1,000 rupee notes,which were worth 15.44tn rupees in total. The idea was to target bothcounterfeit currency and "black money", or unaccounted wealth, theprime minister told the nation. This was backed up by the government pressrelease accompanying the decision. Black money is essentially money that hasbeen earned but on which taxes haven't been paid.

在去年11月8日，莫迪政府决定废除500卢比（7美元/6英镑）和1000卢比面额的钞票，总额约为15.44万亿。莫迪总理向全国声明，该法令的目标是打击伪钞和“黑钱”，即被隐瞒的财产。这项法令获得了政府媒体的支持，宣布配合该决定。黑钱就是不交税的隐秘财产。



Old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes went out ofcirculation in a few hours

旧的500和1000卢比面额的钞票在几个小时退出流通

At midnight, just hours after theannouncement, the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were worthless. People holdingthese notes had to deposit them in their bank accounts. This money could laterbe withdrawn, though there were restrictions on the amount of money that couldbe withdrawn immediately.

在午夜，在宣言发表几个小时后，500和1000卢比面额的钞票变成了废纸。人们举着这些钞票，把它们存入银行账户。存款可以在之后被取出，但是对能立刻取出的金额有限制。

The hope was that black money held in theform of cash wouldn't be deposited into banks, given that people holding itwouldn't want to be identified - in the process, a vast amount of illegal moneywould be destroyed.

政府的设想是作为黑钱的钞票不会被存入银行，因为黑钱所有者不想被查出身份——这样，巨大数额的非法财产会被销毁。

But the RBI report tells a different story.

但是印度央行却讲了一个不一样的故事。

It says that illegal notes worth 15.28tnrupees ($242bn) had been deposited in banks up to 30 June. This basically meansthat almost 99% of the "demonetised" money was deposited into banks.Hence, almost all the black money held in the form of cash also made it backinto the banks and wasn't really destroyed, as had been hoped.

它的说法是，截止到6月30日，已有15.28万亿卢比（2420亿美元）的废钞被存入银行。这基本上意味着差不多99%的“废钞”都被存进了银行。因此，绝大部分现钞形式的黑钱都回到了银行，而并没有按照政府的设想被销毁。

The conventional explanation for this isthat most people who had black money found other people, who did not have blackmoney, to deposit their savings into the banking system for them.

普遍的解释是，有黑钱的人找到其他没有黑钱的人帮忙，把钱存入了银行。

As far as detecting counterfeit currency isconcerned, nothing much seems to have happened on this front either. Data fromthe RBI annual report tells us that the total number of fake 500 rupee (oldseries) and 1,000 rupee notes detected between April 2016 and March 2017 was573,891.

考虑到还有伪钞被检测出来，这说明废钞令没起到什么作用。印度央行的数据告诉我们，从2016年4月到2017年3月间被检测出来的500卢比和1000卢比旧币的假钞总数是573891张。

The total number of notes withdrawn stoodat 24.02bn. This basically means that as a proportion, the counterfeit notesidentified between April 2016 and March 2017 represent close to 0% of thewithdrawn notes.

回流的旧币总数停留在240.2亿张。这基本上意味着，按照这个比例，2016年4月到2017年3月收缴的假钞数量占总回收钞票数量的0%。

In the previous year, the total number ofcounterfeit 500 and 1,000 rupee notes detected stood at 404,794. And thishappened without any demonetisation.

在之前一年，被检测出的500和1000卢比面额的假钞总数是404794张。这跟废钞令没有任何关系。

Hence, demonetisation has failed in its twomajor objectives.

因此，废钞令的两大目的都落空了。

The funny thing is that there were noestimates of how much black money was held in the form of cash. The governmentadmitted as much, after having announced the policy. Finance Minister ArunJaitley said so in a written reply to a question in the lower house ofparliament, the Lok Sabha, on 16 December 2016.

可笑的是，并没有任何统计显示现金形式的黑钱的总额。印度政府在颁布了废钞令后也承认了这一点。金融部长阿伦·斋特利在2016年12月16日给印度议会下院的书面答疑中也这样说过。

Raids carried out by the Income TaxDepartment suggested that people tended to hold about 5% per cent of their blackmoney in the form of cash.

由所得税部门展开的突袭表明人们倾向将5%的黑钱以现金形式私藏起来。

But even this lack of data in the publicdomain did not stop economists from coming up with their own sets of numbers,trying to defend the decision of the Modi government, and failing to explainwhat logic they based their assumptions on.

但即使这种在公有领域缺少数据的情况都没能阻止经济学家们给出他们自己估计的数字，试着为莫迪政府的决定辩护，并且无法解释他们的假设建立在怎样的逻辑之上。

India's large cash economy was badly hit bythe policy.

印度庞大的现金经济因为这个禁令而倍受打击。

Even the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (thelabour wing of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party) admitted: "As many as250,000 units in the unorganised sector were closed and the real estate sectorwas badly affected, with a large number of workers losing their jobs."

即使印度工人同盟（执政党印度人民党的劳工组织）也承认：“在未组织起来的行业有25万个单元已关闭，房地产业也遭到了严重影响，大量工人失业。”

Agriculture, a sector which largelyoperates on cash, was hard hit too, with farmers not being paid enough forvegetables and pulses they had grown. Many protested and several stategovernments waived payments on farm loans.

农业，一个严重依赖现金的行业，也挨了重重一击。农民们没有足够的工钱去买他们自己种出来的蔬菜和豆类。许多人抗议，一些州政府也取消了农业贷款的支付。



New 2,000 rupee denomination notes wereintroduced

新的2000卢比面额的钞票被发行出来

Over and above this, the government'spolicy caused a huge cash shortage, with people having to spend many days standingin ATM lines trying to withdraw their own money. Some even died in the process.

除此以外，政府的此项政策引发了大规模的现金短缺，人们不得不在ATM机前排上几天的队来取出他们的钱。有些人甚至在等待过程中去世。

As far as the Modi government is concerned,it is unlikely to admit it was a big mistake and will continue to put apositive spin on it, as it has since last November. Things will not change onthat front.

至于莫迪政府，他们不会老老实实承认自己犯了大错，而会继续歪曲事实，把它说得冠冕堂皇，这样的情况去年11月就发生过了。这次也不会有什么不同。

To conclude, no relatively healthy economyhas ever carried out demonetisation.

总而言之，还没有任何一个相对健康的经济体曾经废除过货币。

As the latest Economic Survey of thegovernment of India points out: "India's demonetisation is unprecedentedin international economic history, in that it combined secrecy and suddennessamidst normal economic and political conditions. All other suddendemonetisations have occurred in the context of hyperinflation, wars, politicalupheavals or other extreme circumstances."

正如最新的印度政府经济调查指出的一样：“印度的废钞行动在国际经济史上都是没有先例的，这一举动在通常的经济和政治条件之中结合了隐秘性和突然性。其他所有突然的废钞行动都是在发生了通货膨胀、战争、政治变动或其他极端情况下才发生的。”

The real costs of this unprecedented eventare only just starting to come out.

这个史无前例的事件造成的真正损失才刚刚开始显现。

Vivek Kaul is the author of India's BigGovernment - The Intrusive State and How It is Hurting Us.

维崴克·考是《印度的大政府——侵略性的国家，以及它如何伤害我们》的作者。