中国CPI负增长：通缩危机还是经济误读？

聊一聊经济话题，最近11月份的国内CPI指数出来了，CPI一般是来衡量通货膨胀程度的，而这次公布的11月份CPI居然是个负数，所以网上很多海经自媒体大喊中国陷入通缩了，经济要崩溃了。现在的经济环境确实不太好，这也是过去十几年，特别是2008年以来，经济增长主要依赖房地产和财政支出所造成的恶果，到了必须要清算的时候。

第二，这个CPI的指数到底有多大的参考性，有多么科学，能不能用它来衡量通货膨胀都是存在很大的疑问的。仅凭一个数字就能对一个广泛联系的复杂的事物下判断是非常的可笑的，何况中国经济是一个包含十几亿个体，与全球各个主要国家都有千丝万缕联系的复杂有机体。就算一个病人去医院看病，医生也要让你做一整套检查，总不会光凭一个白细胞计数就能够判断出你到底得了什么病吧？

通货膨胀是有明显明确定义的，在古典时期，大家使用金银当作货币的时候，是不存在通货膨胀这个概念的，因为金银的供给量受地球储量以及人类的开采能力限制，不可能在短时间内发生太大的变化，而真正的通货膨胀是在政府介入了国家介入了货币发行者，在金银领域开始发行印有国王、皇帝头像或者皇帝的年号的金银币、铜钱上的时候，这时候的通货膨胀是通过政府或者朝廷通过往贵金属中掺入其他价值较低的贱金属杂质，假设原来只能铸造10枚金币的黄金，可以铸造出50枚甚至100枚金币。到了中国人在宋代发明纸币以后，这种通货膨胀的速度也被大大的加快了，以至于朝廷要不停的发行新的货币来取代原来一文变得一文不值的旧货币。

所以通货膨胀的定义非常简单，就是货币的市场上流通的货币量增多了，所以要看通货膨胀根本不用看什么CPI，只需要看各国中央银行的M2的数据就足够了，主流经济学家发明CPI这个概念，纯粹就是为了掩盖通货膨胀的本在偷换它原本的概念。.

现在CPI的统计方式就是选取一揽子的商品，然后进行权重加总，然后比较一段时期内它们的变化幅度，也就是说通过所谓的物价水平来衡量通货膨胀，粗看之下，这样的指标设计也是说得通的，如果在理想状况下，货币的供给量增加超过市场上商品和服务总量的增加，那么商品和服务就会供不应求，价格就会上涨，相反如果生产能力大大增加，超过了货币增长的速度，也就是说市场上有更多的商品，但钱的数量却并没有多大的变化，那么物价就会下跌，也就是现在各种大V口中，有所喊的通缩。其实严格意义上来说，这种情况并不能算作通缩，因为货币的总量并没有明显的变化，只有货币减少才能叫通缩。

不过上述这些是理想的状况，在实际当中更平常的现象是，因为人们对商品和服务的需求是多种多样的，甚至在不同的时期，同一个人他的需求也是有很大变化的。所以在真实环境中，物价的表现都是有涨有跌，季节性的蔬菜就是最好的例子，同一种蔬菜，时令不同，价格也不同。而且市场上的商品和服务是琳琅满目的，CPI不可能把所有的商品价格都统计在内，于是他只能选取一些有代表性的商品用来计算CPI，这个选取方式完全是人为的，而且这个经济数据一般都是由政府的统计部门来作为权威发布，也没有任何的市场竞争因素在里面，所以这个选取的标准，就是一个非常大的可以人为操纵的因素。

最明显的例子就是美国，我经常听Peter Schiff的播客，他提到现在的CPI篮子中的商品和服务，与70年代CPI中的商品和服务是完全不同的。特别在疫情期间，美国政府实施救助，滥发了大量的货币，这在CPI上也有所体现，其涨幅高达8%，但是如果按照20世纪期70年代的CPI计算方式，这两年美国的CPI实际上已经超过两位数了，尽管经过调整，但是这个8%的CPI仍然过高，所以美联储不得不连续加息来进行应对，甚至造成了美国区域银行破产倒闭潮的危机，使得美联储的经济官僚们也意识到，加息不能再搞下去了。但是美联储的牌坊还立在那里，当初成立美联储的冠冕堂皇的理由，就是要控制通胀，并且设定了一个目标，把CPI控制在年增长2%左右。而如今仍然有7%到8%，所以已经有经济学家提出建议给美联储找台阶下了，就是修改CPI的编制方法，把这两年增长速度最快的石油和粮食价格，从CPI指示中剔除，就能够实现CPI增长在2%以内的控制目标，美联储就可以顺理成章的放弃加息的操作了。

现在说回来，接着批判一下各种网络大V的言论，他们的说法实际上继承着主流经济学，也就是凯恩斯经济学，认为通缩会启动所谓的恶性循环，就是价格下跌，会使更多的消费者持币观望，等待商品价格降到更低的时候出手，而这样商品会在市场上堆积的越来越多，从而使工厂停止生产，造成工人失业，工人失业造成消费者的收入减少，所以他们又继续等待商品价格下跌，形成恶性循环。其实这个说法是完全站不住脚的，这里有一个非常大的问题，就是人的生命是有限的，人们不可能无限的等待下去，如果一件东西真的能够满足人们的需求，早买早享受还是人们的首选操作，并不存在什么恶性循环。

在手机等电子产品领域，这一点表现的非常的明显，一款手机随着时间的推演，它性能会越来越落后，价格会越来越低，但人们不会因为这款手机的价格，未来价格一定会比现在低，而拒绝购买手机。实际上消费电子领域，长期以来一直都是处于所谓的通缩状态，但是这不影响它成为如今消费领域，非常重要的一个板块。

所以GPI并不能代表真正出现了通缩，其次通缩也不一定就意味着经济的衰退和崩溃，这些自媒体宣扬中国经济宣扬陷入通缩，主要是为了抹黑中国政府，说他们对经济不作为。首先这不完全是事实，其次，政府对经济不作为，未必是坏事。很多博主提到的所谓正确的应对通缩的方式，其实是在更进一步的伤害经济，比如什么给老百姓发钱，刺激消费，比如什么大搞福利，解除百姓的后顾之忧，让百姓敢于消费。这些听上去都是无比的正确，但是还是那句话，政府不能解决问题，政府本身就是问题。因为政府本身它就不生产任何的商品和服务，如果它仅仅靠提供更多的货币，就能够解决所有的经济问题的话，那现在的津巴布韦，委内瑞拉就应该是世界上经济最健康的国家，那阿根廷的选民也不应该选举叫嚷着要炸掉中央银行的米莱来当总统，因为中央银行都炸掉了，谁来给老百姓印钱呢?实际上阿根廷的民众是受够了中央银行无底线的印钞，所带来的恶性通货通胀。

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Talk about the economic topic, recently the domestic CPI index in November came out, CPI is generally to measure the degree of inflation, and this November CPI was actually a negative number, so a lot of online sea through the media shouted that China has fallen into deflation, the economy is going to collapse. The current economic environment is indeed not very good, which is the past decade, especially since 2008, economic growth mainly relies on real estate and fiscal spending caused by the bad results, to the time must be liquidated.

Second, there are big doubts about how much reference and scientific this CPI index is, and whether it can be used to measure inflation. It is ludicrous to judge a widely interconnected and complex matter on the basis of a single number, especially since the Chinese economy is a complex organism comprising more than a billion individuals and inextricably linked to every major country in the world. Even if a patient goes to the hospital to see a doctor, the doctor has to let you do a whole set of tests, it is not just a white blood cell count can determine what is wrong with you?

Inflation is clearly defined. In the classical period, when people used gold and silver as money, there was no such concept of inflation, because the supply of gold and silver was limited by the earth's reserves and human exploitation capacity, and it could not change much in a short time. The real inflation was when the government intervened and the state intervened in the currency issuer. When gold and silver coins and copper coins printed with the heads of Kings and emperors or the year names of emperors began to be issued in the field of gold and silver, the inflation at this time was through the government or the court by mixing other base metal impurities of lower value into the precious metal, assuming that the original gold can only be minted 10 gold coins, 50 or even 100 gold coins could be minted. After the Chinese invented paper money in the Song Dynasty, the rate of inflation was greatly accelerated, so that the court constantly issued new money to replace the old money, which had become worthless.

Therefore, the definition of inflation is very simple, that is, the amount of money circulating in the currency market has increased, so to see inflation does not need to look at what CPI, only need to look at the central bank's M2 data is enough, mainstream economists invented the concept of CPI, purely to cover up the original concept of inflation in the theft of its original concept. .

At present, the statistical method of CPI is to select a package of commodities, then add up the weights, and then compare their amplitude of change over a period of time, that is, to measure inflation through the so-called price level. At a rough glance, such an indicator design also makes sense, if under ideal conditions, the increase in the supply of money exceeds the increase in the total amount of goods and services on the market. Then goods and services will be in short supply, prices will rise, on the contrary, if the production capacity is greatly increased, more than the rate of money growth, that is to say, there are more goods in the market, but the amount of money has not changed much, then prices will fall, that is, the various big V mouth now, something called deflation. In fact, in the strict sense, this situation does not count as deflation, because the total amount of money does not change significantly, and only a decrease in money can be called deflation.

However, these are ideal conditions, in practice, it is more common phenomenon, because people's needs for goods and services are diverse, and even at different times, the same person's needs will vary greatly. Therefore, in the real environment, the performance of prices is up and down, seasonal vegetables are the best example, the same vegetable, the season is different, the price is different. Besides, there are a wide variety of goods and services in the market, so it is impossible for CPI to include all commodity prices, so he can only select some representative commodities to calculate CPI. This selection method is completely artificial, and the economic data are generally issued by the statistical department of the government as the authority, and there is no market competition factor in it. So this selection criterion is a very large factor that can be manipulated.

The most obvious example is the United States, where I often listen to Peter Schiff's podcast and he mentions that the goods and services in the CPI basket today are completely different from the goods and services in the CPI in the 1970s. Especially during the epidemic period, the US government implemented assistance and issued a large amount of money, which is also reflected in the CPI, which rose as high as 8%. However, if the CPI calculation method is used in the 1970s, the CPI in the US has actually exceeded double digits in the past two years. Despite the adjustment, the 8% CPI is still too high. So the Fed had to raise interest rates continuously to deal with it, and even caused a crisis of bankruptcies and failures of regional banks in the United States, which made the economic bureaucrats of the Fed realize that interest rate hikes could not be carried out any longer. But the edifice of the Fed, which was founded for the grand reason of controlling inflation and has set a goal of keeping CPI growth at about 2 per cent a year, is still there. And now it is still 7% to 8%, so some economists have proposed to the Federal Reserve to find a step down, that is, to modify the CPI preparation method, the fastest growing oil and food prices in the past two years, from the CPI indicators, can achieve the CPI growth within 2% of the control target, the Federal Reserve can naturally give up the operation of interest rate.

Now, to come back to this, and to critique the various Internet trolls, who are actually heirs to mainstream economics, Keynesian economics, arguing that deflation starts what's called a vicious circle, where falling prices cause more consumers to sit on the sidelines and wait for the price of goods to fall even lower, so that more and more goods will pile up in the market. This causes factories to stop production, causing workers to lose their jobs, and workers to lose their incomes, so they continue to wait for commodity prices to fall, creating a vicious circle. In fact, this statement is completely untenable, there is a very big problem here, that is, human life is limited, people can not wait indefinitely, if a thing really can meet people's needs, early to buy early to enjoy or people's preferred operation, there is no vicious circle.

In the field of mobile phones and other electronic products, this is very obvious, a mobile phone over time, its performance will be more and more backward, the price will be lower and lower, but people will not because of the price of this mobile phone, the future price will be lower than now, and refuse to buy mobile phones. In fact, the field of consumer electronics has long been in a state of so-called deflation, but this does not affect it to become a very important sector in today's consumer field.

Therefore, GPI does not represent the real deflation, and deflation does not necessarily mean the recession and collapse of the economy. These we-media advocate that China's economy is in deflation, mainly to discredit the Chinese government and say that they do nothing about the economy. First, this is not entirely true, and second, government inaction on the economy is not necessarily a bad thing. The so-called correct way to deal with deflation mentioned by many bloggers is actually further hurting the economy, such as what to give the people money, stimulate consumption, such as what to engage in welfare, relieve the people's worries, and let the people dare to consume. That all sounds incredibly true, but again, government is not the solution; government is the problem. Because the government itself does not produce any goods and services, if it could solve all its economic problems simply by providing more money, Zimbabwe and Venezuela would be the healthiest countries in the world right now, and the voters of Argentina should not elect Millay, who wants to blow up the central bank, as president, because the central bank is blown up. Who will print money for the common people? In fact, Argentines are fed up with hyperinflation caused by the central bank's bottomless money printing.