万一你没有听见，提醒你一下，那是“金砖四国”（BRIC）泡沫破裂的声音。
这个缩写词代表巴西——俄国——印度——中国。这个由高盛经济分析师Jim O’Neill所创造的词语象征了曾经贫穷的国家（新兴市场）崛起为经济发展的动力来源。近来的说法是：迅速扩张的新兴市场国家能够把欧洲、美国和日本——这些旧世界国家——从它们的经济困局中拯救出来。金砖国们会支撑着对工业产品和生产原料（石油、粮食、金属）的全球需求。
忘了这回事吧。
有那么一阵子，这样的前景看起来是有可能的。在07年至09年的金融危机期间，某些金砖国家——最为引人注目的是中国——启动了庞大的经济刺激计划，而另一些国家则只是快速地增长。中国经济在2010年扩张了10.4%，印度则为10.1%，巴西是7.5%。今日的整体表现就失色了不少。根据世界货币基金组织（International Monetary Fund）的最新预测，在2012年，中国会增长7.8%，印度4.9%而巴西是1.5%。虽然IMF预计2013会有些微的好转，但一些经济学家认为将有进一步的下降。
的确，美国人会替中国和印度的增加速度感到高兴；在2012年，美国经济只会增长大约2%。但关于增长率的比较是具误导性的，因为中国和印度仍然受惠于经济上的“追赶效应”。它们这些后发国家能够靠提升工人技能水平和采用其他地方已经施行的新技术以及管理方式来实现经济迅速增长。
摩根斯坦利的Ruchir Sharma认为，每一个十年都产生一个对公众想象力极具诱惑的理论。在八十年代，这个理论是日本将会主导世界的经济；在九十年代，是互联网是自印刷媒体诞生后最伟大的发明；而在千禧年后的头十年，是金砖国家们不可避免的经济崛起。这些都是知识分子的泡沫；现实迟早会把它们戳破。
Sharma在其极具先见之明的Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles一书中，就是这样戳穿了金砖泡沫。他写道：“关于增长的博弈突然变得容易的认知——即每一个人都可以成为赢家的认知——是建基于上一个十年，当几乎全球所有新兴市场同时一起增长的结果。
现实是，2000年早期的经济蓬勃只不过是旧式的繁荣。中国的高速增长带动了对原材料（石油、粮食和矿产）的需求，使相关商品的价格上涨并为它们的生产者带来财富，这包括了巴西和俄国。在美国、欧洲和日本的宽松信贷令资金流向利率和收益回报更高的发展中国家。Sharma指出，在2007年，这个大繁荣达到顶峰的那一年，全球183国家的60%左右在5%或更高的速度上增长。只有三个国家（斐济，津巴布韦和刚果共和国）是完全没有增长的。
当经济繁荣崩溃时，这些国家重新发现到，实现高速经济增长既非信手拈来也非必然发生的。当中会遭遇到政治、文化、金融和地缘政治（战争、恐怖主义）的阻碍。一些国家会克服这些障碍，有些则不能。
随着这些国家“后来赶上”的机会收缩，增长也跟着下滑。Sharma认为中国的实际年均增长将降到6%至7%之间的水平。他同时也对巴西持非常怀疑的态度。没有原材料商品的蓬勃需求，巴西的增长可能徘徊在2至3%。他觉得政府支出（大约占经济的40%）太高，而对道路和其他基础设施的投资太低。
“难怪要花上两至三天时间才使一架卡车到达圣保罗港口”，他写道。
印度面临着类似的麻烦，当中一些是此前经济繁荣带来的后遗症。“印度有着全世界最高的通胀率”，Peterson Institute的经济学家Arvind Subramanian说。“预算赤字大约是经济总量的10%。投资者信心暴跌。”要刺激增长，政府要缩减补贴，和开放外国投资在零售、航空、广播和能源生产上的限制。
世界经济到处都在处于疲弱或衰退中。经过今次大选后，美国将面临“财政断崖”（fiscal cliff）——加税和支出削减的相互作用会等同于令整个经济减少了4%。欧洲在保护欧元的存在上艰难前行。抱怀疑态度的金融市场对那些正正最需要低利率来减缓它们债务负担和重振经济的国家实施高利率。
在这个惨淡的背景下，这是相当诱人的想法去认为金砖国家的经济复原力能使其充当冲击吸收器的角色。他们会购买更多欧洲和美国的出口；它们会送更多游客到迪士尼乐园和埃菲尔铁塔。这会为旧世界提供更多时间来进行调整。只不过现实所发生的恰好是其反面。先进国家的经济疲弱，通过出口市场，从自身散播到金砖国家。世界经济的确是相互关联的。大家希望会发生的事不过是妄想而已。
Just in case you didn’t hear it, that was the sound of the BRIC bubble popping.
The acronym stands for Brazil-Russia-India-China. Coined by economist Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, it symbolizes the rise of once-poor countries (“emerging markets”) into economic powerhouses. More recently, the message has been: The rapid expansion of emerging-market countries will help rescue Europe, the United States and Japan — the “old world” — from their economic turmoil. The BRICs will prop up the global demand for industrial goods and commodities (oil, foodstuffs, metals).
Forget it.
For a while, the prospect seemed plausible. During the 2007-09 financial crisis, some BRIC countries — China, most notably — adopted large stimulus programs, and others just grew rapidly. In 2010, China’s economy expanded 10.4 percent, India’s 10.1 percent and Brazil’s 7.5 percent. Today’s outlook is more muted. In 2012, China will grow 7.8 percent, India 4.9 percent and Brazil 1.5 percent, according to the latest projections from the International Monetary Fund. Although the IMF predicts slight pickups in 2013, some economists forecast further declines.
True, Americans would celebrate China’s and India’s growth rates; in 2012, the U.S. economy will grow only about 2 percent. But comparisons are misleading because China and India still benefit from economic “catch-up.” They’re poor countries that can expand rapidly by raising workers’ skills and adopting technologies and management practices pioneered elsewhere.
Every decade produces a powerful economic idea that captivates popular imagination, argues Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley. In the 1980s, the idea was that Japan would dominate the world economically; in the 1990s, it was that the Internet was the greatest innovation since the printing press; and in the 2000s, it’s been the inevitability of the BRICs’ economic advance. These are intellectual bubbles; sooner or later, reality pricks them.
In his prescient book “Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles,” Sharma does this for the BRIC bubble. He writes: “The perception that the growth game had suddenly become easy — that everyone could be a winner — is built on the unique results of the last decade, when virtually all emerging markets did grow together.”
In reality, the early 2000s were simply an old-fashioned boom. China’s rapid growth fueled demand for raw materials (oil, grains, minerals) that raised prices and enriched producers, including Brazil and Russia. Easy credit in the United States, Europe and Japan encouraged money flows into other developing countries, where interest rates and returns seemed higher. In 2007, the boom’s peak year, about 60 percent of the world’s 183 countries grew at 5 percent or better, notes Sharma. Only three countries (Fiji, Zimbabwe and the Republic of Congo) didn’t grow at all.
When the boom collapsed, countries rediscovered that achieving rapid economic growth is neither easy nor automatic. It encounters political, cultural, financial and geopolitical (wars, terrorism) obstacles. Some countries overcome the obstacles; some don’t.
As opportunities for economic catch-up shrink, growth also subsides. Sharma thinks China’s average annual growth will fall to a range of 6 percent to 7 percent. He’s also skeptical of Brazil. Without the commodity boom, Brazilian growth may be mired at 2 percent to 3 percent. He thinks government spending (about 40 percent of the economy) is too high, and investment in roads and other infrastructure is too low.
“No wonder it takes two to three days for trucks to get into the port of Sao Paulo,” he writes.
India faces comparable problems. Some reflect the hangover from the recent boom. “India has among the [world’s] highest inflation rates — at or close to double-digits,” says economist Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute. “The budget deficit is around 10 percent [of the economy]. Investor confidence has slumped.” To spur growth, the government is trimming subsidies and has liberalized foreign investment in retailing, airlines, broadcasting and power generation.
Everywhere, the global economy is weak or weakening. After the election, the United States faces the “fiscal cliff” — tax increases and spending cuts that together would administer about a 4 percent blow to the economy. Europe’s struggle to preserve the euro founders. Skeptical financial markets impose high interest rates on precisely the countries (Spain, Italy) most needing lower rates to ease their debt burden and revive their depressed economies.
Against this dismal backdrop, it was tempting to think that resilient BRICs would act as a shock absorber. They would buy more European and American exports; they would send more tourists to Disney World and the Eiffel Tower. This would provide the old world more time to make adjustments. Just the opposite occurred. The weakness of advanced economies transmitted itself, through export markets, to the BRICs. The world economy is truly interconnected. What was hoped would happen was wishful thinking.
