Schumpeter: The Two Faces of USA Inc.

熊彼特：双面美国公司

 

American bosses are divided when it comes to Donald Trump

说到唐纳德·特朗普，美国老板各持己见

 

The leaders of America’s multinational firms are usually a picture of self-control, with sincere handshakes, grown-up hair and scripted sound bites. But ask them about the election and emotion takes over. At a drinks party in Manhattan, a mega-bank’s boss froths that Donald Trump is a madman. Thumping an office table, the head of one of the country’s biggest technology firms, and a rare Republican in Silicon Valley, solemnly vows to vote for Hillary Clinton. The chief of a huge transport firm giggles uneasily that a Trump presidency will destroy free trade – and his firm’s booming business with Mexico.

 

美国跨国公司的领导人通常都是一副克己持重的模样，握手真诚，发型考究，讲起话来滴水不漏。但只要别人问起选举的话题，他们便会立刻激动起来。在曼哈顿的一个酒会上，一家银行巨头的老板口沫飞溅，称唐纳德·特朗普就是个疯子。美国最大的科技公司之一的老板，同时也是硅谷少有的共和党人，猛捶办公室的桌子，郑重其事地宣称要投票给希拉里。一家超大型运输公司的老板不自然地傻笑着说，特朗普当总统会毁了自由贸易，还有他的公司与墨西哥欣欣向荣的业务往来。

 

The feeling of contempt is mutual. On June 29th Mr. Trump laid into the Chamber of Commerce, big business’s favorite lobbying organization. “It’s totally controlled by the special-interest groups,” he said, to wild cheers from a crowd in Maine.

 

然而特朗普也看不上他们。6月29日特朗普痛斥了大公司最为青睐的游说组织美国商会。“它完全被特殊利益集团控制了。”特朗普在缅因州一群人的欢呼声中说道。

 

Big international firms do not share Mr. Trump’s diagnosis of America as a country that has stopped winning. For them, it has been a golden decade. Share prices are near an all-time high; the operating earnings of S&P 500 firms have risen by 137% sincere the crisis year of 2009. Many of the trends that have hurt Middle America have made USA Inc. stronger. Big firms have cut jobs to increase productivity and now make 40% of their sales abroad. They are more dominant at home because of a wave of mergers and their mastery of lobbying. They grumble about tax, but have become superb at avoiding it. The top 50 firms paid a cash tax rate of 24% on their global profits in 2015, compared with an official rate of 39%. Even the big banks have learned to live with more regulation: they are thrashing their European rivals across the globe.

 

特朗普认为美国这个国家已停止创造胜利，但大型跨国公司并不认同他的判断。对于这些公司来说，过去十年是黄金十年——股票价格接近历史高点，标准普尔500公司的运营收益自2009年金融危机以来增长了137%。许多伤害到中部美国的趋势反而让美国企业变得更加强大。大公司通过削减工作岗位提高了生产率，如今更是有40%的销售收入来自海外。得益于合并热潮和高超的游说技巧，它们进一步巩固了在国内的霸主地位。它们虽然抱怨税收，但在避税上已经登峰造极。前50强公司在2015年所付的现金税率是其全球利润的24%，而官方税率为39%。即便是大型银行也学会了应对更多监管：它们在全世界都完胜欧洲的对手。

 

At the very point that swathes of the public say the economy isn’t working, USA Inc. is on top of the world, occupying all of the ten top spots in the global corporate rankings, measured by market value. Bosses of multinational firms think their country has everything to play for. The worst of the job losses attributable to cheap Chinese labor have already happened; with luck, Chinese consumers will start buying more from the rest of the world. America’s lead in technology has never been bigger. New trade deals, such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, are remarkably skewed towards American interests in areas such as intellectual-property rights. “The American model that got us through the last 30 to 40 years is stronger than ever,” declared Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to the Economic Club of New York last month.

 

就在大批民众认为经济不景气时，美国企业正站在世界巅峰——按市值计算，它们占据着全球企业排名前十位。跨国公司老板认为他们的国家仍大有可为。就中国廉价劳动力而引起的失业而言，最坏的情况已经过去了；如果一切顺利，中国消费者会开始从世界其他地方购买更多商品。美国在科技上从未如此遥遥领先。新的贸易协定（例如已提出的跨太平洋伙伴关系协定）在知识产权等领域明显对美国有利。上月谷歌母公司Alphabet的执行主席埃里克·施密特（Eric Schimidt）在纽约经济俱乐部上宣称：“带领我们走过之前三四十年的美国模式比以往更为强大。”

 

The hostility of big firms towards Mr. Trump goes beyond free trade. They know that America’s demographics are changing. The fastest-growing cohort of consumers are Hispanic, with their share of overall spending forecast to rise by about two percentage points by 2020, even as the share of white Americans drops by the same amount, according to Morgan Stanley, a bank. Bosses see a much more socially liberal America, too. None of this sits well with Mr. Trump’s nativist agenda, which is perhaps why Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Ford, Coca-Cola and Apple have either cut their support for the Republican convention this month or will not support it at all.

 

大公司对特朗普的敌意并非只源于自由贸易，它们知道美国的人口结构正在变化。摩根士丹利称，增长最快的消费者群体是西班牙裔，到2020年他们在总体消费中的占比预计将增长约2个百分点，同时美国白人的消费占比则会有相同比例的下降。老板们也认为美国社会将变得比现在要开放自由得多。然而这些与特朗普的本土主义方略格格不入，或许正是这一原因导致富国银行（Wells Fargo）、摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）、福特、可口可乐和苹果公司要么削减对本月召开的共和党全国大会的支持，要么完全不予支持。

 

Yet a thousand miles south of Manhattan, in suburban Florida, the mood is different. The boss of a construction firm says he is fed up. His firm does all its business within America’s borders and profits have not yet recovered to 2006 levels. The Obama administration, in his view, has crippled the economy. More generous welfare benefits means laborers have got lazy. Permits and local taxes have proliferated, raising costs. The crackdown on banks has hobbled lending. Vote for Hillary? Not a chance, he says. Trump it has to be – and if he is psychologically erratic and vulgar, better that than an endless stagnation.

 

不过在曼哈顿以南一千英里之外的佛罗里达州郊区，气氛却迥然不同。一家建筑公司的老板说他已经受够了。他公司的全部业务都在美国国内，利润还没恢复到2006年的水平。在他看来，奥巴马政府整垮了经济。更优厚的福利救济已让劳工们变得懒惰。证照要求越来越多，地方税激增，这些都提高了成本。打击银行业让贷款举步维艰。选希拉里？那可没门，他说。要选就选特朗普，就算他古怪粗俗，也比无穷无尽的经济停滞要好。

 

The construction boss is not alone. Opinion polls suggest that Mr. Trump is also popular with small-business owners. His campaign-finance disclosures show hundreds of contributions from the owners of small firms that no one on Wall Street or in Washington, DC, has ever heard of: Biagi Plumbing, James River Air Conditioning, Rosenberger Construction, Allen Unique Autos, Texan Drywall Inc. and Podell Fuel Injection.

 

这么想的人不止这位建筑公司老板一个。民意调查显示特朗普在小企业主之中也颇受欢迎。从特朗普披露的竞选经费来看，成百上千笔捐款都来自小公司的经营者。无论在华尔街还是华盛顿特区都没人听说过这些小公司：Biagi管道、James River空调、Rosenberger建筑、Allen Unique汽车、Texan石膏墙股份有限公司和Podell燃油喷射。

 

The complacent response is that these entrepreneurs are fools who have been deceived. After all, Mr. Trump’s business career has been built in the heart of the globalized part of the economy, not slogging it out in the trenches of Middle America. About 66% of the value of his business operations sits in New York, mainly in buildings in glittering Manhattan, according to Economist estimates. Global too-big-too-fail banks are tenants in two of Mr. Trump’s most valuable properties. He has courted foreign investors, from Hong Kong to the Middle East, sincere the 1990s.

 

有人洋洋自得地指出，这些企业家都是傻瓜，他们被骗了。毕竟特朗普的商业生涯都是在经济的全球化部分的核心地带建立的，而并非从中部美国的壕沟里杀出一条血路。据本刊估算，在他的商业运作中，约有66%的价值位于纽约，主要是在曼哈顿五光十色的高楼大厦里。多家大到不能倒的全球银行租用了特朗普两栋最值钱的地产。从上世纪90年代起，他就对从中国香港到中东的外国投资者大献殷勤。

 

But Mr. Trump speaks the language of business owners when he says he will abolish Obamacare, the health-care scheme that companies say has created piles of red tape. When he promises that no firm will pay a tax rate of more than 15%, small and domestically-focused business see not a fiscal absurdity, but a chance that they might enjoy the same treatment that multinationals already enjoy (Apple, America’s biggest firm, paid a cash tax rate of 18% in 2015). And when Mr. Trump complains about special interests dominating the economy, and corrupting politics, he is right. Lobbying budgets have reached $3 billion a year. Two-thirds of industries have become more concentrated sincere the 1990s. With big companies’ ascendant, the number of new entrant firms being created is at its lowest level sincere the 1970s.

 

但是当特朗普提起要废除奥巴马医改计划时，他道出了企业主的心声。一些公司认为这个医改计划催生了大量的繁文缛节。当特朗普承诺所有公司需支付的税费都将不会超过15%时，主营国内市场的小公司并不认为这在财政上是无稽之谈，而是一个可能让其享受到跨国公司同等待遇的机会（美国最大的公司苹果2015年支付的现金税率为18%）。特朗普抱怨特殊利益集团主导了经济并且使政治变得腐败，他没有说错。游说预算已达到每年30亿美元。自上世纪90年代起，三分之二的行业都变得更加集中。大公司占尽了优势，而新创立的公司数量却跌落至20世纪70年代以来的最低水平。

 

A sensible economic agenda for America would please – and annoy – both sides of the divide. It would pursue free trade but also attack oligopolies, lobbying and bureaucracy and reform the corporate tax system. In other words, it would listen to the polished sophisticates who run America’s biggest companies, but also to those business leaders who support Mr. Trump.

 

对美国来说明智合理的经济方针会取悦也会惹恼分歧的两派。这样的方针不仅要追求自由贸易，也要打击寡头垄断、游说和官僚主义，还要改革企业税收系统。换言之，它既会考虑美国最大的公司那些圆滑通达、老于世故的经营者的意见，也会听取那些支持特朗普的企业领袖的声音。

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