哀悼中的东京

    在东京，一下飞机，过完海关和移民局的检查，地震造成的破坏就随处可见，至少电视中随时都在报道。在成田国际机场的到达大厅，我在等候购买机场班车车票时，留意到一台巨大的平板高清电视上，正在播出沿海城镇和村庄遭受巨大破坏后的残败景象。比起我上海家中那台普通小电视，这个画面看起来更有震撼力。日本国家广播公司NHK记录下了被海啸彻底摧毁的日本东北沿海城镇的情况。这些触目惊心的镜头，令所有人驻足。无论日本人还是外国人，所有人都悄无声息地盯着电视屏幕。

    周一，临近交通高峰时段，进城的车很少。这场堪称有史以来最大的地震之一的灾难刚刚过去3天，许多人都将政府的告诫谨记在心，待在家里。东京在这场8.9级的大地震中几乎毫发未损。这一方面是由于它距震中还有相当一段距离；另一方面，它有可能是世界上防震工作做得最好的地方。尽管如此，这座城市仍处于一片默哀之中。地震过去才三天，这亦在情理之中。

    在日本，几乎人人都明白，与其他大多数人相比，他们的命运更大程度上与自己国家的地质概况绑在一起。1995年，神户大地震中有6,000人丧生，日本政府花费了1,000亿美元才重建了整座城市。彼时，我正住在日本。我清楚地记得，我当时采访的人中，没有一个认为：事情已经过去了，这会是最后一回。

    正相反。1923年的关东大地震（The Great Kanto quake）中，东京死了13万人。神户大地震，死了6,000人。自那以后，日本的地质概况未曾改变。但是，如你可能预料的一样，日本在处理地震灾情方面，日益积累了大量经验，成熟了许多，这是因为这里的每个人都深知，地震随时都会再来。当我住在日本时，我一次又一次地认为，“大地震”来了。我不是钻到桌子底下，就是从床上跳起来，迅速地跑到外面去，结果只发现，我原以为将是一场“大地震”的地震，在东京简直不足挂齿。

    在3月11日这场大地震和随后的海啸中，到底有多少人丧生？目前尚不确切知晓。但是，鉴于这次地震的规模之大，死者一定远不止6,000人。与这场地震相比，神户大地震的里氏等级或者其他任何等级，简直都不足挂齿。到3月14日，“官方”公布的死亡人数约为1,800人。“简直是开玩笑。每个人都知道这不可能。实际数字可能有1万人，或者2万人，或者更多。可眼下谁又有可能知道呢？”

    显而易见，日本为其地质概况付出了惨痛的代价——鲜血和财富。这场大灾难造成的破坏，将远远超过神户震后重建的1,000亿美元的费用。而且，现如今日本的经济状况已远不如从前。据美国中央情报局（CIA）的世界各国概况统计，日本国债已经约为相当于其国内生产总值（GDP）的200%，仅次于津巴布韦，位居世界第二。日本首相菅直人领导的民主党的力量因丑闻事件遭到了削弱，但他一直以来都在不遗余力地缩减开支，以避免日本陷入财政深渊。但是，现在他的世界彻底被颠覆了。日本政府将拿出巨额开支用于震后重建工作，它别无选择。而且，与这笔开支相比，无论如何节省预算，省下来的钱也会显得微不足道。

    我还要说，接下来，就好像过万圣节一般，日本央行行长白川方明会戴上本•伯南克的面具，并竭尽模仿之能事，推行量化宽松（QE）政策。事实上，这类事已然发生了。白川之所以模仿伯南克，是因为他必须得这么干：日本银行（Bank of Japan）已经向各类资金市场投入了15万亿日元（约合1,830亿美元），以便在股票狂跌、信用风险骤增的情况下，确保金融稳定性。本周一，白川方明表示，“需要时，日本政府还会进一步投入大量现金”。

    全球各地的市场已经“预见”到此次日本大地震的经济影响，而且随着这场灾难造成的破坏会逐渐完全显现出来，它们将继续保持这种态度。周日晚上，我和一位老友，在东京一家经常有银行家和金融交易员光顾的餐厅里，共进了一顿简短而安静的晚餐。他是一位数量分析师，曾效力于摩根士丹利公司（Morgan Stanley），眼下在一家对冲基金公司供职。他妻子的娘家在仙台。那一带被地震和海啸摧毁得最厉害。在杳无音信整整两天之后，周一早上，他们听说他妻子的母亲与姐姐均幸免于难。

    “就在昨天，我们连想都不敢想这种结果。”他表示。同时，他也深知，他的工作将很快变成，要想方设法、竭尽全力，用最佳的方法买卖走强的日元，并应对疲软的股票市场。不过，“今晚还不会，至少还得有一阵儿。”

    译者：大海

    Once you get off the plane in Tokyo and past customs and immigration, the wreckage is everywhere to be seen -- on television, at least. In the arrivals hall of Narita airport, on a huge flat screen high definition television, I watched scenes of the extraordinary devastation from coastal towns and villages as I waited for my bus ticket. My ordinary little TV screen in Shanghai, where I live, didn't do it justice. The stunning images from NHK, Japan's national broadcaster, of the northeastern coastal towns completely destroyed by the tsunami that devastated them, had everyone's attention. People -- Japanese and foreigners alike -- were quiet, watching.

    The traffic into town on Monday, slightly before rush hour, was thin. Just three days after one of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history, a lot of people took to heart the government's admonishment to stay home. Though Tokyo was practically untouched by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake -- a function both of its distance from the epicenter and the fact that it's perhaps the most earthquake proof place in the world -- it's a city in mourning. And just three days after the fact, that's as it should be.

    There are very few people in this country who are unaware that their fate is, to a greater degree than most others, tied to geology. In 1995 the earthquake in Kobe killed 6000 people, and it cost Japan about $100 billion to rebuild. I lived here then, and I don't remember anyone I interviewed who thought, well that's it, this will be the last one.

    Quite the contrary. The Great Kanto quake of 1923 killed about 130,000 people in Tokyo. The Kobe quake, 6000. The geology since then hasn't changed; but Japan, as you'd expect, got much better at dealing with earthquakes, because everyone here knows damn well that they're coming. There was any number of instances, when I lived here, that I thought the "Big One" had come. I would dive under a desk, or jump up from bed and start to run outside, only to learn that what I thought was a "Big One'' was relatively minor in Tokyo.

    How many have been killed in this quake and the tsunami that followed? No one knows yet, but given the size, it's going to be a LOT more than 6000. This will make the Kobe quake look like a blip on the Richter scale -- or pretty much any other scale. A Japanese friend I spoke to tonight knows that. The "official'' death toll now -- roughly 1800 -- is "a joke. Everyone knows this. It's going to be 10,000, or 20,000 or more. Who knows at this point?"

    That its geology comes at a huge cost to Japan is obvious. It pays in blood and in treasure. The damage from this catastrophe will well exceed the $100 billion it cost to rebuild after Kobe. And Japan today is in far worse shape to cope with it. Its national debt already is roughly 200% of GDP -- second only to Zimbabwe, according to the CIA factbook. Prime Minster Naoto Kan -- his party weakened by scandal -- had been pushing for cuts in spending in order to try to avoid the fiscal abyss. But now his world has been upended. The Japanese government is going to spend huge sums on reconstruction -- it has no choice -- and whatever budget cuts that may come will be trivial by comparison.

    I was going to say that what comes next is that Japanese central bank chief Masaaki Shirakawa will put on his Ben Bernanke mask, as if it were Halloween, and do his best "QE" (quantitative easing) imitation. But that already happened. Today. Shirakawa did his Bernanke imitation, because he had to: the Bank of Japan pumped 15 trillion yen ($183 billion) into money markets to assure financial stability amid a plunge in stocks and surge in credit risk. The BOJ chief told reporters today that cash injections will "continue as needed."

    Markets around the world are already "discounting" the economic impact of the Great Tohoku earthquake, as they will continue to as the extent of the damage unfolds. In a Tokyo restaurant usually packed with bankers and traders, I had a quick, quiet dinner this evening with a guy I've known for a long time; a "quant'' who used to work for Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), and is now with a hedge fund. His wife's family is from Sendai, where the damage from the quake and tsunami are most pronounced. After two days of not hearing anything, they heard this morning that his sister-in-law and mother-in-law had both survived.

    "Wouldn't have bet on that yesterday," he said. He knows his professional life will soon enough be about figuring out how best to trade a strengthening Yen and a weakening stock market. But not yet, he said. "Not tonight. Not for awhile."