奥巴马在高盛的好兄弟

    我们听说，在2008年大选中曾一边倒支持巴拉克•奥巴马的高盛（Goldman Sachs）员工们在此次大选中集体倒戈，转投米特•罗姆尼。这时，很多人将它视为奥巴马与这家投行关系疏远的一个迹象。但在高盛普通员工可能反对奥巴马的同时，他在这家投行仍有一位重要的盟友：高盛首席经济学家简•哈祖斯。

    当然，出生于德国的哈祖斯从未公开声明支持奥巴马总统。但在金融界颇有影响力的哈祖斯分析文章一直与美国民主党实施的货币财政政策保持一致。过去几年，哈祖斯发表过无数文章，提倡刺激性开支，呼吁推出更多的量化宽松政策，放弃过早压缩赤字的努力。

    去年，哈祖斯因为过去四年的准确预测获得了2011年度劳伦斯•克莱因奖（Lawrence R. Klein Award），他在接受颁奖后的演讲中对上述观点进行了总结。这位经济学家在演讲中援引了前美国财长拉里•萨默斯的话说，虽然危机“是由信心、借贷和支出过多造成的”，但也只能靠“信心、借贷和支出的增加来解决”。哈祖斯接着说：

    我认为这种观点没错。但不幸的是，它听起来可能太离谱，难以赢得大多数选民和民选官员的认可。特别是现在，一些财政刺激政策已经实施了一段时间，而经济状况依然糟糕，人们更容易相信政府赤字是问题的根源（而不是解决之道），宏观经济事关道义，行仁政的政府有奖，邪恶的政府受罚。这种观点在有些国家和文化中深入人心，在其他国家和文化中也慢慢得势，其中就包括美国。

    哈祖斯的观点为他赢得了自由主义经济学家保罗•克鲁格曼等人的推崇，克鲁格曼在他的《纽约时报》（New York Times）博客中已不下10次提到哈祖斯。克鲁格曼多次称哈祖斯的团队很“出色”，还说这位经济学家是一位“非常安静稳重的人。”早在2009年，他就称哈祖斯的分析“十分精确”。

    最近，克鲁格曼在一篇文章中宣称，高盛团队解决了“政策不确定性”问题。共和党人（和商界领袖）总是说，奥巴马政府的过度监管抑制了公司扩大招聘。

    哈祖斯不同意这个观点。“我们不认为经济的糟糕表现是由外部政策不确定性的上升造成的，”他撰文写道。他的这篇文章中有一张图，显示一个反映不确定性的指数走向与经济产值缺口变动相吻合。“大部分政策不确定性的上升可能是经济疲弱的结果，而不是原因，”他在文中写到，以此抨击保守党政客经常拥护的一个主张。

    10月初，哈祖斯表示惊愕，美国国会居然打算让1,260亿美元所得税减税政策到期，声称这可能会抵消第三轮货币宽松政策（QE3）产生的推动作用。“我们很震惊，没有一个政党敢于挑战压缩赤字的逻辑，”他写到。他补充说：“虽然我们同意，美国政府最终需要缩减开支，但现在大幅缩减，时机看起来并不成熟。”

    When we learned that employees of Goldman Sachs, a group that overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama in 2008, shifted their allegiances to Mitt Romney this election, many saw it as a sign that the President had alienated the investment bank. But while Goldman's rank and file may have turned against Obama, he still has an important ally at the firm: Goldman's chief economist, Jan Hatzius.

    To be sure, the German-born Hatzius hasn't publicly stated that he supports the President. But his analysis, which is widely read in financial circles, has long jibed with the monetary and fiscal policies embraced by Democrats. In numerous notes published over the last few years, Hatzius has advocated stimulus spending and called for more quantitative easing, renouncing efforts to slash the deficit as premature.

    He summarized these views in a speech last year, after accepting the 2011 Lawrence R. Klein Award for making the most accurate forecasts during the previous four years. In his remarks, the economist quoted former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who said that, while the crisis was "caused by too much confidence, borrowing, and spending," it could only be resolved by "increases in confidence, borrowing, and spending." Hatzius continued:

    I believe that this is true. But unfortunately, it is probably too much of an irony to resonate with most voters and elected officials. Especially after a period in which some fiscal stimulus has already been applied and the economy is still in bad shape, it is all too tempting to believe that government deficits are part of the problem rather than part of the solution, and that macroeconomics is a morality tale where virtuous governments are rewarded and wicked ones are punished. That view is held more strongly in some countries and cultures than in others but it has been gaining ground everywhere, including the United States.

    Hatzius' views have endeared him to the likes of liberal economist Paul Krugman, who has mentioned the Goldmanite nearly a dozen times in his New York Times blog. Krugman has repeatedly referred to Hatzius' group as "excellent," calling the economist a "very calm, measured guy." Back in 2009, he noted that Hatzius' analysis was "spot on."

    Krugman recently touted a note that Goldman's team put out on the subject of "policy uncertainty." Republicans (and business leaders) often argue that uncertainty created by the Obama administration's excessive regulations have prevented companies from hiring new workers.

    Hatzius disagreed. "[W]e do not believe that the economy's poor performance has been caused by an exogenous increase in policy uncertainty," he wrote. The note includes a chart showing that an index measuring uncertainty tracks closely with the economic output gap. "[M]uch of the increase in policy uncertainty is probably a consequence of economic weakness, rather than its cause," he wrote, knocking down an argument that is frequently espoused by conservative politicians.

    In early October, Hatzius expressed dismay that Congress would let the $126 billion payroll tax cut expire, arguing that it would likely counteract the boost from QE3. "We are surprised that neither party has seriously challenged the case for fiscal retrenchment," he wrote. He added: "While we agree that the U.S. government will ultimately need to tighten its belt, a big move in a restrictive direction still looks decidedly premature to us."