东京奥运会难创日本经济奇迹

    古罗马人将希腊文化改头换面变成荣耀的罗马价值观(全裸赛跑，也就是奥林匹克运动会，只是其中一个例子)之后不久，他们就想出了一个绝妙的计策来控制罗马极度担心的“暴民”。罗马上层人士轻蔑地表示，免费面包和免费比赛是让这些民众顺从满足的秘诀。

    2020年，东京将主办的奥运会正是当年这些比赛的延伸。日本首都——东京将主办这场为期28天的体育盛会，这是上周在布宜诺斯艾利斯公布的消息。日本举国上下一片欢呼。丢失的二十年或将终结，从此告别经济增长微弱，告别长期可预见的债务危机，告别消费税即将上调的挣扎，告别福岛三座核反应堆核心融毁带来的核泄漏危机。

    日本首相安倍晋三宣布，主办2020年奥运会将成为日本经济的“引爆剂”，对未来黄金新时代的期待也会推动日经指数大涨。

    但经济学家们认为，不会这么快。“面包和比赛，这是肯定的，”法政大学（Hosei University）经济学助理教授小黑一正说。“但它只会让东京少数人受益。”

    小黑一正警告称，比赛最多只能娱乐民众，我们应该透过现象看本质。“但不得不说的是，士气提升也非常重要。”

    同样，东京奥运不会给日本创造带来奇迹。小黑一正指的是，2012年伦敦奥运会和残奥会对2005年7月至2017年7月英国经济的测算影响有限，据英国劳埃德银行（Lloyds Bank）的一份报告估计为165亿英镑。

    “这个测算值接近日本东京都厅估算的2020年东京奥运会可能会在2013-2020年间带来的经济影响(3万亿日圆)，”曾经在日本财务省政策研究所担任高级经济学家的小黑一正表示。“这个影响微乎其微。”这个影响占GDP的比率还不如1964年在东京举办的日本夏奥会带来的提振效应，也不如1998年的日本长野冬奥会。

    不过，对于一个正在寻找一切借口、希望逃避思考当前问题的国家而言，这场奥运会作为一个转移视线的工具，到来的时机再好不过了。日本的公共债务早已是其5万亿美元经济规模的两倍多，中日两国围绕争议岛屿的冲突升级，遭遇超级飓风和核泄漏的地区仍在等待恢复重建。

    尽管两年前日本中央政府曾承诺将重建，但在2011年的大地震和飓风中被摧毁的东北町地区如今依然满目疮痍，似乎提醒着人们，最重要的地区是东京，而不是外围地区。

    Not long after the ancient Romans hijacked all things Greek and turned them into glorious Roman values -- races in the full nude, a.k.a. the Olympics, is just one example -- they came up with an excellent ruse to control Rome's much-feared "mob." Free bread and free games were the secret, said the cynical Roman elite, of keeping the people placid and complacent.

    In 2020, Tokyo will host the descendent of those games. Japan's capital will host the 28-day jock-fest, it was announced last weekend in Buenos Aries. All across the country, Japanese people cheered the news. Banished would be two lost decades of feeble growth, a long-foreseen debt crisis, the griping over an imminent consumer tax hike, and the leaky troubles of the Fukushima triple meltdown.

    Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that hosting the 2020 Olympics would be an "explosive agent" for the national economy, and Japan's stock exchange, the Nikkei, obligingly soared in anticipation of a golden new era.

    Not so fast, say the economists. "'Bread and circuses' it will most certainly be," says Kazumasa Oguro, an associate professor of economics at Hosei University. "That will only benefit a few in Tokyo."

    Oguro warns that, at best, the games will seduce the populace and that we should all try to see through the "spin." "But I have to say that that moral boost is rather important," he says.

    Just the same, the Tokyo games will not deliver an economic miracle to Japan. Oguro points to the limited estimated impact of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the U.K. economy between July 2005 and July 2017 -- £16.5 billion according to a Lloyds Bank report.

    "This estimate would be close to the economic impact (3 trillion yen) of the Tokyo 2020 between 2013 and 2020, which is estimated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office, Japan," adds Oguro, who previously worked as a senior economist at the ministry of finance's Policy Research Institute. "It's tiny," he says. That's a lower percentage of GDP than the boost generated by Japan's summer games in Tokyo in 1964, and even Japan's Nagano winter games in 1998.

    As a distraction, however, the Olympics couldn't come at a better time for a nation looking for any excuse to avoid thinking about its problems. Public debt is already twice Japan's $5 trillion economy, war drums are beating in Beijing and Tokyo over some far-off disputed islands, and the tsunami and nuclear meltdown-affected areas are still waiting to be reclaimed and rebuilt.

    The devastated Tohoku region, which bore a significant brunt of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, still languishes despite a promise over two years ago from the central government to rebuild the area, a reminder that Tokyo, and not the outer regions, matters most.