财税茶座

经济学人： I t has been   a terrible year to be bullish on China. The   CSI  300 index of Chinese stocks has dropped by 13% so far in 2023, to below the level reached during the last of the country’s severe covid-19 lockdowns. Difficulties in the property market are prompting corporate defaults. The lacklustre outlook for economic growth, combined with the need to manage capricious autocratic leadership at home and uncertain relations with big trading partners, makes for a miserable financial climate. 对于看好中国来说，今年是糟糕的一年。 2023 年迄今为止，中国股市沪深 300 指数已下跌 13%，低于该国上次严重的 covid-19 封锁期间达到的水平。房地产市场的困难正在促使企业违约。经济增长前景黯淡，加上需要管理国内反复无常的独裁领导层以及与大型贸易伙伴的不确定关系，导致金融环境悲惨。 This is also a recipe for enormous capital outflows. Foreign investors, who once had boundless enthusiasm for China, are rushing for the exits. So are numerous wealthy Chinese individuals. According to the Institute of International Finance, a think-tank, there have been cross-border outflows from the country’s stocks and bonds for five consecuti

  I n 1790 america’s   finances were in a precarious state: debt-servicing costs were higher than revenues and government bonds traded at 20 cents on the dollar. Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first treasury secretary, wanted a deep and liquid market for safe government debt. He understood the importance of investor confidence, so proposed honouring all debts, including those of states, and offering to swap old debt, at par, for new bonds with a lower interest rate. This was controversial. Shouldn’t speculators who picked up cheap debt in secondary markets be paid less? Yet Hamilton could not be swayed: “When the credit of a country is in any degree questionable, it never fails to give an extravagant premium, in one shape or another, upon all the loans it has occasion to make.” 1790 年，美国的财政状况岌岌可危：偿债成本高于收入，政府债券的交易价格为 20 美分。该国第一任财政部长亚历山大·汉密尔顿希望为安全的政府债务建立一个有深度且流动性强的市场。他了解投资者信心的重要性，因此提议兑现所有债务，包括各州的债务，并提出将旧债务按面值换成利率较低的新债券。这是有争议的。在二级市场获得廉价债务的投机者不应该得到更少的报酬吗？然而汉密尔顿无法动摇：“当一个国家的信用出现任何程度的问题时，它

O bese people   experience discrimination in many parts of their lives, and the workplace is no exception. Studies have long shown that obese workers, defined as those with a body-mass index ( BMI ) of 30 or more, earn significantly less than their slimmer counterparts. In America, several state and local governments are contemplating laws against this treatment. On November 22nd, one such ban came into force in New York City. 肥胖者在生活的许多方面都会受到歧视，工作场所也不例外。长期以来的研究表明，肥胖工人（体重指数 (bmi) 为 30 或以上的工人）的收入明显低于苗条工人。在美国，一些州和地方政府正在考虑制定法律来反对这种待遇。 11 月 22 日，一项此类禁令在纽约市生效。 Yet the costs of weight discrimination may be even greater than previously thought. “The overwhelming evidence,” wrote the Institute for Employment Studies, a British think-tank, in a recent report, “is that it is only women living with obesity who experience the obesity wage penalty.” They were expressing a view that is widely aired in academic papers. To test it,  The Economist  has analysed data concerning 23,000 workers from the Am