The financialization of American economy is manifested in many aspects.
With the increasingly close combination of finance and politics, economic financialization has become an important feature of American economy. 1999, the United States passed the Financial Modernization Act, which opened the door for the mixed operation of financial institutions. In 2006, the bankruptcy law was amended, which obviously tightened the personal bankruptcy standard. All these reflect the interests of the American financial industry and are the result of its growing strength. At the same time, the U.S. government is also more dependent on the strength of the financial industry. Former US Treasury Secretary Rubin and current Treasury Secretary Paulson are both from Wall Street. After the "9. 1 1" incident, the American government encouraged people to expand their consumption, and consumer behaviors such as lending money to buy a car and rescheduling mortgage loans were once considered patriotic.
There are many manifestations of American economic financialization. 1990, the proportion of the output value of the broad financial industry in the United States to GDP was 18%, surpassing the manufacturing industry for the first time, and this proportion rose to 20.4% in 2003. In 2002, the assets of American financial industry were $37.9 trillion, $42 trillion in 2003 and $45.3 trillion in 2004. At present, the market value of American financial enterprises accounts for about 1/4 of the total market value of American stock market, and its profits account for 40% of the total profits of American enterprises. The debt scale of the United States has soared, and many debts have been transformed into various securities through securitization, which has poured into the financial market continuously and stimulated the prosperity of the financial market. At present, US national debt is 8.3 trillion US dollars, local government debt is 1.73 trillion US dollars, corporate debt is 8.5 trillion US dollars, and household debts such as consumer loans and housing mortgage loans are about 13.2 trillion US dollars. By the end of 2005, the US bond market reached $25 trillion, surpassing the stock market. Foreign capital is an important force in the American financial market. At present, the foreign investment in the United States is 3.3 trillion dollars more than that in the United States, and more than half of the US Treasury bonds are in the hands of foreign investors. The assets purchased by foreign countries in the United States, especially financial assets, increased year by year, reaching11300 million dollars in 2002, 280 billion dollars in 2003 and 399 billion dollars in 2004.
In the modern economy, the growth and development of any industry depends on the support of the financial industry. At present, the core of American economic activities is not mainly the production of material products, but more the management, flow and appreciation of wealth such as financial assets. This trend of virtualization means that the development of the financial sector far exceeds that of the real economy sector, and the financial sector maximizes its value through self-creation and recycling.
The wave of financial liberalization in the United States continues to advance, the integration of information technology and financial industry is increasingly close, and financial innovative products emerge one after another. Especially in the1990s, with the soaring stock market, financial derivatives such as futures, options and swaps expanded rapidly. Since 2000, the real estate market in the United States has continued to heat up, and the securitization of related assets such as housing mortgage loans has become a new hot spot in the financial market. The vigorous financial innovation provides increasingly rich financial products, meets the diversified needs of investors, and enhances the attractiveness and vitality of the financial market.
After the "9. 1 1" incident, the United States generally adopted loose macroeconomic policies, which stimulated the recovery and growth of the American economy by keeping interest rates low and reducing taxes, which was objectively conducive to the expansion of financial markets. In particular, the low interest rate has promoted the continuous warming of the American real estate market and the rapid development of housing mortgage and its securitization. Moreover, in recent years, the speed of currency issuance in the United States has obviously accelerated. Since 1998, the growth rate of M2 in the United States has been continuously higher than that of GDP, and there has been an oversupply of money. A large amount of surplus funds poured into the financial market in pursuit of profits, which directly expanded the scale of the financial market. At the same time, all kinds of consumer credit have been expanding, which has deepened consumers' dependence on the financial industry. In a "debt society" like the United States, financial institutions as creditors will inevitably become more and more important and influential, and this view has gradually become the common sense of American economists.
Economic financialization has enhanced the overall strength of the American economy.
Economic financialization has greatly enhanced the overall strength of the American economy and has become one of the important foundations for maintaining and consolidating America's "one superpower" status. On the whole, the depth, breadth and liquidity of the financial market in the United States are better than those in Europe and Japan, which enables the United States to continuously absorb funds, make up for the gap caused by the "twin deficits" and support the sustained economic growth. Macroeconomic departments such as the Federal Reserve are more mature in using financial markets to regulate economic operation, and the ability of American enterprises to manage and disperse various operational risks by using financial markets has been greatly improved. The vigorous financial innovation has consolidated America's position as a global innovation center. The rise of venture capital provides strong support for the development of information industry.
Economic financialization has also made the United States gain huge economic benefits in the process of leading economic globalization. For many years, the United States has been burdened with a high and growing trade deficit, has been selling its own assets, and has been borrowing from countries around the world. From 1986 to 1988, the United States changed from a creditor country to a special debtor country. Because of its unique position as a liquidity guarantor and a global reserve currency printer, the United States has made a net profit from its ever-increasing total negative foreign assets. The depreciation of the dollar has enabled the United States to benefit from the biggest loser-foreign holders of American assets. The import of the United States is closely related to the exchange rate of the US dollar, while the export of the United States has a low correlation with the US dollar. The depreciation of the dollar has caused great losses to American asset holders and American trading partners. Foreigners buying American assets and lending to American borrowers offset the net outflow of dollars caused by the US trade deficit. The whole world is buying American bonds with low yields and different maturities. According to the estimation of American experts, in the past few decades, the rate of return on foreign direct investment in the United States was more than 400 basis points higher than that in the United States. More than 75% of the foreign assets held by the United States are not denominated in dollars, which means that if the dollar depreciates, the assets held by the United States will appreciate and the liabilities will depreciate. No wonder Wolff, a doctor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, said that the United States is like a hedge fund that likes to operate in debt, and its profit is much higher than the interest paid.
In the long run, economic financialization has also increased the instability, speculation and risk of the American economy. There is even a view in the United States that the United States may be following the footsteps of Rome, Spain, Portugal, Britain and other empires, all of which are heading for crisis and decline in high debt. In particular, there is a stock market bubble in the American economy. In 200 1 year, the American stock market bubble burst and the market value lost about 4 trillion dollars. There is a credit bubble in the American economy. At present, the total debt of American government, enterprises and households has reached more than 300% of its GDP. There is a real estate bubble in the American economy. In the past six years, the growth rate of real estate in the United States was 5 percentage points higher than that of GDP in the same period, and the cumulative increase of house prices exceeded 35%. There is still a dollar bubble in the American economy, and the huge "twin deficits" in the United States shows that the downside risks of the dollar are accumulating. According to the data of the International Monetary Fund, the dollar is still overvalued by more than 15%. How to effectively resolve these risks is a difficult problem that the United States must face for a long time.
Throughout the world's economies, economic financialization is not a unique phenomenon in developed countries, and some developing countries have also shown signs of economic financialization. In fact, the financial crisis in East Asia and the financial turmoil in some Latin American countries are largely due to the fact that the pace of financial liberalization in these countries is divorced from the reality of their own economic development and is too advanced, especially the lack of effective financial supervision. Compared with the United States and other developed countries, the development of China's financial industry is still in the initial growth stage. On February 27th, "Black Tuesday" was the first time that China stock market was linked with the global market. In a sense, the influence of China's capital market on the world is gradually increasing, but objectively speaking, the role of China's stock market is very limited. As Paulson said in an interview with Japanese media such as Sankei Shimbun on March 6th, "most of China's capital markets are not directly related to other markets in the world". At present, our main contradiction is still the problem of insufficient finance. It is necessary to speed up the reform of the financial system, vigorously promote the construction of modern financial system and system, vigorously expand financial innovation, improve the multi-level and diversified banking system, further develop the capital market, expand the scale and proportion of direct financing, deepen the reform of the insurance industry, improve the efficiency of financial operation and the operating efficiency of financial enterprises, and comprehensively improve the competitiveness and service level of the financial industry. We should draw lessons from the positive and negative aspects of international economic financialization, attach great importance to preventing excessive financialization that may occur in growth, promote the construction of financial supervision capacity, strengthen the construction of financial rule of law, resolve possible systemic financial risks, and promote the sound and rapid development of China's economy.