刺破房地产泡沫会造成经济危机吗？

 转自吴敬琏主编的《比较》杂志公众号：比较 

 

今年的房地产“去库存”演变成了“民怨沸腾”的房价暴涨，加剧了房地产市场的“泡沫化”。《比较》第75辑曾发表了刘遵义教授的文章，讨论刺破房地产泡沫是否会危及经济。此文放在两年后的当下，更具现实意义。刘遵义在文章中指出，当前房地产市场明显供过于求，但价格依然居高不下，是因为房地产商和地方政府等既得利益者，以刺破房价将危及经济为由，阻碍房价下调。

 

针对这一论点，刘遵义分析了刺破房地产泡沫对宏观经济的影响，他认为刺破房价泡沫对虽然对就业、GDP和金融体系会有负面影响，但这些影响都在可控范围之内。同时，针对刺破房价泡沫对自住房房主的财富影响，他提出了抵押贷款再融资的建议，并用案例进行了详细的数字说明。这也体现了他长期以来作为政策建议者对细节和政策可行性的特别关注。

文/刘遵义
 

引言
 

越来越多的证据表明，中国几乎所有大小城市的住宅都存在显著的超额供给。住宅的实际用电量数据表明，在很多城市，已出售（非开发商所有）但未入住的住宅占住宅总量的比率至少达25%。如果再加上开发商持有的未出售（因而未入住）住宅，一些城市的空置率甚至高达40%。显然，在一些城市很多年内不应再新建住宅，当然住宅也不应保持在当前的价格水平上，这是大多数本城居民无力承担的。继续建造居民无力承担而攻击大量过剩的住宅完全是对社会资源的浪费。

 

面对如此庞大的超额供给，中国的房价为什么没有下降，或者说没有较快下降呢？为什么市场没有像十八届三中全会决议中提倡的那样发挥决定性作用呢？这说明有很多不同的强大利益集团支持房地产价格保持在目前的水平上，但支持的原因各不相同，下面将会讨论。然而是否每个原因都与中国社会整体的最大利益相一致，这是值得商榷的。

 

反对刺破房地产泡沫的理由
 

尽管几乎所有人都意识到当前的房价水平不可持续，那么，是什么原因使房地产泡沫保留至今呢？首先，地方政府最重要的财政收入来源就是他们所控制的土地，因此，他们想让土地价格处于高位并不断上涨。地方土地价格要保持高位并不断上涨，当地的房地产价格就必须保持高位并不断上涨，这转而依赖于当地保持高位并不断上涨的对住宅的需求。这也是为什么引入小额房产税会受到地方政府大力阻挠的原因，尽管长期来看他们可能是该税种的受益者。他们害怕引入房产税在短期内会对当地房地产（特别是住宅）的需求造成负面影响。地方政府通过想方设法抬高房地产价格，包括保持可用于新开发的地块的高价，或限制向市场提供土地，或劝阻开发商降价，更重要的是，通过利用政府在当地银行系统的影响力确保银行继续向房地产开发商提供贷款。现在刺破房地产泡沫就会剥夺地方政府最重要的收入来源，那些在地方政府心目中最有可能带动当地GDP和就业的经济活动就会停滞。

 

其次，房地产开发商也不想让他们的产品价格下降，这将直接影响他们的收入和利润。只要能够获得贷款，即使高达20%的年利率，他们也会选择待价而沽，而不会降价。不必用全额现款购买土地的开发商或许能够坚持更长时间。为了不降价，房地产开发商给出了荒诞不经的理由：如果他们的新楼盘降价，那些购买旧楼盘的消费者会要求退款，或至少要求返还价差。这个理由完全站不住脚：照此逻辑，所有商品和服务以及股票和债券的价格都不能下降，因为先前的购买者会要求返还差价。如此一来，市场上就不会有任何灵活的价格下降。另外，这也提出了一个问题，当商品和服务的价格上涨时，其供给者是否有权向之前的消费者索取差价。

 

一个明显的事实是，很多城市的住宅需求不可能随时快速上升。住宅的过剩供给在很长一段时间内不会消失。因此，房地产开发商堆积越来越多的债务只会令问题的最终解决变得更加困难和痛苦，不仅对开发商，对贷款方和最终的购房者也一样。开发商如果想在房地产周期中存活下来，眼下需要的不是更多的债务，而是更多的资本。

 

另一个被提出来解决住宅供给过剩的想法是加快城镇化步伐，吸引居住在农村地区的居民迁入城镇并入住那些空置住房。然而，除非这些新的城镇居民有能够产生稳定收入的职业，否则他们进城会带来更多的问题。

 

现在刺破房地产泡沫可能会导致一些开发商破产，特别是小开发商，事实上，这一结果迟早会发生，因为很多城市的房地产市场存在庞大的过剩供给。此外，没有人能期望房地产开发商返还价差。

 

再次，银行和金融机构也不想看到房地产价格下降，这将会降低未偿贷款的抵押房产的价值，甚至可能使之低于贷款本身。这意味着，贷款银行可能不得不提高其贷款损失的准备金，并可能需要增加新的资本。这也意味着，借款方手上会有“负资产”，这可能会导致贷款违约进而提高不良贷款的绝对值和比例。此外，即使银行和金融机构可以成功收回违约借款人作为抵押品的房产，并在市场上成功拍卖，他们也将遭受一笔损失，该损失相当于抵押品市场价值和未偿贷款额之间的差额。如果房地产价格下跌幅度足够大，可能会造成房地产贷款的大面积违约，那些向开发商和房主集中发放贷款的银行和金融机构的清偿力和生存能力将受到影响。因此，刺破房地产泡沫必须谨防整个金融体系的稳定性受到影响。最好的情况就是将房地产抵押贷款从贷款银行和金融机构的资产负债表中剥离出来。

 

最后，现在的房主和已经向开发商预付房款的未来房主，可能会担心房地产价格明显下降给自己带来“负资产”。他们的财富会减少，由于负的财富效应，这可能会导致消费降低。然而，如果一个房主只拥有自住房，这一效应基本上存在。不管自住房的价格上升还是下降，自住房房主的效用是不变的——房子还是同一所房子。自住房房主的住房消费支出的估算值变化了，但房主的净福利保持不变。因此，自住房房主的财富效应可能很小。对出于投机目的拥有多套房子的房主，财富效应可能会大一些。然而，现在不刺破房地产泡沫任由其变大，当它不可避免地破裂时会给每个人带来更大的经济损失。对于中低收入的自住房房主，住房很可能是他（她）唯一最值钱的资产。这些房主在经受价格冲击时应该接受一定程度的援助。

 

当下住宅房地产价格高、空置率高的情况显然是不可持续的。试图抬高住宅房地产价格会带来道德风险，这会使开发商和投资者确信住宅地产是单向的、没有风险的投机。此外，如果现在不挤出泡沫中的空气，住宅房地产的高价至少还会持续一段时间，这会吸引房主们进行更多的新投资，致使价格泡沫越吹越大。开发商不得不为现有贷款支付极高的利率，因而背负更多的债务，他们不得不持续支付的高利率会很快侵蚀他们所持有的资产净值。当开发商需要延期归还贷款时，贷款银行和金融机构就会产生越来越多的不良贷款，即使它们不再向购房者提供新的贷款。当泡沫不可避免地破裂时，一次更大的金融危机会接踵而来。越早应对住宅房地产的问题，就越容易解决它。所以，必须允许房地产价格泡沫破裂，但要以一种不过度伤害房主且不会令银行和金融机构遭受过度破坏的可控方式。

 

刺破房地产泡沫对宏观经济的影响
 

如果房地产泡沫被刺破，将会对整个经济造成怎样的影响？首先，对实际GDP增长率的影响其实是相当小的。正如房地产价格的上升不会增加实际GDP和就业本身一样，房地产价格的下降就其本身而言也不会减少实际GDP和就业。然而，房地产开发商和所有者的财富会下降。这可能会造成总体消费的下降，这就是所谓的财富效应。有关财富效应大小的经验证据并不充分，而且严格依赖于财富分配——财富分配越不平等，财富效应就越小。总之，财富效应对中国的自住房房主来说并不会太大。

 

当然，如果房地产泡沫破裂，开发商会停止进一步的开发，这会给当地的GDP和就业带来负面影响，但是，鉴于中国几乎所有城市都出现了大量的过剩住宅，这正是应该做的。中央政府此时最不应该做的就是鼓励开发商开发更多的住宅，非常廉价的住房可能是例外。实际上，一个可能不错的想法是，收紧开发商可用的信贷迫使房地产价格下跌至更合理的水平。中国经济负担不起新一轮的房地产扩张潮。

 

第二，房地产泡沫破裂会导致部分开发商和抵押贷款房主的贷款违约。贷款银行和金融机构会发现它们的房地产贷款抵押不足，不良贷款的数额和比例上升。它们需要提留更多的损失准备金，或者增加资本或者缩减资产，以满足资本充足率要求。然而当所有泡沫最终破裂时，这也一定会发生。不过香港和台湾的经验（例如，1997—1998年东亚金融危机期间）表明，自住房抵押贷款的违约率非常低，因此，完全有可能让贷款方和借款人达成适当的再融资方案。另外抵押不足的贷款可以被出售。一旦贷款银行和金融机构的资产负债表得到清理，它们就有能力为中小企业等值得支持的借款人提供贷款，目前，房地产贷款“挤出”了中小企业贷款。

 

第三，房主会因泡沫破裂遭受明显的损失，有些是变现的有些是未变现的。这些损失会影响他们的消费和投资行为。然而，中央政府的当务之急应该是，确保自住房房主不出现违约和不被贷款人止赎，能够继续住在自己的房子里，并尽可能以不引发道德风险且财政上负责任的方式来补偿自住房房主的损失。

 

关于自住房房主抵押贷款再融资的一个建议

应该把重点放在帮助房主上，特别是自住房房主而不是投机者，在刺破房地产泡沫时，他们的财富受到破坏。很多人最终持有负资产，即他们的房产所背负的债务高于其市场价值。然而，通过帮助房主，贷款银行和金融机构（包括住房公积金）也会因手中的不良贷款较少而受益。

 

基本的思路是，政策性银行以较低固定利率的长期抵押贷款为自住房房主提供再融资，从而将不良贷款从原来的贷款银行和金融机构的资产负债表中剥离出来。这通常有助于降低房主持续的经济负担，为持有负资产的房主提供一种减少负资产的方式。为降低部分银行和金融机构的道德风险，它们必须持有5%的新增贷款直至到期，并对未来任何贷款损失的前5%负责。基于自住房的要求，每位房主只可以进行一次再融资，即使他们拥有多套住房。另外，这类再融资有最大额的约束，因为目标受益者为中低收入房主。

 

我们首先考虑没有负资产的房主，因此只有房产价值的减值。抵押品本身对贷款银行来说依然是足值的。像国家开发银行这样的政策性银行将贷款银行和金融机构买入合格的自住房抵押贷款，并以较低的固定利率（例如说以4.5%而不是6.5%的年利率）和长期（比如说从15年到35年）的贷款对其再融资。由于低息和长期，就现值而言，再融资相当于对借款人的补助和单方面的转移支付。这有助于缓冲房地产价格下跌给借款人带来的冲击。另外，通过再融资，借款人每月的现金流将会显著增加，还本付息后可能会剩下更多的钱用于增加当前消费。从政策性银行的角度来看，它能以准主权债的利率（比如4%的年利率）融资，即使购入这些再融资贷款也可以有一个正的利差。因此，并不需要财政补贴。

 

我们来考虑一个具体的例子。假设一套自住房买入时的价格为150万元，合适的分期偿付抵押贷款额为100万元（价值的66.67%为贷款）。最初的抵押贷款固定利率为6.5%，期限为15年，则月付款额为8711.07元。如果这笔贷款能够再融资为4.5%的固定利率和35年的期限，月付款额就降为4732.57元，这相当于在前15年房主月付款额减少了（也就是月现金流的增加）3978.50元。按照7.5%的贴现率折为现值，对抵押贷款的再融资最终使借款房主获益237784.69元。

 

因此，如果房产价格下跌30%至105万元，这套住房的市场价值依然超过未偿贷款额。再融资相当于对借款房主一次性拨款237784.69元。房主的净损失总额（未变现的）等于212215.31元（1,500,000 - 1,050,000 - 237,784.69），相当于最初买入价的14.15%。因此，借款房主的净损失通过再融资方式被有效减少了一半以上。

 

对于持有负资产的自住房房主，即未偿付抵押贷款额超过房产的市场价值，贷款方就存在抵押品不足额的问题。如果它们取消抵押品赎回权，并将房产放到市场上出售，则需要承担一笔相当于抵押品不足额的损失。因此任何能够让它们减少损失的处理方式都会大受贷款方欢迎。这里建议让最初贷款方吸收一半的负资产值。这是因为他们首先犯错发放了过多的原始贷款，因此应该要求他们分担解决问题的成本。如果允许他们不受惩罚地逃避问题，将引发道德风险，将来这类错误还会不断重演。尽管贷款银行要吸收一半的负资产，该方案仍然有其优势，因为银行不用承担全部损失。此外，它会把再融资的抵押贷款卖给政策性银行，除了前5%的损失外，其他损失都会从它的资产负债表中剥离。它将有一个清洁的资产负债表用于支持其他贷款。

 

与此同时，借款人将得到本金少、利率低、期限长的再融资贷款，其经济负担就会减轻。他实际上会从再融资中获益，尽管他可能仍有负资产，但他的现金流明显增加。他由此避免了可能的违约，并能像以前一样继续住在同一所住宅里。

 

我们再考虑一个具体的例子。假设住房的市场价格下降至75万元，跌幅为50%，因此借款房主有25万元的负资产（贷款银行有等额的抵押品不足额）。贷款银行被要求吸收50%的抵押品不足额，即12.5万元，因此未偿付的抵押贷款净额为87.5万元。如果该款项以4.5%的固定利率和35年的期限进行再融资，月付款额就会降至4141元，相当于房主在前15年每月少支付了（也就是月现金流的增加）4570.07元。按照7.5%的贴现率折为现值，未偿贷款本金的减少和对抵押贷款的再融资最终使借款房主获益325523.27元。这相当于对借款房主一次性拨款325523.27元。房主的净损失总额（未变现的）等于424476.73元（1 500000 - 750000 - 325523.27），相当于最初买入价的28.3%。因此，借款房主的净损失通过初始贷款银行的债务减计和再融资被有效减少了43.4%。虽然房主在房产净值回升之前依然持有负资产，但可以避免其房产被止赎，同时现金流显著增加使其可以如愿增加消费。

 

初始贷款银行会有怎样的收益呢？它可以通过向政策性银行出售抵押不足的贷款来剥离不良资产。另外，银行可以作为政策性银行再融资贷款的服务机构收取服务费，而不必占用银行自身的资本。假设贷款银行每年对再融资贷款收取20个基点的服务费，35年后，它会获益7%，超过了它必须持有的5%的新增贷款。此外，银行还可以通过它拥有新贷款的5%，从获得借款人支付的总利息的5%。

 

配套措施

 

刺破房地产泡沫时，应该采取配套措施以提振房地产市场低迷波及到的建筑和建材部门的不景气。可以建造公共基础设施，比如公交系统、高铁、中小学、专科院校、大学、医院以及环境治理、保护和恢复工程。也可以推进和资助教育、医疗及养老等公共消费。然而，建造更多高价住宅完全没有意义——唯一该建的房子是廉价房。

为区分自住房和非自住房，有必要制定并实施产权和授信实名制，以确保没有人能够欺诈或反复利用再融资政策。另外，应该实行全国性的地籍调查，并为房地产制定全国性的所有权集中登记系统，防止欺骗行为。

 

住宅房地产业的一些规则需要改革。例如，应该允许预付款房主在银行和金融机构设立第三方托管账户。房地产开发商只有按期建成住房并交付使用许可证才能从第三方托管账户中提取房款。预付款房主自己也不能从第三方托管账户中提走房款，除非开发商拖延完工及交付房产的日期。这样的安排可以消除很多房地产买卖中的风险和可能的纠纷。有了预付款房主的第三方托管账户，银行可能愿意为有良好记录且经验丰富的开发商提供建设融资。

 

政策性银行能够以准主权债券利率融资，它可以发行35年期固定年利率为4%的债券。因此，它可以从银行和金融机构买入合格的再融资抵押贷款，支付服务费后依然有微小的利差来覆盖成本，不需要中央政府提供财政补贴。这些长期债券的潜在购买者包括国内外的国家级和省级的社会保障基金、养老基金和慈善基金。

 

当银行和金融机构出售了再融资住房抵押贷款后，就可以有新的贷款能力以为其他部门的活动融资，包括被房地产部门挤出的借款者。这有助于增加中对小企业的信贷供给。

 

结束语
 

建议在中国一个住房空置率较高的城市进行试点，允许房地产价格根据当地市场情况进行调整。运用再融资的备选方案帮助中低收入的自住房房主。该方案还有助于降低当地的收入和财富分配不平等程度。 这不仅能使中低收入房主在房地产泡沫破裂中幸存，也可以增加他们的当期消费。

 

然而，实行这一试点方案的最佳时机是房地产价格明显下跌的同时或者稍后，而不是之前。如果这一方案在当地房地产价格下跌之前实行，实际上可能会导致更大的房地产泡沫，由于可以获得低息长期的住房抵押贷款，潜在的借款人的购买力就会增加。

 

来源：比较；作者：刘遵义、香港中文大学校长、斯坦福大学国际研究所、胡佛研究中心荣誉高级研究员。

President George W. Bush's speech at the Flight 93 memorial service

 Thank you very much. Laura and I are honored to be with you. Madam Vice President, Vice President Cheney. Governor Wolf, Secretary Haaland, and distinguished guests:

Twenty years ago, we all found -- in different ways, in different places, but all at the same moment -- that our lives would be changed forever. The world was loud with carnage and sirens, and then quiet with missing voices that would never be heard again. These lives remain precious to our country, and infinitely precious to many of you. Today we remember your loss, we share your sorrow, and we honor the men and women you have loved so long and so well.

For those too young to recall that clear September day, it is hard to describe the mix of feelings we experienced. There was horror at the scale -- there was horror at the scale of destruction, and awe at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it. There was shock at the audacity -- audacity of evil -- and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it. In the sacrifice of the first responders, in the mutual aid of strangers, in the solidarity of grief and grace, the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people. And we were proud of our wounded nation.

In these memories, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 must always have an honored place. Here the intended targets became the instruments of rescue. And many who are now alive owe a vast, unconscious debt to the defiance displayed in the skies above this field.

It would be a mistake to idealize the experience of those terrible events. All that many people could initially see was the brute randomness of death. All that many could feel was unearned suffering. All that many could hear was God's terrible silence. There are many who still struggle with a lonely pain that cuts deep within.

In those fateful hours, we learned other lessons as well. We saw that Americans were vulnerable, but not fragile -- that they possess a core of strength that survives the worst that life can bring. We learned that bravery is more common than we imagined, emerging with sudden splendor in the face of death. We vividly felt how every hour with our loved ones was a temporary and holy gift. And we found that even the longest days end.

Many of us have tried to make spiritual sense of these events. There is no simple explanation for the mix of providence and human will that sets the direction of our lives. But comfort can come from a different sort of knowledge. After wandering long and lost in the dark, many have found they were actually walking, step by step, toward grace.

As a nation, our adjustments have been profound. Many Americans struggled to understand why an enemy would hate us with such zeal. The security measures incorporated into our lives are both sources of comfort and reminders of our vulnerability. And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.

After 9/11, millions of brave Americans stepped forward and volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces. The military measures taken over the last 20 years to pursue dangers at their source have led to debate. But one thing is certain: We owe an assurance to all who have fought our nation's most recent battles. Let me speak directly to veterans and people in uniform: The cause you pursued at the call of duty is the noblest America has to offer. You have shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark places. You have been a force for good in the world. Nothing that has followed -- nothing -- can tarnish your honor or diminish your accomplishments. To you, and to the honored dead, our country is forever grateful.

In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days seem distant from our own. A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together.

I come without explanations or solutions. I can only tell you what I have seen.

On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know.

At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know.

At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw Americans reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation I know.

At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service and rise to selfless action. That is the nation I know.

This is not mere nostalgia; it is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been -- and what we can be again.

Twenty years ago, terrorists chose a random group of Americans, on a routine flight, to be collateral damage in a spectacular act of terror. The 33 passengers and 7 crew of Flight 93 could have been any group of citizens selected by fate. In a sense, they stood in for us all.

The terrorists soon discovered that a random group of Americans is an exceptional group of people. Facing an impossible circumstance, they comforted their loved ones by phone, braced each other for action, and defeated the designs of evil.

These Americans were brave, strong, and united in ways that shocked the terrorists -- but should not surprise any of us. This is the nation we know. And whenever we need hope and inspiration, we can look to the skies and remember.

God bless.

'Window Is Rapidly Closing' to Gather Evidence on Virus's Origins, Scientists Say

 Experts studying the origins of the coronavirus for the World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the inquiry had “stalled” and that further delays could make it impossible to recover crucial evidence about the beginning of the pandemic.

“The window is rapidly closing on the biological feasibility of conducting the critical trace-back of people and animals inside and outside China,” the experts wrote in an editorial in the journal Nature. Several studies of blood samples and wildlife farms in China were urgently needed to understand how COVID-19 emerged, they said.

Amid a rancorous debate about whether a laboratory incident could have started the pandemic, the editorial amounted to a defense of the team’s work and an appeal for follow-up studies. A separate report by U.S. intelligence agencies into the pandemic’s origins was delivered to President Joe Biden on Tuesday, but did not offer any new answers about whether the virus emerged from a lab or in a natural spillover from animals to humans.

The international expert team, sent to Wuhan, China, in January as part of a joint inquiry by the WHO and China, has faced criticism for publishing a report in March that said a leak of the coronavirus from a lab, while possible, was “extremely unlikely.”

Immediately after the report’s release, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said the study had not adequately assessed the possibility of a lab leak.

Virus experts have leaned toward the theory that infected animals spread the virus to people. In the editorial published Wednesday, the expert team reiterated calls to test the blood of workers on wildlife farms that supplied animals to Wuhan markets, to see if they carried antibodies indicating past coronavirus infections. The team also recommended screening more farmed wildlife or livestock that could have been infected. (The editorial also notes, somewhat pessimistically, that many Chinese wildlife farms have been closed and their animals killed since the pandemic emerged, making evidence of early spillover from animals to humans hard to come by.)

The team pointed to a recent report showing that markets in Wuhan had sold live animals susceptible to the virus, including palm civets and raccoon dogs, in the two years before the pandemic began, and argued that the weight of evidence behind a natural spillover was greater than that for a lab leak.

Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virus expert and co-author of the editorial, described it in an interview as a “cry for urgency.”

“We were getting a little concerned that there really is virtually no debate about the bulk of the recommendations that are not related to the lab hypothesis, and of course there’s a lot of discussion of the lab story, particularly coming from the U.S.,” she said. “Our concern is that because of that emphasis, the rest doesn’t get any more attention.”

To identify the first cases of the virus, Koopmans said, scientists also needed to examine blood specimens from late 2019 before they are thrown away. The expert team received assurances on its visit to Wuhan that blood banks there would keep samples beyond the usual two-year period, she said, but has still not received access to them.

The Chinese government has stopped cooperating with investigations by the WHO, making it difficult to assess any theories about the virus’s origins.

Michael Ryan, a WHO official, criticized China at a news conference Wednesday for pushing unproven ideas suggesting that the coronavirus escaped from a U.S. military lab.

“It is slightly contradictory if colleagues in China are saying that the lab leak hypothesis is unfounded in the context of China, but we now need to go and do laboratory investigations in other countries for leaks there,” Ryan said.

He said, however, that Chinese scientists had reported beginning some of the follow-up studies recommended by the international expert team.

The editorial on Wednesday also raised concerns about delays at the WHO. The organization said this month that it would form an advisory group to study the emergence of new pathogens, and that the group would support inquiries into the coronavirus. The editorial warned that this new layer of bureaucracy “runs the risk of adding several months of delay.”

Tedros said Wednesday that establishing the advisory group “will not delay the progress of the studies into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.”

The WHO said it was already working to verify studies into the earliest known cases outside China.

America ignores its wars and soldiers, except for useless hero-worship. Our deaths cost nothing.

 It was a brisk morning on Nov. 9, 2007. I was stationed at Bella, a U.S. Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan. Two of our squads were returning from patrol, less than a mile away. The Taliban ambushed them. As other soldiers and I fended off the Taliban’s assault on our base, we heard our ambushed brothers shouting over our radios. We were ordered to stay, to protect the base. Strategy, we were told. I listened to the Taliban murder my friends.

We held a memorial service a few days later. Immediately after: Move on, we were told, we’ve got patrol. We buried our fallen that day; we put our humanity into the ground too.

Even as teenagers and 20-somethings, we understood. This war was unwinnable. I questioned then as I question now: Did my friends die for nothing? Is our blood that cheap?

Our foes in Afghanistan clarified why it was unwinnable. Intercepted radio chatter confirmed we fought Afghanis, Pakistanis, and Chechens. We got the impression the Chechens fought us to train against the Russians. And, aside from Afghanistan’s immense rare earth metal deposits, China is likely going to officially recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government because Chinese leaders will want to avoid a proxy war on their border. Smart.

Afghanistan remains a proxy war battleground. The graveyard of empires.

Invisible in Afghanistan

I returned to Los Angeles on midtour leave in 2008. Surprised acquaintances would ask: We’re still in Afghanistan? I should tell them about my unit, I thought. No running water. Choking down expired food. Killing and eating mountainside animals. Burning our waste. All while defense firms charged us for meals in inaccessible kitchens. Yes. We were still there, but we had become invisible.

America’s civil-military divide enables us to comfortably ignore our wars. This is easily proven: Ask an American how many countries we are bombing. Few know. Or look to the lack of national response when the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had long manipulated information to justify continuing our war in Afghanistan. The blood of our wars is cheap. This devaluation of life is a creature of privilege – and it is lethal.

Veteran: Enough with America's 'thank you for your service' culture. It's betrayal, not patriotism.

Our civil-military divide is simple. The military is a family affair. Less than 1% of Americans serve in the military, many of them have family who served. Of that 1%, about 10% have seen combat, perhaps only once. We ask the few to execute the foreign policy of the many, call them heroes, and then ignore them – like during COVID-19's outbreak. This strategy made a 20-year war politically affordable and financially profitable.

Winners and losers

Since Sept. 11, 2001, America’s top five defense firms’ stock values have soared, an analysis by The Intercept found. Boeing’s stock value has increased 974.97%. Lockheed Martin’s? 1,235.6%. The defense stocks outperformed the stock market by 58% since 2001. America’s defense industry won our tax dollars, some taxpayers felt we avenged 9/11, others settled for detachment, but the Taliban won Afghanistan. Is this the outcome America asked my friends to die for?

If the current discourse offers any indication, many will say “yes.” They view the military as corporate stooges, victims, or colonizers. Others will say “no, our servicemembers are heroes.” A similar cultural schism is seen with our police. Except that here, reinforcing this divide does more than swamp efforts to fix America’s policing problems, it makes endless war politically affordable by absolving commentators from doing more than parroting their political ideology. Whether our armed forces are sinners or saints, they are othered, made expendable – this attitude enabled the defense industry to capture America’s once mighty budget surplus.

USA TODAY's Connie Schultz: Honoring the fallen: Their war was our war, their sacrifices were ours and it was not a waste

This state of affairs cheapens servicemembers’ lives to make war politically affordable. This privileged spiral extends from the decision against killing Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in December 2001, to my acquaintances being surprised we were still in Afghanistan in 2008, to Afghans now falling from planes. Everyone needs America’s wars to become politically expensive.

How do we increase war’s political cost? Humanize the people who serve us. Trade hero worship for empathy, at all levels. Stop drawing political divides around the lives you have a say in spending. Do more than comment. Organize. Vote. Audit the Pentagon.

The morality we spent tolerating the war in Afghanistan was perhaps our nation’s greatest casualty. Without accepting this, we will fail to protect our morality the next time war threatens it. If we fail, we will author another chapter in an American legacy embodied by Vietnam and Afghanistan. We cannot afford another loss.

Steven Kerns is a Harvard Law School graduate practicing environmental law in California. He is a former 173rd Airborne paratrooper whose Army company, the Chosen Few, fought some of the bloodiest battles of the Afghanistan War from 2007-08. Kerns is on the board of advisers for Team Afghan Power, a nonprofit that enables community development in Afghanistan’s rural villages.

I served in Afghanistan as a US Marine, twice. Here’s the truth in two sentences

 What we are seeing in Afghanistan right now shouldn’t shock you. It only seems that way because our institutions are steeped in systematic dishonesty. It doesn’t require a dissertation to explain what you’re seeing. Just two sentences.

One: For 20 years, politicians, elites and D.C. military leaders lied to us about Afghanistan.

Two: What happened last week was inevitable, and anyone saying differently is still lying to you.

I know because I was there. Twice. On special operations task forces. I learned Pashto as a U.S. Marine captain and spoke to everyone I could there: everyday people, elites, allies and yes, even the Taliban.

The truth is that the Afghan National Security Forces was a jobs program for Afghans, propped up by U.S. taxpayer dollars — a military jobs program populated by nonmilitary people or “paper” forces (that didn’t really exist) and a bevy of elites grabbing what they could when they could.

You probably didn’t know that. That’s the point.

And it wasn’t just in Afghanistan. They also lied about Iraq.

I led a team of Marines training Iraqi security forces to defend their country. When I arrived I received a “stoplight” chart on their supposed capabilities in dozens of missions and responsibilities. Green meant they were good. Yellow was needed improvement; red said they couldn’t do it at all.

I was delighted to see how far along they were on paper — until I actually began working with them. I attempted to adjust the charts to reflect reality and was quickly shut down. The ratings could not go down. That was the deal. It was the kind of lie that kept the war going.

So when people ask me if we made the right call getting out of Afghanistan in 2021, I answer truthfully: Absolutely not. The right call was getting out in 2002. 2003. Every year we didn’t get out was another year the Taliban used to refine their skills and tactics against us — the best fighting force in the world. After two decades, $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 American lives lost, 2021 was way too late to make the right call.

You’d think when it all came crumbling down around them, they’d accept the truth. Think again.

War-hungry hawks are suggesting our soldiers weren’t in harm’s way. Well, when I was there, two incredible Marines in my unit were killed.

Elitist hacks are even blaming the American people for what happened this week. The same American people that they spent years lying to about Afghanistan. Are you kidding me?

We deserve better. Instead of politicians spending $6.4 trillion to “nation build” in the Middle East, we should start nation building right here at home.

I can’t believe that would be a controversial proposal, but already in Washington, we see some of the same architects of these Middle Eastern disasters balking at the idea of investing a fraction of that amount to build up our own country.

The lies about Afghanistan matter not just because of the money spent or the lives lost, but because they are representative of a systematic dishonesty that is destroying our country from the inside out.

Remember when they told us the economy was back? Another lie.

Our state of Missouri was home to the worst economic recovery from the Great Recession in this part of the country. I see the boarded-up stores and the vacant lots — one of which used to be my family’s home. When our country’s elites were preaching about how they had solved the financial crisis and the housing market was booming, I watched the house I joined the Marine Corps out of sit on the market for two years. My dad finally got $43,000 for it. He owed $78,000.

The only way out is to level with the American people. I’ll start. With the two-sentence truth about what we are seeing in Afghanistan right now:

For 20 years, politicians, elites and D.C. military leaders lied to us about Afghanistan.

What happened last week was inevitable, and anyone saying differently is still lying to you.

'Major American Failure.’ A Political Scientist on Why the U.S. Lost in Afghanistan

 I often carry a very dog-eared book in my bag. A study of American foreign policy disasters, it’s not a cheerful volume by any means. But it often provides insight as I consider the stories Americans tell themselves about their histories, especially when it comes to how Americans position themselves in relation to rivals. The ultimate measuring stick, it turns out, is war. And as the U.S.-led efforts in Afghanistan appear to be collapsing—or have collapsed—it’s worth digging into my knapsack for this guidebook that has many, many highlighted passages, notes scribbled in the margins and wisdom that anyone watching the fall of Kabul should want to hurl at policymakers in Washington.

Dominic Tierney’s The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts is a dour assessment of U.S. military might, published in 2015. It builds on his 2010 book How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires and the American Way of War and a volume from a year earlier titled Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics. Basically, Tierney is the political scientist who studies how the U.S. in conflicts tends to aim high, achieve a narrow goal and then go home with as much dignity as possible. And core to his thesis is this question: if America is a grand experiment rooted in a national myth, what happens when Americans realize the country hasn’t lived up to the stories it told?

Tierney is the chair of the political science department at Swarthmore, a former contributor at The Atlantic and currently at The Signal. But for the purposes of this newsletter, he’s an intellectual guidepost for what is—and is not—possible under the banner of Old Glory. Far from an isolationist who would say Americans should sit out wars because they’re messy, he is strikingly honest about foreign policy’s potential.

We spoke earlier this week, and this is our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.

TIME: Did the United States lose Afghanistan?

Tierney: Did it lose in Afghanistan? I think the answer is yes. There’s no other way to characterize the overall 20-year war as anything other than a failure.

The United States didn’t lose the war in the sense that the United States was defeated and occupied, but it lost the war in the sense that the costs have been extraordinary: two-and-a-half-thousand American dead, 20,000 injured, a trillion dollars or more expended, and for what? The Taliban has now, it looks like, returned to power. So this has to go down in history as a major American failure.

But this is keeping with the pattern of American war since World War II. Your research compellingly lays out that America just hasn’t won in the post-war era. Even the one arguable win in the Gulf War is inconclusive in a lot of people’s minds. Is this the new American reality?

I think it is. A lot of people are pointing out that the defeat in Afghanistan is not just about 2021, that is a bigger story going back 20 years. And I think that that’s an important point.

But actually Afghanistan itself, the 20-year war, is part of an even bigger story in American military history that goes back to World War II. Before World War II, the United States won nearly all the major wars that it fought. And since World War II, the United States has barely won any major wars. The Gulf War in 1991 was arguably a success, although far from the clean and decisive triumph that some people remember it as.

Korea was a really tough stalemate. And since Korea, we have had Vietnam—America’s most infamous defeat—and Iraq, another major failure. And you can even add other conflicts like Libya, like Somalia.

There are many reasons for this, but the most important one is that after World War II, the nature of war itself changed. We started seeing fewer classic conventional wars between countries. Instead, nearly all wars now are civil wars, complex arenas of counterinsurgency and terrorism. When you put the U.S. against another country where there’s a military that wears uniforms and they meet on the field of battle, the U.S. usually wins those kinds of wars—like the Gulf War in ‘91. But in complex civil wars, the United States has really struggled. So the nature of war shifted just at the moment when the United States became a world power.

It’s been three-quarters of a century. Why have U.S. leaders not figured out how to navigate the shift?

There are a few things going on. The U.S. military—and maybe arguably American society—much prefers planning for these classic, conventional wars, like World War II. In some fundamental way, World War II is what Americans think war ought to look like: with a fairly clear enemy, we make progress on the battlefield and it ends with a surrender ceremony. It’s become really a museum piece of war. It is not really relevant to what war looks like. So even today we spend money on F-35 planes and fancy new ships and high-tech hardware, most of that is designed for wars that just don’t really happen anymore.

Another piece of the story is just overconfidence and hubris. When these wars begin, the United States typically has positive illusions about how the war is going to go—that it’ll be a cakewalk in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Then, of course, what happens is the wars evolve in ways that were not predicted, particularly because they often happen on the far side of the world in countries about which Americans know almost nothing. The U.S. military can destroy anything that it can see, but what if it can’t see the enemy? Then it starts having problems.

As time goes on in these conflicts, the U.S. faces a fundamental problem: the enemy is more committed to the struggle than America, because for the United States, each conflict is just one of many different challenges around the world. But for the enemy, like the Taliban, it’s the only thing that matters. There is this saying in Afghanistan that America has the watches, but the Taliban has the time. That really gets this idea that America has the capabilities, but the Taliban has greater commitment.

That’s a less-easy story to tell that does not fit in a tidy way into America’s mythology.

Not at all. All countries have myths. In some ways, national identity is a bundle of myths, and America has put great weight on its understanding of historical wars. If you go to the National Mall in D.C. and walk down the center of the Mall, the memorials that you walk past—the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial—these are the current American narrative of success. These kinds of wars are really just not what war looks like anymore. And actually, as you walk down the Mall, your peripheral vision—the Vietnam War Memorial and maybe Korea, these difficult wars that America—is actually much more of what the United States faced in recent decades. One wonders, if we ever get a War on Terror Memorial on the Mall in D.C., what that would look like.

How much of this is a failure of military planning and how much of it is just the failure to understand the political reality?

I think it’s both. The Bush-Rumsfeld team believed that the U.S. military would be like a rapier that would stamp the hearts of these enemies and then we would not need to do any nation-building and we could quickly move on to the next country, which was going to be Iraq. And then people were already thinking about a war with Iran, where we would defeat evil one at a time as the kind of righteous crusader. And of course, that was an extraordinary hubris. But even a few weeks ago, Joe Biden, who I think is much less susceptible to that kind of hubristic thinking, was saying publicly that the Afghan military was not going to collapse and that there was little danger of the Taliban sweeping across the country.

The United States is so powerful that it tends to get involved in wars on literally the far side of the world, places like Iraq and Afghanistan. When I say it knows nothing about these countries, I’m really not using hyperbole. When the U.S. intervened in Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. didn’t even have maps of the terrain. Donald Rumsfeld wrote in his memoirs that the U.S. was relying on old British Empire maps of Afghanistan. When the U.S. intervened in Iraq, we didn’t really have any understanding of the complexity of the local conflict, ethnic identities or religion. I was shocked in 2006, at the height of the Iraq War, there were a thousand Americans in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, but only six of them spoke Arabic. This type of ignorance is deadly in these kinds of complex foreign conflicts.

The remarkable thing about the Taliban advance is that it has been largely bloodless. The Taliban has made these deals with Afghan army commanders. The Taliban has a far greater understanding of these local networks and kin relationships and the complex loyalties. Now, that’s not because Americans are more ignorant than the Taliban. It’s that it is the Taliban’s own country and America could not have chosen a more challenging environment. The war was basically an alien war for America. It may as well have been on the moon.

Your framework describes a scenario where things go from crusade to quagmire. Was there a specific turning point in Afghanistan where the United States went from a noble fight rooted in justice and righteousness to just an unwinnable disaster?

It never was that righteous war. What you see with many of these American wars is this kind of arc that the war goes through where right at the start of the war, Americans have the righteousness of the crusader, and this was especially true after 9/11. It’s partly a kind of idealistic sentiment of spreading democracy and bringing hope and defeating tyranny, and frankly, the wrath of the crusader—the desire to punish evil doers, especially those who had killed American civilians on 9/11. And so the U.S. goes into a country like Afghanistan with this righteous, idealistic, moralistic fiery sword of justice. But as the war goes on and it turns into this complex, difficult nation-building mission with counterinsurgency, American righteousness tends to be replaced by this weariness.

We’ve seen with Biden in the last few months that he just wanted to end the war. He is very savvy about foreign policy and generally is aware of the complexities of it. But to a large extent, he just didn’t want to hand the problem over to the next President. And so you have the United States on one side that is going through this extraordinary shift from utter righteousness to weariness, and then the Taliban is much more constant in its view of the war. And over time that will give it an advantage.

One of the great tragedies of the Afghanistan war is that the United States could have got a much better result back in 2002 by negotiating a deal with the Taliban. In 2002, the Taliban reached out to the United States and basically said, Look, we’ve lost. If you offer us some kind of place in the new Afghanistan, we’re willing to evolve into a political party. The Bush Administration did not even consider it because at the time al-Qaeda and the Taliban were sort of lumped together in this bucket of Bad Guys, Evildoers, Nazis almost. And so we weren’t willing to kind of make a deal. If we had just had a little less righteousness in 2002 and a little more pragmatism and savviness about how the war was going to go and how there was not going to be an easy victory, then maybe we could have cut a deal, and at far lower costs for America and for Afghanistan. We could have reached not a perfect settlement, nothing like Western democracy, but something that the Afghan people could have built on.

Covid may have begun with Chinese scientist collecting bat samples, says WHO investigator

 Sarah Knapton

Thu, August 12, 2021, 11:09 AM

Field workers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology hunt for bats - Chinese Academy of Sciences

A Chinese scientist may have started the pandemic after being infected with coronavirus while collecting bat samples, the head of the World Health Organisation’s investigation has said.

In a documentary released this week by the Danish television channel TV2, Dr Peter Embarek said it was a “likely hypothesis” that a lab employee could have picked up the virus while working in the field.

Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were known to be working on bat coronavirus at labs in the city, but China has been uncooperative in providing details of their research.

Dr Embarek said WHO investigators were forced to conclude that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” in their official report to avoid further arguments with the Chinese.

He said the team had come to an “impasse” with China, which would only allow a lab leak scenario to be included in the report if there were no recommendations to look further.

“My counterpart agreed we could mention (the lab leak scenario) in the report under the condition that we wouldn’t recommend specific studies of that hypothesis. We would just leave it there.”

Asked whether the Chinese would have agreed to the report without the scenario being labelled “extremely unlikely”, Dr Embarek said: “That would have probably demanded further discussion and arguments for and against I didn’t think it was worth it.”

However, Dr Embarek said it was possible that a lab employee may have been infected in the field.

“We consider that hypothesis a likely one,” he added.

Chinese pressure

Pressure is growing on China to release documentation of work at laboratories in Wuhan and allow a thorough investigation.

A report into the lab leak scenario, which was commissioned by Joe Biden, is expected to report at the end of August, and last month the WHO called for an in-depth audit, a request that the Chinese had rejected.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said the international community urgently needed to identify how the virus outbreak erupted.

“There’s no question now that this process needs to be undertaken by the WHO. They need to come clean, as China needs to come clean, about the origins of the virus,” he said.

‘Arrogant refusal to accept the origins of the virus’

Sir Iain said millions of people had lost their lives on account of the “terrible and arrogant refusal to accept that the origins of the virus” may be linked to the Wuhan lab.

Dr Embarek, pictured below, also told the documentary team that he was concerned about a second lab, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had moved premises to just a third of a mile from the Wuhan wet market where the outbreak first emerged.

Peter Ben Embarek - Hector Retamal/AFP

“There are other labs in Wuhan that are interesting, such as CDC, which also worked with bats,” he said.

“What is more concerning to me is the other lab that is next to the market, because they were also handling coronaviruses, without potentially having the same level of expertise or safety ...

“When we were being shown around I thought it all looked new. I asked how old the lab was and they said, ‘We moved on 2 December’.

“That’s when it all started. We know that when you move a lab it disturbs all the procedures. You have to move the virus collection and the samples. That’s why that period of time and that lab are interesting.”

Lab leak theory persists

Experts in Britain said it was “plausible” that a lab employee could have brought the virus back to Wuhan, which would also fit with genetic studies showing it had jumped from an animal.

Dr Jonathan Stoye, group leader of the Retrovirus-Host Interactions Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute, said: “It sounds entirely plausible to me

“My feeling when I read the original WHO report was there was no grounds for calling it extremely unlikely so it was always slightly strange.

“I have been saying for a while that this isn’t solved, the lab link is still there and we need to know more. The question is how we go about getting more.

“To my mind, there is no evidence of manipulation of the virus, but we know these investigators have been collecting bat samples, so they could have carried something back.”

Genetic studies support both a lab leak scenario and a wild infection

Ravi Gupta, professor of microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said that current genetic studies supported both a lab leak scenario and a wild infection

“The genetics are consistent with the lab leak/field work infection scenario described by the WHO mission lead, and also consistent with infection from the wild in general by a non-lab worker,” he said.

However, other researchers said the comments did little to move the investigation forward.

“There are many possible ways the virus was transmitted to humans,” said Prof David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow,

“Peter was just referring to something that was possible. As we’ve no evidence for this, or any link to a lab-leak, it remains just speculation.”