In order to alleviate the financial pressure, some localities have lowered the salary income of civil servants to a certain extent. But he couldn't think of giving civil servants a salary cut, but he was criticized by some experts.
Experts believe that the salary cuts of civil servants will create a vicious circle, leading to an increasingly sluggish consumption and corporate investment.
Is it really not possible to consume now?
Is the reason for the failure of consumption to be the insufficient income of civil servants or the income of ordinary people?
Low or even negative growth in prices and wages has a profound impact on a country's economic development.
A deputy director of the Peking National Development Institute pointed out in a recent ** that ordinary people are Xi to this state, which will have a negative impact on the investment and consumer markets of enterprises, and then lead to an economic downturn.
I agree with this view.
To better understand this view, let's look back at Japan's past experience.
Japan has been in a state of low growth or even stagnation for a long time, and is known as a "low-desire society".
In this social context, the growth rate of prices and wages is relatively low, and people's desire to consume is correspondingly reduced. This has led to a lack of corporate investment and a weakening of the consumer market, which in turn has led to an economic downturn.
In a low-desire society, companies are cautious about scaling up production and investing in innovation because they are faced with a lack of market demand.
At the same time, consumers are also spending more cautiously due to uncertainty about the future and the instability of their incomes, reducing their demand for goods and services. This lack of consumption and investment has further dampened economic growth.
It is precisely because of this situation that Japan has fallen into deflation and fallen into an economic downturn for nearly 30 years, and we are now constantly encouraging consumption, hoping to switch the driving force of economic growth to domestic demand, in fact, to avoid this situation in our country as much as possible.
However, the expert mentioned in the interview that civil servants are now cutting salaries in some places, and those working in the financial industry are generally experiencing income reductions, and believe that this situation will affect consumption and housing investment.
I don't agree with that.
Can we attribute the increase or decrease in consumption to changes in the wages of some high-income earners?Perhaps, we need to look at this issue more holistically.
In fact, consumption does not depend entirely on the income level of civil servants and those working in the financial industry.
If we look at it from another angle, can raising the income of other industries or the income of ordinary people also lead to the growth of consumption?
Perhaps, it is precisely by appropriately reducing the wages of high-income groups and reducing the gap between the rich and the poor that consumption can be better developed.
The root cause of the downgrade in consumption may not be just the salary cuts of civil servants and the financial industry, but also related to structural problems such as unequal income distribution and widening gap between rich and poor.
If we can promote equitable income distribution through reforms and policy adjustments, consumption will be more sustainable.
Moreover, the "consumption downgrade" discussed on the Internet may actually be a misunderstanding.
This is not a decrease in the purchasing power and demand of consumers, on the contrary, it is a change in people's pursuit of life, which is reflected in the segmentation of consumption.
In recent years, people's needs for consumption have become increasingly diversified, and more and more people have begun to pay attention to enjoying life and pursuing spiritual satisfaction.
As a result, consumption is shifting from physical goods to service consumption, a trend that has changed our perception of consumption downgrade to a certain extent.
First of all, we cannot judge whether the level of consumption has been downgraded based on the volume of physical goods sold alone. With the advancement of technology and the popularity of the internet, online shopping has become a new choice for people, which has led to a decline in sales in physical stores.
However, at the same time, service consumption is showing a rapid growth trend. More and more people like to travel, performances, movies and other cultural, entertainment and sports consumption, the rise of these forms of consumption not only enrich people's lives, but also inject impetus into economic growth.
Second, the growth of service consumption has played a positive role in promoting economic development. Taking tourism as an example, China's tourism industry has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, and the increase in tourism consumption has brought huge opportunities for related industries.
The construction and management of tourist attractions, the development of transportation, catering and accommodation and other related service industries have all provided new impetus for economic growth. A similar situation exists in the fields of culture, entertainment and sports.
Looking at only some of the retail sales of goods, whether consumption has decreased and whether consumption has been downgraded is obviously too one-sided.