IF YOU don’t own your citizens’ loyalty, perhaps you can rent it for a while. That seems to be the mantra of Arab regimes at the moment. Throughout the Middle East and north Africa, they are showering their citizens with money and gifts, like Hosni Mubarak’s policemen hosing down protesters with water cannon in Tahrir Square.
看起来，眼下阿拉伯各政权的咒语便是：如果公民的忠诚并不为你所拥有，那么你也许可将它租来一用。在中东和北非各地，政府正像胡斯尼•穆巴拉克
(Hosni Mubarak)
的警察在解放广场用水炮喷洒抗议者一样，将金钱和礼物洒向本国的公民。
Governments in the region have long controlled prices of food and fuel. If you fix domestic prices and world pricesrise, subsidies will increase even if the regime does nothing. Egypt keeps bread prices at a few cents a loaf. With wheat prices soaring, Mr Mubarak promised that bread would stay cheap, raising subsidies which now run at over $2 billion a year. The new government can hardly break his promise.
长久以来，该地区的政府控制着食品和燃料的价格。如果国内价格保持固定，而国际价格走高的话，即便政府不采取行动，补贴也将增加。埃及将面包价格保持在每条几分钱。随着小麦价格的飙升，穆巴拉克承诺面包仍将保持廉价，这使补贴增长到如今的每年
20
亿美元以上，而新政府也很难打破这一承诺。
Fuel subsidies are bigger. In 2009 they amounted to roughly $150 billion in the Middle East and north Africa. Oil then cost just over $60 a barrel. It is now almost double that, so if prices were to stay at the same level regional fuel subsidies would rise to almost $300 billion this year. That is 7.5% of the area’s GDP, a vast amount. The only way to prevent such a jump would be to increase domestic fuel prices. But no countries have been brave enough to risk that except Qatar and Iran.
燃料补贴的规模则更大。
2009
年，中东和北非地区的燃料补贴总量约为
1500
亿美元。当时，每桶石油的价格才刚过
60
美元，而如今油价则几乎翻番，因此，燃料价格若是保持在原有水平上，则该地区的燃料补贴将在今年升至近
3000
亿美元。这相当于该地区
GDP
的
7.5%
，是一笔大数目。防止此类激增的唯一方法是提高国内燃料价格，但除了卡塔尔和伊朗之外，还没有哪个国家有足够的勇气去冒险。
Governments are not merely sitting by, watching existing subsidies shoot up. To buy off economic discontent, they are introducing new handouts. The commonest is the old-fashioned wage rise. Saudi Arabia is boosting public-sector pay by 15% as part of a $36 billion spending splurge. Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Oman and Syria are all raising wages or benefits for public employees, though whether the 150% pay rise for Libyan civil servants will actually be paid is another matter. The wage increases in Jordan and Syria are worth 0.4-0.8% of GDP, which is not trivial. In addition Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, the king of Bahrain and the emir of Kuwait are offering one-off handouts to stop people demonstrating. These are princely, worth $4,000 per person in Kuwait and $2,500 per family in Bahrain.
政府并非仅仅坐观现有补贴的激增，它们为了收买经济方面的不满者，还在引入新的恩惠。最普通的做法是老一套的加薪。沙特阿拉伯正为其公共部门加薪
15%
，此举是该国
360
亿美元大规模开支的一部分。埃及、约旦、利比亚、阿曼以及叙利亚也都在为公务员增加工资或福利，不过，利比亚公务员
150%
的加薪究竟能否兑现，则要另当别论。约旦和叙利亚的加薪规模相当于
GDP
的
0.4%
—
0.8%
，这个比例可不小。此外，利比亚的穆阿迈尔•卡扎菲、巴林国王以及科威特埃米尔为了阻止民众示威，正在发放一次性福利。在科威特，这些慷慨恩惠价值人均
4000
美元，而在巴林则为每户
2500
美元。
Some governments have added shiny new subsidies. Kuwait, for example, is offering free food to everyone for 14 months. Bahrain says it will dish out up to $100m to help families hit by food inflation.
某些政府还增加了令人眼前一亮的新补贴。例如，科威特正为所有人提供
14
个月的免费食品；而巴林则宣布将向受食品涨价冲击的家庭发放高达
1
亿美元的援助。
Many more are boosting social-welfare schemes. Jordan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen have each increased the budgets of national programmes that give cash and benefits to the poor by just under 0.5%of GDP. Such programmes typically account for 2% of GDP, so the extra spending increases the size of the schemes by a quarter. A few countries have cut taxes on food or fuel to offset price rises. Lebanon, for example, has cut fuel excise tax by over 1% of GDP.
更多的政府正在强化社会福利计划。约旦、叙利亚、突尼斯以及也门都已增加了向贫困人口发放现金和福利的国家项目预算，增幅略低于
GDP
的
0.5%
。而此类项目一般占
GDP
的比重为
2%
，因此额外支出使计划规模扩大了四分之一。少数几国已对食品或燃料减税，以此抵消价格的上涨。例如，黎巴嫩已对燃油消费税进行了削减，降幅超过
GDP
的
1%
。
But far and away the most lavish sums are being spent or proposed by oil and gas exporters on infrastructure. Inevitably,the grand-daddy of such proposals is Saudi Arabia’s. The government is talking about increasing investment by half a trillion dollars, on top of the $36 billion stimulus plan. Algeria is proposing to spend $156 billion on new infrastructure projects between now and 2014, plus $130 billion on projects already under way. Oil-flush Abu Dhabi says it will finance more infrastructure projects in the poorer princedoms that make up the United Arab Emirates. The speaker of the UAE’s parliament says the state’s sovereign-wealth fund should disburse a further $40 billion to stimulate the economy and cut interest rates.
但数量最为庞大的资金则被油气出口国用于（或提议用于）基础设施建设，其规模令前述开支相形见绌。此类提案中的巨无霸必然仍出自沙特政府之手。该国政府正在谈论在
360
亿美元刺激计划的基础上，再增加
5000
亿美元投资。阿尔及利亚正在提议从现在起至
2014
年，在新建基础设施方面投入
1560
亿美元，此外还对在建项目投入
1300
亿美元。石油丰富的阿布扎比宣布，将在构成阿联酋的较为贫困的酋长国中，为更多的基础设施项目提供资金。阿联酋议会议长表示，该国主权基金应再提供
400
亿美元，以刺激经济，减低利率。
It is too early to gauge the effect of all these measures. To the regimes implementing them, the political results matter most. These look modest. Wage and subsidy rises did not save Mr Mubarak. First reactions to Saudi Arabia’s spending splurge have also been dismissive, to judge by social-media sites. “They are still stuck with the old mentality: giving away money!” said one. On the other hand, the measures may have bought time for the regimes there, and in Bahrain, Jordan and Syria.
对所有这些措施的效果加以衡量尚且为时过早。对于实施这些措施的政权而言，其政治结果才是最重要的。而在这一方面，它们看起来效果平平。薪水与补贴的增加并未能挽救穆巴拉克；而由社交媒体网站的情况判断，人们对沙特巨额支出的最初反应也是嗤之以鼻。其中一家网站写道：“他们还是抱着老一套观念不放：给钱！”而另一方面，这些措施或许已为沙特、巴林、约旦和叙利亚的政权换取了时间。
The economic effects look clearer. Most governments probably have enough money to spend. Saudi Arabia certainly does. Each $1-a-barrel increase in the price of oil adds about $3 billion to the Saudi treasury, implying that the increase in oil prices this year could add roughly $100 billion to revenues. Saudi Arabia is also increasing oil production, so it could spend even more.
经济方面的效果则更加明显。大部分政府或许都有足够的资金用于开支。沙特就肯定不会出现入不敷出的情况：油价每桶上涨
