经济学之7个致命的谎言.docx

Foreword 前言
Warren Mosler is a rare bird: a self-taught economist
who is not a crank; a successful investor who is not a blowhard;
a businessperson with a talent for teaching; a financier with a
true commitment to the public good.
We have co-authored testimony and the occasional article,
and I attest firmly that his contributions to those efforts
exceeded mine.
沃伦 · 莫斯勒是一种稀有的人：自学成才的经济学家，他不是怪人；他是一个成功的投资者，他不吹牛；他是一个具有教学天赋的商人；一个能把事实真相告诉公众的金融家。
我们有共同撰写的证词和偶尔写的文章，并且我坚定地证明他在这方面成就超过了我。
Many economists value complexity for its own sake. A
glance at any modern economics journal confirms this. A
truly incomprehensible argument can bring a lot of prestige!
The problem, though, is that when an argument appears
incomprehensible, that often means the person making
it doesn’t understand it either. (I was just at a meeting
of European central bankers and international monetary
economists in Helsinki, Finland. After one paper, I asked a
very distinguished economist from Sweden how many people
he thought had followed the math. He said, “Zero.”) Warren’s
gift is transparent lucidity. He thinks things through as simply
as he can. (And he puts a lot of work into this - true simplicity
is hard.) He favors the familiar metaphor, and the homely
example. You can explain his reasoning to most children (at
least to mine), to any college student and to any player in
the financial markets. Only economists, with their powerful
loyalty to fixed ideas, have trouble with it. Politicians, of
course, often do understand, but rarely feel free to speak their
own minds. 他尽可能简单的思考问题（他在这方面做了大量工作，真正的简单很难）。他喜欢熟悉的隐喻，朴实的示例。你可以把他的道理讲给大多数儿童（至少对我) ，讲给任何大学的学生，以及任何在金融市场上的人；唯独经济学家，他们有强大而忠诚的固定观念，就会遇到麻烦；政客们，当然，常常是明白的，但很少有说出自己的想法的自由。Deadly Innocent Fraud #1:
The federal government must raise funds through
taxation or borrowing in order to spend. In other
words, government spending is limited by its ability
to tax or borrow.
Fact:
Federal government spending is in no case
operationally constrained by revenues, meaning
that there is no “solvency risk.” In other words,
the federal government can always make any and all
payments in its own currency, no matter how large
the deficit is, or how few taxes it collects.
致命的谎言1号：
联邦政府必须通过税收或借款为其支出融资。换句话说，政府支出受到税收和借款能力的限制。
事实真相：
联邦政府支出无论如何不会在业务上受限于税收，它没有“偿付能力风险”。换言之，联邦政府总能用他自己的货币支付所有任何款项，不管赤字有多么大，也不管税收有多么少。

Ask any congressman (as I have many times) or private citizen how it all works, and he or she will tell you emphatically that: “…the government has to either tax or borrow to get the funds to spend, just like any household has to somehow get the money it needs to spend.” And from this comes the inevitable question about healthcare, defense, social security, and any and all government spending:
How are you going to pay for it???!!!
去问任何一个国会议员（我碰到过很多次），或者普通公民，这一切都是如何运作的？他或她会坚定地告诉你：“… 政府要花钱，无非是通过税收或借款，就像任何家庭一样，通过某种方式拿到需要花的钱。”由此不可避免地引出了关于医疗保健、 国防、 社会保障和全部政府支出的问题：
你打算如何付钱？？？！！！
This is the killer question, the one no one gets right,
and getting the answer to this question right is the core of
the public purpose behind writing this book.
In the next few moments of reading, it will all be revealed
to you with no theory and no philosophy- just a few hard cold
facts. I answer this question by first looking at exactly how
government taxes, followed by how government spends.
How does the Federal Government Tax?
这是致命的问题，一个没人清楚的问题，正确回答这个问题是我写这本书的公共目的核心。接下来，它会向你透露几个冷冰冰的事实，不用理论，不用哲学。我来回答这个问题，首先讨论政府的税收,然后讨论政府如何支出。

联邦政府如何收税？
Let’s start by looking at what happens if you pay your taxes by writing a check. When the U.S. government gets your check, and it’s deposited and “clears,” all the government does is change the number in your checking account “downward” as they subtract the amount of your check from your bank balance. Does the government actually get anything real to give to someone else? No, it’s not like there’s a gold coin to spend. You can actually see this happen with online banking - watch the balance in your bank account on your computer screen. Suppose the balance in your account is $5,000 and you write a check to the government for $2,000. When that checks clears (gets processed), what happens? The 5 turns into a 3 and your new balance is now down to $3,000. All before your very eyes! The government didn’t actually “get” anything to give to someone else. No gold coin dropped into a bucket at the Fed. They just changed numbers in bank accounts - nothing “went” anywhere.
让我们首先来看看如果你签署支票，缴纳税款以后会发生什么。美国政府拿到你的支票后，会被储蓄和清算，政府做的全部事情是“向下”更改您的支票帐户中的数字，作为从你的银行余额中扣除你支票上的数量。政府把什么真实的东西给别人了吗？没有，这与花费一枚金币不同。实际上，你可以在网上银行看到这件事——从计算机屏幕上看看你的银行账户的余额。假设您的帐户中的余额为 5000 美元，你给政府开了一张 2000 美元的支票。当支票清算时（有个过程），会发生什么事情？那个 5 变成了 3 ，你的新余额现在下降到 3000 美元。所有事情就在你眼前 ！政府实际上没给其他的人任何东西。没有金币掉进在美联储的桶里，他们只是改变了银行账户中的数字——没有什么“去”任何地方。

And what happens if you were to go to your local IRS office
to pay your taxes with actual cash? First, you would hand over
your pile of currency to the person on duty as payment. Next,
he’d count it, give you a receipt and, hopefully, a thank you for
helping to pay for social security, interest on the national debt,
and the Iraq war. Then, after you, the tax payer, left the room,
he’d take that hard-earned cash you just forked over and throw
it in a shredder.
那么，如果你拿现金到当地的美国国税局办事处缴税，会发生什么？首先，你会把一堆钞票交给值班的人作为付款。接下来，他会点数，再给你一张收据，并感谢您帮助支付社会保障、 国家债务和伊拉克战争的利息。然后，你这个纳税人就离开了这个房间，然后他就拿起这些你辛辛苦苦挣来的钱，扔进碎纸机。

Yes, it gets thrown it away. Destroyed! Why? There’s no
further use for it. Just like a ticket to the Super Bowl. After
you enter the stadium and hand the attendant a ticket that was
worth maybe $1000, he tears it up and discards it. In fact, you
can actually buy shredded money in Washington, D.C.
So if the government throws away your cash after
collecting it, how does that cash pay for anything, like Social
Security and the rest of the government’s spending? It doesn’t.
是的，拿到它并扔掉它。摧毁了 ！为什么？没有再使用它。就像橄榄球超级杯大赛的一张门票，当您进入体育场时，你把这张可能花了1000美元购买的门票交给服务员，他撕碎它，并扔掉。事实上，你在华盛顿特区可以买到切碎了的钞票。那么，是不是政府扔掉你的现金以后再拣回来，为何不拿这些钱去花在如社会保障和其他政府的开支上？不！不是这样。
How the Federal Government Spends
Imagine you are expecting your $2,000 Social Security
payment to hit your bank account, which already has $3,000
in it. If you are watching your account on the computer
screen, you can see how government spends without having
anything to spend. Presto! Suddenly your account statement
that read $3,000 now reads $5,000. What did the government
do to give you that money? It simply changed the number in
your bank account from 3,000 to 5,000. It didn’t take a gold
coin and hammer it into a computer. All it did was change
a number in your bank account by making data entries on
its own spreadsheet, which is linked to other spreadsheets
in the banking system. Government spending is all done by
data entry on its own spreadsheet called “The U.S. dollar
monetary system.”
联邦政府如何开支
想象您期待的2000美元的社会保障，打到了你的银行帐户，它里面原先就已经有了 3000 美元。如果您正在计算机屏幕上监视您的帐户，您可以看到政府开支是什么也不需要的。看 ！突然间，你的银行账户由3,000 美元变成了 5,000 美元。政府给你那笔钱他做了什么？它仅仅是简单的修改您的银行帐户中的数字，由 3000 至 5000。它没有把金币放进电脑。它所做的全部工作就是在它自己的电子账本上输入数据，修改您的银行帐户上的数字，这和银行系统的电子账本是相连的。政府支出都是通过在自己的电子账本上输入数据，这叫做“美元货币系统”。
Here is a quote from the good Federal Reserve Bank
Chairman, Ben Bernanke, on 60 Minutes for support:
SCOTT PELLEY: Is that tax money that the Fed
is spending?
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE: It’s not tax money.
The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the
same way that you have an account in a commercial
bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the
computer to mark up the size of the account that
they have with the Fed.
这里引用美联储主席本·伯南克在“60 分钟”节目里讲的一段话为证：
斯科特·佩利：美联储花的钱是税钱吗？
伯南克主席：它不是纳税人的钱。银行在美联储有账户，很像你在商业银行有个账户。所以，向银行贷款，我们只需在美联储的计算机上标记一下他们账户里的数字的大小。
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank is telling us in
plain English that they give out money (spend and lend) simply
by changing numbers in bank accounts. There is no such thing
as having to “get” taxes (or borrow) to make a spreadsheet
entry that we call “government spending.” Computer data
doesn’t come from anywhere. Everyone knows that!
美联储主席以简洁的英文告诉我们，他们花钱（支出和借款）只是简单地改变一下银行账户中的数字，完全没有所谓“获得”的税款（或借款）进入到我们称之为“政府支出”的电子账户上。计算机数据不是从哪儿来的，每个人都知道 ！
Where else do we see this happen? Your team kicks a field oal and on the scoreboard, the score changes from, say, 7 points to 10 points. Does anyone wonder where the stadium got those three points? Of course not! Or you knock down 5 pins at the bowling alley and your score goes from 10 to 15. Do you worry about where the bowling alley got those points?
Do you think all bowling alleys and football stadiums should have a ‘reserve of points’ in a “lock box” to make sure you can get the points you have scored? Of course not! And if the bowling alley discovers you “foot faulted” and lowers your score back down by 5 points, does the bowling alley now have more score to give out? Of course not!
我们看到这种事情会发生在别的地方吗？你们美式足球队踢进了一个球，记分板的分数要更改，比方说，由说 7 分改为 10 分。有谁会不知道这球场从那里得到了这 3 分吗？当然不是 ！你在保龄球馆击倒了 5 个瓶，你的分数由 10 分变成 15 分。你会担心保龄球馆从哪里得到这些分数吗？你会认为所有的保龄球馆和足球馆应该都有“储备的分数”“锁”在箱子里，以确保您可以获得你得的分数吗？当然不是 ！如果保龄球馆发现你“脚步犯规”，扣掉了你 5 分，现在保龄球馆没有更多的分数给了吗？当然不是 ！
We all know how data entry works, but somehow this has gotten turned upside down and backwards by our politicians, media, and, most all, the prominent mainstream economists. Just keep this in mind as a starting point: The federal government doesn’t ever “have” or “not have” any
dollars.
我们都知道输入数据是如何工作的，但不知何故，我们的政治家、媒体、和大多数著名的主流经济学家，把这给弄颠倒了。只需记住这一点作为起点： 联邦政府不可能“有”或“没有”任何美元。
It’s just like the stadium, which doesn’t “have” or “not have” a hoard of points to give out. When it comes to the dollar, our government, working through its Federal agencies, the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Treasury Department, is the score keeper. (And it also makes the rules!)
　　它好像是一个大球场，它不会“有”或“没有”窖藏的分数给出来。就美元来说，我们的政府，通过其联邦机构，美联储和美国财政部，做了一个记分员。（它还可以制定规则 ！）
You now have the operational answer to the question:
“How are we going to pay for it?” And the answer is: the
same way government pays for anything, it changes the
numbers in our bank accounts.
现在，您已经有了关于“我们打算如何付钱？”这一问题的答案，它就是：政府什么也不用付，他只是改变我们的银行账户中的数字。
The federal government isn’t going to “run out of money,” as our President has mistakenly repeated. There is no such thing. Nor is it dependent on “getting” dollars from China or anywhere else. All it takes for the government to spend is for it to change the numbers up in bank accounts at its own bank, the Federal Reserve Bank. There is no numerical limit to how much money our government can spend, whenever it wants to spend. (This includes making interest payments, as well as Social Security and Medicare payments.) It encompasses all government payments made in dollars to anyone.
联邦政府不会落到“把钱花完”的地步，——如同我们的总统多次错误地重复的那样。没有这样的事情，也不是依赖于中国或其他地方“获得”美元。所有需要的政府支出仅仅是去自己的银行里，改变一下银行账户中的数字。我们的政府可以花多少钱，没有任何数值的限制（这包括利息，也包括社会保障和医疗保险的支付）。它包括所有用美元付款的政府支出。
This is not to say that excess government spending won’t possibly cause prices to go up (which is inflation). But it is to say that the government can’t go broke and can’t be bankrupt. There is simply no such thing.1
这并不是说，过多的政府支出没可能导致价格上涨 (即通胀）。这是说政府不可能破产，不可能倒闭。很简单，没有别的。
So why does no one in government seem to get it? Why does the Ways and Means Committee in Congress worry about “how we are going to pay for it?” It could be that they believe the popular notion that the federal government, just like any household, must somehow first “get” money to be able to spend it. Yes, they have heard that it’s different for a government, but they don’t quite believe it, and there’s never a convincing explanation that makes sense to them.
那么，为什么好像政府中没有一个人理解它呢？为什么国会的筹款委员会也担心“我们如何付钱”的问题呢？这可能是他们相信联邦政府如同任何家庭一样，必须以某种方式先拿到钱才能花费的流行思想的缘故。是的，他们听说过，这与政府不一样，但他们不完全相信它，并永远不会有令人信服的、对他们有意义的解释。
What they all seem to miss is the difference between spending your own currency that only you create, and spending a currency someone else creates. To properly use this common federal government/household analogy in a meaningful way, we next look at an example of a “currency” created by a household.
　　他们全部所有的错误在于区分花费你自己创造的钱，和花费别人创造的钱。我们有目的地使用这个把共同的联邦政府比喻成家庭的办法，接下来看一个由家庭创造的“货币”的例子。
The story begins with parents creating coupons they then use to pay their children for doing various household chores. Additionally, to “drive the model,” the parents require the children to pay them a tax of 10 coupons a week to avoid punishment. This closely replicates taxation in the real
economy, where we have to pay our taxes or face penalties. The coupons are now the new household currency. Think of the parents as “spending” these coupons to purchase “services” (chores) from their children. With this new household currency, the parents, like the federal government, are now the issuer of their own currency. And now you can see how a household with its own currency is indeed very much like a government
with its own currency.
故事的开头是父母创造了奖券，用于支付给他们的孩子做各种家务。此外，为了“驱动模型”，家长要求孩子们每周缴纳 10 张奖券以便免于处罚。这近似于复制了实体经济的税收，我们必须纳税，否则会被判罚。奖券现在是新的家庭货币，认为父母“花费”这些奖券从孩子那里购买他们的“服务”(杂务）。这个新的家庭货币系统中，父母就好比联邦政府，现在是他们自己货币的发行者。现在您可以看到，具有它自己的货币的家庭是如何确实很像一个拥有自己货币的政府。
Let’s begin by asking some questions about how this new household currency works. Do the parents have to somehow get coupons from their children before they can pay their coupons to their children to do chores? Of course not! In fact, the parents must first spend their coupons by paying their children to do household chores, to be able to collect the payment of 10 coupons a week from their children. How else can the children get the coupons they owe to their parents?
让我们首先询问一下这个家庭的新货币系统是如何工作的几个问题。是不是父母必须事先以某种方式从子女那里得到奖券，以便支付给他们的孩子，让他们做家务？当然不是 ！实际上，父母必须先花费奖券，支付给他们的孩子做家务，然后才有可能每周收集到10张奖券（的税收）。孩子们还有别的办法得到属于他们父母的奖券吗？
Likewise, in the real economy, the federal government, just like this household with its own coupons, doesn’t have to get the dollars it spends from taxing or borrowing, or anywhere else, to be able to spend them. With modern technology, the federal government doesn’t even have to print the dollars it spends the way the parents print their own coupons.
同样地，在实体经济中，联邦政府，就像这个有自己奖券的家庭，不必通过征税或借款，获取它花费的美元，或者通过其他方式，才有能力花费。用现代技术，联邦政府甚至不用印刷美元，而父母要印刷他自己的奖券。
Remember, the federal government itself neither has nor doesn’t have dollars, any more than the bowling alley ever has a box of points. When it comes to the dollar, our federal government is the scorekeeper. And how many coupons do the parents have in the parent/child coupon story? It doesn’t matter. They could even just write down on a piece of paper
how many coupons the children owe them, how many they have earned and how many they’ve paid each month. When the federal government spends, the funds don’t “come from” anywhere any more than the points “come from” somewhere at the football stadium or the bowling alley. Nor does collecting taxes (or borrowing) somehow increase the government’s
“hoard of funds” available for spending.
请记住，联邦政府本身既不会没有钱，也不会有钱，好比保龄球馆根本就没有储存分数的箱子一样