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Government Debt and You
美国国债你我他
Meet Uncle Sam. He has a lot of bills to pay, almost four trillion dollars' worth every year. Uncle Sam's income is a little over two trillion dollars per year. To make up the difference, the deficit, he does what most Americans do: he borrows money.
这是山姆大叔。他有很多帐单要付，每年将近四兆美金。山姆大叔每年的收入比两兆美金多一些。要弥补那差距，也就是赤字，他做了大部分美国人做的事：他借钱。
When Uncle Sam takes out a loan, he calls it a bond. Bonds can be held by banks, investors or even foreign governments. Uncle Sam has to promise to pay interests on these bonds, just as you do on any loan you take out.
当山姆大叔去贷款，他称之为公债。公债可以为银行、投资人或甚至外国政府所持有。山姆大叔必须保证支付这些公债的利息，就像是你对任何的贷款一样。
Ever think about paying your mortgage with your credit card? That's exactly what Uncle Sam does! He takes out new loans, new bonds, so that he can make payments on the old ones. All those loans, and especially all that interest adds up.
你可曾想过用信用卡支付房贷？那正是山姆大叔所做的事情!他借新的贷款、发行新的公债，因此他可以支付旧的款项。所有那些贷款，特别是那利息堆叠起来。
Right now, Uncle Sam owes about fourteen trillion dollars. To put that in perspective, fourteen trillion is about the same as National GDP: the total value of all the goods and services produced by American economy in an entire year. It's such a huge amount of money that Uncle Sam is starting to run out of people to borrow from. And he is having trouble just paying the interest on his loans.
现在，山姆大叔积欠了大约十四兆美金。正确说来，十四兆美金大约就跟美国国内生产毛额一样：也就是所有美国经济体一整年所生产的货物和服务总值。这是笔大数目，因此山姆大叔开始没人可以借贷。而他就连支付贷款利息都有问题了。
The obvious solution would be to either cut spending or increase taxes. But if he cuts spending, the people that he's spending money on, would complain that they don't have money to spend, and that he was hurting the economy. If he tried to raise taxes, enough to close this gap, not only would people definitely have less money to spend, he'd probably have riots on his hands.
显而易见的解决方案要不就是减少支出，要不就是增加税赋。但如果减少支出，他花钱照顾的人民，会抱怨没钱可以花，而且那样他是在伤害经济。若是他试着提高税赋，高到足够消弭这差距，不但人民绝对会缺钱可用，他可能还会给自己招来暴动。
So, Uncle Sam chooses the easy way to make money: just make it. He calls up the Federal Reserve, which is our Central Bank, and like magic, Dollars are created and deposited into banks all around America. The problem is that the more of something there is, the less its worth. Same goes for the US Dollar. The more Dollars there are, the less each one will buy. That's why commodities like gasoline, food and gold become more expensive when Uncle Sam does his money-making magic. The commodities aren't really worth more. Your money is just worth less. That's called Inflation.
所以，山姆大叔选择了比较简单的方式来生钱：就是印钞票。他通知美国联准会，也就是我们的中央银行，然后就像是魔术一般，美金被生产出来存到全美国的银行。问题是有越多的某种东西，它的价值就越低。对美金来说也是。有越多的美金，它能买到的东西就越少。那就是为何当山姆大叔玩弄他的印钞票魔术时，像是汽油、食物和黄金等商品就变得更贵。这些商品没有真的变得更有价值。只是你手中的钱价值降低了。那叫做通货膨胀。
Remember the foreign governments that lent money to Uncle Sam? When they lent money to the American government, something interesting happened. It made the US look richer, and their countries look poorer. When a country looks poorer compared to America, one dollar of our money buys a lot of their money. So they can pay their workers only a few pennies a day. With such low labor costs, they can sell their products to America for lower prices than any American manufacturer can. The easiest way for American companies to compete, is to move their factories overseas, and pay their workers a few pennies a day too. This contributes to a recession.
记得借钱给山姆大叔的外国政府吗？当他们借钱给美国政府时，有趣的事情发生了。它使美国看起来更有钱，而他们自己的国家看起来更穷了。当一个国家看起来比美国穷时，我们的一块美金可以买很多他们的钱。所以他们能够一天只付给工人几分钱。用这么低的劳工成本，他们能够以比任何美国制造商还要低的价钱将产品卖到美国。美国公司要竞争最简单的方法，是把他们的工厂迁到海外，一天也付给他们的员工几分钱。这造成经济哀退。
Americans lose their jobs, stop paying taxes and start collecting government benefits, like Medicaid, under unemployment. This means that Uncle Sam has even less income and even more expenses. At the same time, the people who still have jobs are desperate to keep them. So they tend to do more work but not to get paid any more. When your dollars are worth less, and you're not earning more of them, that's called Stagflation. And this is why Uncle Sam is in Catch-22.
美国人失去工作，停止缴税并开始领政府福利，像是医疗补助，在失业的情况下。这意味着山姆大叔有更少的收入和更多的开销。同时，那些还有工作的人拼着老命也要保住饭碗。所以他们趋向于做得更多而没领到更多。当你的美金贬值，而你没赚更多，那叫做“停滞性通膨”。而这就是为何山姆大叔处于左右为难的局面。
He can't raise taxes or cut spending without making the recession worse. And he can't have the Federal Reserve create more money without making inflation worse. For now, he can keep on borrowing money, but since he can't even pay the interest on the loans he already has, it just makes his inevitable bankruptcy even worse.
他无法提高税赋或减少支出而不加重经济哀退。还有他不能让联准会印更多钞票而不加重通膨。现在，他能够继续借钱，但既然他连已有的贷款利息都付不出来，那只是让他无可避免的破产情况更加恶化。
Whether it's in two months or two years, the day will come when Uncle Sam can no longer pay his bills. When that happens, the banks, investors and foreign governments who are counting on that money, won't be able to pay their bills.
不管两个月或是两年之内，总有一天山姆大叔再也无法付他的利息。当那发生时，依靠那笔钱的银行、投资人和外国政府，将没办法付他们自己的帐单。
You see, just like Uncle Sam, governments, banks and corporations don't actually have much money. Mostly, all they have is debt to each other. If one link in the debt chain stops paying, defaults, the whole thing falls apart. If investors can't pay their bills, corporations won't be able to pay their employees. If banks can't pay their bills, you won't be able to take out a loan, use a credit card, or even withdraw your savings. If foreign governments can't pay their bills, their own banks and corporations will have the same problems. That's called a Global Economic Collapse.
你看，就像是山姆大叔一样，政府、银行和企业其实不是真的很有钱。大多时候，他们拥有的只是彼此间的债务。如果这债务链中有一环停止付款，违约，全面崩溃。如果投资人不能买单，企业便无法支薪。如果银行不能买单，你将无法贷款、使用信用卡或甚至提领存款。如果外国政府不能买单，他们自己的银行和企业也将会有相同的问题。那叫做“全球经济崩溃”。
It's never happened before. So nobody really knows how bad it will be; how long it will last; or even how we'll eventually get out of it. The house of cards has already been built. There's no painless way to dismantle it now. All we can do is to educate each other about what's actually going on, and to prepare for what may be very extraordinary circumstances.
这从来没发生过。所以没人真的知道它会有多严重；它会持续多久；或甚至我们最后要如何脱困。这纸板糊的房子已建造了。现在没有无痛的方式可以拆除它。所有我们能做的只是互相教育了解真正在发生的事情，并准备面对可能会非常令人惊奇的情势。
注解：Catch-22这个term原本用在美国空军。在二次大战时，轰炸机飞行员出任务九死一生，军法规定出50趟任务便可以退役返乡。但军方一再借故延长飞行员的飞行次数，于是造成大家不满。许多飞行员开始借故装病或是假装发疯，规避出任务。于是，军方定下这条条例叫做“Catch 22”，也就是第22条条款，说明如果精神上有不适任者，只要“亲自提出申请”，便可由军医评鉴退伍。但这条款中却有一条诡计...军医对于那些自行提出申请的飞行员，既然能够提出申请，都评定为有行为能力，没有人可以通过鉴定。于是日后大家便引用“Catch-22”为左右两难、进退维谷的局面。
