George Selgin on the New Deal, Regime Uncertainty, and What Really Ended the Great Depression (Ep. 257)
Hello, everyone.
大家好。
Today, I’m chatting with George Selgin.
今天，我正在与乔治·塞尔金聊天。
This is an episode of Conversations with Tyler, but we’re holding it at the Cato Institute.
这是《与泰勒对话》的一集，但我们在卡托研究所举行。
George has worked for Cato.
乔治曾为卡托工作过。
I’m a longtime associate, still on their advisory board.
我是他们的长期合伙人，仍然是他们的顾问委员会成员。
I thank Cato, our host, and we’re both honored to be here.
我感谢我们的东道主卡托，我们都很荣幸来到这里。
I’ve known George well over 40 years, which I find stunning.
我认识乔治已有 40 多年了，这让我惊叹不已。
I first learned of him through his work on free banking.
我第一次认识他是通过他在自由银行方面的工作。
He was at NYU as a grad student, and I lived nearby.
他在纽约大学读研究生，我住在附近。
He and I have had fruitful discussions for a long time, but we’ve never taped anything.
他和我进行了很长时间的富有成效的讨论，但我们从未录制过任何东西。
He has a new book out called False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947.
他出版了一本新书，名为《虚假黎明：新政与复苏的承诺，1933-1947》。
It is the best book on its topic.
这是关于该主题的最好的书。
I am proud to announce I have read all of George’s books, and they are all definitely worth reading.
我很自豪地宣布我已经阅读了乔治的所有书，它们都绝对值得一读。
George, welcome.
乔治，欢迎。
Thank you, Tyler.
谢谢你，泰勒。
Very pleased to be back here at Cato and to have a chance to have this conversation with you.
很高兴回到卡托并有机会与您进行这次对话。
On what the New Deal did and didn’t accomplish
关于新政的成就和未完成的事情
First question: if someone tried to sum up, in as simple a sentence as possible, what in the New Deal mattered, and they said, “Well, revaluing gold helped recovery a lot, and the NIRA hurt recovery a fair amount,” is that the best quick summary they could produce?
第一个问题：如果有人试图用尽可能简单的一句话来总结新政中什么是重要的，他们说：“好吧，重估黄金对经济复苏有很大帮助，而 NIRA 则对经济复苏造成了相当大的损害”，这是他们能给出的最好的快速总结吗？
Of the whole thing —
整个事情 ——
Of the whole thing.
整个事情。
— or my book?
——还是我的书？
The truth.
事实。
Your book is the truth, right?
你的书是事实，对吗？
No. I say no because a big part of the truth that that leaves out is what the New Deal didn’t do to achieve recovery.
不。我说不，是因为这遗漏了很大一部分事实，那就是新政没有为实现复苏做些什么。
This surprises many people to hear, but it made very little use of fiscal or monetary stimulus.
这让很多人感到惊讶，但它几乎没有利用财政或货币刺激措施。
I would add that, that the New Deal, whatever it was up to, did not amount to a modern-style program of economic stimulus.
我想补充一点，新政无论其目的是什么，都不等于现代风格的经济刺激计划。
But once we revalue gold, as you know, starting in 1933, you have manufacturing-output growth rates of 7 percent to 8 percent until we screw it up later on with some disinflationary pressures.
但正如你所知，一旦我们从 1933 年开始对黄金进行重估，制造业产出增长率就会达到 7% 到 8%，直到我们后来因一些通货紧缩压力而搞砸了。
How much better could we have done?
我们本来可以做得更好多少？
Wasn’t that a pretty good performance?
这不是很不错的表现吗？
It was pretty good, but it didn’t last very long.
这很好，但并没有持续很长时间。
In fact, the New Dealers knew that it wouldn’t last very long.
事实上，新政者知道这种情况不会持续太久。
There are a couple of reasons why.
有几个原因。
First of all, there was a big burst of output that was connected to the expectation that the NRA, the National Recovery Administration, was going to be coming into effect, because it was one of the early New Deal measures.
首先，产量的大幅增长与国家复兴管理局即将生效的预期有关，因为它是早期新政措施之一。
It was going to artificially raise prices through controls.
它将通过控制人为地提高价格。
There was a boom that was based only on manufacturers’ desires to jump the gun and buy inputs and produce inventory before their own costs went up.
这种繁荣只是基于制造商希望在自己的成本上升之前抢先购买投入品并生产库存的愿望。
That was part of the story.
这是故事的一部分。
Of course, when you’re coming out from the deepest depths of a depression with a banking crisis and all that, you would expect rather rapid growth to follow from the stabilization of the banking situation itself.
当然，当你从银行业危机等大萧条的最深处走出来时，你会期望银行业形势本身的稳定会带来相当快的增长。
I don’t want to deny that there was genuine progress during those early months of the New Deal, and I don’t want to deny that the New Dealers deserve credit for much of it, but it didn’t last.
我不想否认在新政的最初几个月里取得了真正的进展，我也不想否认新政的支持者在其中的大部分方面都值得赞扬，但这种情况并没有持续下去。
Of course, we all know it didn’t last.
当然，我们都知道它并没有持续多久。
Beyond that first period, once the NRA and associated programs for price controls kicked in, things started to slow down very rapidly.
在第一个时期之后，一旦全国步枪协会和相关的价格控制计划启动，事情就开始迅速放缓。
What kept the progress going after that — though at a slower rate — was mostly gold starting to rush in from Europe.
此后推动这一进展的原因是——“尽管速度较慢”——主要是黄金开始从欧洲涌入。
It was rushing in only initially because of devaluation.
最初只是因为货币贬值才涌入。
After that, it was mostly rushing in because of fears of the consequences of Hitler coming to power and the possibility of war breaking out.
此后，大多是因为担心希特勒上台的后果和爆发战争的可能性而涌入。
That’s the story of the early phase of the New Deal: a good start that didn’t last that long, except as a result of help from abroad that was quite unintentional help.
这就是新政初期的故事：良好的开端并没有持续多久，除了来自国外的无意识的帮助。
Was revaluing the gold price the best way of reflating the economy?
重估金价是经济再膨胀的最佳方式吗？
Because there were many proposals at the time.
因为当时有很多建议。
You shut down the domestic gold market as well.
你们还关闭了国内黄金市场。
Could it have been done better?
可以做得更好吗？
Yes, it could have been done better.
是的，本来可以做得更好。
I think that what should have happened was immediate devaluation of the dollar.
我认为应该发生的事情是美元立即贬值。
It was clear by the time Roosevelt took office, the gold standard, as it had been, had to be at least suspended because the New York banks had run out of gold essentially.
很明显，到罗斯福上任时，金本位至少必须暂停，因为纽约银行基本上已经耗尽了黄金。
That was not something there was much choice about.
这并不是什么有太多选择的事情。
Then the question was, “Okay, what are we going to do going forward?” As I said, what I think they should have done was to just plan on a devaluation of the dollar, get it over with as quickly as possible.
然后问题是：“好吧，我们接下来要做什么？”正如我所说，我认为他们应该做的就是计划美元贬值，并尽快结束。
You don’t announce that plan before you’ve suspended gold payments because that’s just going to make the run on gold worse.
在暂停黄金支付之前，你不会宣布该计划，因为这只会让黄金挤兑变得更糟。
Once you’ve suspended, then you can go ahead and proceed with the devaluation.
一旦暂停，您就可以继续进行贬值。
What Roosevelt did was to engage in this crazy gold purchase program for quite a few months, based on a harebrained theory by a fellow named George Warren, who was very influential.
罗斯福所做的就是根据一位很有影响力的乔治·沃伦的轻率理论，进行了长达数月的疯狂黄金购买计划。
They toyed with the price of gold.
他们玩弄金价。
The theory was that if you raise the price of gold, other prices will start going up.
该理论认为，如果黄金价格上涨，其他价格就会开始上涨。
Didn’t happen.
没有发生。
Eventually, after many months, general prices had hardly risen at all.
最终，几个月后，总体价格几乎没有上涨。
Finally, Roosevelt picked a value for the dollar, a proper devaluation.
最后，罗斯福选择了美元的价值，即适当的贬值。
Confirmed it, put it into effect, and at that point, things started to improve.
确认了，付诸实施，从那时起，事情开始好转。
That’s what should have happened.
那是应该发生的事情。
By the way, this is as good a time as any to mention, this is what Keynes would have recommended and did recommend.
顺便说一句，这是一个值得提及的好时机，这是凯恩斯会推荐并且确实推荐的。
He scolded or criticized Roosevelt for following Warren’s theories instead.
他反而斥责或批评罗斯福遵循沃伦的理论。
I think that on this and many other scores, Keynes’s advice about dealing with the Depression was actually very sound.
我认为，在这一点和许多其他方面，凯恩斯关于应对大萧条的建议实际上是非常合理的。
The myth is that Roosevelt was following it when, in fact, most of the time, he wasn’t.
神话是罗斯福在遵循它，而事实上，大多数时候他并没有遵循它。
On which New Deal policies helped, hurt, or didn’t matter
新政政策对哪些方面有帮助、有伤害或无关紧要
Let’s do a rapid-fire look at some New Deal policies.
让我们快速浏览一下新政的一些政策。
I’ll mention the policy.
我会提到政策。
Give me a quick answer — helped recovery, hurt recovery, and why.
给我一个快速的答案 —— 帮助恢复、损害恢复以及原因。
Ready?
准备好？
Yes.
是的。
Glass-Steagall Act of 1932.
1932 年格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案。
That act has two definitions.
该行为有两个定义。
It can refer to the whole legislation, which had several components.
它可以指整个立法，其中有几个组成部分。
It can also refer just to the more famous part that separated investment from commercial banking.
它也可以指比较著名的将投资与商业银行分开的部分。
That’s what people think about these days when they think about Glass-Steagall.
这就是当今人们在想到格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案时所想到的。
I’ll answer the question for that second meaning of Glass-Steagall.
我将回答格拉斯-斯蒂格尔的第二个含义的问题。
Sure.
当然。
The answer is, it was totally irrelevant for recovery because the involvement of commercial banks and investment banking was not a factor that contributed to the Depression, so ending it wasn’t going to help end the Depression.
答案是，它与经济复苏完全无关，因为商业银行和投资银行的参与并不是导致大萧条的因素，因此结束它并不能帮助结束大萧条。
Reconstruction Finance Corporation — helped or hurt?
重建金融公司 —— 帮助还是伤害？
Mostly it hurt.
主要是很痛。
How?
如何？
It started out as Hoover’s plan.
它最初是胡佛的计划。
The basic idea was that it was going to lend to banks and help them become or stay solvent, but at first, the banks were very reluctant.
基本想法是，它将向银行提供贷款，帮助它们变得或保持偿付能力，但一开始，银行非常不愿意。
I should step back a bit.
我应该退后一点。
At first, the amount of lending that went on under the program was very limited.
起初，该计划下的贷款金额非常有限。
Then, at a certain point, Congress made the RFC divulge which banks it was lending to ahead of making loans.
然后，在某个时刻，国会要求 RFC 在发放贷款之前披露其向哪些银行提供贷款。
Then the banks became very reluctant to take part in the program.
然后银行变得非常不愿意参与该计划。
In principle, was recapitalizing the banks a good idea or a bad idea?
原则上，对银行进行资本重组是好主意还是坏主意？
Recapitalizing the banks was different from lending to them.
对银行进行资本重组与向银行提供贷款不同。
That was a later program, and that worked.
那是后来的一个计划，而且有效。
I think that helped.
我认为这有帮助。
That was when the RFC actually bought shares in the banks and so raised their capital directly instead of lending to them.
当时 RFC 实际上购买了银行的股票，因此直接筹集资金而不是向银行贷款。
I think that the recapitalization program was one of the good things, one of the only things that the RFC did that helped end the Great Depression, by stabilizing the banking system and allowing more banks to reopen.
我认为资本重组计划是一件好事，也是 RFC 所做的唯一有助于结束大萧条的事情之一，它稳定了银行体系并允许更多银行重新开业。
I would rate that a successful program, but with the qualifier that the RFC did many things and grew into a vast agency, the biggest agency of the New Deal, and as such, it had more failures than successes.
我认为这是一个成功的计划，但前提是 RFC 做了很多事情并成长为一个庞大的机构，新政中最大的机构，因此，它的失败多于成功。
Agricultural Adjustment Act — good or bad?
农业调整法 — 好还是坏？
Bad.
坏的。
Why?
为什么？
Because the theory behind it, first of all, wasn’t very sound.
因为它背后的理论首先不太健全。
The idea was that we’re going to tax food processors and do that to raise the income of farmers, really of farm owners, and that the farm owners will have a higher — I’m now using language that wasn’t current at the time — will have a higher marginal propensity to consume than the people being taxed, and therefore, there’ll be more spending overall.
我们的想法是，我们要对食品加工商征税，这样做是为了提高农民的收入，实际上是农场主的收入，农场主将比被征税的人有更高的边际消费倾向，因此，总体支出将会更多。
It was a rather doubtful theory to begin with.
从一开始，这是一个相当值得怀疑的理论。
Of course, what these farmers were being paid to do was to produce less output, to farm fewer crops, and to destroy crops and livestock, with the aim of raising their prices through supply reduction and not just by getting aggregate demand to grow.
当然，这些农民得到报酬的目的是减少产量、种植更少的农作物、毁坏农作物和牲畜，目的是通过减少供应而不仅仅是通过增加总需求来提高价格。
So, you had this feeble aggregate demand component, which just wasn’t effective enough to matter, and then you had this adverse aggregate supply effect, which was important, but wasn’t doing something desirable.
因此，总需求成分微弱，其有效性不足以发挥重要作用，然后又存在不利的总供给效应，这很重要，但没有起到预期的效果。
The studies of the AAA’s effect on recovery overall don’t show any.
关于 AAA 对总体恢复效果的研究并未显示出任何效果。
It’s quite controversial whether it had a small effect or none at all.
它是否有很小的影响或根本没有影响，这是相当有争议的。
I think it probably had none.
我想它可能没有。
Here’s a tricky one: Banking Act of 1933.
这是一个棘手的问题：1933 年银行法。
Yes, that’s tricky because that’s another one.
是的，这很棘手，因为那是另一个。
There are several components to the Banking Act.
《银行法》有几个组成部分。
The most well-known is deposit insurance.
其中最著名的是存款保险。
It’s probably the only one worth talking about.
这可能是唯一值得一谈的了。
The role of deposit insurance in the recovery is misunderstood in a lot of ways.
存款保险在复苏中的作用在很多方面都被误解了。
One thing that’s misunderstood is Roosevelt’s part in it because he actually opposed deposit insurance — that component of the Banking Act — until the eleventh hour.
人们误解的一件事是罗斯福在其中所扮演的角色，因为他实际上反对存款保险——“银行法的组成部分”——直到最后一刻。
He only finally gave in because he could see that he’d either have to scrap the whole bill, and if he did try to do that with a veto, he’d probably have the veto overridden.
他最终屈服了，因为他知道他要么必须废除整个法案，如果他确实尝试使用否决权来做到这一点，他的否决权可能会被推翻。
He finally signed it, and then he took credit, “This is my idea,” and all that.
他最终签了字，然后他就相信了，“这是我的想法”，等等。
That’s one thing that’s misunderstood.
这是被误解的一件事。
The other is that deposit insurance was only one of many factors that helped stabilize the banking system by discouraging people from running on the banks.
另一个原因是，存款保险只是通过阻止人们挤兑银行来帮助稳定银行体系的众多因素之一。
It contributed to the reopening of the banking system, which was crucial to recovery, but not as much as people think.
它促进了银行系统的重新开放，这对经济复苏至关重要，但效果并不像人们想象的那么大。
You’re going to say “good.”
你会说“好”。
I’m going to say good in the sense that — apart from long-run consequences, moral hazard, and all that — it did not hurt.
我想说的是，“除了长期后果、道德风险等等”之外，它并没有造成什么伤害。
I’m going to say good, but it didn’t help that much because there were other factors that played a much bigger role in getting people to put their money back in the banks or keep it there.
我想说很好，但这并没有多大帮助，因为还有其他因素在让人们把钱放回银行或留在那里方面发挥了更大的作用。
We could talk about those.
我们可以讨论这些。
Deposit insurance was much less important than other things.
存款保险远不如其他事情那么重要。
Federal Reserve Act of 1935, which kind of made the Fed semi-independent, right?
1935 年的《联邦储备法》，这使得美联储半独立，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
The Banking Act of 1935 gave the concentrated control of the Federal Reserve to bureaucrats in Washington.
1935 年的《银行法》将美联储的集中控制权交给了华盛顿的官僚。
The good news, if you want to call it that, with that act, was that now FDR and the New Dealers, could exert a lot more influence over monetary policy.
好消息是，如果你想称其为，通过该法案，罗斯福和新政现在可以对货币政策施加更大的影响。
The bad news is they didn’t take any advantage of that.
坏消息是他们没有利用这一点。
Marriner Eccles was appointed as .
马里纳·埃克尔斯 (Marriner Eccles) 被任命为。
.
。
.
。
We now call him chair of the Fed.
我们现在称他为美联储主席。
I think that’s when they first became known as the chair rather than the governor.
我认为那是他们第一次被称为主席而不是州长的时候。
He was a monetary conservative in the sense that he didn’t believe in monetary stimulus.
他是货币保守派，因为他不相信货币刺激。
He was a big fiscal stimulus guy, but he’s now in charge of the Fed.
他是一个大力推行财政刺激的人，但他现在掌管美联储。
There was no Federal Reserve active fiscal stimulus under Eccles’s watch.
在埃克尔斯的领导下，美联储没有采取积极的财政刺激措施。
If you look at Federal Reserve credit, including open market purchases, it’s a flat line.
如果你看看美联储的信贷，包括公开市场购买，你会发现这是一条平坦的线。
Yes, now Washington’s in charge.
是的，现在由华盛顿负责。
Yes, you don’t have to worry about getting these 12 banks to cooperate, which is like herding cats, but no effort was made to take advantage of that to pursue an expansionary monetary policy.
是的，你不必担心让这12家银行合作，这就像放猫一样，但没有努力利用这一点来推行扩张性货币政策。
On what better fiscal policy during the Great Depression would’ve looked like
关于大萧条期间更好的财政政策会是什么样子
Let’s say you’re a dictator, George, in 1932, 1933.
乔治，假设你是 1932、1933 年的独裁者。
You can do what you want, free hand.
你可以做你想做的事，解放双手。
With fiscal policy, what would you have done?
如果采用财政政策，你会怎么做？
I would have spent more.
我会花更多的钱。
On what?
靠什么？
On deficits.
关于赤字。
That’s the challenge with fiscal policy back then.
这就是当时财政政策面临的挑战。
Today, they don’t seem to be short of ideas for spending money somehow.
如今，他们似乎并不缺乏花钱的想法。
In those days, they were short of ideas.
那个时候，他们缺乏想法。
In fact, Roosevelt was a fiscal conservative throughout those years.
事实上，罗斯福在那些年里一直是财政保守派。
Roosevelt, at first, said with regard to big spending plans, “What are you going to spend it all on?” He had a point.
罗斯福一开始在谈到大笔支出计划时说道：“你打算把这些钱花在什么地方？”他说得有道理。
I would have favored more fiscal stimulus to the extent that they could come up with stuff to spend it on.
我本来赞成采取更多财政刺激措施，只要他们能拿出钱来花。
I might have told Harold Ickes to spend money a little bit more generously and not be worried about wasting it.
我本可以告诉哈罗德·伊克斯要慷慨一点，不要担心浪费。
But I want to say, I would have put more emphasis on monetary policy, which wasn’t taken advantage of, because I think it would have been much more capable of addressing the problem of a lack of demand than fiscal policy, given the difficulty involved with spending a lot of money and the potential waste that fiscal stimulus can involve.
但我想说，我会更加重视货币政策，但它没有被利用，因为我认为，考虑到花费大量资金的困难以及财政刺激可能造成的潜在浪费，货币政策比财政政策更能解决需求不足的问题。
Taxes were basically tripled, right?
税收基本上增加了两倍，对吗？
Would you have done that?
你会这么做吗？
No, certainly not.
不，当然不是。
Cut taxes, kept them the same, what?
减税，保持不变，什么？
You’re a dictator.
你是一个独裁者。
I would have gotten rid of some of the more regressive taxes, which they were relying on heavily, starting with the 1932 excise taxes that were passed, of course, by the Hoover administration, but they were maintained and even expanded by the Roosevelt administration.
我本来可以取消一些他们严重依赖的累退税，从1932年的消费税开始，当然，胡佛政府通过了这些税，但罗斯福政府维持了这些税，甚至扩大了这些税。
Roosevelt had some taxes that were meant to soak the rich.
罗斯福征收了一些旨在让富人受益的税收。
They get a lot of attention, but they were, in fact, not the main sources of revenue by any means.
他们受到了很多关注，但事实上，无论如何，他们都不是主要的收入来源。
Most of the taxes that the administration was relying on, in its effort to balance the budget, which it kept trying to do — this is the Roosevelt administration — most of them were quite regressive, falling on lower-income people.
政府为了平衡预算而依赖的大部分税收，它一直在努力做到这一点——“这是罗斯福政府”——“其中大多数税收都是相当累退的，落在低收入人群身上。
I would certainly have rolled back some of those taxes.
我当然会取消其中一些税收。
I don’t think fiscal deficits were at all inappropriate at this time, but again, I would have placed more emphasis on monetary policy than on fiscal and resorted to fiscal stimulus to the extent that monetary policy didn’t seem to be able to cut it.
我不认为此时出现财政赤字完全不合适，但同样，我会更重视货币政策而不是财政，并诉诸财政刺激，直到货币政策似乎无法削减它。
On causes of the Great Depression
论大萧条的原因
Just as a cause or potential cause of the Great Depression, did Smoot-Hawley matter at all, a tiny amount, significant?
正如大萧条的原因或潜在原因一样，斯穆特霍利法案到底重要吗？是微不足道的，还是重大的？
Is Jude Wanniski just making this up?
这是裘德·万尼斯基编造的吗？
Tell us.
告诉我们。
On Smoot-Hawley, my tendency is to defer to the research of Doug Irwin, who I consider to be the great expert on this subject.
关于 Smoot-Hawley，我倾向于遵循 Doug Irwin 的研究，我认为他是该主题的伟大专家。
Doug is by no means a critic, let alone an opponent of free trade.
道格绝不是批评者，更不是自由贸易的反对者。
He’s very critical of Smoot-Hawley, yet even Doug says that his opinion is that Smoot-Hawley was a small factor in the Great Depression.
他对斯穆特霍利法案非常批评，但就连道格也说，他的观点是斯穆特霍利法案只是大萧条的一个小因素。
If he says that, I’m inclined to agree, though I have to say I haven’t done any independent research on this.
如果他这么说，我倾向于同意，尽管我不得不说我没有对此做过任何独立研究。
It’s just simply a matter of my inclination to defer to that particular authority on this question.
这只是我在这个问题上倾向于尊重特定权威的问题。
If Smoot-Hawley was small or very small or maybe nothing, should we also conclude that policy uncertainty was small?
如果斯穆特霍利法很小或者很小或者什么都没有，我们是否也应该得出政策不确定性很小的结论？
Because here we saw a policy come with certainty.
因为在这里我们看到了政策的确定性。
We know it was very bad.
我们知道情况非常糟糕。
Why is policy uncertainty such a big deal?
为什么政策不确定性如此重要？
I think that a policy that’s certain can have a small effect for obvious reasons.
我认为，由于显而易见的原因，一项确定的政策可能会产生很小的影响。
It might not be a policy that has all that many consequences that are predictable.
这项政策可能不会产生那么多可预测的后果。
In other words, Doug Irwin, before Smoot-Hawley was passed, knowing what’s going on, might have said, “Yes, this is going to have small consequences.” If we assume — and this is a stretch — that people are as smart as Doug Irwin, they might have anticipated the policy and still not expected it to have big effects.
换句话说，在斯穆特霍利法案通过之前，道格·欧文知道正在发生的事情，可能会说：“是的，这只会产生很小的后果。”如果我们假设“——这有点夸张”——人们像道格·欧文一样聪明，他们可能已经预料到了这项政策，但仍然没有预料到它会产生巨大的影响。
Regime uncertainty is a whole different matter because the problem there is not that you anticipate a policy and anticipate its consequences, but that you just don’t know what the heck’s coming.
政权的不确定性是一个完全不同的问题，因为问题不在于你预期一项政策并预期其后果，而在于你不知道到底会发生什么。
Now, from the point of view of investors, that’s a huge thing, because the first thing investors want to know is whether they’re going to reap the benefits of their investments.
现在，从投资者的角度来看，这是一件大事，因为投资者首先想知道的是他们是否会从投资中获得收益。
If the answer to that question depends on having a rough idea about what policies are going to be in the future — and you don’t have even that — you’re going to hold back.
如果这个问题的答案取决于对未来政策的粗略了解 —— 而你连这个都没有 —— 你就会犹豫不决。
Bearing in mind now, the big problem with recovery was not about consumption — that’s relatively easy to get going.
现在请记住，复苏的大问题不在于消费 —— 消费相对容易启动。
It was about investment spending, which had totally collapsed.
这是关于投资支出的，而投资支出已经完全崩溃了。
There was hardly any net investment for the whole 1930s, so anything that is discouraging businessmen from investing — including uncertainty, which can definitely do it — is going to be standing in the way of recovery.
整个 30 年代几乎没有任何净投资，因此任何阻碍商人投资的因素——包括肯定会造成投资的不确定性——都将阻碍经济复苏。
I believe this was a big barrier to recovery during the ’30s.
我相信这是 30 年代复苏的一大障碍。
Why was the second Great Depression, as it’s sometimes called, in 1937–38, so severe?
为什么 1937-38 年的第二次大萧条（有时被称为“大萧条”）如此严重？
That’s a really good question, and now, you’ve come to the first one that stumps me, because it was so dramatic and so sudden.
这是一个非常好的问题，现在，你来到了第一个让我难住的问题，因为它是如此戏剧化，如此突然。
There were a bunch of factors that contributed to it.
有很多因素促成了这一点。
I think that the best answer to the question is that there were so many operative causes all coming together at once, a sort of perfect storm of bad policies.
我认为这个问题的最佳答案是，有如此多的有效原因同时聚集在一起，形成了一场糟糕政策的完美风暴。
On the monetary policy side, two things were done at the same time by different actors who didn’t seem to be coordinating very well.
在货币政策方面，两件事是由不同的参与者同时做的，但他们似乎协调得不太好。
First, remember that gold flowing in from Europe that was the main driving factor in expanding demand in the ’30s?
首先，还记得从欧洲流入的黄金是20世纪30年代需求扩大的主要驱动因素吗？
Well, they started worrying about inflation, “Oh, we’re going to have too much,” which was crazy under the circumstances, but it’s true.
好吧，他们开始担心通货膨胀，“哦，我们会变得太多了”，在当时的情况下这很疯狂，但这是事实。
As a result, at the Fed, they started doubling reserve requirements.
结果，美联储开始将准备金率提高一倍。
They did it in three steps.
他们分三步完成。
That in itself may not have done that much harm.
这本身可能并没有造成那么大的伤害。
There’s controversy about how much it mattered.
关于它的重要性存在争议。
At the same time, at the Treasury, they started sterilizing the gold inflows.
与此同时，财政部开始对黄金流入进行冲销。
That is, they took steps that prevented the inflow of gold — which went directly to the Treasury at this time — from influencing the amount of reserves in the banking system, so the reserves didn’t go up even though the Treasury was getting more gold.
也就是说，他们采取措施阻止黄金的流入——此时直接进入财政部——影响银行体系的准备金数量，因此即使财政部获得了更多的黄金，准备金也没有增加。
It was exactly coincidental with all this monetary restraint that you had the outbreak of the ’37–’38 Depression.
与所有这些货币限制同时发生的是 37-38 年大萧条的爆发。
But that’s not all.
但这还不是全部。
There was fiscal constraint as well.
财政也受到限制。
Coming up towards ’37, they decided that, along with thinking that the inflation was becoming a threat all of a sudden, they’re thinking as well that the recovery is just about around the corner, that they’re almost there, because by ’37, things are starting to look a lot better.
快到 37 年时，他们认为，除了认为通货膨胀突然成为威胁之外，他们还认为复苏即将到来，他们已经快到了，因为到了 37 年，情况开始看起来好多了。
In one of many efforts to balance the budget during this time, they resorted to fiscal retrenchment, so you had a tightening of fiscal policy.
在这段时间平衡预算的众多努力之一中，他们采取了财政紧缩措施，因此财政政策收紧。
I think the best answer to the question of how come you had such a severe decline is that you had this conjunction of monetary and fiscal tightening all happening at the same time.
我认为，对于为何出现如此严重下滑的问题，最好的答案是货币和财政紧缩同时发生。
On the influence of Keynes and other economists on Roosevelt
论凯恩斯等经济学家对罗斯福的影响
Who’s the economist whose writings on New Deal policy come out looking the best from that time?
当时关于新政政策的著作看起来最好的经济学家是谁？
I’m going to mention Keynes, partly just to be controversial with this audience.
我要提到凯恩斯，部分原因是为了引起观众的争议。
COWEN: But there’re some articles by Keynes in the ’30s that are just terrible.
COWEN：但是凯恩斯在 30 年代写的一些文章实在是太糟糕了。
His piece on protectionism, his call in The General Theory to nationalize investment.
他关于保护主义的文章，他在《通论》中呼吁将投资国有化。
Of course.
当然。
Those are some pretty bad recommendations, even though he got some things quite right.
这些都是一些非常糟糕的建议，尽管他的一些建议是非常正确的。
I’m only talking about what Keynes had to say directly about the American Depression and the New Deal, and how to get out of it.
我只是谈论凯恩斯对美国大萧条和新政的直接看法，以及如何摆脱它。
So, we made him sane when he turned his neck across the Atlantic.
所以，当他转过脖子横跨大西洋时，我们让他保持理智。
Yes, to some considerable extent.
是的，在某种程度上。
I honestly — not just to be provocative — will say that the things Keynes had to say to Roosevelt directly, sometimes through letters publicly published, and also in his meeting with Roosevelt insofar as we know about it — his one meeting — Keynes’s advice on how the US should deal with the Depression and try to get out was very sound.
老实说——“不仅仅是为了挑衅”——“我会说，凯恩斯必须直接对罗斯福说的话，有时是通过公开发表的信件，以及据我们所知在他与罗斯福的会面中所说的话”——“他的一次会面”——“凯恩斯关于美国应如何应对大萧条并试图摆脱萧条的建议非常合理。
I’ll give you a few examples.
我给你举几个例子。
He was very concerned about regime uncertainty, specifically with Roosevelt’s tendency to attack businessmen and even pursue policies that were directly aimed at punishing them.
他非常担心政权的不确定性，特别是罗斯福攻击商人的倾向，甚至推行直接旨在惩罚他们的政策。
He told him, more or less — not in so many words — that he ought to back off, this was not the time.
他或多或少地告诉他——“不是用那么多话”——他应该退后，现在不是时候。
Similarly, he said that the New Deal was confusing or getting priorities wrong about reform versus recovery.
同样，他表示，新政在改革与复苏之间的优先顺序令人困惑或错误。
He said, “Look, maybe some of these reforms that you’re implementing will have good, long-run results, but this is not the time.
他说：“看，也许你们正在实施的一些改革会产生良好的长期结果，但现在还不是时候。
You should be concentrating on recovery,” partly because reform shook up businessmen and made it, again, hard for them to regain their confidence.
你应该专注于复苏”，部分原因是改革震动了商人，再次让他们很难重拾信心。
The whole discussion of animal spirits, by the way, is all about what we now more often call regime uncertainty.
顺便说一句，关于动物精神的整个讨论都是关于我们现在更常称之为政权不确定性的问题。
Finally, Keynes attacked very strenuously some of the worst New Deal policies.
最后，凯恩斯非常激烈地攻击了一些最糟糕的新政政策。
The gold purchase program, he ridiculed and said this was just a very bad idea, and he was right.
他嘲笑黄金购买计划，并表示这只是一个非常糟糕的主意，而他是对的。
Also, the NRA — he was extremely critical of the National Recovery Administration and its price controls, and he didn’t mince words about it.
此外，全国步枪协会——他对国家复兴管理局及其价格管制极为批评，而且他对此毫不讳言。
The other important thing that Keynes recommended was that Roosevelt spend more.
凯恩斯建议的另一件重要事情是罗斯福增加支出。
That’s where the conservatives and libertarians would have a beef with him.
这就是保守派和自由主义者会与他发生争执的地方。
If Roosevelt had spent a lot more — whatever you think about fiscal stimulus — if he’d done that instead of the things he and the other New Dealers actually did, there’s no doubt in my mind that it would have been better, because pouring more money into the economy may have adverse consequences, but nothing like some of the scary reforms, highly regressive taxes, price controls, and that sort of thing had.
如果罗斯福花更多的钱——“无论你对财政刺激有什么看法”——如果他这样做，而不是他和其他新政者实际做的事情，毫无疑问，在我看来，情况会更好，因为向经济注入更多的资金可能会产生不利的后果，但没有像一些可怕的改革、高度累退的税收、价格控制之类的事情那样。
There’s a book you may know by John Flynn.
您可能知道约翰·弗林写的一本书。
It was called As We Go Marching.
它被称为“当我们行进时”。
He argued the New Deal was bringing a kind of semi-fascistic planning to the United States.
他认为新政正在给美国带来一种半法西斯主义的计划。
How correct was Flynn?
弗林的说法正确吗？
How does that book hold up?
那本书怎么站得住脚？
Exaggeration or a prophet before his time?
夸张还是超前的先知？
I think this question about FDR being a fascist or a socialist comes up a lot.
我认为关于罗斯福是法西斯主义者还是社会主义者的问题经常出现。
Everything is relative.
一切都是相对的。
If you look closely at FDR’s actions during the ’30s, when he’s most inclined .
如果你仔细观察罗斯福在 30 年代的行为，那是他最有倾向的时期。
.
。
.
。
There is some genuine sympathy with Mussolini and what he’s doing in Italy before Ethiopia and all that.
人们对墨索里尼以及他在埃塞俄比亚之前在意大利所做的事情表示真诚的同情。
It was widespread.
它很普遍。
This wasn’t the peculiarity of the New Dealers.
这不是新政的特点。
This was just what many people thought, that Mussolini was getting the trains to run on time and all that.
这正是许多人的想法，墨索里尼让火车准时运行等等。
But more than anything, FDR was always looking over his shoulder at the people who might more accurately have been described as fascists and socialists, people like Huey Long and Townsend.
但最重要的是，罗斯福总是在身后注视着那些可能更准确地被描述为法西斯主义者和社会主义者的人，比如休伊·朗和汤森德。
There were all these people who were threatening — in Long’s case, very obviously — to mount campaigns that might keep FDR from being re-elected.
所有这些人都在威胁——“在朗的例子中，这一点非常明显”——发起可能阻止罗斯福连任的运动。
It was largely in an attempt to fend off these attacks that he stole a lot of their fascist thunder, to call it that.
很大程度上是为了抵御这些攻击，他窃取了他们的法西斯风头，可以这么说。
He was thinking about what was needed to get re-elected.
他正在考虑需要什么才能再次当选。
The point here is that there’s a counterfactual that mustn’t be overlooked, which is that there were more socialistic and fascistic people around who were gaining a lot of attention and support.
这里的要点是，有一个不容忽视的反事实，那就是周围有更多的社会主义和法西斯主义者，他们获得了很多关注和支持。
Maybe the New Deal has to be seen as a compromise, not an all-out move toward those extremes, but a sop being provided to the advocates of more aggressive authoritarian government.
也许新政必须被视为一种妥协，而不是全面走向极端，而是为更激进的威权政府的倡导者提供的一个安慰。
If you compare FDR to those folks, he doesn’t look so bad.
如果你将罗斯福与那些人进行比较，他看起来并没有那么糟糕。
Of course, if you compare him to an ideal classical liberal president, he looks like a fascist.
当然，如果把他比作一个理想的古典自由主义总统，他看起来就像一个法西斯主义者。
Again, the question is, where were the politics pointing at the time?
问题又来了，当时的政治指向何方？
And what could a person trying to get re-elected get away with, or what compromises did he have to make?
一个试图连任的人能逃脱什么惩罚，或者他必须做出哪些妥协？
Why did the Austrian economists underperform in their diagnoses of the 1930s?
为什么奥地利经济学家对 1930 年代的诊断表现不佳？
Or would you challenge that premise?
或者你会挑战这个前提吗？
The problem with the Austrians, I think — and here, it’s most clear in Hayek’s case — is that their policy recommendations were not necessarily consistent with their theories.
我认为奥地利学派的问题——在这里，在哈耶克的案例中最明显——是他们的政策建议不一定与他们的理论一致。
Hayek, in theory, came around to the view that, at the very least, you had to maintain the level of spending, or what Keynes would call aggregate demand, in an economy, or get it back up when it has collapsed.
从理论上讲，哈耶克转而认为，至少必须维持一个经济体的支出水平，或者凯恩斯所说的总需求，或者在经济崩溃时将其恢复过来。
Stabilize the product of the money stock and its velocity.
稳定货币存量及其流通速度的乘积。
This is in Prices and Production and other works by Hayek, and he’s very good on that.
这是哈耶克的《价格与生产》和其他著作中的内容，他在这方面非常擅长。
On the other hand, he seems to have been inclined to see the collapse of the early 1930s in Britain as well — perhaps more so than in the US — as an opportunity to break the trade unions, and was more determined to let that damage continue.
另一方面，他似乎也倾向于将 1930 年代初英国的崩溃（或许比美国更严重）视为破坏工会的机会，并且更坚定地让这种损害继续下去。
Also, he was keen on keeping the gold standard, whether it was consistent with stabilizing spending or not.
此外，他热衷于维持金本位，无论这是否符合稳定支出。
So, there were these inconsistencies between the practical recommendations, which were for austerity, for keeping the gold standard, et cetera, with at least Hayek’s version of the Austrian theory, which said you must maintain stability of spending in the economy if you’re not going to have trouble.
因此，关于紧缩、保持金本位等的实际建议与至少哈耶克版本的奥地利学派理论之间存在着这些不一致，该理论认为，如果你不想遇到麻烦，就必须保持经济支出的稳定。
How did the early Chicago School do?
早期芝加哥学派的表现如何？
Henry Simons, Jacob Viner?
亨利·西蒙斯、雅各布·维纳？
The Chicago School as a whole — first of all, they were not the fiscal conservatives that they’re now made out to be.
芝加哥学派作为一个整体——首先，他们并不是现在人们所认为的财政保守派。
They took the lead well ahead of Keynes in pushing for big public works to counter the Great Depression.
他们在推动大型公共工程以应对大萧条方面远远领先于凯恩斯。
Many of them signed the petition to that effect, and they had been arguing for it for some time.
他们中的许多人为此签署了请愿书，并且为此争论了一段时间。
So, they certainly were not laggards in the sense of recognizing that the government could help stimulate demand through public works.
因此，在认识到政府可以通过公共工程帮助刺激需求方面，他们当然不是落后者。
Fisher, of course, wasn’t really Chicago.
当然，费舍尔并不是真正的芝加哥。
He was Yale.
他是耶鲁大学。
He is an honorary Chicago economist, but he was a highly influential economist at the time.
他是芝加哥荣誉经济学家，但在当时却是一位极具影响力的经济学家。
Fisher was for a managed fiat dollar — what we have today, in effect.
费舍尔主张管理法定美元——实际上就是我们今天所拥有的。
In that sense, you could say it was very forward-looking, but he wanted to get rid of the gold standard.
从这个意义上来说，你可以说这是非常有前瞻性的，但他想要摆脱金本位制。
There were a lot of Chicago economists, I think, who were sympathetic with that goal.
我认为，有很多芝加哥经济学家都赞同这一目标。
Simons wanted to do away with fractional reserve banking.
西蒙斯希望废除部分准备金制度。
I think that was a very bad way to respond to the banking crisis, which, if you looked at what was really behind it, you find that bad regulations, rather than fractional reserve banking, per se, were the problems.
我认为这是应对银行业危机的一种非常糟糕的方式，如果你看看危机背后的真正原因，你会发现问题在于糟糕的监管，而不是部分准备金银行本身。
Simons only had to look north to Canada to see that you didn’t have to have a banking collapse just because you had fractional reserve banks.
西蒙斯只要向北看加拿大，就会发现，不必因为拥有部分储备银行而导致银行业崩溃。
I give the Chicago people different grades according to the different persons, because they all had different views about these things.
我根据不同的人给芝加哥人不同的等级，因为他们对这些事情都有不同的看法。
What I would say is true of all of them is that they were not the simple-minded classical economists that Keynes caricatures in The General Theory.
我想说的是，他们都不是凯恩斯在《通论》中讽刺的头脑简单的古典经济学家。
On the pros and cons of big banks
大银行的利弊
You mentioned the banking issue.
您提到了银行问题。
I remember well the 1980s, when many people insisted to me that Japan, Germany — they had these systems of universal banking: quite well capitalized, pretty highly concentrated.
我清楚地记得 20 世纪 80 年代，当时很多人向我坚持认为日本、德国——他们拥有这些全能银行体系：资本充足、高度集中。
It was supposed to be better than the decentralized American system, which, every now and then, would go insolvent.
它被认为比去中心化的美国体系要好，后者时不时就会破产。
There’d be problems with the deposit insurance funds.
存款保险基金会出现问题。
One hears frequently claims about Canadian banking to the north, “Well, they allow all this branch banking.
人们经常听到有关加拿大北部银行业的说法，“嗯，他们允许所有这些分行银行业务。
You only have a few large banks.
你只有几家大银行。
They never go under.”
他们永远不会沉沦。”
But from the vantage point of 2025, when America clearly has by far the best capital markets in the world — they’re very decentralized.
但从 2025 年的有利角度来看，届时美国显然拥有迄今为止世界上最好的资本市场——它们非常去中心化。
Banks are just becoming smaller and smaller, 15 percent to 20 percent of the whole.
银行规模正变得越来越小，仅占整体的 15% 到 20%。
Did we really do so bad not to move to that highly centralized model, even though it would’ve been stabilizing at the time?
我们真的做得很糟糕吗？没有转向那种高度中心化的模式，即使它当时已经稳定下来了？
Two things can undermine a banking system, broadly speaking.
一般来说，有两件事可能会破坏银行体系。
One is not letting the banks do the best they can to diversify and strengthen themselves.
一是不让银行尽最大努力实现多元化和增强自身实力。
That’s what letting banks branch and that sort of thing were about.
这就是让银行设立分支机构之类的事情的意义所在。
Until 1933, the US government mainly undermined the stability of its banking system by limiting the freedom of what banks could do, by imposing very harmful restrictions on their activities.
1933 年之前，美国政府主要通过限制银行业务自由、对银行活动施加非常有害的限制来破坏银行体系的稳定性。
Now, what’s confusing is that the situation has totally changed, but not the fact that the government is still to blame.
现在，令人困惑的是，情况已经完全改变了，但政府仍然是罪魁祸首。
What I mean is that now we allow branch banking.
我的意思是现在我们允许开设分行银行业务。
We allow banks to do a lot of things that they couldn’t do before, many of which I think are good in themselves, but since 1933, we have created a vast system of deposit guarantees, and so have introduced a huge moral hazard problem.
我们允许银行做很多以前做不到的事情，其中很多我认为本身是好的，但从1933年开始，我们创建了一个庞大的存款担保体系，因此引入了巨大的道德风险问题。
Here’s the thing: things that would’ve been utterly desirable freedoms in the absence of guarantees become dangerous when you have those guarantees, because then, the banks might take advantage of the guarantees to abuse these freedoms because they see that they’ll be protected on the downside from the risks they take in pursuit of profits.
事情是这样的：在没有担保的情况下本来是完全可取的自由，当你有这些担保时，就会变得危险，因为那时，银行可能会利用这些担保来滥用这些自由，因为他们认为自己在追求利润时所承担的风险会受到保护。
So, we’ve gone from a system where freedom would’ve been, and was, desirable — more freedom because the guarantees that would’ve encouraged that freedom’s abuse weren’t present — to a system where the same freedoms are not necessarily a good thing because guarantees have corrupted the incentives that banks face.
因此，我们已经从一个过去和现在都渴望自由的体系——“更多的自由，因为不存在会鼓励滥用自由的保障”——变成了同样的自由不一定是好事，因为保障破坏了银行面临的激励机制。
Say we hadn’t had, or hadn’t kept, deposit insurance, and we move forward into a world where there’re five or six big banks, not many small banks.
假设我们没有或没有保留存款保险，我们就会进入一个只有五六家大银行、没有很多小银行的世界。
Banks are capitalized at 40 percent.
银行资本金为40%。
The cost of capital is higher — is that really better for this country?
资本成本更高 ——这对这个国家来说真的更好吗？
I don’t think that that kind of concentration would’ve been better, but let’s be careful.
我不认为那种专注会更好，但我们要小心。
That kind of concentration wasn’t just a consequence of letting banks branch.
这种集中度不仅仅是让银行设立分支机构的结果。
I have an article about this.
我有一篇关于这个的文章。
In Canada, they had strict entry requirements.
在加拿大，他们有严格的入学要求。
What happened is that, especially starting in the 1920s, the number of Canadian banks shrank, and the authorities wouldn’t allow any new ones to be formed.
实际情况是，特别是从 20 年代开始，加拿大银行的数量减少，当局不允许成立任何新银行。
It wasn’t just branch banking — the freedom for banks to branch — that resulted in all this consolidation.
导致所有这些合并的不仅仅是分行银行业务——“银行可以自由开设分行”。
It was absolute entry restrictions that were imposed by regulation.
这是监管所施加的绝对进入限制。
I think that the question one really wants to ask is, what would a banking system look like if you let banks be free to consolidate, branch, and group or whatever on their own, but you also had no guarantees, no too-big-to-fail — which of course drives a lot of consolidation itself and no absolute entry restrictions, freedom of entry.
我认为人们真正想问的问题是，如果你让银行自由地合并、设立分支机构、集团或其他什么，但你也没有任何保证，没有“太大而不能倒”——这当然会推动大量合并本身，并且没有绝对的准入限制和准入自由，那么银行体系会是什么样子。
I don’t think you would have so concentrated a banking system as we’ve seen now in Canada and some other places.
我认为银行系统不会像我们现在在加拿大和其他一些地方看到的那样集中。
I also think there would be room for some small banks still, because small banks have their specialties.
我也认为一些小银行还是有空间的，因为小银行有它的特色。
Among the big branch banks, I think you would also have survival of some small banks.
在大的分行中，我想也会有一些小银行的生存。
If the main thing you want is security for your deposit, access to the payment system, and because of our Constitution, Congress cannot really pre-commit to no big bank bailouts — however much you or I might want them to, they can’t; there’s sovereignty embedded in our institutions — I would just keep on putting my money in a big bank, even under what might nominally appear to be laissez-faire, because I would figure ex-post, they’ll be bailed out — the smaller banks maybe not — and we’d end up with five or six dominant banks.
如果你最想要的是存款的安全、支付系统的使用权，并且由于我们的宪法，国会不能真正预先承诺不救助大型银行 —— 无论你或我多么希望他们这样做，他们都做不到；我们的机构中蕴藏着主权 ——“我会继续把钱存入大银行，即使名义上看起来是自由放任的，因为我会认为事后他们会得到救助”——“小银行可能不会”——最终我们会拥有五六家占主导地位的银行。
Maybe that would be better, but I don’t think it would actually be truly competitive either.
也许这样会更好，但我认为它实际上也不会具有真正的竞争力。
If the question is, do I wish we could have a world where the government could credibly commit to not bailing out big banks, then my answer would be, of course, that is my wish.
如果问题是，我是否希望我们能够拥有一个政府能够可信地承诺不救助大银行的世界，那么我的答案当然是，这是我的愿望。
But I agree with you: It may not be possible to ultimately prevent this.
但我同意你的观点：最终可能无法阻止这种情况发生。
The clamor for rescues is so great when a major bank fails.
当一家大银行倒闭时，要求救援的呼声非常高。
I don’t have an answer to that.
我对此没有答案。
I really don’t.
我真的不知道。
I think, though it remains important, the question still is important: What would a banking system look like if we didn’t have this kind of government interference?
我认为，尽管它仍然很重要，但问题仍然很重要：如果我们没有这种政府干预，银行体系会是什么样子？
How well would it work?
效果如何？
Because what we have today is a lot of economists running around saying that we have to have governments bailing out big banks, small banks.
因为今天有很多经济学家到处说我们必须让政府救助大银行、小银行。
As long as they’re on the side of these bailouts, my wish, of course, is never going to become true.
只要他们站在这些救助一边，我的愿望当然就永远不会实现。
There’s a chance that we could put some meaningful barriers to government bailouts of big banks in place if we didn’t have a lot of economists saying we shouldn’t have such barriers.
如果没有很多经济学家说我们不应该设置这样的障碍，我们就有可能对政府救助大银行设置一些有意义的障碍。
On the quantity theory of money
论货币数量论
I have some more general questions about macro for you.
我有一些关于宏的更一般性的问题要问你。
The quantity theory of money — overrated or underrated?
货币数量论 ——被高估还是低估？
Badly misunderstood, first of all.
首先，被严重误解了。
What’s the correct version?
正确的版本是什么？
And tell us if it shows up in the data these days.
并告诉我们它是否出现在这些天的数据中。
The correct version, which is to say, my version —
正确的版本，也就是说，我的版本 ——
— is that the rate of inflation is roughly approximated by the rate of growth of some monetary aggregate, say M2.
— 通货膨胀率大致近似于某种货币总量（如 M2）的增长率。
But if we run that in regressions, which people at the Fed do until they’re blue in the face, it doesn’t go very well.
但如果我们用回归来进行计算（美联储的人会这样做，直到他们脸色发青），结果就不会太好了。
No, that’s right.
不，没错。
I don’t think it’s true, but I’m just trying to clarify what the proper statement of it is.
我不认为这是真的，但我只是想澄清一下正确的说法是什么。
Now, it’s not true in the sense of being reliable, but if you look at the really broad record, there certainly is some correlation out there worth bearing in mind.
现在，从可靠的意义上来说，这并不正确，但如果你看看真正广泛的记录，肯定存在一些值得牢记的相关性。
The problem, of course, is financial innovation, regulatory innovation.
当然，问题是金融创新、监管创新。
All these things change and can change dramatically the actual relationship between any given monetary measure and any given inflation measure.
所有这些事情都会发生变化，并且可能会极大地改变任何给定货币指标和任何给定通胀指标之间的实际关系。
Wouldn’t you think those would have level-effect changes, and the deltas still would look like the quantity theory?
您是否不认为这些会产生水平效应变化，而增量仍然看起来像数量论？
But they don’t.
但他们没有。
This is, for me, a big part of the puzzle.
对我来说，这是难题的一个重要部分。
Regulations change pretty slowly, so that might make the money multiplier different, or velocity different, or which monetary aggregate matters different.
法规变化相当缓慢，因此可能会导致货币乘数不同，流通速度不同，或者货币总量的重要性不同。
But at the margin, I would expect to see more quantity theory relations than I do.
但在边际上，我希望看到比我看到的更多的数量论关系。
Well, it could be that the theory is just not that good.
嗯，可能这个理论并不那么好。
But we’ve all read Milton Friedman and David Hume.
但我们都读过米尔顿·弗里德曼和大卫·休谟的著作。
The theory sounds pretty good.
这个理论听起来不错。
Yes, it sounds good.
是的，听起来不错。
We teach it.
我们教它。
What’s wrong with the theory?
这个理论有什么问题？
Well, don’t forget that on top of regulatory innovation and financial innovation, you have something much more fundamental, which is the demand for real money balances, which can change at any time for all sorts of reasons.
好吧，不要忘记，除了监管创新和金融创新之外，还有更根本的东西，那就是对真实货币余额的需求，这种需求可能会因各种原因随时发生变化。
The quantity theory is premised in its stricter version on the assumption that velocity is a constant or very stable value, and it isn’t.
数量论的更严格版本的前提是假设速度是恒定或非常稳定的值，但事实并非如此。
That’s all there is to it.
这就是全部了。
That should make the quantity theory more true.
这应该会使数量论更加真实。
So, if M2 goes up a lot, you would think that accelerates velocity.
因此，如果 M2 上升很多，您会认为速度加快了。
You would get a disproportionate effect.
你会得到不成比例的效果。
But in fact, you often see M2 go up quite a bit, and prices are like, meh.
但事实上，你经常看到 M2 上涨很多，价格就像，嗯。
If the rate of change of M2 — well, really, the rate of change of prices — is changing, that will be a factor changing velocity.
如果M2 的变化率——嗯，实际上，价格的变化率 ——正在变化，那将是一个改变速度的因素。
You’re right, it’s a positive relationship.
你说得对，这是一种积极的关系。
However, velocity changes for all kinds of other reasons.
然而，速度会因各种其他原因而发生变化。
So, the assumption, the basic assumption that velocity is independent of the monetary growth or is stable for whatever reason, is often violated.
因此，这个假设，即速度独立于货币增长或无论出于何种原因保持稳定的基本假设，经常被违反。
I’ve never been a strict proponent of the quantity theory myself, so I don’t feel too obliged to try to defend it.
我自己从来都不是数量论的严格支持者，所以我觉得没有必要去捍卫它。
But I must say that when I was teaching this stuff for quite a few years in the ’80s and ’90s, I presented to students some rough correlation data for M2 growth rates and rates of inflation, a chart for a bunch of countries with the usual diagonal, and they all lined up pretty well.
但我必须说，当我在上世纪80年代和90年代教授这些东西的好几年里，我向学生展示了一些M2增长率和通货膨胀率的粗略相关数据，这是一组具有通常对角线的国家的图表，它们都排列得很好。
You could look at statistics for one country, and you could see the relationship.
你可以查看一个国家的统计数据，你可以看到其中的关系。
It wasn’t tight, but it was there, and it was there for a long time.
它并不紧，但它就在那里，而且已经在那里很长一段时间了。
A lot has changed since I was teaching back then.
自从我当时教书以来，发生了很多变化。
I’m sure that if I updated those charts, I might have to give a different lecture.
我确信如果我更新这些图表，我可能不得不做一个不同的讲座。
But there was something to it at the time when people like Milton Friedman were emphasizing it.
但当米尔顿·弗里德曼等人强调它时，它是有道理的。
It was definitely something that had been in the data for some time, and I think it was worth tracking.
这绝对是数据中存在一段时间的东西，我认为它值得跟踪。
By the way, I should add, since 2008, all bets are off on this stuff because we now have a system where the monetary base doesn’t necessarily have much to do with the overall ease of credit.
顺便说一句，我应该补充一点，自 2008 年以来，所有的赌注都在这个东西上，因为我们现在有一个货币基础不一定与整体信贷宽松程度有太大关系的系统。
It’s all about the interest rate and reserves and that sort of thing.
一切都与利率和准备金之类的事情有关。
So, the quantity theory is probably even more doubtful since 2008 than it was before.
因此，自2008年以来，数量论可能比以前更加可疑。
On central bank independence
论央行独立性
The notion of “independent central banks,” which I put in quotation marks — overrated or underrated?
我把“独立中央银行”的概念加上引号 —— 高估还是低估？
I would say —
我会说 —
It’s an issue today, right?
这是今天的一个问题，对吧？
Yes, it’s very hard.
是的，这很难。
The best way I can answer that question is by saying what I have said several times in other forums, that it’s precisely because our central bank, the Fed, is not very independent that we need to take seriously the preservation of what little independence it does have.
我回答这个问题的最好方法是说我在其他论坛上多次说过的话，正是因为我们的中央银行美联储不是很独立，所以我们需要认真对待保留它所拥有的一点独立性。
Given that position, I don’t know whether I should say independence is overrated or underrated because there’s a sense in which it’s overrated because there isn’t that much of it, but it’s underrated to the extent that people say, “Well, let’s not worry about losing it all.”
鉴于这个立场，我不知道我是否应该说独立性被高估了还是被低估了，因为从某种意义上说，它被高估了，因为它没有那么多，但它被低估到了人们说的程度，“好吧，我们不用担心失去一切。”
Given that the commodity demands for gold are often quite unstable — in recent times, it would be the Central Bank of China as a major culprit — can we have any kind of gold standard at all in one country, even a big country like the US?
鉴于大宗商品对黄金的需求往往相当不稳定——近期，罪魁祸首就是中国央行——我们能在一个国家，甚至像美国这样的大国，实行任何一种金本位制吗？
Or is that just out?
还是刚刚出来的？
As far as I’m concerned, it’s out.
就我而言，它已经结束了。
It’s out.
出来了。
It’s been out for a long time, yes.
已经出来很久了，是的。
If there’s no gold standard, can we have free banking at all?
如果没有金本位，我们还能拥有自由银行吗？
Yes, absolutely.
是的，绝对是。
It’s free banks issuing things backed by US dollars.
这是自由银行发行以美元为支持的东西。
That’s right.
这是正确的。
But it’s still ultimately controlled by the Fed.
但它最终仍然由美联储控制。
Yes, it is.
是的。
You have to reform the Fed, too.
你也必须改革美联储。
You have to reform monetary policy.
你必须改革货币政策。
We didn’t solve that problem.
我们没有解决这个问题。
In 2025, how do you reform the Fed?
2025年，美联储将如何改革？
You’re in charge, Dictator George, tell us.
你负责，独裁者乔治，告诉我们。
Well, I’m an NGDP stabilizing person.
嗯，我是一个稳定 NGDP 的人。
I have been for a long time.
我已经很久了。
By the way, my first book, The Theory of Free Banking, puts forward a proposal or an ideal of a frozen monetary base, fiat money.
顺便说一句，我的第一本书《自由银行理论》提出了冻结货币基础（法定货币）的建议或理想。
It’s not a gold standard, and it argues that ideally you want to stabilize spending.
它不是黄金标准，它认为理想情况下你希望稳定支出。
It looks at how well the system does that.
它着眼于系统在这方面做得如何。
I’ve never been a return-to-gold advocate, and I’ve always understood that free banking could be based on a fiat monetary standard.
我从来都不是回归黄金的倡导者，而且我一直明白自由银行可以基于法定货币标准。
What has to be understood, though, is that if you have free banking with a fiat monetary standard, then you have solved problems because I think the freedom of the banks creates a lot of greater robustness in the banking system and less risk of financial crises.
但必须理解的是，如果你拥有具有法定货币标准的自由银行业务，那么你就已经解决了问题，因为我认为银行的自由可以增强银行体系的稳健性，并降低金融危机的风险。
Mind you, freedom has to, here, include no bailouts, right?
请注意，这里的自由必须不包括救助，对吧？
You still have to deal with monetary policy in the narrow sense of how the monetary base itself is managed by the central authorities.
你仍然必须在狭义上处理货币政策，即中央政府如何管理基础货币本身。
In the book, I recommended freezing the base, which would be like turning the dollar into so many bitcoins, but a less dramatic, less drastic proposal would be a Friedman-type proposal.
在书中，我建议冻结基础，这就像将美元变成如此多的比特币，但一个不那么戏剧性、不那么激烈的提议是弗里德曼式的提议。
I think Friedman, in the ’80s, was fantastic on this stuff.
我认为 80 年代的弗里德曼在这方面非常出色。
He said replace the FOMC with a computer and program the computer so that you just get enough increase in the monetary base, or you choose interest rates such that you end up with enough money to keep nominal spending stable, but not more than that.
他说，用计算机取代联邦公开市场委员会（FOMC），并对计算机进行编程，这样你就能获得足够的基础货币增长，或者你选择利率，这样你最终就有足够的钱来保持名义支出稳定，但不能超过这个数字。
I sometimes talk about a night watchman Fed.
我有时会谈论守夜人美联储。
You don’t have to have the FOMC doing anything.
你不需要让联邦公开市场委员会做任何事情。
You just have a big computer in there and a night watchman who makes sure nobody can go in there and tamper with it.
那里只有一台大电脑和一个守夜人，确保没有人可以进入那里篡改它。
That’s my ideal reform.
这就是我理想的改革。
On dollarization
关于美元化
How many countries should dollarize?
有多少国家应该美元化？
Oh, gosh.
哦，天哪。
An exact number, please.
请给个准确的数字。
“Thirty-eight.”
“三十八。”
Fewer than Steve Hanke thinks.
比史蒂夫·汉克想象的要少。
A small number probably should.
可能应该有一小部分。
The number depends on how many of them have proven themselves utterly incapable of fiscal restraint and of managing either floating or pegged exchange rates without either hyperinflation or inviting speculative attacks on them.
这个数字取决于有多少国家已经证明自己完全没有能力实行财政紧缩，也没有能力在不引发恶性通货膨胀或招致投机性攻击的情况下管理浮动或固定汇率。
That sounds like a lot of countries to me.
对我来说，这听起来像是很多国家。
Just add up the Caribbean right there.
只要把加勒比海加起来就行了。
It’s a larger number than it used to be, and it seems to be getting bigger all the time.
这个数字比以前要大，而且似乎一直在变大。
Now, Argentina is the big question mark here because it’s a very big economy.
现在，阿根廷是一个很大的问号，因为它是一个非常大的经济体。
Normally, you would not consider such an economy your candidate for dollarization, but if the economy, despite being big, has a long enough track record of failing with all the other possible arrangements, it’s time to take the dollarization alternative seriously and ask whether it’s the lesser of evils because it’s not going to be great.
通常情况下，你不会认为这样的经济体是美元化的候选者，但如果这个经济体尽管规模很大，但在所有其他可能的安排上都有着足够长的失败记录，那么是时候认真对待美元化的替代方案，并问问它是否是两害相权取其轻，因为它不会带来好处。
It’s not going to be perfect to have a big economy bound to the US monetary policy.
让一个大经济体受制于美国的货币政策并不完美。
Of course, it’s not going to be any better if .
当然，如果有的话也不会更好。
.
。
.
。
It’s going to be worse if the US monetary policy itself is bad.
如果美国货币政策本身不好，情况会更糟。
That’s always a risk of dollarization — you’re not going to be any better off than the dollar itself as a monetary system.
这始终是美元化的风险——作为一种货币体系，你不会比美元本身更好。
But again, if you’re a basket case, the relevant question is, what’s going to be worse?
但同样，如果你是一个破产者，相关的问题是，什么会变得更糟？
What’s going to be the least harmful system?
什么是危害最小的系统？
I really object to what I’m afraid is large numbers of economists who, when addressing questions like this, go to their blackboard economics.
我真的反对大量的经济学家，他们在解决这样的问题时，会去黑板经济学。
What they do is, they say, “Well, a perfectly managed central bank with a floating exchange rate can do this, that, and the other thing.
他们说，他们所做的是，“嗯，一个管理完善、实行浮动汇率的央行可以做这、那以及其他事情。
Now, let’s compare it to dollarization.
现在，让我们将其与美元化进行比较。
Oh my, dollarization is inferior.”
天哪，美元化还差劲。”
That kind of comparison is utterly irrelevant for countries of the sort we’ve been talking about.
这种比较与我们一直在谈论的那种国家完全无关。
Now, it may still be the case that if you take seriously their records and how they’re likely to manage a floating exchange rate or a peg, you might still conclude that one of those is better than dollarization, but at least you should make the right comparison based on the reality of those countries’ fiscal and monetary records.
现在，情况可能仍然是这样，如果你认真对待他们的记录以及他们如何管理浮动汇率或钉住汇率，你可能仍然会得出这样的结论：其中一种比美元化更好，但至少你应该根据这些国家的财政和货币记录的现实进行正确的比较。
On stablecoins
关于稳定币
Right now in DC, as we speak, there’s a big debate: Under the GENIUS Act, should stablecoins be allowed to pay interest?
现在，在华盛顿，正如我们所说，存在一场大辩论：根据《天才法案》，稳定币是否应该被允许支付利息？
The banking lobby says, no, it will drain too many resources from banks, and in fact, they could end up insolvent, illiquid.
银行业游说团体表示，不，这会消耗银行太多的资源，事实上，银行最终可能会资不抵债、缺乏流动性。
A bailout would be needed.
需要救助。
Since banks are so often poorly managed, are they right?
既然银行经常管理不善，他们是对的吗？
Should we allow interest payments on stablecoins?
我们应该允许稳定币支付利息吗？
Doesn’t that just become a regulatory arbitrage against the banking system proper?
这难道不会成为针对银行系统本身的监管套利吗？
How do we handle the transition?
我们如何处理过渡？
Well, my immediate reaction to any argument from any industry that says, “Don’t allow X because it’ll hurt our industry” is, “So?” Because —
好吧，对于任何行业提出的“不允许 X 因为它会伤害我们的行业”的任何论点，我的第一反应是“所以呢？”因为 ——
You and I are on the hook for this.
你和我都为此负有责任。
Or you’ve moved to Spain.
或者您已经搬到西班牙。
Maybe you’re not anymore, but you’re probably still a US taxpayer, right?
也许你不再是美国纳税人了，但你可能仍然是美国纳税人，对吧？
I am.
我是。
Yes, you’re on the hook.
是的，你陷入困境了。
You can’t get out of that — burn my passport.
你无法摆脱这个局面 ——烧掉我的护照。
No, I think that, of course, stablecoins, if they succeed at all, are going to be competing to some extent with banks, and some banks are going to lose to that extent.
不，我认为，当然，稳定币如果成功的话，将会在某种程度上与银行竞争，而一些银行将会在这种程度上失败。
That in itself can’t be an argument for imposing any kind of restrictions on stablecoins.
这本身并不能成为对稳定币施加任何限制的理由。
It has to be the case that the damage banks suffer somehow is going to make us worse off, even though people are benefiting from the stablecoins instead.
尽管人们从稳定币中受益，但银行遭受的损害一定会让我们的境况变得更糟。
If we can envision, just for the sake of argument, a stablecoin industry that gives us all everything we want that we used to get from banks, so we do dispense with banks altogether.
如果我们能够设想一个稳定币行业，可以为我们提供过去从银行获得的一切，那么我们确实可以完全放弃银行。
Well, so what?
嗯，那又怎样？
It’s like replacing horses and buggies with automobiles.
这就像用汽车取代马匹和马车一样。
So, there has to be some kind of third-party effect or something that’s appealed to before we can say, “Oh, well, we better not let them do this.”
因此，必须有某种第三方效应或某种吸引人的东西，然后我们才能说：“哦，好吧，我们最好不要让他们这样做。”
I haven’t seen very good arguments about such consequences.
我还没有看到关于这种后果的很好的论据。
I do see evidence to the effect that stablecoins have been very badly managed, because some of them have been disasters.
我确实看到了证据表明稳定币的管理非常糟糕，因为其中一些是灾难。
That means we do need to do things to make sure stablecoins are themselves well regulated, but it doesn’t follow that we’re doing this because we want to help the banks.
这意味着我们确实需要采取措施确保稳定币本身受到良好监管，但这并不意味着我们这样做是因为我们想帮助银行。
We’re doing it because we want to make sure we have an industry that’s in itself reasonably reliable.
我们这样做是因为我们想确保我们拥有一个本身相当可靠的行业。
On the George Selgin production function
关于乔治·塞尔金生产函数
For our final segment, we move to the George Selgin production function.
对于最后一部分，我们转向乔治·塞尔金生产函数。
George, what is it like owning 100 donkeys?
乔治，拥有 100 头驴是什么感觉？
Yes, I own 100 donkeys, but so far, only for a year.
是的，我有 100 头驴，但到目前为止，只维持了一年。
I volunteered.
我自愿的。
There’s a donkey reservation near where I live in Spain.
我在西班牙住的地方附近有一个驴子保护区。
I found out about it, and I like donkeys, so I went down there.
我知道了，我也喜欢驴子，所以我就去了那里。
It’s a husband and wife who’ve been doing this for 35 years or something — mostly out of their own pockets — to try to keep the donkey population going, specifically the Andalusian donkeys.
一对夫妇已经这样做了 35 年之类的——“大部分都是自掏腰包”——试图维持驴的数量，特别是安达卢西亚驴的数量。
So, I volunteered to help out there.
所以，我自愿去那里帮忙。
It’s not help yet, but I hang around and move hay and things like that, cut corn.
虽然还没有什么帮助，但我会四处闲逛，搬运干草之类的东西，割玉米。
I wanted to make a donation.
我想捐款。
On the website, it said that for €20, you could adopt a donkey for a year.
网站上说，只要20欧元，你就可以领养一头驴一年。
I sent in €2,000 and put a note on it, 100 donkeys.
我寄了 2,000 欧元，并在上面贴了一张纸条：100 头驴。
I now own 100 donkeys.
我现在拥有100头驴。
The only problem is that it’s a fractional reserve donkey place, so it turns out they only have 30 donkeys.
唯一的问题是，这是一个部分保留的驴场，所以事实证明他们只有 30 头驴。
If I were to stage a run right now, they’d go broke.
如果我现在就跑，他们就会破产。
What’s the positive social externality from donkeys in Spain?
西班牙的驴有什么积极的社会外部性？
If you’ve ever hung around a donkey or donkeys, you find that they are just nothing but walking positive externalities.
如果你曾经和一头或多头驴子待过，你会发现它们只不过是行走的正外部性。
They’re absolutely lovely, very, very amicable animals.
它们绝对是可爱、非常、非常友善的动物。
They come and nuzzle you and all that.
他们过来用鼻子蹭你之类的。
They actually use them for therapy for this reason.
出于这个原因，他们实际上使用它们进行治疗。
Unlike therapy dogs, you can’t bring the donkey into the hospital.
与治疗犬不同，您不能将驴带入医院。
People come down to the donkey reserve.
人们来到驴保护区。
They bring patients down there to hang around the donkeys.
他们把病人带到那里，在驴子周围闲逛。
It has really good effects — psychological patients or people who are recovering from serious injuries, and all that.
它确实有很好的效果——对于精神病患者或正在从严重伤害中恢复的人等等。
I’m not going to discuss what my possible problems are, but whatever they are, it’s helping to hang around these donkeys, and I get it for nothing.
我不会讨论我可能遇到的问题，但无论是什么，和这些驴子待在一起都是有帮助的，而且我是白白得到的。
Well, not for nothing.
好吧，这并不是没有原因的。
Well, I do some work.
嗯，我做一些工作。
Yes, I do some work.
是的，我做一些工作。
Now, feel free to challenge the premise of this question, but what would you say is the most important way that, over time, you’ve become less libertarian?
现在，请随意挑战这个问题的前提，但你认为随着时间的推移，你变得不那么自由主义的最重要方式是什么？
Ahhh.
啊哈。
Part of the answer to that, I have to say, I was never that libertarian to begin with.
我不得不说，部分答案是，我从一开始就不是那样的自由主义者。
I got into the money stuff with Larry’s book and all.
我通过拉里的书和其他东西进入了金钱领域。
I became libertarian on money by virtue of asking the question, do we need this much government and money, and coming to the conclusion that we don’t.
我在金钱问题上成为了自由主义者，因为我提出了这样一个问题：我们需要这么多政府和金钱吗？然后得出的结论是我们不需要。
Now, since most people think money is the thing that, above all, has to be regulated by governments, people naturally assume that if I’m libertarian on money, I must be a hardcore laissez-faire guy all around.
现在，由于大多数人认为金钱首先必须由政府监管，人们自然而然地认为，如果我在金钱上是自由主义者，那么我一定是一个铁杆的自由放任者。
But in fact, I don’t hold strong opinions about a lot of economic policy issues because I just don’t pretend to know enough.
但事实上，我对很多经济政策问题并没有强烈的看法，因为我只是不假装知道得足够多。
Your money views have a lot of government in them.
你的金钱观中有很多政府的成分。
There’s no gold standard.
没有黄金标准。
It’s a government paper currency.
这是政府纸币。
It’s a government-run computer.
这是政府运行的计算机。
It runs monetary policy.
它负责货币政策。
That’s true, but that was true from the beginning, too.
确实如此，但从一开始也是如此。
Like I said in my first book, I assume you can’t .
就像我在第一本书中所说的那样，我认为你不能。
.
。
.
。
I like the gold standard.
我喜欢黄金标准。
I thought the pre-World War I gold standard was amazing.
我认为第一次世界大战前的金本位制是惊人的。
It’s the best monetary system we’ve had.
这是我们拥有的最好的货币体系。
If it didn’t always look great, as was the case in the United States, for example — where we had crises — if you do the research, you’ll see that that was because of the specific dumb regulations in those countries that had a lot of problems, mainly the US and England.
如果它看起来并不总是很好，就像美国的情况一样，例如 - 我们遇到危机的地方 - 如果你进行研究，你会发现这是因为那些存在很多问题的国家（主要是美国和英国）的特定愚蠢法规。
Anyway, a gold standard was great, but I don’t think you can get that genie back in the bottle.
不管怎样，黄金标准很棒，但我不认为你能把那个精灵放回瓶子里。
I just think it’s impossible for the most obvious reason.
我只是认为出于最明显的原因这是不可能的。
Once governments are involved in the gold standard, once you have a central bank, then if it breaks its commitment — which of course they all have, all the ones that once were tied to the gold standard — then they can’t establish a credible commitment again to have convertibility to gold.
一旦政府参与金本位制，一旦有了中央银行，那么如果它违反了承诺——当然他们都有过这样的承诺，所有曾经与金本位挂钩的承诺——那么他们就无法再次建立可信的黄金兑换承诺。
The way I sum it up is, if tomorrow the Federal Reserve said, “Okay, you can have so many ounces of gold for every so many dollars,” a wise public, I think, myself included, would go tomorrow and take the gold just in case, and that would be the end of it.
我的总结是，如果明天美联储说：“好吧，你可以用这么多美元换取这么多盎司的黄金”，我想，包括我自己在内的明智公众会明天去拿走黄金，以防万一，事情就到此为止了。
I don’t think you can recreate.
我认为你无法重新创建。
The problem is you’ll say, “Well, okay, we don’t have to have a central bank.” But you do in the sense that switching monetary standards is like trying to switch which side of the road you drive on.
问题是你会说，“好吧，我们不必有央行。”但从某种意义上说，改变货币标准就像试图改变你行驶在路的哪一边一样。
You need somebody to coordinate it to make it happen because people don’t do it all by themselves.
你需要有人来协调它才能实现，因为人们不会自己完成这一切。
That’s why Bitcoin isn’t taking off as a general medium of exchange, whatever its virtues might be, for example.
这就是为什么比特币没有成为一种通用的交换媒介，无论它有什么优点。
We have this network problem.
我们遇到这个网络问题。
If the government doesn’t deliberately create a gold standard, it’s unlikely that we’ll spontaneously go there, but if the government did deliberately create a gold standard, it’s unlikely we would trust it.
如果政府没有刻意建立金本位制，我们不太可能自发地去那里，但如果政府确实刻意建立金本位制，我们就不太可能相信它。
That’s my big problem with gold standards.
这是我对黄金标准的大问题。
On living in Andalusia
关于安达卢西亚的生活
Last two questions before we go to audience questions.
在我们进入观众提问之前，最后两个问题。
First, living in Andalusia, what’s been your biggest surprise?
首先，生活在安达卢西亚，你最大的惊喜是什么？
The biggest surprise has been the people.
最大的惊喜是人。
The people are just absolutely lovely.
这里的人们非常可爱。
I went alone.
我一个人去的。
I don’t have family or anything.
我没有家人或任何东西。
Having people act like they really care about you just from the get-go is wonderful.
让人们从一开始就表现得像真正关心你一样，真是太棒了。
I’ll just tell you two quick stories now.
我现在就给你们讲两个小故事。
One is I had a toothache early on, so I go to a local dentist.
一是我很早就牙痛了，所以我去看了当地的牙医。
To make it short — because we don’t have a lot of time — I ended up making about six visits to this dentist to try to get this thing straightened out.
简而言之， ——因为我们没有太多时间 —— 我最终去看了这位牙医大约六次，试图解决这个问题。
They finally had to pull a tooth and put in a crown.
最后他们不得不拔掉一颗牙齿并装上牙冠。
They wouldn’t take my money till they put the crown in.
他们不会拿走我的钱，除非他们把王冠放进去。
Then they took some money.
然后他们拿了一些钱。
I kept saying, “How much do I owe you?” They said, “Oh, don’t want to worry about it.
我一直在问：“我欠你多少钱？”他们说：“哦，不想担心这个。
Next time.”
下次吧。”
The other one is the postman.
另一位是邮递员。
The postman would come to deliver packages.
邮递员会来送包裹。
When I’m not home, I get a frantic phone call to say, “I have a package for you.
当我不在家时，我接到一个疯狂的电话，说：“我有一个包裹给你。
What do I do?
我该怎么办？
You’re not here.
你不在这里。
Where can I put it?
我可以把它放在哪里？
When are you coming back?” They’re really worried.
你什么时候回来？”他们真的很担心。
These aren’t necessarily people I know, right?
这些不一定是我认识的人，对吧？
They could be a postman I’ve never dealt with before.
他们可能是我以前从未接触过的邮递员。
Lovely people.
可爱的人们。
Absolutely lovely people.
绝对可爱的人。
That’s been the biggest surprise, fortunately, a positive surprise.
这是最大的惊喜，幸运的是，这是一个积极的惊喜。
Final question: now that you’re fluent in Spanish, other than donkeys, what will you learn about next?
最后一个问题：现在你已经掌握了流利的西班牙语，除了驴子之外，接下来你还会学到什么？
Oh, that has to do specifically with Spain?
哦，这和西班牙有关系吗？
Yes, or the Spanish language.
是的，或者西班牙语。
It could be Latin America.
可能是拉丁美洲。
It could be Salamanca, anything.
可能是萨拉曼卡，任何东西。
Gosh, that’s a good question.
天哪，这是个好问题。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Usually, what I take on has to do with just an interest that’s unrelated to the interest in the language itself.
通常，我所做的只是与语言本身的兴趣无关的兴趣有关。
I’ll only say I’ve been very keen on traveling more in Spain.
我只想说我一直非常热衷于更多地去西班牙旅行。
They have luxury trains now in many, many countries.
他们现在在很多很多国家都有豪华列车。
Have you been on the Maharaja Express?
您乘坐过王公快车吗？
No, never.
不，从来没有。
No?
不？
I want to do that one, but Spain has a couple of them, and I want to do those.
我想做那一个，但西班牙有几个，我想做那些。
Maybe I’ll learn a lot of railroad lingo and add that to my Spanish vocabulary.
也许我会学到很多铁路术语，并将其添加到我的西班牙语词汇中。
All my Spanish is a result of having to learn it.
我所有的西班牙语都是必须学习的结果。
I bought an apartment, and I had to have it fixed up, so my vocabulary is really good on things like plumbing and painting and plaster, and stuff like that.
我买了一套公寓，我必须把它修好，所以我的词汇量在管道、油漆和石膏之类的东西上非常好。
Again, a plug for George’s book, False Dawn, the very best book on its topic.
再次，乔治的书《虚假黎明》的插件，这是该主题的最好的书。
Congratulations, George, and thank you very much.
恭喜你，乔治，非常感谢你。
Oh, thank you, Tyler.
哦，谢谢你，泰勒。
Q&A
问答
Questions.
问题。
I will call on you.
我会打电话给你。
No speeches.
没有演讲。
If you start a speech, I will interrupt you, and you will be expunged from the tape.
如果你开始演讲，我会打断你，你将从录音带中删除。
Please.
请。
Yes, you have your hand up, and you’re looking around.
是的，你举起手，环顾四周。
The mic will come.
麦克风会来。
Ryan Bourne from the Cato Institute.
来自卡托研究所的瑞安·伯恩。
George, the eurozone — net positive for the countries involved, net negative, or irrelevant to their prospects?
乔治，欧元区——对相关国家来说是净利好、净利空还是与它们的前景无关？
Well, I think the eurozone is a mixed bag.
嗯，我认为欧元区是一个鱼龙混杂的国家。
On the one hand, you have this common currency, which I think is itself a good thing, but you have all the regulatory baggage that goes along with it.
一方面，你拥有这种共同货币，我认为这本身就是一件好事，但你也有随之而来的所有监管包袱。
I’ll answer indirectly and incompletely by saying, back in the early 1990s, I was advising Lithuania on currency reform.
我会间接且不完整地回答说，早在 20 世纪 90 年代初，我就为立陶宛提供货币改革建议。
This was when they’d just broken free, or were just breaking free from the Soviet Republic.
那是他们刚刚挣脱束缚，或者说刚刚脱离苏维埃共和国的时候。
I wrote an article for the New York Times.
我为《纽约时报》写了一篇文章。
Remember, there’s no euro currency at this time.
请记住，目前没有欧元货币。
This is early ’90s, so it’s not quite 10 years before the euro is introduced, but there are Eurobonds.
现在是 90 年代初，距离欧元推出还不到 10 年，但已经有欧洲债券了。
I said what they should do is set up a currency board backed by Eurobonds and issue euros before there were any euros.
我说他们应该做的是建立一个由欧洲债券支持的货币局，并在欧元出现之前发行欧元。
That kind of euro currency would have been very good if enough countries had done it.
如果有足够多的国家这样做的话，这种欧元货币本来会非常好。
I think countries are suffering from the bureaucracy that goes hand in hand with being in the eurozone, not just the common monetary policy, which I think itself might be bearable enough.
我认为各国正在遭受与欧元区相伴的官僚主义的困扰，而不仅仅是共同货币政策，我认为共同货币政策本身可能是可以忍受的。
That’s my thoughts about that.
这就是我的想法。
I was very ambivalent about Britain’s decision to break out of the eurozone.
我对英国退出欧元区的决定非常矛盾。
I still have my doubts whether they’ve made themselves better off by doing so.
我仍然怀疑他们这样做是否让自己变得更好。
I know that’s a dangerous thing to say, but I just don’t have very, very strong feelings — and I didn’t have them at the time — that that move would prove to be to Britain’s benefit.
我知道这样说很危险，但我并没有非常非常强烈的感觉 ——而且我当时也没有这种感觉—— 认为这一举措将被证明对英国有利。
You can tell me more about whether I should have more confident views.
你可以告诉我更多关于我是否应该有更自信的观点。
Next question.
下一个问题。
Yes, in the back.
是的，在后面。
Mic is coming.
麦克风来了。
George, the US economy in the ’40s and beyond, were it not for World War II, what would we expect had there not been the war with the Depression of the ’30s?
乔治，四十年代及以后的美国经济，如果没有第二次世界大战，如果没有战争和三十年代的大萧条，我们会期待什么？
What I argue in the book, and of course, what I believe, is that we might still be in trouble.
我在书中主张的，当然也是我所相信的，是我们可能仍然陷入困境。
The war did help end the US Depression, but not just in the way that people normally think.
这场战争确实帮助结束了美国大萧条，但并不只是像人们通常想象的那样。
The common view is, “Well, we started finally doing fiscal stimulus, and how!
普遍的观点是，“好吧，我们终于开始实施财政刺激，以及如何实施！
And that got the spending going, and that got us out of the Depression.”
这推动了支出，让我们摆脱了大萧条。”
The problem with that simple explanation is that the big boost in spending ended.
这个简单解释的问题在于支出的大幅增长已经结束。
Wartime spending, or overall government spending — all levels of government — as a percent of GDP, fell back down almost to where they were in 1939 after the war ended, and that happened very quickly.
战时支出，或者说政府总体支出——“各级政府”——占 GDP 的百分比，在战争结束后几乎回落至 1939 年的水平，而且这种情况发生得非常快。
All the soldiers are coming back, and the Keynesians now, who are getting in the saddle, are predicting a major depression.
所有的士兵都回来了，而现在上马的凯恩斯主义者则预测将出现严重的萧条。
But the war did something else, and that’s why that major depression didn’t happen, and we ended up with a big investment boom.
但战争还起了其他作用，这就是为什么大萧条没有发生，我们最终迎来了巨大的投资热潮。
That something else was to change the attitude of government towards business from the hostility it exhibited during the New Deal to, if anything, overly cozy cooperation that was planting the seeds for the military-industrial complex.
另一件事是改变政府对企业的态度，从新政期间表现出的敌意，转变为过度舒适的合作，为军工联合体埋下种子。
So, by the time the war ends, businessmen, instead of being pessimistic, have got their confidence built up big time, and the government, instead of being hostile, is favorable.
因此，当战争结束时，商人不再悲观，而是信心大增，而政府也不再敌视，而是有利。
So, you get this immense investment boom that makes up for the shrinkage in wartime spending, and that’s the real key to recovery.
因此，巨大的投资热潮弥补了战时支出的缩减，这是经济复苏的真正关键。
That’s what might not have happened if there hadn’t been a war.
如果没有战争，这可能不会发生。
We might have had a more lasting regime uncertainty problem or regime hostility problem.
我们可能会遇到更持久的政权不确定性问题或政权敌意问题。
Of course, the counterfactual here is raw because we don’t know who would have been elected.
当然，这里的反事实是原始的，因为我们不知道谁会当选。
Roosevelt obviously died, and Truman would have taken his place one way or the other, and Truman’s attitudes were different from his.
罗斯福显然死了，杜鲁门无论如何都会接替他的位置，而杜鲁门的态度与他不同。
At least I can say that by changing, helping to bring about the change in the government-business attitude, even before, even while FDR was still in office — in that respect, the war made a very positive long-run difference.
至少我可以说，通过改变，帮助实现政府与企业的态度的改变，甚至在罗斯福还在任期间，就在这方面，战争产生了非常积极的长期影响。
Question in the front center, yes.
前面中间的问题，是的。
David, oh, that’s you.
大卫，哦，那就是你。
Yes, hi.
是的，嗨。
George, you’re a big champion of the productivity norm, where you’d have the price level gently fall as productivity growth accelerated.
乔治，你是生产力标准的坚定拥护者，随着生产力增长的加速，物价水平会逐渐下降。
If we happen upon an AI true boom, do you actually see a world where policymakers would allow this type of productivity-driven deflation to emerge?
如果我们碰巧遇到人工智能真正的繁荣，你是否真的看到了一个政策制定者会允许这种生产力驱动的通货紧缩出现的世界？
Or would they be too afraid of it?
还是他们太害怕了？
My favorite policy or my ideal about prices falling as unit costs of production of goods falls is a long-run ideal in that I don’t think you can just jump into that policy because people now have expectations about trends and prices and costs.
我最喜欢的政策或我关于价格随着商品生产单位成本下降而下降的理想是一个长期理想，因为我认为你不能直接跳入该政策，因为人们现在对趋势、价格和成本有预期。
So, you’d have to gradually work into this.
所以，你必须逐步努力做到这一点。
You would gradually work towards a policy where prices often, actually, are allowed to fall.
您将逐渐制定一项实际上允许价格下跌的政策。
Do I think that the people at the Fed or any other central bank in the world today are ready to start heading towards such a policy?
我是否认为美联储或当今世界上任何其他央行的人员已经准备好开始采取这样的政策？
I don’t.
我不知道。
I don’t.
我不知道。
I think we still have a long way to go just to convince them that they shouldn’t be targeting a positive inflation rate.
我认为，要说服他们不应该以正通胀率为目标，我们还有很长的路要走。
Until we’ve moved away from that, at least moved towards some kind of agreement on nominal income stability, only then will it be possible to start talking about allowing a long-run downward trend in prices if productivity continues to improve.
直到我们摆脱这一点，至少就名义收入稳定性达成某种协议，只有那时，才有可能开始谈论在生产率持续提高的情况下允许价格长期下降的趋势。
Yes, in the front row.
是的，在前排。
First you, then you.
首先是你，然后是你。
Thank you for the wonderful book.
谢谢你的精彩书。
My question is, do you think technical innovation was the important part of the story in the recovery in the ’30s?
我的问题是，您认为技术创新是 30 年代经济复苏的重要组成部分吗？
Reversing this question, do wages that were too high or weren’t allowed to go down an important part in maintaining that innovation in labor-displacing, labor-supplanting ways?
换个角度来看，过高的工资或不允许下降的工资是否是维持劳动力取代、劳动力替代方式创新的重要组成部分？
Well, there was a lot of technical innovation in the 1930s.
20 世纪 30 年代出现了很多技术创新。
Alexander Field has written quite eloquently about it.
亚历山大·菲尔德（Alexander Field）对此进行了相当雄辩的论述。
What that innovation meant was that the production possibilities of the economy were expanding.
这种创新意味着经济的生产可能性正在扩大。
If you interpret that in terms of output, what it boils down to is saying that potential output’s growing during the ’30s.
如果你从产出的角度来解释这一点，那么归根结底就是潜在产出在 20 世纪 30 年代不断增长。
The problem, of course, is, depression is not just a low level of output compared to some previous amount.
当然，问题是，萧条不仅仅是产出水平低于之前的水平。
It’s measured by the gap between actual output and potential output.
它是通过实际产出和潜在产出之间的差距来衡量的。
Let’s just assume actual output wasn’t increasing during the Great Depression, and potential output was.
我们假设大萧条期间实际产出没有增加，而潜在产出却增加了。
The Depression was getting worse, not better.
大萧条不但没有好转，反而变得更糟。
Now, of course, what really happened was, output started to recover after ’33.
当然，现在真正发生的事情是，产量在 33 年后开始恢复。
As that potential output was growing rapidly, the real recovery in the sense of reduction in the output gap was less impressive than the recovery of absolute output may suggest.
由于潜在产出快速增长，产出缺口缩小意义上的实际复苏并不像绝对产出的复苏所暗示的那样令人印象深刻。
So, there’s a sense in which the fact that productivity was improving makes the Depression worse than it might seem if you just look at what the progress of output was.
因此，从某种意义上说，生产率提高这一事实使得大萧条比你只看产出进展情况所看起来的情况更严重。
One over.
一过。
Then, behind you will be the last question.
然后，在你身后将是最后一个问题。
Currently speaking, there’s the whole debate over the Fed’s independence and also a broader general debate about the independence of agencies in the federal government and being brought under the executive.
目前来说，存在着关于美联储独立性的整个辩论，以及关于联邦政府机构独立性和受行政管辖的更广泛的一般性辩论。
Right now, there’s a Supreme Court case going on.
目前，最高法院正在审理一起案件。
Let’s assume, in a worst-case scenario, the Supreme Court rules that all independent agencies come under the executive.
让我们假设，在最坏的情况下，最高法院裁定所有独立机构都受行政部门管辖。
In a way, that complicates, for example, the Fed trying to implement an NGDP framework.
在某种程度上，这使得美联储试图实施 NGDP 框架变得更加复杂。
In your own opinion, how does monetary policy get conducted under such a totally new regime in which everything is under the executive?
您认为，在这样一个全新的、一切都在行政之下的体制下，货币政策是如何执行的？
Thanks.
谢谢。
Well, it gets conducted according to the interests of the executive, which, unfortunately, as far as we can tell right now, tends to be one that favors very easy monetary policy, I think easier policy than would be consistent either with the Fed’s present target or with a reasonable nominal GDP target.
嗯，它是根据行政人员的利益进行的，不幸的是，据我们目前所知，这往往是一种有利于非常宽松的货币政策的政策，我认为比与美联储当前目标或合理的名义GDP目标相一致的政策更宽松。
I think it’s generally the case that both Congress, both congressional control and executive control are going to turn, in practice, into fiscal dominance of monetary policy, where the fiscal considerations, that is, the desire of the government officials to be able to spend more without taxing more, is going to encourage easier monetary policy than is consistent with macroeconomic stability.
我认为，一般情况下，国会，无论是国会控制还是行政控制，实际上都会变成货币政策的财政主导，其中财政考虑，即政府官员能够在不增加税收的情况下增加支出的愿望，将鼓励宽松的货币政策，而不是与宏观经济稳定相一致。
That’s why I think at least as much independence as you can get, of the Fed, from both branches of government is necessary.
这就是为什么我认为美联储至少需要从政府两个部门获得尽可能多的独立性。
I would like to see NGDP targeting happen.
我希望看到 NGDP 目标实现。
I think Fed officials have not been very good about considering it, but I would rather continue to try to convince them than take my chances with an executive-controlled Federal Reserve, which I think I’d have even less hope of converting such a Fed into doing the right thing.
我认为美联储官员并没有很好地考虑这一点，但我宁愿继续试图说服他们，也不愿在行政控制的美联储身上冒险，我认为我更不可能让这样的美联储做出正确的事情。
Two minutes left.
还剩两分钟。
Last question.
最后一个问题。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Tomas Mandel.
托马斯·曼德尔.
No matter how you measure it, Argentina has one of the top per capita incomes in Latin America.
无论如何衡量，阿根廷都是拉丁美洲人均收入最高的国家之一。
Countries with independent central banks, with dollarized economies have lower per capita income than Argentina.
拥有独立中央银行和美元化经济的国家的人均收入低于阿根廷。
My simple question is, what does that say about the wealth of nations?
我的简单问题是，这对国家财富意味着什么？
Maybe it says that countries that are very poor decided that they’d better dollarize so they don’t get any poorer.
也许这表明非常贫穷的国家决定最好将其美元化，这样他们就不会变得更穷。
Thank you all for coming.
谢谢大家的到来。
Thank you, George.
谢谢你，乔治。
Thank you, Tyler.
谢谢你，泰勒。
Photo Credit: Richie Downs
照片来源：里奇·唐斯