How to Get Rich in America

Good morning from California!

来自加利福尼亚州的早上好！

This one is pretty long (it’s the result of four different drafts) so it might be cut off in your email!

这个相当长（这是四个不同草稿的结果），所以它可能会在您的电子邮件中被切断！

This is a reader-supported publication.

这是一本由读者支持的出版物。

To receive new posts and support all of my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

要接收新帖子并支持我的所有工作，请考虑成为付费订阅者。

One of my most fatal flaws is my misplaced tendency to pattern-match.

我最致命的缺点之一是我错误的模式匹配倾向。

When I am around someone who has a British accent, I develop a slight British accent (and my actual accent is pretty confusing to begin with, a mix of Kentucky and Rhode Island with a minor speech impediment.) Or I’ll start mirroring people’s movements within a conversation or start matching their laugh or sometimes, much to the chagrin of my dear friends, I’ll start to try to finish their sentences for them.

当我和一个有英国口音的人在一起时，我会产生轻微的英国口音（而我的实际口音一开始就很令人困惑，是肯塔基州和罗德岛州的混合口音，并有轻微的言语障碍。）或者我会开始模仿人们在谈话中的动作，或者开始模仿他们的笑声，或者有时，让我亲爱的朋友们懊恼的是，我会开始尝试为他们完成他们的句子。

Much of human nature is this, learning how we navigate environments that we don’t fully understand.

人性的大部分就是这样，学习如何驾驭我们不完全理解的环境。

We watch and listen to others to figure out how one should act.

我们观察并倾听他人的意见，以弄清楚一个人应该如何行事。

It seems as though that’s what people are doing as the economy changes.

随着经济的变化，人们似乎也在这么做。

Trying to predict its next move, to always stay one step ahead of it, to try and make sense of the way it keeps changing and their role within it.

试图预测它的下一步行动，始终保持领先一步，尝试理解它不断变化的方式以及他们在其中的角色。

A big thing that has changed is payoff structures.

发生的一件大事是支付结构。

You can get really, really rich if you own a lot of stuff—houses, stocks, etc. You can’t really get the same kind of rich if you’re just relying on labor income.

如果你拥有很多东西——房子、股票等等，你就能变得非常非常富有。如果你仅仅依靠劳动收入，你就不可能真正变得富有。

This creates a disconnect (or seems to) between effort and outcome.

这造成了努力和结果之间的脱节（或者看起来是脱节）。

Why work so hard if it doesn’t payoff?

如果没有回报，为什么要这么努力呢？

Why try?

为什么要尝试？

And if the economy organizes itself around asset holders, which it has, that leads to a culture of hostility and institutional illegibility.

如果经济围绕资产持有者组织起来（事实确实如此），就会导致敌对文化和机构模糊性。

When people can no longer parse how their hard work might lead to a “normal life,” they pattern match the environment they are in.

当人们无法再解析他们的努力工作如何带来“正常生活”时，他们就会模式匹配他们所处的环境。

The economy increasingly rewards ownership over effort, which has created some…

经济越来越奖励所有权而不是努力，这创造了一些……

problems.

问题。

As Greg Ip wrote in the Wall Street Journal , labor received about 58% of total proceeds of economic output, as measured by gross domestic income, in 1980, a number that has since dropped to about 51% as of late last year.

正如叶格雷格 (Greg Ip) 在《华尔街日报》上所写，1980 年，按国内总收入衡量，劳动力获得的经济产出总收益约占 58%，但截至去年底，这一数字已降至 51% 左右。

Over the same time frame, corporate profits’ share of the economy rose from 7% to 11.7%.

同一时期，企业利润占经济的比重从 7% 上升至 11.7%。

Ip writes:

ip 写道:

[The economy’s] rewards are going disproportionately toward capital instead of labor.

[经济的]回报不成比例地流向资本而不是劳动力。

Profits have soared since the pandemic, and the market value attached to those profits even more.

自大流行以来，利润猛增，而这些利润的市场价值甚至更高。

The result: Capital, which includes businesses, shareholders and superstar employees, is triumphant, while the average worker ekes out marginal gains.

结果是：包括企业、股东和超级明星员工在内的资本获得胜利，而普通工人则勉强获得边际收益。

Ip points to the fall of unions and the rise in automation and fewer workers working at the superstar companies today as compared to decades past (he notes that IBM was the most profitable company in 1985, with 400,000 workers.

Ip 指出，与过去几十年相比，如今工会的衰落、自动化的兴起以及在超级明星公司工作的工人数量减少（他指出，IBM 是 1985 年最赚钱的公司，拥有 40 万名工人。

Nvidia, 20x more valuable, inflation-adjusted, employs about a 10th of that) as the reason behind this seismic shift in the economy.

英伟达 (Nvidia) 的价值是其 20 倍（经通货膨胀调整后），其员工人数约为其十分之一），作为经济发生这一巨大转变的原因。

Paul Krugman points to the tax code.

保罗·克鲁格曼指出了税法。

He has a series of explainers on how this works — we have (1) the payroll tax, which is tax on workers, and we have (2) a corporate income tax, which is a tax on capital.

他对这是如何运作的有一系列解释——我们有（1）工资税，这是对工人的税，我们有（2）企业所得税，这是对资本的税。

In the 1950s, over a fifth of federal revenue came from the corporate income tax, but today, it’s under a tenth due to the usual tax cuts and loophole shenanigans.

在 20 世纪 50 年代，超过五分之一的联邦收入来自企业所得税，但如今，由于通常的减税和漏洞恶作剧，这一比例还不到十分之一。

But the payroll tax, the tax on work, went the other way.

但工资税、工作税则相反。

It grew from a sliver of federal revenue to the second largest source.

它从联邦收入的一小部分增长为第二大来源。

So the government used to collect a lot more money from capital, and instead, collects it from paychecks.

因此，政府过去常常从资本中收取更多的钱，而是从工资中收取。

The tax code migrated in the same direction as everything else, toward favoring ownership over work.

税法与其他一切都朝着相同的方向发展，即倾向于所有权而非工作。

You can think of the entire economy as one giant company with one pot of money to split between the (1) people who do the work and the (2) people who own the work.

您可以将整个经济视为一个巨大的公司，其中一桶钱可以分配给（1）从事工作的人和（2）拥有工作的人。

In 1980, workers got almost 60 cents of every dollar, but now it’s about 50 cents.

1980 年，工人们每 1 美元的收入接近 60 美分，但现在约为 50 美分。

Profits are up from 7 to 12 cents per dollar.

每美元利润从 7 美分增加到 12 美分。

The worker’s share fell about 10 cents, but the owners’ share rose by two-thirds.

工人的份额下降了约 10 美分，但业主的份额却增加了三分之二。

Sure, whatever, right?

当然，无论如何，对吧？

But when you multiply it by a multi-trillion dollar economy, it’s a loss of somewhere between $8,000 - $12,000 a year for the worker, depending on the calculation used.

但当你将其乘以数万亿美元的经济时，工人每年的损失约为 8,000 至 12,000 美元，具体取决于所使用的计算方法。

And there are other pressure points bubbling around this too.

围绕这个问题还存在其他压力点。

The worker is taking a smaller and smaller share of the economy, but also, the money they make doesn’t…

工人在经济中所占的份额越来越小，而且，他们赚的钱并没有……

count as much.

算一样多。

Nonwage income, like Social Security payments, retirement account disbursements, capital gains, self employment income, alimony, gambling money, etc.

非工资收入，如社会保障金、退休账户支出、资本利得、自营职业收入、赡养费、赌钱等。

Most Americans make most of their money from wages.

大多数美国人的大部分钱来自工资。

According to the Minneapolis Fed , the median American pulls in $3,000 from nonwage income per year, but about $37k in wages.

根据明尼阿波利斯联储的数据，美国人每年的非工资收入为 3,000 美元，但工资约为 3.7 万美元。

Part of the problem with wages is that inflation gnaws away at them , and has wiped out all wage gains over the past four months.

工资问题的部分原因是通货膨胀正在侵蚀他们，并抹去了过去四个月里所有的工资涨幅。

But some people make a lot of money in the nonwage income category - the very rich and the older population.

但有些人在非工资收入类别中赚了很多钱——非常富有的人和老年人口。

Part of this is logical.

其中一部分是合乎逻辑的。

As you age, you take in Social Security.

随着年龄的增长，您需要缴纳社会保障。

As you grow rich, you mostly grow rich from stocks, as John Burn-Murdoch documented , noting that the median household’s net worth has roughly doubled in real terms since the mid-1990s, driven by the surge in stock prices and home prices over that same time frame, while incomes grew only around 50% (which is still pretty good.)

正如约翰·伯恩-默多克 (John Burn-Murdoch) 所记录的那样，当你致富时，你主要是通过股票致富的，他指出，自 20 世纪 90 年代中期以来，受股价和房价飙升的推动，中位家庭的实际净资产大约翻了一番，而收入仅增长了 50% 左右（这仍然相当不错）。

As he points out, a generation ago (in the UK specifically) it took about 20 years of saving from an average salary to climb from the bottom quarter of the wealth distribution to the top quarter.

正如他指出的那样，一代人之前（特别是在英国），平均工资需要大约 20 年的时间才能从财富分配的底部四分之一爬到顶部四分之一。

Now it takes…

现在需要……

40 years.

40 年。

Almost a lifetime.

几乎是一辈子。

Same theme in the States.

美国也有同样的主题。

42% of the nonwage income for the top 1% comes purely from capital gains, from stocks.

顶层 1% 的人 42% 的非工资收入纯粹来自股票的资本收益。

The second biggest component is S-corp income, which as the Fed researchers note, is “labor in the economic sense.” It’s definitely a form of what we would consider “work.”

第二大组成部分是小型企业的收入，正如美联储研究人员指出的那样，这是“经济意义上的劳动力”。这绝对是我们所认为的“工作”的一种形式。

For older households, their nonwage income is a reflection of the work they’ve done through Social Security payments and the retirement accounts they spent careers filling.

对于老年家庭来说，他们的非工资收入反映了他们通过社会保障金所做的工作以及他们在职业生涯中填写的退休账户。

So…

所以……

stocks.

股票。

If you do the math here, at least (at least ) a quarter of everything the richest filers report is pure gains, money made from money making money.

如果你在这里算一下，最富有的申报者报告的所有内容中至少有四分之一是纯粹收益，即通过赚钱赚钱的钱。

That’s one of the most remarkable things about the present moment is that it’s never been more obvious that wealth begets wealth.

当前最引人注目的事情之一是，财富产生财富这一点从未如此明显。

Money can make more of itself if it sits inside the right investment account.

如果资金存在于正确的投资账户中，它就能创造更多的价值。

Wealth—ownership—feels like it matters more than any sort of labor income, because wealth builds more wealth.

财富——所有权——感觉比任何形式的劳动收入都更重要，因为财富可以创造更多的财富。

People see this.

人们看到了这一点。

Over half of Americans, including 60% of Gen Z adults, say that a full-time job won’t let them meet their goals, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal .

据《华尔街日报》报道，超过一半的美国人（包括 60% 的 Z 世代成年人）表示，全职工作无法让他们实现目标。

1 in 4 Americans have a side hustle , and everyone, everyone wants passive income.

四分之一的美国人都有副业，每个人都想要被动收入。

Google search interest in “passive income” has increased by about 50% over the past five years or so.

过去五年左右，谷歌对“被动收入”的搜索兴趣增加了约 50%。

One person describes it as:

一个人将其描述为：

Much of this passive income world is filled with grifters, people who sell courses on how to make passive income to people who need passive income.

这个被动收入世界里充满了骗子，他们向需要被动收入的人出售如何赚取被动收入的课程。

The courses, of course, don’t really work.

当然，这些课程并没有真正发挥作用。

Part of the desire for passive income is sheer dissatisfaction with work.

对被动收入的渴望部分源于对工作的纯粹不满。

According to the Wall Street Journal , 1 in 4 white collar workers have gone five years without a promotion or pay raise, with one worker, Sidi Traore, telling the Journal, “Job security, it’s a fallacy.

据《华尔街日报》报道，四分之一的白领工人已经五年没有升职或加薪，其中一名工人西迪·特拉奥雷 (Sidi Traore) 告诉《华尔街日报》，“工作保障，这是一个谬论。

We could get a six-figure job, but if you’re no longer an asset, they could fire you today or tomorrow.”

我们可以得到一份六位数的工作，但如果你不再是资产，他们可能会在今天或明天解雇你。”

People are dropping out of the labor force entirely, especially those without a college degree.

人们正在完全退出劳动力市场，尤其是那些没有大学学位的人。

And this relationship to work, and the money we make or don’t make within it, is showing up in the media we consume, as Inkoo Kang wrote about in the New Yorker :

这种与工作的关系，以及我们在其中赚到或没赚到的钱，都体现在我们消费的媒体中，正如 Inkoo Kang 在《纽约客》中所写的那样：

A fresh batch of shows has met the moment by focussing on the other side of the K-shaped economy: the downwardly mobile middle class.

一批新的节目通过关注 K 型经济的另一面：向下流动的中产阶级来迎接这一时刻。

“ DTF St. Louis ,” “ Beef ,” and “The Comeback” feel tailor-made for an era marred by inflation anxiety, affordability crises, and fiscal doomerism […] these new programs capture the perspectives of those who fundamentally believe they should have more—and might in fact have more, in a fairer system.

《DTF 圣路易斯》、《牛肉》和《卷土重来》感觉是为一个饱受通胀焦虑、负担能力危机和财政末日论困扰的时代量身定做的……这些新节目抓住了那些从根本上相信自己应该拥有更多的人的观点——而且在更公平的制度下实际上可能拥有更多。

For a long time, the shows of the moment were things like White Lotus and Succession, but it seems like shows that document extensive and otherworldly wealth aren’t that…

很长一段时间以来，当下的节目都是像《白莲花》和《继承》这样的节目，但记录广泛和超凡脱俗的财富的节目似乎并不是这样……

interesting anymore.

有趣了。

Works of fiction became a little too real, and the real world became a little too fictitious.

小说作品变得有点太真实了，现实世界也变得有点太虚构了。

After all, the US added 1,200 new millionaires a day throughout 2025 , mostly due to stock market gains.

毕竟，2025 年美国每天新增 1,200 名百万富翁，这主要归功于股市上涨。

Financial assets, like stocks and bonds, account for almost 80% of gross wealth in the US.

股票和债券等金融资产几乎占美国总财富的 80%。

The AI boom is just the newest, most visible installment of this.

人工智能的繁荣只是其中最新、最明显的一部分。

Asset holders are getting very rich off a technology, that threatens to displace work and life as we know it (supposedly, although I would advocate to market it as “the next Internet” rather than “job killer 1000”) and it will also make everything in its wake more expensive, including computer prices and electricity costs.

资产持有者正在从一项技术中变得非常富有，这项技术有可能取代我们所知的工作和生活（据说，尽管我主张将其宣传为“下一个互联网”而不是“1000个就业杀手”），而且它也将使随之而来的一切变得更加昂贵，包括计算机价格和电力成本。

The lesson that this era seems to have imparted is that all the hard work that you’ve put forth, is meaningless.

这个时代似乎给我们的教训是，你付出的所有努力都是毫无意义的。

What will bring you meaning?

什么会给你带来意义？

Money.

钱。

Lots of money.

很多钱。

This creates a sense of malaise, as has been extensively documented, as the stock market rips and the economy surges forward, mostly powered by this AI boom.

正如大量文献记载的那样，随着股市的暴跌和经济的蓬勃发展，这会产生一种不适感，而这主要是由人工智能的繁荣推动的。

Neil Dutta points out in a recent piece for Bloomberg that Everything is the AI Trade Now™️, tying together (1) the people getting real rich off stock market wealth driving consumption to (2) state government revenue from the data centers (if they keep building them) to (3) companies like Caterpillar and Cummins essentially trading like tech stocks because everyone is within the AI capex order book.

Neil Dutta 在彭博社最近的一篇文章中指出，一切都是 AI Trade Now™️，将 (1) 人们从股市财富驱动消费中真正致富到 (2) 州政府从数据中心获得的收入（如果他们继续建设数据中心）到 (3) 像卡特彼勒和康明斯这样的公司基本上像科技股一样交易，因为每个人都在人工智能资本支出订单簿中。

The AI wealth effect , as it’s called, feels almost inescapable.

所谓的人工智能财富效应感觉几乎是不可避免的。

No wonder there is an enormous amount of data center backlash.

难怪数据中心会遭到强烈反对。

Of course there is.

当然有。

Here is yet another thing, promising growth and opportunity (that it very well could deliver on) that’s being plopped down without much consideration and almost certainly going to make a select few people fabulously wealthy.

还有一件事是，有希望的增长和机会（它很可能实现）在没有经过太多考虑的情况下就被放弃了，而且几乎肯定会让少数人变得非常富有。

So wealthy that all our money is going to it—in June, data center construction outlays hit almost $70 billion at annual rate, and outlays on everything else, including homes and hospitals, fell by $100 billion.

如此富有以至于我们所有的钱都花在了上面——6月份，数据中心建设支出按年率计算几乎达到700亿美元，而包括家庭和医院在内的其他一切支出下降了1000亿美元。

For Asterisk Magazine, Zilan Qian writes about China’s relationship to AI, which compared to Americans, seems optimistic:

钱子兰在《Asterisk》杂志上写到了中国与人工智能的关系，与美国相比，中国与人工智能的关系似乎很乐观：

Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index Report shows that more than 85% of Chinese respondents see AI as more beneficial than harmful, compared to less than 45% of respondents in the United States.

斯坦福大学2026年人工智能指数报告显示，超过85%的中国受访者认为人工智能利大于弊，而美国这一比例不到45%。

A 2025 report published by the University of Queensland and KPMG Australia revealed that 73% of Chinese respondents are willing to trust AI system outputs and share relevant information with AI at work, and 88% intentionally use the technology, compared to 52% and 48% of Americans, respectively.

昆士兰大学和澳大利亚毕马威会计师事务所发布的 2025 年报告显示，73% 的中国受访者愿意信任人工智能系统的输出，并在工作中与人工智能分享相关信息，88% 的受访者有意使用该技术，而美国人的这一比例分别为 52% 和 48%。

But Qian explains that this is not unbridled joy as much as it is China’s fear, given the enormous changes to their economy over the last fifty years or so.

但钱解释说，考虑到中国经济在过去五十年左右发生的巨大变化，这并不是肆无忌惮的喜悦，而是中国的恐惧。

Qian describes it as “a possible coping mechanism is to rapidly accept and embrace it, because history has taught the Chinese that the only coping mechanism is to change oneself .”

钱学森将其描述为“一种可能的应对机制是迅速接受和拥抱它，因为历史告诉中国人，唯一的应对机制是改变自己。”

But it does seem like Americans are changing themselves when it comes to this newest round of wealth generation opportunities.

但在最新一轮的财富创造机会方面，美国人似乎正在改变自己。

They are pattern-matching too.

它们也是模式匹配的。

They are seeing the writing on the wall: that the job is perhaps not enough, that what really matters is Stock Market Money, and that’s it.

他们看到了不祥之兆：这项工作可能还不够，真正重要的是股市资金，仅此而已。

And this is not just oh harrumph, people don’t want to work anymore, pull those bootstraps up to your earlobes— our relationship to work itself has changed.

这不仅仅是哦，哼哼，人们不想再工作了，把那些靴带拉到你的耳垂上——我们与工作本身的关系已经改变了。

AI (or at least, the CEOs of AI companies when they are on various stages) is actively threatening the labor market, so Americans, logically, are rethinking work.

人工智能（或者至少是处于不同阶段的人工智能公司的首席执行官）正在积极威胁劳动力市场，因此从逻辑上讲，美国人正在重新思考工作。

The World Economic Forum guesses that AI might displace 92 million jobs by 2030.

世界经济论坛预测，到 2030 年，人工智能可能会取代 9200 万个工作岗位。

Employers are rethinking work too.

雇主们也在重新考虑工作。

1 in 3 corporate employers are changing their hiring plans because of AI, and because older workers are working longer.

由于人工智能以及老年员工的工作时间更长，三分之一的企业雇主正在改变他们的招聘计划。

Researchers out of Stanford found that jobseekers would have to apply for 25 jobs in order to receive at least one chance to go to a second round interview.

斯坦福大学的研究人员发现，求职者必须申请 25 份工作才能获得至少一次参加第二轮面试的机会。

Most of the job growth in the economy is in healthcare , which will likely continue into the future, driven by an aging economy and the wealth of the older population.

经济中的大部分就业增长来自医疗保健领域，在经济老龄化和老年人口财富的推动下，这一领域可能会持续到未来。

Economic revolutions produce grievances for three main reasons.

经济革命产生不满的三个主要原因。

They disrupt established ways of doing things, make a small number of people exceedingly rich, and deprive workers and citizens of a sense of agency

它们破坏了既定的做事方式，使少数人变得非常富有，并剥夺了工人和公民的代理感

And this revolution is happening faster than all the others:

这场革命比其他革命发生得更快：

Four decades passed between Edison’s first public demonstration of electricity in 1879 and many regular Americans getting access to the new magic.

从 1879 年爱迪生首次公开展示电力到许多普通美国人接触到这一新魔法，已经过去了四十年。

ChatGPT reached 100 million users within months of its 2022 launch.

ChatGPT 在 2022 年推出后的几个月内就拥有了 1 亿用户。

Big Tech is betting on the change gathering pace: Spending on AI could reach $2.5 trillion by the end of 2026 and even cash-stuffed companies are borrowing heavily.

大型科技公司押注于变革步伐的加快：到 2026 年底，人工智能方面的支出可能达到 2.5 万亿美元，甚至现金充足的公司也在大量借贷。

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Logically, in that sort of economy, where the established ladder is disrupted and agency is lost, the relationship to work evolves.

从逻辑上讲，在这种经济中，既定的阶梯被破坏，代理权消失，与工作的关系发生了变化。

Emi Nietfeld wrote a piece for the New York Times about America’s changing relationship with ambition, noting that:

埃米·尼特菲尔德 (Emi Nietfeld) 为《纽约时报》撰写了一篇关于美国与野心关系不断变化的文章，指出：

[Younger people] no longer believe work in the traditional sense leads to any reliable payoff.

[年轻人]不再相信传统意义上的工作会带来任何可靠的回报。

The casino economy they’re entering doles out success in the form of windfalls, and makes those wins vanish just as suddenly.

他们进入的赌场经济以意外之财的形式提供了成功，但也让这些胜利突然消失了。

Ambition requires a belief that you have meaningful control over your future.

雄心壮志需要相信你对自己的未来有有意义的控制。

With so much uncertainty today, it can feel pointless to prepare for tomorrow.

今天有如此多的不确定性，为明天做准备可能会感觉毫无意义。

And to be clear, people still do prepare.

需要明确的是，人们仍然做好了准备。

As the Atlantic reported, “a 2024 Charles Schwab survey found that the average Zoomer started saving at age 19, younger than other generations had.

正如《大西洋月刊》报道的那样，“嘉信理财 (Charles Schwab) 2024 年的一项调查发现，Zoomer 的平均年龄为 19 岁，比其他几代人更年轻。

(The typical Boomer, for comparison, began at 35.)”

（作为比较，典型的婴儿潮一代从 35 岁开始。）”

But as I (along with many others) have talked about before , and to Nietfeld’s point, many people are just looking for windfalls.

但正如我（以及许多其他人）之前谈到的，以及尼特菲尔德的观点，许多人只是在寻找意外之财。

Northwestern Mutual noted in a study that “80% and 75% of Gen Zers and millennials” are “drawn to speculative investments because they feel financially behind .” This is prospect theory at a generational scale: when normal life pulls out of reach, lottery-like bets (crypto, meme stocks, options trading, Gary Vee NFTs ) start looking pretty rational.

西北互助银行 (Northwestern Mutual) 在一项研究中指出，“80% 和 75% 的 Z 世代和千禧一代”“被投机性投资所吸引，因为他们感觉经济落后”。这是一代人范围内的前景理论：当正常生活变得遥不可及时，类似彩票的赌注（加密货币、模因股票、期权交易、Gary Vee NFT）开始看起来相当理性。

The graph above—sports betting as a (1) financial strategy and (2) investment vehicle among young traders—is not Gen Z being “irresponsible” or “stupid.” Eric Balchunas posted this on Twitter, and many of the comments were expressing concern about gambling and investing bleeding together, which is only growing more concerning because the two increasingly live within the same apps.

上图——体育博彩作为年轻交易者的 (1) 财务策略和 (2) 投资工具——并不是 Z 世代“不负责任”或“愚蠢”。埃里克·巴尔丘纳斯 (Eric Balchunas) 在 Twitter 上发布了这一消息，许多评论都表达了对赌博和投资混在一起的担忧，而这只会变得更加令人担忧，因为这两者越来越多地生活在同一个应用程序中。

Robinhood lets you do it all—everything from an IRA to betting on “the best AI at the end of 2026” 2 , all within the app.

Robinhood 可以让您做这一切——从 IRA 到投注“2026 年底最好的人工智能”2 ，一切都在应用程序内完成。

It’s completely a design of the apps, for the apps, by the apps.

这完全是应用程序的设计、为应用程序设计、由应用程序设计。

Incentives!

激励措施！

They aren’t missing anything, but these are incentive structures.

他们并没有遗漏任何东西，但这些都是激励结构。

The house is fundamentally out of reach.

房子基本上是遥不可及的。

In order to get to the house, you have to get a windfall.

为了得到房子，你必须得到一笔意外之财。

If your job isn’t paying you enough, you might look to sports betting as a way to get that windfall.

如果你的工作给你的薪水不够，你可能会通过体育博彩来获得意外之财。

All of this is incentive structures, all the way down.

所有这些都是激励结构，一直向下。

It’s pattern-matching, optimizing to the current environment, which rewards huge, enormous swings in a muddy, shallow pool where gambling and investing have totally blurred—the yolofolio world.

它是模式匹配，针对当前环境进行优化，在赌博和投资完全模糊的泥泞浅水池（yolofolio 世界）中奖励巨大的波动。

And this is not just the United States.

这不仅仅是美国。

In South Korea , “the number of active individual stock trading accounts in Korea has neared 110mn — the equivalent of about two for every citizen” with many choosing to invest because “home ownership has become out of reach for many young Koreans.”

在韩国，“韩国活跃的个人股票交易账户数量已接近 1.1 亿，相当于每个公民大约有两个账户”，许多人选择投资，因为“拥有住房对许多韩国年轻人来说已经变得遥不可及”。

It’s arguably more intense there than it is here, mostly because South Korean markets are hyper-concentrated in stocks like SK Hynix and Samsung.

那里的情况可以说比这里更加激烈，主要是因为韩国市场高度集中于 SK 海力士和三星等股票。

The Financial Services Commission is now requiring traders to go through trading exercises to get access to leveraged single-stock ETFs , funds that double one stock’s daily moves.

金融服务委员会现在要求交易者进行交易练习才能获得杠杆单一股票 ETF，这种基金可以使一只股票的每日波动翻倍。

This sort of logic ends up entering into the relationship that many students seem to have with the new AI tools as well.

这种逻辑最终也进入了许多学生似乎与新的人工智能工具之间的关系。

School is ultimately means to an end, a chance to get into the perfect university to get the perfect job to have the perfect life.

学校最终是达到目的的手段，是进入完美大学、获得完美工作、拥有完美生活的机会。

You’re going to tell some of the most anxious people in human history that they can’t use the magic homework machine??

你要告诉一些人类历史上最焦虑的人，他们不能使用神奇的作业机？

No way.

决不。

In this economy, the thinking goes, you have to put all your cards on the table, and using AI tools to complete assignments is the way to do that.

在这种经济形势下，你必须把所有的牌都摊在桌面上，而使用人工智能工具来完成任务就是做到这一点的方法。

And that goes back to Nietfeld’s point about the deterioration between effort and outcome.

这又回到了尼特菲尔德关于努力和结果之间恶化的观点。

AI also erodes the effort part.

人工智能也侵蚀了努力的部分。

We have to rethink what it means to work hard when a machine, for better or worse, can just do many things for us.

当一台机器（无论好坏）可以为我们做很多事情时，我们必须重新思考努力工作意味着什么。

What is the proverbial “game” when the computer can (supposedly) beat you?

当计算机（据说）可以击败你时，众所周知的“游戏”是什么？

For many, considering the state of the labor market and the technology winding through it, it doesn’t really make sense to keep playing the game at all.

对于许多人来说，考虑到劳动力市场的状况和贯穿其中的技术，继续玩这个游戏根本没有意义。

And you see that in the data.

你在数据中看到了这一点。

Young people say that they want to be entrepreneurs (3 in 4) and influencers (1 in 2) and get away from the corporate rat race.

年轻人表示，他们希望成为企业家（四分之三）和影响者（二分之一），并摆脱企业的激烈竞争。

They say that $600k a year is needed in order to feel financially successful.

他们说每年需要 60 万美元才能感受到经济上的成功。

Axios notes that the reason younger people might feel this way is because:

Axios 指出，年轻人可能有这种感觉的原因是：

They do not believe they have a stake in the economy, or that the economy will work for them, as the economy gets rapidly more expensive, and as influencers make it all seem so…

他们不相信自己在经济中有利害关系，也不相信经济会为他们服务，因为经济迅速变得更加昂贵，并且有影响力的人让这一切看起来如此......

easy.

容易。

I love Lauren Greenfield ’s work on wealth.

我喜欢劳伦·格林菲尔德关于财富的著作。

She has several important documentaries, including Generation Wealth and the Queen of Versailles, both of which walk through the excess (and sometimes excessive failure) of the ultra-wealthy and captured the rise of the proto-influencer.

她拍摄了几部重要的纪录片，包括《财富一代》和《凡尔赛女王》，这两部影片都讲述了超级富豪的过度（有时甚至是过度失败），并捕捉了原始影响者的崛起。

She has been making the case for years that fame and fortune have become the new American dream.

多年来，她一直在证明名誉和财富已成为新的美国梦。

In a 2017 interview with NPR , she explained:

在 2017 年接受 NPR 采访时，她解释道：

With the rise of reality TV and social media, everybody can be a celebrity and fame has currency.

随着真人秀和社交媒体的兴起，每个人都可以成为名人，名气也有了货币。

And so, in a lot of my interviews, when you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up they say: rich and famous [...] I think the backdrop of these 25 years is that we've never had more inequality and we've never had less social mobility," she says.

因此，在我的很多采访中，当你问孩子们长大后想做什么时，他们会说：富有、出名……我认为这 25 年的背景是，我们从未经历过如此严重的不平等，而且我们的社会流动性也从未如此之少，”她说。

“So, in a way, fictitious social mobility — bling and presentation — has replaced real social mobility ...

“因此，在某种程度上，虚构的社会流动性——金光闪闪和外表——已经取代了真正的社会流动性......

because it's all you can get.”

因为这是你所能得到的一切。”

Almost a decade later, and it’s more true than ever .

差不多十年过去了，这比以往任何时候都更加真实。

The way you create social mobility if it is not available to you, is by creating a presentation of social mobility, a sense, that if someone were to scroll your Instagram, that you are Rich and Successful and Yes That Lambo is Rented and So is The Rolex, but Ignore That.

如果你没有社交流动性，那么你创造社交流动性的方法就是创建一种社交流动性的呈现，一种感觉，如果有人滚动你的 Instagram，你就会变得富有和成功，是的，兰博基尼是租来的，劳力士也是，但忽略这一点。

All that matters is the views.

重要的是观点。

The views create the expectation.

观点创造了期望。

The views create the feeling of shame for the viewer if they are struggling with high costs.

如果观看者在高成本中挣扎，这些观点会给他们带来羞耻感。

The views translate the shame into nihilism, distrust, and completely misaligned expectations.

这些观点将耻辱转化为虚无主义、不信任和完全失调的期望。

But the views aren’t showing a real thing.

但这些视图并没有显示真实的东西。

They are showing the image of that thing, a simulation of sorts, a presentation that skews perception, all while being perfectly fake.

他们正在展示那个东西的图像，一种模拟，一种扭曲感知的演示，同时又完全是假的。

But look at what it left behind: a viewer, completely distraught and ashamed.

但看看它留下的东西：一个完全心烦意乱和羞愧的观众。

So they try to do it too.

所以他们也尝试这样做。

Sometimes they pay the very person who made them feel behind for a course on how to catch up.

有时，他们会付钱给那些让他们感觉落后的人，让他们去学习如何迎头赶上的课程。

So it’s a circle.

所以这是一个圆圈。

The more people that watch your videos about wealth, even if you are not yet wealthy, the higher the chance it is that you become so.

观看您有关财富的视频的人越多，即使您尚未致富，您致富的机会就越大。

Passive income courses that make passive income off course sales.

被动收入课程使被动收入脱离课程销售。

A prophecy, for the ages.

一则预言，千古流传。

The presentation of wealth has infected the way we perceive wealth.

财富的呈现方式已经影响了我们感知财富的方式。

And it’s haunting us.

它困扰着我们。

Money is the only value that has grown in importance over the past 25 years, according to a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll.

根据《华尔街日报》/NORC 的一项民意调查，金钱是过去 25 年来唯一变得越来越重要的价值。

It’s the only thing we seem to agree on — both Democrats and Republicans match here, with 45% of both groups agreeing that money is very important to them.

这是我们唯一达成共识的事情——民主党和共和党在这一点上都是一致的，双方都有 45% 的人都认为金钱对他们来说非常重要。

And of course, if money is the goal, especially the fictitious display of it via visual mediums, there will never, ever be enough of it.

当然，如果金钱是目标，尤其是通过视觉媒介虚拟地展示金钱，那么金钱永远不会足够。

People will do crazier and crazier things for money, which MrBeast seems to be running the world’s most in-depth natural experiment on—17 of the 26 videos he has uploaded within the last year explicitly mention a dollar amount in the title.

人们会为了钱做越来越疯狂的事情，MrBeast 似乎正在进行世界上最深入的自然实验——他去年上传的 26 个视频中有 17 个在标题中明确提到了美元金额。

Money becomes an obsession.

金钱成为一种痴迷。

Financial independence is the most important thing for young people across the globe (likely because of social media).

对于全球年轻人来说，经济独立是最重要的事情（可能是因为社交媒体）。

Being rich is not the most important thing, being stable is the most important thing.

有钱不是最重要的，稳定才是最重要的。

People are trying to buy security, because security, if it ever was a promise, certainly isn’t promised anymore.

人们试图购买安全感，因为如果安全感曾经是一种承诺，那么现在肯定不再被承诺了。

EY also notes that over 70% of young Americans still believe success is likely if one works hard, which is higher than Germany, Sweden, China, Korea, and Japan.

安永还指出，超过 70% 的美国年轻人仍然相信只要努力工作就有可能成功，这一比例高于德国、瑞典、中国、韩国和日本。

But the US is low in trust, with almost 60% saying they distrust most people.

但美国的信任度很低，近 60% 的人表示他们不信任大多数人。

That lack of trust is corrosive to belief in the underlying system.

缺乏信任会腐蚀人们对底层系统的信心。

According to another version of t he WSJ/NORC poll , under half of Americans say capitalism works well and only 35% say “the nation offers people the ability to get good jobs and achieve the American dream.”

根据《华尔街日报》/NORC 民意调查的另一个版本，不到一半的美国人表示资本主义运转良好，只有 35% 的人表示“国家为人们提供了获得好工作和实现美国梦的能力”。

A young Chinese worker told the Financial Times that in China:

一位年轻的中国工人告诉英国《金融时报》，在中国：

“Some people will say our generation is not so hard working but our environment has changed from the last generation.

“有人会说，我们这一代人工作不那么努力，但我们的环境比上一代发生了变化。

I think the last generation enjoyed the best time of China, with rapid development.

我认为上一代人享受了中国最好的时光，发展很快。

But nowadays, sometimes people work hard, very hard, and what they get does not match their effort.”

但现在，有时人们努力工作，非常努力，但他们得到的与他们的努力并不相符。”

It’s the same worry as what you hear from people in the United States.

这与你从美国人民那里听到的担忧是一样的。

The last generation had it better.

上一代的情况更好。

Everyone feels like they are on an infinite hamster wheel, spinning endlessly and listlessly.

每个人都感觉自己就像坐在一个无限的仓鼠轮子上，无精打采地不停地旋转。

Because work no longer pays the way ownership does and because assets are increasingly concentrated in one demographic, the comparison does become generational.

由于工作不再像所有权那样支付报酬，而且资产越来越集中在某一人群中，因此这种比较确实成为代际间的比较。

I wrote a piece for NYT Opinion on the housing/retirement crisis, arguing that the two are one and the same—high home prices ensure retirement, which means that home prices, functionally, can never go down.

我为《纽约时报》发表了一篇关于住房/退休危机的文章，认为两者是同一回事——高房价确保退休，这意味着从功能上讲，房价永远不会下降。

In the comments (and in the Letters to the Editor about the piece), many people took my analysis to mean that I personally was going to come and take their house away from them and that I was threatening to steal what they had (undoubtedly!) worked so hard for.

在评论中（以及在关于这篇文章的致编辑的信中），许多人认为我的分析意味着我个人会来夺走他们的房子，并且我威胁要偷走他们（毫无疑问！） 辛辛苦苦工作的东西。

This is a very prevalent fear in a lot of older, richer circles: that their wealth, buoyed by a record-breaking stock market and a housing shortage, will be taken from them.

在许多年长、富裕的圈子里，这是一种非常普遍的恐惧：他们因创纪录的股市和住房短缺而支撑的财富将被夺走。

One person said

一个人说

Here’s my response to Kyla Scanlon’s essay about the housing crisis in America: Although my home has increased quite a bit in value, I am not holding on to it for its potential further appreciation value.

以下是我对凯拉·斯坎伦（Kyla Scanlon）有关美国住房危机的文章的回应：虽然我的房子升值了不少，但我不会因为它潜在的进一步升值而持有它。

Why should I sell and move somewhere else when I currently have a 2.875 percent fixed rate on a 30-year mortgage?

当我目前拥有 2.875% 的 30 年期抵押贷款固定利率时，为什么我应该出售并搬到其他地方？

My age is irrelevant.

我的年龄无关紧要。

Buy a new home with a 7 percent mortgage rate?

以7%的抵押贷款利率购买新房？

No thank you.

不，谢谢。

This answer was interesting, because here, this person argues that they aren’t holding onto the home for appreciation purposes, but they are holding onto it for a lower interest rate, which is two sides of the same coin.

这个答案很有趣，因为在这里，这个人辩称，他们持有房屋不是为了升值，而是为了较低的利率，这是同一枚硬币的两个方面。

Many of the other commenters pointed out that (1) their homes were expensive too (2) that the value of their home is not shutting other people out and (3) that everyone (including me) is blaming older people for the housing crisis.

许多其他评论者指出（1）他们的房子也很贵（2）他们的房子的价值并没有将其他人拒之门外（3）每个人（包括我）都将住房危机归咎于老年人。

I do not believe that most people who bought homes and have watched them skyrocket over the past several decades are responsible for the housing crisis.

我不认为大多数在过去几十年里买房并看着房价飞涨的人应对住房危机负责。

As Idrees Kahloon explains in the Atlantic , much of it was circumstance:

正如 Idrees Kahloon 在《大西洋月刊》中所解释的那样，这很大程度上是环境造成的：

The typical home today costs five times the median annual income, up from 3.5 times the median annual income in 1984.

如今，典型的住房成本是年收入中位数的 5 倍，而 1984 年是年收入中位数的 3.5 倍。

Boomers got lucky: When they were young, they could afford to buy houses that then appreciated fantastically in value.

婴儿潮一代很幸运：当他们年轻的时候，他们有能力购买后来升值惊人的房子。

But that luck was arguably manufactured by Washington, which engineered the rise of 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages and created tax deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes.

但这种运气可以说是华盛顿制造的，它推动了 30 年期固定利率抵押贷款的兴起，并为抵押贷款利息和财产税提供了税收减免。

But it is imperative that we be honest about where the United States is at demographically.

但我们必须诚实地了解美国的人口状况。

Honesty is not the same thing as casting blame.

诚实与指责不是一回事。

By 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be over the age of 65 .

到 2030 年，五分之一的美国人将超过 65 岁。

In 1920, it was 1 in 20.

1920 年，这一比例为二十分之一。

Almost half of Americans live in a county where those over 64 outnumber those under 15.

近一半的美国人生活在 64 岁以上人口数量超过 15 岁以下人口的县。

This number was 5% in 1990, according to the Economist .

据《经济学人》报道，1990 年这一数字为 5%。

In 1989 , Americans 55+ held a little over half of all wealth in the United States, now they hold 74%.

1989年，55岁以上的美国人持有美国总财富的一半多一点，现在他们持有74%。

At the same time, wealth held by those under 40 fell from 11% to 6.6%.

与此同时，40岁以下人群持有的财富从11%下降至6.6%。

People aged 70 and older are 12% of the population, which has grown from 7.5% in 1981.

70岁及以上人口占总人口的12%，比1981年的7.5%有所增长。

They now hold 32% of all household net worth, up from 20% two decades ago.

他们现在拥有全部家庭净资产的 32%，而二十年前这一比例为 20%。

Their share of household equities has nearly doubled since 2007, as has their share of real estate.

自 2007 年以来，他们的家庭股票份额几乎翻了一番，他们的房地产份额也是如此。

Part of this is pure demographics!

其中一部分是纯粹的人口统计数据！

There are a lot of baby boomers.

有很多婴儿潮一代。

They have been around a long time, and have had a lot of chances to accumulate wealth.

他们已经存在了很长时间，并且有很多积累财富的机会。

The American experiment worked .

美国的实验成功了。

We should be so happy that this worked for some (not all, to be clear).

我们应该很高兴这对某些人（不是所有人，需要明确的是）有效。

As Greg Ip wrote in his aptly titled piece, Over 65?

正如 Greg Ip 在他的题为《超过 65 岁？》的文章中所写的那样。

Congratulations, You Own the Economy, there are a few things to consider here, including the fact that you can have a lot of money but not feel really rich.

恭喜你，你拥有了经济，这里有一些事情需要考虑，包括你可以拥有很多钱，但不会感觉自己真正富有。

Many 65 + year olds are struggling to make ends meet.

许多 65 岁以上的老人正在努力维持生计。

But on the whole, this is an economy that worked for some, and now, has to keep working for them.

但总体而言，这是一个对某些人有用的经济，现在必须继续为他们服务。

But in order for the economy to keep working for these retirees, who drive over a quarter of consumer spending and counting, the economy has to change.

但为了让经济继续为这些退休人员服务（他们推动了超过四分之一的消费者支出并且还在增加），经济必须做出改变。

How will it change?

它将如何改变？

Healthcare demands rise.

医疗保健需求上升。

More pressure is put on Social Security, and the dwindling number of workers that fund it.

社会保障面临着更大的压力，而为其提供资金的工人数量也不断减少。

And the Boomers spend because they usually have no mortgage and not a lot of debt, so the economy ends up bending around them, in a way.

婴儿潮一代之所以花钱，是因为他们通常没有抵押贷款，也没有太多债务，所以在某种程度上，经济最终会围绕着他们。

As you can see in the graph below, which uses data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, most (not all) people who are over the age of 60 are doing pretty well.

下图使用了美联储家庭经济和决策调查的数据，如下图所示，大多数（不是全部）60 岁以上的人都过得很好。

Over 80% of them say they are doing okay economically, which is tremendous.

超过80%的人表示他们的经济状况还不错，这是巨大的。

And this a politically powerful cohort.

这是一个政治上强大的群体。

They are entirely reshaping politics.

他们正在彻底重塑政治。

According to the Atlantic , the typical general-election voter is 52 and half of all money donated to political campaigns comes from someone over the age of 66.

据《大西洋月刊》报道，典型的大选选民年龄为 52 岁，政治竞选捐款的一半来自 66 岁以上的人。

According to the Penn-Wharton budget model, retirees get about $43k per person from the government each year, whereas children and young adults receive about $4,300 per person.

根据宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院的预算模型，退休人员每年从政府获得每人约 4.3 万美元，而儿童和年轻人每人获得约 4,300 美元。

This is only expected to increase, with federal spending on elderly programs expected to hit over 11% of GDP in the next decade, a big spike from 6.9% in 2007.

预计这一数字只会增加，未来 10 年联邦用于老年人项目的支出预计将达到 GDP 的 11% 以上，较 2007 年的 6.9% 大幅增长。

Older Americans also support raising taxes on their younger counterparts to ensure that their benefits are protected (which I think is more so a statement on wanting benefits to be protected, rather than advocacy for increased taxation)

美国老年人也支持对年轻人加税，以确保他们的福利得到保护（我认为这更多的是希望福利得到保护，而不是倡导增加税收）

They are also a growing component of actual politicians making decisions, so it’s a one-two punch.

他们也是实际政客决策中日益重要的组成部分，所以这是一打二拳。

The group that votes, the Boomers, are also largely the group that is creating legislation.

投票的群体——婴儿潮一代，在很大程度上也是制定立法的群体。

I am sure you can guess the outcome of that.

我相信你能猜到结果。

As economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde duly noted , the first-order problem of an aging society is redistributing income from workers to retirees.

正如经济学家赫苏斯·费尔南德斯·维拉韦德（Jesús Fernández-Villaverde）适当指出的那样，老龄化社会的首要问题是如何将工人的收入重新分配给退休人员。

There are only two pipes for that transfer: taxes (Social Security) or capital income (retirement accounts).

这种转移只有两条管道：税收（社会保障）或资本收入（退休账户）。

The first pipe is pretty visible because it shows up on a paystub, but the second is invisible because in a 401(k) economy, retirees collect their share of the nation’s output as corporate profits—through big ol stock market returns.

第一个管道非常明显，因为它显示在工资单上，但第二个管道是不可见的，因为在 401(k) 经济中，退休人员通过巨额股票市场回报将国家产出的份额作为企业利润。

Fernández-Villaverde’s point is that much of America’s anger at corporate profits is also a worker-retiree conflict in disguise.

费尔南德斯-维拉韦德的观点是，美国对企业利润的愤怒很大程度上也是变相的工人与退休人员之间的冲突。

Ed Yardeni recently made four points about what he calls the Boomer Spending Machine.

艾德·亚德尼 (Ed Yardeni) 最近就他所谓的婴儿潮一代消费机器提出了四点观点。

Two we’ve covered: they are (1) wealthy and (2) have a lot of financial assets.

我们已经介绍了两个：他们（1）富有，（2）拥有大量金融资产。

But he adds that (3) the Boomers are pretty insulated from monetary policy, and in fact, even benefit from higher rates.

但他补充道，(3) 婴儿潮一代几乎不受货币政策的影响，事实上，甚至受益于更高的利率。

As Yardeni writes:

正如亚德尼所写：

For a large segment of the population, rates are not simply a cost of borrowing.

对于很大一部分人来说，利率不仅仅是借贷成本。

They are also a source of income and the reason that home prices are rising!

它们也是收入来源，也是房价上涨的原因！

Yardeni also points out (4) that the Boomers are pretty detached from the labor market, and that stock prices, home prices, and interest income drive their spending more than labor market conditions.

亚德尼还指出 (4) 婴儿潮一代与劳动力市场相当脱节，股票价格、房价和利息收入比劳动力市场状况更能推动他们的支出。

More succinctly, “consumer spending is increasingly being supported by the spending from accumulated retirement wealth, rather than labor income.”

更简洁地说，“消费者支出越来越多地由积累的退休财富而非劳动收入来支持。”

So given an economy reorganized around people who already own things, it’s logical that over half of Americans say the American dream is out of reach, citing the cost of living and housing costs as the main hurdle.

因此，考虑到经济是围绕已经拥有物品的人进行重组的，超过一半的美国人认为美国梦遥不可及，并认为生活成本和住房成本是主要障碍，这是合乎逻辑的。

But, according to CNBC, over 40% of respondents said they’ve already achieved the American Dream, and over half of those “who hadn’t said they were confident that they will eventually.” So it’s out of reach for others, but it’s still doable for me .

但据 CNBC 报道，超过 40% 的受访者表示他们已经实现了美国梦，而超过一半的受访者“没有表示他们有信心最终会实现”。所以这对别人来说是遥不可及的，但对我来说还是可行的。

The article cites Elizabeth Suhay, who notes, “People tend to be more optimistic when talking about themselves or their futures than they are about the American public as a whole.”

文章引用了伊丽莎白·苏海 (Elizabeth Suhay) 的话，她指出：“人们在谈论自己或自己的未来时往往比谈论整个美国公众更加乐观。”

This broad discontentment is potentially one of the main reasons for the gap that shows up in the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, which asks people to (1) rate their own finances and then (2) rate the national economy.

这种广泛的不满可能是美联储家庭经济和决策调查中出现差距的主要原因之一，该调查要求人们（1）评估自己的财务状况，然后（2）评估国民经济。

The difference is wide enough to drive a truck through.

差异之大足以驾驶卡车通过。

73% of respondents say that they are “doing okay or living comfortably” but only 26% (!) rate the national economy as good or excellent.

73% 的受访者表示他们“过得不错或生活舒适”，但只有 26% (!) 的人认为国民经济良好或优秀。

In this survey, people say they are worse off due to high prices , high expenses, and more debt.

在这项调查中，人们表示，由于高物价、高开支和更多债务，他们的境况变得更糟。

People say they are better off because the value of their assets increased.

人们说他们的生活变得更好，因为他们的资产价值增加了​​。

The downside of American life is quite literally priced in prices, whereas the upside is priced in through asset appreciation.

美国人生活的负面影响实际上已反映在价格中，而正面影响则通过资产升值反映在价格中。

Things are fine, as long as stocks go up.

一切都好，只要股票上涨。

The price of what we might consider a “normal life” like a house or a college degree or increasingly, a kid’s baseball game, has ballooned.

我们认为的“正常生活”，比如房子、大学学位，或者越来越多的儿童棒球比赛，其价格已经飙升。

It creates what David French describes as a “Group 1 economy for a Group 9 nation,” referring to boarding groups on airplanes.

它创造了戴维·弗伦奇（David French）所描述的“第 9 组国家的第 1 组经济”，指的是飞机上的登机组。

He points out that “affordability” is how expensive things are, sure, but it’s also the price of entry in what we might consider this “normal American life.”

他指出，“负担能力”当然是指事物的昂贵程度，但它也是进入我们可能认为的“正常美国生活”的价格。

That isn’t cynical indifference.

这并不是愤世嫉俗的冷漠。

People are hopeful about their own chances.

人们对自己的机会充满希望。

David Whitman wrote about this in his 1998 book, The Optimism Gap: The I’m OK—They’re Not Syndrome and the Myth of American Decline, pointing out that people tend to describe their own lives as perfectly pleasant, while rating the nation as a collapsing heap of rot.

大卫·惠特曼 (David Whitman) 在其 1998 年出版的著作《乐观差距：我很好——他们不是综合症和美国衰落的神话》中谈到了这一点，指出人们倾向于将自己的生活描述为非常愉快，同时将国家视为一堆正在崩溃的腐烂物。

Kinder and Kiewiet document this through sociotropic vs pocketbook evaluations, noting that people really do judge the “nation’s economy” and “my finances” as two separate objects.

金德和基维特通过社会性与钱包评估来记录这一点，并指出人们确实将“国家经济”和“我的财务”视为两个独立的对象。

Elsewhere, the economy is doomed, but at home, it’s mostly okay.

在其他地方，经济注定会失败，但在国内，情况基本上还不错。

The share of people saying they’re doing okay has actually risen over the past decade, in every age group except the youngest, which is flat.

过去十年中，除最年轻的年龄段外，每个年龄段中表示自己过得还不错的人比例实际上都在上升，而最年轻的年龄段则持平。

They were once moving in tandem with everyone else.

他们曾经与其他人并肩前进。

And that’s the concern.

这就是我们关心的问题。

And the other concern is that the systems governing all of this—monetary policy, fiscal policy, the off balance sheet loans—have gotten incredibly confusing.

另一个担忧是，管理所有这些的体系——货币政策、财政政策、表外贷款——已经变得极其混乱。

One of the things that most boggles me about this era is that we quite literally have never had more information, about anything, ever in the history of humanity, but we don’t know what to do with it.

这个时代最让我困惑的事情之一是，在人类历史上，我们确实从未获得过更多关于任何事物的信息，但我们不知道如何处理它。

We don’t know how to use it, we don’t know how to implement it, and we certainly don’t know how to make decisions with it.

我们不知道如何使用它，我们不知道如何实施它，我们当然也不知道如何用它做出决策。

So people exist in this sort of swampy water of reality, where you can sense that you are indeed in water, but have no idea which way is up, around, or out.

所以人就存在于这种现实的沼泽之中，你可以感觉到你确实在水里，但不知道哪条路是向上的、周围的、还是出去的。

Political scientist Steven Teles calls the design pattern of these swampy systems a “ kludgeocracy ” where complexity gets slapped on bit by bit until no one understands how anything works.

政治学家史蒂文·泰勒斯（Steven Teles）将这些沼泽系统的设计模式称为“kludgeocracy”，其中复杂性被一点一点地增加，直到没有人理解任何东西是如何运作的。

Annie Lowrey calls its human cost the “time tax” in her (upcoming!!) book , the hours that the state and private corporations extract in paperwork and administrative friction.

安妮·洛瑞（Annie Lowrey）在她（即将出版的！！）书中将其人力成本称为“时间税”，即国有企业和私营企业在文书工作和行政摩擦中榨取的时间。

A version of it exists in the healthcare system.

它的一个版本存在于医疗保健系统中。

Rana Foroohar calls it “shadow work,” the cost of the time spent looking for things like “lost claims, incorrect payments and cheques sent to the wrong payee.” She also notes that 25% of American healthcare spending goes towards things like this.

拉纳·福鲁哈尔 (Rana Foroohar) 将其称为“影子工作”，即寻找“丢失的索赔、错误的付款以及发送给错误收款人的支票”等信息所花费的时间成本。她还指出，美国 25% 的医疗保健支出用于此类用途。

I, for one, have healthcare that has denied me every single appointment I have tried to go to because it’s not “covered.” I am not sure what I pay for, to be honest.

就我而言，医疗保健拒绝了我尝试去的每一次预约，因为它没有“承保”。老实说，我不确定我付出的代价是什么。

I also was double-billed for months, and it took me quite a long time to get a human to fix it, because I couldn’t escape their cursed customer support bot, who kept telling me to update my credit card.

我还被重复账单了几个月，我花了很长时间才找人修复它，因为我无法逃脱他们该死的客户支持机器人，他们一直告诉我更新我的信用卡。

Everyone is hitting some type of communication wall these days.

如今，每个人都在遇到某种类型的沟通障碍。

The Federal Reserve has forward guidance (or used to?), which is a tool central banks use to signal the course of monetary policy .

美联储有前瞻性指引（或过去有？），这是央行用来表明货币政策进程的工具。

There are two types:

有两种类型：

Delphic : The Fed forecasts their own behavior and says things like “ we expect rates to stay low”

德尔菲克：美联储预测了自己的行为，并表示“我们预计利率将保持在低位”

Odyssean : The Fed fully commits to a decision and says “we will hold rates until unemployment hits x%”

Odyssean：美联储完全致力于做出决定，并表示“我们将维持利率不变，直到失业率达到x%”

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh doesn’t seem to like either version 3 .

美联储主席凯文·沃什 (Kevin Warsh) 似乎并不喜欢第 3 版中的任何一个。

He has dropped forward guidance from Fed statements entirely, declining even to say what would make him raise rates.

他完全放弃了美联储声明中的前瞻性指引，甚至拒绝透露什么会促使他加息。

The stated logic is that “markets should play ball, not the referee.” Watch the economy, not the Fed.

其既定逻辑是“应该由市场而不是裁判来发挥作用”。关注经济，而不是美联储。

But as economist Claudia Sahm points out , dropping this means that nobody knows what the Fed is watching or what its contingency plans are.

但正如经济学家克劳迪娅·萨姆（Claudia Sahm）指出的那样，放弃这一点意味着没有人知道美联储正在关注什么或其应急计划是什么。

The most powerful economic institution in the country looked at the legibility problem, and chose more opacity.

该国最强大的经济机构考虑了易读性问题，并选择了更多的不透明度。

There’s a certain poetry to the timing.

这个时机有一定的诗意。

“Odyssean” guidance is named for Odysseus lashing himself to the mast to not hear the sirens, commitment in advance.

“奥德修斯”指引因奥德修斯将自己绑在桅杆上以听不到警报而得名，提前承诺。

One of the things driving the economy forward right now is The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s version.

目前推动经济发展的因素之一是克里斯托弗·诺兰版本的《奥德赛》。

One of the most long-lasting stories in human history, a story that is about nostos , a desire to go home, a desire for “normalcy” whatever that might mean.

这是人类历史上最持久的故事之一，一个关于怀旧的故事，一个关于回家的愿望，一个对“正常”的渴望，无论这意味着什么。

When “normalcy” feels out of reach and when systems become opaque and confusing to navigate or simply plopped in without much guidance, trust evaporates.

当“正常”感觉遥不可及，当系统变得不透明且难以导航或在没有太多指导的情况下简单地投入使用时，信任就会消失。

And when trust evaporates, people change how they engage with democracy.

当信任消失时，人们就会改变参与民主的方式。

The onus falls on the individual.

责任落在个人身上。

As systems become unmanageable, control migrates inward, as we talked about a few months ago.

正如我们几个月前讨论的那样，随着系统变得难以管理，控制权就会向内迁移。

You can’t make the housing market affordable, but you certainly can optimize your portfolio!

你无法让住房市场变得负担得起，但你当然可以优化你的投资组合！

You can’t force the hospital billing bot to route you to the care you pay for, but you can track macros!

您不能强迫医院计费机器人将您路由到您支付费用的护理，但您可以跟踪宏！

The trading account, the supplement stack, the personal brand, are all domains where input and output still correlate, which is why so much energy and time goes into them.

交易账户、补充堆栈、个人品牌，都是输入和输出仍然相关的领域，这就是为什么要投入如此多的精力和时间。

But one cannot be solely an individual within a society!

但一个人不能只是社会中的一个个体！

And how people feel as an individual within an economy, can influence how they think about democracy.

人们作为经济体中个体的感受会影响他们对民主的看法。

In 1952, the American National Election Studies started asking people if they agreed with the following sentence: “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.

1952年，美国全国选举研究开始询问人们是否同意以下这句话：“像我这样的人对政府的行为没有任何发言权。

4 ” They also asked whether you voted.

4”他们还问你是否投票。

The cross section of those two questions sorts people into one of four boxes:

这两个问题的横截面将人们分为四个框之一：

The resigned (no say, didn't vote, also known as the exit box).

辞职者（不说，没有投票，也称为退出箱）。

The four-box structure is inspired by economist Albert Hirschman’s work in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty , where he argued that people respond to a declining organization in basically two ways: leave it (exit) or stay and complain (voice), with loyalty determining how long they’ll stay.

四框结构的灵感来自于经济学家阿尔伯特·赫希曼（Albert Hirschman）在《退出、声音和忠诚》一书中的著作，他认为人们对衰退的组织的反应基本上有两种方式：离开（退出）或留下并抱怨（声音），忠诚度决定他们会停留多久。

Hirschman’s central claim was that voice keeps institutions alive and the exit drains the voice that might have saved them.

赫希曼的核心主张是，声音让机构得以生存，而退出则耗尽了本来可以拯救它们的声音。

As long as people keep showing up, the institution can survive, but what kills them is when people stop caring at all.

只要人们不断出现，该机构就可以生存，但杀死他们的是当人们根本不再关心时。

In 1952, over half of respondents were believing voters.

1952 年，超过一半的受访者相信选民。

The angry voters, the one who think they have no say but vote anyway, were only 19% of the country.

愤怒的选民，也就是认为自己没有发言权，只能投票的选民，只占全国的 19%。

The two lines converged for decades, with the angry voters tying the believing voters in 1996, but separated again, seemingly for good.

几十年来，两条界线一直在交汇，1996 年，愤怒的选民与相信的选民打成平手，但后来又再次分开，似乎永远分开了。

In 2020, the typical American respondent became someone who votes while believing their vote changes nothing .

2020 年，典型的美国受访者成为了那些投票却相信自己的投票不会改变任何事情的人。

(The 2020 survey was fielded online).

（2020 年调查是在线进行的）。

These are angry voters.

这些是愤怒的选民。

50.6% of all respondents that year, holding at 49.3% in 2024, a roughly 18-point gap over the believing voters.

当年这一比例为 50.6%，到 ​​2024 年为 49.3%，与相信的选民相差约 18 个百分点。

But still, the exit box, the resigned group, didn’t grow.

但退出箱、辞职群体仍然没有增长。

Seventy years of collapsing efficacy didn’t make people withdraw, but it did make them very angry.

七十年的功效崩溃并没有让人退缩，但却让他们非常愤怒。

However, like many things in the US, this is an age split.

然而，就像美国的许多事情一样，这是年龄差距。

Among Americans 55 and over, the resigned voter is only 7.5% of respondents in 2024 and has never really grown.

2024 年，在 55 岁及以上的美国人中，辞职选民仅占受访者的 7.5%，而且从未真正增长。

These are are our angriest voters and the ones who still vote, seemingly no matter what.

这些是我们最愤怒的选民，也是那些似乎无论如何仍在投票的选民。

Just over 55% still vote while reporting they have no say in democracy, the highest of any age group.

略高于 55% 的人仍在投票，但表示他们在民主方面没有发言权，这是所有年龄段中最高的。

In 1960, over 60% of under-35s felt they had a say and voted, and their belief in what they were voting for, democracy, was higher than their elders.

1960 年，超过 60% 的 35 岁以下人士认为自己有发言权并投票，而且他们对自己投票支持的民主的信念高于他们的长辈。

That’s not the case anymore.

现在情况已不再是这样了。

In 2024, the youth resigned voter hit over 23%, up six points in one cycle, with over 60% saying that they had no say in democracy.

2024年，青年辞职选民比例超过23%，一个周期内上升了6个百分点，其中超过60%的人表示他们对民主没有发言权。

Reported voting fell 8 points.

据报道，投票率下降了 8 个百分点。

That’s not a surprise, right?

这并不奇怪，对吧？

It’s all anyone talks about, the young being anesthetized.

这是每个人都在谈论的，年轻人被麻醉了。

But what’s remarkable is that if you dig into the data just a little bit, young people really are not indifferent as much as they are…

但值得注意的是，如果你稍微挖掘一下数据，就会发现年轻人确实不像现在那么冷漠……

lost.

丢失了。

Per Gallup and Kettering’s democracy study , they pay far less attention to politics than their elders, and yet, per the Reuters Institute , they are the most news-trusting cohort in the country, with 33% (still abysmally low) agreeing you can trust the news most of the time.

根据盖洛普和凯特林的民主研究，他们对政治的关注远远低于他们的长辈，然而，根据路透社研究所的数据，他们是美国最信任新闻的群体，33%（仍然很低）的人同意你在大多数情况下可以信任新闻。

Per Gallup and Kettering again , young people are more than twice as likely as their elders to report four or more barriers to civic participation.

盖洛普和凯特林再次指出，年轻人报告公民参与面临四个或更多障碍的可能性是长辈的两倍多。

The barriers question asks which of nine things prevent you from getting involved in causes you care about.

障碍问题询问九件事中哪一件阻止您参与您关心​​的事业。

Eight are external — time, money, know-how, invitation, health, overload, feeling unwelcome, fearing judgment.

八个是外部的——时间、金钱、专业知识、邀请、健康、超负荷、感觉不受欢迎、害怕评判。

One is internal, the answer that, “you have no desire to get involved.”

一个是内部的，答案是“你不想参与其中”。

Young adults have a lot of desire.

年轻人有很多欲望。

Per the report, they are “the subgroup most inclined to say they haven’t volunteered but wanted to.” Some of this might be survey noise, but this seems like a state of internal conflict where they desperately want to contribute, but find no visible, legible path forward.

根据报告，他们是“最倾向于表示自己没有自愿参加但愿意参加的群体”。其中一些可能是调查噪音，但这似乎是一种内部冲突状态，他们迫切希望做出贡献，但却找不到可见、清晰的前进道路。

The survey also asks “if I had a concern, I know how to share it with my elected officials.” Barely half of Americans agree, sitting at 40% agreement among the youngest adults to 63% among the oldest.

该调查还询问“如果我有疑虑，我知道如何与我当选的官员分享。”仅有一半的美国人同意这一观点，最年轻的成年人中的这一比例为 40%，最年长的成年人中的这一比例为 63%。

Among people who got a civic education, almost 70% know the route, and among those who didn’t, only 40% do.

在接受过公民教育的人中，几乎 70% 的人知道这条路线，而在没有接受过公民教育的人中，只有 40% 的人知道。

Education is always a key for navigating a map that doesn’t make sense.

教育始终是在毫无意义的地图上导航的关键。

The shape of this moment, both within the economy and democracy, seems to be one of an attempt to understand.

无论是在经济领域还是在民主领域，这一时刻的形态似乎都是一种理解的尝试。

Pattern matching wealth accumulation techniques onto an economy that rewards it and attempting to pattern match civic participation techniques onto a system that doesn’t make it too clear on what to do (at least, that’s what people think.)

将财富积累技术模式匹配到一个奖励它的经济体，并试图将公民参与技术模式匹配到一个不太清楚该做什么的系统（至少，人们是这么认为的）。

Hirschman says voice is what keeps institutions alive.

赫希曼表示，声音是机构得以生存的关键。

By that standard, American democracy is running on its loudest, angriest voice in its history, sustained by people who don’t think it’s listening.

按照这个标准，美国的民主正在以其历史上最响亮、最愤怒的声音运行，而这些声音是由那些认为美国没有在倾听的人维持的。

For the young, their desire to participate (again, if we believe what people say) is the highest of any age group and their verdict on the system that they are inheriting is the worst of any age group.

对于年轻人来说，他们的参与欲望（再次强调，如果我们相信人们所说的话）是所有年龄段中最高的，而他们对自己所继承的制度的判断是所有年龄段中最差的。

It’s a map problem.

这是一个地图问题。

Pattern-matching is how species navigate environments that they don’t totally understand (a baby orangutan learning how to eat and me learning how to exist inside a room designed for “networking” are functionally the same thing.) When I pick up a stranger’s accent, some ancient part of my brain has concluded that mirroring the room is how you survive the room.

模式匹配是物种在它们不完全理解的环境中导航的方式（小猩猩学习如何进食和我学习如何在一个为“网络”而设计的房间内生存在功能上是同一件事。）当我听到陌生人的口音时，我大脑的某个古老部分得出结论，镜像房间是你在房间里生存的方式。

Americans have been doing exactly this within the economy, and have been doing it well.

美国人在经济领域一直在这样做，而且做得很好。

When the economy rewards ownership over effort, when essential systems become uninspectable, and when traditional work no longer buys entry into a “normal life,” people do not stop caring.

当经济奖励所有权而非努力时，当基本系统变得无法检查时，当传统工作不再能换来进入“正常生活”的机会时，人们不会停止关心。

They simply optimize to the world as it exists.

他们只是针对现有的世界进行优化。

They gamble on speculative windfalls to survive the ever-changing economy, and retreat into exit to survive politics (I’ve been informed this is also known as “gray rock.”)

他们赌上投机性的横财以在不断变化的经济中生存，并退出以在政治中生存（据我所知，这也被称为“灰色岩石”）。

This is a well-calibrated read of incentives, performed by the best pattern-matching species that has ever lived, which is hopeful.

这是对激励措施的精心校准，由有史以来最好的模式匹配物种执行，这是充满希望的。

Mood is downstream of the environment, and the environment can be changed.

情绪是环境的下游，环境是可以改变的。

This is a reader-supported publication.

这是一本由读者支持的出版物。

To receive new posts and support all of my other work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

要接收新帖子并支持我的所有其他工作，请考虑成为付费订阅者。

I had the chance to join a wonderful group of high schoolers to kick off their summer at the Governor’s Scholar Program.

我有机会加入一群优秀的高中生，在州长学者计划中开始他们的暑假。

This is a camp for the top 1,000 students across the state of Kentucky, and it’s a camp that I had the chance to attend many years ago.

这是一个针对肯塔基州排名前 1000 名的学生的夏令营，也是我多年前就有机会参加的夏令营。

It was an extraordinary honor.

这是一项非凡的荣誉。

I moved and I passed my DMV knowledge exam (I found this test to be very interesting because there are many rules of the road that functionally cannot work because other drivers do not obey them.

我搬家了，并通过了 DMV 知识考试（我发现这个测试非常有趣，因为有许多道路规则在功能上无法发挥作用，因为其他司机不遵守它们。

So rules, as one might expect, only work if others follow them).

因此，正如人们所期望的那样，规则只有在其他人遵守的情况下才有效）。

I also had the chance to join Hasan Minhaj on his terrific podcast to talk about housing

我还有机会加入 Hasan Minhaj 的精彩播客，谈论住房问题

And many of his colleagues disagree with him, or at least with the direction things are going - also a reminder that Odysseus was nothing without his crew.

他的许多同事不同意他的观点，或者至少不同意事情的发展方向——这也提醒我们，如果没有他的船员，奥德修斯什么也不是。

This measures “external efficacy,” which is your judgment of whether the system responds to people like you.

这衡量的是“外部效能”，即你对系统是否对像你这样的人做出反应的判断。

Its sibling, internal efficacy, confidence in your own ability to engage, is a different construct.

它的兄弟，内部效能，对自己参与能力的信心，是一个不同的结构。

I use “Angry” throughout to describe belief more than an emotion.

我自始至终都用“愤怒”来描述信念，而不是一种情绪。

Anger represents someone who thinks that the system doesn’t work, but still participates in it (I suppose you could also say “hopeful” here.) It also measures what political science calls “external efficacy”, which is your judgement of whether the system responds to you.

愤怒代表有人认为系统不起作用，但仍然参与其中（我想你在这里也可以说“有希望”。）它还衡量政治学所说的“外部效能”，即你对系统是否对你做出反应的判断。

This comes from Erik Amnå and Joakim Ekman, Swedish political scientists who studied young people that looked disengaged on every participation measure but turned out to be following politics and prepared to act if something demanded it.

这是瑞典政治学家埃里克·阿姆纳 (Erik Amnå) 和乔金·埃克曼 (Joakim Ekman) 提出的，他们研究了一些年轻人，这些年轻人看起来对每项参与措施都漠不关心，但事实证明他们在关注政治，并准备在有需要时采取行动。

One caveat: ANES moved mostly online after 2012, and online respondents agree with “no say” more, but the angry-voter lead also holds among 2024 in-person interviews

需要注意的是：2012 年之后，ANES 主要转移到网上，网上受访者更多地同意“不发言”，但愤怒选民的领先地位也在 2024 年的面对面采访中占据主导地位

Nerdy aside: The habit of adjusting your communication practices based on your audience is called linguistic accommodation.

书呆子旁白：根据受众调整沟通实践的习惯称为语言适应。

When you adjust to sound more like your listener, it's probably an effort to increase connection and reduce social distance between you and your audience (convergence).

当您调整到听起来更像您的听众时，可能会努力增加您和听众之间的联系并减少社交距离（融合）。

When you consciously adjust to avoid sounding like your listener, it's likely an attempt at enforcing social distance (divergence).

当你有意识地调整以避免听起来像你的听众时，这可能是在试图加强社交距离（分歧）。

Practical corollaries: Some folks notice that when they have reduced inhibition, they are less likely to accommodate (which is why your friend's accent emerges after a few cocktails).

实际推论：有些人注意到，当他们减少抑制时，他们就不太可能适应（这就是为什么你朋友的口音在喝了几杯鸡尾酒后就会出现）。

People who "correct" the grammar and usage of their communicative counterparts are engaging in a mechanism of divergence, often to call attention to a perceived hierarchy of prestige dialects and to place themselves on opposite sides of that imaginary line.

“纠正”其交际对手的语法和用法的人正在参与一种发散机制，通常是为了引起人们对声望方言的感知等级的关注，并将自己置于该假想线的相对两侧。

As many colleagues in the field have noted, correction is often some pretty fucked-up nonsense.

正如该领域的许多同事所指出的那样，纠正通常是一些非常糟糕的废话。