Insights from a Diagram-Machine

I’ve spent the last month or so tinkering with and observing a diagram-machine representing the workings of the U.S. monetary system.

在过去一个月左右的时间里，我一直在修改和观察代表美国货币体系运作的图表机器。

In the process, I can see that I’ve bored a lot of people beyond their capacity with the tedium of the tinkering.

在这个过程中，我发现我已经让很多人对这种单调乏味的修补感到厌烦了。

I apologize for that, and I’ll hereby discontinue the torture.

对此我深表歉意，并停止迫害。

Nevertheless, I’d like to share a few insights the tinkering revealed—at least to me—that made the exercise worthwhile.

尽管如此，我还是想分享一些修补所揭示的见解（至少对我来说），这些见解使这次练习变得有价值。

1.

1.

Money-creation is a response to what the American people decide they want to produce and consume.

货币创造是对美国人民决定他们想要生产和消费的东西的回应。

This, it seems to me, is a crucial insight because it reverses the way we habitually think about and visualize “money.” The habitual frame is that money exists first , then we decide what we want to spend it on—and then we determine if there is enough of it available for us to get what we want.

在我看来，这是一个至关重要的见解，因为它颠覆了我们习惯性思考和形象化“金钱”的方式。习惯性的框架是，金钱首先存在，然后我们决定要把它花在什么地方，然后我们确定是否有足够的钱可以让我们得到我们想要的东西。

While this is certainly true for the individual family or business, the diagram-machine revealed very clearly that, for society as a whole, this is a false framing.

虽然对于个人家庭或企业来说确实如此，但图表机器非常清楚地表明，对于整个社会来说，这是一个错误的框架。

Actually, it works the other way around: We, as individuals, decide we need new shoes, and the private banks—through a process of accepting Promissory Notes in exchange for bank-dollars—create the “money” that will enable the shoes to be both manufactured and purchased.

实际上，情况正好相反：我们作为个人决定需要新鞋，而私人银行通过接受本票换取银行美元的过程创造了“钱”，使鞋子能够制造和购买。

The Federal Reserve (FED) then issues the Reserves, as necessary, to back up those bank-dollars during the “clearing” process that happens at the Central Bank at the end of each business day.

然后，美联储（FED）根据需要发行储备金，以在每个工作日结束时中央银行进行的“清算”过程中支持这些银行美元。

In other words, the amount of money in the system expands, as necessary, to meet the consumption decisions made by American society.

换句话说，系统中的货币数量会根据需要而扩大，以满足美国社会的消费决策。

(Of course, individuals, families, and businesses each have to strategize how they’ll earn or otherwise acquire some share of the money that’s created by this process—but that’s a separate issue from the question of whether there’s enough money available, or how it’s created.)

（当然，个人、家庭和企业都必须制定策略，他们将如何赚取或以其他方式获得此过程所创造的一定份额的资金，但这与是否有足够的可用资金或如何创造资金的问题是不同的问题。）

Or, on the other hand, we determine as a collective society that we need something big that will benefit our society as a whole (like an asteroid-blasting satellite laser-cannon) and the U.S. Treasury responds by issuing future Reserves—which it then trades for existing Reserves—enabling it to issue payments to the satellite and laser manufacturers who will build and deploy the city-saving weapon.

或者，另一方面，作为一个集体社会，我们认为我们需要一些能够造福整个社会的大东西（比如小行星爆炸卫星激光炮），而美国财政部则通过发行未来储备金来做出回应——然后将其与现有储备进行交易——使其能够向卫星和激光制造商发放付款，这些制造商将建造和部署拯救城市的武器。

In each case, the money is created after and in response to an acknowledgement of the need.

在每种情况下，货币都是在确认需求之后并响应需求而创建的。

In each case, whether the need can, in fact, be met is NOT determined by “how much money is available” to meet the need, but rather by two other factors which will determine whether the required money shall be created —either by the private banks, or by the U.S. Treasury (in concert with the Federal Reserve):

在每种情况下，实际上是否能够满足需求并不取决于“有多少资金”可以满足需求，而是由其他两个因素决定，这两个因素将决定是否应由私人银行或美国财政部（与美联储合作）创造所需的资金：

In the first case, the decision is a diffused, aggregate process guided solely by the principle of profit-making.

在第一种情况下，决策是一个分散的、集中的过程，仅以盈利原则为指导。

In the second case, the decision is a political process of advocacy guided by the competition of interest-groups—many of which strategically confuse the debate by loudly (and bogusly) claiming “there is not enough money” available to go forward.

在第二种情况下，这一决定是一个由利益集团竞争引导的政治倡导过程——其中许多利益集团通过大声（且虚假地）声称“没有足够的资金”可用于推进，从而战略性地混淆了辩论。

These are not really new or profound considerations, but it was interesting to observe how the diagram-machine made them operationally “visible.”

这些并不是真正新的或深刻的考虑，但观察图表机器如何使它们在操作上“可见”是很有趣的。

2.

2.

Treasury bonds (future Reserves) are different than corporate or municipal bonds

国债（未来储备）不同于公司或市政债券

There is a profound difference between a treasury bond and a corporate, or municipal, bond—and tinkering with the diagram-machine made this very clear.

国债和公司债券或市政债券之间存在着深刻的区别，而对图表机器的修改使这一点变得非常清楚。

For a corporation or municipality to redeem its bond—and pay the promised interest—it must “ earn” enough bank-dollars ( claims on Reserves) to make the payments.

对于公司或市政当局来说，要赎回其债券并支付承诺的利息，它必须“赚取”足够的银行美元（对储备金的债权）来支付。

The corporation must earn enough profits —and the municipality must collect enough local taxes or fees—to redeem the bond’s face value and pay the interest.

公司必须赚取足够的利润，并且市政府必须征收足够的地方税或费用，以赎回债券的面值并支付利息。

This requires (a) a lot of work and effort on the part of employees and taxpayers, and (b) a lot of things must go “right” in the profit-making arena of private commerce (market demand, real-estate values, tax-base growth, etc.) which could go wrong.

这需要（a）雇员和纳税人付出大量的工作和努力，（b）在私营商业的盈利领域（市场需求、房地产价值、税基增长等），很多事情必须“正确”进行，而这些事情可能会出错。

These factors create a substantial risk that when the corporate or municipal bond comes due, the dollars necessary for redemption and interest payment may not exist!

这些因素造成了巨大的风险，即当公司或市政债券到期时，赎回和支付利息所需的美元可能不存在！

Because of this risk, it is neither reasonable or logical to think of corporate or municipal bonds as guaranteed “future dollars”—because they might well prove not to be.

由于存在这种风险，将公司或市政债券视为有保障的“未来美元”既不合理也不符合逻辑——因为事实很可能证明并非如此。

The operations of the diagram-machine made it easy to see that U.S. treasury bonds do not entail these risks.

通过图表机器的操作，我们很容易看出美国国债不会带来这些风险。

To redeem a treasury bond + interest: (a) nobody has to work and strategize to earn a profit, (b) taxes or fees do not have to be collected by the Treasury, and (c) nothing has to go “right”—except that the FED does what it was designed to do, and issues the new Reserves + interest promised by the treasury bond.

要赎回国债+利息：(a) 没有人需要工作和制定战略来赚取利润，(b) 财政部不必征收税款或费用，(c) 一切都不需要“正确”——除了美联储按照其设计的目的，发行新的储备金+国债承诺的利息。

And the only reason the FED might be prevented from doing that is if there were a willful and/or catastrophic undermining of America’s national sovereignty.

美联储可能被阻止这样做的唯一原因是，如果美国的国家主权遭到故意和/或灾难性的破坏。

Short of the collapse of America as a functioning nation, then, it is highly logical and reasonable to think of treasury bonds as “future Reserves”—because, operationally, that is precisely what they are.

因此，除非美国作为一个正常运作的国家崩溃，否则将国债视为“未来储备”是高度合乎逻辑和合理的——因为，从操作上来说，这正是它们的本质。

In the same vein, and for the same reasons, while it is logical to view corporate and municipal bonds truly as a “debt,” it is illogical and inaccurate to view treasury bonds in the same way.

同样，出于同样的原因，虽然将公司债券和市政债券真正视为“债务”是合乎逻辑的，但以同样的方式看待国债是不合逻辑且不准确的。

Corporations and municipalities do not have the legal authority or mandate to create—out of thin air—that which they must use to repay their “debt.” The FED, in contrast, is designed specifically to do just that.

公司和市政当局没有法律权力或授权来凭空创造他们必须用来偿还“债务”的东西。相比之下，美联储就是专门为此而设计的。

When the Treasury issues its future Reserves, implicit within that act is the lawful promise by the U.S. sovereign government that when the future Reserves come due, the FED will make them “real”—and the FED can legally do that by simply crediting bank accounts with keystrokes.

当财政部发行未来储备金时，该法案隐含着美国主权政府的合法承诺，即当未来储备金到期时，美联储将使其成为“真实的”——而美联储只需通过敲击键盘记入银行账户即可合法地做到这一点。

In that sense, future Reserves are Reserves, whereas corporate or municipal bonds are a debt that must be “worked off.”

从这个意义上说，未来储备金就是储备金，而公司或市政债券则是必须“偿还”的债务。

I’ve written about this before—conceptually—so it was interesting to see how the operations of the diagram-machine reinforced the “truth” that treasury bonds do NOT represent a “debt” the U.S. government (or the American people) have to work, somehow, to pay off.

我之前写过关于这一点的文章——从概念上讲——所以很有趣的是，看到图表机器的操作如何强化了“事实”，即国债并不代表美国政府（或美国人民）必须以某种方式努力偿还的“债务”。

In this regard, the machine’s operations over and over led to the question: “Is this what they mean when they talk about ‘printing money’?” In each case, the implicit answer was, “No—it’s just the machine operating as it was designed to operate.”

对此，机器一遍又一遍的运转引发了这样的疑问：“这就是他们所说的‘印钞’吗？”在每种情况下，隐含的答案都是：“不，这只是机器按照设计的方式运行。”

3.

3.

Operating the machine-diagram creates a lot of “inflation fuel”!!

操作机器图会产生大量“通货膨胀燃料”！

The biggest surprise (although, I suppose it shouldn’t have been) was to observe how rapidly the diagram-machine built up dollars in the spending accounts that fed directly into private commerce—a build-up that could, it seemed, create inflationary pressures.

最大的惊喜（尽管我认为不应该如此）是观察图表机器如何快速地在支出账户中积累美元，这些美元直接流入私人商业——这种积累似乎可能会造成通胀压力。

The most interesting aspect of this was to see which Production/Consumption Chamber—Private or Public—produced the greatest dollar build-up (and why).

其中最有趣的方面是看看哪个生产/消费商会（私人或公共）产生了最大的美元积累（以及原因）。

Was money-creation by private banks responsible for the build-up?

私人银行的货币创造是造成这种积累的原因吗？

The machine-diagram made clear (for the first time in my mind, at least) that while private banking creates a lot of money, its very process inherently destroys most of the money it creates in an on-going, daily procession.

机器图清楚地表明（至少在我看来是第一次），虽然私人银行业创造了大量资金，但其流程本质上破坏了它在持续的日常流通中创造的大部分资金。

When bank-loans are paid off, the principal (the bank-dollars borrowed) is, obviously, paid back to the bank.

当银行贷款还清时，本金（借入的银行美元）显然会偿还给银行。

But what does the bank do with those bank-dollars?

但银行如何处理这些银行资金呢？

It simply cancels them—and is happy to do so, because what it is cancelling are claims on its Reserves (“real money”) at the Central Bank.

它只是取消它们，而且很乐意这样做，因为它取消的是对其在中央银行的准备金（“真实货币”）的索取权。

The only bank-dollars that remain after a bank-loan is paid off are the interest dollars promised by the Promissory Notes.

银行贷款还清后唯一剩下的银行美元是本票承诺的利息美元。

So private banking creates a lot of money, but in net-aggregate (at any point in time) the only money it’s really creating are the net profits of private commerce.

因此，私人银行业创造了大量资金，但从净总量来看（在任何时间点），它真正创造的唯一资金是私人商业的净利润。

That’s still a lot of money—but it’s only a fraction of what it appears the banks are generating.

这仍然是一大笔钱，但这只是银行所产生的资金的一小部分。

On the other hand, looking at the direct spending by the Treasury to facilitate the building and deployment of an asteroid-blasting satellite laser-cannon, what we observed was that ALL of the dollars issued and spent were deposited in the private spending accounts of American businesses and citizens—and stayed there!

另一方面，看看财政部为促进建造和部署小行星爆炸卫星激光炮而进行的直接支出，我们观察到，所有发行和支出的美元都存入美国企业和公民的私人支出账户，并留在那里！

The build-up of spending dollars directed at private consumption—dollars competing to buy goods and services in private commerce—was dramatic.

针对私人消费的支出——即在私人商业中竞相购买商品和服务的美元——的积累是惊人的。

And there was nothing that cancelled them out (except taxes, which we’ll get to in a moment).

没有什么可以抵消它们（除了税收，我们稍后会谈到）。

This observation seemed like a red flag to me: Did it give credence to the alarmist warnings that significantly increasing federal spending to address collective needs (as proposed by MMT) will lead to strong inflation pressures that could adversely affect private commerce?

这一观察对我来说似乎是一个危险信号：它是否证实了危言耸听的警告，即大幅增加联邦支出来满足集体需求（如现代货币理论所提议的）将导致强大的通胀压力，从而对私营商业产生不利影响？

Did it support the arguments that federal spending should be minimized?

它是否支持应尽量减少联邦支出的论点？

—that government efforts to improve society should be checked?

——政府改善社会的努力应该受到检查吗？

—that private enterprise should instead be given freer rein in the hopes it will provide the solutions to better the lives of American citizens?

——相反，私营企业应该被给予更自由的控制，希望它能够提供改善美国公民生活的解决方案？

And what about the arguments being put forward by many—including myself—that government spending will have to dramatically expand to meet the new and unique challenges of climate-change and a robotic workforce?

那么，包括我自己在内的许多人提出的论点，即政府支出必须大幅增加，以应对气候变化和机器人劳动力带来的新的、独特的挑战，又如何呢？

To answer these questions, I put the diagram-machine through a few more operations to observe the options for removing the excess “fuel” generated by government spending for collective benefits.

为了回答这些问题，我对图表机器进行了更多操作，以观察消除政府为集体利益支出而产生的多余“燃料”的选项。

This led to some additional insights.

这导致了一些额外的见解。

4.

4.

Tax-dollars really are spent by the Treasury—but they aren’t necessary to fund the Treasury’s spending.

税收资金确实是由财政部支出的，但它们并不是为财政部支出提供资金所必需的。

Tax collections are obviously the first strategy for removing potential inflation-dollars from the spending accounts of private commerce.

征税显然是从私人商业支出账户中消除潜在通胀美元的首要策略。

MMT enthusiasts (again, myself included) are fond of saying that tax-dollars aren’t used for federal spending—that the promissory note a dollar represents is simply cancelled when it is used to pay taxes; i.e. taxes “destroy” or “drain” money.

现代货币理论的爱好者（再次包括我自己）喜欢说税收美元不用于联邦支出——一美元所代表的期票在用于纳税时就被取消了；即税收“破坏”或“耗尽”金钱。

When you observe the federal tax operation in the diagram-machine, however, a somewhat different perspective pops up.

然而，当您在图表机器中观察联邦税收运作时，就会出现一些不同的观点。

Yes, when the taxes are paid, bank-dollars are debited (or “drained”) from private spending accounts—but the same operation also adds Reserves to the Treasury’s spending account.

是的，当纳税时，银行美元会从私人支出账户中扣除（或“扣除”），但同样的操作也会将储备金添加到财政部的支出账户中。

When the Treasury spends, those added Reserves get “spent”—along with the new Reserves generated by the Treasury’s operation of issuing future Reserves.

当财政部支出时，这些增加的储备金以及财政部发行未来储备金的操作所产生的新储备金都会被“花掉”。

The point isn’t that tax-dollars get “destroyed,” but rather that they reduce the amount of future Reserves necessary to undertake any particular spending for the collective benefit.

问题不在于税收美元被“摧毁”，而在于它们减少了为集体利益承担任何特定支出所需的未来储备金数量。

The further point is that there is no inherent constraint on the number of future Reserves the Treasury must issue to achieve that particular spending goal.

更进一步的一点是，财政部为实现特定支出目标必须发行的未来储备金数量没有内在限制。

In other words, the spending could just as easily happen if zero tax-dollars were in the Treasury’s spending account.

换句话说，如果财政部的支出账户中存在零税款，那么支出也很容易发生。

The real effect of the tax-dollars becomes clear when the diagram-machine’s operation is completed by the Treasury’s spending: The Treasury’s Reserve account is debited, the Reserve accounts of private banks are credited, and bank-dollars are added to the spending accounts of private commerce.

当图表机器的操作由财政部的支出完成时，税收美元的真正效果就变得清晰起来：财政部的储备账户被记入借方，私人银行的储备账户被记入贷方，银行美元被添加到私人商业的支出账户中。

The net increase of spending fuel in those accounts depends on how much was “drained” out earlier by the tax payments.

这些账户中支出燃料的净增长取决于之前纳税“耗尽”了多少。

Whichever way you look at it, the net result of tax payments is a reduction of the potential “inflation-fuel” generated by federal spending for collective goods and services—the tax-payments, in other words, don’t “pay for” the spending, they reduce the net build-up of potential inflation-dollars created by the spending.

无论你从哪个角度来看，纳税的最终结果都是减少了联邦政府对集体商品和服务的支出所产生的潜在“通货膨胀燃料”——换句话说，纳税并不“支付”支出，而是减少了支出造成的潜在通货膨胀美元的净积累。

Despite the “fiscal space” created by taxation, a very high ratio of future Reserves to tax-dollars—as many of the spending programs advocated by MMT will require—still generates a lot of potential “inflation-fuel.” The question that arises, then, is how high can that ratio go—i.e. how many goods and services benefiting the collective good can be produced—before a level of problem-inflation is induced in private commerce?

尽管税收创造了“财政空间”，但未来储备金与税收美元的比率非常高——正如现代货币理论所倡导的许多支出计划所要求的那样——仍然会产生大量潜在的“通胀燃料”。那么出现的问题是这个比率可以达到多高——即在私人商业引发一定程度的问题通货膨胀之前，可以生产多少有利于集体利益的商品和服务？

Apparently, a formula or evaluation mechanism to answer that question has yet to be devised.

显然，回答这个问题的公式或评估机制尚未设计出来。

In the meantime, it seems to be an argument between the alarmists and the optimists.

与此同时，这似乎是危言耸听者和乐观主义者之间的争论。

Alarmists postulate horrific things will happen if the level of future Reserves issued exceeds a certain percentage of GDP.

危言耸听者假设，如果未来发行的储备水平超过 GDP 的一定比例，就会发生可怕的事情。

But this seems to have less to do with inflation than the hazy (and fundamentally incorrect) assumption that GDP somehow represents the amount of dollars available to “redeem” future Reserves: if future Reserves exceed that number of dollars, the thinking seems to go, it will be impossible to “redeem” them, thereby resulting in default and catastrophe for the U.S. economy.

但这似乎与通货膨胀的关系不大，而是一个模糊的（而且根本上不正确的）假设，即GDP在某种程度上代表了可用于“赎回”未来储备的美元数量：如果未来储备超过这个数量，这种想法似乎就消失了，就不可能“赎回”它们，从而导致美国经济违约和灾难。

As an optimistic architect, I look at the issue from what I call an “enabling strategy” for federal spending.

作为一名乐观的建筑师，我从我所说的联邦支出“赋能战略”来看待这个问题。

By this, I mean that federal spending should be targeted toward the creation of goods and services that ENABLE private commerce to produce what American’s need— and ENABLES all American citizens to buy the needed things private commerce produces.

我的意思是，联邦支出的目标应该是创造商品和服务，使私人商业能够生产美国人需要的东西，并使所有美国公民能够购买私人商业生产的所需物品。

What is a “needed” thing is negotiable, but it would certainly include healthy food and clean water, a safe and supportive dwelling, pre-K through college education, and life-time medical care.

什么是“需要”的东西是可以协商的，但它肯定包括健康的食物和清洁的水、安全和支持性的住所、学前班到大学教育以及终身医疗保健。

Designing, building, and deploying the “Enabling Structures” (including service structures) that accomplish this goal would—from my perspective— expand the markets of private commerce to absorb virtually all the potential inflation-dollars generated by the federal spending necessary to create them.

从我的角度来看，设计、建造和部署实现这一目标的“有利结构”（包括服务结构）将扩大私人商业市场，以吸收创建这些市场所需的联邦支出所产生的几乎所有潜在的通货膨胀美元。

For me, personally, this feels like coming full circle from where I started, seven years ago, with my first MMT essay: Playing Monopolis Monopoly .

对我个人来说，这感觉像是从七年前我的第一篇 MMT 文章《玩大富翁》开始的地方兜了一圈。

The Enabling Structures I built in that essay, on the Monopoly game board itself—and actually photographed—I still consider my best explanation of what they are, what they are intended to do, and why they should be built.

我在那篇文章中在大富翁游戏板本身上构建的启用结构（并实际拍照）我仍然认为我对它们是什么、它们打算做什么以及为什么应该构建它们的最佳解释。

Full circle—but I think I understand the macro-economics of it much better now.

兜了一圈——但我想我现在对宏观经济学的理解好多了。

It would be wonderful, from this point on, to focus exclusively on the strategy of Enabling Structures without having to endlessly search for explanations about why, as a collective society, we actually can afford to build them.

从现在开始，如果能够专注于启用结构的战略，而不必无休止地寻找解释，解释为什么作为一个集体社会​​，我们实际上有能力建造它们，那就太好了。