The People’s Money (Part 1)

An Explanation of the Federal Reserve Money system and what it means for the potential accomplishments of American Democracy

解释美联储货币体系及其对美国民主潜在成就的意义

“Reserves”—that esoteric term in money-talk that postures to explain everything but explains nothing at all—have been much in the news of late.

“储备”——货币谈话中的一个深奥术语，看似可以解释一切，但实际上什么也解释不了——最近经常出现在新闻中。

The Wall Street Journal even tried, recently, to explain what they are!

《华尔街日报》最近甚至试图解释它们是什么！

They didn’t do such a great job.

他们没有做得那么出色。

That’s unfortunate because, properly explained and understood, Reserves hold a big key to the political befuddlement—especially acute in the present election cycle—about what we can “afford” to accomplish as a collective society.

这是不幸的，因为经过适当的解释和理解，储备金掌握着政治困惑的关键——在当前的选举周期中尤其严重——关于我们作为一个集体社会​​能够“负担得起”实现什么目标。

This includes “paying for” real solutions to the five, money-intensive, life-defining dilemmas America now confronts: (1) climate change (2) healthcare (3) student debt (4) early child-hood care and development (5) affordable housing.

这包括“支付”真正的解决方案，以解决美国现在面临的五个资金密集型、决定生活的困境：（1）气候变化（2）医疗保健（3）学生债务（4）幼儿保育和发展（5）经济适用房。

It is therefore well worth the effort, I think, to attempt an explanation of “Reserves” that might actually be grasped by the collective consciousness of our political dialog.

因此，我认为，尝试对“保留”进行解释是非常值得的，这种解释实际上可以被我们政治对话的集体意识所理解。

To accomplish that, I need a good metaphor to get started.

为了实现这一目标，我需要一个好的比喻来开始。

Since I’m an architect, what comes to mind is exploring the structure of a building to discover what is holding up what—and discovering in the process, perhaps, some rooms with surprising views.

因为我是一名建筑师，所以我想到的是探索建筑物的结构，以发现支撑什么的东西——并在这个过程中发现，也许，一些房间的景色令人惊讶。

It’s a strange edifice (I warn you) that often seems unnecessarily complicated.

这是一座奇怪的建筑（我警告你），通常看起来过于复杂。

But, observed with patience, it has its own peculiar beauty and logic— and, in the end, it’s this strange beauty and logic that reveals what we can, in fact, do about the five dilemmas just listed.

但是，耐心地观察，它有其独特的美感和逻辑——最终，正是这种奇怪的美感和逻辑揭示了我们实际上可以对刚才列出的五个困境做些什么。

So, hold onto your brain-handles.

所以，请抓住你的大脑手柄。

We’ll go slow and easy, so no one gets lost.

我们会缓慢而轻松地走，这样就不会有人迷路。

Without going into the history of the term, let’s simply begin by saying that in America today “Reserves” are the sovereign fiat money issued by the U.S. government.

无需深入探讨该术语的历史，我们首先简单地说，在当今的美国，“储备”是美国政府发行的主权法定货币。

They are also the only official, “real” U.S. dollars that the federal government will accept as payment for taxes, fees, or fines owed to the government—which is why, by definition, they are America’s fiat money.

它们也是联邦政府接受的唯一官方“真实”美元，用于支付欠政府的税款、费用或罚款——这就是为什么根据定义，它们是美国的法定货币。

Having started with that statement, it may seem odd to you that the U.S. government, itself, issues the very thing that it wants to get paid with.

从这个声明开始，你可能会觉得奇怪，美国政府本身就发行了它想要获得报酬的东西。

You might ask, “If that’s the case, why doesn’t it just issue the money to itself, and leave me out of it?” As it turns out, that might not be a totally ridiculous question, though the answer might not be the tax-freedom you’re hoping for.

你可能会问，“如果是这样的话，为什么它不直接把钱发给自己，而把我排除在外呢？”事实证明，这可能并不是一个完全荒谬的问题，尽管答案可能不是您所希望的免税。

Reserves—modern fiat money—are strange things indeed, but they do, in the end, have a structure that can make sense out of the world.

储备——现代法定货币——确实是很奇怪的东西，但最终它们确实有一个可以理解世界的结构。

One of the strangest things about Reserves—even fascinating—is that you can’t get your hands on them.

储备金最奇怪的事情之一——甚至令人着迷——是你无法得到它们。

They exist only as digital entries inside America’s central bank—created and cancelled by keyboard strokes on an electronic balance sheet maintained by the U.S. Federal Reserve (the “FED”).

它们仅作为美国中央银行内部的数字条目存在——通过在美联储（“FED”）维护的电子资产负债表上敲击键盘来创建和取消。

Reserves, then—even though they are the “real” U.S. fiat dollars—are not the “money” American citizens and business borrow and spend every day.

那么，储备——尽管它们是“真正的”美国法定美元——并不是美国公民和企业每天借贷和支出的“钱”。

That money comes in two other forms: Federal Reserve Notes (the cash dollars we have tucked in our wallets) and bank-dollars which is the money we have on balance in our demand bank-accounts (checking and money-market accounts).

这些钱有另外两种形式：联邦储备券（我们放在钱包里的现金美元）和银行美元，即我们活期银行账户（支票账户和货币市场账户）中的余额。

What is the relationship between these other forms of money, that we actually use every day, and Reserves?

我们每天实际使用的这些其他形式的货币与储备之间有什么关系？

The relationship is very simple: Federal Reserve Notes (cash dollars) and bank-dollars are claims on the Reserve dollars posted on the electronic balance sheet at the FED.

关系非常简单：联邦储备券（现金美元）和银行美元是对美联储电子资产负债表上公布的储备美元的债权。

So, while you can’t get your hands on Reserves, you can make a claim on them when you actually need them.

因此，虽然您无法获得储备金，但您可以在真正需要时提出索赔。

This is not something you need to worry about accomplishing—it happens, automatically, as needed, when you spend your cash or write a check.

这不是您需要担心完成的事情——当您花掉现金或写支票时，它会根据需要自动发生。

This happens because of the way the central bank is structured.

发生这种情况是因为央行的结构方式。

Every private bank in the Federal Reserve System has its own Reserve account at the FED.

美联储系统中的每家私人银行在美联储都有自己的储备账户。

In its Reserve account, each bank keeps track of the “real” sovereign U.S. fiat dollars it is in control of.

在其储备账户中，每家银行都记录其所控制的“真实”主权美元法定美元。

(Remember, these are just digital entries on the electronic balance sheet—very much like the scoreboard at a basketball game.) The FED can debit Reserves from one bank’s Reserve account and credit them to another’s, “keeping score,” if you will.

（请记住，这些只是电子资产负债表上的数字条目，非常像篮球比赛中的记分牌。）美联储可以从一家银行的储备账户中扣除储备金，并将其贷记到另一家银行的储备账户中，“记分”，如果你愿意的话。

The FED can also simply “issue” new Reserves and add them to one account or another—again, with keystrokes—in exchange for another asset (collateral).

美联储还可以简单地“发行”新的储备金并将其添加到一个或另一个账户（再次通过按键）以换取另一种资产（抵押品）。

Importantly, the U.S. Treasury also has a Reserve account at the FED—which is the spending account for the U.S. federal government: Not only does the federal government expect to be paid with Reserves, it only makes payments, itself, with Reserves.

重要的是，美国财政部在美联储也有一个储备账户——这是美国联邦政府的支出账户：联邦政府不仅期望用储备金支付，而且它本身也只用储备金支付。

At this point, you’re no doubt asking one big question: WHY?

此时，您无疑会问一个大问题：为什么？

Why is it set up like this?

为什么要这样设置呢？

Before we look into an answer to that question, however, let’s make sure we understand how the structure of the building we’re exploring actually works.

然而，在我们研究这个问题的答案之前，让我们确保我们了解我们正在探索的建筑物的结构实际上是如何运作的。

Here’s an example of how you can exercise your claim on Reserves: Let’s say you owe Uncle Sam $1000 in taxes.

以下是您如何行使储备金索取权的示例：假设您欠山姆大叔 1000 美元的税款。

Uncle Sam demands that you pay him with Reserve dollars.

山姆大叔要求你用储备金付给他。

How do you do that?

你是怎么做到的？

You write a check from your account at Bank-A to Uncle Sam for $1000.

您从 A 银行的账户中向山姆大叔开出一张 1000 美元的支票。

At the end of the business day, Uncle Sam presents the check it has received to the FED for “clearing.” In the “clearing” process, the FED debits $1000 from the Reserve account of your Bank-A, and credits $1000 Reserves into the Treasury’s Reserve account.

在工作日结束时，山姆大叔将收到的支票交给美联储进行“清算”。在“清算”过程中，美联储从 A 银行的储备金账户中扣除 1000 美元，并将 1000 美元的储备金存入财政部的储备金账户。

Your check is “cleared” (cancelled), $1000 bank dollars are debited from your checking account at bank-A—and your taxes are marked “PAID”.

您的支票已“清算”（作废），1000 美元的银行币将从您在 A 银行的支票账户中扣除，并且您的税款被标记为“已付”。

Here’s another example: You write a $1000 rent check from your bank-A to your landlord who uses bank-B.

这是另一个例子：您从 A 银行向使用 B 银行的房东写了一张 1000 美元的租金支票。

What happens?

会发生什么？

At the end of the business day, the landlord’s bank-B sends your check, deposited by the landlord, to the FED for “clearing.” During the clearing process, your claim on your bank-A’s Reserves is exercised: $1000 Reserve dollars are debited from your bank-A’s Reserve account and are credited to the Reserve account of the landlord’s bank-B.

在工作日结束时，房东的 B 银行会将您由房东存入的支票发送给美联储进行“清算”。在清算过程中，您对 A 银行储备金的索取权将被行使：从您 A 银行的储备金账户中扣除 1000 美元储备金，并存入房东 B 银行的储备金账户。

Your check is cancelled and, lastly, $1000 bank-B bank dollars are credited to the landlord’s account, while $1,000 bank-A bank dollars are debited from your account.

您的支票将被取消，最后，1000 美元的 B 银行银行资金将记入房东的账户，同时从您的账户中扣除 1,000 美元的 A 银行银行资金。

In each case, from your perspective, it appears that you are simply using the bank dollars in your checking account to pay someone—the government or your landlord—$1000 dollars.

在每种情况下，从您的角度来看，您似乎只是使用支票账户中的银行资金向某人（政府或您的房东）支付 1000 美元。

Hidden from you is the other operation in which your bank dollars exercise their claim on Reserves at the FED, causing the actual payment to be made with Reserves— “real” U.S. fiat dollars.

您不知道的是另一种操作，您的银行资金在美联储行使其对准备金的索取权，导致实际支付以准备金——“真正的”美元法定美元进行。

There’s one more thing we need to understand before we get to the question about why things are structured this way: If the U.S. government’s central bank—the FED—issues Reserves, who issues the bank-dollars that are the claims on the Reserves?

在我们回答为什么事情是这样构建的问题之前，我们还需要了解一件事：如果美国政府的中央银行（美联储）发行储备金，那么谁发行作为储备金债权的银行美元？

As the name implies, they are created by private banks—but by what process?

顾名思义，它们是由私人银行创建的——但通过什么过程呢？

The FED has a lawful mandate to simply issue Reserves by “fiat”—out of thin air.

美联储拥有合法授权，可以凭空“法定”发行储备金。

But what is a private bank’s mandate to create bank-dollar claims on the “real” money created by the FED?

但私人银行对美联储创造的“真实”货币建立银行美元债权的授权是什么？

The key is to see that a private bank can only issue claims on the Reserves that reside in its own Reserve account at the FED.

关键是要确保私人银行只能对位于美联储自己的储备账户中的储备发出债权。

Because this is key, it is useful to have a quick understanding of how each bank acquires, in the first place, those Reserves it can create claims on: The FED issues the Reserves (with keystrokes) and credits them to a bank’s Reserve account in exchange for some collateral provided by the bank.

因为这是关键，所以首先快速了解每家银行如何获取其可以创建债权的储备金是很有用的：美联储发行储备金（通过按键）并将其记入银行的储备账户，以换取银行提供的一些抵押品。

Coming up with this collateral is a necessary component of becoming licensed as a federal reserve bank.

提供这种抵押品是获得联邦储备银行许可的必要组成部分。

The FED stipulates what the collateral must be.

美联储规定了抵押品必须是什么。

Once the Reserve account is established, the bank can begin to issue the bank-dollars which are claims on those Reserves in its account.

一旦建立了储备金账户，银行就可以开始发行银行美元，这是对其账户中的储备金的索取权。

A bank “issues” its bank-dollars by making loans to individuals and businesses.

银行通过向个人和企业提供贷款来“发行”银行美元。

When bank-A loans you, say, $10,000 to make home-improvements, it credits your bank-A checking account (using keystrokes, of course) with $10,000 bank-dollars.

例如，当 A 银行向您贷款 10,000 美元用于装修房屋时，它会将 10,000 美元的银行资金记入您的 A 银行支票账户（当然是通过按键操作）。

These are now your claims on the Reserves bank-A holds at the FED.

现在这些是您对 A 银行在美联储持有的储备金的债权。

You then write checks to various contractors and vendors, and those checks are presented for “clearing” at the FED where your claims on Bank-A’s Reserves are exercised.

然后，您向各个承包商和供应商写支票，这些支票将提交给美联储“清算”，您对 A 银行准备金的债权将在美联储行使。

This little example seems to suggest that a bank must be careful not to create more bank-dollar claims than it actually has in its Reserve account to meet those claims.

这个小例子似乎表明，银行必须小心，不要创造比其储备账户中实际拥有的更多的银行美元债权来满足这些债权。

As is famously known, however, banks create many more bank-dollars than they have in Reserves.

然而，众所周知，银行创造的银行美元比其储备多得多。

How can this be?

怎么会这样呢？

Doesn’t that mean the “clearing” process at the FED will break down—that eventually you’ll write a check on your bank-A account, only to find that it can’t clear because bank-A’s Reserves have already been tapped out by other claims?

这是否意味着美联储的“清算”过程将会崩溃——最终你会在你的 A 银行账户上写一张支票，却发现它无法清算，因为 A 银行的准备金已经被其他债权耗尽了？

There’s a couple of reasons why, in modern times, this cannot happen (if everyone keeps their fingers crossed).

在现代，有几个原因导致这种情况不可能发生（如果每个人都祈祷的话）。

The first reason is that banks have come to understand that, on any given business day, only a tiny fraction of the bank-dollars they’ve issued will make claims on their Reserves at the FED.

第一个原因是银行已经认识到，在任何特定的工作日，他们发行的银行美元中只有一小部分会在美联储索取其准备金。

The remainder—the vast majority—will remain passively silent in their various checking accounts, or in checks written but not yet deposited.

其余的人——绝大多数——将在他们的各种支票账户或已开具但尚未存入的支票中保持被动沉默。

Also, if a given bank (Bank of America, for example) is used by a large segment of a local, regional, or perhaps national population, the recipients of many checks written will deposit them back in the same bank—in which case they do not go through the FED’s clearing process at all, but simply result in a tally on the bank’s own bank-dollar balance sheet.

此外，如果一家特定银行（例如美国银行）被当地、区域或全国人口的很大一部分使用，那么许多支票的接收者会将其存回同一家银行——在这种情况下，他们根本不经过美联储的清算流程，而只是在银行自己的银行美元资产负债表上进行统计。

A final “also” is this: if banks in the federal reserve system stay, more or less, at the same “scale” of operations, during the FED’s clearing process any one bank should be credited, from other banks, about the same number of Reserves as it’s debited.

最后一个“也”是：如果联邦储备系统中的银行或多或少保持相同的运营“规模”，那么在美联储的清算过程中，任何一家银行都应该从其他银行贷记与其借记的准备金数量大致相同的金额。

The second reason banks “safely” create many more bank-dollars than they have in Reserves is because the FED has put in place, and operates, a number of fail-safe “mechanisms” which ensure that, every business day, the clearing process will always be successfully completed.

银行“安全地”创造出比储备金多得多的银行美元的第二个原因是，美联储已经建立并运行了一系列自动防故障“机制”，确保每个工作日的清算过程始终能够成功完成。

Your check on bank-A will always clear (assuming you have sufficient bank-dollars in your account to cover it.) For our purposes here, we don’t need to know or understand the details of the fail-safe systems the FED operates—except one: As a last resort, the FED can, and will, simply issue new Reserves, as necessary, and credit them (in exchange for collateral) to the Reserve account of whatever bank comes up short in the clearing process.

你在A银行的支票总是会清算的（假设你的账户中有足够的银行美元来支付它。）就我们的目的而言，我们不需要知道或理解美联储运行的自动防故障系统的细节，除了一个：作为最后的手段，美联储可以而且将会在必要时简单地发行新的准备金，并将它们（作为抵押品）记入在清算过程中出现短缺的银行的准备金账户。

It has to do this—otherwise the whole structure collapses.

它必须这样做——否则整个结构就会崩溃。

Why is our modern fiat money system set up this way?

为什么我们的现代法定货币体系是这样建立的？

Why not just have a single “money” that we all use—the government, the banks, all of us—and be happy with that?

为什么不只拥有我们所有人都使用的单一“货币”——政府、银行、我们所有人——并对此感到满意呢？

It would be nice to say the answer is because well-intentioned and forward-thinking people thought a Reserve/ bank-dollar system would best serve our needs.

很高兴说答案是因为善意且有远见的人们认为储备/银行美元体系最能满足我们的需求。

The real answer, however, is that under the circumstances of history, it was the best solution that could be cobbled together that all the stakeholders would agree upon (and using the term “agree” is being generous).

然而，真正的答案是，在历史条件下，这是所有利益相关者都能同意的最好的解决方案（使用“同意”一词是慷慨的）。

In the century leading up to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, America struggled mightily with its money system.

在 1913 年联邦储备法案出台之前的一个世纪里，美国的货币体系陷入了巨大的困境。

These struggles became a crisis after the Civil War.

这些斗争在内战后成为一场危机。

Basically, there were three problems:

基本上，存在三个问题：

There was no national currency—only bank-dollars issued by different banks around the country.

没有国家货币，只有全国各地不同银行发行的银行美元。

While these dollars generally promised to be exchangeable for gold, the amount of gold held by each bank to back up its promise was often suspect.

虽然这些美元通常承诺可以兑换黄金，但每家银行为支持其承诺而持有的黄金数量常常令人怀疑。

Merchants had to be concerned which bank-dollars they were being paid with.

商人必须关心他们收到的付款是哪家银行的美元。

This was a significant impediment to national commerce.

这是国家商业的重大障碍。

Transactions written on an account in bank-A and submitted for deposit in bank-B were often not accepted by bank-B if it was suspicious that bank-A might not be able to back up the promises of its bank-dollars.

如果银行 B 怀疑银行 A 可能无法兑现其银行美元的承诺，则在银行 A 的账户上写入并提交存入银行 B 的交易通常不会被银行 B 接受。

In the 1800’s there were a series of banking crises in which this “clearing” process between banks broke down, resulting in severe economic distress.

1800年代发生了一系列银行业危机，银行之间的“清算”过程崩溃，导致严重的经济困境。

As things unfolded after the U.S. Civil War, this turned out to be the biggest problem of all.

随着美国内战后事态的发展，这成为最大的问题。

The civil war had been paid for with Abraham Lincoln’s fiat money— “greenbacks” that were printed and circulated to buy everything from mules to musket balls.

内战的费用是用亚伯拉罕·林肯的法定货币——印制和流通的“美元”来购买从骡子到步枪子弹的所有东西。

A great many debts were racked up during the war—mostly to big banks on the East Coast.

战争期间积累了大量债务——主要是欠东海岸的大银行。

When the war ended, these East Coast banks refused to accept the greenback dollars as payment for the debts.

战争结束后，这些东海岸银行拒绝接受美元作为债务支付。

They demanded to be paid, instead, in gold.

他们要求以黄金支付。

The only problem was there was not enough gold in the country to redeem the greenbacks and underwrite the need for an expanding money supply the new post-war commerce was demanding.

唯一的问题是该国没有足够的黄金来兑换美元并满足战后新商业所要求的扩大货币供应的需要。

The result was that southern and western farmers were unable to sell their crops for “dollars.” Instead, because of the lack of money in the system, they were forced to begin selling their crops for store credits.

结果是南部和西部农民无法以“美元”出售农作物。相反，由于系统中缺乏资金，他们被迫开始出售农作物以换取商店积分。

This began the era of the corrupt “crop-lien” system with its “furnishing merchants” who, over time, put the farmers so deeply in debt they were forced to become sharecroppers on what had once been their own farms.

这就开始了腐败的“农作物留置权”制度的时代，“家具商人”随着时间的推移，让农民负债累累，他们被迫在曾经属于自己的农场上成为佃农。

This, in turn, precipitated what nearly became a successful grass-roots political revolution over the issue of “money and, ultimately, led to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

这反过来又促成了一场关于“货币”问题的几乎成功的草根政治革命，并最终导致了 1913 年的《联邦储备法》。

(Please read “The Populist Moment” by Lawrence Goodwyn.)

（请阅读劳伦斯·古德温的《民粹主义时刻》。）

Creating the U.S. Federal Reserve banking system was a long and hard-fought political battle.

创建美联储银行体系是一场漫长而艰苦的政治斗争。

In the end, the Reserve/bank-dollar system was created because it was the only structure everyone could agree upon that solved the three money problems just described:

最终，储备/银行美元体系被创建，因为它是唯一一个每个人都能同意的结构，可以解决刚才描述的三个货币问题：

The Federal Reserve System, then, was cobbled together to solve these three problems.

于是，联邦储备系统就被拼凑起来解决这三个问题。

No one claimed it was the perfect solution.

没有人声称这是完美的解决方案。

There were many compromises made to reach consensus in in the U.S. Congress.

美国国会做出了许多妥协以达成共识。

The banking interests didn’t want politics and the government to run the show.

银行业利益集团不希望政治和政府来主导一切。

The government didn’t want the bankers to have exclusive control over something that the common good, ultimately, depended on.

政府不希望银行家对公共利益最终依赖的东西拥有独家控制权。

The FED, then, became a partnership—partially under the banker’s control, partly under the control of the federal government.

于是，美联储成为了一种合伙企业——部分受银行家控制，部分受联邦政府控制。

That’s the introductory tour of the edifice we’re exploring—a look at the big pillars holding up the roof.

这就是我们正在探索的这座大厦的介绍性游览——看看支撑屋顶的大柱子。

In PART 2, we’ll explore some of the rooms and activities that accommodate the needs of the “big partnership” that lives under that roof.

在第 2 部分中，我们将探索一些房间和活动，以满足生活在这个屋檐下的“大合作伙伴”的需求。

It’s a partnership not of people, but of interests.

这不是人的伙伴关系，而是利益的伙伴关系。

The bankers represent the interests of private enterprise , the federal government represents the interests of public enterprise .

银行家代表私营企业的利益，联邦政府代表公营企业的利益。

Together, they comprise what I think of as The American Enterprise .

它们共同构成了我所认为的美国企业。