美國經濟是如何走向全面破產的 (ZT)

So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation』s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.

由此看來，實體經濟仍在不斷下滑，而華盛頓還在不斷給後代堆積債務，沒有能力控制戰爭預算或者福利支出，也沒有能力提高償付國家債務所需的稅收。自然而然，美聯儲乞靈於未曾用過的激進措施，開始大肆印鈔。然而，大量增加的流動性不但沒有刺激銀行貸款或者企業支出，反而一直被困在華爾街的深淵之中，正在發酵成又一輪無法持續的泡沫。

When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today』s feeble remnants of economic growth.

這輪泡沫一旦破裂，美國銀行將不會再得到像2008年那樣的新一輪救援方案。相反，美國將會墮入一個零和緊縮與惡性政治衝突交織的時代，就連目前這種經濟增長的微小殘痕也會消失殆盡。

THIS dyspeptic prospect results from the fact that we are now state-wrecked. With only brief interruptions, we』ve had eight decades of increasingly frenetic fiscal and monetary policy activism intended to counter the cyclical bumps and grinds of the free market and its purported tendency to underproduce jobs and economic output. The toll has been heavy.

這種失調前景源自政府的胡作非為。過去80年來，除了幾次短暫的中斷以外，美國一直在奉行越來越瘋狂的財政和貨幣干預政策，試圖以此對抗自由市場的周期性問題，及其減少工作機會和經濟產出的可能趨勢。這樣做的代價十分慘重。

As the federal government and its central-bank sidekick, the Fed, have groped for one goal after another — smoothing out the business cycle, minimizing inflation and unemployment at the same time, rolling out a giant social insurance blanket, promoting homeownership, subsidizing medical care, propping up old industries (agriculture, automobiles) and fostering new ones (「clean」 energy, biotechnology) and, above all, bailing out Wall Street — they have now succumbed to overload, overreach and outside capture by powerful interests. The modern Keynesian state is broke, paralyzed and mired in empty ritual incantations about stimulating 「demand,」 even as it fosters a mutant crony capitalism that periodically lavishes the top 1 percent with speculative windfalls.

聯邦政府及其央行夥伴美聯儲嘗試了一個又一個目標——理順商業周期、將通貨膨脹率和失業率同時降到最低、鋪開巨大的社會保障網、提高住房擁有率、提供醫療補貼、扶持傳統產業（農業、汽車行業）並促進新行業（「清潔」能源、生物技術）的發展，最重要的是，為華爾街提供救援。如今它們已經被過重的負荷、過大的壓力和強勢利益團體的外圍緊逼壓得喘不過氣來。在關於刺激「需求」的空洞儀式咒語中，奉行現代凱恩斯主義的美國已經破產、癱瘓、陷入爛泥，哪怕它孕育了一種讓最有錢的1%人口定期坐享投機暴利的異型裙帶資本主義。

The culprits are bipartisan, though you』d never guess that from the blather that passes for political discourse these days. The state-wreck originated in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt opted for fiat money (currency not fundamentally backed by gold), economic nationalism and capitalist cartels in agriculture and industry.

兩黨都是罪魁禍首，但你永遠不會從那些被大家視為當今政治議程的連篇廢話中猜到這一點 。政府的胡作非為始於1933年，當時，富蘭克林·D·羅斯福( Franklin D. Roosevelt)選擇了不兌現貨幣（不以黃金儲備為基礎的貨幣）、經濟民族主義和工農業領域的資本主義聯合企業。

Under the exigencies of World War II (which did far more to end the Depression than the New Deal did), the state got hugely bloated, but remarkably, the bloat was put into brief remission during a midcentury golden era of sound money and fiscal rectitude with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House and William McChesney Martin Jr. at the Fed.

在二戰（ 二戰對結束大蕭條的貢獻遠遠強於新政）的緊急關頭，美國政府變得極為臃腫膨脹，但很了不起的是，在德懷特·D·艾森豪威爾(Dwight D. Eisenhower)執掌白宮和小威廉·麥克切斯尼·馬丁(William McChesney Martin Jr)掌管美聯儲的20世紀中期，美國迎來了健全貨幣和財政清廉的黃金時代，這樣的膨脹由此得到了短暫的遏制。

Then came Lyndon B. Johnson』s 「guns and butter」 excesses, which were intensified over one perfidious weekend at Camp David, Md., in 1971, when Richard M. Nixon essentially defaulted on the nation』s debt obligations by finally ending the convertibility of gold to the dollar. That one act — arguably a sin graver than Watergate — meant the end of national financial discipline and the start of a four-decade spree during which we have lived high on the hog, running a cumulative $8 trillion current-account deficit. In effect, America underwent an internal leveraged buyout, raising our ratio of total debt (public and private) to economic output to about 3.6 from its historic level of about 1.6. Hence the $30 trillion in excess debt (more than half the total debt, $56 trillion) that hangs over the American economy today.

接下來，林登·B·約翰遜總統(Lyndon B. Johnson)帶來了「大炮加黃油」的過激政策，到了1971年，在一個背信棄義的周末，這一傾向在馬里蘭州戴維營得到了進一步加強。當時，理查德·M·尼克松(Richard M. Nixon)最終決定黃金和美元之間不能進行兌換，實質上等於賴掉了本國的債務 。這一舉動——可以說是比水門事件更嚴重的罪過——意味著國家金融紀律的覆滅和長達40年的狂歡的開始。在這40年間，我們生活奢侈，將經常賬目赤字累積到了8萬億美元之多。實際上，美國經歷了一次內部槓桿收購，把總債務（公共和私人）和經濟產出之間的比率從約為1.6的歷史水平增加到了約3.6。由此而來的是30萬億美元的超額債務（超過了總債務56萬億美元的一半），至今還威脅著美國的經濟。

This explosion of borrowing was the stepchild of the floating-money contraption deposited in the Nixon White House by Milton Friedman, the supposed hero of free-market economics who in fact sowed the seed for a never-ending expansion of the money supply. The Fed, which celebrates its centenary this year, fueled a roaring inflation in goods and commodities during the 1970s that was brought under control only by the iron resolve of Paul A. Volcker, its chairman from 1979 to 1987.

這樣的債務爆炸是流動資金把戲的產物，這種把戲是米爾頓·弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)在尼克松當政期間發明的。弗里德曼是所謂的自由市場經濟英雄，實際上卻為貨幣供應的無止境擴張播下了種子。今年慶祝百年華誕的美聯儲在上世紀70年代推動了貨物和商品的極度通脹，全靠保羅·A·沃爾克(Paul A. Volcker)的鋼鐵意志，這樣的局勢才得到了控制。沃爾克是1979到1987年間的美聯儲主席。

Under his successor, the lapsed hero Alan Greenspan, the Fed dropped Friedman』s penurious rules for monetary expansion, keeping interest rates too low for too long and flooding Wall Street with freshly minted cash. What became known as the 「Greenspan put」 — the implicit assumption that the Fed would step in if asset prices dropped, as they did after the 1987 stock-market crash — was reinforced by the Fed』s unforgivable 1998 bailout of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

在他的繼任者、蒙羞的英雄艾倫·格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)的管理下，美聯儲把弗里德曼的那些孱弱的貨幣擴張規則拋在一邊，在過長的時間裡，美聯儲把利息率維持在過低的水平，並向華爾街注入了大量新發行貨幣。最終以「格林斯潘對策」(Greenspan put)命名的央行理念由於美聯儲1998年對對沖基金長期資本管理公司(Long-Term Capital Managemen)的援助這一不可原諒之舉，而得到了強化。「格林斯潘對策」指的是美聯儲的不成文承諾，即如果市場資產價格下跌，它將會介入，就像他們在1987年的股災發生后做得那樣。

That Mr. Greenspan』s loose monetary policies didn』t set off inflation was only because domestic prices for goods and labor were crushed by the huge flow of imports from the factories of Asia. By offshoring America』s tradable-goods sector, the Fed kept the Consumer Price Index contained, but also permitted the excess liquidity to foster a roaring inflation in financial assets. Mr. Greenspan』s pandering incited the greatest equity boom in history, with the stock market rising fivefold between the 1987 crash and the 2000 dot-com bust.

格林斯潘的寬鬆貨幣政策之所以沒有引發通貨膨脹，僅僅是因為國內的商品和勞動力價格被來自亞洲工廠的大量進口產品所壓制。通過離岸外包美國的可交易貨物業務，美聯儲遏制住了消費者價格指數(Consumer Price Index)，可是由此引發的流動性過剩也導致金融資產領域的價格飆升。格林斯潘的縱容態度催生了美國歷史上最繁榮的股市，自1987年發生股災到2000年網際網路泡沫破裂，美國的股指上漲了五倍。

Soon Americans stopped saving and consumed everything they earned and all they could borrow. The Asians, burned by their own 1997 financial crisis, were happy to oblige us. They — China and Japan above all — accumulated huge dollar reserves, transforming their central banks into a string of monetary roach motels where sovereign debt goes in but never comes out. We』ve been living on borrowed time — and spending Asians』 borrowed dimes.

美國人很快停止儲蓄，花掉了他們所賺到的每分錢和能借到的每筆款。受到1997年的金融危機重創的亞洲國家也非常配合。這些國家，尤其是中國和日本，積累了大量的美元儲備，它們的中央銀行變成了一系列的貨幣「捕蟑盒」，主權債務在那裡只進不出。我們一直在靠借貸度日，而且是在花亞洲人借出的錢。

This dynamic reinforced the Reaganite shibboleth that 「deficits don』t matter」 and the fact that nearly $5 trillion of the nation』s $12 trillion in 「publicly held」 debt is actually sequestered in the vaults of central banks. The destruction of fiscal rectitude under Ronald Reagan — one reason I resigned as his budget chief in 1985 — was the greatest of his many dramatic acts. It created a template for the Republicans』 utter abandonment of the balanced-budget policies of Calvin Coolidge and allowed George W. Bush to dive into the deep end, bankrupting the nation through two misbegotten and unfinanced wars, a giant expansion of Medicare and a tax-cutting spree for the wealthy that turned K Street lobbyists into the de facto office of national tax policy. In effect, the G.O.P. embraced Keynesianism — for the wealthy.

這種變化強化了里根派的陳腐觀念，即「赤字不要緊」，它還強化了一個現實，即美國 「公開持有」的12萬億美元國債里，有近5萬億國債實際上是藏在各國中央銀行的保險庫里的。在羅納德·里根(Ronald Reagan)任內實施的多個引人側目的舉措中，遠離謹慎財政是後果最嚴重的一項，這也是身為里根政府預算主管的我在1985年辭職的一個原因。此舉為共和黨人徹底拋棄卡爾文·柯立芝(Calvin Coolidge)的平衡預算政策打造了一個樣板，也讓喬治·W·布希走上了不歸路，他用兩場師出無名的昂貴戰爭、聯邦醫療保險(Medicare)的大肆擴張，以及針對富人的一系列減稅措施，把美國送入了破產境地。華盛頓的說客們變成了國家稅收政策的實際操控者。共和黨的確奉行的是凱恩斯主義，只不過這是針對富人的凱恩斯主義。

The explosion of the housing market, abetted by phony credit ratings, securitization shenanigans and willful malpractice by mortgage lenders, originators and brokers, has been well documented. Less known is the balance-sheet explosion among the top 10 Wall Street banks during the eight years ending in 2008. Though their tiny sliver of equity capital hardly grew, their dependence on unstable 「hot money」 soared as the regulatory harness the Glass-Steagall Act had wisely imposed during the Depression was totally dismantled.

對於房地產市場的爆炸性增長，我們有諸多翔實記錄。虛假的信用評級、證劵化欺詐、以及抵押貸款放貸人、原始債權人和經紀人有意為之的不當操作都幫助引發了這種增長。更鮮為人知的是，截止到2008年的八年中，華爾街十大銀行的資產負債表出現大規模擴張。儘管銀行的微薄股本幾乎沒有增長，可是他們對不穩定的「熱錢」的依賴度卻在飆升，這是因為，來自大蕭條(Depression)時期的優秀監管利器《格拉斯-斯蒂格爾法案》(Glass-Steagall Act)被徹底廢除了。

Within weeks of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, Washington, with Wall Street』s gun to its head, propped up the remnants of this financial mess in a panic-stricken melee of bailouts and money-printing that is the single most shameful chapter in American financial history.

2008年9月，雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破產，華爾街把槍抵在華盛頓的腦袋上，後者幾周之內就開始給哀鴻遍野的金融業輸血，實施了一番驚慌失措的混亂救援和印鈔行動。這是美國金融史上最可恥的一章。

There was never a remote threat of a Great Depression 2.0 or of a financial nuclear winter, contrary to the dire warnings of Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman since 2006. The Great Fear — manifested by the stock market plunge when the House voted down the TARP bailout before caving and passing it — was purely another Wall Street concoction. Had President Bush and his Goldman Sachs adviser (a k a Treasury Secretary) Henry M. Paulson Jr. stood firm, the crisis would have burned out on its own and meted out to speculators the losses they so richly deserved. The Main Street banking system was never in serious jeopardy, ATMs were not going dark and the money market industry was not imploding.

與2006年起擔任美聯儲主席的本·S·伯南克(Ben S. Bernanke)發出的嚴重警告相反，當時的威脅遠不到「新版大蕭條」或「金融核冬天」的地步。「大恐慌」(Great Fear)純屬華爾街一手造成的，它在眾議院未能投票通過《問題資產救助計劃》(TARP)之後，導致股市狂跌，眾議院後來做出讓步，最終通過了該救援計劃。假如布希總統和他的高盛(Goldman Sachs)顧問（即財政部長）小亨利·M·保爾森(Henry M. Paulson Jr.)立場堅定，這場危機會自行平息，並讓投機者承擔他們罪有應得的損失。實體銀行體系根本從未陷入嚴重危機，自動取款機不會關停，金融業也不會從內部垮掉。

Instead, the White House, Congress and the Fed, under Mr. Bush and then President Obama, made a series of desperate, reckless maneuvers that were not only unnecessary but ruinous. The auto bailouts, for example, simply shifted jobs around — particularly to the aging, electorally vital Rust Belt — rather than saving them. The 「green energy」 component of Mr. Obama』s stimulus was mainly a nearly $1 billion giveaway to crony capitalists, like the venture capitalist John Doerr and the self-proclaimed outer-space visionary Elon Musk, to make new toys for the affluent.

然而，剛好相反，白宮、國會、美聯儲、布希和接下來的奧巴馬總統鋌而走險，採取了一系列不計後果的舉措，這不僅毫無必要，還會帶來惡劣後果。比方說，汽車行業的救援無非是在工作崗位上拆東牆補西牆——尤其是往人口老齡化、但有重要選舉意義的「鐵鏽地帶」補——但並沒有保住崗位。奧巴馬經濟刺激計劃的「綠色能源」部分基本是把近10億美元拱手送給裙帶資本家，比如風險投資人約翰·多爾(John Doerr)和自詡為太空夢想家的埃隆·馬斯科(Elon Musk)之流，目的是給富人打造新玩具。

Less than 5 percent of the $800 billion Obama stimulus went to the truly needy for food stamps, earned-income tax credits and other forms of poverty relief. The preponderant share ended up in money dumps to state and local governments, pork-barrel infrastructure projects, business tax loopholes and indiscriminate middle-class tax cuts. The Democratic Keynesians, as intellectually bankrupt as their Republican counterparts (though less hypocritical), had no solution beyond handing out borrowed money to consumers, hoping they would buy a lawn mower, a flat-screen TV or, at least, dinner at Red Lobster.

奧巴馬8000億美元的經濟刺激計劃中，僅有不到5%流向了真正需要食品券和勞動所得稅抵免等形式的扶貧計劃的人群。其絕大部分卻成為了撒向州級和地方政府的大筆金錢、政治分贓式的基礎設施項目、營業稅漏洞和不分青紅皂白的中產階級稅收減免。民主黨凱恩斯主義者與他們的共和黨同仁一樣才智枯竭（儘管不及後者那麼偽善），他們把借來的錢送到消費者手中，希望他們買個除草機、平板電視，或者至少去紅龍蝦(Red Lobster)下個館子什麼的，除此之外根本無計可施。

But even Mr. Obama』s hopelessly glib policies could not match the audacity of the Fed, which dropped interest rates to zero and then digitally printed new money at the astounding rate of $600 million per hour. Fast-money speculators have been 「purchasing」 giant piles of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities, almost entirely by using short-term overnight money borrowed at essentially zero cost, thanks to the Fed. Uncle Ben has lined their pockets.

但即使是奧巴馬無可救藥的輕率政策也無法與美聯儲的肆無忌憚相提並論，後者把利率降為零，然後以每小時6億美元的驚人速度印刷新幣。多虧了美聯儲，短期投機者一直在「購買」大量國債和住房貸款抵押證券，用的幾乎全是以實際為零的利率借得的短期隔夜資金。伯南克叔叔讓他們收入不菲。

If and when the Fed — which now promises to get unemployment below 6.5 percent as long as inflation doesn』t exceed 2.5 percent — even hints at shrinking its balance sheet, it will elicit a tidal wave of sell orders, because even a modest drop in bond prices would destroy the arbitrageurs』 profits. Notwithstanding Mr. Bernanke』s assurances about eventually, gradually making a smooth exit, the Fed is domiciled in a monetary prison of its own making.

美聯儲如今誓稱，只要通貨膨脹率不超過2.5%，他們就能把失業率降到6.5%以下，但該機構哪怕只是暗示要縮減資產負債表，也會引起沽盤的狂潮，因為債券價格即使是微微下降也會徹底消滅套利者的利潤。儘管伯南克保證最終會逐漸平穩退出，美聯儲已經置身自己打造的貨幣政策囚牢之中。

While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns. Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth: that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office』s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington』s delusions.

在美聯儲進行盲目調整之時，國會則心急如焚。自詡的財政鷹派人士、眾議院預算委員會(House Budget Committee)主席保羅·D·瑞安(Paul D. Ryan)不敢透露真相：10年期赤字實際上在15萬億美元到20萬億美元之間，大大超過了國會預算辦公室估計的7萬億美元。根據國會的最新預計，未來10年將會湧現1640萬新工作崗位，而在過去10年只出現了250萬個新崗位，這個數字只是華盛頓較為極端的妄想的一個例證。

Even a supposedly 「bold」 measure — linking the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security payments to a different kind of inflation index — would save just $200 billion over a decade, amounting to hardly 1 percent of the problem. Mr. Ryan』s latest budget shamelessly gives Social Security and Medicare a 10-year pass, notwithstanding that a fair portion of their nearly $19 trillion cost over that decade would go to the affluent elderly. At the same time, his proposal for draconian 30 percent cuts over a decade on the $7 trillion safety net — Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income tax credit — is another front in the G.O.P.』s war against the 99 percent.

就連所謂的「大膽」措施——把社會安全福利金的生活費調整和另一種通貨膨脹指數聯繫在一起——也只能在10年的時間裡節省2000億美元，還不足填補赤字的1%。瑞恩的最新預算無恥地放過了社會安全福利和聯邦醫療保險，雖然用於這兩個社會福利項目的將近19萬億美元的費用中有相當一部分被富有的年老階層享用。同時，他提議在未來10年對價值7萬億美元的安全網——聯邦醫療補助(Medicaid)、食品券和勞動所得稅抵免——進行30%的苛刻削減，這是共和黨針對美國99%人口的又一個戰場。

Without any changes, over the next decade or so, the gross federal debt, now nearly $17 trillion, will hurtle toward $30 trillion and soar to 150 percent of gross domestic product from around 105 percent today. Since our constitutional stasis rules out any prospect of a 「grand bargain,」 the nation』s fiscal collapse will play out incrementally, like a Greek/Cypriot tragedy, in carefully choreographed crises over debt ceilings, continuing resolutions and temporary budgetary patches.

在沒有任何變動的情況下，在接下來大約10年裡，目前接近17萬億美元的聯邦債務總額，將沖高至30萬億美元，並從今天的國內生產總值的105%，飆升到150%。因為美國的政治系統的僵局排除了任何「大妥協」的可能性，這個國家的財政崩潰將逐步發生，就像希臘/塞普勒斯的悲劇一樣，其表現形式就是一系列可以預見到的關於舉債上限的危機、後續解決方案和臨時的預算補救措施。

The future is bleak. The greatest construction boom in recorded history — China』s money dump on infrastructure over the last 15 years — is slowing. Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and all the other growing middle-income nations cannot make up for the shortfall in demand. The American machinery of monetary and fiscal stimulus has reached its limits. Japan is sinking into old-age bankruptcy and Europe into welfare-state senescence. The new rulers enthroned in Beijing last year know that after two decades of wild lending, speculation and building, even they will face a day of reckoning, too.

美國的前景相當黯淡。中國曾在過去15年裡大舉投資基礎設施建設，但由此造就的有史以來最大的建築熱潮正在放緩。巴西、印度、俄羅斯、土耳其、南非和所有其他增長中的中等收入國家都無法彌補這個需求上的缺口。美國的貨幣和財政刺激機制已經到達了極限。日本正在陷入老年破產期，歐洲也在沉入福利國家的衰老期。在北京，去年上台的新掌權者們明白，在經歷了20年的瘋狂放貸、投機和建設之後，即便是他們也終將面對好日子終結的那一天。

THE state-wreck ahead is a far cry from the 「Great Moderation」 proclaimed in 2004 by Mr. Bernanke, who predicted that prosperity would be everlasting because the Fed had tamed the business cycle and, as late as March 2007, testified that the impact of the subprime meltdown 「seems likely to be contained.」 Instead of moderation, what』s at hand is a Great Deformation, arising from a rogue central bank that has abetted the Wall Street casino, crucified savers on a cross of zero interest rates and fueled a global commodity bubble that erodes Main Street living standards through rising food and energy prices — a form of inflation that the Fed fecklessly disregards in calculating inflation.

未來的國家凋敝慘景與伯南克在2004年宣布的「大緩和」(Great Moderation)可謂有天壤之別，當時他預測經濟繁榮將會永遠持續下去，因為美聯儲已經掌控了商業周期；直到2007年3月，他還在證言中說次貸危機的影響「看上去可以得到控制」。可現在的經濟並非是「緩和」而是「大畸形」，其製造者正是一個慫恿華爾街大肆賭博的央行，它走入了邪路，把儲戶釘死在「零利率」的十字架上，並引發了全球大宗商品泡沫。這個泡沫通過提高食品和能源價格來侵蝕民眾的生活標準，而對於這種形式的通貨膨脹，美聯儲在計算通貨膨脹率時不負責任地將之摒棄一邊。

These policies have brought America to an end-stage metastasis. The way out would be so radical it can』t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy. It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.

這些政策已經使得美國病入膏肓。而解決的方案太過激進以至於不可能發生。我們必須讓國家和市場經濟徹底脫鉤，還將需要放棄裙帶資本主義及其近親——所有形式的凱恩斯主義經濟學。這個國家必須摒棄其極端自滿的心態、經濟刺激及社會保險，並將其關注點轉移到對一個高效、廉價、審查資格的安全網進行管理和融資。

All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Prying them apart would entail sweeping constitutional surgery: amendments to give the president and members of Congress a single six-year term, with no re-election; providing 100 percent public financing for candidates; strictly limiting the duration of campaigns (say, to eight weeks); and prohibiting, for life, lobbying by anyone who has been on a legislative or executive payroll. It would also require overturning Citizens United and mandating that Congress pass a balanced budget, or face an automatic sequester of spending.

所有這一切都需要政治系統大幅縮減其覆蓋範圍，並要廢除總統連任制，因為政府機構和競選連任者的團隊已經變得密不可分。分離這兩者將需要對憲法做出大幅修改：添加修正案，賦予總統和國會議員單一的六年任期，不能連任；為候選人提供100%的公共資金支持；嚴格限制競選活動持續的時間（比如，最多八周）；並且終生禁止任何曾效力立法和行政部門的人士從事遊說活動。此外，還需要完全推翻對「聯合公民案」的判決，並要求國會通過平衡的預算方案，否則就面對自動開支削減。

It would also require purging the corrosive financialization that has turned the economy into a giant casino since the 1970s. This would mean putting the great Wall Street banks out in the cold to compete as at-risk free enterprises, without access to cheap Fed loans or deposit insurance. Banks would be able to take deposits and make commercial loans, but be banned from trading, underwriting and money management in all its forms.

我們還需要清除掉具有腐蝕性影響的金融化機制， 從20世紀70年代以來，這種金融化已將美國經濟變成了一個巨型賭場。這也就意味著，要讓華爾街的大型銀行為自己的行為負責，讓他們像自由企業一樣去競爭，並承擔風險，而不再為它們提供廉價的美聯儲貸款或存款保險。銀行可以接受存款，併發放商業貸款，但應該被禁止進行交易、擔保及各種形式的理財業務。

It would require, finally, benching the Fed』s central planners, and restoring the central bank』s original mission: to provide liquidity in times of crisis but never to buy government debt or try to micromanage the economy. Getting the Fed out of the financial markets is the only way to put free markets and genuine wealth creation back into capitalism.

最後，我們還需要讓美聯儲的核心決策者走下賽場，恢復這個央行原本的職責：在危機期間提供流動性，但絕不能購買政府債務，或試圖對經濟進行微觀管理。將美聯儲從金融市場上剔除出去的唯一方法就是，讓資本主義制度重新轉向自由市場和真正的財富創造 。

That, of course, will never happen because there are trillions of dollars of assets, from Shanghai skyscrapers to Fortune 1000 stocks to the latest housing market 「recovery,」 artificially propped up by the Fed』s interest-rate repression. The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is.

當然，這些將永遠不會發生，因為美聯儲壓低利率的做法已經人為地撐起了數萬億美元的資產，從上海的摩天大樓到《財富》(Fortune)1000強的股票，再到最近的樓市「復甦」。 在財政、道德，及學術理論層面，美國都已破產。美聯儲已經點燃了一場將顛覆自身的全球貨幣戰爭。日本已經報名參加，巴西和中國都十分憤怒，而以德國為主導的歐元區正搖搖欲墜。一旦最近這次泡沫破滅，將沒有任何力量能阻止這場崩潰。如果這聽起來像是個逃離市場並儲備現金的建議，它的確如此。