中英：宏观经济运行的框架 (How the Economic Machine Works-Ray Dalio)

How the Economic Machine Works

A Template for Understanding What is Happening Now

Ray Dalio

Created October 31, 2008 | Updated March, 2012

一个理解经济机器如何运作以及相关反映的模型

Ray Dalio

2008.10.31创建/2012.03更新

The economy is like a machine. At the most fundamental level it is a relatively simple machine, yet it is not well understood. I wrote this paper to describe how I believe it works. My description is not the same as conventional economists’ descriptions so you should decide for yourself whether or not what I’m saying makes sense. I will start with the simple things and build up, so please bear with me. You will be able to understand and assess my description if we patiently go through it.

经济就像一台机器。在最基础的层面上更是一台相对简单的机器，尽管它并不是那么好理解。我写这篇论文是用以论述我理解中的经济运作的方式。我的描述和传统经济学家有所不同，所以你可以自己决定是否要相信我的观点。我会从简单的事情开始讲，然后逐渐加码，所以请多加容忍。我相信如果你耐心的看完这篇论文，你能很好的理解和评估我的观点。

How the Economic Machine Works: “A Transactions-Based Approach”

经济机器如何运转：“一种基于交易的行为”

An economy is simply the sum of the transactions that make it up. A transaction is a simple thing. Because there are a lot of them, the economy looks more complex than it really is. If instead of looking at it from the top down, we look at it from the transaction up, it is much easier to understand.

一个经济体简单来说就是交易的总和，一笔交易也是一件简单的事情。因为交易的数量很多，所以经济看起来比较复杂。如果我们不自上往下看经济，而是从交易角度往上看，会更容易理解。

A transaction consists of the buyer giving money (or credit) to a seller and the seller giving a good, a service or a financial asset to the buyer in exchange. A market consists of all the buyers and sellers making exchanges for the same things –e.g., the wheat market consists of different people making different transactions for different reasons over time. An economy consists of all of the transactions in all of its markets. So, while seemingly complex, an economy is really just a zillion simple things working together, which makes it look more complex than it really is.

一笔交易是指买方提供货币（或信贷）给卖方，以交换得到商品，服务或金融资产的过程。一个市场是所有买方和买方对同一种东西的交易过程，如小麦市场是不同的人，在不同时间，因为不同的原因进行交易的总和。一个经济体是所有不同市场交易的总和。虽然看上去复杂，其实一个经济体仅仅是不计其数简单事物的交互协作，所以看上去好像很复杂。

For any market, or for any economy, if you know the total amount of money (or credit) spent and the total quantity sold, you know everything you need to know to understand it. For example, since the price of any good, service or financial asset equals the total amount spent by buyers (total $) divided by the total quantity sold by sellers (total Q), in order to understand or forecast the price of anything you just need to forecast total $ and total Q. While in any market there are lots of buyers and sellers, and these buyers and sellers have different motivations, the motivations of the most important buyers are usually pretty understandable and adding them up to understand the economy isn’t all that tough if one builds from the transactions up. What I am saying is conveyed in the simple diagram below. This perspective of supply and demand is different from the traditional perspective in which both supply and demand are measured in quantity and the price relationship between them is described in terms of elasticity. This difference has important implications for understanding markets.

对于任何市场，或任何经济体，如果你知道其中花出去的货币（或信贷）总量以及销售总量，你就对这个市场或经济体了如指掌。比方说，任何商品、服务或金融资产的价格等于买方花费的总额（Total $）除以总销售量（Total Q），所以你只需要预测总花费和销售量，你就可以预测价格。任何市场都有大量基于不同动机的买方和卖方，来自关键买方的动机通常较好理解和预测，所以把这些关键买方动机累计起来，理解经济运作的方式就不会变的那么难。我所描述的观点可以通过下面这个简单的图展现出来。下面这个供需图和传统观点有些不同，传统供需图是通过供给数量和价格关系弹性曲线来描述。这个差异对如何理解市场有重要含义。

The only other important thing to know about this part of the Template is that spending ($) can come in either of two forms –money and credit. For example, when you go to a store to buy something you can pay with either a credit card or cash. If you pay with a credit card you have created credit, which is a promise to deliver money at a later date,1 whereas, if you pay with money, you have no such liability.

另外一个理解这个模型的重要事情是，支出来自于两种形式：货币和信贷。例如，当你去商店买东西，你既可以用信用卡付账，也可以用现金付账。如果你用信用卡付账，你就产生了一笔信贷，也就是在一个未来日期支付的承诺，但如果你付现金，就不会有这个问题。

In brief, there are different types of markets, different types of buyers and sellers and different ways of paying that make up the economy. For simplicity, we will put them in groups and summarize how the machine works.

简单来说，不同类型的市场，不同类型的买家和卖家，以及不同的支付方式组成了一个经济体。简便起见，我们会把这些要素汇总起来，然后概述这台经济机器是如何运转的，最基本部分包括：

Most basically:

从根本上说：

All changes in economic activity and all changes in financial markets’ prices are due to

changes in the amounts of 1) money or 2) credit that are spent on them (total $), and the amounts of these items sold (total Q). Changes in the amount of buying (total $) typically have a much bigger impact on changes in economic activity and prices than do changes in the total amount of selling (total Q). That is because there is nothing that’s easier to change than the supply of money and credit (total $).

所有经济活动的变化和金融市场价格的变化，都是由支付的货币和信贷总和（Total $）变化，以及总销售量（Total Q）变化决定的。相对于总销售额的变化，货币和信贷总额变化会更显著地引起经济的波动，因为货币和信贷总额是最容易被改变的东西。

For simplicity, let’s cluster the buyers in a few big categories. Buying can come from

either 1) the private sector or 2) the government sector. The private sector consists of “households”and businesses that can be either domestic or foreign. The government sector most importantly consists of a) the Federal Government2 which spends its money on goods and services and b) the central bank, which is the only entity that can create money and, by and large, mostly spends its money on financial assets.

简便起见，我们把买方归为两个大类：私营买家（私营部门），或政府买家（政府部门）。私营买家包括家庭买家，以及国内或国外的私营商业公司。最重要的政府买家，包括花钱在商品或服务上的联邦政府，以及主要花钱在金融资产上，唯一能够印发货币的中央银行。

Because money and credit, and through them demand, are easier to create (or stop creating) than the production of goods and services and investment assets, we have economic and price cycles.

因为作为需求的货币和信贷，比作为供给的商品、服务和金融资产更加容易调节，调节的过程产生了不同的经济和价格周期。

The Capitalist System

As mentioned, the previously outlined economic players buy and sell both 1) goods and services and 2) financial assets, and they can pay for them with either 1) money or 2) credit. In a capitalist system, this exchange takes place through free choice –i.e., there are

“free markets”in which buyers and sellers of goods, services and financial assets make their transactions in pursuit of their own interests. The production and purchases of financial assets (i.e., lending and investing) is called “capital formation”. It occurs because both the buyer and seller of these financial assets believe that the transaction is good for them. Those with money and credit provide it to recipients in exchange for the recipients’“promises”to pay them more. So, for this process to work well, there must be large numbers of capable providers of capital (i.e., investors/lenders) who choose to give money and credit to large numbers of capable recipients of capital (borrowers and sellers of equity) in exchange for the recipients’ believable claims that they will return amounts of money and credit that are worth more than they were given. While the amount of money in existence is controlled by central banks, the amount of credit in existence can be created out of thin air –i.e. any two willing parties can agree to do a transaction on credit–though this is influenced by central bank policies. In bubbles more credit is created than can be later paid back, which creates busts.

资本体系

前面我们提到，经济体中的买家和卖家，通过支付货币或信贷，来购买商品、服务或金融资产。在一个资本体系中，这些交易都是基于自由意愿发生的，例如买方和卖方根据自己的利益，完成商品、服务和金融资产交易的自由市场。金融资产（如投资和贷款）的生产和购买过程被称为“资本形成”。“资本形成”只有在买卖双方都认为交易都自己有利时才会发生。那些提供贷款的人，相信借款人会回报他们更多。所以这套资本体系要运作良好，必须有大量的资本提供者（投资者或放贷人），给借款人提供大量资金，同时获取借款人将偿还更多的可信承诺。由于货币和信贷由央行控制，所以信贷总量可以凭空创造出来，尽管央行会影响信贷，但任何有意愿的两方都可以基于信贷完成交易。在泡沫经济中，信贷发放超出了偿还能力，进而促使泡沫破裂。

When capital contractions occur, economic contractions also occur, i.e. there is not enough money and/or credit spent on goods, services and financial assets. These contractions typically occur for two reasons, which are most commonly known as recessions (which are contractions within a short-term debt cycle) and depressions (which are contractions within deleveragings). Recessions are typically well understood because they happen often and most of us have experienced them, whereas depressions and deleveragings are typically

poorly understood because they happen infrequently and are not widely experienced.

当资本紧缩发生时，经济也开始紧缩，因为这时候没有足够的货币或信贷，来购买商品、服务和金融资产。这些紧缩发生的主要原因有两个，通常被称为“衰退”（在短债务周期内的紧缩）和衰退（在去杠杆化过程中的紧缩）。衰退比较好理解，因为它经常发生，大部分人都经历过，但萧条相对难理解，因为它很少发生，经历的人并不多。

A short-term cycle, (which is commonly called the business cycle), arises from a) the rate of growth in spending (i.e. total $ funded by the rates of growth in money and credit) being faster than the rate of growth in the capacity to produce (i.e. total Q) leading to price (P) increases until b) the rate of growth in spending is curtailed by tight money and credit, at which time a recession occurs. In other words, a recession is an economic contraction that is due to a contraction in private sector debt growth arising from tight central bank policy (usually to fight inflation), which ends when the central bank eases. Recessions end when central banks lower interest rates to stimulate demand for goods and services and the credit growth that finances these purchases, because lower interest rates 1) reduce debt service costs; 2) lower monthly payments (de-facto, the costs) of items bought on credit, which stimulates the demand for them; and 3) raise the prices of income-producing assets like stocks, bonds and real estate through the present value effect of discounting their expected cash flows at the lower interest rates, producing a “wealth effect”on spending.

短债务周期，（通常称为商业周期），起因是消费支出（货币和信贷）的增速快于产能的增长，导致价格增长，一直到消费支出因为货币和信贷紧缩而减少，这时候经济会出现衰退现象。换句话说，衰退是由于中央银行收紧的货币政策（通常是为了对抗通胀），引起私人部门债务紧缩，从而进一步引起经济紧缩的情况，衰退会在银行放松货币政策时结束。当央行降低利率刺激消费，同时提供信贷促进购买行为时，衰退就结束了；因为低利率降低了借贷的成本，降低了贷款消费的月供（实际的成本），刺激了消费需求；同时低利率产生的预期现金流折现效应，使如股票，债券和不动产等收益类资产价格升值，产生了“财富效应”从而刺激消费。

In contrast:

与之相对的：

A long-term debt cycle, arises from debts rising faster than both incomes and money until this can’t continue because debt service costs become excessive, typically because interest rates can’t be reduced any more. A deleveraging is the process of reducing debt burdens (i.e. debt and debt service relative to incomes).

长债务周期，当债务增长速度比收入和货币快，一直增长到债务成本走向极端，无法再增长时发生；典型的特征是利率已经到了没法再降低的程度。去杠杆化是减少债务负担的过程。

Deleveragings typically end via a mix of 1) debt reduction,2) austerity, 3) redistributions of wealth, and 4) debt monetization. A depression is the economic contraction phase of a deleveraging. It occurs because the contraction in private sector debt cannot be rectified by

the central bank lowering the cost of money.

去杠杆化通过以下的组合达成：1) 减少债务, 2) 减少支出 3) 财富重分配 4) 债务货币化。萧条是去杠杆过程中的经济紧缩现象。当央行无法通过降低货币成本不能改变私人集团借贷收紧的局面时，萧条就发生了。

In depressions, a) a large number of debtors have obligations to deliver more money than they have to meet their obligations, and b) monetary policy is ineffective in reducing debt service costs and stimulating credit growth.

Typically, monetary policy is ineffective in stimulating credit growth either because interest rates can’t be lowered (because interest rates are near 0%) to the point of favorably influencing the economics of spending and capital formation (this produces deflationary deleveragings), or because money growth goes into the purchase of inflation hedge assets rather than into credit growth, which produces inflationary deleveragings.

在萧条中，a) 大量债务人的资金流不足以还债，b) 货币政策在降低债务成本和刺激信贷增长方面，已经失效。

通常来说，萧条时期的货币政策在刺激信贷增长方面是无效的，因为利率已经无法再降低（接近于0%）来刺激消费和投资（产生通缩性萧条）；或者是因为增长的货币都涌入了抗通胀资产，而不是信贷的增长，从而产生通胀性萧条。

Depressions are typically ended by central banks printing money to monetize debt in amounts that offset the deflationary depression effects of debt reductions and austerity. To be clear, while depressions are the contraction phase of a deleveraging, deleveragings (e.g. reducing debt burdens) can occur without depressions if they are well managed. (See our “An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings.”) Differences in how governments behave in recessions and deleveragings are good clues that signal which is happening. For example, in deleveragings, central banks typically “print” money that they use to buy large quantities of financial assets in order to compensate for the decline in private sector credit, while these actions are unheard of in recessions.4 Also, in deleveragings, central governments typically spend much, much more to make up for the fall in private sector spending.

萧条通常在央行印发货币大量购买债务，来抵消通缩性萧条带来的信贷和支出减少时结束。需要明确的是，虽然萧条是去杠杆的经济紧缩阶段，但去杠杆（如减少债务负担）如果处理的好，并不一定会引发萧条。（参考文章：An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings）在萧条和去杠杆过程中政府所采取的不同措施，是预测经济形势非常好的风向标。比方说，在去杠杆过程中，央行通常会印发钞票来购买大量的金融资产，以抵消私人部门信贷的缩减，但这些措施在衰退过程中就不会出现。同时，在去杠杆过程中，中央政府通常会大量采购来弥补私人部门消费的减少。

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Since these two types of contractions are just parts of two different types of cycles that are explained more completely in this template, let’s look at the template.

但是我们不要跑的太快。之前说的两种紧缩只是经济运行框架下的两种周期，之后我们回到经济运行框架本身。

The Template: The Three Big Forces

I believe that three main forces drive most economic activity: 1) trend line productivity growth, 2) the long-term debt cycle and 3) the short-term debt cycle. Figuratively speaking, they look as shown below:

我相信推动经济有三种主要力量：1) 生产力的趋势性增长，2) 长期债务周期 3) 短期债务周期。如下图所示：

What follows is an explanation of all three of these forces and how, by overlaying the archetypical “business” cycle on top of the archetypical long-term debt cycle and overlaying them both on top of the productivity trend line, one can derive a good template for tracking most economic/market movements. While these three forces apply to all countries’economies, in this study we will look at the U.S. economy over the last hundred years or so as an example to convey the template. In “An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings” and “Why Countries Succeed and Fail Economically” we will look at these cycles across countries.

往下内容是对这三种力量的解释，主要通过两种周期的分析，以及两种周期加上生产力趋势分析，大家可以对经济/市场活动规律有一个很好的理解。因为这三种力量适用于所有国家经济情况，本文中我们将通过分析美国过去几百年的经济变迁，来解释经济运行的框架。在“An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings” 和“Why Countries Succeed and Fail Economically”两篇文章中，我们将从多国家

角度来分析这些经济周期。

1)Productivity Growth

生产力增长

As shown below in chart 1, real per capita GDP has increased at an average rate of a shade less than 2% over the last 100 years and didn’t vary a lot from that. (For an explanation for how and why this varies by country and over time, see the accompanying study “Why Countries Succeed and Fail Economically.”) This is because, over time, knowledge increases, which in turn raises productivity and living standards. As shown in this chart, over the very long run, there is relatively little variation from the trend line. Even the Great Depression in the 1930s looks rather small. As a result, we can be relatively confident that, with time, the economy will get back on track.

如下图1所示，在过去的100年里，实际人均GDP以略低于2%的速度增长，其间波动并不是很大。（对于为什么增长率在各国以及各个时期有所不同，可以参见相关论文“Why Countries Succeed and Fail Economically.）。产生这种现象的原因，是因为知识在随着时间增长，从而促进了生产力和生活水平的提高。如图所示，我们会发现从长期来看，增长率和这条趋势线没有什么偏移。甚至于1930年代的大萧条也是如此。因此我们可以相当有信心的认为，随着时间的推进，经济总是会回到它自己的轨道上来。

However, up close, these variations from trend can be enormous. For example, typically in depressions the peak-to-trough declines in real economic activity are around 20%, the destruction of financial wealth is typically more than 50% and equity prices typically decline by around 80%. The losses in financial wealth for those who have it at the beginning of depressions are typically greater than these numbers suggest because there is also a tremendous shifting of who has wealth.

尽管如此，如果我们往细看，生产力增长和趋势线的偏移也可以非常大。例如，在大萧条中波峰下降到波谷的过程中，实际的经济下降达到20%，金融资产缩水50%以上，股票价值下跌80%以上。通常萧条发生的初期，金融资产缩水要比图中情况更严重，因为这个时期还伴随着大量财富在不同人群中的转移过程。

Swings around this trend are not primarily due to expansions and contractions in knowledge. For example, the Great Depression didn’t occur because people forgot how to efficiently produce, and it wasn’t set off by war or drought. All the elements that make the economy buzz were there, yet it stagnated. So why didn’t the idle factories simply hire the unemployed to utilize the abundant resources in order to produce prosperity? These cycles are not due to events beyond our control, e.g., natural disasters. They are due to human nature and the way the credit system works.

围绕趋势线的波动，并不主要是因为知识的增长或减少引起的。例如，大萧条并不是因为人们忘记如何高效生产引起的，也不是因为战争或干旱引发。引起经济不景气的因素就在那里，经济也就是不景气。那些闲置的工厂为什么不简单的雇佣那些事业工人，利用那些充足的资源重现繁荣呢？那些经济周期并不是由不可抗力引发的（如自然灾难）。它们是由于人类本性和信贷系统运作方式引发的。

Most importantly, major swings around the trend are due to expansions and contractions in credit –i.e., credit cycles, most importantly 1) a long-term (typically 50 to 75 years) debt cycle (i.e., the “long wave cycle”) and 2) a shorter-term (typically 5 to 8 years) debt cycle (i.e., the “business/market cycle”).

更重要的是，增长率和趋势线的偏移，主要是由于信贷的增减引起的，也就是债务周期: 1) 长债务周期（通常50-75年）（长波周期），以及短债务周期（通常5-8年）（商业/市场周期）。

About Debt Cycles

关于信贷周期

We find that whenever we start talking about cycles, particularly the “long-wave” variety, we raise eyebrows and elicit reactions similar to those we’d expect if we were talking about astrology. For this reason, before we begin explaining these two debt cycles we’d like to say a few things about cycles in general.

无论何时我们谈论经济周期，尤其是长波周期时，我们都会竖起眉毛，感觉像我们在讨论占星术一样。基于这个原因，我们解释这两种债务周期之前，我们先要说一些基础的东西。

A cycle is nothing more than a logical sequence of events leading to a repetitious pattern. In a capitalist economy, cycles of expansions in credit and contractions in credit drive economic cycles and they occur for perfectly logical reasons. Each sequence is not pre-destined to repeat in exactly the same way nor to take exactly the same amount of time, though the patterns are similar, for logical reasons. For example, if you understand the game of Monopoly, you can pretty well understand credit and economic cycles. Early in the game of Monopoly, people have a lot of cash and few hotels, and it pays to convert cash into hotels. Those who have more hotels make more money. Seeing this, people tend to convert as much cash as possible into property in order to profit from making other players give them cash. So as the game progresses, more hotels are acquired, which creates more need for cash (to pay the bills of landing on someone else’s property with lots of hotels on it) at the same time as many folks have run down their cash to buy hotels. When they are caught needing cash, they are forced to sell their hotels at discounted prices. So early in the game, “property is king” and later in the game, “cash is king.” Those who are best at playing the game understand how to hold the right mix of property and cash, as this right mix changes.

一个周期无非是一系列事物根据逻辑顺序周而复始的发生。在一个资本主义经济体中，债务增长以及债务紧缩周期推进经济向前进，并且这些周期都是因为及其合乎逻辑的原因发生的。尽管每个周期的模式类似并且合乎逻辑，但它们的顺序并不是按照预定模式的重复，也不会每隔相同的时间发生。比方说，如果你玩过大富翁游戏，你就能很好的理解债务和经济周期。在大富翁游戏初期，玩家会有很多的现金以及少量旅馆，玩家可以用现金来购买旅馆。谁拥有旅馆更多，就可以赚更多的钱。我们可以看到，人们倾向于尽可能花钱来购买可以产生利润的资产。随着游戏的进行，旅馆的需求量增大，进而产生对现金的需求（用来购买他人的旅馆），同时也有很多玩家因为购买旅馆而耗尽现金流。当他们急需现金时，他们被迫折价卖掉他们的旅馆。所以游戏中最开始是“资产为王”，后面却变成了“现金为王”。最厉害的玩家知道怎么样把握资产和现金的合理比例，并且这些比例在游戏中是不断变化的。

Now, let’s imagine how this Monopoly game would work if we changed the role of the bank so that it could make loans and take deposits. Players would then be able to borrow money to buy hotels and, rather than holding their cash idly, they would deposit it at the bank to earn interest, which would provide the bank with more money to lend. Let’s also imagine that players in this game could buy and sell properties from each other giving each other credit (i.e., promises to give money and at a later date). If Monopoly were played this way, it would provide an almost perfect model for the way our economy operates. There would be more spending on hotels (that would be financed with promises to deliver money at a later date). The amount owed would quickly grow to multiples of the amount of money in existence, hotel prices would be higher, and the cash shortage for the debtors who hold hotels would become greater down the road. So, the cycles would become more pronounced. The bank and those who saved by depositing their money in it would also get into trouble when the inability to come up with needed cash caused withdrawals from the bank at the same time as debtors couldn’t come up with cash to pay the bank. Basically, economic and credit cycles work this way.

现在让我们想象一下，如果调整游戏中银行的角色，允许银行放贷和储蓄，大富翁游戏会变成什么样子呢？玩家就可以通过贷款来购买旅馆，也会将他们的现金放到银行来获取利息，进而使银行有更多钱可以贷出来。我们也可以想象一下，游戏可以允许玩家赊账购买旅馆（商定未来的付款日期）的情况。在前面假设场景中，贷款（欠款）的数量会快速增长至当前现金总量的数倍，旅馆会涨价，随着时间推移，借债买旅馆的人现金缺口会更严重，这时候周期现象会愈发显著。银行和在银行存钱的人也会碰到麻烦，因为借贷人不能及时偿还银行现金，导致银行的恐慌性挤兑。基本上来说，经济和债务周期是通过这种方式运转的。

We are now going to look at how credit cycles –both long-term debt cycles and “business cycles”–drive economic cycles.

现在我们来讨论一下债务周期（长债务周期和商业周期）是如何驱动经济周期的。

How the System Works

经济体系如何运作

Prosperity exists when the economy is operating at a high level of capacity: in other words, when demand is pressing up against a pre-existing level of capacity. At such times, business profits are good and unemployment is low. The longer these conditions persist, the more capacity will be increased, typically financed by credit growth. Declining demand creates a condition of low capacity utilization; as a result, business profits are bad and unemployment is high. The longer these conditions exist, the more cost-cutting (i.e., restructuring) will occur, typically including debt and equity write-downs. Therefore, prosperity equals high demand, and in our credit based economy, strong demand equals strong real credit growth; conversely, deleveraging equals low demand, and hence lower and falling real credit growth. Contrary to now-popular thinking, recessions and depressions do not develop because of productivity (i.e., inabilities to produce efficiently); they develop from declines in demand, typically due to a fall-off in credit creation.

当产能丰富时经济就繁荣：换句话说，当需求和产能相匹配时经济就繁荣。在经济繁荣时，商业利润丰厚，失业率低。这种情况持续的越久，通过银行融资的方式产能增长的越多。慢慢的相对于产能需求会下滑，导致低产能利用率，进而出现商业利率低和失业率高的情况。上面这些情况存在越久，就会有更多成本削减情况发生，常见的包括债券和股票减记。因此，经济繁荣等同于高需求，在我们以债务为基础的经济体中，旺盛的需求等同于实际债务的旺盛增长；与之相反的情况是，去杠杆等同于低需求，因此降低了实际债务的增长。和现在大众的常见观念正相反，衰退和萧条并不是因为生产力（如生产效率低下）引发的；而是由需求下降，特别是债务下降产生的。

Since changes in demand precede changes in capacity in determining the direction of the economy, one would think that prosperity would be easy to achieve simply through pursuing policies which would steadily increase demand. When the economy is plagued by low capacity utilization, depressed business profitability and high unemployment, why doesn’t the government simply give it a good shot of whatever it takes to stimulate demand in order to produce a far more pleasant environment of high capacity utilization, fat profits and low unemployment? The answer has to do with what that shot consists of.

既然需求变化会导致产能变化，进而决定经济方向，大家会想如果通过政策执行稳定的产生需求，经济繁荣不就唾手可得了吗。当经济遭受低产能利用率，低商业利润和高失业率，政府为什么不简单的采取措施来刺激需求，来营造一个高产能利用率，高利润和低失业率的好环境呢？我们接下来看看这些可能的措施包含哪些东西，就会了解这并不是一件容易的事情了。

货币

Money is what you settle your payments with. Some people mistakenly believe that money is whatever will buy you goods and services, whether that’s dollar bills or simply a promise to pay (e.g., whether it’s a credit card or an account at the local grocery). When a department store gives you merchandise in return for your signature on a credit card form, is that signature money? No, because you did not settle the transaction. Rather, you promised to pay money. So you created credit, which is a promise to pay money.

The Federal Reserve has chosen to define “money” in terms of aggregates (i.e., currency plus various forms of credit - M1, M2, etc.), but this is misleading. Virtually all of what they call money is credit (i.e., promises to deliver money) rather than money itself. The total amount of debt in the U.S. is about $50 trillion and the total amount of money (i.e., currency and reserves) in existence is about $3 trillion. So, if we were to use these numbers as a guide, the amount of promises to deliver money (i.e., debt) is roughly 15 times the amount of money there is to deliver.5 The main point is that most people buy things with credit and don’t pay much attention to what they are promising to deliver and where they are going to get it from, so there is much less money than obligations to deliver it.

货币是你用于结算支付的工具。有些人错误的用来购买商品和服务的钞票或支付承诺（信用卡等）都是货币。当你在一家百货用签字的信用卡单据购买商品时，这个签字单据是货币吗？答案是否定的，因为你并没有完成这个交易，而只是承诺支付这笔费用。所以当你产生债务时，你只是承诺付款。

美联储通过不同的统计口径来定义“货币”（币种加不同形式的债务M1,M2等），但这会产生误导。事实上被美联储称之为货币的东西，实际上是债务（货币支付的承诺）。美国债务总量大概在500万亿，而流通中的货币总量只有大约30万亿。以刚才提到的数据俩看，信贷总量是实际货币总量的15倍左右。主要的一点是，大部分人通过债务买东西，但并不怎么关注他们承诺支付的债务以及他们从哪里获取债务，因此实际货币比债务要少的多。

债务（信贷）

As mentioned, credit is the promise to deliver money, and credit spends just like money. While credit and money spend just as easily, when you pay with money the transaction is settled; but if you pay with credit, the payment has yet to be made.

There are two ways demand can increase: with credit or without it. Of course, it’s far easier to stimulate demand with credit than without it. For example, in an economy in which there is no credit, if I want to buy a good or service I would have to exchange it for a comparably valued good or service of my own. Therefore, the only way I can increase what I own and the economy as a whole can grow is through increased production. As a result, in an economy without credit, the growth in demand is constrained by the growth in production. This tends to reduce the occurrence of boom-bust cycles, but it also reduces both the efficiency that leads to high prosperity and severe deleveraging, i.e., it tends to produce lower swings around the productivity growth trend line of about 2%.

我们前面提到，信贷是货币支付的承诺，信贷也可以像货币一样来花。使用信贷和花钱一样简单，当你用钱买东西时交易完成结算，但当你用信贷买东西时，支付仍然要在将来完成。

促进需求增长有两种方式：使用信贷和不使用信贷。使用信贷刺激需求比不使用信贷刺激需求更加容易。比方说，假设一个经济体中不存在信贷，如果我想要购买一个商品或服务，我就需要通过自己等量的商品或服务来交换。因此，要增加我拥有的商品或服务，以及从整体来看要发展经济，只能通过增加生产实现。这种模式不容易产生经济的大起大落，降低了导致经济大繁荣和严重去杠杆化的效能，这种情况下生产率增长相对于2%左右均值的波动更小。

By contrast, in an economy in which credit is readily available, I can acquire goods and services without giving up any of my own. A bank will lend the money on my pledge to repay, secured by my existing assets and future earnings. For these reasons credit and spending can grow faster than money and income. Since that sounds counterintuitive, let me give an example of how that can work.

与之相比，如果一个经济体中的信贷很容易获得，我就可以不拿自己的东西来换取商品或服务。因为银行会借给我钱，只需要我承诺偿还并且通过资产和收入评估。基于这些原因信贷和花费会比货币和收入快。听上去有点违背直觉，还是让我们举例说明这个体系是如何运转的吧。

If I ask you to paint my office with an agreement that I will give you the money in a few months, your painting my office will add to your income (because you were paid with credit), so it will add to GDP, and it will add to your net worth (because my promise to pay is considered as much of an asset as the cash that I still owe you). Our transaction will also add an asset (i.e., the capital improvement in my office) and a liability (the debt I still owe you) to my balance sheet. Now let’s say that buoyed by this increased amount of business that I gave you and your improved financial condition that you want to expand. So you go to your banker who sees your increased income and net worth, so he is delighted to lend you some “money” (increasing his sales and his balance sheet) that you decide to buy a financial asset with (let’s say stocks) until you want to spend it. As you can see, debt, spending and investment would have increased relative to money and income.

如果我委托你帮我粉刷办公室，并且承诺几个月内付款，那么你粉刷办公室的工作会增加你的收入（因为你获得了债务），这些会累加到GDP中，同时也会增加你的净值（因为我的支付承诺是等值的资产）。我们的交易也会在我的资产负债表上增加一项资产（比方说我办公室环境优化后的增值）和一项负债（我欠你的钱）。你可以去银行，让他们看你增长的收入和净值，他们会很高兴的借钱给你（提高银行的销售额和资产负债表），在你花掉这些钱以前，你决定用以购买一项金融资产（比方说股票）。所以你可以看到，相对于货币和收入，信贷，消费和投资增加了。

This process can be, and generally is, self-reinforcing because rising spending generates rising incomes and rising net worths, which raise borrowers’ capacity to borrow, which allows more buying and spending, etc. Typically, monetary expansions are used to support credit expansions because more money in the system makes it easier for debtors to pay off their loans (with money of less value), and it makes the assets I acquired worth more because there is more money around to bid them. As a result, monetary expansions improve credit ratings and increase collateral values, making it that much easier to borrow and buy more.

上面这个过程通常是自我强化的，因为消费的增长，促使收入和净值的增长，进而提高大家的借款能力，再促进消费的增长。通常来说，货币扩张会支持信贷扩张，因为更多的货币使借款人更容易偿清贷款，同时也会让我获取的资产增值，因为竞买这些资产的钱更多了。因此，货币扩张提升了大家的信用等级，提高了抵押品的价值，使借款更容易，消费更容易。

In such an economy, demand is constrained only by the willingness of creditors and debtors to extend and receive credit. When credit is easy and cheap, borrowing and spending will occur; and when it is scarce and expensive, borrowing and spending will be less. In the “business cycle,” the central bank will control the supply of money and influence the amount of credit that the private sector creates by influencing the cost of credit (i.e., interest rates). Changes in private sector credit drive the cycle. Over the long term, typically decades, debt burdens rise. This obviously cannot continue forever. When it can’t continue a deleveraging occurs.

在这个的经济体中，需求只会被贷方房贷和借方借款的意愿影响。当贷款既容易又便宜时，促进了信贷和消费；反之当贷款稀缺且成本高时，信贷和消费就会减少。在“商业周期”中，央行会通过控制信贷成本（如利率）来控制货币的供给和影响私人部门的信贷量。私人部门的信贷变化驱动着经济。从长期来看，

一般是几十年，债务负担不断升高。这个趋势显然不能一直持续。当拐点出现时，去杠杆化就发生了。

As previously mentioned, the most fundamental requirement for private sector credit creation to occur in a capitalist system is that both borrowers and lenders believe that the deal is good for them. Since one man’s debts are another man’s assets, lenders have to believe that they will get paid back an amount of money that is greater than inflation (i.e., more than they could get by storing their wealth in inflation hedge assets), net of taxes. And, because debtors have to pledge their assets (i.e., equity) as collateral in order to motivate the lenders, they have to be at least as confident in their abilities to pay their debts as they value the assets (i.e., equity) that they pledged as collateral.

前面我们提到，私人部门信贷发生的基础，是贷出方和借款方都认为贷款交易对自己有利。一个人的债务是另一个人的资产，贷出方相信未来他们收入的税后净值，是能获得跑赢通胀的收益（比方说，比投入到抗通胀资产的收益更高）。同时，因为借款方需要抵押资产给贷出方，借款方必须对他们抵押的资产价值有信心，这样他们才会按时还款。

Also, an important consideration of investors is liquidity –i.e., the ability to sell their investments for money and use that money to buy goods and services. For example, if I own a $100,000 Treasury bond, I probably presume that I’ll be able to exchange it for $100,000 in cash and in turn exchange the cash for $100,000 worth of goods and services. However, since the ratio of financial assets to money is so high, obviously if a large number of people tried to convert their financial assets into money and buy goods and services at the same time, the central bank would have to either produce a lot more money (risking a monetary inflation) and/or allow a lot of defaults (causing a deflationary deleveraging).

另外，投资者一个重要的事情是流动性，也就是他们售卖投资变现来购买商品和服务的能力。比方说，我有10万美元的债券，我会假定可以用它换10万美元现金，然后用现金购买商品和服务。因为金融资产价值相对于货币的比例非常高，如果大批人想同时把金融资产变现购买商品和服务，央行要么引发大量钞票（有通胀风险），要么允许大量违约（导致通缩性萧条）。

Monetary Systems

货币体系

One of the greatest powers governments have is the creation of money and credit, which they exert by determining their countries’ monetary systems and by controlling the levers that increase and decrease the supply of money and credit. The monetary systems chosen have varied over time and between countries. In the old days there was barter - i.e., the exchange of items of equal intrinsic value. That was the basis of money.

When you paid with gold coins, the exchange was for items of equal intrinsic value. Then credit developed –i.e., promises to deliver “money” of intrinsic value. Then there were promises to deliver money that didn’t have intrinsic value.

国家政府拥有的最强大能力之一是发行货币和信贷，他们通过这个能力控制国家的货币体系，以及控制货币和信贷的增减杠杆。货币体系因时代不同而变化，不同国家也不一样。在古代，交易是以物易物的形

式，交换的是物品的实际价值，那是货币的基础。当你用金币支付时，交换的是等量实际价值的物品。当你通过承诺支付“货币”时，信贷就产生了，信贷并没有同等的实际价值。

Those who lend expect that they will get back an amount of money that can be converted into goods or services of a somewhat greater purchasing power than the money they originally lent –i.e., they use credit to exchange goods and services today for comparably valuable goods and services in the future. Since credit began, creditors essentially asked those who controlled the monetary systems: “How do we know you won’t just print a lot of money that won’t buy me much when I go to exchange it for goods and services in the future?” At different times, this question was answered differently.

贷出方希望他们未来可以得到更多的钱来购买商品或服务，他们通过信贷用今天可以获得的商品服务，换得未来相对更有价值的商品服务。贷出方会问控制着货币体系的那些人：“我们怎么知道你们不会多印钞票，让我们货币贬值，将来购买不到太多商品服务？”。在不同的时期，这个问题有不同的答案。

Basically, there are two types of monetary systems: 1) commodity-based systems –those systems consisting of some commodity (usually gold), currency (which can be converted into the commodity at a fixed price) and credit (a claim on the currency); and 2) fiat systems –those systems consisting of just currency and credit. In the first system, it’s more difficult to create credit expansions. That is because the public will offset the government’s attempts to increase currency and credit by giving both back to the government in return for the commodity they are exchangeable for. As the supply of money increases, its value falls; or looked at the other way, the value of the commodity it is convertible into rises. When it rises above the fixed price, it is profitable for those holding credit (i.e., claims on the currency) to sell their debt for currency in order to buy the tangible asset from the government at below the market price. The selling of the credit and the taking of currency out of circulation cause credit to tighten and the value of the money to rise; on the other hand, the general price level of goods and services will fall. Its effect will be lower inflation and lower economic activity.

一般来说，货币系统有两种类型：1）以商品为基础的货币体系-这种体系包含了某些硬通货（一般是黄金），货币（可以通过固定价格买入那些硬通货）和信贷（对货币的债务）；2）法定货币系统-这种系统只包括货币和信贷。在第一种系统中，很难发生信贷膨胀。因为政府尝试超发货币或信贷时，公众会通过用货币向政府兑换硬通货（黄金），来对抗政府超发的影响。当货币供应增加时，货币价值下降；我们换个角度来看，硬通货的价值相应的上升了。当硬通货价值上涨到一定价格时，那些持有信贷的人（贷出方）会通过卖掉债务，同时以低于市场价的方式，向政府买入硬通货来套利。卖出信贷，以及将货币还给政府，会导致信贷收紧和货币升值；另外一方面，商品和服务价格会下跌。这个过程中通胀程度会降低，经济会放缓。

Since the value of money has fallen over time relative to the value of just about everything else, we could tie the currency to just about anything in order to show how this monetary system would have worked. For example, since a one-pound loaf of white bread in 1946 cost ten cents, let’s imagine we tied the dollar to bread. In other words, let’s imagine a monetary system in which the government in 1946 committed to buy bread at 10 cents a pound and stuck to that until now. Today a pound loaf of white bread costs $2.75. Of course, if they had used this monetary system, the price couldn’t have risen to $2.75 because we all would have bought our bread from the government at ten cents instead of from the free market until the government ran out of bread. But, for our example, let’s say that the price of bread is $2.75. I’d certainly be willing to take all of my money, buy bread from the government at 10 cents and sell it in the market at $2.75, and others would do the same. This process would reduce the amount of money in circulation, which would then reduce the prices of all goods and services, and it would increase the amount of bread in circulation (thus lowering its price more rapidly than other prices). In fact, if the supply and demand for bread were not greatly influenced by its convertibility to currency, this tie would have dramatically slowed the last 50 years’ rapid growth in currency and credit.

Obviously, what the currency is convertible into has an enormous impact on this process. For example, if instead of tying the dollar to bread, we chose to tie it to eggs, since the price of a dozen eggs in 1947 was seventy cents and today it is about $2.00, currency and credit growth would have been less restricted.

随着时间推移，货币相对于商品的价值都会贬值，我们可以试着把货币和其他商品绑定，看看这个体系是如何运作的。比方说，1946年一磅重的白面包花费10美分，我们设想一下美元是和面包绑定的。换句话说，就是1946年的政府承诺会用10美分的价格售出面包，并且坚持这个兑换率一直到现在。今天一磅重的白面包已经涨到了2.75美元，如果我们使用商品货币体系，这个价格就不可能涨到2.75美元，因为人们不会再从自由市场那里买价格高的白面包，而是选择从政府那买10美分的白面包，直到政府白面包断货为止。如果面包价格是2.75，我肯定会把我所有的钱拿出来，以10美分的价格购买面包，然后在市场上以2.75美元价格卖掉，其他人肯定也会这么做。这个过程会减少流通中货币的总量，进而降低市场上所有商品和服务的价格，同时也会增加面包的供给（面包价格比其他商品价格下降更快）。事实上，如果面包的供给没有受货币兑换关系太大的影响，这种绑定兑换关系会明显拖累过去50年货币和信贷的增长速度。

显而易见的是，货币和什么商品绑定兑换对这个过程有很大的影响。例如，如果我们选择鸡蛋而不是面包，1947年一打鸡蛋价格是70美分，涨到现在是2美元，货币信贷增速受到的影响相对于面包会小一些。

Ideally, if one has a commodity-based currency system, one wants to tie the currency to something that is not subject to great swings in supply or demand. For example, if the currency were tied to bread, bakeries would in effect have the power to produce money, leading to increased inflation. Gold and, to a much lesser extent, silver have historically proven more stable than most other currency backings, although they are by no means perfect.

理想状态下，商品货币体系希望绑定兑换供需变动小的商品。例如，如果货币绑定了面包，面包师就有了发行货币的能力，这样容易引发通货膨胀。黄金相对来说波动更小，白银在历史上被证明是相对更稳定的货币储备，尽管它们也并不是完美的。

In the second type of monetary system –i.e., in a fiat system in which the amount of money is not constrained by the ability to exchange it for a commodity –the growth of money and credit is very much subject to the influence of the central bank and the willingness of borrowers and lenders to create credit.

在另一种法币体系中，货币总量不受某种商品兑换关系的限制，货币和信贷的增长，很大程度上是由央行政策，以及借方和贷方意愿决定的。

Governments typically prefer fiat systems because they offer more power to print money, expand credit and redistribute wealth by changing the value of money. Human nature being what it is, those in government (and those not) tend to value immediate gratification over longer-term benefits, so government policies tend to increase demand by allowing liberal credit creation, which leads to debt crises. Governments typically choose commodity-based systems only when they are forced to in reaction to the value of money having been severely depreciated due to the government’s “printing” of a lot of it to relieve the excessive debt burdens that their unconstrained monetary systems allowed. They abandon commodity-based monetary systems when the constraints to money creation become too onerous in debt crises. So throughout history, governments have gone back and forth between commodity-based and fiat monetary systems in reaction to the painful consequences of each. However, they don’t make these changes often, as monetary systems typically work well for many years, often decades, with central banks varying interest rates and money supplies to control credit growth well enough so that these inflection points are infrequently reached.

In the next two sections we first describe the long-term debt cycle and then the

business/market cycle.

政府通常更喜欢法币体系，因为法币体系赋予政府更大的引发货币、增发信贷，以及通过改变货币价值实现财富重分配的能力。正如人性展现的那样，政府往往倾向于即时满足而不是长期发展，因此政府倾向于通过增发信贷来刺激需求，但这会引发债务危机。政府通常会在因为超发货币来缓解过高的债务负担，引发严重贬值时，被迫选择商品货币体系。当商品货币体系在债务危机中对印发货币产生太多牵绊时，商品货币体系又会被抛弃。所以我们贯穿历史来看，政府总是因为饱受当前货币体系之苦，而不断的在两种货币体系之间摇摆。尽管如此，政府并不经常改变货币体系，因为任何一种货币体系通常都可以良好的运转几十年，因为央行可以通过汇率和货币供应调节信贷增长在合理范围内，避免经济拐点过快到来。

在之后两章节，我们会先后介绍“长债务周期”和“商业周期（短债务周期）”。