伯南克普林斯顿大学演讲
从伯南克演讲看宏观经济
从伯南克演讲看宏观经济稳定金融市场、控制失业率，以及避免通货膨胀是美联储的三个主要任务。
本?伯南克曾任普林斯顿大学经济系教授和系主任。
十一年前到美国联邦政府工作，当了八年美国联邦储备银行的主席，2014年1月退职。
4月1日他回普林斯顿大学演讲，其中有三个议题值得我们思考。
我在本文把这三个议题介绍给读者，同时谈谈我的看法。
第一，从前美联储的主要任务只有两个：第一是控制失业率或维持充分就业，第二是稳定物价，避免通货膨胀。
从前稳定金融市场不是一个任务或工作目的，而只是完成前两个任务的工具。
因为不稳定的金融市场不被看作为宏观经济的一个大毛病。
2008年后，金融市场不稳定成为美国经济大衰退的一个重要原因。
现在大家认为不稳定的金融市场与失业和通货膨胀同样是宏观经济运作的不正常，会影响居民生活，所以它和失业与通货膨胀一样重要。
所以稳定金融市场变成美联储的第三个主要任务。
金融市场出售产品价格的波动和通货膨胀一样，影响很多居民的生活。
将来中国金融市场发展后，中国人民银行也可能把稳定金融市场和稳定失业率与通胀作为同等重要的任务。
第二，我们应当如何判断一个政策的好坏。
伯南克在2008年美国经济衰退前已当了美联储的主席，有很多他在任时施行的政策被民众评论。
当天在普林斯顿演讲也有同学问他某政策是否适当和他决定政策时有什么根据。
美联储的重要政策包括决定应否挽救三所大公司，比如雷曼兄弟。
因为它买了大量抵押贷款的地产证券，亏损巨大，在2008年9月15日宣布破产，但政府决定不挽救它。
然而，当贝尔斯登与AIG （American International Group）发生类似的问题时，政府与美联储却挽救了它们。
美联储之所以决定挽救这两所大公司，部分的理由是觉得如果让它们倒闭了，会使整个金融市场不能运作，导致持有其股票的企业和民众损失重大甚至破产，这样会降低国民收入和影响整个经济的运作。
挽救它们的害处是可能会养成企业日后作冒险投资的习惯。
伯南克在普林斯顿大学做毕业典礼演讲
伯南克周六在普林斯顿大学做毕业典礼演讲北京时间6月3日晚间，美联储主席伯南克周六在普林斯顿大学做毕业典礼演讲，他没有提及货币政策、没有暗示是否寻求连任，而是向毕业生提出“十大建议”。
以下为伯南克演讲主要内容：重返普林斯顿感觉不错，很难相信，我离开校园赴华盛顿已经11年了。
近期我向校方询问了我的教职问题，回信称：“很遗憾，普林斯顿收到很多更有才华的学者的求职信，而教职有限。
”我将在稍后献上对毕业生的最美好祝愿，首先我要恭喜在座的家长们。
作为父母，我知道这年头供孩子读完大学不容易，数年前，我的一个同事有3个孩子毕业于普林斯顿，尽管他们夫妻都不毕业于此，但我的同事常说，从财政角度讲，这如同每年买辆卡迪拉克，然后让车坠崖。
他总会补充说，他会毫不犹豫的选择重新来过。
所以，感谢你们的工作，母亲们，父亲们，及家人们。
这确实是做毕业典礼演讲的合适场合，我认为，在这一讲台上，每个精神导师都受到过“十诫”的教诲，我没有那样的信心，而且无论无何，觊觎邻居的驴牛已不是目前的问题，所以今年前几分钟我将提出“十个建议”，或称为对这个世界和你们毕业后的生活的十个观察。
请注意，这十点与利率毫无关系。
我之所以有资格提出这些建议和或观察，除了普林斯顿的善意邀请外，理由和你们讨厌的哥哥姐姐可以晚睡是一个道理：我比你们更老。
以下内容均经受过生活的检验，但以往表现并不能确保未来的结果。
1、“当代哲学家”阿甘曾讲到人生和巧克力的相似性，你不知道下一块巧克力的味道。
人生确实难以预料，任何一个认为知道10年后情况的毕业生，更不同说三十年了，我只能说他或她缺乏想象力。
看看我吧，12年前我一心教经济学入门课程，想着编造什么理由不去参加教学会议，结果我接到了来自华盛顿的电话。
如果你有机会与毕业25年、30年或40年的校友交谈，并能够让他们敞开心扉，他们将告诉你，他们对生活中哪些事满意或不满意，他们经历过的高潮和低谷。
但我敢打赌，他们的人生故事与预期相异。
经济危机中的伯南克发言
IN HIS Jackson Hole speech a year ago, Ben Bernanke wanted to leave no doubt that the Federal Reserve could and would act more aggressively to boost America’s flagging economy. This year he wanted to leave no doubt that the politicians could and should do more.The most highly anticipated central banker’s speech in months gave no hint of bold new initiatives from the Fed. He repeated the mantra that the “Fed has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus”, but there was no discussion of them and not a whiff of imminent QE3, a third round of bond buying. Mr Bernanke promised that the Fed’s policy-setting committee would have a “fuller discussion” of other tools it could use atits September meeting, which has beenextended a day. But he chose to use thisspeech to give Washington a lecture onfiscal policy, arguing that while Americaurgently needed a credible plan to reducelong-term deficits, it shouldn’t overdothe short-term tightening.For investors who had been hoping for arepeat of August 2010, when MrBernanke’s signaling of QE2 sent stockssoaring, the speech was surely adisappointment. But it was hardlyunexpected. The hints from the Fed inrecent days were well-telegraph ed andunambiguous: Mr Bernanke wouldn’t besignaling new actions in Jackson Hole.From Mr Bernanke’s perspective, there isa clear logic to his reticence. Althoughthere are economic parallels between this year and last (things starting to look a lot worse during the summer), the central bank is in a rather different position. A year ago the Fed had taken relatively little action in response to the weakening economy. This year the central bank has only just signaled that short-term interest rates are likely to stay at zero until at least 2013. Since Mr Bernanke has already laid out other steps the Fed could take (for instance, in last year’s speech), discussing them again in detail now could be tantamount to launching them. That’s why he chose buy time by promising a fuller debate in September. T actically at least, that is understandable. Strategically, given the weakness of the economy, it may be a timid choice.Mr Bernanke’s decision to weigh in on fiscal policy is more obviously right. The Fed’s task is made considerably more difficult by Washington’s fiscal choices. America’s current trajectory—virtually no progress on medium-term deficit reduction and a hefty tightening next year unless temporary tax cuts are extended—is daft. And though he put it far more politely, Mr Bernanke’s basic message was just that. “Although the issue of fiscal sustainability must urgently be addressed, fiscal policymakers should not, as a consequencedisregard the fragility of the current recovery”, he said, adding that “the country would be well served by a better process for making fiscal decisions”.All eminently sensible. Nonetheless there is something a little disconcert ing about the Fed chairman talking to a gathering of the world’s top central bankers at a time of extraordinary uncertainty and focusing on fiscal policy. “Don’t rely on us alone” may be an accurate and important message to send, but given Washington’s recent record on fiscal negotiations, it is hardly a comforting one.Even more unnerving was the dissonance between Mr Bernanke’s focus and tone, and the palpable sense of nervousness amongst the Jackson Hole attendees. The mood in the meeting’s corridors is grim, largely thanks to the mess in the euro-zone (of which more in later posts). It’s not uncommon to hear that today’s situation is more dangerous, and intractable, than 2008. Mr Bernanke said virtually nothing about the financial risks from Europe. “I have confidence that our European colleagues fully appreciate what is at stake in the difficult issues they are now confronting and that, over time, they will take all necessary and appropriate steps to address those issues effectively and comprehensively”, he said. He mig ht just as wel l have said, “It’s a big mess and I’m crossing my fingers that they can sort it out”.。
普林斯顿大学校长2023年开学演讲(中英文)
演讲全文I am delighted to greet you today as the University welcomes Princeton's Great Class of 2027 and…and celebrates the beginning of a new academic year.今天，非常高兴见到大家，普林斯顿大学迎来了2027届优秀新生，祝贺大家开始新学年的学习生活。
One of the marvels of university life is the excitement that comes each fall when our classrooms, athletic fields, dining halls, and myriad other spaces across campus blossom with vibrant life and we welcome new members of our community.大学生活的一大奇妙是，每年秋天，当教室、运动场、餐厅和校园里其他各种空间都充满活力、我们欢迎社区的新成员时，我们都会感到兴奋不已。
I am so glad that you are here!真高兴你们在这里！I realize that, if the year's beginning can feel exhilarating and uplifting, so too can it feel bewildering or disconcerting.我意识到，如果新学年的开始能让人感到兴奋和振奋，那么它也会让人感到困惑或不安。
It is often all of these things at once, and that combination will likely persist during your time here.所有这些情绪常常会同时出现，而你在此求学的整个过程中，这种情形很可能持续存在。
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伯南克关于美国经济展望的讲话0607
伯南克关于美国经济展望的讲话0607日期：2011-06-11 11:27:002011-6-7感谢主办方再次邀请我参加国际货币会议。
我首先将简短更新关于美国经济的展望，随后讨论全球商品市场近期的发展，它们深刻地影响了美国经济和世界经济，最后谈一些关于货币政策的思考。
增长展望今年美国经济增长到现在为止看上去有些慢于预期。
一季度总产出年率仅仅增长1.8%，这个季度，日本地震和海啸导致的供应链中断将阻碍经济活动。
近几周来自劳动力市场的若干指标也显示，一些（经济增长的）动能丧失了。
当然，我们正在监测这些状况的演变。
这就是说，未来几个月随着日本灾难对制造业产出的影响逐渐消散，随着汽油价格适度回落，增长可能在今年下半年重拾升势。
总体上，经济复苏似乎以一种温和的步伐继续，尽管这种速度在不同部门间并不均匀，尽管在数百万失业和半失业工人看来，这种速度令人沮丧。
如通常那样，家庭支出的能力和意愿是未来几个季度经济扩张速度的一个重要决定因素。
目前，有许多正面和负面的因素影响着家庭的财务状况和支出意愿。
从正面情况来看，去年12月国会通过的工资税削减议案使得今年初以来劳动力市场条件得以改善，家庭收入得到提升。
家庭财富增加（主要反映在股权价值收益）和较低的债务负担也提高了消费者增加支出的意愿。
负面角度，家庭正面临一些显著的不利因素，包括食物和能源价格上涨，房屋价值下降，某些信贷市场的持续紧张，以及仍然高企的失业率，所有这些都会挫伤消费者信心。
劳动力市场的发展在设置家庭支出进程方面将显得特别重要。
如你所知，就业形势距正常情况尚远。
例如，一个关于劳动力投入的综合指标：生产工人总小时数，它反映人们兼职的程度、加班的机会以及就业人数，这个指标自最近的衰退开始到2009年10月已经显著下降近10个百分点。
尽管工作的小时数自扩张以来已经上升，但这个指标仍然低于其衰退前水平约6.5个百分点。
作为一个比较，工作总小时数在1982-1982年深度衰退中的最大下降比这次要少6个百分点。
伯南克面临诸多挑战
维普资讯
利率上升 ，美元贬值 ，进 口商品价格上涨 透 明度 已经 大 为增加。 过去 ，美联 储调 储 蓄 率 ，增 加 国 内消费。 在如何 认 识美 并拉动 国内通 货膨胀。届时伯南 克将面临 整联 邦 基金利 率 时从 不公开 宣告 ，如今 国 的双赤 字 问题上 ，伯南 克 与他 的前任 经济 衰退和通货膨胀双面夹击 ，其利率政 则 不仅 即时 公布 利率 决策 ，而 且还 强烈 却大 相径 庭。 伯南 克认 为 ，造 成 美国 巨 策也难有作为 ，因为刺激疲软的经济 需要 暗示近 期政 策趋 势 ，决 策会议 记 录也公 额 贸易赤 宇 的根本 原 因 ，在于 其他 国家
济就有 陷入衰退的危险。但如果过早采取 情 况 是 ， 美 国 股 票 和 债 券 价 格 大 幅 下 跌 ，
传 出格 林斯 潘发 生车祸 的消 息 ，华 尔街
股 市 三 大 股 指 闻声 大 幅 下 滑 ， 以致 美 联
储 不得不 紧急辟谣 。还 有一 次布什 总统 在 回 答记 者 提 问时 表 示 ：“ 认 为 格林 我 斯 潘 应该 再 干 一届 。 ”话 音 刚 落 ，华 尔
获得 哈佛大学经济学学士学位 ，取得过经 数百万消费者、投资者和企业 的金融活动
济 学最优成 绩 ，１ ７ ９ ９年 在麻省 理工 学院 产生举足轻重的影响。伯南克的最 大挑战
获得博士学位。 伯南克在普林斯顿大学工作 了 １ ７年 ，
就是何 时停止升息。
第二个挑战是美国房地产市场面临降
美国国内市场 的油价可 以以惊人 的速度飙 提高 透 明度 可 以增 强决 策的 可信性 ，促 赤 字改 变 了全球 的资 金流 动 方 向，美国
升。飓风过后 ，墨西哥湾地 区多处重要油 进决 策者 与外 界的 建设 性对话 ，减 少金 成 为全 球最 大的净债务 国，“ 发展 中国家 气设施被毁 ，原油价格达到每桶 ７ Ｏ美元，
伯南克第一课英文讲义
伯南克第一课英文讲义时间3月21日凌晨，美联储主席伯南克稍早时在乔治-华盛顿大学商学院进行了针对该院学生系列讲座的第一讲，题目为：美联储的基本使命。
以下是伯南克本次讲座的英文讲义全文。
(资料来源于美联储)The Federal Reserve and the Financial CrisisOrigins and Mission of the Federal Reserve, Lecture 1George Washington University School of BusinessMarch 20, 2012, 12:45 p.m。
[Applause]President Steve Knapp: Well, good afternoon. I think the students here may know who I am but for those who are watching the broadcast, I'm Steve Knapp, President of George Washington University. And it's really a pleasure to welcome you to today's first class in the series entitled Reflections on the Federal Reserve and its place in today's economy, featuring the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Dr. Ben Bernanke. I'm pleased to acknowledge that we have with us two of the university's trustees, Nelson Carbonell and Mark Shenkman, and also a number of faculty members are here in the audience and some of them will be teaching later in the series. Today is the first university lecture series delivered by a sitting Chairman of the Federal Reserve. I think it does provide an extraordinary opportunity for the students who are here in the classroom, but also for those watching online. They have an opportunity to gain insight into the nation's central banking system and a wide range of issues that affect this country and the world. I do want to say that there are microphones available for the students, and certainly encourage you when the Chairman's lecture is over to avail yourself of those and we hope there'll be a lively exchange of questions and answers at the end of the lecture. It's now a distinct honor to introduce the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Dr. Ben Bernanke. Dr. Bernanke took office in 2006, and is now serving a second term as Chairman. He also serves as Chairman of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee. Before his appointment as Chairman, Dr. Bernanke was involved with the Federal Reserve in several roles as a Member of the Board of Governors, as a visiting scholar, and as a member of the Academic Advisory Panel at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He also served as Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from June 2005 to January 2006.Now Chairman Bernanke is no stranger to academia. He's been a faculty member at Princeton, Stanford and New York University, as well as the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. He's held a Guggenheim and a Sloan Fellowship, and is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Chairman Bernanke received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and a PhD from MIT. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Dr. Ben Bernanke.[ Applause ]Chairman Ben Bernanke: Thank you very much, President Knapp. Gee, this is great. This is what I used to do before I got in this line of work for 23 years and I've always enjoyed engaging with college students. So thank you for being here, and I hope we do have a good conversation. Let me particularly thank President Knapp and Professor Fort and George Washington University. As everybody here knows, these lectures are part of a real course and after I get off the scene there will be other professors talking about other aspects of the Fed and you'll hear different points of view which is great. And you'll have to do some papers and all those kinds of things and I'm going to read a few of the paper. So, I look forward to doing that.So, I'll be talking from slides, which is in part for the purpose of making this available to others who might be interested. These slides will be posted on the Federal Reserve's website, , as we go through. And so, if you need extra copies, by all means do that. And as President Knapp said, I'm going to be talking for a while from the presentation but at the end, I hope we can have some questions and answers.So, let me get started. So what I want to talk about in these four lectures is the Federal Reserve and the financial crisis. Now, my thinking about this is very much conditioned by my experience as an economic historian. I think when you talk about the issues that just occurred of the last few years, it makes the most sense to think about it in the broader context of central banking as its taking place over the centuries. So, even though we're going to be focusing a good bit of the lectures, particularly next week, on the financial crisis and how the Fed responded. I think we need to go back and look at the broader context. So, as we talk about the Fed we'll be talking about the origin and mission of central banks in general, and we're looking at previous financial crises, most notably the Great Depression, and see how that informed the Fed's actions and decisions in the recent crisis. So let me just give you a roadmap of the four lectures. Today, lecture one, we won't touch on the current crisis at all. Instead, we'll talk about what central banks are, what they do, how central banking got started in the United States and we'll do some history. We'll talk about how the Fed engaged with its first great challenge, the Great Depression of the 1930s. The second lecture on Thursday, we'll take up the history. We'll review developments in central banking and with the Federal Reserve after World War II talking about the conquest of inflation, the great moderation and other developments that occurred after World War II. But we'll spend a good bitof time lecture two, in lecture two, talking about the build-up to the crisis and some of the factors that led to the crisis of 2008, 2009.Then next week, we'll get into the more recent events. In lecture three, we'll talk about the intense phase of the financial crisis, its causes, its implications, and particularly, the response to the crisis by the Federal Reserve and by other policymakers. And then, in the final lecture, lecture four, we'll look at the aftermath. We'll talk about the recession that followed the crisis, the policy response of the Fed including monetary policy, the broader response in terms of the changes in financial regulation, and a little bit of forward-looking discussion about how this experience will change how central banks operate and how the Federal Reserve will operate going forward. So this is our topic today is origins and missions of the Federal Reserve. So let's talk in general about what a central bank is. If you've had some background in economics you know that a central bank is not a regular bank, it's a government agency, and it stands at the center of the monetary and financial system of a country. Central banks are very important institutions, they have helped to guide the development of modern financial systems, modern monetary systems and they play a major role in economic policy. Now, we've had various arrangements over the years but today, virtually, all countries have central banks. The Federal Reserve in the United States, the Bank of Japan in Japan, Bank of Canada, and so on. The main exception is only cases where you have what's called a currency union where a number of countries collectively share a central bank. The most important example by far of that is the European Central Bank which is central bank to 17 European countries who share the common currency, the Euro. But even in that case, each of the participating countries does have its own central bank which is part of the overall system of the Euro. So central banks are now ubiquitous, even the smallest countries typically have central banks. Now, this is a very important theme here, what do Central Banks do? What is their mission? And as I'll discuss throughout the lectures, it's convenient to talk about two broad aspects of what central banks do. The first is to try to achieve macroeconomic stability. And by that, I generally mean stable growth in the economy, avoiding big swings, recessions and the like, and keeping inflation low and stable. So that's the economic function of a central bank. The other function of central banks, which is going to get a lot of attention, obviously, in these lectures, is the financial stability function. Central banks try to keep the financial system working normally and in particular, they either, they try to prevent or if unsuccessful in preventing they try to mitigate financial panics or financial crises. And I'll talk more about what those are. Now what are the tools that central banks use to achieve these two broad objectives? Very, in very simple terms, there are basically two broad sets of tools. On the economic stability side, the main tool as I'm sure everyone knows is monetary policy. In normal times, the Fed, for example, can raise or lower short-term interest rates. It does that by buying and selling securities in the open market. And again, in normal times, if the economy is growing too slowly or inflation is falling too low, the Fed can stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates. Lower interest rates feedthrough to a broad range of other interest rates that encourages spending, acquisition of homes for example, construction, investment by firms, borrowing. It just generates more demand, more spending and more investment in the economy, and that creates more thrust in growth so that to stimulate an economy, you lower interest rates. And similarly, if the economy is growing too hot, if inflation is becoming a problem, then the normal tool of central bank is to raise interest rates. So by raising the overnight interest rate, known in the United States as the federal funds rate, higher interest rates feed through the system and help to slow the economy by raising the cost of borrowing, of buying a house, of buying a car, or of investing in capital goods and that will slow the economy and reduce pressure of overheating. So, monetary policy is the basic tool that central banks have used for many, many years to try to keep the economy at a more or less even keel in terms of both growth and inflation.Now, a little less familiar is the main tool of central banks in dealing with financial panics or financial crises. And that tool is the provision of liquidity. So to address financial stability concerns and for reasons I'll explain, one thing that central banks can do is make short-term loans to financial institutions. As I'll explain, providing short-term credit to financial institutions during a period of panic or crisis can help calm the market, can help stabilize those institutions and can help mitigate or bring to an end a financial crisis. So this activity which is an old one, as I'll discuss, is known as the lender of last resort tool. So again, if financial markets are disrupted, financial institutions don't have alternative sources of funding, then the central bank stands ready to service the lender of last resort providing liquidity to the system and thereby helping to stabilize the financial system.Now, there's a third tool which the Fed has had from the beginning and most central banks have which is financial regulation and supervision. Central banks usually play a role in supervising the banking system, assessing the extent of risk on their portfolios, making sure their practices are sound, and in that way, trying to keep the financial system healthy. To the extent that financial system can be kept healthy and its risk-taking within reasonable bounds, then the chance of a financial crisis occurring in the first place is reduced. However, this activity, and I will come back to it, this is something which is not unique to central banks. In the United States, for example, there are a number of different agencies, like the FDIC or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that work with the Fed in supervising the financial system. So this is not unique to central banks and so I'll be down playing this for the time being and focusing on the two principle tools, monetary policy and lender of last resort activities.Now, where do central banks come from? One thing people don't appreciate, I think, is that central banking is not a new development. It's been around for a very long time. The Swedes set up a central bank in 1668, three and a half centuries ago. TheBank of England was founded in 1694 and that of course for many decades or if not centuries was the most important and influential central bank in the world, and France in 1800. So, central bank theory and practice is, again, not a new thing. We have been thinking about these issues collectively as an economics profession and in other contexts for many, many years. Now, I've exaggerated slightly in a sense that, say, the Bank of England in 1694 wasn't set up from scratch, it's a full-fledged central bank, it was originally a private institution. And over time, it acquired some of the functions of a central bank such as issuing money or serving as lender of last resort. But over time, these central banks became essentially government agencies, government institutions as they all are today. Certainly, one important responsibility of central banks for much of the period that I'm talking about was to manage the gold standard to issue paper money that was backed by gold and I'll talk more about gold in a few moments.Now, the lender of last resort function, which I mentioned earlier, became important in the-- mostly in the 19th century. Early in the 19th century, the Bank of England was doing a lot of this type of activity and they became very good at it. And as we'll see, while the United States was suffering with banking panics in the latter part of the 19th century, banking panics in the United Kingdom were quite rare. So the Bank of England sort of set the pace in some sense. It was the most important central bank and it helped establish the practices and the approaches that we still use today. Now, I need to talk a little bit because it's less familiar about what a financial panic is. In general, a financial panic is sparked by a loss of confidence in an institution and I think the best way to explain this is to give a familiar example. How many of you have ever seen the movie "It's a Wonderful Life"? No? Less people are watching Christmas movies than they used to be, I guess [laughter]. Well, one of the problems that Jimmy Stewart runs into as a banker in “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a threatened run on his institution. And what is a run? Well, let's imagine a situation like Jimmy Stewart's situation before there was any deposit insurance, no FDIC. And imagine you have a bank on the corner, just a regular commercial bank, the first bank of Washington, D.C., and this bank makes loans to businesses and the like, and it finances itself by taking deposits from the public and deposits are demand deposits, which means that anybody can pull out their money anytime they want which is important because people use deposits for ordinary activities, like shopping.Now imagine what would happen if for some reason, a rumor goes around that this bank has made some bad loans and is losing money. As a depositor, you say to yourself, "Well, I don't know if this rumor is true or not。
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1. A more contemporary philosopher, Forrest Gump, said something similar about life and boxes of chocolates and not knowing what you are going to get. Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks he or she knows where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination. Look what happened to me: A dozen years ago I was minding my own business teaching Economics 101 in Alexander Hall and thinking of good excuses for avoiding faculty meetings. Then I got a phone call... In case you are skeptical of Forrest Gump's insight, here's a concrete suggestion for each of the graduating seniors. Take a few minutes the first chance you get and talk to an alum participating in their 25th, or 30th, or 40th reunion--you know, somebody who was near the front of the P-rade. Ask them, back when they were graduating 25, 30, or 40 years ago, where they expected to be today. If you can get them to open up, they will tell you that today they are happy and satisfied in various measures, or not, and their personal stories will be filled with highs and lows and in-betweens. But, I am willing to bet, those life stories will in almost all cases be quite different, in large and small ways, from what they expected when they started out those many years ago. This is a good thing, not a bad thing; who wants to know the end of a story that's only in its early chapters? Don't be afraid to let the drama play out.1、阿甘曾讲到人生和巧克力的相似性，你不知道下一块巧克力的味道。
人生确实难以预料，任何一个认为知道其10年后情况的毕业生，更不同说三十年了，我只能说他或她缺乏想象力。
看看我吧，12年前我一心教经济学入门课程，想着编造什么理由不参加教学会议，结果我接到了那个电话。
有过你有机会与毕业25年、30年或40年的校友交谈，并使他们敞开心扉，他们将告诉你，他们对生活中哪些事满意或不满意，他们经历过的高潮和低谷。
但我敢打赌，他们的人生故事将与预期相异。
这是好事而不是坏事，谁想在故事的开篇就知道结局呢？让人生顺其自然。
2. Does the fact that our lives are so influenced by chance and seemingly small decisions and actions mean that there is no point to planning, to striving? Not at all. Whatever life may have in store for you, each of you has a grand, lifelong project, and that is the development of yourself as a human being. Your family and friends and your time at Princeton have given you a good start. What will you do with it? Will you keep learning and thinking hard and critically about the most important questions? Will you become an emotionally stronger person, more generous, more loving, more ethical? Will you involve yourself actively and constructively in the world? Many things will happen in your lives, pleasant and not so pleasant.If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievements won't bring you much satisfaction.2、是否人生偶然性之大的事实，意味着小的决定和行动无足轻重，不需要规划和奋斗呢？当然不是。
无论未来人生如何，她将是一个宏大和漫长的项目，是你作为个人的发展过程。
你的家人、朋友和你在普林斯顿的时光已经为你造就了良好的开端，未来你会如何？你会不断学习、竭力思索、对至关重要的问题持批判态度吗？你会成为情感上更强大、更大度、更有爱心、更道德的人吗？你会更积极的、更建设性的参与世事吗？你的人生会有很多故事，快乐的，及不太快乐的，如果你不为自己感到快乐，就连最伟大的成就业也不会让你感到满足。
3. The concept of success leads me to consider so-called meritocracies and their implications. A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate--these are the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others.3、成功的概念促使我考虑所谓的精英主义及其含义。
精英是在健康和基因上最幸运的人，他们在家庭支持、鼓励上，或在收入上也是最幸运的，他们在教育和职业机遇上最幸运，他们在很多方面都最幸运，一般人难以复制。
一个精英体制是否公平，要看这些精英是否有义务努力工作、致力于建设更好的世界，并与他人分享幸运。
4. Who is worthy of admiration? The admonition from Luke--which is shared by most ethical and philosophical traditions, by the way--helps with this question as well. Those most worthy of admiration are those who have made the best use of their advantages or, alternatively, coped most courageously with their adversities. I think most of us would agree that people who have, say, little formal schooling but labor honestly and diligently to help feed, clothe, and educate their families are deserving of greater respect--and help, if necessary--than many people who are superficially more successful. They're more fun to have a beer with, too. That's all that I know about sociology.4、谁值得尊重？是那些充分利用其优势，或勇敢面对逆境的人。
我想我们会认同，那些虽然接受的正式教育不多，但诚实劳动、勤勉的为家人提供衣食和教育的人，相比更多表面上很成功的人，更值得尊重，和他们喝两杯是更有趣的事情。