So a friend of mine who's a political scientist, he told me several months ago exactly what this month would be like. He said, you know, there's this fiscal cliff coming, it's going to come at the beginning of 2013. Both parties absolutely need to resolve it, but neither party wants to be seen as the first to resolve it. Neither party has any incentive to solve it a second before it's due, so he said, December, you're just going to see lots of angry negotiations, negotiations breaking apart, reports of phone calls that aren't going well, people saying nothing's happening at all, and then sometime around Christmas or New Year's, we're going to hear, "Okay, they resolved everything." He told me that a few months ago. He said he's 98 percent positive they're going to resolve it, and I got an email from him today saying, all right, we're basically on track, but now I'm 80 percent positive that they're going to resolve it.
我有个朋友是政治学家, 他几个月前确切地告诉我 本月会演哪出戏。 他说,会有财政悬崖问题降临, 发生在2013年初。 两党绝对需要解决这个问题, 但是两党都不想做第一个吃螃蟹的人。 两党都没有在问题到期前,解决问题的动力, 他说,在十二月,你会看到 怒气冲冲的协商,协商破裂, 和各种谈判不顺的报导, 人们说什么都没有发生 然后到圣诞结或新年前后, 我们会听说:“Okay,两党解决了所有问题。” 他几个月前告诉我这些。他说,他有98%的信心,两党会解决这个问题。 今天我收到他的一封Email,他说 我们基本步入正轨,但现在他有80%的信心 两党会解决这个问题。
And it made me think. I love studying these moments in American history when there was this frenzy of partisan anger, that the economy was on the verge of total collapse.
这促使我思考。我爱研究 美国历史的关键时刻 当有这种狂热的党派愤怒的情况下, 经济面临崩溃边缘的时刻。
The most famous early battle was Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over what the dollar would be and how it would be backed up, with Alexander Hamilton saying, "We need a central bank, the First Bank of the United States, or else the dollar will have no value. This economy won't work," and Thomas Jefferson saying, "The people won't trust that. They just fought off a king. They're not going to accept some central authority." This battle defined the first 150 years of the U.S. economy, and at every moment, different partisans saying, "Oh my God, the economy's about to collapse," and the rest of us just going about, spending our bucks on whatever it is we wanted to buy.
早期最著名的此类论战是亚历山大·汉密尔顿 和托马斯·杰斐逊关于美元地位 以及如何支撑美元地位的争论, 亚历山大·汉密尔顿说:“我们要有中央银行,美利坚第一银行, 否则,美元就没有价值。 这种经济就不会运转,” 托马斯·斐逊说:“人们不会信任它的。 他们刚赶走一个国王。他们不会再接受中央集权了。” 这场论战决定了美国建国头150年的经济发展, 每当,有不同党派的人说: “老天,经济要崩溃了,” 我们中的其他人就会赶快出去, 花美元购买我们想要的商品。
To give you a quick primer on where we are, a quick refresher on where we are. So the fiscal cliff, I was told that that's too partisan a thing to say, although I can't remember which party it's supporting or attacking. People say we should call it the fiscal slope, or we should call it an austerity crisis, but then other people say, no, that's even more partisan. So I just call it the self-imposed, self-destructive arbitrary deadline about resolving an inevitable problem. And this is what the inevitable problem looks like. So this is a projection of U.S. debt as a percentage of our overall economy, of GDP. The light blue dotted line represents the Congressional Budget Office's best guess of what will happen if Congress really doesn't do anything, and as you can see, sometime around 2027, we reach Greek levels of debt, somewhere around 130 percent of GDP, which tells you that some time in the next 20 years, if Congress does absolutely nothing, we're going to hit a moment where the world's investors, the world's bond buyers, are going to say, "We don't trust America anymore. We're not going to lend them any money, except at really high interest rates." And at that moment our economy collapses. But remember, Greece is there today. We're there in 20 years. We have lots and lots of time to avoid that crisis, and the fiscal cliff was just one more attempt at trying to force the two sides to resolve the crisis.
给您一个简明的当前形势图, 快速补习一下当前形势。 关于财政悬崖这个叫法,有人告诉我 那是党派之争的代名词, 尽管我不记得到底哪派支持,哪派反对。 人们说我们应该叫它财政斜坡, 或者我们应该称它为财政紧缩危机, 不过还有人说,这更凸显了党派色彩。 所以我就称它为——咎由自取的,解决一个不可避免的问题的, 武断的期限。 这就是“不可避免的问题”的图示。 这就是美国债务占经济总体(GDP)的 百分比。 浅蓝的虚线代表 国会预算办公室最好的猜想 也就是,如果国会不采取行动的话, 如您所见,到2027年, 我们就会达到希腊的债务水平, 也就是债务占GDP,百分之130, 此图说明了未来20年, 如果国会真的不采取任何对策, 我们就会达到一个临界点,全世界的投资家 全世界的债券买家,就会说, “我们不信任美国了,我们不会再借给他们钱了, 除非有很高的贷款利率。” 在那个临界点,我们的经济会崩溃。 不过记住,这是希腊今天的水平。 我们还有20年时间呢。我们有大把大把的时间 避免危机发生, 财政悬崖只是逼迫 两党解决危机的再一次尝试。
Here's another way to look at exactly the same problem. The dark blue line is how much the government spends. The light blue line is how much the government gets in. And as you can see, for most of recent history, except for a brief period, we have consistently spent more than we take in. Thus the national debt. But as you can also see, projected going forward, the gap widens a bit and raises a bit, and this graph is only through 2021. It gets really, really ugly out towards 2030.
此图是从另一个角度解读同样的问题。 深蓝线代表政府的支出。 浅蓝线代表政府的收入。 如您所见,近几十年 除了一个短暂的时期,国家支出 一直高于国家收入。这就是国家债务。 如您所见,预计未来 收支鸿沟会更宽更高些, 此图截止到2021年。 如图所示,到2030年收支差距会非常大。
And this graph sort of sums up what the problem is. The Democrats, they say, well, this isn't a big deal. We can just raise taxes a bit and close that gap, especially if we raise taxes on the rich. The Republicans say, hey, no, no, we've got a better idea. Why don't we lower both lines? Why don't we lower government spending and lower government taxes, and then we'll be on an even more favorable long-term deficit trajectory? And behind this powerful disagreement between how to close that gap, there's the worst kind of cynical party politics, the worst kind of insider baseball, lobbying, all of that stuff, but there's also this powerfully interesting, respectful disagreement between two fundamentally different economic philosophies.
此图总结了问题的实质。 民主党人会说,这没什么大不了的。 我们可以增税,来消解这个鸿沟, 特别的要提高富人的税率。 共和党人会说,不,不,我们有更好的办法。 为什么我不同时压缩支出和税率呢? 为什么我们不压缩政府支出的同时压缩政府的税率, 那样,我们就可以得到一个更有利的 长期的赤字曲线吗? 在关于如何平衡收支的 巨大分歧后面, 有最糟糕的愤世嫉俗的党派政治, 最糟糕的内幕人士,游说,所有人, 不过同样还是有强大的有趣地方, 尊重两种不同经济哲学之间的分歧。 尊重两种不同经济哲学之间的分歧。
And I like to think, when I picture how Republicans see the economy, what I picture is just some amazingly well-engineered machine, some perfect machine. Unfortunately, I picture it made in Germany or Japan, but this amazing machine that's constantly scouring every bit of human endeavor and taking resources, money, labor, capital, machinery, away from the least productive parts and towards the more productive parts, and while this might cause temporary dislocation, what it does is it builds up the more productive areas and lets the less productive areas fade away and die, and as a result the whole system is so much more efficient, so much richer for everybody. And this view generally believes that there is a role for government, a small role, to set the rules so people aren't lying and cheating and hurting each other, maybe, you know, have a police force and a fire department and an army, but to have a very limited reach into the mechanisms of this machinery.
我喜欢思考,当我想象共和党人 如何看待经济,我想到的是 精密运转的机器,完美的机器。 不幸的是,我构建出了德国或日本的图景, 这个神奇的机器,不断地消磨 每一个人的努力,并攫取资源, 资金,劳动力,资本,机构, 从低产出部分转到高产出部分, 虽然这可能导致暂时的混乱, 它所作的就是构建高产出领域 让低产出领域消亡, 从而使整个系统更有效率, 每个人变得更富有。 这种观点,认为政府要扮演一个角色, 一个小角色,设置规范,这样人们就不会互欺 互骗,互相伤害了。 比如说,可以有一支警察队伍,一个消防部门,一支军队, 不过(这个政府)只能非常有限地 干预经济“机器”的运行。
And when I picture how Democrats and Democratic-leaning economists picture this economy, most Democratic economists are, you know, they're capitalists, they believe, yes, that's a good system a lot of the time. It's good to let markets move resources to their more productive use. But that system has tons of problems. Wealth piles up in the wrong places. Wealth is ripped away from people who shouldn't be called unproductive. That's not going to create an equitable, fair society. That machine doesn't care about the environment, about racism, about all these issues that make this life worse for all of us, and so the government does have a role to take resources from more productive uses, or from richer sources, and give them to other sources. And when you think about the economy through these two different lenses, you understand why this crisis is so hard to solve, because the worse the crisis gets, the higher the stakes are, the more each side thinks they know the answer and the other side is just going to ruin everything.
当我如民主党人和民主党派经济学家一样 构想整个经济, 大多数民主党派经济学家是资本主义者, 他们相信,一个好系统需要时间。 让市场配置资源到更高产出的部分去。 不过这个系统有成堆的问题。 财富积累在错误的地方。 财富被从不应被称为低产者的人手中夺走。 这不会产生出公正公平的社会。 这部经济机器不考虑环境, 种族,等等问题, 使我们活的更差, 所以政府确需扮演一个角色, 从更高产的,或更富有者手里 拿出一部分资源给其他人。 当您从以上两个不同角度考虑问题时, 您就会明白这个危机为什么这么难解决, 因为危机越深,赌注越高, 每当一方人越认为他们知道答案 而另一方人只会破坏。
And I can get really despairing. I've spent a lot of the last few years really depressed about this, until this year, I learned something that I felt really excited about. I feel like it's really good news, and it's so shocking, I don't like saying it, because I think people won't believe me. But here's what I learned. The American people, taken as a whole, when it comes to these issues, to fiscal issues, are moderate, pragmatic centrists. And I know that's hard to believe, that the American people are moderate, pragmatic centrists. But let me explain what I'm thinking.
我深感失望。过去几年我花了很多精力, 真的感到很沮丧, 直到今年,我知道了一些东西 让我感到很兴奋。我感到它真的很好 很震撼,我不想说出来,因为我想 人们不会相信我的。 但这就是我学到的。 作为一个整体,美国人民, 面对这些财政问题时, 美国人民是温和、务实的中间派。 我知道这很难被接受,美国人民 是温和、务实的中间派。 不过让我来解释一下我的想法。
When you look at how the federal government spends money, so this is the battle right here, 55 percent, more than half, is on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a few other health programs, 20 percent defense, 19 percent discretionary, and six percent interest. So when we're talking about cutting government spending, this is the pie we're talking about, and Americans overwhelmingly, and it doesn't matter what party they're in, overwhelmingly like that big 55 percent chunk. They like Social Security. They like Medicare. They even like Medicaid, even though that goes to the poor and indigent, which you might think would have less support. And they do not want it fundamentally touched, although the American people are remarkably comfortable, and Democrats roughly equal to Republicans, with some minor tweaks to make the system more stable.
当您看到联邦政府是如何花钱的时候, 这就是症结所在, 55%超过一半的钱花在社会保障领域, 医疗保险和医疗补助,几个其他健康计划, 20%国防,19%自由支配, 6%支付利息。 所以当我们谈论削减政府支出的时候, 这就是我们所说的蛋糕, 美国人都认为,不管 他是哪个党派的,都认为 55%的部分是好的。 他们喜欢社会保障。他们喜欢医疗保险。 甚至喜欢医疗补助,即使用到穷人身上, 可能您原以为没这么多人支持。 他们不希望改变它, 美国人民是非常满意的, 民主党人和共和党人一致, 只做些小的调整,使系统更稳定。
Social Security is fairly easy to fix. The rumors of its demise are always greatly exaggerated. So gradually raise Social Security retirement age, maybe only on people not yet born. Americans are about 50/50, whether they're Democrats or Republicans.
社会保障是相当容易解决。 取消社会保障的谣言是被大大夸大了。 逐渐提高社会保障退休年龄, 可能只适用于还没出生的人。 美国人50对50, 不管他们是民主党人还是共和党人。
Reduce Medicare for very wealthy seniors, seniors who make a lot of money. Don't even eliminate it. Just reduce it. People generally are comfortable with it, Democrats and Republicans.
减少对非常富有老年人的医疗保险 那些有钱的老年人。甚至不取消它。只是减少它。 人们通常是满意的,民主党人和共和党人。
Raise medical health care contributions? Everyone hates that equally, but Republicans and Democrats hate that together.
提高医疗保健的出资额? 每个人是同样讨厌它,共和党人 和民主党人则是一起讨厌它。
And so what this tells me is, when you look at the discussion of how to resolve our fiscal problems, we are not a nation that's powerfully divided on the major, major issue. We're comfortable with it needing some tweaks, but we want to keep it. We're not open to a discussion of eliminating it.
这告诉我,当你 看到如何解决我们财政问题的讨论时, 这并不是我们国家的主要分歧, 我们需要的只是微调,我们想保留它。 我们不是公开讨论取消它。
Now there is one issue that is hyper-partisan, and where there is one party that is just spend, spend, spend, we don't care, spend some more, and that of course is Republicans when it comes to military defense spending. They way outweigh Democrats. The vast majority want to protect military defense spending. That's 20 percent of the budget, and that presents a more difficult issue. I should also note that the [discretionary] spending, which is about 19 percent of the budget, that is Democratic and Republican issues, so you do have welfare, food stamps, other programs that tend to be popular among Democrats, but you also have the farm bill and all sorts of Department of Interior inducements for oil drilling and other things, which tend to be popular among Republicans.
有个超党派的问题, 一个党派只是支出,支出,支出, 我们不在意,支出更多 那当然是共和党人 当说到国防支出。 他们远远高于民主党人。 共和党人绝大多数支持国防开支。 这占预算的20%, 这表现出更困难的问题。 我也要提到自由支出, 大约占预算的19%, 这事民主党人和共和党人的问题, 所以你有福利,食品救济券,和其他项目 趋向于民主党人比较乐于接受, 但你也有农业法案和各类内务部 各种系用于石油钻井和其他东西, 趋向于共和党人比较乐于接受。
Now when it comes to taxes, there is more disagreement. That's a more partisan area. You have Democrats overwhelmingly supportive of raising the income tax on people who make 250,000 dollars a year, Republicans sort of against it, although if you break it out by income, Republicans who make less than 75,000 dollars a year like this idea. So basically Republicans who make more than 250,000 dollars a year don't want to be taxed. Raising taxes on investment income, you also see about two thirds of Democrats but only one third of Republicans are comfortable with that idea.
现在,当涉及到税收,有更多的分歧。 这是一个更有党派之争的区域。 绝大多数民主党人支持 增加年收入25万美元的人的个人所得税, 共和党人的反对,但如果你打破它的收入 共和党人中,年收入少于7万5千美元的人喜欢这个主意。 所以基本上,共和党人中年收入超过25万美元的人不想多课税。 增加投资收入税率,你也会看到 三分之二的民主党人支持,而只有 三分之一的共和党人支持。
This brings up a really important point, which is that we tend in this country to talk about Democrats and Republicans and think there's this little group over there called independents that's, what, two percent? If you add Democrats, you add Republicans, you've got the American people. But that is not the case at all. And it has not been the case for most of modern American history. Roughly a third of Americans say that they are Democrats. Around a quarter say that they are Republicans. A tiny little sliver call themselves libertarians, or socialists, or some other small third party, and the largest block, 40 percent, say they're independents. So most Americans are not partisan, and most of the people in the independent camp fall somewhere in between, so even though we have tremendous overlap between the views on these fiscal issues of Democrats and Republicans, we have even more overlap when you add in the independents. Now we get to fight about all sorts of other issues. We get to hate each other on gun control and abortion and the environment, but on these fiscal issues, these important fiscal issues, we just are not anywhere nearly as divided as people say.
这带来了一个真正重要的问题, 我们倾向于在这个国家谈论民主党人 和共和党人,还有一小部分 独立派,大约2%? 如果你或者算上民主党人,算上共和党人, 你就会得到几乎所有美国人。 但这并不是这样。 而且它不是大多数现代美国史的情况。 大约三分之一的美国人说自己是民主党人。 大约四分之一的人说自己是共和党人。 一小部分称自己为自由主义者,或社会主义者, 或者其他小的党派, 大约有40%说他们是独立派。 所以绝大多数美国人是没有派性的, 绝大所数人属于独立派阵营 介于两党之间,即使我们 民主共和两党之间有很多 重叠的地方, 考虑到独立派,我们会有更多的重叠的地方。 现在我们争论其他问题。 在控枪问题堕胎问题和环境问题上 我们互相讨厌, 但是有关财政问题,这类重要的财政问题, 我们并不如人所说的那样分派别。
And in fact, there's this other group of people who are not as divided as people might think, and that group is economists. I talk to a lot of economists, and back in the '70s and '80s it was ugly being an economist. You were in what they called the saltwater camp, meaning Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, or you were in the freshwater camp, University of Chicago, University of Rochester. You were a free market capitalist economist or you were a Keynesian liberal economist, and these people didn't go to each other's weddings, they snubbed each other at conferences. It's still ugly to this day, but in my experience, it is really, really hard to find an economist under 40 who still has that kind of way of seeing the world. The vast majority of economists -- it is so uncool to call yourself an ideologue of either camp. The phrase that you want, if you're a graduate student or a postdoc or you're a professor, a 38-year-old economics professor, is, "I'm an empiricist. I go by the data." And the data is very clear. None of these major theories have been completely successful. The 20th century, the last hundred years, is riddled with disastrous examples of times that one school or the other tried to explain the past or predict the future and just did an awful, awful job, so the economics profession has acquired some degree of modesty. They still are an awfully arrogant group of people, I will assure you, but they're now arrogant about their impartiality, and they, too, see a tremendous range of potential outcomes.
事实上,有一群人 并不如人们所想的那样分派性, 这群人就是经济学家。 我和很多经济学家谈过话,在70年代 和80年代,作为经济学家不是好事。 要么你是在他们所谓的海水阵营, 这意味着哈佛大学,普林斯顿大学,麻省理工学院,斯坦福大学,伯克利分校, 要么你在淡水阵营,芝加哥大学, 罗切斯特大学。 要么你是一个自由市场的资本主义经济学家 要么你是凯恩斯主义的自由派经济学家, 这些人不去参加对方的婚礼, 在会议上互相冷落对方。 现如今,它仍然不好的,但以我的经验, 这是真的,真的很难找到40岁以下的经济学家 仍然以这种方式看世界。 绝大多数经济学家 - 土气的 称自己为不属于两个阵营的理论家。 你想的头衔是,如果你是一个研究生 或博士后,或者你是一个教授, 一个38岁的经济学教授,是的,“我是一个经验主义者。 我靠数据分析问题。” 数据是非常明确的。 这两个学派理论都没有取得完全胜利 20世纪,过去这一百年, 充满了灾难性的例子的时候, 有一所学校或其他学校试图解释 过去或预测未来, 只是做了一个可怕的工作, 所以经济学界已经变得很谦逊了。 他们仍然是一群非常傲慢的人,我向你们保证, 但他们现在傲慢显示在他们的公正性, 他们也看到了巨大的潜在结果。
And this nonpartisanship is something that exists, that has existed in secret in America for years and years and years. I've spent a lot of the fall talking to the three major organizations that survey American political attitudes: Pew Research, the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, and the most important but the least known is the American National Election Studies group that is the world's longest, most respected poll of political attitudes. They've been doing it since 1948, and what they show consistently throughout is that it's almost impossible to find Americans who are consistent ideologically, who consistently support, "No we mustn't tax, and we must limit the size of government," or, "No, we must encourage government to play a larger role in redistribution and correcting the ills of capitalism." Those groups are very, very small. The vast majority of people, they pick and choose, they see compromise and they change over time when they hear a better argument or a worse argument. And that part of it has not changed. What has changed is how people respond to vague questions. If you ask people vague questions, like, "Do you think there should be more government or less government?" "Do you think government should" — especially if you use loaded language -- "Do you think the government should provide handouts?" Or, "Do you think the government should redistribute?" Then you can see radical partisan change. But when you get specific, when you actually ask about the actual taxing and spending issues under consideration, people are remarkably centrist, they're remarkably open to compromise.
而这个无党派存在的东西, 在美国秘密已经存在多年了。 在美国秘密已经存在多年了。 我花很大精力对三个主要组织对话 调查美国人的政治态度: 皮尤研究, 芝加哥大学全国民意研究中心, 以及最重要的,但最不为人所知的 是美国的全国选举研究组, 是世界上最悠久,最受人尊敬的政治态度调查。 他们从1948年就开始了这项工作, 他们始终表明的是, 它几乎是不可能的找到 美国人思想是一致性, 一贯支持,“不,我们不必加税, 我们必须限制政府的规模” 或“不,我们必须鼓励政府再分配中发挥更大的作用 来纠正资本主义的弊病。“ 这些人群都非常非常小。 绝大多数人,他们选择 他们妥协和随时间变化改主意 尤其是他们听到更好的论点或更糟糕的论点。 这部分没有改变。 改变的是人们如何应对模糊的问题。 如果你问人们模糊的问题,比如, “你认为更多政府参与还是更少政府参与?” “你认为政府应该...” 特别是如果你使用加载的语言 “你认为政府应该提供施舍吗?” 或者“你认为政府应该重新分配吗?” 然后你可以看到激进党派变化。 但是当你特指某事,当你确切的 问到某项税收或支出问题时, 人们就变得中立, 他们非常愿意妥协。
So what we have, then, when you think about the fiscal cliff, don't think of it as the American people fundamentally can't stand each other on these issues and that we must be ripped apart into two separate warring nations. Think of it as a tiny, tiny number of ancient economists and misrepresentative ideologues have captured the process. And they've captured the process through familiar ways, through a primary system which encourages that small group of people's voices, because that small group of people, the people who answer all yeses or all noes on those ideological questions, they might be small but every one of them has a blog, every one of them has been on Fox or MSNBC in the last week. Every one of them becomes a louder and louder voice, but they don't represent us. They don't represent what our views are.
因此,我们有的,那么,当你觉得对财政的悬崖, 不认为美国人民从根本上 不能站在对方立场上看问题, 我们必须把美国撕成 两个独立的论战的国家。 把它看成是一个很小,很小的数目老经济学家 和不具代表性的理论家已掌控了过程。 他们已经掌控了这个过程,通过熟悉的方式 通过一个主要系统鼓励 一小群人发出声音, 因为这一小群人, 这些人回答,是或否 在那些意识型态问题, 他们可能人数少,但是他们都有博客, 每个人上个星期在福克斯或微软全国广播公司上露脸。 他们中的每一个人都发出了更大的声音 但是他们不代表我们。 他们不代表我们的视角。
And that gets me back to the dollar, and it gets me back to reminding myself that we know this experience. We know what it's like to have these people on TV, in Congress, yelling about how the end of the world is coming if we don't adopt their view completely, because it's happened about the dollar ever since there's been a dollar. We had the battle between Jefferson and Hamilton. In 1913, we had this ugly battle over the Federal Reserve, when it was created, with vicious, angry arguments over how it would be constituted, and a general agreement that the way it was constituted was the worst possible compromise, a compromise guaranteed to destroy this valuable thing, this dollar, but then everyone agreeing, okay, so long as we're on the gold standard, it should be okay. The Fed can't mess it up so badly. But then we got off the gold standard for individuals during the Depression and we got off the gold standard as a source of international currency coordination during Richard Nixon's presidency. Each of those times, we were on the verge of complete collapse. And nothing happened at all. Throughout it all, the dollar has been one of the most long-standing, stable, reasonable currencies, and we all use it every single day, no matter what the people screaming about tell us, no matter how scared we're supposed to be.
这使我回到美元, 这使我提醒自己, 我们知道这个体验。 我们知道它像什么 让这些人上电视,去国会, 叫嚣,世界末日会来临, 如果我们不采纳他们的观点, 因为它发生的美元上 自从有美元起就这样。 我们有杰斐逊和汉密尔顿的论战。 在1913年,关于美联储的论战 当美联储建立的时候,充满了恶毒和愤怒的争论 关于美联储如何构成, 和一般的协议关于是如何构成 是最坏的妥协, 一个妥协保证摧毁这宝贵的东西, 美元,但最后每人同意了,Okay, 只要我们采用金本位制,它应该是好的。 美联储不能搞的如此糟糕。 但是我们取消了个人的金本位制, 在大萧条中, 尼克松时代我们取消了国际货币协调中 金本位制。 上述时刻,我们都处在崩溃边缘。 但最终也没发生崩溃。 贯穿始终,美元 都是最长存的, 稳定的,合理的货币, 我们每天都会使用, 不管什么人尖叫告诉我们, 不管我们多么害怕,我们还在使用美元。
And this long-term fiscal picture that we're in right now, I think what is most maddening about it is, if Congress were simply able to show not that they agree with each other, not that they're able to come up with the best possible compromise, but that they are able to just begin the process towards compromise, we all instantly are better off. The fear is that the world is watching. The fear is that the longer we delay any solution, the more the world will look to the U.S. not as the bedrock of stability in the global economy, but as a place that can't resolve its own fights, and the longer we put that off, the more we make the world nervous, the higher interest rates are going to be, the quicker we're going to have to face a day of horrible calamity. And so just the act of compromise itself, and sustained, real compromise, would give us even more time, would allow both sides even longer to spread out the pain and reach even more compromise down the road.
我们正在经历的,这个长期财政图景 我认为什么是最令人抓狂的是, 如果国会不只是能 显示他们同意与对方, 而不是他们能够拿出最好的妥协, 但他们的过程才刚刚开始 的妥协,大家都立刻好起来的。 可怕的是世界正在关注。 可怕的越是我们拖延解决方案 世界越认为美国 不是全球经济稳定的基石, 但作为一个不能解决自己的论战的地方, 我们拖得越久,我们越让世界担心 就会有更高的贷款利率, 越快的面对 灾难性的那天。 所以就妥协本身的行为, 和持续的、真正的妥协, 将给我们争取更多时间, 使得双方更长时间分担痛苦, 一段时间后达成更多的妥协。
So I'm in the media. I feel like my job to make this happen is to help foster the things that seem to lead to compromise, to not talk about this in those vague and scary terms that do polarize us, but to just talk about it like what it is, not an existential crisis, not some battle between two fundamentally different religious views, but a math problem, a really solvable math problem, one where we're not all going to get what we want and one where, you know, there's going to be a little pain to spread around. But the more we address it as a practical concern, the sooner we can resolve it, and the more time we have to resolve it, paradoxically. Thank you. (Applause)
所以我上媒体。我感觉我的工作就是 帮助培养导致妥协的东西, 不要讲那些模糊的、吓人的术语 这会分化我们, 只是谈财政悬崖是什么, 不是一个生存危机, 不是两种不同宗教的战争, 而只是一个数学问题,一个可解的数学问题, 是我们不能得到所有我们想要的东西 是需要传播有些痛苦的东西。 不过,我们越是把它强调为现实关切, 我们就越快能解决它, 同时,为我们解决它争取更多时间。 谢谢。(掌声)