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2021-07-19

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How the Federal Reserve can really help America<blockquote>美联储如何真正帮助美国</blockquote>

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"detailType":1,"isChannel":false,"data":{"magic":2,"id":173840976,"tweetId":"173840976","gmtCreate":1626654502995,"gmtModify":1631885865443,"author":{"id":3586338902882279,"idStr":"3586338902882279","authorId":3586338902882279,"authorIdStr":"3586338902882279","name":"Saras","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/2bf0de0dd3a4c083e202aad7b1bc71ae","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":11,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":8,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>👍🏼</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>👍🏼</body></html>","text":"👍🏼","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/173840976","repostId":1123760994,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1123760994","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1626652367,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1123760994?lang=zh_CN&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-07-19 07:52","market":"us","language":"en","title":"How the Federal Reserve can really help America<blockquote>美联储如何真正帮助美国</blockquote>","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1123760994","media":"finance.yahoo","summary":"1913 was a big year for America. On October 7, Henry Ford introduced the world’s first moving car as","content":"1913 was a big year for America. On October 7, Henry Ford introduced the world’s first moving car assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan. Then two months later, on December 23, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act creating our nation’s central bank.<blockquote>1913年对美国来说是重要的一年。10月7日，亨利·福特在密歇根州高地公园推出了世界上第一条移动汽车装配线。两个月后，12月23日，国会通过了《美联储法案》，创建了我们国家的中央银行。</blockquote> The evolution of the automobile over the past 108 years, from the Ford Model T to Tesla's Model X, has been nothing short of stunning. The Federal Reserve’s advances have been, well, let’s just say slower. Much slower.<blockquote>过去108年来，从福特T型车到特斯拉的Model X，汽车的发展令人惊叹。美联储的进步，好吧，我们只能说慢了。慢多了。</blockquote> Which brings me to my point: Yes, the Federal Reserve has greatly aided our economic well-being (by cushioning us from and even helping us avoid economic catastrophe) and yes it has expanded its influence over the decades (particularly in the 1930s and after the Great Recession in 2008/2009) but its primary modus operandi when it comes to guiding the economy have remained constant.<blockquote>这就引出了我的观点：是的，美联储极大地帮助了我们的经济福祉（通过缓冲我们甚至帮助我们避免经济灾难），是的，它在几十年来扩大了影响力（特别是在20世纪30年代和2008/2009年大衰退之后），但它在引导经济方面的主要工作方式保持不变。</blockquote> I would argue those policies are now outmoded and potentially even detrimental. Yes, there has always been some downside to the Fed’s work, but now — and here’s the crux of it — because of dramatic and unprecedented moves by the central bank recently, the collateral damage may be coming close to outweighing the benefits of the moves themselves.<blockquote>我认为这些政策现在已经过时，甚至可能是有害的。是的，美联储的工作总是有一些负面影响，但现在——这是问题的关键——由于美联储最近采取了戏剧性和前所未有的举措，附带损害可能接近超过这些举措本身的好处。</blockquote> Specifically, the Fed’s boosting of the economy by keeping interest rates low disproportionately helps rich people and thereby actually disadvantages those in need. To put a fine point on it, hedge fund types, corporate executives, hotshot techies and the like are becoming way, way richer, while working people, people with only a high school degree, people of color are falling further and further behind. This isn’t socialist bleating. These are facts, and the Fed is a party to it. As such, the Fed needs a wake-up call, or maybe a reset is a better way to put it.<blockquote>具体来说，美联储通过保持低利率来提振经济，不成比例地帮助了富人，从而实际上使那些有需要的人处于不利地位。准确地说，对冲基金类型、公司高管、技术精英等变得越来越富有，而劳动人民、只有高中学历的人、有色人种越来越落后。这不是社会主义者的咩咩叫。这些都是事实，美联储是其中的一方。因此，美联储需要一个唤醒看涨期权，或者也许重置是更好的说法。</blockquote> I generally abhor Fed bashing. There is an entire cottage industry of mostly conspiracy-minded wingnuts, who howl that the Fed is either moving too early or too late or too much or too little, or is in cahoots with the Trilateral Commission to take over the world. I pay this little heed and suggest you do the same.<blockquote>我通常讨厌抨击美联储。整个家庭手工业大多是阴谋论者，他们哀叹美联储要么行动太早或太晚或太多或太少，要么与三边委员会合谋接管世界。我注意了这一点，并建议你也这样做。</blockquote> What I’m talking about though has nothing to do with harebrained stuff, rather it concerns a sophisticated, highly-regarded institution that has become locked into policies, which though well-intentioned are now producing consequences that can be construed as harmful to our society and economy.<blockquote>不过，我所说的与轻率的事情无关，而是涉及一个复杂的、备受推崇的机构，它已经被锁定在政策中，尽管这些政策是善意的，但现在正在产生可以被解释为对我们的社会和经济有害的后果。</blockquote> Before I get into the particulars, let’s first be clear about what the Federal Reserve is. For one thingthe Fed is a large and complex,(a “messy system”the Washington Post calls it), with “a dozen reserve banks based around the country, plus 20 smaller branch locations… and around 20,000 employees and $2.3 billion worth of real estate.<blockquote>在我进入细节之前，让我们首先明确一下美联储是什么。首先，美联储是一个庞大而复杂的系统（《华盛顿邮报》评级称，这是一个“混乱的系统”），“全国各地有十几家储备银行，加上20个较小的分支机构……以及大约20,000名员工和价值23亿美元的房地产。</blockquote> The Fed states that it “provides the nation with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system.” To fulfill that role, the central bank performsa number of functionsincluding regulating banks, settling payments between financial institutions like banks and promoting consumer protection. But when it comes to actually shepherding the economy, the central bank is informed by what’s called the Fed mandate, that being employment and stable prices.<blockquote>美联储表示，它“为国家提供安全、灵活和稳定的货币和金融体系”。为了履行这一职责，中央银行履行多种职能，包括监管银行、结算银行等金融机构之间的支付以及促进消费者保护。但当涉及到实际引导经济时，央行会受到所谓的美联储使命的影响，即就业和稳定物价。</blockquote> <img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f77ed796f6c2d18bfa7317337191de5c\" tg-width=\"705\" tg-height=\"470\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">FILE - In this May 4, 2021, file photo is the Federal Reserve in Washington. The Federal Reserve's latest nationwide business survey found that the economy strengthened further in late May and early June, despite supply-chain bottlenecks that led to price hikes. The Fed said Wednesday, July 14, 2021 that seven of its 12 regional bank districts reported strong price increases, with the other five reporting moderate gains in prices. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)More<blockquote>文件-在这张2021年5月4日的文件照片中，是华盛顿的美联储。美联储最新的全国商业调查发现，尽管供应链瓶颈导致价格上涨，但经济在5月底和6月初进一步走强。美联储于2021年7月14日星期三表示，其12个地区银行区中有7个报告价格强劲上涨，其他5个报告价格温和上涨。（美联社照片/Patrick Semansky，档案）更多</blockquote> Congress spelled this out by establishing the mandate in theThe Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978(the Humphrey-Hawkins Act) which “establishes price stability and full employment as national economic policy objectives.” Essentially that means trying to ensure as many people as possible have jobs and guarding against too much inflation (or deflation.) A key third objective is to provide for moderate long-term interest rates.<blockquote>国会在1978年《充分就业和平衡增长法案》（汉弗莱-霍金斯法案）中规定了这一点，该法案“将价格稳定和充分就业确立为国家经济政策目标”。本质上，这意味着努力确保尽可能多的人有工作，并防止过度的通货膨胀（或通货紧缩）。）第三个关键目标是提供适度的长期利率。</blockquote> To accomplish these objectives, the Fed has utilized two primary mechanisms. The first has been to lower interest rates to boost the economy when it is slow, or slowing down, and raise them to prevent it from overheating. Since 2008 the Fed has kept rates rock bottom low to help the fragile economy, battered first by the Great Recession and recently by the pandemic.<blockquote>为了实现这些目标，美联储利用了两种主要机制。第一种是在经济放缓或放缓时降低利率以提振经济，并提高利率以防止经济过热。自2008年以来，美联储一直将利率保持在最低水平，以帮助脆弱的经济，该经济首先受到大衰退的打击，最近又受到疫情的打击。</blockquote> The second strategy is buying and selling financial instruments and assets like bonds from banks, or what is known as quantitative easing (when it buys) and quantitative tightening (when it sells.) Buying serves to flood the financial system with cash that spurs the economy, which is what the Fed has been doing so much of lately.<blockquote>第二种策略是买卖金融工具和资产，如银行债券，或者所谓的量化宽松（当它买入时）和量化紧缩（当它卖出时）。购买有助于向金融体系注入刺激经济的现金，这也是美联储最近一直在做的事情。</blockquote> Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics and the author of “Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America,” notes in heropinion piece in the New York Timesthis week that: “assets the Fed has taken out of the economy as part of Q.E. (quantitative easing or buying) now stand at $8.1 trillion, or about one-third ofgross domestic product.” That’s a lot.<blockquote>联邦金融分析公司(Federal Financial Analytics)管理合伙人、《不平等引擎：美联储和美国财富的未来》一书的作者凯伦·彼得鲁(Karen Petrou)本周在《纽约时报》上发表的观点文章中指出：“美联储从经济中取出的资产作为Q.E.（量化宽松或购买）的一部分，目前为8.1万亿美元，约占国内生产总值的三分之一。”太多了。</blockquote> It’s important to note here that low rates and goosing the economy does help people of color, lower educated women and other less wealthy groups, argues Michael Weber, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. It’s just that it benefits the already advantaged more.<blockquote>芝加哥大学布斯商学院金融学副教授迈克尔·韦伯认为，这里值得注意的是，低利率和提振经济确实有助于有色人种、受教育程度较低的女性和其他不太富裕的群体。只是让已经有优势的人受益更多。</blockquote> “Higher income and wealthier people hold stock, particularly white college educated Americans,” Weber says. “They benefit disproportionately more from loose monetary policy. If you put the pieces together, you would indeed see in the data lax monetary policy tends to increase income and wealth inequality.”<blockquote>“收入较高和较富裕的人持有股票，尤其是受过大学教育的美国白人，”韦伯说。“他们从宽松的货币政策中受益更多。如果你把这些碎片放在一起，你确实会在数据中看到宽松的货币政策往往会增加收入和财富不平等。”</blockquote> Many economists poo-poo the idea of trickle down economics, but in a sense that’s what the Fed's policies really are. It puts money into the hands of banks and wealthy people and then hopes they use that money to boost the economy by expanding businesses, hiring workers and giving them raises. But guess what? Banks and rich people haven’t done this enough. How do I know? Simple: Because wealth inequality keeps rising.<blockquote>许多经济学家对涓滴经济学的想法嗤之以鼻，但从某种意义上说，这才是美联储政策的真正含义。它把钱交到银行和富人手中，然后希望他们用这些钱通过扩大业务、雇佣工人和给他们加薪来提振经济。但你猜怎么着？银行和富人在这方面做得还不够。我怎么知道？很简单：因为财富不平等不断加剧。</blockquote> To be fair, much of the blame and responsibility here rests with Congress, which can employ its fiscal policy tools (such tax policy, the earned income tax credit and even a program like universal basic income — where every citizen would receive a government check each month.) It’s also the case that the Fed is using the tools it has at its disposal. Furthermore, of course the Fed doesn’t want to exacerbate wealth inequality. And yet that’s exactly what it keeps doing. It kind of reminds me of that old definition of insanity, as in doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.<blockquote>公平地说，这里的大部分责任和责任在于国会，它可以利用其财政政策工具（如税收政策、所得税抵免，甚至像全民基本收入这样的计划——每个公民都会收到一张政府支票。）美联储也在使用其掌握的工具。此外，美联储当然不想加剧财富不平等。然而这正是它一直在做的事情。这让我想起了精神错乱的旧定义，一遍又一遍地做同样的事情，却期待不同的结果。</blockquote> The notion of inequality being linked to Fed actions has been getting more visibility. A year ago, then presidential candidateJoe Biden proposedthat Congress amend the Federal Reserve Act to “add to that responsibility and aggressively target persistent racial gaps in job, wages, and wealth.”<blockquote>不平等与美联储行动相关的概念越来越引人注目。一年前，时任总统候选人乔·拜登提议国会修改《美联储法案》，以“增加这一责任，并积极针对就业、工资和财富方面持续存在的种族差距”。</blockquote> 'We need to achieve more inclusive prosperity'<blockquote>“我们需要实现更具包容性的繁荣”</blockquote> The Fed itself seems to realize that it needs to change. In August 2020, it released a new strategic framework that suggests it will look at better ways of measuring a successful agenda, which would include all its programs benefiting all Americans. Fed Chair Jay Powell says that means it will look more closely at employment across gender and ethnic groups.<blockquote>美联储自己似乎也意识到需要改变。2020年8月，它发布了一个新的战略框架，表明它将寻找更好的方法来衡量成功的议程，其中将包括所有惠及所有美国人的计划。美联储主席杰伊·鲍威尔表示，这意味着它将更密切地关注不同性别和种族群体的就业情况。</blockquote> Last October, Federal Reserve Bank of San FranciscoCEO Mary Daly,gave a speech titled“Is the Federal Reserve Contributing to Economic Inequality?”(which she did not answer directly, btw.) Daly did acknowledge however that the Fed needed to do more, noting that “we will not take the punch bowl away while so many remain on the economic sidelines.” (This is a reference to former Fed chairWilliam McChesney Martinwho in 1955 essentially said it was the job of the Fed to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going. Meaning it should raise interest rates sooner rather than later to prevent an economic recovery from overheating.)<blockquote>去年10月，旧金山联邦储备银行首席执行官玛丽·戴利发表了题为“美联储是否加剧了经济不平等？”的演讲（顺便说一句，她没有直接回答。）然而，戴利确实承认美联储需要采取更多行动，并指出“当许多人仍处于经济观望状态时，我们不会拿走潘趣酒碗。”（这是指前美联储主席威廉·麦克切斯尼·马丁（William McChesney Martin），他在1955年基本上表示，美联储的工作是在派对开始时拿走潘趣酒碗。这意味着美联储应该尽早加息，以防止经济复苏过热。）</blockquote> Daly went on to say:<blockquote>戴利接着说：</blockquote> “But the most critical aspect of our new framework is not about specific policies. Rather, it is about commitment. The commitment to regularly review our strategy to ensure it continues meeting the needs of the American people. The ingredients of this ongoing review are simple. We need to listen, research, and engage. Keep our minds open to what we hear, bring the best data and analysis to the problems we find, and have hard, action-oriented conversations around the issues holding us back from achieving our full economic potential.” Again, a little short on specifics and action points but fair enough.<blockquote>“但我们新框架最关键的方面不是关于具体政策。相反，这是关于承诺。承诺定期审查我们的战略，以确保它继续满足美国人民的需求。这一正在进行的审查的内容很简单。我们需要倾听、研究和参与。对我们所听到的保持开放的心态，为我们发现的问题带来最好的数据和分析，并围绕阻碍我们充分发挥经济潜力的问题进行艰难的、以行动为导向的对话。”同样，在细节和行动要点上有点欠缺，但足够公平。</blockquote> <img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fd858593f64461e93e08798e95aa414c\" tg-width=\"705\" tg-height=\"470\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 10: Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, poses for a photograph. (Photo by Nick Otto for the Washington Post)<blockquote>加利福尼亚州旧金山-1月10日：旧金山联邦储备银行行长玛丽·戴利(Mary Daly)合影留念。（尼克·奥托为《华盛顿邮报》拍摄）</blockquote> Fed Chair Powell himself recently acknowledged that wealth inequality needed to be addressed: “There’s a growing realization, really across the political spectrum, that we need to achieve more inclusive prosperity,” Mr. Powell remarked to Congress last month,noted the New York Times. But he said the Fed couldn’t be expected to accomplish this on its own and that Congress would need to enact “a much broader set of policies.”<blockquote>美联储主席鲍威尔本人最近也承认需要解决财富不平等问题：“越来越多的人认识到，实际上是在整个政治领域，我们需要实现更具包容性的繁荣，”《纽约时报》指出，鲍威尔上个月对国会表示。但他表示，不能指望美联储独自实现这一目标，国会需要制定“一套更广泛的政策”。</blockquote> There seems to be a louder drumbeat coming from the media ranks as well. Besides Petrou’s Times piece,Frontline released “The Power of the Fed,”this week, which questions why the stock market players et al. benefit inordinately when the Fed “continues to pump billions of dollars into the financial system daily…” (Watch the trailer to hear theWill Lymannarration. I love his voice.)<blockquote>媒体队伍中似乎也传来了更响亮的鼓声。除了彼得鲁的《泰晤士报》文章之外，Frontline本周还发布了“美联储的力量”，质疑为什么股市参与者等。当美联储“继续每天向金融体系注入数十亿美元……”时，他们会受益匪浅（观看预告片，听听威尔·莱曼的旁白。我喜欢他的声音。）</blockquote> OK, so what in fact should the Fed do? Some close to the central bank, like David Wilcox,senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former director of the Federal Reserve’s domestic economics division, and senior adviser to the past three Federal Reserve Chairs (Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen, and Ben Bernanke), say not much more than it’s already doing.<blockquote>好吧，那么美联储实际上应该做什么呢？一些与美联储关系密切的人，如彼得森国际经济研究所高级研究员、美联储国内经济部前主任、过去三任美联储主席（杰罗姆·鲍威尔、珍妮特·耶伦和本·伯南克）的高级顾问大卫·威尔科克斯（David Wilcox），并没有说出比它已经做的更多的事情。</blockquote> “Economic inequality is a serious problem, it’s something that has been trending in the wrong direction for many decades,” Wilcox says. “It’s something I believe should be addressed. It’s something that requires focused government policy actions to fix. But all of that is largely outside the range of capabilities that the Federal Reserve has.\"<blockquote>威尔科克斯说：“经济不平等是一个严重的问题，几十年来一直朝着错误的方向发展。”“我认为这是应该解决的问题。这需要政府采取有针对性的政策行动来解决。但所有这些在很大程度上超出了美联储的能力范围。”</blockquote> “The best that the Fed can do to promote economic equality is to try to ensure as best it can that everybody who wants a job can find one, and that prices are going up at a slow, steady, and predictable pace. The only thing worse for inequality than the Fed doing its job would be for the Fed not to do its job. I don’t think the Fed should be given a broader set of powers.”<blockquote>“美联储为促进经济平等所能做的最好的事情就是尽最大努力确保每个想要工作的人都能找到工作，并且价格以缓慢、稳定和可预测的速度上涨。唯一比美联储做好工作更糟糕的事情就是美联储不做好工作。我认为美联储不应该被赋予更广泛的权力。”</blockquote> And what about the idea of different interest rates for specific regions of the country or for groups with less wealth versus those with more wealth, to pinpoint the Fed’s policies, we ask Wilcox?<blockquote>我们问威尔科克斯，为了明确美联储的政策，针对美国特定地区或财富较少的群体与财富较多的群体采用不同利率的想法又如何呢？</blockquote> “I’m not going to buy into the premise of the question,” he responds. “For one thing, it would be extremely difficult to design a system that would actually have its intended effect. It’s essential those policy tools you’re talking about be wielded by elected representatives of the people. If the Congress has been unable to meaningfully address these issues that to me is a strong signal that there is no political consensus around how best to address these issues.”<blockquote>“我不会相信这个问题的前提，”他回答道。“首先，设计一个真正达到预期效果的制度是极其困难的。你所说的那些政策工具必须由民选代表来运用。如果国会无法有意义地解决这些问题，对我来说，这是一个强烈的信号，表明在如何最好地解决这些问题上没有达成政治共识。”</blockquote> I’m not sure I agree with that last point. Consider all the things in which Congress can’t achieve consensus. Is there any reason that another branch of government, independent or otherwise — executive, judicial or the Fed — shouldn’t take action to address a pressing need?<blockquote>我不确定我是否同意最后一点。考虑所有国会无法达成共识的事情。政府的另一个部门，无论是独立的还是其他的——行政部门、司法部门或美联储——有什么理由不采取行动来解决紧迫的需求吗？</blockquote> Petrou, on the other hand, envisions a Fed which is more open to changing its stripes. First, she believes that the Fed is not interpreting its own mandate correctly. “If you read the law, you will see the first mandate varies between full and maximum employment, but is described as a job for every person who wants to work, which means paying attention to the labor participation rate, not just the nominal unemployment numbers,” she says. That means Petrou thinks the Fed should be holding itself to a higher standard when it comes to employment. Further Petrou says when it comes to interest rates, the third mandate speaks to moderate rates. “No way that rates close to zero are moderate,” she says.<blockquote>另一方面，彼得鲁设想美联储对改变其政策更加开放。首先，她认为美联储没有正确解释自己的使命。“如果你阅读法律，你会发现第一项任务在充分就业和最大就业之间有所不同，但被描述为每个想要工作的人的工作，这意味着关注劳动参与率，而不仅仅是名义上的失业数字，”她说。这意味着彼得鲁认为美联储在就业方面应该坚持更高的标准。Petrou进一步表示，当谈到利率时，第三项指令涉及适度利率。“接近于零的利率绝不是温和的，”她说。</blockquote> So then what should the Fed do, Ms. Petrou? First like Wilcox, she does not believe in targeting specific groups with specific interest rates. “It’s structurally impossible, and from a policy perspective inadvisable,\" she says. “The less the Fed picks winners and losers, the better. They’re unelected, unaccountable, they should stick to their mission and make that mission as small a part of the macro economy as possible.”<blockquote>那么，彼得罗女士，美联储应该怎么做呢？首先，像威尔科克斯一样，她不相信用特定的利率瞄准特定的群体。“这在结构上是不可能的，从政策角度来看也是不可取的，”她说。“美联储挑选赢家和输家越少越好。他们不是民选的，不负责任，他们应该坚持自己的使命，让这个使命在宏观经济中的比例尽可能小。”</blockquote> Having said that, Petrou is prescriptive to a degree. “First, the Fed has made a series of egregious analytical errors,” she says. For example, “it showed household income up because more people were working more hours, but not because wages had risen. Another fix is the gradual but significant reduction in the Fed portfolio. So it no longer owns the market; the market owns itself.\"<blockquote>话虽如此，Petrou在一定程度上是规定性的。“首先，美联储犯了一系列令人震惊的分析错误，”她说。例如，“它显示家庭收入增加是因为更多的人工作时间延长，但不是因为工资上涨。另一个解决办法是逐步但显著地减少美联储的投资组合。所以它不再拥有市场；市场拥有自己。”</blockquote> “Another fix is that the Fed does not provide an iron safety net beneath the market, and allows bonds and other markets to correct themselves, so market discipline returns. The Fed has set markets up for asset price bubbles — that’s very dangerous and it needs to step back.\"<blockquote>“另一个解决办法是，美联储没有在市场下方提供铁的安全网，并允许债券和其他市场自我纠正，因此市场纪律又回来了。美联储为资产价格泡沫设置了市场——这非常危险，需要后退一步。”</blockquote> “Those fixes are all very doable,” she says. “I do not think it will lead to anything other than perhaps a slight slow down or market correction. Frankly, what's the alternative? Like a drug addict, it hurts, but what do you do, keep taking? You have to stop.”<blockquote>“这些修复都是非常可行的，”她说。“我认为这除了可能会稍微放缓或市场调整之外不会导致任何结果。坦率地说，还有什么选择？就像吸毒者一样，这很痛，但你该怎么办，继续服用？你必须停下来。”</blockquote> Tough medicine indeed. The question is, would this withdrawal hurt just the wealthy and speculators, or those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder as well?<blockquote>确实是很难的药。问题是，这种退出只会伤害富人和投机者，还是也会伤害那些处于经济阶梯下层的人？</blockquote> Certainly that is unclear.<blockquote>当然，这还不清楚。</blockquote> What if the Fed, Treasury Secretary (and former Fed chair) Janet Yellen and congressional leaders from both parties, convened a summit on how the federal government should address inequality? I think it would be great. Unfortunately I also think it’s a pipe dream.<blockquote>如果美联储、财政部长（前美联储主席）珍妮特·耶伦（Janet Yellen）和国会两党领导人就联邦政府应如何解决不平等问题召开峰会，会怎么样？我觉得会很棒。不幸的是，我也认为这是一个白日梦。</blockquote> Getting back to the Fed, though, it is a remarkable institution filled with whip-smart folks who can run circles around this pea-brain writer. Like any 100-year-old entity, however, it can get stuck in its ways. Consider the Fed’s take on what it sees as slow gains in productivity in our economy. I remember hearing former Fed vice chair, Stanley Fischer,insisting that technology and cellphones had not really improved productivity. Fischer said the Fed couldn't find any significant gains brought on by laptop or cellphone use in their data. (That made me snarkily wonder if Fischer &amp; Co. had ever even used these items.) The real question though is if you can’t see the effects in the way you measure something and it is blindingly obvious there is an effect, maybe your means of measuring are deficient or flawed and it’s time to change the way you do things.<blockquote>不过，回到美联储，这是一个非凡的机构，充满了聪明的人，他们可以围着这位豌豆脑作家打转。然而，就像任何有100年历史的实体一样，它可能会陷入困境。想想美联储对我们经济生产率增长缓慢的看法。我记得听到前美联储副主席斯坦利·费舍尔坚持认为，技术和手机并没有真正提高生产率。费舍尔表示，美联储在数据中找不到笔记本电脑或手机使用带来的任何显着收益。（这让我讽刺地怀疑费舍尔公司是否曾经使用过这些物品。）然而，真正的问题是，如果你看不到你测量某样东西的方式的影响，而很明显有影响，也许你的测量方法有缺陷或有缺陷，是时候改变你做事的方式了。</blockquote> Ditto when it comes to the Fed changing the way it addresses inequality.<blockquote>美联储改变解决不平等问题的方式也是如此。</blockquote>","source":"lsy1612507957220","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>How the Federal Reserve can really help America<blockquote>美联储如何真正帮助美国</blockquote></title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 12.5px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nHow the Federal Reserve can really help America<blockquote>美联储如何真正帮助美国</blockquote>\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\nfinance.yahoo2021-07-19 07:52\n\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n1913 was a big year for America. On October 7, Henry Ford introduced the world’s first moving car assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan. Then two months later, on December 23, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act creating our nation’s central bank.<blockquote>1913年对美国来说是重要的一年。10月7日，亨利·福特在密歇根州高地公园推出了世界上第一条移动汽车装配线。两个月后，12月23日，国会通过了《美联储法案》，创建了我们国家的中央银行。</blockquote> The evolution of the automobile over the past 108 years, from the Ford Model T to Tesla's Model X, has been nothing short of stunning. The Federal Reserve’s advances have been, well, let’s just say slower. Much slower.<blockquote>过去108年来，从福特T型车到特斯拉的Model X，汽车的发展令人惊叹。美联储的进步，好吧，我们只能说慢了。慢多了。</blockquote> Which brings me to my point: Yes, the Federal Reserve has greatly aided our economic well-being (by cushioning us from and even helping us avoid economic catastrophe) and yes it has expanded its influence over the decades (particularly in the 1930s and after the Great Recession in 2008/2009) but its primary modus operandi when it comes to guiding the economy have remained constant.<blockquote>这就引出了我的观点：是的，美联储极大地帮助了我们的经济福祉（通过缓冲我们甚至帮助我们避免经济灾难），是的，它在几十年来扩大了影响力（特别是在20世纪30年代和2008/2009年大衰退之后），但它在引导经济方面的主要工作方式保持不变。</blockquote> I would argue those policies are now outmoded and potentially even detrimental. Yes, there has always been some downside to the Fed’s work, but now — and here’s the crux of it — because of dramatic and unprecedented moves by the central bank recently, the collateral damage may be coming close to outweighing the benefits of the moves themselves.<blockquote>我认为这些政策现在已经过时，甚至可能是有害的。是的，美联储的工作总是有一些负面影响，但现在——这是问题的关键——由于美联储最近采取了戏剧性和前所未有的举措，附带损害可能接近超过这些举措本身的好处。</blockquote> Specifically, the Fed’s boosting of the economy by keeping interest rates low disproportionately helps rich people and thereby actually disadvantages those in need. To put a fine point on it, hedge fund types, corporate executives, hotshot techies and the like are becoming way, way richer, while working people, people with only a high school degree, people of color are falling further and further behind. This isn’t socialist bleating. These are facts, and the Fed is a party to it. As such, the Fed needs a wake-up call, or maybe a reset is a better way to put it.<blockquote>具体来说，美联储通过保持低利率来提振经济，不成比例地帮助了富人，从而实际上使那些有需要的人处于不利地位。准确地说，对冲基金类型、公司高管、技术精英等变得越来越富有，而劳动人民、只有高中学历的人、有色人种越来越落后。这不是社会主义者的咩咩叫。这些都是事实，美联储是其中的一方。因此，美联储需要一个唤醒看涨期权，或者也许重置是更好的说法。</blockquote> I generally abhor Fed bashing. There is an entire cottage industry of mostly conspiracy-minded wingnuts, who howl that the Fed is either moving too early or too late or too much or too little, or is in cahoots with the Trilateral Commission to take over the world. I pay this little heed and suggest you do the same.<blockquote>我通常讨厌抨击美联储。整个家庭手工业大多是阴谋论者，他们哀叹美联储要么行动太早或太晚或太多或太少，要么与三边委员会合谋接管世界。我注意了这一点，并建议你也这样做。</blockquote> What I’m talking about though has nothing to do with harebrained stuff, rather it concerns a sophisticated, highly-regarded institution that has become locked into policies, which though well-intentioned are now producing consequences that can be construed as harmful to our society and economy.<blockquote>不过，我所说的与轻率的事情无关，而是涉及一个复杂的、备受推崇的机构，它已经被锁定在政策中，尽管这些政策是善意的，但现在正在产生可以被解释为对我们的社会和经济有害的后果。</blockquote> Before I get into the particulars, let’s first be clear about what the Federal Reserve is. For one thingthe Fed is a large and complex,(a “messy system”the Washington Post calls it), with “a dozen reserve banks based around the country, plus 20 smaller branch locations… and around 20,000 employees and $2.3 billion worth of real estate.<blockquote>在我进入细节之前，让我们首先明确一下美联储是什么。首先，美联储是一个庞大而复杂的系统（《华盛顿邮报》评级称，这是一个“混乱的系统”），“全国各地有十几家储备银行，加上20个较小的分支机构……以及大约20,000名员工和价值23亿美元的房地产。</blockquote> The Fed states that it “provides the nation with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system.” To fulfill that role, the central bank performsa number of functionsincluding regulating banks, settling payments between financial institutions like banks and promoting consumer protection. But when it comes to actually shepherding the economy, the central bank is informed by what’s called the Fed mandate, that being employment and stable prices.<blockquote>美联储表示，它“为国家提供安全、灵活和稳定的货币和金融体系”。为了履行这一职责，中央银行履行多种职能，包括监管银行、结算银行等金融机构之间的支付以及促进消费者保护。但当涉及到实际引导经济时，央行会受到所谓的美联储使命的影响，即就业和稳定物价。</blockquote> <img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f77ed796f6c2d18bfa7317337191de5c\" tg-width=\"705\" tg-height=\"470\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">FILE - In this May 4, 2021, file photo is the Federal Reserve in Washington. The Federal Reserve's latest nationwide business survey found that the economy strengthened further in late May and early June, despite supply-chain bottlenecks that led to price hikes. The Fed said Wednesday, July 14, 2021 that seven of its 12 regional bank districts reported strong price increases, with the other five reporting moderate gains in prices. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)More<blockquote>文件-在这张2021年5月4日的文件照片中，是华盛顿的美联储。美联储最新的全国商业调查发现，尽管供应链瓶颈导致价格上涨，但经济在5月底和6月初进一步走强。美联储于2021年7月14日星期三表示，其12个地区银行区中有7个报告价格强劲上涨，其他5个报告价格温和上涨。（美联社照片/Patrick Semansky，档案）更多</blockquote> Congress spelled this out by establishing the mandate in theThe Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978(the Humphrey-Hawkins Act) which “establishes price stability and full employment as national economic policy objectives.” Essentially that means trying to ensure as many people as possible have jobs and guarding against too much inflation (or deflation.) A key third objective is to provide for moderate long-term interest rates.<blockquote>国会在1978年《充分就业和平衡增长法案》（汉弗莱-霍金斯法案）中规定了这一点，该法案“将价格稳定和充分就业确立为国家经济政策目标”。本质上，这意味着努力确保尽可能多的人有工作，并防止过度的通货膨胀（或通货紧缩）。）第三个关键目标是提供适度的长期利率。</blockquote> To accomplish these objectives, the Fed has utilized two primary mechanisms. The first has been to lower interest rates to boost the economy when it is slow, or slowing down, and raise them to prevent it from overheating. Since 2008 the Fed has kept rates rock bottom low to help the fragile economy, battered first by the Great Recession and recently by the pandemic.<blockquote>为了实现这些目标，美联储利用了两种主要机制。第一种是在经济放缓或放缓时降低利率以提振经济，并提高利率以防止经济过热。自2008年以来，美联储一直将利率保持在最低水平，以帮助脆弱的经济，该经济首先受到大衰退的打击，最近又受到疫情的打击。</blockquote> The second strategy is buying and selling financial instruments and assets like bonds from banks, or what is known as quantitative easing (when it buys) and quantitative tightening (when it sells.) Buying serves to flood the financial system with cash that spurs the economy, which is what the Fed has been doing so much of lately.<blockquote>第二种策略是买卖金融工具和资产，如银行债券，或者所谓的量化宽松（当它买入时）和量化紧缩（当它卖出时）。购买有助于向金融体系注入刺激经济的现金，这也是美联储最近一直在做的事情。</blockquote> Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics and the author of “Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America,” notes in heropinion piece in the New York Timesthis week that: “assets the Fed has taken out of the economy as part of Q.E. (quantitative easing or buying) now stand at $8.1 trillion, or about one-third ofgross domestic product.” That’s a lot.<blockquote>联邦金融分析公司(Federal Financial Analytics)管理合伙人、《不平等引擎：美联储和美国财富的未来》一书的作者凯伦·彼得鲁(Karen Petrou)本周在《纽约时报》上发表的观点文章中指出：“美联储从经济中取出的资产作为Q.E.（量化宽松或购买）的一部分，目前为8.1万亿美元，约占国内生产总值的三分之一。”太多了。</blockquote> It’s important to note here that low rates and goosing the economy does help people of color, lower educated women and other less wealthy groups, argues Michael Weber, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. It’s just that it benefits the already advantaged more.<blockquote>芝加哥大学布斯商学院金融学副教授迈克尔·韦伯认为，这里值得注意的是，低利率和提振经济确实有助于有色人种、受教育程度较低的女性和其他不太富裕的群体。只是让已经有优势的人受益更多。</blockquote> “Higher income and wealthier people hold stock, particularly white college educated Americans,” Weber says. “They benefit disproportionately more from loose monetary policy. If you put the pieces together, you would indeed see in the data lax monetary policy tends to increase income and wealth inequality.”<blockquote>“收入较高和较富裕的人持有股票，尤其是受过大学教育的美国白人，”韦伯说。“他们从宽松的货币政策中受益更多。如果你把这些碎片放在一起，你确实会在数据中看到宽松的货币政策往往会增加收入和财富不平等。”</blockquote> Many economists poo-poo the idea of trickle down economics, but in a sense that’s what the Fed's policies really are. It puts money into the hands of banks and wealthy people and then hopes they use that money to boost the economy by expanding businesses, hiring workers and giving them raises. But guess what? Banks and rich people haven’t done this enough. How do I know? Simple: Because wealth inequality keeps rising.<blockquote>许多经济学家对涓滴经济学的想法嗤之以鼻，但从某种意义上说，这才是美联储政策的真正含义。它把钱交到银行和富人手中，然后希望他们用这些钱通过扩大业务、雇佣工人和给他们加薪来提振经济。但你猜怎么着？银行和富人在这方面做得还不够。我怎么知道？很简单：因为财富不平等不断加剧。</blockquote> To be fair, much of the blame and responsibility here rests with Congress, which can employ its fiscal policy tools (such tax policy, the earned income tax credit and even a program like universal basic income — where every citizen would receive a government check each month.) It’s also the case that the Fed is using the tools it has at its disposal. Furthermore, of course the Fed doesn’t want to exacerbate wealth inequality. And yet that’s exactly what it keeps doing. It kind of reminds me of that old definition of insanity, as in doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.<blockquote>公平地说，这里的大部分责任和责任在于国会，它可以利用其财政政策工具（如税收政策、所得税抵免，甚至像全民基本收入这样的计划——每个公民都会收到一张政府支票。）美联储也在使用其掌握的工具。此外，美联储当然不想加剧财富不平等。然而这正是它一直在做的事情。这让我想起了精神错乱的旧定义，一遍又一遍地做同样的事情，却期待不同的结果。</blockquote> The notion of inequality being linked to Fed actions has been getting more visibility. A year ago, then presidential candidateJoe Biden proposedthat Congress amend the Federal Reserve Act to “add to that responsibility and aggressively target persistent racial gaps in job, wages, and wealth.”<blockquote>不平等与美联储行动相关的概念越来越引人注目。一年前，时任总统候选人乔·拜登提议国会修改《美联储法案》，以“增加这一责任，并积极针对就业、工资和财富方面持续存在的种族差距”。</blockquote> 'We need to achieve more inclusive prosperity'<blockquote>“我们需要实现更具包容性的繁荣”</blockquote> The Fed itself seems to realize that it needs to change. In August 2020, it released a new strategic framework that suggests it will look at better ways of measuring a successful agenda, which would include all its programs benefiting all Americans. Fed Chair Jay Powell says that means it will look more closely at employment across gender and ethnic groups.<blockquote>美联储自己似乎也意识到需要改变。2020年8月，它发布了一个新的战略框架，表明它将寻找更好的方法来衡量成功的议程，其中将包括所有惠及所有美国人的计划。美联储主席杰伊·鲍威尔表示，这意味着它将更密切地关注不同性别和种族群体的就业情况。</blockquote> Last October, Federal Reserve Bank of San FranciscoCEO Mary Daly,gave a speech titled“Is the Federal Reserve Contributing to Economic Inequality?”(which she did not answer directly, btw.) Daly did acknowledge however that the Fed needed to do more, noting that “we will not take the punch bowl away while so many remain on the economic sidelines.” (This is a reference to former Fed chairWilliam McChesney Martinwho in 1955 essentially said it was the job of the Fed to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going. Meaning it should raise interest rates sooner rather than later to prevent an economic recovery from overheating.)<blockquote>去年10月，旧金山联邦储备银行首席执行官玛丽·戴利发表了题为“美联储是否加剧了经济不平等？”的演讲（顺便说一句，她没有直接回答。）然而，戴利确实承认美联储需要采取更多行动，并指出“当许多人仍处于经济观望状态时，我们不会拿走潘趣酒碗。”（这是指前美联储主席威廉·麦克切斯尼·马丁（William McChesney Martin），他在1955年基本上表示，美联储的工作是在派对开始时拿走潘趣酒碗。这意味着美联储应该尽早加息，以防止经济复苏过热。）</blockquote> Daly went on to say:<blockquote>戴利接着说：</blockquote> “But the most critical aspect of our new framework is not about specific policies. Rather, it is about commitment. The commitment to regularly review our strategy to ensure it continues meeting the needs of the American people. The ingredients of this ongoing review are simple. We need to listen, research, and engage. Keep our minds open to what we hear, bring the best data and analysis to the problems we find, and have hard, action-oriented conversations around the issues holding us back from achieving our full economic potential.” Again, a little short on specifics and action points but fair enough.<blockquote>“但我们新框架最关键的方面不是关于具体政策。相反，这是关于承诺。承诺定期审查我们的战略，以确保它继续满足美国人民的需求。这一正在进行的审查的内容很简单。我们需要倾听、研究和参与。对我们所听到的保持开放的心态，为我们发现的问题带来最好的数据和分析，并围绕阻碍我们充分发挥经济潜力的问题进行艰难的、以行动为导向的对话。”同样，在细节和行动要点上有点欠缺，但足够公平。</blockquote> <img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fd858593f64461e93e08798e95aa414c\" tg-width=\"705\" tg-height=\"470\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 10: Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, poses for a photograph. (Photo by Nick Otto for the Washington Post)<blockquote>加利福尼亚州旧金山-1月10日：旧金山联邦储备银行行长玛丽·戴利(Mary Daly)合影留念。（尼克·奥托为《华盛顿邮报》拍摄）</blockquote> Fed Chair Powell himself recently acknowledged that wealth inequality needed to be addressed: “There’s a growing realization, really across the political spectrum, that we need to achieve more inclusive prosperity,” Mr. Powell remarked to Congress last month,noted the New York Times. But he said the Fed couldn’t be expected to accomplish this on its own and that Congress would need to enact “a much broader set of policies.”<blockquote>美联储主席鲍威尔本人最近也承认需要解决财富不平等问题：“越来越多的人认识到，实际上是在整个政治领域，我们需要实现更具包容性的繁荣，”《纽约时报》指出，鲍威尔上个月对国会表示。但他表示，不能指望美联储独自实现这一目标，国会需要制定“一套更广泛的政策”。</blockquote> There seems to be a louder drumbeat coming from the media ranks as well. Besides Petrou’s Times piece,Frontline released “The Power of the Fed,”this week, which questions why the stock market players et al. benefit inordinately when the Fed “continues to pump billions of dollars into the financial system daily…” (Watch the trailer to hear theWill Lymannarration. I love his voice.)<blockquote>媒体队伍中似乎也传来了更响亮的鼓声。除了彼得鲁的《泰晤士报》文章之外，Frontline本周还发布了“美联储的力量”，质疑为什么股市参与者等。当美联储“继续每天向金融体系注入数十亿美元……”时，他们会受益匪浅（观看预告片，听听威尔·莱曼的旁白。我喜欢他的声音。）</blockquote> OK, so what in fact should the Fed do? Some close to the central bank, like David Wilcox,senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former director of the Federal Reserve’s domestic economics division, and senior adviser to the past three Federal Reserve Chairs (Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen, and Ben Bernanke), say not much more than it’s already doing.<blockquote>好吧，那么美联储实际上应该做什么呢？一些与美联储关系密切的人，如彼得森国际经济研究所高级研究员、美联储国内经济部前主任、过去三任美联储主席（杰罗姆·鲍威尔、珍妮特·耶伦和本·伯南克）的高级顾问大卫·威尔科克斯（David Wilcox），并没有说出比它已经做的更多的事情。</blockquote> “Economic inequality is a serious problem, it’s something that has been trending in the wrong direction for many decades,” Wilcox says. “It’s something I believe should be addressed. It’s something that requires focused government policy actions to fix. But all of that is largely outside the range of capabilities that the Federal Reserve has.\"<blockquote>威尔科克斯说：“经济不平等是一个严重的问题，几十年来一直朝着错误的方向发展。”“我认为这是应该解决的问题。这需要政府采取有针对性的政策行动来解决。但所有这些在很大程度上超出了美联储的能力范围。”</blockquote> “The best that the Fed can do to promote economic equality is to try to ensure as best it can that everybody who wants a job can find one, and that prices are going up at a slow, steady, and predictable pace. The only thing worse for inequality than the Fed doing its job would be for the Fed not to do its job. I don’t think the Fed should be given a broader set of powers.”<blockquote>“美联储为促进经济平等所能做的最好的事情就是尽最大努力确保每个想要工作的人都能找到工作，并且价格以缓慢、稳定和可预测的速度上涨。唯一比美联储做好工作更糟糕的事情就是美联储不做好工作。我认为美联储不应该被赋予更广泛的权力。”</blockquote> And what about the idea of different interest rates for specific regions of the country or for groups with less wealth versus those with more wealth, to pinpoint the Fed’s policies, we ask Wilcox?<blockquote>我们问威尔科克斯，为了明确美联储的政策，针对美国特定地区或财富较少的群体与财富较多的群体采用不同利率的想法又如何呢？</blockquote> “I’m not going to buy into the premise of the question,” he responds. “For one thing, it would be extremely difficult to design a system that would actually have its intended effect. It’s essential those policy tools you’re talking about be wielded by elected representatives of the people. If the Congress has been unable to meaningfully address these issues that to me is a strong signal that there is no political consensus around how best to address these issues.”<blockquote>“我不会相信这个问题的前提，”他回答道。“首先，设计一个真正达到预期效果的制度是极其困难的。你所说的那些政策工具必须由民选代表来运用。如果国会无法有意义地解决这些问题，对我来说，这是一个强烈的信号，表明在如何最好地解决这些问题上没有达成政治共识。”</blockquote> I’m not sure I agree with that last point. Consider all the things in which Congress can’t achieve consensus. Is there any reason that another branch of government, independent or otherwise — executive, judicial or the Fed — shouldn’t take action to address a pressing need?<blockquote>我不确定我是否同意最后一点。考虑所有国会无法达成共识的事情。政府的另一个部门，无论是独立的还是其他的——行政部门、司法部门或美联储——有什么理由不采取行动来解决紧迫的需求吗？</blockquote> Petrou, on the other hand, envisions a Fed which is more open to changing its stripes. First, she believes that the Fed is not interpreting its own mandate correctly. “If you read the law, you will see the first mandate varies between full and maximum employment, but is described as a job for every person who wants to work, which means paying attention to the labor participation rate, not just the nominal unemployment numbers,” she says. That means Petrou thinks the Fed should be holding itself to a higher standard when it comes to employment. Further Petrou says when it comes to interest rates, the third mandate speaks to moderate rates. “No way that rates close to zero are moderate,” she says.<blockquote>另一方面，彼得鲁设想美联储对改变其政策更加开放。首先，她认为美联储没有正确解释自己的使命。“如果你阅读法律，你会发现第一项任务在充分就业和最大就业之间有所不同，但被描述为每个想要工作的人的工作，这意味着关注劳动参与率，而不仅仅是名义上的失业数字，”她说。这意味着彼得鲁认为美联储在就业方面应该坚持更高的标准。Petrou进一步表示，当谈到利率时，第三项指令涉及适度利率。“接近于零的利率绝不是温和的，”她说。</blockquote> So then what should the Fed do, Ms. Petrou? First like Wilcox, she does not believe in targeting specific groups with specific interest rates. “It’s structurally impossible, and from a policy perspective inadvisable,\" she says. “The less the Fed picks winners and losers, the better. They’re unelected, unaccountable, they should stick to their mission and make that mission as small a part of the macro economy as possible.”<blockquote>那么，彼得罗女士，美联储应该怎么做呢？首先，像威尔科克斯一样，她不相信用特定的利率瞄准特定的群体。“这在结构上是不可能的，从政策角度来看也是不可取的，”她说。“美联储挑选赢家和输家越少越好。他们不是民选的，不负责任，他们应该坚持自己的使命，让这个使命在宏观经济中的比例尽可能小。”</blockquote> Having said that, Petrou is prescriptive to a degree. “First, the Fed has made a series of egregious analytical errors,” she says. For example, “it showed household income up because more people were working more hours, but not because wages had risen. Another fix is the gradual but significant reduction in the Fed portfolio. So it no longer owns the market; the market owns itself.\"<blockquote>话虽如此，Petrou在一定程度上是规定性的。“首先，美联储犯了一系列令人震惊的分析错误，”她说。例如，“它显示家庭收入增加是因为更多的人工作时间延长，但不是因为工资上涨。另一个解决办法是逐步但显著地减少美联储的投资组合。所以它不再拥有市场；市场拥有自己。”</blockquote> “Another fix is that the Fed does not provide an iron safety net beneath the market, and allows bonds and other markets to correct themselves, so market discipline returns. The Fed has set markets up for asset price bubbles — that’s very dangerous and it needs to step back.\"<blockquote>“另一个解决办法是，美联储没有在市场下方提供铁的安全网，并允许债券和其他市场自我纠正，因此市场纪律又回来了。美联储为资产价格泡沫设置了市场——这非常危险，需要后退一步。”</blockquote> “Those fixes are all very doable,” she says. “I do not think it will lead to anything other than perhaps a slight slow down or market correction. Frankly, what's the alternative? Like a drug addict, it hurts, but what do you do, keep taking? You have to stop.”<blockquote>“这些修复都是非常可行的，”她说。“我认为这除了可能会稍微放缓或市场调整之外不会导致任何结果。坦率地说，还有什么选择？就像吸毒者一样，这很痛，但你该怎么办，继续服用？你必须停下来。”</blockquote> Tough medicine indeed. The question is, would this withdrawal hurt just the wealthy and speculators, or those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder as well?<blockquote>确实是很难的药。问题是，这种退出只会伤害富人和投机者，还是也会伤害那些处于经济阶梯下层的人？</blockquote> Certainly that is unclear.<blockquote>当然，这还不清楚。</blockquote> What if the Fed, Treasury Secretary (and former Fed chair) Janet Yellen and congressional leaders from both parties, convened a summit on how the federal government should address inequality? I think it would be great. Unfortunately I also think it’s a pipe dream.<blockquote>如果美联储、财政部长（前美联储主席）珍妮特·耶伦（Janet Yellen）和国会两党领导人就联邦政府应如何解决不平等问题召开峰会，会怎么样？我觉得会很棒。不幸的是，我也认为这是一个白日梦。</blockquote> Getting back to the Fed, though, it is a remarkable institution filled with whip-smart folks who can run circles around this pea-brain writer. Like any 100-year-old entity, however, it can get stuck in its ways. Consider the Fed’s take on what it sees as slow gains in productivity in our economy. I remember hearing former Fed vice chair, Stanley Fischer,insisting that technology and cellphones had not really improved productivity. Fischer said the Fed couldn't find any significant gains brought on by laptop or cellphone use in their data. (That made me snarkily wonder if Fischer &amp; Co. had ever even used these items.) The real question though is if you can’t see the effects in the way you measure something and it is blindingly obvious there is an effect, maybe your means of measuring are deficient or flawed and it’s time to change the way you do things.<blockquote>不过，回到美联储，这是一个非凡的机构，充满了聪明的人，他们可以围着这位豌豆脑作家打转。然而，就像任何有100年历史的实体一样，它可能会陷入困境。想想美联储对我们经济生产率增长缓慢的看法。我记得听到前美联储副主席斯坦利·费舍尔坚持认为，技术和手机并没有真正提高生产率。费舍尔表示，美联储在数据中找不到笔记本电脑或手机使用带来的任何显着收益。（这让我讽刺地怀疑费舍尔公司是否曾经使用过这些物品。）然而，真正的问题是，如果你看不到你测量某样东西的方式的影响，而很明显有影响，也许你的测量方法有缺陷或有缺陷，是时候改变你做事的方式了。</blockquote> Ditto when it comes to the Fed changing the way it addresses inequality.<blockquote>美联储改变解决不平等问题的方式也是如此。</blockquote>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n 来源：<a href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-federal-reserve-can-really-help-america-100301361.html\">finance.yahoo</a>\n为提升您的阅读体验，我们对本页面进行了排版优化\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-federal-reserve-can-really-help-america-100301361.html","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1123760994","content_text":"1913 was a big year for America. On October 7, Henry Ford introduced the world’s first moving car assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan. Then two months later, on December 23, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act creating our nation’s central bank.\nThe evolution of the automobile over the past 108 years, from the Ford Model T to Tesla's Model X, has been nothing short of stunning. The Federal Reserve’s advances have been, well, let’s just say slower. Much slower.\nWhich brings me to my point: Yes, the Federal Reserve has greatly aided our economic well-being (by cushioning us from and even helping us avoid economic catastrophe) and yes it has expanded its influence over the decades (particularly in the 1930s and after the Great Recession in 2008/2009) but its primary modus operandi when it comes to guiding the economy have remained constant.\nI would argue those policies are now outmoded and potentially even detrimental. Yes, there has always been some downside to the Fed’s work, but now — and here’s the crux of it — because of dramatic and unprecedented moves by the central bank recently, the collateral damage may be coming close to outweighing the benefits of the moves themselves.\nSpecifically, the Fed’s boosting of the economy by keeping interest rates low disproportionately helps rich people and thereby actually disadvantages those in need. To put a fine point on it, hedge fund types, corporate executives, hotshot techies and the like are becoming way, way richer, while working people, people with only a high school degree, people of color are falling further and further behind. This isn’t socialist bleating. These are facts, and the Fed is a party to it. As such, the Fed needs a wake-up call, or maybe a reset is a better way to put it.\nI generally abhor Fed bashing. There is an entire cottage industry of mostly conspiracy-minded wingnuts, who howl that the Fed is either moving too early or too late or too much or too little, or is in cahoots with the Trilateral Commission to take over the world. I pay this little heed and suggest you do the same.\nWhat I’m talking about though has nothing to do with harebrained stuff, rather it concerns a sophisticated, highly-regarded institution that has become locked into policies, which though well-intentioned are now producing consequences that can be construed as harmful to our society and economy.\nBefore I get into the particulars, let’s first be clear about what the Federal Reserve is. For one thingthe Fed is a large and complex,(a “messy system”the Washington Post calls it), with “a dozen reserve banks based around the country, plus 20 smaller branch locations… and around 20,000 employees and $2.3 billion worth of real estate.\nThe Fed states that it “provides the nation with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system.” To fulfill that role, the central bank performsa number of functionsincluding regulating banks, settling payments between financial institutions like banks and promoting consumer protection. But when it comes to actually shepherding the economy, the central bank is informed by what’s called the Fed mandate, that being employment and stable prices.\nFILE - In this May 4, 2021, file photo is the Federal Reserve in Washington. The Federal Reserve's latest nationwide business survey found that the economy strengthened further in late May and early June, despite supply-chain bottlenecks that led to price hikes. The Fed said Wednesday, July 14, 2021 that seven of its 12 regional bank districts reported strong price increases, with the other five reporting moderate gains in prices. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)More\nCongress spelled this out by establishing the mandate in theThe Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978(the Humphrey-Hawkins Act) which “establishes price stability and full employment as national economic policy objectives.” Essentially that means trying to ensure as many people as possible have jobs and guarding against too much inflation (or deflation.) A key third objective is to provide for moderate long-term interest rates.\nTo accomplish these objectives, the Fed has utilized two primary mechanisms. The first has been to lower interest rates to boost the economy when it is slow, or slowing down, and raise them to prevent it from overheating. Since 2008 the Fed has kept rates rock bottom low to help the fragile economy, battered first by the Great Recession and recently by the pandemic.\nThe second strategy is buying and selling financial instruments and assets like bonds from banks, or what is known as quantitative easing (when it buys) and quantitative tightening (when it sells.) Buying serves to flood the financial system with cash that spurs the economy, which is what the Fed has been doing so much of lately.\nKaren Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics and the author of “Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America,” notes in heropinion piece in the New York Timesthis week that: “assets the Fed has taken out of the economy as part of Q.E. (quantitative easing or buying) now stand at $8.1 trillion, or about one-third ofgross domestic product.” That’s a lot.\nIt’s important to note here that low rates and goosing the economy does help people of color, lower educated women and other less wealthy groups, argues Michael Weber, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. It’s just that it benefits the already advantaged more.\n“Higher income and wealthier people hold stock, particularly white college educated Americans,” Weber says. “They benefit disproportionately more from loose monetary policy. If you put the pieces together, you would indeed see in the data lax monetary policy tends to increase income and wealth inequality.”\nMany economists poo-poo the idea of trickle down economics, but in a sense that’s what the Fed's policies really are. It puts money into the hands of banks and wealthy people and then hopes they use that money to boost the economy by expanding businesses, hiring workers and giving them raises. But guess what? Banks and rich people haven’t done this enough. How do I know? Simple: Because wealth inequality keeps rising.\nTo be fair, much of the blame and responsibility here rests with Congress, which can employ its fiscal policy tools (such tax policy, the earned income tax credit and even a program like universal basic income — where every citizen would receive a government check each month.) It’s also the case that the Fed is using the tools it has at its disposal. Furthermore, of course the Fed doesn’t want to exacerbate wealth inequality. And yet that’s exactly what it keeps doing. It kind of reminds me of that old definition of insanity, as in doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.\nThe notion of inequality being linked to Fed actions has been getting more visibility. A year ago, then presidential candidateJoe Biden proposedthat Congress amend the Federal Reserve Act to “add to that responsibility and aggressively target persistent racial gaps in job, wages, and wealth.”\n'We need to achieve more inclusive prosperity'\nThe Fed itself seems to realize that it needs to change. In August 2020, it released a new strategic framework that suggests it will look at better ways of measuring a successful agenda, which would include all its programs benefiting all Americans. Fed Chair Jay Powell says that means it will look more closely at employment across gender and ethnic groups.\nLast October, Federal Reserve Bank of San FranciscoCEO Mary Daly,gave a speech titled“Is the Federal Reserve Contributing to Economic Inequality?”(which she did not answer directly, btw.) Daly did acknowledge however that the Fed needed to do more, noting that “we will not take the punch bowl away while so many remain on the economic sidelines.” (This is a reference to former Fed chairWilliam McChesney Martinwho in 1955 essentially said it was the job of the Fed to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going. Meaning it should raise interest rates sooner rather than later to prevent an economic recovery from overheating.)\nDaly went on to say:\n\n“But the most critical aspect of our new framework is not about specific policies. Rather, it is about commitment. The commitment to regularly review our strategy to ensure it continues meeting the needs of the American people.\n\n\nThe ingredients of this ongoing review are simple. We need to listen, research, and engage. Keep our minds open to what we hear, bring the best data and analysis to the problems we find, and have hard, action-oriented conversations around the issues holding us back from achieving our full economic potential.”\n\nAgain, a little short on specifics and action points but fair enough.\nSAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 10: Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, poses for a photograph. (Photo by Nick Otto for the Washington Post)\nFed Chair Powell himself recently acknowledged that wealth inequality needed to be addressed: “There’s a growing realization, really across the political spectrum, that we need to achieve more inclusive prosperity,” Mr. Powell remarked to Congress last month,noted the New York Times. But he said the Fed couldn’t be expected to accomplish this on its own and that Congress would need to enact “a much broader set of policies.”\nThere seems to be a louder drumbeat coming from the media ranks as well. Besides Petrou’s Times piece,Frontline released “The Power of the Fed,”this week, which questions why the stock market players et al. benefit inordinately when the Fed “continues to pump billions of dollars into the financial system daily…” (Watch the trailer to hear theWill Lymannarration. I love his voice.)\nOK, so what in fact should the Fed do? Some close to the central bank, like David Wilcox,senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former director of the Federal Reserve’s domestic economics division, and senior adviser to the past three Federal Reserve Chairs (Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen, and Ben Bernanke), say not much more than it’s already doing.\n“Economic inequality is a serious problem, it’s something that has been trending in the wrong direction for many decades,” Wilcox says. “It’s something I believe should be addressed. It’s something that requires focused government policy actions to fix. But all of that is largely outside the range of capabilities that the Federal Reserve has.\"\n“The best that the Fed can do to promote economic equality is to try to ensure as best it can that everybody who wants a job can find one, and that prices are going up at a slow, steady, and predictable pace. The only thing worse for inequality than the Fed doing its job would be for the Fed not to do its job. I don’t think the Fed should be given a broader set of powers.”\nAnd what about the idea of different interest rates for specific regions of the country or for groups with less wealth versus those with more wealth, to pinpoint the Fed’s policies, we ask Wilcox?\n“I’m not going to buy into the premise of the question,” he responds. “For one thing, it would be extremely difficult to design a system that would actually have its intended effect. It’s essential those policy tools you’re talking about be wielded by elected representatives of the people. If the Congress has been unable to meaningfully address these issues that to me is a strong signal that there is no political consensus around how best to address these issues.”\nI’m not sure I agree with that last point. Consider all the things in which Congress can’t achieve consensus. Is there any reason that another branch of government, independent or otherwise — executive, judicial or the Fed — shouldn’t take action to address a pressing need?\nPetrou, on the other hand, envisions a Fed which is more open to changing its stripes. First, she believes that the Fed is not interpreting its own mandate correctly. “If you read the law, you will see the first mandate varies between full and maximum employment, but is described as a job for every person who wants to work, which means paying attention to the labor participation rate, not just the nominal unemployment numbers,” she says. That means Petrou thinks the Fed should be holding itself to a higher standard when it comes to employment. Further Petrou says when it comes to interest rates, the third mandate speaks to moderate rates. “No way that rates close to zero are moderate,” she says.\nSo then what should the Fed do, Ms. Petrou? First like Wilcox, she does not believe in targeting specific groups with specific interest rates. “It’s structurally impossible, and from a policy perspective inadvisable,\" she says. “The less the Fed picks winners and losers, the better. They’re unelected, unaccountable, they should stick to their mission and make that mission as small a part of the macro economy as possible.”\nHaving said that, Petrou is prescriptive to a degree. “First, the Fed has made a series of egregious analytical errors,” she says. For example, “it showed household income up because more people were working more hours, but not because wages had risen. Another fix is the gradual but significant reduction in the Fed portfolio. So it no longer owns the market; the market owns itself.\"\n“Another fix is that the Fed does not provide an iron safety net beneath the market, and allows bonds and other markets to correct themselves, so market discipline returns. The Fed has set markets up for asset price bubbles — that’s very dangerous and it needs to step back.\"\n“Those fixes are all very doable,” she says. “I do not think it will lead to anything other than perhaps a slight slow down or market correction. Frankly, what's the alternative? Like a drug addict, it hurts, but what do you do, keep taking? You have to stop.”\nTough medicine indeed. The question is, would this withdrawal hurt just the wealthy and speculators, or those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder as well?\nCertainly that is unclear.\nWhat if the Fed, Treasury Secretary (and former Fed chair) Janet Yellen and congressional leaders from both parties, convened a summit on how the federal government should address inequality? I think it would be great. Unfortunately I also think it’s a pipe dream.\nGetting back to the Fed, though, it is a remarkable institution filled with whip-smart folks who can run circles around this pea-brain writer. Like any 100-year-old entity, however, it can get stuck in its ways. Consider the Fed’s take on what it sees as slow gains in productivity in our economy. I remember hearing former Fed vice chair, Stanley Fischer,insisting that technology and cellphones had not really improved productivity. Fischer said the Fed couldn't find any significant gains brought on by laptop or cellphone use in their data. (That made me snarkily wonder if Fischer & Co. had ever even used these items.) The real question though is if you can’t see the effects in the way you measure something and it is blindingly obvious there is an effect, maybe your means of measuring are deficient or flawed and it’s time to change the way you do things.\nDitto when it comes to the Fed changing the way it addresses inequality.","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{".DJI":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":826,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":4,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"isTiger":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"url":"/m/post/173840976"}