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Uncle Sam has a lot of bills to pay, almost $4 trillion worth every year. Uncle Sam’s income is a little over $2 trillion a year, to make up the differences, the deficit, he does what most Americans do. He borrows money.
山姆大叔有一堆债要还，每年大概有4万亿美元，而山姆大叔每年的收入刚刚2万亿美元多一点。为了弥补差额，也就是赤字，他跟其他美国人一样——借钱。
When Uncle Sam takes out a loan, he calls it a bond. Bonds can be held by banks, investors or even foreign governments. Uncle Sam has to promise to pay interest on these bonds, just as you do on any loan you take out.
山姆大叔获得的贷款被称为债券，这些债券可以卖给银行、投资者、甚至其他国家政府。跟你贷款的时候一样，山姆大叔承诺会给债券付利息。
Ever think about paying your mortgage with your credit card? That’s exactly what Uncle Sam does. He takes out new loans, new bonds, so that he can make payments on the old ones.
想过用信用卡套现来还按揭吗？山姆大叔就是这么干的。他借来新的贷款，才能还上旧的债务。
All those loans, and especially, all that interests, adds up. Right now, Uncle Sam owns about $14 trillion. To put that in perspective, $14 trillion is about the same as the national GDP, the total value of all the goods and services produced by the American economy in an entire year.
所有的债券和利息加到一起，山姆大叔已经欠下了14万亿美元债务。换个说法，14万亿相当于美国一年的GDP。
It’s such a huge amount of money that Uncle Sam is starting to run out of people to borrow from, and he’s having trouble just paying the interest on his loans.
欠这么多钱，山姆大叔快要找不到债主了，所以连付利息都成困难了。
The obvious solution would be to either cut spending or increase taxes. But if he cut spending, the people that he’s spending money on would complain that they don’t have money to spend, and that he was hurting the economy. If he tried to raise taxes enough to close this gap, not only would people definitely have less money to spend, he would probably have riots on his hands.
要解决这个问题只能节省开支，或者增税。如果减少开支，国民用于消费的钱就会减少，那样会伤害到经济；如果要大幅增税的话，不仅国民用于消费的钱少了，甚至有可能会发生骚乱。
So Uncle Sam chooses the easy way to make money, just make it.
所以山姆大叔选择用最简单的方法来赚钱——印钞票。
He calls up the Federal Reserve, which is America’s central bank, and like magic, dollars are created and deposited in banks all around America. The problem is the more of something there is, the less it’s worth. Same goes with the U.S. dollar.
他给美联储——美国的央行——打了个电话。银行里就奇迹般地堆满了新造的美元。可问题是，一种东西数量越多，就越不值钱。美元也是一样。
The more dollars there are, the less each one will buy. That’s why commodities like gasoline, food and gold become more expensive when Uncle Sam does his money-making magic. The commodities aren’t really worth more; your money is just worth less. That’s called inflation.
市面上的美元越多，购买力就越低。所以山姆大叔在加印钞票的时候，市面上的汽油、食品和黄金都变贵了。其实不是商品更贵了，而是钱不值钱了。这就是通货膨胀。
Remember the foreign governments that lend money to Uncle Sam? When they lend money to the America government, something interesting happened. It made the U.S. look richer, and their countries look poorer.
还记得借钱给山姆大叔的外国政府吗？当他们借钱给美国政府时，有趣的事情发生了——这会让美国看上去更有钱，而放债的国家更贫穷。
When a country looks poorer compared to America, one dollar of America money buys a lot of their money. So they can pay their workers only a few pennies a day. With such low labor costs, they can sell their products in America for lower prices than any American manufacture can.
当债主国看上去比美国更穷，那美元就可以买到更多的外币。所以在债主国，每天付给工人几便士工资就可以了。劳动力成本这么低，因而卖给美国人的产品价格可以比任何美国厂商的都低。
The easiest way for American companies to compete is to move their factories overseas and pay their workers a few pennies a day too. This contributes to a recession.
这样的竞争压力迫使美国公司把工厂搬到这些国家，也给工人每天只发几便士的工资。这就导致了经济衰退。
Americans lose their jobs, stop paying their taxes and start collecting government benefits like Medicaid and unemployed. This means that Uncle Sam has even less income and even more expenses. At the same time, the people who still have jobs are desperate to keep them. So they tend to do more work but not to get paid any more. When your dollars are worth less, and you are not earning more of them, that’s called stagflation.
美国人丢了工作，不能交税了，还需要领取政府发放的失业和医疗救济。这意味着山姆大叔的收入少了，而开销更大了。与此同时，没失业的人需要拼命保住工作，所以他们不涨工资也要干更多的活。当美元贬值，而同时到手的钱也变少了，这就是滞涨。
And this is why Uncle Sam is in a Catch 22. He can’t raise taxes or cut spending without making the recession worse, and he can’t have the Federal Reserve create more money without making inflation worse.
所以山姆大叔现在是进退两难。他无法在加税和减赤的同时避免加深经济衰退；他也不能既多发行货币又不加剧通货膨胀。
For now, he can keep borrowing more money. But since he can’t even pay the interest on the loans he already has. It just makes his inevitable bankruptcy even worse.
眼下他还能借得到钱，但现在他已经连利息都还不清了，这只会使必然到来的破产更加糟糕。
Whether it’s in two month or in two years, the day will come when Uncle Sam can no longer pay his bills. When that happens, the banks, investors and foreign governments who are counting on that money won’t be able to pay their bills.
不管两个月还是两年，山姆大叔总有付不起钱的那一天。那时候，还指望山姆大叔还钱的银行、投资者和外国政府也就没钱了。
Just like Uncle Sam, governments, banks and corporations don’t actually have much money. Mostly, all they have is debt to each other.
和山姆大叔一样，银行、政府和公司实际上都没什么钱。大多数时候，他们手上是一对三角债。
If one link in a debt chain stops paying, defaults, the whole thing falls apart. If investors can’t pay their bills, corporations won’t be able to pay their employees. If banks can’t pay their bills, you won’t be able to take out a loan, use a credit card, or even withdraw your savings. If foreign governments can’t pay their bills, their own banks and corporations will have the same problems. That’s called a global economic collapse.
债务链条的任何一环违约，都会全盘崩溃。如果投资者拿不出钱，公司就没钱发工资；如果银行拿不出钱，你就贷不了款，用不了信用卡，甚至连存款都取不出来；如果外国政府拿不出钱，他们自己国家的银行和公司也会面临同样的问题。这就是全球经济崩溃。
It never happened before, so nobody really knows how bad it will be, how long it will last, or even how we’ll eventually get out of it.
这还从来没有发生过，所以也没有人知道这会有多可怕，会持续多久，甚至也没有人知道怎么走出崩溃。
The house of cards has already been built, there’s no painless way to dismantle it now.
房子已经用纸牌搭好了（house of cards指不可靠的计划或者制度等），现在想拆除也没那么简单。
2012 Election|奥巴马工作保卫战
美国官方9月2日发布的数据显示，8月份美国失业率仍维持在9.1%的高位，同时奥巴马支持率也跌破4成。为渡过难关，奥巴马9月8日推出一项规模为4470亿美元提振就业的刺激计划，希望借此为连任加分。
"The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working." —President Barack Obama, September 8, 2011
分析认为，这项就业刺激计划效果不甚乐观，原因有两点：
一、缺乏新意。这项以减税、投资基础设施以及直接向地方政府提供救援资金的刺激计划似乎还是在走两年半前的老路。2009年的8300亿美元的经济刺激也提到减税和投资基础设施，却一直无法让没让美国摆脱高失业率。
二、实质或为政治需要，并非经济运行本身要求。当前奥巴马为追求连任匆忙推出的新一轮就业刺激政策，实乃国内选举政治的需要，并非世界经济运行本身的要求。
目前，奥巴马承受着十年来美国为反恐付出的2万亿美元成本，希望继续通过减税措施刺激就业，但似乎美国国内舆论都对奥巴马的新措施没有什么信心。
奥巴马积极争取民众支持，但最新彭博社调查显示，有51%的民众不相信就业法案可以降低失业率，但同时有45%的民众支持法案内容，56%的民众认为法案和党派政治无关。
About the Nickname
山姆大叔 (Uncle Sam) 是美国的绰号和拟人化形象，一般被描绘成身穿星条旗纹样的礼服，头戴星条旗纹样的高礼帽，身材高瘦，留着山羊胡子，鹰勾鼻，精神矍铄的老人形象。这个漫画形象是由著名画家詹姆斯•蒙哥马利•弗拉格（James Montgomery Flagg）依自己长相为公共资讯委员会而画。一般认为“山姆大叔”一名是源于1812年美英战争时期，一位名叫撒米尔•威尔逊（Samuel Wilson，1766—1854）的美国人，他在战争中向美军供应牛肉，桶上的牌子写的是 ‘EA-US’。EA为公司名，US为生产地美国，而Uncle Samuel（山姆大叔）的缩写恰好也是U.S.，于是在一次玩笑中，山姆大叔的说法很快传开，其后成了美国的绰号。美国人把“山姆大叔”诚实可靠、吃苦耐劳以及爱国主义精神视为自己民族的骄傲和共有的品质。1961年，美国国会正式通过一项决议，确认“山姆大叔”为美国的象征。
山姆大叔有一堆债要还，每年大概有4万亿美元，而山姆大叔每年的收入刚刚2万亿美元多一点。为了弥补差额，也就是赤字，他跟其他美国人一样——借钱。
When Uncle Sam takes out a loan, he calls it a bond. Bonds can be held by banks, investors or even foreign governments. Uncle Sam has to promise to pay interest on these bonds, just as you do on any loan you take out.
山姆大叔获得的贷款被称为债券，这些债券可以卖给银行、投资者、甚至其他国家政府。跟你贷款的时候一样，山姆大叔承诺会给债券付利息。
Ever think about paying your mortgage with your credit card? That’s exactly what Uncle Sam does. He takes out new loans, new bonds, so that he can make payments on the old ones.
想过用信用卡套现来还按揭吗？山姆大叔就是这么干的。他借来新的贷款，才能还上旧的债务。
All those loans, and especially, all that interests, adds up. Right now, Uncle Sam owns about $14 trillion. To put that in perspective, $14 trillion is about the same as the national GDP, the total value of all the goods and services produced by the American economy in an entire year.
所有的债券和利息加到一起，山姆大叔已经欠下了14万亿美元债务。换个说法，14万亿相当于美国一年的GDP。
It’s such a huge amount of money that Uncle Sam is starting to run out of people to borrow from, and he’s having trouble just paying the interest on his loans.
欠这么多钱，山姆大叔快要找不到债主了，所以连付利息都成困难了。
The obvious solution would be to either cut spending or increase taxes. But if he cut spending, the people that he’s spending money on would complain that they don’t have money to spend, and that he was hurting the economy. If he tried to raise taxes enough to close this gap, not only would people definitely have less money to spend, he would probably have riots on his hands.
要解决这个问题只能节省开支，或者增税。如果减少开支，国民用于消费的钱就会减少，那样会伤害到经济；如果要大幅增税的话，不仅国民用于消费的钱少了，甚至有可能会发生骚乱。
So Uncle Sam chooses the easy way to make money, just make it.
所以山姆大叔选择用最简单的方法来赚钱——印钞票。
He calls up the Federal Reserve, which is America’s central bank, and like magic, dollars are created and deposited in banks all around America. The problem is the more of something there is, the less it’s worth. Same goes with the U.S. dollar.
他给美联储——美国的央行——打了个电话。银行里就奇迹般地堆满了新造的美元。可问题是，一种东西数量越多，就越不值钱。美元也是一样。
The more dollars there are, the less each one will buy. That’s why commodities like gasoline, food and gold become more expensive when Uncle Sam does his money-making magic. The commodities aren’t really worth more; your money is just worth less. That’s called inflation.
市面上的美元越多，购买力就越低。所以山姆大叔在加印钞票的时候，市面上的汽油、食品和黄金都变贵了。其实不是商品更贵了，而是钱不值钱了。这就是通货膨胀。
Remember the foreign governments that lend money to Uncle Sam? When they lend money to the America government, something interesting happened. It made the U.S. look richer, and their countries look poorer.
还记得借钱给山姆大叔的外国政府吗？当他们借钱给美国政府时，有趣的事情发生了——这会让美国看上去更有钱，而放债的国家更贫穷。
When a country looks poorer compared to America, one dollar of America money buys a lot of their money. So they can pay their workers only a few pennies a day. With such low labor costs, they can sell their products in America for lower prices than any American manufacture can.
当债主国看上去比美国更穷，那美元就可以买到更多的外币。所以在债主国，每天付给工人几便士工资就可以了。劳动力成本这么低，因而卖给美国人的产品价格可以比任何美国厂商的都低。
The easiest way for American companies to compete is to move their factories overseas and pay their workers a few pennies a day too. This contributes to a recession.
这样的竞争压力迫使美国公司把工厂搬到这些国家，也给工人每天只发几便士的工资。这就导致了经济衰退。
Americans lose their jobs, stop paying their taxes and start collecting government benefits like Medicaid and unemployed. This means that Uncle Sam has even less income and even more expenses. At the same time, the people who still have jobs are desperate to keep them. So they tend to do more work but not to get paid any more. When your dollars are worth less, and you are not earning more of them, that’s called stagflation.
美国人丢了工作，不能交税了，还需要领取政府发放的失业和医疗救济。这意味着山姆大叔的收入少了，而开销更大了。与此同时，没失业的人需要拼命保住工作，所以他们不涨工资也要干更多的活。当美元贬值，而同时到手的钱也变少了，这就是滞涨。
And this is why Uncle Sam is in a Catch 22. He can’t raise taxes or cut spending without making the recession worse, and he can’t have the Federal Reserve create more money without making inflation worse.
所以山姆大叔现在是进退两难。他无法在加税和减赤的同时避免加深经济衰退；他也不能既多发行货币又不加剧通货膨胀。
For now, he can keep borrowing more money. But since he can’t even pay the interest on the loans he already has. It just makes his inevitable bankruptcy even worse.
眼下他还能借得到钱，但现在他已经连利息都还不清了，这只会使必然到来的破产更加糟糕。
Whether it’s in two month or in two years, the day will come when Uncle Sam can no longer pay his bills. When that happens, the banks, investors and foreign governments who are counting on that money won’t be able to pay their bills.
不管两个月还是两年，山姆大叔总有付不起钱的那一天。那时候，还指望山姆大叔还钱的银行、投资者和外国政府也就没钱了。
Just like Uncle Sam, governments, banks and corporations don’t actually have much money. Mostly, all they have is debt to each other.
和山姆大叔一样，银行、政府和公司实际上都没什么钱。大多数时候，他们手上是一对三角债。
If one link in a debt chain stops paying, defaults, the whole thing falls apart. If investors can’t pay their bills, corporations won’t be able to pay their employees. If banks can’t pay their bills, you won’t be able to take out a loan, use a credit card, or even withdraw your savings. If foreign governments can’t pay their bills, their own banks and corporations will have the same problems. That’s called a global economic collapse.
债务链条的任何一环违约，都会全盘崩溃。如果投资者拿不出钱，公司就没钱发工资；如果银行拿不出钱，你就贷不了款，用不了信用卡，甚至连存款都取不出来；如果外国政府拿不出钱，他们自己国家的银行和公司也会面临同样的问题。这就是全球经济崩溃。
It never happened before, so nobody really knows how bad it will be, how long it will last, or even how we’ll eventually get out of it.
这还从来没有发生过，所以也没有人知道这会有多可怕，会持续多久，甚至也没有人知道怎么走出崩溃。
The house of cards has already been built, there’s no painless way to dismantle it now.
房子已经用纸牌搭好了（house of cards指不可靠的计划或者制度等），现在想拆除也没那么简单。
2012 Election|奥巴马工作保卫战
美国官方9月2日发布的数据显示，8月份美国失业率仍维持在9.1%的高位，同时奥巴马支持率也跌破4成。为渡过难关，奥巴马9月8日推出一项规模为4470亿美元提振就业的刺激计划，希望借此为连任加分。
"The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working." —President Barack Obama, September 8, 2011
分析认为，这项就业刺激计划效果不甚乐观，原因有两点：
一、缺乏新意。这项以减税、投资基础设施以及直接向地方政府提供救援资金的刺激计划似乎还是在走两年半前的老路。2009年的8300亿美元的经济刺激也提到减税和投资基础设施，却一直无法让没让美国摆脱高失业率。
二、实质或为政治需要，并非经济运行本身要求。当前奥巴马为追求连任匆忙推出的新一轮就业刺激政策，实乃国内选举政治的需要，并非世界经济运行本身的要求。
目前，奥巴马承受着十年来美国为反恐付出的2万亿美元成本，希望继续通过减税措施刺激就业，但似乎美国国内舆论都对奥巴马的新措施没有什么信心。
奥巴马积极争取民众支持，但最新彭博社调查显示，有51%的民众不相信就业法案可以降低失业率，但同时有45%的民众支持法案内容，56%的民众认为法案和党派政治无关。
About the Nickname
山姆大叔 (Uncle Sam) 是美国的绰号和拟人化形象，一般被描绘成身穿星条旗纹样的礼服，头戴星条旗纹样的高礼帽，身材高瘦，留着山羊胡子，鹰勾鼻，精神矍铄的老人形象。这个漫画形象是由著名画家詹姆斯•蒙哥马利•弗拉格（James Montgomery Flagg）依自己长相为公共资讯委员会而画。一般认为“山姆大叔”一名是源于1812年美英战争时期，一位名叫撒米尔•威尔逊（Samuel Wilson，1766—1854）的美国人，他在战争中向美军供应牛肉，桶上的牌子写的是 ‘EA-US’。EA为公司名，US为生产地美国，而Uncle Samuel（山姆大叔）的缩写恰好也是U.S.，于是在一次玩笑中，山姆大叔的说法很快传开，其后成了美国的绰号。美国人把“山姆大叔”诚实可靠、吃苦耐劳以及爱国主义精神视为自己民族的骄傲和共有的品质。1961年，美国国会正式通过一项决议，确认“山姆大叔”为美国的象征。