经济学院 张晨璐 2012141013077
Usury in the USA
美国的高利贷
歌曲滴答滴答原唱Former US Federal Rerve chairman Ben Bernanke locked the US into a regime of near-zero interest rates. Saving accounts are practically denied any interest income, losing about 30% a year in value compared to stocks and 15% a year compared to housing. To keep interest rates so low, Bernanke had to print billions of dollars every month, pushing the balance sheet at the Fed to US$4.2 trillion. And the Fed will keep increasing the money ba ad infinitum, from $4.2 trillion to $10 trillion to $100 trillion, and eventually even further.
武大校花黄灿灿 1.祈祷造句前任美国联邦储备理事会主席本·伯南克将美国锁定在一个几乎是零利率的政权（管理体制）中。实际上储蓄账户没有任何利息收入，相比股票来说一年将近损失了30%的价值，相比房价损失了将近15%。为了保持利率这么低，伯南克每个月不得不印数以亿计的美元，把美联储的资产负债表推到了4.2万亿美元的位置。并且美联储将要无限期地增加货币基数，从
绳卡
4.2万亿美元到10万亿美元到100万亿美元，最终甚至会影响到更远的未来。
The damage inflicted by Bernanke is beyond imagination and difficult to rever. The US went through a terrible financial crisis in 2008, and has been suffering mass unemployment, impoverishment and financial chaos. Like someone hooked on heroin, the process of capital destruction has become politically irreversible. The addict cannot quit until he takes his life.
2.伯南克造成的损失是难以想象并且难以反转恢复的。美国2008年经历了一场糟糕的金融危机，并且也应景遭受了大规模的失业、贫穷和金融动荡。就像迷上海洛因的人一样，资本损毁的过程从政治上来讲是已经恢复不了。这种痴迷难以结束直到他结束自己的生命。架子鼓音乐
Usury laws once existed in many European countries. For instance, in the United Kingdom, usury laws once capped interest rates at 12% per year, then at 5% per year. But the laws were repealed completely in the mid-19th century to allow the market mechanism to allocate resources efficiently. Now the Fed has forced new usury laws on the United States by keeping interest rates so low.
春节黑板报 3.高利贷的法律曾经在许多欧洲国家存在过。比如在英国，高利贷法曾经把年利率上限设在12%，接着是每年5%。但是为了让市场机制有效地分配资源，这些法律在19世纪中叶就被完全废除了。现在美联储通过保持利率在很低水平来将新的高利贷法律强加于美国。
The amount of money printed by the Fed has been a pure confiscation of wealth, undertaken to finance record fiscal deficits, stimulate the economy, reduce poverty, restore full prosperity, and re-establish full-employment. The are laudable objectives, and explain why the Fed has arbitrary power to quester wealth. But this power has a dark side.
4.美联储印刷的钱已经纯粹是财富的充公，承担着为财政赤字融资，刺激经济，减少贫穷（人口），恢复全面繁荣，并且重建充分就业的场面的责任。这些都是值得赞扬的目标，也解释了为什么美联储有没收财富的专制权。但是这种权利也有阴暗的一面。
We should heed the words of Thomas Jefferson, the third US president and a strong opponent of central banking: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corpo
rations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
5.我们应该留心第三任美国总统兼中央银行的强烈反对者——托马斯杰弗森的话：“我认为银行机构比起现役部队对于我们的自由更加危险。如果美国人允许私人银行通过通货膨胀、其次是通货紧缩来控制他们的货币的发行，那么会逐渐成长的银行和企业就会剥夺人们所有的财产，直到他们的孩子在祖先攻下的大陆上醒来，无家可归。这种发行的权利应该从银行被收走并且归还给人民，恰当地归还给它应该属于的人。”
As the Fed continues to destroy the currency, personal asts like bonds will be worthless and millions of Americans will be reduced to poverty and homelessness. Democracy does not cure against totalitarian power.
6.因为美联储持续摧毁货币，像债券之类的私人财产将会一文不值并且成千上万的人将会沦落成贫困和无家可归的人。民主主义相对极权来讲是不安全的。
All the Fed has really been doing is destroying capital. It is like someone who has an orch
ard and keeps cutting down trees, thinking his produce will be somehow greater than before. Finally, he will end up with no capital (trees) and no produce.
7.美联储的所有人一直在做的就是在破坏资本。就像一个拥有一座果园的人一直在砍树，还莫名其妙地认为他的产出会比以前更多。最终，他将会以没有任何资本（树）和任何产出结尾。
Fed maestros like Bernanke and his successor Janet Yellen are firm believers in Keynesianism and Marxism. Both ideologies have strong world-wide support. Top US universities as well as Nobel Prize laureates are among their advocates. Both ideologies are very attractive on paper, but in practice they have turned out disastrously. Countless lives were lost in Marxist revolutions around the world, and total economic disaster followed in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Indonesia.
8.美联储中像伯南克和他的后继人珍妮特·耶伦一样的大师都是凯恩斯主义和马克思主义的坚定信奉者。两种意识形态在全世界范围都有得到强烈的支持。一流美国大学以及诺贝尔奖获奖者都是它们的支持者中的一员。两种意识形态纸上看起来都很吸引人，但是实践起来结果却很悲惨。世界上有无数条生命在马克思的革命中逝去，接踵而至的是在俄国、
世界10大名表乌克兰、中国和印度尼西亚的全面经济危机大灾难。
Likewi, Keynesian economics appear to be very attractive. To get prosperity and full employment, all that the government needs to do is dig holes. Faithful to this doctrine, US President Barack Obama has spent trillions of dollars digging holes, hiking the US debt to incredible levels, without any impact on real investment and growth. Like a smoker who spends his money on cigarettes, all that is left are ashes. If the trillions of dollars were invested by the private ctor, growth in the US and the rest of the world would have been formidable and full employment would have been achieved. Yet Obama remains adamantly committed to digging holes, confiscating private savings and turning real capital into ashes.旅游区
Pragmatic people are not interested in ideologies such as income equality. They are interested in immediate results, and efficient and workable methods. Engineers and doctors do not get locked into one type of method, irrespective of cost. If Thomas Edison, the inventor of light bulbs, had ud only one type of experiment, we would still be using
candles. And if someone gets lost, he will not remain stubbornly on the same road forever. He stops, asks people for directions, and changes cour. Such is not the ca with the Fed or Obama.
The US Fed has a full-employment mandate, which was introduced by a congressman in 1946 and has been cherished ever since. Perhaps one day a congressman will give the Fed a mandate to cure generous rainfall everywhere in the US. Entrusting the Fed with full employment caud the Great Depression and 25% unemployment for many years. It is utter nonn. If we tell a carpenter to do heart surgery, it is easy to predict the outcome.
If the Bernanke-Yellen interest-rate confiscation of wealth is not the solution to full employment, then what is? The answer is the "invisible hand" of the market, which means the government has to abolish minimum-wage laws and unemployment benefits, and withdraw any support for unions. Once the labor market is fully liberated, only volunta
ry unemployment prevails. But as long as the sacred labor laws are in force, the zero-interest-rate regime will only worn unemployment and spread financial chaos and plundering.
There is no government in the world that has been able to rvice a debt at 140% of gross domestic product; a sustainable debt should not exceed 30% of GDP. Saddled with high debts, governments either inflate them away or default on them outright. No government has ever indulged in the prent style of US fiscal and monetary profligacy without running into hyperinflation and chaos. Fortunately for the US Fed, it dismiss any measure of inflation except "core inflation", which excludes many products. Hence, pushing Fed credit from $0.8 trillion to $4.2 trillion has had no effect on core inflation, which remains at one to 2%. But very high inflation is already raging in the stock markets and housing ctor, and food prices have tripled over recent years.
The US is on an irreversible path of fiscal and monetary chaos and capital destruction. To
prevent a collap of over-inflated stocks, and to deal with a huge public and private debt, the US Fed has no choice except to destroy capital, currency, and savers. Politically, the process cannot be arrested for three reasons. First, politicians believe in the prevailing ideologies and can never cast any doubt on their truthfulness. Second, pressure groups such as Wall Street speculators, welfare recipients, and debtors will forcefully defend the subsidies they receive from the state.
Third, the dollar remains a key rerve currency. Therefore, the real burden of fiscal deficits and wealth confiscation is borne by the poor in the rest of world. People in Burundi, Rwanda and elwhere have to squeeze their food intake so that millions of welfare recipients and borrowers can enjoy free wealth. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, malnutrition is deepening in many vulnerable countries. This is also leading to social unrest in many nations.
