美元及美國金融體系的滅亡
The death of the dollar is coming, and it will probably be Chinathat pulls the trigger. What you are about to read is understood by onlya very small fraction of all Americans. Right now, the U.S. dollar is thede facto reserve currency of the planet. Most global trade is conductedin U.S. dollars, and almost all oil is sold for U.S. dollars. More than 60 percent of all global foreign exchange reserves are held in ars, and far more U.S. dollars are actually used outside of the UnitedStates than inside of it. As will be described below, this has given theUnited States some tremendous economic advantages, and most Americans have no ideahow much their current standard of living depends on the dollar remaining the reservecurrency of the world. Unfortunately, thanks to reckless money printingby the Federal Reserve and the reckless accumulation of debt by the federalgovernment, the status of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world isnow in great jeopardy.
美元的死期就要來了，到時候按下扳機的或許會是中國。你即將要讀到的，在全體美國人中也只有一小部分人能明白。目前美元實際上還是這個星球上的儲備貨幣。全球大部分交易都用美元結算，幾乎所有的石油都被兌換成美元。全球超過60%的外匯儲備都是美元，在美國國外使用的美元要比在國內使用的還多得多……這樣的例子還能舉出很多很多，而這帶給了美國巨大的經濟優勢，大部分美國人根本不知道他們現在的生活水平完全建立在美國還是儲備貨幣的基礎上…不幸的是，由於美聯儲胡亂印錢的做法，還有政府欠下的那一屁股債，美元作爲世界儲備貨幣的地位已然岌岌可危。As I mentioned above, nations allover the globe use U.S. dollars to trade with one another. This hascreated tremendous demand for U.S. dollars and has kept the value of the dollarup. It also means that Americans can import things that they need muchmore inexpensively than they otherwise would be able to.
The largest exporting nationssuch as Saudi Arabia (oil) and China (cheap plastic trinkets at Wal-Mart) endup with massive piles of U.S. dollars…就像我上面提到過的，世界各國之間都在用美元進行貿易。這也就帶來了對美元的巨大需求，如此美元就一直貶不了值。這也就意味着美國人只要使用美元，就可以用低了很多的價錢進口物品。
由此帶來的結果，就是各大出口國，比如沙特阿拉伯（石油）和中國（沃爾瑪裏那些廉價的塑料小製品），每個都拿到了一大堆一大堆的美元……
Instead of just sitting on all ofthat cash, these exporting nations often reinvest much of that cash into lowrisk securities that can be rapidly turned back into dollars if necessary. For a very long time, U.S. Treasury bonds have been considered to be theperfect way to do this. This has created tremendous demand for rnment debt and has helped keep interest rates super low. So everyyear, massive amounts of money that gets sent out of the country ends up beingloaned back to the U.S. Treasury at super low interest rates…
這些國家拿到錢自然不會就放着不動，這些出口國往往會將這些錢再投入到低風險回報快的債券中去，而投入債券的錢很快又產生了新的美元出來。在很長一段時間裏，美國國債玩着一手玩得非常之好。這種做法不僅給美國政府債券創造了巨大的需求，還把利率壓得無比低。因此每年大量的錢都會被送往各國，然後再借貸回來，變成美國的超低息國債……And it has been a very good thingfor the U.S. economy that the federal government has been able to borrow moneyso cheaply, because the interest rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries affectsthousands upon thousands of other interest rates throughout our financialsystem. For example, as the rate on 10 year suries has risen in recentmonths, so have the rates on U.S. home mortgages.
對於美國經濟來說，聯邦政府能借到這麼便宜的款當然是好事啦，因爲十年期的美國國債一旦變化，金融體系裏成千上萬的其他利率都會跟着變化。舉個例子，如果十年期的美國國債在近幾個月內上漲，那麼房屋抵押貸款的利率也會上漲。Our entire way of life in theUnited States depends upon this game continuing. We must have the rest ofthe world use our currency and loan it back to us at ultra low interestrates. At this point we have painted ourselves into a corner byaccumulating so much debt. We simply cannot afford to have rates risesignificantly.
所以，我們美國人之所以還能維持這樣的生活方式，全靠這個遊戲還能持續下去。我們必須保證全世界都用我們的貨幣，都把錢低息貸回給美國。就這麼刺激下去，貸款越堆越高，我們真是把自己推到窘境上了。如果利率大幅增長，我們真是付不起。
For example, if the average rateof interest on U.S. government debt rose to just 6 percent (and it has beenmuch higher than that at various times in the past), we would be paying morethan a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt.
舉個例子，如果美國政府貸款的利率稍微上調，也就調到6%吧（史上還有比這高得多的數字），那麼我們每年光是爲國債利息就要付一萬多億美元。But it wouldn’t be just thefederal government that would suffer. Just consider what higher rateswould do to the real estate t a year ago, the rate on 30 year mortgages was sitting at3.31 percent. The monthly payment on a 30 year, $300,000 mortgage at thatrate is $ the 30 year rate rises to 8 percent, the monthly payment on a30 year, $300,000 mortgage would be $ 8 percent sound crazy toyou?It shouldn’t. 8 percent wasconsidered to be normal back in the year you starting to get thepicture?
這還不是最厲害的。想想看，如果利率上調，對房地產市場會有什麼影響吧。大約一年前，30年期房屋抵押貸款的利率是3.31%。貸款月付，一共30萬美元的話就是1315.52美元。如果30年期貸款利率上升至8%，那麼就成了2201.29美元。這8%嚇不嚇人？這個數還沒什麼。8%只是回到了2000年的正常水平。但您現在應該已經有些明白了吧？We need other countries to useour dollars and buy our debt so that we can have super low interest rates andso that we can afford to buy lots of cheap stuff from rtunately, the truly bizarre behavior of the Federal Reserveand the U.S. government over the past several years is causing the rest of theworld to lose faith in our currency. In particular, China is leading thecall for a “de-Americanized” world. The following is from a recentarticle posted on the website of France24…
我們需要其它國家用我們的美元，買我們的債務，這樣我們才能享受超低利率，纔能有錢從其他國家那裏買到大量便宜貨。不幸的是，美聯儲和美國政府在過去幾年裏的舉動各種奇葩，致使世界其它地方對我們的貨幣失去了信任。尤其是中國，居然站出來號召全世界搞“去美國化”，這是要來一招黑虎掏心啊。請看下面來自France24網站上的一篇文章：For decades the US has benefited to the tune of trillions ofdollars-worth of free credit from the greenback’s role as the default globalreserve as the global economy trembled before the prospect of a USdefault last month, only averted when Washington reached a deal to raise itsdebt ceiling, China’s official Xinhua news agency called for a“de-Americanised” also urged the creation of a “new international reservecurrency… to replace the dominant US dollar”.
幾十年來，美元一直被各國人民當做儲備貨幣來使用，就在這個過程中，美國逐漸構建起了價值幾萬億美無條件信貸。然而上個月美國似乎即將違約，使得全球經濟體人心惶惶，最後華府將債務上限提升才躲過一劫。爲此，中國官方媒體新華社號召全世界“去美國化”。新華社還呼籲各國“創造一種新的儲蓄貨幣…以替代現居主宰地位的美元。”So why should the rest of theplanet listen to China?Well, China now accounts for more global trade than anyone else does, including the United States.
爲啥其他國家都要聽中國的呀？嘛，因爲中國現在的全球交易額比任何國家都要高啊……連美國都比不過了。
China is also now the number one importer ofoil in the world.
中國現在從沙特進口的石油比美國從那裏進口的還要多。
At this point, China is even importing more oil from Saudi Arabia than the United States is.
China now has an enormous amount of economic power globally, andthe Chinese want the rest of the planet to start using less U.S. dollars and tostart using more of their own currency. The following is from a recentarticle in the Vancouver Sun…中國想要這個星球上的其他國家從現在起少用美元，多用他們家的貨幣……請看下面《溫哥華太陽報》近期的一篇文章的節選：
Three years after China allowed the yuan to start trading in HongKong’s offshore market, banks and investors around the world are positioningthemselves to get involved in what Nomura Holdings Inc. calls the biggestrevolution in the $5.3 trillion currency market since the creation of the euroin 1999.野村證券認爲，自歐盟1999年成立後，唯有在這個5.3萬億的貨幣市場中發生的革命方可與比擬。野村證券所說的革命，就是中國允許人民幣在香港離岸市場交易的這三年，而來自全世界的銀行和投資者們都成了這場革命的參與者。
And over the past few years we have seen the global use of theyuanrise dramatically…過去的幾年來，我們都看到在國際市場上人民幣是怎麼突飛猛進的…
International use of the yuan is increasing as the world’ssecond-largest economy opens up its capital markets. In the first nine monthsof this year, about 17 percent of China’s global trade was settled in the currency,compared with less than one percent in 2009, according to Deutsche Bank AG.自從全球第二大經濟體開放資本市場之後，國際上對人民幣的使用也在瘋長。根據德意志銀行的統計，今年頭九個月，17%的中國國際貿易都是貨幣相關，而在2009年貨幣類所佔比例還不到1%吶。
Of course the U.S. dollar is still king for now, but thanks to awhole host of recent international currency agreements this status isslipping. For example, China just recently signed a major currencyagreement with the European CentralBank…當然啦美元現在還是老大嘛，但是由於最近許多國際貨幣條約的關係，這個地位也在滑落……比如中國近期就和歐洲中央銀行簽了貨幣互換協議…
The swap deal will allow more trade and investment between theregions to be conducted in euros and yuan, without having to convert intoanother currency such as the U.S. dollar first, said Kathleen Brooks, aresearch director at .的一名研討主管，凱瑟琳·布魯克認爲：“期貨幣買賣今後將允許各地區就歐元和人民幣進行更多的貿易和投資，不必非要先兌換成美元之類的貨幣了。”
“It’s a way of promoting European and Chinese trade, but notdoing it with the U.S. dollar,” said Brooks. “It’s a bit like cutting out themiddleman, all of a sudden there’s potentially no U.S. dollar risk.”
“這實乃提升歐中雙邊貿易的方法，不過並沒有用到美元哦。” 凱瑟琳·布魯克說道，“這有點像是把中間人趕到一邊，突然之間，大家都不用忍受美元帶來的潛在風險了。”
