年8月15日，美国宣布停止执行作为当时国际货币体系基石的布雷顿森林协议，不再接受外国央行按既定比率用美元向美国兑换黄金。由此，一个美元可与黄金划等号的时代正式宣告终结。时任总统尼克松宣布的这一消息当时让我们的主要贸易伙伴国日本和欧洲深感震惊。When the United States broke up the Bretton Woods international monetary system on Aug. 15, 1971, it marked the official end of an era when the dollar was literally 'as good as gold.' President Nixon's announcement -- that the U.S. would no longer permit foreign central banks to redeem U.S. dollars for gold at the established fixed rate -- shocked Japan and Europe, our main overseas trade partners.
美国这一举动废除了27年前在布雷顿森林达成的、由美国发起、29个成员国代表共同签署的一项正式协议。这项协议的初衷是为战后的国际货币体系建立一个稳定的基础，从而促进自由贸易的繁荣发展。在这一体系下，各国再也不用为获得不公正的竞争优势而采取让货币贬值的短视做法。国家之间因为激烈的经济纷争而导致战争的恶梦将不再重演。It was the repudiation of a formal agreement hammered out some 27 years earlier at Bretton Woods, N.H., and signed by delegates from 29 participating nations. The whole purpose of the agreement -- which was initiated by the U.S. -- was to establish a stable, post-World War II monetary foundation so that free trade could flourish. Never again would nations shortsightedly cheapen their currencies to obtain an unfair advantage; the nightmare of economic warfare leading to military warfare would be ended.
今天，我们的贸易伙伴们再也不会感到震惊了。他们一直期待美国能制定出针对国内问题的货币政策。但是，对于曾经作为靠山的美元如今的日薄西山以及因汇率异常振荡而导致的经济失衡，他们仍深感担忧。他们无疑还会感到自己被美国的“傲慢态度”侮辱了，在他们看来，数十年前尼克松政府的财政部长约翰•康纳利(John Connally)调侃美国盟友的时候就透着这种态度。康纳利曾说：可以说是美元是我们的，但问题是你们自己的。Today, our trade partners are no longer shocked. They have come to expect domestically-focused monetary policy from America. But they are deeply concerned by the demise of the once-dependable dollar and deeply impacted by the economic distortions caused by skewed exchange rates. They are, no doubt, deeply affronted by what they detect as the same cavalier attitude that decades earlier prompted Nixon's Treasury Secretary, John Connally, to quip to U.S. allies: 'It may be our currency -- but it's your problem.'
难道美国已经永远放弃了为推动全球经济拥抱自由贸易而建立一个以规则为基础的货币秩序的理想吗？难道美国已经抛弃了提供全球主要储备货币的一切责任感吗？Has the U.S. forever given up on the dream of a rules-based monetary order for a global economy dedicated to free trade? Have we abandoned all sense of duty associated with providing the world's key reserve currency?
如今大家可能已经忘却了，在二战前的大萧条时期，人们并不认为浮动汇率制是一种符合自由市场精神的汇率制度。相反，它被视为与全球货币秩序相对立的东西。而当时的金本位保证了贸易领域的公平竞争，推动了由市场来决定善意的竞争者在开放的全球市场上的生死存亡。若有国家下调其货币兑黄金的比率（也就是让货币汇率浮动），将被视为是欺骗性行为。These days it's easy to forget that, during the Great Depression years leading to World War II, floating exchange rates were not considered the free-market approach to currencies. They were considered the antithesis of global monetary order. Whereas the international gold standard guaranteed a level playing field in the trade arena, facilitating market-based outcomes among well-intentioned competitors in an open global marketplace, a nation that devalued its money against gold -- i.e., floated its currency -- was considered to be cheating.
操纵汇率被视为一种偷偷挪动标杆的行为。有些国家可能会通过这类行为降低其产品在国外的售价，从而增加自己的出口。针对这种行为，其他国家就会对进口产品设立保护性壁垒作为“回敬”，并针锋相对地降低自己的货币汇率，如此你来我往，结果是遏制了国际贸易的发展，加剧了经济上的恶性循环。Monetary manipulation was akin to moving the goalposts, an attempt to increase exports of your country's goods by rendering them less expensive when calculated in foreign currencies. Other nations responded with protectionist tariffs on imported goods and tit-for-tat currency devaluations of their own, strangling international trade and worsening the downward economic spiral.
以上的历史回顾对我们理解今天的处境以及我们这个国家将面对怎样的问题可谓至关重要。在眼下总统选战闹得如火如荼之际，这一点尤其重要。Historical perspective is critical to understanding where we are now -- and what our nation may be facing even as we evaluate leading presidential contenders.
货币崩盘其实并不是一个离我们很遥远的话题，不需要提交给大学、智库以及国际货币基金组织(IMF)之类的全球性机构在深奥的学术文章里加以论证。(特别是不需劳驾IMF，这个机构早就放弃了它应完成的捍卫布雷顿森林体系固定汇率制的使命)。汇率的混乱影响到了数百万公众的个人财富的价值。一旦失控，它将有可能滋生社会仇恨和引发政治巨变，进而影响到整个国家的命运。Money meltdown is not some remote topic to be relegated to abstruse scholarly articles published by universities, think tanks, and global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. (Especially not the IMF, which long lost its mandate to preserve the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates.) The consequences of currency chaos affect the personal fortunes of millions of individual citizens; once unleashed, it can spawn social resentments and political upheavals that change the destiny of whole nations.
我们应该问问正在竞选总统候选人的奥巴马(Barack Obama)、希拉里(Hillary Clinton)和麦凯恩(John McCain)，他们是否会做些什么来恢复美元作为一种最适宜的计价货币、一种可靠的价值载体的形像。他们是否会对更全面的改革国际货币体系提出什么新的主张？We need to ask Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain what they would do -- if anything -- to restore the integrity of the dollar as a meaningful unit of account, a reliable store of value. Would they put forward any new proposals for more comprehensive international monetary reform?
奥巴马获得了卡特和里根政府时期声望颇高的联邦储备委员会(Fed)主席保罗•沃克(Paul Volcker)的支持。有鉴于此，选民们应该有可能从奥巴马那里听到一个经过深思熟虑的不无意义的回答。沃克2005年曾在《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)撰文说，我们越来越有一种如履薄冰的感觉。他提醒说，七十年代的滞胀时期特征之一就是疲软而动荡的美元、通货膨胀压力、利率突然上升以及一两次大的衰退。该采取什么对策呢？沃克写到：要按照“经济政策上最古老的经验教训，即恪守货币和财政金科玉律“而立即行动起来。Given that Sen. Obama has garnered the support of Paul Volcker, the highly-respected former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan, U.S. voters are apt to get a meaningful and well-considered reply. 'I think we are skating on increasingly thin ice,' Mr. Volcker noted in the Washington Post in April 2005. He warned that the stagflation of the 1970s was characterized by 'a volatile and depressed dollar, inflationary pressures, a sudden increase in interest rates and a couple of big recessions.' Mr. Volcker's solution? Act now to comply with 'the oldest lesson of economic policy: a strong sense of monetary and fiscal discipline.'
而在有关全球货币体系改革这样的涉及面更广泛的问题上，沃克的观点则不那么正统，而是更有幻想意味。他曾在2000年1月表示：我感觉，如果我们希望实现真正的经济全球化，让商品、服务和资本自由流动。那么，创造一种世界性货币便会很有意义。倘若如此，便能够将经济的增长、效率和稳定等目标更好地协调起来。On the broader issue of global monetary reform, Mr. Volcker's ideas are less orthodox, more visionary. 'My sense is that if we are to have a truly globalized economy, with free movement of goods, services and capital, a world currency makes sense,' he stated in January 2000. 'That would be a world in which the objectives of growth, economic efficiency and stability can best be reconciled.'
而共和党候选人麦凯恩在经济政策建议方面则有点尴尬，他的顾问们意见很不一致。Sen. McCain, for his part, suffers from an embarrassment of riches when it comes to economic advice.
他的主要顾问之一是前参议员菲尔•格拉姆(Phil Gramm)。格拉姆拥有经济学博士学位，在财政政策上属于偏保守的预算平衡派，他是诺贝尔经济学奖获得者弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)的后期追随者。正是弗里德曼在上世纪六十年代为推翻布雷顿森林体系、让汇率自由浮动奠定了理论基础，因此可以预计，格拉姆可能会反对对国际货币体系作任何大刀阔斧的改革。不过格拉姆一直强调，应让IMF重新关注其为消除金融和货币不稳定充当短期贷款发放机构的核心使命。另外，他还认为贸易保护主义是“不道德的”做法。One of his chief advisers is former Sen. Phil Gramm, a budget-balancing fiscal conservative with a Ph.D. in economics. Mr. Gramm is a disciple of the late Milton Friedman -- the Nobel laureate who furnished the academic rationale in the 1960s for ditching Bretton Woods and letting currencies float -- and might thus be expected to oppose any sweeping reforms to international monetary relations. Yet he has consistently emphasized the need 'to refocus the IMF on its core mission of short-term lending to address financial and monetary instability.' He considers protectionism 'immoral.'
而麦凯恩的另一位顾问杰克•坎普(Jack Kemp)则鼓吹减税和增长激励政策，反对节制预算。他是供应学派运动的功臣之一，曾为实现里根(Reagan)时代的经济繁荣作出了不懈努力。坎普从不惮于提出大胆建议。Another McCain adviser, Jack Kemp, champions tax cuts and pro-growth policies over budgetary rigidity. A hero of the supply-side movement whose tireless efforts helped to bring about the Reagan boom of the 1980s, Mr. Kemp has never shied away from bold proposals.
1999年在国会作证时，坎普批评保护主义者错误地将矛头指向了自由和开放贸易，而不是问题的真正根源：国际货币体系中的浮动汇率。这种制度使货币没有一个稳定的“锚”作为依托，导致所有国家在经济低迷时期都想把货币贬值作为一种政策工具。Testifying before Congress in 1999, he criticized protectionist instincts that were misdirected at free and open trade 'instead of the real source of the problem -- an international monetary arrangement of floating currencies in which no currency is linked to a stable anchor and all countries are tempted to use currency devaluation as an economic policy instrument during times of economic duress.
坎普推崇的经济学家是蒙代尔(Robert Mundell)，他因对金本位制的运作所作的历史性研究以及优化货币理论而获得诺贝尔奖，被视为“欧元之父”。他认为，在本世纪改革后的国际货币体系中，黄金可以作为一种储备资产存在。' Mr. Kemp's favored economic scholar is Robert Mundell, who received his Nobel for historical research on the operation of the gold standard and his theory of optimal currency areas. Considered the intellectual father of the euro, Mr. Mundell believes gold could be used as a reserve asset in a reformed international monetary system for the 21st century.
如果美元下跌和外汇市场动荡开始让消费者的钱袋瘪下去的时候（比如，美国人发现需要通过加息吸引外国人购买美国国债以填补财政赤字），货币偏差的影响可能会从干巴巴的理论迅速向充满激情的现场电视政治辩论蔓延。
想到不得不把那些看起来很复杂的话题变成俏皮的讽刺，或许会让竞选媒体顾问们气急败坏。比如：候选人是否赞成建立一种与普遍认可的储备资产相关联的新全球性货币秩序，将其作为一种防范谋取私利的政府实行蹩脚政策的机制呢？（或许我们可以在这里模仿奥巴马的竞选名言造个句子：“黄金：我们可以相信的货币”）
或者，有没有可能捍卫一下“各行其事”的现行货币制度呢（这种制度在实现全球经济繁荣的同时破坏了贸易稳定和资本流动）？在现行制度下，外汇市场人士针对汇率走势的投机活动为他们赚取了大量真金白银，每天的交易量大约有3万亿美元之多。If the reality of a collapsing dollar and foreign exchange turmoil starts to bite consumers where they keep their pocketbooks -- for example, if the U.S. finds it necessary to raise interest rates to entice foreigners to buy the government bonds that finance our deficit -- the affects of currency misalignment could quickly move from the realm of dry treatises to the hyperactive world of live, televised political debate. Media consultants may grow apoplectic at the thought of having to reduce seemingly complex options into clever sound bites: Does the candidate advocate a new global monetary order linked to a universally-recognized reserve asset as a mechanism to guard against tinkering by self-serving governments? ('Gold: Money We Can Believe In.') or is it possible to defend the existing, do-your-own-thing approach to currency relations, which undermines stable trade and capital flows at the expense of global prosperity? Meanwhile, foreign-exchange market specialists earn big profits by gambling -- some $3 trillion daily -- on where currencies might go next.
眼下，各位候选人不该再在下一步该如何刺激经济或北美自由贸易协定之类细枝末节的问题上耗费时间了。他们该思考的是如何应对迫在眉睫的全球货币危机。
It's time the candidates devote less time on the minutiae of configuring the next economic stimulus package, or renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. They should be thinking about how they will confront the imminent global currency crisis.
