美国国家公共电台 NPR--'The Indicator from Planet Money': Can forcing people to save cool inflation?

'The Indicator¹ from Planet Money': Can forcing people to save cool inflation?

Transcript²

During World War II, famous economist³ John Maynard Keynes wrote about a way to help tame inflation: compulsory⁴ savings⁵. Could that work now? One economist thinks we should revisit the idea.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Federal Reserve has been trying to bring down inflation by raising interest rates. The idea is to make borrowing harder and to encourage saving, but this approach has problems. So what if the government took a more direct approach in its inflation fight by forcing people to save more? That's called compulsory savings. Darian Woods and Wailin Wong from our daily economics podcast, The Indicator, explain.

DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE⁶: Lachlan Kerwood-McCall is an economist who's spent a lot of his career working in the Australian public sector⁷. He's also a member of the Australian Labor⁸ Party and was at a talk at one of their meetings a few years ago where he formed this idea about a new way to fight inflation.

LACHLAN KERWOOD-MCCALL: It just struck me at the time that interest rates were something of a clumsy and imprecise tool for reducing demand.

WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: Lachlan believes that higher interest rates benefit banks at the expense of borrowers, and that's up for debate among economists⁹ because banks' borrowing costs also go up with rising interest rates. But in any case, it's part of why Lachlan doesn't like higher interest rates.

WOODS: So Lachlan started thinking about saving schemes like the 401(k) or Social Security in the U.S. What if each worker was given a retirement¹⁰ savings account by the government and every paycheck, a small percentage would come out of your take-home pay and put into that account? When inflation was low, this would be a small share. But when inflation was high, a higher share of your paycheck would go into that account, and you could only spend that money once you've retired¹¹. And by locking that money away, there'd be less spending in the economy and inflation would come down.

KERWOOD-MCCALL: Why not take money off of households and lock it away into long-term retirement savings so that workers can enjoy a higher standard of living later in life?

WOODS: Lachlan started to talk about this idea with other economists. And some said, you know, the 20-century economist John Maynard Keynes wrote about this, too, in World War II?

KERWOOD-MCCALL: Someone else has already had my idea, and it's the greatest macroeconomist of all time.

WONG: Lachlan built off Keynes' writing and wrote a paper for his master's degree in 2020. We sent that paper to Corina Boar. Corina is an assistant professor of economics at New York University. And she had critiques for Lachlan, starting with the problems of coercing¹² people to save.

CORINA BOAR: If that amount of savings doesn't coincide with what the consumer would have chosen on their own, then the consumer will automatically be worse off. That will end up hurting poor workers who do rely on their wage to make ends meet.

WONG: We brought Corina's critiques back to Lachlan.

KERWOOD-MCCALL: The state already believes it knows what's best to do with your money. It raises interest rates because it doesn't believe you should be spending as much money during an inflation episode. I think, if anything, that critique ignores the fact that, say, under my proposal, individuals would actually get their money back at the end of the day, unlike under the current system where they don't.

WOODS: Lachlan adds that lawmakers could carve out exceptions for lower-income workers. But Corina Boar ultimately just doesn't agree with Lachlan's assessment¹³ of the downsides of the current orthodoxy, and she says the biggest problems with the current approach of raising interest rates would also be a problem with compulsory savings - the risk of generating a recession. As for Lachlan, he says we need alternatives to conventional monetary¹⁴ policy.

KERWOOD-MCCALL: Economics is supposed to improve over time. We're supposed to develop new ideas and come up with better ways of handling economic problems.

WOODS: Darian Woods.

WONG: Wailin Wong.

WOODS: NPR News.

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1 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

4 compulsory   

n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的

参考例句：

• Is English a compulsory subject?英语是必修课吗？
• Compulsory schooling ends at sixteen.义务教育至16岁为止。

5 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

8 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

9 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

11 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

12 coercing   

v.迫使做( coerce的现在分词 )；强迫；（以武力、惩罚、威胁等手段）控制；支配

参考例句：

• All of the children had atopic dermatis coercing at least 20% of their body surface area. 所有的患儿体表有超过20%的遗传性过敏症皮炎感染。 来自互联网
• I assured him that we had no intention of coercing Israel in response a Soviet threat. 我向他保证，我们无意强迫以色列对苏联的威胁做出反映。 来自互联网

13 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

14 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。