2020年经济学人 前美联储主席保罗·沃尔克(4)（在线收听）

In his time as a Treasury official in the 1960s he had laboured to maintain the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, which had built an international monetary system round pegging the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce. When this began to founder he went along with a temporary suspension and then, in 1973, with decisive decoupling, but longed for some system of fixed exchange rates.

在20世纪60年代作为财政部官员时，保罗·沃尔克曾努力维护1944年的《布雷顿森林协定》。它建立了一个国际货币体系，将美元与黄金的汇率固定在每盎司35美元。当它开始失败时，保罗选择暂时暂停它，然后在1973年，他决心让美元与黄金分离，希望建立某种固定汇率制度。

Instead, the dollar was allowed to float. To him floating exchange rates were fundamentally dangerous, an open invitation to countries to manipulate their currencies— and so inherently unstable that they undermined the stability of governments, too. It was probably his wartime adolescence that made him yearn for such a rules-based world. But in so far as he managed to impose rules himself, they were a success. After 1983 the economy mostly grew without inflation and political leaders, by and large, learned to defer to the central bank on monetary policy.

相反，允许美元浮动。对他来说，浮动汇率制非常危险，这就是公开邀请其他国家操纵它们的货币，其内在的不稳定性也会破坏政府的稳定。保罗·沃尔克青春期时发生了战争，这可能是他渴望一个以规则为基础的世界的原因。但是就他自己强加的规则而言，它们是成功的。1983年后，经济大多数时候在没有通货膨胀的情况下取得增长，而且，总的来说， 政治领袖都学着在货币政策上听从中央银行的意见。

前美联储主席保罗·沃尔克(4).pngWhat worried him more as the years passed was a growing lack of trust in and respect for institutions in general, from the Supreme Court to Congress to the presidency. America sometimes seemed to be in a mess in every direction. Every direction, that was, except the coast of Florida, where he might get a big plump tarpon on his line, or the sparkling, ever-beckoning salmon rivers of Maine.

随着时间推移，使他更担心的是，人们对机构的信任和尊重越来越少，从最高法院到国会，再到总统。有时美国在每个方向上都一团糟。 每个方向，除了佛罗里达的海岸，在那里，他可以钓到又大又肥的大海鲢，也可以钓到缅因州波光粼粼、永远诱人的河里的鲑鱼。