美国国家公共电台 NPR--How war bonds and controlled prices helped to beat inflation

How war bonds and controlled prices helped to beat inflation

Transcript¹

Inflation is climbing at its highest rate in 40 years. The Federal Reserve has a standard way of dealing² with rising prices: raising interest rates. But it hasn't always been that way.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Inflation is climbing at its highest rate in 40 years. And the tool that the Federal Reserve has at its disposal to deal with that is interest rates, raising them. But it hasn't always been this way. Planet Money's Wailin Wong takes us back to a time when we fought inflation very differently.

WAILIN WONG, BYLINE³: The way many of us experience inflation, it's something that happens to us, something we don't have any control over. But there was a time when the government called on every American to fight inflation.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT: If a vicious spiral of inflation ever gets underway, the whole economic system will stagger.

WONG: That's President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942. Mobilization for World War II had upended the economy. The government was borrowing and spending huge amounts of money. And manufacturers had shifted away from making cars, refrigerators and other household goods in order to supply the military.

MEG JACOBS: If you're sending half a billion pairs of socks and 250 million pairs of pants to the military, those are goods that consumers are not going to be able to buy.

WONG: Meg Jacobs is a historian at Princeton University. She's describing a classic inflation scenario⁴ of consumers having money, but not enough things to spend it on. That mismatch drives prices up. And it's something the Roosevelt administration wanted to prevent. So the government introduced a series of anti-inflation measures that ended up reshaping daily American life. It introduced the mass income tax and direct paycheck withholding⁵. This helped lower consumer spending power by directing money to government coffers for the war effort. The Roosevelt administration also asked Americans to put their money in savings⁶ bonds, which it called war bonds. People could help fund the war and earn back their investment, plus a little extra in the future. The propaganda push for the war bonds involved celebrities⁷ of the time, like the Andrews Sisters. They recorded a song called "Any Bonds Today?", written by Irving Berlin.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANY BONDS TODAY?")

THE ANDREWS SISTERS: (Singing) And bonds today? Bonds of freedom, that's what I'm selling.

WONG: As the war escalated⁸, so did the administration's efforts to fight inflation. It introduced price controls, setting maximum prices on what businesses could charge for things like food, toiletries and clothing. A new agency called the Office of Price Administration - or OPA - ran the system.

JACOBS: You would go into a restaurant, for example. And if you wanted to order a cup of soup, the price of that cup of soup was listed right there on an official OPA price list.

WONG: Price controls essentially⁹ got rid of the normal way of setting prices through supply and demand and replaced it with government intervention¹⁰. But there's a danger with price ceilings. Since businesses can't charge what they want, they might produce less, leading to shortages. So to deal with that, the OPA introduced a rationing¹¹ system. Americans could only buy certain amounts of rationed¹² goods, like butter and gasoline. All of these things together - taxes, bond sales, price controls, rationing - along with other measures, like targeted wage freezes, did control inflation during World War II. But after the war, America's experiment with central economic planning more or less dissolved. And by the 1950s, another institution had stepped up to manage inflation, the Federal Reserve. For NPR News, I'm Wailin Wong.

(SOUNDBITE OF RIAN MILO'S "NIGHTCAP")

1 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。

2 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

3 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。

4 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

5 withholding   

扣缴税款

参考例句：

• She was accused of withholding information from the police. 她被指控对警方知情不报。
• The judge suspected the witness was withholding information. 法官怀疑见证人在隐瞒情况。

6 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。

7 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

8 escalated   

v.（使）逐步升级( escalate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）逐步扩大；（使）更高；（使）更大

参考例句：

• The fighting escalated into a full-scale war. 这场交战逐步扩大为全面战争。
• The demonstration escalated into a pitched battle with the police. 示威逐步升级，演变成了一场同警察的混战。

9 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

10 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

11 rationing   

n.定量供应

参考例句：

• Wartime austerities included food rationing and shortage of fuel. 战时的艰苦包括食物配给和燃料短缺。
• Food rationing was abolished in that country long ago. 那个国家早就取消了粮食配给制。

12 rationed   

限量供应，配给供应( ration的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• We were rationed to two eggs a day. 每天配给我们两个鸡蛋。
• The army is well rationed. 部队给养良好。