(单词翻译:单击)
The US Federal Reserve must do a better job of responding to the rising tide of economic anger in America that is leading to a surge in protectionist rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail, according to the newest member of its policy committee.
美联储(Fed)政策委员会的最新成员表示,美联储在回应美国国内日益高涨的经济愤怒浪潮时必须做得更好,这股愤怒正导致总统竞选过程中保护主义言论升温。
In an interview with the Financial Times, Neel Kashkari, who took over as head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve at the start of the year, warned the Fed must work harder to rebuild public trust and communicate with US citizens. Economic anger, he said, was “all around the country and it is non-partisan”.
在接受英国《金融时报》采访时,今年初接任明尼阿波利斯联邦储备银行(Minneapolis Federal Reserve)行长的尼尔愠什卡利(Neel Kashkari)警告称,美联储必须在重建公众信任、与美国公民沟通方面更加努力。他称,经济愤怒“遍布全美,不分党派”。
Mr Kashkari’s first public forays this week have quickly positioned him as an outspoken voice among policymakers.
卡什卡利在本周的首次公开发难,使他迅速树立起直言不讳的政策制定者的形象。
As a senior Treasury official during George W Bush’s administration and the first term of Barack Obama, Mr Kashkari was a key architect of Wall Street’s 2008 bailout. But on Tuesday, in his first speech since joining the Minneapolis Fed, he called for regulators to consider breaking up the largest US lenders, which were still “too big to fail”.
作为乔治圠布什(George W. Bush)政府时期以及奥巴马第一任期时的财政部(Treasury)高级官员,卡什卡利是2008年华尔街纾困计划的关键设计师。但在本周二,在他加入明尼阿波利斯联储后的首次演讲中,他呼吁监管部门考虑拆分美国规模最大的一些银行,称它们仍然“太大而不能倒”。
In his FT interview he blamed the bailouts he oversaw as one of the “root causes for the loss of trust” in the US’s economic managers. Those actions had “really violated a core American belief” that risk takers had to bear the consequences of things going wrong, he said, and “it really leads to great anger if you violate the core beliefs of a society”.
在接受英国《金融时报》采访时,他指责当年由他负责的纾困计划是民众对美国经济管理者“失去信任的根源”之一。他称,那些举措“确实违反了美国的核心信念”,即风险承担者不得不承担事情出错的后果,“如果你违反一个社会的核心信念,确实会造成极大的愤怒”。
The impact, he said, had been made worse by a history of opacity at the Fed and a past institutional reluctance to explain monetary policy clearly.
他称,这股冲击波因美联储不透明的历史和以往在机构层面不愿明确解释货币政策而变得更糟。
The Fed was now paying the price for decades of “very poor” communications as it “adopted this Wizard of Oz routine that ‘We are so mysterious and you can’t understand what we are doing’”, he said, “and that really hurt trust between the people and the institution”.
他称,美联储正在为数十年来“采取‘我们那么神秘,你搞不懂我们在干什么’这一绿野仙踪般的套路”、导致“非常糟糕”的沟通付出代价,“而这确实损害了人们与这个机构之间的信任”。
Anger about the economy was also fuelling support for those advocating new barriers to protect US industry. “I don’t think protectionism is the right path. I think we need to promote free markets around the world. But some of the anger is understandable,” he said.
对于经济的愤怒也使那些提倡设置新壁垒来保护美国产业的人得到更大支持。“我不认为保护主义是正确的道路。我认为我们需要在世界各地促进自由市场。但是其中一些愤怒是可以理解的,”他称。
“We need to promote free markets on both sides. It can’t just be the American economy that is free and our trading partners are not free. So I understand that anger that is there. We need to push back against that [protectionist rhetoric] but also push out globally for free markets everywhere.”
“我们需要促进双方的自由市场。不能只有美国经济是自由化的,而我们的贸易伙伴的经济不自由。所以我理解当前存在的愤怒。我们需要顶住(保护主义言论),但也要在全球各地推动自由市场。”
His words come amid a presidential election campaign dominated by frustration about sluggish growth since the 2007-09 financial crash. Some 72 per cent of people feel the economy is still in recession, according to the American Values Survey released in November, even though economic analysts say the Great Recession ended in mid-2009.
他发表言论之际,人们对自2007-09年金融危机以来增长乏力的沮丧感主导着美国总统竞选的氛围。去年11月发布的《美国价值观调查》(American Values Survey)显示,大约72%的人觉得经济仍然处于衰退状态,尽管经济分析人士称“大衰退”已在2009年年中结束。
That frustration has spilled over into antipathy towards the Fed itself, and on both sides of the political divide. Democratic lawmakers have questioned the central bank’s decision to lift interest rates, warning it could stifle wage growth, while Republicans are calling for greater scrutiny of the Fed’s decisions amid lingering anger over the scale of its interventions during the crisis.
这种沮丧感已弥漫为人们(政治分界线的双方都是如此)对美联储本身产生厌恶。民主党议员质疑美联储加息的决定,警告它可能抑制工资增长,与此同时,共和党人士呼吁对美联储的决策加强审查,其背景是人们仍对金融危机期间美联储的干预规模耿耿于怀。
But above all it has helped fuel the rise of populist candidates such as Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who have both urged greater effort to protect US industry from cheap imports and foreign competition.
但最重要的是,这助长了民粹主义候选人的气焰,比如自称民主社会主义者的伯尼儠德斯(Bernie Sanders)和共和党领跑者唐纳德礠朗普(Donald Trump)。他们二人都敦促为保护美国产业免受廉价进口商品和外国竞争的冲击付出更多努力。
Mr Kashkari praised the work of Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, but said the central bank needed to go further.
卡什卡利称赞了美联储主席珍妮特耶伦(Janet Yellen)的工作,但是他称美联储需要更进一步。
Ms Yellen was “trying to do the right thing for the country”, and if people got to know her and other people in the Fed system “they would be very proud we have this institution in our country”, but “we don’t really let them see in”.
耶伦“正尝试着为国家做正确的事”,如果人们了解她和美联储系统内的其他人员,“他们会为我们国家拥有这样的机构感到非常自豪”,但是“我们没有真的让他们了解”。
“I think we could do a better job,” he said. “The press conferences [held quarterly by the Fed chair] are a step in the right direction and Chair Yellen is very candid in those press conferences and addresses the questions directly. That’s positive.” But the Fed needed to “look for more opportunities like that. It has to happen on all levels.”
“我觉得我们能做得更好,”他称,“(美联储主席每季度举行一次的)新闻发布会是向着正确方向迈进的一步,耶伦主席在新闻发布会上非常坦诚,直接回答问题。这是积极进展。”但是美联储需要“寻找更多这样的机会。进步必须体现在所有层面。”
Monetary policy was hugely complicated and it was not possible to explain every twist and turn to the whole population. That meant it was critical the public trusted the Fed, he said.
货币政策非常复杂,不可能向所有人解释清楚政策制定的每个环节。他称,这意味着公众信任美联储很关键。
“You are not going to have the population as a whole understand all the nuances of what we are talking about here. They need to trust us. They need to know that we care. If they trust us and know that we care, they are going to give us the benefit of the doubt on some of the complexities they may not fully understand.”
“你没法让所有人都理解我们现在所讨论的每个细微之处。他们需要信任我们。他们需要知道我们在意。如果他们信任我们,知道我们在意,他们就会在一些他们可能不能完全理解的复杂问题上对我们‘疑罪从无’。”