The Archetypal Big Debt Cycle
超级债务危机的原型
How I Think about Credit and Debt
我对信用（Credit）和债务（Debt）的看法
Since we are going to use the terms “credit” and “debt” a lot, I’d like to start with what they are and how they work.
由于下面会大量使用信用（Credit）和债务（Debt）这两个词汇，首先我们还是从他们开始，看看他们是如何运作的吧
Credit is the giving of buying power. This buying power is granted in exchange for a promise to pay it back, which is debt. Clearly, giving the ability to make purchases by providing credit is, in and of itself, a good thing, and not providing the power to buy and do good things can be a bad thing. For example, if there is very little credit provided for development, then there is very little development, which is a bad thing. The problem with debt arises when there is an inability to pay it back. Said differently, the question of whether rapid credit/ debt growth is a good or bad thing hinges on what that credit produces and how the debt is repaid (i.e., how the debt is serviced).
信用提供了购买力。信用和债务两面一体，你承诺在未来会偿还你的债务，从而获得你的信用（or 信用贷款）。通过授信来获得购买力，就其本身而言，是一件好事；反之，想要消费但却没有消费能力是一件糟糕的事情。例如，如果城市的发展无法获得授信，那它就难以发展，这就是坏事。债务不断增长，直至无力偿还，就会产生问题。换句话说，授信/债务的增长究竟是好是坏，取决于信用创造了什么价值，以及债务如何偿还。
（PS: 房贷就是一种典型的信用贷款，银行要查你抵押物，和你的银行流水确保你有偿还能力，再确定你的信用额度，比如给你放200W的贷款还是2000W。如果房价一直上涨，信用产生了巨大的价值，那自然皆大欢喜；但如果房价开始下跌，信用创造了负价值，而且债务有可能无法偿还，银行就不乐意了）
Almost by definition, financially responsible people don’t like having much debt. I understand that perspective well because I share it. For my whole life, even when I didn’t have any money, I strongly preferred saving to borrowing, because I felt that the upsides of debt weren’t worth its downsides, which is a perspective I presume I got from my dad. I identify with people who believe that taking on a little debt is better than taking on a lot. But over time I learned that that’s not necessarily true, especially for society as a whole (as distinct from individuals), because those who make policy for society have controls that individuals don’t. From my experiences and my research, I have learned that too little credit/debt growth can create as bad or worse economic problems as having too much, with the costs coming in the form of foregone opportunities.
就像它的定义一样，财务负责人不喜欢有太多的债务。我完全理解，因为我自己也是这样的。在我的一生中，就算穷的叮当响，我也倾向于储蓄而不是向别人借钱。因为我的老爹总是教导我，债务弊大于利。我曾经认为少量负债是有益的，但是随着年龄的增长，我发现这种观点是不完全正确的，尤其是当我们把社会看成一个整体时。根据我的经验和研究，我发现：信用/负债增长太快会产生问题，但太慢同样会产生问题，由于可能错失太多的发展机会，其问题有时候甚至更严重
Generally speaking, because credit creates both spending power and debt, whether or not more credit is desirable depends on whether the borrowed money is used productively enough to generate sufficient income to service the debt. If that occurs, the resources will have been well allocated and both the lender and the borrower will benefit economically. If that doesn’t occur, the borrowers and the lenders won’t be satisfied and there’s a good chance that the resources were poorly allocated.
总体来说，信用及创造了消费力，也创造了负债。那么是否应该扩张信用呢？这取决于这些借来的钱是否能够有效地被利用，从而产生足够高的回报来偿还债务。如果可以，资源被充分地利用，借方和贷方双方都获得了足够的收益；否则的话，资源未能充分利用，借贷双方都遭受了损失。
In assessing this for society as a whole, one should consider the secondary/indirect economics as well as the more primary/direct economics. For example, sometimes not enough money/credit is provided for such obviously cost-effective things as educating our children well (which would make them more productive, while reducing crime and the costs of incarceration), or replacing inefficient infrastructure, because of a fiscal conservativism that insists that borrowing to do such things is bad for society, which is not true.
将社会看成一个整体的话，我们应该同时关注 主要/直接经济 和 次级/间接经济。例如，有些时候我们没有把足够的资金/信用投入到显而易见高回报的事情中去（如教育好子女，让他们更有创造力，减低犯罪的可能性），或者更换无效的基础设施。因为财政保守主义总是告诉我们借钱对社会无益，当然，这种看法是错误的
I want to be clear that credit/debt that produces enough economic benefit to pay for itself is a good thing. But sometimes the trade-offs are harder to see. If lending standards are so tight that they require a near certainty of being paid back, that may lead to fewer debt problems but too little development. If the lending standards are looser, that could lead to more development but could also create serious debt problems down the road that erase the benefits. Let’s look at this and a few other common questions about debt and debt cycles.
我需要澄清的是，能够产生足有益处的信用/债务是好东西。但有时候，这种代价很难一下就看清楚。如果放款的标准很苛刻，一定要确保100%的偿还能力才放款，这样虽然会减少债务问题，但同时会降低发展速度；如果放款的标准十分宽松，则有可能会产生严重的债务问题，这些问题会吃掉之前所有的收益。接下来我们看看一些关于债务和债务周期的常见问题吧
How Costly Is Bad Debt Relative to Not Having the Spending That the Debt Is Financing?
融资创造债务，不消费 VS 坏的债务
Suppose that you, as a policy maker, choose to build a subway system that costs $1 billion. You finance it with debt that you expect to be paid back from revenue, but the economics turn out to be so much worse than you expected that only half of the expected revenues come in. The debt has to be written down by 50 percent. Does that mean you shouldn’t have built the subway?
假设你是决策者，准备建一条$10亿的地铁，你本打算通过融资借债并通过未来地铁的收益来偿还这些债务。但突然间经济下行，地铁的收益只有预计的一半，因此，你能融到的资金也只有原来的一半。这是否意味着你不应该修建这条地铁呢？
Rephrased, the question is whether the subway system is worth $500 million more than what was initially budgeted, or, on an annual basis, whether it is worth about 2 percent more per year than budgeted, supposing the subway system has a 25-year lifespan. Looked at this way, you may well assess that having the subway system at that cost is a lot better than not having the subway system.
换句话说，这个问题其实可以换成：这条地铁比当初预计的贵$5亿（因为收益降低了一半，从收益来看，这条地铁只有$5亿的融资额度，换句话说，它就只值$5亿，但建造成本是$10亿），这多出来的$5亿值不值？或者如果假设地铁寿命是25年的话，这条地铁每年所创造的价值，能不能多个2%（以$10亿成本来算，25年算，每年收益$10亿的4%既回本。但现在经济下行，地铁每年的收益减半，既只有$10亿的2%，这样要50年才能回本。但是，如果通过其他的方法，能多创造2%的收益，这样仍然是 2%+2%=4%，和最初的计划持平）
To give you an idea of what that might mean for an economy as a whole, really bad debt losses have been when roughly 40 percent of a loan’s value couldn’t be paid back. Those bad loans amount to about 20 percent of all the outstanding loans, so the losses are equal to about 8 percent of total debt. That total debt, in turn, is equal to about 200 percent of income (e.g., GDP), so the shortfall is roughly equal to 16 percent of GDP. If that cost is “socialized” (i.e., borne by the society as a whole via fiscal and/or monetary policies) and spread over 15 years, it would amount to about 1 percent per year, which is tolerable. Of course, if not spread out, the costs would be intolerable. For that reason, I am asserting that the downside risks of having a significant amount of debt depends a lot on the willingness and the ability of policy makers to spread out the losses arising from bad debts. I have seen this in all the cases I have lived through and studied. Whether policy makers can do this depends on two factors: 1) whether the debt is denominated in the currency that they control and 2) whether they have influence over how creditors and debtors behave with each other.
通常对于一个整体经济的判断，如果整体贷款的40%无法偿还，就会造成巨大的债务损失；而这些不良贷款大概占社会整体贷款的20%，也就是说，整体债务的可承受损失率是8%（40% × 20% = 8%）。总体债务一般是GDP的2倍，那么也就是垃圾债达到GDP的16%时就有问题。如果有全社会来消化这些垃圾债，并且时长为15年的话，那么每年也就1%左右，还不算什么大问题。当然，如果这个问题小范围消化的话，那就玩完了。我认为，拥有海量债务的下行风险主要取决于决策者对垃圾债消化范围和时长的意愿和实施能力。在我研究的所有案例中，都充斥着这两点，决策者能否做到化大为小主要取决于：1. 垃圾债是否是本国货币的垃圾债 2. 对借贷双方行为的控制能力
Are Debt Crises Inevitable?
债务周期是不可避免的吗？
Throughout history only a few well-disciplined countries have avoided debt crises. That’s because lending is never done perfectly and is often done badly due to how the cycle affects people’s psychology to produce bubbles and busts. While policy makers generally try to get it right, more often than not they err on the side of being too loose with credit because the near-term rewards (faster growth) seem to justify it. It is also politically easier to allow easy credit (e.g., by providing guarantees, easing monetary policies) than to have tight credit. That is the main reason we see big debt cycles.
纵观历史，少有国家能逃脱债务危机。主要是因为没有完美的放款，反而由于周期影响人们的心态，从而导致泡沫，及其破灭。决策者们想做好经济计划，但却总是受到短期内高增长的诱惑而实行宽松的信贷。实际操作层面，也是宽松信贷（如通过抵押品，宽松货币政策等）比严格信贷更简单。而这也是我们看到的超级债务周期的主要原因。
Why Do Debt Crises Come in Cycles?
为什么债务危机总是有周期？
I find that whenever I start talking about cycles, particularly big, long-term cycles, people’s eyebrows go up; the reactions I elicit are similar to those I’d expect if I were talking about astrology. For that reason, I want to emphasize that I am talking about nothing more than logically-driven series of events that recur in patterns. In a market-based economy, expansions and contractions in credit drive economic cycles, which occur for perfectly logical reasons. Though the patterns are similar, the sequences are neither pre-destined to repeat in exactly the same ways nor to take exactly the same amount of time.
我发现，不管我什么时候开始讨论周期，尤其是影响巨大，长期的周期，人们就开始一脸懵逼，就像我和他们谈论星座一样。在此，我强调一下，我讨论的内容其实符合逻辑的，一连串重复发生的事件。在一个市场驱动的经济体中，信用的扩张和收紧形成了周期，所有的事情都符合逻辑。尽管这些事件非常类似，但其顺序却并非按照既定的规划不断重复重复再重复，其周期的长度也不尽相同。
To put these complicated matters into very simple terms, you create a cycle virtually anytime you borrow money. Buying something you can’t afford means spending more than you make. You’re not just borrowing from your lender; you are borrowing from your future self. Essentially, you are creating a time in the future in which you will need to spend less than you make so you can pay it back. The pattern of borrowing, spending more than you make, and then having to spend less than you make very quickly resembles a cycle. This is as true for a national economy as it is for an individual. Borrowing money sets a mechanical, predictable series of events into motion.
为了把这些复杂的问题简单化描述的话，那就是，在你向别人借钱的时候，就实际上就创造了一个周期。购买超出消费水平的东西说明你花的比挣得多。你并不是向你的债主借钱，你是在向自己的未来借钱。换句话说，在未来的一段时间内，你需要减少自己的消费，这样你才能存下钱来偿还你的债务。借钱 —— 花的比赚得多 —— 减少消费还钱，这就形成了一个周期。一国如此，个人亦如此。借钱这个环节创造了一系列可预测的后续事件。
If you understand the game of Monopoly, you can pretty well understand how credit cycles work on the level of a whole economy. Early in the game, people have a lot of cash and only a few properties, so it pays to convert your cash into property. As the game progresses and players acquire more and more houses and hotels, more and more cash is needed to pay the rents that are charged when you land on a property that has a lot of them. Some players are forced to sell their property at discounted prices to raise that cash. So early in the game, “property is king” and later in the game, “cash is king.” Those who play the game best understand how to hold the right mix of property and cash as the game progresses.
如果你会玩强手棋（搜了下，才知道原来就是大富翁，哈哈），你就能很容易理解信用周期在整个经济中如何运行。游戏刚开始时，玩家手上有大量的现金，只有少量的资产，在游戏的过程中花钱购买资产。随着游戏的不断进行，玩家购买越来越多的土地和房产，其他玩家连在一起的土地越多，你经过的时候就要支付越多的租金，如果现金不够的话，就只能折价卖掉自己的资产来获得现金。在游戏的前半段是「资产为王」而后半段则是「现金为王」。优秀玩家知道如何随着游戏的进行维持资产和现金的平衡。
Now, let’s imagine how this Monopoly game would work if we allowed the bank to make loans and take deposits. Players would be able to borrow money to buy property, and, rather than holding their cash idly, they would deposit it at the bank to earn interest, which in turn would provide the bank with more money to lend. Let’s also imagine that players in this game could buy and sell properties from each other on credit (i.e., by promising to pay back the money with interest at a later date). If Monopoly were played this way, it would provide an almost perfect model for the way our economy operates. The amount of debt-financed spending on hotels would quickly grow to multiples of the amount of money in existence. Down the road, the debtors who hold those hotels will become short on the cash they need to pay their rents and service their debt. The bank will also get into trouble as their depositors’ rising need for cash will cause them to withdraw it, even as more and more debtors are falling behind on their payments. If nothing is done to intervene, both banks and debtors will go broke and the economy will contract. Over time, as these cycles of expansion and contraction occur repeatedly, the conditions are created for a big, long-term debt crisis.
现在我们来想象一下，如果在强手棋中增加银行的角色，那这个游戏会变成什么样子呢？玩家可以向银行借钱购买资产，同时也可以将手头的钱存入银行赚利息，从而让银行有更多的资金发放贷款。首先，假设所有玩家都可以通过信用来买卖资产（例如，承诺未来某个时间偿还本金的同时支付一定的利息）。如果采用这种玩法来下强手棋的话，，那我们就得到了一个近乎完美的模型来理解整个经济体系是如何运行的了。游戏中，使用举债方式购买酒店的资金会迅速增长，最终远大于我们手头上实际拥有的现金。一段时间后，举债购买酒店的玩家手头上的现金会急剧减少，而在游戏中，玩家使用现金来支付过路费或银行利息。这样，他们就会从银行中不断地取回自己的存款来支付费用，甚至有可能越来越多的人手头上现金都不够支付上述的费用。如果没有外在干预的话，银行和负债人都有可能破产，经济开始收缩。随着上述扩张及收缩的循环周而复始不断重复，就会造成大规模，长时间的债务危机。
Lending naturally creates self-reinforcing upward movements that eventually reverse to create self-reinforcing downward movements that must reverse in turn. During the upswings, lending supports spending and investment, which in turn supports incomes and asset prices; increased incomes and asset prices support further borrowing and spending on goods and financial assets. The borrowing essentially lifts spending and incomes above the consistent productivity growth of the economy. Near the peak of the upward cycle, lending is based on the expectation that the above-trend growth will continue indefinitely. But, of course, that can’t happen; eventually income will fall below the cost of the loans.
借贷会造成经济规模的不断上行，但总有一天经济会反转，从而进入下行周期。上行过程中，消费和投资都是由借贷支撑的，进而提高收入和资产价格；更高的工资和资产价格又进一步推动借贷，消费及资产价格。这种方式下，消费和收入提升的速度，要高于社会整体生产力提高的速度。在即将到达上行周期的顶点时，借贷实质上是基于「上行周期会不断持续下去」这样一个预期。然而，这是不现实的（中国经济的高速增长经历了这么多年，可以说是通过M2的不断告诉增长造成的，但经济上的高速增长会继续持续下去么？），最终，工资还是会回落到贷款价格之下的（嗯，记得有一段时间，贷款利率非常低，甚至低于工资的增长速度，所以大家都说银行的钱，不借白不借。但最终，工资的增长速度肯定要低于贷款利率的，否则那不是银行在做雷锋了？）。
Economies whose growth is significantly supported by debt-financed building of fixed investments, real estate, and infrastructure are particularly susceptible to large cyclical swings because the fast rates of building those long-lived assets are not sustainable. If you need better housing and you build it, the incremental need to build more housing naturally declines. As spending on housing slows down, so does housing’s impact on growth. Let’s say you have been spending $10 million a year to build an office building (hiring workers, buying steel and concrete, etc.). When the building is finished, the spending will fall to $0 per year, as will the demand for workers and construction materials. From that point forward, growth, income, and the ability to service debt will depend on other demand. This type of cycle—where a strong growth upswing driven by debt-financed real estate, fixed investment, and infrastructure spending is followed by a downswing driven by a debt-challenged slowdown in demand—is very typical of emerging economies because they have so much building to do.
通过大规模借贷来修建固定资产，房地产，基础架构（高铁，高速等）从而保持高增长率的经济体，有很大的可能性会进入巨大的周期性波动，道理其实很简单，铁公鸡的投资总不可能一直持续下去的（人口就这么多，如果每个人都有自己的一套房子，多余的房子卖给谁去？政府机构就这么多，需要的大楼也就这么多。枢纽城市也就这么20,30个，难道真要乡乡县县通高铁啊？）如果需要改善居住条件，建好新房子后，都住上大房子后，未来这样的需求就会减少。越来越多的人住上了大房子，房地产消费就会降低，房产领域对经济增长的影响就会降低。举个例子，假设一年投资了100亿（人工，原材料等）盖一栋写字楼，写字楼盖好后，这个项目的投入就从100亿降到了0了，后续也不需要雇人和买钢筋水泥了。这样的话，经济增长，工资，还款等只能指望其他的需求了。靠大规模举债投入铁公鸡的经济模式，后续随着需求的下降，形成一个上行--下行周期，这种周期对发展中国家来说是非常普遍的，因为这些国家有着海量的建设需求
Contributing further to the cyclicality of emerging countries’ economies are changes in their competitiveness due to relative changes in their incomes. Typically, they have very cheap labor and bad infrastructure, so they build infrastructure, have an export boom, and experience rising incomes. But the rate of growth due to exports naturally slows as their income levels rise and their wage competitiveness relative to other countries declines. There are many examples of these kinds of cycles (i.e., Japan’s experience over the last 70 years).
伴随着发展中国家这类经济周期的，是由于国民收入增长导致的竞争力下降。通产来说，这类国家劳动力非常便宜，基础建设也不发达，随着大力发展基建，快速增长的出口，人均收入开始升高。但随着人工成本的快速增长，相对竞争力下降，出口增长开始变慢。有很多关于这种周期的例子，如70年代的日本（当然，还有某国，你懂的）
In “bubbles,” the unrealistic expectations and reckless lending results in a critical mass of bad loans. At one stage or another, this becomes apparent to bankers and central bankers and the bubble begins to deflate. One classic warning sign that a bubble is coming is when an increasing amount of money is being borrowed to make debt service payments, which of course compounds the borrowers’ indebtedness.
身处「泡沫」之中，不现实的预期，以及未经详细审核的放贷，会导致大量的不良贷款。在某个阶段，银行/央行会发现这个问题，于是经济开始紧缩。一个非常典型关于泡沫已经出现的信号，就是用来支付贷款服务的借款越来越多（换句话说，借钱付利息，比如我银行的月供还不起了，去另一个银行或蚂蚁借呗借钱来还月供，公司或政府也经常是借新债还旧债），剪不断理还乱。
When money and credit growth are curtailed and/or higher lending standards are imposed, the rates of credit growth and spending slow and more debt service problems emerge. At this point, the top of the upward phase of the debt cycle is at hand. Realizing that credit growth is dangerously fast, the central banks tighten monetary policy to contain it, which often accelerates the decline (though it would have happened anyway, just a bit later). In either case, when the costs of debt service become greater than the amount that can be borrowed to finance spending, the upward cycle reverses. Not only does new lending slow down, but the pressure on debtors to make their payments is increased. The clearer it becomes that debtors are struggling, the less new lending there is. The slowdown in spending and investment that results slows down income growth even further, and asset prices decline.
当现金/信用的增长速度放慢，或借款条件变得更加苛刻时，整个消费规模会缩减，从而引发更多的债务问题。当前来看，整个债务周期的顶峰即将到来。意识到信用增长速度快失控时，央行会紧缩货币策略，从而加速衰退。当偿还贷款的费用高于能获取的额度后（政府的收入还不够还利息）上行周期就会啊开始反转。从银行拿到的新发放借款减少，还款压力变大。借款人越没钱，银行越不放贷。消费和投资的增长越来越低，造成收入增长就变得更低，最后资产价格下跌
When borrowers cannot meet their debt service obligations to lending institutions, those lending institutions cannot meet their obligations to their own creditors. Policy makers must handle this by dealing with the lending institutions first. The most extreme pressures are typically experienced by the lenders that are the most highly leveraged and that have the most concentrated exposures to failed borrowers. These lenders pose the biggest risks of creating knock-on effects for credit worthy buyers and across the economy. Typically, they are banks, but as credit systems have grown more dynamic, a broader set of lenders has emerged, such as insurance companies, non-bank trusts, broker-dealers, and even special purpose vehicles.
借款人没钱还给银行，银行就没钱还给他们的债权人（比如地方银行欠央行钱，A银行欠B银行钱，等等）。政府开始介入，首先搞定银行。还款压力最大的首先是使用超高杠杆，现金流紧缺的那帮人，他们最有可能对整个经济造成连锁效应。通常来说，他们指的是银行，但金融系统如今有越来越多的机构成为放贷机构，如保险公司，非银行信托，券商，甚至一些特殊的投资工具。
The two main long-term problems that emerge from these kinds of debt cycles are:
这种债务危机会造成有两种长期问题：
- The losses arising from the expected debt service payments not being made. When promised debt service payments can’t be made, that can lead to either smaller periodic payments and/or the writing down of the value of the debt (i.e., agreeing to accept less than was owed.) If you were expecting an annual debt service payment of 4 percent and it comes in at 2 percent or 0 percent, there is that shortfall for each year, whereas if the debt is marked down, that year’s loss would be much bigger (e.g., 50 percent).
- 贷款的违约。借款人无法按时还款，会减少银行的收入，或债务的减值。如果银行预期的利息收入是每年4%，但实际上只有2%甚至没有利息收入，产生了缺口。甚至如果债务减值，每年损失会更高。
- The reduction of lending and the spending it was financing going forward. Even after a debt crisis is resolved, it is unlikely that the entities that borrowed too much can generate the same level of spending in the future that they had before the crisis. That has implications that must be considered.
- 借款&消费持续萎靡。即使在债务危机解决之后，社会中总借款也未必会回升到债务危机之前的水平上。
Can Most Debt Crises Be Managed so There Aren’t Big Problems?
债务危机可以被管理吗？这样他们的危害就没有那么大了
Sometimes these cycles are moderate, like bumps in the road, and sometimes they are extreme, ending in crashes. In this study we examine ones that are extreme—i.e., all those in the last 100 years that produced declines in real GDP of more than 3 percent. Based on my examinations of them and the ways the levers available to policy makers work, I believe that it is possible for policy makers to manage them well in almost every case that the debts are denominated in a country’s own currency. That is because the flexibility that policy makers have allows them to spread out the harmful consequences in such ways that big debt problems aren’t really big problems. Most of the really terrible economic problems that debt crises have caused occurred before policy makers took steps to spread them out. Even the biggest debt crises in history (e.g., the 1930s Great Depression) were gotten past once the right adjustments were made. From my examination of these cases, the biggest risks are not from the debts themselves but from a) the failure of policy makers to do the right things, due to a lack of knowledge and/or lack of authority, and b) the political consequences of making adjustments that hurt some people in the process of helping others. It is from a desire to help reduce these risks that I have written this study.
有时候这些周期比较温和，有时候则显得极端，甚至造成经济崩溃。我们现在来看看极端的，那些过去100年内对实际GDP造成的影响超过3%的。基于我的研究以及杠杆的工作原理，我认为政府债务危机中是有能力处理好这件事情的。因为政府是有能力将债务危机的问题化大为小的。很多债务危机中真正的大问题都是在政府开始介入之前就已经发生了的。即使是在史上最大债务危机（1903年代大萧条），在政府采取正确的调节方式之后也开始逐渐恢复了。根据我的研究，最大的风险不是来自债务本身，而是来自
a. 政府作出了错误的决策
b. 调整过程中，某些政策在帮助一部分人的同时伤害了另一部分人
Having said that, I want to reiterate that 1) when debts are denominated in foreign currencies rather than one’s own currency, it is much harder for a country’s policy makers to do the sorts of things that spread out the debt problems, and 2) the fact that debt crises can be well-managed does not mean that they are not extremely costly to some people.
我需要重申
- 如果一国的债务危机更多的是由外币造成的，而非本币造成的，那么政府要解决债务危机将会更加困难
- 债务危机可以被管理，对某些人来说，可能意味着解决它的代价极为高昂
The key to handling debt crises well lies in policy makers’ knowing how to use their levers well and having the authority that they need to do so, knowing at what rate per year the burdens will have to be spread out, and who will benefit and who will suffer and in what degree, so that the political and other consequences are acceptable.
解决债务危机的核心，取决于政府对杠杆的理解，以及其意志是否能够有效传达下去。理解需要接受什么样的代价，受益人/受损人及其程度，确定政策及后续可接受的结果。
There are four types of levers that policy makers can pull to bring debt and debt service levels down relative to the income and cash flow levels that are required to service them:
- Austerity (i.e., spending less)
- Debt defaults/restructurings
- The central bank “printing money” and making purchases (or providing guarantees)
- Transfers of money and credit from those who have more than they need to those who have less
政府有四种方法来降低债务程度：
- 紧缩策略（如：降低消费）
- 债务违约/债务重组（割韭菜大法好）
- 央行「印钱」放水（4万亿）
- 财富转移（劫富济贫，这个基本上不用想了，不现实）
Each one of their levers has different impacts on the economy. Some are inflationary and stimulate growth (e.g., “printing money”), while others are deflationary and help reduce debt burdens (e.g., austerity and defaults). The key to creating a “beautiful deleveraging” (a reduction in debt/income ratios accompanied by acceptable inflation and growth rates, which I explain later) lies in striking the right balance between them. In this happy scenario, debt-to-income ratios decline at the same time that economic activity and financial asset prices improve, gradually bringing the nominal growth rate of incomes back above the nominal interest rate.
每种方法对经济都有不同的影响。有的可能造成通货膨胀并刺激增长（印钱），有的会通货紧缩并降低债务（紧缩策略，或直接违约）。创造「有效去杠杆」的关键是在通胀率和增长率之间找到平衡点。好的结果是，债务/收入比下降的同时经济活力和资产价格仍然保持增长，从而逐渐将收入的名义增长率提升到名义利率水平之上
These levers shift around who benefits and who suffers, and over what amount of time. Policy makers are put in the politically difficult position of having to make those choices. As a result, they are rarely appreciated, even when they handle the debt crisis well.
这几种方法对不同人群的影响也不同，实施不同的策略需要的时间也不同。政府在做选择题的时候会面临两难的困境。最终，上面所有的方法都没有实施，即使他们的确能够有效应对债务危机
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