QA：目前生活成本面临的最大威胁是什么？

Pearl York
Strictly from a non-economist’s point of view, it seems to me the biggest threat to the cost of living for some time has been that the growth in the money supply has been hugely outstripping real productivity. By “real” productivity I’m speaking of the growth in things people actually want to buy, not the things the government thinks they ought to pay for
If an economy has a money supply of $1000 and a supply of widgets people want to buy of 1,000, then each widget will cost a dollar. If next year the society can produce 1,100 widgets and people want to buy that many, then if the money supply grows to $1,100, the price remains the same. All is well. Either there are more people getting their widgets or people are getting more widgets, but either way, these are good things to happen.
But say the government steps in and says, paying $1 for a widget is hard on the poor, so we’re going to print more money to give to them, so they can more easily afford their widgets, and we’re also going to print more money to give to people who pretend to help the poor — call them teachers or social workers or community activists or diversity specialists or whatever. So it increases the money supply to $3,000. Because labor is being diverted to useless fields**(more below on this) (and perhaps capital availability is reduced by taxes if the government pretends it can get all the money it needs from “the rich”), the cost of producing widgets rises, so only 900 widgets get produced.

严格地从非经济学家的角度来看，在我看来，一段时间以来，生活成本面临的最大威胁是货币供应的增长远远超过了实际生产力。所谓“真正”生产力，我指的是人们真正想买的东西的增长，而不是政府认为他们应该花钱买的东西。
如果一个经济体的货币供应量为 1000 美元，而人们想要购买的产品供应量为 1,000，那么每个产品将花费一美元。如果明年社会可以生产 1,100 个产品并且人们想要购买那么多，那么如果货币供应量增长到 1,100 美元，价格将保持不变，这样的话一切都很好。要么有更多的人获得他们的产品，要么人们获得更多的产品，但无论哪种方式，这些都是好事。
但是如果政府介入并说，为一个产品支付 1 美元对穷人来说很难，所以我们要印更多的钱给他们，这样他们就可以更容易地买得起他们的产品，我们也将印更多的钱给那些假装帮助穷人的人——称他们为教师、社会工作者、社区活动家或多样性专家等等。因此，政府将货币供应量增加到 3,000 美元。因为劳动力被转移到无用的领域**（更多内容见下文）（如果政府假装可以从“富人”那里获得所需的全部资金，那么资本可用性可能会因税收而减少），生产产品的成本上升，所以只生产了 900 个产品。

Now there’s $3,000 in money supply and only 900 widgets being produced, which is the only thing anybody really wants (including all the government helpers and all the poor people), plus the helpers and the poor people have more money (or at least, they think they do) and want more widgets than they used to be able to afford. So the price of widgets rises to $3.33 each.
This creates more apparent poverty and greater demand for more government help, which usually means giving more money to the non-poor to “help” the poor, only a little of which trickles down to actually help the poor.
This can be a very slow process, depending on how big the gap is between the money supply and the production of stuff people really want, but for the last decade and a half, the money supply has been increasing at very rapid rates. The supply of stuff people really want has also been increasing substantially, but not nearly fast enough to soak all of that up.
So prices have been rising pretty much across the board, both for “widgets” (the stuff people actually want) and for everything else.
This is obviously very simplistic and reductionist, and doesn’t adequately address lots of things, like how increases in money supply in the US, being the world’s only real banker, can increase productivity outside the US that will ameliorate some of the negative effects in the US.
But it may help explain the long-term steady and recent rapid increase in the US of the prices of things like corporate stock, housing, food, cars, water, health care, good (as well as bad) education, and all the other widgets people really want.

现在有 3,000 美元的货币供应量，只生产 900 个产品，这是任何人真正想要的唯一东西（包括所有助手和所有穷人），而且现在助手和穷人有更多的钱了（或者至少，他们认为他们的钱多了）并且想要买更多的产品。所以产品的价格上升到每个 3.33 美元。
这就造成了更明显的贫困和对政府帮助的更大的需求，这也意味着向非贫困者提供更多的钱来“帮助”穷人，实际上只有一小部分会真正的帮助到穷人。
这可能是一个非常缓慢的过程，这取决于货币供应量与人们真正想要的东西的生产之间的差距有多大，但在过去的十五年中，货币供应量一直在以非常快的速度增长。人们真正想要的东西的供应也在大幅增加，但增长速度还不够快，无法吸收所有的货币增长量。
因此，无论是“产品”（人们真正想要的东西）还是其他所有东西，价格都在全面上涨。
这显然是非常简单和简化的解决方式，并没有充分解决很多问题，比如，作为世界上唯一真正的银行家，美国增加货币供应如何能够提高美国以外的生产率，从而减轻美国的一些负面影响。
但这可能有助于解释为什么美国的股票、住房、食品、汽车、水、医疗保健、教育以及人们真正想要的所有其他东西的价格长期稳定和近期快速上涨的现象。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

** I’m not saying that ALL education, social work, etc., is unproductive. Some of it is indeed very productive, if done well. A good education is definitely a widget. But I have in mind the kind of spending that creates high school graduates in the DC School District who are functionally illiterate and have never learned to apply themselves to a task, take directions or behave civilly — at a cost of almost $400,000 a piece, and that creates large numbers of high school students in average school districts who need remedial education if they go to college, at a cost of $300,000 or so. The productivity of those teachers and administrators is probably less than zero in DC, and very low in average districts.
A widget-making company that did such a bad job would quickly be unable to sell enough widgets to keep going and close down because some other widget-making company would take all the widget business and be able to make a profit. Government enterprises practically never are shut down just because their productivity is low or negative. To the contrary, the usual method of handling such an enterprise is to print more money to give to it to pay higher salaries to the people who are not producing anything, on the theory that will make them produce more, or at least something. To the contrary, all it does is create more people who have money that they will want to use to buy widgets. Increasing the cost of widgets without actually producing any more widgets.
On reflection, I should clarify: When I suggest school teachers and administrators are low producers (in relation to cost) or non-producers, this is not necessarily a slam at those individuals, many of whom either A) are capable of providing a good education but are prevented from doing so by bad rules, like the habit of keeping disruptive students in classes where they can prevent any real education from happening or B) while not capable of providing a good education, would be perfectly capable of actually producing widgets (building houses, providing nursing care to sick patients, etc.)

我并不是说所有的教育、社会工作等都是徒劳的。如果做得好，其中一些确实非常富有成效。良好的教育绝对是必不可少。但我想到的是，在华盛顿学区培养出的高中毕业生，他们基本上是文盲，从来没有学会如何投入到一项任务中，接受指示或举止文明——每名学生的成本大约是40万美元，这就造成了很多普通学区的高中生，如果他们上大学，就需要接受补习教育，费用大约是30万美元。这些教师和行政人员的工作效率在华盛顿特区可能低于零，在普通学区也很低。
一个做得这么差的产品制造公司很快就会卖不出足够的产品来维持运营，然后倒闭，因为其他的产品制造公司会拿走所有的产品业务，并能够盈利。政府企业实际上从来不会仅仅因为它们的生产率低、消极而关闭企业。相反，处理这类企业的通常方法是印更多的钱给它，给不生产任何东西的人支付更高的工资，理论上这将使他们生产更多，或至少生产一些东西。而结果恰恰相反，这种方式所导致的只是让更多的人有钱，而他们想用这些钱购买产品。增加了产品的成本而实际上没有生产更多的产品。
经过思考，我应该澄清：当我说学校教师和行政人员是低生产者(就成本而言)或非生产者时，这并不一定是对这些人的抨击，A：他们中的许多人都有能力提供良好的教育，但却因为一些不好的规则而无法做到这一点，比如把爱捣乱的学生留在课堂上的习惯，这样他们就无法接受真正的教育。B：虽然不能提供良好的教育，但却完全有能力制造产品(建造房屋，为病人提供护理等)

Aimlockbelch
Politicians and the wealthy.
Bernie Sanders was right about one thing (at least) - income inequality is FUCKED.
We NEED to get the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share. The tax burden for the middle and lower classes is atrocious.
Under trump I paid federal taxes for the first time in my entire life. Normally I get about a thousand dollar refund. Not in 2019. I paid more in taxes THAN FUCKING TRUMP!
What did we have to show for it? A bunch of very happy unregulated companies and a bunch of very satisfied fat cats.
When Biden goes to spend trillions of dollars, at least we have something to show for it. 11 million lifted out of poverty. 5.5 million prevented from sinking below the poverty line.
That was just 1800 dollars per person. Imagine if, instead of 1800 dollars, everyone just got paid a little more for the work they’re already doing. The federal minimum wage should be AT LEAST $15 if you factor in the cost of living increase over the past 12 years since the last time it was increased.
$7.25/hr is a slap in the face for a proud, American worker.
If politicians don’t fix the income gap, we’ll see another spike in poverty very soon. I’m ok with my taxes going up if I see systemic improvements. I saw none of that in the previous administration.

政客和富人。
伯尼·桑德斯至少有一件事是对的——收入不平等是不好的
我们需要让富人和企业支付他们公平的份额。中下阶层的税收负担非常沉重。
在特朗普的领导下我这辈子第一次交了联邦税，通常情况下，我会得到大约1000美元的退款。而在2019年却没有，我交的税比他妈的川普还多！
我们要证明什么？一群非常开心的不受监管的公司和一群非常满意的肥猫。
当拜登花费数万亿美元时，至少我们有东西可以展示。比如1100万人脱贫，550万人免于陷入贫困线以下的生活。
那只是每人1800美元。想象一下，如果不是1800美元，每个人只能从他们已经做的工作中得到了一点额外的报酬。如果你考虑到生活成本在过去12年的增长，那么联邦最低工资应该至少是15美元。
每小时 7.25 美元对于骄傲的美国工人来说是一记耳光。
如果政客们不解决收入差距问题，我们很快就会看到另一个贫困高峰。如果我看到系统性的改善，我可以接受我的税收增加。但我在上一届政府中没有看到这些。

David Miller
Democrat fools like Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Warren are the greatest threat to the cost of living right now. They would like to push through perhaps $10 trillion or more in new spending and YOU get stuck with the bill. You, your children, your grandchildren and great grand children. While they CLAIM it will “fix” issues such as poverty, equality, the environment and infrastructure, it couldn’t be further from the truth. It will be used pretty much exclusively for Democrat vote-buying efforts and payola for Dem loyalists for years to come. For example, thing for a moment about the real costs of admitting hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens (which has already been done) and flying them around the country regardless of whether they have Covid, Tuberculosis, Measles, or other transmissible diseases, and giving them free housing, food, education, medical care and anything else they need or want. You’re already saddled with that expense whether you like it or not, and they won’t do likewise for wounded US citizen veterans, which tells you oh so much about their values and priorities.
Now flash forward a few years to when the inflation they’re causing brings interest rates up to 5% or 8% or 12%. Apply that to our quickly growing national debt and you’ll realize that even applying EVERY CENT of tax dollars collected can’t pay off even the INTEREST on the national debt. So they will hike interest rates. And not just on the wealthy of course because even taking 100% of the income of the wealthy won’t make a dent in a cost this big. So expect 30%, 40%, 50% or more of your income to go to your taxes. How are you feeling now about those wacky Dems? Don’t say we didn’t warn you. We’ve been down this road before.

像拜登、哈里斯、佩洛西和沃伦这样的民主党傻瓜是目前生活成本的最大威胁。他们想推动可能达到 10 万亿美元或更多的新支出，而你却被账单所困。你，你的孩子，你的孙子和曾孙。虽然他们声称这将“解决”贫困、平等、环境和基础设施等问题，但事实并非如此。在未来几年，这些支出几乎将专门用于民主党的选票购买工作和为民主党忠诚者提供的报酬。例如，让成千上万的非法移民入境的所需要的实际成本，无论他们是否患有 Covid、结核病、麻疹或其他传染性疾病，并为他们提供免费住房、食物、教育、医疗以及他们需要或想要的任何其他东西。不管你喜不喜欢，你已经背负了这笔费用，他们不会为受伤的美国公民退伍军人做同样的事情，这就告诉你他们的价值观和优先事项。
现在回顾这几年，他们造成的通货膨胀使利率上升到 5% 或 8% 或 12%。再看看我们快速增长的国债，你就会意识到，即使是把征收的每一分钱都用上，也无法偿还国债的利息。所以他们会加息。当然不只是对富人因为即使拿走富人100%的收入也不会对这么大的成本产生任何影响。所以预计你收入的30%，40%，50%或更多要上缴税款。你现在对那些古怪的民主党人有什么看法？别说我们没警告过你，我们以前也走过这条路。

Mauro Martinez
Poor money management. We have kids making 10.00 an hour so have 1200.00 cell phones, 1000.00 laptops. Starter families with 2 car payments, mortgage payment, school debt, and still spend 2,000 a year at Starbucks.
Entitled blame the wealthy. With no accountability of their own downfalls. Undereducated. No marketable work skills. No trade. No work history. No work ethics. Just pay them more is not the answer. This is the same backassward mentality that gives everyone in grade school a participation trophy. No incentive to do better than others. Where the drive to do better?
I pay a very large amount in taxes. No problem. I make good money. I don't expand anymore although my business is in high demand. There is no more incentive to expand and hire more people. Average income for my employees is 2k a week. Average. Some make much more. One wanted by the hour. He's been moved to janitorial services. Makes 450 a week 30 hours a week. He could have been making 4x as much if he had any work ethics. He's on probation now.. I have already have grounds for cause to fire but am giving him one more chance.
Remove all tax incentives for big business to expand and hire more. That'll help the economy, right? Give government more money because they've proven to be so good at handling their own budget, right? Give to those who aren't working because that's giving them participation trophies for not contributing to the economy, right? They'll help America as a whole, right? Add another 3.5 trillion to the deficit ( 9 million over 20 years with interest) to do exactly what? Free college for everyone! Ridiculous.

资金管理不善。我们的孩子每小时赚10.00美元，所以我们有1200.00美元的手机，1000.00美元笔记本电脑。刚起步的家庭有两辆汽车贷款，抵押贷款，学校贷款，每年还要在星巴克消费2000美元。
有权责怪富人。他们对自己的失败不负责任。未受良好教育的。没有适合市场的工作技能。没有贸易。没有工作经历。没有职业道德。给他们更多的钱并不是解决问题的办法。这是同样的落后心态，就好比在小学给每个人一个参与奖杯。没有比别人做得更好的想法。就这样，哪里有动力做得更好？
我缴纳了大量的税款。这没问题，因为我赚了很多钱。尽管我的业务需求量很大，但我不再扩张了。因为我没有更多的动力来扩大生产并且雇用更多的人。我员工的平均收入是每周 2k。这是个平均值。当然有些员工赚得更多。有一个人想按照小时计算工资，他被转移到清洁服务部门，每周挣 450美元，每周工作 30 小时。如果他有任何职业道德，他本可以赚到原来的 4 倍的钱。他现在在缓刑期，我已经有理由解雇他了，但我会再给他一次机会。
取消所有鼓励大企业扩张和雇佣更多员工的税收优惠。这对经济有帮助，对吧？给政府更多的钱因为事实证明他们很擅长处理自己的预算，对吧？给那些没有工作的人钱因为这是给他们没有为经济做出贡献的参与奖，对吧？他们会帮助整个美国，对吧？再增加3.5万亿赤字(20年900万美元带利息)到底能起什么作用？免费上大学！荒谬。

Salvatore Barrera
In actuality, because of President Biden’s great help of assisting the nation, Americans, businesses, homes, rental and mortgage aid, and so on and so forth, by dispensing at least $6 trillion because of the affects/defects of COVID-19 inflation is expected to rise almost 6% this year……...making food prices increase with the obvious energy prices, and consumer prices too.
Also, as you already know…… the deferment of paying your leases, rents, and mortgages will be DUE soon and many of the leases, rents, and mortgages would need to be re-negotiated with the banks and landlords because, if I read correctly a few months ago, the average debt from unpaid leases, unpaid rents, and unpaid mortgages is about $12,000 per that has not been paid because of COVID-19.

事实上，由于拜登总统在帮助国家、美国人、企业、住房、租赁和抵押贷款等方面的巨大帮助，再加上新冠肺炎的影响，今年预计通胀将上升近6% .........使得食品价格随着明显的能源价格而上涨，消费品价格也随之上涨。
还有，你已经知道的……你延期支付的租金，抵押贷款即将到期，很多租金和抵押贷款需要同银行和房东重新协商，因为，如果我没看错的话，由于COVID-19而未支付的租金和抵押贷款的平均债务约为1.2万美元。

Robert Rossney
Rents.
I mean that in the economic sense, not in the sense of money paid for housing (though money paid for housing certainly counts). Rent-seeking, the effort to increase one’s share of wealth without creating new wealth, is where the lion’s share of economic innovation has been happening in the US for the last several decades.
This obviously happens in the realm of housing. But it’s also true now of so many other things: health and auto insurance, telecommunications services, the gradual shift of everything to subscxtion-based models, the unrepair ability of consumer goods: just look through your credit-card statement and you’ll see dozens of things that you’re paying for but never buying. Count all the obxts in your house that you possess but do not own, or that you will have to throw away and repurchase if they ever stop working.
All of this is economic actors trying to grab a share of wealth without doing anything that actually creates wealth. Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash don’t make anything; they reallocate existing resources that they don’t own and charge you a premium for that reallocation. That’s all very clever, but it isn’t making anything.
MoviePass is, in ways, the optimal rent-based-economic business. Sure, they lost money on every subscxtion, and selling things for less than you paid for them can’t go on forever, and they had to shut down. But before they shut down, they changed a lot of users’ passwords, so that they could continue charging those users without providing them any services at all.

租金
我指的是经济意义上的，而不是为住房支付的钱(尽管为住房支付的钱也很重要)。寻租，即在不创造新财富的情况下增加自己的财富份额的努力，是过去几十年美国经济创新的最大组成部分。
这显然发生在住房领域。但现在很多其他事情也是如此：健康和汽车保险，电信业务，一切都逐渐向基于订阅的模式转变，消费品的不可修复能力：只要看看你的信用卡账单，你就会看到许多你付了钱却没买的东西。数一数你房子里所有你拥有但又不拥有的东西，或者如果它们停止工作，你将不得不扔掉并重新购买的东西。
所有这些都是经济参与者试图攫取财富的一部分，而没有采取任何实际创造财富的行动。Uber、Lyft和DoorDash什么都不做；他们重新分配他们不拥有的现有资源，并向你收取额外的费用。这一切都很聪明，但它并没有制造任何东西。
从某种意义上说，MoviePass是最优的以租金为基础的经济业务。当然，他们每次订阅都赔钱，并以低于你支付的价格出售东西，这不可能永远持续下去，他们不得不关闭业务。但在关闭之前，他们更改了很多用户的密码，这样他们就可以继续向这些用户收费，而不提供任何服务。

Phoebe Pattinson
Air pollution and climate change
-according to WHO, nine in 10 people breathe air that contains microscopic pollutants that can damage their lungs, heart, and brain. Burning fossil fuels, which is the main cause of air pollution, also contributes to climate change.
Noncommunicable diseases
-The five risk factors that are driving the increase in noncommunicable diseases are tobacco use, alcohol use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, and air pollution, WHO notes.
Fragile settings
-Over 22% of the world's population lives in fragile settings, which are defined as places where access to basic health care is minimal, often due to being in a state of crisis and having poor health services.
Vaccine
-Currently, vaccination prevents between two and three million deaths per year—but it could potentially prevent another 1.5 million deaths if more people were vaccinated, according to WHO.

空气污染和气候变化
据世界卫生组织称，十分之九的人呼吸的空气中含有微小的污染物，这些污染物会损害他们的肺、心脏和大脑。燃烧化石燃料是造成空气污染的主要原因，也会导致气候变化。
非传染性疾病
世卫组织指出，导致非传染性疾病增加的五个风险因素是吸烟、饮酒、缺乏体育活动、不健康饮食和空气污染。
脆弱的环境
世界上22%以上的人口生活在脆弱环境中，脆弱环境的定义是，由于处于危机状态中并且保健服务差，基本保健服务的获得程度最低的环境。
疫苗
目前，接种疫苗每年可预防200万至300万人死亡，但据世卫组织称，如果有更多的人接种疫苗，它可能还可以防止150万人死亡。

Micheal
Inflation which is excessive and well above normal has been happening since January 20. Prices are up significantly thanks to Biden’s policy of restricting US energy production. Bidenflation is not just a future threat, it has already been happening for months.
The stated obxtive of Biden’s Democrat Party is to get the US price for gasoline up to the same level as Western Europe, currently about $6.50 per gallon. You can read this in Al Gore’s book and other Democrat literature. They will do this through restrictions on production as Biden has been unilaterally doing since January 20, 2021, and through excessive taxation such as “carbon tax,” “mileage tax,” added gasoline taxes, etc., etc. as soon as they can get them passed through congress.
This effort will drive up the price of everything just as we are seeing since it takes energy to produce and transport everything.
Of course this Democrat policy erodes everyone’s buying power but it is catastrophic for the poor and for retired people. For example, think about the effect of soaring gasoline prices on low income people who have to drive to work.
The National average pump price for Trumpgas for calendar year 2019 was $2.60 in a prosperous, robust economy where gas prices would be expected to be high. As of August 10, 2021, the National average pump price for Bidengas is $3.19 in a recovering but still sluggish economy.
I experienced the terrible Jimmy Carter inflation of the 1970’s. It ate away everyone’s income and savings but particularly hurt the poor and elderly. Bidenflation isn’t as bad yet but it is going in that direction.

自1月20日以来，已经出现了远远高于正常水平的过度通胀。拜登限制美国能源生产的政策导致油价大幅上涨。拜登通胀不仅是未来的威胁，它已经发生了好几个月了。
拜登所在的民主党的公开目标是让美国的汽油价格升至西欧的水平，目前约为每加仑6.5美元。你可以在戈尔的书和其他民主党文献中了解到这一点。他们将像拜登从2021年1月20日开始单方面采取的措施一样，只要在国会获得通过，他们就会限制生产和征收“碳税”、“行驶里程税”、附加汽油税等过度征税等方式。
正如我们所看到的，这种努力将推高所有东西的价格，因为生产和运输所有东西都需要能源。
当然，民主党的这项政策削弱了每个人的购买力，但对穷人和退休人员来说是灾难性的。例如，想想飙升的汽油价格对那些不得不开车上班的低收入人群的影响。
在一个繁荣、强劲的经济环境下，天然气的2019年全国平均零售价为2.6美元，预计天然气价格将会很高。截至2021年8月10日，在经济复苏但仍然低迷的情况下，天然气的全国平均零售价为3.19美元。
我经历了20世纪70年代吉米·卡特时期的可怕的通货膨胀。它消耗了每个人的收入和储蓄，但对穷人和老年人的伤害尤其严重。拜登时期的通货膨胀还没有那么糟糕，但正在朝那个方向发展。