美国是怎么欠下那么多钱的？
Why is America in so much debt and what have we done to owe so much? What have we done with China and our own government to owe so much money over the years?
译文简介
因为我们用社会保障基金和债务资助了冷战和石油战争（越南、非洲、伊拉克、阿富汗、利比亚、尼加拉瓜，现在还有也门）。几十年来（黑人预算——奥巴马总统只是部分结束了这一做法），我们还在国内社会预算中隐藏了中央情报局、国家安全局以及秘密战争和武器计划的费用，并发行了债务（以这些计划的名义发行的债券）以弥补这些欺诈做法。我们欠我们的平民老人这笔钱，现在国家正在采取行动，把老人扔到军用巴士下面。
正文翻译
因为我们用社会保障基金和债务资助了冷战和石油战争（越南、非洲、伊拉克、阿富汗、利比亚、尼加拉瓜，现在还有也门）。几十年来（黑人预算——奥巴马总统只是部分结束了这一做法），我们还在国内社会预算中隐藏了中央情报局、国家安全局以及秘密战争和武器计划的费用，并发行了债务（以这些计划的名义发行的债券）以弥补这些欺诈做法。我们欠我们的平民老人这笔钱，现在国家正在采取行动，把老人扔到军用巴士下面。
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, B.S. from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Because we subsidized the Cold War and our Oil Wars (Vietnam, Africa, Iraq, Afganistan, Libya, Nicaragua and now Yemen) with our Social Security funds and debt. For decades (The Black Budget — a practice only partly ended by President Obama) we also hid the costs of CIA, NSA and secret wars and weapons programs in our domestic social budget and issued debt (bonds in the name of these programs) to cover the fraud. We owe this money to our civilian elderly and now the country is moving to throw the old under the military bus. Hiding the cause of our social pathology is the hidden agenda behind the Trump Tax Cuts. Hoo-raa For America!
因为我们用社会保障基金和债务资助了冷战和石油战争（越南、非洲、伊拉克、阿富汗、利比亚、尼加拉瓜，现在还有也门）。几十年来（黑人预算——奥巴马总统只是部分结束了这一做法），我们还在国内社会预算中隐藏了中央情报局、国家安全局以及秘密战争和武器计划的费用，并发行了债务（以这些计划的名义发行的债券）以弥补这些欺诈做法。我们欠我们的平民老人这笔钱，现在国家正在采取行动，把老人扔到军用巴士下面。
The Social Security Administration collects payroll taxes and uses the money collected to pay Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits by way of trust funds. When the program runs a surplus, the excess funds increase the value of the Trust Fund.
The Trust Fund is required by law to be invested in non-marketable securities issued and guaranteed by the "full faith and credit" of the federal government. These securities earn a market rate of interest.
Excess funds are used by the government for non-Social Security purposes, creating the obligations to the Social Security Administration and thus program recipients. However, Congress could cut these obligations by altering the law. Trust Fund obligations are considered "intra-governmental" debt, a component of the "public" or "national" debt.
As of June 2015, the intragovernmental debt was $5.1 trillion of the $18.2 trillion national debt. It’s much more now.
以下来自免费的百科全书-维基百科：
社会保障管理局征收工资税，并通过信托基金将所得款项用于支付老年人、幸存者和残疾保险福利。当项目出现盈余时，多余的资金会增加信托基金的价值。
法律要求信托基金投资于由联邦政府“完全诚信”发行和担保的非有价证券，在这些证券赚取市场利率。
政府会将多余的资金用于非社会保障目的，从而产生了对社会保障管理部门以及计划接收者的义务。然而，国会可以通过修改法律来减少这些义务。信托基金债务被视为“政府内部”债务，是“公共”或“国家”债务的一个组成部分。
截至2015年6月，美国政府的内部债务在18.2万亿美元的美国国债中占5.1万亿美元，现在更多了。
Jack Phillips
, worked at Progressive
Strictly speaking, our government spends more money than it took in through taxes and tariffs. You can review the Federal Budget (just Google) to see where we spend it. Currently we spend a lot on interest in the debt, entitlements, and defense.
The debt is financed through treasury bills (basically bonds) that pay interest determined by auction. These bonds are sold to investors including institutions such as banks and investment funds. Other countries also buy them, including China, as they are seen as a safe place to put their holdings of currency (US dollars). It is not like the US went to China with their hand held out. Anyone can go buy US Treasuries.
严格地说，我们的政府花的钱比通过税收和关税获得的钱还要多。你可以查看联邦预算（只是谷歌），看看我们把它花在哪里了。目前，我们在债务利息、权益和国防方面花费了大量资金。
债务通过国债（基本上是债券）融资，国债通过拍卖支付利息。这些债券再出售给投资者，包括银行和投资基金等机构。包括中国在内的其他国家也会购买它们，因为它们被视为存放其持有的货币（美元）的安全场所。这不像是美国在伸手找中国借钱，因为任何人都可以购买美国国债。
Les Mikesell
The military and other federal government services are paid from the taxes that are collected. If the cost exceeds the income, credit is used for the deficit in the form of treasury notes that are sold to investors and foreign governments. China is just one of the countries buying the notes. The notes have due dates, but to a certain extent can be paid off by creating/selling new notes. This is the function where we periodically hit the self-imposed limit on debt and Congress has to make a lot of compromises to get the votes to increase it or else shut the government down.
The problem is clearly that the military spends more (>50% of the budget and that probably doesn’t count all the subsequent veteran pensions and health benefits that should be included) than taxpayers are willing to pay. And the people on the receiving side (defense contractors) have enough money and power that no one can stop them. All they have to do is stir up some fear and conflict somewhere in the world and they’ll get all the funding they ask for. It’s hard to quibble over a few dollars when lives are at stake.
军队和其他联邦政府的服务由征收的税款支付。如果成本超过收入，信贷将以国债的形式用于赤字，并出售给投资者和外国政府，中国只是购买这些债券的国家之一。国债有到期日，但在一定程度上可以通过创建/出售新的国债来偿还。这是我们会定期达到自我施加的债务限制的原因，国会必须做出许多妥协，以获得增加债务的投票，否则将政府将关闭。
问题很明显，军队的支出（超过预算的50%，这可能还不包括所有应包括在内的退伍军人养老金和医疗福利）超出了纳税人的意愿。而接受方（国防承包商）有足够的资金和权力，没有人能阻止他们。他们所要做的就是在世界的某个地方激起一些恐惧和冲突，他们将得到他们所要求的所有资金。人在生命危在旦夕的时候，很难为几块钱而斤斤计较。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Robert Free
, lived in China
USA is subsidising the wages of most major companies. In most countries, companies pay for the cost of their staff. Those staff pay tax. In America they pay a wage so low that people can't live on it. So the government pays all kinds of subsidies for health education and food to people that have a job at a companies like McDonald's. In Australia McDonald's staff are paid 3 times what they get in America and it is considered a low pay job.
Then there are the millions of people in jail for being black and subject to the Clinton's 3 strikes law. Instead of having a job, paying tax and smoking a joint occasionally, like so many people do in Colorado and California, they are in jail at enormous expense for the jail and government support of their out of jail family.
ake the social benefits the government pays to employed people. Add the tax they should be getting from those people. Then add the cost of weapons made for the military that the military does not want, and the 3 strikes expenses and you can explain most of the debt.
美国正在补贴大多数大公司的工资。在大多数国家，公司会支付员工的费用，然后那些职员会纳税。而在美国，他们支付的工资太低，人们无法靠它生活。因此，政府会向在麦当劳这样的公司工作的人支付各种各样的健康教育和食品补贴。在澳大利亚，麦当劳员工的工资是美国员工的3倍（这在美国被认为是一份低薪工作）。
还有数以百万计的黑人因触犯克林顿的“三振出局法”（3 strikes law，意在严惩累犯）而入狱。与科罗拉多州和加利福尼亚州的许多人一样，他们与其去工作、交税，还不如去坐牢。他们为此付出了巨大的代价，以换取监狱和政府对他们在监狱外的家庭的支持。
以政府支付给就业者的社会福利为例，加上他们应该从这些人那里得到的税，然后再加上军方的武器成本和“三振出局法”的费用，你就可以解释美国的大部分债务是怎么来的了。
Joseph Wang, Ex-VP Quant - Investment banking - Hong Kong
It's one if the consequences of being a superpower.
After World War II, the United States was in a life and death struggle with the Soviets and the goal of the US was to get countries to join a US led global trading system. This meant opening US markets to foreign trade so that countries would join the capitalist team rather than the Communist one.
In order to do this, the US had to run massive trade deficits. This had the effect of making the US dollar the world currency, and nations had to do something with the money so they bought US Treasuries. It worked well because the US then had the funds to create this huge military which protected the trade system.
这就是成为超级大国的后果之一。
二战后，美国与苏联展开生死搏斗，美国的目标是让各国加入美国主导的全球贸易体系，这意味着向外贸开放美国的市场，以便各国加入资本主义队伍而不是共产主义队伍。
为了做到这一点，美国不得不背负巨额贸易逆差。这使得美元成为世界货币，各国不得不用这些钱做点什么，所以他们购买了美国国债。这一体系运作良好，因为美国当时有资金建立这个保护贸易体系的庞大军队。
It's a system that made the United States the most powerful nation in the history of the planet. The problem is that Americans are starting to wonder with the Soviets long gone whether running the world us worth the trouble, and Trump is the first President since Truman that has seriously questioned the system.
One reason the United States is a superpower and Germany and Japan aren't is that the US learned from the British that having other places hold your debt is an essential part of running a global empire.
中国是一个了不起的成功故事。美国把中国从苏联的轨道上拉出来，进入美国主导的贸易和金融体系，所以中国开始像其他国家一样购买美国国债。
这个体系使美国成了地球历史上最强大的国家。问题在于，美国人开始怀疑早已不复存在的苏联人是否值得我们为这个世界而烦恼，而特朗普是自杜鲁门以来第一位严重质疑该制度的总统。
美国是超级大国而德国和日本不是的一个原因是，美国从英国那里了解到，让其他地方持有你的债务是经营全球帝国的重要组成部分。
Kelsey Mun, native Chinese speaker but also fluent in English
I don’t know. Maybe all that Nuclear weapon developing, building more ships and tanks in the name of national security, sending people to wars will give you a clue? Doesn’t all that cost money. Still, I’m not sure why Americans blame China for what they are doing to their own country.
I guess everything will go alright from now on then. rest asure , folks. Didn’t you guys just voted for someone to Make America Great Again? I’m sure a completely sane person like him would be able to bring down that debts. I heard you guys did a tax cut for big corporation, ditch net neutrality, pull out from Paris agreement. I’m sure that saved you guys some big bucks. Honestly, I believe you guys would be back on track in no times :)
Everyone else in the world is really excited to see the Great Again America.
我不知道。也许所有以国家安全的名义发展核武器，建造更多船只和坦克，派人参加战争会给你一个线索？难道这一切都不花钱吗？不过，我不知道为什么美国人会因为他们对自己国家的所作所为而责怪中国。
我想从现在起一切都会好起来的。放心，伙计们。你们不是投票支持过一个让美国再次伟大的人吗？我敢肯定，像他这样一个完全理智的人将能够减少债务。我听说你们为大公司减税，放弃网络中立，退出巴黎协定。我敢肯定，这将为你们节省了一些大钱。老实说，我相信你们很快就会回到正轨:)
世界上的每个人都非常高兴看到美国再次伟大。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Darwin Long, worked at Silicon Alley Insider (2005-2017)
America is in debt because we spend more on our military than the next 20 countries COMBINED. Our insistence on being an oil company with an army masquerading as a nation is what has lead us into ridiculous debt.
When we combine our military madness with the idea that our workers don’t need to make a living from their minimum wage jobs, and that the stupidly wealthy should have more money (see Ronald Reagan and the fallacy of trickledown) we undermine our tax base as well which makes it nearly impossible to repay that debt.
美国负债累累，是因为我们在军事上的支出比接下来的 20 个国家的总和还多。我们坚持把拥有军队的石油公司伪装成一个国家，这导致我们欠下了荒谬的债务。
当我们将我们的军事疯狂与我们的工人不需要靠他们的最低工资工作谋生以及愚蠢的富人应该拥有更多钱的想法结合起来时（参见罗纳德·里根和涓滴谬误），我们也破坏了我们的税收基础，这也使得偿还这笔债务几乎是不可能的。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
简而言之，自里根以来提出的所有降低债务的提议实际上都增加了债务——正如实际债务数字所显示的那样。对此我有一个应对之策，但这不包括继续加强我们的军事力量，也不包括让我们的制造业通过在海外制造产品来将我们的经济实力输送到海外。最后，这还不包括增加那些已经拥有超过他们3辈子所能花费的财富的人的财富。
Karl Miles, former Management Consultant
Simply put, the Congress passes a budget much higher than the previous year, then overspends that higher budget anyway. Both parties realize that the public is not concerned about the debt, so they keep running it up. Unlike you and me, if the government needed to pay its debts, they could simply print a trillion new dollars and hand them over. Presto, no more debt! Of course there are other problems if the government did this, so its only done on a small scale.
The debtsare U.S. Treasuries that are sold to finance new spending. The government then pays interest on those Treasuries, just like any other kind of loan. Those interest payments are a big expense too, further driving the U.S. into debt.
The U.S. owes over 20 trillion in debt now, the last 10 trillion coming during the Obama administration of only 8 years. The biggest foreign holders of debt are China and Japan, which each hold over a trillion dollars.
简言之，国会通过的预算比前一年高得多，但无论如何都会超支。双方都意识到公众并不关心债务，所以他们一直在增加债务。与你我不同的是，如果政府需要偿还债务，他们只需印上一万亿美元的新钞票就可以交出来。别再欠债了！当然，如果政府这么做，还会有其他问题，所以它只是在小范围内这样做。
这些债务是美国国债，用于为新的支出融资。然后政府支付这些国债的利息，就像其他贷款一样。这些利息支付也是一笔巨大的开支，进一步将美国推向债务深渊。
美国现在欠下的债务超过20万亿美元，最后10万亿美元是在奥巴马执政仅8年期间增加的。美国最大的外国债务持有者是中国和日本，它们各自持有超过一万亿美元的债务。
RK Sharma, Interested in God, His creations and His Designs for us.
Good question. Deep thinking on this matter is the need of the hour so that Americans can understand the right action about to be taken by the administration to substantially reduce the trade deficit. Continuing this huge trade deficit of $350 billions per year is going to cause great harm to America. To correct it, even if all have to undergo some hardship then let it be. I have written several answers on this subject. One is quoted below
Part of an answer written on Mon Dec 18th.
———QUOTE——-
—6—He is the first president who is going to tackle huge trade deficit with China. This courage can be shown only by Mr Trump. Others could not have done it. Even now, general people do not understand the great ramification of this huge deficit which equals the combined wealth of all American billionaires every eight years. What is happening is that; we are purchasing certain cheap goods by giving away our dollars which are being used for purchasing our family silver. This is how traders ultimately start owning, initially the assets and later the countries in the sense that influence is exerted to get what is wanted.
好问题。深入思考这个问题是当务之急，这样美国人才能理解政府将要采取的正确行动，以大幅减少贸易赤字。继续保持每年3500亿美元的巨额贸易赤字将对美国造成巨大伤害。要纠正它，所有人都必须经历一些困难。关于这个问题我写了好几个答案。引用如下：
-他是第一位准备解决对华巨额贸易逆差的总统，这种勇气只有特朗普才能表现出来，其他人不可能做到这一点。即使是现在，普通人也不理解这一巨大赤字的巨大后果，这一赤字相当于每八年美国亿万富翁创造的财富总和。正在发生的事情是：我们通过赠送我们的美元来购买某些廉价商品，这些美元被用来购买我们家的国债。这就是交易者最终开始拥有的方式，最初是资产，后来是国债，然后在这个意义上施加影响以获得想要的东西。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Don Nichols, former Auto Mechanic (1966-1976)
Our debt is caused by uncontrolled trade and this started right after WW2.We go to War and then help our once enemy rebuild and then we trade with them.Watch what happens with North Korea our future trade partner.We in the USA are not understanding this until we lose our job to cheap imports and then do not care.Am I one of those who knows the future of the USA.Check out where you live and who is the rich and how they got there.I have been watching since the late 50s and listen to my elders.Our WW2 veterans will tell you why we are in debt.
我们的债务是由不受控制的贸易造成的，这是在第二次世界大战后开始的。我们参加战争，然后帮助我们曾经的敌人重建，然后我们与他们进行贸易。看看我们未来的贸易伙伴朝鲜会发生什么。我们在美国不理解，直到我们因为廉价进口而失去工作我们也不在乎。我是唯一一个知道美国未来在那里的人吗？看看你住在哪里，谁是富人，他们是怎么变得富有的。我从50年代末就一直在观察或听我的长辈们说这些。我们的二战老兵会告诉你为什么我们会负债。
George Kleinman, Neuropathologist, Japanophile, Observer
America is in debt because of the tyranny of a dead idea. A number of years ago, author Matt Miller published his book titled The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Revolutionary Thinking for a New Age of Prosperity, in which he argues that political leaders are convinced - despite obxtive evidence to the contrary - that: 1) taxes always hurt the economy; 2) schools are purely an issue for each respective community; and 3) merit is always rewarded. Nothing could be further from the truth.
由于一个认同死亡思想的暴政，美国负债累累。几年前，作家马特·米勒（Matt Miller）出版了他的书《死亡思想的暴政：新繁荣时代的革命思维》，他在书中指出，尽管有与此相反的客观证据，但政治领导人确信：1）税收总是会伤害经济；2） 学校完全是每个社区的问题；3）付出总会有回报。没有比这更离谱的了。
里根第一个任期的就职典礼上，国家债务是9980亿美元，但当他卸任时，已经膨胀到2.7万亿美元！美国从世界债权人变成了最大的债务人。这是因为他相信里根经济学（又名“滴流经济学”，又名“供给经济学”）。在初选中，他未来的副总统乔治·布什（George HW Bush）正确地将其称为“巫毒经济学”（Voodo Economics）。面对迅速增加的赤字，他随后进行了11次加税，1982年的《税收公平和财政责任法案》（TEFRA）就是一个例子，这是美国历史上最大的一次增税。不仅如此，在艾伦·格林斯潘的祝福下，里根甚至袭击了社会保障信托基金，开始对老年人的社会保障福利征税！然而，尽管如此，在他卸任时，美国国债已经膨胀到2.7万亿美元，已经处于老年痴呆症的早期阶段。
比尔·克林顿（Bill Clinton）自认为是艾森豪威尔（Eisenhower）式的共和党人，他提高了税收，平衡了预算，使美国走上了消灭国债的轨道。然后，乔治·布什当选，再次大幅减税，然后发动了两场战争——这两场战争都没有资金支持——他签署了e号法案处方药计划（law e prescxtion drug program）——也没有资金支持。
对共和党的经济理论的受控实验已经进行过了，在当选堪萨斯州州长时，共和党人萨姆·布朗贝克（Sam Brownback）雇佣了疯狂的经济学家阿瑟·拉弗（Arthur Laffer，他在几乎所有事情上都错了）——来帮助重写堪萨斯州的税法。结果盈余变成了巨大的赤字，堪萨斯州的信用评级下降了两次！最终，共和党控制的州立法机构推翻了布朗贝克的否决权，将税法恢复到了拉弗之前的样子。
共和党人用税收这个咒语来花民主党的钱。这笔债务是通过出售国际购买的美国国债来融资的，这也是美国欠中国等其他国家债务的原因。值得注意的是，美国国债曾一度被降级。如果共和党的税收骗局全面实施，美国国债有可能再次遭到更严重的降级，同时美元的世界储备货币将被取代。
“As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth — not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced — to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation’s economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.”
到1948年，罗斯福的联邦储备委员会（Federal Reserve）主席承认了基本的经济真理，他在1951年的《召唤边疆》（Becking Frontiers）一书中描述了这一真理：
“由于大规模生产必须伴随着大规模消费，因此大规模消费反过来意味着财富的分配——不是现有财富的分配，而是目前生产的财富的分配——为人们提供与国家经济机器提供的商品和服务数量相等的购买力。在分配方面，到1929-1930年，一个巨大的吸力泵将目前生产的财富中越来越多的部分吸引到了少数人手中，这为他们积累了资本。但由于从大众消费者手中夺走了购买力，储户们拒绝了对他们的产品的有效需求，而这种需求正是再投资的理由结果，就像在一场扑克游戏中，筹码集中在越来越少的人手中，其他人只能通过借贷才能留在游戏中，当他们的信用耗尽时，游戏就停止了。”
在凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）和马林纳·埃克尔斯（Marriner S.Eccles）之前，1934年
金钱不会“滴下”（译注：讽刺涓滴效应），也从来都不会。由于未能或不愿承认这一基本事实，共和党已经创造了美国的第二个镀金时代，并为大萧条2.0奠定了基础。