The stagnation in wealth-generation for salaried and wage employees in conjunction with FIRE’s Fed-backed morally hazardous activity has made basic necessities like housing and food increasingly difficult for ordinary people to afford.
On paper, American workers are among the wealthiest on the planet, with a median income between $55 and $60 thousand dollars a year. But this is a political number created by omission rather than a reflection of real-world living standards.
For example, a worker making $50,000 dollars a year only takes home about $39,129 after taxes. US employees in the middle bracket ($50 to $100,000) pay 22% in income tax, which is lower than the OECD average (34%), but in return for paying 1/3 more, citizens in other developed nations enjoy high quality public transportation, universal health care, and free education, while American workers are expected to pay for all of this out of pocket, often through high-interest loans and credit cards. The result is that the average household in the United States owes $128,824 ($17.3 trillion overall), with a rising chunk of this coming from the overreliance on credit cards to make ends meet.

（接上）
工薪階層和領(lǐng)薪員工的財富創(chuàng)造停滯不前，再加上FIRE在美聯(lián)儲支持下的道德風(fēng)險活動，使得住房和食品等基本必需品越來越難以讓普通人負擔(dān)得起。
從賬面上看，美國工人是世界上最富有的人之一，年收入中位數(shù)在5.5萬美元到6萬美元之間。但這是一個因疏忽而產(chǎn)生的政治數(shù)字，而不是現(xiàn)實生活水平的反映。
例如，一個年收入5萬美元的工人稅后只能拿到39129美元。美國中等收入階層(50至10萬美元)的員工繳納22%的所得稅，低于經(jīng)合組織的平均水平(34%)，但作為回報，其他發(fā)達國家的公民多繳納1/3的所得稅，享受高質(zhì)量的公共交通、全民醫(yī)療保健和免費教育，而美國工人則需要自掏腰包，通常是通過高息貸款和信用卡支付。
其結(jié)果是，美國家庭平均欠債128,824美元(總計17.3萬億美元)，其中越來越多的債務(wù)來自于過度依賴信用卡來維持收支平衡。

In order for an American household to be plausibly “middle-class,” two incomes are a requirement, but this is no guarantee. In 2019, it was discovered that 44% of Americans work at jobs that pay $18,000 dollars a year or less. For this population — the working poor and indigent — the state provides food, Social Security Insurance, welfare payouts, and health care subsidies, further stressing the balance of payments problem.
This has led to an awkward development, where countries perceived as second world, including US rival Russia, have started catching up to America’s long admired standard of living.
When adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), a Russian worker making the median Moscow salary of $19,200 a year can afford the same lifestyle as an American worker making $72,000 a year in a major American city (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, etc).

為了讓一個美國家庭看起來像是“中產(chǎn)階級”，兩份收入是必要條件，但這并不能保證。2019年，44%的美國人從事年薪1.8萬美元或以下的工作。對于這部分人口——工作貧困和貧困人口——國家提供食品、社會保障保險、福利支出和醫(yī)療補貼，這進一步加劇了國際收支問題。
這導(dǎo)致了一種尷尬的發(fā)展:被視為第二世界的國家，包括美國的競爭對手俄羅斯，已開始追趕美國長期以來羨慕的生活水平。根據(jù)購買力平價(PPP)進行調(diào)整后，莫斯科年薪中位數(shù)為19200美元的俄羅斯工人可以負擔(dān)得起在美國主要城市(芝加哥、洛杉磯、紐約等)年薪72000美元的美國工人的生活方式。

Russian workers pay a 13% flat tax on their income, which in return gets them great public transportation and universal health care. According to 2017 statistics, Russia has a unxization rate almost three times higher than the US at 27.5%. Russian workers enjoy 28 days of paid vacation time every year, compared to an average of 11 days for their American counterparts. 23% of Russian workers are employed in goods-producing fields, with an additional 5.8% participating in the agriculture sector (Russian agricultural production has doubled since the start of Western sanctions in 2022).
The lopsided distribution of wealth is still an issue in Russia, but Vladimir Putin’s reign has drastically improved the situation. Of the highly Jewish “Seven Oligarchs” who at one point in the 1990s controlled half of Russia’s wealth and pretty much all of its media, the majority of these figures have either been jailed or forced into exile by the Putin government.

俄羅斯工人按收入繳納13%的統(tǒng)一稅，作為回報，他們獲得了良好的公共交通和全民醫(yī)療保健。根據(jù)2017年的統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)，俄羅斯的工會化率為27.5%，幾乎是美國的三倍。俄羅斯工人每年享有28天的帶薪假期，而美國工人平均只有11天。
23%的俄羅斯工人從事商品生產(chǎn)領(lǐng)域的工作，另外5.8%的工人從事農(nóng)業(yè)部門(自2022年西方開始制裁以來，俄羅斯的農(nóng)業(yè)產(chǎn)量翻了一番)。
財富分配不平衡仍然是俄羅斯的一個問題，但弗拉基米爾·普京的執(zhí)政極大地改善了這一狀況。高度猶太化的“七寡頭”在20世紀90年代一度控制了俄羅斯一半的財富和幾乎所有的媒體，（如今）其中大多數(shù)人要么被普京政府監(jiān)禁，要么被迫流亡。

Defenders of Washington’s economic dominance over the world will often cite the billion or so people lifted from poverty since 1990. Yet the bulk of this work in combating destitution has happened in China, where 800 million people have been brought out of poverty. Much of this growth in real wealth has been driven by Chinese manufacturing, which employs 28% of workers. The doubling of the Chinese middle class from 2012 to 2022 has allowed the state to begin reorienting its economy towards domestic consumption as the trade war with the US intensifies.

為華盛頓在世界經(jīng)濟上的主導(dǎo)地位辯護的人經(jīng)常會提到，自1990年以來，大約有10億人擺脫了貧困。然而，這些消除貧困的工作大部分發(fā)生在中國，中國有8億人擺脫了貧困。
實際財富的增長大部分是由雇傭了28%工人的中國制造業(yè)推動的。從2012年到2022年，中國中產(chǎn)階級人數(shù)翻了一番，這使中國得以在中美貿(mào)易戰(zhàn)加劇之際，開始將經(jīng)濟轉(zhuǎn)向國內(nèi)消費。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處


Size, Trade Balance and Debt
US-based media outlets have been breathlessly predicting the looming collapse of the Chinese economy, but in 2023 China enjoyed GDP growth of 5.2%, compared to the US’ 2.5%.
Among those betting on China’s economy continuing to grow at double the rate of America are the US’ highly unpatriotic industrialists. Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla, and others spent 2023 visiting China to announce expansions of their economic participation in the country despite Beijing’s efforts to closely monitor and regulate foreign investments.
For Western capitalists, losing access to the Chinese market is unthinkable. When adjusting GDP for Purchasing Power Parity, the Chinese economy has long surpassed the US. In 2023, China stood at $30.3 trillion, while the US is second at $25.4 trillion.

規(guī)模、貿(mào)易平衡和債務(wù)
美國媒體一直在緊張地預(yù)測中國經(jīng)濟即將BK，但在2023年，中國的GDP增長率為5.2%，而美國為2.5%。
那些押注中國經(jīng)濟將繼續(xù)以兩倍于美國的速度增長的人，包括美國極不愛國的實業(yè)家。蘋果的蒂姆·庫克、特斯拉的埃隆·馬斯克等人在2019年訪問了中國，宣布擴大他們在中國的經(jīng)濟參與，盡管中國方面努力密切監(jiān)控和監(jiān)管外國投資。
對于西方資本家來說，失去進入中國市場的機會是不可想象的。如果按購買力平價調(diào)整GDP，中國經(jīng)濟早就超過了美國。到2023年，中國為30.3萬億美元，而美國以25.4萬億美元位居第二。

A lesser-known fact is that last year, the World Bank reported that Russia’s sanctioned economy ($5.32 trillion) quietly passed Germany ($5.30 trillion) to become the largest economy in Europe and the fifth largest on the planet. If Russia overtakes stagnant Japan ($5.7 trillion) in the next year or two, three of the four largest economies in the world will belong to BRICS.
Upon closer examination, it should be noted that there are serious differences in the health of these respective economies. China, whose economic system is planned around exporting more than it imports, currently enjoys a $877 billion dollar trade surplus, while the resource rich Russians were $140 billion in the black thanks to pivoting their oil market towards Asia. By contrast, the United States suffered a $773 billion dollar trade deficit in 2023, though this is still a relative improvement from the nearly trillion dollar hole from the previous year.

一個不太為人所知的事實是，去年，世界銀行報告稱，俄羅斯受制裁的經(jīng)濟規(guī)模(5.32萬億美元)悄悄超過了德國(5.30萬億美元)，成為歐洲最大的經(jīng)濟體，也是全球第五大經(jīng)濟體。如果俄羅斯在未來一兩年超過停滯不前的日本(5.7萬億美元)，世界四大經(jīng)濟體中的三個將屬于金磚國家。
經(jīng)過仔細研究，應(yīng)該指出，這些經(jīng)濟體的健康狀況存在嚴重差異。中國的經(jīng)濟體系是以出口多于進口為基礎(chǔ)的，目前擁有8770億美元的貿(mào)易順差，而資源豐富的俄羅斯則由于將石油市場轉(zhuǎn)向亞洲，實現(xiàn)了1400億美元的順差。
相比之下，美國在2023年遭受了7730億美元的貿(mào)易逆差，盡管與前一年近萬億美元的逆差相比，這仍然是一個相對的改善。

Debt is currently at 112% of the American GDP, compared to 66.5% in China and 15.1% in Russia. America’s most important Asian protectorate, the Japanese economic juggernaut, is being propped up by an increasingly unviable debt that is 232% of its GDP.
While the “exorbitant privilege” of the US dollar may allow America to import significantly more than it exports, its hollowed-out manufacturing base places it at a serious disadvantage in an age of Great Power competition.
Between China’s vast realized manufacturing potential and Russia’s plentiful natural resources, we are arriving at a point where sanctions and trade wars launched by the G7 hurt the aggressors more than the target.

目前美國的債務(wù)是GDP的112%，而中國是66.5%，俄羅斯是15.1%。美國在亞洲最重要的受保護國，日本的經(jīng)濟霸主，正被越來越難以生存的債務(wù)支撐著，債務(wù)占其GDP的232%。
雖然美元的“過度特權(quán)”可能使美國的進口遠遠超過出口，但其被掏空的制造業(yè)基礎(chǔ)使其在大國競爭時代處于嚴重劣勢。
在中國巨大的制造業(yè)潛力和俄羅斯豐富的自然資源之間，七國集團發(fā)起的制裁和貿(mào)易戰(zhàn)對攻擊者的傷害大于對目標的傷害。

According to the Supply Chain Vulnerability Index, the United States is the world’s most susceptible to interruptions in global trade. This interdependence, where the US consumes without producing, reveals a massive disparity with the fully self-sufficient Chinese. Trump-era tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods continued by the Biden administration have caused far more damage to American capitalists than to Chinese enterprises.
This dynamic is also being felt in the realm of kinetic conflicts, as seen with developments in the Ukraine war. Russian industry’s ability to simultaneously weather global sanctions and rapidly produce weapons has bewildered NATO. The Atlanticist bloc is unable to continue providing the Zelensky regime with the arms necessary to retain Ukraine’s artificial military peer status it enjoyed against Russia in 2022 and part of 2023.

根據(jù)供應(yīng)鏈脆弱性指數(shù)，美國是世界上最容易受到全球貿(mào)易中斷影響的國家。在這種相互依賴中，美國只消費不生產(chǎn)，顯示出與完全自給自足的中國之間的巨大差距。拜登政府繼續(xù)對特朗普時代價值3000億美元的中國商品征收關(guān)稅，對美國資本家造成的損害遠遠大于對中國企業(yè)造成的損害。
這種動態(tài)也體現(xiàn)在動態(tài)沖突領(lǐng)域，烏克蘭戰(zhàn)爭的發(fā)展就是明證。俄羅斯工業(yè)能夠同時經(jīng)受住全球制裁并迅速生產(chǎn)武器，這讓北約感到困惑。大西洋主義集團無法繼續(xù)向澤連斯基政權(quán)提供必要的武器，以維持烏克蘭在2022年和2023年的部分時間里與俄羅斯在軍事上的對等地位。

Dethroning King Dollar
America’s unusually powerful dollar is a source of misery for both ordinary Americans and much of the world.
The high exchange rate of dollars (and to a lesser extent Euros) compared to other world currencies is a primary driver of mass immigration from the global south to the West, as migrants’ remittances go far in the economies of their homelands. Immigrants paying large sums of cash to smugglers to bring them to the West are often prospecting for dollars and Euros — an investment that would not be worthwhile if these currencies were weakened down to a more realistic and competitive rate of exchange.

推翻美元地位
美國異常強勢的美元是普通美國人和世界大部分地區(qū)痛苦的根源。
與其他世界貨幣相比，美元(以及歐元)的高匯率是全球南方向西方大規(guī)模移民的主要推動力，因為移民的匯款在他們祖國的經(jīng)濟中占比顯著。向走私者支付大筆現(xiàn)金，讓走私者把他們帶到西方的移民，往往是為了尋找美元和歐元——如果這些貨幣被削弱到一個更現(xiàn)實、更有競爭力的匯率，這種投資就不值得了。

Domestically, outside of the record profits enjoyed by the top seven firms (largely overvalued tech firms and unproductive data-mining operations like Meta and Google) in the S&P 500, America’s generally unprofitable businesses have been hit hard by interest rate raise. The lack of cheap credit flow caused a 13-year high in bankruptcies in 2023, as well as the largest bank failure since the 2008 crisis.
Connected to this is the incentive to keep wages as low as possible in the West as well as to outsource, due to American capitalist’s need to keep prices on its brands (Teslas, iPhones, etc) accessible for the upper middle classes of the less developed world. While imports are cheap due to this relationship, the downside is that Americans struggle to buy basic necessities that must be sourced at home.

在美國國內(nèi)，除了標準普爾500指數(shù)中排名前七的公司(主要是估值過高的科技公司和Meta和谷歌等低效的數(shù)據(jù)挖掘公司)享有創(chuàng)紀錄的利潤外，美國普遍無利可圖的企業(yè)也受到了加息的沉重打擊。缺乏廉價信貸流動導(dǎo)致2023年破產(chǎn)數(shù)量達到13年來的最高水平，以及2008年金融危機以來最大的銀行倒閉。
與此相關(guān)的是西方盡可能壓低工資和外包的動機，因為美國資本家需要保持其品牌(特斯拉、iphone等)的價格，讓欠發(fā)達國家的中上層階級能夠接受。雖然由于這種關(guān)系，進口商品很便宜，但不利的一面是，美國人很難購買必須在國內(nèi)采購的基本必需品。

At the 1971 G10 meeting, US Treasury Secretary John Connally told European “allies” that the US dollar is “our currency, and your problem.” The strong dollar allows Washington to avoid the political problems wrought by runaway inflation by forcing Europe and East Asia to endure these consequences instead. Resource poor industrial nations such as Japan and Germany are forced to import raw materials — usually in dollars — which has (alongside cutting off raw materials through the sanctioning of Russia) jacked up the price of their manufacturing to the point of causing massive contractions in both economies.
In other words, the dollar hurts almost every stakeholder save for the predominately Jewish US elite. In recent years, they tore off their mask off by utilizing control over the world reserve currency and financial institutions to mount geopolitical attacks intended to starve Iran and Russia into collapse.

在1971年的十國集團(G10)會議上，美國財政部長約翰·康納利告訴歐洲的“盟友”，美元是“我們的貨幣，你們的問題”。強勢美元讓美國政府得以避免通脹失控所帶來的政治問題，從而迫使歐洲和東亞承受這些后果。
日本和德國等資源貧乏的工業(yè)國家被迫進口原材料——通常以美元計價——這(加上通過制裁俄羅斯而切斷原材料供應(yīng))推高了它們的制造業(yè)價格，導(dǎo)致兩國經(jīng)濟出現(xiàn)大規(guī)模收縮。
換句話說，除了以猶太人為主的美國精英之外，美元幾乎傷害了所有利益相關(guān)者。近年來，他們撕下面具，利用對世界儲備貨幣和金融機構(gòu)的控制，發(fā)動意在餓死伊朗和俄羅斯的地緣政治攻擊。

For much of the world’s elite, American assets (stocks, real estate, etc) are attractive due to their high rate of quick profitability. This has traditionally given the US a high degree of economic leverage over foreign lands, but the war in Ukraine has made many countries reconsider their investments. In fact, one could argue that they are looking for an escape route.
In 2022, the United States and its G7 subjects unilaterally confiscated $300 billion dollars in Russian assets held in their territories upon instruction from Washington and New York. This was paired with deplatforming Moscow from the US-controlled SWIFT. The goal of this endeavor was economic sabotage: make it impossible for Russia to meet its financial obligations and thus “turn the Ruble into rubble.” Frustrated by the lack of desired results, America’s vindictive Jewish Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently floated the idea of giving all the money stolen from Russia to Ukraine.

對于世界上的許多精英來說，美國資產(chǎn)(股票、房地產(chǎn)等)因其快速的高利潤率而具有吸引力。傳統(tǒng)上，這使美國在外國土地上擁有高度的經(jīng)濟影響力，但烏克蘭戰(zhàn)爭使許多國家重新考慮他們的投資。事實上，有人可能會說它們在尋找一條逃生路線。
2022年，根據(jù)華盛頓和紐約的指示，美國及其G7成員國單方面沒收了在其領(lǐng)土上持有的3000億美元俄羅斯資產(chǎn)。與此同時，莫斯科也從美國控制的SWIFT中退出。這種努力的目的是破壞經(jīng)濟:使俄羅斯無法履行其財政義務(wù)，從而“把盧布變成瓦礫”。美國的猶太裔財政部長珍妮特·耶倫因缺乏理想的結(jié)果而感到沮喪，最近提出了將從俄羅斯竊取的所有資金都交給烏克蘭的想法。

Naturally, most of the world — the majority who have refused to participate in sanctions on Russia — has been disquieted by this weaponization of US economic might. Energy and manufacturing superpowers Russia, China, and Iran have already largely de-dollarized in their bilateral trade, mostly out of necessity, but what should be more alarming for Washington policymakers is that now nations integral to the dollar’s success such as France and Saudi Arabia are starting to sign trade agreements paid for through currency swaps and Yuans.

自然，世界上大多數(shù)國家——其中大多數(shù)拒絕參與制裁俄羅斯的國家——對美國經(jīng)濟實力的武器化感到不安。能源和制造業(yè)超級大國俄羅斯、中國和伊朗已經(jīng)在雙邊貿(mào)易中實現(xiàn)了很大程度上的去美元化，這主要是出于必要，但對華盛頓的政策制定者來說，更值得警惕的是，現(xiàn)在法國和沙特阿拉伯等對美元的成功不可或缺的國家開始簽署通過貨幣互換和人民幣支付的貿(mào)易協(xié)議。
（未完待續(xù)）