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Hello, I’m Craig and this is Crash Course Government and Politics and today I’m going to talk a bit more about economic policy.
大家好，我是克雷格，这里是政府与政治速成班，今天我要多谈谈经济政策。
Ran into the table there a little bit. Whoo!
有点撞到桌子上了。哇!
Economic policy can be dangerous.
经济政策可能是危险的。
Specifically, we’re going to look at some of the broad goals of economic policy and some of the things that the government does to try to accomplish those goals.
具体来说，我们将着眼于经济政策的一些广泛目标以及政府为实现这些目标所做的一些事情。
And we may even provide some examples of times when the government DID accomplish them, so take that, skeptics.
我们甚至可以提供一些政府确实完成这些目标的例子，怀疑论者请接受这一点。
But, I have to admit, a lot of the time the goals are just goals.
但是，我必须承认，很多时候目标只是目标。
So all people have goals and aspirations (except me) and the government, since it’s made up of people is no different.
所以所有的人都有目标和抱负(除了我)，政府也是一样，因为政府是由人组成的没有什么不同。
Well I do have one goal: to punch the eagle again.
我只有一个目标:再次猛击老鹰。
And I did it. Accomplished.
所以我也这么做了。完成。
Well, actually the government's different because it’s economic goals are much bigger and more important than, say my goal of punching the eagle again.
实际上政府的不同之处在于它的经济目标更大更重要，比我再次打击老鹰的目标更重要。
Although I would argue my goal is pretty important.
尽管我认为我的目标很重要。
So what are these, goals of economic policy?
那么，经济政策的目标是什么呢?
The first goal is promoting stable markets.
第一个目标是促进稳定的市场。
We talked about how the government structures the market system in the last episode, so I probably don’t need to repeat it.
上节课我们讲过政府是如何构建市场体系的，所以我就不重复了。
At least I hope I don’t.
至少我希望我不重复了。
You should’ve been paying attention.
你应该集中注意力的。
But since nobody wants a malfunctioning market, most of the things the government does to create a market system also work to make the system stable and predictable.
但由于没有人想要一个失灵的市场，政府在创建一个市场体系时所做的大部分工作，都是为了让这个体系变得稳定和可预测。
Maintaining law and order and minimizing monopolies are examples of government actions that make the market system stable.
维护法律秩序和减少垄断是政府稳定市场体系的例子。
I didn’t know the government maintained Law and Order – oh not the tv show, OK.
我不知道政府维护法律和秩序-哦，不是电视节目，好的。
One of the more interesting ways – ok interesting to me – that the government keeps markets predictable is through national regulations of things like automobile fuel efficiency standards.
政府让市场保持可预测性的一个更有趣的方式，对我来说也很有趣，就是通过国家对汽车燃油效率标准的规定。
If there were no national regulations, and states were allowed to set the rules, then it might be possible for car makers in Detroit to build cars that live up to the mileage standards in Michigan, but not in California, and that would be anarchy.
如果没有全国性的法规，各州被允许制定规则，那么底特律的汽车制造商就有可能在密歇根州生产出符合里程标准的汽车，而在加利福尼亚州却不行，这将是一种无政府状态。
Well, maybe not anarchy exactly, but it wouldn’t be good, and it’d make it much more difficult for manufacturers to know what kind of cars to make.
好吧，也许确切地说不是无政府状态，但这并不好，这将使制造商更难知道要生产什么样的汽车。
Also, do you really want California, the state with the biggest population, making rules for the rest of us?
还有，你真的想让人口最多的加州为我们其他人制定规则吗?
Of course you don’t. The second major goal of economic policy is promoting economic prosperity.
你当然不知道。经济政策的第二个主要目标是促进经济繁荣。
Here’s another example of a situation where many people will tell you that the best way for the government to promote prosperity is to get out of the way, and they may have a point, but the government doesn’t stop trying.
这是另一个例子，很多人会告诉你政府促进繁荣的最好方法就是解决问题，他们可能有自己的观点，但是政府并没有停止尝试。
So what does the government do to promote prosperity?
那么政府是如何促进繁荣的呢?
For one thing, it tries to keep a positive investment climate and build confidence in the economy.
首先，政府试图保持积极的投资环境，建立对经济的信心。
One way the federal government can accomplish this is through regulating financial markets through the Securities and Exchange Commission since people won’t want to invest in the securities markets if they think the game's fixed.
联邦政府实现这一目标的一种方式是通过证券交易委员会来监管金融市场，因为如果人们认为游戏已经固定，他们就不会愿意投资于证券市场。
Another thing the government can do, if it’s feeling particularly Keynesian, is to spend money on public investment in things like highways and the internet.
政府还能做的另一件事，如果它特别信奉凯恩斯主义，就会把钱花在高速公路和互联网等公共投资上。
While not actually built by Al Gore, it did begin with a government program out of the Defense Department.
虽然它不是由戈尔建造的，但它确实是由国防部的一个政府项目开始的。
The government also pays for research through the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and enhances the workforce through education policy and immigration policy, all of which contribute to national prosperity.
政府还通过美国国立卫生研究院和美国国家科学基金会资助研究，通过教育政策和移民政策提高劳动力，所有这些都有助于国家繁荣。
Another, and by no means the last, way that the government can try to make the country more prosperous is by keeping inflation low.
政府试图使国家更加繁荣的另一种方法，也绝不是最后一种方法，是保持低通胀。
You can find out more about inflation from Crash Course: Economics,
你可以从速成课上了解更多关于通货膨胀的知识:经济学，
but the main tool the government uses to control inflation is the Federal Reserve, which is so complicated that it gets it’s own episode.
但政府用来控制通胀的主要工具是美联储，它是如此复杂，以至于有自己的一段插曲。
A third goal of government economic policy, one closely related to the first two, is promoting business development.
政府经济政策的第三个目标(与前两个目标密切相关)是促进商业发展。
Many people would probably argue that promoting business development and promoting prosperity are the same thing but policies aimed at helping businesses are slightly different and more focused than those targeting the broader goal of promoting prosperity.
许多人可能会认为，促进商业发展和促进繁荣是一回事，但旨在帮助企业的政策略有不同，而且比那些旨在促进繁荣的更广泛目标的政策更有针对性。
The main ways that the federal government promotes business development are through tariffs and subsidies.
联邦政府促进商业发展的主要方式是通过关税和补贴。
Since the Great Depression, the U.S.has pretty much pursued a policy of free trade, which means lowering tariffs on most things, which by forcing them to compete can hurt businesses, at least in the short run.
自从经济大萧条以来，美国经济一直在增长美国已经在很大程度上奉行自由贸易政策，这意味着降低大多数商品的关税，迫使它们竞争可能会损害企业，至少在短期内是这样。
In the past, however, high tariffs allowed American businesses to develop free from foreign competition and this helped to make the U.S.the most powerful industrial nation in the world!
然而，在过去，高关税使美国企业得以在没有外国竞争的情况下发展，这有助于美国经济的发展世界上最强大的工业国家!
Can we use that Libertage from US History?
我们能利用美国历史的这种自由吗?
I think Yes!
我认为是的！
Subsidies are very controversial and they come in two forms.
补贴是非常有争议的，有两种形式。
Grants in aid for things like transportation – building those superhighways again – provide an indirect subsidy to businesses who don’t have to pay for the roads they use to ship the goods they make.
对交通等方面的资助——再次修建这些高速公路——为企业提供了一种间接补贴，这些企业不需要为自己用来运输产品的道路付费。
Most people don’t complain about this type of subsidy, because they can also be looked at as a public good.
大多数人并不抱怨这种补贴，因为它们也可以被视为一种公共产品。
Direct subsidies are another issue.
直接补贴是另一个问题。
These include direct assistance to businesses through the Small Business Administration and government investment in firms like Sematech and, more recently and more controversially, Solyndra.
这些措施包括通过小企业管理局向企业提供直接援助，以及政府对Sematech等公司的投资，以及最近备受争议的Solyndra。
Many people don’t think that the government should be in the business of investing in business and that these subsidies provide the businesses that receive them with an unfair advantage.
许多人认为政府不应该从事商业投资，而且这些补贴为接受补贴的企业提供了不公平的优势。
Farm subsidies are probably just as controversial.
农业补贴可能也同样存在争议。
They were put in place to help farmers during The Great Depression, but these days, critics worry that most of the subsidies go to corporate farms.
这些补贴是在大萧条时期为帮助农民而设立的，但如今，批评人士担心，大部分补贴都流向了企业农场。
The fourth goal of government economic policy is to protect consumers and employees.
政府经济政策的第四个目标是保护消费者和雇员。
A lot of people will tell you that the federal government doesn’t do much to protect employees these days, and those people are probably right, but in the past it certainly did.
很多人会告诉你，联邦政府现在在保护雇员方面做得并不多，这些人可能是对的，但在过去，联邦政府确实做了很多。
The government made unionization easier with the National Labor Relations Act and setting labor standards, especially overtime rules with the Fair Labor Standards Act.
政府通过《国家劳工关系法》和制定劳工标准，特别是《公平劳工标准法》制定的加班规则，使工会更容易成立。
Both of these were passed in the 1930s, by the way.
顺便说一下，这两项法案都是在20世纪30年代通过的。
Probably the most notable thing that the government does to protect workers these days is set the federal minimum wage,
也许政府最近为保护工人所做的最值得注意的事情就是设定联邦最低工资，
but since that topic is being hotly debated as this episode is being produced in 2015, I can’t really comment on how it’s going to turn out.
但由于这一话题在2015年制作的时候引起了激烈的争论，我真的无法评论它的结局。
On the other hand the Occupational Safety and Health Administration does set up regulations to prevent workers from breathing in hazardous fumes and protect them from other potentially life threatening workplace conditions, and that’s a good thing.
另一方面，美国职业安全与健康管理局确实制定了相关规定，防止工人吸入有害气体，保护他们不受其他可能危及生命的工作环境的影响，这是一件好事。
As far as consumers are concerned, there are thousands of regulations that protect us to make sure that the things we buy don’t kill or maim us.
就消费者而言，有成千上万的法规保护我们，以确保我们买的东西不会杀死或伤害我们。
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that our medicines aren’t poison, and the Department of Agriculture inspects meat, which I think is really good a idea, actually.
美国食品和药物管理局确保我们的药品不有毒，农业部对肉类进行检查，我认为这确实是个好主意。
The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 made cars safer, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission helps keep lead paint out of our toys and saves us from exploding toasters.
1966年的《国家交通和机动车安全法》提高了汽车的安全性，美国消费品安全委员会帮助我们的玩具不含铅涂料，避免了烤面包机爆炸。
I like explosions as much as the next guy, but not with breakfast.
我和其他人一样喜欢爆炸，但不喜欢吃早餐。
All of these goals of economic policy, promoting stable markets, promoting economic prosperity, fostering business development and protecting employees and consumers are interrelated and important.
所有这些经济政策、促进稳定市场、促进经济繁荣、促进商业发展和保护雇员和消费者的目标都是相互关联和重要的。
I’ll leave it up to you to decide if one is more important than the other three, because that makes for excellent dinner conversation.
我将让你来决定其中一个是否比另外三个更重要，因为这将是非常好的晚餐谈话。
If your dinner parties are mostly about the role the government plays in our economy.
如果你的晚宴主要是关于政府在我们的经济中所扮演的角色。
Please invite me to those dinner parties.
请邀请我参加那些晚宴。
I’m hungry, for roast beef and political debate.
我饿了，想吃烤牛肉，也想政治辩论。
So, to shift gears a little, let’s talk history, and how the government’s role in regulating the economy has changed in the last 240 years or so.
所以，让我们换个话题，谈谈历史，以及政府在过去240年左右的时间里，在调节经济方面的作用发生了怎样的变化。
So you probably remember from back when we talked about the transition from congressional to presidential government that began with Teddy Roosevelt and really came into its own with Franklin Roosevelt, that before the 20th century the federal government didn’t really do that much.
你们可能还记得，当我们谈到从国会到总统政府的过渡时，从泰迪·罗斯福开始，到富兰克林·罗斯福开始，在20世纪之前，联邦政府并没有做太多。
A lot of that has to do with fiscal policy and taxation, which we’re going to discuss in another episode, and maybe that dinner you’re going to invite me to,
其中很多都与财政政策和税收有关，我们将在另一集中讨论，也许你会邀请我去吃晚餐，
but some of it was certainly because of the way that the Supreme Court had interpreted the Commerce Clause to mean that government regulation was suspect, and by suspect, I mean generally not allowed.
但其中的一些肯定是因为最高法院对《商业条款》的解释是，政府监管是可疑的，而所谓可疑，我的意思是，一般来说是不允许的。
But by the end of the 19th century the Federal government’s regulatory power had begun to change, and a lot of that has to do with one of my favorite subjects - no not Star Wars.
但到了19世纪末，联邦政府的监管权力开始发生变化，这在很大程度上与我最喜欢的话题之一有关——不，不是《星球大战》。
And no not the protection of endangered species. (punches eagle) I’m talking about railroads (Yeah!).
不，不是保护濒危物种。(猛击老鹰)我说的是铁路(耶!)
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
让我们进入思想泡泡。
So, with the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, travel and communication across the U.S. became much easier and it was possible for the first time to have a national market for goods.
因此，随着1869年横贯大陆铁路的建成，横跨美国的旅行和通讯变得容易多了，第一次有了全国性的商品市场。
If you raised cattle in Kansas, you could now easily ship beef to New York or San Francisco.
如果你在堪萨斯养牛，现在你可以很容易地把牛肉运到纽约或旧金山。
Railroads were, almost by definition, interstate entities, so it was pretty clear that Congress could regulate them.
铁路几乎是州际实体，所以很明显国会可以监管它们。
And they needed regulation because railroads had a nasty habit of discriminatory pricing, charging much, much more for some shippers than for others.
而且需要监管，因为铁路有歧视定价的坏习惯，对一些托运人的收费比其他托运人高得多。
Something had to be done and Congress stepped in with the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads.
必须采取措施，国会于1887年通过了州际商务法案，成立了州际商务委员会来管理铁路。
The period of time around the turn of the 20th century in the U.S. is known as the Gilded Age
在美国，20世纪之交的这段时间被称为“镀金时代”
and is associated with runaway capitalism and the creation of modern corporate structures and industrial capitalists like Andrew Carnegie–or Carnegie, if you will – and John D. Rockefeller who are heroes to some and villains to others.
它与失控的资本主义、现代企业结构的建立以及安德鲁•卡内基(或者可以说是卡内基)和约翰·D.洛克菲勒等工业资本家联系在一起。
In response to some of the abuses of the Gilded Age, Congress passed its first wave of regulatory legislation.
为了回应镀金时代的一些弊端，国会通过了第一波监管立法。
In addition to the ICC, Congress created the Federal Trade Commission to regulate trade and the Sherman and Clayton Acts to try to counter the problem of monopolies.
除了国际刑事法院，国会还成立了联邦贸易委员会来监管贸易，制定了《谢尔曼和克莱顿法案》，试图解决垄断问题。
These anti-trust laws are the basis of modern anti-trust regulation and have been used against Standard Oil and Microsoft.
这些反托拉斯法是现代反托拉斯法的基础，已被用于反对标准石油公司和微软公司。
This first wave of economic regulation didn’t have huge effects on the economy, certainly not greater than the effects of, say World War I.
第一波经济调控对经济没有产生巨大的影响，当然不会比第一次世界大战的影响更大。
In the 1920s the federal government returned to a more traditional laissez faire approach, which lasted until the Great Depression swept Herbert Hoover and the Republicans out of office and Franklin Roosevelt into it.
20世纪20年代，联邦政府恢复了更为传统的自由放任政策，这种政策一直持续到大萧条将赫伯特•胡佛和共和党人赶下台、富兰克林•罗斯福上台。
And with Franklin Roosevelt came the New Deal and the advent of what law schools sometimes like to call the administrative and regulatory state.
随着富兰克林·罗斯福新政的出台，法学院有时喜欢称其为行政和管理州。
Thanks Thought Bubble.
谢谢思想泡泡。
We’re not going to get into details about the various laws and regulations of the New Deal here, but luckily I think John talked about them in Crash Course: U.S. History.
我们不打算在这里详细讨论新政的各种法律法规，但幸运的是，我想约翰在美国历史速成课上讲过这些。
John, he talks about stuff.
约翰，他会谈论一些事情。
But in general, those regulations meant that the federal government would take an active role in regulating certain sectors of the economy, like agriculture and transportation.
但总的来说，这些规定意味着联邦政府将在监管农业和交通等特定经济领域发挥积极作用。
Sometimes technology played a part.
有时候科技也起了作用。
There really wasn’t a need for a Federal Aviation Administration until there were airplanes.
在飞机出现之前，真的没有必要设立联邦航空管理局。
The next big wave of government regulation happened in the early 1970s under, of all people, president Nixon.
下一波政府监管浪潮发生在上世纪70年代初，当时的美国总统是尼克松。
These new regulatory laws were different from their New Deal predecessors in that they focused on the economy as a whole.
这些新的监管法律不同于新政的前身，因为它们关注的是整个经济。
For example the Occupational Safety and Health Administration dealt with ALL occupations,
例如，职业安全与健康管理局处理所有职业，
or at least most of them, and the EPA was created to protect the whole country’s environment.
或者至少是大多数，而环保局的成立是为了保护整个国家的环境。
Beginning in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan, or actually before him under Carter, the federal government has undertaken various initiatives to de-regulate the economy,
从20世纪80年代罗纳德·里根开始，或者说在他之前卡特执政时期，联邦政府采取了各种措施来解除对经济的管制，
but we already talked about deregulation in our episode on taming the bureaucracy so we don’t need to re-hash that here.
但是我们已经在驯服官僚主义的那一集里讨论过放松管制，所以我们不需要在这里重新讨论。
The point to remember is that, despite attempts at deregulation, the administrative regulatory state appears to be here to stay.
需要记住的一点是，尽管政府试图放松管制，但行政管理型国家似乎仍将存在。
So why do we have an administrative regulatory state now, even though so many people complain about it?
那么，为什么我们现在有一个行政管理的国家，即使有那么多人抱怨它?
Part of the reason has to do with the remarkable staying power of bureaucracies, which are harder to kill than Wolverine.
部分原因与官僚机构非凡的持久力有关，官僚机构比金刚狼更难被消灭。
Nowadays the federal government not only has economic goals, goals like increasing prosperity that most of us agree upon, it also has a sense, maybe even a belief that it should try to achieve those goals.
如今，联邦政府不仅有经济目标，比如我们大多数人都认同的增加繁荣的目标，它还有一种感觉，甚至是一种信念，那就是它应该努力实现这些目标。
This is a long way from the view of the federal government that persisted through the 19th century, one which many people say was handed down by the framers.
这与贯穿整个19世纪的联邦政府的观点相去甚远，许多人认为，联邦政府是由立宪者们建立起来的。
But times change, and the world and the U.S. has gotten much more complex.
但是时代变了，世界和美国变得更加复杂。
Economic concerns take up an increasingly large part of our lives and many of them, especially big macroeconomic policies require big solutions.
经济问题在我们生活中占据越来越大的比重，其中许多问题，尤其是宏观经济政策，需要大的解决方案。
And for many Americans, but certainly not all of them, the best solution we have is government.
对很多美国人来说，当然不是所有人，我们最好的解决办法是政府。
Thanks for watching. See you next time.
谢谢收看。下次见。
Crash Course Government and Politics is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.
政府与政治速成班是与PBS数字工作室联合制作的。
Support for Crash Course: U.S. Government comes from Voqal.
对美国政府速成课的支持来自Voqal。
Voqal supports nonprofits that use technology and media to advance social equity.
Voqal支持使用技术和媒体促进社会公平的非营利组织。
Learn more about their mission and initiatives at Voqal.org.
更多关于他们的使命和倡议，请访问Voqal.org。
Crash Course was made with the help of all these occupational safety and health hazards.
速成班是在所有这些“职业安全和健康危害”的帮助下进行的。
Thanks for watching.
感谢收看。
