网帖翻译

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）
工薪阶层和领薪员工的财富创造停滞不前，再加上FIRE在美联储支持下的道德风险活动，使得住房和食品等基本必需品越来越难以让普通人负担得起。
从账面上看，美国工人是世界上最富有的人之一，年收入中位数在5.5万美元到6万美元之间。但这是一个因疏忽而产生的政治数字，而不是现实生活水平的反映。
例如，一个年收入5万美元的工人税后只能拿到39129美元。美国中等收入阶层(50至10万美元)的员工缴纳22%的所得税，低于经合组织的平均水平(34%)，但作为回报，其他发达国家的公民多缴纳1/3的所得税，享受高质量的公共交通、全民医疗保健和免费教育，而美国工人则需要自掏腰包，通常是通过高息贷款和信用卡支付。
其结果是，美国家庭平均欠债128,824美元(总计17.3万亿美元)，其中越来越多的债务来自于过度依赖信用卡来维持收支平衡。

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).

为了让一个美国家庭看起来像是“中产阶级”，两份收入是必要条件，但这并不能保证。2019年，44%的美国人从事年薪1.8万美元或以下的工作。对于这部分人口——工作贫困和贫困人口——国家提供食品、社会保障保险、福利支出和医疗补贴，这进一步加剧了国际收支问题。
这导致了一种尴尬的发展:被视为第二世界的国家，包括美国的竞争对手俄罗斯，已开始追赶美国长期以来羡慕的生活水平。根据购买力平价(PPP)进行调整后，莫斯科年薪中位数为19200美元的俄罗斯工人可以负担得起在美国主要城市(芝加哥、洛杉矶、纽约等)年薪72000美元的美国工人的生活方式。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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.

俄罗斯工人按收入缴纳13%的统一税，作为回报，他们获得了良好的公共交通和全民医疗保健。根据2017年的统计数据，俄罗斯的工会化率为27.5%，几乎是美国的三倍。俄罗斯工人每年享有28天的带薪假期，而美国工人平均只有11天。
23%的俄罗斯工人从事商品生产领域的工作，另外5.8%的工人从事农业部门(自2022年西方开始制裁以来，俄罗斯的农业产量翻了一番)。
财富分配不平衡仍然是俄罗斯的一个问题，但弗拉基米尔·普京的执政极大地改善了这一状况。高度犹太化的“七寡头”在20世纪90年代一度控制了俄罗斯一半的财富和几乎所有的媒体，（如今）其中大多数人要么被普京政府监禁，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.

为华盛顿在世界经济上的主导地位辩护的人经常会提到，自1990年以来，大约有10亿人摆脱了贫困。然而，这些消除贫困的工作大部分发生在中国，中国有8亿人摆脱了贫困。
实际财富的增长大部分是由雇佣了28%工人的中国制造业推动的。从2012年到2022年，中国中产阶级人数翻了一番，这使中国得以在中美贸易战加剧之际，开始将经济转向国内消费。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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.

规模、贸易平衡和债务
美国媒体一直在紧张地预测中国经济即将BK，但在2023年，中国的GDP增长率为5.2%，而美国为2.5%。
那些押注中国经济将继续以两倍于美国的速度增长的人，包括美国极不爱国的实业家。苹果的蒂姆·库克、特斯拉的埃隆·马斯克等人在2019年访问了中国，宣布扩大他们在中国的经济参与，尽管中国方面努力密切监控和监管外国投资。
对于西方资本家来说，失去进入中国市场的机会是不可想象的。如果按购买力平价调整GDP，中国经济早就超过了美国。到2023年，中国为30.3万亿美元，而美国以25.4万亿美元位居第二。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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.

一个不太为人所知的事实是，去年，世界银行报告称，俄罗斯受制裁的经济规模(5.32万亿美元)悄悄超过了德国(5.30万亿美元)，成为欧洲最大的经济体，也是全球第五大经济体。如果俄罗斯在未来一两年超过停滞不前的日本(5.7万亿美元)，世界四大经济体中的三个将属于金砖国家。
经过仔细研究，应该指出，这些经济体的健康状况存在严重差异。中国的经济体系是以出口多于进口为基础的，目前拥有8770亿美元的贸易顺差，而资源丰富的俄罗斯则由于将石油市场转向亚洲，实现了1400亿美元的顺差。
相比之下，美国在2023年遭受了7730亿美元的贸易逆差，尽管与前一年近万亿美元的逆差相比，这仍然是一个相对的改善。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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.

目前美国的债务是GDP的112%，而中国是66.5%，俄罗斯是15.1%。美国在亚洲最重要的受保护国，日本的经济霸主，正被越来越难以生存的债务支撑着，债务占其GDP的232%。
虽然美元的“过度特权”可能使美国的进口远远超过出口，但其被掏空的制造业基础使其在大国竞争时代处于严重劣势。
在中国巨大的制造业潜力和俄罗斯丰富的自然资源之间，七国集团发起的制裁和贸易战对攻击者的伤害大于对目标的伤害。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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.

根据供应链脆弱性指数，美国是世界上最容易受到全球贸易中断影响的国家。在这种相互依赖中，美国只消费不生产，显示出与完全自给自足的中国之间的巨大差距。拜登政府继续对特朗普时代价值3000亿美元的中国商品征收关税，对美国资本家造成的损害远远大于对中国企业造成的损害。
这种动态也体现在动态冲突领域，乌克兰战争的发展就是明证。俄罗斯工业能够同时经受住全球制裁并迅速生产武器，这让北约感到困惑。大西洋主义集团无法继续向泽连斯基政权提供必要的武器，以维持乌克兰在2022年和2023年的部分时间里与俄罗斯在军事上的对等地位。

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
美国异常强势的美元是普通美国人和世界大部分地区痛苦的根源。
与其他世界货币相比，美元(以及欧元)的高汇率是全球南方向西方大规模移民的主要推动力，因为移民的汇款在他们祖国的经济中占比显著。向走私者支付大笔现金，让走私者把他们带到西方的移民，往往是为了寻找美元和欧元——如果这些货币被削弱到一个更现实、更有竞争力的汇率，这种投资就不值得了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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.

在美国国内，除了标准普尔500指数中排名前七的公司(主要是估值过高的科技公司和Meta和谷歌等低效的数据挖掘公司)享有创纪录的利润外，美国普遍无利可图的企业也受到了加息的沉重打击。缺乏廉价信贷流动导致2023年破产数量达到13年来的最高水平，以及2008年金融危机以来最大的银行倒闭。
与此相关的是西方尽可能压低工资和外包的动机，因为美国资本家需要保持其品牌(特斯拉、iphone等)的价格，让欠发达国家的中上层阶级能够接受。虽然由于这种关系，进口商品很便宜，但不利的一面是，美国人很难购买必须在国内采购的基本必需品。

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年的十国集团(G10)会议上，美国财政部长约翰·康纳利告诉欧洲的“盟友”，美元是“我们的货币，你们的问题”。强势美元让美国政府得以避免通胀失控所带来的政治问题，从而迫使欧洲和东亚承受这些后果。
日本和德国等资源贫乏的工业国家被迫进口原材料——通常以美元计价——这(加上通过制裁俄罗斯而切断原材料供应)推高了它们的制造业价格，导致两国经济出现大规模收缩。
换句话说，除了以犹太人为主的美国精英之外，美元几乎伤害了所有利益相关者。近年来，他们撕下面具，利用对世界储备货币和金融机构的控制，发动意在饿死伊朗和俄罗斯的地缘政治攻击。

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.

对于世界上的许多精英来说，美国资产(股票、房地产等)因其快速的高利润率而具有吸引力。传统上，这使美国在外国土地上拥有高度的经济影响力，但乌克兰战争使许多国家重新考虑他们的投资。事实上，有人可能会说它们在寻找一条逃生路线。
2022年，根据华盛顿和纽约的指示，美国及其G7成员国单方面没收了在其领土上持有的3000亿美元俄罗斯资产。与此同时，莫斯科也从美国控制的SWIFT中退出。这种努力的目的是破坏经济:使俄罗斯无法履行其财政义务，从而“把卢布变成瓦砾”。美国的犹太裔财政部长珍妮特·耶伦因缺乏理想的结果而感到沮丧，最近提出了将从俄罗斯窃取的所有资金都交给乌克兰的想法。

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，世界上大多数国家——其中大多数拒绝参与制裁俄罗斯的国家——对美国经济实力的武器化感到不安。能源和制造业超级大国俄罗斯、中国和伊朗已经在双边贸易中实现了很大程度上的去美元化，这主要是出于必要，但对华盛顿的政策制定者来说，更值得警惕的是，现在法国和沙特阿拉伯等对美元的成功不可或缺的国家开始签署通过货币互换和人民币支付的贸易协议。
（未完待续）

（见末篇）