A Template for Understanding What is Happening Now
Ray Dalio
The economy is like a machine. At the most fundamental level it is a relatively simple machine, yet it is not well understood. I wrote this paper to describe how I believe it works. My description is not the same as conventional economisc descriptions so you should decide for yourself whether or not what I saying makes sense. I will start with the simple things and build up, so please bear with me. You will be able to understand and assess my description if we patiently go through it.
经济就像一台机器。在最基础的层面上更是一台相对简单的机器，尽管它并不是那么好理解。我写这片论文就是论述我理解中的经济运作方式。我的描述和传统经济学家有所不同，所以你可以自己决定是否要相信我的观点。我会从简单的事情开始讲起，然后逐渐加深，请多加忍受。如果你能耐心看完相信你能够理解并且评估我的观点。
How the Economic Machine Works:"A Transactions-Based Approach"
经济机器如何运转：“一种基于交易的行为”
An economy is simply the sum of the transctions that make it up. A transaction is a simple thing. Because there are a lot of them, the economy looks more complex than it really is. If instead of looking at it from the top down, we look at it from the transaction up, it is much easier to understand.
一个经济体简单来说就是交易的总和，一笔交易是一件简单的事情。因为交易的数量很多，所以经济看起来比较复杂。如果我们不自上往下看经济，而是从交易角度往上看，会更容易理解。
A transaction consists of the buyer giving money (or credit) to a seller and the seller giving a good, a service or a financial asset to the buyer in exchange. A market consists of all the buyers and sellers making exchanges for the same thing e.g, the wheat market consists of different people making different transactions for different reasons over time. An economy consists of all of the transactions in all of its markets. So, while seemingly complex, an economy is really just a zillion simple things working together, which makes it look more complex than it really is.
一笔交易是指买方提供货币（或信贷）给卖方，以交换商品，服务或金融资产的过程。一个市场是所有买方和卖方对同一种东西的交易，如小麦市场是不同的人，在不同时间，出于不同理由进行的交易的总和。一个经济体是所有不同市场交易的总和。一个经济体仅仅不计其数的简单事务的交互协作，只是看上去比实际复杂。
For any market, or for any economy, if you know the total amount of money (or credit) spent and the total quantity sold, you know everything you need to know to understand it. For example, since the price of any good, service or financial asset equals the total amount spent by buyers (total $) divided by the total quantity sold by sellers (total Q), in order to understand or forecast the price of anything you just need to forecast total $ and total Q. While in any market there are lots of buyers and sellers, and there buyers and sellers have different motivations, the motivations of the most important buyers are usually pretty understandable and adding them up to understand the economy that though if one builds from the transactions up. What I am saying is conveyed in the simple diagram below. This perspective of supply and demand is different from the traditional perspective in which both supply and demand are measured in quantity and the price relationship between them is described in terms of elasticity. This difference has important implications for understanding markets.
对于任何市场，或者任何经济体，如果你知道其中花出去的货币（或者信贷）总量以及销售总量，你就对这个市场或经济体了如指掌。比如，任何商品、服务或金融资产的价格等于买方花费的总额（Total $）除以总销售量（Total Q），所以你只需要预测总花费和销售量，你就可以预测价格。任何市场都有大量怀有不同动机的买方卖方，所以把这些关键买方动机积累起来，理解经济运作的凡事就不会变得那么难。我的观点可以下面这个简单的图展现出来。下面这个供需图和传统观点有些不同，传统供需图是通过供给数量和价格关系弹性曲线来描述。这个差异对如何理解市场有重要含义。
The only other important thing to know about this part of the Template is that spending（$）can come in either of two forms money and credt. For example, when you go to a store to buy smething you can pay with either a credit card or cash. If you pay with a credit card you have created credit, which is a promise to deliver money at a later, if you pay with money, you have no such liability.
另外一个理解这个模型的重要事情是，支出来自于两种形式：货币和信贷。例如，当你去商店买东西，你既可以用信用卡付账，也可以用现金付账。如果你用信用卡付账，你就产生了一笔信贷，也就是在一个未来日期支付的承诺，但如果你付现金，就不会有这个问题。
In brief, there are different types of markets, different types of buyers and sellers and different ways of paying that make up the economy. For simplicity, we will put them in groups and summarize how machine works.
简单来说，不同类型的市场，不同类型的买家和卖家，以及不同的支付方式组成了一个经济体。简便起见，我们会把这些要素汇总起来，然后概述这台机器是如何运转的。
Most basically:
从根本上说：
All changes in economic activity and all changes in financial market are due to changes in the amounts of 1) money or 2) credit that are spent on them (total $), and the amounts of these items sold (total Q). Changes in the amount of buying (total $) typically have a much bigger impact on changes in economic activity and prices than do changes in the total amount of selling (total Q). That is because there is nothing easier to change than the supply of money and credit (total $).
所有经济活动的变化和金融市场价格的变化，都是由支付的货币和信贷总和（Total $），以及总销售量（Total Q）变化决定的。相对于总销售额的变化，货币和信贷总额变化会更显著地引起经济的波动。因为货币和信贷总额是最容易被改变的东西。
For simplicity, let's cluster the buyers in a few big categories. Buying can come from either 1) the private sector or 2) the government sector. The private sector consists of "households" and businesses that can be either domestic or foreign. The government sector most importantly consists of a) the Federal Government which spends its money on goods and services and b) the central bank, which is the only entity that can create money and, by large, mostly spends its money on financial assets.
简便起见，我们把买方归为两个大类：私营买家（私营部门），或政府买家（政府部门）。私营买家包括家庭买家，以及国内或国外的私营商业公司。最重要的政府买家，包括花钱在商品或服务上的联邦政府，以及主要花钱在金融资产上，唯一能够印发货币的中央银行。
Because money and credit, and through them demand, are easier to create (or stop creating) than the production of goods and services and investment assets, we have economic and price cycles.
因为作为需求的货币和信贷，比作为供给的商品、服务和金融资产更加容易调节，调节的过程产生了不同的经济和价格周期。
The Capitalist System
资本体系
As mentioned, the previously outlined economic players buy and sell both 1) goods and sevices and 2) financial assets, and they can play for them with either 1) money or 2) credit. In a capitalist system, this exchange takes place through free choice, there are "free market" in which buyers and sellers of goods, services and financial assets make their transactions in pursuit of their own interests. The production and purchases of financial assets (i.e. lending and investing) is called "capital formation". It occurs because both the buyer and seller of these financial assets believe that the transaction is good for them. Those with money and credit provide it to recipients in exchange for the recipients "promises" to pay them more. So, for this process to work well, there must be large numbers of capable recipients of capital (borrowers and seller of equity) in exchange for the recipients believe claims that they will return amounts of money and credit that are worth more than they were given. While the amount of money in existence is controlled by central banks, the amount of credit in existence can be created out of thin air - i.e. any two willing parties can agree to do a transaction on this is influenced by central bank policies. In bubbles more credit is created than can be later paid back, which creates busts.
前面提到，经济体中的买家和卖家，通过支付货币或信贷，来购买商品、服务或金融资产。在一个资本体系中，这些交易都是基于自由意愿发生的，（译者：强买强卖如何解释），例如买方和卖方根据自己的利益，完成商品、服务和金融资产交易的自由市场。金融资产（如投资和贷款）的生产和购买过程被称为“资本形成”。只有买卖双方都认为可通过交易获利时，资本形成才会发生。那些提供贷款的人，相信借款人会回报他们更多。所以这套资本体系要运作良好，必须有大量的资本提供者（投资者或放贷人），给借款人提供大量资金，同时获取借款人将偿还更多的可信承诺。由于货币和信贷由央行控制，所以信贷总量可以凭空创造出来，尽管央行会影响信贷，但任何有意愿的两方都可以基于信贷完成交易。在经济泡沫中，信贷发放超出了偿还能力，进而促使泡沫破裂。
When capital contractions occur, economic contractions also occur, i.e. there is not enough money and/or credit spent on goods, services and financial assets. These contractions typically occur for two reasons, which are most commonly known as recessions (which are contractions within a short-term debt cycle) and depressions (which are contractions within deleveragings). Recessions are typically well understood because they happen often and most of us have experienced them, whereas depressions and deleveragings are typically poorly understood because they happen infrequently and are not widely experienced.
当资本紧缩发生时，经济也开始紧缩，因为这时候还没有足够的货币或信贷，来购买商品、服务和金融资产。这些紧缩发生的主要原因有两个，通常被称为“衰退”（在短债务周期内的紧缩）和衰退（在去杠杆化过程中的紧缩）。衰退比较好理解，因为它经常发生，大部分人都经历过，但萧条相对难理解，因为它很少发生，经历的人并不多。
A short-term cycle (which is commonly called the business cycle), arises from a) the rate of growth in spending (i.e. total $ funded by the rates of growth in money and credit) being faster than the rate of growth in the capacity to produce (i.e. total Q) leading to price (P) increases until b) the rate of growth in spending s curtailed by tight money and credit, at which time a recession occurs. In other words, a recession is an economic contraction that is due to a contraction in private sector debt growth arising from tight central bank policy (usually to fight inflation), which ends when the central bank eases. Recessions end when central banks lower interest rates to stimylate demand for goods and services and the credit growth that fiances these purchases, because lower interest rates 1)