Preface

Money serves two purposes – it is a medium of exchange and a storehold of wealth. So it serves two masters – 1) those who want to obtain it for “life’s necessities,” usually by working for it and 2) those who have the value of their stored wealth tied to its value. Throughout history these two groups have been called different things – e.g., the first group has been called workers, the proletariat, and “the have-nots” and the second group has been called capitalists, investors, and “the haves.” For simplicity, I will call the first group workers and the second group investors. They, along with the government (which sets the rules), are the major players in this drama for money.

货币有两个目的 - 它是一种交换媒介和财富储备。所以它服务于两位大师 - 1）那些想要获得“生命必需品”的人，通常是为此而工作的; 2）那些将存储财富的价值与其价值挂钩的人。在整个历史上，这两个团体被称为不同的事物- 例如，第一组被称为工人，无产阶级和“有钱人”，第二组被称为资本家，投资者和“有钱人”。为了简单我会打电话给第一批工人和第二组投资者。他们和政府（制定规则）是这个戏剧的主要参与者。

Like many dramas, this one both arises and transpires in ways that have reoccurred through time, going back to before Roman times. One man’s financial assets are another man’s financial liabilities (i.e., promises to deliver money). When the claims of financial assets are too high relative to the money available to meet them, a deleveraging arises. In the last couple of centuries, this happened when the ability to increase financial assets, most importantly credit, has been impaired because monetary policy is dysfunctional, often because interest rates are at 0% and can’t be lowered further. As a result, the claims (i.e., financial wealth) need to fall relative to what they are claims on (i.e., money). This happens through extinguishing the claims (e.g., bankruptcies) and/or increasing the supply of money.

像许多戏剧一样，这一个都是以时间重现的方式产生和发生的，可以追溯到罗马时代。一个人的金融资产是另一个人的金融负债（即承诺交付钱）。当金融资产的债权相对于可以用来支付的资金来说太高时，就会出现去杠杆化。过去几个世纪以来，当金融资产增加的能力，最重要的是信贷，由于货币政策的功能失调，往往因为利率在0％而不能进一步下调，所以发生这种情况。因此，索赔（即金融财富）需要相对于他们的要求（即货币）而下降。这是通过消除索赔（例如破产）和/或增加货币供应来实现的。

This fundamental imbalance between the size of the claims on money and the supply of money has occurred many times in history and has always been resolved in some mix of the two previously mentioned ways. This resolution process is painful for all of the players. In fact, the pain has sometimes been so bad that some civilizations turned against the capitalist system (i.e., the system based on this type of capital formation). For example, some historians say that the problems that arose from credit creation were why charging interest was a sin of usury in both the Catholic Church as well as in the Arab religions. Throughout the Middle Ages, no Christian could charge interest to another Christian, so the Jews played a large part in the development of trade because it was the Jews who lent money for business ventures and financed voyages. But the Jews were also moneylenders who debtors could not repay, and this often led to anti-Semitism. Supposedly, much of the killing of Jews was caused by them holding the mortgages on property and creditors wanting to extinguish the debts. Debtor-creditor relationships have typically turned very antagonistic in these fights for money and many other patterns of human behavior that are important to know about regularly surfaced during these dramatic times. Other relationships and the actions of various players were comparably noteworthy. So it is very important for us to read these historic dramas.

货币索赔的大小与货币供应量之间的这种根本的不平衡发生在历史上很多次，并且一直以前面提到的两种方式结合在一起。这个解决过程对所有玩家来说都是痛苦的。事实上，有时这种痛苦有些糟糕，有些文明反对资本主义制度（即基于这种资本形式的制度）。例如，一些历史学家说，信用创造所产生的问题是为什么在天主教会和阿拉伯宗教中，追究利益是高利贷的罪魁祸首。在整个中世纪，没有基督徒可以对另一个基督徒感兴趣，所以犹太人在贸易发展中扮演很大的角色，因为犹太人为商业投资和融资航行而借钱。但犹太人也是债权人无法偿还的放债人，这往往导致反犹太主义。据说，大多数杀戮犹太人是由于他们持有抵押贷款的财产和债权人想要扑灭债务。债权人 - 债权人之间的关系通常在这些争夺金钱和许多其他人类行为模式中变得非常对立，这些行为在这些戏剧性时期经常浮出水面很重要。其他关系和各方面的行动都是比较值得注意的。所以我们读这些历史剧是非常重要的。

The Great Depression is probably the greatest such drama in recorded history. It is certainly a classic that must be studied by anyone who cares about wealth preservation and the well-being of society. Additionally, it is the D- process that is most similar to the current dynamic because it was the last global deleveraging.

大萧条可能是记录历史上最大的这样的戏剧。任何关心财富保护和社会福祉的人都必须研究一个经典。此外，D进程与当前动态最相似，因为它是最后一次全局去杠杆化。