How the Economic Machine Works: “A Transactions-Based Approach”

An economy is simply the sum of the transactions 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.

一个经济只是组成的交易的总和。交易是一件简单的事情。因为他们有很多，经济看起来比现在更复杂。如果不是从上往下看它，我们从交易中看，它更容易理解。

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 things – 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.

交易包括买方向卖方和卖方给买方提供良好的，服务或金融资产的货币（或信用）交换。一个市场由所有的买卖双方交换同样的事情 - 例如，小麦市场由不同的人组成，不同的交易由于不同的原因而不同。一个经济体包括其所有市场的所有交易。所以，虽然看起来很复杂，但一个经济真的只是一个十亿分之一的简单的事情在一起工作，这使它看起来比现在更复杂。

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 these 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 isn’t all that tough 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.

对于任何市场或任何经济体，如果您知道花费的总金额（或信用）和销售总量，您就可以了解您需要了解的一切。例如，由于任何良好，服务或金融资产的价格等于买方（总额$）除以卖方（总Q）销售总量的总金额，以了解或预测任何您刚才的价格需要预测总金额和总Q.在任何市场上都有很多买卖双方，这些买卖双方都有不同的动机，最重要的买家的动机通常是可以理解的，并加以了解经济状况如果从交易中建立起来，那么那么艰难。我在说的是简单的图表。供需观点与传统观点不同，传统观点认为供求关系是以数量衡量的，而价格之间的关系则以弹性来描述。这种差异对理解市场有重要的意义。

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 credit. For example, when you go to a store to buy something 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 date,1 whereas, if you pay with money, you have no such liability.

了解这部分模板的唯一其他重要的事情是，支出（$）可以以两种形式 - 钱和信用。例如，当你去商店买东西，你可以用信用卡或现金支付。如果您使用信用卡支付信用额度，这是一个承诺，以便在以后交付资金1，而如果您用钱付款，您没有这样的责任。

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, I will put them in groups and summarize how the machine works. Most basically:

简而言之，有不同类型的市场，不同类型的买卖双方，以及组成经济的不同付款方式。为了简单起见，我将把它们分组，并总结机器的工作原理。最几本来说：

• All changes in economic activity and all changes in financial markets’ prices 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 that’s easier to change than the supply of money and credit (total $). 经济活动的所有变化和金融市场价格的所有变化都是由于1）金额或2）用于支付的总额（合计$）的金额和这些出售金额（总计Q）的变化。购买量（总额）的变化通常对经济活动和价格变化的影响要大于销售总额（总计Q）的变化。那是因为没有什么比货币和信贷（总额）更容易改变。

• 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 and large, mostly spends its money on financial assets. 為为了简单起见，我们将买家聚集在几个大类中。购买可以来自1）私营部门或2）政府部门。私营部门包括“家庭”和可以是国内或国外的企业。政府部门最重要的是a）联邦政府2，将其资金用于货物和服务，b）中央银行，这是唯一可以创造资金的实体，总的来说，大部分是花钱在金融上 资产。

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.

因为货币和信贷，通过他们的需求，比生产货物和服务和投资资产更容易创造（或停止创造），我们有经济和价格周期。

Seeing the economy and the markets through this ”transactions-based” perspective rather than seeing it through the traditional economic perspective has made all the difference in the world to my understanding of what is going on and what is likely to happen. It lets me see what is actually happening and why it’s happening in much more granular ways than the traditional way of looking at things. I will give you a few examples:

通过这种“以交易为基础”的观点来看待经济和市场，而不是通过传统的经济视角来看待经济和市场，这使世界上所有的差异都是我对于正在发生的事情和可能发生的情况的理解。它让我看到实际发生的事情，以及为什么它发生在比传统观察方式更细微的方式。我会给你几个例子：

因為資金和信貸，通過他們的需求，比生產更容易創造（或停止創造）的貨物和服務和投資資產，我們有經濟和價格週期。通過這種“交易”的觀點來看待經濟和市場，而不是看到它傳統的經濟視角已經使世界各地的差異對我的理解是什麼繼續下去，可能會發生什麼。它讓我看看實際發生了什麼，以及為什麼發生了這麼多事情 比傳統的觀察方式更細微的方式。我會給你幾個例子：

1. The traditional way of looking at the relationship between supply, demand and price measures both supply and demand via the same quantity number (i.e., at any point the demand is equal to the supply which is the amount of quantity exchanged) and the price is described as changing via what is called velocity. There is no attention paid to the total amount of spending that occurred, who spent it, and why they spent it. Yet, in any time and across all time frames, the relationship between the change in the quantities exchanged and the change in the price will change based on these factors that are being ignored. Throwing all buyers into one group (rather distinguishing between them and understanding their motivations) and measuring their demand in terms of quantity bought (rather than in the amount spent) and ignoring whether the spending was paid for via money or credit, creates a theoretical and imprecise picture of the markets and the economy. 以供给，需求和价格之间关系的传统方式，通过相同的数量数量（即任何时候，需求等于交换量的供给等）来衡量供需关系，价格和价格被描述为通过所谓的速度改变。没有关注发生的总支出，谁花费了，以及为什么花了它们。然而，在任何时间和所有时间框架内，交换的数量的变化与价格的变化之间的关系将会根据被忽略的因素而改变。将所有买家投入一个群体（而不是区分他们并了解他们的动机），并且根据所购买的数量（而不是花费的数量）来衡量他们的需求，而忽视花费是通过资金或信贷来支付的，创造了理论和不准确的市场和经济形象。

2. Most of what economists call the velocity of money is not the velocity of money at all – it is credit creation. Velocity is a misleading term created to explain how the amount of spending in a year (GDP) could be paid for by a smaller amount of money. To explain this relationship, people divided the amount of GDP by the amount of money to convey the picture that money is going around at a speed of so many times per year, which is the called the velocity. The economy doesn’t work that way. Instead, much of spending comes from credit creation, and credit creation doesn’t need money to go around in order to occur. Understanding this has big implications for understanding how the economy and markets will work. For example, whereas one who has the traditional perspective might think that a large increase in the amount of money will be inflationary, one using a transactions based approach will understand that it is the amount of spending that changes prices, so that if the increase in the amount of money is offsetting a decrease in the amount of credit, it won’t make a difference; in fact, if the amount of credit is contracting and the amount of money is not increased, the amount of spending will decline and prices will fall. 大多数经济学家称之为货币速度并不是货币的速度 - 这是信贷创造。速度是一个误导性术语，用于解释如何以较少的金额支付一年的支出（GDP）。为了解释这种关系，人们将国内生产总值的数量分配给货币数量，以每年多少倍的速度传达货币的流向，这就是所谓的速度。经济不行。相反，大量的支出来自于信贷创造，信贷创造不需要花钱去发生。了解这一点对了解经济和市场如何运作有很大的影响。例如，有传统观点的人可能会认为货币量的大幅度增长将会是通货膨胀的，一个使用交易的方法将会明白，改变价格的支出是多少，所以如果增加金额抵消了信贷额度的下降，不会有所改变;事实上，如果信贷额度合约，金额不增加，支出金额会下降，价格会下降。

This different way of looking at the economy and markets has allowed us to understand and anticipate economic booms and busts that others using more traditional approaches have missed.

观察经济和市场的这种不同的方式使我们能够理解和预测经济繁荣和衰退，其他使用更传统的方法的人们已经错过了。