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This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Wailin Wong. And I'm Paddy Hirsch.
这里是THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY。我是Wailin Wong。我是Paddy Hirsch。
There's a point in a recent episode of the HBO TV series "Industry" where a certain type of financial instrument makes a surprise cameo. Picture a bank boardroom at 4 a.m. in London, filled with sweaty people in shirtsleeves.
在HBO电视连续剧Industry最新一集中，某种金融工具意外登场。想象一下凌晨4点在伦敦的银行董事会会议室里，挤满了汗流浃背、穿着衬衫的人。
Surely there are a number of sovereign wealth funds that'd like to grow their stake in Pierpoint.
肯定有许多主权财富基金希望增加他们在Pierpoint的股份。
All right, no spoilers here, especially if you haven't seen the season finale yet, but... It's so good. Sovereign wealth funds are having a bit of a moment right now.
这里没有剧透，特别是如果你还没有看过本季大结局的话，但是……它真的很棒。主权财富基金现在正处于一个特殊的时刻。
You could never accuse them of living in the shadows, exactly, but recently, both members of the Biden administration and the Trump campaign have been heard floating the idea of an American sovereign wealth fund.
你永远不能指责他们生活在阴影中，但最近，拜登政府和特朗普竞选团队的成员都提出了成立美国主权财富基金的想法。
Yeah, and this is an idea that has, for the most part, attracted snorts of derision from political scientists and economists. But before we leap to judgment, let's do a little due diligence. Due diligence is my love language, Paddy.
这个想法在很大程度上遭到了政治学家和经济学家的嘲笑。但在我们妄下结论之前，让我们先做一点尽职调查。尽职调查是我常说的，Paddy。
I know it is. On today's show, we'll learn what a sovereign wealth fund is and how these funds came about,
我知道。在今天的节目中，我们将了解主权财富基金是什么，以及这些基金是如何产生的，
and then we'll hear a bit more about whether a U.S. national sovereign wealth fund is a good or even viable idea. That's coming up after the break.
然后我们将听到更多关于美国国家主权财富基金是否是一个好主意甚至是否可行的想法。休息后就会播出。
I promised you an explanation of what a sovereign wealth fund is. And for that, we're going to hear from Tyler Cowen.
我答应过你们解释主权财富基金是什么。为此，我们来听听泰勒·考恩的解释。
He's a professor of economics at George Mason University and a longtime friend of THE INDICATOR.
他是乔治梅森大学的经济学教授，也是THE INDICATOR的老朋友。
A sovereign wealth fund arises when a government has some excess money, and it takes that money and it invests it.
当政府有一些多余的钱，并把这些钱拿来投资时，就会出现主权财富基金。
And the idea is to earn a highly positive rate of return on that money, so the country's wealthier and citizens can pay lower taxes.
其目的是从这些资金中获得极高的回报率，这样该国的富人和公民就可以缴纳较低的税款。
Sovereign wealth funds really took off in the late '90s, but they're not a new invention. They've been around for a long time.
主权财富基金在90年代末真正开始流行，但它们并不是一项新发明。它们已经存在了很长时间。
In fact, the very first sovereign wealth funds were created back in the 1800s, right here in the United States.
事实上，最早的主权财富基金是在19世纪在美国成立的。
Yeah, and there are as many as 15 sovereign wealth funds in the U.S. still operating today at the state level. Marisa Perez-Diaz is vice chair of one of the biggest - the Texas Permanent School Fund.
是的，目前美国仍有多达15个主权财富基金在州一级运营。玛丽莎·佩雷斯-迪亚兹（Marisa Perez-Diaz）是最大的基金之一德克萨斯永久学校基金的副主席。
The fund was created in 1854 to generate revenue to fund Texas public schools. Marisa says the money that goes into the $56.8 billion-dollar fund comes from management of certain state lands.
该基金成立于1854年，旨在产生收入来资助德克萨斯州的公立学校。玛丽莎说，流入这笔568亿美元基金的资金来自对某些州土地的管理。
The Texas constitution identified certain lands across the state, and all of the proceeds from the sale or the lease of those lands would be the funding mechanism for the Permanent School Fund.
德克萨斯州宪法规定了该州的某些土地，出售或租赁这些土地的所有收益都将成为永久学校基金的资金机制。
That included the leasing of surface and mineral rights and, in particular, oil and natural gas royalties.
其中包括租赁地表和矿产权，特别是石油和天然气使用费。
Around the world, the same thing happens at the national level. Countries direct surpluses from oil production or exports into funds and use the returns to do anything from lowering taxes to building roads and airports. That all sounds really good, right?
在世界各地，国家层面也发生了同样的事情。各国将石油生产或出口的盈余直接存入基金，并利用这些收益做任何事情，例如降低税收、修建道路和机场。听起来都很不错，对吧？
Yeah, right? Yeah. So why don't we do that on a national level here? The biggest problem is we don't have a surplus.
那么我们为什么不在国家层面这样做呢？最大的问题是我们没有盈余。
A small problem. Tyler Cowen notes that the U.S. hasn't had a surplus since 2001. That means for the last 23 years, we've been spending more on our annual budget than we've been making.
存在一个小问题。泰勒·考恩指出，美国自2001年以来就没有盈余。这意味着在过去的23年里，我们的年度预算支出超过了我们的收入。
Instead, we've been racking up a stupendous amount of debt, and Tyler says that makes the idea of a sovereign wealth fund for the United States, well, absurd.
我们欠下了巨额债务，泰勒说，这使得美国主权财富基金的想法变得荒谬。
If your country's small, well governed and has a surplus, it is probably a good idea. We are not any of those.
如果你的国家很小，治理良好，而且有盈余，那么这可能是个好主意。我们不是这样的国家。
If we were playing Overrated, Underrated with Tyler, I'd say this means he thinks the idea of a sovereign wealth fund for the U.S. is highly overrated.
如果我们和泰勒玩“Overrated, Underrated”的游戏，我会说这意味着他认为美国主权财富基金的想法被严重高估了。
I'd say you're right. And most economists seem to agree, but not all and not James Broughel. He's a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
我想说你是对的。大多数经济学家似乎都同意这一点，但不是全部，詹姆斯·布鲁格尔（James Broughel）也不同意。他是竞争企业研究所的高级研究员。
It's a conservative think tank. He's also a graduate of George Mason's economic program, where Tyler Cowen teaches.
这是一个保守的智囊团。他也是乔治梅森大学经济项目的毕业生，泰勒·考恩在那里任教。
He was my adviser, actually. Oh, he was? Yeah. So we don't see eye-to-eye on this issue.
实际上，他是我的顾问。哦，是吗？是的。所以我们在这个问题上意见不一致。
Yeah. Unlike Tyler, James thinks the idea of a sovereign wealth fund for the United States is underrated.
与泰勒不同，詹姆斯认为，美国主权财富基金的想法被低估了。
He acknowledges that we're not running a surplus right now, but then neither is the U.K. or Germany or Mexico, and they all have wealth funds.
他承认，我们目前没有盈余，但英国、德国或墨西哥也没有，它们都有财富基金。
James says there are various other ways for the U.S. to generate the money to use in a fund.
詹姆斯说，美国还有其他各种方式来筹集资金用于基金。
We could channel some of the investment dollars that flow into the country from foreign investors, he says. We could sell special bonds - not a popular idea with Tyler, by the way.
他说，我们可以引导一些从外国投资者流入该国的投资资金。我们可以出售特殊债券——顺便说一句，这不是泰勒喜欢的想法。
No. Or we could manage some of our national assets better, kind of like Texas does with its land.
或者我们可以更好地管理我们的一些国家资产，就像德克萨斯州对其土地所做的那样。
The federal government owns a lot of land and owns a lot of assets of various kinds. If we had a more specific focus on just managing those existing resources more prudently, I think we could make trillions in revenue.
联邦政府拥有大量土地，拥有各种资产。如果我们更加专注于更谨慎地管理这些现有资源，我认为我们可以赚取数万亿美元的收入。
Yeah, he says some federal land could be developed. I think that would be kind of a spicy idea, especially out West.
是的，他说可以开发一些联邦土地。我认为这是一个有点刺激的想法，尤其是在西部。
Yes, indeed, but the proceeds from investing, he says, could be used for a variety of things - to pay down debt, to pay a dividend to citizens, to build infrastructure.
确实如此，但他说，投资所得可用于各种用途——偿还债务、向公民支付股息、建设基础设施。
But whatever a sovereign wealth fund did with that money, James says, it would do it a lot more efficiently and cost-effectively than the system we currently have, which is called the Congress.
但詹姆斯说，无论主权财富基金如何处理这笔钱，它都会比我们目前的系统（即国会）更有效率、更具成本效益。
Congress is not always very efficient in the way that it allocates funds, and the political dynamics in Congress lead to a lot of special interests, pandering for dollars and setting up programs that maybe don't pay off over the long haul.
国会在分配资金方面并不总是非常高效，国会的政治动态导致了许多特殊利益集团，他们迎合美元并设立了可能无法长期获得回报的项目。
You can see the attraction here, right? Our system can be torturous - infuriating, even.
你可以看到这里的吸引力，对吧？我们的系统可能很折磨人，甚至令人愤怒。
Tyler Cowen says, no wonder the idea of a fund that would spend independently of Congress has gotten some traction, both in the Biden administration and the Trump campaign.
泰勒·考恩说，难怪独立于国会支出的基金的想法得到了一些支持，无论是在拜登政府还是特朗普竞选团队中。
Our governments have decided they want to do extra things, things like industrial policy.
我们的政府已经决定要做额外的事情，比如产业政策。
But they're frustrated with the notion of having to go through Congress and get approval for expenditures, even though that's our Constitution.
但他们对必须通过国会批准支出的想法感到沮丧，尽管这是我们的宪法。
Oh, the Constitution - always getting in the way, just like its evil cousin, politics. Tyler makes the point that any sovereign wealth fund in the United States would be hamstrung by the way politics works here.
宪法总是挡着道，就像它的邪恶表亲政治一样。泰勒指出，美国的任何主权财富基金都会受到这里政治运作方式的束缚。
Politics is politics. You cannot stop politics from interfering in what the government does with its money.
政治就是政治。你无法阻止政治干涉政府如何使用资金。
Just look at Texas. The original point of the Texas Permanent School Fund was to fund public schools in the state.
看看德克萨斯州。德克萨斯州永久学校基金的初衷是资助该州的公立学校。
But Marisa Perez-Diaz, the vice chair of that fund, says that's not where all the money goes once the legislature gets a hold of it.
但该基金的副主席玛丽莎·佩雷斯-迪亚兹表示，一旦立法机构掌握了资金，资金就不会流向那里。
Depending on what the legislature that's in office at the time is really prioritizing, those dollars can go everywhere from public education to infrastructure to transportation.
根据当时在任的立法机构真正优先考虑的事情，这些资金可以流向从公共教育到基础设施再到交通等各个方面。
I would roughly say around 50% is what we'll see that typically goes back to education, and the other 50% is allocated into different branches of governance.
我粗略地说，大50%的资金通常会流向教育，另外50%则分配给不同的政府部门。
OK, so that's half of the money not going to public schools, usually.
通常有一半的资金不会流向公立学校。
Well, to be fair, the reason this happens is because in 1856, the Texas legislature saw all that money going to schools, and they appear to have gotten a wee bit jealous.
公平地说，这种情况发生的原因是因为1856年，德克萨斯州立法机构看到所有这些资金都流向了学校，他们似乎有点嫉妒。
They decided that the schools could share with railroad infrastructure projects.
他们决定学校可以与铁路基础设施项目共享。
I mean, I guess when they wrote that provision, they weren't as specific as they needed to be.
我想当他们写那项规定时，他们并没有像他们需要的那样具体。
Yeah. That's the problem of how money that goes out of the fund is spent. There's also the problem of deciding how the money that goes into a United States fund would be invested.
这就是基金中流出的资金如何使用的问题。还有一个问题是如何决定进入美国基金的资金将如何投资。
One huge temptation for political leaders, Tyler says, would be to push a sovereign wealth fund to invest in certain U.S. assets, which, when you think about it, sounds entirely dodgy.
泰勒说，对政治领导人来说，一个巨大的诱惑就是推动主权财富基金投资某些美国资产，但仔细想想，这听起来完全不靠谱。
James Broughel actually agrees with Tyler here. Political interference of any kind would be bad, he says, but he argues that there's no reason we couldn't insulate a U.S. sovereign wealth fund from politics.
詹姆斯·布鲁格尔实际上同意泰勒的观点。他说，任何形式的政治干预都是不好的，但他辩称，我们没有理由不能将美国主权财富基金与政治隔离开来。
You really want to have independence, probably something akin to what the Federal Reserve has when it conducts monetary policy.
你真的希望拥有独立性，可能类似于美联储在实施货币政策时所拥有的独立性。
The concept of a sovereign wealth fund - it's an idea, right? But even James admits it's actually unlikely to come to pass any time soon. Right now, he says, there isn't close to enough support on Capitol Hill.
主权财富基金的概念——这是一个想法，对吧？但即使是詹姆斯也承认，它实际上不太可能在短期内实现。他说，目前，国会山的支持还远远不够。
It would take an act of Congress, and I just think it's very unlikely that we would see enough political will to put this in place.
这需要国会的一项法案，我认为我们不太可能看到足够的政治意愿来实施这一点。
James says he heard a lot of opposition to sovereign wealth funds when they first took off. People feared politicization and national security threats.
詹姆斯说，当主权财富基金首次提案时，他听到了很多反对的声音。人们担心政治化和国家安全威胁。
But those fears faded, and now sovereign wealth funds are a part of the global financial landscape. He hopes the same will happen with a U.S. fund.
但这些担忧逐渐消退，现在主权财富基金已成为全球金融格局的一部分。他希望美国基金也能发生同样的事情。
If you plant a few seeds now, a decade or two down the line, you never know what happens. And Tyler, what does he think?
如果你现在种下一些种子，十年或二十年后，你永远不知道会发生什么。泰勒怎么想？
Every country is different. We should take that very, very seriously. The United States has a lot of strengths. Let's build on those. Let's not pretend we're a small, well-governed country with a big budget surplus.
每个国家都不一样。我们应该非常认真地对待这一点。美国有很多优势。让我们在此基础上再接再厉。我们不要假装我们是一个拥有大量预算盈余、治理良好的小国。
