来源：《卫报》
日期：2021年1月11日
For speculators, the cryptocurrency party was just starting. At the beginning of last year one bitcoin was worth 5,614 before almost reaching 30,000 at the end of last week. On Monday, Britain’s financial watchdog warned bitcoin investors that they could lose all their money. While it may sober up a few of the partygoers many will find comfort in their bank balances. Anyone who bought cryptoassets at the beginning of 2020 was sitting potentially on a 400% gain, an extraordinary return in a year when a health crisis has changed into an economic one.
对于投机者来说，加密货币派对才刚刚开始。去年年初，一枚比特币价值5614英镑，上周末几乎达到3万英镑。周一，英国金融监管机构警告比特币投资者，他们可能会损失所有的钱。虽然这可能会使一些参加派对的人清醒，但许多人会从他们的银行存款中找到安慰。任何在2020年初购买加密资产的人都有可能坐拥400%的收益，在一个公共卫生危机演变为经济危机的年份，这是一个非同寻常的回报。
Thanks to the government’s actions, owners of assets have had a very good pandemic. Shares in London are back to where they were in late February last year. House prices in 2020 rose by 6%, helped by the chancellor’s temporary stamp duty holiday. Economic boom needs a drug. Britain’s central bank has flooded the financial system with cash meant to be loaned to chase a positive rate of return. In Britain’s distorted economy investors, even in the midst of Covid, prefer to make short-term capital gains rather than income from productive investment.
由于政府的行动，资产所有者们在新冠大流行期间过得非常好。伦敦股市已恢复到去年2月底的水平。依靠财政大臣的临时印花税减免期，2020年的房价上涨了6%。经济繁荣需要药物。英国央行已经向金融体系注入了大量现金，这些现金本来是为了追求正回报率而发放的。在英国扭曲的经济中，即使是在新冠肺炎肆虐期间，投资者也更喜欢获得短期资本收益，而不是从生产性投资中获得收益。
There are rich pickings in a pandemic. Rocket boosters have been bolted on to wealth inequality by substantially increasing the net worth of the top 10% richest people who control half of Britain’s assets, such as shares, houses and bitcoins. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, seems curiously uninterested in what’s going on. Mr Sunak spoke in parliament as if he were a bystander watching a car crash rather than having his hands on the steering wheel. As the lockdown bites more and more people face increasing financial hardship and mounting levels of debt. When one in six small businesses in the UK warn they are on the edge of closure, you’d expect a better response from Mr Sunak than just telling MPs that “the economy is going to get worse before it gets better”.
在新冠大流行中有很多得来容易的钱财。前10%最富有的人控制着英国一半的资产，如股票、房屋和比特币，大幅度增加这些人的净资产加剧了财富不平等。奇怪的是，财政大臣苏纳克似乎对发生的事情不感兴趣。苏纳克在议会发表讲话时，好像他是一个旁观者，看着一场车祸，而不是把手放在方向盘上。随着封锁的不良影响日渐显现，越来越多的人面临着越来越大的经济困难和越来越高的债务水平。当英国六分之一的小企业警告说自己濒临倒闭时，你会期待苏纳克先生做出更好的回应，而不仅仅是告诉议员们“经济在好转之前会变得更糟”。
The reality, which is becoming conventional wisdom, is that what is required is a better designed fiscal policy rather than the monetary skill we have so far seen to keep the real economy from recession. Coronavirus has shown the best way of avoiding a crisis is to get ahead of it. One way that the government could find itself in front of the pandemic’s curve is to bring forward the budget from early March. The chancellor, no doubt, would like to use the parliamentary set piece to reset the government’s image. But that’s not going to happen given the path of the pandemic. Neither will anyone be surprised by the measures Mr Sunak will surely announce: such as a further one-year business rates holiday and a continuation of more generous universal credit. To do otherwise would turn illiquidity into bankruptcy for many small companies and ordinary households.
现实是，我们需要的是一个设计得更好的财政政策，而不是我们迄今为止看到的让实体经济免于衰退的货币技巧，这一点正逐渐成为人们的共识。冠状病毒已经表明，避免危机的最好方法就是提前处理。政府能够让自己赶在大流行曲线前面的一个方法是在3月初提交预算案。毫无疑问，财政大臣希望利用议会的固定攻防套路来重塑政府的形象。但考虑到新冠大流行的发展路径，这种情况是不会发生的。也没有人会对苏纳克先生肯定会宣布的措施感到惊讶：例如进一步延长一年期商业税率减免期和继续实行更为慷慨的普遍信贷。否则，许多小公司和普通家庭将因流动性不足而破产。