来源：《福布斯》杂志2022年2月3月双月刊
Will the Biden Administration impose price controls to fight inflation? To avoid blame for rising prices, President Biden and his team are faulting greedy businesses, primarily meat processors and oil-and-gas producers. There is growing talk that if inflation doesn’t ease soon, the White House may impose “temporary” price controls on voter-sensitive products such as beef, chicken and gasoline.
拜登政府是否会实施价格管制来对抗通货膨胀？为了避免因物价上涨而受到指责，拜登总统和他的团队指责贪婪的企业，主要是肉类加工商和石油和天然气生产商。有越来越多的传言称，如果通货膨胀不能尽快缓解，白宫可能会对牛肉、鸡肉和汽油等选民敏感的产品实施“临时”价格控制。
This would be disastrous. Several thousand years of experience have demonstrated that controls don’t work. They make things worse, because they attack the symptoms, not the underlying cause, which is the devaluing of the currency.
这将是灾难性的。几千年的经验已经证明管制是行不通的。管制让事情变得更糟，因为管制针对的是症状，而不是作为根本原因的货币贬值。
Governments always look for inflation scapegoats: The Roman Empire blamed Christians; medieval Europe faulted witches; President Richard Nixon pointed his finger at currency speculators and Arab oil producers for causing the Great Inflation of the 1970s. But Nixon caused that devastating crisis when he “temporarily” took the U.S. off the gold standard in 1971 and imposed controls on prices and wages.
政府总是在寻找通胀的替罪羊：罗马帝国指责基督徒；中世纪欧洲指责女巫；理查德·尼克松总统将矛头指向了货币投机者和阿拉伯石油生产国，认为他们造成了20世纪70年代的大通货膨胀。但正是尼克松在1971年“暂时”取消了美国的金本位制，并对物价和工资进行控制，才导致了这场灾难性的危机。
By artificially suppressing prices, controls increase demand for products while hurting the creation of more such goods, because producers can’t cover their growing costs.
通过人为地压低价格，价格管制增加了对产品的需求，同时又减少了更多此类产品的生产，因为生产者无力支付不断增长的成本。
Take a favorite White House target, meat. Demand for meat around the world has taken off during the pandemic. The unexpected surge initially sent prices up, which is why profits for meat processors temporarily went up. This will change, however, as production costs increase.
以白宫最喜欢的目标，肉，为例。在新冠大流行期间，世界各地对肉类的需求迅速增长。出乎意料的需求飙升最初导致价格上涨，这也是肉类加工商利润暂时上涨的原因。然而，随着生产成本的增加，这种情况将发生变化。
The cost of feed is moving higher. The cost of transportation is rising because of a shortage of drivers, and prices for fuel are significantly higher. Other materials like packaging are more costly. Then there are the serious labor shortages. Wages are going up, which also means elevated prices.
饲料成本越来越高。由于司机短缺，运输成本正在上升，燃油价格也明显上涨。包装等材料的成本更高。然后是严重的劳动力短缺。工资在上涨，这也意味着价格上涨。
Those juicier profits won’t be lasting. Such is the historic pattern for certain businesses in the early stages of inflation. Nonetheless, the administration is imposing more regulations and is ready to spend $1 billion to subsidize small regional processors to promote “competition.”
这些丰厚的利润不会持久。这就是通胀初期某些企业的历史模式。尽管如此，拜登政府正在实施更多的监管，并准备拿出10亿美元补贴小型地区性加工商，以促进“竞争”。
Oil-and-gas companies are always a popular political bogeyman, never more so than during inflationary periods like this. The Biden Administration came into office attacking the industry, canceling pipelines, restricting exploration and production and making it clear that the president’s long-term goal was to send these companies to the corporate graveyard. It’s no surprise that gas prices took off like a rocket. Now the White House is begging Russia and OPEC to boost production and is threatening domestic producers.
石油和天然气公司一直是受政客喜爱的政治妖怪，在像现在这样的通货膨胀时期更是如此。拜登政府上台后对石油行业进行了打击，取消了输油管道，限制了勘探和生产，并明确表示他的长期目标是将这些公司送入墓地。如今汽油价格像火箭一样飙升一点都不令人惊讶。现在，白宫请求俄罗斯和欧佩克提高产量，并威胁国内油气生产商。
Before it resorts to controls, expect the White House, along with the Justice Department and other government agencies, to harass targeted companies and their executives with civil and even criminal actions.
在采取价格管控措施之前，预计白宫会与司法部和其他政府机构一道，以民事甚至刑事诉讼侵扰目标公司及其高管。
President Biden and his cohorts ignore the root causes of the current inflation: shortages made worse by misbegotten pandemic policies and the Federal Reserve having created too much money.
拜登总统和他的支持者忽视了当前通货膨胀的根本原因：糟糕的防疫政策和美联储印制了过多的货币，使短缺问题更加严重。