如果美联储失去独立性会发生什么？

你能猜出特朗普总统在这里谈论的是谁吗？

Can you guess who president Trump is talking about here?

他很强硬。

He's strong.

他很有决心。

He's committed.

他很聪明。

He's smart.

如果他获得参议院确认，杰伊将运用其卓越的才能和经验，领导我们国家的独立中央银行。

And if he is confirmed by the senate, Jay will put his considerable talents and experience to work leading our nation's independent central bank.

这是2017年总统在赞扬杰罗姆·鲍威尔被提名为美联储主席时的讲话。

That is the president in 2017 praising Jerome Powell as nominee for Federal Reserve chairman.

特朗普现在对鲍威尔有什么评价？

What does Trump say about Powell these days?

好吧，这是他在去年十一月的一个投资活动上的讲话。

Well, here he is last November at an investment event.

他确实有些精神问题，他身上有点不对劲。

He's got some real mental problems, and, he's something wrong with him.

这有点不一样。

It's a little different.

在友好开局之后，美联储主席和总统在特朗普第一任期内关系变得紧张。

After their friendly start, the chairman and president had a rocky relationship during Trump's first term.

随着新冠疫情对经济造成巨大冲击，通胀飙升，情况变得更糟。

Things got worse as the COVID nineteen pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy and inflation skyrocketed.

2024年，特朗普竞选连任时曾表示，他不会任命鲍威尔再担任十年任期，而自去年一月特朗普再次就职以来，情况只会更糟。

In 2024, when Trump ran for reelection, he said he wouldn't appoint Powell for another ten year term, And things have only gotten worse since Trump was sworn in last January.

他还称鲍威尔是政治傀儡之类的。

He's called Powell a political hack among other things.

但我们有个固执的蠢货，正在犯一个大错。

But we have a guy that's just a stubborn mule and a stupid person that is, making a big mistake.

总统还试图施压鲍威尔大幅降息。

And the president has tried to strong-arm Powell into drastically cutting interest rates.

特朗普还仔细审查了美联储批准的超预算的建筑项目。

Trump has also closely scrutinized building reservations the Fed authorized that went over budget.

美联储本应只是坐那儿说明利率走向，以及一些其他非常简单的事情。

The Fed is supposed to sit there and say where interest rates are going and a couple of other very easy things to do.

他花了25亿美元。

And he spent 2 and a half billion dollars.

我觉得他……你知道，我觉得他有些问题。

I think he's, you know, I think he's got some problems.

在整个过程中，鲍威尔一直保持克制和外交态度。

Through it all, Powell has stayed mostly measured and diplomatic.

以夏天为例，当时总统特朗普参观了正在翻新的美联储大楼，似乎在为因装修超支而解雇鲍威尔找理由。

Take the summer when president Trump toured Federal Reserve buildings being renovated and seemed to be building a case to fire Powell over those renovations cost overruns.

你包括了马丁的翻新工程吗？

Are you including the Martin renovation?

你只是增加了整个资本。

You just added entire capital.

你只是把第三栋楼也算进去了。

You just you just added in the third building is what that is.

那是第三栋楼。

That's a third building.

这是一栋正在建造的楼。

It's a building that's being built.

不是。

No.

它早就建好了，五年前就建好了。

It's been it was built five

五年前。

years ago.

我们五年前就完成了马丁楼的建设。

We finished Martin five years ago.

这是整体工程的一部分。

It's of the overall work.

上周末，情况发生了变化。

Over the weekend, that changed.

NPR首席经济记者斯科特·霍斯利在我们的姊妹播客《Up First》中对此进行了说明。

NPR chief economics correspondent Scott Horsely explained it on our sister podcast, Up First.

美联储表示，上周五收到了大陪审团的传票，要求提供有关美联储总部大楼数十亿美元翻新工程的信息，以及美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔今年6月向参议院银行委员会所作的证词。

The Federal Reserve says it was served with grand jury subpoenas on Friday seeking information about the multibillion dollar makeover of the Fed's headquarter building here in Washington and testimony that Fed chairman Jerome Powell gave the Senate Banking Committee about that back in June.

这些传票促使鲍威尔发布了一份非同寻常的强硬声明。

The subpoenas prompted Powell to release an uncharacteristically strong statement.

刑事指控的威胁，源于美联储根据我们对何种做法最符合公众利益的最佳判断来设定利率，而非迎合总统的偏好。

The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president.

特朗普一直毫不掩饰地试图影响美联储。

Trump has not been shy about trying to influence the Fed.

尽管他告诉NBC新闻，他对司法部的调查一无所知，但包括一些共和党人在内的国会议员表示，他们担心美联储的独立性如今面临风险。

And while he told NBC News he doesn't know anything about the Department of Justice investigations, members of Congress, including some Republicans, say they're concerned the independence of the Federal Reserve is now at risk.

请想想，美联储负责决定美国全国的货币政策。

Consider this, the Federal Reserve decides monetary policy across The United States.

它的决定有助于塑造全球经济。

Its decisions help shape the global economy.

如果这种独立性受到威胁，会发生什么？

What happens if that independence is threatened?

来自NPR，我是胡安娜·萨默斯。

From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

这是NPR的《就此而言》。

It's Consider This from NPR.

亚当·波森是彼得森国际经济研究所的所长。

Adam Posen is president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

他长期研究中央银行的独立性。

He studied central bank independence for a very long time.

他说，政府应该将货币政策制定者视为外科医生或飞行员。

He says government should treat monetary policymakers like surgeons or airline pilots.

病人或乘客必须让他们安心工作，并根据结果来评估他们的表现。

The patient or passenger must let them work and evaluate their performance based on the results.

我问他对于司法部调查的消息有何第一反应。

I asked him for his first reaction to the news of the Department of Justice's investigation.

总统或政府正在试图恐吓一位努力做正确事情的勤勉官员。

The president or the administration is trying to intimidate a hardworking bureaucrat just trying to do the right thing.

正如主席准确指出的那样，这是总统及其团队为了迫使美联储以违背其专业判断的方式设定利率和货币政策而采取的权力博弈。

And as the chair accurately said, it's a power gambit by the president and his team to force the Fed to set interest rates and set monetary policy in ways contrary to their judgment of what's best.

我要指出，特朗普总统表示他对此调查毫不知情。

I'll note that president Trump has said that he had no knowledge of the investigation.

但依你看来，这些司法部传票是否威胁到了美联储的独立性？

But to your mind, do these DOJ subpoenas endanger the independence of the Federal Reserve?

我认为确实如此。

I think they do.

如果你将司法部武器化，用来对付你不同意的人，这就违背了法治，会导致不良后果。

If you weaponize the Department of Justice on people who you happen to disagree with, it's contrary to rule of law and it leads to bad outcomes.

即使法庭案件无法成立，也会导致人们受到骚扰和恐吓。

And even if the court cases don't hold up, it means that people get harassed, get intimidated.

具体来说，这关系到美联储的独立性。

Specifically, it was checked to the Fed and independence.

人们往往倾向于把它当作一个抽象的概念。

There was this tendency to have it as this abstract thing.

在这里，独立性并不是抽象的。

Independence isn't abstract here.

在这种情况下，独立性指的是我们所说的运营独立性。

Independence, in this case, is what we call operational independence.

这就像是飞行员或外科医生。

So it's like you have an airline pilot or a surgeon.

你不会希望病人或他们的家人，或者飞机上的乘客在他们执行任务时告诉他们该如何驾驶飞机或进行手术。

You don't want the patient or their family or the passenger on the plane telling them how to run the plane or do the operation while they're doing it.

你希望他们对结果负责。

You want them to be accountable.

你只想说：你把我从这里安全送到那里。

You wanna say, you get me from here to there.

你把我的病变阑尾切除。

You take out my damaged appendix.

如果他们事后搞砸了，你希望他们能承担责任。

And you want there to be accountable if they mess up after the fact.

你可以因医疗事故提起诉讼。

You can sue for malpractice.

你可以做任何事，或者只是简单地抱怨。

You can do whatever, or you can just simply complain.

但你不能介入那些技术细节去试图让事情顺利运作，因为这会适得其反。

But you don't get involved in the technical nitty gritty of trying to make things work because it backfires.

当民选官员试图对央行行长施压时，最终会导致通货膨胀加剧，因为他们会迫使央行在不合理的时机印钞，以支付民选官员想实现的开支。

When an elected executive tries to put pressure on the head of a central bank, you end up with higher inflation because they get them printing money at times when it's not justified for purposes to pay off things the elected official wants.

这种政治干预会让人预期通货膨胀，而这种预期会自我实现。

This kind of political propositioning then leads people to expect inflation, and that becomes self fulfilling.

于是你制造了一种人们预期通胀的局面，结果通胀持续加剧，这对国家有害。

And you create a situation where people expect inflation, and you just get more inflation, which is bad for the country.

我们现在知道，美联储长期以来一直避免与总统或国会发生公开冲突。

Now we know that it has long been the practice of the Fed to avoid overt fights with the president or congress.

但观看杰罗姆·鲍威尔在收到传票后的声明，这显然采取了一种截然不同的策略。

But watching Jerome Powell's statement after receiving that subpoena, that is just a remarkably different tack.

你认为为什么会发生这样的变化？

Why do you think such a change?

我认为，鲍威尔主席在面对巨大压力时一直保持极度克制和谨慎，正如库克行长、前副主席迈克·巴尔等美联储官员所提到的，他终于意识到必须划出一条底线，并发出呼吁，让国会意识到其中的利害关系。

I think chair Powell, who has been extremely restrained and careful under huge attacks on him, as mentioned governor Cook, vice chair former vice chair Mike Barr, and others on the Fed is finally realized that he had to draw a line, and he had to make an appeal that would lead to congress getting involved and realizing what's at stake.

他必须发出呼吁，让公众和市场认识到，总统这样做至少同样是前所未有的。

And he had to make an appeal so that the public and markets would see that this was at least as unprecedented for the president to do something like this.

也许他们在美联储新楼翻修项目上确实出现了成本超支。

It it may be that they did cost overruns on the new building renovation at the Fed.

但即便如此，这也是国会审查的事项，并非犯罪行为，也不是任何人的欺诈，更不是鲍威尔主席的个人获利。

But, anyway, even if they did, that's something that congress reviews and isn't criminal and wasn't anybody's fraud and wasn't the personal gain of chair Powell.

所以我认为，到这个时候，他觉得自己别无选择。

So I think he felt he didn't have a choice at this point.

美联储向来对国会的问责远多于对总统，因为国会拥有委员会，参议院的银行委员会、

The Fed has always been much more answerable to congress than the president because congress has the committees, the banking committee in the senate, the finance committee

众议院的

in the

金融委员会，根据《联邦储备法案》监督美联储的表现。

house that oversee according to the Federal Reserve Act, what how well the Fed is doing.

他们在设定美联储优先事项时是否把握了正确的重点？

Do they have the right priorities in setting the priorities for the Fed?

所以，正如当今许多事情一样，这也是在呼吁国会站出来履行其宪法职责。

So it was also, as so many things are these days, about calling on Congress to step up and exercise its constitutional role.

我认为这也是鲍威尔主席最终打破沉默、认为必须直言不讳的部分原因。

I think that's part of why chair Powell finally broke and felt he had to speak bluntly.

而鲍威尔作为美联储主席的任期只剩下几个月了。

And Powell only has months left in his term as fed chair.

特朗普总统将提名自己的接任者，而我们已经看到参议院银行委员会至少有一位共和党人——北卡罗来纳州的汤姆·图利斯——表示除非司法部的调查得到解决，否则他将投票阻止特朗普的提名人选。

President Trump will get to nominate his own replacement, and we've already seen at least one Republican on the senate banking committee, Tom Tom Tullis of North Carolina, say that he would vote to block Trump's nominee unless the DOJ investigation is resolved.

亚当，关于鲍威尔继任者的长期争斗，对美联储的日常运作意味着什么？

Adam, what would a prolonged fight over Powell's replacement mean for the Federal Reserve day in and day out?

我认为美联储会陷入瘫痪。

I think one of what happens to the Fed is you get a paralysis.

你会陷入瘫痪，因为会有很多幕后操作。

You get a paralysis because there's all kinds of machinations that go on.

鲍威尔主席实际上有两个职位。

There are two jobs that chair Powell actually has.

他是理事会主席，同时也是联邦公开市场委员会主席。

He is the chair of the board of governors, and he's the chair of the federal open market committee.

这之所以重要，是因为首先，鲍威尔作为理事（而非理事会主席）的任期还会持续好几年。

The reason this matters is first, chair Powell's term as a governor, not as chair of the board of governors, goes on for several more years.

如果他决定留任，他仍可以留在委员会中，并且仍然拥有投票权。

He can stay on the committee if he decides he needs to, in which case he'll still have a vote.

在这种情况下，委员会有可能在他就不再是理事会主席的情况下，仍推选他为委员会主席。

And in which case, it is possible that the committee votes to make him chair even if he's no longer chair of the board of governors.

第二点是，如果鲍威尔主席出于任何原因决定退出政治，比如他觉得受够了——无论是什么原因，我也不清楚——如果他不再继续担任委员会的理事，那么特朗普总统将迅速在理事会中拥有多数他的任命者，但他仍不会在联邦公开市场委员会中占据多数。

The second thing is if chair Powell, for whatever reason, decides he wants to depoliticize, deciding he's had enough, whatever reason, I have no idea, were not to continue on the committee as a governor, then president Trump would very quickly have a majority of his appointees on the board of governors, but he still wouldn't have a majority in the FOMC.

但最终的影响是瘫痪，因为投票会严重分裂，缺乏明确的方向。

The ultimate effect, though, is paralysis because there would be very split votes and no clear direction.

从宏观角度看，当你此时评估美联储的未来时，现在的情况对你而言有什么不同吗？

Big picture, as you take stock of the future of the Federal Reserve at this moment in time, does it look any different to you right now?

我认为确实有所不同。

I think it does.

我认为，就像特朗普政府任期内经济领域及其他领域发生的许多事情一样，你正在对人们如何信任机构的权力做出相当不可逆转的改变。

I I think like a lot of things that have gone on in the economic sphere and other spheres under the Trump administration this term, you're making pretty irreversible changes to how much people can trust in the power of institutions.

美联储在法律上一直享有特殊地位，特别是在货币政策方面，以保持技术官僚性和独立性。

The Fed has even legally had a special status with respect to monetary policy to be more technocratic, to be more independent.

回到那个词，最高法院已经确认了这一点，尽管他们随着时间推移在逐步缩小这一特权。

Going back to that word, the Supreme Court has affirmed that, although they're narrowing it over time.

我之前提到过，胡安娜，预期之所以重要，是因为这不仅仅关乎美联储的决定。

I mentioned earlier, Juana, the idea that expectations matter because it's not just what the Fed decides.

这是人们在通胀来临之际预期他们会做出的决定。

It's what people think they'll decide when inflation comes.

因此，我认为，无论特朗普在下一次通胀后任命谁，美联储最终都会变得更加理性，但通胀会保持更高水平并持续更长时间，因为人们对未来的美联储预期会降低。

And so I think this will ultimately result in the Fed getting more rational no matter who Trump appoints after the next inflation, but that the inflation will stay higher and stay around longer because people will expect less from the future fit.

而这一切将是我们所有人长期付出的代价。

And that will be a cost that we'll all pay for an ongoing period.

亚当·波森是彼得森国际经济研究所的主席。

Adam Posen is president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

非常感谢。

Thanks so much.

谢谢。

Thank you.

本集由亨利·拉森制作，技术支援由泰德·米班提供。

This episode was produced by Henry Larson with engineering support from Ted Meebane.

本集由考特尼·多宁和约翰·凯奇姆剪辑。

It was edited by Courtney Dorning and John Ketchum.

我们的执行制片人是萨米·亚尼根。

Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan.

这是来自NPR的《就此而言》。

It's Consider This from NPR.

我是胡安娜·萨默斯。

I'm Juana Summers.