我一直以来对经济的看法都错了吗？

好，今天咱们来点不一样的。

Okay, so today we're going to do something a little bit different.

我要聊聊过去六个月我离开期间，关于我最轰动的一场流言、诽谤，有些人甚至说这是恶意中伤。

We're going to be getting involved in the biggest piece of gossip, slander, some might say liable about me that took place in the last six months while I was away.

我们会聊到罗里·斯图尔特对我的攻击，还要讨论一个问题：到底谁才有资格谈经济学？

We are going to discuss Rory Stewart, his attacks on me and we're going to be answering the question who is allowed to talk about economics.

我先给不太了解英国政坛、不认识罗里·斯图尔特，或者不是英国的朋友，简单交代下背景。

Okay, so I'm going to provide just the most basic context for people who are maybe don't know the rest of politics, don't know Rory Stewart or not from this country.

《其余都是政治》是英国最受欢迎的政治播客。

The rest is politics is probably the biggest politics podcast in The UK.

主持人是两位中间派政界人物：前保守党议员罗里·斯图尔特，和托尼·布莱尔时期的工党战略顾问艾利斯泰尔·坎贝尔。去年十一月，他们采访了绿党新任领军人物扎克·波兰斯基。

It is hosted by two centrist political figures, a former Conservative MP called Rory Stewart and a former labor strategy advisor under Tony Blair, Alistair Campbell and they interviewed Zack Polanski who is the new sort of resurgent leader of the Greens last year in November.

我当时成了他们讨论的对象，我来给你们看看当时他们是怎么说我的，你们自己判断。

And I became a subject of the conversation and let's I'm gonna watch well, I'm gonna show you the what was said about me back then so you can see for yourself.

你最近在听哪些经济学家的节目？

Tell us which economists you're listening to.

那你现在受哪些人的思想影响最多？

Who are your intellectual influences here?

都是些特别厉害的人。

Brilliant people.

比如格蕾丝·布莱克利，还有理查德·默菲，他最近在这块儿做了不少研究。

So Grace Blakely, Richard Murphy, who's been doing a lot of work on this.

还有加里·史蒂文森，你最近刚请过他，还有詹姆斯·梅德韦，各种各样的经济学家。

Gary Stevenson, who I know you've had on recently, James Medway or James Meadway, lots of different economists.

很多时候，我就是读他们写的东西，跟着他们的思路走。

So a lot of the time it's just reading the stuff that they're talking about.

我觉得现在大家基本都达成共识了，新自由主义这套已经玩完了，根本不靠谱。

And I think there's a there is a consensus that the neoliberal model has broken and it's not worth

这个共识是从哪儿来的？是像加里·史蒂文森这些人吗？还是哪儿来的共识？

consensus where from people like Gary Stevenson or where's the consensus?

学术圈里真有这个共识吗？

Where's the academic consensus?

我觉得，学术界的共识主要来自那些不在政府工作的经济学家。

I think the academic consensus is among economists who aren't working for the government.

我觉得他们都在关注

I think they're all looking at

你提到加里·史蒂文森的时候，是把他当半个学术经济学家吗？还是

the And government you use Gary Stevenson as a sort of pseudo academic economist or a

我不觉得他是半吊子学者。

I don't think he's pseudo academic.

他就是正儿八经的经济学家。

I think he's literally an economist.

这可是他的本职工作。

That's his job.

你刚才提到的是谁？

What about you mentioning?

那根本不是他的本职。

It's not his job.

他是个城市交易员。

He's a city trader.

他本科读的是经济学。

He studied an undergraduate degree in economics.

明白了。

Okay.

他可不是专业的经济学家。

He's not a professional economist.

但我觉得，要是你拿了经济学学位，说你是经济学家也不为过吧。

But I think if you do a degree in economics, it's fair to say you're an Where

你这儿说的那些有经济学研究生学位的人，都在哪儿呢？

are the people with graduate level degrees in economics that you're focusing on here?

那些教授们呢？

Where are the professors?

那些把经济学当学术事业的人，又在哪儿？

Where are the people who, for whom this is their academic

专业领域？

speciality?

好吧，

Okay,

那就是罗里·斯图尔特。

so that is Rory Stewart.

他公开质疑我作为经济学家的资格，还无视我在牛津的研究生学位。

Pretty publicly denying my credibility as an economist and disappearing my postgraduate degree at Oxford.

这简直太离谱了。

It's pretty scandalous really.

长期关注这个频道的人应该都知道，我经常被媒体攻击。

People who've followed this channel for a long time will be aware that it is not uncommon for me to be attacked in the press.

我以前在YouTube上也被公开抨击过。

I have been attacked pretty publicly, on YouTube before.

个子矮小的混蛋。

Skinny little dipshit.

在报纸上，总的来说，我有个策略：网上和报纸上的胡说八道，我一概不搭理，这次我也本来不想理。

And in the newspapers, and in general I have like a strategy which is like I just don't engage with nonsense on the internet, nonsense in the newspapers and I wasn't going to engage in this one.

但我觉得，拍第四频道纪录片的时候，发生了一些变化。

But I think something happened when I was filming the documentary for Channel four.

不知道的人可能不清楚，我去年下半年一直在拍一部给第四频道的纪录片，下个月左右就会上线。

So for people who don't know, I've been filming a documentary for Channel four which will come out in the next couple of months and I was filming that in the last few months of last year.

那会儿正好赶上这事儿爆出来，我记得当时正开车从某地回来，刚做完一个采访——大概又是跟个讨厌的人——结果WhatsApp突然有人发消息问我：‘你看到没？Rory Stewart在《政坛余波》里说你呢？’我一看，立马觉得这事儿有意思，待会儿跟你们说为啥。

And this incident was released while I was filming that documentary and I remember I was was in a car driving back from somewhere doing an interview with probably somebody horrible and somebody messaged me on my WhatsApp saying 'Have you seen this Rory Stewart talking about you on the rest of politics?' and I had a look at it and I thought, as soon as I saw it, I thought it was really interesting and I'll tell you why.

我经常被媒体攻击，这我都习惯了。

So I get attacked a lot in the media, know.

去年，《每日邮报》连续四天，连发四篇黑我的稿子。

The Daily Mail ran four attack pieces on me in four consecutive days last year.

他们甚至跑到我爸妈家敲门，翻我妈妈的Facebook，连《金融时报》都写了篇五千字的长文专门黑我。

They knocked on my parents house, went through my mum's Facebook, the Financial Times wrote a 5,000 word hit piece on me.

这些事儿当然不让人舒服，但我早就不觉得意外了。

And I don't enjoy those kinds of things but I've come to expect it.

但罗里·斯图尔特这次攻击最让人觉得有意思的地方，是它简直一戳就破。

But what was really interesting about this attack by Rory Stewart was most instantly how easily disprovable it was.

那些以前的同事总爱拿来说我的大招是：‘加里在花旗银行根本不是最厉害的交易员。’这招挺聪明的。

So the big attack which sort of my former colleagues like to come at me with is Gary was not the best trader at Citibank, it's a very popular attack line from them and it's smart.

聪明在哪呢？因为我根本没法证明自己是花旗最牛的交易员——又没有证书可拿。如果你想说别人撒谎，最好的办法就是挑个他没法立刻反驳的点下手。

The reason it's smart is because it's obviously impossible for me to prove I was the best trader at Citibank, there's no certificate you can bring out and if you're going to attack somebody and say somebody's a liar, it makes sense to attack them in a way that they cannot immediately disprove.

但罗里直接说我不懂经济学，这简直太好拆穿了。我马上发了条推文：‘看，这是我的学位证，有证书的；这是我在牛津的硕士学位。’

But Rory Stewart came out and implied that I don't have any qualifications in economics, is incredibly easily disprovable and I, you know, I posted a tweet immediately saying look here is my degree, you get a certificate for it, you can show it, here is my master's degree from Oxford.

这事一出来，我高中微信群里就炸了，我说：‘这人肯定得公开道歉，因为不道歉就是法律风险——你不能随便编排你最大的商业对手的学历吧？'

And as soon as it came up, it was in my sort of high school WhatsApp chat, I said to them, you know, we will get a public apology from this guy because, quite simply, because otherwise, it's a legal risk, You cannot lie about the qualifications of probably your biggest commercial rival.

公开场合这么瞎说，我虽然不是律师，但我觉得这肯定站不住脚。

Publicly, like it's you know, I'm not a lawyer but I would imagine you can't get away with that.

我当时就跟他们说，这事儿他肯定得道歉，结果还真道歉了。

I told them we'd get an apology and we did get an apology.

我本来想这事就算了，但拍纪录片的时候，我突然发现一个挺奇怪的现象：我这辈子从来没跟普通公众有过任何不愉快的互动，这简直不可思议。

And I was going to leave it at that, but then while I was filming the documentary, I started to notice a sort of a trend happening which was so I've never had any negative interactions with the public, which is amazing.

我网上老被人攻击。

I get attacked online all the time.

但拍纪录片的时候，我真遇到过一次不愉快的互动——当时我在伦敦市中心的财政部外拍片，有个中年男人走出来，大概四十几岁吧。

But I had one negative interaction while I was filming the documentary, which was I was filming outside the Treasury, here in the centre of London, and a guy came out of the Treasury, sort of a middle aged guy in his sort of, I guess, late forties.

他走过来，轻轻搭住我的胳膊，凑到我耳边说：‘我想让你知道，你对经济学一窍不通。’

And he came up to me and he sort took me by the arm in quite like a tender way and he came close to me and he said into my ear, I just want you to know you're completely economically illiterate.

这人可是财政部的工作人员。

This is a guy who worked in the Treasury.

后来在采访一些人，尤其是那些所谓的知识精英时，我渐渐发现，关于全球贫富差距、财富税、经济改革这些话题，一种新叙事正在悄悄成型。

And then over the course of interviewing some different people, especially people sort of from this sort of intellectual elite, started I to realise a kind of narrative, a new narrative was forming on this global battle against inequality, global battle for wealth taxes, global battle to improve the economy.

尤其是这些精英圈子里，流行一种特别简单的说法：加里是个傻子，扎克·波兰斯基也是个傻子，别听他们的，他们根本不是经济学家。

A new sort of very simplistic narrative was forming, especially from these kind of elites, which is basically, Gary is an idiot, Zack Polanski is an idiot, don't listen to them because they're not economists basically.

这让我意识到，罗里·斯图尔特这种立场，本质上就是一种人身攻击——专门挑运动里最显眼的人下手，比如现在英国的我和扎克·波兰斯基，然后说：‘他们蠢，别理他们，没学历没资格。’这已经成了整个运动的核心策略。

And that made me realise that this sort of new stance represented here by Rory Stewart versus Politics, is just to basically say, you know, what you would call an ad hominem attack, is just to go after the main faces of the movement, which at the moment in this country are me and now Zack Polanski, and say, they're stupid, don't listen to them, they've not got credentials, they've not got qualifications has basically become the core of the movement.

我觉得，通过聊这件事，我们能看清今天经济学、政治和媒体的现状，也能明白我们正处在全球对抗贫富差距扩大的哪个阶段。

I think by discussing this incident we can learn so much about the state of economics today, about politics, about the media and really where we are at the moment in the global battle to stop inequality from increasing.

我觉得这件事告诉我们，必须得有策略地行动。

And I think it teaches us really how we need to act strategically.

这里头其实有好几个问题要理清楚。

So you know there's a couple issues to deal with here.

第一个就是老有人骂我根本不是经济学家，那到底谁才算经济学家？

The first one is the basic accusation of you know Gary is not an economist, who is an economist?

第二个更关键，就是他们暗示经济学家都不支持财富税。

And the second one is the broader implication that basically economists do not support wealth taxes.

咱们先说第一个问题：谁才算经济学家？

So let's start with the first one and let's answer who is an economist?

谁才有资格谈经济？

Who is allowed to talk about economics?

咱们先聊聊经济学这回事。

So let's talk a little bit about economics.

经济学呢，属于那种特别容易被神化的专业，就跟法律、计算机、医学、牙科，或者工程差不多，大家普遍觉得，学这些才能拿高薪。

Now economics is one of these specific degrees, guess similar to maybe law or computer science or medicine or dentistry where there is a broad perception or engineering perhaps, there is a broad perception that these are the degrees that you take if you want to get a well paid job.

所以大家觉得学经济是条赚大钱的路，这就导致了很多本科生选经济，根本不是因为喜欢这门课——按我观察，绝大多数人都是冲着好工作来的。

So economics has this perception that it is a pathway into well paid jobs and what that means is when you take economics as an undergrad, a lot of the students there, from my experience I would say the majority of the students are not there because they are interested in economics.

他们学经济，主要就是为了找个高薪工作。

They are there primarily because they want to get a good job.

你要是去那些顶尖大学，比如我读过的伦敦政经学院，就会发现学生群体的社会阶层特别单一。我那时候，身边绝大多数同学的父母至少是百万富翁，很多人家里更是身家上亿，他们上这儿来，目的就一个：找份好工作。

If you go to one of these very elite universities and I went to the London School of Economics, what you will find is the course is generally incredibly not representative in terms of social class, so I was LSE and really the vast majority of the people that I studied with, their parents would be at least millionaires, probably multi multi millionaires, in many cases very very wealthy people, and they are there primarily to get a good job.

所以学经济这专业，数学含量高得离谱。

So when you're studying economics, it is an incredibly mathematized discipline.

本科三年，你几乎天天在跟各种数学打交道——代数、微积分，全是复杂的数学工具，最后就为了找个好工作。

You spend basically three years in your undergrad mainly really doing a variety of different kinds of maths, of algebra, of calculus, all of these different kinds of complicated maths, and then you basically go and try and get a job.

因为绝大多数学经济的人，目标根本不是搞懂经济，而是找高薪工作，所以他们的重心全放在求职上。

And because the vast majority of people who have taken economics are taking it because they want to get a well paid job, the focus for most of these students rather than really understanding economics is getting a good job.

我上大学那会儿，估计现在也一样，学经济能拿的最高薪职位，就是当交易员。

And when I was at university and I suspect probably still now, basically the best paid job you could get from economics, doing economics was to work as a trader.

我2008年毕业的。

I graduated in 2008.

我大概是2006到2007年那会儿在找工作。

I was trying to get a job in sort of 2006, I would say, 2007.

当时成绩最好的那些学生，全都想当交易员。

And all the best students in terms of the students with the best grades wanted to be traders.

估计这些年多少有点变化吧。

Suspect it's probably changed a little bit over the years.

现在可能有些经济系的学生想去别的领域，比如人工智能，或者大厂的技术岗之类的。

I guess nowadays you probably do get some economic students wanting to go into other fields like maybe AI or like maybe some of these big tech jobs.

但我猜，还是大部分学生想进金融交易这一行。

But, I would guess still the majority of students want to go into trading.

罗里·斯图尔特提的这个问题——加里算不算真正的经济学家——其实归根结底就一个很简单的事：一条是学术路，一条是实务路。

Really, this question which Rory Stewart has brought up of is Gary a real economist, it can be narrowed down into like one incredibly simple concept which is there is an academic track and there is an applied track.

我在精英大学读经济的时候，到现在估计也差不多，成绩顶尖的学生压根儿不打算走学术路线，原因特别直接：学术这条路平均收入远不如去金融行业赚钱。

And when you do economics at an elite university, in my experience, I suspect very much still now, the vast majority of the students with the best grades are not trying to go towards the academic track for the very simple reason that the academic track of economics is on average much much much less well paid than the career track which is going to finance.

如果你想当经济学学者，得先读三年本科，再读一两年硕士，然后还得熬个三四年博士，美国可能更久；之后还得做博士后、搞研究，熬到三十多岁才可能当上教授，那时候你可能已经背了几十万英镑的债，真想赚钱，估计得等到三十多岁以后了。

So, if you want to become an academic in economics, you will need to do your three year undergrad, you will need to do your masters, one or two year masters, then you need to do your PhD which is probably another three years, maybe longer in The US, Then you need to do postdoc work and you need to do more research work and you hope to become a professor maybe in your into your thirties by which time you will be hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt, and you you might start hoping to make money sometime in your thirties.

我二十出头就进了交易行，25岁就成了百万富翁，26岁就身家过千万。

Whereas I went into trading in my early twenties and I was a millionaire at 25 and a multi millionaire at 26.

这两条路在收入上根本没法比。

Basically there is no comparison between these two tracks in terms of financial outcomes.

所以，我刚才说的职业路径——也就是应用型路径，比学术路径要 lucrative 得多，简直天差地别。

So going on the career track, the applied track as I've called it here, is the career track, the applied track is just much much much more financially lucrative than the academic track.

如今经济学的现实是，绝大多数学生入学时，冲的就是高薪工作。

So the reality of economics nowadays is that the vast majority of the students come in trying to get a well paid job.

顶尖高薪岗位竞争激烈，成绩最好的那批学生，九成以上都去了交易行业。

There is enormous competition to get the best paid jobs and the vast majority of the students with the best grades go to work in trading.

这说的就是实情。

This is this is the truth of the matter.

当然，也不是说没人留在学术圈，但你要明白，那些本来能进金融圈、却选择搞学术的人，等于主动放弃了数百万英镑的收入。现实是，除非家底厚实，不然真没几个人愿意这么干。

That's not to say that some good guys do not stay and go into academia, but you have to recognise that anyone who has the grades to go into finance and chooses to stay in academia is giving up millions of pounds to do that and the reality of it is not many people are going to do that unless they come from richer backgrounds.

当然，我特别敬重很多搞学术的经济学家，真心佩服他们。

And listen, there are a lot of academic economists who I have a huge amount of time for and a huge amount of respect for.

去年我们频道请过一位非常有名的韩国经济学家，张夏准。

We had the incredibly prestigious Korean economist Har Joon Chang on this channel last year.

有几位法国经济学家我特别欣赏，其中至少有一位，我们今年打算请来，加布里埃尔·祖克曼和托马斯·斯帕盖蒂。

There are a couple of French economists that I really, really like, one of whom at least we're going to try to get on this year, Gabriel Zukman and Thomas Spaghetti.

学术界确实有优秀的人才，但现实是，顶尖大学里成绩最好的那批学生，根本没打算当学者。

So there are great guys in academia, but the reality of the situation is the vast majority of the best students in terms of the best grades at the most prestigious universities are not trying to become academics.

他们大多数人想当交易员，世界上日复一日做经济相关工作的顶尖高薪人群，几乎全是交易员。

They are trying to become, in the large case, traders and the best paid 10,000 economists in the world in terms of people who are doing economics day to day are almost certainly traders.

所以，如果你说‘我就是不想听交易员的意见’，这未免有点荒谬。

So I think to sit there and then say, listen, I don't want to listen to the opinion of any traders It's like a little bit absurd.

这就像C罗上你的播客谈足球，你却问他：‘你有足球博士学位吗？’

You know, it's a little bit like saying you have like Cristiano Ronaldo comes on your podcast and gives his opinions on football and you say but you know, have you got a PhD in football?

他都快气笑了，说：‘这有什么好问的？’

He's trying to know this is an annoyed don't.

他心里想：‘那博士们都在哪儿呢？’

He's like, well, where are the people with the PhD's?

说实话，虽然听起来这个例子有点荒谬，但经济学和足球其实很像——年轻时特别有天赋的人，大多根本不想当学者。

You know, the truth is, in many ways, I know that sounds like an absurd example, but economics is in many ways similar to football in the sense of the vast majority of people who are good at it when they are young are not trying to become academics.

他们更想成为真正上场踢球的人，当然这例子有点极端，但事实就是如此；有些领域里，绝大多数学生确实都想当教授，但经济学不在其中。

They are trying to become people who perform in the field, know, and obviously it's a little bit of an extreme example, but this is the case, know, there are some disciplines where the vast majority of students are trying to become professors in that field.

经济学压根不是那种领域。

Economics is not one of those disciplines.

学经济学的人，绝大多数都想进金融行业，而金融界最体面、薪水最高的职位，就是交易员。

The vast majority of people who study economics are trying to get jobs in finance, and the most prestigious and the most well paid job in finance is as a trader.

但当我听到这消息时，第一反应就是去维基百科查了罗里·斯图尔特的学历，结果他连研究生学位都没有，可他居然真当上了哈佛教授。

But when I heard this news the first thing obviously I did is I went on Wikipedia and I looked up what's Rory Stewart's postgraduate degree and he doesn't have one and but the thing is Rory Stewart accepted a professorship at Harvard.

所以罗里·斯图尔特当过哈佛教授，最近我看他维基百科上说，好像还成了耶鲁教授。

So Rory Stewart has been a Harvard professor and I think now more recently, I'm just taking this from his Wikipedia, a Yale professor.

你看，这人连个研究生文凭都没有。

So here you have somebody with no postgraduate degrees.

而且你知道吗，他还在政府干过，说明他有实实在在的工作经验。

So and you know he worked for government, know, so he's obviously having experience in his job.

如果你自己没读过研究生，却能接受哈佛教授的职位，承认自己是这个领域的学术专家——哪怕你从来没拿过研究生学位——那你怎么还能对那些有研究生学历、工作上还成就斐然的人说：你的观点不成立？

If you are somebody who has no postgraduate degree and accepts a professorship at Harvard, so accepts the idea that you are now an academic expert on your subject despite never having done a postgraduate degree, How can you then turn around to somebody who has a postgraduate degree but also has extreme levels of success in work and then say your views are invalid?

说实话，这简直太虚伪了。

Like it's honestly, I just, you have to say this is tremendously hypocritical.

如果你真觉得，没研究生学历的人，哪怕在某个领域干了二十年，也不配发表意见，那你就不该靠着工作经验去当哈佛教授。

If you are somebody who believes that people without postgraduate degrees should not express opinions on the fields in which they have worked for twenty years, you cannot accept a professorship at Harvard based upon the fact that you have experience in work.

你不能两头占便宜。说实话，我觉得研究生学位也没那么重要，尤其是在经济学这行。

You cannot have it both ways, either you believe and I want to make it clear to be honest, I don't think postgraduate degrees are that useful, right, so in economics.

我在顶尖大学待了五年，虽然我特别尊重我之前提到的那些经济学家，而且我相信他们多半也同意我的看法——但说实话，学经济学的过程，包括研究生阶段，简直压抑到极点。

So I have spent five years at elite universities, as much as I have great respect for some of these economists who I've mentioned, and I think they would probably agree with me, the experience of studying economics at university, including at postgraduate level, is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly depressing.

在牛津的时候，我上过一门课，班上77个人，个个都聪明得要命，结果呢？整整两年，把我们关在没窗户的屋子里，天天解联立方程，这就是全部内容。

You know, at Oxford I was on a course with 77 people, all of them incredibly smart people, and they basically locked us in windowless rooms for two years and told us to do simultaneous equations and that is basically what happened.

所以我离开伦敦政经学院去当交易员的时候，这事在我书里有段小故事。

So when I left the London School of Economics to go to work as a trader, there's little story in my book.

像大多数受过训练的大学经济学家一样，我当初也以为，自己在大学里学的东西，能帮我当个好交易员。

Obviously, like most trained university economists, I thought I could use my what I learned at university to sort of help me be a good trader.

我2008年刚开始当交易员，那会儿正好赶上金融危机。

And I started as a trader in 2008 and I made it, you know, there was a big financial crisis.

第一年我根本不知道自己在干嘛。

My first year I didn't really know what I was doing.

就是瞎模仿身边的人。

Was just copying people around me.

2010年我第一次亏了大钱，一周之内赔了八百万美元，全年盈亏从正四百万直接掉到负四百万。

And I made my first big loss as a trader in 2010 and I lost $8,000,000 in a week and, my P and L, my profit and loss went from plus 4,000,000 for the year to negative 4,000,000 for the year.

我当时压力特别大，下意识就翻起了书，把经济学课本带到了交易大厅——现在回想起来挺搞笑的，有空我就坐在那儿，拼命看、拼命琢磨，想搞清楚到底发生了什么，为什么我会亏钱。

I was really stressed and I instinctively did this thing of I like went back to the books and I started to bring my economics it's funny looking back I started to bring my economics textbooks onto the trading floor and when I had a bit of free time I would like sit there and try and read, try and understand what was happening, and understand why I lost money on.

我特别幸运，遇到过我这辈子见过最聪明的人，也是我见过最厉害的交易员。

And I was tremendously lucky that I worked with one of the smartest people I've ever met and he must be the best trader I've ever met.

他真实名字不能提，因为写在书里了，书里叫他Billy。

And he, in the I can't use his real name because he's in the book, but in the book it's called Billy.

他出身普通家庭，没上过大学，花了二十多年，从汇丰银行的柜员一路干上来，成了花旗银行最顶尖的交易员——我见过的最赚钱、最牛的交易员。

And he was from a working class background, he didn't go to university and he worked his way up over the course of like twenty, twenty five years from being like a cashier at Halifax to being one of Citibank's well not one of being Citibank's best trader, the best trader I've ever met, an incredibly profitable trader.

他特别照顾我，看到我在交易大厅看课本，一开始还由着我，但几天后我明显感觉到他有点不耐烦了。

And he really looked after me and he saw me reading my textbooks on the trading floor and he let me do it for a couple of days and then I could see he was kind of getting a bit pissed off.

有一天他突然站起来，一把把我的课本打掉，书掉进垃圾桶，连桶都翻了。他盯着我说：‘你他妈在搞什么？你多大了？’

And one day he just stood up, he slapped this textbook out of my hand, it fell into the bin, the bin fell over and he just looked at me and he said what the fuck are you doing right, how old are you?

你看看周围，你现在可是跟大佬们混在一起了，你赌的是现实世界里发生的事——你都亏了八百万了，答案怎么可能藏在书本里？

Look around you, you're here with the big boys now, you're betting on what's happening in the real world, you've lost $8,000,000 and the answer is not going to be there in your textbooks.

真想知道发生了什么？你得走出去，回家问问你妈最近经济上怎么样。

If you want to know what is happening you need to go out there in the real world, need to go home and ask your mum about her financial situation.

你得留意地铁里都在打什么广告。

You know you need to look at what's being advertised on the tube.

你上下班路过街边，看看哪家店新开张了，哪家店关门了，流浪汉是多了还是少了？

You walk up and down your local high street, what shops are opening, what shops are closing, are there more homeless people, are there less homeless people.

跟朋友、朋友的家人聊聊他们最近的经济状况。

Talk to your friends and your friends families about their financial situation.

想搞懂现实世界到底在发生什么？别再闷头看书了，得走进生活里去。

If you want to understand what's really happening in the real world, you need to get out of the books and you need to get into the real world.

当然，关于我是不是花旗银行最顶尖的交易员，一直有很多争议。

And this guy, there's been a lot of controversy obviously about whether I was Citibank's top trader.

但我确实是2011年花旗银行利润最高的交易员。

I was Citibank's most profitable trader in 2011.

这个叫比利的家伙，我待在银行的那些年，每年利润第一都是他，他压根儿没上过大学。

This guy, Billy, was Citibank's most profitable trader every single other year I was at the bank and he never ever went to university.

早在2008年金融危机后经济复苏乏力之前，他就准确预测到了。

And this guy correctly predicted before it happened the February, he correctly predicted the weak recovery of the two thousand and eight financial crisis.

当时我们这群人，全是名校毕业的经济学家，没人看出来，就他看出来了。

All of these things which were none of the rest of us who were all sort of elite university educated economists, none of us predicted it but he predicted it.

后来我职业生涯转到东京，就在东京交易大厅工作，那时候比利已经不在了。

Later on in my career I moved from London to Tokyo and I was working on the Tokyo Trading Floor with and this guy Billy wasn't there.

另一个交易员问我：你觉得花旗银行谁才是最厉害的经济学家？

And another trader asked me, who do you think is the best economist at Citibank?

我毫不犹豫就说：比利。

And immediately without hesitation I said Billy.

因为他明显是最棒的经济学家，这 guy 预测了 2008 年金融危机，还预测了复苏，说实话，我觉得他不仅是顶级交易员，也是我见过最顶尖的经济学家之一。

Because he obviously was the best economist, You know, this guy predicted the two thousand and eight financial crisis, he predicted the recovery, know, he was you know, I consider him to be one of the best economists as well as one of the best traders I've ever met.

那个问我问题的交易员一听就笑出来了，说：‘Billy 根本不是经济学家。’

And this trader who asked me started laughing and he replied Billy's not an economist.

你知道，他这么说是因 Billy 没上过大学，也没拿过经济学学位，但 Billy 每年都凭自己对经济的理解下注，而且每次都比别人准。

You know and his answer was based on the fact that Billy didn't go to university, Billy didn't have an economics degree, but Billy is making bets every single year based on his understanding of the economy and he's out predicting everyone.

但说实话，我觉得这种‘Billy 不是经济学家’的说法，跟我小时候读过的一本书里讲的观点一模一样——Billy 不是经济学家。

But you know I think this really, if I'm totally honest, I think this idea that Gary is not an economist is exactly the same as this idea in the book which I encountered as a kid which is Billy is not an economist.

说白了，这背后没什么深意，就是一种高高在上的精英主义罢了。

I don't think there's really much more behind that other than really a kind of snobbish elitism.

如果 Rory Stewart 觉得我不是经济学家，那他得把那些教授头衔的薪水退回来。

Know, I think if Rory Stewart thinks I'm not an economist, he has to give back the money for those professorships.

你想想，他要是公开说‘没研究生学历的人不配自称专家’，那他自己一个连研究生都没读过、却自称哈佛教授的人，算怎么回事？

Because how can you claim to be a Harvard professor level expert with no postgraduate degrees if you have publicly stated that nobody without a postgraduate degree can consider themselves an expert in their discipline.

我觉得问题就这么简单：你到底相不相信，一个人只要在行业里干，就能成为专家？

I think this is as simple as that like do you or do you not believe that somebody can become an expert on a thing by working in that field?

你说那些砌砖的，没拿博士学位，他们算不算砌砖的专家？你懂我意思吧？

You know are the bricklayers an expert in bricklaying because they don't have PhDs, you know what I mean?

理发师算不算理发方面的专家？

Are the hairdressers experts in hairdressing?

罗里·斯图尔特，这事儿其实特别简单明了。

This is a very very simple idea Rory Stewart.

你只要真去干一件事，就能真正懂它。

It is possible to learn about a thing by doing the thing.

知识不是你们那些象牙塔里的人独占的。

You do not own knowledge in your ivory towers.

那些没上过大学的人，照样可以聪明得很，咱们就直说了吧。

This is the humans who do not go to university are still capable of being intelligent, and let's be quite simple and plain here.

如果罗里·斯图尔特说没博士头衔就不配当专家，那他等于说你们这些干了十年、十五年、二十年本行的人，全都是傻子。

If Rory Stewart says that nobody without a PhD is an expert in their field, then he is saying every single one of you who has done your job for ten, fifteen, twenty years is an idiot.

这话说得一点没错。

It's the truth.

你希望我说什么？

What do want me to say?

这话说得没错。

It's the truth.

这是最糟糕的精英主义。

It's the worst kind of elitism.

这就是最可恶的精英做派。

It's the worst kind of elitism.

听着，我现在真有点生气了，但事实是我这一辈子都在面对这种事。

Listen, I'm getting upset here, but the truth is that I've had to deal with this my whole life.

我这一辈子。

My whole life.

我16岁被学校开除，转去新学校，刚去就有人说：‘你这论文肯定不是自己写的，抄袭的。’

I got expelled from school when I was 16 and I had to go to a new school and straight away, oh you didn't really write your essays, it's plagiarised.

我这一辈子，总有人因为我的长相、口音，就认定我不可能懂我做的事，不可能做出像样的成果。

My whole life I've had to deal with people saying, somebody who looks like you, somebody who sounds like you is not an expert in what you do and the things that you produce.

我心里早就有数了。

And I knew it.

写书的时候我就知道，人们会这么说，而且到现在他们还在这么说。

When I wrote my book I knew, I knew people would say it and I know people still do say it.

他根本没写这本书。

He didn't really write the book.

我知道。

I know it.

我知道。

I know it.

他就是这么说的。

I that's what he said.

我知道总有人嘀咕，说他根本不是最厉害的交易员。

I know people constantly say, oh he wasn't really the best trader.

这就是现实，我只能告诉自己：要是你牛到别人都非得说你没真本事、不是真专家，那你大概真是厉害得不行了。

This is and I just have to tell myself, listen, if you're so fucking good that people constantly have to say you didn't really do it, you're not really an expert, then you're probably fucking good at what you do.

好了，听好了，第一点是，你是不是真搞经济学的。

Alright, so listen, that's the first thing whether you're really an economist.

在我看来，那些在自己领域里成绩特别牛的人，完全有资格说自己是专家。

In my opinion, people who have incredibly good track records in their field of work are allowed to be able to claim to be experts in their field of work.

说实话，我觉得罗里·斯图尔特就是个政客，哪怕他连个研究生学位都没有。

And to be honest, I think Rory Stewart is a politician, despite not having any postgraduate degrees.

在我看来，只要你有扎实的专业经验，这就够了。

This is in my opinion, if you have basically professional experience is valid.

如果你不信这个，那你最好赶紧回个好大学去，不然你都没资格开口说话。

And if you don't believe that, well you better get back to a good university, because otherwise you're not allowed to speak.

好了，接下来咱们说重点——抛开那些人身攻击，说实话，我觉得那点玩意儿挺傻的。

Alright, so we're going to get to the meat of the argument which was once we get past the ad hominem personal stuff, which in my opinion was a little bit stupid.

其实背后真有个有分量的经济质疑：顶尖经济学家们压根没共识支持财富税这类政策。

There is a more substantive economic attack there, which is elite economists, like top level economists, do not have a consensus that we want things like wealth taxes.

咱们下一句就聊这个，但我觉得，在讨论之前，得先搞清楚这个质疑到底发生在什么样的语境里。

So we're going to get to that next, but I think first we do need, in order for us to be able to discuss this, to have a little bit of context on the space in which this attack is happening.

首先得说，财富税在政治讨论中的重要性，其实是最近才上升的。

So, first thing to say is, wealth taxes are relatively new in terms of how important they are in the political discourse.

不过呢，财富税本身早就存在了。

So, wealth taxes have been around for a long time.

现在很多国家还在用。

They've got them even now.

比如瑞士、挪威、西班牙，现在都有财富税。

Today they've got them in Switzerland, they've got them in Norway, they've got them in Spain.

听说匈牙利也要跟上了，因为新政府支持全球征税这事儿。

Apparently we're going to have them in Hungary now because the new government in Hungary is supportive of a world tax.

这想法其实不新鲜，但过去几年里，它在公共讨论中的热度飙升了。

The ideas have been around for a long time, but in the last couple of years they have massively increased in their salience in the discourse.

‘热度’这个词，我在这频道里一直想强调。

So salience is this term which I've been you know trying to push on this channel.

简单说，热度就是一件事在媒体上被讨论得多不多。我做这个频道，很大程度就是为了提升财富税和不平等对生活水准和经济影响的讨论热度。

Salience is basically how much a thing is spoken about in the media and a big part of the aim of this channel is to increase the salience of wealth taxes and inequality in terms of how they affect living standards and the economy.

说实话，我觉得我们在这件事上做得特别成功——财富税和不平等问题现在在媒体上被讨论得多了太多。过去几年，不仅在英国，全世界都在热议这个话题，这可不光是我一个人的功劳，Patriotic Millionaires、Tax Justice UK 这些团队做了大量工作，美国的伯尼·桑德斯、伊丽莎白·沃伦也早就一直在提这事。

And I'll be honest, I think we've been incredibly successful about that and wealth taxes and inequality are spoken about much much much more in the media and that has been happening here in The UK and across the world over the last couple of years not just down to me there's been great work by the guys at Patriotic Millionaires and Tax Justice UK, people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in The US have been speaking about it for a long time.

你知道吗，我还专门去新西兰找过克洛维斯·沃里克，他也在大力推动这个议题。

You know, I went and spoke to, Clovis Warwick in New Zealand who's been speaking about it.

但说到底，我们这个频道最大的贡献，就是把全球财富税和不平等问题的媒体能见度推上了新高度。

But really a big part of it is we have massively here on this channel massively increased the salience of world taxes and inequality in the media.

不过很长一段时间，我们也就只做到了这一步。

But for a long time that was largely all we had achieved.

我们确实让媒体天天谈这个话题，但执政十四年的保守党压根不买账。

We had significantly increased the media salience, but we never won over the Conservative Party who were in government here for fourteen years.

工党也没被说动，他们根本没这打算。

The Labour Party also haven't been won over, they're not doing it.

所以哪怕公众呼声再高，政策再受欢迎，只要两大主要政党都不接招，这事就根本没戏。

So as much as the public wanted it and it became an incredibly desirable public policy, because none of the realistic political parties in our two party system were picking up, it was basically never going to happen.

但去年情况变了，这个转折几乎全靠绿党新领袖波兰斯基的出色推动。

Last year that change and that change has to be credited is down almost entirely to the fantastic work of the new leader of the Greens, Polanski.

绿党其实早就把财富税写进他们的竞选纲领了。

So the Greens have had wealth taxes in their manifesto for a while.

2024年大选前的那份纲领里就有财富税，但那时候他们根本没怎么提。

They had wealth taxes in the manifesto in 2024, the election two years ago, but they didn't really talk about it that much.

等扎克·波兰斯基上台后，他开始大谈特谈不平等，大谈特谈财富税。

And when Zack Polanski came in, he started to talk much much more about inequality, much much more about wealth taxes.

他搞了一场特别猛的社交媒体运动，拍视频、上了无数个播客，说实话，我真被震撼到了。

He did a incredibly energetic social media campaign which included making videos and appearing on loads and loads and loads of different podcasts, and to be honest I was incredibly impressed.

我觉得他干的活儿太牛了。

I think he the work he did was fantastic.

他付出的努力，简直没得说。

The amount of work he did was fantastic.

他一谈全球税收，绿党的支持率就蹭蹭往上涨——本来绿党一直是英国一个微不足道的小党，从来没真正在政坛上说过话，结果现在动不动就排第二，上周甚至还有民调显示他们冲到了第一。

Talking about world taxes and that led to an enormous increase in the Greens in the polls and the Greens who have always historically been a you know a smallvery small British party which have never had any significant power or influence in British politics suddenly were polling in many cases second or I think there was a poll even last week where they were polling first.

我们之前就有民调显示绿党支持率超过工党和保守党，现在这情况还在继续。

But you know we had polls in which the Greens were above Labour and above the Conservatives, and that's still happening.

所以这就是这次采访发生时的背景。

So this is the context of when this interview took place.

绿党现在强势反弹，财富税也重新火了起来。虽然我们这个国家至少还得三年才可能大选，但采访那会儿——那是三年半前——大家已经觉得绿党有可能上台，扎克·波兰斯基甚至可能当上首相，或者至少参与组阁。

The Greens are massively resurgent, world taxes are massively resurgent, and as much as we probably won't have an election in this country for another three years, at the time of the interview three and a half years, it was seeming increasingly possible and it is increasingly possible that the Greens would or could still get into government and that Zack Polanski would become possibly even prime minister, or at least taking part in some sort of coalition government.

而且你知道，这个播客一直把自己定位成英国两党政治里两个对立面——一个代表工党，一个代表保守党。

So and you know, we also have the context of this podcast sort of likes to set itself as like two opposite sides of the political spectrum in the two party politics, is one guy Labour, one guy Conservative.

但现在这两党都人气崩盘，民调跌到第三、第四，基本被两个新兴政党取代了。

But we have this also this context of both of these parties collapsing in popularity, falling down to third and fourth in the polls and being basically replaced by two new parties.

这对代表政治建制派的两人来说是巨大威胁，对整个国家的精英阶层而言，同样是个危险信号。

So it's an incredibly threatening moment for these two representatives of the political establishment but it is also a threatening moment on basically the the elites of the country.

眼下，贫富差距越来越大，社会流动性却越来越差。

You know, at the moment we have growing and increasing inequality and we are also seeing a society which is becoming increasingly less socially mobile.

你去那些顶尖大学看看，满眼都是富家子弟；去精英岗位看看，也全是家境优越的人——爸爸有钱，爷爷更有钱。这意味着，社会流动性低，财富主要靠继承，不是靠打拼。对普通人来说，就是赚钱难、买房难、上好学校难、找好工作难；但对那些顶级精英来说，恰恰相反。

If you go to the elite universities what you find is a lot of rich wealthy people, if you go into elite jobs what you find is a lot of rich wealthy people, people whose dads were rich, people whose granddads were rich, and what that means is as we have low social mobility and we have wealth which is largely inherited rather than earned, from the perspective of an ordinary person what that means is it's hard for me to make money, it's hard for me to buy a house, it's hard for me to get a good education, it's hard for me to get a good job, but from the perspective of a very elite person, a very wealthy person, it means the opposite.

对他们来说，好房子随手就有，好工作轻轻松松，好教育唾手可得，稳坐顶层根本不是问题。

It means it's very easy for me to get a good house, it's very easy for me to get a good job, it's very easy for me to get a good education, it's very easy for me to stay at the top.

社会流动性低，就是穷人越穷，富人越富。

Low social mobility means poor people stay poor and rich people stay rich.

所以这简直就是给富人量身定做的游戏规则。

So this is like a great setup basically for the rich.

所以你瞧，当我看到罗里·斯图尔特一上来就咄咄逼人，后面那段没播的采访，我觉得他就是在狠狠地攻击扎克·波兰斯基。

So you know, obviously when I saw like Rory Stewart coming in very aggressively, so the rest of this interview which we've not shown, in my opinion was a very aggressive attack by Rory Stewart on Zack Polanski.

他用的那招，说实话有点儿low——直接把扎克逼到墙角，一遍遍问：‘你能不能说清楚英国政府的债务或者赤字到底是多少？说个具体数字！’这种采访方式，简直就是在说：‘你上节目前有没有背熟这组数据啊？’

Using a method which I have to be honest I think is a little bit cheap, is he basically sort of pinned Zack down and said can you tell me exactly how large The UK government debt or deficit one of these numbers is like tell me the number, tell me the number, which is I've got to be honest I think incredibly cheap journalism to basically say you know have you memorised this number before you came on this show.

这种数据谁查不到啊？谁不会搜一搜？扎克·波兰斯基又不是经济学家。

So we can all look that number up, we can all Google that number, Zack Polanski is not an economist you know.

你要真想这么整，当初我上节目的时候怎么不这么问我？

You want to do that, should have done it to me when I went on the show.

我可是比他早几个月就上过这个节目了。

I was on the show a couple of months earlier.

但我看完那段之后，真觉得那就是一场赤裸裸的围攻。

But what I saw when I watched that was it, I think, an incredibly aggressive attack.

所以，我第一件事就是想弄清楚，这人是不是出身豪门。

So obviously, the first thing I wanted to do was I want to understand, is this guy part of a very wealthy family.

我不了解Rory Stewart的家庭背景，但我就做了最基础的调查。

I don't know Rory Stewart's family background but I just did the most basic research.

我翻了他的维基百科，第一眼就想看：他爸的名字是不是蓝色带下划线的？

I went on his Wikipedia and the first thing I wanted to see was is your dad's name blue and underlined?

说实话，现在我看到谁的第一反应就是这个，对吧？

I've got to be honest, but that's the first thing I want to see nowadays, right?

还真是，而且说实话，那篇文章挺长的。

It was, and I've got to be honest, that was a long article.

一共有十来个章节，说他从小在城堡里上学，维基上还写他是国内情报部门最有权势的人之一。

It's got about 10 sections there and, you know, apparently he was educated in a castle and was, according to Wikipedia one of the most powerful men in the secret services of the country.

我们一旦意识到这是一次攻击，不代表攻击本身就有问题。

Once we recognise this as an attack what it is, that doesn't mean in and of itself the attack is bad.

我觉得这场攻击的核心其实是：听好了，经济学家，尤其是学术界的经济学家，普遍不认同财富税是好事、是必需的，这根本没达成什么共识。

And I think when we view the meat of the attack is that listen economists in general, academic economists in general do not agree with this idea that that wealth taxes are good, that wealth taxes are needed, there is no consensus for this.

这个攻击本身有一部分是对的，我得说清楚，从这个频道一开始我就一直很明确这一点，对吧。

And that attack in itself is partially true and I want to be clear, I've been very very clear about that from the beginning of this channel, right.

如果真像他们说的那样，学术经济学家普遍认同必须缩小贫富差距、推行财富税，那我根本没必要做这个频道，也不会辞职离开交易圈，更不可能成为百万富翁，对吧。

If it was true that there was a consensus among academic economists that we needed to reduce inequality and we needed to do wealth taxes, then there would be no need for me to do this channel, there would have been no need for me to have left trading and quite frankly I wouldn't be a multi millionaire, right.

我之所以对财富税和贫富差距这个话题感兴趣，正是因为我觉得，这个关键事实被主流经济学界的共识给忽略了。

The reason that I was attracted to this idea about wealth taxes, about inequality, was specifically for the reason that I recognised this important fact was missing from the broad academic economic consensus.

如果你想了解背后的历史，我们做过一些视频，或者你也可以看看我的书《交易游戏》，各大书店都有卖。

You know if you want to know sort of the history, we've done some videos about it or you can you can read it in my book, The Trading Game, available in all good stores.

我这些想法是在我作为伦敦经济学院经济学毕业生、并在交易大厅工作时逐渐形成的，亲眼目睹了一次又一次对宏观经济的严重误判。

I developed these ideas in the context of being a graduate of in economics, a graduate of the London School of Economics and then working on the trading floor and witnessing a series, a consistent series of really strong failures to predict the broad economy.

我本科是2005到2008年读的，2008年年中就开始做交易员。

So I studied my undergrad 2005 to 2008 and then I start working as a trader in the middle of 2008.

那会儿爆发了大规模金融危机，没人预测到，但更让我惊讶的是，危机之后的经济走势也全被看错了——2008年预测2009年会强势复苏，2009年预测2010年会强势复苏，2010年又预测2011年会强势复苏。

There's a massive financial crisis which nobody predicted, but then what was more interesting to me was the aftermath of the crisis was also incredibly badly predicted and in 2008 an aggressive recovery was predicted for 2009, in 2009 an aggressive recovery was predicted in 2010, in 2010, an aggressive recovery was predicted in 2011.

到了2011年，大家还在一口咬定经济会强势反弹。

At the 2011, we were still seeing massive aggressive recoveries predicted.

那时候我全职工作，天天都在预测利率走势。

And I was working full time all that time in the field of predicting interest rates.

你知道，利率跟经济强弱息息相关，大家都觉得利率迟早会回升，结果压根没涨。

And you know interest rates are broadly linked to the strength of the economy, so everybody thought interest rates would come back up and they never did.

从2008年到2011年，我就坐在那儿想：天啊，我们在这事儿上简直错得离谱——这可是关乎经济会不会好转、你日子会不会变好的大问题，年复一年，全猜错了。

And I was sitting there 2008, 2009, 2010, the 2011, realising like damn, like we are really consistently wrong on like this really, really big issue, which is basically like is the economy going to get better, is your life going to get better, like year after year after year after year.

我想补充一句，这可不是只到2011年才这样，不是那么回事。

And it was in that I would like to add, know, that didn't that wasn't just the way to 11, you know.

这种‘明年一定会好转’的预测，一直持续到了2020年。

This this constant prediction that things will get better next year lasted all the way to 2020.

如果你看利率预测——这本质上就是对经济前景的预测——他们整整十三年，每年都说明年会变好。

And if you look at the prediction of interest rates, which is broadly connected to prediction of the strength of the economy, they predicted things would get better every single year for thirteen years.

直到2020年，疫情爆发了，经济学家才突然改口：哦天，原来利率会一直维持在零附近。

And it was only in 2020, in the middle of COVID, when economists suddenly started saying, oh no, actually interest rates will stay zero forever.

结果这话刚说完，利率就直接冲到了6%。

And that's immediately before interest rates went to 6%.

所以啊，我在那儿待了三年，看到的就是预测屡屡出错的惊人记录。

So, you know, when I was there for three years, what I saw was this phenomenal bad track record of predicting.

而这种屡战屡败的预测记录，一直持续到今天。

And that phenomenal bad track record of predicting has continued to this day.

你发现，几乎在所有领域，人们对经济的预测都一贯过于乐观。

And what you see is continual in basically every field continual over optimistic prediction of the economy.

我本人在顶尖大学待过，亲眼看着这些预测，看到的是一次又一次、反复不断的糟糕预测记录。

For me, as somebody who has been at the elite universities and then watched the predictions, what I see is like this phenomenal track record of making bad predictions again and again and again.

当你发现自己的预测总是错得离谱时，最科学的做法，就是回头审视自己的信念和对世界的理解模型，看看哪里出了问题。

And I think the scientific thing to do when you see that your predictions are incredibly consistently wrong, incredibly consistently bad, is to look at your beliefs and look at your model for understanding the world and try to understand what is missing in the model.

我觉得这才是合乎逻辑的做法，2011年我就这么做了。

And I think that this is the logical thing to do here and that's what I did back in 2011.

我得出的结论，到现在依然坚信：真正缺失的，是财富分配和日益加剧的不平等对民生和宏观经济的影响。2011、2012年我就押注这一点，赚了数百万英镑，疫情以来，我的预测更是准得离谱。

I came to the conclusion that I still believe that what is missing is the significance of the importance of the wealth distribution and increasing inequality on living standards on the macro economy and betting on this has made me millions and millions of pounds back in 2011 and 2012 but also since Covid incredibly good track record of prediction.

我觉得这个思路简直太准了，真的太准了。

I think it works incredibly well, I think it works incredibly well.

但我觉得，当生活水平持续下滑，而专家的预测也一再出错时，我们完全应该有空间去讨论：也许主流经济学共识本身有问题。

But I think there is a strong case to be made that in an economy where living standards are continually worsening and expert academic predictions are continually wrong, I think there should be space to have a debate that says maybe there is something wrong with the broad economic consensus.

但罗里·斯图尔特的立场似乎是，任何挑战主流经济学观点的人，都不该被认真对待。

But Rory Stewart's philosophical position seems to be anyone who says anything that goes against the broad economic consensus should not be listened to.

这让我觉得特别危险。

This to me is incredibly worrying.

你想啊，要是每次病人去看医生，结果都死了，这不奇怪吗？

You know, I think if you are in a situation where, you know, you know, if this is like every single time a patient goes to a doctor they're dying, right?

要是人人都看医生就死，这时候有人站出来说：咱们是不是该看看医院里那些医生到底在搞什么名堂？

Every single when anyone goes to a doctor they die and then somebody says, hey, maybe we should have a look at what the guys and doctors are doing in the hospital.

说不定他们方法有问题。

Maybe they're doing something wrong.

结果罗里·斯图尔特反问：你是个医生吗？

And Rory Stewart turns around and says, hey, are you a doctor?

说实话，这种态度简直是狂妄到极点的学术门阀主义。

You know, you know, this is this is this is incredible amount of, to be honest, like, incredibly hubristic intellectual gatekeeping.

你说我跟我的团队错了二十年，你们对了十五年，但你们有证书吗？

This idea that me and my people, I know we've been wrong for twenty years and I know you've been right for fifteen years, but do you have the certificate?

你要是没有，那就请便吧。

You know, if you don't, off.

但关键是，我其实做了 Rory Stewart 会建议我做的事——我辞掉了年薪几百万英镑的工作，重新回到了学术圈。

But the thing is that I actually did what surely Rory Stewart would have recommended that I do, which is I quit my job, was making millions of pounds a year and I went back into academia.

我回去读了两年的硕士，叫 MPhil，在牛津，算是个高级硕士，比普通硕士难多了。

Right, so I went back into academia and I did a two year masters which is like a kind of, it's called an MPhil Oxford, it's like a special like big masters.

不是博士，但比普通硕士要深得多。

So it's not a PhD but it's bigger than a masters.

我2017年开始读的，那时候特别关注一个想法：贫富差距被严重忽视了，这导致我们的预测全错了，老百姓的生活水平也在下滑。

I started that in 2017 and obviously I was particularly interested in this one idea that I had which is inequality is not being talked about enough and that's making our predictions wrong and it's making living standards fall.

尤其是我想搞清楚它对利率的影响，因为这正是我当年交易的领域，也是我自认真正懂行的地方。

In particular I was interested in its effect on interest rates because that was what I traded That was what I consider myself to be a legitimate expert in.

利率这事儿学术圈讨论得特别多，我刚进牛津读硕士，第一堂课就提到了。

Interest rates are something which is discussed extensively in academia and they were brought up in one of our first lectures in my masters at Oxford.

那节课后我留下来找教授，跟他说：‘咱们能不能聊聊，为啥咱们宏观经济学家对利率的预测一直这么准不了？’

And I waited behind after that lecture and I spoke to the professor and I said to him, hey like can we talk about why our predictions like broad economists, our predictions for interest rates have been so bad for so long.

但他根本不知道利率预测一直这么差劲。

And, he he wasn't aware of the the bad track record of prediction of interest rates.

他一脸懵：‘啊？你在说啥？’

He was, oh, what are talking about?

我就说：‘你看啊，我们一直说利率很快就会回升。’

I was like, well, know, we always said that rates were gonna come back up very quickly.

可到2017年，利率都零了九年了。

By this time, 2017, rates had stayed zero for nine years.

他转过头跟我说：‘啊？我们一直就知道利率会一直保持零啊。’——这话明显不对，我简直震惊了，一个在牛津教利率的教授，居然不知道利率预测连续九年全错了？

And he turned around to me and he said, oh, like, no, we always knew rates were gonna stay zero, which is like incredibly categorically probably wrong and I was quite surprised that here is this Oxford professor teaching interest rates at Oxford University who is unaware that interest rates have been mispredicted for nine years.

说实话，我当时真被震住了，就跟他说：‘行，我回家把数据发你，你一看就知道，你们的预测错了整整九年。’

I've got to be honest, I was quite shocked and I said okay I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna send you the data and you're gonna see that your predictions have been wrong for nine years.

我真发了数据过去，他回我说：‘哎，你说得对。’

And I went and I sent him the data and he was, oh, you're right.

是的。

Yeah.

我们的预测已经错了九年了。

Our predictions have been wrong for nine years.

就这么结束了。

And that was it.

他再也不想谈这个了。

He didn't want to talk anymore about it.

这让我简直难以置信，你知道吗。

He wasn't and this was like, it's mind blowing to me, you know.

我想说清楚一点。

It's this this is and I just want to be clear.

你可以去看过往的《Restless Politics》节目。

You can go watch the article of restless politics.

我在《Rest is Politics》上跟罗里·斯图尔特讲过这个故事。

I told Rory Stewart this story on The Rest is Politics, right.

我以前是在学术圈工作的，后来离开了学界，进入业界后做得非常成功。

So you know, I am somebody who was in academia, left academia, went in, had an enormous amount of success.

我当初在学校里也是顶尖的学生。

I was one of the top students there.

才两年就拿到了一级荣誉学位，你懂的。

I got my first in two years, right.

第三年因为成绩够好，就天天喝酒混日子。后来离开学界去了伦敦金融城，发展得顺风顺水，之后又回到了学术界。说实话，我回去后看到学术界的乱象，那种糟糕程度真的没法跟你形容。

I spent the third year just getting drunk because my grades were so good Left academia, went into the city, had an enormous amount of success, came back into academia and I've got to be honest, what I saw in academia, I cannot describe to you how dreadfully bad it was.

当时的情况真的烂得没法再烂了，一塌糊涂。

How dreadfully, dreadfully, dreadfully bad it was.

行，那咱们再往深挖一层——因为要是只说“目前还没形成共识”，那可太给这个说法留面子了。确实，关于不平等和财富税，经济学界还没形成广泛共识，但这世上有几位顶尖的、极富声望的经济学家，对这个问题看得特别重，态度也十分鲜明。

Alright, but let's let's push back even further because I think it's actually giving too much credit to this argument to say that there is not a consensus because whilst it is true that there is not a broad economic consensus on inequality and wealth taxes, There are some excellent, some of the most prestigious economists in the world that are incredibly passionate about this issue.

最广为人知的就是托马斯·皮凯蒂了。

The most obvious of which is Thomas Spaghetti.

我手头就有他的书，那本书包得特别精致，是刚出版的时候我在日本买的。

Thomas Spaghetti's book I've got, it's wrapped in this lovely way because I bought it in Japan just after it came out.

托马斯·比盖蒂。

Thomas Bighetti.

这位托马斯·比盖蒂，1993年拿下了法国经济学协会年度最佳论文奖。

So, this guy Thomas Bighetti, he won the French Economics Associations Award for the best thesis of the year in 1993.

他是当年法国最顶尖的年轻经济学家之一，也是全球最负盛名的经济学家之一。

He was the 2,002 best young economist in France, one of the most prestigious economists in the world.

那他整天研究啥？

And what does he work on all the time?

他成天聊的都是啥？

What does he talk about all the time?

贫富差距。

Inequality.

加布里埃尔·祖克曼，2014年拿了法国经济学协会最佳博士论文奖。

Gabriel Zukman, who won the French Economic Associations Award for the best dissertation in 2014.

他主要搞什么方向？

What does he work on?

他真正关心的是什么？

What is he passionate about?

贫富差距。

Inequality.

说没人支持这个观点，根本就是错的。

So I just think this idea that no economists support it is just wrong.

就这么简单，对吧？

It's as simple as that, right?

说白了，你要是真去深挖背后的实质，就会发现这其实是一种极其精英主义、而且明显站不住脚的态度。

So I mean, don't know, really when you dig behind the substance here, what you have is an incredibly elitist stance that is also, like quite simply, wrong.

很多顶尖经济学家其实对这个问题特别有热情，甚至包括那些从来没干过像交易员那样‘沾泥带土’活儿的人。

Lots of elite economists are incredibly passionate about this, even ones who haven't done such grubby mucky work as trying to make actual money as a professional trader.

我看那些反对这观点的人，其实反映的是一种可悲的、脱离现实的精英心态——他们就是死活不肯承认一个越来越明显的事实：生活水平在下滑，非改不可了。

And what I see here when I see people push back on this really is you have in my opinion unfortunately a tremendously out of touch elite class that is incredibly unwilling to accept the, I would say, like increasingly obvious truth that living standards are falling and things have to change.

上周的视频里我提到过，欧洲政坛的中间派和主导了一两百年的主流政党，现在彻底崩盘了。

So I spoke in last week's video about the absolute collapse of the political centre and the mainstream political parties who have dominated politics in Europe for the last one hundred, two hundred years.

基本上全都在崩塌。

Basically all of them are collapsing.

这跟《政治的其他面》这个播客特别相关，因为这个播客的出发点就是两党制——一边是工党，传统左翼；另一边是保守党，传统右翼。

And this is very relevant in the context of the Rest of Politics podcast because the whole idea of the rest of politics podcast is it is based on the idea of two party politics, which is we have the Labour Party, the traditional centre left party, and the Conservative Party, the traditional centre right party.

这俩党针锋相对，有它们在，我们才能从两个不同的角度看问题。

These guys are on opposite sides of the coin and you know if we have these two guys then we can see things from two different angles.

但现实是，这两个政党不仅在英国，而是在全世界范围内，都在迅速失去权力和人气。

But the fact is both of these political parties are absolutely collapsing in power and popularity and that is happening not just here in The UK but it is happening across the entire world.

像罗里·斯图尔特、艾利斯特·坎贝尔这样的人，要是眼睛睁大点，早就该注意到这点了。

And I think people like Rory Stewart and people like Alister Campbell, if they had their eyes open they would be looking at that.

他们该问的是：为啥不只是英国的工党和保守党人气暴跌，全球所有中间派政党都在一起崩盘？

They should be saying why are not just our political parties UK Labour and UK Conservatives collapsing in popularity, but why are all global centrist parties collapsing in popularity?

其实不用多远，只要看看世界，谁都能发现出问题了。

I think it's don't have to take much distance to look at the world and say something is wrong.

我觉得罗里·斯图尔特的回应挺有意思，他说我、扎克·波兰斯基，还有加里·史蒂文森，你们都嚷着要改变，但像我这样的学者里，真有共识觉得非改不可吗？

And I think this response of Rory Stewart to say you, Zack Polanski, and also me, I went on the podcast and I was mentioned, Gary Stevenson, you want change, but is there a consensus from academics like me that things should change?