委内瑞拉近期经济史（更新）

这是来自NPR的Planet Money。

This is Planet Money from NPR.

嗨。

Hi.

我是肯尼·马隆。

It's Kenny Malone.

上周末，美国军队袭击了加拉加斯，并将委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗带到美国受审。

And over the weekend, the United States military struck Caracas and brought Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to The United States for trial.

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普表示，美国将‘管理’委内瑞拉。

American president Donald Trump is saying The US will, quote, run Venezuela.

当他周六宣布这一决定时，他将此次袭击的理由与经济联系起来，包括增加石油产量、委内瑞拉的状况以及该国社会主义政策的影响。

And when he announced that on Saturday, he linked his reasons for the strike to economics, to increasing oil production, to conditions in Venezuela, to the impact of socialist policies in that country.

我们Planet Money团队多年来一直关注委内瑞拉，采访当地民众，了解他们的生活状况，因此本期节目将讲述委内瑞拉近期的经济历史。

Now we at Planet Money have been covering Venezuela going back ten years now, talking to people on the ground, hearing what it's like, and so today's episode is about the recent economic history of Venezuela.

你接下来听到的第一部分，是2016年报道的，当时该国正处于一个特别低谷的时期。

The first part you're gonna hear was reported in 2016 at a particularly low point for the country.

第二部分是在2024年报道的，当时委内瑞拉经历了一段经济稳定期，而经济改善的意外原因是美元。

The second part was reported in 2024 after a period of economic stability in Venezuela, after an unexpected cause of economic improvement, the US dollar.

所以我们先听2016年罗伯特·史密斯和诺尔·金的报道。

So we begin with Robert Smith and Noel King in 2016.

你好，欢迎收听星球金钱。

Hello, and welcome to Planet Money.

我是罗伯特·史密斯。

I'm Robert Smith.

我是诺尔·金。

And I'm Noel King.

委内瑞拉曾经是一个相对富裕的国家。

Venezuela used to be a relatively rich country.

它拥有财富和声望，最重要的是，它拥有石油。

It had money and prestige, and most importantly, it had oil.

委内瑞拉人曾经夸耀自己拥有世界上最大的石油储备。

Venezuelans used to brag that they had the largest reserves of oil in the world.

今天在节目中，我们将讲述一个关于国家如何滥用石油财富而做出全部错误决策的经济恐怖故事。

Today on the show, we have an economic horror story about a country that made all the wrong decisions with that oil money.

这让我们得以窥见货币运作的根本方式，以及当你试图控制它时，可能会失去一切。

It's a window into the fundamental way that money works and how when you try to control it, you can lose everything.

十年前，委内瑞拉正处于巅峰状态。

A decade ago, Venezuela was riding so high.

它的领导人觉得自己可以挑战美利坚合众国。

Its leader felt that he could take on The United States Of America.

这位就是前革命者乌戈·查韦斯。

This was Hugo Chavez, former revolutionary.

但他已经当选为委内瑞拉总统。

But he had been elected president of Venezuela.

罗伯特，你还记得吗？

And, Robert, do you remember this?

2006年，他来到纽约，在联合国发表演讲。

In 2006, he came here to New York to talk at the United Nations.

嗯。

Mhmm.

前一天，总统乔治·布什刚在联合国发表过讲话。

And president George Bush had just spoken at the UN the day before.

查韦斯站在那里说，

Chavez stands there and he says,

魔鬼

The devil

就站在这里。

stood right here.

魔鬼。

The devil.

我最喜欢这部分。

And then I love this part.

查韦斯完全是个捧哏。

Chavez is a total straight man.

他画了个十字。

He crosses himself.

他合掌祈祷，然后挥了挥手，说：‘我还能闻到硫磺味。’

He makes prayer hands, and then he waves away and he says, I can still smell the sulfur.

所有人都笑翻了，除了可能乔治·布什。

And everybody cracked up except probably George Bush.

但那还挺搞笑的。

But it was kind of funny.

对吧？

Right?

在那个年代，乌戈·查韦斯一有机会就公然嘲弄美国。

Back in those days, Hugo Chavez made a sport of straight up trolling The United States whenever he could.

他会指出美国如何恶劣地对待穷人，以及这让他多么难过。

He would point out how terribly The US was treating its poor and how sad it made him.

我们委内瑞拉人民爱你们。

We Venezuelan people love you.

我们去当你们的兄弟。

We went I went to be your brothers.

然后他向美国人民提出了一项提议。

And then he makes the people of The United States an offer.

他说委内瑞拉有这么多钱和这么多石油，我们要给美国的穷人提供打折的取暖用油。

He says Venezuela has so much money and so much oil that we're gonna give discounted heating oil to poor people in The US.

委内瑞拉国有一家石油公司。

The Venezuelan state owns an oil company.

你可能听说过它，西特科公司，他们在波士顿和纽约投放了一系列 featuring Joe Kennedy 的广告。

You may have heard of it, Sitco, and they put out a bunch of ads in Boston and New York featuring Joe Kennedy.

妈妈，我冷。

Mommy, I'm cold.

这些广告几乎遍布电视，向美国传达：看看我们。

These ads were all over TV basically saying to The United States, look at us.

我们是委内瑞拉。

We are Venezuela.

我们是世界冠军。

We are the champions of the world.

我是乔·肯尼迪。

I'm Joe Kennedy.

援助即将到达。

Help is on the way.

来自我们委内瑞拉和西特科的朋友的取暖油打六折。

Heating oil at 40% off from our friends in Venezuela and Citco.

请致电公民热线。

Call me at Citizens

这就是乌戈·查韦斯的风格。

This is Hugo Chavez's style.

对吧？

Right?

他用石油资金来购买爱戴和权力。

He uses oil money to buy love and to buy power.

崩溃的根基始于这些繁荣年份中一贯的方式。

The foundation for the collapse started as it always does during these boom years.

查韦斯并不热衷于为将来石油耗尽的那一天储蓄任何石油收入。

Chavez wasn't big into saving any of his oil money for, you know, the day when it will run out.

他是个社会主义者。

He was a socialist.

他是个民粹主义者。

He was a populist.

他希望把钱花掉，尤其是用于贫困人群的项目。

He wanted to spend the money, especially on programs for the poor.

食品补贴，你知道的，教育项目，基本上都是。

Food subsidies, you know, education programs, pretty much,

那是一个经济繁荣的时期。

it was a time of economic bonanza.

亚历杭德罗·贝拉斯科在加拉加斯长大。

Alejandro Velasco grew up in Caracas.

他现在是纽约大学的教授，他说所有这些石油收入开始主导经济。

He's a professor at NYU now, and he says all that oil money started to dominate the economy.

石油绝对是最大的出口产品。

Oil was by far the biggest export.

它支付了政府大部分的开支。

It paid most of the government's bills.

与此同时，经济中的其他所有部分都萎缩了。

And in the meantime, everything else in the economy wilted.

没人想建工厂。

No one wanted to build a factory.

没人想种粮食，因为石油生意已经足够赚钱了。

No one wanted to grow food because the oil business was lucrative enough.

是的。

Yeah.

当国家需要什么东西时，就只是从别处购买。

When the country needed something, it just bought it from someplace else.

为什么要自己制造呢？

Why make it yourself?

当你能用非常便宜的美元直接购买进口产品时。

When you could just buy the import with very cheap dollars.

是的。

Yeah.

既然能从国外购买汽车零部件，为什么要自己制造呢？

Why make auto parts when you can buy auto parts from abroad?

为什么

Why

制造鞋子。

Make shoes.

制造鞋子。

Make shoes.

买鞋子、牛奶。

Buy shoes, milk.

任何东西。

Anything.

奶酪。

Cheese.

任何东西。

Anything.

买它。

Buy it.

就买它吧。

Just buy it.

当然。

Absolutely.

现成的。

Ready made.

不必担心要拥有

Not have to worry about having

要走完所有程序，并且你知道，在国内进行投资以拥有

to go through all the procedures and, you know, investment domestically to have

去做这件事。

to do that.

直接从国外购买。

Just buy from abroad.

对吧？

Right?

所以

And so

这让你极度依赖进口。

it makes you hugely dependent on imports.

于是你有了一个靠石油收入生存的国家。

So you have a country that is living and breathing oil money.

他们会出售石油，石油以美元计价，然后兑换成委内瑞拉货币玻利瓦尔，而每一分钱都用于维持国家运转，养活和衣着人民。

They would sell the oil, which is priced in US dollars, then convert it to the Venezuelan currency called bolivars, and then every centimo of it is spent to keep the country running, to feed and clothe themselves.

然后突然间，出了问题。

And then all of a sudden, there's a problem.

2003年，石油工人罢工了。

In 2003, the oil workers go on strike.

没有石油了。

There is no oil.

没有钱了。

There is no money.

委内瑞拉迫切需要现金，迫切需要美元来支付我们刚才讨论的所有开支，购买所需的进口商品。

Venezuela desperately needed cash, desperately needed dollars to do everything, anything that we've been talking about, buy imports that it required.

对吧？

Right?

查韦斯慌了。

Chavez freaks out.

他得付账单。

He has bills to pay.

他担心自己的货币——玻利瓦尔贬值。

He's worried about his own currency, the boulevard losing value.

为了维持整个经济稳定，他决定固定玻利瓦尔与美元之间的汇率。

And so to keep the whole economy stable, he decides to fix the exchange rate between the boulevard and the dollar.

查韦斯 essentially 表示，我们的货币价值由我来决定。

Chavez essentially said the value of our money is what I say it is.

如果你想获得美元，就必须来找政府。

And if you want dollars, you have to come to the government.

你必须来找我。

You have to come to me.

这在财务上是有道理的。

So it makes financial sense.

作为一项紧急措施，这在经济上也是合理的。

It actually makes economic sense as an emergency measure.

实际情况是，这项措施被一直保留并延续至今。

What happened is that this measure was kept and maintained throughout even to today.

而这正是经济定时炸弹。

And this this was the economic time bomb.

对。

Right.

即使在石油工人罢工结束后，查韦斯仍维持这一制度，使得全国所有重大交易仍需经过政府。

Even after the oil workers' strike was settled, Chavez kept it so that every major transaction in the country still involved the government.

如果你想要美元，就必须获得许可。

If you wanted dollars, you needed permission to have them.

政府设定了汇率。

The government set the exchange rate.

政府可以批准或拒绝任何交易。

The government could approve or reject any transaction.

以下是它的运作方式。

Here's how it would work.

亚历克斯·罗森伯格是加拉加斯的一名服装进口商。

Alex Rosenberg was a clothing importer in Caracas.

他进口了

He brought in

内衣、牛仔裤、正装衬衫、休闲衬衫、毛衣、夹克、西装外套。

underwear, jeans, dress shirts, casual shirts, sweaters, jackets, blazers.

这些衣服上会印有你的名字吗？

And would these have your name on them?

不会。

No.

不会印。

They wouldn't.

它们会印有几个品牌

They would have a couple brands

上去。

on them.

他可不是卡尔文·克莱恩。

He was no Calvin Klein.

不，他是卡尔文·罗森伯格。

No He Calvin Rosenberg.

为了进口服装，他需要以美元支付供应商。

Now in order to import clothing, he needed to pay his suppliers in dollars.

为了获得美元，他必须去政府证明自己要进口的是必需品。

And in order to get the dollars, he now had to go to the government and prove that he wanted to bring in something essential.

于是政府会给他一份清单。

So the government would give him the list.

他们打印出完整的官方公报文件，就像一摞摞的书吗？

They printed entire official gazette documents where Like books of papers?

基本上就是一本本代码手册，你要在里面查某个材料或某件服装是否得到了政府的集中授权。

Books of code, basically, where you would check whether or not a particular material or a particular article of clothing had been centrally authorized by the government.

这是什么？

What is this?

按字母顺序往下找，你能找到内衣吗？

Alphabetically, you'd go down and you'd find underwear?

你会找到由聚酯纤维、棉制成的男式内衣，

You would you would find men's underwear made out of polyester, cotton,

以及其他面料。

other fabrics.

然后你会在手册中查证，政府是否认为这种物品足够重要，值得购买。

And then you would check-in the book if the government deemed this important enough to buy essentially.

基本上是这样。

Basically.

你知道，政府不会仅仅因为你声称有一批内衣到了就相信你。

And you know, the government didn't just believe you when you said, oh, there's a shipment of underwear out there.

不。

No.

不。

No.

不。

No.

你必须向他们提供证据，证明这些内衣确实存在。

You had to show them proof that the underwear existed.

这是内衣的照片。

Here's a picture of the underwear.

这是品牌的照片。

Here's a picture of the brand.

这是它们将要呈现的样子。

Here's what they're gonna look like.

这是它们的材质，以及它们的价格。

Here's what they're made of, and here's what they cost.

然后你说，我需要一万美元？

And then you say, I need $10,000?

而且你会说，我需要x数量的内衣，每件x美元，总计x美元。

And and you say, I need x amount of, you know, pieces of underwear at x dollars totaling x amount of dollars.

我应该指出，诺埃尔，这一切都是为了获得使用他自己的钱的许可。

And I should note, Noelle, this is all for permission to spend his own money.

我的意思是，亚历克斯在为内裤付款。

I mean, Alex was paying for the underwear.

所有这些官僚程序只是为了看他能否把自己的本地大道换成美元。

All this bureaucracy was just to see if he could exchange his local boulevards for dollars.

这可能看起来很疯狂。

And this might seem insane.

有点疯狂。

It's a little insane.

这可能显得极其疯狂。

This might seem very insane.

但只要油价很高，实际上就没有太多严重的问题。

But as long as the price of oil was high, there weren't actually a lot of serious problems.

政府最终会把美元给你，你的内裤也就进了国门，一切顺利。

The government would eventually give you your dollars, and your underwear came into the country, and all was well.

然后两件事发生了。

Then two things happen.

第一，乌戈·查韦斯去世了。

Number one, Hugo Chavez dies.

母亲们哭泣，孩子们哭泣，成年男子也哭泣。

Mothers weeping, children weeping, adult men weeping.

世界上最不幸的人接替了他的位置。

And the unluckiest man in the world takes his place.

他的名字是尼古拉斯·马杜罗。

His name is Nicolas Maduro.

他担任查韦斯的外交部长长达八年。

He had been the foreign minister for Chavez for eight years.

之后

And after

在查韦斯带来的所有戏剧、激动和爱之后，马杜罗就像是

all the drama and the excitement and the love of Chavez, Maduro was like

这就像把一根木头和马戏团进城时的盛况相比较。

It's it's like comparing a log of wood to the, you know, to the circus that rolls into town.

然后，这位可怜的总统——那根木头——被斧头砍中了。

And then poor president log of wood gets hit with an axe.

2014年，他们依赖的油价下跌了。

In 2014, the oil price the oil price, which they depended on, drops.

油价在六个月内直接跌了一半。

Like, the price drops in half over six months.

这引发了委内瑞拉政府的恐慌。

And this causes panic within the Venezuelan government.

他们的一切——所有行动——都依赖石油收入。

Everything they have, everything they do depends on oil money.

而现在，他们的石油收入只剩一半了。

And now they have half as much oil money.

于是，新总统马杜罗前往欧佩克，恳求他们：我们必须做点什么。

So the new president Maduro goes to OPEC, and he begs them, we have to do something.

我们必须做点什么来维持油价。

We have to do something to keep oil prices up.

请帮帮我们。

Please help us.

像挪威和沙特阿拉伯这样的国家一直都在储蓄石油收入，但委内瑞拉却没有。

Countries like Norway and Saudi Arabia had been saving their oil money, not Venezuela, though.

我们不仅对此毫无准备，而且也无力阻止石油收入的下滑。

Not only are we not ready for this, but there's nothing that we can do to stem the decline of oil.

繁荣时代就此终结，但现在我们无论做什么，都会造成巨大的伤害。

This is the end of any kind of boom years, but there's nothing that we can do now that isn't going to hurt a tremendous amount.

那他们做了什么？

So what do they do?

他们什么都没做。

They did nothing.

乌戈·查韦斯设下的所有陷阱同时爆发了。

And every trap set by Hugo Chavez gets sprung at the same time.

首先发生的是，委内瑞拉政府突然间拥有的美元变少了。

The first thing that happens is that the Venezuelan government, all of a sudden, has fewer US dollars.

这个水龙头被关掉了。

That spigot is turned off.

于是政府开始对他们吝啬起来。

So the government starts being stingy with them.

美元出现了巨大的短缺。

There's this huge shortage of dollars.

当然，当某种东西短缺时，价格就会上涨。

And, of course, when there's a shortage of something, the price goes up.

人们现在愿意用数百个玻利瓦尔来购买一美元。

People were now willing to pay hundreds of boulevards for a single US dollar.

到处都有黑市在进行美元交易。

There are black markets everywhere dealing in US dollars.

是的。

Yeah.

但政府坚持以旧汇率出售美元，即大约六玻利瓦尔兑一美元。

But the government insists on selling dollars at the old rate, which was around six boulevards for a dollar.

他们不希望食品等基本物品的价格上涨。

They don't want the price for basic things like food to go up.

他们迫切希望保持稳定。

They're desperate to keep things stable.

但我们知道，当不同市场存在不同价格时会发生什么。

But we know what happens when there are different prices in different markets.

委内瑞拉人民并不愚蠢。

The Venezuelan people aren't stupid.

他们观察了这种情况，然后说：哦，听好了。

They looked at this, and they said, oh, well, listen.

我可以从委内瑞拉政府那里低价买进美元，然后在黑市上卖出，赚一大笔钱。

I can buy a dollar for cheap from the Venezuelan government and then sell it on the black market and make a fortune.

当然，他们开始这么做了。

Of course, they started to do that.

亚历杭德罗说，这出现了一个惊人的骗局。

And Alejandro says there was this amazing scam.

它被称为。

It was called.

刮刮卡。

Scratch.

这个刮刮卡。

The scratch.

刮刮卡。

Scratch.

这个刮刮卡。

The scratch.

人们会买一张去纽约的机票，比如说。

People would buy an airplane ticket to New York, say.

他们会告诉政府：哦，我们真的需要美元用于去纽约的必要行程。

They would tell the government, oh, we really need dollars for our essential trip to New York.

但随后他们并不会出行。

But then they wouldn't travel.

于是你就有了这样一个谜团：飞机上的所有座位都卖完了，但却没有人登机。

And so you had the mystery of the airplanes that had all their seats sold, but no one was riding on them.

但当时

But there

利润如此之高，你完全可以买张机票却不登机？

was so much profit to be made, you could just buy a plane ticket and not get on?

当然。

Absolutely.

因为你可以通过美元的黑市汇率赚取更多钱。

Because you could make so much more from the black market rate of dollars.

通常情况下，当这类事情开始发生时，国家最终会放弃。

Now, normally, when this sort of thing starts happening, the country will eventually give up.

他们会承认自己的货币已经崩溃了。

They will admit that their currency is screwed up.

它毫无价值。

It's worthless.

人们在欺骗他们。

People are scamming them.

最终，他们会允许汇率恢复正常。

And eventually, they'll let the exchange rates go back to normal.

我不是说这很容易。

And I'm not saying it's easy.

这个过程非常痛苦。

It is super painful to do.

如果委内瑞拉接受了真实的汇率，所有东西都会变得更贵。

If Venezuela had accepted the true exchange rate, everything would have gotten more expensive.

查韦斯如此关心的穷人将无力负担牛奶和面包。

The poor people that Chavez had cared so much about would not be able to afford milk and bread.

这个国家必须重建其工业和农业，但那样的话，情况最终会好转。

The country would have to rebuild its industry, rebuild its agriculture, but then but then things would have gotten better.

但委内瑞拉却选择了完全相反的做法，继续加大错误的力度。

But Venezuela decides to do exactly the opposite, and it doubles down on its mistakes.

他们甚至做了一件听起来非常令人困惑的事。

They even did something which sounds so confusing.

他们为不同的人和不同的产品设立了不同的汇率。

They created different exchange rates for different people and different products.

是的。

Yeah.

由于这太混乱了，就有了更多欺骗政府的方式，更多利用这些虚假汇率赚钱的途径。

And since it was confusing, there were more ways to scam the government, more ways to make money off these fake exchange rates.

所以政府认为，好吧。

So the government thinks, okay.

我们多印点钱。

We'll print more money.

这是完全错误的决定。

Absolutely wrong move.

通货膨胀飙升。

Inflation soared.

好的。

Okay.

所以我们将停止报告我们的通货膨胀数据，实际上任何数据都不再报告。

So we'll stop reporting our inflation numbers or any numbers, in fact.

我们将掩盖经济状况有多糟糕。

We will hide how badly the economy is doing.

但当然，人们还是发现了。

But, of course, people figure it out.

他们可以看到商店里商品的价格，而价格正在疯狂上涨。

They can see the prices for items in the stores, and the prices are going crazy.

好的。

Okay.

所以价格正在疯狂上涨。

So prices are going crazy.

我们将实施价格管制。

We will mandate price controls.

我们会说你只能赚这么多利润。

We'll say you can only make so much profit.

这更糟，因为企业发现他们每个月都在亏钱。

This is even worse because businesses find that they're losing money every month.

我的意思是，如果你赚不到钱，为什么要继续卖产品呢？

I mean, why keep selling products if you can't make any money?

即使你从生意中赚到一点点钱，由于通货膨胀，这些钱也变得越来越不值钱。

And even if you do make a little bit of money out of your business, that money is increasingly worthless because of the inflation.

这对委内瑞拉来说真的很糟糕。

This is really bad for Venezuela.

情况极其糟糕，以至于不可能进口任何东西。

It is incredibly bad, and it becomes impossible to import anything.

我的意思是，这正是发生在卖内衣的亚历克斯身上的事。

I mean, that's what happened to Alex, the clothing guy with the underwear.

对吧？

Right?

但他最后一次大批量发货是运送一些必需品。

But his last big shipment was for something essential.

那是医疗用品。

It was for medical supplies.

我们想进口一批无纺布，就是那种用于手术绷带的蓝色布料。

We wanted to import a shipment of non woven fabric, which is basically that blue fabric that's used for surgical ropes.

哦，所以就是医院里能看到的那种东西。

Oh, so the stuff you'd see in the hospital.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

但你是想进一批这种布料，用来制作……

But Like, you wanted to bring in bolts of this so you could make Yeah.

手术服。

Surgical clothing.

是的。

Yeah.

literally 就是神经外科医生做手术、拯救人们生命所需的物资。

Literally, the stuff that the neurosurgeon would have needed for surgery to save people's lives.

亚历克斯向政府申请批准拨款购买这些物资，每天他都在等待批准。

And Alex goes to the government for approval to spend dollars on it, and every day, he waits for that approval.

你每天早上一醒来就去电脑前

You go to your computer every morning once you

去办公室。

get to the office.

你打开那个系统，心想：好吧，看看今天是不是中奖了，他们是否批准了我的货物。

You open that system and you're like, okay, let's see if I hit the lottery today and they've authorized my goods.

你不停地刷新，结果一直看到：不行，不行，不行，不行，不行？

And you're hitting refresh and just seeing like, no, no, no, no, no?

或者状态根本没有变化。

Or no change in status, basically.

这种情况能持续多久？

How long can this go on for?

我们仍在等待

We're still waiting

这些货物清关，而我们仍然欠亚洲供应商这笔钱。

to have those goods cleared, and we still owe that money to our suppliers in in Asia.

于是，亚历克斯做了他从未想做的事。

So Alex does what he never wanted to do.

他冻结了自己的业务。

He freezes his business.

他退出了业务，停止了所有进口。

He steps away from it and stops importing anything.

委内瑞拉进口的所有东西——基本上什么都进口——都反复发生这种情况。

And this happens over and over and over again with all of the things that Venezuela is importing, which is basically everything.

服装、药品、电子产品和食品。

Clothing and medicine and electronics and food.

没有人能拿到美元来进口任何东西。

No one can get any dollars to bring anything into the country.

这就是如何通过简单的经济决策酿成一场危机。

And this is how a crisis gets built out of simple economic decisions.

没有真正的货币，就会出现严重的短缺。

Without a real currency, there are massive shortages.

这些医院状况危险。

There are these dangerous hospitals.

政府为了节约电力，正在削减学日和办公时间，而这一切都发生在仍然出口石油的国家。

The government is cutting school days and office hours just to save electricity, and all of this in a country that is still exporting oil.

它仍在赚取数十亿美元，但这些钱却不足以拯救他们。

It is still bringing in billions of dollars, and it is not enough to save them.

似乎没有人知道接下来该怎么做。

And no one seems to know what should happen next.

这个国家正处于政治僵局之中。

This is a country in the middle of a political stalemate.

因为没有政治家愿意采取必要的、但会非常激烈的措施来解决这个问题。

Because no politician wants to do the drastic things, and they would be drastic, that are gonna be necessary to fix this.

纽约大学的教授亚历杭德罗说，所有人都还在祈祷油价能回升，希望更多的美元能解决一切问题。

The NYU professor Alejandro says that everyone's still just praying that the oil prices will go back up, that more dollars will just solve everything.

这并不是说我们不了解这个故事。

It's not like we don't know this story.

我是研究委内瑞拉的历史学家。

I'm an historian of Venezuela.

我写过关于这个主题的内容。

I wrote about this.

对吧？

Right?

我写过一本关于这个的小书。

I wrote a little book about it.

对吧？

Right?

所以我们只是非常渴望那些美好的时光。

And so but we we we just really crave those good times.

每当糟糕的时期到来时，我们总是说：至少将来某一天，我们还会迎来另一段好时光。

And it seems like every time the bad times come, we just say, well, at least sometime in the future, we'll have another good roll.

而不是去解决根本问题，即整个经济都建立在一种波动性极强的事物之上。

Instead of fixing the problem, which is that the whole economy is based on something volatile.

如果你无论如何都要试图维持控制，最终你会失去一切。

And if you try to maintain control no matter what, you're gonna lose it.

这就是我们在2016年结束时的情况。

That was where we left things back in 2016.

广告后，我们将带来2024年关于经济复苏和美元力量的最新进展。

And after the break, our update from 2024 about an economic recovery and the power of the American dollar.

我们在八年后的2024年再次进行了跟进。

We checked in again eight years later in 2024.

阿曼达·阿隆西克继续追踪了这个故事。

Amanda Aroncic picked up that story.

自从我们的节目首次播出以来，委内瑞拉经济略有稳定，但在通胀失控之前就已经进一步加剧。

Since our episode first aired, the Venezuelan economy has stabilized a bit, but not before inflation spiraled even further out of control.

真的完全失控了。

Like, truly wildly out of control.

在某个时候，你会看到人们提着装满现金的袋子四处走动。

At some point, you would see people walking around with bags full of cash.

这是纽约大学教授亚历杭德罗·贝拉斯科在2024年的说法。

This is NYU professor Alejandro Velasco in 2024.

他提醒我们，就在我们2016年的节目播出后不久，唐纳德·特朗普就当选了总统。

He reminds us that almost right after our episode published back in 2016, Donald Trump was elected president.

特朗普不断加码制裁，进一步切断了委内瑞拉与全球经济的联系，使其在国际市场上出售石油变得更加困难。

Trump piled on sanctions and more sanctions, further cutting off Venezuela from the global economy and making it even harder to sell oil on global markets.

当制裁到来时，这成为了最严重恶性通胀的催化剂，通胀率从百分之几百飙升至几千，最终达到数万个百分点。

When sanctions hit, that became the catalyst for most significant hyperinflation, where we saw going from levels of several 100% to several thousand and eventually dozens of thousands of percent.

到2018年，据估计通胀率已飙升至65000%，使得那些装满委内瑞拉玻利瓦尔的袋子几乎变得一文不值。

By 2018, it was estimated that inflation peaked at 65,000 percent, making even those bags of Venezuelan Bolivaras essentially worthless.

那些有能力的人开始抛售本国货币，尽可能多地兑换成更稳定的货币，比如美元。

Those who are able to begin to sell off their local currency and try to trade it as much as they can into into a more stable currency like the dollars.

那一年，当恶性通货膨胀达到顶峰时，根据国际货币基金组织的数据，委内瑞拉人口下降了5%。

That year, when hyperinflation peaked, Venezuela's population, according to the International Monetary Fund, dropped by 5%.

其中很大一部分原因是人们逃离了人道主义危机。

Much of that was because people were fleeing the humanitarian crisis.

许多离开该国的人现在会向国内汇款。

And many of those folks who left the country, they now send money back home.

他们寄回汇款，这些汇款对接下来发生的事情至关重要。

They send remittances, and those remittances have been key to what happened next.

美元开始占据主导地位。

The US Dollar started to take over.

亚历杭德罗说，这就是经济复苏的开端。

And this, Alejandro says, is how the turnaround began.

你开始看到经济中某些特定领域转向使用美元。

You started to see targeted sectors of the economy turn over into dollars.

而这一点之所以重要，是因为政府控制着货币的流动，当时对美元的流动实施了严格管控。

And, you know, the reason why this is significant is because the government controls the flow of currency and at the time tightly controlled the flow of dollars.

因此，这实际上承认了政府再也无法控制这种流动。

And so this was really an acknowledgment that it was no longer going to control that flow.

政府最终在2019年放松了货币管制。

The government eventually relaxed currency controls in 2019.

但即使在此之前，人们就已经开始转向使用美元的稳定性来购买食品杂货和日用品。

But even before then, people started turning to the stability of the dollar to pay for things like groceries and household supplies.

美元让人们再次能够规划未来。

American dollars allowed people to plan for the future again.

毫无疑问，这是委内瑞拉经济稳定最重大的因素。

It is the single greatest factor to the stabilization of Venezuela's economy without a doubt.

对于普通委内瑞拉人来说，经济也逐渐更依赖于来自国外亲友汇款的现金。

The economy for the average Venezuelan also shifted to rely more on those remittances, that cash that was being sent or brought from relatives outside of the country.

如果你旅行并回到委内瑞拉探亲，这在过去一年半到两年里越来越常见，人们都会带着现金回去。

If you, you know, travel, and and go back to to Venezuela to see relatives, which is something that we've been seeing in increasing amounts over certainly the last year and a half to two years, people come with cash.