Any domino-like expanding crisis will unfold in a status quo lacking any coherent response.
任何像多米诺骨牌一样的危机都会在缺乏连贯反应的现状中展开。
Longtime readers know I've often referenced The Fourth Turning,the book that makes the case for an 80-year cycle of existential crisis in U.S.history.
老读者都知道我经常引用《第四个转折点》，这本书为美国历史上80年一个存在危机周期提供了理由。
The first crisis was the constitutional process(1781)following the end of the Revolutionary War,whether the states could agree on a federal structure;the 2nd crisis was the Civil War(1861)and the 3rd crisis was global war--World War II(1941).
第一次危机是美国独立战争结束后的制宪过程(1781年)，各州是否能够就联邦结构达成一致;第二次危机是美国内战(1861年)，第三次危机是全球战争(1941年)。
According to this proposition,we're fast approaching an existential crisis that could upend the status quo in a fundamental fashion.
根据这个命题，我们正在快速接近一个可以从根本上颠覆现状的存在危机。
While there is a great deal of historical evidence for cycles,predicting a major transition based on previous cycles is obviously a guess rather than a certainty.
虽然有大量的历史证据证明周期的存在，但是根据以前的周期预测一个主要的过渡显然是猜测而不是确定的。
So will everything change in 2020-25,or will the present simply extend another five years?We have to start by defining what qualifies as fundamental change.In my view,if the current distribution of income,power and ownership of capital remains unchanged,nothing of import has changed.
那么，到2020年至2025年，一切都会发生变化吗?还是说，目前的情况只会再延长5年？我们必须从定义什么是根本性的改变开始。在我看来，如果目前的收入分配、权力分配和资本所有权保持不变，那么重要性就没有改变。
There might be dramas playing out in the political theater,but if the asymmetrical distribution of income,power and wealth doesn't change,then the dramas are merely another form of distraction/entertainment.
政治舞台上可能会上演戏剧，但如果收入、权力和财富的不对称分配没有改变，那么这些戏剧只不过是另一种分散注意力/娱乐的形式。
The other type of change that qualifies as fundamental is the breakdown of the structures of everyday life:the distribution,cost and availability of food,fresh water,energy,healthcare,income and basic security.
另一种被认为是根本性的变化是日常生活结构的崩溃:食物、淡水、能源、医疗保健、收入和基本安全的分配、成本和可获得性。
One way to measure the vulnerability of any society to breakdown or a fundamental reshuffling of income,wealth and power is to examine its buffers--the resiliency and reserves of the core systems.
衡量任何社会在面对收入、财富和权力的崩溃或根本性重组时的脆弱性，一个方法是检查其缓冲区——核心系统的弹性和储备。
I often reference buffers,as these are largely invisible to everyone who isn't intimately familiar with the workings of each system:the reserves that can be drawn upon in crisis,the redundancies,the staff and management training to handle crises,and so on.
我经常提到缓冲区，因为对于那些不熟悉每个系统运作的人来说，这些基本上是看不见的:在危机中可以动用的储备，裁员，处理危机的员工和管理培训，等等。
Two examples that are often referenced are the supplies of gasoline in service stations and the food in supermarket shelves and coolers.Each commodity--food and fuel--are largely"just in time,"meaning that the supply and distribution system is a long,complex chain with minimal buffers,as the systems have been optimized for efficiency not resilience.
两个经常被引用的例子是加油站的汽油供应和超市货架和冷却器中的食物。每种商品——食品和燃料——基本上都是"及时"的，这意味着供应和分配系统是一条长长的、复杂的链条，具有最小的缓冲，因为这些系统是为了效率而不是弹性而优化的。
Any disruption in any link of the supply chain will break the entire chain.
供应链中任何一个环节的任何中断都会破坏整个供应链。
The ultimate buffer for any nation-state is its currency,a.k.a."money."If its currency still acts as a store of value globally,the nation in crisis can issue more money to buy whatever is needed to alleviate the crisis.
对于任何一个民族国家来说，最终的缓冲是它的货币，也就是"货币"如果中国的货币在全球范围内仍然充当价值储存器的角色，那么处于危机中的国家就可以发行更多的货币来购买缓解危机所需的任何东西。
If trust in the value of the money has been lost by over-issuing new currency,this buffer has been depleted.
如果由于过度发行新货币而丧失了对货币价值的信任，那么这种缓冲就已经耗尽。
Social and cultural buffers are more difficult to assess.Deeply corrupt societies may find that the public's patience with the abuses of power that manifest as endemic corruption has thinned to the point that mustering the police and army no longer protects the status quo.
社会和文化缓冲更难以评估。深度腐败的社会可能会发现，公众对滥用权力的耐心已经变得越来越少，以至于召集警察和军队不再能够保护现状。
Natural systems also have buffers,and the industrial civilization we inhabit takes a variety of natural resources--fuels,fresh water and fertile soils--for granted,assuming that brute force(more chemical fertilizers,more wells,more fracking,etc.)will guarantee ample supplies of these essentials.
自然系统也有缓冲器，我们居住的工业文明需要各种各样的自然资源——燃料、淡水和肥沃的土壤——这是理所当然的，假设大量的力量(更多的化肥、更多的水井、更多的水力压裂等等)将保证这些必需品的充足供应。
Financial systems have multiple points of resilience or fragility.If we take the 2008 Global Financial Meltdown as an example,the Federal Reserve created or backstopped/guaranteed an astonishing$27 trillion out of thin air to restore trust.(The first tranches totaled$16 trillion.)
金融体系具有多重弹性或脆弱性。如果我们以2008年全球金融危机为例，美联储凭空创造或担保了惊人的27万亿美元来恢复信任。(第一批总计16万亿美元。)
It worked a decade ago,but saving the banks does not necessarily restore the"animal spirits"of borrowing more money to chase assets higher,and it certainly doesn't boost investments in productivity,the ultimate source of broad-based prosperity.
10年前，这种做法奏效了，但拯救银行并不一定能恢复"动物精神"，即借更多资金追逐更高的资产，而且肯定不会促进生产率方面的投资，而生产率是广泛繁荣的最终源泉。
It also doesn't create more income for heavily indebted borrowers,and with interest rates globally at or near zero(or even lower),there is very little room to lower the cost of servicing existing debt.
它也不会为负债累累的借款人创造更多收入，而且鉴于全球利率接近或接近于零(甚至更低)，降低现有债务偿还成本的空间非常有限。
It certainly feels as if financial"fixes"--making it cheaper to borrow and refinance existing debt--have run their course,and have entered the fatal decline of diminishing returns:every additional dollar of debt adds less and less real growth to the economy.
毫无疑问，似乎金融"补救措施"----使借贷和为现有债务再融资的成本更低----已经走到了尽头，进入了21报酬递减的致命衰退:每增加一美元的债务，对经济的实际增长就会越来越少。
I've also referenced institutional sclerosis and the rising wedge model of breakdown,in which costs and complexity continue edging higher while the output of the higher costs and complexity stagnate.
我还提到了制度僵化和崩溃的上升楔形模型，在这种模型中，成本和复杂性继续攀升，而更高的成本和复杂性的产出停滞不前。
One example of how finance,politics and institutional fragility come together is public pensions,many of which are based on unrealistic financial projections of endlessly rising profits,capital gains and taxes.
金融、政治和制度脆弱性如何结合在一起的一个例子是公共养老金，其中许多是基于不切实际的财务预测，即利润、资本收益和税收的不断增长。
We are now in the longest expansion in modern history,yet it doesn't feel as robust as the expansions of the 1950s to early 1970s(les trente glorieuses,the"glorious 30"years of magical expansion 1945-1975)or the financialization/cheap oil boom of the 1980s or the Internet boom of the 1990s.
我们现在正处于现代历史上最漫长的经济扩张时期，但感觉却没有20世纪50年代至70年代初的经济扩张那么强劲(黄金三十年，1945-1975年"辉煌的30年"的神奇扩张时期)，也没有20世纪80年代金融化/廉价石油繁荣时期或者20世纪90年代互联网繁荣时期那么强劲。
History informs us that crises that could have been handled with relative ease in the past,when buffers were wide and core systems were resilient,end up triggering a domino-like collapse of entire empires.
历史告诉我们，在过去，当缓冲区很广，核心系统很有弹性时，本来可以相对轻松地处理的危机，最终会引发整个帝国的多米诺骨牌式的崩溃。
These phase shifts often follow periods of financial depression,drought or pandemic(the three often go together as people who get less to eat have compromised immune systems that are then vulnerable to epidemics)that erode the economy and core institutions.
这些阶段性转变往往发生在金融萧条、干旱或大流行时期之后(这三种情况往往同时出现，因为人们吃得少，免疫系统就会受到损害，随后容易受到流行病的侵害)，这些流行病侵蚀着经济和。
If we put all this together,it seems we are facing a much different type of crisis this time,one in which the core systems of the economy and society have become increasingly fragile behind the thin facade of stability,and are thus more vulnerable to disruption.
综上所述，这一次我们似乎面临着一种截然不同的危机，在这种危机中，经济和社会的核心体系在薄薄的稳定外表下变得越来越脆弱，因此更容易受到破坏。
The crisis of 1781 was essentially a struggle to balance the forces of state and federal power,a balance that already included the divisive issue of slavery.
1781年的危机本质上是一场平衡州和联邦权力力量的斗争，这种平衡已经包括了奴隶制这一分裂性问题。
By 1860,the political compromises that had duct-taped the Union without actually resolving the great divide between slave and free states collapsed,and the issue was resolved by war.
到了1860年，政治妥协在没有真正解决奴隶制国家和自由国家之间的巨大分歧的情况下，用胶带封住了联邦，最终以战争的方式解决了这个问题。
In 1941,a U.S.possessive of its relative isolation was forced to choose between an increasingly precarious isolation and a decisive battle with the Nazi Reich and the Japanese Empire.
1941年，美国对其相对孤立的占有被迫在日益岌岌可危的孤立和与纳粹帝国和日本帝国的决战之间做出选择。
What might change in 2020-2025?Perhaps nothing,if all the duct-taped"fixes"for the increasing asymmetries of income,wealth and power hold,and food,fresh water and energy remain cheap and abundant.
2020-2025年会发生什么变化？如果所有针对日益不对称的收入、财富和权力、以及食物、淡水和能源保持廉价和丰富的"修正"，或许什么也不会发生。
But it feels as if the resiliency of society,governance and the economy have thinned to the point that any one domino falling might knock down many others,leading not to a specific crisis such as war or a political struggle,but a generalized failure of the entire status quo:a collapse of indebtedness,a collapse of overly complex and unaffordable institutions,a sharp drop in the purchasing power of fiat currencies,a loss of faith in political processes,a collapse of trust in technocratic expertise and the mass media,and possibly scarcities of essentials that could drive prices much higher.
但是感觉社会、政府管理和经济的弹性已经减弱到一个多米诺骨牌的倒下可能会摧毁许多其他的骨牌，导致的不是一场特定的危机，如战争或政治斗争，而是整个现状的普遍失败:债务的崩溃，过于复杂和负担不起的机构的崩溃，法定货币购买力的急剧下降，对政治进程的信心的丧失，对技术官僚专业知识和大众媒体的信任的崩溃，以及可能推动价格更高的基本要素的稀缺城市。
History suggests these systems are all interconnected and interdependent(i.e.tightly bound systems),so the collapse of one system triggers crises in all the systems it is connected to.
历史表明，这些系统都是相互联系和相互依存的(即紧密结合的系统)，因此，一个系统的崩溃会引发与之相连的所有系统的危机。
The possibility of such a cascading crisis of the entire status quo isn't even on the radars of the government,media,academia,corporations,etc.There are indications that the Pentagon has contingency plans that recognize the fragility of global systems,but at this point any domino-like expanding crisis will unfold in a status quo lacking any coherent response.
政府、媒体、学术界、企业等甚至都没有意识到整个现状会发生连锁危机的可能性。有迹象表明，五角大楼已经制定了意识到全球系统脆弱性的应急计划，但此时此刻，任何像多米诺骨牌一样不断扩大的危机都将在缺乏连贯反应的现状中展开。
来源：
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-04/will-everything-change-2020-2025-or-will-nothing-change
