经济学人:关于利息:低利率意味着不公平(2)

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　　That was bad news for thrifty² seafarers. 对于勤俭的船员来说，这属于坏消息。

　　But worse scenarios³ were possible. 但是，更坏的情况是有可能的。

　　If the sailors had washed ashore⁴ with perishable⁵ figs⁶ rather than imperishable hardtack, the rate of interest would have been steeply negative. 如果船员们是带着容易腐烂变质的无花果而不是不容易腐烂变质的硬面包被冲到岸上来的，利率会是陡峭的负的。

　　"There is no absolutely necessary reason inherent in the nature of man or things why the rate of interest in terms of any commodity standard should be positive rather than negative," Fisher concluded. “在人或物的属性中，不存在为什么以任一商品标准来表示的利率应当是正的而不是负的的绝对必然的内在理由，”费雪总结道。

　　Two years ago, when the Bank of Japan(BoJ) began charging financial institutions for adding to their reserves at the central bank,  两年前，当日本银行开始对金融机构增加它们在央行的储备而收费时，

　　its negative-rate policy was harshly criticised for unsettling thrifty households, jeopardising bank profitability and killing⁷ growth with "monetary⁸ voodoo". 它的负利率政策受到了严厉地批评，被认为是搅乱了节俭的家庭，危及到了银行的盈利，而且还以“货币政策巫术”扼杀了增长。

　　Behind this fear and criticism was perhaps agut conviction that negative rates upended the natural order of things. 在这种担忧和批评的背后，可能是一种本能的认识，即负利率颠覆了事物的自然秩序。

　　Why should people pay to save money they had already earned? 为什么人们应当为存储早已挣到手的钱付费呢?

　　Earlier cuts below zero in Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and the euro area were scarcely more popular. 瑞士、丹麦、瑞典和欧元区的早先低于0的减息几乎一点也不受欢迎。

　　But these monetary innovations would have struck some earlier economic thinkers as entirely⁹ natural. 但是，这些货币政策方面的创新却会作为完全自然的创新而打动某些较早时候的经济学家。

　　Indeed, "The Natural Economic Order" was the title that Silvio Gesell gave to his 1916 treatise¹⁰ in favour of negative interest rates on money. 《自然的经济秩序》是西尔沃.格塞尔(SilvioGesell)给他1916年的一篇主张货币负利率的论文所起的题目。

　　In it, he span his own shipwreck¹¹ parable¹², in which a lone¹³ Robinson Crusoe tries to save three years' worth of provisions to tide him over while he devotes his energies to digging a canal. 在那篇论文中，他勾画了自己的海难寓言——独自一人的鲁滨逊一边试图把价值三年的给养储存起来渡过难关，一边把精力都用在开凿一条水道上面。

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