Shocking data on wealth inequality
哗众取宠的财富不平等数据
Imagine living in a country where the top 30% of the population had roughly 25 times as much wealth per person as the bottom 30% of the population. That seems pretty unequal, doesn’t it?
设想一下，你生活在这样一个国家，其中最富有的30%人口的个人财富大约是最贫穷的30%的人口的25倍。看起来挺不平等的，不是吗？
Now suppose the same statistics applied, but every person at any given age had exactly the same wealth. All 18 year olds had the same wealth as other members of their cohort, as did all 60 year olds. But 18 year olds had much less wealth than 60 year olds.
现在假设同样的统计结果，并且所有年龄相同的人拥有的财富也相同。所有18岁的人和他们的同龄人拥有一样多的财富，所有60岁的人也都拥有相同的财富。但是18岁的人所拥有的财富相比60岁的人则少得多。
Now how would you feel about the data? Does that sort of society seem highly unequal? Not to me, indeed in a sense there’d be no inequality at all; each person would experience the exact same wealth trajectory over the course of their life.
现在你对该数据又会做何感想呢？这样的社会看起来是高度不平等的吗？我不这么认为，实际上从某种意义上说，这里完全不存在任何不平等，每个人在他的整个生命历程中的财富轨迹都是完全相同的。
Of course we don’t live in that sort of society, there are large differences in wealth at any given age. But even if we did have that sort of equality, the aggregate wealth data would look shockingly unequal.
当然，我们并不生活在这样的社会里，在任何年龄的人群中都均在巨大的贫富差距。但是即使在相同年龄的人群中财富分配是均等的，合计起来的财富数据还是会呈现出惊人的不平等。
Here’s some Census data for the US, showing that the median person in the over 55 age group holds about 25 times as much wealth as in the 18 to 35 group:
下图中是一些来自美国人口普查的数据，其中显示年龄超过55岁人群的财富中位数是年龄在18到35岁之间人群的财富中位数的大约25倍。
So could we solve this measurement problem by getting wealth inequality data for each age cohort? Not even close, because wealth is a poor measure of economic well-being.
那么我们是否可以通过对各个年龄段的人口分别计算财富的不平等程度来解决这个测量方法上的问题呢？还差得远，因为财富并不是一个衡量经济福利的好指标。
Suppose you had two people who each earned $100,000/year in wage income. Over the course of their life they both eventually spent all of their wealth on consumption goods. Both ended up with an identical level of total consumption, in present value terms. But one person spent all his money as it was earned, and then relied on Social Security, while the other saved 1⁄2 of his wage income, spending much more in his later years.
假设有两个人每年都获得十万美元的工资收入，在他们的一生中，他们也都最终将所有的财富用于消费。从现值的意义上说，两个人一生的总消费水平是相同的。但是其中一个人在赚到钱之后马上就把钱花掉了，之后依赖社保；另一个人则在获得工资收入后将其中的一半用于储蓄，将更多的钱用于晚年的消费。
By age 65 the thrifty guy might have several million dollars in wealth, while the other guy had almost nothing, even though (by assumption) they were equally well off in economic terms, they simply had different preferences as to when to spend their money.
在65岁时，那个懂得储蓄的人大概会拥有数百万美元的财富，而另一位则几乎没有任何财富，从经济意义上说，他们享受到的福利是相同的，区别只是他们在何时花掉赚来的钱这一点上有着不同的偏好。
I was recently at a NGDP conference in West Virginia, and noticed this in the local paper’s advice column:
我最近在西弗吉尼亚参加一次关于名义GDP（NGDP）的会议，在当地报纸的建议栏目里，我注意到了如下对话：
Dear Dave, My wife and I have just started getting on track with our money. We have $2,000 in savings, and the only debt we have is our house and two cars. I work in the oil and gas industry and make about $180,000 a year, but things are pretty volatile right now. We’re upside down on both vehicles, and we owe $39,000 on one and about $48,000 on the other. Under the circumstances, should we go ahead and build a fully funded emergency fund or work on paying off the cars? Kendall
亲爱的Dave，我和妻子才刚刚开始赚钱。我们有两千美元的储蓄，仅有的债务是我们的房贷和两辆车的车贷。我在油气行业工作，每年的收入大约有18万美元，但现在形势很不稳定。为了买这两辆车我们已经把钱都花光了，在其中一辆车上我们欠了39,000美元，另一辆车则欠了48,000美元。在这种情况下，我们是应该把赚来的钱用于设立一个充足的应急基金呢，还是用来偿还两辆汽车的欠款呢？Kendall
Dear Kendall, Are you kidding me? Sell the cars, dude!
You need to go to Kelly Blue Book’s website right now, and find out what your cars are really worth. Then, put them on the market as a private sale. You’ll get thousands more selling them that way than you will at a dealership. You’ll have to talk to a local credit union or bank for a small loan to cover the difference, plus a little bit more so you guys can get a couple of little beaters to drive for a while.
亲爱的Kendall，
你不是在跟我开玩笑吧？赶快把车都卖了吧，我的朋友！
你现在要做的是去Kelly蓝皮书的网站查一下你的车到底值多少钱，然后以私人销售的名义把它们挂到汽车交易市场上。以这种方式出售，你得到的钱会比你通过汽车经纪商出售多几千美元。你还需要去找一家本地信用合作社或者银行谈谈，借一笔小额贷款来弥补差额，并让你们能够买两辆小“甲壳虫”暂时开一段时间。【译注：此处beaters疑为beatles之讹。】
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess there aren’t very many similar letters in China. Like the advice columnist “Dave”, I have a temperament that makes it easy to save. But as a libertarian I favor allowing people like Kendall to spend their money when and how they wish.
这里我想斗胆猜测一下，中国应该不会有太多类似的读者来信。和上面那位建议专栏的作者Dave一样，我在性格上倾向于储蓄。但是作为一名自由意志主义者，我倾向于允许Kendall这样的人按自己的意愿去决定何时、如何花自己的钱。
The only qualification is that I think people should be forced to save enough to cover the things that society would otherwise have to pay (basic retirement, medical, etc.)
我认为唯一合理的限制是，假如因为人们因自己的储蓄不足，而需要整个社会来付出代价时，强制性储蓄才是必须的（例如基本的退休工资，医疗保障等）。
If we believe that people should be free to choose when to spend their wealth, we will end up with far more wealth inequality than if we try to force everyone to consume the “right amount” of each year’s income. But I don’t see how that sort of wealth inequality could be considered a problem.
如果我们相信人们拥有选择何时花掉自己所拥有财富的自由，那么相比强制所有人都花掉每年收入中“正确比例”的钱，最终的财富不平等程度会高得多。但我完全不觉得这种原因导致的财富不平等会是个问题。
Inevitably some will misconstrue what I am saying here. Just to be clear, even accounting for all the factors I mentioned (age, saving preferences, etc) there is still lots more inequality due to big differences in lifetime earnings (or inherited wealth.) So this post is not trying to suggest that inequality is not a problem.
难免有人会误解我的意思，所以我要澄清一下，即便考虑了上面提到的所有这些因素（年龄、储蓄偏好等）之后，由人们生命周期中巨大的收入差异（或是财产继承上的差异）所造成的不平等仍然是巨大的。这篇文章并不是想说不平等不是个问题。
Rather I’m suggesting that if inequality is a problem, we would not be able to know that from the wealth inequality data that is presented in the media. And that’s because even if wealth inequality were not a problem at all, the actual inequality of wealth would look shocking large, with 100 to 1 disparities easily accounted for by nothing more than differences in age and saving propensities.
实际上我更想表达的是，假如不平等的确是一个问题，我们并不能从媒体上出现的那些有关财富不平等的数据里得知这一点。因为即使在那些财富不平等根本不算个问题的情况下，实际数据上的财富不平等程度看起来也会很惊人，仅仅是年龄和储蓄偏好上的一些差异就能轻易地造成100比1这样的差距。
The only data that truly gets at the inequality question is consumption inequality, which is very rarely discussed in the media.
对于不平等问题，唯一切中要害的数据，其实是消费的不平等，但有关后者却极少在媒体上被讨论。
翻译：Veidt
校对：小聂
编辑：辉格@whigzhou