通过Dean Baker和Robert Samuelson的声明——作为一个简单的事实——那就是

Johnson’s economic policies, inherited from Kennedy, proved disastrous; they led to the 1970s’ “stagflation.”

约翰逊的经济政策，继承了肯尼迪遗风，证明是灾难性的；那些政策导致了上世纪七十年代的滞涨。

Wow. I didn’t know that. Neither, as far as I know, did any economist who has actually studied the issue.

喔，我当然不是很了解。然而，就我所知，很少有经济学家真正地研究这个问题。

Seriously, this is a standard bit of conservative propaganda. Ever since Reagan, conservatives have been using the evils of stagflation to denounce liberal economic policies. Yet mainstream economics — even at Chicago — has never made that connection.

实际上，这是一系列标准的保守宣传活动。甚至自从里根政府以来，保守主义被描绘成邪恶的滞涨来指责自由的经济政策。当然主流的经济学派—即使在芝加哥—从来就没有让两者衔接起来。

Stagflation was a term coined by Paul Samuelson to describe the combination of high inflation and high unemployment. The era of stagflation in America began in 1974 and ended in the early 80s. Why did it happen?

滞涨是保罗•萨谬尔逊为了解释高通涨和高失业的组合创造的专门名词。美国滞涨的历史开始在1974年，在80年代初期结束。滞涨为什么会发生呢？

Well, the textbooks basically invoke two factors. One was a series of “adverse supply shocks”, mainly the huge runup in the price of oil. The other was excessively expansionary monetary policy, especially in 1972-3, which allowed expectations of inflation to become entrenched. (Ken Rogoff — a Republican, by the way — attributes that expansion to the desire of Arthur Burns to see Richard Nixon reelected.)

当然，教科书在根本上诉诸于两个因素。一方面是一系列的供给过剩的不良反应，主要是石油价格凶猛地高涨。另一方面是过度扩张的货币政策，特别是在1972-91973年，被认可的预期中的通货膨胀变成了现实。（顺便提下一个共和党成员Ken Rogoff，把扩张归因于Arthur Burns渴望看到Richard Nixon被重选）

The appearance of stagflation was a win for conservative economics, but it was conservative monetary economics that was partly vindicated: Milton Friedman’s assertion that there is no long-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment turned out to be correct, and is now part of the standard canon.

滞涨的出现是保守主义经济学派的胜利，但滞涨只是部分证明了保守主义货币经济学派的胜利：米勒•佛里德曼的主张在通货膨胀与失业率之间是没有长期折中的取舍被证明是正确的，现在这是部分标准的准则。

But where is the Great Society in all this? Nowhere. The claim that stagflation proved the badness of liberal ideas is pure propaganda, which not even conservative economists believe.

但是，在所有的这些中，国家的定位在哪里呢？任何地方都不是。滞涨证明自由主义是有害的观点是纯粹的宣传，甚至连保守主义经济学家也不相信。

PS: all this comes in the middle of a column whining about favorable press treatment of Obama. Did Samuelson complain equally about the loving treatment Bush received for several years after 9/11? Somehow I don’t remember that …

PS:所有的这些意见来自赞成向奥巴马处理方法施压而正在哀鸣的专栏文章中间。难道萨谬尔逊同样也抱怨偏好911以后若干年的布什政府的处理方法？从某种程度上说，我不记得那些了……