Chapter 10 Chapter 6 Facts: The U.S. economy is a shell economy that prints money to buy

I have talked too much about the false side of finance. In fact, finance is good at the beginning. Before it degenerates into a speculative bubble and becomes a tool of international exploitation, it can play an important role in economic development and even the prosperity of a country. important role. Note that what I mean here is that finance can actually help a country create huge wealth at the beginning to make the country strong and the people rich, rather than referring to the contemporary new imperialism that relies on financial international exploitation to plunder the wealth of other countries. maintain abundance.

Let me talk about the "reality" of finance here, and look at its relationship with the first two hundred years after the founding of the United States (from 1776 to the mid-20th century before the Bretton Woods system was established. After the Bretton Woods system, American finance became more and more important for the United States to seek wealth. The relationship between the rise of the real side that has increasingly evolved into virtual international exploitation and the weakening of the real side that helps the country’s real economy to create its own wealth). The United States is actually a financial country. The country was established by finance (borrowing money to fight wars). After its founding, it surpassed the United Kingdom to become the world's largest economic power. Finance (mainly the stock market) also played a key role.

Let's first look at the relationship between finance and the founding of the United States.We know that the American War of Independence began on April 19, 1775 with the "gunfire of Lexington". This battle lasted for two months, with more than 1,000 British casualties and 500 "American" casualties.After more than a year of war, the Second Continental Congress declared American independence on July 4, 1776. From this time on, it is the really difficult days for the "U.S. military". On August 27, the British Navy captured Long Island in Manhattan, and the "American Army" suffered a disastrous defeat.After that, Washington had to lead the "US military" to carry out "guerrilla warfare" for four years, and did not dare to fight the British army on a large scale.

The root cause of the decline of the "U.S. military" lies in the problem of funding.How do they raise military expenses? After declaring independence, the United States has only thirteen states. It could have collected taxes to maintain military expenditures. However, this is actually not feasible, because the reason for fighting the British in the War of Independence was to resist the British taxation of the North American colonies. It is impossible to collect taxes by yourself, otherwise we will lose the support of the people.In the end, the "US military" can only rely on financial and debt markets.It is mainly divided into five aspects: first, the government printed money and issued "Continental Currency", a total of 37 times from 1775 to 1780; second, the Continental Congress decided that the government issued government bonds; "Partial money", these states themselves have issued bonds to raise money; fourth, international loans, mainly borrowed from France;In the first one or two years, these financial measures worked well, but it will become more and more difficult in the future. The unlimited issuance of Continental currency has led to hyperinflation and greatly reduced the credibility of the mainland government. Continental currency and bonds are increasingly disgusted by North American people. The military funds raised by the "U.S. military" are getting less and less.

By the second half of 1780, no one in North America was willing to buy government bonds. At the same time, no one accepted the Continental currency. 13 states were also out of ammunition and food and could no longer support it. In the eyes of everyone, the American Revolutionary War seemed to be doomed to failure. If so, North America will once again be reduced to a British colony. However, the "U.S. military" turned the tide of the war by relying on "international finance".Assistants sent by Washington to France successfully persuaded the French king to lend another 2.5 million French gold coins to the "American army".But far away water can't quench the near thirst. If the gold coins were shipped to North America, the "U.S. military" might have been wiped out long ago.At this time, a simple financial arrangement by the genius "financier" Hamilton in the mainland government (who later became the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States) solved the problem. This buddy used the French gold coins as collateral before they arrived. Reissued a huge amount of bonds to the people of North America, and finally raised life-saving money. This money allowed the "U.S. Army" to fight until September 1781, and finally defeated the British army with the support of the French Navy. The American War of Independence ended. The beginning of truly becoming an independent country.

It can be seen that the United States relied on finance to fight the War of Independence, and relied on finance to establish the United States of America. After the founding of the United States, finance has further become one of the foundations of American prosperity. Simply put, finance has mainly contributed to the rise of the United States in three aspects and maintained its prosperity. The first is that the establishment and development of the stock market made the United States surpass the United Kingdom. We know that the stock market first emerged in England. However, in 1720, the British government shut down the stock market for 130 years because of the financial crisis caused by the South Sea Company's "stock bubble incident".By 1850, when Britain woke up and allowed private companies to issue shares again and resume the stock market, the United States was already far ahead in the stock market.what does this mean?You have to know the great role of the stock market in economic development. The stock market is by far the best machine for human beings to achieve socialized mass production and encourage innovation. The United States used this machine to take the lead and quickly became the center of innovation in the world, leaving the UK far behind. .

How does the stock market exert its power in promoting economic growth and innovation in various fields? Quite simply, the stock market can realize future wealth. That is to say, for a promising company, its stock will be sought after. In this way, all companies with good prospects can get their future income in advance, and these capitals are put into production, which makes the company develop rapidly with a hundredfold momentum.What kind of company is a promising company, of course it is an innovative company, a company that can develop new industries and new profit fields.Therefore, the stock market naturally encourages innovation, encourages innovative companies and individuals to acquire huge wealth, and forms a benign interaction between wealth and innovation.

British finance was inspired by maritime trade, mainly banks, government bonds and corporate bonds, while American finance was mainly the stock market around technological innovation.Chen Zhiwu said that the core difference between American and British capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries is that the United States has a stock culture that Britain does not have, and this difference is an important reason why the United States can surpass the United Kingdom.Take the most critical railway technology in the mid-19th century as an example. Originally, trains and railways were invented by the British, but the United States came from behind because of its developed stock market and took the lead in establishing a nationwide railway network.At that time, a large number of American railway companies were established in New England, Chicago and other places. At that time, all Americans believed that the railway was a symbol of the arrival of the new world and actively participated in it. Therefore, there was a rapid wave of buying railway stocks in New York and Boston. 1860 Most of the stocks traded in the U.S. stock market around the 1990s were railroad stocks.This quickly raised enough capital for the construction of American railways, which led to the completion of the American railway network.The U.S. stock market also contributed to the explosion of various modern inventions in the United States.

For example, after the famous Edison invented the telephone in 1875, he established the Bell Telephone Company. In 1892, his company merged with another power company to form a new company. In 1902, the company’s stock was listed. The largest company in the United States is General Electric.In a word, the United Kingdom created a prosperous age by relying on overseas trade, and its financial support was debt, banks, and insurance; while the United States' prosperous age relied on technological innovation supported by the stock market, and it relied on venture capital represented by stocks.This also determines that the United States surpasses the United Kingdom.

The second is government bonds, which are U.S. Treasury bonds.The huge deficit finance allows the U.S. government to use sufficient financial resources to promote infrastructure construction, promote technological innovation, and develop military power with national strength. The third is credit consumption.This is actually the foundation of America's prosperity. The United States entered the era of consumption bottlenecks as early as the 1850s. At that time, an innovation in the sales method of the largest sewing machine company in the United States saved the American economy and created a century-old myth that the American economy has flourished since then. In 1856, a sewing machine cost about US$100, but the annual income of the average American family was only US$500, so the sewing machine was unsalable.What to do, the company's sales director thought of a coup: let American families use sewing machines first, and then let them pay in installments.Pay $5 down and pay a few dollars a month thereafter.In this way, the bottleneck of consumption was solved, and the company sold 260,000 sewing machines in 20 years.This sales technique quickly spread to all industries, such as pianos, automobiles, and later computers, etc., and it is no longer a simple model of installment payment. More banks and financial institutions have stepped in to provide loan funding services, and the U.S. economy Since then, the consumption bottleneck has been eliminated to the greatest extent.You have to ask, borrowing money needs to be repaid. If you spend more today, you will spend less tomorrow?Isn't there any benefit in the long run?This is of course a big mistake. The real mystery of credit consumption is far from solving the consumption bottleneck at that time, but also that credit consumption will create a huge number of jobs to produce products that meet these new needs. These jobs will greatly increase your income. future income.

Do you think I am a bit contradictory? On the one hand, I say that finance is a worthless and imaginary thing, and on the other hand, I say that finance is the foundation of the prosperity of the United States. In fact, this is not contradictory, but to look at the two aspects of the problem. To say that the emptiness of finance mainly means that after it crossed the country and became a means of exploitation, it became a kind of Ponzi scheme driven by speculation. To say that the reality of finance refers to The original function of finance is to provide financing services for the real economy and promote innovation. The United States relies on finance to establish itself, achieve economic rise through finance, and maintain prosperity through finance.Originally, the United States could continue to develop by relying on the real functions of finance. However, after the integration of the world economy continued to strengthen, the United States soon discovered that it used the virtual side of finance to collect money around the world, and wealth came faster and on a larger scale. Huge, since then, financial international exploitation has become the national strategy of the United States. Since the US dollar became the world's currency hegemony, American finance has transformed into a devil doing all kinds of evil around the world. American finance has opened its bloody mouth around the world, siphoning wealth, and constantly Realizing empty-handed white wolves, making a living without capital or profit. I have already mentioned four kinds of evil means in the fifth chapter of American finance that has gone abroad.I won’t repeat it here. What needs to be added is that U.S. borrowing and consumption also go abroad by virtue of the status of the U.S. dollar. The dollars are then resold and lent to ordinary Americans for consumption. The difference between this cross-border borrowing consumption and general borrowing consumption is that it is likely to be a "sustainable" loan, I mean, it can be borrowed forever without repayment.This sustainable borrowing is due to two reasons. First, Americans are facing creditors from all over the world, and they can borrow from a wide range of sources. They can borrow from east to west, and always have other people's dollars "free" on hand. Second, there is a sustainable cycle of trade between foreign countries and the United States and the flow of dollars itself.For example, in the trade between China and the United States, China sold goods worth $10,000 to the United States, China received $10,000, and the United States received the goods. And in a blink of an eye, China took the 10,000 U.S. dollars to buy U.S. treasury bonds, and the U.S. dollars returned to the U.S., and the Americans continued to borrow the money to buy Chinese things... This cycle goes on and on. Goods are gained for nothing in this dynamic.This kind of sustainable international borrowing can only be done by Americans. This kind of sustainable borrowing is actually no different from printing money for shopping: the borrowed money does not have to be repaid anyway, and it is the same as the printed one. In other words, it is the same as the one that fell from the sky. As the saying goes, many unrighteous deeds will kill you. However, the U.S. finance that has done many evils will never die. Do not underestimate the decline of the United States and the bankruptcy of the U.S. finance at any time.Because Americans have already played the trick of printing money and shopping very skillfully, with a degree of reality, and never play themselves to death.Sustainable revolving loan consumption is only one type of money-printing shopping in the United States. Next, I will fully uncover the mystery of money-printing shopping in the United States. To understand the truth about the U.S. economy and finance, we must start from the financial crisis. The first step is to see clearly that this so-called financial crisis is actually a dollar crisis.In fact, many people have already seen this point, including the article "The United States is Technically Bankrupt" that I mentioned at the beginning of this book. On the surface, this financial crisis is a crisis caused by Americans' profligate borrowing and consumption, or a crisis of the US "debt economy model", that is, the US has borrowed all over the world and emptied the whole world, and there is no way to borrow any more. If it continues, the subprime mortgage crisis will trigger a crisis characterized by the inability of Americans to repay their debts. In essence, this is a dollar crisis, that is, because Americans do not work, do not produce, and only rely on borrowing and printing money to shop, the U.S. economy is empty, and there is no real wealth and wealth represented by the dollar. Corresponding.As the scale of borrowing and consumption continues to expand, the disproportionate contradiction between the empty shell economy and the status of the US dollar will become increasingly prominent, and will eventually erupt in the form of a financial crisis. The financial crisis is actually an objective questioning and warning of the US dollar. The article "The United States is Technically Bankrupt" also wrote: The essence of this crisis is by no means a financial crisis in the general sense, but the U.S. debt economic model (Note: Greenspan used this term for the first time in 2004). The crisis at the end is a crisis of confidence in the United States that "cannot die or survive", and it is the second US dollar crisis. The "subprime mortgage crisis" is nothing more than an opportunity, or a trigger, for the United States, which should have been technically bankrupt long ago, to encounter bankruptcy.This financial crisis is essentially the second dollar crisis. The first dollar crisis was in the early 1970s. We know that the Bretton Woods system after World War II established the hegemony of the dollar as the world currency.This system is a gold standard system, that is, the U.S. dollar is bound to a fixed amount of gold, and the issuance of U.S. dollars must have a corresponding gold reserve. Go to the US to exchange for gold/dollar. In the early 1970s, the United States, which was deeply involved in the Vietnam War, had huge fiscal deficits and trade deficits. The "twin deficits" further caused European countries to no longer trust the US dollar, and thus exchanged US dollars for gold on a large scale. Faced with such a predicament, U.S. President Nixon actually announced the abolition of the free convertibility agreement between 35 dollars and 1 ounce of gold. The world was in an uproar, and the Bretton Woods system collapsed, which triggered the first dollar crisis in history. . This crisis has made the world miserable.However, Dr. Kissinger soon successfully lobbied the "OPEC" organization to determine the US dollar as the only pricing and settlement currency in the international oil market, and the status of the US dollar was finally preserved. Completely empty, and thus began the unscrupulous exploitation all over the world. After the disintegration of the Bretton Woods system, two oil crises occurred immediately. The sharp rise in oil prices led to a sharp increase in the demand for US dollars around the world (because the US dollar is the only settlement currency for international oil transactions).This means that all countries have to reserve a large amount of US dollar foreign exchange in order to obtain oil. Please note that the wonderful changes will start from this moment.Since you all have to reserve US dollars, then I in the United States only need to print US dollars. Of course, the US dollars I printed are not given to you for free. You have to exchange goods with me.Since then, the money printing machine in the United States has been running at full capacity, and the US debt economic model has kicked off the historical prelude. The so-called debt economy model means that the United States no longer needs general industrial enterprises. Except for food, general industrial equipment and other necessities of life and production, other commodities are purchased from the international market, and use this to export dollars to the world; The smooth progress of international trade settlement has to hold a considerable amount of U.S. dollar reserves; in order to maintain and increase the value of U.S. dollar reserves, these countries have to buy U.S. bonds or other so-called safe U.S. dollar assets. Therefore, such a circle has been formed in the world: the goods needed by the United States can only be printed and bought abroad; the dollars spent by the United States on buying things are returned to the United States through the sale of U.S. debt (national bonds or corporate bonds) The local land becomes cash that the U.S. government or companies can dispose of at will; the cash is used by Americans to enable them to consume things bought from foreign countries; American businessmen earn income by selling foreign goods locally, Then continue to buy goods from other countries. (See "The United States is Technically Bankrupt") This cycle goes on and on, as long as the US dollar's status as an international settlement currency never falls, and foreign governments always need US dollar reserves, the debts owed by the United States will never have to be repaid.Because of the discovery of the great benefit of this debt economic model: you can live richly without having to produce. From the 1970s to the beginning of the 21st century, the United States simply drove almost all material production out of the United States. Today, the United States only has finance, high-tech and military industries as the foundation of the national economy, and other general commodity production has given way to the United States. Europe and Asia.Today it is difficult for you to find general merchandise marked with "MADEINUSA" in any corner of the world. After understanding the history of the U.S. debt economy model, we can understand that the reason why this kind of debt economy in the U.S. is possible is that the hegemony of the U.S. dollar is indestructible, and all countries in the world need to reserve U.S. dollars.Therefore, the crisis of the US debt economic model is essentially a dollar crisis.But now the question is coming, I would like to ask everyone, since in theory the United States can keep printing money and borrowing money from other countries in the world, so that it can continue to inflate the consumption bubble of borrowing and consumption, and keep it going, why should the United States take the initiative to How about bursting the bubble and causing the subprime mortgage crisis?This requires unraveling the final mystery of the US printing money for shopping. Let me tell you that the so-called debt economic model mentioned above does not accurately describe the essence of the US economy. The essence of the US economy is what I have repeatedly mentioned: printing money to buy. The continued prosperity of the American economy is an economic miracle of printing money for shopping. China’s economic miracle of rapid growth in the past 30 years is destined to be eclipsed by the economic miracle of the Americans, because the Americans created this kind of economic miracle for the first time in human history. An "economic model" in which the whole country can get something for nothing, and live a super-rich life without production. But what is interesting is that the Chinese economic miracle and the American economic miracle are tied together. The American economic miracle, objectively and materially speaking, was actually created by the Chinese for them. The link between the two is printing money for shopping. For 30 years, the Americans have been "helping" China to print money for shopping and digest China's huge "excess" production capacity. What is printing money for shopping?It can be said that this is an economic law that has not been discovered by humans (the United States has only applied it by mistake).Since industrialization, the human economy has been an economy with excess production capacity and insufficient consumption. Due to insufficient consumption, factories cannot start work, and production capacity is wasted. From the perspective of the whole society, much more wealth could have been created, but just It is because there is no "profit" that the factory cannot operate. At this time, you can imagine that if God secretly gave all the poor enough money to go shopping, then these excess production capacity would be put into operation immediately, and the material wealth of the whole society would increase rapidly. What caused this increase in wealth?It is the increase of currency! In other words, the banknotes thrown by God (which were originally just paper) turned directly into rich and colorful material wealth and industrial products.This work does not require God to complete it at all, it only needs the central bank to start the money printing machine. The logic of printing money for shopping is: in the case of excess production capacity, printing banknotes will directly lead to an increase in material wealth of equal value!In other words, if the central bank prints 1 trillion yuan, there will be an additional 1 trillion yuan of various products in China immediately.And all this is brought about by the great money printing machine! So what is the reality in China?It's a pity that we have huge excess capacity because we don't understand how to print money to buy things. What I mean is that our enterprises are capable of producing a large amount of products, but we can only consume a small part domestically.then what should we do? Export it and sell it to Americans. What do Americans use to buy products produced by our "excess" production capacity?U.S. dollars—dollars printed by printing presses. Its essence is paper, and Americans use these papers to help China print money for shopping—since you in China don’t know how to print money for shopping, the United States can help you.If it weren't for the United States to help us print money for shopping, our Chinese companies would not continue to produce products other than those products that can be sold domestically. The United States' money printing and shopping have made the world "out of thin air" a huge amount of material Products, the Americans are meritorious.It's just that these extra products were given to the Americans in vain. In other words, since China itself does not print money for consumption, the Americans take advantage of it. They print dollars to help us shop and digest our "excess capacity". In fact, we can do this kind of thing by ourselves, China It is completely possible to print money for shopping by yourself. I will talk about how China should print money for shopping in Chapter 8. What is the specific amount of money printed and purchased by the United States (including Europe and other countries) in China?The following table lists the proportions of domestic consumption, investment and net exports in China's GDP structure since 1996. Net export is the value of exports minus imports. This is our "excess capacity". To be precise, it is a part of our excess capacity. It is hard to say how much of it.In other words, net exports represent the part of domestically produced products that cannot be sold domestically but are sold abroad.Because China's production capacity is far more than this, if there is a greater domestic and foreign demand to buy Chinese products, Chinese manufacturers can still produce much more, so it is naturally only a part of China's excess production capacity.Our net export is unstable, but it is often higher than 10% and 20%. At the highest point, it may be close to half of GDP. That is to say, sometimes half of the products we produce have to be sold abroad and digested domestically. no.Exports to the United States account for the bulk of our net exports. How much goods did China give to the United States for nothing?It's very simple. Just count the total amount of Sino-US trade surplus over the years. This total amount is the answer.From the formation mechanism of China’s foreign exchange reserves we introduced above, we can know that the total trade surplus between China and the United States over the years is roughly equal to China’s US dollar foreign exchange reserves. The goods are the part that the United States has "helped" China "print money for shopping" over the years. In fact, the United States not only "helped" China print money for shopping, but also brought its selfless internationalism to the extreme. Any country with excess production capacity in the world has received enthusiastic help from the Americans. As of the end of September 2007, the United States The cumulative trade deficit has reached 6.44 trillion US dollars, and the goods worth so much are obtained for nothing by Americans printing money for others all over the world.Of course, this 6.44 trillion US dollars is roughly equal to the sum of the US dollar foreign exchange reserves of all countries in the world, because the US dollar reserves of all countries in the world are obtained by selling goods to Americans (deducting the part imported from the United States).The United States, which prints money for shopping, has created a real world economic miracle. In the past 30 years, they have obtained goods worth 6.44 trillion US dollars from the world. It should be noted that most of these goods are cheap goods such as made in China, 6.44 The physical amount represented by trillions of dollars is extremely huge, which is the difference between the high-priced "virtual products" that the United States itself sells to others.In fact, the gross national product of the United States is a big fool. Let me tell you that the value of goods imported by Americans and the value of their exports are completely different. The former is a bluff, while the latter is real real wealth; the GDP of the United States and China's GDP are also completely different. The former is a bluff, the latter The latter is real wealth.The example of trade between China, the United States and Japan that I assumed at the beginning can illustrate this problem very well. Now I will illustrate this problem by a simpler and similar parable.It is said that there are only two countries in the world: country A and country C. The currency of country A is called the US dollar, and the currency of country C is called RMB (coincidentally, the names of these two currencies are the same as the names of the currencies of two countries in the world we live in. same), the US dollar and RMB are exchanged at a fixed ratio of 8:1, the people of country A never produce any material products, and their GDP is all composed of "service industry", while the GDP of country C is almost entirely composed of manufacturing contributed by material products.What is the so-called service industry in country A?That is, today I serve you, tomorrow you serve me, today I rub your shoulders, tomorrow you rub my back, I rub your shoulders, you give me a service fee of 10,000 US dollars, and tomorrow you rub me If I give you 10,000 U.S. dollars, the GDP of country A will be 20,000 U.S. dollars.You have to know that 20,000 dollars can buy a lot of cheap goods from country C, such as 20,000 shirts.Because the exchange rate between country A and country C remains constant at 8, people in country A can always buy so much goods from country C. Now you can see clearly. It turns out that the so-called service industry in country A is a set of tricks. Through this set of tricks, the dollars printed by the central bank of country A are "distributed" to ordinary people. The wages of the industry are set quite high, so that the dollars can be sent to the people of country A as quickly as possible, so that they have enough dollars to exchange for material products of country C.That's right, country A and country C are the United States and China in reality. Don't think this is telling a story. This is actually a bloody reality. The service industry accounts for as much as 80% of the GDP of the United States. The service industry is that Americans bluff and serve each other. Today I will help you open the door of the bathroom. If you give me $100, the U.S. GDP will increase by $100; If I move house, I’ll give you $500; this month, I’ll help your daughter with piano tutoring, and you’ll give me $1,000… This is how the GDP of the United States comes from. Is it valuable? Without any value, the high wages in the service industry are nothing more than distributing the money printed by the bank to Americans faster, so that they have enough money to buy a large number of Chinese goods and achieve a prosperous life.In fact, Americans didn’t have to work at all. They just lay at home and waited for the currency printed by the Bank of America to be sent to them. When they got the money, they went to buy Chinese products.But it’s a bit too embarrassing to do this, and it’s unreasonable to be discovered by the Chinese, so in order to deceive people, let’s invent a huge service industry with high wages.You see, we Americans make money through the service industry, not from the government, and we Americans also create wealth. Our service industry creates 80% of our GDP. Is there anything more absurd than this in the world? I find it hard to find.Now you understand that the GDP of the United States is essentially printed, and the so-called service industry is a way to send the printed money to the hands of Americans. You will find that most people in the United States are engaged in the "service industry". The wages of all these industries are surprisingly high. Basically, these industries can get an annual salary of 30,000 to 40,000 US dollars. For example, nurses can get 40,000 US dollars. Earning 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. dollars a year is the mainstream of Americans, accounting for more than 50% of the population. These people constitute the huge middle class in the United States. The middle class in the United States is "served" by the service industry. It is printed by the bank.Of course, the "more advanced" service industry gets higher salaries. For example, economists at the World Bank (such as the Chinese Zou Hengfu and Lin Yifu who work there) generally get an annual salary of more than 200,000 US dollars. (For example, Chinese Chen Zhiwu at Yale University), and practitioners in the financial service industry can also reach this level. The GDP of the United States in 2009 was as high as 14.33 trillion U.S. dollars (no doubt the first in the world). You now know that the GDP of the United States has nothing to do with wealth creation, and most of it is printed. Why can Americans live on this fictitious GDP without worrying that they will not be able to buy enough material products to maintain a prosperous life?It's very simple, let's go back to the previous logic. This is due to the status of the US dollar and the overcapacity of countries around the world that allow the United States to print money for shopping, and the printed money can be exchanged for goods. I think it is necessary to fully analyze the systemic circulation of funds and goods in the U.S. printing money shopping economy, so as to clearly understand how the U.S. printing money shopping works. Basically, it can also be regarded as a summary of the previous content of this book. . (1) Print money. There is nothing to explain. (2) Sending money and shopping. Sending money is basically what the previous section said, sending currency to Americans through high wages in the service industry.Shopping means that Americans use the money to buy goods, mainly made in China. (3) "Returning funds". When Americans use money to buy foreign goods, the U.S. dollar goes into the hands of foreigners and becomes their foreign exchange.In order to continue the next round of money distribution, the United States has to find a way to bring these dollars back to the United States. The main ways to withdraw USD are: 1. Issuing U.S. treasury bonds to the world and fooling countries into buying them with their foreign exchange reserves is quite useful. Many countries have used half or more of their foreign exchange reserves to buy U.S. treasury bonds. For example, China purchased U.S. treasury bonds worth $900 billion Around 700 billion after the reduction, China's total foreign exchange reserves are more than 2 trillion U.S. dollars.Foreign governments get treasury bond certificates, and the United States recycles dollars. 2. Siphon dollars around the world and return them to China through the "Quartet of Exploiting China".The quartet of finance, entertainment, branding, and patented technology is not only aimed at China, but at any country. Americans must use these four magic weapons to siphon dollars.The United States uses finance to flick money around the world, collects brand fees and patent fees everywhere in the world, shows Hollywood movies all over the world, and occupies every screen in the world. In these two ways, the United States effectively withdraws the dollars scattered around the world. (4) A new round of printing money for shopping. After returning the US dollars, if it is not enough, print some more, and a new cycle begins, sending the money to the hands of the American people, then shopping, and then... Now let me ask a question, since the United States can print money for shopping, why bother to use so many tricks to get money back?Just don't return it to the basket, don't take back what is spent, if it is not enough, we can just print it again. Why didn't the United States do this? I think the best explanation is that Americans don't understand the principle of printing money to buy at all. They just applied this principle by accident. Although it has been used for decades, they don't understand it at all. Therefore, I don’t have such courage, and I don’t just rely on printing money directly. Let’s go back to the question mentioned in the third section of this chapter. Since Americans can print money for shopping in a cyclical and sustainable manner, why do they burst the subprime mortgage bubble and why don’t they continue to print money to fill all the funding holes? The best explanation is still that Americans don’t understand the principle of printing money for shopping. They feel guilty when they see financial bubbles and potential bad debts. When these bad debts reach a certain level, they are so scared that they pee their pants and hurry Forget it.Because their minds are still occupied by traditional finance, they feel that the bubble cannot be blown forever, and if it continues to blow, it will definitely bring unimaginable disaster.Therefore, the financial crisis (that is, the dollar crisis) brought about by the bursting of the bubble is actually an unnecessary disaster caused by Americans' "ignorance" (ignorance of printing money for shopping). "Misunderstand". In fact, the U.S. bubble can be inflated infinitely, no matter how big it is, there is no risk. The U.S. just needs to keep printing dollars to fill the loopholes and continue to help the world print money for shopping. Why is it said that the financial bubble in the United States can be inflated infinitely? Because the world's overcapacity is infinite!I don’t mean that the overcapacity in the world is infinite at a certain moment, but that as time goes by, the overcapacity added up year after year is infinite, and the bubble in the United States did not disappear overnight. It can be blown up a hundred times, so you have to blow it up day by day, year by year, right?As long as the U.S. financial bubble (the one that prints money to buy) doesn't grow faster than the world's overcapacity builds up, it's perfectly fine. I can use an analogy to make this problem clearer. For example, the excess production capacity of all countries except the United States can produce a total of 8 trillion US dollars worth of products every year, which means the sum of the products that countries in the world cannot sell in their own countries.价值8万亿美元，那么，你美国印钱只要不超过8万亿美元，就没问题，什么次贷漏洞，那些还不起钱的老百姓，美国政府印钱帮他们填上就行，还可以继续发钱给他们去购买全世界的物品。在全球有8万亿美元过剩产能的情况下，你美国印刷一万亿美元，就会导致世界范围内多生产一万亿商品，印刷两万亿元就是两万亿商品，印刷八万亿元就是八万亿商品，如同变魔术一般。 本章（也是本篇）的最后，我想做一个总结，也是回答在第一章中提出的问题，中国经济到底是不是庞氏骗局？ 答案是否定的，美国经济才是巨大的庞氏骗局。 为什么中国经济不是庞氏骗局呢？ 很简单，中国的GDP主要是实实在在的物质产品堆起来的，都是实在得不能再实在的财富，也就不符合庞氏骗局的首要条件：标的物是毫无价值的东西。 至于中国的房地产泡沫，即便它真是大泡沫，与中国每年生产的总的物质产品相比，也算不了什么，况且房地产再怎么泡沫，它最原始的标的物——房子，也是实实在在的财物，而不是像庞氏骗局中的邮票、小动物之类的东西一样纯粹是忽悠。 总之，中国经济绝非庞氏骗局，最多你只能说中国经济的某个角落存在庞氏骗局。 相比之下，美国经济则非常接近真正的庞氏骗局。首先美国已经是印钱购物的空壳经济，他本国基本上不生产物质产品，符合了庞氏骗局的首要特征。其次，美元本身就是一种庞氏骗局，美国的印钱购物经济正是靠美元的庞氏骗局去维系的。 为什么美元是庞氏骗局呢？ 因为美元实质上是废纸，一方面布雷顿森林体系破灭之后它没有了黄金与之相对应，另一方面美国经济的空壳化导致已经没有足够的实际产品（财富）与之相对应。作为废纸的美元之所以在现实中有价值，就在于全世界都在做美元的庞氏骗局接力赛：因为所有国家都认可历史上形成的美元的国际货币地位，A国、B国、C国、D国……无数的国家互相之间都可以用美元来购买对方的货物，A国认为美元有价值是因为B国、C国、D国等都接受美元来买他们的东西，同理对于任何一个国家而言美元有价值就在于它能买其他国家的东西，而不在于美元本身有价值。 美元的庞氏骗局进行下去，就是各国不断地增加美元外汇储备，不断地“投资”美国国债和其他证券，你把这些美国国债和证券的价格就看做是美国（把美国这个国家当做一个商品看待）的价格的话，世界各国的举动不就和本书第一章中列举的所有庞氏骗局一模一样了吗？ “美国”这件东西根本就是一个空壳子，由于世界各国都没有认清美国，而认为“美国”很有投机价值，所有国家都一个接一个地去买“美国”，不断地抬高美国的价格，由于世界是如此之大，世界上的国家是如此之多，综合起来的财富是如此之多，所以在这个庞氏骗局中似乎总是有持续不断的接盘者，这个庞氏骗局几乎成了一个永不破灭的骗局。