評論
打印
A second consideration is demography.
第二個考慮是人口。
A growing population creates a natural pyramid scheme.
不斷增長的人口創造出一個天然的金字塔式的騙局。
Each cohort of participants will receive the money contributed by a later, larger generation.
每一代的參與者都會收到由后來的、人口更大的一代人出資的錢。
Therefore they too can get more out of it than they put in.
因而，他們也可以從中得到比他們投入的還要多的東西。
Future generations may also be better off than their predecessors.
未來的幾代人也可能比他們的前輩過得更好。
They may benefit from sources of economic advance (such as improved technology) over and above simple capital accumulation.
他們可能從超越和高于簡單的資本積累的經濟進步（如提高了的技術）的源頭中獲益。
This march of progress should allow a Ponzi scheme to pay a positive return to investors even if the scheme only takes a constant percentage from each generation's income.
這種進步應當允許龐氏騙局即便是在騙局從每一代人的收入中籌集固定的百分比的情況下也能夠向投資者支付一筆正回報。
Thanks to economic growth, 10% collected from the incomes of today's young will be worth more than the 10% collected in the past from their parents' poorer generation.
鑒于經濟的增長，從當今年輕人的收入中籌集的10%會比從他們更窮的父輩那里籌集來的10%更值錢。
To make things concrete, suppose a country's population grows by 1% a year and incomes per person grow by 4%.
為了使之具體化，假設，某國人口每年增長1%，人均收入每年增長4%。
In this case, a Ponzi scheme can offer an annual return of about 5% indefinitely, simply by taking a steady share of each generation's income.
在這種情況下，龐氏騙局單靠從每一代人的收入中提取穩定的份額，就可以無限期地提供5%左右的年化回報。
If the economy already has a large stock of capital, the return on saving and investing might be less than that, especially given the risk involved.
如果經濟體早已具有大量的資本，儲蓄和投資的回報可能有所減少，尤其是在考慮到其所涉及的風險時。
Such an economy would suffer from what economists call “dynamic inefficiency”.
這樣的經濟體會飽受經濟學家所說的“動態無效率”（dynamic inefficiency）之苦。
In these circumstances, an intergenerational Ponzi scheme can be sustainable and desirable.
在這些條件下，代際龐氏騙局可以是可持續的、可取的。
A PAYG pension is only the most obvious example of such a scheme. Government debt can play a similar role (a possibility entertained by Peter Diamond of MIT in a 1965 paper building on Samuelson's insights).
現收現付養老金是這類騙局中唯一的最顯而易見的例子。政府債務可以扮演類似的角色（這是由麻省理工的彼得·戴蒙德在1965年的一篇以薩繆爾森的深刻見解為基礎的論文中提出來的一種可能性）。
If the government does not want to extract social-security contributions from the young, it can sell them long-term bonds instead.
如果政府不想從年輕人那里提取社保出資，它可以向他們銷售長期債券作為替代。
When these bonds mature, the government can repay them by selling a fresh round of bonds to the next, richer generation.
當這些債券到期時，政府可以通過向更富有的下一代銷售新一輪債券的方式償還給他們。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
