The Great Depression - The Crash | 1
发布时间 2019-02-20 08:05:00 来源
摘要
The Roaring Twenties came to a screeching halt on October 29, 1929, with the collapse of the U.S. stock market. A year earlier, president Herbert Hoover had coasted to victory by promising the American people “a chicken for every pot” and “a car in every backyard.” Lured by the promise of skyrocketing markets, many first-time investors got caught up in margin trading, borrowing money to make bigger stock purchases than they could actually afford. It was a foolproof way to make money, so long as stock prices kept rising.But then, on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, more than sixteen million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. By the market’s close, investors had lost tens of billions of dollars — and kicked off a decade that would reshape American institutions, even as labor unrest, racial tensions, and the dark shadow of nativism pushed back from all sides.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GPT-4正在为你翻译摘要中......
中英文字稿
Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music, download the app today.
嘿,亚马逊会员们,你们可以在亚马逊音乐上无广告地收听《美国历史故事讲述者》节目,请今天就下载这个应用程序。
Imagine this Tuesday, October 29th, 1929. You're working at your regular spot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, but today is anything but regular. The screams are so deafening that you can't even hear the trading bell.
想象一下,1929年10月29日的这个星期二。你正在纽约证券交易所的固定职位上工作,但今天一点也不寻常。尖叫声如此震耳欲聋,以至于你甚至听不到交易铃声。
Your screaming is loud as anyone. Your hand stretches high in the air and you strain for a buyer to see you. You need to move fast. The prices are tumbling. Every time you hear someone make a trade, prices seem to plunge lower. Even solid bets like US Steel and Westinghouse are crumbling. You need to get out.
你的尖叫声跟任何人一样大声。你伸起手在空中挥动,努力让买家注意到你。你需要快速行动,价格正在暴跌。每次你听到有人进行交易,价格似乎都会下跌。即使是像美国钢铁和西屋一样的可靠赌注也在崩溃。你需要离开。
Adult men, shove and jossal like grade school kids straining to be first in line. You're shouting at the top of their lungs. To their eyes burn as much as yours, you haven't slept all weekend. Trader's clamor is Allied Chemical Stocks Plummet. Someone wails like he's just been gutted.
成年男子们像小学生一样推挤和嬉闹,竭力争先。他们用尽全力大声喊叫。他们的眼睛和你一样灼热,整个周末都没睡觉。交易员们争执不休,联合化工股票暴跌。有人像刚被剖腹一样哀嚎。
You see a man sitting right on the trading room floor holding his head in agony. The din echoes off the exchange of stone walls. You get ready to offer a thousand shares of RCA at way too low a discount. Just as you open your mouth, you're knocked to the ground. As you scramble back to your feet, you see a portly trader in a grey vest.
你看到一个男人坐在交易室地板上,握着头呻吟。咚咚的声音回荡在交易所的石墙上。你准备以过低的折扣出售一千股RCA。就在你张嘴时,你被撞倒在地。当你爬起来时,你看到一个身穿灰色马甲的胖胖交易员。
Cursing at the man he just pushed into you. The traders face reddens as he yells. His rolled up sleeve tightens as he winds up for a punch. The other trader ducks, but you don't. The last thing you see is his fist.
他刚将一个人推向你,然后开始咒骂。当他大喊大叫时,他的脸变得通红。他卷起的衣袖变得更紧,为了打拳做好了准备。另一个商人躲闪了,但你没躲开。你最后看到的是他的拳头。
You come to sprawled on the cool marble floor of the lobby. A drum beat of pain pounds behind your eyes. Blood drips from your nose onto a trading slip clutch between your shaking fingers. And for a second, terror washes over you. The slip is ruined. Then you realize your worries are meaningless. People are rushing back and forth through the lobby kicking up hundreds of similar trading slips. Traders have abandoned them. It's all worthless.
你从冷酷的大厅大理石地上醒来,胳膊腿都散开着。你感到脑袋后面一阵阵剧痛。鲜血从鼻孔上落在你的颤抖的手指间握着的交易单上。一瞬间,恐惧袭上心头,交易单毁了。但接着你意识到这些担忧毫无意义。大厅里人来人往,踩着成百上千相似的交易单。交易员们已经离弃了它们,它们全都不值钱。
Hey, are you okay? It's Jack. A trader from the House of Morgan. I'm a sun puncher, too. Yeah, I have stars in my eyes, but I'll be fine. Go ahead. Listen, I got to get back in there. The bottom's falling out, and I got to get something back here. I can't count on the Whitney to bail us out again.
嘿,你还好吗?是我,杰克,来自摩根家族的交易员。我也是个太阳拳击手,眼里也有星星在闪烁,但没事的。你说吧。听着,我得回去了。市场开始崩溃了,我得在这里找到点东西。我再也不能指望惠特尼再来拯救我们了。
It's bad, isn't it, Jack? Yep. But it'll stop soon, though, right? Sure. Sure. It's got to turn around.
这很糟糕,不是吗,杰克?嗯。但是它很快就会停止,对吗?当然。当然,它必须扭转。
From Wondry, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our History, Your Story. On our show, we'll take you to the events, the times and the people that shaped America and Americans. Our values, our struggles and our dreams. We'll put you in the shoes of everyday citizens as history was being made, and we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now.
我是林赛·格雷厄姆,来自Wondry,欢迎收听《美国历史故事》。我们的历史,是你的故事。在我们的节目中,我们会带您去认识塑造美国和美国人的事件、时代和人物。我们的价值观、我们的挣扎和我们的梦想。我们会让您像普通市民一样经历历史的进程,并向您展示时代的事件如何影响他们、他们的家人,以及现在的你。
Over the course of about a decade, the Great Depression upended American society. The collapse of the stock market in October 1929 was the first widely seen sign of the Great Depression. Only the onset of World War II would clearly mark its end. This gut-wrenching period devastated lives, transformed the global economy, and recast the direction of our country.
在约十年的时间里,大萧条颠覆了美国社会。1929年10月股市崩盘是大萧条的第一个广泛被看到的迹象。只有第二次世界大战的爆发才能清楚地标志它的结束。这个令人心痛的时期摧毁了生命,改变了全球经济,并重新制定了我们国家的方向。
Hindsight shows that conditions leading to the Great Depression appeared well before the stock market collapsed. Declining factory production and plunging cotton prices were early indicators of trouble, followed by a torrent of lost fortunes, bank closures, and stock crashes that left the country staggering. Unemployment would grow to previously unimaginable levels. Bellies would ache with hunger. Promises would be broken. Millions of people would be driven to migrate, accelerating an environmental disaster that would stretch across state lines.
事后看来,导致大萧条的条件在股市崩盘之前就已经显现出来了。下降的工厂生产和暴跌的棉花价格是早期的危险信号,接着就是一连串的财富损失、银行关闭和股市崩盘,让整个国家陷入了困境。失业率会上升到前所未有的水平,许多人饥肠辘辘。承诺也会被打破。数百万人会被迫迁徙,加速了一个跨越州界的环境灾难。
It was a decade unlike any other. Reform-minded politicians would reshape American institutions, even as labor unrest, racial strife, and the dark shadow of nativism pushed back from all sides. In that decade, Americans suffered through shocking loss to a recovery that would only be completed by the onset of a global conflict.
这是一个不同于任何其他年代的十年。改革派政治家将重塑美国机构,尽管劳工不安、种族冲突和民族主义的阴影从四面八方反击。在那个十年里,美国人经历了震惊的损失和恢复,只有全球冲突爆发才能完成这一恢复。
But just a few years before, the country was enjoying a period of unbridled enthusiasm. The 1920s had roared mightily. Technological advances following the end of World War I had revolutionized factory lines and consumer goods. By some assessments, manufacturing grew by 70% from 1922 to 28. Meanwhile, more Americans than ever could afford to buy new cars, radios, and kitchen appliances. That was in part because the increased efficiency made these products more affordable, and wages, at least in some portions of society, had also risen.
但就在几年前,这个国家还在享受着无限热情的时期。二十年代的咆哮声响彻整个国家。第一次世界大战后的技术进步彻底改变了工厂生产线和消费品。据一些评估,从1922年到1928年,制造业增长了70%。与此同时,比以往任何时候更多的美国人都能够买得起新汽车、收音机和厨房用品。这在一定程度上是因为提高了效率,使这些产品更加负担得起,而工资,在某些社会阶层中也有所提高。
At the same time, confidence in the American economy was high. These optimistic sentiments defined the 1928 presidential election. It didn't matter that Calvin Coolidge, the man who presided over most of the roaring 20s, chose not to run again.
同时,对美国经济的信心很高。这种乐观情绪定义了1928年的总统选举。即使主持大多数20年代的凯尔文·柯立芝不再竞选,也无关紧要。
Instead, in 1928, Coolidge handed the reins to his secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover, who readily took up Coolidge's pro-business, Lezeg Fair mantle. Hoover won the presidency handily.
相反,1928年,库立奇将大权交给了他的商务秘书赫伯特·胡佛,后者毫不犹豫地接过了库立奇的亲商业、自由放任的旗帜。胡佛轻松地赢得了总统大选。
He beat his democratic opponent, New York Governor Al Smith, by roughly 18 percentage points in the popular vote, and thoroughly trounced him in the electoral college as well. Though other factors played into Hoover's victory, his promise to continue Coolidge's legacy carried him into the White House.
他以公众投票约18个百分点的优势击败了他的民主党对手,纽约州州长阿尔·史密斯,并且在选举团中也将其彻底击败。尽管还有其他因素促成了胡佛的胜利,但承诺继续库立奇的遗产使他进入了白宫。
Pushing him further was a dramatic claim he made when he accepted his party's nomination at his alma mater, Stanford University. We, in America today, Hoover stated, are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before, in the history of any land. The Venomani also asserted that the poor house was vanishing.
他在自己的母校斯坦福大学接受党派提名时,做出了引人注目的声明,这促使他进一步发表观点。胡佛说,如今的美国比任何国家的历史上都更接近于最终战胜贫困。他还断言穷人住所正在消失。
Hoover's campaign materials echoed these bold pronouncements, including a flyer that claimed Republican policy had led to a chicken for every pot and a car in every backyard. The realities, of course, were less rosy.
胡佛的竞选材料反映了这些大胆宣言,其中一张传单声称,共和党的政策已经带来了家家户户都有鸡肉吃的条件,并在每个后院里都有一辆车。然而事实是,情况远没有这么美好。
While Hoover promised to eradicate poverty, manufacturing was already petering out in the U.S. demand had been high, but began to shrink around the time of the election. Meanwhile, European nations couldn't make payments on huge debts they owed U.S. banks for money they borrowed to fight the World War a decade earlier.
虽然胡佛承诺消除贫困,但美国的制造业已经在逐渐萎靡,需求一度很高,但在选举期间开始缩减。与此同时,欧洲国家无法偿还他们欠美国银行的巨额债务,这些债务是他们十年前为打击世界大战而借的钱。
Germany defaulted on reparations at Ode to Britain and France. This put the European allies financial situation in the even worse shape. To assist, the U.S. negotiated the amount Germany owed down, then pumped private investment into Germany. In turn, Germany used money from this investment to pay its reparations to the U.K. and France.
德国在向英国和法国赔偿方面违约,这使得欧洲盟国的财务状况变得更加糟糕。为了帮助,美国将德国欠款减少后,向德国注入了私人投资。德国随后利用这些投资中的资金向英国和法国支付了赔偿款项。
In theory, those countries could then pay off their debts to the U.S. lenders, but this system relied on continued infusions of U.S. dollars into the German economy, infusions that would stop after the Depression began.
理论上,这些国家可以偿还他们欠美国借款人的债务,但这个系统依赖于美元不断流入德国经济,而这种流入在大萧条开始后停止了。
While demand weakened in manufacturing centers and foreign borrowers struggled to pay their debts, crop prices plummeted. Farmers had sunk their life savings into homesteads, then they took out loans for equipment and other costs, but now they couldn't sell enough of what they grew to pay back all that they had borrowed.
虽然工业中心的需求减弱,外借者难以偿还债务,但农作物价格却暴跌。农民们把他们的全部积蓄投资于家园,然后又贷款购买设备和其他费用,但现在他们种植的农作物却不足以偿还所有借款。
Another recent innovation also heightened the crisis, consumer debt. Credit offers made living seem easy in the 1920s, and at the same time, the stock markets ever dizzying heights were too much to ignore.
另一个最近的创新加剧了危机,那就是消费者债务。在20世纪20年代,信用卡交易让生活看起来很容易,同时,股市不断攀升的高度也是不可忽略的。
People took out mortgages on their homes and businesses to afford a piece of the action. This influx of new investors was, for the most part, unsavvy. Their financial strategy was based on the assumption that the stock market would always keep rising.
人们拿出抵押贷款购买房屋和企业,以期获得一部分行动的机会。这些新投资者的大部分都是没有投资经验的,他们的理财策略是基于股市将永远上涨的假设。
The most widely used barometer of this rise in the strength of the stock market is what's known as the Dow Jones industrial average. It's not necessarily the most precise measurement of the stock market, nor can you directly trace the strength or weakness of the economy to the Dow's performance. Nonetheless, it illustrates the relative growth or decline in value of its component company's stocks.
目前广泛使用的测量股市强劲程度的准绳是所谓的道琼斯工业平均指数。它不一定是股市最准确的度量标准,也不能将经济的强弱与道琼斯的表现直接联系起来。尽管如此,它显示了其个别参与公司股票价值的相对增长或下降。
The Dow was first established in 1896 by Charles Dow, then the editor of the Wall Street Journal, and the founder of the company that originally published that paper. The index measures the combined stock value of 30 publicly owned companies. It's not a true average, but a price-weighted total of one share of each of the 30 component stocks. The component companies that made up the Dow are generally understood to be among the strongest, most stable in the country.
道琼斯指数是由查尔斯·道最初于1896年创建的,当时他是《华尔街日报》的编辑,也是最初出版该报的公司的创始人。该指数衡量了30家公共公司的股票价值总和。它不是真正的平均数,而是每个30种成分股票的一股的加权总和。组成道琼斯指数的公司通常被认为是该国最强大、最稳定的公司之一。
When the Depression began in late 1929, Dow components, the apples and wal-marts of their day, included the radio corporation of America, or RCA, Sears Robuck, and the American Sugar Refining Company. By September 3rd of 1929, the Dow reached just over 382 points.
当大萧条在1929年晚期开始时,道琼斯指数的成分股,就像当时的苹果和沃尔玛,包括美国无线电公司(RCA)、希尔斯百货和美国糖业精炼公司。到了1929年9月3日,道琼斯指数达到了382点以上。
That figure's not significant today, even at its inflation adjusted equivalent of more than $5,500. Nevertheless, it was an all-time record. The stock market's growth seemed unstoppable.
那个数字今天并不重要,即使是通货膨胀调整为超过5500美元的等值物。尽管如此,这仍是有史以来的最高纪录。股市的增长似乎不可阻挡。
In September 1924, just five years earlier, the Dow had been worth only 100 points. In just half a decade, it had multiplied three and a half times. There were certainly skeptics of the stock market. One was Roger Babson.
在1924年的九月,仅仅过去了五年时间,道琼斯指数只有100点。可是,在短短的五年间,它却翻了三倍半。当然,股市也有自己的怀疑者,Roger Babson就是其中之一。
With the help of MIT Professor George Swain, Babson developed a market index of his own, based on his understanding of Newtonian physics. If every action had its equal and opposite reaction, then a long period of economic growth would surely be followed by an equally long period of economic decline.
在MIT教授George Swain的帮助下,巴布森基于他对牛顿物理学的理解,开发了自己的市场指数。如果每个行动都有其等大而相反的反作用力,那么长时间的经济增长一定会被同样长的经济衰退所紧随着。
Babson developed a market forecasting newsletter after a stock market crash in 1907. He built a fortune on the claim that these Babson reports, informed by the laws of gravity, could predict the stock market's performance.
1907年股市崩盘后,巴布森开发了一份市场预测通讯。他声称这些由重力定律所支持的巴布森报告可以预测股市的表现,并因此积累了一笔财富。
Two days after the Dow's record high in September 1929, Babson gave a speech in which he predicted that a crash was coming. And when it did, six weeks later, Babson and Cicidius proved his theories were sound. And Babson wasn't the only skeptic. Others simply struck more cautionary tones about investing.
在1929年9月道琼斯指数创纪录高位两天后,巴布森发表了一篇演讲,预测崩盘即将来临。六周后,崩盘真的发生了,而巴布森和希死地厘斯证明了他的理论是正确的。巴布森不是唯一一个持怀疑态度的人,其他人也更谨慎地提醒投资者。
In 1926, for example, a columnist named MS Rookaiser wrote of the risks to amateur speculators who hoped to profit from the rising stock market. Writing for colliers, Rookaiser sarcastically advised how to make money in Wall Street. The article led with a cartoon of a frazzled hair man labeled amateur, a drift in stormy waters above a dinghy named ignorance. A massive wave labeled Wall Street crested over the boat, threatening to drown the amateur.
例如,在1926年,一位专栏作家名叫MS Rookaiser写道,业余股票投机者希望从上涨的股市中获利的风险。Rookaiser为《煤矿工人》写作,讽刺地建议如何在华尔街赚钱。文章以一个被标记为业余的疲惫的头发男子的卡通画开始,在一个名为无知的小艇上漂浮在风暴中的水域上。一波被标记为华尔街的巨浪在船上形成,威胁着淹死业余人士。
Rookaiser's article was pressient, warning amateurs about the dangers of margin speculation, a force that promised huge returns for some, but was for most a costly charade. Lured by the promise of skyrocketing markets, many people who had never invested in securities were drawn to margin trading, borrowing money to make bigger stock purchase than he or she could actually afford. And banks and investment firms were all too eager to cater to these new borrowers.
Rookaiser 的文章很有先见之明,警告对于保证金投机的危险,对于大多数人来说,这是一个昂贵的骗局,虽然为某些人承诺了高额的回报。许多从未投资证券的人被承诺市场飙升所吸引,他们被吸引到保证金交易中,借钱购买更多的股票,超出了他或她实际负担得起的范围。银行和投资公司都非常愿意为这些新借款人服务。
Unsophisticated investors were hopeful. The stock market kept climbing, so they reasoned they'd be able to pay lenders back with the gains and still reap profits. And it wasn't just consumers who were borrowing too much. Traditional investors worked too. But what would they do if their stocks dropped, and were suddenly worth less than what they had borrowed? And what happened to lenders when borrowers couldn't pay back their loans? What happened when the loans themselves were worthless? America was about to find out.
不那么精通的投资者充满了希望。股市不断上涨,他们推论出他们可以用收益来偿还贷款并获得利润。不只是消费者借款过量,传统的投资者也一样。但是,如果他们的股票下跌了,突然变成了比借款少,他们该怎么办呢?当借款人无法偿还贷款时,贷方发生了什么?当贷款本身也没有价值时会怎样? 美国即将发现答案。
Hi, this is Mini Driver. I'd like to tell you about my new audio drama series, The Lessor Dead, available at free and exclusively on Wondrip Plus. I play Margaret McManus, the formidable leader of a small band of vampires, living below the streets of 1978 New York City.
嗨,我是米妮·德瑞弗。我想告诉你关于我的新音频剧系列《The Lessor Dead》,它可以在Wondrip Plus上免费独家观看。我在其中饰演玛格丽特·麦克马纳斯,一个小群体吸血鬼的强大领袖,他们生活在1978年的纽约市地下。
Jack Hill m'play is Arnorator, Joey Peacock, and a reverent, eternally young 19-year-old with some disciplined problems. You know, Joseph, there's nights I think you might be salvageable. And there's nights I'm convinced you're in Egypt right down to your bones. Can you guess which kind of item I have in now? I have one, I don't have one.
杰克·希尔的戏剧作品是由阿诺雷特、乔伊·皮科克和一个虔诚、永葆青春感觉的19岁年轻人组成的。他有些纪律性问题。你知道,约瑟夫,有些晚上我觉得你可能还可以挽救。有些晚上我却相信你就像埃及一样深陷其中,彻底无药可救。你能猜到我现在手头是哪一种东西吗?我有一个,我也没有一个。
Despite their differences, Margaret has managed to keep Joey and the rest of her unconventional family safe for decades, until one night when they find three little kid vampires, and Margaret's world is turned upside down forever. You can listen to The Lessor Dead, add free and exclusively on Wondrip Plus. Join Wondrip Plus in the Wondrip app or on Apple Podcasts.
尽管有所不同,玛格丽特一直成功地保护着乔伊和她那不寻常的家人安全数十年,直到有一天晚上他们发现三名小小的吸血鬼孩子,而玛格丽特的世界永远翻转。您可以免费在Wondrip Plus上收听《较低的亡灵》,该节目仅限Wondrip Plus会员。请在Wondrip应用程序或苹果播客中加入Wondrip Plus。
Meet Jill Evans. Jill's got it all. A big house, fast car, two kids and a great career. But Jill has a problem. When it comes to love, Jill can never seem to get things right. And then along comes Dean. I can't believe my luck. Whoa, I hit the jackpot. It looks like they're going to live happily ever after. But on Halloween night, things get a little gruesome. This is where the shooting happened outside a building society in New Romney. It's thought the 42-year-old victim was killed after he opened fire on police. And Jill's life is changed forever.
见到吉尔·埃文斯。吉尔拥有一切。一个大房子,快车,两个孩子和一个伟大的职业。但吉尔有一个问题。当涉及到爱情时,吉尔似乎永远无法做对事情。然后迪恩出现了。我简直不敢相信自己的运气。嘿,我中了大奖。看起来他们将会幸福地生活在一起。但万圣节晚上,事情变得有点可怕。这就是枪击事件发生在新罗姆尼的一家建筑社会外面的地方。据悉,这位42岁的受害者在向警察开火后被杀死。吉尔的生活永远改变了。
From Wondery and Novel comes Stolen Hearts. A story about a cop who falls in love with a man who is not all he seems to be. Follow Stolen Hearts wherever you get your podcasts. You could binge the entire series, add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app now.
从Wondery和Novel推出了《偷走的心》。这是一个关于一名警察爱上一个并不如表面所示的男人的故事。在任何你获取播客的平台上追随《偷走的心》。你可以在Amazon Music上畅听整个系列,并且没有广告。现在下载Amazon Music应用程序。
It's the evening shift at the diner you own on East Main Street in Spartansburg, South Carolina. You've just come back from your siesta. Even though your hair is just Greek, you like to use the Spanish word for the long afternoon breaks you take each day.
你拥有位于南卡罗来纳州斯巴坦堡东主街的餐厅,现在是晚班。你刚刚从午睡回来。尽管你的头发是希腊的,但你喜欢用西班牙语来形容每天的长午休息时间。
You love this shift. When you're back in the restaurant and don't have to rush through breakfast orders, you can sit and talk with the customers in the evening. Lately, that talk's been all about the stock market.
你喜欢这种变化。当你回到餐厅时,不必匆忙处理早餐订单,可以在晚上陪顾客聊天。最近,这些谈话都是关于股市的。
One of your regulars, Henry, has been peppering you with stock tips all month. "Hey George, you hear what happened on Wall Street today? What now, Henry? It went crazy. They traded more than 12 million shares. I heard the panic wiped out 5 billion, billion with a B, 5 billion dollars. Thought about pulling out myself before I lost everything. But my broker told me that Richard Whitney himself spent millions on all the big stocks."
你们的常客亨利已经在整个月里一直给你们推销股票。他说:“喂,乔治,你听说了华尔街今天发生了什么事吗?现在怎么办?它疯了。他们交易了超过1200万股。据说恐慌已经摧毁了50亿,用B来计算,50亿美元。我在失去一切之前考虑撤资。但是我的经纪人告诉我,理查德·惠特尼本人在所有大股票上投入了数百万美元。”
Henry's the one who told you about margins. It's a little annoying how confident he gets, because he doesn't seem like he's that much better off than anyone else in this small southern town. But then again, you realize that if he's as successful as he claims, he must be doing something right.
亨利是告诉你关于利润的那个人。他总是充满自信,有时候会让人有点烦,因为他似乎并没有比这个南方小镇的其他人更好多少。但是反过来想,如果他真的像他说的那样成功,那么肯定是因为他做了一些正确的事情。
Maybe if you hold on just a bit longer, you'll make enough money to pay off your loans here at the restaurant. You glance at a gleaming new cash register you just bought. "See, I'm not worried. I know what Babson said, but some economics professor from Yale says it's just a temporary hiccup.". I heard that JP Morgan himself had a meeting with other bankers to try and figure out how they could help. So it looks like it's under control. These bankers on Wall Street, you know, they have a lot more skin in the game than we do. They're not going to allow a crash like back in Oven 7. But you're not so certain.
也许如果你再坚持一点时间,就能赚到足够的钱来偿还你在这家餐馆的贷款了。你瞥了一眼刚刚买的闪闪发光的新款收银机。“看,我不担心。我知道Babson说了什么,但是来自耶鲁大学的一位经济学教授说这只是暂时的波动。”我听说JP摩根本人与其他银行家开了个会议,试图弄清楚他们如何帮忙。所以看起来这一切都在控制之中。你知道,这些华尔街的银行家比我们有更多的利益在游戏中。他们不会允许像在烤箱7号那样的崩盘发生。但你并不那么确定。
George, it's Tony. It's your broker. You hear the news? I'm calling because you have to cover your margin. Well, don't you want to say hello before you ask me for money? I don't have time for that. I've got 12 other clients. I got a call. Wall Street isn't a spin. Your RCA is not worth anything now. You got to cover what you took out.
George,我是 Tony。我是你的经纪人。你听到新闻了吗?我打电话是因为你需要填补保证金。嗯,你不想在向我要钱之前先问声好吗?我没有时间做那些事情。我还有其他 12 个客户。我接到了一个电话。华尔街不是游戏。你的 RCA 现在一文不值。你必须填补你取出的金额。
Tony keeps chattering. You've set the earpiece on the counter. Half listening. You turn around and start drilling a burger for Henry. And so that means what you owe now is about $1,000. Your attention snaps back to the phone. You drop the spatula. Wait, $1,000? I don't have that sort of cash? Well, find it. Look, I'm not trying to squeeze you. But the bank's squeezing me. But I spent it. Besides, I thought you said RCA was going through the roof. You said through the roof. I thought you said I could use that profit to buy more GE stock and still cover my margin. I have debts here, Tony. What do you mean, I owe more?
托尼一直在喋喋不休。你把耳机放在柜台上,半听不听地。你转过身开始给亨利煮汉堡,这意味着你现在欠一千美元。你的注意力转回手机,你掉了铲子。等等,一千美元?我没有那么多现金啊?好,找到它。听着,我不是在逼你,但银行在逼我的人。但我已经花了它。再说,我还以为你说 RCA 股票正在飙升,你说股票要飙升。我还以为你说我可以用那笔利润买更多的 GE 股票,仍然能够覆盖我的保证金。我这里有债务,托尼。你说我欠更多是什么意思?
You look at the light fixtures, you just hung. The shiny new countertop. The fancy phone in your hand. How could you have been so dumb? And how could it have all changed so quickly? It was just last month when your RCA stock was worth $100 bucks a share. You're still bickering with your broker when you start to smell something. It's Henry's burger, burning.
你看着你刚挂上的灯具,闪闪发光的新台面,手中的华丽手机。你怎么会那么愚蠢呢?而且一切都变化得那么快?就在上个月,你的RCA股票价值还值100美元。你仍在和你的经纪人争吵时,开始嗅到一些味道。那是亨利的汉堡烧焦了。
Listen, give me a few days or 48 hours something. I'll figure it out. 24 hours. You better figure it out. In December 1938, George Mojales spoke with an interviewer from the Federal Riders Project. The Greek American restaurant owner was one of thousands of Americans who would share detailed accounts of their lives to interviewers sent throughout the United States to write about life in the country during the worst economic crisis the world had ever seen.
听着,给我几天或48小时时间,我会解决的。24小时倒计时,你最好想清楚。1938年12月,乔治·莫哈利斯与联邦骑手项目的一名采访者交谈。这位希腊裔美国餐馆老板是成千上万美国人之一,他们向被派往全美写关于这个世界所见过的最严重的经济危机期间的国家生活的采访员分享了他们生活的详细账目。
The Federal Riders Project was just one of the Federal programs that President Roosevelt would later put in place to try to get the country's economy back on track. Among other subjects, it documented the heartbreak of millions of ordinary Americans, like George Mojales, who gambled on the optimism of a surging stock market despite their better judgment.
联邦骑手计划仅仅是罗斯福总统后来实施的试图重振国家经济的众多联邦计划之一。它记录了数百万普通美国人心碎的故事,比如乔治·莫哈利斯,他们尽管明知不可,但仍押注于繁荣的股票市场的乐观情绪。
As late as the fall of 1929, few cared to hear about the unpaid debts from the war, consumer borrowing that went unchecked, deflating commodities prices, or the fact that cars and dishwashers weren't selling quite as fast that they had earlier in the 20s. None of the new investors chasing the heady promises of wealth and glamour seemed eager to slow down as they drew further and further from margin accounts. Certainly, no one stopped to ask whether banks could guarantee their deposits. Indeed, some were still celebrating the high times of the 20s even as the economy faltered.
直到1929年秋季,很少有人关心战争中的未偿债务、不受检查的消费者借贷、商品价格下跌以及汽车和洗碗机销售速度不如20年代初期的情况。追逐富裕与魅力承诺的新投资者中没有人愿意放慢脚步,他们越来越远离保证金账户。当然,没有人停下来问银行是否能够保证他们的存款安全。事实上,就连一些人还在庆祝20年代的繁荣,即使经济情况恶化也没有改变。
The press heralded America's business achievements, and the business class continued to vault investment, industry, and the theory as Time Magazine put it that America's greatest achievement had been business. In 1929, as today, the place to do business in America was the New York Stock Exchange.
媒体赞扬美国的商业成就,商业阶层继续在投资、产业和理论方面飞跃,正如时代杂志所说,美国最伟大的成就就是商业。1929年,就像今天一样,美国做生意的地方是纽约证券交易所。
A truly American institution, the exchange had been founded only five years after the ratification of the US Constitution. By the roaring 20s, the exchange felt untouchable, as did the large banking houses who did business there. Many of the bankers behind these institutions were eager to stoke broad public enthusiasm in investing and spread the idea that anyone could make it on Wall Street.
交易所是一个真正的美国机构,成立于美国宪法批准后仅五年。到了繁华的20年代,交易所感觉自己无法触及,所做生意的大银行也是如此。这些机构背后的许多银行家都热衷于激起广泛的公众投资热情,并传播任何人都可以在华尔街成功的观念。
Perhaps none was more eager to tout the illusion than Charles Mitchell, chairman of the National City Bank, a company that would evolve later into today's city group. Mitchell grew up in Massachusetts and attended Amherst College. After school, he moved to Chicago and worked for an electrical supply company for a few years. In the early 1900s, he became interested in finance and moved to New York.
或许没有人比 Charles Mitchell 更渴望宣扬这种错觉了。他是美国国民银行的主席,该公司后来演变成了今天的花旗集团。Mitchell在马萨诸塞州长大,并在艾默斯特学院学习。毕业后,他搬到了芝加哥,并在一家电力供应公司工作了几年。在20世纪初,他对金融产生了兴趣,于是搬到了纽约。
Mitchell opened his first investment house in 1911. Five years later, National City hired him as vice president. There, Mitchell developed a new income stream for the bank, selling stocks and other securities to middle-class people. In 1921, National City elected Mitchell as its president.
米切尔在1911年开了他的第一家投资公司。五年后,国民城市银行聘请他担任副总裁。在那里,米切尔为银行开发了一种新的收入来源,向中产阶级出售股票和其他证券。1921年,国民城市选举米切尔担任总裁。
Over the next eight years, he further popularized the ideas of stocks as a mass market product. Before that, National City primarily focused on large companies. But now, everyday America's and indeed the world's thirst for easy money from securities meant easy profits for National City Bank.
在接下来的八年中,他进一步将股票作为大众市场产品的想法普及开来。在此之前,美国全国城市银行主要关注大型企业。但现在,普通美国人和全世界都渴望从证券中轻松获得金钱,这意味着美国全国城市银行可以轻松获利。
Mitchell and his colleagues on Wall Street ignored the Federal Reserve's warnings earlier in 1929 that they should rein in lending to investors. The Fed was wary of a repeat of the panic of 1907 when the New York Stock Exchange fell to half what it was the previous year. But rather than adhere to the warnings, Mitchell, through National City, offered 25 million more to seduce margin investors.
Mitchell 和他在华尔街的同事们在 1929 年早期无视了联邦储备银行的警告,他们应该收紧对投资者的贷款。联邦储备银行担心会再次出现 1907 年的恐慌,那时纽约证券交易所的股票价值跌了一半。但是,Mitchell 通过国家城市银行没有遵守警告,反而提供了额外的 2500 万美元来吸引保证金投资者。
Also enticing the public were so-called bucket shops where instead of actually buying a stock, investors essentially placed bets on a particular stock's performance. At the time, they were largely unregulated and a magnet for unscrupulous characters and people looking to make a fast profit. At the same time, pools of well-informed investors were taking advantage of newcomers by talking up certain stocks beyond what they were worth.
还吸引公众的是所谓的"桶子铺",投资者在这里并非真正购买股票,而是本质上在为某个股票的表现打赌。当时,这种做法基本上没有监管,吸引了不良分子和想赚快钱的人们。与此同时,由高情报的投资者组成的池子正在通过夸大某些股票的价值来占新手的便宜。
The chatter would drive the price of these stocks up, luring in more marks as the pools pulled out and sold off their shares. The stocks value would of course plunge and novice investors were left with holdings they couldn't unload for a fraction of what they paid for them. Signs of trouble on the market grew gradually after its peak in early September. By the second to last week of October, mentions of a frightened market began appearing in newspapers, but these brief scares were coupled with optimistic recoveries.
聊天会将这些股票的价格推高,吸引更多投资者涌入,而池塘会抛售他们的股份。而股票的价值当然会暴跌,新手投资者被留下持有他们无法以极低价卖掉的股票。自九月初市场达到顶峰以来,市场的麻烦迹象逐渐增多。到十月倒数第二周,报纸上开始出现市场恐慌的报道,但这些短暂的惊吓也伴随着乐观的复苏。
During one of these small panics, Mitchell demonstrated his influence as New York Times reporter said at the time by halting the slide merely by declaring that the decline had gone too far. It worked, but the result was fleeting. In the same piece, the Times also referred to Babson, who continued to urge investors to sell stocks as he had six weeks earlier when predicting that a crash was on its way.
在其中一次小恐慌期间,米切尔展示了他作为《纽约时报》记者的影响力,当时他只是宣布股市跌势已经过了头就让其下跌趋势暂停了下来。这种方法起了效果,但结果只是短暂的。在同一篇文章中,时报还提到了巴布森,他在六周前预测股市将要崩盘时就继续敦促投资者出售股票。
Babson wasn't the only one fearful of more losses. Investors worked too. And as they sold, prices fell yet further and the cycle repeated. On October 24, a Thursday, investors panicked again. Lenders started calling in the loans they made to margin investors. In turn, these investors sold whatever they could, hopefully fast enough to afford to pay back their loans. Prices plummeted as borrowers raced to take whatever value they could from the market.
巴布森不是唯一一个害怕失去更多的人。投资者也很害怕。因此,当他们卖出股票时,股价不断下跌,循环反复。10月24日星期四,投资者再次丧失信心。贷款人开始追缴给杠杆投资者的贷款。随之而来,这些投资者尽可能快地卖出他们的股票,希望足够快以支付回贷款。借款人争相从市场上取得任何价值,导致股价暴跌。
This sell off only spooked more buyers and the effects cascaded as everyone lost the value they counted upon. Then, at 1.30 in the afternoon, it looked like the crisis might be over. That's when Richard Whitney strode onto the exchange floor. Whitney was a broker at the famed trading house JP Morgan and the vice president of the New York Stock Exchange.
这次抛售仅仅吓着更多的买家,效应像排瀑布一样逐渐加剧,每个人都失去了他们所依赖的价值。然后,在下午1点30分,情况似乎已经好转了。就在那时,理查德·惠特尼踏上了交易所的交易场地。惠特尼是著名交易公司JP摩根的经纪人,也是纽约证券交易所的副总裁。
Eager to demonstrate confidence in the exchange and the company's trading on its floor, Whitney loudly proclaimed that he would buy 25,000 shares of US Steel at $205 per share. That commitment of more than $5 million, more than $74 million today, was matched by other and also overpriced offers for stocks. The gambit worked.
急于展示对交易和公司在交易所的交易的信心,惠特尼大声宣称他将以每股205美元的价格买入2.5万股美国钢铁公司股票。这承诺超过了500万美元的资金,相当于今天的7400万美元,并与其他价格过高的股票报价匹配。这个策略奏效了。
By pumping millions into the stock exchange that afternoon, Whitney was able to temporarily staunch the exchange's losses. He was a market hero, but his reputation wouldn't hold for long. The record-breaking pace of trading kept Wall Street denizens in their offices for days on end as they frantically settled accounts.
那个下午,惠特尼通过向股票交易所注入数百万美元的资金,成功暂时制止了交易所的亏损。他成为了市场英雄,但他的声誉并不会持续太久。交易速度创下记录,华尔街的人们连续数日只能在办公室里疯狂地清理账目。
At the time, trades were recorded by hand on pieces of paper, so it was a mammoth undertaking to process the millions of trades that had taken place. Compounding the problem, traders had to wait hours to complete transactions as stock tickers struggled to keep up with the high volume of trading.
当时,交易是手工记录在纸张上的,因此要处理已发生的数百万笔交易是一项巨大的工作。加剧这个问题的是,交易员必须等待数小时才能完成交易,因为股票报价器无法跟上高密度的交易量。
These tickers were the narrow printouts of modified telegraph machines. Revolutionary upgrades when they were introduced in the 19th century, stock tickers enabled investors in far-flung corners of the US to participate in New York stock markets, transmitting nearly 300 characters per second. As soon as trades were recorded, stock prices and trade volumes shot over telegraph cables to be printed out on narrow bands of white tape at banks, investment houses, and newspapers across the country.
这些股票标语是改良版电报机的窄印出物。它们在19世纪问世时革命性升级,使得遍布美国各地的投资者能够参与纽约股票市场,每秒传输近300个字符。一旦交易记录下来,股票价格和交易量就通过电报电缆迅速传输,并且在全国各地的银行、投资公司和报纸上印出窄带的白色纸带上。
But the unprecedented millions of shares changing hands on Thursday, October 24, 1929 delayed the ticker by nearly four hours. By the weekend, the streets were littered with bits of ticker tape and discarded trading slips. The market played catch-up all weekend.
但是,1929年10月24日星期四,有史以来最多的股份交易导致股市交易停摆了近4个小时。周末时,街道上到处都是股票跳动的碎纸条和被丢弃的交易单据。整个周末市场都在追赶。
Newspaper accounts of the time detail how New York's financial district, normally pretty quiet on Sundays, was a buzz as messengers ran about, restaurants remained open beyond their normal hours, and traders skipped trips to the golf course. There were even sightseeing buses making special trips to Wall Street to witness all the activity.
那个时期的报纸记载了,纽约的金融区周日通常很安静,但那天忙碌异常,信使四处奔走,餐厅延长了营业时间,交易员取消了去高尔夫球场的行程。甚至还有观光巴士专门前往华尔街,目睹所有的繁忙活动。
Compared to the previous few trading days, the next Monday was calm, but then, on the morning of Tuesday, the 29th, more than 16 million shares changed hands at the New York Stock Exchange. This new record trading volume wouldn't be broken for another four decades. And it wasn't just an immense number of shares moving from one set of investors to another. As panic stockholders sold shares, the stocks dropped in value, triggering a downward spiral across the market. The day would become known as Black Tuesday. My market's closed, investors had lost tens of billions of dollars.
与前几个交易日相比,接下来的星期一比较平静,但是在29号星期二早上,纽约证券交易所交易量超过了1600万股。这一创纪录的交易量在接下来的四十年里都没有被超过。而且,这不仅仅是一大批股票从一个投资人手中流动到另一个投资人手中。由于惊慌的股东纷纷抛售股票,股票价值下跌,引发了市场的恶性循环。那一天会被称为黑色星期二。我的市场关闭了,投资者损失了数百亿美元。
Trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange was dizzying enough, but if you were an investor in a distant city, keeping track of this activity was next to impossible. Again, the ticker fell behind the massive volume, running as far back as two and a half hours, and again, brokers and traders had to work into the wee hours to settle their transactions. Indeed, the record volume was probably underestimated. Many trades, likely were never recorded, lost in the trading floors chaos, or forgotten as exhausted traders fell asleep in bank lobbies, spilling trading slips from their over-stuff pockets.
在纽约证券交易所的交易楼,交易本身已经让人眼花缭乱了,但如果你是一个远在他乡的投资者,追踪这些活动几乎是不可能的。此外,股票价格机也落后了庞大的交易量,差距多达两个半小时。再次,经纪人和交易员必须熬夜来完成其交易。实际上,记录的交易量可能被低估了。许多交易可能从未被记录,因为它们在交易楼的混乱中丢失,或因为疲惫的交易员在银行大厅睡着,撒落了装满交易单的口袋。
Confusion reigned on Black Tuesday. While the frantic trading progressed, many on Wall Street waited and wondered whether big shots like Mitchell or Whitney would come back out and halt trading, or make some other reassuring statement. And Mitchell was one of those who made a show he purchased during the panic. He tried to help settle the crisis by buying between 30 and 35,000 shares of stock in his own bank, even though it was worth less than he paid for it. But unlike the previous Thursday, when bankers also made large purchases of stock, the rest of the market wasn't reassured. The panic continued, and trading on the New York Stock Exchange was suspended the next afternoon and closed for the rest of the week.
黑色星期二降临,人们陷入了困惑。在狂乱的交易进程中,华尔街的许多人都在等待和思考,是否会有像米切尔或惠特尼这样的大佬重新出现并暂停交易,或是做出些其他令人放心的声明。而米切尔就是那些在恐慌中表现出来的人之一。他试图通过购买自己银行的股票来帮助解决危机,买入量在30至35,000股之间,尽管其价值低于购买价格。但不像上个星期四,当银行家也大量购买股票时,市场的其他部分并没有感到放心。恐慌继续蔓延,纽约证券交易所的交易在第二天下午被暂停,并于整个星期关闭。
Years later, Mitchell's attempt at stabilizing the market would come under Senate scrutiny, but at the moment, Wall Street was in a days. A sense of shock pervaded the financial district. It was as if a bomb had detonated, but the worst was yet to come.
多年之后,米切尔试图稳定市场的企图将受到参议院审查,但此时此刻,华尔街却处于一种混乱状态。一种震惊的情绪笼罩着金融区。就像一颗炸弹爆炸了一样,但最糟糕的情况还未到来。
As the market crashed on Black Tuesday, reports of pandemonium in New York and beyond spread. Stories hit front pages about investors drowning themselves in the Hudson River, shooting themselves in Kansas City Country Clubs, and dying of heart attacks as they watched their investment shrink. Vivid scenes of despair at plunging stock prices were actually less common than dramatic news reports made them seem. Popular legends of Black Tuesday involving washed out investors, leaving from buildings or stepping in front of speeding packets on Wall Street were widely exaggerated. These rumors might have even contribute to the panic as investors sold, worrying they'd end up just as despondent, but they were mostly just rumors.
当市场在黑色星期二崩溃时,有关纽约和其他地方的混乱情况的报道传开。有报道称投资者在哈德逊河里溺死,或在堪萨斯市乡村俱乐部用枪自杀,以及看着他们的投资缩水而死于心脏病的故事登上了头版。股票价格暴跌导致绝望场景的生动表现实际上比戏剧性的新闻报道所显示的要少得多。有关洗劫投资者的流传的传说,他们从楼上跳下或者在华尔街快车前面投身死亡,在黑色星期二广为夸张。这些谣言可能会增加投资者的恐慌情绪,导致他们出售资产,以免自己沮丧不堪,但它们多半只是谣言。
But away from Wall Street, real despondency grew and suicide rates climbed. Fewer people killed themselves in the months right after the crash than in the months preceding it, but by 1932, well into the Great Depression, the suicide rate in the USA grown by more than one-third from where it had been four years prior. But at the end of October, 1929, the crash's worst reverberations were still to be felt.
然而,远离华尔街,真正的失落情绪开始蔓延,自杀率不断攀升。在股市崩盘之后的前几个月里,自杀人数比之前减少了,但到了1932年,大萧条进入全面爆发,美国的自杀率比4年前增长了逾三分之一。但是在1929年10月底,崩盘最严重的冲击仍未袭来。
In Chicago, the writer Studs Turkel was growing up at the Wells Grand, the small hotel his mother ran. Turkel would later become one of the chief chroniclers of depression era experiences. In his introduction to the book Hard Times, he reflected that the Wells Grand's 50 rooms had always been occupied through the 20s, and there was always a long waiting list of vacancies arose, but all that changed with the depression. He wrote, as for the crash itself, there's nothing I personally remember, other than the gradual, at first hardly noticeable, diminishing in the roster of our guests. It was as though they were carted away, unprotesting and unseen. At the entrance, we posted a placard, vacancy.
在芝加哥,作家斯塔兹·托克尔(Studs Turkel)在阿韦尼纳大街的威尔斯大酒店(Wells Grand)中长大,这家小旅馆是他母亲经营的。托克尔后来成为大萧条时期经验的主要史学记者之一。在他为《艰难时期》(Hard Times)一书写的序言中,他回顾说,20世纪20年代威尔斯大酒店的50个房间始终被占用,而且总是有一个很长的等待名单,但在大萧条时期一切都改变了。他写道,“至于那次崩盘本身,我个人没有什么记忆,除了我们客人名单逐渐减少,最初几乎察觉不到。就像他们被无声无息地运走了一样,毫不抗议,毫不声张。”在入口处,我们放了一个牌子,“空房”。
As the economic crisis worsened, opportunities dwindled across the US, and living condition worsened for millions of Americans. Out of workmen began wandering the country by boxcar in search of any opportunity they could find, sometimes stealing food. Conditions were dire, hoped dimmed, the numbers of the newly laid off and homeless grew, and for many, the only remaining semblance of society was the one they built themselves from scrap.
由于经济危机恶化,美国的机会越来越少,数百万美国人的生活条件也恶化。许多失业人员开始在火车货车上漫游全国,寻找任何可以找到的机会,有时偷窃食物。情况十分严峻,希望渺茫,新失业和无家可归人员的人数增加,对许多人来说,仅剩下的社会样貌就是他们从废品中建立的社会。
It's a chilly mid-November night in 1930. Flames lick the sky above a dirt lot next to Lake Michigan. As cold as the night is, the fire provides no warmth.
1930年11月中旬的一个寒冷的夜晚,密歇根湖旁边的一片土地上天空中燃起了火焰。尽管夜晚很冷,但火焰却没有带来一丝温暖。
Two days ago, the Chicago Tribune named this place Hooverville. It's a dense clump of makeshift shacks, but it's the safest home you've had in this horrible year. You came to Hooverville after the factory you worked at shut down this summer.
两天前,芝加哥论坛报称这个地方为胡佛村。它是一片密集的临时小屋,但这是你在这个可怕的一年里最安全的住所。你是在这个工厂今年夏天关闭后来到胡佛村的。
This is no simple encampment of tents dispersed, woolly nilly. You have real streets here, even have their own names like Hard Times Avenue and Prosperity Road. But there's a real city just outside of Hooverville, and its police are trying to evict you and your neighbors.
这里不是简单的帐篷分散而无序的营地。这里真正有街道,甚至有自己的名字,如“艰难路”和“繁荣路”。但在胡弗维尔营地外面有一座真正的城市,它的警察试图驱逐你和你的邻居。
It's clear that Big Bill Thompson, Chicago's mayor, was embarrassed by the recent story in the Tribune. Watching workmen take a sledgehammer to your shanty, turns your neighbor Joe disgusted. How can they do this? It's obscene. We weren't hurting nobody. Look, they're headed for the mayor's house now.
显然,芝加哥市长比尔·汤普森对《论坛报》最近的报道感到很尴尬。看着工人们用大锤敲掉你的简陋房屋,会让你的邻居乔感到恶心。他们怎么能这样做呢?太可耻了。我们没有伤害任何人。看,他们现在正朝市长的家走去。
In your peripheral vision, you notice the mayor. No, not Thompson that crook. It's Donovan, Mike Donovan, your mayor. He might be a disabled railbreakman, but at least Donovan isn't buddies with gangsters like Capone the way Thompson is. Donovan's all for the little guys here in Hooverville. That's why everyone agreed to make him mayor. When you were down on your luck, Donovan welcomed you right in.
你的周围视线里,你注意到了市长。不,不是骗子汤普森。他是唐纳文,迈克·唐纳文,你的市长。他可能是一个残疾铁路工人,但至少唐纳文不像汤普森那样和黑手党成为朋友。唐纳文全力支持胡佛村里的小人物。这就是为什么每个人都同意让他做市长。当你遭遇挫折时,唐纳文会欢迎你进入他的队伍。
But now, Donovan's blue eyes stare unblinkingly at a tractor, approaching the corner of Prosperity Road and Easy Street. It pauses for a moment, but then knocks down the house Donovan built from discarded wood, ironing brick, he scavenged on the lot. The mayor grits his teeth. Fire like glints off the wetness, pooling his eyes.
现在,多诺万的蓝色眼睛毫不动摇地盯着一台拖拉机,接近繁荣路和易街的拐角处。它停了一会儿,但然后撞倒了多诺万用废弃木材和搜集田地上的砖块建造的房子。市长咬紧牙关,眼睛汇聚着潮湿的光芒。火花在湿润的地面上跳跃,充满他的眼眶。
Joe shouted them. Shouldn't be doing this. You guys could be next. As Joe yells, a police officer turns around and shouts at him to get back. Joe spits. I'm no bomb. I'm just a working man. This is our home. We built it ourselves. It matters to us. We matter.
乔大喊着说:“不应该这样做,你们可能是下一个。” 一位警察转过头来对他喊道,让他退后。乔吐了口唾沫,说:“我不是炸弹,我只是一个劳动者。这是我们的家,是我们亲手建造的。这对我们很重要,我们也很重要。”
What a long year it's been. The market crashed. Then you lost your job at the factory. Then soon you're home. You put your hand on Donovan's shoulder. You did everything you could, Mayor. You made this place happen. Together we can build it again. Trust us. We've got your back.
这一年真是漫长啊。市场崩溃了,然后你在工厂里失去了工作。很快你回到了家。你把手放在唐纳文的肩膀上。市长,你已经尽力了。你让这个地方发生了变化。我们可以一起建设它,相信我们吧。我们会一直支持你。
Within a few weeks of Black Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly half its value from its high point in early September, 1929. After a short limited recovery into April 1930, it retreated again. The Dow would continue to shrink through July 1932, when it would fall to just a fifth of what it had been worth before the depression began.
在“黑色星期二”发生几周后,道琼斯工业平均指数从1929年9月初的高点下跌了近一半。之后在1930年4月进行了短暂的有限恢复,但很快又回落。道琼斯指数将继续下降,直至1932年7月跌至大萧条前的五分之一。
And barely a year had passed from the stock market crash before shanty towns popped up around the United States. In mid-November 1930, the Chicago Tribune called one such community near Lake Michigan, Hooverville, a direct knock against current president Herbert Hoover, whose policy had failed to reverse the economic slide.
股市崩盘没过一年,美国各地就出现了棚户区。1930年11月中旬,《芝加哥论坛报》称位于密歇根湖附近的一个社区为"胡佛镇",直接打击当时的总统赫伯特·胡佛,他的政策未能扭转经济下滑。
Newspapers around the country reprinted the article. On a plot of publicly owned land at the foot of Randolph Street, just next to Grant Park, within sight of Chicago Skyline, the Hooverville sprang up, as one newspaper described it, like one of those mushroom mining towns on the bananza days of the far west.
全国各地的报纸转载了这篇文章。在兰多夫街脚下的一块公有土地上,就在格兰特公园旁边,可以看到芝加哥天际线,出现了“胡佛庄园”,正如一家报纸所描述的那样,它像西部黄金繁荣时期的一座蘑菇矿镇一样涌现出来。
Desperate residents built their homes from discarded building materials, but a mere three days after the site made headlines in the Tribune and elsewhere, Chicago police condemned Hooverville and moved into tear it down. Municipal work crews first destroyed Hooverville's buildings with a tractor, then dismantled by hand, and then eventually burned whatever was left.
绝望的居民用被废弃的建筑材料建造了他们的家园,然而在《论坛报》和其他媒体报道这个地方仅仅三天之后,芝加哥警方宣布这个露宿者营地不再安全,并进入拆除它。市政工作队先用拖拉机摧毁了露宿者营地的建筑,然后再逐个拆除,最终把剩余的东西烧掉了。
The political implications of Hooverville's were enormous, especially considering Hoover's 1928 campaign promise that poverty was on its way out the door. President Hoover had entered office promising chickens in every pot, and the final eradication of poverty. But within a year of his inauguration, his name was a political joke. The worst stock market crash in history had happened under Hoover's watch.
胡佛镇的政治意义巨大,特别是考虑到胡佛在1928年竞选承诺贫困即将远离的事实。胡佛总统入主政府时承诺每家有鸡肉吃,并最终消除贫困。但就在他就职一年内,他的名字已成为政治笑话。历史上最严重的股市崩盘发生在胡佛执政期间。
People were losing their jobs at frightening rates. By the time he ran for re-election in 1932, a quarter of the country was unemployed. The figure was even higher in some demographics, half of all African-Americans lacked jobs. Before the market crashed, Cotton had been selling for about 18 cents a pound. Four years later, it cost just six. The South's most important crop was only worth a third of what it had been before the Depression. Other commodities like wheat and steel also lost value.
人们以令人惊恐的速度失去了工作。到1932年,当他参加连任竞选时,全国四分之一的人失业了。在某些人口统计数据中,失业率甚至更高,一半以上的非裔美国人没有工作。在市场崩溃之前,棉花的售价约为18美分一磅。四年后,它只卖了6美分。南方最重要的作物的价值仅为大萧条之前的三分之一。其他商品如小麦和钢铁也贬值了。
The American economy had been in trouble well before Wall Street noticed, and it seems Hoover and his secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, hadn't been paying attention either.
美国经济在华尔街察觉之前就已经陷入了困境,看来胡佛和他的财政部长安德鲁•梅隆也没有留心。
Andrew Mellon had held the position as head of the Treasury since Warren Harding took office in 1921. Before then, Mellon had transformed his father's banking business into a financial and industrial empire, and he took his lessons from business into public office, becoming a standard bearer for the fiscally conservative, successfully pushing a series of tax cuts through Congress during the 1920s.
安德鲁·梅隆自1921年沃伦·哈定上任以来一直担任财政部长职务。在此之前,梅隆将其父亲的银行业务转型为金融和工业帝国,并将他在商业领域的经验带入公职中,成为财政保守派的代表人物,在1920年代成功地推动了一系列减税政策通过国会。
After the crash, Mellon's hands-off business first positions didn't change. Instead, he urged Hoover not to intervene in the crisis and opposed a variety of stimulus measures. He argued that a laissez-faire approach would prompt Americans to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and that enterprising citizens would lead the economy's recovery. This did not sit well with an increasingly disbanded American public, and by 1932, as Congress prepared impeachment proceedings against Mellon, he resigned, and was appointed by Hoover as the country's ambassador to Great Britain.
在股市崩盘后,梅隆并没有改变他的“手不插手”的商业立场。相反,他敦促胡佛不要介入危机,并反对各种刺激措施。他认为,自由放任的做法会促使美国人自力更生,有进取心的公民会领导经济的复苏。但这并没有得到日益疏远的美国公众的好评,到了1932年,当国会准备对梅隆提起弹劾时,他辞职,并被胡佛任命为美国驻英国大使。
It was a time to act, so Hoover took to a new set of protectionist trade measures, championed by Senator Reid Smut of Utah, and representative Willis C. Hawley of Oregon. The two had been pushing for higher foreign tariffs since before the stock market crashed, but now, after the crash, support for tariffs had grown, and the bill finally made it through Congress. But many economists and business leaders were against the measure, even Wall Street bankers such as J.P. Morgan's Thomas Lamont opposed it.
那是行动的时刻,于是胡佛采取了一套新的保护主义贸易措施,由犹他州参议员里德·斯穆特和俄勒冈州众议员威利斯·C·霍利推崇。两人自股市崩盘以前就一直在推动提高外国关税,但现在,在崩盘后,关税的支持度增加了,法案终于通过了国会。但许多经济学家和商业领袖反对这项措施,甚至沃尔街的银行家,如J·P·摩根的托马斯·拉蒙特都反对它。
Hoover pushed on anyway, though, and the Smut-Holly tariff act became law in the summer of 1930. By then, the entire world's economy was reeling in the wake of the 1929 crash. The new tariffs, though, only worsened the pain other countries felt, and so in retaliation, they enacted their own tariffs on U.S. goods, which in turn hit American businesses. And over the next four years, global trade fell, damaging the global economy and leaving even fewer markets open to American exporters.
虽然整个世界的经济在1929年的崩溃之后都在动荡中,但胡佛还是顽强地推进了"灰尘-荆棘关税法案",并于1930年夏天正式成为了法律。然而,这些新关税只加剧了其他国家的痛苦,因此它们采取了报复措施,对美国商品实行自己的关税,反过来又给美国企业带来了打击。接下来的四年中,全球贸易量下降,对全球经济造成了不利影响,甚至为美国出口商留下了更少的市场。
Consumers who lost money in the stock market crash drastically cut back on spending. Businesses collapsed, factories shut down, on employment skyrocketed. Americans couldn't pay the banks back for loans they'd taken out to buy stocks on margin, or for improvements to their businesses they made on credit. And meanwhile, with so many lenders in solvent, small banks that didn't have enough money coming in suddenly couldn't pay back their own creditors, or give customer deposits back. And so even those who hadn't played the market still lost money they thought was safe in their banks.
在股市崩盘中失去钱财的消费者大幅削减了消费。企业倒闭,工厂停产,失业人数激增。美国人无法偿还他们借出买股票或以信贷方式进行改善业务的贷款。同时,由于许多贷款人破产,没有足够资金的小银行突然无法偿还自己的债权人,也无法返还客户存款。因此,即使没有参与股市买卖的人也失去了他们认为存放在银行中的安全资金。
As the 1920s neared their end, the roar fell silent. But this was just the beginning. Millions of people would lose their homes as the depression worsened. More Hooverville would appear, and among these communities, a movement stirred that would put the country's veterans on a collision course with Washington DC and President Hoover.
随着1920年代的结束,嘈杂声渐渐消失了。然而,这只是开始。随着经济大萧条的恶化,数百万人将失去家园。越来越多的“胡佛市”出现了,而在这些社区中,一股运动正在酝酿,这将会把国家的退伍军人与华盛顿特区和胡佛总统对抗。
Next week on American history tellers, anger erupts around the United States as the depression sets in. On employment begins to tear the country's racial divides, and an explosive confrontation looms as thousands of World War One veterans march on Washington.
下周在《美国历史故事》节目中,随着经济萧条的到来,整个美国开始爆发怒气。失业低谷使种族之间的分歧日益加剧,并且爆发了一场轰轰烈烈的冲突,成千上万的一战老兵走向华盛顿。
From wondering, this is American history tellers. I hope you've enjoyed this episode.
我在想这里是《美国历史讲述者》。希望你们喜欢这一集。
If you're listening on a smartphone, tap or swipe over the cover art of this podcast. You'll find the episode notes, including some details you may have missed. And if you do like this show, one of the very best ways you can show your appreciation is to give us a five star rating and leave a review.
如果你在智能手机上听这个播客,请点击或滑动播客封面图。你会找到本集的详细介绍,包括某些你可能错过的细节。如果你真的喜欢这个节目,最好的表达方式就是给我们五星好评和留下评论。
American history tellers has hosted edited and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound designed by Derek Barons. This episode is written by Bill Lasher, edited by Dorian Marina, edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman, produced by George Lavender. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis, created by Hernan Lopez for Wondery.
这一集的《美国历史说明员》由我,林赛·格雷厄姆负责主持、编辑和制作。音效设计由德里克·巴伦斯负责。本集由比尔·拉舍撰写,多利安·马琳娜负责编辑,珍妮·劳尔·贝克曼负责编辑和制作,乔治·拉文德制片。我们的执行制片人是马歇尔·路易斯,该节目由波多黎各的赫尔南·洛佩斯创作并制作。