联邦预算与财政赤字
联邦政府每年都会发布各项服务和项目的预算。它的目的在于让加拿大人深入了解政府当前的重点事项、资金流向，以及可能被削减的开支。
英文原文
The federal government releases its budget for services and programs each year. It's meant to give Canadians insight into what the government is prioritizing, where it's spending money, and what it might be cutting.人们常将联邦预算比作家庭预算，表面上看，两者确实十分相似。你需要查看进来的钱——对政府来说就是税收收入——以及出去的钱——也就是在基础设施、医疗款项、公务员薪酬等方面的开支——并据此调整你的预算条目。
英文原文
People compare the federal budget to a household budget, and on the surface, it's much the same. You take a look at the money coming in-- if you're the government, that's tax revenue-- and the money going out-- that's spending on things like infrastructure, healthcare payments, staffing for public servants-- and you adjust your line items accordingly.如果是普通人，目标是量入为出，支出不应超过进账。但很多人都会超支，政府也是如此。我们背负信用卡债务，而政府工具箱里则有一种不同的工具：从债券市场借款。那是什么，又是如何运作的？让我们来解析政府债务。
英文原文
If you're a regular person, the goal is to stay within your means; don't spend more than you're bringing in. But a lot of people overspend, including the government. We carry credit card debt, but governments have a different tool in their box: borrowing from the bond market. What is that and how does it work? Let's unravel government debt.好的，我们刚才简要谈到了政府如何通过税收获取资金，并将其花在面向民众的服务上。当政府支出超过其收入时，就称为赤字。简单打个比方：你通过税收获得10亿美元收入，却支出了15亿美元，这时你就有了5亿美元的赤字——这就是收入与支出之间的差额。
英文原文
Okay, so, we talked a little about how governments take in money through taxes and they spend it on services for people. When governments spend more than they take in, it's called a deficit. Make it nice and simple: you bring in a billion dollars in taxes and you spend 1.5 billion dollars, now, you have a deficit of 500 million dollars-- the difference between revenues and spending.这些钱从哪里来？政府可以向我们加税，但增税是非常不受欢迎的做法。因此，通常各个政治派别的政府都会出现财政赤字，然后去借钱，让未来的政府去应对随着规模不断扩大的未来债务。所以，摆在面前的有两条路：削减服务，或者借钱。但作为政府，你不会走到当地的银行去申请贷款。加拿大政府借钱，是从那些著名的债券市场借入的。
英文原文
Where does that money come from? Governments, they could impose taxes on us, but raising taxes is very unpopular. So, governments, typically, of all political stripes, will run deficits and then borrow the money and let a future government deal with the future indebtedness as it becomes larger. So, there are two options, cut services or borrow money. But if you're a government, you're not going to a local bank and asking for a loan. The Government of Canada borrows money, and they borrow the money from those famous bond markets.债券市场十分庞大，规模极其宏大，因为大学在借贷，学院在借贷，医院在借贷，加拿大、美国以及欧洲各地的城市在借贷，联邦政府借贷，省政府借贷，市镇政府也在借贷。因此，债券市场上有着极其充裕的资金。
英文原文
The bond market is huge, it is just enormous because universities borrow, colleges borrow, hospitals borrow, cities across Canada and the United States and Europe borrow, federal governments borrow, provincial governments borrow, municipalities borrow. And so, there's a lot of money out there in the bond market.什么是债券？
SANGEETA：但什么是债券呢？
英文原文
SANGEETA: But what is a bond?大多数人认为，债券是一种债务。对政府而言，债券是负债；对拥有该债券的人而言，它是一项资产。这是一种向持有人提供固定利息支付的投资形式。市场上拥有可投资金的买家正在购买加拿大政府、安大略省政府、渥太华政府或多伦多政府的债务。
英文原文
Most people think, well, a bond is a debt. The bond is a debt to the government. It's an asset to the person that owns the bond. It's a type of investment that provides fixed interest payments to the holder. Buyers out there with money to invest are buying the debt of the Government of Canada, or the Government of Ontario, or the Government of Ottawa, or the Government of Toronto.如果我借给加拿大政府10,000美元，他们就会发行一份债务凭证，基本上就是一张借条。我们称之为加拿大政府债券。“我欠伊恩·李（Ian Lee）10,000美元。”任何人都可以购买这些债券——其他国家、企业、养老基金。他们甚至将它出售给其他政府，一些外国政府也会购买。中国政府可以购买加拿大政府债券。不仅联邦政府可以发债筹资，其他各级政府也可以。
英文原文
If I lend $10,000 to the Government of Canada, they issue a debt, which is basically an IOU. We call it a Government of Canada bond. "I owe Ian Lee $10,000." Anyone can buy these bonds-- other countries, corporations, pension funds. And they sell it even to other governments. Some other governments will buy. The Government of China can buy a Government of Canada bond. It's not just the federal government that can sell bonds to raise funds; other levels of government can too.那么，为什么人们会买这些债券？主权政府——加拿大、美国、德国、法国、英国——的主权债券，普遍被视作所有债务形式中最安全、最有保障的。这是因为政府债务有税收作为后盾，而政府随时可以通过增税来获取更多收入。对于寻求稳妥投资形式的投资者，无论规模大小，联邦政府债券都格外具有吸引力。
英文原文
So, why do people buy these bonds? Sovereign bonds of sovereign governments-- Canada, US, Germany, France, UK-- are generally seen as the safest and the most secure of any form of debt. That's because government debt is backed by taxes, which a government can always increase to gain more revenue. And federal government bonds are especially appealing to investors, big or small, who are looking for a guaranteed form of investment.政府发售债券来筹集现金，用于支付其预算中的开支，比如基础设施——桥梁、机场、港口、下水道、道路——以及其他有助于国民并促进经济增长的投资。
英文原文
A government sells bonds to raise cash that it can use to pay for things in its budget, like infrastructure-- bridges, airports, ports, sewers, roads-- other investments that are going to help its citizens and grow the economy.如果你是一个普通家庭，银行能贷给你的额度最终是有上限的，特别是当你把钱花在日用杂货等不具备持久价值的东西上时。但有了债券市场，听起来一个国家似乎可以一直借下去，只要有需要就随时去借，对吧？毕竟它们有税收作为担保。
英文原文
If you're a regular household, you'll eventually hit the limit of what a bank will loan you, especially if you're spending it on things that don't have lasting value, like groceries. But with the bond market, it sounds like a country can just keep going and borrow whenever it needs, right? Since they're backed by taxes.债券市场的约束与历史教训
债券市场并不是非买你的债券不可。他们可以说：“知道吗？我们不喜欢你们花钱的方式。我们认为你们正变得不可信用。”这就是1995年发生过的事情。当时的加拿大财政部长保罗·马丁（Paul Martin）前往华尔街这个全球最大的债券市场，并说：“你们看，我们还需要再借很多、很多、很多个十亿美元。”而债券市场对他说：“很遗憾，我们认为你们的财政政策是不可持续的，我们认为你们欠的钱太多了，我们认为你们正在推行的政策会加剧通胀，从而拉低并削弱我们手中债券的价值，因此我们不会再买你们的任何债券了。”
英文原文
The bond markets do not have to buy your bonds. They can say, "You know what? "We don't like the way you're spending. "We think you are becoming uncreditworthy." This is what happened in 1995. Paul Martin, the Finance Minister of Canada, went down to Wall Street, to the biggest bond market in the world, and said, "You know, we need to borrow "another many, many, many billions of dollars," and the bond markets told him, "I'm sorry, we think your fiscal policy is unsustainable, "we think you owe too much money, "we think you are practicing policies "that are going to enhance inflation, which will drive down "and reduce the value of our bonds, "so we are not buying any more bonds from you."加拿大政府以及总理克雷蒂安（Chrétien）说：“哦，这太糟糕了，这太糟糕了。因此，我们将进行一次大规模精简，”也是加拿大历史上规模最大的一次紧缩，并大体表示：“各位请看，我们正面临一场国家级危机，需要采取紧急措施——我们要全面削减开支。”这很痛苦，令人难以置信地痛苦。伴随着大量的苦难，而且通常低收入和中等收入群体受害最深，因为他们本身的资源就是最少的。如果你的国家真的遭遇危机、碰了壁，导致债券市场拒绝购买，就会发生这样的情况。
英文原文
The Government of Canada, and the Prime Minister, Chretien, said, "Oh, this is terrible, this is terrible. "So, we're going to have a major downsizing," and the largest downsizing in Canadian history, and basically said, "Look, everybody, "we have a national crisis "and it calls for emergency measures-- "we are going to cut spending across the board." It's painful. It's unbelievably painful. Lots of suffering and, typically, low-income and people of modest income people suffer the most because they have the least amount of resources in the first place. This is what happens if your country does hit the wall in a crisis where the bond markets refuse to buy.西方国家的政府常常在背负长期赤字。法国有长期赤字，意大利有，德国有，加拿大有，日本有，美国当然也有。许多人会想：“哦，好吧，就算我们有赤字又怎样？政府多的是钱。”但是，这总有一天会找上门来。
英文原文
Frequently, especially governments in Western countries are running chronic deficits. France runs chronic deficits, Italy does, Germany does, Canada does, Japan does, the US does certainly. And many people think, "Oh, well, you know, "so what if we run a deficit? "You know, government's got lots of money, you know," but it can catch up to you one day.借贷上限与未来风险
SANGEETA：那么，债券市场是如何判定一个国家何时不能再继续借钱的呢？
英文原文
SANGEETA: So, how do the bond markets decide when a country can't borrow anymore?嗯，他们会看一个国家的GDP。为什么看GDP？因为那是产生偿还债务所需资金的整个经济总体。你的国债增长速度不应当超过经济的增长速度。如果经济增长率是2%，那么你的债务增速就不应超过2%，因为这样经济产生的新收入和新增量才足以支撑起该赤字。
英文原文
Well, they look at a country's GDP. Why GDP? Because that's the totality of the economy that is generating the money to repay the debt. Your national debt should not be growing faster than the growth rate of the economy. If the growth rate of the economy is 2%, then you should not be growing your debt by more than 2%, because then the economy is generating new revenues and new growth sufficient to fund the deficit.那么加拿大目前的状况如何呢？据OECD数据，总政府债务——即该国各级政府的全部债务——大约占GDP的109.5%。呃，我想说目前为止还算过得去。这听起来可能不算太遭，听起来像是这个国家的支出只超出了我们承受能力的9%左右。但就像信用卡债务一样，一点点的积累随着时间推移会越变越大。你的负债越深，留给下一次危机的回旋余地就越小。
英文原文
So, how's Canada doing currently? According to the OECD, total government debt-- the debt of all levels of government in the country-- is about 109.5% of GDP. Uh, I'm going to say so far, so good. That might not sound so bad. It sounds like the country is spending just about 9% beyond our means. But just like credit card debt, a little bit grows over time. The deeper you go into debt, the less wiggle room you have for the next crisis.我所担忧的是，因为我们在短短四年内就让债务翻了一倍多，这个速度非常快，而且按百分比计算也翻倍了，而未来肯定还会出现另一场危机。转角处总是会有新的危机在等待着。今天是唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）和关税；四年前是新冠疫情；在那之前是一场经济衰退。总会有新的危机出现。因此，当我们非必要地推高赤字时，我们正在减少自身的灵活性与应对空间。