????本文共分兩部分。第一部分，通過分析金元與汽車輪胎之間的關系，簡要概述黃金——貨幣——信貸機制；第二部分，對該機制的問題進行大膽總結。整篇文章可被當做是專為外行管理人員提供的入門級文章，使他們對當時引發最激烈討論的經濟問題有一個初步的了解。

????在英格蘭銀行（Bank of England，位于英國倫敦市針線街）的地下金庫里，工人們正在往卡車上搬運黃金。某個國家購買了這批黃金，正在安排發貨。而在亨利?福特（位于美國密歇根州迪爾伯恩）的工廠里，工人們正在汽車底盤生產線上擰緊螺栓。不久之后，他們生產的汽車就將投放市場，開始銷售。4,000英里之外的金庫里，工人們每取走一塊金條，是否會改變亨利?福特的工人們所組裝的“汽車”的價值？如果是，影響又是如何產生的呢？而反過來，福特公司（Ford）的生產線每一輛新車下線，又是否會改變英格蘭銀行地下金庫中那些重量不差毫分的金條的價值？在本文中，《財富》雜志（Fortune）將用一個工作圖示，呈現關聯二者的機制。這種機制無比復雜，對這一機制的研究，肯定需要依靠大量的假設、趨勢、理論、模糊的概括和相互矛盾的解釋。而可悲的是，對于這一機制的性質、運行原理、存在的問題，以及在出現故障時如何糾正等問題上，負責監督這一機制的工程師們卻眾說紛紜。

????但有一點是可以確定的：世界上的商品首先要以商品出產國的貨幣進行定價。而文明國家紛紛將貨幣與黃金掛鉤（實際上，只有中國是個例外）。因此歸根結底，根據現行法律，黃金才是公認的計價貨幣，也就是說，世界上生產的任何東西，都可以用黃金來衡量它的價值。從原理來看，這一機制涉及：

????I. – 世界上實際存在大量的黃金。

????II. – 根據黃金供應發行的貨幣，它們擴大和促進了黃金的日常應用。

????III. – 信貸機制的建立，它超出了黃金兌貨幣比率的嚴格限制。

????貨幣與信貸背后的基本事實是：（1）按照當前的價格，世界上沒有充足的黃金可以滿足1,906,000,000人的日常使用；（2）即便有充足的黃金來滿足人們的日常使用需要，這種金屬也不便于流通。

????在這一機制的演化過程中，人們認定黃金可以作為一個有效的本位貨幣，并且存在一定的儲備，之后，人們所做的第一件事就是生產便利的黃金替代品——硬幣和紙幣——于是，黃金有了更便利的交易媒介，因此，它們便可以被存放在安全的地方。而隨著經濟的飛速發展，人們發現，即使最便利的紙幣也不夠充足，于是便產生了發行信貸的想法。給某人一張紙，然后告訴他這就代表黃金，這其中的關鍵是信心；信貸的擴張其實是信心的提高。因此，在最初研究福特公司的汽車與倫敦的黃金之間的關系時，我們發現在兩者的平衡關系中出現了一個模糊不清的因素——公眾信心，而隨著對這一機制的深入剖析，我們發現公眾信心的影響越來越大；最后，我們意識到，整個機制都需要以公眾信心為基礎進行運轉，大眾心理的重要性甚至可以與大量黃金相媲美。

????In two parts, hereunder. Part one, a free-hand sketch of the gold-money-credit machine which links gold dollars to doughnuts. Part two, bold summaries on what's said to be the matter with that mechanism. The whole, a primer designed to give the lay executive a running familiarity with the most bitterly discussed economic question of the day.

????In the vaults of the Bank of England (Threadneedle Street, London), men are piling gold on a truck. The gold they lift has been bought and paid for by a foreign country and is about to be delivered. In the factory of Henry Ford (Dearborn, Michigan), men are tightening bolts on a moving automobile chassis. The car they are building will presently roll away and be offered for sale. Does every bar which is lifted from the vaults, 4,000 miles away, change the value of "the automobile Henry Ford's men are bolting together? If so, how? Conversely, will every new Ford which rolls from the line change the value of those so-accurately weighed bars under Threadneedle Street? FORTUNE here presents a working drawing of the machine which links them, an inconceivably complex machine in the study of which a known fact is something to cling to in a whirling eddy of hypotheses, trends, theories, nebulous generalizations, and conflicting interpretations. For the lamentable fact is that the engineers who watch over this machine disagree on its nature, about how to operate it, about what, if anything, is the matter with it, and, if it is malfunctioning, about how to fix it.

????This much is certain: the commodities of the world are priced, first, in the money of the country in which they are produced. The nations of the civilized world (China is practically the only exception) relate their moneys to gold. Thus in the last analysis, according to the laws of today, gold is the common denominator in whose terms everything the world produces may be measured. Mechanically this involves:

????I.-The physical existence of a supply of gold somewhere in the world.

????II.-The issuance of currency against this supply of gold, extending and facilitating its everyday use.

????III.-The establishment of credit beyond the limits imposed by any strict ratio of gold to currency.

????The fundamental facts behind the ideas of currency and credit are (1) that there isn't, today, enough gold in the world for the everyday use, at current prices, of 1,906,000,000 people; and (2) that even if there were, the metal would be too unhandy.

????In the evolution of the machine, then, the first thing the peoples of the world did, after deciding that gold was a good standard and getting a supply of it, was to manufacture a convenient substitute for it -- a coin, a piece of paper -- so that, the gold stored in some secure place, they might have handy mediums for exchange. Growing apace, the world found even the most convenient paper not wholly adequate, and developed the idea of credit. The basic idea of giving a man a piece of paper and telling him it represents gold involves confidence; the extension of credit is merely an extension of confidence. Thus, early in the game of weighing Ford (F) cars with gold in London, we find so nebulous a factor as public confidence entering the balance, and, as the machine is taken apart, you'll find this factor becoming larger and larger until you realize that the whole machine runs on it and that mass psychology is as important a cogwheel as a ton of gold.