NPR新闻:全球金融危机的历史（1/3）

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概括：Financial writer Philip Coggan traces the current global financial crisis to the 1970s, when the U.S. broke its last link to gold.
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Philip Coggan
"Debt, Money and the New World Order"
"Paper Promises."
Starbuck
Marco Polo

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To better understand events in Greece and other countries struggling with large debts, we spoke to financial writer Philip Coggan. "Debt, Money and the New World Order" are the subject and the subtitle of his new book called "Paper Promises." Good morning.
Good morning.
You know, just briefly, what exactly do you mean by paper promises?
Well, paper promises are all sorts of things, from money - the bits of paper we hand over to buy our Starbucks - from debts that we take out to buy a house or to a company, take a loan; and, of course, the promises that politicians make to her citizens in terms of giving them future benefits, like pensions, health care, these vast number of promises that have been made that aren't all going to be honored.
But they are presumably promises that people generally believe. And way back when, people used something valuable to exchange for something else of value. But about 1,000 years ago, you write, China introduced paper money.
Exactly. And Marco Polo, who visited them, couldn't believe that they would hand over paper money when everybody else handed over a real thing like gold and silver. Because, of course, it costs nothing to produce a piece of paper. And that's what our current system depends on. You used the word belief. We all have to believe in each other, that the economy will keep growing, that the government will raise enough taxes to meet its debts. And when you start to lose that belief, as in Greece right now, then the economy starts to get into severe difficulty. And Greece cannot afford to pay back its debts and is not going to pay back its debts. And this is part of a pattern that has reoccurred throughout history, that we have monetary systems in place, they last for a certain period of time, and then they break down when debtors can't pay back their debts.