经济学人下载:世界经济增长放缓,中国从中受益

FOR the past year or two, the big economies have experienced a “multi-speed” recovery, as the IMF calls it. The recovery has resembled third-world traffic, where juggernauts and rickshaws, cars and cycles ply the same lanes at different speeds, often gettingin each other’s way.

在过去的一两年，各大经济体经历了一次被国际货币基金组织称为“倍速”的复苏。此次复苏就像第三世界的交通，货车、人力车、汽车、单车以不同的速度行驶在同一条道路上，经常互相驶入别人的车道。

But for the past month or two, this traffic has slowed in unison. The deceleration is evident in the prices of commodities, which have fallen by 8.6% since mid-February, according to The Economist’s commodity-price index. It is also reflected in American manufacturing. New orders for durable goods, such as engines and cars, fell by 3.6% in April (albeit after a strong rise the month before). Factory output is still growing modestly, according to the Philadelphia Fed’s latest survey, but has lost more momentum since March than in any two months since November 2008.

但在过去的一两个月，这股复苏车流同时放缓，这减速可从商品价格看出。根据经济学人下载商品价格指数，自从二月中旬，商品价格已跌8.6%。这亦能从美国制造业看出。四月份耐用品（例如发动机与汽车）新订单数跌了3.6%（虽然前一个月才大幅上升）。根据费城联邦的最新调查，工厂输出虽然仍然保持一定程度的增长，但自从三月份便失去持续的动力，这两个月是2008年11月至今最疲弱的两个月。

America’s recovery relied for longer than most on fiscal injections. But by early August the federal government will bang up against a debt limit imposed by Congress. Any deal to raise the limit would almost certainly require spending reductions, and failure to strike a deal at all would require drastic cuts as the government stops selling debt. Even if the government is allowed to keep selling debt, the Federal Reserve will soon stop buying it, as it reaches the end of its latest round of “quantitative easing”, a programme to buy longer-dated paper with freshly printed money.

美国依赖注资来复苏的时间较其它国家要长，但联邦政府的债务将于八月初冲破国会所准许的顶限。要抬高债务顶限，就要节省开支；若不能产生一个各方满意的办法，政府将停止出售债券，使各方面预算剧减。即使政府能继续发售债券，由于这一轮“量化宽松”政策——一个用新印钞票收购旧钞票的项目——临近结束，联邦储备局早晚会停购。

The euro zone’s prospects of growing its way out of trouble are receding, according to surveys of purchasing managers by HSBC and Markit, an information provider. Their “flash” (ie, preliminary) index for the euro-area economy fell sharply from 57.8 in April to 55.4 in May, a drop not seen since late 2008. In services the pessimism expressed about the coming year was reminiscent of mid-2009, before the recovery had picked up any speed at all.

而根据恒生银行及信息服务商Markit所做的采购经理调查，欧元区摆脱泥淖的前景不佳。他们的欧元区经济初步指数从四月的57.8急跌至五月的55.4，是2008年末以来首次。悲观论调认为对于服务业，在复苏重获任何一点动力之前，来年会是2009年中的再版。