经济学人下载:美国经济总是找借口

To make matters worse, house prices in March fell to a new post-crisis low. Betsy Graseck of Morgan Stanley reckons they’ll fall another 10% to 12% over the next year. That is only one of many reasons she says banks are cautious about lending: they are also facing tougher scrutiny of their underwriting by regulators and buyers of their mortgages.

在5月，房价降到了后经济危机时期的新低，这使得问题变得更糟糕。摩根史坦利公司的Betsy Graseck估计房价在未来的一年里会再下降10%到12%。这只不过是Betsy Graseck所支出的多个关于银行为什么对惜贷的原因中的一个：另外，银行还面对审查者和他们的抵押贷款购买者的严厉审查。

Both Mr Obama and the Republicans are casting about for cheap ways to boost the economy. On May 26th the White House announced it had found several hundred rules it could eliminate or scale back. The same day, Republicans released a collection of mostly sensible ideas such as passing free-trade agreements and clearing the patent office’s backlog. But their main plank is that the federal government slash spending. “Families are tightening their belts and sticking to a budget—and Washington should too,” said Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House. Maybe so, but spending less when households are in no shape to pick up the slack seems a sure-fire way to keep an anaemic recovery off-colour.

奥巴马和共和党人士都想构造出重振经济的廉价方法。5月26日，白宫方面宣布它可以废除或者缩减几百条条款。同一天，共和党人士发布了一系列最令人敏感的想法，比如通过自由贸易协议和清除专利局积压的专利。但是，他们主要的政纲是消减联邦政府支出。白宫里的共和党多数派领导Eric Cantor指出： “家庭们正为他们的债务勒紧裤腰带，同时严格遵守自己的支出预算，所以政府也应该这么做。”也许是这么做是对的，但是当家庭们还没有收起怠惰的状态的时刻就消减政府支出似乎是一个使原本就没什么活力的复苏继续萎靡的可靠选择。