经济学人下载:美国经济面临二次探底?

America’s recovery from a balance-sheet recession was always bound to be sluggish and fragile. And its woes need not fell the world economy, thanks to the strength of emerging markets (see Economics focus). But the thoughtlessness of the debt deal—notably its failure to tackle any of the real sources of America’s fiscal problems, such as entitlement spending—raises a bigger worry. Can the country’s politicians, so starkly polarised and so willing to gamble with the economy, be trusted not to turn what was always an inevitable period of hardship into longer-term stagnation?

美国从资产负债表衰退中的复苏，向来缓慢而脆弱。多亏了新兴市场，美国的衰退才不会拖垮世界经济。但是，草率的负债协议没有解决美国财政的任何实际问题，如应得权益花费等，这引起了更多的忧虑。如果一个国家的政客如此极端，愿意拿国家经济赌博，说他们能避免这一注定艰难的时期变成更长期的经济停滞，你信吗？

The fin rising to the surface
初现端倪

Begin with the state of the recovery. On July 29th America’s government statisticians published revisions to the past few years of GDP statistics. They showed that the 2008 recession was deeper than first thought, and the subsequent recovery flatter. Output has not yet regained its pre-recession peak. And the feeble recovery is petering out. Over the past year output has grown by a mere 1.6%, well below what most economists consider to be the economy’s underlying growth rate, and a pace that has in the past almost always been followed by recession. Over the past six months the United States has eked out annualised growth of merely 0.8%. Even observers who, like us, had expected America to bounce along near the bottom for a while had not expected growth to be this low.

先从复苏情况说起。7月29日美国政府公布了对过去几年GDP数据的修改版本。这些最新数据表明，2008年的衰退比预想严重，复苏也更加乏力。产出并未达到衰退前的峰值，就连这点乏力的复苏也在渐渐消失。去年产出只增长了1.6%，远低于多数经济学家认为的内在增长率，这个速度在过去几乎总是衰退的前兆。过去6个月，美国的年增率仅为0.8%。即便是对于我们这些预料到美国经济会在底部边缘徘徊一段时间的观察者来说，这个数字都低得令人惊讶。

Temporary factors have played some role in this. Soaring oil prices crimped consumer spending. The Japanese earthquake disturbed supply chains. In some industries, notably car production, a rebound is plainly under way. But the overall economy is now so weak that it would take a lot to get growth up to a reasonable rate. And there are some signs that the temporary shocks may have left a more lasting dent on the psyche of firms and shoppers. That is why the newest figures are so disconcerting. Consumer spending fell in June; consumer confidence slumped in July, as did manufacturers’ orders. Of course, these are early, incomplete, snapshots, but the chances of a double dip over the coming year, which seemed relatively small only a month ago, have risen alarmingly.

临时性因素起了一定作用。猛增的油价扭曲了消费性开支，日本的地震扰乱了供应链。某些行业，特别是汽车制造业，复苏的迹象很明显，但是整体上经济非常疲软，恢复到合理的增长速度任重而道远。而且有现象表明，短期的冲击给企业和消费者的心理造成了更为长期的影响。这就是为什么最新数据令人如此不安。6月份消费性支出下滑；7月份，随着制造商订单大幅下降，消费者信心也随之跌落。当然，这些都是早期的、不完整的现象，但是，明年经济二次探底的可能性—虽然一个月前看还比较小—已经增长到引发警觉的程度了。