经济学人下载:待重头收拾旧山河

Economists have long speculated that weak growth of this sort is like an aircraft’s “stall speed”, below which it risks falling out of the sky. A paper by Jeremy Nalewaik of the Federal Reserve has found that since 1978, whenever the economy has grown less than 1% in a given quarter, a recession has soon followed half to two-thirds of the time. (The results depend on whether growth is measured by GDP or its alternative, gross domestic income).
经济学家们推测，这种类型的弱势增长就好像飞机的“失速速度”，一旦低于这个临界点，那么就有可能从空中坠落。美联储的Jeremy Nalewaik撰文写道，自1978年以来，无论何时只要某季度的经济增长率低于1%，那么很快地，在其后的一半或者三分之二的时间里就会处于衰退之中。（其时间取决于经济增长是用国内生产总值，还是用国内总收入来衡量。）

That is not as helpful as it sounds. Aircraft flying slowly do sometimes crash but, more often, they land. Slow-growing economies that fall into recession are typically pushed, as some shock forces a pre-existing imbalance to tip them over.
这并非像听起来那样有效。飞机飞的过慢时或许会坠毁，但更多的时候它们可以选择着陆。而陷入不景气的缓慢经济却往往处于困境之中，因为某些打击使得已失衡的部分倾覆整个经济体系。

Such imbalances are hard to find now in America. Housing, cars and business inventories, the three most volatile components of GDP, usually accelerate the contraction that brings recession. None looks especially stretched. Quite the opposite: house-construction has never climbed off the bottom, and now makes up just 2.4% of GDP, less than half its historical average (see chart 2). Mike Gorman, a builder in northern Virginia, says that his business has collapsed over the past three years. “We went from 40 employees to one part-timer. We’re building just a house or two here or there. It’s been… really, really quiet.” Car production has rebounded, but to a level well below its typical share of GDP. The ratio of business inventories to sales, which soared during the recession, is now back to normal.
这样的不安定因素在美国已经很难找到。住房，汽车和商业库存，这国内生产总值的三大最不稳定成分，通常会加速导致衰退的通货紧缩。没有哪家能脱身事外。恰恰相反：住房建设从未脱离底部进入上升，并且现在仅占GDP的2.4%，低于历史平均水平的一半（见表2）。Mike Gorman，北弗吉尼亚州的一个建造商，说道他的生意在过去的三年里遭受重挫。“我们原来有40名雇员，而现在只有一个兼职人员。我们只是零散地盖了一两栋房子。这……真的，真的太萧条了。”汽车产量业已回升，但只是处于GDP的通常份额标准之下。商业存货销售比在经济衰退期间飙升，而现在也已经回跌到正常水平。

The shock that pushes the economy over the edge often originates in financial markets. Although stock prices have plummeted, credit is relatively easy to come by. Spreads on corporate bonds are normal, short-term interest rates are deeply negative when adjusted for inflation, and the Fed’s latest survey has found banks more anxious to lend, “the exact opposite of lending conditions in the run-up to recession,” notes Kevin Logan of HSBC.
将经济推向悬崖边缘的冲击通常来源于金融市场。虽然股市一路暴跌，贷款却唾手可得。公司债券的信贷利差维持正常，而短期利率再算上通胀率影响后变为负值，而美联储最近调查表明银行更加急于放贷，“和衰退前夕的放贷环境恰恰相反，”汇丰银行的Kevin Logan随手记道。

Although the absence of obvious imbalances or financial strains does not eliminate the risk of recession in America, it does militate against a long, deep downturn. Indeed, it may be hard for most people to distinguish a shallow recession from lacklustre growth.
尽管缺少明显的经济不平衡和资金紧张的迹象，这也并不能消除美国会爆发经济衰退的风险，但是，这的确会对防止美国进入持久的大幅度的经济下滑产生影响。事实上，对于大多数人们来说，区分平淡无奇的增长和不明显的衰退是很困难的。