华盛顿邮报 美元加息太猛？或导致美国经济衰退？(1)

So, Dean, I'm going to start with a very basic question that a lot of people have on their mind right now.

迪恩，我将从一个很多人现在都在考虑的基本问题开始今天的节目。

Do you think that we are heading towards a recession?

你认为我们正在走向经济衰退吗？

Well, I've been an optimist¹ on this, but a little less optimistic in the last couple days.

嗯，我对此一直持乐观态度，但在过去的几天里，我变得没有那么乐观。

Dean Baker² is an economist³ at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and we wanted to talk to him today because lately the news about the economy has been getting a little scary.

迪恩·贝克是经济和政策研究中心的经济学家，我们今天想和他谈谈，因为最近有关经济的消息变得有点吓人。

A lot of people are now thinking recession.

现在很多人都认为经济在衰退。

We're going to see the biggest squeeze on household incomes we expect since records began.

我们将看到自有记录以来最严重的家庭收入紧缩。

Wage inflation running at close to 6% rate and the tightest labor⁴ markets we've ever seen in our country.

工资涨幅接近6%，我们国家的劳动力市场出现了有史以来最紧张的情况。

And that suggests that, unfortunately, it now looks like a recession is right around the corner.

这表明，非常不幸，现在看起来经济衰退就在眼前。

It's important to understand that recessions don't just happen.

重要的是要明白经济衰退不会凭空发生。

Every recession we've had since World War II has either been brought about by the Federal Reserve Board raising interest rates and going too far, alternatively, by a collapse⁵ of the asset bubble, which was the housing bubble, of course, in 2008, 2009, and then the stock bubble in 2001.

二战以来我们经历的每一次经济衰退要么是由联邦储备委员会加息，加息过头导致的，要么是由资产泡沫破灭导致的，也就是2008年，2009年的房地产泡沫，然后是2001年的股市泡沫。

We don't have any asset bubble that's about to burst.

我们没有任何即将破裂的资产泡沫。

I'm not worried about that. So the real question is, is the Fed going to go too far?

我不担心这。因此，真正的问题是，美联储会不会加息过头了？

Today, we ask liberal economist Dean Baker the big question about the economy right now.

今天，我们向自由主义经济学家迪恩·贝克请教眼下关于经济的大问题。

Are we heading towards a recession?

我们正在走向经济衰退吗？

And if so, what do we regular people do to prepare?

如果是这样的话，我们普通人要做些什么准备呢？

Technically⁶, a recession is defined as two quarters of negative growth.

严格来讲，经济衰退的定义是两个季度的负增长。

That's basically the conventional view.

这基本上是传统观点。

But what we're really talking about is a big rise in the unemployment rate.

但我们真正谈论的是失业率的大幅上升。

That's why people care about a recession.

这就是为什么人们关心经济衰退。

The worry is that the unemployment rate could rise and possibly rise a lot.

令人担忧的是，失业率可能会上升，而且可能会大幅上升。

So we've been very fortunate. We have a 3.6% unemployment rate.

我们一直非常幸运。我们的失业率为3.6%

It came down very rapidly following the pandemic recession.

在疫情退去之后，失业率很快就下降了。

But when the Fed starts raising rates, that is going to raise the unemployment rate.

但当美联储开始加息时，失业率就会上升。

If they just raise it a little bit, maybe it's not that big a deal, but if we go back -- People keep referring to the Paul Volcker years when Volcker raised rates.

如果他们只是提高一点利率，也许没什么大不了的，但如果我们回到过去--人们一直在提到保罗·沃尔克时代，当时沃尔克提高了利率。

They peaked at 20%, and that pushed the unemployment rate into the double digits⁷.

利率达到了20%的峰值，而这将失业率推到了两位数。

So that's the sort of story that I think I and most people are very fearful of.

所以这是我和大多数人都非常害怕的那种故事。

So raising rates somewhat to slow the economy, maybe that's necessary, appropriate, but raising rates enough to give us the sort of recession we had at the start in the 1980s, that would be really bad news.

所以提高利率来减缓经济增长，也许这是必要的，适当的，但是，提高利率足以让我们陷入上世纪80年代初的那种衰退，那将是真正的坏消息。

1 optimist   

n.乐观的人，乐观主义者

参考例句：

• We are optimist and realist.我们是乐观主义者，又是现实主义者。
• Peter,ever the optimist,said things were bound to improve.一向乐观的皮特说，事情必定是会好转的。

2 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

3 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

6 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

7 digits   

n.数字( digit的名词复数 )；手指，足趾

参考例句：

• The number 1000 contains four digits. 1000是四位数。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The number 410 contains three digits. 数字 410 中包括三个数目字。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》