商业报道:各国央行寻求缓解信贷紧张

Central banks target credit crunch¹

Zeb Bham of Corporate² FX on a federal interest rate cut and central banks' decision to help end credit woes³

A: What do you make of this decision by the, by the central banks to, to club together to ensure that, the credit market doesn’t freeze up ?

B: I think Wednesday’s report that they were working together to auction⁴ off the, er… extra funds, er… over a 3-month period was sort of er…seen as a bit of er… a bit of positive for the markets and we saw most of the stock markets rally. But since then, the markets had digested that information and realized that this injection isn’t really going to er…alleviate the problems that we’ve seen in the credit crunch.

A: It was like the interests rate cut, wasn’t it? Really, the day before, where from the Fed, it was an interests rate cut which everyone wanted, everyone said we were gonna get, but it didn’t go quite far enough. It was the same with…with what the central banks did, we are talking about a lot of money in you and me terms, something like 49 billion dollars, but it’s in banking⁵ terms, it’s a relatively⁶ small amount, isn’t it?

B: Yeah, it indeed. It is a relatively small amount, and because it’s for such a short period of time. That’s the reason why the markets have taken this negative impact. I mean in Asia, we’ve seen the… the stock markets over there, react pretty badly, and the Asian Central Bankers haven’t really followed suit with what the Europeans and the Americans are doing, but the fears are still there that if the credit crunch continues, they could see their exports being crippled.

A: And what do you make of the… the interests rate cut by the Fed earlier in the week, a quarter of a percentage point, er.. it was what everyone wanted, as I said, but the reaction was more sort of “Come on guys, what planet are you living on there in the…in the Fed, you know, living in the same world as the rest of us?”

B: Exactly, I think it was mu(ch), came out much in lie, er… however, the rhetoric⁷ after meeting suggested that they are sort of …paving way for further rate cuts despite the inflation being pretty high, we saw both RPI and PPI coming out stronger than expected, em… and also we got CPI this afternoon, if we see this hotter than expected, it’s already expected to come out at 4.1%, even if you strip out food and oil from there, it's still expected to come out at 2.3 which is above the Fed's two percent target.

A: It’s interesting to hear you talk about inflation, and the Fed obviously sounded a lot of caution about inflation, and yet we had a survey out earlier this week which said that most of the American public thinks that the economy is already in recession.

B: Exactly, em… I think the, the word rather than recession is stagflation. We have, we are having problems with inflation at the moment, and the Fed with the difficult position of trying to control that, while it's at the same time, trying to prevent the er… American economy going into recession, and that’s where we see the rate cuts coming into play, the question now is whether the rate cuts are going to fuel inflation, or whether they are going to control er…growth as the U.S. is expecting.

A: And what’s your gut⁸ feeling about the CPI today with Bridge Rick and ...?

B: I think CPI’s gonna come out slightly hotter than expected, em… mostly due to higher fuel and energy cost, and the RPI and PPI gave us that direction as well. If we see it come out hotter, I think the Fed are gonna have to make another difficult rate decision about whether they are going to raise rates in January, and the …interesting to know the interests rate futures⁹ market is still predicting, 100% chance that the Fed are going to raise rate in January.

Notes:

PPI:roducer Price Index 生产价格指数

RPI:Retail Price Index 零售价格指数

CPI:Comsumer Price Index 消费者价格指数

1 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

2 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

3 woes   

困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉

参考例句：

• Thanks for listening to my woes. 谢谢您听我诉说不幸的遭遇。
• She has cried the blues about its financial woes. 对于经济的困难她叫苦不迭。

4 auction   

n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖

参考例句：

• They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
• They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。

5 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

6 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

7 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

8 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

9 futures   

n.期货，期货交易

参考例句：

• He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
• Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。