经济学人:自由交流:股本投资的高回报(1)

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　　and perhaps that government borrowing could be used more aggressively in times of economic weakness to make up for central-bank impotence. 而且政府举债可能在经济疲软时期被更积极地用来弥补央行的无能为力。

　　Nor do low rates of return on government debt imply that the world is entering a period of “secular stagnation”, or chronically¹ weak growth. 政府债务的低回报率并不暗示着世界正在进入一个“长期停滞”，或者是习惯性的疲软增长时代。

　　Low rates have in the past been as much a feature of rip-roaring economies—eg, in the 1950s and 1960s—as of the more stagnant² ones experienced recently. 低利率在过去如其是更为停滞不前的经济体近来所经历的一个特点一样也曾经是狂飙突进经济体——即上世纪50年代和60年代的一些经济体——的一个特点。

　　More still are the data's implications for debates on inequality. 然而，更令人振奋的是这些数据对于不平等讨论的意义。

　　Karl Marx once reasoned that as capitalists piled up wealth, their investments would suffer diminishing returns and the pay-off from them would drop towards zero,  卡尔·马克思曾经推断道，随着资本家积累起来了财富，他们的投资会遭受不断缩水的回报之苦，而且他们的偿付会跌向零，

　　eventually provoking destructive fights between industrial countries. 最终引发工业国家间的破坏性角逐。

　　That seems not to be true; returns on housing and equities³ remain high even though the stock of assets as a share of GDP has doubled since 1970. 这似乎不是正确的；房产和股票的回报纵然是资产存量占GDP的份额自上世纪70年代以来翻了一番的情况下仍是很高的。

　　Gravity-defying returns might reflect new and productive uses for capital:  抵消地心引力的回报或许反映了对于资本来说是全新的和生产性的使用：

　　firms deploying⁴ machines instead of people, for instance, or well-capitalised companies with relatively⁵ small numbers of employees taking over growing swathes of the economy. 例如，公司部署了机器，而不是人。或者是拥有相对小数量雇员的企业接管了日渐增大的经济体量。

　　High returns on equity⁶ capital may therefore be linked to a more tenuous⁷ status for workers and to a drop in the share of GDP which is paid out as labour income. 因而，股本资本的高回报可能被链接到一种对工人而言是更加无足轻重的地位以及作为劳动力收入而被支出的GDP份额的一种下降。

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