华盛顿邮报 美国经济真的变好了吗(2)（在线收听）

    So, let's back up a little bit. Why have people been so worried about the economy? Why did they think there was going to be a recession?

    让我们回看之前的情况。为什么人们对经济如此担忧? 人们为什么认为会出现衰退?

    So, when we think about the ways that people experience the economy, inflation is really top of mind.

    当我们思考人们体验经济的方式时，通货膨胀放在第一位。

    And people are very aware of higher prices for milk and bread and cars and their rent.

    人们非常清楚牛奶、面包、汽车和房租的价格都在上涨。

    For a while, gas prices were over $5 a gallon.

    有一段时间，汽油价格超过每加仑5美元。

    And these are things that have really weighed on people's behavior, the way they feel about the economy, and their worries about the future, their worries that such high inflation would become a real permanent marker of daily life.

    价格上涨确实让人焦虑不安，影响了人们的行为，影响了人们对经济的看法，影响了人们对未来的担忧，人们担心如此高的通货膨胀会成为日常生活中永久性的标志。

    The solution to getting control of inflation also makes people worried about a recession, though.

    然而，控制通胀的解决方案也让人们担心经济陷入衰退。

    In order to control inflation, the Federal Reserve has to raise interest rates very, very high, high enough to a level to slow the economy down, cool spending, cool demand for new workers.

    为了控制通货膨胀，美联储不得不将利率提高到非常高的水平，以减缓经济增长，抑制消费，抑制对新员工的需求。

    And often, the economic models would tell us that when you have very high interest rates, especially rates that go up so quickly, that that causes a recession, too.

    通常，经济模式会告诉我们，当利率很高时，尤其是利率上涨速度快时，也会导致经济衰退。

    So when you put these two things together -- people are already grappling with high prices for the things that they spend money on, then they're told that the federal government is trying to actually really slow the economy down so much that it could cause a recession -- it's hard to see another way out of it.

    当你把这两件事放在一起考虑——人们已经在努力应对物价高昂的问题，可是，人们又被告知，联邦政府实际上正试图放缓经济，力度很大，可能会导致经济衰退——很难找到解决问题的另一条出路。

    So, is there some kind of delicate line that the Fed tries to walk where they're -- you know, they're raising the interest rates. They realize that could throw us into recession.

    美联储是否努力行走在某种微妙的界限上，他们正在提高利率。他们意识到这会让我们陷入衰退。

    Is there anything they can do to avoid that?

    他们能做些什么来避免这种情况吗?

    So, the trade-offs are really tricky.

    权衡取舍非常棘手。

    The Fed can't say, "Oh, I want to get control of inflation over here, but I want to protect the job market over here."美联储不能说，“我既要控制通胀，又要保护就业市场。”

    They've got one rate, and it does one thing.

    美联储只可以调节利率，它只能做一件事。

    The Fed has been very, very clear, as they've been raising interest rates at a really historic pace, that their number-one priority is controlling inflation.

    美联储一直非常明确地表示，他们一直在以历史性的速度提高利率，他们的首要任务是控制通胀。

    And even though there is no part of the Fed that wants to see people put out of work or any kind of economic pain that comes with slowing the economy down,尽管美联储不希望看到人们失业，也不希望看到经济放缓带来的任何形式的经济痛苦，their message consistently has been, "We have got to get inflation under control, because there's no way of coming back from that. We can't afford to not fully end this economic crisis, period."但他们传递的信息一直是，“我们必须控制通胀，因为没有办法从通胀中恢复过来。我们承担不起不彻底结束这场经济危机的后果。”

    And especially the longer inflation goes on, it hurts some of the most vulnerable Americans the most.

    特别是通货膨胀持续的时间越长，对一些最脆弱的美国人的伤害就越大。