英语名言名句:经济复苏的4个征兆

若是只看每天发布的各种经济数据，你得到的结论将是各种各样。从有些数据来看，经济即将恢复。另一些则预示着经济将持续低迷。专家们对最新信息的解读各不相同，有人认为是牛市、有人认为是熊市、有人抨击奥巴马政策、也有人咒骂华尔街。

For the foreseeable future, there will be an aggressive hunt for two economic recoveries. One is the technical improvement in economic indicators that signals the economy is growing again. That's the one economists care about, which is why they scour the numbers on retail sales, business inventories, purchasing manager sentiment, subatomic inflation, the mood in Shanghai, and anything else that could help pinpoint the exact inflection point for a turnaround.

在可预见的未来，人们将会积极找寻两个经济复苏。其中之一是技术进步，这是预示经济恢复增长的一个重要经济指标。经济学家们尤为关心这点，这也就是为什么他们想从零售业销售状况、商品存货数量、采购经理的情绪、细微的通胀、上海的经济氛围等各种数据中找出能准确定位何时经济会复苏的征兆。

The other recovery, the one that most consumers are waiting for, is the one in which companies stop firing and start hiring, banks return to normal lending, and families stop worrying about jobs and income. And that turnaround—the consumer recovery—is likely to take much longer to materialize than the technical recovery.

另外一个，大多数消费者们期盼的，就是公司停止解雇开始招工、银行开始恢复普通贷款、人们不用再担心丢工作或者收入减少。而这个复苏，即消费者复苏，要比技术复苏更加的直观。

The danger of hyping a technical recovery is that it will arrive, with much fanfare—but fail to make ordinary consumers feel better off. Many economists, for example, are predicting that the recession will officially end by this summer or fall. The only problem is that when a technical recovery begins, a lot of companies fail to get the memo. They don't play along; they keep payrolls lean and maybe even continuing to lay off workers. So to guard against false optimism, here's how to tell when a real recovery is finally kicking into gear:

技术复苏的到来可能雷声大雨点小，带有欺骗性，普通的消费者可能并没有感觉生活有好转。例如，很多经济学家预测经济低迷到这个夏天或者秋天就能够结束，但事实却非如此。唯一的问题是，当技术复苏开始时，很多公司没有意识到。他们没有跟上节奏，他们不仅降低工人工资，有的甚至还在解雇工人。所以为了不谎报军情，这里告诉大家什么时候才最终意味着复苏开始了。

Unemployment improves. The single best indicator of the health of the economy is the job market. People who have lost their job, or worry that they might, obviously hoard their money and don't spend. That spells doom for an economy driven by consumer spending, as ours is. But once it's clear that jobs are coming back, consumers are more likely to relax and open their wallets.

就业增加。经济是否健康的最简单也是最好的指示器就是工作市场。已经丢掉工作或者担心丢掉工作的人，显然存的多花的少。那将意味着作为经济动力的消费的降低，就如同我们目前的状况。一旦就业开始好转，消费者显然将会增加消费。

Projections about unemployment should make anybody queasy about the prospects for a recovery this year. The unemployment rate is currently 9.4 percent, a steep rise from one year ago, when it was an unremarkable 5.5 percent. And by most accounts, it's going to get worse. The International Monetary Fund expects the U.S. unemployment rate to be 10.1 percent in 2010. Economist Gary Shilling thinks unemployment will hit 11.4 percent and not peak until late next year.

有关失业情况的预期可能让所有人对于今年经济能否复苏持怀疑态度。失业率从去年5.5%猛增到现在的9.4%。而且根据统计，情况越来越糟。国际货币基金预测美国2010年失业率将达到10.1%。经济学家Gary Shiling认为失业率最高可能达到11.4%，并持续到来年。

It's hard to imagine a "recovery" in which jobs are even more scarce than they are now. When the unemployment rate finally starts to go in the other direction, we can start to think about putting the umbrellas away. Until then, no number of upticks or volume of optimistic talk will persuade Americans worried about their jobs that they should part with precious cash.

在工作机会越来越匮乏的现在，很难想象会有“复苏”的迹象。当失业率开始降低时，我们才能相信情况开始好转了。除非股价上升或者大量的乐观言论出现，否则别想说服美国人不再担心丢掉他们的工作从而没有现金收入。

Housing prices stabilize.This has become a mantra by now: For the economy to get healthy, housing prices must stop falling. Problem is, the houses haven't been listening.

房价稳定。有一句话现在已经成了咒语：想要经济健康，房价必须止跌。但问题是，这个咒语没有效果。

Housing matters for two reasons: It represents a big chunk of the economy, and it's the largest single repository of Americans' household wealth. With prices falling, buyers are scarce, since nobody wants to buy an expensive good today if it's going to be worth less tomorrow. With few buyers, all the other economic activity that swirls around real estate—remodeling, appliance and furniture sales, relocation services—is depressed. Homeowners are worse off, too, because the value of one of their vital assets is eroding.

房子问题有两个原因：它在经济总量中所占比例很大，而且它是美国家庭财富最大的单一保障。当房价降低，会买房的人很少，因为没人会花大钱买明天就贬值的东西。而随着买房者的减少，围绕着不动产的其他经济活动就会减缓，如重建、家具购置、装修服务等。有房者的情况也会变糟，因为他们主要资产之一的房子的价值正在贬值。

House prices have already fallen by 32 percent nationwide from the 2006 peak. And they have further to go. The latest readings on the S&P/Case-Schiller home price index, one prominent measure, showed another record decline in May. At some point, the declines will moderate and stop being records. But prices need to stop falling altogether, and probably rise, for a real recovery to happen. The Federal Reserve thinks home prices could stop falling in 2010, after a total decline of 41 to 48 percent. Other metrics, like housing starts and new-home sales, might point upward before then. Those will be signs of signs of a turnaround, not the real thing.

全国房价从2006年攀到顶峰至今，已经跌了32%，而且这个状况还将持续。最近的标准普尔指数和凯斯-席勒指数（一个显著的评估方法）显示5月的跌幅又创下了一个记录。但总的来说，当经济复苏真的来临之时，房价不仅需要停止下跌，而且还要有可能回升。联储认为在2010年房价将停止下跌，届时总跌幅将介于41%至48%之间。其他指标，像开始供房和新房出售等，都可能会在经济复苏前上升。那些都是预示经济复苏的信号的信号，不能作数。

Household wealth increases.The housing bust and the volatile stockmarket have hammered the traditional investment tools that most Americans use, causing epic declines in the wealth of Americans. Since 2006, household net worth has declined by about $12 trillion, which equates to about $107,000 of lost wealth for each of America's 112 million households. That's partly because of the 40 percent plunge in the stock market since October 2007 and partly because of the steep declines in real estate values.

家庭财富增长：房市破产和股票价值蒸发严重打击了美国人传统的投资工具，导致了美国财富的大规模缩水。自2006年以来，美国家庭净资产已经减少了大约120亿美元，这就意味着全美国1.12亿个家庭每户损失将近10.7万美元。其中一部分是因为股票市场自2007年十月以来下跌了40%，另一部分是因为不动产的剧烈贬值。

Americans simply own less, too. Home equity for the typical homeowner is just 41.1 percent, a record low. In 2002, it was 58.4 percent. Owning less means we owe more and will have to rebuild savings before we can spend like we used to. "This will be a drag on all discretionary purchases," says Dirk van Dijk, an analyst at Zacks Investment Research who thinks the tightfistedness will cut into the earnings of firms ranging from hotel chains to furniture makers to motorcycle manufacturers. Those are the same kinds of companies that need to start hiring again for a real recovery to develop. But they won't if sales stay sluggish. A turnaround will require sustained stock market gains and an end to the housing bust.

美国人拥有的财富也减少了。一个典型的有房者资产净值仅为41.1%，是历史最低。在2002年，这个值是58.4%。拥有的财富减少意味着我们欠的更多了。我们需要先恢复储蓄，然后才能像原来那样消费。“这对自由消费是个障碍。” Dirk van Dijk说。这位Zacks投资研究所的分析师认为消费的减少将影响到旅店企业的收入，并将影响到其相关产业，如家具制造商和摩托车制造商等。在真正的经济复苏到来时，那些相同情况的企业势必要开始招人。如果销售情况仍然不乐观的话，他们是不会开始招人的。复苏需要持续的股票收益，并要结束房市崩溃态势。

President Obama stops fudging on the economy.There's still a lot that could go wrong, and Obama knows it. Yet part of the president's job is to reassure skittish Americans, even as his economic lieutenants are fighting battles in the war room. That's why Obama has been making half-hearted pronouncements, like saying that the economy shows "some return to normalcy" and that "we expect there'll be some stabilization of the economy." Virtually all of Obama's remarks on the economy contain modifiers and future tense and a not-quite-there-yet quality, since he'll blow his own credibility if he tries to convince Americans that they're better off than they actually are. When Obama starts hedging less, be happy. That will signal better days. Finally.

总统奥巴马不再对经济状况胡言乱语：奥巴马知道还有很多问题可能导致事情往坏的方向发展。尽管他的经济助手在作战时忙于各种战斗，总统职责的一部分是安定美国人的激动情绪。这就是为什么奥巴马做了那么一个并不太热情的声明，就好像说经济显示“有些已经恢复了常态”和“我们期待经济将保持稳定”。事实上奥巴马关于经济的言论都是经过修饰的，是将来时，是不切实际的。因为他在试图让美国人确信他们比实际上过得要好时经常用他个人信用作担保（而不是实际的数据）。什么时候奥巴马那种模棱两可的言论减少了，那将是好事情。最终那将是经济好转的信号。