经济：并非六十年代以来最差

To the naked eye, there is no perceptible difference between a 3.3 per cent and a 3 per cent rate of inflation. Why, then, all the fuss about a “cost of living spiral”, as the latest mini-crisis to hit the Brown Government was described yesterday on the front page of The Times?
对于凡夫俗子来说，百分之三的通胀率和百分之三点三的通胀率并无不同。然而，为什么最近布朗政府都在为“生活成本上升”而焦头烂额，这样的“迷你”危机却上了昨天泰晤士报的头版头条？

This question invites three right answers and one wrong one. The wrong answer is the one most widely heard among saloon-bar cognoscenti: that Britain is finally paying the price for a decade of living beyond its means, of excessive borrowing and spending by consumers, homeowners and government.
对于这个问题，有三个正确的答案，以及一个错误的答案。错误的答案是我们经常可以从公众场合那些高谈阔论的博学者那里听到的：英国在买单，为过去十年中超前的生活支出买单，政府和消费者们过分的进行了借贷和消费。

Comparisons are suddenly being drawn with the late 1960s and 1970s, when economic growth stagnated while inflation climbed inexorably higher. It has even been claimed that inflation today is exactly the same as it was in 1965, when Iain Macleod coined the word “stagflation” to describe the miserable combination of stagnation and accelerating prices.
类似的例子最近发生在1960年代和1970年代，当时经济成长陷于停滞，而通货膨胀却无情的不断攀升。甚至有人声称今日的通货膨胀与1965年完全相同，当时伊恩·麦克莱恩用“stagflation（滞胀）”来形容低流通、高物价这种悲惨的合体。

But comparisons with the stagflation of the 1960s and 1970s are wrong because the main causes of that period's economic crises are not present today. There is no overweening trade union movement, no national obsession with protecting inefficient and dying industries against international competition and no totemic faith in fixed exchange rates between the pound and the dollar or the German mark.
但是，把1960年代和1970年代拿来与现今作比较时不正确的，因为造成当时滞胀的那场经济危机目前并没有出现。这个时代没有频繁的工会运动，国家不需要为了防备国际上的竞争对手而去保护那些低效率的、垂死挣扎的落后工业，也不会把英镑、美元或德国马克之间汇率变化作为迷信。

The most important difference, however, is in the attitude to inflation among economic policymakers and politicians.
然而，最重要的不同在于政客和企业家们对于通货膨胀的态度。

After the 20 years of almost uninterrupted economic crises that began in the late 1960s, there is a universal recognition that inflation is extremely damaging not only to financial stability but also to growth and employment and that it is very costly to reverse once it gets out of hand. There is also an understanding that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon that needs to be tackled through interest rate decisions by the Bank of England that affect the entire economy, rather than the panoply of meddlesome micro-level initiatives - price controls, wage controls, import controls, credit controls and exchange controls - that turned out to be not just futile but counterproductive in the 1960s and 1970s, adding to rather than overcoming inflationary pressures.
始于1960年代的那场经济危机，在此后的二十年中未曾间断，人们普遍公认的是通货膨胀不仅仅对于金融稳定起到极大的损害作用，而且危机经济增长和就业机会，并且一旦通货膨胀失去控制，要逆转它往往需要付出高昂的代价。对于通货膨胀，还有另外一种解读，它首先是一种货币现象，当它危机整个经济安全时，英格兰银行应该用利率把它捆绑起来，而不是派出无关痛痒的小股部队进行骚扰——价格管制，薪酬管制，进口管制，信用管制以及汇率管制——在1960和1970年代，这样做如果不是白费力气，就是适得其反，根本无法克服通货膨胀的压力。

This greater awareness and understanding of inflation leads, of course, to the justifiable reasons for people to be concerned, though not alarmed or panicked, about the recent inflation figures. The first is that the new monetary regime created by Gordon Brown in 1997 is now facing its most serious test to date - and should this test end in failure, we really will have to dust off our history books of the stagflation period.
庆幸的是，我们知道通货膨胀意味着什么，当然，对于最近的通胀数据，虽然没有人为此感到惊慌失措，但人们有理由感到担忧。首先，戈登·布朗在1997年制定的新货币政策（布朗曾任英国财政大臣）正在面临至今为止最严峻的考验——如果这次考验最终以失败而告终，我们真的应该去打扫一下滞胀时代那些历史书的灰尘了。

The key features of this new regime was the Bank of England's independent authority to set monetary policy so as to keep inflation as close as possible to a 2 per cent target. Nobody expected this target to be hit all the time, but the Governor was required to write a letter of explanation whenever inflation deviated from the target by more than one percentage point - which happened on Tuesday for only the second time since 1997. With the Governor now predicting that inflation will stay well above 3 per cent for most of the rest of the year, the burden of proof is now on the Bank to persuade the public, the media and the financial markets that monetary policy really is appropriate today to ensure that inflation returns to the 2 per cent target by next year. With inflation likely to keep rising for the next few months because of soaring oil prices, the Bank will have a hard task persuading people that it has the situation under control.
新政府的关键特征是英格兰银行对于制定货币政策的自主权，这样做是为了便于其尽可能的把通胀率保持在百分之二的目标之内。一直以来，人们认为这个目标牢不可破，每当通胀率偏离这个目标高于一个百分点时，元首都会跳出来写信辩解一下——自从1997年以来，发生在周二的这时第二次。元首预计在今年剩下的时间里，通胀率将会稳定在百分之三左右，不会继续增长，为此银行说服公众、媒体和金融从业者们目前的政策无比正确，下一年度通胀率将回归百分之二。由于石油价格暴涨，在接下来的几个月里似乎通胀还会愈演愈烈，对此，银行要说服公众，他们仍可掌控大局，这样的任务似乎过于困难。

The Bank believes that a 5 per cent interest rate is already high enough to return inflation to its target - and I believe this too. But this judgment could turn out to be wrong - and if so the Bank will have to be step firmly on the economic brakes, regardless of the pain this may inflict on the economy and a housing market already in trouble. Such a tightening of the monetary tourniquet is not, in my view, very likely - but it is a possibility in the months ahead and Britain should be braced for this risk.
银行坚信，百分之五的利率已经够高，足以让通胀返回目标区间——鄙人对此也深信不疑。但这个判断可能是错的——如果是这样，银行将刹住经济增长的快车，毫不在意给已经受到重创的经济和房地产市场再添一道伤口。鄙人认为，虽然机会不大，但英国最好为这样一条止血的货币绷带准备后事。

The second genuine reason to worry about the inflation figures is the challenge they pose to the Government. Will Gordon Brown withstand demands for public sector pay increases to compensate for the rising cost of living? If he gave in to such demands, the result really could be a 1970s-style wage-price spiral. Alternatively - and more probably - the Bank of England would respond to spiralling wages by sharply increasing interest rates. That, in turn, would trigger a deep recession and mass unemployment more reminiscent of the Thatcherite 1980s and 1990s than the 1960s and 1970s.
对于通胀数字的第二个担心是人们对政府的挑战态度。戈登·布朗能不能经受住公众部门要求政府为生活成本上升支付增长补贴的压力？如果布朗做出妥协，那么很有可能会重蹈1970年代工资-物价盘旋上升的覆辙。或者——很可能会如此——英格兰银行对于增长的薪酬很可能会报以飙升的利率。如果事实真的如此，将会触发一场深刻的危机，造成大量工人失业，人们回忆撒切尔夫人在任的1980和1990年代将会多过1960和1970年代。

From this standpoint, probably the biggest worry has been Mr Brown's surprising combination of weakness and short-termism since he became Prime Minister. If he responds to minor hiccups such as the 10p tax row by giving away E2.7 billion, one wonders how he would react to a genuine challenge to his authority on the scale of the Winter of Discontent?
如果从这个立场去看，可能最大的问题来自布朗先生，他自担任首相以来，令人惊奇的化身为优柔寡断和鼠目寸光的结合体。如果他的反应轻描淡写，比如这次拿掉10p tax（10p income tax rate ，英国中下收入者的一种税，这次布朗取消该费率导致工党大败，译者注），送出2.7亿镑大礼，那么在这个“烦恼的冬天”里，他将如何面对人们对他权威的大范围挑战呢？一定很壮观。

The season of escalating pay demands now likely to hit the Government brings us to the third genuine reason for worrying about the latest inflation figures: the accelerating increase in prices does represent a genuine reduction in all our living standards. That this burst of inflation has been caused mainly by rising oil and commodity bills should make it clear that a transfer of wealth is happening on a global scale. Commodity consuming countries such as Britain have enjoyed enormous gains in their living standards over the past 20 years, partly as a result of falling prices for oil, food and other commodities which we import. Now some of those gains are being recouped by commodity-producing countries.
在这个要求增长报酬的季节，政府似乎备受打击，这让我们不得不关注对于近期通胀数字表示担忧的第三条理由：一般来说，加速增长的物价水平将会实实在在的让我们所有人的生活水平缩水。毫无疑问，这次突发性通货膨胀的主因是石油以及商品价格的暴涨，这造成了全球范围内的财富转移。那些商品消费国家，比如英国，他们在过去整个的二十年里保持了很高的生活水平，这部分得益于石油，食品以及其他商品低廉的进口价格。现在，我们正在向那些商品生产国家还债。

Britain should, of course, try as hard as possible to reverse some of the recent increase in commodity prices, especially by taking tougher measures to reduce oil demand.
当然，对于最近剧增的商品价格，英国应当尽可能的努力加以缓解，特别是要设法限制对于石油的需求。

Beyond that, however, the best thing for Britain to do is to grin and bear it, accepting a small sacrifice in the standard of living. The decline in Britain's living standards caused by this shift in relative prices is likely to be a very small one compared with the big gains achieved since the early 1990s.
然而，对于大不列颠的臣民来说，现在最应该做的事情是微笑，以及忍耐，我们要接受在生活水平上做出的小小牺牲。目前由于价格杠杆的作用，我们在生活水平上付出的牺牲远远小于自1990年代早期以来优越生活水平的收益。

This, remember, is a period in which Britain overtook first Italy, then France and finally Germany and Japan in terms of national income per head. None of these relative gains will be lost if Britain's living standards decline slightly as a result of rising commodity prices, since other advanced economies are hit just as hard. If we lose control of inflation, by contrast, all Britain's economic achievements of the past two decades will turn to dust.
英国的人均国民收入曾经首先超越意大利，然后是法兰西，最终超越德国和日本，这将成为一个时代的回忆。对于商品价格造成的生活水平损失不会影响这些我们已有的成就，因为其他的经济体也在承受着同样的打击。但是，如果我们失去了对于通货膨胀的控制，那么大不列颠过去二十年来取得的经济成就将会灰飞烟灭。