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As the economy chugs along, it may be giving businesses the wherewithal to pass along cost increases to their customers, protecting or even expanding their profits.
随着经济的快速发展，这可能会给企业提供所需资金，将成本增加转嫁给消费者，保护企业的利润、甚至扩大企业的利润。
Lael Brainard, the Fed’s vice chair, suggested in remarks last week that it might take time for companies to stop charging so much even as supply and demand conditions shifted.
美联储副主席莱尔·布雷纳德上周在讲话中表示，即使供需状况发生变化，企业也可能需要一段时间才能停下收取如此高的费用。
“Although we are hearing some reports of large retailers planning markdowns due to excess inventories, we do not have hard data at an aggregate level suggesting that businesses are reducing margins in response to more price sensitivity among customers,” Ms. Brainard said.
布雷纳德说，“尽管我们听到一些报告称，大型零售商因库存过剩而计划降价，但我们没有总体的实实在在的数据表明，企业正在降低利润率，以应对消费者对价格变得更敏感的情况。”
If and when companies do start lowering prices and cutting into profits to compete for customers, the move could make an “important contribution” to reducing inflation in consumer goods, she later added.
她后来补充说，如果企业真的开始降价、削减利润以争夺消费者，这一举措可能会对降低日用消费品通胀做出“重要贡献”。
So far, it is unclear when consumer and corporate behavior will begin to change.
到目前为止，尚不清楚消费者和企业行为何时会开始改变。
Many economists had expected a slowdown in product prices in this report both because some firms have built up inventories that they want to sell off and because some of the costs that companies face, like gas and global shipping rates, have recently declined.
许多经济学家曾在这份报告中预计产品会放缓涨价，这既是因为一些公司积累了他们想要出售的库存，也是因为公司面临的一些成本，如汽油和全球运费，最近有所下降。
Instead, a variety of retail goods — like furniture, clothing and bicycles — continued to grow pricier in August.
相反，家具、服装和自行车等各种零售商品的价格在8月份继续上涨。
That could be a sign that companies are successfully passing the cost of rising wages along to consumers, said Robert Dent, an economist at Nomura, or that shoppers are coming to expect, and accept, climbing prices.
野村证券经济学家罗伯特·登特表示，这可能是一个迹象，表明企业正在成功地将涨薪的成本转嫁给消费者，也可能是购物者开始预期价格会上涨，也就接受了。
“Those things are concerning because they are so persistent and so difficult to break,” Mr. Dent said.
登特说，“这些事情令人担忧，因为通胀居高不下，太难打破了。”
For the Fed, “it’s going to be very hard to look at those details and find any glimmer of good news.”
对于美联储来说，“我们很难看到这些细节，也很难发现任何好消息。”
