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Finance and economics
财经商业
Monetary policy in America
美国的货币政策
Taper tiger
逐渐变弱的老虎
The Federal Reserve surprises everyone by changing nothing
美国联邦储备委员保持政策不变让人们感到惊奇
SHORTLY after the Federal Reserve hinted in May that it might start to ease its monetary stimulus, rich-country bond yields shot up; emerging-market currencies and stockmarkets cratered.
在美联储5月暗示可能会退出货币刺激政策后不久，富裕国家的债券收益率飙升，新兴市场货币和股市出现震荡。
Was it all for nothing?
难道这没有原因吗？
On September 18th, at the end of a closely watched meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-setting body, chose not to taper.
9月18日，在一个被密切关注的会议结束时，美联储的政策制定机构联邦公开市场委员会没有选择退出。
Instead, it said it would keep buying 85 billion a month of Treasury and mortgage bonds with newly created money.
相反，表示将用新创造的货币继续每月购买85亿的国债和抵押债券。
Although the Fed had never actually promised to act in September, all the signals pointed in that direction.
虽然美联储从来没有承诺在9月份采取行动，但是所有的信号都指向这个方向。
QE would stop, it had said when the latest bout of bond-buying began last September,when the labour-market outlook had improved substantially.
去年9月开始的新一轮购买债券时表示，当劳动力市场的前景已经大幅改善时QE会停下来。
Since then, the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.3% from 8.1% and private employment has risen by 2.3m, or 2%.
从那时起，失业率从8.1％下降至7.3％，私营部门就业增加了2.3或2％。
In June Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, said the Fed would probably start to taper by year-end, and stop QE when unemployment hit 7%, which it expected by mid-2014.
在6月，美联储主席本?伯南克表示，美联储可能会开始在今年年底如果失业率达到7％就停止量化宽松政策，预计是在2014年中期。
So what has now held it back?
那么是什么原因导致倒退？
First, the pace of job growth has recently flagged; the drop in unemployment has been flattered by the number of people no longer looking for work.
首先，就业增长速度最近开始减弱，失业人数的下降是被不再找工作的人数粉饰过的。
The labour-market participation rate sank to 63.2% in August, a 35-year low.
劳动力市场参与率8月下跌至63.2％，是35年来的新低。
Second, fiscal policy continues to work at cross-purposes to monetary policy.
其次，财政政策将继续为多个货币政策目的起作用。
Higher taxes and spending cuts have subtracted at least a full percentage point from growth this year.
更高的税收和削减开支至少降低了今年经济增长整整一个百分点。
The prospect that spending caps may be lifted when the new fiscal year begins on October 1st has melted away.
在10月1日新的财政年度开始时可能会取消支出上限的预期已经没有了。
With Republicans in Congress and Barack Obama unable to agree on how to fund the government or raise the Treasury's statutory debt ceiling, the risk of a government shutdown loomed large in the minds of Fed officials.
随着共和党在国会和奥巴马政府在如何资助或提高财政部的法定债务上限上谈不拢，在美联储的官员看来政府有很大的关闭风险。
But the third and most important restraint on the Fed was the unexpected effect on financial markets of a prospective change in monetary stance.
但是，对美联储的第三个也是最重要的约束是变动的货币政策对金融市场的意想不到的影响。
The central bank had always emphasised that tapering did not mean tightening.
央行此前一直强调退出并不意味着紧缩。
Provided asset purchases remained above zero, the Fed's balance-sheet would keep growing and monetary policy would still be loosening.
倘若资产购买仍高于零，美联储的资产负债表将保持增长和货币政策仍然会松动。
Separately, the Fed never wavered from its pledge to keep the federal-funds rate near zero at least until unemployment had fallen to 6.5%.
另外，美联储从来没有动摇其承诺保持联邦基金利率接近零直到到失业率下降至6.5％。
Nonetheless, investors radically repriced their expectations of Fed policy and fled positions predicated on a policy of QE ever after.
尽管如此，投资者从根本上重新定价他们对美联储政策的预期，并从量化宽松的政策以后改变了定位。
Bond yields have risen by slightly less than a percentage point since May, mortgage rates by slightly more.
从五月以来债券收益率上升了约一个百分点，住房抵押贷款利率上涨更高一些。
Mr Bernanke fretted that this rapid tightening of financial conditions in recent months could have the effect of slowing growth, a problem that would be exacerbated if conditions tighten further.
伯南克担忧最近几个月这种快速紧缩财政的情况会使经济增长放缓问题是继续紧缩会使情况更糟。
The euphoric market response to the FOMC's decision this week would seem to vindicate that judgment.
这周市场对联邦公开市场委员会决定的积极反应证明了这个判断。
But it leaves wide open the question of when the Fed will taper.
但它留下宽泛的问题，美联储什么时候开始紧缩。
The FOMC trimmed its projections for growth this year and next by about a quarter of a percentage point from its June forecast, to 2.2% in 2013 and 3% in 2014.
联邦公开市场委员会对今年和明年经济增长四分之一个百分点的6月份的预测进行了修改，2013年增长2.2％，2014年增长3％。
It also changed its unemployment projections, which it now expects to hit 7% early in 2014 and 6.5% later that same year.
它也改变了失业率的预测，它现在预计2014年上半年将达到7％，和下半年6.5％。
Mr Bernanke was at pains this week to stress that the 7% unemployment target for ending QE and 6.5% threshold for raising rates have never been automatic triggers.
伯南克本周煞费苦心的强调，达到7％的失业率时退出QE政策和6.5％时提高利率从来没有自动进行。
It all depends on what else is happening in the economy.
这一切都取决于经济体中发生的其他事情。
It is entirely sensible for the Fed not to be slavishly bound by its guidance,
对于美联储不会盲目的遵从指导是完全合理的，
but that raises questions over how useful such guidance is.
但对这种指导有多大用处有人提出了疑问。
Most Fed officials expect to raise rates by 2015, for example,
大多数美联储官员预计2015年升息，例如，
but Mr Bernanke said rates are unlikely to rise if inflation is below its 2% target, which the Fed's new projections suggest could be the case until 2016.
但伯南克表示如果通胀率低于2％的目标利率不太可能上升，美联储新的预测显示直到2016年才会实行。
The start of tapering could conceivably come at the end of October if data reassure the Fed that the economy has brushed off higher bond yields and if a fiscal train wreck has been avoided.
如果经济降低债券收益率的数据和财政列车已避免脱轨能够使美联储相信，紧缩计划能够真的在10月底开始。
But there are no clear signposts, which will irk investors.
但目前还没有明确的标志，这将会使投资者感到恼怒。
Their frustration pales next to that of the Fed itself, which has blown its balance-sheet up to 3.6 trillion and held rates at zero since 2008 but achieved underwhelming results in return.
美联储本身相形见绌，资产负债表为3.6万亿美元，并从2008年开始维持利率为零，但并没有取得让人满意的回报。
On September 17th the federal Census Bureau reported that real household incomes in America, which had fallen by 8% between 2007 and 2011, did not fall further in 2012.
联邦人口普查局9月17日报道，在美国2007年和2011年之间家庭实际收入下降了8％，在2012年并没有进一步下跌。
That this counts as good news is telling.
这算作一个好消息。
Income inequality, meanwhile, is worsening on some measures.
同时收入不平等使一些措施恶化。
Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley, reckons the top 10% grabbed its largest share of total incomes since 1917 last year.
加州大学伯克利分校的埃马纽埃尔?赛斯估计自1917年以来，去年前10％的人在总的收入份额中占有最大的部分。
This is partly due to QE, which has been very good for the stockmarket and thus the wealthy.
部分原因是由于量化宽松政策，有利于股市，使某些人更富裕。
QE works in part by boosting household wealth and thus spending and jobs, but the effects have not yet filtered through strongly to the wider economy.
QE促进家庭财富增加，消费和就业，但效果尚未渗透到更广泛的经济领域。
The taps will be open a while longer yet.
水龙头在未来的一段时间继续打开。
