本期原文選自The?Economist 2016-9-24的Leaders板塊The low-rate world哗魂，釋義來自牛津高階七版、搜狗百科等資源歌径。如果您也在學習The?Economist陕赃，歡迎訂閱我的文集The Economist，一起學習交流糟港。英文修習者可以通過學習文中詞匯攀操，然后將商論的官方譯文回譯成英文，再對照英文原文進行比較秸抚，找出差距速和，以此提高自己的英文水平。

The low-rate world

They do not naturally crave the limelight【1】. But for the past decade the attention on central bankers has been unblinking【2】—and increasingly hostile. During the financial crisis the Federal Reserve and other central banks were hailed for their actions: by slashing rates and printing money to buy bonds, they stopped a shock from becoming a depression. Now their signature policy, of keeping interest rates low or even negative, is at the centre of the biggest macroeconomic debate in a generation.

【1】limelight 公眾注意的中心剥汤，本意是石灰光（燈）

【2】unblinking 目不轉(zhuǎn)睛地颠放；blink 眨眼，閃爍

The central bankers say that ultra-loose monetary policy【3】 remains essential to prop up still-weak economies and hit their inflation targets. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) this week promised to keep ten-year government bond【4】 yields around zero. On September 21st the Federal Reserve put off a rate rise yet again. In the wake of【5】 the Brexit vote, the Bank of England has cut its main policy rate【6】 to 0.25%, the lowest in its 300-year history.

【3】ultra-loose monetary policy 超寬松貨幣政策

【4】government bond 政府債券吭敢，政府公債

【5】in the wake of 在……之后

【6】policy rate 政策利率

Come Yellen and high water

But a growing chorus of critics frets about【7】 the effects of the low-rate world—a topsy-turvy【8】 place where savers are charged a fee, where the yields on a large fraction of rich-world government debt come with a minus sign, and where central banks matter more than markets in deciding how capital is allocated. Politicians have waded in【9】. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has accused Janet Yellen, the Fed’s chairman, of keeping rates low for political reasons. Wolfgang Sch?uble, Germany’s finance minister, blames the European Central Bank for the rise of Alternative for Germany, a right-wing party.

【7】fret about 擔憂碰凶，焦慮

【8】topsy-turvy 顛倒混亂

【9】wade in/wade in sth 強行介入；wade涉水

This is a debate on which both sides get a lot wrong. It is too simple to say that central bankers are causing the low-rate world; they are also reacting to it. Real long-term interest rates have been declining for decades, driven by fundamental factors such as ageing populations and the integration of savings-rich China into the world economy (see article). Nor have they been reckless【10】. In most of the rich world inflation is below the official target. Indeed, in some ways central banks have not been bold enough. Only now, for example, has the BoJ explicitly pledged to overshoot【11】 its 2% inflation target. The Fed still seems anxious to push up rates as soon as it can.

【10】reckless 魯莽的鹿驼，無所顧忌的

【11】overshoot 超過欲低，突破

Yet the evidence is mounting that the distortions caused by the low-rate world are growing even as the gains are diminishing. The pension-plan deficits of companies and local governments have ballooned【12】 because it costs more to honour【13】 future pension promises when interest rates fall (see article). Banks, which normally make money from the difference between short-term and long-term rates, struggle when rates are flat or negative. That impairs their ability to make loans even to the creditworthy. Unendingly low rates have skewed financial markets, ensuring a big sell-off【14】 if rates were suddenly to rise. The longer this goes on, the greater the perils that accumulate.

【12】balloon 激增，膨脹畜晰；名詞本意是氣球

【13】honour 信守（承諾）

【14】sell-off 拋售

To live safely in a low-rate world, it is time to move beyond a reliance on central banks. Structural reforms to increase underlying growth rates have a vital role. But their effects materialise only slowly and economies need succour now. The most urgent priority is to enlist【15】 fiscal policy. The main tool for fighting recessions has to shift from central banks to governments.

【15】enlist sth (in sth) 謀壤场（幫助）

To anyone who remembers the 1960s and 1970s, that idea will seem both familiar and worrying. Back then governments took it for granted that it was their responsibility to pep up【16】 demand. The problem was that politicians were good at cutting taxes and increasing spending to boost the economy, but hopeless at reversing course when such a boost was no longer needed. Fiscal stimulus became synonymous with an ever-bigger state. The task today is to find a form of fiscal policy that can revive the economy in the bad times without entrenching government in the good.

【16】pep up demand 提振需求

That means going beyond the standard response to calls for more public spending: namely, infrastructure investment. To be clear, spending on productive infrastructure is a good thing. Much of the rich world could do with new toll roads, railways and airports, and it will never be cheaper to build them. To manage the risk of white-elephant【17】 projects, private-sector partners should be involved from the start. Pension and insurance funds are desperate for long-lasting assets that will generate the steady income they have promised to retirees. Specialist pension funds can advise on a project’s merits, with one eye on【18】 eventually buying the assets in question.

【17】white-elephant 昂貴而無用之物；白象方便面當時開拓國外市場的時候凄鼻，就把它的品牌翻譯成了white elephant腊瑟，結(jié)果可想而知

【18】with one eye on sth；have one eye/half eye on sth 做一件事時悄悄注意另一件事

But infrastructure spending is not the best way to prop up weak demand. Ambitious capital projects cannot be turned on and off to fine-tune the economy. They are a nightmare to plan, take ages to deliver and risk becoming bogged down【19】 in politics. To be effective as a countercyclical tool, fiscal policy must mimic the best features of modern-day monetary policy, whereby independent central banks can act immediately to loosen or tighten as circumstances require.

【19】bog sth/sb down (in sth) 使陷入爛泥块蚌，阻礙

Small-government Keynesianism【20】

Politicians will not—and should not—hand over big budget decisions to technocrats. Yet there are ways to make fiscal policy less politicised and more responsive. Independent fiscal councils, like Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility, can help depoliticise public-spending decisions, but they do nothing to speed up fiscal action. For that, more automaticity is needed, binding some spending to changes in the economic cycle. The duration and generosity of unemployment benefits could be linked to the overall joblessness rate in the economy, for example. Sales taxes, income-tax deductions or tax-free allowances on saving could similarly vary in line with the state of the economy, using the unemployment rate as the lodestar【21】.

【20】Keynesianism凱恩斯主義(Keynesian)闰非，或稱凱恩斯主義經(jīng)濟學(Keynesian economics)，是根據(jù)凱恩斯的著作《就業(yè)峭范、利息和貨幣通論》(1936年)的思想基礎(chǔ)上的經(jīng)濟理論财松，主張國家采用擴張性的經(jīng)濟政策，通過增加需求促進經(jīng)濟增長纱控。（以上釋義來自搜狗百科）

【21】lodestar 北極星肿仑，指導(dǎo)原則

All this may seem unlikely to happen. Central banks have had to take on so much responsibility since the financial crisis because politicians have so far failed to shoulder theirs. But each new twist on ultra-loose monetary policy has less power and more drawbacks. When the next downturn【22】 comes, this kind of fiscal ammunition will be desperately needed. Only a small share of public spending needs to be affected for fiscal policy to be an effective recession-fighting weapon. Rather than blaming central bankers for the low-rate world, it is time for governments to help them.

【22】downturn 衰退

【小結(jié)】

各國央行并沒有特別渴望受到關(guān)注（limelight）,但在過去的十年間匾乓，人們對央行官員們持續(xù)關(guān)注（the attention on central bankers has been unblinking），而且越來越懷有敵意。金融危機期間用狱，美聯(lián)儲和其他央行曾削減利率（slashing rates）禽拔、印錢購買債券埠帕，從而阻止了經(jīng)濟蕭條（recession）拔恰。但如今褪尝，保持低利率甚至負利率的政策卻飽受爭議。中央官員認為期犬，要想提振仍舊疲軟的經(jīng)濟狀況（prop up still-weak economies）河哑，仍需采用超寬松貨幣政策（ultra-loose monetary policy）。日本銀行本周承諾將十年期政府公債收益率（government bond yields）保持在零左右龟虎。英國脫歐公投之后（in the wake of）璃谨，英國央行將其主要政策利率（policy rate）降至0.25%，這是300年來的歷史最低點鲤妥。但越來越多的批評之聲（chorus of critics）擔心（fret about）低利率環(huán)境會導(dǎo)致一個顛倒混亂的（topsy-turvy）世界佳吞。政治家們已經(jīng)強行介入（wade in）。央行官員的應(yīng)對方式并非魯莽（reckless）之舉棉安。央行在某些方面甚至不夠大膽（bold enough）〉装猓現(xiàn)在日本央行才保證超越（overshoot）2%的通脹目標。低利率環(huán)境會造成市場扭曲贡耽。當利率降低時衷模，要兌現(xiàn)未來養(yǎng)老金發(fā)放的承諾（honour future pension promises）就需要投入更多資金，這造成公司和地方政府的養(yǎng)老金計劃赤字激增（balloon）蒲赂。如果突然加息阱冶，必然引發(fā)大規(guī)模拋售（sell-off）。謀取財政政策的幫助（enlist fiscal policy）才是當務(wù)之急滥嘴。上世紀60年代和70年代熙揍，政府認為有責任提振需求（pep up demand）。政治家們擅長通過減稅和增加支出的方式提振經(jīng)濟（boost the economy）氏涩，但不再需要這樣的刺激時，指望他們改弦更張則令人失望有梆。投資基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施（infrastructure）是慣常的應(yīng)對方式是尖。為了防止產(chǎn)生大而無用（white-elephant）的項目，私營部門一開始就應(yīng)該參與其中泥耀。在針對某個項目的優(yōu)點提出意見時饺汹，專門養(yǎng)老基金也應(yīng)關(guān)注（with one eye on）最終的投資者√荡撸基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施項目需要多年的實施兜辞，還可能因政治因素而停滯（bogged down）】淙埽可以將失業(yè)率作為指導(dǎo)原則（lodestar）逸吵，依據(jù)經(jīng)濟狀況來調(diào)整營業(yè)稅（sales taxes）、所得稅減免（income-tax deductions）或儲蓄免稅額（tax-free allowances on saving）缝裁。當下一次經(jīng)濟衰退（downturn）來臨時扫皱，政治家們應(yīng)肩負責任，使財政政策成為有力的武器。現(xiàn)在韩脑，政府不應(yīng)將低利率世界歸咎于央行官員們（blame central bankers for）氢妈，而應(yīng)幫助他們。

注：本文僅供學習交流之用段多，不代表作者觀點首量。