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Finance and economics
财经版块
Unstoppable momentum
势不可挡
Still energised
活力依旧
America's extraordinary economic vigour keeps the inflation threat alive.
美国非同寻常的经济活力让通胀威胁继续存在。
At some point American economic growth will disappoint expectations.
在某一时刻，美国的经济增长将令人失望。
For now, though, it appears to have ended 2023 much as it passed the previous few years, with yet another expansion that defied forecasts.
然而，就目前而言，美国2023年的经济表现似乎与前几年大致相同，又一次出现了超出预期的扩张。
Recent data suggest that the economy grew at an annualised pace of 2.5% or so in the final three months of the year, more than twice the median expectation of analysts at the start of the quarter.
最近的数据显示，美国经济在2023年最后三个月的年化增长率为2.5%左右，是分析师在第四季度初预期的中值的两倍多。
Although such momentum is welcome, it complicates the outlook as the Federal Reserve contemplates when to start cutting interest rates.
尽管这种势头值得欢迎，但随着美联储正在考虑何时开始降息，这种增势让经济前景变得更加复杂。
America’s strength is broad-based.
美国的经济实力有广泛的基础。
Investment in manufacturing facilities has soared to record highs, propelled by the Biden administration’s subsidies for electric-vehicle and semiconductor production.
拜登政府为电动汽车和半导体生产提供补贴，在此举推动下，对制造设施的投资飙升至创纪录高位。
Elevated mortgage rates have led to big falls in sales of existing houses, but property developers have responded to the dearth of single-family homes on the market by ramping up building.
抵押贷款利率上升导致现房销量大幅下降，但面对市场上独栋住宅匮乏的情况，房地产开发商扩大了建房规模。
The government has remained a backstop to growth—albeit a worrying one from the standpoint of long-term fiscal sustainability—with its deficit running at about 7% of GDP, which is virtually unprecedented during peacetime without a recession.
政府一直是经济增长的后盾--尽管从长期财政可持续性的角度来看，其政策令人担忧--财政赤字约占GDP的7%，这在没有经济衰退的和平时期几乎是史无前例的。
Most important of all, American consumers have remained indomitable, defying expectations of a retrenchment in personal spending.
最重要的是，美国消费者仍然不屈不挠，无视个人支出将会紧缩的预期。
Two factors help explain their resilience.
有两个因素可以解释消费者的韧性。
The stash of savings accumulated by households during the covid-19 pandemic, thanks to the government’s fiscal largesse, has continued to offer them a buffer.
得益于政府的慷慨财政支出，疫情期间家庭积累的储蓄继续为消费者提供缓冲。
Economists at the Fed’s branch in San Francisco reckon that households had about $290bn of excess savings, relative to the expected baseline, as of November.
美联储旧金山分行的经济学家估计，截至11月，相对于预期基线，美国家庭拥有约2900亿美元的超额储蓄。
Moreover, the tight labour market has led to robust wage growth, especially for lower-income workers, who, in turn, have a higher propensity to spend.
此外，供不应求的劳动力市场带来了强劲的工资增长，尤其是对低收入工人来说，他们因此有更高的消费倾向。
As inflation has come under control their real wage gains look even more substantial.
随着通胀得到控制，他们的实际工资增长看起来更加可观。
These various sources of strength contributed to America’s barnstorming third quarter in 2023, when it posted annualised growth of 4.9%.
这几股不同的力量促成了美国2023年第三季度的精彩表现，该季度公布的年化增长率为4.9%。
Some slowing was only natural after such a rapid expansion.
在如此快速的扩张之后，有一些放缓才是正常的。
As recently as early October analysts had pencilled in growth of just 0.7% in the final quarter of 2023.
因此就在10月初，分析师还预计2023年第四季度的增长率仅为0.7%。
But the latest reading from a real-time model by the Atlanta Fed—which has proved to be a reliable guide for recent GDP figures—points instead to annualised growth of 2.5%.
但美联储亚特兰大分行实时模型的最新读数--该模型已被证明是预测最近的GDP数据的可靠指南--显示的是2.5%的年化增长率。
Although the reading will fluctuate as more data trickle in, the margin for error shrinks as the date of a GDP release nears; the next one is on January 25th.
尽管随着更多数据的陆续到来读数会波动，但随着GDP发布日期的临近，误差空间会缩小，下一次发布是在1月25日。
For 2023 as a whole growth is likely to be about 2.5%, impressive considering that most economists expected America to be flirting with recession.
2023年美国整体增长率可能在2.5%左右，考虑到大多数经济学家曾预计美国有衰退的危险，因此这一数字算是表现很不错。
