商业报道:经济衰退的迹象

Recession signs are here 经济衰退

There are multiple signals of a recession, and they are all flashing green now.

Well, he said we were in a recession back in March, and the US economy has skidded¹ along for the past two quarters. So where are we now? In the Economic Cycle with me now Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Accurate Economic Research Institute, thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me back.

And this is a call you've made a lot about what we are recently and it's likely right a lot of people are starting to agree with you, but the question is we have not seen two back-to-back quarters of contracting growth that is the traditional definition of a recession.

Yeah, it's it. . . what that is really is it is a rule of thumb. That was and I was researching this because I've heard so much about it. It came out in an article in 1974 where there was a laundry list of ways of knowing about a recession for the men in the street, and one out of like ten thinks was two negative quarters back-to-back, because it usually happens around a recession. What you find is that that's not the way you define a recession because a recession is really a sequence of events, and so you need to look at the sequence of indicators³. Essentially⁴ what you're looking for is for sales to fall, so broad sales is a key indicator², which then pulls down production ,so industrial production is an indicator that you use to define a recession, which then hits jobs because if productions falls then jobs are gonna fall. You don't need to hire that many people and then wages or income comes down. That's the last piece, so it's the sequence, and then if wages come down, then it goes to the front of line, and people can't buy that much. So sale falls and that s how you get a recession, so the two negative quarters I think is something you often see there in a recession.

Not always.

But not always, so 2001 for example, (yeah) definitely a recession we almost lost 3 million jobs, we lopped off half of the value of the NASDAQ, a lot of grief around there and I don't think anyone disputes that it was a recession. You never had two negative quarters of back to back GDP.

Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong.We're dealing⁵ with inflation at the, you know, fastest rate in 17 years (That's correct. ) Wages are not a 5. 6 percent like inflation is ,and we're dealing with more than 400, 000 jobless claims last week, we're dealing with all of this. . . going on so, who's to say right now that we aren't in a recession?

Well, I think, you know, some, er, a cheerleader of the economy for one reason or another, some institutions who wanna do that, if you are bullish, and you wanna have a, certainly, you might have a certain vested interest in arguing that. What we're trying to do is just get it right where, you know, where are we in the business cycle and what's the likelihood of a turning point ahead. Now we've already called the peak. I think when the dust settles, you are gonna see more in negative quarters of GDP, they're gonna get revised down next year. And looking forward what we very concerned about is any sign of a recovery, and that hasn't really appeared yet. So you know the bad news is we are in a recession. The good news is it's been kind of shallow so far, the not so good news or ongoing⁶ concern is that we don't see the foundations for a recovery.

when we look around the globe, outside the United States, we see this economic weakness really creeping up in the countries we heard from the Euro zone like contraction⁷ in GDP, the worst probably we've seen there since the 1990s. How much is that going to affect any recovery in our country here in the US?

Ah. . yeah, it is. . that's a great question. The global slowing is punctuated⁸ by recession ,we went in first, we don' t see a recovery yet. Europe and other places are following us down, and this is a problem for the US because of exports, OK?

A couple of things have happened that are negative for our exports outlook in the quarters ahead. One is that the dollar has started to strengthen because that the rest of the world looks weaker. And the other is, is that as the rest. . as the rest of the world slows their demand for our goods is gonna ebb⁹ a little bit. So the exports which has been keeping us at a shallow recession is going to be kind of less of a positive for the US going forward.

1 skidded   

v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的过去式和过去分词 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区

参考例句：

• The car skidded and hit a lamp post. 那辆汽车打滑撞上了路灯杆。
• The car skidded and overturned. 汽车打滑翻倒了。

2 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

3 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

4 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

5 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

6 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

7 contraction   

n.缩略词，缩写式，害病

参考例句：

• The contraction of this muscle raises the lower arm.肌肉的收缩使前臂抬起。
• The forces of expansion are balanced by forces of contraction.扩张力和收缩力相互平衡。

8 punctuated   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。
• The audience punctuated his speech by outbursts of applause. 听众不时以阵阵掌声打断他的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 ebb   

vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态

参考例句：

• The flood and ebb tides alternates with each other.涨潮和落潮交替更迭。
• They swam till the tide began to ebb.他们一直游到开始退潮。