商业周刊:日本与节俭的悖论(3)（在线收听）

The tight budgets of retirees such as Makoto Miyakawa, a 71-year-old who lives near Yokohama,

生活在横滨附近的71岁的Makoto Miyakawa等退休者经济拮据，

are a big part of the reason Japan's annual economic growth has averaged an anemic 0.9 percent since 2000, about a third of what it was in the previous two decades.

是日本自2000年以来年均经济增长乏力仅为0.9%的主要原因，与过去的20年相比，仅为经济增长的三分之一。

Miyakawa says his wife controls the family purse strings, and after he retired she decided to cut his monthly allowance in half, to the equivalent of $10 a day.

Miyakawa说，他的妻子掌握着家里的经济大权。退休后，她决定将他的每月津贴减半，相当于每天10美元。

(She's quick to remind him, he says, that the neighbors' husbands get less.)

（他说，妻子很快提醒他，邻居们的丈夫每月津贴越来越少。）

The couple are careful about spending because they don't want to outlive their money or end up facing medical bills they can't afford.

这对夫妇花钱很小心，因为他们不想落到没钱花的地步，也不想最终负担不起医疗费用。

"Everybody wants to go out fast, but you have no control over that," he says.

他说：“谁都想快点出院，但你没办法控制这个。”

If there are any winners in all of this, it's Japan's discount retailers, which are thriving.

如果说这一切能有赢家的话，那就是日本的折扣零售商，他们正在蓬勃发展。

Nitori Holdings Co., a budget furniture store with the ubiquitous catchphrase "More than you paid for" (it's cooler in Japanese),

Nitori集团是一家廉价家具店，其流行口号是“物超所值”（在日语中的表达更炫酷）。

has grown into one of the country's top 10 retailers, adding more than three stores a month for years.

现在，该集团已经成长为日本十大零售商之一，多年来每月新增三家以上的商店。

And Japan's 100-yen shops, the equivalent of dollar stores, which were mostly unheard of until the late 1990s,

日本的100日元店，相当于一元店，直到20世纪90年代末才出现。

now have almost 7,000 outlets pulling in almost $7 billion in annual sales.

现在，这种店铺有近7000家，年销售额接近70亿美元。

"There's no reason," says one fan, 75-year-old Naoko Ishikawa, "to feel embarrassed about shopping at a 100-yen store anymore."

75岁的Naoko Ishikawa是100日元店的粉丝，她说：“没有理由再为在一家100日元店购物感到尴尬了。