抗击通胀的斗争已经进入了一个新的、更加危险的阶段。多年来，澳大利亚储备银行（RBA）一直尽可能谨慎地采取措施，试图将通胀率控制在2.5%的目标范围内，同时尽可能保留疫情后创造的就业机会。
The fight against inflation has entered a new, more dangerous phase. For years, the Reserve Bank has been attempting, as gently as possible, to steer inflation back to its 2.5% target while trying to retain as many of the post-pandemic job gains as possible.
“这仍然是我们的策略，”RBA行长米歇尔·布洛克在周二下午对记者们表示。就在一天前，该银行刚刚宣布了今年第四次加息。布洛克指出：“过去四年中，失业率确实上升了1个百分点，但目前的4.6%在历史上仍然属于较低的水平。”
“That still remains the strategy,” Michele Bullock, the RBA’s governor, told journalists on Tuesday afternoon, an hour after the board announced the fourth interest rate hike for the year Unemployment has climbed by 1 percentage point over the past four years, sure, but at 4.6% it’s “still quite low historically,” Bullock said.
她表示，其他一些中央银行确实成功地将通胀率降了下来，但代价是失业率的上升。不过，有迹象表明，澳大利亚储备银行可能开始对这种“循序渐进”的策略失去信心。
Other central banks have managed to get inflation lower, sure, but at the cost of higher unemployment, she said. Yet there are signs that the central bank may be losing faith in this “slowly, slowly” strategy.
布洛克解释说，澳大利亚储备银行的通胀率已经连续六年未能保持在2%至3%的目标范围内。这是一个问题，因为家庭和企业需要相信通胀率最终会再次下降。“我们在2025年曾短暂地回到了目标范围内，但随后又再次偏离了目标。我们的目标仍然是将通胀率控制在目标范围内，”她说。
Bullock explained the RBA has been outside the 2-3% target range for six years now. That’s a problem, because households and businesses need to believe that inflation will fall again, one day. “We came in [to the range] briefly in 2025, and then we’ve popped back out again. We are aiming to get it back,” she said.
然而，在各种不可预测的因素不断出现的情况下，如何才能在“合理的时间内”重新控制住通胀率呢？
But how to get inflation back under control “in a reasonable time”, when unreasonable things keep happening?
目前，无休止的中东冲突已成为对澳大利亚储备银行通胀控制策略的最大威胁。布洛克指出：“中东冲突刚开始时，大家都认为‘这场冲突不会持续太久’，但事实显然并非如此，而且这场冲突似乎没有结束的迹象。”由于冲突的影响，燃油价格、化肥价格以及运输费用都持续处于高位。
It’s the unending Middle East conflict that now looms as the biggest threat to the RBA’s careful approach to taming inflation. As Bullock said: “When the Middle East conflict first started, everyone was sort of thinking, ‘Oh, it will probably not last very long’.”“Well, that’s clearly not true. It’s lasted, and there doesn’t seem to be any end to it,” she said. Fuel prices, fertiliser prices, transport prices are now all “permanently higher”.
“他们先提高利率，然后再降低利率的这种做法根本就没有发生过。”澳大利亚储备银行（RBA）的行长担心，企业们也可能得出了同样的结论，并开始提高自己的产品价格。这样一来，如果不大幅提高利率，就更加难以将通胀率控制在目标范围内了。
“So this idea that they would go up and then come down again just hasn’t happened.”The RBA governor is worried that businesses are also coming to the same conclusion, and will start lifting their prices. That will make it even harder to get inflation back to target without a more dramatic increase in interest rates.
布洛克（Bullock）及其董事会早就明确表示，他们会“不惜一切代价”将通胀率控制在目标范围内；他们在周二的声明中再次重申了这一立场。
Bullock and her board have long made it clear they will “do what it takes” to get inflation back to target, a phrase they repeated on Tuesday.
周二的声明发布后，许多经济学家认为澳大利亚储备银行将在六周后的墨尔本杯比赛日会议上再次加息。金融市场预计明年再次加息的概率为50%。
After Tuesday’s announcement, a number of economists are betting the RBA will hike again in six weeks’ time, at the Melbourne Cup day meeting. Financial markets see a 50% chance of yet another increase next year.
总体来看，澳大利亚储备银行似乎已经准备好采取更有力的措施来抑制通胀。
All up, it sounds like the RBA is ready to start pushing harder against inflation.
这或许是正确的决策，但这也增加了央行过度干预经济的风险；用布洛克的话来说，这种做法可能会使经济“出现急剧放缓”。
That might be the right call, but it increases the risk the central bank will push too hard and, in Bullock’s words, drive the economy into a “dramatic slowdown”.
“希望在未来几年内，当通胀率终于降下来时，所有这些努力都是值得的。”
“Hopefully, in the next couple of years, when we get inflation back down, this will have all been worth it.”