“如果没有因对伊朗的战争而导致的汽油价格上涨，8月份的通货膨胀率本应该下降的，”格雷格·杰里科（Greg Jericho）写道。照片：George Chan/AAP利率再次上升，人们开始讨论经济衰退的可能性。
‘Without the increase in petrol prices driven by the war on Iran, inflation in August would have fallen,’ writes Greg Jericho. Photograph: George Chan/AAP Greg Jericho And here we are again. Hello darkness my old friend. Interest rates up again and talk of a recession if needed.
澳大利亚储备银行（RBA）的立法赋予其双重使命：“维持价格稳定（即控制通货膨胀）以及确保澳大利亚的充分就业。”但实际上，RBA似乎完全忽视了“充分就业”这一目标，我们现在确实需要担心经济衰退的发生。
The Reserve Bank’s enacting legislation gives it a dual mandate – “price stability [ie stable inflation] and the maintenance of full employment in Australia.”But in reality the RBA seems to ignore the “full employment” aspect overall, and we now need to worry about a recession.
不止我一个人注意到了这一点。在RBA行长米歇尔·布洛克（Michele Bullock）宣布将现金利率上调至4.6%后的新闻发布会上，ABC电视台的艾伦·科勒（Alan Kohler）在《Afternoon Briefing》节目中指出：“她对‘充分就业’的定义完全基于通货膨胀率；实际上，RBA的唯一使命就是控制通货膨胀。”市场也明白这一点。
It’s not just me who noticed this. After the RBA governor Michele Bullock held a press conference where she announced the cash rate was being raised to 4.6%, the ABC’s Alan Kohler (enjoy your retirement, Alan ) told Afternoon Briefing, “she defines ‘full employment’ in terms of inflation. There’s really only one mandate that means – the mandate is inflation. That’s it.”
在RBA7月份的会议后，市场原本预计本月不会加息，甚至未来也不会再加息；但现在市场已经预计利率将在明年3月前升至4.85%。
The market also understands this. After the RBA’s July meeting, the markets predicted no rate rise this month and maybe no more to come.
（如果图表无法显示，请点击此处查看详细数据。）尽管没有因对伊朗的战争而导致的汽油价格上涨，8月份的通货膨胀率本应下降（这也是核心通货膨胀率仍维持在3.6%的原因），但市场依然做出了这样的预测。
Now a rise to 4.85% is priced in before March next year: If the graph does not display click here They predict this even though without the increase in petrol prices driven by the war on Iran, inflation in August would have fallen (which is why core inflation remained steady at 3.6%):
说到汽油价格，不妨回想一下：Ampol公司今年的利润增长了376%；自对伊朗的战争爆发以来，其股价涨幅远超Woodside和Santos等公司。显然，企业并没有责任去推动价格上涨。
When thinking about petrol prices, recall that Ampol’s interim profit this year rose 376% and its share price has risen so much since the war on Iran began that Woodside and Santos seem like the poor cousins: Apparently, companies are not to blame for raising prices.
不过，别忘了：一旦扣除汽油价格上涨带来的影响，8月份的居民支出实际上出现了下降……算了，这些都无关紧要了——RBA无论如何都要将通货膨胀率控制在3%以下，无论导致通货膨胀的原因是什么。
Never mind that household spending in August fell once you took away the increase due to petrol prices: No, forget all that, the RBA is devoted to getting inflation under 3% regardless of what is causing that inflation.
布洛克表示，澳大利亚储备银行（RBA）未能实现充分就业的目标，并非因为“充分就业的目标其实就是失业率——或者说，就是那种能够维持低而稳定通胀水平的就业状况”。她进一步指出：“目前的失业率或就业状况其实有点紧张，我们认为这与低而稳定的通胀水平并不一致。”
不过，她补充道：“如果你们现在还不生气的话，那以后恐怕就要生气了。”
Bullock said the RBA was not failing to deliver full employment because “the full employment target is the unemployment rate, if you like, or the level of employment which is consistent with low and stable inflation. And what we’re saying at the moment is that the rate of unemployment or the employment, is actually a bit tight, and it’s not consistent, we don’t think, with low and stable inflation Truly Humpty Dumpty language territory If you are not angry now, you should be. But just wait. With inflation at 4.0% mainly driven by petrol prices due to a war in Iran and a massive boom in datacentres (which are not delivering any productivity benefits yet), the RBA is worried we might think this clearly abnormal period is normal and that inflation will always be above 3%.
由于通胀率高达4.0%（这一通胀水平主要由伊朗战争以及数据中心建设的迅猛发展所驱动，而数据中心建设目前尚未带来任何生产力的提升），RBA担心人们可能会将这种异常的通胀状况视为“常态”，并认为通胀率会一直保持在3%以上。
God spare us. skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion The governor was asked if she could see a situation “where you do actually need to put the economy into recession in order to get what you desperately hope for which is basically the mid-point of 2.5%? Can you see a scenario where that would be needed?”
在一系列关于经济政策的讨论中，有人问布洛克：“是否存在这样一种情况：为了实现我们迫切希望达到的2.5%的通胀目标，确实有必要让经济陷入衰退？”对此，布洛克的回答非常明确：“不！你们疯了吗？将核心通胀率从3.6%降到3%以下，绝对没有理由让经济陷入衰退。”不过她也表示：“当然，也有可能出现需要这样做的情况……比如当人们的通胀预期失控时。”
Now for me that is a pretty easy question to answer; something along the lines of “No! Are you crazy? There is no way lowering core inflation from 3.6% to under 3% would justify a recession.”Instead, Bullock replied, “Well, I hope it’s not needed. Are there scenarios in which it might have to happen that way? I guess possibly. And the scenario that I’m thinking of there is if inflation expectations get away from us.
如果通胀预期开始抬头——如果人们开始说，‘你知道吗，3%左右没问题，或者4%也没问题’，而且你确实会听到一些这样的声音，如果这种预期失控，那么我认为，你可能需要让经济相当剧烈地放缓——而这正是我们所担心的。”【斜体为我所加】想想这一点——央行认为，如果人们开始认为3%到4%的通胀率是可以接受的，那么衰退就可能被摆上台面，即使这并非他们“此刻的核心基准情景”。
If inflation expectations start – if people start saying, ‘You know what, three point something is fine or four is fine’, and you do hear some of that, if that gets away, then that is a circumstance in which I think you might need to have quite a dramatic slowdown in the economy to – and that’s our worry.” [My italics] Just think on that – the central bank thinking if people would start considering that inflation between 3% and 4% is OK, then a recession could be on the table, even if it wasn’t their “central base case at this moment”.
布洛克周二再次告诉记者，失业率上升“并不意味着失业。它往往意味着人们可能需要更长时间才能找到工作。”从技术上讲，她是对的，但她说“我们会采取必要措施把通胀降下来，因为我们需要这样做”，这显示出优先事项的扭曲。当然，她接着又说，“但如果我们能够避免大规模失业和失业率大幅上升，那是能够努力去做的一件非常重要的事。”避免失业率大幅上升很重要，但显然对澳储行来说，这并不是不可逾越的底线。
Bullock once again on Tuesday told journalists that rising unemployment “doesn’t mean job losses. What it often means is that people might be taking longer to find a job.”She’s technically right, but for her to say that “we’ll do what we have to do to get inflation down because we need to”, shows the skewed priorities. Sure, she went on to say, “but if we can avoid massive job losses and a massive increase in the unemployment rate, that is a really important thing to be able to try and do.”Avoiding massive increases in unemployment is important, but, for the RBA, apparently not a dealbreaker.
衰退是可怕的事情，许多央行都曾因为以为只要降息就能让经济重新运转而栽了跟头。
Recessions are horrible things and many a central bank has come a gutser thinking they can just lower rates and get things going again.
在新冠疫情期间，成年人中有工作的比例下降幅度与20世纪90年代衰退时期一样大，但那是由于封锁，而非经济状况，所以复苏非常迅速。全球金融危机几乎算是一场衰退，但成年人中有工作的比例下降幅度远小于20世纪90年代衰退时期。
During Covid the percentage of adults with a job fell by as much as during the 1990s recession, but it was due to lockdowns, not economic conditions, so the recovery was very quick. The GFC was almost a recession, but the percentage of adults with a job fell much less than in the 1990s recession.
在20世纪90年代衰退中，不仅出现了大规模失业，而且花了十年才恢复：过去55年里的衰退都伴随着全职工作男性人数下降，而且从未恢复。从未：但看起来，这可能就是我们必须付出的代价，以把通胀预期从3.5%降到2.5%。
In the 1990s recession, not only was there a massive loss of jobs, it took a decade to recover: Recessions over the past 55 years have seen the level of men in full-time work fall and never recover. Never: But that, it seems, might be the price we have to pay to lower inflationary expectations from 3.5% to 2.5%.