几个月来，关于人工智能热潮的一种普遍看法是，它正在支撑美国经济，且规模太大、现金太充裕，以至于不必在意利率。美联储主席凯文·沃什周三表示，他对这两种假设都不太确信。
For months, a common view of the artificial-intelligence boom has been that it is propping up the U.S. economy and it is too big and too flush with cash to care about interest rates. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh said Wednesday he wasn’t so sure about either assumption.
这些观点使得利率还需上调多高这一问题变得更加复杂，因为它们可能指向相反的方向。正如预期的那样，美联储周三维持利率不变，投资者普遍预计在12月的下次会议上将加息。
The positions complicate the question of how much higher interest rates may have to go because they could point in opposite directions. The Fed held rates steady Wednesday, as anticipated, with investors widely expecting an increase at the next meeting in December.
当经济更多领域增长时，通常意味着消费者和企业支出增加，短期内这可能推高物价。如果海外冲突导致能源和大宗商品价格居高不下，这种情况尤为明显。
When more of the economy is growing, it usually means more spending by consumers and businesses, which in the short run can push up prices. That would especially be the case if conflict abroad keeps energy and commodity prices high.
但如果人工智能建设热潮及其支撑的股市驱动型消费支出，比许多人假设的更敏感于利率，那么每一次加息对降温经济的作用可能更大。随着科技公司越来越多地转向债券和股票市场为增长融资，而不再像过去那样依靠自有现金，这种可能性更大。
But if the AI build-out, and the stock-market-fueled consumer spending it supports, turn out to be more sensitive to interest rates than many have assumed, each increase could do more to cool the economy. That’s more likely as tech companies increasingly turn to bond and stock markets to finance growth they once paid for out of their own cash.
[视频] 华尔街日报记者尼克·蒂米劳斯解读美联储最新声明中的关键句子“有一种说法持续了相当一段时间，也许甚至就在这间屋子里，贯穿了过去几次新闻发布会，”沃什说，即更紧缩的货币政策“不会对人工智能产生任何影响，因为投资者预期的回报截然不同”。“我对这种观点持怀疑态度。利率会渗透到缝隙中去。利率直接或间接地影响几乎所有事物。”沃什说，自从美联储上个月加息以来，有证据表明投资者在投资上变得更加挑剔，他指出一些风险较高公司的借贷成本已经飙升。
[video] WSJ’s Nick Timiraos on the Key Sentence in the Fed’s Latest Statement“There was a narrative for quite a while, maybe even in this room over the course of the last several press conferences,” that tighter monetary policy is “not going to have any effect on AI because the returns that investors are expecting are so different,” Warsh said. “I was skeptical of that view. Interest rates get in the cracks. Interest rates affect, directly or indirectly, almost everything.”And since the Fed raised rates last month, there was evidence investors had become more discriminating about their investments, Warsh said, pointing to how borrowing costs for some riskier companies have jumped.
沃什的解释让债券投资者感到不安，他们正在寻找迹象表明美联储致力于将通胀降至 2% 的目标，而过去两年里在这方面毫无进展。当沃什在周三发言时，投资者减少了对明年加息的押注。长期收益率略微上升，显示出对未来通胀更加担忧。
Warsh’s explanation landed uneasily with bond investors, who are looking for signs that the Fed is committed to bringing inflation down to its 2% goal after two years in which it has made no progress. While Warsh spoke Wednesday, investors scaled back bets on rate increases next year. Longer-term yields rose slightly, a sign of more worry about inflation down the road.
道明证券的策略师表示，沃什“并未清楚阐述为何委员会倾向于等到 12 月才加息”。美国银行美国利率策略主管马克·卡巴纳说，他的回答“既不清晰也不令人信服”。卡巴纳表示，沃什似乎依赖近期风险资产的动荡以及市场通胀预期的轻微下降，但那些动荡“并不大”。沃什关于人工智能的言论涉及利率最终需要升多高的问题，而答案可能取决于科技部门对借贷成本的反应程度。
Strategists at TD Securities said Warsh “did not clearly lay out why the committee preferred to wait until December” to raise rates. His answers were “neither clear nor convincing,” said Mark Cabana, head of U.S. rates strategy at Bank of America. Warsh seemed to lean on recent wobbles in riskier assets and a slight decline in market-based inflation expectations, Cabana said, but those wobbles “were not that big.”Warsh’s remarks on AI bear on the question of how high rates ultimately need to go, and the answer may depend on how much the technology sector responds to borrowing costs.
认为科技部门对适度加利率高度不敏感的论点，建立在企业预期回报足以远超资金成本、且视竞争为赢家通吃这一假设之上。“你想成为赢家之一，这意味着你必须先人一步到达那里，”前美联储经济学家、现任耶鲁管理学院教授威廉·英格利什说。
The case that it is highly insensitive to modest increases in rates rests on the assumption that firms expect returns large enough to dwarf the cost of money, and they see the contest as winner-take-all. “You want to be one of the winners, and that means you’ve got to get there first,” said William English, a former Fed economist now at the Yale School of Management.
如果繁荣无视更高的借贷成本，美联储将不得不抑制住房、商业地产、小企业、低收入至中等收入消费者以及其他对利率敏感的部门，而这些部门最初并非通胀的主要来源。
If the boom shrugs off higher borrowing costs, the Fed would have to throttle housing, commercial real estate, small businesses, low- to middle-income consumers and other rate-sensitive sectors that weren’t big sources of inflation to begin with.
随着美联储从去年降息转为今年加息，这种担忧日益加剧。“这几乎就像美联储需要两个利率，”UBS 首席美国经济学家乔纳森·平格尔说，“一个针对人工智能繁荣及其带来的股市财富效应，另一个针对其他一切。”
This has been a growing worry as the Fed has turned from cutting rates last year to raising them this year. “It’s almost like the Fed needs two interest rates,” one for the AI boom and the stock-market wealth it is throwing off, and one for everything else, said Jonathan Pingle, chief U.S. economist at UBS.
但如果繁荣对利率上升的敏感度高于普遍认知，正如沃什所言，美联储可能只需较少的加息次数、造成较小的附带损害，就能让局势降温。
But if the boom is more sensitive to higher rates than commonly believed, as Warsh suggested, the Fed could be able to cool things down with fewer increases and less collateral damage.
“认为与人工智能相关的任何事物都对利率不敏感，在我看来是非常极端的，”巴克莱首席美国经济学家马克·吉亚诺尼表示。最大的科技公司可能不需要借贷来支付开支，但对于数据中心运营商以及与它们一同建设、且确实需要借贷的其他公司而言，“其债务的利率是一个重要因素，”他说。
“The idea that there’s no interest-rate sensitivity from anything related to AI, to me, is very extreme,” said Marc Giannoni, chief U.S. economist at Barclays. The largest tech companies may not have to borrow to pay for their spending, but for data-center operators and other firms building alongside them that do, “interest rates on their debt is a big factor,” he said.
美联储面临的挑战在于，繁荣整体看似未受影响，而压力却在边缘积聚。随着更多建设通过债务融资，较高利率通过信贷市场传导至该领域，首先冲击最脆弱的借款人，最后才波及现金充裕的巨头。每一次加息似乎作用不大，直到金融状况突然破裂。
The Fed’s challenge is that the boom as a whole can look unfazed while strains build at the edges. As more of the build-out is financed with debt, higher rates reach it through credit markets, hitting the weakest borrowers first and the cash-rich giants last. Each increase might seem to do little until financial conditions suddenly crack.
“存在一个临界点，届时局势会崩塌。届时，美联储可能会发现，支出的疲软程度比其模型预测的更为显著，”前美联储高级顾问、现任纽约梅隆投资首席经济学家文森特·莱因哈特表示。
“There’s a point at which it breaks. And at that point, the Fed may find that spending weakens more significantly” than their models predict, said Vincent Reinhart, a former senior Fed adviser who is now chief economist at BNY Investments.
沃什的第二个观点则指向相反方向。“说经济的强劲完全归因于这波新技术浪潮，这很方便，”他说。事实上，企业投资“不仅强劲，而且正在扩面。”沃什迅速指出，他并不认为强劲增长必然会推高通胀，从而证明更高利率的正当性。
Warsh’s second position cuts the other way. “It is convenient to say that the strength of the economy is all about this new technology wave,” he said. In fact, business investment is “not just strong, but it is broadening.”Warsh was quick to note that he doesn’t see strong growth as something that would necessarily push up inflation, which would justify higher interest rates.
“他的基本意思是：‘我们需要做得更多，但可能不需要多做太多，’”莱因哈特说。
“He’s basically saying, ‘We need to do more, but it may not be all that much more,’” said Reinhart.
尽管如此，莱因哈特认为，短期内风险倾向于美联储不得不做的比它预想的更多，部分原因是能源和大宗商品价格似乎正稳定在较高水平。“其他价格将不得不追赶上来，因此他们可能会发现通胀更具持久性，届时他们会在2027年变得不耐烦，不得不进一步收紧政策，”他说。
Still, Reinhart thinks the risks lean toward the Fed having to do more than it thinks in the short run, in part because energy and commodity prices appear to be settling in at a higher level. “Other prices are going to have to catch up to that, so they may find out that inflation is more durable, in which case, they get impatient in 2027 and have to tighten more,” he said.