Cheap money stimulates demand. More demand encourages supply. So far, so very simple. But how quickly and how adequately extra demand is met on the supply side, or whether it spills over instead into price inflation, depends on real-world dynamics. Apply such principles to UK government policy in the housing market – where stimulus has come from increasingly generous FirstBuy, NewBuy and now Help to Buy programmes – and the conclusions are far from reassuring.
廉價資金刺激需求。需求成長則鼓勵供應。這個道理很簡單。然而,額外的需求如何在供應方面得到快速、充分的滿足,還是滲透到價格通膨中,則依賴於現實世界的動態。把這些原則應用於英國政府的住房市場政策——需求刺激來自越來越慷慨的購房支持計劃,包括首房購買支持(FirstBuy)、新房購買支持(NewBuy)和輔助購房計劃(Help to Buy,HTB),結果遠不能讓人放心。