Lawrence Summers has poured gallons of icy water on any remaining optimists. Speaking on a panel at the International Monetary Fund’s annual research conference, the former US Treasury secretary suggested that there could be no easy return to pre-crisis normality in high-income economies. Instead, he sketched out a disturbing future of chronically weak demand and slow economic growth. Mr Summers is not the first to identify the possibility of so-called “secular stagnation”: the fear of emulating Japan’s lost decade has been in the minds of thoughtful analysts since the crisis. But his was a bravura performance.
勞倫斯•薩默斯(Lawrence Summers)給所有依然樂觀的人潑了一盆冷水。在國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)年度研究會議一個專門小組會上的講話中，這位美國前財長認爲，高收入經濟體可能很難恢復到危機之前的常態。他還勾勒出一幅令人焦慮的未來場景：需求長期疲弱，經濟成長緩慢。薩默斯並不是第一個看出所謂「長期停滯」可能性的人：危機爆發以來，思慮周全的分析師們就擔憂日本「失去的十年」在其他地方上演。但他提出這一看法頗具勇氣。