PBS高端访谈:为什么股市上涨,而经济复苏疲软?

 　　JUDY WOODRUFF: This has been a notable week for the stock markets, particularly for the Dow Jones industrial average, the benchmark index that's closely monitored and that's reaching new milestones¹.

　　But there are questions about what's behind the rally of late and whether it reflects the fundamentals of the economy.NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman hit the trading floor yesterday in search of someanswers.

　　The story is part of his ongoing² reporting Making Sense of financial news.

　　MARK OTTO, J. Streicher & Co:Up, up and away, yes.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Mark Otto at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, when the Dow ended above 16000, anotherrecord for the headline index of 30 major companies.

　　Other stock indexes are hitting new highs as well, as companies continue to report healthy profits and recovery chugs along.And, yet, the recovery is weak and unemployment high.

　　Even on the exchange floor, there was little enthusiasm.Why?

　　MARK OTTO: I think everyone's a little bit worried.I mean, you hear the conversation of a bubble possibility coming up more often now.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: And, says Otto, voicing a common complaint, that's because of the Federal Reserve in Washington.

　　MARK OTTO: Fed stimulus³ has really propelled the market higher.Really, that's the debate that's going on right now as we close in to the end of the year.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: But when you're buying a share of a company, you're buying a stake in or a claim on its profits, right?

　　MARK OTTO: Actually, since Washington, D.C., and the markets have become more intertwined, I believe thattraders are looking at stocks not only for earnings⁴ and the basis of beating expectations; it's also the fact of what's propelling those stocks.

　　DOUGLAS DACHILLE, First Principles Capital Management:The Federal Reserve is trying to stimulate⁵ economic activity.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Wall Street money manager Doug Dachille, whose office literally⁶ looks down on the New York branch of the Federal Reserve, agrees.The Fed's post-crash policy of easy money, he says, has driven up the price of assets like stocks, instead of prompting investment and spending, as hoped.

　　DOUG DACHILLE: Why you're here today talking to me is, you're questioning this whole thing.That's the problem.People are questioning it because they know the asset valuations have been driven by a monetary⁷ phenomenon.They have been driven by the Fed, so they're not confident that those asset valuations will be sustained and supported, because they think it may be a house of cards.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: To boost the economy, that is, the Fed may have wound up goosing the stock market by creating money for the purpose of keeping interest rates down. So, the Fed, by keeping interest rates...

　　DOUG DACHILLE: At zero -- at close to zero.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: ... close to zero forces people to buy stocks instead.

　　DOUG DACHILLE: Buy stocks, and then that person who used to own stocks, when he gets out of stocks, you know what he does?He looks for alternatives.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: Alternatives like the new housing boom or, amazingly to Dachille, online lending clubs.

　　DOUG DACHILLE: We just went through a credit cycle where you were afraid to lend against an asset supported by -- to a person supported by a house.Now you're lending unsecured, no collateral⁸, no nothing to Joe on a Web site.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: And also lending to stock investors⁹, whose margin¹⁰ debt to buy shares on credit has been hitting record highs.

　　The last record was set in 2007, a few months before the Dow's previous high watermark.But for all the talk of the Fed's role, Dachille agrees that there's an alternative way to understand a record Dow and higherprofits: a shift of power from workers to owners.Another explanation is that these days labor¹¹ is at the...

　　DOUG DACHILLE: The mercy of capital. There are a lot of talented people in the world that are no longer being employed.You're now having machines and robots build stuff, and now you have one guy doing that job,where you used to have five, 10, 15.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: And so companies can pay labor less, keep more for themselves and their mostly wealthy shareholders¹².Yes, half of us own stock, if you include our pension funds.But the top 10 percent own something like 90 percent of the stock market; the top 1 percent something like 40 percent of it.

　　At Zuccotti Park, home to the Occupy Wall Street movement and its "We are the 99 Percent" slogan two yearsago, liberal economist¹³ Mike Konczal:

　　MIKE KONCZAL, Roosevelt Institute:We see things like offshoring and globalization have really pushed down labor wages relative to how much capital gains in the economy.So globalization is creating a lot of winners and losers, and a lot of the winners are people who own capital, like people who own the stock market, and the losers are people who work and are unemployed¹⁴ right now.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: And that even includes people who work at the market itself, says trader Mark Otto. You havebeen here for how long?

　　MARK OTTO: Twenty years.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: And 20 years ago, what did this floor look like?

　　MARK OTTO: We have gone from approximately 5,400 at maximum capacity to down around 800, 900 right now.A lot of that has to do with the fact that I can now do actually -- required nine people to do when I started out down here 20 years ago.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: And, says Mike Konczal, that's why the recovery is slow, unemployment high.

　　MIKE KONCZAL: The stock market would actually be much higher if the unemployment was much lower.I think the economy is still really fundamentally weak, and that slack that's in the economy right now,with all the unemployed people, all the unemployed businesses, would actually bring up the stock market even further.

　　PAUL SOLMAN: In the end, then, it comes full circle.The Fed is trying to lower unemployment by stimulating¹⁵ the economy.But, by doing so, in some minds, it is overstimulating the stock market in the process.

1 milestones   

n.重要事件( milestone的名词复数 )；重要阶段；转折点；里程碑

参考例句：

• Several important milestones in foreign policy have been passed by this Congress and they can be chalked up as major accomplishments. 这次代表大会通过了对外政策中几起划时代的事件，并且它们可作为主要成就记录下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dale: I really envy your milestones over the last few years, Don. 我真的很羡慕你在过去几年中所建立的丰功伟绩。 来自互联网

2 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

3 stimulus   

n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物

参考例句：

• Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
• Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。

4 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

5 stimulate   

vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋

参考例句：

• Your encouragement will stimulate me to further efforts.你的鼓励会激发我进一步努力。
• Success will stimulate the people for fresh efforts.成功能鼓舞人们去作新的努力。

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

8 collateral   

adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品

参考例句：

• Many people use personal assets as collateral for small business loans.很多人把个人财产用作小额商业贷款的抵押品。
• Most people here cannot borrow from banks because they lack collateral.由于拿不出东西作为抵押，这里大部分人无法从银行贷款。

9 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

10 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

11 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

12 shareholders   

n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
• the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任

13 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

14 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

15 stimulating   

adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的

参考例句：

• shower gel containing plant extracts that have a stimulating effect on the skin 含有对皮肤有益的植物精华的沐浴凝胶
• This is a drug for stimulating nerves. 这是一种兴奋剂。