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| This past week brought home the magnitude of the overlapping crises assailing the global economy, intensifying fears of recession, job losses, hunger and a plunge on stock markets. | 过去一周，全球经济遭受了多重危机的冲击，加剧了人们对衰退、失业、饥饿和股市暴跌的担忧。 |
| At the root of this torment is a force so elemental that it has almost ceased to warrant mention — the pandemic. That force is far from spent, confronting policymakers with grave uncertainty. Their policy tools are better suited for more typical downturns, not a rare combination of diminishing economic growth and soaring prices. | 造成这一痛苦的根源是一种根本到几乎不需要再提的力量——大流行。这股力量还远未耗尽，使得决策者面临着严重的不确定性。他们的政策工具更适合比较典型的衰退，而不是经济增长放缓和物价飙升的罕见组合。 |
| Major economies including the United States and France reported their latest data on inflation, revealing that prices on a vast range of goods rose faster in June than anytime in four decades. | 包括美国和法国在内的主要经济体公布了最新的通货膨胀数据，显示6月份各类商品价格出现了40年来最快的上涨。 |
| Those grim numbers increased the likelihood that central banks would move even more aggressively to raise interest rates as a means of slowing price increases — a course expected to cost jobs, batter financial markets and threaten poor countries with debt crises. | 这些严峻的数字增加了各国央行采取更积极的加息举措以减缓物价上涨的可能性——预计该举措将导致就业岗位减少，重创金融市场，并给贫穷国家带来债务危机的威胁。 |
| On Friday, China reported that its economy, the world’s second-largest, expanded by a mere 0.4 percent from April through June compared with the same period last year. That performance — astonishingly anemic by the standards of recent decades — endangered prospects for scores of countries that trade heavily with China, including the United States. It reinforced the realization that the global economy has lost a vital engine. | 上周五，世界第二大经济体中国报告称，其经济从4月到6月同比增长仅0.4%。以近几十年的标准衡量，这一表现的乏力令人吃惊，数十个与中国有大量贸易往来国家将因此面临惨淡前景，包括美国在内。它让人们更加认识到，全球经济已经失去了一个至关重要的引擎。 |
| The specter of slowing economic growth combined with rising prices has even revived a dreaded word that was a regular part of the vernacular in the 1970s, the last time the world suffered similar problems: stagflation. | 对经济增长放缓和物价上涨的恐惧甚至让“滞胀”这个可怕的词重新出现，1970年代，世界上一次遭遇类似问题的时候，这个词经常出现在普通人的词汇中。 |
| Most of the challenges tearing at the global economy were set in motion by the world’s reaction to the spread of Covid-19 and its attendant economic shock, even as they have been worsened by the latest upheaval — Russia’s disastrous attack on Ukraine, which has diminished the supply of food, fertilizer and energy. | 撕裂全球经济的大多数挑战是由世界对新冠病毒的蔓延及其随之而来的经济冲击的反应引发的，而且最近的动荡——俄罗斯对乌克兰的灾难性攻击——导致粮食、化肥和能源供应减少，加剧了这些挑战。 |
| “The pandemic itself disrupted not only the production and transportation of goods, which was the original front of inflation, but also how and where we work, how and where we educate our children, global migration patterns,” said Julia Coronado, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin, speaking this past week during a discussion convened by the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Pretty much everything in our lives has been disrupted by the pandemic, and then we layer on to that a war in Ukraine.” | “疫情本身扰乱了商品的生产和运输，这是通胀的最初阵地，而且扰乱了我们工作的方式和地点，我们教育孩子的方式和地点，以及全球移民模式，”得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校经济学家朱莉娅·科罗纳多上周在华盛顿布鲁金斯学会召开的一次讨论中说。“我们生活中的几乎所有事情都被疫情打乱了，然后又加上了乌克兰战争。” |
| It was the pandemic that prompted governments to impose lockdowns to limit its spread, hindering factories from China to Germany to Mexico. When people confined to home then ordered record volumes of goods — exercise equipment, kitchen appliances, electronics — that overwhelmed the capacity to make and ship them, yielding the Great Supply Chain Disruption. | 正是疫情促使各国政府实施封锁，以限制其传播，阻碍了从中国到德国再到墨西哥的工厂。当人们被限制在家里时，他们订购了创纪录数量的商品——运动器材、厨房电器、电子产品——超过了生产和运输能力，导致了“大供应链中断”。 |
| The resulting scarcity of products pushed prices up. Companies in highly concentrated industries from meat production to shipping exploited their market dominance to rack up record profits. | 由此导致的产品短缺推高了价格。从肉类生产到航运等高度集中行业的公司利用其市场主导地位获得了创纪录的利润。 |
| The pandemic prompted governments from the United States to Europe to unleash trillions of dollars in emergency spending to limit joblessness and bankruptcy. Many economists now argue that they did too much, stimulating spending power to the point of stoking inflation, while the Federal Reserve waited too long to raise interest rates. | 疫情促使从美国到欧洲的各国政府释放数万亿美元的紧急支出，以限制失业和破产的发生。许多经济学家现在认为，政府支出过多，刺激了消费能力，达到了引发通胀的地步，而美联储等待了太长时间才提高利率。 |
| Now playing catch-up, central banks like the Fed have moved assertively, lifting rates at a rapid clip to try to snuff out inflation, even while fueling worries that they could set off a recession. | 现在，为了补救，美联储等央行采取了强硬的行动，迅速快速加息以遏制通胀，然而这也加剧了人们对加息可能引发经济衰退的担忧。 |
| Given the mishmash of conflicting indicators found in the American economy, the severity of any slowdown is difficult to predict. The unemployment rate — 3.6 percent in June — is at its lowest point in almost half a century. | 鉴于美国经济中各种相互矛盾的指标混杂在一起，经济放缓的严重程度很难预测。6月份的失业率为3.6%，是近半个世纪以来的最低点。 |
| But anxiety over rising prices and a recent slowing of spending by American consumers have enhanced fears of a downturn. This past week, the International Monetary Fund cited weaker consumer spending in slashing expectations for economic growth this year in the United States, from 2.9 percent to 2.3 percent. Avoiding recession will be “increasingly challenging,” the fund warned. | 但是，对物价上涨和最近美国消费者支出放缓的担忧加剧了人们对经济衰退的担忧。上周，国际货币基金组织将美国今年的经济增长预期从2.9%下调至2.3%，理由是消费者支出疲软。国际货币基金组织警告称，避免经济衰退将“越来越具有挑战性”。 |
| The pandemic is also at the center of the explanation for China’s unnerving economic slowdown, which will probably extend shortages of industrial goods while limiting the appetite for exports around the world, from auto parts made in Thailand to soybeans harvested in Brazil. | 疫情也是中国令人不安的经济放缓的核心原因，这可能会扩大工业产品的短缺，同时限制世界各地对出口产品的需求，从泰国制造的汽车零部件到巴西收获的大豆。 |
| China’s zero-Covid policy has been accompanied by Orwellian lockdowns that have constrained business and life in general. The government expresses resolve in maintaining lockdowns, now affecting 247 million people in 31 cities that collectively produce $4.3 trillion in annual economic activity, according to a recent estimate from Nomura, the Japanese securities firm. | 中国的“清零”政策一直伴随着奥威尔式的封锁，从总体上限制了商业和生活。政府表达了维持封锁的决心。根据日本证券公司野村证券最近的估计，目前31个城市的2.47亿人受到影响，这些城市每年的经济活动总额为4.3万亿美元。 |
| But the endurance of Beijing’s stance — its willingness to continue riding out the economic damage and public anger — constitutes one of the more consequential variables in a world brimming with uncertainty. | 但在这个充满不确定性的世界里，中国政府立场的持久性——它是否愿意继续承受经济损失和公众愤怒——是影响更大的变数之一。 |
| Russia’s offensive in Ukraine has amplified the turmoil. International sanctions have restricted sales of Russia’s enormous stocks of oil and natural gas in an effort to pressure the country’s strongman leader, Vladimir V. Putin, to relent. The resulting hit to the global supply has sent energy prices soaring. | 俄罗斯在乌克兰的攻势加剧了动荡。国际制裁限制了俄罗斯大量石油和天然气库存的销售，目的是向该国的铁腕领导人普京施加压力，使其软化态度。由此对全球供应造成的打击导致能源价格飙升。 |
| The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil rose by nearly a third in the first three months after the invasion, though recent weeks have seen a reversal on the assumption that weaker economic growth will translate into less demand. | 在入侵后的头三个月里，每桶布伦特原油的价格上涨了近三分之一，尽管最近几周出现了逆转，因为人们认为，经济增长放缓将导致需求减少。 |
| Germany, Europe’s largest economy, relies on Russia for nearly a third of its natural gas. When a major pipeline carrying gas from Russia to Germany cut the supply sharply last month, that heightened fears that Berlin could soon ration energy consumption. That would have a chilling effect on German industry just as it contends with supply chain problems and the loss of exports to China. | 作为欧洲最大的经济体，德国近三分之一的天然气依赖俄罗斯。上个月，一条从俄罗斯向德国输送天然气的主要管道大幅减少供应，这加剧了人们对柏林可能很快对能源消费进行定量配给的担忧。这将对正面临供应链问题和对华出口减少的德国工业产生寒蝉效应。 |
| If Germany loses complete access to Russian gas — a looming possibility — it would almost certainly descend into a recession, say economists. The same fate threatens the continent. | 经济学家们表示，如果完全失去俄罗斯天然气——这是一种迫在眉睫的可能性——德国几乎肯定会陷入衰退。同样的命运也威胁着欧洲大陆。 |
| “For Europe, the risk of a recession is real,” Oxford Economics, a research firm in Britain, declared in a report this past week. | “对欧洲来说，经济衰退的风险是真实存在的，”英国研究公司牛津经济研究院在上周的一份报告中宣称。 |
| For the European Central Bank — which next gathers on Thursday to much apprehension in markets — the prospect of a downturn further complicates an already wrenching set of decisions. | 对于欧洲央行而言，经济下滑的前景将使其本已令人痛苦的一系列决策进一步复杂化。欧洲央行周四将再次召开会议，市场对此感到非常担忧。 |
| Ordinarily, a central bank ministering to an economy sliding toward recession lowers interest rates to make credit more available, spurring borrowing, spending, and hiring. But Europe is confronting not only weakening growth but also soaring prices, which customarily calls for lifting rates to snuff out spending. | 通常情况下，在经济滑向衰退时，央行会降低利率，让信贷更容易获得，刺激借贷、支出和招聘。但欧洲面临的不仅是增长疲软，还有物价飙升，这通常要求加息以抑制支出。 |
| Raising rates would support the euro, which has surrendered more than 10 percent of its value against the dollar this year. That has increased the cost of Europe’s imports, another driver of inflation. | 加息将支撑欧元，欧元兑美元汇率今年已下跌逾10%。这增加了欧洲的进口成本，是通货膨胀的另一个驱动因素。 |
| Adding to the complexity is that the usual central banking tool kit is not built for this situation. Navigating the balance between protecting jobs and choking off inflation is difficult enough in simpler times. In this case, rising prices are a global phenomenon, one amplified by a war so far impervious to sanctions and diplomacy, combined with the mother of all supply chain tangles. | 进一步增加复杂性的是，央行的工具通常并不是针对这种情况而设计的。在相对简单的情况下，在保护就业和抑制通胀之间找到平衡已经够困难的了。而现在的情况是，价格上涨是一种全球现象，一场迄今为止不受制裁和外交影响的战争，以及所有供应链问题的根源，使得这种现象更加严重。 |
| Neither the Fed nor the European Central Bank has a lever to pull that forces action from Mr. Putin. Neither has a way to clear the backlog of container ships clogging ports from the United States to Europe to China. | 美联储和欧洲央行都没有能迫使普京采取行动的手段。这两家机构都没有办法清理积压在美国、欧洲和中国港口的集装箱船。 |
| “Everyone following the economic situation right now, including central banks, we do not have a clear answer on how to deal with this situation,” said Kjersti Haugland, chief economist at DNB Markets, an investment bank in Norway. “You have a lot of things going on at the same time.” | “每个人都在关注现在的经济形势，包括中央银行，我们对如何处理这种情况没有一个明确的答案，”挪威投资银行DNB Markets的首席经济学家基尔斯蒂·豪格兰表示。“有很多事情在同时发生。” |
| The most profound danger is bearing down on poor and middle-income countries, especially those grappling with large debt burdens, like Pakistan, Ghana and El Salvador. | 最严重的危险正在向贫困和中等收入国家袭来，尤其是那些背负巨额债务负担的国家，如巴基斯坦、加纳和萨尔瓦多。 |
| As central banks have tightened credit in wealthy nations, they have spurred investors to abandon developing countries, where risks are greater, instead taking refuge in rock-solid assets like U.S. and German government bonds, now paying slightly higher rates of interest. | 随着富裕国家的央行收紧信贷，它们促使投资者放弃风险更大的发展中国家，转而投资于美国和德国政府债券等坚如磐石的资产，这些债券目前的利率略高。 |
| This exodus of cash has increased borrowing costs for countries from sub-Saharan Africa to South Asia. Their governments face pressure to cut spending as they send debt payments to creditors in New York, London and Beijing — even as poverty increases. | 这种现金外流增加了从撒哈拉以南的非洲国家到南亚国家的借贷成本。在向纽约、伦敦和北京的债权人偿还债务时，这些国家的政府还面临着削减开支的压力——尽管贫困在加剧。 |
| The outflow of funds has pushed down the value of currencies from South Africa to Indonesia to Thailand, forcing households and businesses to pay more for key imports like food and fuel. | 资金外流导致南非、印尼和泰国等国的货币贬值，迫使家庭和企业为食品和燃料等关键进口商品支付更高的价格。 |
| The war in Ukraine has intensified all of these perils. | 所有这些危险，又因为乌克兰战争而加剧。 |
| Russia and Ukraine are substantial exporters of grains and fertilizers. From Egypt to Laos, countries that traditionally depend on their supplies for wheat have suffered soaring costs for staples like bread. | 俄罗斯和乌克兰是谷物和化肥的主要出口国。从埃及到老挝，在那些传统上依赖这两个国家小麦供应的国家，面包等主食价格出现飙升。 |
| Around the globe, the ranks of those considered “acutely food insecure” have more than doubled since the pandemic began, rising to 276 million people from 135 million, the U.N. World Food Program declared this month. | 联合国世界粮食计划署本月宣布，自疫情暴发以来，全球范围内被认为“严重粮食不安全”的人数增加了一倍多，从1.35亿人增至2.76亿人。 |
| Among the biggest variables that will determine what comes next is the one that started all the trouble — the pandemic. | 决定接下来会发生什么的最大变数之一，是引发所有麻烦的因素——大流行。 |
| The return of colder weather in northern countries could bring another wave of contagion, especially given the lopsided distribution of Covid vaccines, which has left much of humanity vulnerable, risking the emergence of new variants. | 北方国家的天气转冷，可能会带来另一波感染，尤其是考虑到新冠疫苗的发放不平衡，这让很多人容易受到病毒侵袭，可能导致新变异的出现。 |
| So long as Covid-19 remains a threat, it will discourage some people from working in offices and dining in nearby restaurants. It will dissuade some from getting on airplanes, sleeping in hotel rooms, or sitting in theaters. | 只要新冠仍然是一个威胁，就会导致一些人无法去办公室上班，以及在附近的餐馆用餐。它还会阻止一些人坐飞机、住酒店或去剧院。 |
| Since the world was first seized by the public health catastrophe more than two years ago, it has been a truism that the ultimate threat to the economy is the pandemic itself. Even as policymakers now focus on inflation, malnutrition, recession and a war with no end in sight, that observation retains currency. | 自从两年多前，这场公共卫生灾难在世界暴发以来，一个不争的事实是，对经济的最终威胁来自大流行本身。即使政策制定者现在关注通货膨胀、营养不良、经济衰退和一场不知何时能结束的战争，这一点仍然成立。 |
| “We are still struggling with the pandemic,” said Ms. Haugland, the DNB Markets economist. “We cannot afford to just look away from that being a risk factor.” | “我们仍在与大流行作斗争，”DNB Markets的经济学家豪格兰说。“我们不能忽视这个风险因素。” |
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