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Finance & economics
財經板塊
Consumer prices: public enemy
消費者價格：全民公敵
America was first, now inflation is starting to look entrenched in other places.
美國首當其沖，如今通貨膨脹也開始在其他地區深深扎根。
Inflation dominates the American popular psyche to an extent not seen since the 1980s, when prices were last rising at the current pace.
自上世紀80年代，物價上一次以當前速度上漲以來，通貨膨脹首次在美國人心中占據了前所未有的主導地位。
Much like complaining about the weather or last night’s basketball play-offs, moaning about higher prices has become a conversation starter.
正如同人們曾經抱怨天氣或前一天晚上的籃球季后賽一樣，現在物價上漲成為了人們掛在嘴邊的日常話題。
According to figures published on May 11th, consumer prices rose by 8.3% in April, compared with the previous year.
根據5月11日公布的數據，與去年相比，美國四月份的消費者價格上漲了8.3%。
A day earlier, President Joe Biden called fighting inflation his “top domestic priority”.
一天前，美國總統拜登稱抗擊通脹是他“國內事務的首要任務”。
Newspapers are publishing four times as many stories mentioning inflation as they did a year ago; several polls suggest that Americans believe inflation is a bigger problem for their country than the war in Ukraine.
報紙上發表的文章，提到通貨膨脹的頻率是去年的四倍；幾項民意調查顯示，美國人認為通貨膨脹是比烏克蘭戰爭更大的問題。
But America is not alone. Inflation is also becoming baked into everyday life in other parts of the rich world.
但美國并不是獨一份。在其他富裕國家，通貨膨脹也已成為日常生活的一部分。
The Economist has gathered data on five indicators across ten big economies—”core” inflation, which excludes food and energy prices; the dispersion in inflation rates for the sub-components of the consumer-price index; labour costs; inflation expectations; and Google searches for inflation.
《經濟學人》收集了十大經濟體的五個指標的數據——不包括食品和能源價格的“核心”通貨膨脹；消費者價格指數組成部分的通貨膨脹率離散程度；勞動力成本；通脹預期；谷歌上通貨膨脹的搜索量。
To gauge where inflation has become most pervasive, we rank each country according to how it fares on each measure, and then combine these ranks to form an “inflation entrenchment” score.
為了衡量哪些國家的通脹最為普遍，我們根據每個國家在各項指標上的表現給它們排名，然后將這些排名結合起來，形成一個“通脹程度”得分。
Continental Europe, so far at least, seems to have escaped the worst of the scourge. Inflation is leaving barely a trace on Japan.
至少到目前為止，歐洲大陸似乎避免了這場災難的最壞影響。日本幾乎沒有通貨膨脹的痕跡。
But it is entwining itself around Anglophone economies. Canada is faring slightly worse even than America. Britain has a big problem on its hands.
但通貨膨脹與以英語為母語的經濟體緊密交織。加拿大的情況甚至比美國還要差一點兒。英國面臨著一個大問題。
A few factors explain the differences. Total fiscal stimulus across Anglophone countries in 2020-21 was about 40% more generous than in other rich places, according to our estimates.
有幾個因素可以解釋這種差異。根據我們的估計，在2020-2021年，英語國家的財政刺激總額比其他富裕國家要高出約40%。
It was also more focused on handouts to households (such as stimulus cheques). That may have further stoked demand.
它也更注重對家庭的救濟(如刺激支票)。這可能進一步刺激了需求。
Monetary policy in the euro area and Japan was already ultra-loose before the pandemic, limiting the amount of extra stimulus central banks could provide.
在新冠疫情之前，歐元區和日本的貨幣政策已經超寬松，限制了央行可以提供的額外刺激的數量。
Britain’s inflation may also reflect an idiosyncratic factor: Brexit. It turns out that breaking with your largest trading partner causes costs to rise.
英國的通脹可能也反映了一個特殊因素：英國脫歐。事實證明，與最大的貿易伙伴決裂會導致成本上升。
