Name: 什麼都在漲漲漲！為什麼價格不能保持不變？ (Why can’t prices just stay the same?)
Uploaded: 2024-05-16T03:00:33.000Z
Duration: 7 min 31 s

Bad news about prices in the grocery store.

檔案："關於雜貨店價格的壞消息"。

檔案："......歷史性的高通脹"。

In 2022, much of the world experienced a period of uncommonly high inflation, with the U.S., U.K. and Eurozone all peaking at around 10%, meaning that prices on average were a full 10% higher than one year before.

2022 年，世界大部分地區經歷了不尋常的高通脹時期，隨著美國、英國和歐元區的峰值都在 10%左右。這意味著平均價格比一年前整整高出 10%。

Though that's probably not a surprise to anyone watching this.

雖然這可能沒有令看這個的人驚訝。

It's thankfully now closer to the normal range, if still a bit high.

值得慶幸的是，現在它已經接近正常範圍，儘管仍然有點高。

But infuriatingly, since this chart just shows a rate of change, that doesn't mean that prices are down.

但令人憤怒的是，由於該圖表僅顯示變化率，這並不意味著價格下跌。

Just that they've stopped climbing as fast.

只是他們已經停止了那麼快的攀升。

Consumers are stressed, businesses are suffering and governments are scrambling.

消費者面臨壓力，企業陷入困境，政府陷入困境

But at the same time, if you were to, I don't know, find yourself reading and watching a ton of inflation-related content, you'll also keep hearing this.

更接近正常範圍，儘管還是有點高。

但令人氣憤的是，由於該圖表顯示的只是變化率...

A little inflation now would be a good thing.

消費者倍感壓力，企業苦不堪言、

If rising prices hurt seemingly everyone, why can't they just stay the same?

The first reason inflation can't stay at zero is because governments and their central banks don't want it to.

Lots of countries actively pursue what is called an inflation target.

並觀看大量與通貨膨脹相關的內容...

That's the number that's used by most central banks across the world.

But the truth of it is, that's a pretty arbitrary number.

The goal is what economists consider a virtuous cycle.

檔案："現在有點通貨膨脹是件好事"。

檔案："每個人都想要一點通貨膨脹"。為什麼？

In times when prices are generally rising, people tend to expect them to rise further.

如果說物價上漲傷害的似乎是每一個人、

And that actually encourages people to spend money now, on big durable purchases like cars or appliances, in order to avoid having to pay more for the same thing later.

And the stuff we need to buy no matter what, goods like food or clothing, gets more expensive too, which requires us to spend more.

Either way, companies make more money, which means more people have jobs and more of their own money to spend.

通貨膨脹率無法保持為零的第一個原因

And that means more demand and therefore higher prices.

But this bit of a cycle is crucial to its virtue.

It's okay if prices rise so long as wages rise too.

You'll still be able to afford the same goods if your wages keep pace with inflation.

In the U.S., for two years, wage growth lagged behind inflation.

That trend has reversed, starting in mid-2023.

全球大多數中央銀行都是如此。

Wages, especially at the bottom, have kept up with inflation.

但事實上，這是一個非常隨意的數字。

In fact, in many cases surpassed inflation.

其目標就是經濟學家所認為的 "良性循環"。

And that is a good thing, that also we have to remember, wages in this country are rock bottom and have been for way, way too long.

人們往往期望它們進一步上升、

現在購買汽車或電器等大件耐用消費品、

And a disruption at any point in this loop can lead to the kind of high inflation we've experienced over the past few years.

以避免以後為同樣的東西支付更多的費用。

When supply chain interruptions created product shortages.

還有我們無論如何都要買的東西--食品等商品

And some companies artificially drove up prices to increase their profits.

Which, along with some other causes, effectively turned this virtuous cycle into a vicious one.

With Digital Credit Union, you'll get a world of financial possibilities.

無論哪種方式，公司都能賺到更多的錢、

Starting with their award-winning primary savings account and a zero-fee checking account that could help you get your paycheck up to two days early.

Like all credit unions, DCU is a not-for-profit, which says its primary focus is to serve their members, unlike banks, which primarily serve their shareholders.

From community give-back initiatives to innovative products and services, their mission adheres to these three principles.

這意味著更多的需求和更高的價格。

People come first, do the right thing, and make a difference.

DCU does not influence the editorial process of our videos, but they do help make videos like this possible.

但這一點循環對其 "美德 "至關重要。

The government does have tools to combat rising inflation.

只要工資上漲，物價上漲也沒關係

They usually shift things here, by raising interest rates, which makes all borrowing, including credit cards and bank loans, more expensive.

When the cost of borrowing goes up, it becomes more expensive to make investments, to hire people, and that eventually slows the economy down.

如果你的工資能跟上通貨膨脹率的話。

That's what the U.S. Federal Reserve did in 2022, which did help bring inflation closer to that 2% target, while placing an even higher financial strain on families who may need to borrow just to make ends meet.

When the Fed uses interest rates to bring down inflation, what they're doing is tamping down that demand, right?

They're telling people, you can't have a job.

兩年來，工資增長一直落後於通貨膨脹。

Let's put you out of work so that demand slows, that price growth slows.

這一趨勢從 2023 年中期開始發生逆轉。

The Fed raises interest rates to slow down spending across the economy, partly by signaling to markets that they're taking the problem seriously, which creates an expectation that inflation will fall.

MABUD：工資，尤其是底層員工的工資，已經跟上了通貨膨脹。

But we also have to talk about what happens when prices fall instead of rise.

事實上，在許多情況下，還超過了通貨膨脹率。

這也是我們必須記住的一件好事，工資

And falling prices honestly sounds pretty good.

在這個國家裡，這些人的生活已經到了谷底

But they can also introduce another kind of cycle.

When prices fall, consumers may hold off on making big purchases, hoping for even lower prices in the future, and the stuff we need costs less, so we just spend less in general.

If people are spending less, companies make less.

而這一循環中任何一個環節的中斷都可能導致

到我們所經歷的那種高通貨膨脹

Unemployed people spend less, and even the people who are employed might choose to save more to stave off financial loss.

So prices go down even further as demand goes down.

So ultimately, all of that adds up to slower economic growth as a whole.

Which is really hard to fix, because governments don't have the same ability to respond to deflation as they do to inflation.

增加利潤，以及其他一些原因、

有效地將這種良性循環變為惡性循環。

The last time inflation dipped below 2% in spring of 2020, the US brought interest rates all the way down to 0.05%.

And after bottoming out for a bit, that seemed to work.

你將獲得一個充滿可能性的金融世界。

But if inflation hadn't come back up, the government would have had limited options.

Their rates were already getting almost at zero.

與所有信用社一樣，DCU 也是一家非營利性機構、

Historically, periods of true deflation are pretty rare.

該組織表示，其首要任務是為會員服務。

But when they do happen, it seems that fixing them requires a pretty serious shock to the economy.

The Great Depression was in part a deflationary spiral, solved only by the outbreak of World War II, when the government supercharged spending and employment.

And Japan is finally emerging from decades of chronic deflation.

從回饋活動到創新產品和服務。

But that's thanks, in no small part, to the high inflation that most of the world battled over the last few years.

You don't want to rely on those kinds of things.

以人為本，做正確的事，有所作為。

If inflation goes below zero, it is hard to fix.

DCU 不會影響我們視頻的編輯過程、

The cost of deflation is really high, and that's something that we want to avoid.

但他們確實幫助製作了這樣的視頻。

政府確實有應對通脹上升的工具。

These lines are pretty shaky, because there are a lot of really complicated factors that affect inflation.

The macroeconomy is made up of the decisions of millions of people, of millions of businesses.

The way those decisions interact, I mean, try thinking about how to map everything out.

包括信用卡和銀行貸款在內，成本更高。

MABUD：當借貸成本上升時，就會變得更加昂貴

Inflation will always fluctuate, even if it's just a little.

And this is the last big reason why they don't want inflation to be zero percent.

If inflation sits here, that basic shakiness is constantly at risk of dropping down into the deflation zone, triggering the bad cycle.

And the way to prevent that is to have it sit just a little bit higher.