1. When will the next recession be?

1. 下一次經濟衰退會在什麼時候？

In 2008 and 2009, the dominoes were really set up for quite a nasty financial and economic crisis.

2008 年與 2009 年間，骨牌效應確實誘發了一場很糟糕的金融、經濟危機。

This time the economic vulnerabilities aren't quite as large.

而我們眼前的經濟弱點，其規模雖不如以往。

They're large enough that we could see a slowdown in GDP growth and a slowdown in trade and things of that nature.

卻足夠讓我們經歷 GDP 成長放緩、貿易停滯，還有其他類似的衝擊。

The real risk, is that our lack of preparedness and the the lack of room for global cooperation will turn what starts as kind of a minor downturn into something much larger and much more difficult to deal with sometime the next year or two.

真正的風險反而在於我們缺乏準備，以及國際合作空間的不足，這些都會讓起初輕微的不景氣，惡化成更大更難應付的經濟衰退，約略會是在明年或後年。

2. Where will it begin?

2. 衰退會從哪裡開始？

The last big global downturn began in the United States with the collapse of the housing bubble in the financial sector there.

上一回全球性衰退從美國開始，金融市場的房產泡沫盡數崩潰。

Next time the trouble is much more likely to start elsewhere and perhaps in the emerging world.

下一次很可能會從其他地方開始延燒，或許是從新興國家。

Emerging economies are a much larger share of global output than they used to be.

與過去相比，新興經濟體今日佔據全球產出的份額大很多。

They've also gone on something of a borrowing binge over the last ten years, which means that they could be due for a reckoning.

它們在過去十年來大舉借貸，而這也表示清償債務的時限即將來臨。

There are also reasons to be concerned about the euro area and in particular Italy, which has an enormous public debt problem and where markets have been feeling a bit jittery about their ability to pay that back.

我們也應該留心歐元區，尤其是義大利；義大利政府債台高築，外界不免質疑義大利能否償還債務。

And that could relaunch the euro area debt crisis that we saw about a half decade ago.

而這點可能將重新點燃歐元債務危機，如同我們約五年前的經歷。

3. Is the world prepared for a recession?

3. 我們準備好面對這次衰退了嗎？

The tools government's normally used to fight a recession won't be available in the same way that they normally are the next time around.

各國政府慣用的工具在下一次衰退中將不比以往有效

Interest rates will be very low and so we normally rely on central banks to do interest rate cutting to perk up spending, perk up growth and they're not going to be able to do that.

利率會降得非常低；一般來說我們仰賴中央銀行砍利率、拉消費、促進成長，但利率低到此方法不可行。

So pretty quickly, they're gonna have to turn to less tested methods money printing to buy bonds.

因此很快地，他們只好轉向那些較不常用的手段，像是印鈔、購買債券。

Quantitative easing was something that was used last time that's going to be used again.

量化寬鬆 (QE) 曾是上次的解套方案，下一次也不例外。

But that works in a much more uncertain way and is much more politically contentious than some of the tools that are ordinarily used.

然而量化寬鬆較難掌控，政治方面也比其他常見手段更容易引發爭端。

4. What are the obstacles?

4. 阻礙有哪些？

Within countries, the problem is that government is much more polarized across the world.

就國家層面而言，問題在於各國政府愈趨極端化。

You have many more populist parties, nationalist parties and it's going to be very hard to reach the agreement.

我們看到更多民粹政黨、民族主義政黨，彼此難以達成共識。

That's necessary to launch big spinning programs and things of that nature, then you also have disagreements across countries, which means that it's much more likely you have contentious policies, tariffs that go up, currency wars, things of that nature, as countries struggle to deal with the next downturn.

一旦沒有共識，政策與政府作為就會受阻；而國與國之間紛爭不斷，因此你很可能會看見高爭議性的政策、上揚的關稅、貨幣戰爭等，各國對下一次衰退的處理將困難重重。

5. What should governments do?

5. 各國政府應該如何應對？

Ideally governments would be taking some steps right now to get ready for the next recession.

最理想的情況下，政府在現階段就應該有所作為，為下一次衰退準備好。

They should be changing their central bank policy targets.

應該要改變中央銀行的政策目標。

What we've learned is that a low inflation target doesn't give central bank's enough room to fight recessions before interest rates fall to zero.

因為一旦衰退開始，低利率水準很快就會降到零，中央銀行將缺乏空間進行調控。

They should also be getting their budgets ready, which means preparing to include measures that will increase spending automatically, when the economy weakens in the future.

政府也應該準備好預算，換言之得預備好自動上調消費的措施來應對經濟疲弱。

So that they don't have to have fights in Parliament about whether or not to expand spending when the time comes.

如此一來，就不必事到臨頭還在國會爭論是否要擴增支出。

But then most important of all I think governments need to coordinate their responses with each other that makes it much more likely that we don't enter a scenario like we did in the 1930s.

但我認為更重要的是各國政府必須就應對方法彼此進行協調，才更有可能避免 1930 年代的大恐慌重演。

When tariff barriers went up, when there were currency wars and competitive devaluations,

那時關稅壁壘高築、貨幣戰爭導致競爭性貶值不斷，

and when ultimately that led to some pretty significant and nasty geopolitical tension.

且最終引發不容小覷的地緣政治衝突。