Word版外刊精读：107.On the up and up

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最近在B站发现一个精品外刊学习和解析的博主【妈妈不用担心我的英语】，分享的雅思外刊非常棒，对于要考雅思或者考研的人来说是一个非常不错提升英语阅读的渠道，但是提供的外刊文章都是PDF格式的，布局排版不大好打印，这里将文章摘抄到Word文档并重新排版方便打印【文档下载链接在末尾查看下载】

107.On the up and up

Inflation in America tops forecasts yet again, adding to recession risks

At this point upside surprises in inflation occur with such frequency that surprise is probably the wrong word for them. So it was with America’s consumer price index (cpi) for June, published on July 13th. It soared 9.1% compared with a year earlier, marking yet another four-decade high and beating forecasts for an 8.8% increase. Still, investors seemed to be caught unawares, with stocks falling sharply after the data, adding to this year’s big losses. The pessimism in financial markets is easily understood: persistently high inflation is forcing the Federal Reserve to press on with aggressive monetary tightening, even at the potential cost of a recession.

All the more important, therefore, to understand how persistent inflation will be. In this respect the most concerning part of the latest data was not the shocking headline figure, about half of which could be attributed to oil and gas prices, which surged early in June but have since ebbed. Rather, it was the change in core prices, stripping out volatile food and energy.

Core inflation rose 0.7% in June from May, the highest month-on-month increase in a year. And it was not a blip: over the past three months core inflation has been running at an annualised rate of nearly 8%, an indication of the breadth of price pressures (see chart). Just about everything—from cars to clothing and furniture to rents—is getting more expensive.

That reinforces investors’ belief that the Fed will stay on its hawkish path. A day before the inflation data, bond-market pricing implied that the Fed would raise interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point at its next rate-setting meeting in late July, the second straight increase of that size. Following the data, bond pricing put the chances at roughly 50-50 that it would instead opt for a full percentage point increase. Either way, it puts the Fed on track for the steepest monetary tightening in a calendar year since 1981, when Paul Volcker was at the central bank’s helm. That is already weighing on economic
growth (see United States section).

America is hardly alone in struggling with high prices. Inflation in the euro area is expected to have risen to 8.6% in June. But the details are different. Europe’s problems are more closely linked to surging gas costs, both exacerbating the risk of an imminent recession and perhaps limiting the European Central Bank’s scope for rate increases. That has hurt the euro, which has fallen by more than 10% since the start of the year, bringing it to parity with the dollar for the first time in two decades.

The White House has tried to put as positive a gloss as possible on the figures. Before the data release, it drew attention to the recent decline in petrol prices. The national average is now about $4.63 per gallon, 5% lower than in June. With the price of crude down by even more, that does probably set the stage for a lower inflation reading in July. Moreover, President Joe Biden’s advisers have noted that an alternative gauge of inflation, the personal-consumption-expenditure (pce) price index, which is usually seen as more reliable by the Fed, has been more muted.

Neither argument is all that reassuring. Energy prices have weakened over the past month, but with the war in Ukraine dragging on and winter looming, they may resume their upward climb before long. As or pce inflation, it is indeed less extreme than cpi inflation, but it is still more than twice as high as the Fed’s 2% target, and rising prices for services such as health care may nudge it higher still.

The best news about inflation is that the Fed’s tightening is in fact gaining traction in the crucial realm of expectations. The Fed cannot solve supply-chain snarls or reduce oil prices. Where it can be uniquely effective is in tempering the outlook for prices. A basic measure of market expectations for annual inflation over the next five years is now 2.5%, down by more than a percentage point since March. In the middle of June a closely watched consumer survey by the University of Michigan put expected annual inflation at 3.3% for the next five years; by the end of the month it was down to 3.1%.

That is precisely what the Fed wants to see. Unfortunately, economists, firms and investors are also busily ratcheting down their expectations for economic growth—a consequence the Fed cannot avoid.

1.
upside n. 好的一面(the advantage of a situation) (downside)
such…that… 如此… 以至于 (such 后面跟名词)
so it is with… …的情况也同样如此
catch sb unawares 措手不及 (to affect sb without warning or without being expected)
pessimism n. 悲观 (pessimistic adj. 悲观的)
persistently adv. 持续不断地 (persistent adj.)
press on 推进
aggressive adj. 攻击性的，咄咄逼人的； 积极进取的

  1. in this respect 在这方面 (in this regard)
    be attributed to 归因于…, 原因是…
    (We can, perhaps, attribute mediocre results to an inadequate placebo effect.)
    ebb v. 衰退
    strip out 剔除(抛开…不论) (to ignore particular facts in a situation
    in order to understand what is really important)
    (After stripping out property sales, the firm’s operating profits rose 10%.)
    volatile  [ˈvɒlətaɪl]  adj. 反复变化的；喜怒无常的
    (Food and fuel prices are very volatile in a war situation.)

  1. blip n. 小光点； 短暂的事件
    (The drop in sales last month was just a blip, nothing to worry about.)
    annualize adj. 按年计算的
    breadth n. 宽度，广度 (the fact of including many different things,
    features, subjects, or qualities)
    (The breadth of her knowledge is amazing.)

  2. hawkish adj. 鹰派的，强硬派的 (hawk n.)
    opt for 选择 (option n.)
    (Mike opted for early retirement.)
    on track 步入正轨
    (They’re on track to make record profits.)
    steep adj. 陡峭的；急剧的，大幅度的
    (There has been a steep increase/fall in prices.)
    at helm 掌权
    weigh on 使苦恼，施加压力(to make sb or sth sad, depressed, or worried)
    (The bad news is really weighing on me. / Something is weighing on his mind.)

  3. exacerbate v. 使恶化，使加剧(to make sth that is already bad even worse)
    (The problem of information overload was exacerbated by the explosion in the number of web pages.)
    imminent adj. 即将发生的，临近的(coming or likely to happen very soon)
    scope n. 范围，视野
    (We would like to broaden/widen the scope of the enquiry.)
    parity n. 平等，相同
    (Firefighter are demanding pay parity with police.)

  4. put a gloss on sth 粉饰 (to emphasize the good parts of sth)
    set the stage 做好准备
    alternative [ɔːlˈtɜːrnətɪv] n. 替代物； adj. 可替代的，备选的，非传统的
    (I’m afraid I have no alternative but to ask you to leave.)
    (alternative medicine alternative fuels)
    gauge  [ɡeɪdʒ]  n. 测量，尺度，标准
    muted adj. 减弱的；压低声音的

  5. not all that 不是那么的… (not very) (I’m not all that excited about going camping.)
    reassuring adj. 使人安心的(making you feel less worried)
    (It’s very reassuring to know that you’ll be there.)
    drag on 拖延
    loom v. 逼近，临近(sth unwanted or unpleasant is about to happen)
    (the looming crisis) (loom large)
    before long 很快 (soon)
    nudge n. & v.用手肘轻推； v. 接近，靠近
    (Oil prices continue to nudge higher.)

  6. traction n. 牵引，牵引力 gain traction 受欢迎，有吸引力
    realm n. 领域，范围 (an area of interest or activity)
    (A new discovery in the realm of medicine was published yesterday.)
    snarl [snɑːrl]  n. 混乱，堵塞
    temper n. 坏脾气(the tendency to become angry very quickly);
    v. 使缓和，使温和(to make sth less strong, or extreme)
    (She has a real temper.) (lose/keep one’s temper) (Perhaps you should temper your language.)
    outlook n. 看法，态度； 前景，展望(the likely future situation)
    (He has a fairly positive outlook on life.) (The outlook for the economy is bleak.)

  7. ratchet down 降低，调低

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以上文章版本转载自：【外刊精读107 / Economist / American Inflation】 老师讲的非常棒，建议将文章打印出来对照多看看。