Financial markets were jolted this week by the news of a 27 per cent fall in existing US home sales in July to levels last seen almost 20 years ago. Although a drop was expected, a more ominous decline in housing activity and home prices is looming again, along with more pronounced weakness in aggregate final demand. The US may be growing, but by barely more than 1 per cent per annum. With Europe and Japan little better, it now looks as though the bungee-jump economic recovery from last year’s abyss has lost its momentum.
上周新聞報(bào)道顯示，7月美國(guó)現(xiàn)有房屋銷售下跌27%，降至大約20年前水平，這震動(dòng)了美國(guó)金融市場(chǎng)。雖然人們之前已預(yù)測(cè)到下跌，但房屋交易與房?jī)r(jià)再度預(yù)示出更為不祥的下滑，伴之以明顯減弱的最終總需求。美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)可能在增長(zhǎng)，但每年只略高于1%。鑒于歐洲和日本的形勢(shì)也好不到哪里去，從去年谷底開始的“蹦極”經(jīng)濟(jì)復(fù)蘇似乎已經(jīng)失去了勢(shì)頭。