消费者情绪与消费支出之谜

这里是NPR的《金钱星球》节目。

This is Planet Money from NPR.

当前消费者信心指数表现不佳。

Consumer sentiment is not doing great right now.

该指数已接近半个世纪以来的最低点。

It is close to its lowest point in half a century.

美国民众普遍对经济健康状况持悲观态度。

Americans are, on average, not optimistic about the health of the economy.

他们对自身工作和个人财务状况感到担忧。

They don't feel great about their jobs, their personal finances.

当消费者对经济失去信心时，我们通常会采取一个措施。

And when consumers don't feel hopeful about the economy, we usually do this one thing.

我们会增加储蓄并减少开支。

We save more and stop spending as much.

这些趋势在数据中清晰可见。

You can see it in the data.

当消费者信心低迷时，消费支出就会放缓。

When consumer sentiment is low, consumer spending slows down.

消费支出和消费者信心就像形影不离的好兄弟。

Consumer spending and consumer sentiment are like buddies that go everywhere together.

是的。

Yes.

但是，莎拉，这对好兄弟的友谊正在发生一些奇怪的变化。

But, Sarah, these buddies, something strange is happening to their friendship.

他们正在渐行渐远。

They're drifting apart.

是啊。

Yeah.

消费者信心就像个穿着运动裤、瘫在沙发上无所事事的伤心人。

Consumer sentiment is like sad, in his sweats, on the couch, doing nothing.

好吧。

Well, okay.

是啊。

Yeah.

但消费支出却在外面狂欢，整夜泡在俱乐部里挥金如土？

But consumer spending is out there living it up, spending untold amounts of money out all hours of the night at the club?

确实如此。

She sure is.

当波士顿联储的经济学家迪伦·帕特克看到这种分歧时

And when Diren Patke, an economist at the Boston Fed, saw this rift

我的意思是，主要是困惑。

I mean, it's mostly bafflement.

对吧？

Right?

我们看到这两个数字，它们

We see these two numbers, which

是

are

经济活动重要指标的表现方式看起来相互矛盾。

significant measures of barometers of economic activity, moving in ways that look discordant with each other.

这引发了一个疑问：为何会出现这种情况？

That gives rise to a question about why that might be happening.

出于某些原因，尽管存在诸多不利经济因素——不仅仅是消费者信心低迷——消费支出依然强劲。

For some reason, despite many not so great economic factors, not just the low consumer sentiment, consumer spending is strong.

这使得经济看起来相当健康，实际上颇具韧性。

And it's making the economy look pretty good, resilient, actually.

但事实果真如此吗？

But is it?

大家好，欢迎收听《金钱星球》。

Hello, and welcome to Planet Money.

我是莎拉·冈萨雷斯。

I'm Sarah Gonzales.

我是肯尼·马龙。

And I'm Kenny Malone.

消费者支出是衡量经济健康状况的重要指标。

Consumer spending is a significant barometer of our economic health.

消费者购买日用品、外出就餐、去夜店消费、购置新车、购买机票以及各类商品服务，这些行为构成了美国经济活动的三分之二以上。

Consumers buying groceries, going out to eat, going to the club, buying a new car, a plane ticket, buying goods and services makes up more than two thirds of US economic activity.

它占我们GDP的70%。

It is 70% of our GDP.

因此如果消费支出强劲，通常意味着我们的经济很健康。

So if consumer spending is strong, it's usually a sign that our economy is healthy.

但今天节目中要探讨的是：这个规律现在还成立吗？

But today on the show, is that still true though?

或者说，当前的消费支出是否存在某种扭曲经济真相的现象？

Or is something going on with consumer spending that is distorting our view of the economy?

各位，这可不只是夜店开香槟那么简单。

It's not just bottle service, everybody.

但也说不定呢。

It might be.

事实可能确实如此。

It actually might be.

关于消费者情绪数据乃至大部分消费支出数据，你首先需要知道的是它们都基于调查问卷。

The first thing you should know about the data we have on consumer sentiment and even much of the data on consumer spending is they're based on surveys.

我们通过问卷调查获取各类信息，包括人们对经济状况的感受以及近期消费情况。

We survey people to get all kinds of information, including how they feel about the economy and about their recent purchases.

听着。

And listen.

波士顿联储的高级经济学家迪伦·帕特克就特别钟爱优质问卷。

Diren Patke, senior economist at the Boston Fed, loves a good survey.

对优质问卷情有独钟。

Loves a good survey.

在填写问卷方面我极其配合，毕竟我自己就在使用这些数据。

I'm extremely compliant when it comes to surveys because I use the data.

所以我总是会参与调查。

So I'm very I do always participate.

我从未被选中参与过任何消费者调查。

I have never been a selected participant in any of the consumer surveys.

你是不是特别期待接到调查电话？

Are you dying to get a call?

你知道，我会非常乐意参与。

You know, I would be very happy to participate.

这就是我对陪审团义务的感受。

That's how I feel about jury duty.

但这就是随机选择的本质。

But that's the nature of random random selection.

所以

So

你真的很想履行陪审团义务吗？

You really want to be on jury duty.

现在是什么情况？

Is what's happening?

我被传唤过一次，但立刻就被打发走了。

I was summoned once and dismissed immediately.

就像，根本没人问我任何问题。

Like, no one even asked me questions.

就像，我只是在房间里等着然后就离开了。

Like, I just waited in the room and then I left.

总之谢谢你的服务，莎拉。

Anyways Thank you for your service, Sarah.

好吧。

Okay.

现在说说消费者情绪调查和消费者支出调查，它们当然存在缺陷，毕竟，这些都是问卷调查。

Now, the consumer sentiment survey and the consumer expenditure survey, they have their flaws, of course, because, well, they're surveys.

所以只是有人询问你的感受和消费情况。

So it's someone just asking you about your feelings and about your purchases.

人们可能说他们现在对经济感觉很好，但实际从消费习惯来看，他们似乎并没有那么乐观。

So people can say they feel great about the economy right now, but actually in their spending habits, it might not seem like they're actually feeling that good.

此外，消费者支出调查部分依赖于人们对自己花钱项目的记忆。

And also, the consumer expenditure survey partly relies on what people, like, remember that they spent money on.

这对许多消费者来说效果相当不错。

That works pretty well for many consumers.

但并非对所有消费者都适用。

It doesn't work well for all consumers.

在收入分配的最高端，消费者可能不会报告他们的全部支出。

So at the very high end of the income distribution, consumers may not report all of their spending.

有时很难追踪记录。

Sometimes it's hard to track.

你可能购买了

You might have bought

一艘游艇。

A yacht.

私人飞机航班，一艘游艇。

Flights on a private jet, a yacht.

这类东西。

Those kinds of things.

你可能不会上报，或者你根本不会像买日用品的人那样经常想到这些开销。

You're probably not going to report or you you may not be thinking about them quite as much as people who are buying groceries.

哦，有钱人想记住所有购物记录真是太难了。

Oh, it's so hard to remember all of your purchases when you're rich.

是啊。

Yes.

我们到底买了多少条2000美元的爱马仕毛毯？

How many $2,000 Hermes throw blankets did we buy?

我记不清了，真的记不清了。

I can't I can't remember.

谁能说得清呢？

Who can say?

我家都快堆不下了。

They don't even fit in my house anymore.

哦，是的。

Oh, yes.

嗯，你忘了你买了更大的房子。

Well, you forgot that you bought a bigger house.

事情就是这样发生的。

That's the thing that happened.

是的。

Yes.

房子？

The house?

我忘了那套多余的房子。

I forgot about that extra house.

听着。

So listen.

这些调查并不完美。

The surveys aren't perfect.

我们承认这一点。

We acknowledge.

但它们确实清晰地显示出这种不匹配——尽管消费者情绪在下降，消费支出却依然强劲。

But they do clearly show this mismatch that even though consumer sentiment is declining, consumer spending remains strong.

当你们在报告中寻找这种韧性的解释时，想知道为何消费支出如此之高。

When you guys wrote that you were looking for an explanation for this resilience, why there's this high consumer spending.

你这里暗示了某种不寻常的情况。

You're implying there that that there's something unusual about this.

那么，这种不寻常是真实存在的吗？

Like, unusual is it?

不，并非如此——这种分歧在新冠疫情之前从未如此剧烈。

Not not so not the divergence has not been so sharp, as it has been since the COVID pandemic.

在疫情前，消费者情绪通常能较好地反映消费支出情况。

Before COVID, you typically saw consumer sentiment reflect consumer spending fairly well.

它们至少是朝着同一方向变动的，即便不完全同步。

They kind of moved at least in the same direction, if not precisely the same way.

是的

Yeah.

新冠疫情是我们消费与情绪关系中的一个重大例外

COVID is the one big exception to our spending sentiment friendship.

当人们在疫情期间对经济感到焦虑时，有经济刺激支票发放，人们仍在消费

When people were stressing about the economy during COVID, there were stimulus checks, and people were spending.

是啊

Yeah.

但疫情就像是个特殊时期

But COVID was like a special time.

对吧？

Okay?

而眼下实际上有很多因素在起作用，不仅仅是理论上你认为会减缓整体消费的消费者情绪问题

And right now, there are actually a lot of things going on, not just the consumer sentiment stuff that theoretically you'd expect to slow down overall spending.

确实

Sure.

利率很高。

Interest rates are high.

这是经济学基础常识。

This is, you know, Econ one zero one.

如果利率很高

If interest rates are high

这通常会对经济活动形成一种抑制。

That typically puts it's a form of a break on economic activity.

是啊。

Yeah.

而且通胀仍在加剧，物价越来越贵。

And there's growing inflation still, so things cost more.

通胀同样是一种，你知道的，它会给消费者带来困难。

Inflation as well is a form of a you know, it's it it creates hardship for consumers.

关税政策导致许多商品价格上涨，按理说关税会抑制整体消费。

There's tariffs which have made the prices of lots of goods go up, and you would expect tariffs to slow down overall spending.

所有这些不同因素都会影响消费者行为。

So all these different forces can affect consumer behavior.

如果把这些因素叠加起来，你可能会预期看到——仅从定性角度而言——消费者支出方面的经济活动会相对疲软。

And if you stack these up, you might expect to see, only speaking qualitatively, less strong economic activity when it comes to consumer spending.

这也是整个谜题的一部分。

And that's part of the puzzle as well.

所以不仅仅是消费者情绪与消费支出的对比，还包括这些其他因素。

So it's not just the consumer sentiment versus consumer spending, but these other forces as well.

利率问题。

The interest rates.

关税。

Tariffs.

是的。

Yes.

正是所有这些因素叠加在一起，才让迪林不禁要问：为什么当前消费者支出如此具有韧性？

It's all of these things together that are making Deering go, like, why is consumer spending so resilient right now?

迪伦确实有一个假设。

Dieren did have a hypothesis.

由于他在美联储工作，他还能接触到更具体、更优质的数据。

And because he's at the Federal Reserve, he also has access to specific better data.

我们拥有的数据主要来自银行基于信用卡刷卡记录或信用卡账单的账户级数据。

What we have are essentially coming from account level data from banks based off credit card swipes or credit card statements.

因此这些数据不需要人们回忆过去花了多少钱。

And so these are not these don't require people to remember how much they spent in the past.

是的。

Yeah.

信用卡刷卡记录。

Credit card swipes.

2008年金融危机后，《多德-弗兰克法案》要求大型银行向美联储提供信用卡数据，以了解银行的贷款规模。

So after the financial crisis of two thousand eight, the Dodd Frank Act required large banks to give the Federal Reserve access to data about credit cards to understand how much lending banks are doing.

美联储掌握的信用卡数据覆盖了经济中约80%的信用卡余额，可以看到每位持卡人（匿名）的月度消费、信用卡债务余额、利息费用，甚至包括开户时的收入信息。

The credit card data that the Fed has access to covers about 80% of all credit card balances in the economy, and the Fed can see, anonymized, each cardholder's monthly spending, credit card debt balance, interest charges, and even the income that the person had when they opened their account.

显然，信用卡交易并不能涵盖所有消费者支出。

And now, obviously, credit card transactions don't capture all consumer spending.

消费者支出实际上包括我们消费者购买的所有东西。

Consumer spending is literally everything that we consumers spend on.

比如房租、账单、用Venmo给朋友转账支付酒水服务费——这些通常不会用信用卡支付，而是用现金、借记卡或支票。

So rent, bills, when we Venmo our friend for that bottle service, those things we usually don't pay for with credit cards, but, you know, cash, debit, checks.

所以迪伦当时只研究了信用卡消费这部分，但这部分确实占据了零售领域约一半的支出。

So Deereen was just looking at the credit card chunk of that, but it does capture about half of all spending in the retail space.

当他和同事分析所有这些数据时，他们发现了以下情况。

And when he and a colleague looked at all of this, here's what they found.

在五月份

So in May

我们的数据显示当月总消费额约为3000亿美元。

Total spending in our data was about it's about $300,000,000,000 in that month.

这就是美国人在五月份单月通过信用卡消费的金额。

That is how much Americans charge to their credit cards just in the month of May.

迪伦发布了这些按收入水平分类的信用卡消费图表，我们一起看过。

And Diren published these graphs of credit card spending that's sorted by income level that we looked at together.

这张图显示的是在特定月份里，收入在0到39,000美元之间的家庭有多少信用卡消费。

So this is saying in a given month, how much credit card spending came from households whose income was between 0 and $39,000.

所以这个数字大约是26、27？

So this was like 26, 27?

260亿美元。

26,000,000,000.

对。

Yeah.

没错。

Exactly.

正确。

Correct.

好的。

Okay.

那么2025年任意一个月，最低收入阶层的信用卡消费额大约是260亿美元。

So the lowest income bracket would have spent 26 ish billion dollars in any given month in 2025.

而最高收入阶层的消费额则高达约1750亿美元，差距巨大。

And then the highest income bracket would have spent, oh, 175 ish billion dollars in any given Huge disparity.

是的。

Yes.

对吧？

Right?

是的。

Yes.

是的。

Yes.

没错。

Exactly.

好的。

Alright.

虽然这听起来像是，嗯，废话。

While it might sound like, yeah, duh.

迪伦说，最富有的人消费更多，想想看。

The wealthiest people spend more, Diren says, think about it like this.

在这3000亿中，约1750亿来自收入分布最高的五分之一群体。

Of that 300, about 175,000,000,000 came from the very highest fifth of the income distribution.

所以超过一半来自前20%的高收入群体。

So a bit more than half came from the top one fifth.

最富有的20%美国人承担了信用卡消费总额的一半以上。

The wealthiest 20% of Americans were responsible for over half of that credit card spending.

但迪伦指出，更重要的是高收入家庭消费的增长速度。

But what's even more significant, Diren says, is the growth rate in spending among those high income households.

最富有的消费者现在每月消费额比他们过去作为富人时的支出高出数十亿又数十亿。

The wealthiest consumers are spending billions and billions and billions and billions more than they, as wealthy people, used to spend in a month.

迪伦表示，即使经通胀调整后，他们的消费也比十年前高出86%。

Deereen says they're spending 86% more than they were ten years ago, even adjusted for inflation.

与此同时，低收入消费者的支出比过去增加了50%，迪伦表示这是一个显著的差异。

Meanwhile, the lowest income consumers are spending 50% more than they used to, which Deereen says is a meaningful difference.

所以迪伦说，最富有的美国人正在推动整体消费的增长。

So Diren says, the wealthiest Americans are driving the growth in overall spending.

他们通过消费支撑着经济，这就是为什么消费数据看起来如此亮眼。

They are propping up the economy with their spending, and this is the reason consumer spending looks so good.

是否可以说，目前是上层人群在维持经济强劲？

Would it be fair to say that it seems like the people at the top are keeping the economy strong right now?

是的。

Yeah.

我认为他们确实是当前消费中非常重要的组成部分。

I think they're they're a very significant component of consumer spending right now.

嗯。

Mhmm.

这个说法很公允。

That's fair.

好的。

Okay.

所以并不是说通货膨胀、高利率和关税突然不再影响消费者支出了。

So it is not that, like, inflation and high interest rates and tariffs are all of a sudden not affecting consumer spending.

它们确实在影响消费者支出。

They are affecting consumer spending.

只是顶层人士某种程度上不受这些因素影响。

It's just that the people at the top are kinda insulated from those things.

高利率、关税和通货膨胀导致的商品涨价，并不一定会阻止富人花钱翻新厨房，或是花整整19.99美元买一颗从日本进口的草莓。

High interest rates and more expensive goods because of tariffs and inflation, they don't necessarily stop a wealthy person from paying to renovate their kitchen or spending 19 whole dollars and 99¢ on a single strawberry imported from Japan.

非常典型的富人例子。

Real rich person example.

什么？

What?

嗯。

Mhmm.

对。

Yep.

就一颗莓子。

One berry.

我们怎么知道它有多好吃？

Do we know how good it was?

我是说，谁在乎呢？

I mean, who cares?

不就是颗草莓嘛。

It's a strawberry.

我斗胆说一句。

I'm gonna go out on a limb.

它尝起来肯定还是草莓味。

It's gonna taste like a strawberry.

有道理。

Fair point.

总之，好吧。

Anyway, okay.

听着。

Look.

除此之外，还有几点，比如隔热系数，对高层人士来说也一直表现良好。

A few things in addition to this, like, insulation factor have also been going really well for people at the top.

所以，今年他们的工资增长一直很强势。

So, like, this year, their wage growth has been strong.

然而对于低收入家庭来说，增长一直很缓慢。

For low income households, though, growth has been slow.

这是支撑消费和薪资的重要资源。

That's an important resource that supports spending, paychecks.

所以这是另一个因素。

So that is another factor.

最后，还有财富变化的影响。

And finally, you have changes in wealth.

过去五年里，房产、股票这类资产的价值一直在攀升。

Homes, stocks, these kinds of assets have become more valuable in the last five years.

而且这些资产很可能在支持收入分配顶层家庭的消费支出方面会变得更加重要。

And they're likely to be much more important in supporting consumer spending for households at the top of the income distribution.

是的。

Yeah.

那些拥有房产的人。

People who own homes.

近年来他们的房产价值以惊人的速度增长。

Their homes have been appreciating in value in, like, wild ways in recent years.

还有那些持有股票的人。

And then people who have stocks.

股市表现非常非常好，这让富裕阶层更有信心进行更慷慨的消费。

The stock market is doing really, really well, and that gives wealthier people the confidence to spend even more generously.

你还写道想了解是否可能出现裂痕，如果有的话会出现在哪些领域？

You also wrote that you wanted to learn whether cracks may be forming, and if so, where?

那么是否出现了裂痕，如果有的话，是在哪里？

And so are there cracks forming, And if so, where?

就我们可能看到经济中存在脆弱性的迹象而言，我们可以推测出一些。

So to the extent that we might see reasons for vulnerabilities in the economy, we could infer some.

例如，如果越来越多的消费支出是由收入分配顶端的家庭支撑的，那么一旦影响他们资源的冲击（如股市震荡）就可能更广泛地传导至整体消费支出，因为我们无法依赖低收入家庭用工资来维持消费。

For example, if more and more consumer spending is supported by households at the top of the income distribution, then some shock that affects their resources, like a shock to stock markets, may pass through into overall consumer spending more because we're not able to rely on the spending of lower income households who are using their paychecks to support spending.

而如果冲击发生在低收入人群身上，情况就不同了。

And the same would not be true if there was a shock to people in the lower income bracket.

嗯，我是说，如果我们真的遇到冲击，比如大量低收入人群失业，在这种情境下，那些个人的处境确实会更糟，支付账单也会更困难。

Well, I mean, if we did have a shock where it was like a bunch of lower income people were to lose their jobs, it seems like in that scenario, yes, those individual people would be worse off, and it would be harder for them to pay their bills.

但看起来经济中的消费支出可能仍会相当强劲，因为推动消费的主要是顶层人群。

But it seems like spending in the economy would still potentially be pretty strong because the people at the top are the ones driving the spending.

正确。

Correct.

但如果出现股市震荡导致顶层人群无法像以前那样消费，那情况就糟糕了。

But it would be bad if there was like a stock market shock that made the people at the top unable to spend as much.

是的。

Yes.

是的。

Yes.

好的。

Okay.

所以这是个隐患。

So that is a vulnerability.

就像，我们就像

Like, we're like

是的。

Yes.

我们正处于一个脆弱的局面。

We're in a vulnerable situation.

可以说，我们的经济正处于岌岌可危的境地。

Our economy, you could say, is in a precarious situation.

你把我们当前的经济比作一座积木塔。

You described our economy as a Jenga tower at the moment.

听起来不太妙，但请解释一下你的意思。

Sounds not good, but tell me what you mean.

我的意思是这是一座头重脚轻的积木塔。

So I mean it's a top heavy Jenga tower.

这位是彼得·阿特沃特，威廉玛丽学院的经济学教授，显然也是积木游戏专家。

That is Peter Atwater, an economics professor at William and Mary, apparently, also Jenga expert.

当前经济中的所有优势都集中在最顶层。

So all of the economic strength in this economy is at the very top.

因此我们这种积木塔经济正在制造一种普遍繁荣的假象。

And so our Jenga tower economy is creating an illusion of prosperity and a prosperity for all.

当你想到真正从中受益的人口比例有多小时，我认为你最终会误判当今美国经济的实际强度。

And when you think about how small a segment of the population truly is benefiting from this, you end up, I think, deceiving yourself in terms of the strength of the American economy today.

广告之后，我们要轻轻抽出这块小积木，看看会发生什么。

After the break, just gonna just gonna pull this little Jenga piece out here real smoothly and see what happens.

摇摇晃晃的。

Wobbling.

我不会那么做。

I would not do that.

我会把它放回去。

I'd put it back.

别停啊Sarah，继续玩积木。

Can't stop playing Jenga Sarah.

这就是规则。

That's the rule.

必须继续下去。

Gotta keep going.

有些人用特定术语形容我们当前的经济形态——可惜不是'头重脚轻的积木塔'。

There is a term for the type of economy that some say we have right now, and it is not, sadly, top heavy Jenga tower.

但提出这个绝妙比喻的Peter Atwater，确实也推广了这个术语。

But Peter Atwater, who gave us that great metaphor, did popularize this term too.

彼得说，经济是K型的。

The economy, Peter says, is k shaped.

当大家都在争夺字母时，人们选择了v、u和l，而字母k...等等

When there was this land grab for letters, people choosing v and u and l, the letter k is what Wait.

对我来说是最合理的。

To me made the most sense.

等等。

Wait.

什么是字母争夺战？

What was the land grab for letters?

我不太熟悉这个。

I'm I'm unfamiliar.

确实，那是在疫情期间。

Indeed, it was during the pandemic.

哦，疫情刚爆发时，经济学家们就在预测经济将如何复苏。

Oh, so the epidemic had barely hit, and economists were predicting how the recovery would take place.

于是有人说，哦，经济会是V型复苏。

And so you had those saying, oh, it's gonna be a v shaped recovery.

大家都会好起来的。

Everybody's gonna do well.

其他人则说，不。

Others said, no.

不对。

No.

不是这样的。

No.

我们会经历一个漫长而明显的衰退，然后才会回升。

We're gonna have this long pronounced decline, and then it's gonna move up.

所以会像字母U的形状。

So it'll be like the letter u.

还有人认为毫无希望，只会是L型的走势。

Others thought it was hopeless, and it was just gonna be an l.

我当时就说，不对。

And I was like, no.

会是K型。

It's gonna be k.

具体是什么样的，给我描述一下。

And what and what like, visualize it for me.

什么是K型经济？

What is a k shaped economy?

K型经济是指白领阶层、投资者、经济顶层人士

A k shaped economy is one where white collar workers, investors, those at the top of the economy.

可以说是K字顶端那部分人群

The ones that are the top arm of the k, if you will.

正乘着自动扶梯向上攀升

Are moving upward on an escalator.

他们的境遇只会越来越好

It's just getting better and better and better for them.

而对于处于底层的人来说，他们正越来越落后。

While for those at the bottom, they're falling further and further behind.

所以K字的顶部是好的且越来越好，而底部则是糟糕且每况愈下。

So the top of the k is, like, good and getting better, and the bottom of the k is bad and getting worse.

彼得说，明显恶化了。

Noticeably worse, Peter says.

他说从数据中可以看到整个经济都呈现这种K型走势。

He says that you can see that k shape all over the economy in the numbers.

达美航空表示，明年将首次出现头等舱收入超过经济舱的情况。

You have Delta Airlines saying that next year, for the first time in its history, it will have more revenue from the front of the plane than the back of the plane.

史上头一遭？

For the first time ever?

确实是史上首次。

For the first time ever.

哇。

Dang.

你知道吗，如今市场上售价超过10万美元的车型数量是低于3万美元车型的两倍。

You know, we today, we have twice as many car models that cost over a $100,000 than cost less than $30,000.

那些在高速公路上开二手车的人每天都能看到这种现象。

Those driving used cars on the highway see that every day.

因此，顶层的过度富足既极其显眼又令人沮丧。

And so the this the overabundance at the top is incredibly visible and demoralizing.

彼得说我们面临着一个两极分化的经济。

Peter says we have a bifurcated economy.

本质上，这是两种截然不同的经济体验同时并存。

Basically, there are two different economic experiences existing simultaneously.

企业正专注于投资高收入消费者群体，比如为他们提供超值的信用卡福利，而低收入消费者却在信用卡债务上违约。

And companies are focusing on investing in their higher income consumers, like giving them incredible credit card perks while low income consumers are defaulting on their credit card debt.

目前汽车的平均价格已达5万美元，与此同时汽车贷款违约和收回率正在上升。

The average price of a car right now is $50,000 while car loan defaults and repossessions are on the rise.

听着。

And listen.

不平等、贫富差距，这些都不是新鲜事。

Inequality, a wealth gap, these are nothing new.

但彼得指出，现在又叠加了一层表现异常出色的股市因素。

But right now, Peter says there's that added layer of a really great performing stock market.

要知道，人们常说市场不等于经济，但在当今经济金字塔的顶端，市场就是经济本身。

You know, it is often said that the markets are not the economy, but at the top of our economy today, the markets are the economy.

确实。

Yeah.

关于当前经济实力或健康状况，彼得表示我们实际上极度依赖金融市场持续向好。

And when it comes to the strength or health of the economy right now, Peter says we're actually incredibly dependent on financial markets continuing to perform well.

而且最近的股市增长实际上仅由被称为'七巨头'的少数几家公司推动。

And, really, the recent stock market growth is being driven by just a few companies known as the magnificent seven.

比如亚马逊。

It's Amazon.

还有苹果、特斯拉、Meta这些与人工智能相关的大型科技公司。

It's Apple, Tesla, Meta, the giant tech companies that all have ties to AI.

这对金融市场来说是非常脆弱的状况。

And that's a very fragile condition for financial markets.

投资者过度自信地认为市场只会上涨，并因此永远获得回报。

There is overconfidence in investors' belief that markets only go up and that they will forever be rewarded as a result.

但他们之所以这么认为，只是因为市场已经持续上涨了很长时间。

But it's it they're just they believe this because it's been a long time where it's been going up.

这一直被证明是正确的。

It has been proven true.

但我们知道，当这种情况发生时，这些模式往往会出人意料且剧烈地改变。

And we know when that happens, though those those patterns tend to change unexpectedly and violently.

基本上，如果当前的消费是由富人推动的，而富人之所以消费是因为股市表现良好让他们感到特别富有和自信，那么彼得说，股市一旦受到冲击，就可能导致整个积木塔倒塌。

Basically, if consumer spending right now is being driven by the rich, and the richer spending because they feel extra rich and confident because the stock market is doing great, then Peter says a shock to the stock market is all it could take for the Jenga tower to fall over.

特别感谢Johnny o five is alive在苹果播客上给我们留下的评分和评论。

Special thanks to Johnny o five is alive, who left us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

引用原话：'刚听了《Planet Money》关于缅因州囚犯从事合法工作的精彩故事，觉得必须写个评论。'

Quote, just heard the amazing Planet Money story on people working legit jobs from prison in Maine and felt the need to write a review.

《金钱星球》的内容总是那么有趣，现在100%推荐收听。

Always interesting stuff on Planet Money, 100% right now.

哇。

Aw.

是啊。

Yeah.

哇。

Aw.

非常感谢。

Thanks so much.

约翰尼？

Johnny?

莎拉，那期节目是你做的。

Sarah, you did that show.

是啊。

Yeah.

我骨子里就是个公共电台记者。

With a public radio reporter in me.

所以请支持公共电台。

So go public radio.

评分和评论真的、真的能帮助更多人发现这个节目。

Ratings and reviews really, really help other people find this show.

如果你喜欢我们的节目，请务必在你的播客应用里留下评分和评论来支持我们。

So if you like what we do, please please help us by leaving a rating and a review on your podcast app.

本期节目由詹姆斯·尼德制作。

This episode was produced by James Need.

由米格·克莱默编辑，塞拉·华雷斯负责事实核查。

It was edited by Mig Kramer and fact checked by Sierra Juarez.

音频工程由黛比·多克特林和奎西·李负责。

It was engineered by Debbie Doctrine and Quaisy Lee.

爱丽丝·戈德马克是《金钱星球》的执行制片人，我们要特别感谢经济学家托马斯·弗格森。

Alice Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer, and we wanted to give a special thanks to economist Thomas Ferguson.

我是莎拉·冈萨雷斯。

I'm Sarah Gonzales.

我是肯尼·马龙。

And I'm Kenny Malone.

这里是NPR。

This is NPR.

感谢收听。

Thanks for listening.