The preliminary figures on UK gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of last year were a shock. Where now is the robust recovery that justified the government’s rapid fiscal retrenchment? In a word, nowhere. It is not just that output fell by 0.5 per cent from the previous quarter. Recovery was always likely to be “choppy”, as Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, noted in a significant speech this week. More important is the big picture: in the fourth quarter GDP was 4.4 per cent below where it had been at its latest peak, in the first quarter of 2008; it was the same as in the first quarter of 2006; and it was 8 per cent below the trend line for the last two decades. In short, the economy is very weak indeed.
英国去年第四季度国内生产总值(GDP）的初步数据令人震惊。用于证明政府迅速推行财政紧缩有道理的强劲复苏而今何在呢？难觅踪影！问题不仅在于产出比上季度下滑了0.5%。正如英国央行行长默文•金(Mervyn King)在上周的一次重要讲话中所言，复苏总是难免会有“起伏”。更重要的在于大方向：去年第四季度GDP比上一次的峰值——出现在2008年第一季度——下降了4.4%；与2006年第一季度持平；比最近20年的趋势值低8%。简而言之，目前manbetx20客户端下载 的确非常疲弱。