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  3. If Japan’s economy has been pulled steadily out of the slough into which it

If Japan’s economy has been pulled steadily out of the slough into which it

游客2023-12-22  64
问题     If Japan’s economy has been pulled steadily out of the slough into which it had fallen for more than a decade, Japan’s corporate sector has been doing almost all the pulling. Ever since the recovery that began tentatively in 2003 started to look solid, economists have predicted that households would soon take over the running, by starting to spend again after years of deflation and tightened belts. Yet every prediction of a consumption boom has proved premature, causing some to question the sustainability of the recovery as a whole. In February deflation, which last year had been declared vanquished, even made an unwelcome return.
    The corporate recovery, at least, has been remarkable. Companies have repaid huge amounts of debt incurred during the 1980s and 1990s. Demand for Japanese goods from overseas, notably China, gave the initial boost to company profits, which have grown for four consecutive years to record levels. Companies have ploughed back much of the cash they have earned into investment to replace neglected capital stock, from factory machines to computers to buildings. The latest quarterly Tankan survey of business prospects carried out by the central bank, the Bank of Japan, suggests that the recovery in capital expenditure is now spreading from big manufacturing companies to smaller ones, and from manufacturing into services. But sooner or later Japanese companies will have finished most of their upgrading, and worries about the American economy are growing among Japanese exporters, led by carmakers. The government also wants to cut its huge fiscal deficits: wise, perhaps, but this will dampen overall demand. All reasons to hope households will spend more.
    The oddity is that they have not so far, at a time when companies have been eager hirers: unemployment has fallen to just 4%. The scramble among companies for the new graduates who began work this month made a stark contrast with the fate of unemployed graduates a few years ago. But flat consumption is explained by stagnant wages—indeed, in January and February total cash wages per worker actually fell by 1.1% compared with a year earlier.
    Globalisation, combined with technological change, exerts downward pressure on wages. But other explanations are plausible. Jobs are shifting from manufacturing to lower-paid services. And younger workers, replacing a huge cohort of baby-boomers due to retire over the next three or four years, cannot command the salaries of their well-paid, portlier elders.
    But wages—and hence consumption—must now be likely to grow. A further fall in the unemployment rate would bring it closer to the point where wage pressures accelerate. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, puts that critical point at unemployment of 2.5-3.5%, a range it expects to be reached towards the end of the year. Many newly hired workers were people who earlier this decade gave up hope of finding a job and who cannot afford to be too fussy now. But this return of "discouraged" workers may nearly have run its course.
    What is more, companies have since 2005 once again been hiring more permanent workers than those on part-time contracts. Permanent workers get paid more. For instance, they are eligible for annual bonuses, which typically account for one-fifth of income. Bonuses are on the rise.
    Moreover, thanks to those baby-boomers, retirement payments by companies, including traditional lump sums to the newly retired, are set to jump—from around￥10 trillion ($84 billion) last year to￥13.5 trillion in the fiscal year that began this month. Goldman Sachs guesses that will boost consumption by 0.3 percentage points a year. Camera shops, sellers of weekend fishing-boats and even restaurants report brisk business. Baby-boomers want to enjoy their coming leisure.
    As for the return of deflation, there may be little cause for alarm. Prices fell in February by 0.1% compared with a year earlier, when measured by "core" consumer prices that include energy but exclude fresh food. But the fall was chiefly thanks to a drop in the price of oil-related goods and mobile-phone costs—hardly unwelcome trends to consumers. Besides, the official inflation measure is skewed downward by an unrepresentative calculation of housing costs. Elsewhere, price increases are spreading through service industries as demand slowly grows. Japan’s newly confident consumers may at last be about to make their presence felt.  [br] What does "fussy"(Para. 5) mean?
选项 A、Worrying.
B、Depressed.
C、Confident.
D、Impressive.
答案 B
解析
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