????《玩具總動(dòng)員》里巴斯光年那句著名的口頭禪可以借給美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)用一下：飛向無(wú)限！

????本周，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)召開碰頭會(huì)。伯南克宣布，將加大近期購(gòu)買債券的力度。而這一購(gòu)買行為已被市場(chǎng)稱為“無(wú)限量化寬松”（QE Infinity）。所謂的量化寬松，就是一國(guó)央行購(gòu)買本國(guó)國(guó)債的貨幣政策，它往往會(huì)使銀行利率走低。而低利率據(jù)信能刺激經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)。

????但這么做并沒(méi)有取得預(yù)期效果。經(jīng)濟(jì)確實(shí)正在復(fù)蘇，但考慮到伯南克三年多前就推出了首輪量化寬松政策，目前的復(fù)蘇速度并不像人們預(yù)期的那么快。然而企業(yè)又確實(shí)在利用低利率政策大舉借貸。因此，美聯(lián)儲(chǔ)的政策似乎部分奏效了。

????但問(wèn)題在于，企業(yè)正在用這些成本低廉的融資償還舊債，或干脆把錢存了起來(lái)，而不是用來(lái)招聘新員工、建造工廠或進(jìn)行其他類型的商業(yè)投資，而這些做法才是低利率刺激經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展的常規(guī)表現(xiàn)。

????為什么會(huì)出現(xiàn)這種情況呢？花旗集團(tuán)（Citigroup）的首席全球股權(quán)策略師羅伯特?巴克蘭對(duì)此給出的解釋很有意思。簡(jiǎn)單說(shuō)來(lái)，伯南克是在將股市變?yōu)閭校蛘咧辽僮屓碎_始覺(jué)得是這么回事。

????伯南克推出量化寬松政策所希望的效果之一是，推動(dòng)那些平時(shí)只買債券及其他風(fēng)險(xiǎn)較小的資產(chǎn)的投資者進(jìn)入風(fēng)險(xiǎn)更高的資本市場(chǎng)，比如股市。而這看起來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)了。標(biāo)普500指數(shù)（S&P 500）今年上漲了近13%，比實(shí)體經(jīng)濟(jì)表現(xiàn)要好得多。據(jù)信這會(huì)讓美國(guó)民眾對(duì)實(shí)體經(jīng)濟(jì)更滿意，從而花錢也更大方。

????可惜的是，伯南克稱，讓所有厭惡風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的債券投資者全部涌進(jìn)股市也有壞處。企業(yè)高管也會(huì)變得更厭惡風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，不希望疏遠(yuǎn)企業(yè)那些更保守的投資者。這就是為什么這些企業(yè)沒(méi)有把錢花在并購(gòu)或擴(kuò)張上。

????這種說(shuō)法頗有意思，不過(guò)筆者并不完全贊同。如果情況真是這樣的話，那我們就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)更多的首席執(zhí)行官直接向股東派發(fā)現(xiàn)金了。可事實(shí)上，企業(yè)財(cái)務(wù)報(bào)表上的現(xiàn)金卻一直在增加。進(jìn)一步來(lái)說(shuō)，就像我的同事斯科特?森德羅斯基最近所指出的，盡管有傳言說(shuō)各公司趕在“財(cái)政懸崖”（fiscal cliff，形容布什當(dāng)政期間所制定的減稅法案、以及現(xiàn)任總統(tǒng)奧巴馬危機(jī)期間制定的減稅法案，將同時(shí)于2013年1月1日集中到期所出現(xiàn)的政府開支被迫巨幅減少的現(xiàn)象——譯注）到來(lái)之前爭(zhēng)相向股東派發(fā)紅利，但股票分紅實(shí)際卻并未明顯增加。

????絕大多數(shù)首席執(zhí)行官都是極其自信的人，很難讓他們突然變得害怕風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。而一群新股東完全可能把他們認(rèn)為冒了太大風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的管理團(tuán)隊(duì)掃地出門。不過(guò)這么做也需要時(shí)間。而實(shí)際上收益投資者大概是在去年才開始對(duì)股票產(chǎn)生興趣的。所以，就算巴克蘭所描述的場(chǎng)景真的會(huì)發(fā)生，可能性也很小。這種描述可能有助于說(shuō)明現(xiàn)在的經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況，但卻很難很好地解釋，為什么經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退結(jié)束已經(jīng)快三年半了，卻只能提供146,000個(gè)工作崗位。

????我想，公司不愿意花錢的理由可能很明顯——管理層認(rèn)為經(jīng)濟(jì)將會(huì)繼續(xù)疲軟下去。這就使得人們更難把疲弱的經(jīng)濟(jì)歸咎于伯南克和他的寬松貨幣政策了。這么表述不如巴克蘭的說(shuō)法有意思，但卻絲毫不影響它的正確性。

????譯者：清遠(yuǎn)

????The Federal Reserve may soon steal a catch phrase from Buzz Lightyear: To infinity and beyond.

????The Federal Reserve is meeting this week, and it looks likely that Bernanke & Co. will announce that it will boost its latest bond buying effort, which has been dubbed QE Infinity. So called quantitative easing, which is what happens when a central bank buys its own country's debt, is supposed to drive down interest rates. And low interest rates are supposed to stimulate the economy.

????But it hasn't quite worked out that way. The economy is indeed improving, but not nearly as fast as one might have expected given that Bernanke kicked off the first round of quantitative easing more than three years ago. Companies are indeed borrowing, taking advantage of the lower rates. So that part of the Fed's plan seems to be working.

????The problem is that companies appear to be using that cheap money to pay off old debts, or just hoarding it, instead of spending it on new hires, building factories or other types of business investments, which is normally the way low-interest rates boost the economy.

????The question is, why? Robert Buckland, the chief global equity strategist at Citigroup (C), has an interesting answer. In short, Bernanke is turning the stock market into the bond market, or at least it may be starting to feel that way.

????One of Bernanke's hopes from quantitative easing is to push investors who normally would buy bonds and other less-risky assets into riskier assets, namely stocks. And that appears to be happening. The S&P 500, which is up nearly 13% this year, is performing much better than the actual economy. That's supposed to make us all feel better about the actual economy, and spend more money.

????Unfortunately, Buckland says that pushing all those risk-averse bond investors into the stock market has a downside, too. Corporate executives get more risk-averse, too, not wanting to alienate their new more conservative investors. That's why they haven't been spending money on acquisitions or expansions.

????It's an interesting argument, but I don't fully agree with it. If this was the case, you would see more CEOs returning cash to their shareholders. Instead, the amount of cash on corporate balance sheets has continued to grow. What's more, as my colleague Scott Cendrowski recently pointed out, despite talk of companies rushing to do shareholder payouts ahead of the fiscal cliff, dividends are not up that much.

????Most CEOs are pretty confident people, and it would be hard to suddenly make them overwhelmingly afraid of risk. A new group of shareholders could throw out corporate management teams that they thought were taking on too much risk. But that would take time. And stocks have only truly become interesting to income investors within the last year or so. So if what Buckland describes is happening, it's probably only happening at the margin, which might matter, but isn't a great explanation why the economy is only producing 146,000 jobs, nearly three and a half years after the recession ended.

????I think the reason companies aren't spending money is probably the obvious one - because executives think the economy will continue to be weak. That makes it harder to pin the weak recovery on Bernanke and his loose money policies. And it's less interesting than Buckland's theory, but that doesn't mean it's incorrect.