安倍經濟學催生新一代金甲蟲

So an American fund manager, a British darts champion and a Japanese grandmother go into a Tokyo bar.

有一天，一個美國基金經理，一個英國飛鏢冠軍，和一個日本老奶奶走進了東京一家酒吧。

There’s no punchline, the bar is fictional and the characters never actually meet — but the people are real enough. Each of them just sits there for ages chatting slightly tediously about gold, embodying a growing obsession with the metal.

沒有笑話包袱，東京的酒吧是虛構的，三位主人公實際上永遠不會碰面，但這三個人是真實存在的。他們都坐在那兒長久地、有點兒乏味地聊着黃金的話題，體現了對這種金屬與日俱增的癡迷。

One of them likes UK gold sovereigns; one prefers the maple leaf, a Canadian gold coin known for its purity; one is saving up the $140,000-odd required for a 100oz slab of bullion. One has bought a home safe, another has rented a deposit box in a bank and the third has looked into buying space in a Swiss vault. All three check their phones for live gold prices the way others check for Pokémon.

其中一人喜歡英國金鎊，一人偏好加拿大楓葉金幣（以高純度聞名），還有一人正在積蓄14萬美元，以便買下一根100盎司金條。一人買了個家用保險箱，另一人在銀行租了個保險箱，第三人正在考慮購買瑞士某個金庫的空間。三人都不停地在手機上查看實時金價，就像其他人查看精靈寶可夢(Pokémon)一樣。

What’s behind the obsession? In January, as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s floundering attempts to stimulate the Japanese economy, negative interest rates were introduced. In a country with high savings levels, that has proved alarming. Meanwhile, the policy has driven down the yields on sovereign bonds, beloved of Japanese savers — to the point where 80 per cent are trading on negative yields. The UK’s Brexit vote two months ago is also taking a toll.

這種癡迷的背後是什麼呢？今年1月日本央行推出負利率政策，這是日本首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)爲刺激經濟作出的艱難嘗試的一部分。在一個高儲蓄水平的國家，此舉被證明是令人震驚的。同時，該政策還拉低了深受日本儲戶喜愛的主權債券的收益率，以至於現在80%的主權債券都以負收益率交易。兩個月前的英國退歐公投也產生了影響。

So gold has emerged as a kind of shiny financial aspirin for a new generation of gold bugs: a natural-sounding painkiller for unnatural times. As recently as last year, the fund manager delighted in pointing out that if you type “why gold bugs...” into Google, it auto-completes the sentence with “ wrong”. His position has reversed; he will now explain, at length, why he is building a store of gold eagles for his two young daughters.

因此對於新一代“金甲蟲”，黃金已成爲一片閃閃發亮的金融“阿司匹林”——不正常的時代裏一種聽上去正常的止痛藥。就在去年那位基金經理還樂呵呵地指出，如果你在谷歌(Google)輸入“爲什麼金甲蟲……”，它就會自動蹦出結尾“……是錯的”。現在他的立場已經扭轉了，他會詳細地解釋爲什麼自己會爲兩個年幼的女兒存下大量鷹金幣。

Japan has been called the region’s “star performer” by the World Gold Council, which noted in its most recent report that for the first time in a decade the country has clocked its fourth consecutive quarter of positive net investment in the metal.

世界黃金協會(World Gold Council)已把日本稱作亞洲的“明星”，該協會在最近的報告中指出，日本已連續第四個季度對黃金作出正的淨投資，這是10年來的首次。

For those of us whose route home takes us past a small, bustling gold dealership, this is no surprise. Chie Igarashi, the grandmother from Tokyo, is part of a growing band of people aged 50-70 who have decided to express their scepticism over Mr Abe’s economic vision not at the ballot box (where the prime minister received resounding support at last month’s upper house election) but at their nearest bullion dealer.

在我們這些回家途中會經過一間熱鬧的小金鋪的人看來，這毫不奇怪。上文中提到的那位東京老奶奶名叫五十嵐千繪(Chie Igarashi)，她代表一個不斷壯大的羣體，他們年齡在50歲至70歲之間，對安倍經濟學表示懷疑，但他們表達懷疑的方式並不是通過投票箱——這位日本首相在上月參議院選舉中贏得了壓倒性勝利——而是離家最近的金條經銷店。

Since the start of 2016, Mrs Igarashi, aged 66, has bought four gold coins — which at about $1,340 an ounce are worth roughly Y520,000. The surge in the yen since the June 23 Brexit referendum, which has taken it to a near three-year high against the dollar, has sharpened her appetite for more.

從2016年初至今，66歲的五十嵐已經購買了4枚金幣，以每盎司1340美元左右來算，總價值大概在52萬日元。自6月23日英國脫歐公投以來，日元兌美元匯率已飆升至近三年高點，加大了五十嵐對黃金的胃口。

She is not alone. Sales at Japan’s largest gold retailer, Tanaka Kikinzoku, tripled from normal levels on June 24 and its overall sales of gold in the first quarter of 2016 were 35 per cent higher than the same period a year earlier. Every time a new element of uncertainty hits households, Tanaka Kikinzoku registers a rise in applications for its “pure gold accumulation plan” — an investment scheme where a reassuring nugget is set aside monthly.

五十嵐並不是個案。6月24日（英國退歐公投次日——譯者注），日本最大黃金零售商田中貴金屬工業株式會社(Tanaka Kikinzoku)的銷售比日常水平提高了兩倍，而今年第一季度黃金總銷量比去年同期高出35%。每當家家戶戶遇到一個新的不確定元素，田中貴金屬“純金積存計劃”——一個投資方案，每月買下一小塊讓人安心的黃金——的申購者就會增多。

The darts player, who is among the world’s top eight and was in the Japanese capital last month for the Tokyo Masters, like Mrs Igarashi modestly describes himself as a “total beginner” to gold, while displaying a stunningly intricate knowledge of prices (to two decimal places), purities (to three decimal places) and currency arbitrage opportunities.

那位飛鏢選手在全球排名前八，上月前往東京參加“東京大師”賽。像五十嵐一樣，他也謙遜地自稱是黃金的“完全新手”，卻展現了對價格（精確到小數點後兩位）、純度（到小數點後三位）以及貨幣套利機會的驚人細緻的瞭解。

He is fascinated by Tokyo; less by its traditional charms than by the lessons its despairing savers can offer the world. He is a sportsman whose winnings are primarily earned in the boozy, Brexity roar of clubs and halls across the UK: more even than the prospect of political turmoil in Britain, he fears falling interest rates and the appropriate destination for his considerable prize money.

他被東京迷住了，但吸引他的不是日本的傳統魅力，而是其絕望的儲蓄者給世界帶來的教益。身爲一個飛鏢運動員，他的獎金主要是在英國各地醉醺醺、退歐情緒強烈的俱樂部和娛樂大廳中贏得的。他對不斷下降的利率，以及自己的可觀獎金應該投在什麼地方的擔憂，甚至超過了對英國政局動盪前景的擔憂。

Japan, he declares in the green room immediately after losing a semi-final and checking his phone for the gold price, offers a sobering example to him and other stars of bar room sports of what happens when a leading economy moves to negative interest rates. More gold, he decides after cross-examining me expertly on the behaviour of Japanese grandmothers, must be the wisest choice.

輸掉半決賽後，他在手機上查看了金價，然後在休息室裏表示，對於他自己以及其他酒吧運動明星來說，日本提供了一個發人深省的例子，讓人們看到當一個領先經濟體走向負利率時會發生什麼。他老練地盤問了我日本老奶奶們的表現，然後做出了決定：購買更多黃金必定是最明智的選擇。