????這份報告認為，量化寬松并未助推股市上行的另一項證據是市盈率。如果量化寬松提高的是股價而非盈利，市盈率就應該上升。報告指出，市盈率并沒有超出歷史正常水平，它還通過一幅圖表來證明這一點。

????但那是在11月份。我和理查德?多布斯進行了交流，他是這篇報告的作者之一。我請他更新了這幅圖。現在它是這個樣子：?

????Another piece of evidence, according to the report, that QE has not boosted stock prices is the price-to-earnings ratio. If QE had been giving stocks a boost and not earnings, you would expect P/E ratios to go up. But the report says the stock valuation metric is not above historic norms. The report has a chart that shows that fact.

????But that was in November. I talked to one of the McKinsey report's authors, Richard Dobbs, and I had him update the chart in the report. Here's what it looks like now:???

????看到上揚的曲線末端了嗎？現在的市盈率遠高于正常水平，就算剔除了通脹的影響也是如此。多布斯說，市盈率在2013年陡然上升印證了他的觀點——盡管美聯儲削減購債規模的意圖已經顯而易見，但投資者仍在追捧股票。然而，量化寬松現在并未結束。目前，美聯儲每個月仍買入750億美元的債券，低于此前每個月850億美元的水平，但降幅不大。我認為，實際情況是利潤增速已經放慢，但投資者對股票依然熱情不減。原因是因為量化寬松嗎？外界眾說紛紜。

????對于量化寬松怎樣讓窮人受益，多布斯的最后一條依據是：量化寬松讓利率下降，帶來了更低的借貸成本。因此，政府沒有馬上緊縮開支，福利支出得以保全。非也。美國和歐洲政府都已削減了社會性支出。多布斯認為，如果沒有量化寬松，削減幅度將更大。我不知道他是怎樣得出這個結論的。沒錯，利率上升可能意味著更高的赤字，但美國政府未必會因此決定削減開支。

????量化寬松是金融危機以來美國政府規模最大、持續時間最長的促增長措施。美聯儲購買的債券已經達到約3萬億美元。如果窮人從中獲得的好處真的多于富人，財富的分配就應該比以前更均衡。然而，實際情況正好相反。本周早些時候，斯坦福（Stanford）大學公布的研究結果表明，本輪經濟衰退以來，美國貧富差距擴大的速度已經超過了此前近20年的水平。

????這種觀點的真正危險性在于，有些人可能會說，有了量化寬松，我們就不需要食品券，也不需要失業保險這樣的措施，而只有這些措施的受益者才是窮人、而不是富人。換句話說，討厭量化寬松或許有許多正當理由，比如它正在催生泡沫，它實際上并沒有促進借貸。但說它讓窮人有錢了不該是其中之一。（財富中文網）

????譯者：Charlie???

????See that spike at the end? P/E multiples are now well above norms, even when you exclude periods of inflation. Dobbs says the fact that the P/E ratio spike came in 2013 is proof of his point. Investors still bid up stocks even after it became clear that the Fed was going to pull back on bond purchases. But QE hasn't ended. The Fed is still buying $75 billion in bonds a month, which is less than the $85 billion a month it had been purchasing, but not by much. What I think you are really seeing here is that earnings growth has slowed, but investors' appetite for stocks has not. Is that because of QE? It's as good a guess as any.

????Dobbs' final point on how QE has benefited the poor: It has driven down interest rates, and QE has made it cheaper to borrow. That has put off austerity efforts that would cut spending on welfare programs. But it hasn't. Both the U.S. and Europe have cut back on social spending. Dobbs argues that without QE the cuts would have been deeper. But I'm not sure how he gets to that. Yes, higher interest rates would have meant higher deficits, but that doesn't necessarily mean Washington would have decided to cut any more.

????QE has been one of the largest and most persistent stimulus program that the government has enacted since the financial crisis. The Fed has bought roughly $3 trillion in bonds. So if it really benefited the poor more than the rich, then you would expect some rebalancing of wealth. But, in fact, the opposite has occurred. Earlier this week, a Stanford study found that wealth inequality has risen faster since the recession than it had in the nearly two decades before.

????The real danger in this thinking is that with QE in place some may say we don't need programs like food stamps or unemployment insurance, programs that do actually benefit the poor and not the rich. Put another way: There may be a lot of valid reasons to dislike like QE. It's creating a bubble. It's not actually boosting lending. But the argument that it makes the poor richer should not be one of them.