再Savers' lament 2/2 , December 1st 2012 P78 (貯蓄者の嘆き)
So while low interest rates are a burden on many retired people, this has not been enough to suggest the shift of income from creditor to debtors is bad for growth. But what about the effect on investment and spending? For companies, lower interest rates are not all positive. Some must set aside funds that will generate the pension benefits promised to their workers. As with a bond, the cost of that promise rises as interest rates fall. In Britain, the Pension Corporation estimates that the Bank of England's quantitative easing (QE), by lowering bond yields, increased pension-plan deficits by ￡74 billion, even allowing for higher share prices. Since such deficits must be closed over ten years, sponsors may have to divert cash from investment to their pensions. In America, corporate defined-benefit pension plans had a deficit of $6I9 billion, in part because of low yields. They could meet just 72% of future obligations, a near-record low, says Mercer, a consultancy. QE's boost to business investment may also be less than generally thought. It reduces bond yields in two ways：it signals that the central bank will hold short-term rates low for longer, and it reduces the supply of bonds. Jeremy Stein, a Fed governor, recently suggested that this second effect, by itself, may not make a company more inclined to undertake capital spending. The company may simply issue a low-cost bond and use the proceeds to pay off short-term debt, or buy treasury bills. However, Mr Stein said this logic does not apply to households. With fewer financing alternatives than companies, they are more likely to respond to lower mortgage rates by buying houses. But Bill Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, notes that as consumers age, they spend less on durable such as cars and houses, and thus have less future consumption to pull forward. Americans have not aged enough in the past decade for this to be a big factor, but it may explain why Japanese consumers have not responded more to zero rates. A final reason why consumers may not respond is that after a debt-fueled bust, they do not want to borrow or cannot qualify for a loan. But those restraints appear to be lifting. The number of consumers who plan to buy a new home has jumped 50% since July, according to the Conference Board, a business association. Ironically, American scepticism about the efficacy of low rates may have peaked as they start to work. There may be reasons to believe that monetary policy is less effective than it used to be, but it is still doing more good than harm.
