每一年都是在寒冷中结束的。这件天经地义的事情第一次使我感到饶有意味:一年结束了,但寒冷并未终止,它将延续到来年。自然的惯性不受人为时间分割的约束,这令人联想到当前的通货膨胀:它拒不服从人们的意志与强制,犹如呼啸穿越树林的北风,径直刮过1994年,给1995年带去一个寒气逼人的开端。全年算下来,1994年的物价涨幅恐怕要在25%以上,大大超过了1994年初人民代表大会通过的政府工作报告中确定的“两位数以内”的目标。这是人们所始料未及的。就政府而言,控制物价的决心不能说不大,手段不可谓不硬:压缩基本建设规模、抽紧银根、用行政手段平抑物价;然而,物价还是在冉冉上升。为什么1988年高达两位数的通货膨胀,一经政府压制,几个月内就见成效。而现在却反其道而行之呢?这一匪夷所思的现象,可供经济学家们玩味之 Every year ends in the cold. This truly right thing has made me feel for the first time: The end of the year, but the cold has not ended, it will continue into the coming year. The inertia of nature is not constrained by artificial time division. This is reminiscent of current inflation: it refuses to obey people’s will and coercion, it whistles like a wind blowing through the woods, passes straight through 1994, and brings it to 1995. A cold start. Calculated throughout the year, the increase in prices in 1994 is probably more than 25%, which greatly exceeds the target of “two digits or more” as determined in the government work report adopted by the People’s Congress in early 1994. This is what people did not expect. As far as the government is concerned, the determination to control prices cannot be said to be insignificant. The means are not hard: compressing the scale of capital construction, tightening monetary policy, and using administrative means to suppress prices; however, prices are still rising. Why double-digit inflation in 1988, once suppressed by the government, was effective in a few months. But now it is in the opposite direction. This incredible phenomenon can be used by economists.