美国中产阶级危机
flyingheart于2011-08-21 11:25:40翻译【长篇报道，恭请阅读】世态炎凉，天下共知！近两年美国中产阶级的日子也不好过！大家可以看看普通美国人的生活状态。
Tags:美国 | 危机 | 中产阶级
The Freemans Mark and Connie Freeman live in north-west Minneapolis. They have a joint income – from several jobs – of $70,000. Last year they fought off repossession
马克和康妮·弗里曼夫妇住在明尼阿波利斯市西北部。二人总收入（含兼职收入）7万美元。去年他们避免了住房被收回的命运。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technically speaking, Mark Freeman should count himself among the -luckiest -people on the planet. The 52-year-old lives with his family on a tree-lined street in his own home in the heart of the wealthiest country in the world. When he is hungry, he eats. When it gets hot, he turns on the air-conditioning. When he wants to look something up, he surfs the internet. One of the songs he likes to sing when he hosts a weekly karaoke evening is Johnny Cash’s “Man in Black”.
从严格意义上讲，马克·弗里曼应当算是这个星球上最幸运的人了。这个52岁男人的家位于这个世界上最富裕国家中部一座城市的一条绿树掩映的街道上。饿了吃饭；热了开空调；想查些东西，便上网冲冲浪。在他做东的每周一次的卡拉OK之夜上，他最喜欢唱的歌是Johnny Cash的《Man in Black》。
Yet somehow things don’t feel so good any more. Last year the bank tried to repossess the Freemans’ home even though they were only three months in arrears. Their son, Andy, was recently knocked off his mother’s health insurance and only painfully reinstated for a large fee. And, much like the boarded-up houses that signal America’s epidemic of foreclosures, the drug dealings and shootings that were once remote from their neighbourhood are edging ever closer, a block at a time.
然而，天有不测风云，去年尽管弗里曼夫妇仅仅拖欠了3个月的贷款，银行就试图收回他们住的房子。他们的儿子安迪最近也被迫从母亲的健康保险中分离出来，要想恢复的话，只能忍痛再付一大笔钱。除了被封扣的房屋（这是美国丧失抵押品赎回权流行病的具体表现），毒品交易和枪击案件等曾经离他们街区很遥远的事情都在一个街区一个街区地慢慢逼近。1
What is most troubling about the Freemans is how typical they are. Neither Mark nor Connie – his indefatigable wife, who is as chubby as he is gaunt – suffer any chronic medical conditions. Both have jobs at the local -Methodist Hospital, he as a warehouse receiver and distributor, she as an anaesthesia supply technician. At $70,000 a year, their joint gross income is more than a third higher than the median US household.
令人非常困惑的是弗里曼夫妇属于非常典型的美国家庭。马克和相濡以沫的妻子康妮都没有慢性病，一个身材瘦肖，一个身体丰满。二人都在当地的卫理公会医院工作，丈夫是仓库接货员兼发货员，妻子是麻醉技师。他们7万美元的总收入比美国家庭平均收入值高出了1/3。
Once upon a time this was called the American Dream. Nowadays it might be called America’s Fitful Reverie. Indeed, Mark spends large monthly sums renting a machine to treat his sleep apnea, which gives him insomnia. “If we lost our jobs, we would have about three weeks of savings to draw on before we hit the bone,” says Mark, who is sitting on his patio keeping an eye on the street and swigging from a bottle of Miller Lite. “We work day and night and try to save for our retirement. But we are never more than a pay check or two from the streets.”
从前这就是所谓的美国梦，现在可以称作恍恍惚惚的白日梦。事实也确实如此，马克花掉每月大部分收入租用一种医疗仪器治疗睡眠呼吸暂停，但同时又给他带来了失眠的毛病。马克说，“如果我们丢掉了工作，在山穷水尽之前，我们有3个礼拜的积蓄可以临时应付，”他坐在自己的露台上，一边眼睛瞟着对面的马路一边大口喝着米勒牌淡啤酒，“我们日日夜夜地工作，想为退休后攒下一些积蓄，但是除了从街道上领取一两张薪水支票之外，什么都省不下。”
Mention middle-class America and most foreigners envision something timeless and manicured, from The Brady Bunch, say, or Desperate Housewives in which teenagers drive to school in sports cars and the girls are always cheerleading. This might approximate how some in the top 10 per cent live. The rest live like the Freemans. Or worse.
说到美国的中产阶级，大部分外国人都会在脑海里浮现出一些没有时间概念、经过美化的场景，比如《脱线家族》或者《绝望主妇》中，里面的青少年都开着跑车去上学，女孩们总是啦啦队的。也许就是10%的高收入夫妇中的一些人过着电视上的生活，而余下的就和弗里曼夫妇差不多了，或许还要差些。
It only takes about 30 seconds to tour Mark’s 700sq ft home in north-west Minneapolis. Cluttered with chintzy memorabilia, it was bought with a $50,000 mortgage in 1989. It is now worth $73,000. “At one stage we had it valued at $105,000 – and we thought we had entered nirvana,” says Mark. “People from the banks kept calling, sometimes four or five times an evening, offering equity lines, and home improvement loans. They were like drug pushers.”
只需花30秒的时间就可以把马克位于明尼阿波利斯市西北部面积为700平方英尺（约合65平方米）的家看个够。房间里胡乱地摆放着一些廉价的纪念品。这套房是1989年通过抵押借款买的，花了5万美元，现在价值7.3万美元。马克说，“曾经有段时间，房子都涨到10.5万美元了---当时想来我们是到了极乐世界一样，”“银行的人总打电话，有时一晚上就打4，5次，提供贷款额度和家庭改善贷款。他们就像毒贩一样。”
Solid Democratic voters, the Freemans are evidently phlegmatic in their outlook. The visitor’s gaze is drawn to their fridge door, which is festooned with humorous magnets. One says: “I am sorry I missed Church, I was busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian.” Another says: “I would tell you to go to Hell but I work there and I don’t want to see you every day.” A third, “Jesus loves you but I think you’re an asshole.” Mark chuckles: “Laughter is the best medicine.”
弗里曼夫妇是坚定的民主党拥趸，但很显然他们对自己的前景感觉还是很冷静的。来访者的目光都会落到他们家的冰箱门上，门上贴有小幽默的磁贴。有一条是这样说的：“很抱歉，我没法去教堂做礼拜了，我光忙着练习魔法，结果变成女同了！”另外一条说：“我本想说你下地狱去吧！但是我就在地狱干活，我又不想每天看到你！”还有一条，“别看耶稣喜欢你，但在我看来你就是个混球！”马克轻轻一笑：“笑是治病的良药！”
. . .
······
The slow economic strangulation of the Freemans and millions of other middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years. Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the -multiple is above 300.
弗里曼夫妇和其它几百万美国中产阶级面临的这种缓慢的经济窒息状态早在大衰退之前便开始了。大衰退只不过把本已折磨普通美国人好多年的“个人经济衰退”又加重了一步。自1973年以来，占美国家庭总数90%的底层家庭年收入基本上没有变化，在过去的37年里按现值计算才涨了10%，这也就是经济学家们所谓的“平均工资停滞”。这意味着大多数美国人已经有超过一代人的时间处于停滞不前的状态。在同样的时间段内，占美国家庭总数1%的最高收入人群的收入已经翻了3倍。1973年，主管级别员工的平均收入是全体平均值的26倍，现在是300倍以上。
The trend has only been getting stronger. Most economists see the Great Stagnation as a structural problem – meaning it is immune to the business cycle. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000 – the first ever instance where most Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse is that the long era of stagnating incomes has been accompanied by something profoundly un-American: declining income mobility.
这种衰退趋势只能是越来越强。大多数经济学家都认为这次的经济停滞属于结构性问题，也意味着不受经济周期的影响。在上次经济扩张期间（2002年1月-2007年12月），美国家庭平均收入下降了2000美元，这也是首次出现的情况，大多数美国人在经济周期末（译注：指经济膨胀到周期顶点时）竟然比开始时还糟糕。更惨的是长达一个时代的收入停滞状态竟然一直伴随着某些极其非美国式的因素：收入流动性下降。
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French chronicler of early America, was once misquoted as having said: “America is the best country in the world to be poor.” That is no longer the case. Nowadays in America, you have a smaller chance of swapping your lower income bracket for a higher one than in almost any other developed economy – even Britain on some measures. To invert the classic Horatio Alger stories, in today’s America if you are born in rags, you are likelier to stay in rags than in almost any corner of old Europe.
亚历西斯·德·托克维尔是专注早期美国历史的法国编年史学家。他曾经被人不确切地引用过一句话：“对穷人来说，美国是世界上最好的国家。”现在这句话不灵了。与几乎所有发达经济体，甚至在某种程度上与英国经济相比，目前在美国，你只有很小的机会从较低的收入阶层跃升到更高一些的阶层。3
Combine those two deep-seated trends with a third – steeply rising inequality – and you get the slow-burning -crisis of American capitalism. It is one thing to suffer -grinding income stagnation. It is another to realise that you have a -diminishing likelihood of escaping it – particularly when the fortunate few living across the proverbial tracks seem more pampered each time you catch a glimpse. “Who killed the -American Dream?” say the banners at leftwing protest marches. “Take America back,” shout the rightwing Tea Party demonstrators.
将那两个深层次的发展趋势同第三种发展趋势，也就是“迅速上升的不平等”联系起来，你就会得出美国资本主义的危机正在缓慢爆发。一方面是遭受收入停滞的煎熬；另一方面人们也认识到逃离现实的可能性正在逐渐减小---特别是每当你瞥上一眼，你会发现那些靠众所周知的伎俩赚钱的少数幸运儿似乎更加红光满面了。左翼游行队伍已经打出横幅：“是谁扼杀了美国梦？”；属于右翼的茶党示威者则高喊：“还我美国！”
Statistics only capture one slice of the problem. But it is the renowned Harvard economist, Larry Katz, who offers the most compelling analogy. “Think of the American economy as a large apartment block,” says the softly spoken professor. “A century ago – even 30 years ago – it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most.”
统计数字只能显示一部分问题，但是著名的哈佛经济学家拉里·卡茨却做了一次最具说服力的类比。这位慢条斯理的教授说，“我们可以把美国经济看成一座公寓大楼。一个世纪前，甚至30年前，它都是令人嫉妒的对象，但是在过去的十年里，它的特征发生了变化。顶部的阁楼变得越来越大，中部的楼层感觉越来越拥挤，而地下室已经水漫金山了。为了把水抽走，电梯是用不了了，可是这部破电梯是人们下楼最便捷的途径。”
Unsurprisingly, a growing majority of Americans have been telling pollsters that they expect their children to be worse off than they are. During the three postwar decades, which many now look back on as the golden era of the -American middle class, the rising tide really did lift most boats – as John F. Kennedy put it. Incomes grew in real terms by almost 2 per cent a year – almost doubling each generation.
很自然地，大多数美国民众一直在和民意调查员说，他们预料他们子女的生活会比他们还要糟。战后30年，现在回过头来看，许多人都把这段时间当作美国中产阶级的黄金时代。就像约翰·F·肯尼迪所推动的那样，水涨船高，以现价计算的收入每年都几乎以2%的速度增长---每十年差不多就会翻一番。
And although the golden years were driven by the rise of mass higher education, you did not need to have graduated from high school to make ends meet. Like her husband, -Connie Freeman was raised in a “working-class” home in the Iron Range of northern Minnesota near the Canadian border. Her father, who left school aged 14 following the Great -Depression of the 1930s, worked in the iron mines all his life. Towards the end of his working life he was earning $15 an hour – more than $40 in today’s prices.
尽管这个黄金时代是由大规规模高等教育的普及所推动的，但是你上了高中，你的收入却未必相应提高。康妮·弗里曼和她丈夫一样，都是出生一个工薪家庭。他们的家坐落在在靠近加拿大边界的明尼苏达州北部的一条铁矿带上。她的父亲正好赶上了上世纪三十年代的那次经济大萧条，14岁时便辍学了，并在铁矿干了一辈子。他最后离开工作时一小时可以挣到15美元，按照今天的价格换算应当超过40美元/小时了（译注：大家可以算一下，这个工资确实不低了）。
Thirty years later, Connie, who is far better qualified than her father, having graduated from high school and done one year of further education, makes $17 an hour. The pace of life has also changed: “We used to sit around the dinner table every evening when I was growing up,” says Connie, who speaks with prolonged vowels of the Midwest. “Nowadays that’s sooooo rare.”
30年后的康妮，受教育水平比父亲好了一些，高中毕业，还接受了一年的继续教育，现在一小时挣17美元。 生活的节奏也发生了变化。“我的成长过程，都是每天晚上围坐在餐桌旁（聊天）度过的，”康妮带着中西部人特有的口音（习惯把元音拉得很长，如sooooo）说，“现在这种场景太太太少了！”
Connie’s minimally educated father earned enough to allow her mother to remain a full-time housewife and still fund two children through college. Connie and Mark, meanwhile, struggle to pay off the stream of bills in a dual-income household. The state of Minnesota pays for Andy, their 20-year-old son, who suffers from acute autism, to study -theatre at the local community college.
康妮的父亲只接受了最低程度的教育却可以养活她做全职家庭主妇的妈妈，并让两个孩子大学毕业。而康妮和马克这个挣两份薪水的家庭却只能很勉强地付清大把的账单。他们20岁的儿子安迪患有急性自闭症，明尼苏达州资助安迪在当地的社区学院学习戏剧。
Andy, the autistic son of Mark and Connie Freeman. Removed from his mother’s health insurance, he was only reinstated for a large fee
康妮和马克的儿子安迪
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strictly speaking, Connie actually lives in a four-income household. “When Andy was two, I was told to buy a karaoke machine because autistic children sometimes respond well to it,” says Mark, pointing at what can only be described as a postmodern antique. “That’s how I got into my karaoke -business. I get about $100 every Wednesday evening. And on Saturdays I manage the local liquor store. We need all four jobs to keep our heads above water.”
严格地说，康妮家实际上有四份收入。“安迪两岁时，有人告诉我可以买一台卡拉OK，因为据说患自闭症的孩子对这种机器反应良好。”马克一边指着那台可以算作后现代派古董的机器一边说，“这也是我从事卡拉OK生意的由来。每周三晚上我可以挣到100美元。在周六我还会管理一家酒行。只有我们做四份工作才能让我们免于负债。”（译注：这句话原文很有趣，但却是固定用法：We need all four jobs to keep our heads above water.）
So much for the rising tide.
现在生活成本太高了。
From the point of view of most economists, the story so far is uncontroversial. Most agree on the diagnosis. But they diverge on the causes. Many on the left blame the Great -Stagnation on globalisation. The rise of China, India, Brazil and others has undercut wages in the west and put America’s unskilled, semi-skilled and even skilled workers out of jobs. Manufacturing now accounts for only 12 per cent of US jobs. Think of the typical Detroit car worker 30 years ago, who had a secure middle-class lifestyle, good healthcare and a fat -pension to look forward to. Today, he lives in Shenzhen.
根据大多数经济学家的看法，安妮一家的故事没有什么争议，调查分析也都赞同，但是事情的原因却有分歧。许多观点左倾的经济学家指责全球化带来了经济停滞。中国、印度、巴西和其他国家的兴起已经拉低了西方国家的工资水平，而且还挤走了美国非熟练工、半熟练工和熟练工的工作。制造业目前只占美国工作岗位的12%。试想一下，30年前一名底特律（译注：全球著名的汽车城）的汽车工人，享受全面地卫生保健再加上一份令人期待的丰厚的退休金，应该算是十分安稳的中产阶级。现在“他生活在深圳”。（译注：指新兴国家的产业工人夺走了他的工作岗位）
Another group singles out the explosion of new technology, which has enabled the most routine and easily automated jobs to be replaced by computers. Think of the office assistant, who once took dictation and brewed the coffee. She is now a -BlackBerry who spends half her life in Starbucks. Or the back office person who, much like those shoemakers in the fairy tale, now stitches your accounts in Bangalore while you sleep.
还有一些工作岗位是随着新技术的蓬勃发展应运而生的，计算机替代了那些最常规、最容易实现自动化的岗位。比如办公室助理原来是根据经理口述安排工作还有负责煮咖啡，现在她成了黑莓控并把大把的时间花在星巴克。还有那些内勤员工，像极了童话中的鞋匠，在你睡觉的时候，他们正在（印度的）班加罗尔替你打点账目。
Then there are those, such as Paul Krugman, The New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winner, who blame it on politics, notably the conservative backlash which began when Ronald Reagan came to power in 1980, and which sped up the decline of unions and reversed the most progressive features of the US tax system.
然后就有了像保罗·克鲁格曼（《纽约时报》专栏作家和诺贝尔奖获得者）之类的一些人，他们对自1980年罗纳德·里根入主白宫后开始显现的保守主义的反弹、工会组织加速消失和美国税法体系中的最先进的特征遭到颠覆等提出公开提出批评。
Fewer than a tenth of American private sector workers now belong to a union. People in Europe and Canada are subjected to the same forces of globalisation and technology. But they belong to unions in larger numbers and their healthcare is publicly funded. More than half of household bankruptcies in the US are caused by a serious -illness or accident.
美国私营领域中，只有不足1/10的工人属于工会会员。欧洲人和加拿大人也在承受同样的全球化和技术方面的压力，但他们都属于会员众多的各种工会组织，而且他们的卫生保健是由国家公共支出资助的。美国多一半的家庭破产案是由严重的疾病或事故导致的。
. . .
……
Such are the competing (but not contradictory) -theories of what causes it. The “lived experience”, as sociologists would say, is another matter. Much like the -Freemans, whose street is boxed in for about a mile each side by long commercial roads pockmarked with boarded-up shops, -dollar stores and fast food joints, the Millers could be living anywhere in the US. Only the sultry heat betrays that you are in Virginia and thus in the American South.
由此出现了所谓的“竞争理论”（但不是矛盾理论）。正如社会学家会说，“生活体验”是另一回事（译注：人们都习惯于居住在自己熟悉的地方）。和弗里曼夫妇类似，米勒夫妇所在的街道两侧有1英里长的商业街，密布着安着门板的商店、一元便利店和快餐亭等。这些场景和美国的其它任何地方别无二致，只有闷热无比的天气显示这里弗吉尼亚，美国的南部地区。
The Millers: Shareen and Mark Miller (front right) with (left) their son Dustin, his wife Ruth and their two-yearold child, and (back right) Shareen and Mark’s other son Josh. Out of necessity, they all share the cramped family home in Falls Church, Virginia
米勒夫妇一家：谢林和马克·米勒（前右二人）夫妇；儿子达斯廷（后左）和他的妻子鲁思（前左）和他们的两岁的孩子；谢林和马克的另一个儿子乔希（后右）。出于迫不得已，他们都住在弗吉尼亚州的福尔斯彻奇市狭小的房屋内。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Falls Church, Virginia is really a suburb of Washington DC. The government’s relentless expansion has fuelled an evergreen private sector across the Potomac River that mostly deals in security, defence, government services and lobbying. Pride of place in Shareen Miller’s home goes to a grainy photo-graph of her chatting with Barack Obama at a White House ceremony last year to inaugurate a new law that mandates equal pay for women.
福尔斯彻奇市其实可以算作华盛顿特区的郊区。政府无休止的扩张促使兴盛不衰的私营经济遍布波托马克河两岸，经营业态主要集中证券、保安护卫、政府服务和政策游说机构等。米勒一家人最引为自豪的要算是屋子里挂着一幅新闻照片了，这是一幅在白宫举行的促进妇女平等取酬的一部新法律的颁布仪式上谢林和奥巴马闲谈的照片。
As an organiser for Virginia’s 8,000 personal care -assistants – people who look after the old and disabled in their own homes – Shareen, 42, was invited along with several dozen others to witness the signing. But that was all she gained from her fleeting proximity to the president. Since then, her pay and her hours have moved steadily downwards. Last year she made $1,500 a month. Now it is $900. In common with other state governors, Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s chief executive, has been cutting budgets ruthlessly since the recession began.
谢林，42岁，作为弗吉尼亚州8000名个人护理助理（负责照料在自己家里生活的老人和残疾人士）的组织者，与另外几十人一道受邀见证新法律的签字仪式。不过与总统先生的片刻接触所留下的也仅仅限于一张照片而已。从那以后，她的报酬和工作时间一直在稳步下降。去年她一个月还可以挣到1500美元，现在只有900美元了。和其它的州一样，自从经济衰退开始后，弗吉尼亚州的州长鲍伯·麦克唐奈便在不断地削减预算。
Although roughly twice the size of the Freemans’ home, Shareen’s house feels even more cramped. Along with two sons, a daughter-in-law, a grandchild and her husband, Shareen has a menagerie of pets. Her patient, Marissa, a 26-year-old with cerebral palsy, often stays with them.
尽管谢林家的房子要比弗里曼家大两倍，但是给人的感觉更拥挤。除了丈夫、两个儿子、一个儿媳和一个孙子之外，谢林还养了一群宠物。另外她的病人玛丽萨，一个26岁脑瘫的姑娘也经常跟她们住在一起。
Shareen exhibits that knockdown goodwill that you find in many Americans – in spite of having little time on her hands, she volunteers on Saturdays for the Lost Pets charity. To get anywhere the Freemans must drive. About a quarter of a mile down the road is the local intersection, with the identikit Taco Bells, 7-Elevens, dollar stores and payday loan outlets that punctuate America. It is the physical geography that differentiates places: the human geography simply repeats itself.
谢林展示了你可以从许多美国人身上看到的不可阻挡的友善之情---尽管自己没什么空闲时间，但她还自愿参加每周六举行的流浪宠物慈善活动。不管到什么地方，弗里曼夫妇都会开车去。沿着这条路走1/4英里远的地方是一个十字路口，周围有以人像拼图为招牌的塔可贝尔连锁店（Taco Bells）、7-Elevens、一元便利店以及对美国社会有腐蚀作用的工资日贷款特色专卖店（payday loan outlets）。自然地理把各个地方区别开来；而人文地理则是简单地重复自己。
A well-built lady with a permanent laugh, Shareen sketches out her complex family tree – a retired father who worked in the Oregon State Penitentiary and several half brothers and half sisters, none of whom appears to be making ends meet. “Guess which one I’m closest to?” she asks with an impish smile. “None of them.”
谢林是位体态健美、性格开朗的女人。她简要介绍了自己的家庭情况：她的父亲已经退休，原来在俄勒冈州监狱工作；还有好几个同父异母的兄弟姐妹，但他们经济上好像都是入不敷出的状态。“你猜我和谁最亲近？”她顽皮一笑，“和谁都不！”
Again, technically speaking, Shareen is relatively comfortable. Because her husband works for a fire safety company and brings in $70,000 a year, the Millers are clearly surviving. But they dread what would happen if either had a -medical crisis. A few years ago Shareen had a tumour removed from her -diaphragm, which left her $17,000 in debt. And her husband suffers from a herniated disk. Remarkably, given that their gross joint income is double the US median, Shareen has had to postpone a dental operation for six months in order to pay off her car loan. Nor does she have time to upgrade her skills. “One thing about people who work with the disabled is that they never have any spare time,” she says.
我再一次认真地说，谢林还是过得很安逸的。因为她丈夫为一家消防安全公司工作，每年收入有7万美元，所以米勒一家生活应当挺滋润的，但是他们一直在担心，如果再患场大病的话，家庭状况会变成什么样，谁心里也没底。几年前，谢林从子宫内膜取出一个肿瘤，留下了1.7万美元的债务。他丈夫还患有椎间盘突出。引人注目的是，尽管她们的家庭总收入是美国家庭平均收入的2倍，但是谢林为了偿还她的汽车贷款，还是不得不把一次牙科手术推迟了6个月。另外，她也没时间去进修技能。她说，“为残疾人服务的人有一个特点就是他们没有任何富余时间。”
. . .
……
Much as they disagree on what has caused the Great Stagnation, economists also differ on the remedies. Most agree that better education improves people’s earnings potential, even if it does not solve the underlying problem. Others point out that not everybody can be a bond trader, a software entrepreneur or a Harvard professor.
经济学家们不仅在造成经济停滞的原因上有分歧，而且在补救措施上也意见不一致。大部分经济学家都认为即便良好的教育不能解决根本问题，但也会提高人们挣钱的潜能。其他人则指出，并不是每个人都可以成为证券交易员、软件企业家或者哈佛大学教授的。
Many of the jobs of the future will be in “inter-personal” roles that cannot be easily replaced by computers or -foreigners – janitors, beauty technicians, home carers and landscape gardeners, for whom college is often superfluous. Furthermore, a large chunk of Americans who have been hit by -stagnation over the past decade are college graduates. Even they are not immune. But more education, at the very least, will improve one’s chances. Paying for it is another matter.
未来许多涉及“人际关系”的工作将不容易被计算机或外国人所替代，比如门卫、美容技师、家庭护理员和庭院美化师，而这些专业设置在大学里是过剩的。而且，在过去的十年里受到经济停滞冲击的一大批美国人都是大学毕业生。所以大学生也没能幸免，但至少受教育水平越高，获得的机会也会越多。当然，挣多挣少是另外一回事。
Shareen’s son and daughter-in-law, Dustin and Ruth, both aged 23, recently had to move back home because they could not afford to rent, even though both hold down jobs – Dustin with a bath remodelling company, Ruth in a fabrics store. Both did well in high school and would like to study marine biology – a skill of the future. But they cannot afford the debt.
谢林的儿子、儿媳，达斯廷和鲁思都是23岁，尽管都保住了工作，但由于付不起房租，最近搬回来住了。达斯廷在一家浴房改造公司工作，鲁思在一家纺织品商店工作。他们高中课业成绩都很好，本来想去学海洋生物学（这也是将来有用的技能），但是由于承担不起债务，只能作罢。
The Miller family. Both Dustin and Ruth (left) would like to go to college, but can’t afford to take on the debt
米勒一家
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While incomes in America are stagnating, the cost of education is soaring. Since 1990, the proportion of Americans who are paying off more than $20,000 in student loans a -decade after they graduated has almost doubled. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, who has long worried about the growth of what he calls America’s “anxious middle”, points out that of the major economies, the US has the highest share of graduates in the workforce. But if you take the 25-34-year-old age group, America is not even in the top 10.
在美国人收入停滞之际，教育成本却正在高涨。从1990年开始，毕业十年后偿还学生贷款2万美元以上的美国人的比例已经翻了一番。奥巴马的首席经济顾问劳伦斯·萨默斯长期关注他称之为美国“焦虑的中年一代”的增加。萨默斯指出，在主要的经济体中，美国大学毕业生在劳动大军中所占比例最高，但是如果我们取出25-34岁这个年龄段对比，美国甚至进不了前10位。
More and more young Americans are put off by the thought of long-term debt. “It’s not only fear of the debt – it is the four years of lost earnings,” says Ruth Miller, who was raised a -Mormon and, to the bemusement of her parents-in-law, has converted Dustin to the faith. During my visit two expressionless Mormon “home visitors” wearing identical shirts and ties turned up and whisked Dustin, Ruth and their two-year-old son into their bedroom for counselling. “I would love to know what they’re saying in there,” says Shareen in a stage whisper.
越来越多的年轻美国人受到长期负债想法的困扰而推迟上大学。鲁思·米勒说，“并非仅仅四年债务的问题，还要看四年会损失多少收入。”她在一个摩门教徒家庭长大，而且令公婆感到困惑的是，她还让达斯廷昄依了摩门教。在我采访期间，两个穿着相同衬衫、打着相同领结、目无表情的摩门教“家庭访客”登门拜访，达斯廷、鲁思还有两岁的儿子同两位访客匆匆走进自己的卧室接受辅导。站在台阶上的谢林小声嘀咕了一句，“我很想知道他们会说些什么。”
Having been apolitical, Shareen had a road-to-Damascus moment three years ago after she was contacted by Mark Warner, now one of Virginia’s senators, who asked to fill “a day in her shoes”. The episode, which was used for publicity in Warner’s election campaign, made a fan of Shareen. Having seen how tough Shareen’s work could be, Warner bought her a $6,000 outdoor lift that enables her to bring in wheelchair-bound Marissa through the patio. “What a wonderful man he is,” says Shareen. “I’d love to meet him again.”
本来对政治素无兴趣的谢林，在三年前碰到马克·沃纳后而兴趣大转。马克·沃纳现在是弗吉尼亚州的一名参议员，当时沃纳要求替谢林当一天班。这种场景本来是为了满足沃纳竞选运动而进行的宣传活动，但却让谢林成了沃纳的粉丝。沃纳看到谢林工作很辛苦，便为她买了一台户外升降机，这样她便可以把绑在轮椅上的玛丽萨通过露台转到屋内。谢林说，“这个人真好，我会很高兴再见到他。”
So far, Warner’s governing Democratic party has taken only limited action to address the Great Stagnation. On the campaign trail before the downturn, Obama often talked of the long years of “flat incomes” that most Americans had -suffered and promised to turn their situation around. His administration has taken some steps, such as lifting budgets for community colleges to retrain workers, and launching the widely praised $5bn “race to the top” award for states to improve their schools. But the White House, too, has been overwhelmed by the immediacy of the recession.
迄今为止，沃纳所在的民主党身为执政党，但应对经济停滞只采取了有限的行动。在经济衰退前的竞选活动中，奥巴马经常谈到大多数美国人长期遭受的“收入停滞”问题，并保证扭转这种形势。他的政府也采取了一些措施，比如提高社区学院培训工人的预算；发布了广受赞誉的50亿美元的“力争上游”计划以帮助各州改善他们的办学条件等，但是白宫也在急剧的经济衰退面前败下阵来。
The impact on people such as the Millers and the -Freemans has been acute. First there was stagnation. Then came the recession. “It is like continually bailing water out from a sinking boat and then they take your bucket away,” says Mark Freeman. Out went the pestering calls from the banks -urging them to take on even more debt. In came the bailiffs. “One day, the banks are sucking up to you, the next they hate your guts,” he says with a Gallic shrug. Only through the help of a friendly lawyer did they escape foreclosure. The Bank of America, which received a $45bn taxpayer bail-out in late 2008, lost the Freemans’ paperwork several times. Each time they had to go through the laborious appeal process again.
类似米勒一家和弗里曼一家的家庭受冲击的程度还是很严重的。首先是经济停滞，然后衰退接踵而至。马克·弗里曼说，“就好像你在行将沉没的船上正连续往外舀水时，他们却把你的桶拿走了一样。”前面，银行烦人的电话还一遍遍打过来要求他们负更多的债，到最后，来的却是（贴封条的）法警。“前一天，银行还在吸引你加入，第二天就对你恨之入骨，”他一边说一边优雅地耸了耸肩。通过一位友善的律师的帮助，他们才避免丧失抵押品赎回权。美国银行在2008年末的时候接受了450亿美元的纳税人救助，但却把弗里曼家的文书弄丢了好几次，每次都要走麻烦的上诉程序才能恢复。
"I susupct the bank wanted to foreclose because we were so near to paying off the mortgage,” says Mark. “It was more profitable for them that way.” Eventually the Freemans proved they could keep up with the payments. Mark calculated they have paid $163,000 so far on a house they bought for less than one-third of that amount. It could all have been for naught. More than four million homes have been repossessed in the past three years. “Things have gotten so bad that before the price of copper fell, people were breaking into boarded-up houses to strip them of their wiring,” says Mark.
马克说，“因为我们已经非常接付清近抵押借款了，所以我猜测银行就是想取消我们的抵押品赎回权。这么做他们利润丰厚。”最终弗里曼一家证明自己可以继续完成还款。马克算过帐，他们已经为这套房子付出了16.3万美元，但他们买房时房款不足这个数额的1/3。他们的心血差一点就化为乌有。在过去的三年里，有400多万个家庭的房屋被收回。马克说，“事情已经变得非常糟糕，在铜价回落之前，已经有人砸坏封了门窗的房屋把自己配的电气线路中的铜线剥离出来。”
. . .
……
What, then, is the future of the American Dream? Michael Spence, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, whom the World Bank commissioned to lead a four-year study into the future of global growth, admits to a sense of foreboding. Like a growing number of economists, Spence says he sees the Great -Stagnation as a profound crisis of identity for America.
那么，美国梦的前景如何? 迈克尔·斯彭斯是获得诺贝尔奖的经济学家。世界银行委托他领导一个为期4年的研究计划探讨全球增长的前景。斯彭斯承认预感不祥。像其它为数不少的经济学家一样，斯彭斯说，他把这次美国的经济不景气视作一次严重的经济危机。
For years, the problem was cushioned and partially hidden by the availability of cheap debt. Middle-class Americans were actively encouraged to withdraw equity from their homes, or leach from their retirement funds, in the confidence that -property prices and stock markets would permanently defy gravity (a view, among others, promoted by half the world’s Nobel economics prize winners, Spence not included). That cushion is now gone. Easy money has turned into heavy debt. Baby boomers have postponed retirements. College graduates are moving back in with their parents.
多年来，由于负债的成本很低，（经济领域）存在的问题获得了缓冲的机会并被部分地掩盖起来。美国的中产阶级被积极地鼓动从房屋中或者退休基金撤出股权。他们相信不动产价格和股票市场将会永远地抵抗地心引力（特别值得一提的是，有半数的世界诺贝尔奖获得者都推崇这个观点。当然不包括斯彭斯在内。）。现在缓冲作用不复存在，快钱变成了沉重的债务。婴儿潮时代（译注：二战后）出生的那批人都推迟了退休计划。大学毕业生们正在搬回父母家住。
The barometer is economic. But the anger is human and increasingly political. “I have this gnawing feeling about the future of America,” says Spence. “When people lose the sense of optimism, things tend to get more volatile. The future I most fear for America is Latin American: a grossly unequal society that is prone to wild swings from populism to -orthodoxy, which makes sensible government increasingly hard to imagine. Look at the Tea Party. People think it came from nowhere. While I don’t agree with their remedies, most Tea Party members are middle-class Americans who have been suffering silently for years.”
经济就是晴雨表。(因为经济不景气，)人们都变得怒火中烧，政治上的不确定性也越来越大。斯彭斯说，“我对美国的未来有种痛苦的感觉。当人们失去了乐观情绪的时候，事情就会变得反复无常。我最担心的美国未来就是走拉美的路子：一个极其不平等、特别容易发生从民粹主义到正统学说的剧烈动荡的社会，会让一个英明的政府变得越来越难以想象。看看茶党吧，人们都不知道它是从哪里冒出来的。尽管我不同意他们提出的（经济）补救措施，但是大多数茶党成员都属于美国的中产阶级，他们已经默不作声地忍受了很多年。”
Spence admits he is thinking aloud and going “way beyond the data”. And he concedes that America probably still retains its most vibrant strength in its still world-beating capacity for technological innovation. Most economists are not as bleak as Spence. But it is in the neighbourhoods among ordinary Americans that his pessimism gets its loudest echo. “To be pessimistic about the future is so new for Americans and so strikingly un-American,” says Spence. “But most people grasp their own situations way better than any economist.”
斯彭斯承认自己正在拼命思考，也许“想法有些过头了”。他也承认美国在其仍然无可匹敌的技术创新能力方面继续保持了强劲的实力。然而，大部分经济学家不像斯彭斯那样悲观，街头巷尾的普通美国民众也对斯彭斯的悲观主义做了最有力的回应。斯彭斯说，“对于未来，其他人也许会非常明显地感到悲观，但是美国人民的词汇里没有悲观主义，而且大多数人会审时度势，调整好自己的方向，他们做得会比任何经济学家都好！”
. . .
······
Every now and then the Freemans invite their neighbours round to their front porch, to watch the world go by, drink beer and eat Connie’s justly renowned dish of -Minnesota wild rice. In the best American spirit, Mark and Connie are active neighbourhood people. They are the types who shovel your snow, volunteer for school events, and coach the baseball little league – Mark has done all three.
有时弗里曼家会邀请周围的邻居在房子的前廊坐看门前风景、畅饮啤酒并品尝康妮用明尼苏达野生稻米制作的小有名气的菜肴。马克和康妮秉承美国人的优秀品质，他们都是热心的社区人士。他们会帮你铲除门前积雪、成为学校活动的志愿者和训练小篮球队等---这三项马克全部都参加。
It takes optimism to be like this. But in the past few years the Freemans have been running low on it. “I guess the penny dropped in the last 18 months when we finally realised that it’s always going to be like this – we are never going to be able to retire on our savings,” says Connie. “As for Andy,” she says, referring to her painfully shy but acutely observant son, “the future really frightens me. If you’re young, it’s bad enough nowadays. But for a kid with autism?”
积极参加社区活动意味着乐观向上。但是在过去的几年里，弗里曼夫妇参与社区活动的频率越来越低。康妮说，“我猜，经过最近的18个月我们是彻底弄明白了：我们最终认识到，形势要总是这样进行下去的话，靠我们的积蓄，我们永远也退不了休。”“至于安迪，”她继续说，她想到了自己极其害羞而又有敏锐观察力的儿子，“未来真让我害怕。如果你是年轻人，这个世道已经够糟的了，何况是患自闭症的孩子呢？”
When I asked what the American Dream means to them, Mark looked despondent. “It’s not a dream,” he said. “I would hate to sound like one of those Tea Party people but I really do want my country back. I just don’t feel like that is going to -happen.” His words reminded me of a famous quip by George Carlin, the late, great American comedian – “It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
当我问到美国梦对他们意味着什么的时候，马克看起来很沮丧。他说，“根本就不是梦！我讨厌让人听起来像茶党的人一样，但是我真的希望我的国家能恢复元气。我只是感觉暂时还看不到希望。”他的话让我想起美国最后的喜剧大师乔治·卡林的一句著名的妙语---“这就是所谓的美国梦，因为你要在睡梦中才会相信它！”
Having been told that karaoke had worked miracles on Andy’s autism as an infant, I asked whether he still liked to croon. Mark and Connie both instantly beamed. “You should see Andy down at the club singing word-perfectly and playing up flirtatiously to the women,” said Connie. “He turns into a different person.”
听说安迪小的时候卡拉OK治疗他的自闭症发挥了奇效，我问他们，安迪还喜欢唱歌吗？马克和康妮面露喜色。康妮说，“你应当看看安迪在夜总会唱歌时的情景，字正腔圆而且还会和女嘉宾调情，他完全变了一个人。”
When Andy came outside, I asked if he would sing. Without skipping a beat he launched into a flawless rendition of “The Impossible Dream”, the song from Man of La Mancha, the 1970s Broadway hit. His performance was uncanny.
安迪走出来，我问他是否愿意唱一首歌。没有丝毫地犹豫，他完美无瑕地演唱了一首上世纪七十年代风靡百老汇的（音乐剧）《梦幻骑士》（The Impossible Dream）中的一首插曲《追梦无悔》（The Impossible Dream）。他的表演真得不可思议。
“To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go. To right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar, to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star. This is my quest: to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.”
“To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go. To right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar, to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star. This is my quest: to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.” ***
It was one of those only-in-America moments. When Andy stopped singing, I turned to Mark and Connie. For an uncharacteristic moment, they were both silent.
这是一个纯美国的氛围。当安迪的歌声停止后，我朝马克和康妮转过身去。在这样一个并不平常的时刻，他们却都---很平静。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***译注：为了保持原文意境，译者并未翻译这段歌词。而且网上也有很纯正的翻译。在此提供一个有中文歌词百度百科的链接。）
相关文章
「 支持！」
WYZXWK.COM
您的打赏将用于网站日常运行与维护。
帮助我们办好网站，宣传红色文化！
欢迎扫描下方二维码，订阅网刊微信公众号
