双语•智库 | 三人财富抵一半人口！在美国 贫富悬殊已引发道德危机

作为智库型研究与资讯平台，译世界【官方微信号译·世界（YEEWORLD）】现推出“智库”栏目，以中英双语的形式为您精选全球重要智库及著名媒体等在语言服务、文化交流、人工智能、公共政策、国际关系等相关领域的前沿研究成果，并同时展现相关英文表达，欢迎关注！本期为“双语·智库”第十期。

近日，《福布斯》杂志公布了2017“福布斯全美最富400人榜单”，盖茨、贝佐斯和巴菲特位列前三，身家共计2485亿美元，相当于美国较低收入的一半人口所拥有的财富。美国政策研究所（the Institute for Policy Studies）最近发布的题为《亿万富豪致富之道》（Billionaire Bonanza）的报告也揭示了美国贫富差距日益扩大的问题，认为美国穷人与富人之间的财富鸿沟正变得越来越难以逾越，已演变成了一场“道德危机（moral crisis）”。那么，美国的贫富不均问题到底多严重？英国《卫报》刊文解读。

Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett are wealthier than poorest half of US

盖茨、贝佐斯和巴菲特财富超过收入较低的半数美国人总和

The three richest people in the US – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, or 160 million people.

美国最富的三位人士——比尔·盖茨、杰夫·贝佐斯和沃伦·巴菲特拥有美国收入较低的一半人口（1.6亿人）的等值财富。

▲微软公司联合创始人比尔·盖茨

▲亚马逊CEO杰夫·贝佐斯

▲著名投资商沃伦·巴菲特

Analysis of the wealth of America’s richest people found that Gates, Bezos and Buffett were sitting on a combined $248.5bn fortune. The Institute for Policy Studies said the growing gap between rich and poor had created a “moral crisis”.

就美国富豪的财富分析发现，盖茨、贝佐斯和巴菲特共持有2485亿美元（约合人民币1.6万亿元）资产。美国政策研究所称，贫富差距的日益扩大已经产生了“道德危机”。

In a report, the Billionaire Bonanza, the thinktank said Donald Trump’s tax change proposals would “exacerbate existing wealth disparities” as 80% of tax benefits would end up going to the wealthiest 1% of households.

该智库在一份题为《亿万富豪致富之道》的报告中指出，唐纳德·特朗普的税改议案将“加剧既有的贫富不均”，因为80%的税收利益将最终流入1%最富有的家庭。

▲《亿万富豪致富之道》报告封面

“Wealth inequality is on the rise,” said Chuck Collins, an economist and co-author of the report. “Now is the time for actions that reduce inequality, not tax cuts for the very wealthy.”

“贫富不均正在加剧，”该报告作者之一、经济学家查克·柯林斯说，“现在是时候采取行动减少贫富不均了，而不是对富豪减税。”

The study found that the billionaires included in Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in the US were worth a combined $2.68tn – more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the UK.

研究发现，“福布斯全美最富400人榜单”中的亿万富翁共持有2.68万亿美元（约合人民币17.7万亿元）资产，超过英国的国内生产总值。

“Our wealthiest 400 now have more wealth combined than the bottom 64% of the US population, an estimated 80m households or 204 million people,” the report says. “That’s more people than the population of Canada and Mexico combined.”

“我们最富的400人拥有的财富比美国收入较低的64%的人口拥有的财富还要多，这个群体大约相当于8千万个家庭或2.4亿人，”报告指出，“超过加拿大和墨西哥的人口总和。”

The report says the “billionaire class” continues to “pull apart from the rest of us” at the fastest rate ever recorded. “We have not witnessed such extreme levels of concentrated wealth and power since the first gilded age a century ago.”

报告指出，“亿万富豪阶层”继续以前所未有的速度“与我们其他人拉开距离”。“自一个世纪前的第一个镀金时代以来，我们还没有见过如此极端集中的财富和权力”。

Forbes celebrated 2017 as “another record year for the wealthiest people in America”, as “the price of admission to the country’s most exclusive club jumped nearly 18% to $2bn”. That was a tenfold increase on the amount of money needed to enter the list when it first started in 1982.

福布斯称2017年是“美国富豪再创记录的一年”，因为“进入这个美国最排外俱乐部的门槛提升了近18%，达到了20亿美元（约合人民币132亿元）”。这是1982年首次统计富豪榜时，进入榜单所需资金的十倍。

Josh Hoxie, another co-author of the thinktank report, said: “So much money concentrating in so few hands while so many people struggle is not just bad economics, it’s a moral crisis.”

报告的另外一位作者乔西·霍克西指出：“如此之多的金钱集中在如此少数的人手中，同时还有那么多人在苦苦挣扎，这已经不仅仅是糟糕的经济问题了，这是一场道德危机。”

The report says many Americans are joining an “emerging anti-inequality movement”. “A century ago, a similar anti-inequality upsurge took on America’s vastly unequal distribution of income and wealth and, over the course of little more than a generation, fashioned a much more equal America,” it says.

报告指出，许多美国人正在加入“新兴的反不平等运动”。“一个世纪以前，当美国的收入和财富分配出现严重不均时，涌现出了一批类似的反不平等运动，用超过一代人的时间，打造了一个财富公平得多的美国。”

The rise at the wealthiest end of society comes as one in five US households live in what the report’s authors call the “underwater nation”, with either zero or negative wealth. Inequality is even more stark among minorities. Three in 10 black households and 27% of Latino ones have zero or negative wealth, compared with 14% of white families.

美国社会最富有的人群崛起，而20%的家庭依然生活在报告的作者所称的“水下国家”中，要么没资产，要么是负资产。而在少数群体中不平等现象更为显著，30%的黑人家庭和27%的拉美家庭无资产或存在负资产，在白人家庭中，这一比例仅为14%。

Just two African Americans made the Forbes 400: Oprah Winfrey (number 264 with $3bn) and the tech investor Robert Smith (226 with $3.3bn). Five members of the Forbes 400 have Latino backgrounds, including the property magnate Jorge Pérez, the LA Angels baseball team owner Arturo Moreno and three members of the family of late Colombian beer magnate Julio Mario Santo Domingo, a major shareholder of SABMiller.

“福布斯全美最富400人榜单”中只有2位非裔美国人：奥普拉·温弗瑞（排名第264，资产30亿美元（约合人民币198亿元）和技术投资商罗伯特·史密斯（排名第226，资产33亿美元（约合人民币217.8亿元））；5位上榜者有拉美背景的，包括地产巨头豪尔赫·佩雷斯、洛杉矶棒球队经理阿图罗·莫雷诺和已故哥伦比亚啤酒大亨胡里奥·马里奥·圣多明戈所在家族的三位成员，圣多明戈是南非米勒啤酒公司的主要股东。

The top 25 people in the survey are all white. The richest is Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, with $89bn, followed by Amazon’s Bezos with $81.5bn, then investor Warren Buffett with $78bn and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg with $71bn.

排在这项调查前25位的全部为白人，最富有的是拥有890亿美元（约合人民币5874亿元）的微软联合创始人盖茨，亚马逊的贝佐斯、投资商沃伦·巴菲特和脸书创始人马克·扎克伯格分别以815亿美元（约合人民币5380亿元）、780亿美元（约合人民币5149亿元）和710亿美元（约合人民币4687亿元）的资产位列第2-4位。

Since the Forbes 400 was published last month, Amazon’s share price has increased by more than 10%, lifting Bezos’s fortune to an estimated $95bn, putting him in the provisional number one spot.

“福布斯全美最富400人榜单”于上月发布，亚马逊股价涨幅已超过10%，贝佐斯拥有的财富预计会增长到950亿美元（约合人民币6271亿元），暂列榜首。

相关译词：

the gap between rich and poor  贫富差距

wealth disparity  贫富不均

wealth inequality  贫富不均

moral crisis  道德危机

tax change proposals  税改议案

tax cuts  减税

unequal distribution of income and wealth  收入和财富分配不均

negative wealth  负资产

share price  股价

编译：Yee君

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