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Why 2013 will be a year of crisis

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 楼主| 发表于 2013-5-3 09:58:03 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
e burden.
的虚伪作风。
Americans spend only about 10% of their after-tax incomes on food of all kinds, including restaurant meals and prepackaged foods. Surveys for Gallup find that the typical American family is spending one-third less on food today, adjusting for inflation, than in 1969.
所有种类食品上的总花费只占美国人税后收入的10%左右,包括餐馆和预包装食品。依照通货膨胀率进行调整后的盖洛普民意调查数据表明,典型的美国家庭如今在食品上的花费比1969年更是缩减了三分之一。
But step outside the developed world, and the price of food suddenly becomes the single most important fact of human economic life. In poor countries, people typically spend half their incomes on food -- and by "food, " they mean first and foremost bread.
但走出发达国家范围,你会发现食品价格突然变成了人类经济生活中最重要的因素。在贫困国家,人们要将收入的一半左右花在食品上——而这里我们说的食品仅仅是指最基本的不可或缺的主食,例如面包。
When grain prices spiked in 2007-2008, bread riotsshook 30 countries across the developing world, from Haiti to Bangladesh, according to the Financial Times. A drought in Russia in 2010 forced suspension of Russian grain exports that year and set in motion the so-called Arab spring.
《金融时报》曾报道过,在2007-2008谷类价格达到顶峰时,“面包暴动”席卷了30余个发展中国家,从海地到孟加拉国。而2010年俄罗斯因旱灾被迫暂停当年谷类出口,则正是被称为“阿拉伯之春”的革命的导火索事件。
Since the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian government has provided subsidized bread to the population. A disk of round flat bread costs about a penny. In the later 2000s, however, the Mubarak government found it could not keep pace with surging grain costs.
加麦尔·阿卜杜勒·纳赛尔当政以来,埃及政府一直向公众发放面包补贴:一碟价值仅为1美分的扁圆面包。然而在2000-2010年后期,穆巴拉克政府发现自己无力承担不断上涌的谷物价格了。
As Egypt's population doubled from 20 million in 1950 to 40 million in 1980 and now more than 80 million, Egypt has gained first place as the world's largest wheat importer. The price rises of 2007-2010 exceeded the Mubarak government's resources. Cheap bread vanished from the stores. Discontent gathered. In the August 18 issue of the British magazine The Spectator, John R. Bradley, an Arabic-speaking journalist long resident in Egypt, described what happened next:
随着埃及人口从1950年的2千万翻倍到了1980年的4千万,且如今更是增长到超过8千万,埃及已经成了小麦进口的世界第一大国。2007-2010年间,谷类价格增长超过了穆巴拉克城府的财政能力。廉价的面包从商店消失了,民众的不满与日俱增。在英国刊物《观察者》8月18日的期刊上,乔治-R-布拉德利,一位能说阿拉伯语的埃及常驻记者,描述了接下来发生的事情。
"The conversations of tiny groups of Cairo's English-speaking elites, and their Western drinking companions, were a world apart from talk among the Egyptian masses. ... The main hope of those who poured into Tahrir Square was shared by the revolutionaries in Tunisia: that sudden and radical change would miraculously mean affordable food."
“在开罗的那些说英语的精英小圈子和他们的西方酒友们之间的谈资与普通埃及大众所关心的话题相差十万八千里,他们根本就不属于同一个世界......那些蜂拥进入解放广场的人们与突尼斯的革命者们拥有同样的心愿:一场迅速而彻底的变革,奇迹般地带来便宜的食物。“
And if food prices surge again? China is especially vulnerable to food cost inflation. In just one month, July 2011, the cost of living jumped 6.5%. Inflation happily subsided over the course of 2012. Springtime hopes for a bumper U.S. grain crop in 2012 enabled the Chinese central bank to ease credit in the earlier part of the summer. Now the Chinese authorities will face some tough choices over what to do next.
如果食品价格再次上扬,又会发生什么事?中国,在食品成本上涨的问题上尤为脆弱。2011年7月,仅仅一个月之间,生活消费指数就跃升了6.5%。令人欣慰的是,这场价格通胀在2012年期间逐渐平息。这是因为对2012年美国谷类作物丰收的春季期望使得中国中央银行放松了早夏的信贷。如今,中国当局将要面临接下来的一系列艰难抉择。
The Arab Spring of 2011 is sometimes compared to the revolutions of 1848. That's apter than people realize: the "hungry '40s" were years of bad harvests across Europe. Hungry people are angry people, and angry people bring governments down.
2011年的“阿拉伯之春”有时会被比作1848革命。这其实比人们所意识到的还要更恰当:历史上那个“饥饿的四十年代”正是全欧洲粮食歉收的那几年。饥饿使人民滋生愤怒,而愤怒引导人民推翻了政府。
Will 2013 bring us social turmoil in Brazil, strikes in China or revolution in Pakistan? The answer can probably be read in the price indexes of the commodities exchanges -- and it is anything but reassuring.
2013年,我们会看到什么?巴西的社会动乱,中国的罢工,还是巴基斯坦的革命? 答案多半已经写在商品交易所的物价指数里了——它充满可能性,但却绝对不容乐观。
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