Crisis in confidence The China factor 翻译

Crisis in confidence: The China factor The crisis in confidence in the US economy triggered by the "creative accounting" scandals involving Enron and others has highlighted important differences in the world's two most powerful economies, the United States and Europe. （牵涉安然和其他公司的假账丑闻触发了美国经济的信任危机，而这凸显了世界最具实力的两大经济体——美国和欧洲经济体之间的重要不同。） But another emerging economic giant looms in Asia, and it is clear that here, too, confidence is the key. Here, however, security is the concern, and not so much misleading profit-and-loss figures. （不过在亚洲另一个正在形成的经济巨人已经出现，并也表明信心是关键。虽然亚洲的安全问题也让人担忧，但是却没有如此之多的与利益得失相关的欺骗性的数据。） In the United States, creative accounting permitted traditional companies to show performances similar to those in the new high-tech economy and thus compete with Microsoft and its peers for a share of investment from an ever-greedier public. （在美国，假账使传统企业与那些高科技经济体下的公司表现出相近的业绩，藉此这些传统企业与微软及其合作伙伴们竞争并从变得更加贪婪的投资者那里分得一杯羹。） In this way, one could see the Enron case and the others as byproducts of the new economy. （于是，人们能看到安然事件等成为新经济的副产品。） As the new companies showed performances and potentials that were crowding out the traditional companies, the latter lost investment on the stock market. （由于新公司表现出的成就和潜能挤垮了传统公司，后者失去了股票市场上的投资。） To compete and stay afloat in a world of fast-shifting investment, the traditional companies had to improve their performance. （为了能在瞬息万变的投资市场站稳脚跟，传统公司不得不提升他们的业绩。） To do that they had to streamline their business and make it more rewarding for the stockholder, who would otherwise shift his investment into new-economy stocks. （于是传统公司需要提高公司的效率并给予股东更高的回报以能挽留住他们而不转向投资新经济股票。） Furthermore, the new economy promised new avenues of growth, promises fueled by the uncertainty surrounding the real long-term effects of the computer revolution. （此外,新经济给出了经济增长新途径的承诺，这些承诺增加了环绕在计算机革命所带来的真实而长期的影响周围的不确定性。） Although no one could calculate how much efficiency would improve, everyone assumed such improvements would show up on the balance sheets sooner or later. （尽管没人能计算出效能提高了多少，人们都断定迟早都能甩掉资产负债表。） The lack of clear calculations made the atmosphere heady and investors got carried away, as capitalists tend to do when they smell a period of strong growth. （由于资本家一旦嗅到强势增长就会采取措施，计算的不明朗使得气氛活跃，投资者也激情高涨。） But when streamlining and consolidation failed to provide the numbers needed to lure greedy investors, business leaders concocted new accounting devices. （但是当提高效率和合并不能满足贪婪的投资者的时候，商业领袖们捏造了新的会计策略。） When the new-economy bubble burst, overall enthusiasm waned and as the flood receded it not only left the lesser new-economy companies stranded, but it also revealed the faults of new-economy accounting. （当新经济泡沫破灭的时候，所有的热情就像洪水过后都在衰退并且不只使得新经济公司陷于困境，也暴露出新经济会计 制度 关于办公室下班关闭电源制度矿山事故隐患举报和奖励制度制度下载人事管理制度doc盘点制度下载 的缺陷。） The public felt cheated twice, once by the new economy that had (partly, to be fair) failed to deliver as much as it promised, and then a second time by Enron and its companions that had misrepresented the numbers. （人们再次感觉被欺骗了——一次是新经济没有<公平的说是部分的>实现自己的承诺，第二次则是安然公司及其同伙故意误报数据。） The sense of being cheated was compounded by Arthur Andersen, an accounting company that was supposed to check the numbers but instead covered them up; the events of September 11 further shook confidence, because they made the United States fear it could be attacked and brought to its knees. （负责对安然公司的财务状况进行审计的会计事务所加重了民众被骗的感觉—— 一个原本是来核对账目的会计公司竟然掩盖账目的真相；而9·11 事件更加动摇了美国民众对于本国经济的信任，因为他们害怕本国经济会因此而受到打击从而一蹶不振。） This is the essence of the failure of confidence US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in his recent testimony to Congress spoke about, and this is the reason for the failure of the dollar vis-ŕ-vis the euro. （美国联邦储备局主席Alan在他最近给国会的证词中指出上述原因是失去自信的要素，也是美元与欧元相比失败的原因。） According to figures, the US economy still outperforms the European economy at the moment, but are these figures true? （从数据来看，目前美国经济比欧洲要好，但这些数据是真实可靠的吗？） Investors asked that question as they became more confident in the European economy, which had little or no experience with the new economy and creative accounting, and which had endured terrorism for decades without any September 11-type nervous breakdown. （投资者提出这样的问题是因为他们对欧洲经济更加充满信心，欧洲经济没有或很少有关于新经济和假账的经历，而且欧洲经济已经忍受了几十年的恐怖主义但却从来没有发生像9·11事件那样所导致的精神崩溃。） In a sentence: the US economy proved more volatile, for internal and external reasons, while the European one proved more resilient. （一句话：美国经济反复无常；而欧洲经济更有弹性。） That said, it is also true that the European market lacks the US market's ability to face its ghosts, be it the new economy, creative accounting or terrorism, and to bounce back: its volatility is also vitality. （尽管如此，欧洲市场缺乏美国市场那种直面不利因素的能力，这些不利因素包括新经济，新型报账或者恐怖主义，而且还缺乏受挫后恢复过来的能力----美国市场的多变性也是他的生命力所在。） No failures in a technology-based economy or accounting have occurred in Europe, yet no technological leaps have taken place either. （欧洲没有发生过以技术为基础的经济或会计制度的失败，也没有发生技术上的飞跃。） Despite the failures of new accounting, America's fresh ways of doing business, when not taken to the extreme, made it possible to see the potential of new business and growth; and it forced businesses to look for resources inside and outside the company in order to reap this potential. Little of the kind happened in Europe. （尽管新会计制度失败了，在还不太极端的时候，美国做生意的新方式使得预见新生意的潜能和增长是可能的。而这在欧洲几乎不可能。） Moreover, when confronted by external threats, such as terrorism or the escalation of war in the Balkans, Europe as a cohesive entity did little by itself; it either sent for US help, or each European government acted on its own. （此外，当遭受恐怖主义或巴尔干半岛战争升级等外部威胁时，欧洲作为一个有凝聚力的实体自己却几乎什么也不做，他或求助于美国或让各个政府部门自己处理。） Neither actions served to support the regional currency, the euro, designed to cover almost the whole continent. （欧元是要做整个大陆性的而不是区域性的流通货币。） The euro has no army or police to defend it and so, when under attack, it must call Washington or the headquarters of the governments of the former mark, franc or lira. （欧元区没有统一的军队和警察保护，一旦受到攻击，欧元区各国只能求助于华盛顿或各国政府。---意指各国虽然都使用同一种货币，但各国的经济则相对独立且脆弱。） In such a scenario the euro would surely plummet and the dollar rise again. （在这样一种情形下，欧元肯定会贬值而美元则又会升值。） The lack of European political unity is reflected in the lack of continental companies. （欧洲这种政治一体化的缺失反映在欧洲大公司的缺乏上。） The European companies are German or French or Italian and, if they do merge abroad, it is often with US companies, a marriage less feared than one with another, foreign European company. （德国、法国、意大利等欧洲国家的公司更多的是与美国公司合并以减少与欧洲公司联姻时的恐惧。） European companies may expand from one country into another, but they remain strongly based in a single nation. （欧洲公司可能会从一个国家扩张到另一个国家，但他们仍然在一个国家保留有强大的根基。） Labor and tax policies, whose liberalization in the United States made possible the new economy, in Europe are still in the hands of individual governments that use them for electoral purposes. （美国劳动力以及税收政策的自由化使得新经济成为可能，而欧洲政府则把它们用于选举。） No alternative is possible, as there is no real continentally based democratic system. （这两者都没有选择的余地，因为没有真正的民主制度。） The European Parliament is a house of super-lords with no power if compared with their counterparts in the national parliaments. （欧洲议会与其他国家的议会相比就像没有权力的超级君主的一个宫殿。） Simply put: Europe is not a country, and the United States is. （简单地说：欧洲不是一个国家而美国是。） For this reason, Europe has not managed to achieve large growth - or the headaches that go with it. （正是因为这些原因或其他令人头痛的事，欧洲经济没能大幅增长。） But domestic and external threats are impossible to discount, and the US is considerably better equipped to face both. （并且来自里外部的威胁都不能减少，而美国被认为能更好的面对这两种威胁。） So it could turn out that what now looks like European resilience may seem, in retrospect, to have been European sluggishness. （所以，当我们回顾时会发现，现在欧洲经济的强适应性乃是它的呆滞和不振了。） All in all, the US seems able to cope with its problems, albeit with some drama, whereas Europe's reactions are much slower, and more deliberate. （总之，美国看起来还应付的了她所面对的问题，尽管充满戏剧性；但是欧洲的反应则更迟钝和从容不迫。） Europe needs to get its act together, rather than dwelling on short-term US difficulties. （欧洲必须行动一致而不是停留于美国短期的困难中。） However, as long as Europe remains obsessed with its own internal problems, this is not likely to occur soon. （然而，由于欧洲纠缠于自己的内部问题之中，统一行动似乎短期内不太可能。） Indeed, many investors now put their money neither into the volatile US or self-centered European. They instead turn to China. （其实，很多投资者既不是把钱投给反复无常的美国，也不是以自我为中心的欧洲，而是转向了中国。）