说文解字注哪个版本好:美国为何国富而政府穷 - 双语阅读 - 论坛 - Happy Life

美国为何国富而政府穷1^# 跳转到 » 倒序看帖 打印字体大小: tT 楼主：yangjiuling 发帖日期： 昨天 19:55只看楼主回复 本帖最后由 yangjiuling 于 2011-4-13 09:48 编辑

　　　　

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　　There should be no need for drama over the US budget. After all, compared with other rich countries, the US starts out richer and faces a milder demographic challenge to fiscal solvency in the next decades.
　　美国预算原本用不着出现这么戏剧化的场面。毕竟，与其它富国相比，美国要富裕得多，未来几十年人口因素带给财政偿付能力的挑战也温和得多。

　　Compare the US with France, Germany and Japan. Average incomes in the US are 11 per cent higher than in Japan, and 16 per cent higher than in the other two, according to the International Monetary Fund. So the US, and its government, will have more resources to direct at the problem of its ageing population.
　　来看看美国与法国、德国和日本之间的比较。国际货币基金组织(IMF)的数据表明，美国的人均收入比日本高出11%，比法国和德国高16%。因此美国及其政府拥有更多资源解决人口老龄化问题。

　　And the weight of that ageing group will be lower in the US. UN projections show that, in 2050, for every 100 Americans of working age there will be 35 people over 65. Those ratios will be 47, 55 and 71 for France, Germany and Japan respectively. What is more, the US government’s cost should be lower, since it relies extensively on private sector medicine. The government paid only 49 per cent of US healthcare expense in 2008, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, compared with between 77 and 82 per cent in the peer group.
　　而老龄化人口在美国所占的比重也将更低。联合国预计，2050年，美国每100个劳动年龄的人口中，将有35人超过65岁。而在法国、德国和日本，这一数字将分别为47人、55人和71。此外，由于美国广泛依赖于私人部门的医疗服务，政府的支出也应该更低。经合组织(OECD)的数据表明，在美国2008年的医疗支出中，政府只负担了49%，而其它富国的负担比例在77%至82%之间。

　　So why is the US government on course for weaker finances than its peers over the next few decades? First, it starts with a huge fiscal deficit. Second, and more importantly, it has by far the most inefficient healthcare system of any developed economy. The results are unimpressive and the expense is outrageous; in the US, the government spends more per person than governments in countries where care is almost entirely tax funded. Total health spending per capita is more than double the norm for wealthy countries.
　　 那么为什么未来几十年美国政府的财政状况将比其它富国更为疲弱？首先，美国一开始就面临巨额财政赤字。其次，也是更重要的一点，美国的医疗体系目前在所有发达经济体中效率最为低下，效果乏善可陈，费用却高得离谱。相比于医疗支出几乎完全依赖于税收的国家，美国在每个人身上花的钱更多。美国的人均医疗支出是富裕国家一般水平的两倍还多。

　　Third, the political system seems as dysfunctional as its healthcare. That matters, because for any rich country the challenge of ageing is not primarily economic (there is enough to go around), but political: to find agreement on controlling and allocating the burden. The US is well on the way to squandering its many large advantages.
　　第三，美国的政治体系似乎与其医疗体系一样功能失调。这很重要，因为对于任何富裕国家，人口老龄化的挑战主要都不是经济方面的（因为有足够的资源可供分配），而是政治方面的——如何就控制和分配医疗负担达成一致。美国拥有众多巨大的优势，但却很有可能把它们白白浪费掉。