美國中產階級危機
flyingheart于2011-08-21 11:25:40翻譯【長篇報道，恭請閱讀】世態炎涼，天下共知！近兩年美國中產階級的日子也不好過！大家可以看看普通美國人的生活狀態。

Tags:美國 | 危機 | 中產階級
  

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
　　馬克和康妮·弗里曼夫婦住在明尼阿波利斯市西北部。二人總收入（含兼職收入）7萬美元。去年他們避免了住房被收回的命運。

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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”.
　　從嚴格意義上講，馬克·弗里曼應當算是這個星球上最幸運的人了。這個52歲男人的家位于這個世界上最富裕國家中部一座城市的一條綠樹掩映的街道上。餓了吃飯；熱了開空調；想查些東西，便上網沖沖浪。在他做東的每周一次的卡拉OK之夜上，他最喜歡唱的歌是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，天有不測風云，去年盡管弗里曼夫婦僅僅拖欠了3個月的貸款，銀行就試圖收回他們住的房子。他們的兒子安迪最近也被迫從母親的健康保險中分離出來，要想恢復的話，只能忍痛再付一大筆錢。除了被封扣的房屋（這是美國喪失抵押品贖回權流行病的具體表現），毒品交易和槍擊案件等曾經離他們街區很遙遠的事情都在一個街區一個街區地慢慢逼近。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婦屬于非常典型的美國家庭。馬克和相濡以沫的妻子康妮都沒有慢性病，一個身材瘦肖，一個身體豐滿。二人都在當地的衛理公會醫院工作，丈夫是倉庫接貨員兼發貨員，妻子是麻醉技師。他們7萬美元的總收入比美國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.”
　　從前這就是所謂的美國夢，現在可以稱作恍恍惚惚的白日夢。事實也確實如此，馬克花掉每月大部分收入租用一種醫療儀器治療睡眠呼吸暫停，但同時又給他帶來了失眠的毛病。馬克說，“如果我們丟掉了工作，在山窮水盡之前，我們有3個禮拜的積蓄可以臨時應付，”他坐在自己的露臺上，一邊眼睛瞟著對面的馬路一邊大口喝著米勒牌淡啤酒，“我們日日夜夜地工作，想為退休后攢下一些積蓄，但是除了從街道上領取一兩張薪水支票之外，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.
　　說到美國的中產階級，大部分外國人都會在腦海里浮現出一些沒有時間概念、經過美化的場景，比如《脫線家族》或者《絕望主婦》中，里面的青少年都開著跑車去上學，女孩們總是啦啦隊的。也許就是10%的高收入夫婦中的一些人過著電視上的生活，而余下的就和弗里曼夫婦差不多了，或許還要差些。

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秒的時間就可以把馬克位于明尼阿波利斯市西北部面積為700平方英尺（約合65平方米）的家看個夠。房間里胡亂地擺放著一些廉價的紀念品。這套房是1989年通過抵押借款買的，花了5萬美元，現在價值7.3萬美元。馬克說，“曾經有段時間，房子都漲到10.5萬美元了---當時想來我們是到了極樂世界一樣，”“銀行的人總打電話，有時一晚上就打4，5次，提供貸款額度和家庭改善貸款。他們就像毒販一樣。”

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.”
　　弗里曼夫婦是堅定的民主黨擁躉，但很顯然他們對自己的前景感覺還是很冷靜的。來訪者的目光都會落到他們家的冰箱門上，門上貼有小幽默的磁貼。有一條是這樣說的：“很抱歉，我沒法去教堂做禮拜了，我光忙著練習魔法，結果變成女同了！”另外一條說：“我本想說你下地獄去吧！但是我就在地獄干活，我又不想每天看到你！”還有一條，“別看耶穌喜歡你，但在我看來你就是個混球！”馬克輕輕一笑：“笑是治病的良藥！”
. . .
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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.
　　弗里曼夫婦和其它幾百萬美國中產階級面臨的這種緩慢的經濟窒息狀態早在大衰退之前便開始了。大衰退只不過把本已折磨普通美國人好多年的“個人經濟衰退”又加重了一步。自1973年以來，占美國家庭總數90%的底層家庭年收入基本上沒有變化，在過去的37年里按現值計算才漲了10%，這也就是經濟學家們所謂的“平均工資停滯”。這意味著大多數美國人已經有超過一代人的時間處于停滯不前的狀態。在同樣的時間段內，占美國家庭總數1%的最高收入人群的收入已經翻了3倍。1973年，主管級別員工的平均收入是全體平均值的26倍，現在是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.
　　這種衰退趨勢只能是越來越強。大多數經濟學家都認為這次的經濟停滯屬于結構性問題，也意味著不受經濟周期的影響。在上次經濟擴張期間（2002年1月-2007年12月），美國家庭平均收入下降了2000美元，這也是首次出現的情況，大多數美國人在經濟周期末（譯注：指經濟膨脹到周期頂點時）竟然比開始時還糟糕。更慘的是長達一個時代的收入停滯狀態竟然一直伴隨著某些極其非美國式的因素：收入流動性下降。
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.
　　亞歷西斯·德·托克維爾是專注早期美國歷史的法國編年史學家。他曾經被人不確切地引用過一句話：“對窮人來說，美國是世界上最好的國家。”現在這句話不靈了。與幾乎所有發達經濟體，甚至在某種程度上與英國經濟相比，目前在美國，你只有很小的機會從較低的收入階層躍升到更高一些的階層。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.
　　將那兩個深層次的發展趨勢同第三種發展趨勢，也就是“迅速上升的不平等”聯系起來，你就會得出美國資本主義的危機正在緩慢爆發。一方面是遭受收入停滯的煎熬；另一方面人們也認識到逃離現實的可能性正在逐漸減小---特別是每當你瞥上一眼，你會發現那些靠眾所周知的伎倆賺錢的少數幸運兒似乎更加紅光滿面了。左翼游行隊伍已經打出橫幅：“是誰扼殺了美國夢？”；屬于右翼的茶黨示威者則高喊：“還我美國！”
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.”
　　統計數字只能顯示一部分問題，但是著名的哈佛經濟學家拉里·卡茨卻做了一次最具說服力的類比。這位慢條斯理的教授說，“我們可以把美國經濟看成一座公寓大樓。一個世紀前，甚至30年前，它都是令人嫉妒的對象，但是在過去的十年里，它的特征發生了變化。頂部的閣樓變得越來越大，中部的樓層感覺越來越擁擠，而地下室已經水漫金山了。為了把水抽走，電梯是用不了了，可是這部破電梯是人們下樓最便捷的途徑。”
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，大多數美國民眾一直在和民意調查員說，他們預料他們子女的生活會比他們還要糟。戰后30年，現在回過頭來看，許多人都把這段時間當作美國中產階級的黃金時代。就像約翰·F·肯尼迪所推動的那樣，水漲船高，以現價計算的收入每年都幾乎以2%的速度增長---每十年差不多就會翻一番。
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.
　　盡管這個黃金時代是由大規規模高等教育的普及所推動的，但是你上了高中，你的收入卻未必相應提高。康妮·弗里曼和她丈夫一樣，都是出生一個工薪家庭。他們的家坐落在在靠近加拿大邊界的明尼蘇達州北部的一條鐵礦帶上。她的父親正好趕上了上世紀三十年代的那次經濟大蕭條，14歲時便輟學了，并在鐵礦干了一輩子。他最后離開工作時一小時可以掙到15美元，按照今天的價格換算應當超過40美元/小時了（譯注：大家可以算一下，這個工資確實不低了）。
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，受教育水平比父親好了一些，高中畢業，還接受了一年的繼續教育，現在一小時掙17美元。 生活的節奏也發生了變化。“我的成長過程，都是每天晚上圍坐在餐桌旁（聊天）度過的，”康妮帶著中西部人特有的口音（習慣把元音拉得很長，如sooooo）說，“現在這種場景太太太少了！”
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.
　　康妮的父親只接受了最低程度的教育卻可以養活她做全職家庭主婦的媽媽，并讓兩個孩子大學畢業。而康妮和馬克這個掙兩份薪水的家庭卻只能很勉強地付清大把的賬單。他們20歲的兒子安迪患有急性自閉癥，明尼蘇達州資助安迪在當地的社區學院學習戲劇。

Andy, the autistic son of Mark and Connie Freeman. Removed from his mother’s health insurance, he was only reinstated for a large fee
康妮和馬克的兒子安迪

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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.”
　　嚴格地說，康妮家實際上有四份收入。“安迪兩歲時，有人告訴我可以買一臺卡拉OK，因為據說患自閉癥的孩子對這種機器反應良好。”馬克一邊指著那臺可以算作后現代派古董的機器一邊說，“這也是我從事卡拉OK生意的由來。每周三晚上我可以掙到100美元。在周六我還會管理一家酒行。只有我們做四份工作才能讓我們免于負債。”（譯注：這句話原文很有趣，但卻是固定用法：We need all four jobs to keep our heads above water.）

So much for the rising tide.
　　現在生活成本太高了。

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.
　　根據大多數經濟學家的看法，安妮一家的故事沒有什么爭議，調查分析也都贊同，但是事情的原因卻有分歧。許多觀點左傾的經濟學家指責全球化帶來了經濟停滯。中國、印度、巴西和其他國家的興起已經拉低了西方國家的工資水平，而且還擠走了美國非熟練工、半熟練工和熟練工的工作。制造業目前只占美國工作崗位的12%。試想一下，30年前一名底特律（譯注：全球著名的汽車城）的汽車工人，享受全面地衛生保健再加上一份令人期待的豐厚的退休金，應該算是十分安穩的中產階級。現在“他生活在深圳”。（譯注：指新興國家的產業工人奪走了他的工作崗位）

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.
　　還有一些工作崗位是隨著新技術的蓬勃發展應運而生的，計算機替代了那些最常規、最容易實現自動化的崗位。比如辦公室助理原來是根據經理口述安排工作還有負責煮咖啡，現在她成了黑莓控并把大把的時間花在星巴克。還有那些內勤員工，像極了童話中的鞋匠，在你睡覺的時候，他們正在（印度的）班加羅爾替你打點賬目。

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.
　　然后就有了像保羅·克魯格曼（《紐約時報》專欄作家和諾貝爾獎獲得者）之類的一些人，他們對自1980年羅納德·里根入主白宮后開始顯現的保守主義的反彈、工會組織加速消失和美國稅法體系中的最先進的特征遭到顛覆等提出公開提出批評。

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.
　　美國私營領域中，只有不足1/10的工人屬于工會會員。歐洲人和加拿大人也在承受同樣的全球化和技術方面的壓力，但他們都屬于會員眾多的各種工會組織，而且他們的衛生保健是由國家公共支出資助的。美國多一半的家庭破產案是由嚴重的疾病或事故導致的。

. . .
　　……

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.
　　由此出現了所謂的“競爭理論”（但不是矛盾理論）。正如社會學家會說，“生活體驗”是另一回事（譯注：人們都習慣于居住在自己熟悉的地方）。和弗里曼夫婦類似，米勒夫婦所在的街道兩側有1英里長的商業街，密布著安著門板的商店、一元便利店和快餐亭等。這些場景和美國的其它任何地方別無二致，只有悶熱無比的天氣顯示這里弗吉尼亞，美國的南部地區。

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
米勒夫婦一家：謝林和馬克·米勒（前右二人）夫婦；兒子達斯廷（后左）和他的妻子魯思（前左）和他們的兩歲的孩子；謝林和馬克的另一個兒子喬希（后右）。出于迫不得已，他們都住在弗吉尼亞州的福爾斯徹奇市狹小的房屋內。

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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.
　　福爾斯徹奇市其實可以算作華盛頓特區的郊區。政府無休止的擴張促使興盛不衰的私營經濟遍布波托馬克河兩岸，經營業態主要集中證券、保安護衛、政府服務和政策游說機構等。米勒一家人最引為自豪的要算是屋子里掛著一幅新聞照片了，這是一幅在白宮舉行的促進婦女平等取酬的一部新法律的頒布儀式上謝林和奧巴馬閑談的照片。

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.
　　謝林，42歲，作為弗吉尼亞州8000名個人護理助理（負責照料在自己家里生活的老人和殘疾人士）的組織者，與另外幾十人一道受邀見證新法律的簽字儀式。不過與總統先生的片刻接觸所留下的也僅僅限于一張照片而已。從那以后，她的報酬和工作時間一直在穩步下降。去年她一個月還可以掙到1500美元，現在只有900美元了。和其它的州一樣，自從經濟衰退開始后，弗吉尼亞州的州長鮑伯·麥克唐奈便在不斷地削減預算。

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.
　　盡管謝林家的房子要比弗里曼家大兩倍，但是給人的感覺更擁擠。除了丈夫、兩個兒子、一個兒媳和一個孫子之外，謝林還養了一群寵物。另外她的病人瑪麗薩，一個26歲腦癱的姑娘也經常跟她們住在一起。

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.
　　謝林展示了你可以從許多美國人身上看到的不可阻擋的友善之情---盡管自己沒什么空閑時間，但她還自愿參加每周六舉行的流浪寵物慈善活動。不管到什么地方，弗里曼夫婦都會開車去。沿著這條路走1/4英里遠的地方是一個十字路口，周圍有以人像拼圖為招牌的塔可貝爾連鎖店（Taco Bells）、7-Elevens、一元便利店以及對美國社會有腐蝕作用的工資日貸款特色專賣店（payday loan outlets）。自然地理把各個地方區別開來；而人文地理則是簡單地重復自己。

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.”
　　謝林是位體態健美、性格開朗的女人。她簡要介紹了自己的家庭情況：她的父親已經退休，原來在俄勒岡州監獄工作；還有好幾個同父異母的兄弟姐妹，但他們經濟上好像都是入不敷出的狀態。“你猜我和誰最親近？”她頑皮一笑，“和誰都不！”

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.
　　我再一次認真地說，謝林還是過得很安逸的。因為她丈夫為一家消防安全公司工作，每年收入有7萬美元，所以米勒一家生活應當挺滋潤的，但是他們一直在擔心，如果再患場大病的話，家庭狀況會變成什么樣，誰心里也沒底。幾年前，謝林從子宮內膜取出一個腫瘤，留下了1.7萬美元的債務。他丈夫還患有椎間盤突出。引人注目的是，盡管她們的家庭總收入是美國家庭平均收入的2倍，但是謝林為了償還她的汽車貸款，還是不得不把一次牙科手術推遲了6個月。另外，她也沒時間去進修技能。她說，“為殘疾人服務的人有一個特點就是他們沒有任何富余時間。”

. . .
　　……

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.
　　經濟學家們不僅在造成經濟停滯的原因上有分歧，而且在補救措施上也意見不一致。大部分經濟學家都認為即便良好的教育不能解決根本問題，但也會提高人們掙錢的潛能。其他人則指出，并不是每個人都可以成為證券交易員、軟件企業家或者哈佛大學教授的。

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.
　　未來許多涉及“人際關系”的工作將不容易被計算機或外國人所替代，比如門衛、美容技師、家庭護理員和庭院美化師，而這些專業設置在大學里是過剩的。而且，在過去的十年里受到經濟停滯沖擊的一大批美國人都是大學畢業生。所以大學生也沒能幸免，但至少受教育水平越高，獲得的機會也會越多。當然，掙多掙少是另外一回事。

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.
　　謝林的兒子、兒媳，達斯廷和魯思都是23歲，盡管都保住了工作，但由于付不起房租，最近搬回來住了。達斯廷在一家浴房改造公司工作，魯思在一家紡織品商店工作。他們高中課業成績都很好，本來想去學海洋生物學（這也是將來有用的技能），但是由于承擔不起債務，只能作罷。

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

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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.
　　在美國人收入停滯之際，教育成本卻正在高漲。從1990年開始，畢業十年后償還學生貸款2萬美元以上的美國人的比例已經翻了一番。奧巴馬的首席經濟顧問勞倫斯·薩默斯長期關注他稱之為美國“焦慮的中年一代”的增加。薩默斯指出，在主要的經濟體中，美國大學畢業生在勞動大軍中所占比例最高，但是如果我們取出25-34歲這個年齡段對比，美國甚至進不了前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.
　　越來越多的年輕美國人受到長期負債想法的困擾而推遲上大學。魯思·米勒說，“并非僅僅四年債務的問題，還要看四年會損失多少收入。”她在一個摩門教徒家庭長大，而且令公婆感到困惑的是，她還讓達斯廷昄依了摩門教。在我采訪期間，兩個穿著相同襯衫、打著相同領結、目無表情的摩門教“家庭訪客”登門拜訪，達斯廷、魯思還有兩歲的兒子同兩位訪客匆匆走進自己的臥室接受輔導。站在臺階上的謝林小聲嘀咕了一句，“我很想知道他們會說些什么。”

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.”
　　本來對政治素無興趣的謝林，在三年前碰到馬克·沃納后而興趣大轉。馬克·沃納現在是弗吉尼亞州的一名參議員，當時沃納要求替謝林當一天班。這種場景本來是為了滿足沃納競選運動而進行的宣傳活動，但卻讓謝林成了沃納的粉絲。沃納看到謝林工作很辛苦，便為她買了一臺戶外升降機，這樣她便可以把綁在輪椅上的瑪麗薩通過露臺轉到屋內。謝林說，“這個人真好，我會很高興再見到他。”

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.
　　迄今為止，沃納所在的民主黨身為執政黨，但應對經濟停滯只采取了有限的行動。在經濟衰退前的競選活動中，奧巴馬經常談到大多數美國人長期遭受的“收入停滯”問題，并保證扭轉這種形勢。他的政府也采取了一些措施，比如提高社區學院培訓工人的預算；發布了廣受贊譽的50億美元的“力爭上游”計劃以幫助各州改善他們的辦學條件等，但是白宮也在急劇的經濟衰退面前敗下陣來。

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.
　　類似米勒一家和弗里曼一家的家庭受沖擊的程度還是很嚴重的。首先是經濟停滯，然后衰退接踵而至。馬克·弗里曼說，“就好像你在行將沉沒的船上正連續往外舀水時，他們卻把你的桶拿走了一樣。”前面，銀行煩人的電話還一遍遍打過來要求他們負更多的債，到最后，來的卻是（貼封條的）法警。“前一天，銀行還在吸引你加入，第二天就對你恨之入骨，”他一邊說一邊優雅地聳了聳肩。通過一位友善的律師的幫助，他們才避免喪失抵押品贖回權。美國銀行在2008年末的時候接受了450億美元的納稅人救助，但卻把弗里曼家的文書弄丟了好幾次，每次都要走麻煩的上訴程序才能恢復。

"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.
　　馬克說，“因為我們已經非常接付清近抵押借款了，所以我猜測銀行就是想取消我們的抵押品贖回權。這么做他們利潤豐厚。”最終弗里曼一家證明自己可以繼續完成還款。馬克算過帳，他們已經為這套房子付出了16.3萬美元，但他們買房時房款不足這個數額的1/3。他們的心血差一點就化為烏有。在過去的三年里，有400多萬個家庭的房屋被收回。馬克說，“事情已經變得非常糟糕，在銅價回落之前，已經有人砸壞封了門窗的房屋把自己配的電氣線路中的銅線剝離出來。”

. . .
　　……

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，美國夢的前景如何? 邁克爾·斯彭斯是獲得諾貝爾獎的經濟學家。世界銀行委托他領導一個為期4年的研究計劃探討全球增長的前景。斯彭斯承認預感不祥。像其它為數不少的經濟學家一樣，斯彭斯說，他把這次美國的經濟不景氣視作一次嚴重的經濟危機。

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.
　　多年來，由于負債的成本很低，（經濟領域）存在的問題獲得了緩沖的機會并被部分地掩蓋起來。美國的中產階級被積極地鼓動從房屋中或者退休基金撤出股權。他們相信不動產價格和股票市場將會永遠地抵抗地心引力（特別值得一提的是，有半數的世界諾貝爾獎獲得者都推崇這個觀點。當然不包括斯彭斯在內。）。現在緩沖作用不復存在，快錢變成了沉重的債務。嬰兒潮時代（譯注：二戰后）出生的那批人都推遲了退休計劃。大學畢業生們正在搬回父母家住。

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.”
　　經濟就是晴雨表。(因為經濟不景氣，)人們都變得怒火中燒，政治上的不確定性也越來越大。斯彭斯說，“我對美國的未來有種痛苦的感覺。當人們失去了樂觀情緒的時候，事情就會變得反復無常。我最擔心的美國未來就是走拉美的路子：一個極其不平等、特別容易發生從民粹主義到正統學說的劇烈動蕩的社會，會讓一個英明的政府變得越來越難以想象。看看茶黨吧，人們都不知道它是從哪里冒出來的。盡管我不同意他們提出的（經濟）補救措施，但是大多數茶黨成員都屬于美國的中產階級，他們已經默不作聲地忍受了很多年。”

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.”
　　斯彭斯承認自己正在拼命思考，也許“想法有些過頭了”。他也承認美國在其仍然無可匹敵的技術創新能力方面繼續保持了強勁的實力。然而，大部分經濟學家不像斯彭斯那樣悲觀，街頭巷尾的普通美國民眾也對斯彭斯的悲觀主義做了最有力的回應。斯彭斯說，“對于未來，其他人也許會非常明顯地感到悲觀，但是美國人民的詞匯里沒有悲觀主義，而且大多數人會審時度勢，調整好自己的方向，他們做得會比任何經濟學家都好！”

. . .
　　······

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.
　　有時弗里曼家會邀請周圍的鄰居在房子的前廊坐看門前風景、暢飲啤酒并品嘗康妮用明尼蘇達野生稻米制作的小有名氣的菜肴。馬克和康妮秉承美國人的優秀品質，他們都是熱心的社區人士。他們會幫你鏟除門前積雪、成為學校活動的志愿者和訓練小籃球隊等---這三項馬克全部都參加。

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?”
　　積極參加社區活動意味著樂觀向上。但是在過去的幾年里，弗里曼夫婦參與社區活動的頻率越來越低。康妮說，“我猜，經過最近的18個月我們是徹底弄明白了：我們最終認識到，形勢要總是這樣進行下去的話，靠我們的積蓄，我們永遠也退不了休。”“至于安迪，”她繼續說，她想到了自己極其害羞而又有敏銳觀察力的兒子，“未來真讓我害怕。如果你是年輕人，這個世道已經夠糟的了，何況是患自閉癥的孩子呢？”

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.”
　　當我問到美國夢對他們意味著什么的時候，馬克看起來很沮喪。他說，“根本就不是夢！我討厭讓人聽起來像茶黨的人一樣，但是我真的希望我的國家能恢復元氣。我只是感覺暫時還看不到希望。”他的話讓我想起美國最后的喜劇大師喬治·卡林的一句著名的妙語---“這就是所謂的美國夢，因為你要在睡夢中才會相信它！”

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.”
　　聽說安迪小的時候卡拉OK治療他的自閉癥發揮了奇效，我問他們，安迪還喜歡唱歌嗎？馬克和康妮面露喜色。康妮說，“你應當看看安迪在夜總會唱歌時的情景，字正腔圓而且還會和女嘉賓調情，他完全變了一個人。”

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.
　　安迪走出來，我問他是否愿意唱一首歌。沒有絲毫地猶豫，他完美無瑕地演唱了一首上世紀七十年代風靡百老匯的（音樂劇）《夢幻騎士》（The Impossible Dream）中的一首插曲《追夢無悔》（The Impossible Dream）。他的表演真得不可思議。

“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.
　　這是一個純美國的氛圍。當安迪的歌聲停止后，我朝馬克和康妮轉過身去。在這樣一個并不平常的時刻，他們卻都---很平靜。

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***譯注：為了保持原文意境，譯者并未翻譯這段歌詞。而且網上也有很純正的翻譯。在此提供一個有中文歌詞百度百科的鏈接。）

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