2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：戳破房地产泡沫

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　Popping property bubbles

　　戳破房地产泡沫

　　Choosing the right pin

　　选择正确的针

　　House prices in Europe are losing touch with realityagain. Deflating the bubbles will not be easy

　　欧洲的房价渐与现实脱节。挤压泡沫并非易事

　　THE Swedish word bo means to live; sambo tocohabit. As more people struggle to get on the housing ladder, a new word has been coined:mambo, to live with your mum. After Oslo, Stockholm is Europe's fastest growing capital—itspopulation is expected to expand by 50% by 2030—yet cranes are scarce. The 30,000 newarrivals each year have increased competition for housing, and record-low interest rates haveallowed Stockholmers to afford bigger mortgages. As a result, Swedish house prices have morethan trebled since 1996 and household debt has reached 174% of after-tax income. There istalk, naturally, of a bubble.

　　在瑞典语中，“bo”这个词语意味着“生活”;而“sambo ”则意味着“同居。”随着越来越多的人对于买房力不从心，一个全新的词语被创造了出来：mambo，即“和你的妈妈住在一起”之意。在奥斯陆之后，斯德哥尔摩成为了欧洲增长最快的首都——其人口到2030年预计将会增长50%——然而，起重设备稀缺。每年三万的新移民增加了住房竞争，并且创记录的低利率使得斯德哥尔摩人民要承受更大的抵押贷款所带来的压力。因此，瑞典的房价已经达到了自1996年以来的两倍，家庭债务已经达到了税后的174%。最次有一个讨论，自然地，也与泡沫有关。

　　It is not just Sweden: in June the IMF called on policymakers to do more to curb housing pricesaround the world, pointing out that valuations looked high in many countries. In May theEuropean Central Bank singled out sky-high prices in Belgium, Finland and France; in JulyMoody's, a ratings agency, said that Britain showed signs of a new property bubble. Thetrend is all the more remarkable given that many of those economies have not fully recoveredfrom the financial crisis and are growing feebly if at all.

　　不仅仅是瑞典：在六月的时候国际货币基金组织呼吁政府决策人员采取更多的措施来抑制世界范围内的房价问题，并且指出某些国家的房价看起来更高了。今年五月的时候欧洲中央银行也曾指出在比利时、芬兰以及法国的房价简直就是天价;在七月份的穆迪—一家评级机构的显示英国出现了新的房地产泡沫的迹象。这一趋势变得更加引人注目并且考虑到许多的经济还没有完全的从金融危机中恢复过来，如若房地产泡沫持续增大的话，他们恐怕会变得越来越无力应对。

　　After the collective pre-crisis boom, European housing markets took two paths. Denmark,Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain dropped sharply; some continue to fall.Others including Belgium, Britain, Norway and Sweden only dipped before rebounding withworrying speed (see chart).

　　在集体经历了危机前的繁荣之后，欧洲的房地产市场道分两路。丹麦、希腊、爱尔兰、荷兰、葡萄牙以及西班牙的房价迅速跌落。其他的一些国家，包括比利时、英国、挪威以及瑞典的房价仅仅是在以令人担忧的价格反弹前略微有所下降。

　　The ratio of house prices to rents is 65% above its historical average in Norway, 44% above itin Finland and 43% in Britain. Incomes are also failing to keep pace, with the price-to-incomeratio 46% above its long-term average in Belgium and 27% in France. Things look even moreoutlandish in some cities. Apartment prices in Stockholm have risen 11% over the past year,after climbing 9% the year before; homes in London went up by 19%, thanks in part to foreignspeculators.

　　在挪威，租房的价格也高于历史水平65%，在法国和英国这个数字分别为44%和43%。人们的收入却是未能跟上这样快的增长步伐，在比利时，房价收入比已高于其长期平均水平的46%，同样的在法国，这个数字也已达到了27%。在其他一些城市，房价越发的剑走偏锋。斯德哥尔摩的公寓价格自去年上涨了9%之后又;于去年一年内上涨了11%。伦敦的房价上涨了19%，着一定程度上要“归功于”外国的炒房者。

　　Household debt is also hitting new records, as people take on bigger mortgages. In Norway,where the price of homes has risen fourfold since 1995, households now owe creditors twotimes their annual income after tax. Americans used to be far more indebted than Europeans.But Americans' debt is now below 105% of income after tax, whereas that of euro-zonehouseholds is almost 110%. “You cannot know you're in a bubble, but you can know that debthas moved too far,” says Urban Backstrom, a former governor of the Riksbank, Sweden'scentral bank. However, expectations that borrowing will stay cheap and not enough new homeswill be built continue to push prices higher.

　　当人们不断承受着更大的抵押贷款时，家庭债务的数量也达到了一个新高。在挪威，房屋价格自1995年起已经增长了四倍，家庭欠债已经高达其税后年收入的两倍。美国人的负债曾远远高于欧洲人。但美国人现在的债务低于税后收入的105%，反之欧元区的家庭债务几乎是税后收入的110%。“你可能不知道自己身处在经济泡沫之中，但你可以感知到债台高筑，” Urban Backstrom——瑞典央行的前高管说道。无论如何，根据预期显示：贷款将会继续保持廉价并且足够的新房的建设将会把房价推向新高。

　　Central bankers cannot use interest rates to deflate the housing bubbles since, asset valuesaside, the economies of the countries concerned remain so sickly. Sweden's attempt to coolthe market with an increase in rates in 2010 backfired: unemployment stopped falling and thecountry headed towards deflation, forcing the Riksbank start reducing rates again in 2011. Ifanything, monetary policy is likely to provide a further spur to house prices in the euro zone,since the ECB is toying with the idea of buying bonds in an effort to bring borrowing costsdown yet further.

　　央行不能通过利率来挤压房地产泡沫是因为除了资产价值以外，相关国家的经济持续保持病态。瑞典曾试图通过提高利率来冷却市场但结果事与愿违：失业率停止下降并且整个国家走向了通货紧缩，迫使瑞典央行于2011年再次调低利率。如果说有什么不同的话，币政策的调整似乎进一步的刺激了欧元区的房价，因为欧洲央行怀着不负责的想法单纯的认为购买债券可以进一步的降低借贷成本。

　　Macro prudential tools, to discipline both banks and borrowers, are a subtler set ofinstruments. Setting stricter limits on the amount people can borrow relative to the purchaseprice (the “loan-to-value” ratio, or LTV) or to their household income (loan-to-income ratio)helps to curb buyers' irrational exuberance; increasing the amount of capital that banksmust hold against mortgages checks theirs.

　　为了规范银行以及借款者，宏观调控的工具，是一系列精细的仪器。它对于人们可以借款的数额做出了严格的限制，将其与物价(贷款价值比率，或称“LTV”)或者他们的家庭收入(贷款收入比)挂钩来帮助抑制购买者的非理性消费;或提高银行为放设抵押贷款所必须持有的资本量的数额。

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