经济学人262:图表看雷曼尽五年变迁-英语课

时间：2019-02-03 作者：英语课 分类：经济学人商业系列

英语课

　　Finance and economics

财经商业

Five years after Lehman

图表看雷曼尽五年变迁

The world of banking 1 has changed dramatically, if not radically 2, in the five years since September 15th 2008, the day Lehman Brothers went bust 3.

2008年9月15日，雷曼兄弟宣布破产。此后5年时间里，银行业即便不说是彻底改变了，也确实是发生了巨大的变化。

American and European banks used to dominate the list of the world's biggest banks; the Chinese have since scaled the charts.

欧美银行曾经牢牢统治着“世界最大银行排行榜”，但从那以后，中国的各大银行逐渐爬上榜单。

The balance-sheets of Europe's behemoths have got quite a bit smaller;

欧洲银行巨头们的财务状况表缩水了不少；

consolidation 4 has made America's giants bigger than ever.

而各类合并倒是使美国的主要银行愈加庞大。

Western banks are generating much lower returns on equity 5 than they did in the years before the crisis, in part because the industry is being forced to fund itself with higher levels of equity than in the past.

西方各银行的股本回报率比起金融危机前要低得多，部分原因是在过去，银行需要高水平的股权来支持自己的财政。

So cost-cutting is much more important than it was: compensation ratios at investment banks have fallen.

因而现在进行消减开支比起以前要重要得多：投资银行的补偿金比率已经下降。

But those who want a complete reshaping of finance can still argue that change has not gone far enough:

但是那些盼望金融界完全改头换面的人依然可以反驳说这种变化程度不深：

more people work in finance in London in 2013 than did in December 2007.

2013年伦敦的金融行业从业人数比起2007年12月份反而更多。

1.go bust 失败，破产，完蛋

Third, allow some defaulting banks to go bust.

第三，允许一些资不抵债的银行破产。

Italy avoided a housing bubble; its banks did not go bust.

意大利避免了房地产泡沫，国内银行也没有陷入倒闭困境。

2.used to do 过去常常做某事

We used to do it to avoid the narcs.

我们过去仅仅是为了躲避缉毒警察。

A human being with a computer can hold the same amount of information stored in the russian state library, but that technology can also be used to do great harm.

一个拥有电脑的人可以拥有与俄罗斯国立图书馆（russian state library）等量的信息，但这种技术也会被用来制造极大伤害。

3.in part 在某种程度上，部分地；一半

Markets are nervous in part because of national politics.

国内政治是一部分市场紧张的原因。

In part this was the result of happenstance.

这在某种程度上是偶然事件造成的。

4.much more 更加；多

It was much more difficult than on land.

这比在陆地上难多了。

The verdict matters much more than the punishment.

陪审团的裁决比惩罚本身更加重要。