[2020-09-07]美国真正的骗局：华尔街股市创下新高，而数百万失业者无力支付房租

The shocking disconnect between a thriving U.S. investor economy and its millions of unemployed as a recipe for even worse social unrest.

繁荣的美国投资者经济与数百万失业者之间令人震惊的脱节，导致了更严重的社会动荡。

Don’t blame Lisa Scott, a 43-year-old certified nursing assistant who lives in the Oxford Circle section of Philadelphia, for not celebrating this week as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index soared to yet another record high

不要责怪丽莎•斯科特，这位43岁的注册护士助理住在费城的牛津圈区，她没有在本周庆祝标准普尔500指数飙升至又一个新高.

On Wednesday afternoon, as the Dow was rising yet another 454 points, Scott — who hasn’t worked since the coronavirus turned her world upside down in March — was far too busy worrying why Pennsylvania still hasn’t processed her unemployment claim, whether her landlord will keep allowing her to pay whatever rent she can, and how she’d be able to seek new work with her 12-year-old at home for virtual schooling.

周三下午，道琼斯指数又上涨了454点。自从3月份新冠疫情把她的世界搞得天翻地覆之后，斯科特就再也没有工作过。她非常担心，为什么宾夕法尼亚州仍然没有处理她的失业索赔申请，房东是否会继续允许她力所能及地支付房租，以及她如何和12岁的孩子在家里寻找新的工作，进行网上教育。

“I think it’s all bull——, pardon my language,” Scott told me when I asked her about the stock market soaring even as nearly 30 million Americans, that’s one-in-every five workers, continues to receive the unemployment benefits she’s still struggling to obtain. Like many in her shoes, the mother of six is losing faith in the system.

“我认为这一切都是操...，请原谅我的措词”斯科特这样告诉我，当时我问了她股市飙升的情况，尽管近3000万美国人，也就是五分之一的工人仍在领取她仍在努力争取的失业救济金。和许多身处其中的人一样，这位六个孩子的母亲正在对这个体制失去信心。

“I am an essential worker — I am needed, and look how they’re doing me,” Scott told me.

斯科特告诉我：“我是一个必不可少的员工，他们是需要我的，然而看看他们是如何对待我。”

What’s so mind-boggling is that the increasingly desperate plight of America’s jobless, a crisis that’s approached the unthinkable levels of the Great Depression of the 1930s, isn’t the biggest story on the news. Instead, it’s squeezed out by a debate over so-called “law and order,” with a president who’d rather marshal the vast power of the federal government to send troops to arrest graffiti artists than enact a massive jobs-and-relief program.

令人大跌眼镜的是，美国失业者日益绝望的困境，这场危机已接近20世纪30年代大萧条时期难以想象的水平，然而这并不是最大的新闻。相反，它被一场所谓的“法律与秩序”的辩论所排挤，总统宁愿动用联邦政府的巨大权力，派遣军队逮捕街上的涂鸦艺术家，也不愿实施一项大规模的就业与救济计划。

Seriously? You’re worried about social unrest now? Just imagine the chaos in a few months, when homeless people sleep on park benches under a blanket of newspaper headlines that Jeff Bezos is the world’s first $300-billion man, or when the food lines begin to resemble “Hands Across America.” Personally, I don’t play the stock market but if I did, I’d be investing heavily in pitchfork manufacturers.

认真的吗？你现在担心社会动荡？想象一下几个月后的混乱吧，当无家可归的人们睡在公园的长椅上，而报纸上铺天盖地的新闻标题说杰夫 · 贝佐斯是世界上第一个身家3000亿美元的人的时候，或者当排队领取救济食品的队伍可以横穿整个美国的时候，就我个人而言，我不玩股票，但如果我玩股票，我会大量投资干草叉制造商的。

This isn’t a new problem, of course. Ever since 1980, when Ronald Reagan’s initial “Make America Great Again” platform” was cover (just as it would be for Donald Trump) for slashing taxes on the wealthy, the background noise of income inequality has gone from a whisper to the scream of “We are the 99 Percent!”

当然，这不是一个新问题。自从1980年罗纳德 · 里根最初的“让美国再次伟大”的纲领(就像唐纳德 · 特朗普一样)成为削减富人税收的掩护以来，收入不平等的背景噪音已经从窃窃私语变成了尖叫：“我们是99%的人！”

But the cataclysm of 2020′s pandemic and related shutdowns has taken America’s wealth gap from tragedy to farce. After a steep dip in the spring — shuttered stores and factories and millions of jobless claims will do that, at least briefly — Wall Street bounced back and kept going. Why? Some of the daily spikes have shown that America’s supposedly sharp-eyed stock traders — like the president they admire — are far too susceptible to dubious rumors and scammy press releases about imminent vaccines.

但是2020年的大流行灾难和相关的政府停摆已经把美国的贫富差距从悲剧变成了闹剧。在经历了春季的急剧下滑之后，关闭的商店和工厂以及数以百万计申请失业的救济人造成了这种情况，华尔街恢复了元气，至少是短暂的，然后继续前行。为什么？一些每日飙升的数据表明，美国那些所谓目光敏锐的股票交易员，就像他们敬仰的总统一样，太容易受到有关即将发布疫苗的可疑谣言和欺骗性新闻稿的影响了。

But that’s only part of the dark underbelly of Wall Street’s daily highs. The pandemic has played out in a cruel way that’s caused beloved small businesses like one-of-a-kind boutiques and funky restaurants to close, while big corporations like Amazon with their global logistics have flourished. America has become even more cruel and less fun to live in at the same time.

但这只是华尔街每日高点阴暗面的一部分。这场疫情以一种残酷的方式蔓延，导致一些备受喜爱的小企业关门，比如独一无二的精品店和时髦的餐厅，而亚马逊等拥有全球物流业务的大公司则蓬勃发展。与此同时，美国变得更加残酷，生活的乐趣也越来越少。

But public corporations are also booming because we’ve created a system that can pump in literally trillions of dollars to prop up stocks — led by a Federal Reserve whose chairman was appointed by a president who uses the sky-high Dow to argue for his re-election — but gridlocks over the idea of helping families pay their $500 monthly rent.

不过，上市公司之所以蓬勃发展，也是因为我们创建了一个体系，可以注入数万亿美元来支撑股市。这个体系由美联储领导，其主席是由一位总统任命，他利用顶破天的道琼斯指数来为自己的连任辩护。但在帮助家庭支付每月500美元房租的想法上，却陷入了僵局。

And so the billionaires who run these public corporations have seen their private wealth explode. Amazon’s Bezos became Planet Earth’s first $200 billion man (even after his divorce!) but other billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have also become obscenely rich during the worst year of many people’s lifetimes.

所以，经营这些上市公司的亿万富翁们，看到了他们私人财富爆炸式的增长。亚马逊的贝佐斯成为了地球上第一个身价2000亿美元的男人(甚至是在他离婚之后!)，像埃隆 · 马斯克、比尔 · 盖茨和马克 · 扎克伯格这样的亿万富翁，也在很多人这辈子最糟糕的一年变得非常富有。

Meanwhile, it was hailed as a warped victory on Thursday morning when ”only” 833,000 Americans filed new state unemployment claims. But that still dwarfs any week from the painful Great Recession only a decade ago, and it also fails to include a second class of emergency pandemic benefits that elevates the total number seeking new aid this week to 1.6 million. And yet somehow this massive societal shakeup continues to get lost amid a president’s increasingly delusional tweets or public comments, or dramatic video of small courthouse fires.

与此同时，周四早上，当“只有”83.3万美国人提交了新的失业索赔申请时，这被誉为一个扭曲的胜利。但是这仍然让十年前痛苦的大萧条的任何一周相形见绌，而且这也没有包括第二类紧急大流行救济，让本周寻求新救济的总人数增加到了160万。然而不知何故，这场大规模的社会震荡继续消失在总统日益妄想的推特、公众评论或法院小火灾的戏剧性视频中。

John Dodds, the activist who heads the Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP), in a city where the jobless rate is still at the near-Depression level of 17.7%, the priority remains trying to convince Washington to reinstate the $600 weekly unemployment-compensation boost that arguably prevented a total meltdown but expired at the end of July. Congress, which stayed in recess for most of August, didn’t have the same sense of urgency.

费城失业计划的负责人约翰 · 多兹是一位激进分子，他所在的城市的失业率仍然接近大萧条时期的17.7%，当务之急仍然是说服华盛顿恢复每周600美元的失业救助计划，这项计划可以说是阻止了一场彻底的崩溃，但是已经在7月底那时到期了。国会在8月的大部分时间里都处于休会状态，没有那种紧迫感。

The stories of America’s unemployed are as diverse as the nation itself. Rebecca Ansel, an unemployed violinist and musicians’ union member, recently rallied with other PUP members in Philadelphia to extend the $600 benefit. Unlike Lisa Scott, she’d gotten her jobless claim processed quickly, and owning her own home in Collingswood has helped her get by. But she worried things will change with Philadelphia’s arts’ venues likely to remain dark for months, and not being able to do what she loves has already exacted an emotional toll. “Everything is taking a hit — it’s hard,” Ansel told me. She said “I feel a piece of myself is missing.”

美国失业者的故事就像这个国家本身一样多种多样。丽贝卡 · 安塞尔是一位失业的小提琴家和音乐家工会成员，最近她与费城的其他失业计划成员联合起来，要求延长这项600美元的救助计划。与丽莎·斯科特不同的是，她很快就申请到了失业救济，在科灵斯伍德拥有自己的房子帮助她度过难关。但她担心情况会发生变化，费城的艺术场馆可能会在几个月内保持关闭，不能做她喜欢的事情已经造成了情感上的伤害。安塞尔告诉我“一切都受到了冲击，这很艰难”她说：“我觉得自己缺少了一部分。”

For Scott, as for many, economic worries are front and center. She lost her nursing assistant job in March when — concerned about her six kids, including a 4-year-old — she declined to volunteer for a COVID unit. The setback, and her inability to get Pennsylvania to process her unemployment claim, is causing her to lose hope in the system. “I don’t think they’re handling it too good,” she said. “Look at me, a hard-working woman and for the first time in 15 years I’m on food stamps.”

对于斯科特和许多人来说，经济的担忧是首要和重点的问题。由于担心自己的六个孩子(包括一个4岁的孩子) ，她在3月份失去了护士助理的工作，她拒绝了去一个疫情单位做志愿者。这次挫折，再加上宾夕法尼亚州没有处理她的失业申请，使她对这个体制失去了希望。她说“我不认为他们处理得很好，看看我，一个努力工作的女人，十五年来第一次靠食品券过活。”

The fierce urgency of now that briefly allowed Congress and the Trump administration to pass relief bills in the first weeks of the coronavirus crisis needs to be rekindled, or the breakdown of American social order will only accelerate. It’s bizarre that we’re playing politics around the recent spike in murder rates in American cities and ignoring the obvious link to the COVID-19 economic despair and disruption. That’s one more reason why the stock market rise matters; it’s a convenient distraction that allows policymakers to pretend that the economy is doing just fine when it’s utterly broken for tens of millions of forgotten Americans.

在新冠危机爆发的前几个星期，国会和特朗普政府曾短暂地通过了救济法案，现在急需重新点燃这种紧迫感，否则美国社会秩序的崩溃只会加速到来。奇怪的是，我们围绕着最近美国城市谋杀率的飙升玩弄政治游戏，却忽视了新冠疫情对经济的绝望和破坏之间明显的联系。这也是股市上涨至关重要的另一个原因；这是一种方便分散注意力的手段，让政策制定者假装经济运行良好，而对于数千万被遗忘的美国人来说，它已经完全崩溃了。

But we can’t ignore this forever. Last week, about 100 protesters showed up outside Bezos’ $23 million mansion in D.C. (where he owns the Washington Post) and, demanding higher wages and better coronavirus protection for Amazon workers, erected a guillotine. I’m reporting that and not endorsing it — lasting social change will only come through non-violent resistance — but I do think that symbolism should send a cold metal chill down the spine of anyone still buying the fantasies of late-stage capitalism.

但我们不能永远忽视这一点。上周，大约一百名抗议者出现在贝佐斯位于华盛顿特区价值2300万美元的豪宅外(他拥有《华盛顿邮报》)，要求提高工资，为亚马逊员工提供更好的病毒保护装备，他们还竖起了断头台。我报道了这件事，但我并不赞同这行为，持久的社会变革只有通过非暴力的抵抗才能实现，但我确实认为，对于那些仍然相信晚期资本主义幻想的人来说，这种象征意义应该会让他们感到寒意袭人。
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NineteenAD9
85% of the stock market is owned by the Top 10%. It has little to no effect on the lives and well-being of most Americans.
So, it's no surprise that people are giving less of a fuck than usual about it.

85%的股票市场由前10%的人拥有。它对大多数美国人的生活和幸福几乎没有影响。
所以，人们对这件事的关心程度低于平常也就不足为奇了。

Mrknowitall666
... Tragedy is the various studies that say that, like, 60% of Americans don't have $500 bucks of emergency cash, let alone retirement savings

各种各样的研究表明，60%的美国人没有500美元的应急现金，更不用说退休储蓄了，悲剧。

CannedMango
Someone else recently made the comment that the stock market rises on the wealth extracted from the working class. Basically, all of the wages the ultra rich refuse to pay the working class turn into “gains” on Wall Street.

最近有人评论说，从工人阶级那里榨取的财富使得股市上涨。基本上，所有超级富豪拒绝支付给工人阶级的工资都变成了华尔街的“收益”。

JoseaBrainwave
And when the stock market falls the working class gets laid off.

当股市下跌时，工人阶级就会失业。

ggtsu_00
Actually it does have a direct effect on commoners. Money made from stock dividends is money not paid to workers. The more money that is invested in stocks, the higher the expectations on payouts thus more pressure on turning profit by cutting costs, paying lower wages or hiring less workers. Layoffs and downsizing of otherwise profitable companies is often the result of pressure from shareholders to see bigger returns on their investments.
Stocks being a measure of the health of the economy is like measuring one's health by the amount of parasites they have.

事实上，它对平民有直接的影响。从股票分红中获得的收入不是支付给工人的钱。投资股票的资金越多，对派息的预期就越高，因此通过削减成本、支付更低的工资或雇佣更少的工人来实现盈利的压力就越大。对原本盈利的公司进行裁员和缩小规模，往往是来自股东要求获得更高投资回报的压力所致。
股票作为衡量经济健康状况的指标，就像用人体内寄生虫的数量来衡量他的健康状况一样。

ggtsu_00
By the time the company is burned out, the stockholders already made their profit by selling off the stock while it was still high.

到公司破产的时候，股东们已经通过在股价还很高的时候卖掉股票获得了利润。

BikkaZz
But..but...$600 a week makes people lazy.....

但是... 但是... 每周600美元会让人懒惰..

Czeris
The stock market used to be a good indicator of the economy as a whole, which is the way that TRumpublicans and old people like to see it, but that hasn't been true for a long time.

股票市场曾经是整个经济很好的指示器，这也是特朗普政府和老年人喜欢看到的，但是很长一段时间以来都不是这样了。

throwaway_ghast
But it makes the president look good, so rev up those printers!!!

但是这会让总统看起来很好，所以加快那些打印机的速度！！

AlbinoWino11
This is the thing that rides up my crack more than anything else. The guys out there with their MAGA hats talking about his numbers and the ‘conomy probably don’t even have a fucking horse in the race. They are not likely significant stakeholders. How do blue-collar Americans view him as one of their own?

这是我最喜欢的事情。那些戴着“让美国再次伟大”帽子的家伙们谈论着他的数字和“经济”，而那些家伙可能连一匹马都没有参加比赛。他们不太可能是重要的利益相关者。蓝领阶层的美国人是如何把他视为自己人的？

lurcher2020
There a certainly a lot of wealthy people who are pretty happy with Trump right now.

现在肯定有很多富人对特朗普非常满意。

maikuxblade
When you owe the bank $10k you have a problem, when you owe the bank $1m the bank has a problem.

当你欠银行1万美元时，你就有麻烦了; 当你欠银行100万美元时，银行就有麻烦了。

Warm_Tax
April was the worst month for consumer demand ever, and the best month for the stock market in 20 years. They can pump this thing full of fake cash for a while.

四月是有史以来消费者需求最差的月份，也是20年来股市表现最好的月份。他们可以在一段时间内把这些东西装满假钞。

BaronVonStevie
Wall Street is for Wall Street. It always has been. It's never been a true barometer of the economy because, like a lot of ways we talk about the country, the free market is not a magical fairy that fixes shit. The free market is there for the free market.

华尔街是为了华尔街。一直都是。它从来都不是经济的晴雨表，因为就像我们谈论国家的很多方式一样，自由市场并不是一个可以修补任何破事的神奇精灵。自由市场是为了自由市场而存在的。

jjolla888
never been a true barometer of the economy
more importantly .. the economy has never been a true barometer of well-being.
at least not since the mid-70s.

“从来都不是经济的晴雨表”
更重要的是.. 经济从来就不是幸福真正的晴雨表。
至少从70年代中期开始就不是了。

theclansman22
2020 will see the largest transference of money to the rich since 2008. That is not a good thing.

2020年将出现自2008年以来最大的资金向富人的转移，这不是一件好事。

doctorDanBandageman
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer all at the same time. That’s how I perceive it

富人越来越富，穷人越来越穷，这一切都是同时发生的，这就是我的看法

gubbins_galore
More fuel on the fire. I'm ready for a revolution.

火上浇油，我已经准备好一场革命了。

SecretFocus5
the people we give a lease on violence tend to use it against us, in their defense instead of bringing them to justice - then what's left? Any answer is scary.

我们同意行使暴力的人往往会用暴力来对付我们，为他们辩护，而不是将他们绳之以法——那么还有什么？任何答案都是可怕的。

DasRaetsel
The Founding Fathers warned us about this. Jefferson even said the Tree of Liberty needs to be watered with the blood of tyrants. Hell, he even said we should update the Constitution every generation or so (20 years) in order to keep it updated and relevant. The biggest thing we as the people are missing is a sweeping Constitutional reform to keep these bastards in check.

开国元勋们警告过我们。杰斐逊甚至说，自由之树需要用暴君的鲜血来浇灌。他甚至说我们应该每隔一代左右(20年)更新宪法，以保持它的更新和相关性。作为人民，我们最大的遗漏就是一项全面的宪法改革，以遏制这些混蛋。

Bangkok_Dave
If there is a systemic problem then the only way to fix it is to change the system

如果出现了体制问题，那么解决问题的唯一办法就是改变体制。

TheCardiganKing
The writer can't even acknowledge that is a hole that 99% of people would not be able to crawl out of. There's going to be mass unrest in the coming years. Wealth inequality has grown too large.

作者甚至不能承认这是一个99%的人无法爬出的洞。未来几年将会有大规模的动乱。财富的不平等已经变得太严重了。

Hodaka
Not trying to be pessimistic, but at some point this is all going to come crashing down. We are bound to get a "correction," and that is going to affect investor confidence.
Currently there are lots of investors saying "I don't get it. The world is falling apart - and I keep on making money." It might not mirror the 2007-08 financial crisis, but there are plenty of other factors that could affect potentially affect the market.

不是要悲观，但是在某个时候，这一切都会崩溃的。我们肯定会经历一次“调整”，这将影响投资者的信心。
目前有很多投资者说：“我不明白。这个世界正在崩溃，而我还在继续赚钱。”这可能不会重演2007-08年的金融危机，但还有许多其它因素可能影响市场。

Taron221
Prediction. It’ll happen not long after a Democrat gets into office. They’ll have to spend years of their presidency fixing it. Then a Republican will get elected who will spend days of their presidency reversing everything. The market will boom because, of course, it will when you remove years worth of safety regulations. Rinse and repeat every decade or so.

预测。民主党人入主白宫后不久，这种情况就会发生。他们将不得不在他们的总统任期内，花费数年时间来修复它。然后，一个共和党人当选，他会花上几天的时间颠覆一切。当然，市场会繁荣，因为当你取消多年的安全法规时，市场就会繁荣。每十年左右重复一次。

Monstermart
The current prediction is that soon after the unemployment rate drops, investors will feel comfortable putting money into new ventures, right now they’re holding back because everyone’s putting money away in case things get even worse. All that belt tightening leaves investors with a lot of static capital that they want to invest. Once new ventures start up they’ll splash cash on anything that sounds promising, and we’ll see another 90s bubble situation hit. I’m betting this will happen in less than 3 years.

现在的预测是，失业率下降后不久，投资者就会放心地把钱投入到新的投资项目中，现在他们正在犹豫不决，因为每个人都把钱存起来，以防情况变得更糟。所有这些勒紧裤腰带的措施让投资者拥有了大量他们想要投资的静态资本。一旦新的投资开始，他们会把钱花在任何听起来有希望的事情上，我们就会看到上世纪90年代的泡沫再次出现。我打赌这将在3年内发生。

DopeAbsurdity
Just wait till everyone starts realizing that the M1 money supply has has increased 34% since January and the M2 money supply has gone up by 19%.
It's like an inflation bomb waiting to go off at any moment.

等到所有人都开始意识到，自1月份以来，M1货币供应量增长了34% ，M2货币供应量增长了19% 。
这就像一颗随时会爆炸的通货膨胀炸弹。

realworldeditor
This is why the "economy is doing fine" argument for Trump is a joke.
And I can already hear the counter argument, "It's only bad because of COVID-19."
COVID-19 is only bad because of Trump.

这就是为什么对特朗普来说，“经济状况良好”的说法就是个笑话。
而且我已经听到了反对的声音，“这只是因为新冠疫情才变得糟糕的。”
新冠疫情之所以糟糕，就是因为特朗普。

ItIsWhatItIsTakeOne
Tens of millions of Americans lost their healthcare coverage in a pandemic. America is a completely pathetic country.

数以千万计的美国人在一场大流行中失去了医疗保险，美国是一个完全可悲的国家。

southpawFA
The epitome of class warfare.

阶级斗争的缩影。

Five_Decades
bezos would be worth nearly 300 billion if he hasn't gotten divorced. it's insane

如果贝佐斯没有离婚的话，他的身家会接近3000亿美元，这太疯狂了

aslan_is_on_the_move
The low interest rates from the FED means investing in bonds is useless and money is cheap, so people are dumping money into the stock market since it's the only investment opportunity at this time, which then artificially raises the value of stocks. That's why we've been seeing it suddenly plummet when it reaches a certain point, because people are selling off to make money before reinvesting. It has nothing to do with the fundamentals of the company or strength of the economy right now.

美联储的低利率意味着投资债券是没有用的，而且钱很便宜，所以人们把钱投入股市，因为这是目前唯一的投资机会，然后人为地提高了股票的价值。这就是为什么当它达到某个点时，我们会看到它突然暴跌，因为人们在进行再投资之前抛售股票来赚钱。这与公司的基本面或者现在的经济实力毫无关系。

saltywings
Oh wow you mean shoving trillions of dollars into 'coronavirus relief' that literally just goes to more corporate handouts doesn't help the common person?

哦，哇，你的意思是把数万亿美元投入到新冠疫情的救济中，而实际上这些钱只是投入到更多的企业救济中，却没有帮助普通人？

jeffinRTP
Just because stocks are doing well does not mean that the economy is also. Money ties up in stocks are not being used to pay workers more, buying goods or services, and so on.

仅仅因为股市表现良好并不意味着经济也是如此。与股票挂钩的资金并没有用于支付工人更多的工资，购买商品或服务，等等。

lolyouseriousbro
That’s what happens when the government bailout funnels trillions of dollars to corporations and us worthless proles get 1200 peanuts. What a fucking scam, this whole system needs to be burned to the ground

当政府向企业注入数万亿美元的救助资金，而我们这些毫无价值的无产者得到了1200个花生时，就会发生这种情况。真是他X的骗局，整个系统需要被彻底摧毁。

MentalVariety
America, placer where the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

美国，一个富人越富，穷人越穷的地方。

ride_waves
Wall street is a reflection of how the rich are doing, not how your average American is doing

华尔街反映的是富人的生活状况，而不是普通美国人的生活状况

leebrad511616
The rich do be gettin richer

富人的确越来越富有