撒了欢的庆祝吧，美国是世界老二了!

- 论剑谈棋 豪杰尽聚 - 华岳论坛 - http://www.washeng.net/

1月21日的华盛顿邮报上的评论,试着翻译一下: 

原文地址：http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/america-is-no-2-and-thats-great-news/2014/01/17/09c10f50-7c97-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html?tid=pm_opinions 

America is slipping to No. 2. Don’t panic. 

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. This essay is adapted from his new book, “The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest Is Good for the West.” 

差尔思 啃泥是全球发展中心的资深成员。这篇文章摘自他的新书《大头朝下：为啥其他地区的崛起有利于西方》 

America will soon cease to be the world’s largest economy. You can argue about why, when and how bad, but the end is indeed nigh. According to the Penn World Tables — the best data to compare gross domestic product across countries — China’s GDP was worth $10.4 trillion in 2011, compared with a U.S. GDP of $13.3 trillion . But with China’s economy growing 7 to 10 percent a year, compared with the recent U.S. track record of less than 3 percent, China should take the lead by 2017 at the latest. ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

美国是世界上最大经济体的日子将一去不复返了。你尽可以争辩一下为什么会这样?美国成为世界老二的时间表排好没有?这件事对我们老美来说到底有多严重?但是无论怎样,结局肯定是跑不掉的了。根据佩恩公司的统计——对比一下上年度世界各国GDP的数据——中国的GDP达到10.4万亿美元，而美国GDP则是13.3万亿美元。如果考虑到中国经济增速每年有7-10个百分点，而美国近几年的增长率通常低于3个百分点,可以预见的是:最迟2017年，中国经济将雄据世界第一。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

Already, China is the world’s top trading nation , edging the United States in total imports and exports in 2012. And Arvind Subramanian, an economist formerly with the International Monetary Fund, predicts that by 2030 the world will have four major economic players: China will be the heavyweight, followed by the United States and European Union, with economies about half as large, and then India close behind. ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

中国现在已然是世界上最大的贸易国，早在2012年其贸易进出口总量就无限接近美国。前IMF的经济学家Arvind Subramanian预测,到2030年，世界四大主要经济体：中国是超重量级选手，其次才是美国，接下来是欧盟,身段只有中国的一半大，老幺是印度。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

Time to panic? A recent Chicago Council survey found that only 9 percent of Americans believe that Chinese growth will mostly benefit the United States, while 40 percent think it will be mostly negative for us. And a 2012 YouGov survey suggests that about half of Americans would prefer to see the United States stay on top, even with anemic economic growth, rather than grow rapidly but be overtaken by China. You only need recall President Obama and Mitt Romney sparring over who would be tougher on China to see how Washington channels this popular angst. ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

恐慌秀的时间来了吗？最近芝加哥委员会的一份调查显示，只有9%的美国人认为美国会从中国的成长中受益，40%的美国人认为中国的一家独大对美国有负面影响。YouGov前年有一个调查，过半的美国人依然幻想着美国继续呆在老大的地盘上，即使美国的经济增长缓慢，也不想经济总量一夜之间被中国超越。当年大明湖畔的奥巴马和罗姆尼为此的激辩现在想起来还是栩栩如生啊:华府对中国崛起的重视和担忧从没间断过. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

Certainly, China’s growth poses some challenges — but the opportunities it offers far outweigh them. And no matter the hand-wringing, losing the title of largest economy doesn’t really matter much to Americans’ quality of life. ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

诚然，中国的野蛮生长带来了一些挑战——但是随之而来的还有很多机遇。就算你再怎么不爽，失去最大经济体的称号对我们老美的实际生活质量的影响微乎其微. 

Regardless of its current perch atop the global economy, the United States is only the 19th least corrupt nation, according to Transparency International. It rates 67th in equality of pay between men and women according to the 2013 Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum. And among 31 high-income countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States ranked third in GDP per capita as of 2011 — but 27th in life expectancy, 29th in infant mortality, 23rd in unemployment, 27th in math test scores (as of 2012) and 30th in income equality. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

“活在当前”的美国现在依然是第一大经济体,此外可阵的数据还有:根据透明国际公开的数据，美国在全球贪腐国家排名中倒数第19位。而根据上年度世界经济论坛的一份性别差距报告,美国在男女报酬平等上的排名是第67位。纵观全球31个公认的高收入国家和经济体，2011年美国人均GDP排名第三——但平均寿命只有第27位，此外,婴儿死亡率第29，失业率第23，数学测试得分第27，最糟的是平均收入在31个高收入国家和经济体中为倒数第二位。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

fact, the link between the absolute size of your economy and pretty much any measure that truly matters is incredibly weak. Whenever China takes over the top spot, it will still lag far behind the world’s leading countries on indicators reflecting quality of life. For starters, there are a lot more people sharing China’s GDP; even the rosiest forecasts for the country’s economic growth suggest that per capita income will be lower than in the United States for decades to come. The average American lives five years longer than the average person in China, and civil and political rights in the world’s soon-to-be-biggest economy are routinely abused. Living in an America that ranks second in GDP to China will still be far, far better than living in China. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

实地上，经济的绝对量和这些眼花缭乱的数据之间几乎没有什么关系。当中国笨拙的跻到经济状元的位置时，他们的生活质量和世界发达国家之间还摔了好几条街呢。首先，中国的人口忒多了，即便是最乐观的预计，中国至少还需要几十年才能在人均收入上超过美国,况且美国人平均比中国人多活5年(这个和本话题有关系吗?美国人的数学的确不是很好啊—译者注)。这个即将到来的经济体巨无霸的人权一如既往的糟糕。就算有朝一日美国的GDP排到中国的后面,起码在人权等方面比中国人好得多。（阿Q的子孙一定在美国又泛滥了。） ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

There are some real economic costs related to losing the top spot in the GDP rankings, but they are small and manageable. The dollar might lose its dominance as the currency of choice for central bank reserves and trading, and some predict that will increase the cost of U.S. borrowing and exporting. In fact, the dollar share of global reserves has already fallen from about 80 percent in the 1970s to about 40 percent today, with the euro and the renminbi gaining ground, but there isn’t much sign that that has spooked global markets. Meanwhile, businesses in the rest of the world still manage to export, even though they must go through the trouble of exchanging currencies. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

丢掉GDP老大的交椅的确会带来一些致使的经济损失，但是这种损失的程度很少而且范围可控。美元或许将失去作为全球储备货币及贸易结算货币的霸主地位，有好事者说这会使美国借债和出口的成本增加。话说回来，美元作为世界储备货币的份额已经从上世纪70年代的80%缩减到了今天的40%，与此同时欧元和RMB的份额却相应增加了，但是没迹象表明这种变化对全球市场产生震动。与此同时，世界上其他地方企业的出口依然举步维艰，即使他们得承受换外汇的不平衡交换。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

And if you want further reassurance that you don’t need to be large to be rich, remember that in tiny Luxembourg, average incomes are almost twice those in the United States. 

如果你够心宽体胖的话，你不需要变得非常庞大就能很富有，没记错的话小小的卢森堡的人均收入几乎是我们美利坚帝国的两倍哟(美国人也会自我安慰的呵). 

Of more concern to Washington might be that having the world’s largest economy helps the United States maintain the planet’s largest defense budget. At the moment, America accounts for about four out of every 10 dollars in global defense spending; China, in second place, accounts for less than one out of 10. But one way to think about this is to ask how much the three-quarters increase in defense spending between 2000 and 2011 enhanced America’s well-being. It is distinctly unclear that having one of the world’s largest defense budgets, rather than the largest, poses an existential threat to U.S. citizens’ quality of life. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

华府的着眼点可能是让未来世界最大经济体(中国)帮助不落的星际大国(美国)提供最庞大的国防预算。目前，美国军费占世界的40%，其次是中国，占到10%弱。换个角度说，2000至2011年美国军费增加了四分之三，这多少会给美国提供些许安全感吗？但是比较荒谬的是，这种世界最大的军费预算之一，而不是最大，的确构成了对美国人民生活品质的一个现实的威胁! ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

While the downsides are limited, the upside to the United States of losing the top GDP spot is immense. The country’s declining economic primacy is mainly a result of the developing economies becoming larger, healthier, more educated, more free and less violent. And there is little doubt the United States benefits from that. Just over the past few years, for example, U.S. export markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America have grown rapidly. Three-fifths of America’s exports go to the developing world, and that suggests that about 6 million Americans are employed providing goods and services to emerging markets. As the developing world gets richer, it will import more — and create more jobs here. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

美国丢掉GDP第一的宝座的坏处是很小的，相反我倒觉得这对美国是有利好的。如果我们国家经济地位的下降主要是因为以中国为代表的发展中国家变得更强大、更勃勃生机、国民受教育程度更高,以及他们国内更少的暴力活动。毫无疑问，美国肯定会因之受益。在刚刚过去的几年中，美国对亚、非、拉的出口快速增长。现在美国五分之三的出口目的地都是发展中国家，这意味着我们每年约有600万人因为新兴市场的服务需求获得新的工作岗位。而随着更多的发展中国家变得越来越富有，他们也会扩大向我们进口——这也为美国创造了更多工作岗位。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

The rest of the world is also inventing more stuff, from modular building techniques in China to new drug therapies and low-water cement-manufacturing processes in India to mobile banking applications in Kenya. We can benefit from those inventions as much as we already benefit from foreign innovators coming to the United States. Among the patents awarded in 2011 to teams at the 10 most innovative American universities, for example, three-quarters involved a foreign-born researcher, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy . As more people in developing countries go to college and as more firms there research and develop new products, there’s a potential for increased innovation in both the West and the Rest. That could bring faster progress in a number of different areas here at home, from connectivity to health. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

除美国外,世界各国无不都在与时俱进，从中国的模块化建筑技术(说的是万科吗?)，到印度的新药物治疗和环保节水的水泥制造技术，到肯尼亚的银行移动APP。我们也能从那些移民到美国的外国发明家那里，从他们与时共进的劳动中受益。比如说，2011年全美高校十大发明专利奖中，四分之三是由国外移民的人员参与的。而随着越来越多的发展中国家的人有能力上大学，越来越多的公司研发出新产品，西方和其他国家都有与时共进的潜力。从信息共享到生命健康，会给美国多个领域带来发展。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

And growth in the developing world, even if it means that some populous economies may eventually grow larger than the United States, also means that there are more places for Americans to travel in security and comfort, and more places to learn, work or while away our retirement years. Americans can get health care at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok — accredited by the Joint Commission International, which certifies health-care organizations worldwide — for a fraction of the cost they can in Bethesda. Or their kids can attend college at the University of Cape Town, rated higher than Georgetown University in international rankings but one-fifth as expensive. Or perhaps they can get jobs at one of the new breed of world-class multinational firms based in the developing world, such as Tata or Huawei. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

发展中国家的成长，即使意味着有些人口众多的国家最终的经济总量会超越美国，也意味着给美国人安全旅游的地方多了，美国人能学习、工作或者退休后休闲的地方也多了。美国人可以在曼谷享受BIH医院的服务——这是由国际医疗权威组织国际联合委员会认可的机构——比我们国内的Bethesda还便宜。我们的天之骄子还可以上比美国乔治敦大学排名还高的南非的开普敦大学，费用只有乔治敦大学五分之一,也许他们毕业后可以从像华为和塔塔这样的世界知名公司那里找到一份工打。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

America’s tenure on top is ending because much of the world is becoming more like America in many ways: richer, more democratic, more secure. The world increasingly shares aspirations, priorities and attitudes similar to ours. This is a success story for U.S. stewardship of the global economy. ...华岳论坛 - "http://hua-yue.net" 

美国,一个王朝的背影正渐行渐远，因为世界上越来越多的国家正变得越来越像美国：他们比以前更富有，更民主，更安全。他们对世界的企盼、对国际秩序的认可和积极入世的态度更像我们的美国精神。毕竟,美国曾经是,也仍然是管理全球经济的一个成功范本。 ...华岳论坛 - "http://washeng.net" 

So celebrate with me: We’re No. 2! 

所以,跟着我撒了欢地庆祝吧：我们是老二啦！！