President Obama's director of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers, told a Washington audience Friday that an excess of fear is hindering a recovery from today's deep economic recession.
美国国家经济委员会主任萨默斯星期五在华盛顿表示，过多的恐惧心理正在阻碍美国经济从目前的严重衰退中复苏。
Former Harvard University president Larry Summers said the new administration inherited an economic crisis that originated in a property market bubble that burst. Average home prices have fallen for two consecutive years and are 20 percent below their peak levels. In his talk at Washington's Brookings Institution, Summers spoke of the psychology of fear.
曾经担任哈佛大学校长的萨默斯说，新一届美国政府承接了一场经济危机，危机的起因是房地产市场泡沫的破裂。美国房屋市场的平均房价已经连续两年下跌，并比价格最高时降低了20%。萨默斯在华盛顿的布鲁金斯学会发表讲话时谈到了人们的恐惧心理。
"Eventually, however, this process [of greed] stops - and reverses. Prices fall. People sell. Instead of an expectation of new buyers, there is an expectation of new sellers. Greed gives way to fear. And this fear begets fear," he said.
他说：“最终，人们贪婪谋利的过程停止了，并且出现了逆转。价格下跌。人们纷纷出售。他们不再期望有新的买家，而是期待出现更多卖家。贪婪变成了恐惧。而恐惧又引发新的恐惧。”
Summers called this process the paradox that lies at the heart of the financial crisis. He emphasized that in this kind of recession, where business and consumers are not spending, it is vital that government take the lead.
萨默斯说，这一过程是金融危机自相矛盾的地方。他强调说，在目前的经济衰退中，企业和消费者都不进行消费，因此，政府带动消费就是至关重要的了。
"If my speech was intended to persuade you of one thing, if you didn't agree with anything else, it was that this is not a set of economic processes that would simply automatically fix themselves if you didn't act," he said.
他说：“我的演讲只想说服你们接受一个观点，那就是，这不是一些可以自动完成自我修正的经济过程，我们必须采取行动。你们可以在其它问题上不同意我的观点，可是这一点不同。”
Summers, who in the 1990s was President Clinton's treasury secretary, said government will do all that is needed to get the economy to grow. Without a recovery, he said, all other national goals will not be achieved, whether they be the projection of U.S. strength abroad or the alleviation of poverty in developing countries.
萨默斯在上个世纪90年代曾担任克林顿总统的财政部长。他说，美国政府将做出一切必要的努力，以推动经济增长。他说，在经济没有复苏的情况下，其它一切国家政策目标都无法实现，不论是在海外显示美国的力量还是在发展中国家减少贫穷。
Defending President Obama's economic recovery program, the largest peace-time stimulus in U.S. history, Summers said jobs will be created and confidence restored. More than anything, he said, it is optimism and confidence that are needed.
萨默斯为奥巴马总统的经济复苏计划进行辩护，这一计划是美国历史上在和平时期推出的最大规模的经济刺激项目。他说，这一项目将创造就业机会，重建人们的信心，而乐观情绪和信心正是美国最需要的。 |