2014年经济学人 资不抵债 愈发艰难

Insolvency¹

Going under

A lot of people are still going bankrupt

GOVERNMENT ministers took a break from wooing the Scots on September 17th to crow over Britain’s strengthening job market. Unemployment now stands at just 6.2%—down from a peak of 8.4% in late 2011, and not much higher than the 5% rates that were normal before the financial crisis. Another economic indicator², however, doesn’t look so good.

In 2000 the insolvency rate in Britain was just 7.4 per 100,000 adults. That shot up to 32.4 in 2010 before falling for the past four years. But it ticked up again in the second quarter of 2014, to 22.8 per 100,000. “The dip has really bottomed out,” says R3, the insolvency trade body.

One reason for the rise in insolvencies after 2000 was that it became easier to file for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement, which allows debtors³ to pay money back over a period of time. Then, in 2009, the government created the Debt Relief Order—sometimes called “bankruptcy⁴ lite”—for people with a maximum debt of 15,000. Other possible explanations for the rise over the years include a spendthrift attitude among the growing number of people unable to get on the housing ladder and the growth of student loans, which have normalised the idea of debt, suggests Andrew Tate of R3.

Young women are more likely to go bust⁵ than are young men. Louise Brittain of Wilkins Kennedy, an accountancy firm, says many more women are taking risks as entrepreneurs these days, so more are ending up in trouble. But only a quarter of all personal bankruptcies⁶ in the first quarter of this year were of self-employed people. The biggest problem for both men and women is credit-card bingeing, she says.

Mr Tate worries most about the growth of debt management plans. These often involve cold-calling people in debt and offering to negotiate with creditors⁷ for a fee. A recent R3 survey found that 4% of British adults—about 2m people—are in some kind of DMP. Since only about 250,000 are formally insolvent⁸, the problem might be bigger than it appears. Some debtors cannot afford the 705 fee to apply for bankruptcy. Others have debts too high to apply for a DRO. R3 suggests raising the debt maximum for DROs to 30,000 and letting the fee be paid in instalments.

Such moves may help, but a bigger problem looms⁹. If interest rates were to rise to the sort of levels normal before the financial crisis, many homeowners could not absorb them, says Ms Brittain.

1 insolvency   

n.无力偿付，破产

参考例句：

• The company is on the verge of insolvency.该公司快要破产了。
• Normal insolvency procedures should not be applied to banks.通常的破产程序不应当适用于银行。

2 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

3 debtors   

n.债务人，借方( debtor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Never in a debtors' prison? 从没有因债务坐过牢么？ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

4 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

5 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

6 bankruptcies   

n.破产( bankruptcy的名词复数 )；倒闭；彻底失败；（名誉等的）完全丧失

参考例句：

• It's a matter of record that there were ten bankruptcies in the town last year. 去年这个城市有十家破产是事实。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Business bankruptcies rose 50 percent over the previous year. 破产企业的数量比前一年增加５０％。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

7 creditors   

n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They agreed to repay their creditors over a period of three years. 他们同意3年内向债主还清欠款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 insolvent   

adj.破产的，无偿还能力的

参考例句：

• They lost orders and were insolvent within weeks.他们失去了订货，几周后就无法偿还债务。
• The bank was declared insolvent.银行被宣布破产。

9 looms   

n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• All were busily engaged,men at their ploughs,women at their looms. 大家都很忙，男的耕田，女的织布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The factory has twenty-five looms. 那家工厂有25台织布机。 来自《简明英汉词典》