英伦广角 2011-10-29 英国银行被降级

 These ratings agencies, they have a lot of clout¹, don't they? I mean they're not official organizations or companies like any other, but what they say carries a lot of weight. Yeah, I mean they face a lot criticism at the hight of the financial crisis for not spotting the risks in the system before everything went wrong. And since then, they've been criticized for saying just this type of bad things, and you know, creating new fear within the system. That's said their job is to alert investors³ as to the credit worthiness⁴ of people that they're lending to. And what they are saying now about these 12 UK banks is that they are not so much at any greater risk now of going under than they were well yesterday before they issued this warning or last week or two weeks ago. What they are saying is they now see that the UK government is less likely to stand behind them if they do get into trouble, and that's why they've issued this downgrade. They've perhaps seen a likelihood, perhaps that if a small bank were to get into trouble, look like it was going under, the government would not step in, in the same way as it did for Northern Rock, for Bradford & Bingley, at the height of crisis, and rescue them. And if you are a private investor² or a bond holder⁵, somebody who lends money to these banks, if it dose go under, chances are , there is a greater chance now, you can lose your money. 

 

And practically, if you've got some RBS shares, and in a sense we all have 'cause we are taxpayers⁷ and 70% of RBS is owned by the taxpayer⁶. What difference does this downgrade mean? And would this make any difference at all practically?

 

And, well, obviously, we've seen RBS shares drop on foot of this news. It's not to say they won't pick up again in the weeks to come. Overall, I think what it means for RBS is that it may find it slightly more difficult, potentially more expensive to get funding, the funding it needs to continue operating as a normal bank. It should loan to all of us. That's said, I mean, you look at the development yesterday, from the Bank of England, quantitative⁸ easing, one of the aims is that it's not only to inject more money into the system, but to bring down the cost of borrowing overall, so, it's a bit of yin & yang(阴阳). I don't think we can say that the downgrade today means that we are gonna be paying more for our loans in the very near future, but it all fits into our feeds, into a very complicated mixture, and a complicated recipe, to get the banks out of the bad situation that they are now in.

1 clout   

n.用手猛击；权力，影响力

参考例句：

• The queen may have privilege but she has no real political clout.女王有特权，但无真正的政治影响力。
• He gave the little boy a clout on the head.他在那小男孩的头部打了一下。

2 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

3 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

4 worthiness   

价值，值得

参考例句：

• It'satisfies the spraying robot's function requirement and has practical worthiness. " 运行试验表明，系统工作稳定可靠，满足了喷雾机器人的功能要求，具有实用价值。
• The judge will evaluate the worthiness of these claims. 法官会评估这些索赔的价值。

5 holder   

n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物

参考例句：

• The holder of the office of chairman is reponsible for arranging meetings.担任主席职位的人负责安排会议。
• That runner is the holder of the world record for the hundred-yard dash.那位运动员是一百码赛跑世界纪录的保持者。

6 taxpayer   

n.纳税人

参考例句：

• The new scheme will run off with a lot of the taxpayer's money.这项新计划将用去纳税人许多钱。
• The taxpayer are unfavourably disposed towards the recent tax increase.纳税者对最近的增加税收十分反感。

7 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

8 quantitative   

adj.数量的，定量的

参考例句：

• He said it was only a quantitative difference.他说这仅仅是数量上的差别。
• We need to do some quantitative analysis of the drugs.我们对药物要进行定量分析。