【托福TPO10.2Business之繁榮與泡沫——boom and bust -英文補習

boom and bust

We called that craze ‘tulip-mania’. So, here we’ve got all the conditions for an irrational boom: a prospering economy, so more people had more disposable income - money to spend on luxuries, but they weren’t experienced at investing their new wealth. Then along comes a thrilling new commodity. Sure the first specimens were just plain ordinary tulips, but they could be bred into some extraordinary variations, like that dark purple tulip. And finally, you have an unregulated marketplace, no government constraints, where price could explode. And explode they did, starting in the 1630s. There was always much more demand for tulips than supply. Tulips didn’t bloom frequently like roses. Tulips bloomed once in the early spring. And that was it for the year. Eventually, specially-bred multi-colored tulips became so valuable, well, according to records, one tulip bulb was worth 24 tons of wheat, or a thousand pounds of cheese. One particular tulip bulb was sold and exchanged for a small ship. In other words, tulips were literally worth their weight in gold. As demand grew, people began selling promissory notes guaranteeing the future delivery of priced tulip bulbs. The buyers of these pieces of paper would resell the notes at marked up prices. These promissory notes kept changing hands from buyer to buyer until the tulip was ready for delivery. But it was all pure speculation because as l said, there was no way to know if the bulb was really going to produce the variety, the color that was promised. But that didn’t matter to the owner of the note. The owner only cared about having that piece of paper so it could be traded later at a profit. And people were borrowing, mortgaging their homes in many cases to obtain those bits of paper because they were sure they’d find an easy way to make money. So now, you’ve got all the ingredients for a huge bust. And bust it did, when one cold February morning in 1637, a group of bulb traders got together and discovered that suddenly there were no bidders. Nobody wanted to buy．Panic spread like wild fire and the tulip market collapsed totally.現在我們已經得出了產業非理性發展的必要條件：首先，繁榮的市場經濟，即不理智的、缺乏經驗的消費者擁有大量可支配收入來購買、投資奢侈品。其次，出現某種新奇刺激的商品。雖然最初的郁金香品種較為普通，但隨后種植者培育出各種奇特的變種，例如深紫色郁金香等等。最后，產業市場缺乏政府監管，價格得以自由攀升。郁金香價格在十七世紀三十年代開始暴漲，這是由于市場需求一直遠遠高于供給：郁金香與玫瑰不同，它每年只在春季開一次花，。最終，特別培育的混色郁金香的價格上升到了不可思議的水平，根據歷史記錄，一枚郁金香球莖與 24 噸小麥或一千磅起司等值，某種特殊球莖甚至與小型輪船等值。換句話說，郁金香已如黃金般珍貴。隨著市場需求的不斷膨脹，商人開始出售本票來確保未來高價郁金香的供給，而本票購買者則以更高價格再次出售本票獲利。這些本票在不同投資者之間轉手，直到最終郁金香球莖正式交貨才會停止。但正如我剛才提到的，郁金香培育者對于花朵色彩的估計是缺乏科學分析的，人們并不能確保球莖確實能夠發育成各色花朵，但本票投資者并不關心這一信息，這些投機商人只關心本票的價格能否在未來轉變為高額利潤。人們甚至通過借款、抵押住房來購買郁金香本票，以為自己發現了一夜暴富的捷徑。現在同學們已經知曉了經濟泡沫破裂的所有必要條件，而郁金香產業的崩潰也不可避免的來臨了。1637 年 2 月的一個寒冷的早晨，郁金香球莖販賣者們聚集在一起，發現突然之間再無人愿意出價購買郁金香。恐慌情緒如野火般肆意蔓延，郁金香市場徹底崩潰了。這篇材料你能聽出多少？點擊這里做聽寫，提高外語水平>>