實(shí)戰(zhàn)口語(yǔ)情景對(duì)話：Economics in Australia 澳大利亞經(jīng)濟(jì)

Maria: So Alex, you're from Australia. What's the economical situation there at the moment?

瑪麗亞：亞歷克斯，你來(lái)自澳大利亞。現(xiàn)在澳大利亞的經(jīng)濟(jì)形勢(shì)怎么樣?

Alex: We've actually been very, very lucky in the last couple of years throughout the global financial crisis. We've been, we had a very strong, very positive economic situation. The reason behind that is mainly because of China. They've been buying a lot of our export commodities and as a result, it's been fueling the economy. We didn't have a recession unlike the United States because of the stimulus package as well as China.

亞歷克斯：在這幾年的全球金融危機(jī)中，我們國(guó)家真的非常非常幸運(yùn)。我們的經(jīng)濟(jì)形勢(shì)強(qiáng)勁又積極。主要原因是因?yàn)橹袊?guó)的貢獻(xiàn)。他們購(gòu)買了許多我們國(guó)家的出口產(chǎn)品，這推動(dòng)了經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展。由于經(jīng)濟(jì)刺激方案和中國(guó)的幫助，我們沒有像美國(guó)那樣經(jīng)歷經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退。

So the Government did a very controversial stimulus package which included raising the retirement age up to sixty seven so that was something that wasn't really very much liked. It actually got the Prime Minister booted out of office but nevertheless as a result, a lot of these things that the Government did helped a lot.

澳大利亞政府實(shí)施的經(jīng)濟(jì)刺激方案?jìng)涫軤?zhēng)議，這項(xiàng)方案包括將退休年齡延長(zhǎng)至67歲，這項(xiàng)方案不太受歡迎。實(shí)際上它讓澳大利亞總理被趕下臺(tái)，但是盡管如此，政府的許多措施都大有幫助。

We also have this thing that I think is one of the most exciting things to come out of Australia which is superannuition or superannuation, however you want to say it. It's a sort of mandatory eleven per cent on top of your income which by law you must put into a savings account which is then invested. The investment packages you can actually get, you know, it can be divided between property, between shares, between stock, whatever you want. You can manage it yourself or you can have it managed as well. But the law is you cannot take the money out until you are sixty five. So if you think about this, that's eleven per cent of what every single person is earning. Often families pool their superannuation together, their super, and that is all being invested. It's all being pumped throughout the economy constantly. Yes, it's kind of been pulled out of services and so on and so forth but it's going through. It's providing developmental initiatives and all sorts of stuff like that. So I think that's one of the reasons.

還有一個(gè)我認(rèn)為是澳大利亞推出的最令人興奮的計(jì)劃，那就是退休金計(jì)劃。這是一項(xiàng)強(qiáng)制措施，你要將收入的11%存入一個(gè)儲(chǔ)蓄帳戶，隨后這筆錢會(huì)用于投資。你可以從投資計(jì)劃中獲益，可以將這筆錢分別投資于房地產(chǎn)、股份、股票。你可以自己管理，也可以找別人管理。不過(guò)法律規(guī)定，65歲以前不能將錢取出。你可以想一下，那實(shí)際上是一個(gè)人收入的11%。通常一個(gè)家庭會(huì)把養(yǎng)老金放在一起，然后用于投資。這會(huì)不斷地為經(jīng)濟(jì)注入活力。雖然這項(xiàng)服務(wù)要拿出收入的一部分，但是確實(shí)有益。它提供了發(fā)展倡議。我認(rèn)為這也是其中一個(gè)原因。

I certainly think that we're going to have better standards of living than our parents will unlike so many countries in the world which will just fall flat because they haven't got the structure, the social and the economic architecture to look after themselves in the next couple of years.

我確信我們的生活水平會(huì)好于我們父母那代，我們不會(huì)像世界上許多國(guó)家那樣失敗，因?yàn)樗鼈儧]有可以在未來(lái)幾年繼續(xù)發(fā)展的社會(huì)結(jié)構(gòu)和經(jīng)濟(jì)結(jié)構(gòu)。