【经济学人】迅速赚大钱丨2017.02.11丨总第809期

DISPOSING of government assets is a risky business. Despite his claim to have “saved the world” in 2008 by averting the collapse of the British banking industry, many voters instead remember Gordon Brown as the dupe who flogged Britain’s gold when prices were at a historical low. Now Jo Johnson, the universities minister, must hope for better luck. On February 6th he set out a plan to sell a slice of the student debt held by the government. It is a pioneering move: Britain is the first country to hawk income-contingent student loans to private investors.

处理政府资产是一笔有风险的买卖。即使戈登-布朗声称在2008年通过避免英国银行业的崩溃来拯救世界，许多选民反而把他看成当金价于历史最低点时把英国黄金抛售的骗子。如今，教育部长乔-约翰逊一定期望好运。在2月6日，他开始计划卖掉一部份政府持有的学生贷款。这是一次创新之举：英国成为第一个将按收入比例还款型的学生贷款兜售给私人投资者的国家。

• Hawk：vt.     通过叫卖主动兜售（货物）; 清除嗓子中的（痰）;vi.   叫卖; 清嗓，咳痰; 用训练好的鹰狩猎; 象鹰一样俯冲攻击
  

The proposed sale has been a decade in the making. In 2008 the Labour government passed the Sale of Student Loans Act, which laid the legal groundwork. The deal’s complexity is the main reason for the delay. It would involve around £4bn ($5bn) of loans made to nearly half a million students, who began making repayments between 2002 and 2006. There is little certainty about the repayment schedule: graduates pay money back only when they cross an earnings threshold, currently £17,495. They pay 9% of their earnings above the level; interest is the lower of inflation or the base rate plus one percentage point. All this makes it hard to work out what the loans are worth.

这次兜售提议在过去十年间不断完善。在2008年，工党政府递交了学生贷款出手的法案，这奠定了合法的基础。这个提案的复杂程度是其被推迟的主要原因，因为这将会涉及近乎的40亿英镑（约50亿美元）贷款——由50名万学生产生并且在2002年到2006年之间就已经开始进行还贷工作。有一点不确定的就是还款计划：大学毕业生只有当他们的收入超过17,495英镑的门槛时才需要还款。他们一般支付超过收入门槛以上的9%的额度，并且利率为通货膨胀率或基本利率的较低值再加上1%。这一切让人们很难算出这些贷款的价值。

• lay the groundwork：打基础; 奠定基础
  

The deal would involve slightly less than 10% of the student debt the government holds from before the tuition-fee system was changed in 2012. If all goes well it is expected to sell further tranches of the debt. Selling it gradually is sensible, says Nicholas Barr of the London School of Economics, since nobody has much idea how it will work out.

这项提案将涉及稍低于10%在学费体系于2012年改革之前政府所持有的学生贷款。如果一切顺利的话，预计会进一步处理这些贷款。伦敦政经学院的尼古拉斯-巴尔表示，一步步处理这些贷款是很明智的，因为没有人知道这一切会如何演变。

Opposition to the sale has been building for some time. In 2014 the National Union of Students warned the government against flogging the debt to “some unscrupulous, bowler hatted, fat-cat profiteers.” More recently, critics have worried that graduates may lose out if the purchaser of the debt decided to tinker with the terms of their loans.

反对出售学生贷款的呼声已经兴起了一段时间。在2014年，全国学生联合会警告政府不要贩售这些学生贷款给那些不择手段、冠冕堂皇、一夜暴富、唯利是图的人。最近，批评家担心，如果学生贷款的卖家决定去利用贷款中的条款胡作为非，那么这些大学毕业生可能会赔个精光。

• Unscrupulous：adj.    肆无忌惮的，不择手段的，无道德原则的; 没有节操的; 恣意
  

The government has promised that there will be no such changes. That means graduates may in fact benefit from the sale. If the terms of the loans are fixed, the government would no longer be able to fiddle with them, as George Osborne, then chancellor, did with a different generation of student loans in 2015. But, notes Nick Hillman of the Higher Education Policy Institute, it would also be harder for a future government to relax the conditions, perhaps as part of a pre-election giveaway.

政府已经做出承诺，人们所担心的变化不会发生。这表示，实际上大学毕业生可能从交易中获益。如果贷款中的条款定下，政府将不再能够恣意修改，因为原财政大臣乔治-奥斯本在2015年推行了新一代的学生贷款。但是，高等教育政策研究所的尼克-希尔曼提到，未来政府也许会更难以缓解这种情况，这可能会成为预选提问过程中的一环。

• fiddle with     摆弄; 拨弄; 乱动; 搬弄
  

A bigger worry is that the taxpayer will get a bad deal. When a previous government sold a more straightforward form of student debt from the 1990s, the hope was that the buyer would be more tenacious when chasing delinquent graduates. Since repayment is now deducted straight from pay-packets, there is no obvious way for investors to whip the regime into better shape. And buyers are likely to be leery of income-contingent loans because of the difficulty in assessing their value and because they are an unfamiliar form of debt, says Mr Barr. The government is simply swapping a future flow of income for cash today, and will probably pay to do so.

更令人担忧的是纳税人会得到不公平的待遇。（“期待您的翻译，将您的理解留言在文章下方留言处，第二天将会有长难句解析哟~”。）因为现在还款直接从薪水账户扣除，投资者没有明确办法来完善此种体制。另外，巴尔表示，卖家可能对按收入比例回报的贷款心存疑虑，因为很难去评估其中的价值以及这些是不常见的贷款。政府仅仅就是用未来收入流动来交换今天的现金，他们很可能为其买单。

• tenacious：adj.  顽强的; 黏着力强的; 坚决的; （记忆力） 持久的

• leery：adj.   机敏的; 机警的; 猜疑的; 留神的

翻译 ▍ E-J-1-2  Arias

审核 ▍QQ

编辑 ▍hua外音