-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
There are new worries about the consequences of the U.S. government shutdown. The Treasury1 Department says failure to reach a deal on the country’s financial obligations, including the debt ceiling, could plunge2 the U.S. economy into a recession. On Thursday, the International Monetary3 Fund said that, without a deal soon, the ongoing4 fiscal5 problems of the United States could drag the rest of the world with it.
The economic cost of the country’s first government shutdown in 17 years is staggering. One estimate pegs6 the daily losses to businesses, tourism and lost wages at $300 million a day - or $1.6 billion each week..
And that’s just the shutdown. The bigger worry is a possible impasse7 over the government's debt ceiling.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde:
“The government shutdown is bad enough, but failure to raise the debt ceiling would be far worse and could very seriously damage not only the U.S. economy but also the entire global economy," she said.
If lawmakers don’t reach a deal to raise the country’s $16.7 trillion debt limit, the Treasury Department says the U.S. will run out of money to pay its obligations by October 17.
If that happens, investors8 would lose faith in the U.S. economy, the value of the dollar would plunge, interest rates would soar and unemployment would rise.
Tony Crescenzi is an investment manager at Pimco.
“It is a serious matter, defaulting. And markets, while they assign a very low probability and so would we, are starting to worry a little bit because of the lack of getting together, the acrimony that exists in Washington," said Crescenzi.
On Wall Street, the stock sell-off intensified10 Thursday, after Republicans and Democrats11 emerged from a White House meeting no closer to an agreement than when they started.
Adding to the frustration12, the Labor13 Department says monthly job numbers, an important indicator14 of U.S. economic health, will not be released as planned on Friday.
Without that data, Stan Collender, the head of the financial communications firm Qorvis, says the Federal Reserve is now more likely to delay plans to scale back its monetary stimulus15.
“The lack of a jobs report probably freezes the Fed in place, unless they’ve got their own information and they may very well have what would indicate what the jobs report might have been," said Collender.
Given the likely financial impact of the shutdown, Collender says keeping the stimulus in place is a good thing. But the daily uncertainty16 carries a heavy price for U.S. businesses. Retailers17 are worried that a prolonged shutdown could make consumers anxious. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the country’s economic output.
点击收听单词发音
1 treasury | |
n.宝库;国库,金库;文库 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 monetary | |
adj.货币的,钱的;通货的;金融的;财政的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 ongoing | |
adj.进行中的,前进的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 fiscal | |
adj.财政的,会计的,国库的,国库岁入的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 pegs | |
n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 );挂钉;系帐篷的桩;弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 );使固定在某水平 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 impasse | |
n.僵局;死路 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 investors | |
n.投资者,出资者( investor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 scenario | |
n.剧本,脚本;概要 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 intensified | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 democrats | |
n.民主主义者,民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 frustration | |
n.挫折,失败,失效,落空 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 indicator | |
n.指标;指示物,指示者;指示器 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 stimulus | |
n.刺激,刺激物,促进因素,引起兴奋的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 uncertainty | |
n.易变,靠不住,不确知,不确定的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 retailers | |
零售商,零售店( retailer的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|