TED演讲:如何用创新来克服危机?(8)

Here is GDP per capita from 1900 to 1929. Now let's imagine that you were an economist¹ in 1929, trying to forecast future growth for the United States,

这是人均国内生产总值从1900年到1929年。让我们想象一下，在1929年，如果你是一位经济学家试图预测美国的未来经济增长率，

not knowing that the economy was about to go off a cliff, not knowing that we were about to enter the greatest economic disaster certainly in the 20th century.

你还不知道美国经济即将猛降。不知道我们即将进入20世纪最重大的经济灾难期。

What would you have predicted, not knowing this? If you had based your prediction, your forecast on 1900 to 1929 you'd have predicted something like this.

不知道这些情况，你会怎样预测呢？如果你的预测是根据1900年至1929年的平均增长速度，你预测的结果大概是这样。

If you'd been a little more optimistic -- say, based upon the Roaring Twenties -- you'd have said this.

如果你更乐观一点，根据兴隆的20年代来预测，你会得到这个结论。

So what actually happened? We went off a cliff but we recovered.

那么实际情况如何呢？我们掉下了悬崖，但我们恢复过来了。

In fact in the second half of the 20th century growth was even higher than anything you would have predicted based upon the first half of the 20th century.

事实上，20世纪下半叶的增长速度远远超过了任何预测，如果你的预测是基于20世纪上半叶的数据。

So growth can wash away even what appears to be a great depression.

所以说，经济增长可以冲走大萧条造成的损失。

Alright. What else? Oil. Oil. This was a big topic. When I was writing up my notes oil was $140 per barrel. So people were asking a question.

好。还有什么值得考虑的呢？石油。石油。这是一个大课题。当我在准备这个讲演的时候，石油是140美元一桶。所以，大家都在想一个问题。

They were saying, "Is China drinking our milkshake?" And there is some truth to this, in the sense that we have something of a finite² resource,

他们在问，“中国在喝我们的奶昔么？”这是有一定的道理的。如果考虑到有限的资源。

and increased growth is going to push up demand for that. But I think I don't have to tell this audience that a higher price of oil is not necessarily a bad thing.

随着经济增长的加快，对资源的需求也会增加。但我认为在坐的观众不用我讲就明白，石油价格增长并不一定是一件坏事。

1 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

2 finite   

adj.有限的，有限制的，限定的

参考例句：

• These are the finite forms of a verb.这些是一个动词的限定形式。
• Human understanding is finite.人的理解力是有限的。