Compounding inequality

加剧不平等

India’s super-rich are getting much richer

印度的超级富豪正变得越来越富有

Even as the economy shrinks by a tenth

即使经济萎缩了十分之一

Dec 5th 2020 | DELHI

OME PEOPLE have almost all the luck. Over the past year, as India’s economy has shrunk by around a tenth and tens of millions of Indians have lost jobs or sunk into poverty, the fortunes of the country’s two richest people have swollen. Gautam Adani, whose conglomerate sprawls from ports to coal mines to food, has seen his personal wealth more than double, to some $32bn. Mukesh Ambani’s riches, which derive from oil refining, telecoms and retail, among other things, have grown by just 25%, albeit to an intimidating $75bn or so.

有些人几乎拥有所有的运气。过去一年里，随着印度经济缩水约十分之一，数千万印度人失去工作或陷入贫困，（但）印度最富有的两个人的财富开始膨胀。Gautam Adani的企业集团业务遍及港口、煤矿和食品等领域，他的个人财富增长了一倍多，达到约320亿美元。Mukesh Ambani的财富来自炼油、电信和零售等行业，尽管已达到令人生畏的750亿美元左右，但仅增长了25%。

词汇

 Swollen/膨胀；隆起

Conglomerate/企业集团

 oil refining/炼油

albeit / 虽然，尽管

 intimidating /使人望而生畏的态度；令人紧张不安的

  

 

The share of wealth and income going to the top 1% has been rising rapidly in recent years in India, as it has been in many countries. Last year they hoovered up 21.4% of earnings, just ahead of their counterparts in Russia, according to the World Inequality Database. Credit Suisse, a bank, puts their share of India’s wealth at 39%, well ahead of the richest 1% of Americans or Chinese. Most alarmingly, in India some of the rich have become super-rich by using their heft to crush smaller competitors and thus corner multiple chunks of the economy. The tilt in fortunes has rewarded not so much technical innovation or productivity growth or the opening of new markets as the wielding of political influence and privileged access to capital to capture and protect existing markets.

与许多国家一样，印度最富有的1%人群在财富和收入中所占的比例近年来一直在迅速上升。根据世界不平等数据库(World Inequality Database)的数据，去年他们的收入增长了21.4%，略高于俄罗斯同行。瑞士信贷银行认为他们占印度财富的39%，远高于美国和中国最富有的1%。最令人担忧的是，在印度，一些富人利用自己的影响力碾压较小的竞争对手，从而成为超级富豪，从而垄断了经济的多个领域。财富的倾斜所带来的回报，与其说是技术创新、生产率增长或新市场的开放，不如说是政治影响力的发挥和获得资本的特权，以获取和保护现有市场。

词汇

 hoover up/聚集

 tilt / 倾斜，翘起

 

Merely a decade ago, according to data compiled by Marcellus, an investment-advice firm, among listed firms in India the 20 most profitable generated less than a third of profits. They now account for 70%. A study by Krishna Kant, a journalist, reveals that between 2014 and 2018 competition within ten different industries, from aviation to tyres, deteriorated markedly.

根据投资咨询公司Marcellus汇编的数据，仅仅在十年前，在印度上市公司中，利润最高的20家公司所创造的利润还不到三分之一。现在他们占了70%。记者Krishna Kant的一项研究显示，2014年至2018年间，从航空到轮胎，十个不同行业的竞争明显恶化。

词汇

 Aviation/航空

 Tyre/ 轮胎

 

Across Indian markets, only the shares of giant firms have gained consistently over the past decade, says Rohit Chandra of IIT Delhi, a university. International investors have noticed, and now bet increasingly not on promising new firms but on big old ones, which they expect to get even bigger. The government boasts that the five months from April to August saw a record $36bn in foreign investment, suggesting that its wise policies have sustained confidence during the covid-19 epidemic. What it trumpets less loudly is that more than half of that money, including hefty investments from Facebook and Google, poured into Mr Ambani’s hands alone.

印度理工学院德里分校的Rohit Chandra说，在过去的十年里，印度市场上只有大公司的股票持续上涨。国际投资者已经注意到了这一点，他们现在越来越多地不再把赌注押在有前途的新公司上，而是押在那些他们希望变得更大的老公司上。政府夸耀说，从4月到8月的5个月里，外国投资达到创纪录的360亿美元，表明其明智的政策在新冠疫情期间保持了信心。但它不那么高调宣扬的是，其中超过一半的资金，包括来自Facebook和谷歌的巨额投资，都流入了Ambani（开篇提及的印度最富有两人之一）的手中。

It is easy to understand why. Things have a way of turning out as Mr Ambani wishes. Back in 2016, for instance, the tycoon used his massive earnings from petrochemicals to take a $25bn gamble, plunging into the maturing mobile-phone market. His timing was Exquisite. Just as he rolled out a free service to lure customers, the government withdrew 86% of the country’s paper currency, leaving most of India strapped for cash and eager to find savings. Rival companies also found themselves burdened by lawsuits and crushing penalties for back taxes. Regulators ignored complaints. “If his firm were Chinese it would have been charged with dumping,” says one economist.

原因很容易理解。事情会按照 Ambani先生的意愿发展。例如，早在2016年，这位大亨就利用他从石化行业获得的巨额利润进行了一场250亿美元的赌博，进军成熟的手机市场。他的时机把握得非常巧妙。就在他推出一项吸引顾客的免费服务时，政府取出了印度86%的纸币，这使得印度大部分地区现金短缺，迫切希望找到储蓄。竞争对手也发现自己被诉讼和补缴税款的沉重罚金所累。监管机构忽略了投诉。一位经济学家说:“如果他的公司是中国的，就会被指控倾销。”

词汇

Tycoon/企业界大亨，巨头；巨富

Exquisite/精致的；细腻的

 

 

Mr Adani enjoys a similar Midas touch. In early 2019 his group, which controls around a quarter of India’s port capacity, ventured into a new field when the government tendered six 50-year airport-management contracts. Competing against established firms, Mr Adani nevertheless won all six. He has since bought two more, including a 74% share in Mumbai airport, India’s second-busiest. More recently, Mr Adani has counterbalanced big stakes in coal-fired power with lots of renewable energy, winning a $6bn government contract in June for various solar projects. The share price of Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary, has risen tenfold since March.

Adani也有类似的点石成金的本领。2019年初，他的集团进入了一个新领域，政府竞标了6份为期50年的机场管理合同。该集团控制着印度约四分之一的港口运力。尽管与老牌公司竞争，Adani还是赢得了全部6个合同。此后，他又收购了另外两家机场，其中包括印度第二大机场孟买机场74%的股份。最近，Adani用大量可再生能源来平衡燃煤发电的巨大股份，今年6月，他赢得了一份60亿美元的政府合同，负责多个太阳能项目。自3月份以来，子公司Adani Green Energy的股价已经上涨了10倍。

词汇

Tenfold/十倍的；十重的

 Subsidiary/ 子公司；附属机构

Some of India’s tycoons have prospered because they have learned not just to weather unpredictability, but to game the system. That system, alas, is failing India’s poor. Measures of malnutrition and stunting reveal an alarming backward slide over the past year. The unemployment rate shows some recovery from the worst of the covid shock, but that fails to capture the astonishing bleakness of India’s labour market. Before covid hit, barely 40% of adults were in paid work, according to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy, a research firm. Now only 36% are. The rest, including legions of housewives, see no point in even looking for a job. ■

印度的一些大亨之所以能够兴旺发达，是因为他们不仅学会了应对不可预测性，还学会了玩弄体制。唉，这个体系让印度的穷人失望了。营养不良和发育不良的指标显示，（印度）过去一年出现了令人担忧的倒退。失业率显示出从新冠冲击最糟糕的时期有所复苏，但这未能反映出印度劳动力市场令人震惊的低迷。根据研究公司印度经济监控中心的数据，在新冠爆发之前，仅有40%的成年人有带薪工作。现在只有36%。其余的人，包括大量的家庭主妇，甚至认为找工作都没有意义。■

词汇

Malnutrition/营养失调，营养不良

 Stunting/发育障碍短小症