The Pandemic Has Been a Windfall for Billionaires

American billionaires are the biggest winners of the coronavirus pandemic.

 By Tim Smart, Contributing Editor Feb. 24, 2021, at 11:53 a.m.

Windfall : n./ˈwɪndfɔːl/  1.意外之财；意外获得的东西•windfall profits 意外的利润•The government imposed a windfall tax (= a tax on profits to be paid once only, not every year) on some industries. 政府对某些行业征收暴利税。2.风吹落的果子（尤指苹果）

The coronavirus numbers are staggering.

Half a million dead, more than 28 million cases just in America alone.

But here's another number that is certainly eyebrow-raising: $4.2 trillion. That's the combined wealth of America's 664 billionaires as the one-year anniversary of the pandemic's assault on America nears. Not that they were suffering beforehand, but that number is 44%, or $1.3 trillion, more than just a year ago.

确诊新冠的人数令人震惊！仅美国就有50万新冠死亡人数，超过2800万确诊人数。但是还有一项令人吃惊的数字：4.2万亿美元。这是美国664位亿万富翁在疫情袭击美国一周年之际的财富总和。这并不是说他们之前就遭受了损失，这个数字比一年前多44%，或者说是多1.3万亿美元。

staggering  adj. /ˈstæɡərɪŋ/ 令人难以相信的

eyebrow-raising:直译是抬眉，意思是令人惊讶的，惊骇世俗的

The numbers are courtesy of an analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies based on data from Forbes. And it is a stark reflection of the way in which this recession has been a tale of haves and have nots.

这些数据是美国税收公平协会和政策研究所基于《福布斯》的数据所做的分析得出的。这也鲜明地反映出，这次经济衰退是一个关于富人和穷人的故事。

courtesy of：经由…提供…；承蒙…的好意；由于…

stark /stɑːk/ 1.了无修饰的；荒凉的；粗陋的 •I think white would be too stark for the bedroom. 我觉得卧室里用白色未免太素了。2.严酷的；赤裸裸的；真实而无法回避的 •a stark choice 残酷的选择 ；3.（指区别）明显的，鲜明的 •stark differences 鲜明的区别  4.完全的；十足的 •The children watched in stark terror. 孩子们极端恐惧地看着。

Millions of service industry workers, especially in the hospitality, leisure and restaurant industries are struggling to pay rent or make ends meet even with more than $3 trillion in coronavirus relief from Washington. At the same time, homeowners and holders of financial assets like stocks have seen their holdings increase in value at record rates.

数以百万计的服务行业工人，尤其是酒店、休闲和餐饮行业的工作人员，即使联邦政府提供了超过3万亿美元的新冠救济，但他们仍旧苦苦挣扎于支付租金或维持收支平衡。与此同时，房主和股票等金融资产的持有者看到他们所持资产的价值以创纪录的速度增长。

make ends meet even ：收支均衡

"It is unseemly that billionaires have experienced such gains as we mark half a million lives lost and millions more have lost their health, wealth and jobs," said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality at the IPS.

“亿万富翁们获得这些财富是不合适的，因为我们有50万人失去了生命，还有数百万人失去了健康、财富和工作，”IPS的不平等项目主任查克·柯林斯(Chuck Collins)说。

unseemly  adj. /ʌnˈsiːmli/ (行为等) 不礼貌的；不得体的；不相宜的

Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, put the disparity in outcomes from the pandemic in political terms at a time when Congress is debating President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion relief plan.

美国税收公平组织(Americans for Tax Fairness)执行主任弗兰克•克莱门特(Frank Clemente)在国会就美国总统拜登(Joe Biden)提出的1.9万亿美元减税计划进行辩论之际，用政治术语描述了疫情造成的贫富差异。

disparity  n. /dɪˈspærəti/（尤指因不公正对待引起的）不同，不等，差异，悬殊 •the wide disparity between rich and poor 贫富悬殊

"Even as Congressional Republicans try to nickel-and-dime suffering Americans by opposing President Biden's American Rescue Plan, including its $1,400 relief checks, American billionaires have reaped $1.3 trillion in pandemic profits."

“尽管国会的共和党人试图通过反对拜登总统的美国救援计划，包括反对1400美元的救济支票，消耗受苦受难的美国人。但是美国的亿万富翁们却从新冠大流行中收割了1.3万亿美元的疫情利润。”

nickel-and-dime /ˌnɪkl ən ˈdaɪm/：1.耗尽 • A bad contractor may hide mistakes or blame someone else and nickel-and-dime you with extra charges.  一个不道德的承包商可能会隐瞒自身的失误或归咎他人，以额外的收费耗尽你的经费。2.只涉小钱的；微不足道的 •a number of nickel-and-dime jobs – janitor, pastry chef, window washer. 一些无足轻重的工作：看门人、糕点师、擦窗工。

Most of the outsized gains the billionaire class has seen come from the record rise in the stock market and largely reflects paper wealth that could just as soon disappear if the market turns south. The richest of the rich are world-famous entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, who were founders of companies that have been among the most successful – and profitable – in history. Namely, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.

亿万富翁阶层的巨额收益大多来自股市创纪录的上涨，大部分都是账面财富，如果股市下跌，这些账面财富可能很快就会消失。富豪中富豪是世界闻名的企业家，如埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)、比尔·盖茨(Bill Gates)、杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)和马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)，他们创立的公司都是历史上最成功、最赚钱的公司之一。也就是特斯拉、微软、亚马逊和Facebook。

These captains of modern industry often take their pay in stock rather than wages, so when the market goes up, their wealth rises. Still, the one-year return for the S&P 500, typically used as a proxy for the overall market, is just a little over 15%. The Nasdaq index, which has a much higher proportion of technology companies in its makeup, including the four tech titans, is up 50% from one year ago.

这些现代工业巨头的工资通常以股票而不是工资的形式支付，所以当市场上涨时，他们的财富也会增加。不过，标准普尔500指数通常被用来衡量整个市场的一年回报率，也仅略高于15%。纳斯达克指数较一年前上涨了50%，其中包括四大科技巨头在内的科技公司所占比例要高得多。

Proxy n.   /ˈprɒksi/  1.代理权；代表权 •a proxy vote 由他人代投的票；2. ~ (for sb) 代理人；受托人；代表 •She is acting as proxy for her husband. 她做她丈夫的代表。3.[ C ] (术语) ~ for sth ( formal )（测算用的）代替物，指标

According to the analysis by the two nonprofit groups, Musk led the pack with a gain of nearly $158 billion, followed by Bezos at $76.3 billion, Zuckerberg at $41 billion and Gates at $25.7 billion. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin grew their wealth by $79 billion while heirs to the Walmart fortune saw their wealth rise by $31.5 billion.

根据这两家非营利组织的分析，马斯克以近1580亿美元的收入位居榜首，贝佐斯以763亿美元的收入紧随其后，扎克伯格和比尔盖茨分别以410亿美元和257亿美元的收入位居第三、第四。谷歌创始人拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林的财富增加了790亿美元，沃尔玛(Walmart)的继承人财富增加了315亿美元。

Heir：继承人

Legendary investor Warren Buffett, who said in a 2007 interview that he paid a total tax rate of 17.7% compared to the average tax for people who worked for him of 32.9%, saw his wealth increase by more than $24 billion. He has long argued for a simpler and fairer tax system.

传奇投资家巴菲特(Warren Buffett)的财富增长了240多亿美元。巴菲特在2007年的一次采访中说，他缴纳的总税率为17.7%，而为他工作的人的平均税率为32.9%。他一直主张建立一个更简单、更公平的税收体系。

Buffett and other wealthy Americans often pay lower tax rates, though not actually lower taxes as measured in dollars, because they pay the 15% rate levied on capital gains from the sale of assets rather than on wages which are taxed at various rates typically close to twice that level.

巴菲特和其他富有的美国人通常支付较低的税率，尽管按美元计算并不是更低的税率，因为他们支付的税率是对出售资产的资本利得征收的15%，而不是对工资征收的15%，工资的税率不同，通常接近这一水平的两倍。

Some free-market advocates argue that wealthy entrepreneurs are willing to take outsize risks and therefore reap outsize rewards while exposing themselves to potential losses. Musk, for example, has bet heavily on electric vehicles and private space exploration, costly ventures that few could underwrite. Similarly, Gates and former Apple chief Steve Jobs helped launch the technological revolution of the personal computer. Many have given heavily to charitable causes. Gates, in particular, has championed and funded vaccine research and deployment especially in poor countries.

一些自由市场的拥护者认为，富有的企业家愿意冒巨大的风险，因此在冒着潜在的损失的同时收获巨大的回报。例如，马斯克在电动汽车和私人太空探索上押下了重注，这些投资成本高昂，很少有人能够承担。同样，盖茨和苹果公司前首席执行官史蒂夫·乔布斯发起了个人电脑的技术革命。许多人给慈善事业捐了一大笔钱。特别是盖茨，他支持并资助了疫苗的研究和部署，特别是在贫穷国家。

原文链接：https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2021-02-24/the-pandemic-has-been-a-windfall-for-billionai