欢迎光临散文网 会员登陆 & 注册

NPR英语播客|美国邮政系统为何负债累累?the Indicator 商业经济P

2023-07-25 12:38 作者:汤圆学英语  | 我要投稿

【Indicator-07.20期】官方文字稿-双语

【机翻,仅供参考】

官方链接:https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1189056817

Topic:A first-class postal economics primer

SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: NPR. 西尔维·道格利斯连线:NPR。

(SOUNDBITE OF DROP ELECTRIC SONG, "WAKING UP TO THE FIRE")

(Drop 电歌原声片段“Wakeing Up to the Fire”)

ADRIAN MA, HOST:  马德良,主持人:

Darian, do you have any postage stamps in your house?

达里安,你家里有邮票吗?

DARIAN WOODS, HOST:  达里安·伍兹,主持人:

I have some in my wallet right now.

我现在钱包里有一些。

MA: Oh, yeah? What kind? 马:哦,是吗?哪一种?

WOODS: Just getting some out - this one is a summer fun edition, so somebody's playing baseball.

伍兹:只是拿出一些 - 这是夏季趣味版,所以有人在打棒球。

MA: Which is very (laughter) - any kind of sports feels like an un-Darian choice.

MA:这非常(笑声)——任何类型的运动都感觉像是非达里安式的选择。

WOODS: I have watched one baseball game in my life, and I have the stamp to prove it.

伍兹:我一生中看过一场棒球比赛,我有印记来证明这一点。

MA: When did you get those stamps, if I may ask?

MA:请问你什么时候得到这些邮票的?

WOODS: About a year ago. 伍兹:大约一年前。

MA: OK. Well, you have in your hands, my friend, a rapidly appreciating asset.

马:好的。好吧,我的朋友,你手中拥有的是一项快速升值的资产。

WOODS: Oh, really? 伍兹:哦,真的吗?

MA: Congratulations. Yeah. Forever stamps - they started this year at 60 cents a pop. It was then raised to 63 cents. And then just over a week ago, the price was raised once again to 66 cents. That is a 10% gain in just half a year.

马:恭喜。是的。永久邮票 - 今年开始发行,每张 60 美分。然后它被提高到63美分。然后就在一周多前,价格再次上涨至 66 美分。也就是说,短短半年时间就上涨了10%。

WOODS: All right. That's better than the actual money in my wallet...

伍兹:好吧。这比我钱包里的钱还要好……

MA: (Laughter).

WOODS: ...Which has lost value to inflation.

伍兹:……这已经因通货膨胀而失去了价值。

MA: It's pretty good, right? MA:非常好,对吧?

WOODS: I mean, it's pretty good for those who have stamps. But, you know, when I next need to buy stamps, that's unfortunate.

伍兹:我的意思是,这对于那些有邮票的人来说非常好。但是,你知道,当我下次需要购买邮票时,那就很不幸了。

MA: Womp-womp. But seriously, though, Darian, when you take into account inflation, it actually costs less to send a letter today than it did 100 years ago.

MA:呜呜呜。但说实话,达里安,当你考虑到通货膨胀时,今天寄信的成本实际上比 100 年前要低。

WOODS: So no complaining then. 伍兹:所以没有抱怨。

MA: And this is at least partly why the Postal Service has basically not turned a profit in the last decade and a half. This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Adrian Ma.

MA:这至少是邮政服务在过去十五年里基本上没有盈利的部分原因。这是地球货币的指标。我是阿德里安·马。

WOODS: And I'm Darian Woods. There is a fascinating history behind the Postal Service's current economic woes. And so today on the show, we're going to get into it. And our guest explains how the U.S. mail went from being a public service to being a struggling quasi-business.

伍兹:我是达里安·伍兹。邮政服务当前的经济困境背后有一段令人着迷的历史。所以今天在节目中,我们将深入探讨它。我们的嘉宾解释了美国邮政如何从一项公共服务转变为一项苦苦挣扎的准企业。

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) (音乐原声片段)

WOODS: To get the back story on the Postal Service, we reached out to Richard John. He's a preeminent postal nerd. He's the author of a book on the history of the postal system.

伍兹:为了了解邮政服务的背景故事,我们联系了理查德·约翰。他是一位杰出的邮政书呆子。他是一本关于邮政系统历史的书的作者。

MA: And there might be parts where I might interrupt.

MA:有些部分我可能会打断。

RICHARD JOHN: That's fine. I teach at a journalism school, so I've seen how this goes (laughter).

理查德·约翰: 没关系。我在一所新闻学院任教,所以我亲眼目睹了事情的进展(笑声)。

MA: OK.

Yeah. And, Darian, we should mention that Richard is also a professor of history at Columbia University, where I actually took a history of journalism class with him. And I'm a little embarrassed to say that I did not immediately recall this fact when we first started talking.

是的。而且,达里安,我们应该提到理查德也是哥伦比亚大学的历史学教授,我实际上在那里和他一起上了新闻史课。我有点不好意思地说,当我们第一次开始交谈时,我并没有立即回忆起这一事实。

JOHN: Yeah. I'm the guy who's giving that lecture, and you're falling asleep, and you don't remember anything - 2016, that's me.

约翰:是的。我是那个演讲的人,你睡着了,你什么都不记得了——2016 年,那就是我。

MA: (Laughter) There was... MA:(笑声)有……

I was not the best student, apparently.

显然我不是最好的学生。

WOODS: Richard says that the story of the U.S. Postal Service begins in 1792. The country is brand new, and the U.S. Constitution's ink is barely dry.

伍兹:理查德说,美国邮政服务的故事始于 1792 年。这个国家是全新的,美国宪法的墨迹才刚刚干。

MA: And it has this line in it giving Congress the power to set up a postal system. And from the very start, Richard says they made a pretty interesting economic choice.

MA:其中有这样一句话,赋予国会建立邮政系统的权力。理查德说,从一开始他们就做出了一个非常有趣的经济选择。

JOHN: Newspapers and other printed items carrying information of public import were charged at much lower rates than letters. So letters, in effect, subsidized everybody's newspapers.

约翰:报纸和其他带有公共重要信息的印刷品的收费比信件低得多。因此,信件实际上资助了每个人的报纸。

MA: So from its inception, the U.S. postal system had this high-minded purpose to stitch together the young republic through information and communication. But, you know, launching a high-minded, continental information network in a rapidly expanding country turned out to be super freaking expensive.

MA:因此,从一开始,美国邮政系统就有一个崇高的目标,即通过信息和通信将这个年轻的共和国缝合在一起。但是,你知道,在一个快速扩张的国家启动一个高尚的大陆信息网络结果是极其昂贵的。

WOODS: So to help out with that, Congress in the 1800s grants the Post Office Department a monopoly over letters. Letter mail was the bulk of its revenue. And while some lawmakers opposed the idea of a monopoly, Richard says they came around in the end.

伍兹:为了解决这个问题,国会在 1800 年代授予邮局部门对信件的垄断权。信件邮件是其收入的主要部分。虽然一些立法者反对垄断的想法,但理查德说他们最终改变了立场。

JOHN: The compromise in 1845 was that postal rates for letters were dropped significantly. It's kind of a carrot and stick. We'll make it much cheaper to send letters, but we will enforce the monopoly.

约翰:1845 年的妥协是信件的邮寄费率大幅下降。这有点像胡萝卜加大棒。我们将使寄信变得更加便宜,但我们将加强垄断。

WOODS: Even with this monopoly power, though, the Post Office Department still struggled to break even. Congress often had to appropriate taxpayer dollars to help keep it running.

伍兹:尽管如此,邮局部门仍然难以实现收支平衡。国会经常不得不拨款纳税人的钱来帮助维持其运转。

MA: So if I'm understanding everything you're saying so far, for most of the Postal Service's life, it was understood as an operation that would probably lose money most years, but that's OK because it serves a very vital public function.

MA:所以,如果我理解你到目前为止所说的一切,在邮政服务的大部分时间里,它被理解为一项可能在大多数年份都亏损的业务,但这没关系,因为它服务于非常重要的公共职能。

JOHN: I mean, do public schools lose money? It just wasn't an issue. It was vital to the project of democracy, civilization, socialization, commerce.

约翰:我的意思是,公立学校会赔钱吗?这根本不是问题。它对于民主、文明、社会化、商业的工程至关重要。

MA: But this attitude began to change around the 1960s. At the time, there was growing concern over patronage, which is basically local congressmen doling out post office jobs to their friends. There was also labor unrest, which culminated in a 1970 postal worker strike, and this series of events helped spark in some politicians a growing antipathy towards this nearly two-century-old bureaucracy. They thought, why can't the postal system operate more like a business?

MA:但这种态度在 20 世纪 60 年代左右开始发生变化。当时,人们越来越担心赞助,这基本上是当地国会议员向他们的朋友提供邮局工作。此外还发生了劳工骚乱,最终导致 1970 年的邮政工人罢工,这一系列事件引发了一些政客对这个近两个世纪历史的官僚机构日益增长的反感。他们想,为什么邮政系统不能更像企业一样运作呢?

JOHN: If you asked that question in the 1880s, you asked it in the 1930s, lawmakers responded, no, it shouldn't be a business. It's more important than a business. The question - should the post office be more like a business? - is a modern question.

约翰:如果你在 1880 年代问这个问题,那么你在 1930 年代也问过这个问题,立法者的回答是,不,这不应该是一个企业。它比生意更重要。问题是——邮局应该更像一个企业吗? ——这是一个现代问题。

WOODS: In 1970, a lot of lawmakers decided the answer should be yes - should be more like a business. They passed the Postal Reorganization Act. With it, the Post Office Department became the Postal Service, and it had a new mandate to operate more like a self-sustaining business.

伍兹:1970 年,许多立法者认为答案应该是肯定的——应该更像是一家企业。他们通过了《邮政重组法》。有了它,邮局部门成为了邮政服务,并且它有了新的使命,更像是一个自给自足的企业来运作。

MA: Yeah. It can no longer depend on Congress to, you know, grease the wheels of the system with federal dollars. It would basically have to survive by selling stamps and other services. But this has become increasingly difficult over time. So, for instance, over the past couple decades, as more people started communicating and paying bills and getting news online, the volume of mail delivered by USPS has plummeted about 40%. That obviously took a huge chunk out of its revenue, and so did a 2006 law that Congress passed. This law required the Postal Service to pre-fund retirement health benefits for its employees, which was meant to be a sort of fiscal restraint on the agency and ended up costing billions of dollars a year.

马:是的。你知道,它不能再依赖国会用联邦资金来润滑这个系统的车轮。它基本上必须靠出售邮票和其他服务来生存。但随着时间的推移,这变得越来越困难。例如,在过去的几十年里,随着越来越多的人开始在网上交流、支付账单和获取新闻,USPS 投递的邮件量骤降了约 40%。这显然剥夺了其收入的很大一部分,国会通过的 2006 年法律也是如此。该法律要求邮政服务为其员工预先提供退休健康福利资金,这本来是对该机构的一种财政限制,但最终每年花费数十亿美元。

WOODS: Now, the Postal Service has been trying to adapt. In recent years, a big part of its revenue stream comes from people buying stuff online.

伍兹:现在,邮政服务一直在努力适应。近年来,其收入来源的很大一部分来自人们在线购物。

JOHN: Federal Express, UPS are very big customers - post office because the post office has access to what's called the last mile.

约翰:联邦快递、UPS 是邮局的大客户,因为邮局可以到达所谓的最后一英里。

WOODS: The last mile being what logistics people call the trip between, say, a local Amazon warehouse and your front door. Now, it's worth mentioning, though, retailers like Amazon and Walmart are increasingly doing that last mile themselves. All of this, the legal constraints, the changing technology and competition is why the Government Accountability Office says that the Postal Service is not financially sustainable. And that's also why you have some conservatives calling for the Postal Service to be privatized.

伍兹:最后一英里就是物流人员所说的从当地亚马逊仓库到你家前门之间的行程。但现在值得一提的是,亚马逊和沃尔玛等零售商越来越多地自己做最后一英里的工作。所有这些、法律限制、不断变化的技术和竞争都是政府问责办公室表示邮政服务在财务上不可持续的原因。这也是为什么一些保守派呼吁邮政服务私有化。

MA: Now, Richard says he understands the criticism. A lot of us have had the experience of waiting in long lines at the post office. And, you know, a lot of people have come to associate the U.S. mail with, like, getting junk mail every day. And it's true. According to the numbers, a little over half of the U.S. mail is marketing, you know, like flyers and catalogs, and that's a big source of the Postal Service's revenue. Be that as it may, Richard says, for a lot of people in small businesses, the U.S. mail is really the only option.

MA:现在,理查德说他理解这些批评。我们很多人都有过在邮局排长队等候的经历。而且,你知道,很多人已经将美国邮件与每天收到垃圾邮件联系在一起。这是真的。根据数据,美国邮件的一半以上用于营销,比如传单和目录,这是邮政服务收入的一大来源。理查德说,尽管如此,对于许多小企业的人来说,美国邮件确实是唯一的选择。

JOHN: If you look at the real world, then you discover that there is a rationale for this remarkable institution. When you get into the hinterland, post office is disproportionately important. Not everyone lives in New York or Washington, D.C. Some people live in Wyoming or Missouri or Alaska.

约翰:如果你看看现实世界,你就会发现这个非凡的机构是有其合理性的。当您进入内陆地区时,邮局就显得格外重要。并非每个人都住在纽约或华盛顿特区。有些人住在怀俄明州、密苏里州或阿拉斯加。

MA: And there aren't, like, Fedexes sprouting up in rural Alaska.

MA:阿拉斯加农村地区还没有出现联邦快递等服务。

JOHN: If you only had Fedex, can you imagine how much it would cost? It's a business. Post office isn't.

约翰:如果你只有联邦快递,你能想象要花多少钱吗?这是一门生意。邮局不是。

MA: So how does the Postal Service become more financially sustainable? Well, Congress recently eliminated the requirement for pre-funding health care retirement benefits. So that will help its bottom line.

MA:那么邮政服务如何在财务上变得更加可持续呢?国会最近取消了预先资助医疗退休福利的要求。这将有助于其盈利。

WOODS: On paper, sure. One could also argue it's kicking the can down the road.

伍兹:当然,在纸面上。人们也可能会说这是在拖延时间。

MA: That's true. But the agency is also investing in new equipment. You know, think mail processing machines and electric vehicles, stuff that is supposed to save it money in the long run. And then you have the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who says maybe the post office could do other things, like, for instance, make them, like, mini fulfillment centers so they can offer same-day delivery just like Amazon. Now, Richard, for his part, he kind of likes the idea of adding banking services back to local post offices, which used to be a thing for a lot of the 20th century.

马:确实如此。但该机构也在投资新设备。你知道,想想邮件处理机和电动汽车,从长远来看,这些东西应该可以省钱。然后是邮政局长路易斯·德乔伊(Louis DeJoy),他说也许邮局可以做其他事情,比如建立迷你配送中心,这样他们就可以像亚马逊一样提供当日送达服务。现在,就理查德而言,他有点喜欢将银行服务重新添加到当地邮局的想法,这曾经是 20 世纪大部分时间的事情。

WOODS: And regardless of what happens, it's clear that Americans love the Postal Service. In a recent Pew survey, 77% of Americans had a favorable view of it. You know, among federal agencies, that's second only to the National Park Service.

伍兹:无论发生什么,很明显美国人喜欢邮政服务。皮尤研究中心最近的一项调查显示,77% 的美国人对此持积极态度。你知道,在联邦机构中,它仅次于国家公园管理局。

NPR英语播客|美国邮政系统为何负债累累?the Indicator 商业经济P的评论 (共 条)

分享到微博请遵守国家法律