录音：http://bbs.ebigear.com/thread-304212-1-1.html

Detroit（底特律市：美国三大汽车制造公司“福特”的发源地） seems to be where Wall Street meets Main Street. Tight credit（信贷紧缩/银根紧缩） is reckoned to have cost the American carmakers 40,000 sales in August, worth about $1 billion in revenue（收入）. ①( The impact has been felt most by America’s Big Three – General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – which have suffered this year as consumers shunned（避免/这里指不选择） gas – guzzlers（油老虎/高能耗车） in favour of the smaller cars mostly made by Japanese firms in American factories.) Overall light–vehicle sales hit（hit..low创新底） a 15 – year low in September, with a fall of 27% compared with a year earlier. The problem is finance. “We have plenty of customers – what we don’t have is financing available to meet their needs,” Mike Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation, a leading car-dealer（汽车经销商） chain, told CNBC this week. He reckons that tighter credit and limits on fiance for leases have cost his firm a fifth of its sales this year.

The Big Three have been hit by（suffer from遭受到） petrol prices pushing towards $4 a gallon, by more demanding（严苛的） federal fuel – economy rules（法案） and by the credit crunch（信贷紧缩/信贷危机） wrecking consumer finance. But the federal government came to their aid this week when George Bush signed an energy bill that includes $25 billion in loan guarantees to ease their pain. Supposedly（也许） this is to allow the Big Three to retool（更新换代/革新） their factories to produce more economical vehicles. David Cole, director of the Centre for Automotive Reserch, an industry body, estimates that such retooling could cost at least $100 billion. But money is money, so the infusion of cheap credit will help the carmakers pay their bills next year. “Given the market position of the Big Three, things will get sticky（棘手） by mid- 2009, because they have to keep spending on new programmes,” says Joe Philippi of Auto Trends, a consultancy（顾问）.

The rules are still being worked out, but the deal means that car companies blessed with the government guarantee – should get loans with an interest rate of around 5% rather than the 15% they would face on the open market in today’s conditions.②（ The stipulation（法案/措施） that the loans are only for firms with factories at least 20 years old rules out（把..排除在外） nearly all the “transplant” factories that foreign carmakers built in America to get around（绕开，避开） tariff barriers（关税壁垒）. ）And even if some Japanese carmakers do qualify for loans, they are not expected to ask for them.

So a sum that seemed preposterous only a few months ago has won overwhelming approval from politicians. Compared with the demand for $700 billion to underpin the financial system, who can complain about a mere $25 billion ofr carmakers? ③（And using government money to keep honest, hardworking car – industry workers in their jobs is easier for politicians to justify than handouts for greedy Wall Street bankers.） The sales-pitch（夺目宣传） is even more compelling（有说服力的） in an election year.

Once industrial subsidies like this begin to flow（酝酿/进行中）, it is difficult to stop them. A recent study by the Cato Institute, a right-wing think-tank, found that the federal government spent some $92 billion subsidising business in 2006 alone. Only $21 billion of that went to farmers: much of the rest went to firms such as Boeing, IBM and GE in the form of export-credit support and various research subsidies.

The Big Three are already complaining that it will take too long to dish out（分发） the money, and they want the process speeded up. They also want a further $25 billion, possibly attached to the second version of the Wall Street rescue bill. The logic of bailing out（帮助/本意为“保释”） Wall Street is that finance underpins（支持/支撑） everything. Detroit connot begin to make that claim. ④（But, given its successful lobbying, can it be long before ailing（挣扎的） airlines and failing retailers join the queue.）

长难句参考翻译：

1. 最受打击的是美国制造业的“三巨头”：通用、福特和克莱斯勒。因为今年消费者对高油耗机车（那些油老虎）都避之不及，转而青睐在美国投资办厂的日本制造商生产的小型汽车。

2. 这一项优惠条款只面向于至少有20年创办历史的公司，而这种约束条件几乎把所有企图想绕开关税壁垒而迁移到美国的外国公司拒之门外。

3. 对于政客而言，用政府的钱来使那些诚实的，勤劳的工人保住饭碗要比把钱奉送给贪婪的华尔街银行家更有价值。更何况在选举年是种更有说服力的夺目宣传。

4.但是，考虑到成功游说这一本领，用不了多久，是不是那些挣扎的航空业，衰落的零售业也将加入到寻求政府补贴的行列中来呢?

PS：

由于全文翻译过于冗长繁杂，就不在这里一一写出。但文章里所有的难句子，不易翻译的句子都给大家挑选出来了，大家可以根据录音参考复习。

其他的内容我在课堂上都有较为详细全面的分析。大家可以参看最上面的录音链接，查漏补缺。

Enjoy the notes.

                                                                        童童。