《中英對照讀新聞》Paul Krugman：Prepare For Alien Invasion － And Spend Our Way To Economic Recovery 保羅．克魯曼：為外星人入侵做準備─並且花錢促進經濟復甦

◎管淑平

Economist Paul Krugman has a simple solution to America’s economic woes：Prepare for an alien invasion.

經濟學家保羅．克魯曼有個解決美國經濟困境的簡單方式：為外星人入侵做準備。

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Arguing that the United States successfully ended the Great Depression with government spending, he provided an interesting idea about how to replicate that economic feat at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, D.C.

他在華府的「重拾美國夢」會議上，以美國曾藉由政府開支成功終結經濟大蕭條為立論依據，就如何複製那場經濟卓越成果，提出一個有趣的想法。

"If you actually look at what took us out of the Great Depression," the Princeton University professor said in an interview with Chris Hayes of MSNBC. "It was Europe’s entry into World War II and the U.S. buildup that began in advance."

「如果你確實去看是什麼帶我們脫離大蕭條」，這名普林斯頓大學教授在MSNBC電視台主持人克里斯．海伊斯的訪問中說，「是歐洲加入第二次世界大戰，以及美國之前已展開的建設。」

"So if we could get something that could cause the government to say, ‘Oh, never mind those budget things; let’s just spend and do a bunch of stuff.’ So my fake threat from space aliens is the other route," Krugman said.

「所以，假如我們有辦法讓政府說『喔，別管那些預算，就讓我們花錢做事吧』，那我假想的來自太空的外星人威脅，就是另一種方式」，克魯曼說。

Krugman has offered up his space alien proposal before. The Princeton professor and New York Times columnist is a well-known fan of science fiction, which might explain his imaginative plan to spur an economic recovery.

這不是克魯曼第一次提出太空外星人提議。這名普林斯頓大學教授及紐約時報專欄作家，是知名的科幻小說迷，這或許可解釋他這充滿想像力的刺激經濟復甦計畫。

新聞辭典：

woe：名詞，災難，苦惱，悲痛，困難。例句：His life is a tale of woe.（他的人生是一個悲慘的故事。）

spur：動詞，刺激，激勵，鞭策。例句：The design of the bonus system is to spur higher production.（這套獎金制度的設計是用來激發更高的生產力。）

offer up：動詞片語，貢獻，提供。例句：We’ve offered up several recommendations to tackle this problem.（我們已提出幾項建議來解決這個問題。）