题外话，这是第一篇翻译练笔，不知道有没有版权问题，可惜ted注册不上，anyway，如果看到的人，看看就行，不要用作商业用途，当然说不定也没人看上我的翻译水平，哈哈。附上原视频网址：Elizabeth White: An honest look at the personal finance crisis | TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript | TED
You know me. I am in your friendship circle hidden in plain sight. My clothes are still impeccable -- bought in the good years when I was still making money. To look at me you would not know that my electricity was cut off last week for nonpayment, or that I meet the eligibility requirements for food stamps. But if you paid attention, you would see that sadness in my eyes -- hear that hint of fear in my otherwise self-assured voice.
你认出我了吧。我在你的朋友圈里一目了然。我的衣着无可挑剔，那是我还挣钱的好时光里买的。看着我，你不会知道我上周因为没付账单被断电了，又或者我已经满足领食品券的资格要求了。但是如果你留意了，会看见我眼中的哀伤，听见我原本自信声音中的恐惧。
These days I'm buying the $1.99 trial-size jug of Tide to make ends meet. I bet you didn't know laundry detergent came in that size. You invite me to the same expensive restaurants the two of us have always enjoyed, but I order mineral water now with a twist of lemon, not the 12-dollar glass of chardonnay. I am frugal in my menu choices. Meticulous, I count every penny in my head. I demur dividing the table bill evenly to cover desserts and designer coffees and second and third glasses of wine I did not consume.
这些天来，我一直以1.99美元的价格购买汰渍的试用装来勉强维持。我打赌，你不知道还有洗衣液是这种规格的吧。你邀请我去我们俩过去总是享受美味的同家昂贵餐厅，但我现在只敢点一杯挤了柠檬汁的矿泉水，而不是12美元一杯的霞多丽。我在菜单的选择上很节俭，小心翼翼地在脑海里算着每一分钱。我反对平分账单，因为我并没有点甜点、设计师咖啡乃至第二第三杯酒。
I am tired of trying to fake appearances. A friend told me that I'm broke not poor, and there is a difference. I live without cable, my gym membership and nail appointments. I've discovered I can do my own hair. There is no retirement savings, no nest egg. I exhausted that long ago. There is no expensive condo to draw equity and no husband to back me up. Months of slow pay and no pay have decimated my credit. Bill collectors call constantly, reading verbatim from a script before expressing polite sympathy for my plight and then demanding payment arrangements I can't possibly meet. Friends wonder privately how someone so well educated could be in economic free fall.
我已经疲于营造假象。一个朋友和我说，我是破产了但并不是贫穷，这是有区别的。我的生活里没有了有线电视、健身卡和美甲预约。没有退休储蓄，没有养老钱。我很久以前就筋疲力尽了。没有昂贵的公寓来获得权益，也没有丈夫来支撑我。数月的低收入和零收入毁掉了我的信用。收账人不停地打来电话，对我的困境表示同情前就照本宣读，要求我进行不可能做到的付款安排。朋友们私下里奇怪，一个受过良好教育的人怎么可能陷入经济危机。
I'm still as talented as ever and smart as a whip, but work is sketchy now, mostly on and off consulting gigs. At 55 I've learned how to fake cheeriness, but there are not many opportunities for work anymore. I don't remember exactly when it stopped, but I cannot deny now having entered the uncertain world of formerly and used to be. I'm not sure anymore where I belong. What I do know is that dozens of online job applications seem to just disappear into a black hole. I'm wondering what is to become of me. So far my health has held up, but my body aches -- or is it my spirit? Homeless women used to be invisible to me but I appraise them now with curious eyes, wondering if their stories started like mine.
我和过去一样有才，聪明灵活，但是如今工作很粗浅，大部分是断断续续的咨询兼职。我55岁了，学会了假装开心，但是工作机会却不多了。我记不清是何时，但不能否认的是，我进入了与过去以往相比一个不确定的世界。我不再确定自己属于哪里，只知道在网上投的大量求职申请像进了黑洞一样。我想知道，我变成什么样了。目前来说，我的健康状况不太好，身体疼痛，又或者是我的灵魂？我之前从未注意到那些无家可归的女性，但现在我用好奇的眼神打量她们，想着她们的故事起初是否和我一样。
I wrote this piece a year ago. It's a composite of my story and other women I know. I wrote it because I was tired of pretending I was all right when I wasn't. I was tired of faking normal. I wasn't seeing myself in the popular press. Nobody I knew was traveling the world or buying a condo in Costa Rica. Very few of my friends had set aside the 15 to 20 percent experts tell us we need to maintain our standard of living in retirement. My friends, many in their 50s and 60s, were looking at a downward mobility, a work-for-life proposition, just a job loss, medical diagnosis or divorce away from insolvency. We may not have hit rock bottom, but many of us saw a sequence of events where rock bottom was possible for the first time.
这篇文章是一年前写的，综合了我的故事还有我认识的其他女性的故事。我写下此篇，是因为我厌烦了假装一切都好，事实上我并不好。我厌倦了假装一切正常。我没在大众媒体上看到我的文章。我认识的人里没有人环游世界或者在哥斯达黎加购买公寓。我极少数的朋友储蓄百分之15到20，专家告诉我们退休后也要保持我们的生活水准。我的朋友们，大多数都五六十了，都在考虑社会地位的下降，为生活工作的提议，失业，医疗诊断或离婚来逃避破产。我们也许还没有跌入谷底，但大多数已经开始预见到那可能造成的一系列事件。
And the truth is, it really doesn't take much. The median household in the US only has enough savings to replace one month of income. Forty-seven percent of us cannot pull together 400 dollars to deal with an emergency. That's almost half of us. A major car repair and we're standing on the abyss. You wouldn't know it to look around you -- I'm not the only one in this situation. There are people in this room who are in the same predicament, and if it's not you, it is your parents or your sister or maybe your best friend. We get good at faking normal. Shame keeps us silent and siloed. When I first decided I was going to come out with my story, I did a website and a friend noticed that there were no photos of me -- it was all kind of cartoons like this. Even as I was coming out, I was still hiding.
事实上，这用不了多久。在美国，中等家庭的储蓄只够代替一个月的收入。我们中百分之47的人齐心协力也拿不出400美元应急。这几乎是我们一半的人了。车子大修一次，我们就在深渊里了。你不会知道这些，但看看你的周围，我不是唯一一个情况如此的人。这个房间还有人在此窘境，不是你，也可能是你的父母，姐妹或者好朋友。我们很善于伪装正常。羞耻感让我们保持沉默，像一座孤岛。当我第一次决定发表我的故事时，我建了一个网站。一个朋友注意到上面并没有我的照片，全是这样的卡通。即使发表了我的故事，我还是在躲藏。
We live in a world where success is defined by income. When you say that you have money problems, you're announcing pretty much that you're a loser. When you're a graduate of Harvard Business School as I am, you're some kind of double loser.
我们生活在一个用收入来定义成功的世界。在你说自己有钱的问题时，你几乎在宣布你是一个失败者。如果你和我一样是哈弗商学院的毕业生，那就是某种失败者中的失败者。（double loser 这个真不知道该怎么翻，就先这样吧）
We boomers hear a lot about how we have underfunded our retirement; how it's all our fault. Why on earth would we draw down our 401(k) plan to cover the shortfall on our mother-in-law's nursing home care, or to pay for our kid's tuition, or just to survive? We're accused of being poor planners and deadbeats -- all that money we spent on lattes and bottled water. To shame and blame is so deliciously tempting. Many of us don't even wait for others to do it we're so busy doing it to ourselves. I say let's own our part: we all could have saved more. I know I could have saved more, and if you were to rifle through my life over the last 30 years, you would see more than one dumb thing I have done financially. I can't change that now and neither can you, but let's not mix up individual, isolated behavior with the systemic factors that have caused a 7.7-trillion-dollar retirement income gap.
我们这些生育高峰年代出生的人听过很多这种言论，什么我们为退休准备的资金不足；什么都是我们的错。我们究竟为什么要取出401（k）养老金计划里的钱来负责岳母/婆母的家庭护理费用缺口，为什么要付孩子的学费，又或者为什么要活下去？指责我们计划不周，赖帐不还，把钱都花在了拿铁咖啡和瓶装水上。羞辱和指责人的感觉是如此的诱人。我们中的多数人不等别人，自己就急着自我责备。要我说，我们只要负起自己那部分责任就好，就是我们本可以存更多钱。我知道这一点，如果快速浏览一下我过去三十年的人生，你会发现我在财务上干过好几件蠢事。可我现在改变不了那些事，你也不能，但这种个人单独的行为不能和引发7.7万亿美元退休收入差距的系统性因素混为一谈。
Millions of boomer-age Americans did not land here because of too many trips to Starbucks. We spent the last three decades dealing with flat and falling wages and disappearing pensions and through-the-roof cost on housing and health care and education. It used to not be like this. We all remember the three-legged retirement income stool which had the savings and pension and social security. Well, that stool has gone wobbly.
数百万生育高峰年代出生的美国人没有落入此境地，是因为星巴克去的太多了。在过去的三十年间，我们一直在面对平稳下降的工资，消失的养老金和增长过快的房屋/健康护理/教育费用。曾经不是这样的。我们还记得那时候有“三条腿凳子退休收入”（没有找到官方说法，这里只能字面意思了，大致是财务人员的一种老说法，指的是三种主要退休收入：社会保障，职员养老金，个人储蓄）。当然，这凳子已经摇没了。
Take savings -- what savings? For many families, there's just nothing left to save after the bills have been paid. The pension leg of the stool has also gone wobbly. We can remember when many people had pensions. Today only 13 percent of American workers are employed by companies that offer them. So what did we get instead? We got 401(k)-type plans and suddenly responsibility for retirement planning got shifted from our companies to us. We got the reigns but we also got the risk, and it turns out that millions of us just aren't that good at voluntarily investing over 40 years. Millions of us just aren't that good at managing market risk. And really the numbers tell the story. Half of all American households have no retirement savings at all. That would be zero. No 401(k), no IRA, not a dime. Among 55-to-64-year-olds who do have a retirement account, the median value of that account is 104,000 dollars. Now, 104,000 dollars does sound better than zero, but as an annuity, it generates about 300 dollars. I don't have to tell you that you can't live on that.
进行储蓄 - 拿什么存？对于很多家庭，付完帐单后就什么都不剩了。凳子里养老金那条腿也已经掉了。我们还能记得，当大多数人有养老金的时候的情形。今天，只有13%的美国工人受雇于提供养老金的公司。那么拿什么代替呢？公司为我们替换成了401（k）养老金计划以及突发退休责任计划。我们可以自由支配了，但也承担了风险，最后证明了我们数百万人没有好到自愿投资超过四十年，不能应付市场风险。数字可以告诉我们一切。半数的美国家庭根本没有退休储备。那就是零元。没有401（k），没有个人退休帐户（Individual Retirement Account），一毛没有。在55岁到64岁这个年龄段，有退休账户的，账上的中间值是104000美元。现在，104000美元听起来比零强，但作为年金，只能产生大约300美元。我不用说，你们也知道不能靠这点钱生活。
With savings down, pensions becoming a relic of the past and 401(k) plans failing millions of Americans, many near-retirees are dependent on social security as their retirement plan. But here's the problem. Social security was never supposed to be the retirement plan. It's not nearly enough. At best it replaces something like 40 percent of your pre-retirement income.
储蓄金额下降，养老金成为历史，401（k）计划辜负了数百万美国人，许多临近退休的人按他们的退休计划依赖于社会保障。但问题来了。社会保障从未被期待成为退休计划，其数额远远不够，最多替代你退休前收入的40%。
Things have changed a lot from when social security was introduced back in 1935. Then, a 21-year-old male had a 50 percent chance of living until he was 65. So he retired at 60, did a little fishing, kissed his grandkids, got his gold watch -- he'd be dead within five years of receiving benefits. That's not the pattern today. If you're in your late 50s and in good health, you're going to live easily another 20 or 25 years. That's a really long time to make ends meet if you are broke.
自从1935重新引入社会保障后，情况已大为不同。那时候，一个21岁的男性有50%的可能活到65岁，60岁退休，钓钓鱼，亲近一下孙子孙女，买块金表，在领福利金的五年里死去。今天可不是这个模式了。如果你快60了，身体健康，你还将轻松活过另一个20或25年。如果你破产了，那有很长一段时间都只能勉强维持生活。
So what's the play if you've landed here and you're 50 or 55 or 60? What's the play if you don't want to land here and you're 22 or 32? Here's what I've learned from my own experience. The cavalry's not coming. There is no big rescue, no prince charming, no big bailout in the works. To have a shot at something other than being old and poor in America, we're going to have to save ourselves and each other. I've had to come out of the shadows, stand here openly, and I'm inviting you to do so as well. I'm not going to tell you that it's not easy. I ventured though to tell my story because I thought it would make it a little easier for people to tell theirs. I think it's only through our strength in numbers that we can begin to change the national "la-la" conversation that we are having on this retirement crisis. With so many of us shell-shocked and adrift about what has happened to us, we're going to have to build up from the grassroots, forming what I think are resilience circles. These are small groups of people coming together to talk about what has happened to them, to share resources and information and to begin to figure out a way forward. I believe from this base that we can find our voices again and sound the alarm -- start pushing our institutions and policymakers to go hard on this retirement crisis with the urgency it deserves.
如果你50/55/60岁了，已经落入这种情况，那怎么办呢？如果你才二十二三岁，不想变成这样，要怎么办呢？我从自己的经历中学到了这些。骑兵不会来了。这里没有大营救，白马王子，工作中也没有大笔救助。在美国，为了有机会做点什么，而不是变得又老又穷，我们必须为了我们自己，为了我们彼此，存钱。我不会和你说这并不容易。我敢于讲出自己的故事，是因为我认为这会让人们更容易一点讲出他们的故事。我认为只有通过我们大量群体的力量，才能开展这场全国大讨论“我们有退休危机！”。正在发生的事对我们这么多人造成震动和不知所措，我们将从基层建立形成我认为的弹性圈子。小股的人聚在一起谈论他们的现况，交流资源和信息，开始寻找出路。以此为基础，我相信我们可以找回我们的话语权，敲响警钟，开始推动机构和政策制定者努力解决退休危机，这已经非常紧急了。
In the meantime -- and there is an "in the meantime" -- we're going to have to adopt a live-low-to-the-ground mindset, drastically cutting back on our expenses. And I don't mean just living within our means. A lot of people are already doing that. What is called for now is to, in a much deeper way, ask ourselves what it really means to live a life that is not defined by things. I call it "smalling up." Smalling up is figuring out what you really need to feel contented and grounded. I have a friend who drives really beat-up, raggedy cars, but he will scrimp and save 15,000 dollars at one point to buy a flute because music is what really matters to him. He smalled up.
同时，没错还有个同时，我们要有把生活成本降到底的心态，大幅缩减花销。我不是说只靠财产生活。已经有很多人这样做了。它意味着，从深层面问问我们自己，生活到底需要什么，而不是用物质来定义。我把这叫做“缩小化”。这要求你找出真正让你感到满足的脚踏实地的。我有一个朋友，开一辆老爷车，很破，但他在某一刻缩减了这一项，存了15000美元，买了一支长笛，因为对他来说音乐才是重要的。他缩小化了。
I've had to also let go of magical thinking -- this idea that if I just was patient enough and tightened my belt that things would go back to normal. If I just sent in one more CV or applied to one more job online or attended one more networking event that surely I'd get the kind of job I was used to having. Surely things would return to normal. The truth is I'm not going back and neither are you. The normal that we knew is over. In this new place that we are, we're going to be asked to do things that we don't want to do. We're going to be asked to take assignments that we think are beneath our station and our talent and our skill. I have had to get off my throne. Last year, a good friend of mine asked me if I would help her with some organization work. I assumed she meant community organizing along the lines of what President Obama did in Chicago. She meant organizing somebody's closet. I said, "I'm not doing that." She said, "Get off your throne. Money is green."
我还必须放弃一厢情愿的想法，如果我足够耐心，勒紧裤腰带过日子，事情就会回归正常。如果我再发一份简历或者多申请一份线上工作，又或者多参加一次社交活动，那我肯定能找到我过去做的那种工作。事实是，我回不去了，你也一样。我们所知的那种常态已经没有了。在这个新世界，我们被要求去做不想做的事情。我们被分派的任务配不上我们的身份才干。我必须走下王座。去年，我的一个好朋友问我能不能帮她做一些组织工作。我以为她指的是类似奥巴马总统在芝加哥做的那种社区组织。但她说的是整理某个人的壁橱，我说：“我不做这个”。而她说：“走下王座吧。钞票（美元）是绿色的。”
It's not easy being part of the advance team that is ushering in this new era of work and living. First is always hardest. First is before there are networks and pathways and role models ... before there are policies and ways to show us how to go forward. We're in the middle of a seismic shift, and we're going to have to find bridgework to get us through. Bridgework is what we do in the meantime; bridgework is what we do while we're trying to figure out what is next. Bridgework is also letting go of this notion that our worth and our value depend on our income and our titles and our jobs. Bridgework can look crazy or cool depending on how you were rolling when your personal financial crisis hit. I have friends with PhDs who are working at the Container Store or driving Uber or Lyft, and then I have other friends who are partnering with other boomers and doing really cool entrepreneurial ventures. Bridgework doesn't mean that we don't want to build on our past careers, that we don't want meaningful work. We do. Bridgework is what we do in the meantime while we're figuring out what is next.
加入开创工作生活新时代的先遣组并不容易。万事开头难。首先没有网络、门路和范例，也没有对策与途径教我们如何推进。我们身处在地震式的变化中，必须找到过渡工作让我们熬过去。做一份过渡工作，同时，试着想出下一步要怎么做。也能让我们放下这种想法，我们的价值都依赖于收入、头衔和工作。根据你在遇到个人财务危机时的情况，过渡的工作可能看起来很疯狂，也可能很酷。我有些朋友，博士学位，现在给康泰纳零售店（美国一家收纳用品专卖店）打工，或者开做了优步/来福车司机，还有些朋友，和别的同代人一起做很酷的冒险性创业。这不是说我们不想恢复过去的成就，或是不想做有意义的工作了，我们当然想，只是在搞清下一步前，要同时做一些过渡工作。
I've also learned to think strategy not failure when I'm sort of processing all these things that I don't want to do. And I say that that's an approach that I would invite you to consider as well.
我还学会了思考策略，在我处理不是太想做的那些事的时候怎么才能不失败。要我说，我希望你们也能考虑一下这个方法。
So if you need to move in with your brother to make ends meet, call him. If you need to take in a boarder to help you pay your mortgage or pay your rent, do it. If you need to get food stamps, get the darn food stamps. AARP says only a third of older adults who are eligible actually get them. Do what you need to do to go another round. Know that there are millions of us. Come out of the shadows. Cut back, small up; think strategy, not failure; get off your throne and find the bridgework to get your through the lean times.
那么，如果你需要让你的兄弟搬进来同住才能平衡收支，那就邀请他。如果你需要一个寄宿生来帮你分担贷款或是租金，找一个。如果你需要食品券，那就去领那该死的食品券。美国退休者协会称，只有三分之一的老年人真正有资格领取。做你该做的，开始新一轮。要知道，我们这样的有数百万人。从阴影中走出来。减少开支，缩小欲望；思考策略，不再失败；走下你的王座，找一份过渡工作，熬过拮据时期。
As a country, we have achieved longevity, investing billions of dollars in the diagnosis, treatment and management of disease. It's not enough to just live a long time. We want to live well. We haven't invested nearly as much in the physical infrastructure to ensure that that happens. We need now a new way of thinking about what it means to be old in America. And we need guidance and ideas about how to live a richly textured life on a much more modest income.
作为一个国家，我们已经获得了长寿，疾病的诊断、治疗和管理领域有数十亿美元投资。光活得时间长是不够的，我们还想活得好。基础设施建设上的投资不足以保证这个。我们现在需要从一个新思路想想，在美国变老意味着什么。并且在如何用适度的收入活出色彩丰富的生活方面，我们需要指引和好主意。
So I am calling on change agents and social entrepreneurs, artists and elders and impact investors. I'm calling on developers and disrupters of the status quo. We need you to help us imagine how to invest in the services and products and infrastructure that will support our dignity, our independence and our well-being in these many, many decades that we're going to live.
因此，我呼吁政府机构和社会企业家，艺术家和老前辈，有影响力的投资人做出改变。还有现状的开发者和破坏者。我们需要你们的帮助，让我们知道在服务、产品和基础设施方面如何花钱，才能在我们还要活的数十年里保持尊严、独立和幸福。
My journey has taken me from a place of fear and shame to one of humility and understanding. I'm ready now to link shields with others, to fight this fight, and I'm inviting you to join me.
我的经历已把我从恐惧羞耻带出，变得谦逊和理解。现在，我已做好准备和其他人一起结成盾牌迎战。邀请你们也加入。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause) 掌声
网友评论