六分钟英语－Credit crunch

（单词翻译:单击）

　　Callum: Hello I’m Callum Robertson and with me today for 6 Minute English is Jackie Dalton – hello Jackie.
　　Jackie: Hello Callum.
　　Callum: Now Jackie, I’m going to play you something and I wonder if you can guess what is being talked about. This is Ian Macwhirter, who’s a political commentator¹（评论员）:
　　Ian MacwhirterThe thing is that this is a bubble², and all bubbles³ eventually burst, and when they burst a lot of people get hurt.
　　Jackie: Well you gave me a clue when you said that he’s a political commentator – soit’s something to do with politics …Callum: Well yes and no, really – not exactly politics, but certainly politics are involved.
　　Jackie: Can I listen again?
　　Callum: Of course. Here’s Ian Macwhirter againIan MacwhirterThe thing is that this is a bubble（泡沫）, and all bubbles eventually burst, and when they burst a lot ofpeople get hurt.
　　Jackie: Well I guess it’s to do with the economy and the one thing that comes to mindat the moment is the housing⁴ market.
　　Callum: Exactly right well done. He was talking about the state of the housing marketin Britain. Can you explain what he means when he says ‘it’s a bubble and it’sgoing to burst’?
　　Jackie: The price of property in Britain has been growing very quickly for over adecade now. Prices have risen far far higher than salaries. So this increase inprices happened in a strong economic period, but now things are not so good inthe economy and the prediction is that prices will fall again very quickly.
　　Callum: Exactly, I’m going to try and demonstrate⁵ this now. I have a balloon here, andas I start blowing it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger but it can’t go ongetting bigger for ever, at some point it becomes too big and it bursts. So that’swhat’s happened to the housing market in Britain. Prices have got so high, theycouldn’t get any higher and the bubble has burst – prices are coming down.
　　Jackie: You would think that would be good news because it means that houses wouldbecome cheaper, more affordable⁶.
　　Callum: It’s good if you want to buy, but for those who want to sell it means their housemight not be worth as much as they paid for it – this can lead to a lot offinancial difficulty – the hurt that Ian Macwhirter referred to. This situation is known as ‘negative equity⁷（公平）’, ‘negative equity’. Effectively this means yourproperty is worth less than you paid for it. Ian Macwhirter had a warning aboutthis – but who was his warning for, listen and find out.
　　Ian MacwhirterI think particularly first time buyers really need to be warned that if you buy anywhere nowyou'll be in negative equity within about a year, eighteen months.
　　Callum: So Jackie, who needs to be careful.
　　Jackie: Well he talked there about ‘first-time buyers’. ‘First-time buyers’. A first-timebuyer is someone who hasn’t owned a property before and so therefore isbuying a house for the first time.
　　Callum: That’s right, lets’ listen to Ian Macwhirter againIan MacwhirterI think particularly first time buyers really need to be warned that if you buy anywhere nowyou'll be in negative equity within about a year, eighteen months.
　　Callum: So Jackie, talking about this issue, what about you? Do you own a house or doyou rent?
　　Jackie: I rent, I would love to be able to own a house but as we know in London it’svery very very expensive and it’s actually hard to buy your first house.
　　Callum: It is, it’s very hard and it’s very difficult to get that first ‘rung’ on the ‘propertyladder’. Now the ‘property ladder’ is what everybody talks about. What doesthat mean?
　　Jackie: It’s kind of the idea that once you’ve bought your first house, after that, if youwant to move again, you’re going to need extra money to buy a nicer house. Soonce you’ve bought your first one you can sell that, take the money from it andmove up into a bigger or nicer house which costs more money.
　　Callum: Yep, so it’s like a ladder, you keep going up and up and up. But it’s verydifficult to get that first step on to the property ladder.
　　Now one thing that people are talking a lot about this moment, it’s like a newexpression that’s come into the language, and it’s the ‘credit⁸ crunch’. Have youheard this expression Jackie?
　　Jackie: Yes, it’s been on the news all the time, hasn’t it?
　　Callum: Absolutely, you can’t listen to a programme, you can’t turn over a newspaperwithout seeing the expression ‘credit crunch（紧缩）’. What does it mean though?
　　Jackie: Well a ‘credit crunch’ is a period when it’s very difficult to get credit and theinterest rates are very high because the banks are scared of losing money. Soit’s not really a new phenomenon but the term is very new in everydayvocabulary.
　　Callum: I did a search of the BBC website and Jackie, when do you think the first use ofthis term I came across was? Was it in January 2007, June 2007 or December2007?
　　Jackie: I think I can make a good guess at this one. I think it was June 2007 becausethat’s when this all started up again and it became big in the news.
　　Callum: Exactly, well done. The answer is indeed June 2007. Now that won’t be thefirst time that term was ever used, but it was the first reference⁹ to it that I couldfind on the BBC website! Maybe you can find an earlier one. It did exist as aterm known and used by economists¹⁰ but now everyone knows it. It’s like a newexpression that’s been born in our lifetime! And as you said it does seem to bein the headlines everyday.
　　Well that’s all the time we have time for this programme, but do join us againfor another 6 Minute English soon. GoodbyeJackie: Goodbye.（本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑）

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