昨天我才在台灣的中文財經新聞網上看到題為「 蒸發的錢 進了誰口袋？」這篇報導，   今天就在本地新聞的財經欄中讀到了英文原文報導。 看來我們的財經記者很有國際觀， 不過中文翻譯只能算是節錄， 不算是完整報導。 以下特別把中、英文 兩篇列出來與大家分享， 看來離我放棄資訊業， 改行當記者的目標越來越近了﹗

蒸發的錢 進了誰口袋？
 更新日期:2008/10/12 15:30 國際新聞組/綜合報導
股市崩跌使幾兆元資產為之蒸發，幾兆美元投資積蓄化為煙雲。你為房子繳付的大筆金錢、上大學的積蓄、老闆用以支付薪資的資金，全都消失無蹤。

不論你是股票經紀人還是普通老百姓，只要你有存款或攪混資理財，幾個月前帳戶裡還有的許多錢都隨著股市和房價狂瀉而嚴重縮水。

可是如果這些錢從你的手上消失，那麼它們到底落到誰那裡？華爾街富豪、沙烏地阿拉伯的石油大亨，中國政府？還是，這些錢根本就不見了？

如果你想追查自己的錢的下落，甚至想要回來，你可能大失所望，因為這些錢根本不是真正的錢。

耶魯經濟學家席勒說，股市暴跌導致失去大批現金的想法根本是謬思，因為股價根本不是現金，只是對股票價值的「猜測」。換言之，這全是想像的價值。

不過，股市和房地產價值暴跌，當然會有些東西隨著消失。雖然股票不是荷包裡的大把鈔票，雖然房價不是可以隨時變現的東西，你還是可能因市場下跌失去原來可能擁有的錢。

口袋裡的鈔票不會平空消失，可是股票或房價這些「潛在的錢」卻可能。儘管如此，全球仍有千千萬萬的人把錢投資於股市，相信能夠藉此累積資產。

但是，這種集體信心已經消失，無數投資者不計代價認賠殺出，股票價值隨之大貶。這並不表示財富轉移到別人手上，而是全世界的整體財富減少。

Investors ask: Where did the money go?

Eric Carvin
Associated Press

NEW YORK–Trillions in stock market value – gone. Trillions in retirement savings – gone. A chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll – gone, gone, gone.

Whether you're a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, if you have a mutual fund or a college savings plan, tumbling stock markets and sagging home prices mean you've lost a whole lot of the money that was right there on your account statements just a few months ago.

But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall Street or Bay Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China?

Or is it just – gone?

If you're looking to track down your missing money – figure out who has it now, maybe ask to have it back – you might be disappointed to learn that is was never really money in the first place.

Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a "fallacy."

He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money – it's simply the "best guess" of what the stock is worth.

Shiller uses the example of an appraiser who values a house at $350,000 (U.S.), a week after saying it was worth $400,000.

"In a sense, $50,000 just disappeared when he said that," he said. "But it's all in the mind."

Though something, of course, is disappearing as markets and real estate values tumble. Even if a share of stock you own isn't a wad of bills in your wallet, even if the value of your home isn't something you can redeem at will, surely you can lose potential money – that is, the money that would be yours to spend if you sold your house or emptied out your mutual funds right now.

And if you're a few months away from retirement, or hoping to sell your house and buy a smaller one to help pay for your kid's college tuition, this "potential money" is something you're counting on to get by. For people who need cash and need it now, this is as real as money gets, whether or not it meets the technical definition of the word.

Still, you run into trouble when you think of that potential money as being the same thing as the cash in your purse or your chequing account.

"That's a big mistake," says Dale Jorgenson, an economics professor at Harvard.

There's a key distinction here: While the money in your pocket is unlikely to just vanish into thin air, the money you could have had, if only you'd sold your house or drained your stock-heavy mutual funds a year ago, most certainly can.

"You can't enjoy the benefits of your (pension) if it's disappeared," Jorgenson explains.

"If you had it all in financial stocks and they've all gone down by 80 per cent – sorry! That is a permanent loss because those folks aren't coming back. We're going to have a huge shrinkage in the financial sector."

If you choose, you can pour most of your money into stocks and track their value in real time on a computer screen with other investors, confident that you'll get good money for them when you decide to sell.

But that collective confidence, Jorgenson says, is gone. And when confidence is drained out of a financial system, a lot of investors will decide to sell at any price and a big chunk of that money you thought your investments were worth simply goes away.

And don't blame speculators, Jorgenson says.

"Those folks in general have been losing their shirts at a prodigious rate," he said. "They took a big risk and now they're suffering from the consequences."

後記﹕在英文報導中有一段文字如果不是多倫多本地人， 可能會忽略過去或是亂猜一通， 這段文字如下﹕ But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall Street or Bay Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China?

Wall Street 大家大概都知道是紐約的金融櫥窗 - 華爾街  那Bay Street呢﹖ 這條街正是多倫多市中心的金融商圈的代表街道（偶上個工作的公司就在這街上有棟辦公大樓）， 當然是沒華爾街那麼出名，  這樣非本地的讀友有沒有給它「了改」了呢﹖