Unit8Money新编大学英语第二版第二册课文翻译.doc

Unit?8?Money Time Spent Agonizing over Money [1] Within hours of a recent major stock market drop, I telephoned my Ford dealer and ordered the station wagon that I test-drove the day before. As my friends not so subtly pointed out, the Dow Jones Industrial Average didnt have much to do with my financial situation and shouldnt affect my purchase. Besides, my old car had caused me headaches for months. [2] Still, I spent the evening asking myself: Could I afford a new car? Should I be saving instead of spending? Would we need to cut back on vacations? [3] On the list of items people worry about, money is almost always at the top. [4] A study in the Wall Street Journal found that 70 percent of the public lives from paycheck to paycheck. Mortgage debt has increased 300 percent since 1975, and consumer bankruptcies are at an all-time high. Most marriages that fail list financial problems as a contributing factor. [5] When the Dow fell 554 points last October, millions of people lost billions of dollars, on paper anyway. There was expert anxiety on Wall Street and old-fashioned worry on Main Street. Our reaction confirmed what we already knew: We are a people consumed by financial stress. *A “Raw Material” [6] As the Bible tells us, worrying about money—or anything else for that matter—wont do us any good. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Jesus asked. “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow? They do not labor or spin.” [7] In my heart, I aspire to be like those lilies. But in my head, I feel a need to hoard. [8] It is an unusual person who can live free from financial stress, or who can spend money on others as easily as he spends it on himself. [9] Thomas Edison was one of that rare breed. Had the great inventor stored his money, he would have died a wealthy man. His first successful invention netted him $40,000, a huge sum in 1869. During his lifetime, he patented 1,093 inventions, yet he departed the