金融時報:歷史上的首富也比我們窮

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2021年12月10日

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歷史上的首富也比我們窮

內(nèi)森·羅斯柴爾德可能是（經(jīng)通貨膨脹調(diào)整的）有史以來第二富有的人——但他從沒坐過汽車飛機(jī)、沒打過電話、沒用過電燈，而且死于一種在今天花幾便士就能治好的病。如果他還活著，恐怕也會承認(rèn)我的生活水平更高。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

septicaemia[,s?pt?'sim??] 敗血癥

Taj Mahal 印度泰姬陵

antibiotics [,ænt?ba?'?t?ks] 抗生素

leech [li?t?] 水蛭，在東西方都曾被用來吸血治病

lay claim to 自以為

aspire [?'spa??] 渴望，追求

The second richest man of all time was poorer than us（616 words）

November 4, 2014 ,John Kay

Nathan Rothschild was the richest man in the world when he died in 1836. A list compiled by Forbes magazine, ranks him as the second richest man who ever lived – ahead of John D Rockefeller, and way ahead of Mexican telecoms mogul Carlos Slim and Bill Gates of Microsoft. (The richest was Roman general Crassus.) The figures used by Forbes are, of course, adjusted for inflation.

But what does “adjusted for inflation” mean? Rothschild died of septicaemia following an abscess, and in spite of buying the best medical attention available in Europe at the time. He had never been in a car, a train or an aircraft, nor visited the Taj Mahal, heard recorded music, seen a film, made a phone call or used electric light. Nor (despite the legends) could he have heard about the outcome of Waterloo until many hours after the battle was won. And he was dead at the age of 58 from an illness that could today be cured by an antibiotic costing a few pence. Was Rothschild really the second richest man in history?

Was he, in fact, richer than me? True, he could hire a fleet of carriages and eat off gold plate; but I would happily trade both for still being alive, and I suspect that Rothschild would have felt the same.

The question is prompted by a considerably more mundane event. Inflation in the eurozone has fallen to 0.3%, arousing concerns that there might actually be deflation in the months ahead – and that Eurostat, Europe's statistics agency, will soon declare that prices in Europe are lower than a year earlier.

That worry is premised on the existence of a qualitative difference between inflation and deflation. It is also premised on an assumption that deflation is undesirable.

Contemplation of the antibiotics not available in 1836 casts doubt on all these premises. It is generally accepted medical costs rise faster than general inflation – and in the US, where they represent more than 20% of consumer spending, they have contributed significantly to that general inflation. But medicine has become better – quite a lot better, even if too late for Rothschild.

Price indices are compiled by measuring the changes in the cost of buying a fixed bundle of goods chosen to represent the consumption of an average household. But what the average household buys changes with the arrival of new goods; and with changes in relative prices; as well as with variations – good and bad – in quality. Antibiotics replace leeches, carriages become more expensive, computers become more powerful, and the service from a call-centre deteriorates. That is how modern economies evolve and grow.

But price indices are ill equipped to cope with these changes. The bundle of goods Rothschild bought in his day might now be prohibitively expensive, even for him – the carriages, the plate – and is certainly very different from the bundle of goods Mr Gates would want to buy. The difference in consumption patterns of an average household is more dramatic still.

There are techniques for measuring and incorporating quality improvements, which are used for many consumer goods – but in the case of medicine, it is the amount of attention received that has increased rather than the price of treatments.

Overall, there are probably more upward than downward biases in the way inflation is calculated. But to claim that we know that prices have risen by 0.3% in the past year implies a degree of precision in our estimates to which we cannot lay claim nor realistically aspire.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.This article mainly discusses which economic concept?

A.Capital accumulation.

B.Inflation.

C.Technological progress.

D.Statistics.

答案(1)

2.If quality improvemets are considered into inflation, the ancient rich men would be?

A.Richer on the “ever lived list”.

B.Poorer on the “ever lived list”.

C.No change.

答案(2)