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Meanwhile, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa—whose embrace of the world economy has been late or limited—fared much less well. In Africa, for example, the World Bank reckons that 46 percent of the population lived on less than $1 a day in 1998, exactly what the percentage was in 1987.
與此同時，由于拉丁美洲和非洲撒哈拉沙漠以南的國家參與世界經濟的時間較晚或范圍有限，因此它們與亞洲國家相比，形勢要嚴峻得多。例如，據世界銀行估計，1998年非洲總人口的46%每天的生活費低于1美元，這個比例與1987年的完全相同。
Well, if globalization is so good, why is it also so risky? The answer is that two problems could neutralize its potential benefits.
那么，既然全球化有那么多的好處，為什么它也有巨大的風險呢？答案是：來自兩方面的問題有可能中和全球化潛在的益處。
The first is economic instability. The global economy may be prone to harsher boom-bust cycles than national economies individually. The theory that international trade and investment raise living standards works only if investment funds are well used and if trade flows do not become too lopsided.
首先是經濟的不穩定性。和獨立的各國經濟相比，全球性經濟更容易受到經濟高漲蕭條周期的嚴峻影響。只有在投資資金得到很好運用、貿易流通平衡發展的情況下，國際貿易與投資能有效提高生活水平這一理論才能成立。
The Asian financial crisis raised questions on both counts. In the early 1990s, most of Asia thrived because it received vast flows of foreign capital as bank loans, direct investment in factories or stock-market investment in local companies.
亞洲金融危機對這兩個問題提出了質疑。在20世紀90年代初期，大部分亞洲國家經濟一派欣欣向榮，是因為它們獲得了大量外國資金，如它們以銀行貸款、對工廠的直接投資、或對地方公司的股票市場投資等方式流入本國。
The ensuing spending boom in turn aided Europe, Japan and the United States by increasing imports from them. Then the boom abruptly halted in mid-1997 when, it became apparent that as a result of "crony capitalism," inept government investment policies and excess optimism, much of the investment had been wasted on unneeded factories, office buildings and apartments.
隨之而來的消費狂潮帶動了進口量的增長，這促使了歐洲、日本和美國的經濟發展。接著這股消費潮在1997年中期突然停止。很顯然，由于“裙帶資本主義”、不當的政府投資政策以及過度的樂觀情緒，大量投資被浪費在不必要的工廠、寫字樓和公寓的建設上了。
