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Britain
英國
Students Loans: A Quick Buck
學生貸款：迅速賺大錢
The government plans to sell out part of the student loan book.
英國政府計劃廉價處理部分學生貸款賬單
Disposing of government assets is a risky business.
處理政府資產是一筆有風險的買賣。
Despite his claim to have “saved the world” in 2008 by averting the collapse of the British banking industry, many voters instead remember Gordon Brown as the dupe who flogged Britain’s gold when prices were at a historical low.
即使戈登-布朗聲稱在2008年通過避免英國銀行業的崩潰來拯救世界，許多選民反而把他看成當金價于歷史最低點時把英國黃金拋售的騙子。
Now Jo Johnson, the universities minister, must hope for better luck.
如今，教育部長喬-約翰遜一定期望好運。
On February 6th he set out a plan to sell a slice of the student debt held by the government.
在2月6日，他開始計劃賣掉一部份政府持有的學生貸款。
It is a pioneering move: Britain is the first country to hawk income-contingent student loans to private investors.
這是一次創新之舉：英國成為第一個將按收入比例還款型的學生貸款兜售給私人投資者的國家。
The proposed sale has been a decade in the making.
這次兜售提議在過去十年間不斷完善。
In 2008 the Labour government passed the Sale of Student Loans Act, which laid the legal groundwork.
在2008年，工黨政府遞交了學生貸款出手的法案，這奠定了合法的基礎。
The deal’s complexity is the main reason for the delay.
這個提案的復雜程度是其被推遲的主要原因。
It would involve around ￡4bn ($5bn) of loans made to nearly half a million students, who began making repayments between 2002 and 2006.
因為這將會涉及近乎的40億英鎊（約50億美元）貸款——由50名萬學生產生并且在2002年到2006年之間就已經開始進行還貸工作。
There is little certainty about the repayment schedule: graduates pay money back only when they cross an earnings threshold, currently ￡17,495.
有一點不確定的就是還款計劃：大學畢業生只有當他們的收入超過17,495英鎊的門檻時才需要還款。
They pay 9% of their earnings above the level; interest is the lower of inflation or the base rate plus one percentage point.
他們一般支付超過收入門檻以上的9%的額度，并且利率為通貨膨脹率或基本利率的較低值再加上1%。
All this makes it hard to work out what the loans are worth.
這一切讓人們很難算出這些貸款的價值。
The deal would involve slightly less than 10% of the student debt the government holds from before the tuition-fee system was changed in 2012.
這項提案將涉及稍低于10%在學費體系于2012年改革之前政府所持有的學生貸款。
If all goes well it is expected to sell further tranches of the debt.
如果一切順利的話，預計會進一步處理這些貸款。
Selling it gradually is sensible, says Nicholas Barr of the London School of Economics, since nobody has much idea how it will work out.
倫敦政經學院的尼古拉斯-巴爾表示，一步步處理這些貸款是很明智的，因為沒有人知道這一切會如何演變。
Opposition to the sale has been building for some time.
反對出售學生貸款的呼聲已經興起了一段時間。
In 2014 the National Union of Students warned the government against flogging the debt to “some unscrupulous, bowler hatted, fat-cat profiteers.”
在2014年，全國學生聯合會警告政府不要販售這些學生貸款給那些不擇手段、冠冕堂皇、一夜暴富、唯利是圖的人。
More recently, critics have worried that graduates may lose out if the purchaser of the debt decided to tinker with the terms of their loans.
最近，批評家擔心，如果學生貸款的賣家決定去利用貸款中的條款胡作為非，那么這些大學畢業生可能會賠個精光。
The government has promised that there will be no such changes.
政府已經做出承諾，人們所擔心的變化不會發生。
That means graduates may in fact benefit from the sale.
這表示，實際上大學畢業生可能從交易中獲益。
If the terms of the loans are fixed, the government would no longer be able to fiddle with them, as George Osborne, then chancellor, did with a different generation of student loans in 2015.
如果貸款中的條款定下，政府將不再能夠恣意修改，因為原財政大臣喬治-奧斯本在2015年推行了新一代的學生貸款。
But, notes Nick Hillman of the Higher Education Policy Institute, it would also be harder for a future government to relax the conditions, perhaps as part of a pre-election giveaway.
但是，高等教育政策研究所的尼克-希爾曼提到，未來政府也許會更難以緩解這種情況，這可能會成為預選提問過程中的一環。
A bigger worry is that the taxpayer will get a bad deal.
更令人擔憂的是納稅人會得到不公平的待遇。
When a previous government sold a more straightforward form of student debt from the 1990s, the hope was that the buyer would be more tenacious when chasing delinquent graduates.
前任政府從20世紀90年代開始以更直接的形式賣出學生債務的時候，期望的是買家在向欠債學生討債時更堅決。
Since repayment is now deducted straight from pay-packets, there is no obvious way for investors to whip the regime into better shape.
因為現在還款直接從薪水賬戶扣除，投資者沒有明確辦法來完善此種體制。
And buyers are likely to be leery of income-contingent loans because of the difficulty in assessing their value and because they are an unfamiliar form of debt, says Mr Barr.
另外，巴爾表示，買家可能對按收入比例回報的貸款心存疑慮，因為很難去評估其中的價值以及這些是不常見的貸款。
The government is simply swapping a future flow of income for cash today, and will probably pay to do so.
府僅僅就是用未來收入流動來交換今天的現金，他們很可能為其買單。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
