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As part of the end of year windup, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper has created a Facebook page where readers can discuss solutions to various issues facing Japan. The current topic of debate is the declining birthrate.
作為年終盤點的一部分，日本《朝日新聞》日前開通了一個Facebook頁面，讓讀者能在上面討論日本面臨的各種問題的解決方法。當前討論的話題是不斷下降的出生率。
Takuro Morinaga, an economic analyst, weighed in with this controversial proposal: “If we levied a ‘handsome tax‘ on good-looking guys, that would serve to correct a little bit of the unfairness in dating, making it easier for homely guys to find a partner and the number of marriages would increase.”
一位名叫森永拓郎的經濟分析師在討論中提出了這一頗具爭議性的提議：“如果我們對帥哥征收‘英俊稅’，就能糾正約會中的那點不公平，從而讓其貌不揚的男子能夠更容易找到對象，結婚人數也會上升。”
I bet the ladies at the local tax office are all for it.
我打賭地方稅務局的女士們會完全贊成這個提議。
Morinaga goes on to say, “There’s a lot of discussion about income disparity, but no one is talking about attractiveness disparity. Good-looking guys get an insane amount of women. At one time, some of them are dating over a 100 women. The result is that women are converging around one type of guy.”
森永還說：“關于收入差距的討論很多，但是沒人談論吸引力差距。長得帥的男人得到的女人多得幾近瘋狂。過去一些帥哥甚至和100多個女人約會。結果是女人圍著同一種類型的男人轉。”
He goes on to point out the prevalence of the “lady-killer” in popular culture as evidence that good-looking guys do better with the fairer sex.
他還指出流行文化中盛行的“大眾情人”就是帥哥更得女士青睞的證據。
In matters of love, he believes there are three components: physical attraction, money, and communication, the most important of these currently being physical attraction. “No matter how many singles’ events a homely man goes to, all the attention ends up on the good-looking guys. Since we cannot change how people look, a redistribution must be made in the money component to even the playing field.”
他認為，愛情有三個組成部分：身體吸引力、金錢和交流，這三者中目前最重要的是身體吸引力。“不管一個長相平凡的男子參加多少單身活動，所有的目光最后都聚集在帥哥身上。既然我們不能改變人們的長相，那么在金錢環節就必須進行重新分配，以保持競爭環境的公平。”
Morinaga suggests doubling the income tax on good-looking guys while reducing the tax rate for homely guys by 10-20 percent. Currently, the highest rate of income tax in Japan is 40 percent, so this would mean high-earning, good-looking fellows are in for an 80 percent income tax rate. Ouch.
森永建議，將對帥哥征收的個人所得稅加倍，同時把向相貌平凡的男子征的稅降低10%到20%。當前，日本個人所得稅的最高稅率為40%，這將意味著收入高又長得帥的男子要繳納的個人所得稅稅率將達到80%。哎喲！
The real reason for the declining birthrate, according to this radical saviour, is the rise in the number of unmarried people, so he feels that increasing the number of marriages should be the most urgent objective. Measures that make it easier for people to have and raise children – such as increasing maternity and paternity leave – are aimed at people who already have kids, and Morinaga doesn’t think they will do anything to raise the birthrate.
這位激進的救星稱，出生率下降的真正原因是未婚人士數量的增加，所以他認為增加婚姻數量應該是最緊迫的目標。讓人們更容易生養小孩的措施——例如增加產假和陪產假——針對的是已經有小孩的人群，森永認為這些措施對提高出生率毫無用處。
