★英語聽力頻道為大家整理的英語聽力練習：馬克里奇，悼念原物料大王。更多閱讀請查看本站英語聽力頻道。
     Marc Rich
    馬克里奇
    Marc Rich, king of commodities, died on June 26th, aged 78
    “原物料大王”馬克里奇于6月26日去世，享年78歲
    A NEW employee once asked Marc Rich for advice on trading. He expected, perhaps, “Buy low, sell high”, or “Think long-term”. Or perhaps, given Mr Rich's habit of going to the office at daybreak, “Up with the lark”. Instead, Mr Rich picked up a knife and ran a finger across the edge. “As a trader you often walk on the blade,” he said softly. “Be careful and don't step off.”
    曾經(jīng)一名新職員向馬克里奇尋求生意方面的建議。他期待的回答可能是“低價買進，高價賣出”或者“做長遠思考”?；蛘呖紤]到里奇天一亮就去辦公室的習慣，所以可能會說“早起床”。但是，里奇拿起一把小刀，一根手指放在刀刃上滑動，然后輕聲說：“作為一個商人，經(jīng)常會有走在刀刃上的感覺，所以要小心，不要讓自己掉下來?！?BR>    Few walked it more skilfully than Mr Rich. Obsessively, he scanned the globe to see crises coming, wars brewing, shortages looming. He bought before anyone else did, and was first there when countries began to look round for oil or zinc or nickel. On the eve of the Korean war, as a mere junior trader at Philipp Brothers in New York, he created a market in mercury, which the army needed for batteries. The price soared. From the late 1960s, somehow anticipating the Arab oil-export embargo, he began to create a spot market for oil. Previously, all crude was tied up by the big companies in inelastic long-term contracts. Starting in Tunisia, Mr Rich began to buy and sell it for immediate delivery, like any other commodity. When the embargo bit after 1973 he was swimming in oil when the majors were struggling, and was able to sell it at a mark-up of as much as $14 a barrel. Some called that profiteering. Mr Rich called it a service charge. He could have demanded more, but that would have been “l(fā)ike taking candy from a baby”.
    沒有人能走得比里奇更輕巧熟練。他觀察世界各地，預見哪兒危機將要發(fā)生，戰(zhàn)爭將要爆發(fā)，商品將要發(fā)生短缺，盡情沉溺于這一切。當一些國家開始到處尋求石油、鋅或鎳時，他總是第一個買到這些商品的人，也是第一個去到那里的人。在朝鮮戰(zhàn)爭前夕，雖然只是紐約菲利普兄弟公司一個資歷較淺的職員，里奇卻開創(chuàng)了有關汞的市場。當時軍隊需要汞來制作電池，所以汞價格飆升。從20世紀60年代末開始，不知為何他預感阿拉伯會禁令石油輸出，所以他開始創(chuàng)立了石油現(xiàn)貨市場。在這之前，所有原油都被大公司以硬性長期合約的形式限制住了。里奇首次在突尼斯開始以立即交付的形式買賣原油，就像其他商品一樣。1973年后，貿(mào)易禁令產(chǎn)生負面影響，當其他人深受其苦時，他卻擁有著大量石油，這樣他以每桶加價14美金的價格出售石油。一些人稱這種行為是投機倒把。里奇認為這是服務費。他本可以要價更高，但是那就“像從小孩手里搶糖果一樣簡單”。
    A free agent in this exhilarating new market, he went from strength to strength. Turning on his insistent, feline charm, he sought out buyers and sellers while his partner Pinky Green arranged shipping. It was a winning combination, forged at Philipp Brothers but soon outgrowing it. In 1974 the two of them, peeved that their bonuses were still so small, left to form Marc Rich + Co. The main office was in Zug in safe, secret Switzerland, no questions asked.
    在這個振奮人心的新市場中，作為自由代理人的里奇不斷發(fā)展強大起來?？恐约簣猿植恍?、貓科動物般的魅力，他不斷找尋買主和賣主，而他的搭檔平卡斯?格林則負責安排運輸。這是成功的合作，他們在菲利普兄弟公司形成的，但是很快地他們不再需要依賴這個公司了。二人因不滿自己的獎金仍是很少，所以在1974年都離開了這家公司，一起創(chuàng)立了馬克?里奇+有限公司。總公司設在瑞士的一個叫楚格的地方，這里安全、神秘、不問理由。
    From there, with cat-like tread, Mr Rich found his way round any political or moral obstacle. He sold Soviet oil to apartheid South Africa, despite a UN embargo, and between 1979 and 1994 made profits of around $2 billion there. He sent Soviet and Venezuelan oil to Cuba in exchange for sugar, ignoring America's ban on trade. He sold on the global market surplus Iranian oil that had flowed to Israel down a secret pipeline, and kept the arrangement going seamlessly despite the Iranian revolution of 1979, another embargo, and the American hostage crisis. The Iranians respected their contracts, he explained. They could not sell their oil, so he bought and sold it for them, using shell companies wherever necessary. Keeping well below the radar, as he always did, he was soon the world's largest independent oil-trader, with a turnover in 1980 of $15 billion.
    從這里開始，里奇發(fā)現(xiàn)他的路布滿了各種形式的有關政治、道德的阻礙，他小心地走著。他將蘇聯(lián)石油賣到種族隔離的南非，盡管當時聯(lián)合國頒布了貿(mào)易禁令。在1979到1994年期間，他就這樣賺了將近20億美元。他將蘇聯(lián)和委內(nèi)瑞拉的石油輸送到古巴以換取糖，全然不顧美國的貿(mào)易禁令。他把過剩的伊朗石油拿到全球市場上出售，伊朗石油曾沿著一條秘密管道流向以色列，并且把這一切進行得天衣無縫，盡管1979年伊朗發(fā)生了革命，盡管禁止跨國貿(mào)易，盡管爆發(fā)了美國人質(zhì)危機。他解釋說，伊朗人尊重他們的合同。伊朗人不能賣掉他們的石油，所以他先買下，然后不顧一切利用空殼公司替他們售出石油。在這種公司的保護下，正如以往一樣生意順利經(jīng)營著，很快地他成為世界上的獨立石油貿(mào)易商，1980年的營業(yè)額達到150億美元。
    Then he stepped off the knife-blade. In 1980-81 he violated America's domestic oil-price controls by relabelling Texas crude from old fields as new-found, jacking up the price by as much as 400%. He made profits of $105m and shipped them abroad, avoiding taxes of $48m. Once federal prosecutors were after him for that, they charged him with 64 other crimes, including racketeering and “trading with the enemy”. In 1983 he fled to Switzerland with his family, having also tried to spirit away two trunks of subpoenaed business papers.
    也就在這時，他從事業(yè)浪尖掉了下來。在1980到1981這段期間，他觸犯了美國對國內(nèi)石油價格控制的規(guī)定，原因是他把從德克薩斯舊油田開采的原油重新貼上標簽變成新石油，從而將價格提高了4倍。他因此獲益了1.05億美元，并將這些錢運送到國外，逃脫了4.8千萬美元的稅款。正因為這樣，聯(lián)邦司法人員控告他，同時他被控的其他罪行達64項，包括詐騙和“與敵人貿(mào)易”。1983年他和家人逃到瑞士，當然他試圖想要偷走兩箱商業(yè)報告。
    The outsider
    局外人
    Thereafter he became a fugitive, a star of the FBI's most-wanted list. He remained—until 1994, when he sold his stake and his company became the vast, tentacular Glencore—the world's biggest trader of metals and minerals, while darting between Spain, Switzerland and Israel, a citizen of all three. In Marbella or St Moritz, beside a $9.5m swimming pool or among his Braques and Picassos, with a fortune estimated at $2.5 billion, he reconciled himself to exile. His father died in America; he had to say kaddish down the telephone. You cry a little, you move on.
    因此，他變成了一個逃犯，也位列美國聯(lián)邦調(diào)查局最想抓捕人犯名單之中。他一直是世界上的金屬和礦物貿(mào)易商，直到1994年他賣掉了自己的股份，而他的公司成為嘉能可這個涉獵領域廣的大公司。這段期間他在西班牙、瑞士和以色列這幾個國家之間奔波，成為這三個國家的公民。在馬爾韋亞或圣莫里茨，或者在9.5百萬美元打造的游泳池旁邊或者在他收藏的布拉克和畢加索的作品間，這個估計擁有25億美元財富的人才會勉強承認自己被流放。他的父親死于美國;他只能在電話里念著贊美詩《珈底什》。他認為，小段悲傷，然后繼續(xù)前行。
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    In his own mind he was shy, modest and innocent of everything. American embargoes, he maintained, did not apply to companies based in Switzerland. Bribes, such as the $1m he gave to Nigeria's transport minister, were paid “in order to be able to do business at the same price as other people were willing to do the business”. Getting round the price controls on oil from old fields was something many of the oil majors had done, too; but only he was faced with criminal prosecution for it.
    在他自己心目中，他是害羞、謙虛和清白的。他認為，美國的貿(mào)易禁令不適用于總部位于瑞士的公司。而那些賄賂，比如他送給尼日利亞運輸部長的1百萬美元，這只是“為了能夠做生意，就像其他人也會愿意以同樣的價錢做這樣的生意”。繞開對舊油田開采的石油的價格控制也是許多的大石油公司會做的事情;但是只有他為了這個事情而面臨到刑事控訴。
    Why? Perhaps, he mused, because he was Jewish, always the outsider: the refugee boy from Belgium who changed schools so often that he had no friends and hardly talked to anyone. Perhaps because he loved Israel more than America, showering it with money for good causes, helping to airlift Jews from Ethiopia and Yemen, and giving Mossad's agents contacts in Iran. Or perhaps just because he was making an awful lot of money. He always saw profit where others didn't care, or dare, to look; he got that from his father, who had started in business by peddling round Antwerp pieces of fabric and scrap metal that factories had thrown away.
    為什么?他沉思道，可能因為他是*人，從而總是局外人：這個從比利時逃難出來的男孩因為總是換學校而沒有朋友，也幾乎沒跟任何人說過話?？赡芤驗樗麗垡陨袆龠^美國，所以他提供大量金錢給以色列去做一些偉大事業(yè)，幫助空運那些來自埃塞俄比亞和也門的*人，安排了莫薩德在伊朗的特務據(jù)點?；蛘呖赡苤皇且驗樗嵙舜罅矿a臟的金錢。他總是看到別人不在意，或者不敢去看到的利潤;這一點遺傳了父親，他的父親開始做買賣時靠的是在安特衛(wèi)普走街串巷地兜售工廠丟棄的一塊塊布料和廢棄金屬。
    In 2001 Bill Clinton pardoned him, his hand pushed by the Israeli prime minister, the king of Spain, an ex-head of Mossad and Mr Rich's ex-wife Denise, who had given generously to the Clinton library and to Democratic campaigns. The president later regretted his action, calling it “terrible politics”. Mr Rich, oblivious to politics, would have called it good business.
    2001年比爾·克林頓赦免了他，以色列總理、西班牙國王、莫薩德前負責人和里奇的前妻丹尼斯推動了這個結果。丹尼斯曾對克林頓圖書館和民主黨競選慷慨地捐贈過。后來這位總統(tǒng)為自己的行為感到后悔，稱之為“政治禍端”。對政治沒有意識的里奇肯定會說這是一筆好生意。