美經濟危機展覽探索市場經濟弊端

The global economic crisis wears on, but the Museum of American Finance is already documenting its history in an exhibit that opened on Wednesday.

Tracking the Credit Crisis provides a timeline of the events that led to the current recession and translates the catchphrases of the economic downturn such as "securitization", "liquidity", and "derivative" for the average person.

"We're now entering what may well be the most challenging man-made calamity in modern experience, a global financial crisis of unprecedented size, speed, interconnectedness and complexity," said Lee Kjelleren, the chief executive of the museum, who said he hoped the exhibit would help the public understand events as they unfold.

The exhibit records events on Wall Street from February 2007 to February 2009 highlighting everything from the announcement by "The Concise Oxford Dictionary" that it would include the terms "subprime" and "credit crunch" in its next edition to Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy on September 15, 2008.

The last date on the timeline is March 2, 2009, when American International Group (AIG) Inc announced a loss of $60 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, the largest loss in US corporate history. The museum has not yet caught up with AIG's controversial bonuses.

"You cannot really document history until well after the fact," acknowledges Leena Akhtar, who co-curated the exhibit at the museum just steps away from the New York Stock Exchange.

The museum says its mission is to reaffirm the power of an open, democratic, free-market economy, but this exhibit explores some of the failures that led to the current crisis.

The emphasis on big bonuses at American financial institutions and expectations for bank bailouts were partly responsible for the current crisis, Kjelleren said

全球經濟危機餘波未平，而美國金融博物館已經開辦展覽記錄這段歷史。這一展覽於上週三開始。

這一名爲“信貸危機回顧”的展覽介紹了導致目前經濟衰退的一系列事件的發生時間表，並向人們闡釋了經濟衰退時期的一些流行語，如securitization（證券化），liquidity（流動性）和derivative（衍生品）等等。

博物館首席執行官Lee Kjelleren說：“目前我們正經歷現代歷史上最具挑戰的一場人爲災難。這場全球金融危機的規模、速度、關聯度和複雜性是前所未有的。” Lee Kjelleren說他希望這次展覽能幫助人們瞭解事件發生的經過。

這次展覽記錄了從2007年2月至今年2月華爾街發生的一系列大事，從《牛津簡明詞典》宣佈將在其下一版中收錄subprime（次貸）和credit crunch（信貸緊縮）等詞語到去年9月15日雷曼兄弟破產等應有盡有。

時間表中最近的日期是2009年3月2日，這一天美國國際集團（AIG）宣佈其去年第四季度虧損600億美元，這是美國企業史上最大的虧損額。但博物館還未將AIG頗具爭議的“獎金門”事件包括在內。

負責此次展覽的Leena Akhtar說：“你只有等一件事塵埃落定後才能真正記錄它的歷史。” 美國金融博物館距紐約證券交易所僅有幾步之遙。

該博物館稱，其使命就是肯定開放、民主和自由市場經濟的力量，但這次展覽卻探索了導致目前這場危機的一些失敗之處。

Kjelleren說，美國金融機構過分強調用鉅額獎金（留住人才）以及對銀行救援資金的依賴在一定程度上也要爲目前這場經濟危機負責。

Vocabulary:

wear on:慢慢過去