The Expedition , an SUV that can seat eight passengers, rates as the biggest SUV Ford makes. So how much can an Expedition be worth? That all depends. If the eight passengers sitting in an Expedition happen to be the eight wealthiest Americans, the net worth of that Expedition and everyone in it would be over $1 trillion. To be more precise: $1.023 trillion dollars, plus the value of the vehicle.
福特征服者，这款能容纳八名乘客的SUV，被认为是福特所生产的最大尺寸的SUV。那么一辆征服者值多少钱？那得看情况了。如果这八名乘客恰巧是美国最富的八个人，那么这台征服者和里面每个人的净值会超过1万亿美元。说得再精确些：1.023万亿美元，再加上车的价值。
Let me spell that out for you: $1,002,300,000,000. At Wall Street’s market closed Friday, according to the billionaire trackers at Forbes , America’s eight richest individuals held over $1 trillion for the first time ever.
让我帮你写出来：1,002,300,000,000美元。到周五华尔街收市，根据《福布斯》亿万富豪跟踪榜的数据，美国八名最富有的个人有史以来首次拥有超过1万亿美元。
Ford Expedition
Six of the eight — Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison — each now sit on a personal fortune worth $100 billion or more. But don’t feel bad for the other two, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both of Google. With wealth of $98.6 billion and $95.6 billion respectively, they’re both sitting just a rounding error away from “centi-billionaire” status.
八个人里面的六个——杰夫·贝索斯、埃隆·马斯克、比尔·盖茨、马克·扎克伯格、沃伦·巴菲特以及拉里·埃利森——每个人名下财富如今都价值1千亿美元或更多。但也别为另外两个人感到难过，就是谷歌的拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林。这两个人的财富分别为986亿美元和956亿美元，他们距离“千亿富豪”差的就是个四舍五入的零头。
Think about that. A group of white guys so small they could all fit into an SUV now controls a trillion dollars of the nation’s wealth. Need some perspective ? One trillion dollars equals the collective wealth of a million millionaires. We have states in this nation where the entire population holds significantly less than $1 trillion in wealth.
想想吧。一小群白人，小得能塞进一辆SUV里，他们如今却掌控着万亿美元的国家财富。需要换一个视角来看一下吗？一万亿美元相当于一百万个百万富翁的财富总和。我们国家有些州的全部人口所持有的总财富甚至远低于一万亿美元。
Eight white guys, $1 trillion. Just seven years ago I was ringing the alarm that just 51 billionaires held personal fortunes worth a combined $1 trillion. But make no mistake. Wealth concentration in America was indeed running out of control seven years ago. That our distribution of wealth back in 2014 now looks mild compared to the present level should absolutely terrify us.
八个白人，一万亿美元。就在七年之前，我还在警告说仅仅51个亿万富豪就掌控了总值达一万亿美元的个人财富。但别误会，美国的财富集中七年前就真正地失控了。我们2014年的财富分配与今天的水平比起来竟微不足道，这件事绝对应该让我们吓出一身冷汗。
Our current obscene concentration of wealth should also be all the proof we need that our tax system has totally broken down. For decades now, we’ve taxed work more and more and wealth less and less. We’re reaping today what we’ve been sowing .
我们目前骇人听闻的财富集中也充分证明了我们的税收系统已经彻底失灵了。几十年来，我们对劳动阶层征税益苛而对资产阶层征税益轻。我们如今是自食苦果。
Eight white guys controlling a trillion dollars won’t work, especially with tens of millions of us reeling from a pandemic. But we can reverse the trends of the last four decades. We can require the ultra-rich to start paying their fair tax share. Or we can submit to oligarchic rule.
八个白人控制一万亿美元是行不通的，特别是我们几千万人在疫情中挣扎的时候。但我们可以扭转四十年来的趋势。我们可以要求超级富豪开始缴纳他们应该承担的税务。或者我们可以向寡头统治屈服。
And if we do submit, I’ll be rewriting this column a few years from now — with a Ferrari two-seater in the lead .
如果我们真的屈服了的话，几年以后我会重写这个专栏——文章将以法拉利两座跑车开头。