美語情景對話 第815期:Salary Caps 工資上限

Todd: So Greg in the last one we were talking about minimum wage, and this is one of the topics in your book and it's about income disparity. One of the chapters is about income disparity. Now the opposite would be should there the a salary cap, which would mean that basically you could only earn so much, like let's say you can only earn five million dollars, ten million dollars. Nobody could earn more than that. What do you think about that concept?

託德：格雷格，上期我們談論了最低工資，你書中提到的一個問題是收入差距。你書中有一章專門講述了收入差距。今天我們要談的是相反的話題，應該設定工資上限嗎？工資上限是指限定人們只能掙這麼多錢，假設說只能掙500萬美元或1000萬美元。沒有人的工資能超過這個限定。你怎麼看這個概念？

Greg: I personally agree with a salary cap. I'm not sure how much it should be, but definitely the discrepancy in wages is way to great. There's too many people who have to ... a husband and a wife work hard forty hours or more, both of them. They're barely, barely getting by, and then you got all these other people who are just buying Rolls-Royce cars and Mercedes, and country clubs and it's just not fair.

格雷格：我個人同意設定工資上限。我不能確定限額應該設定多少，但是我認爲工資差異這一問題太嚴重了。有許多人……有的家庭夫妻兩人可能都要工作40個小時以上。這樣他們還只是勉強餬口而已，可是也有人能買得起勞斯萊斯和奔馳，去鄉村俱樂部享樂，這太不公平了。

Todd: But, well, for one, though I mean, Mercedes and Rolls-Royce and those are products that provide jobs, so I would argue with that. Actually, as you can probably tell, I'm against the idea mainly because, you know, I think that hurts innovation. You know, you look at people like the CEO of a very powerful internet company or software company, and you know, take google for example, I'm sure that they make more than ten million, but they're service is used so much around the world, that they should get that money, and if people couldn't ... hang on ... if people couldn't get ... couldn't earn that salary then maybe they wouldn't have the same motivation and drive to be successful and that people would lose out as a result.

託德：首先，奔馳和勞斯萊斯是產品，這些產品會提供工作崗位，所以對這個問題持不同看法。實際上，我並不同意這個觀點，因爲我認爲工資上限會損害創新性。你看，像強大的互聯網公司或軟件公司的首席執行官，比如谷歌公司吧，我確定他們的工資超過1000萬美元，可是全世界都在使用他們的服務，他們應該得到這筆工資，如果他們不能……等一下，讓我說完，如果他們不能掙到這麼多錢，那他們可能不會這麼有動力，不會成功，他們最終可能會失敗。

Greg: I think that there's not proof to say that these people are making these products because they're making such tremendous amounts of money. What came first: the product and then they got the money in most cases. There's ... these people could be ... society can have all sorts of wonderful products and still have a fair income system, and I have nothing against people becoming rich or making a good salary, a very good salary, but not such an incredible gap. You have executives of some major international corporations that are making more money than millions of people in the world make combined. The opposite side of not having a cap is that you have people who are making too little, and those people are also working hard. Those people deserve validation. Those people deserve a good life standard which millions of people across the world are not having.

格雷格：我認爲沒有證據表明因爲他們掙的錢很多，就說明是他們製造了這些產品。想一下，是先有的產品還是他們大部分情況下先掙到了錢。這些人……這個社會既可以有各種出色的產品，也可以有公平的工資體系，我並不反對人們變得富有，也不反對他們有不錯的收入，我反對的是如此大的工資差距。主要互聯網公司執行官的工資比世界上數百萬人的工資總合還要多。沒有工資上限就會造成有的人工作非常努力，可是掙得特別少。而這些人值得獲得認可。這些人值得擁有好的生活標準，可是世界上數百萬人都享受不到這種生活標準。

Todd: Well, I think ... well, I agree with you about that. I agree with you about that. That there's people who work hard and that they're under compensated, but ... and they're a lot of people that get grossly overpaid but I think that's just a problem of management and that in some cases so people do deserve millions and millions, perhaps billions of dollars if they have really contributed to the product or the outcome. So, basically we're gonna disagree on this one.

託德：我認爲……這方面我同意你的觀點。我同意你的看法。有些人工作努力，可是掙的很少，也有很多人收入過高，不過我認爲這只是管理問題，在某些情況下，如果有人對產品或成果的貢獻很大，那他們就值得獲得數百萬美元甚至數十億美元的收入。所以基本上來說，我們兩人在這個問題上持不同看法。

Greg: Yeah.

格雷格：對。

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重點講解：
1. get by 勉強過活；勉強應付；
例句：I can't get by on such a small income.
靠這麼微薄的收入我無法過活。
2. argue with 不承認；對…有爭議；
例句：We produced the best soccer of the tournament. Nobody would argue with that.
本屆比賽中我們踢出了最漂亮的足球，誰都不會否認這一點。
3. lose out 失敗；受損；吃虧；
例句：We both lost out.
我們倆都輸了。
4. all sorts of 各種各樣的；形形色色的；
例句：There are all sorts of animals, including bears, pigs, kangaroos, and penguins.
有各種各樣的動物，包括熊、豬、袋鼠和企鵝。
5. contribute to （爲…）做貢獻；
例句：Every player contributed to the victory.
每位選手對勝利都有貢獻。