“Look, there’s nothing magic about that $40tn number,” the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told CNBC insouciantly(漫不经心地，无忧无虑地) last week, as the country’s debt mountain(债务大山，指巨额债务) surpassed another bleak(惨淡的，无望的) record.
“看，40万亿美元这个数字没什么神奇的，”美国财政部长斯科特·贝森特上周漫不经心地对CNBC表示，而此时美国的债务大山又突破了一个惨淡的纪录。
Yet Bessent’s decision to intervene in government bond markets in an effort to combat soaring yields belie(掩饰，与…不符)d his studied calm(故作镇定，刻意的冷静) in TV interviews – and reignited fears the US may be on the road to(在…的道路上，即将面临) a debt crisis.
然而，贝森特为对抗收益率飙升而干预政府债券市场的决定，暴露了他在电视采访中刻意表现的冷静——并重新引发了人们对美国可能走上债务危机之路的担忧。
Half a lifetime ago, in 1992, Bessent cut his teeth(初试锋芒，获得初步经验) in markets shorting(做空，卖空) the pound alongside George Soros in the chaos that led up to Black Wednesday(黑色星期三，1992年英镑危机), when the UK plunged out of(突然退出，跌出) the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
半辈子前的1992年，贝森特在导致“黑色星期三”的混乱中与乔治·索罗斯一起做空英镑，从而在市场上初试锋芒，当时英国退出了欧洲汇率机制。