比特幣價格今年上演瘋狂行情。今年九月，諾貝爾經濟學獎得主羅伯特-席勒重申，比特幣是一種泡沫。他指出，比特幣的上漲速度已超過了近期歷史上大部分泡沫。法新社近日盤點了歷史上5次最瘋狂的“吹泡泡”，這些泡沫的破裂都帶來了破壞性后果。

Virtual currency Bitcoin - or "digital gold" to its fans - has enjoyed a gravity-defying rise along with wild price swings, sparking fears it could be the latest financial market "bubble".
虛擬貨幣比特幣（也就是粉絲們所謂的“數字黃金”）伴隨著劇烈的波動價格大幅飆升，這不禁令人擔心它可能成為最新的金融市場“泡沫”。

Bitcoin was worth just a few US cents when it began life in 2009 and last week changed hands for a staggering $17,000 despite having no central bank backing and no legal exchange rate.
比特幣在2009年誕生時的價格只有幾美分，雖然沒有央行支持，也沒有法定匯率，但上周，其轉手價格達到了1.7萬美元（約合11.2萬人民幣）的天價。

Here are some of the most wild speculative bubbles in history - ranging from tulips to teddy bears:
以下是歷史上最瘋狂的幾次投機泡沫——包括郁金香和“泰迪熊”：

DUTCH 'TULIPMANIA'
荷蘭的“郁金香熱”

At the beginning of the 17th century, exotic tulips became the ultimate luxury accessory and status symbol for rich and poor alike.
十七世紀初，外來的郁金香成為富人和窮人的終極奢侈品與地位象征。

People mortgaged houses and sold businesses just to buy a bulb. At one point, a single tulip bulb fetched up to $150,000 at today's prices.
人們用房屋抵押貸款，出售生意，僅僅是為了買一個郁金香球莖。一個郁金香球莖的價格一度相當于今天的15萬美元（約合99萬人民幣）。

With prices rising to more than 100 times the average annual income, bulbs were being traded for land, livestock and houses - a rare bulb was even considered an acceptable dowry for a bride.
由于價格上漲到了年平均收入的100多倍，郁金香球莖被用于土地、牲畜和房屋的交易，一個罕見的球莖甚至被認為是一份可以接受的新娘嫁妝。

During what is commonly viewed as the first speculative bubble, rumours were deliberately spread to influence prices and there were reports of skullduggery such as training animals to dig up tulip fields.
在這個通常被視為是世界上出現的第一個投機泡沫的過程中，人們故意傳播謠言，以影響價格走向，甚至還有虛假報道說，有人訓練動物去挖掘種植郁金香的田地。

The bubble burst in 1637 after a disappointing turn-out to a tulip auction in Haarlem. Prices plunged, banks failed and people lost their life savings - all for a pretty flower.
1637年，哈勒姆的一次郁金香拍賣失利后，泡沫破裂。價格暴跌，銀行倒閉，人們失去了畢生的積蓄：一切只是為了一種漂亮的花朵。

JAPANESE ASSET BUBBLE
日本資產泡沫

In the mid-1980s, the Japanese economy ruled the world. Its high-quality, technologically advanced products dominated export markets and everything seemed to be "made in Japan".
二十世紀八十年代中期，日本經濟統治世界。其技術先進的優(yōu)質產品主導著出口市場，一切似乎都是“日本制造”。

Fuelled by this success - and ultra-loose monetary policy - Japan's Nikkei index tripled between 1985 and 1989 and Japanese firms were worth nearly half of the entire world's corporate sector.
在這種成功和超寬松貨幣政策的推動下，日本的日經指數在1985年至1989年間翻了3倍，而日本公司的市值在全球公司中所占的份額幾乎達到了一半。

With all this money sloshing around and credit cheap and easy to obtain, speculators piled into real estate and prices exploded.
由于大量資金四處流動，信貸利率低而且很容易獲批，投機人士大量涌入房地產市場，導致房地產價格急劇上漲。

At the height of the boom, it was said the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo was worth the same as the whole of California.
據說在這一熱潮的鼎盛時期，東京市中心皇居的價格相當于整個加利福尼亞州房產的價格。

Government policies aimed at deflating the bubble ended up pricking it violently. The stock market plummeted and house prices went through the floor, ruining millions.
政府旨在為泡沫降溫的政策最終猛烈地戳破了泡沫。股市暴跌，房價降至谷底，數百萬人破產。

The bust ushered in what economists called a "lost decade" of economic stagnation and deflation, the effects of which are still being felt today.
經濟蕭條帶來了經濟學家所說的經濟停滯和通貨緊縮的“失落的十年”，其影響一直持續(xù)到今天。

DOT.COM MADNESS
互聯網泡沫

The Internet and tech boom of the late 1990s resulted in some "dot.com" companies being valued at billions of dollars despite not having made a cent in profits.
上世紀九十年代末的互聯網和技術繁榮，導致一些互聯網公司在沒有一分錢贏利的情況下市值達到數十億美元。

Young Internet tycoons became millionaires overnight as investors piled into any company with a dot.com domain name in the belief the web had upended the rules of business.
認為網絡已經重置了商業(yè)規(guī)則，投資者們盲目涌入任何一家有著.com網絡域名的公司，年輕的互聯網大亨一夜暴富。

At the height of the boom came the AOL-Time Warner merger, at the time the biggest in corporate history.
在繁榮的巔峰時期，美國在線公司同時代華納公司合并，成為當時公司歷史上規(guī)模最大的一次合并。

The boom prompted then Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to warn about "irrational exuberance" in asset prices, widely seen as a warning about the dot.com bubble.
這一熱潮促使當時的美聯儲主席艾倫?格林斯潘就資產價格“非理性繁榮”發(fā)出警告，這也被廣泛視作對互聯網泡沫的警告。

Funding dried up as it became clear many Internet companies held wildly inflated valuation based on pie-in-the-sky profit forecasts.
當一切越來越明朗，許多互聯網公司都在以“畫餅”盈利預期為基礎、價值被嚴重高估之時，資金枯竭了。

Thousands of Internet companies bit the dust and investors lost trillions of dollars as the tech-heavy Nasdaq market spiralled downwards.
隨著成千上萬家互聯網公司虧損，以科技公司為主的納斯達克市場螺旋形下跌，投資者損失了數萬億美元。

SUBPRIME CRISIS
次貸危機

The subprime boom-and-bust?in the first decade of this centrury?was based on extremely complex financial instruments that "sliced and diced" risky mortgage assets and bundled them together.
本世紀初的次貸繁榮和蕭條都是在一些極其復雜的金融工具基礎上發(fā)生的，這些金融工具對風險抵押資產進行分割，然后將它們捆綁在一起。

Banks and mortgage lenders offered credit to uncreditworthy homeowners in the belief that by packaging these loans together, the risks could be reduced.
銀行和抵押貸款機構向毫無信譽的房主提供信貸，因為他們相信，通過將這些貸款打包，風險可能會降低。

The financial wizardry fuelled a housing market boom as speculators snapped up houses they never intended to live in to build up their "collateralised" portfolio.
投機者搶購他們從未打算居住的房子來建立“抵押”投資組合，金融魔法促成了一場房地產市場的繁榮。

The bust came when investors realised that the flip-side of packaging risk together was that they could not tell where the bad loans were lurking.
當投資者意識到打包的風險在于他們無法判斷不良貸款的所在時，泡沫破滅了。

The subprime-fuelled housing boom turned to bust and prices plunged, with millions of families losing their homes.
受次級貸款推動的房地產泡沫開始破裂，房價暴跌，數百萬家庭失去了他們的住房。

The stock market crashed, unemployment ballooned and the US banking system buckled to the point of implosion, with Lehman Brothers collapsing in 2008.
股市崩盤，失業(yè)率膨脹，美國銀行體系幾近崩潰，2008年雷曼兄弟公司破產。

BEANIE BABY BOOM
豆豆娃熱潮

A lesser known tale of boom-and-bust is the Beanie Baby craze that occurred around the same time as the Internet bubble.
一個不那么為人所知的繁榮與破裂的故事是豆豆娃熱潮，它與互聯網泡沫幾乎同時發(fā)生。

Small stuffed toys worth around $5 became such a hot craze that people bought them for thousands of dollars, convinced their prices would continue to rise.
這種價值5美元左右（約合33元人民幣）的小玩偶成為搶購對象，價格上漲到幾千美元，因為人們認為這些玩偶的價格會繼續(xù)上漲。

The firm that manufactured them, Ty, enjoyed sales of more than $1 billion and at one point, trade in Beanie Baby toys represented as much as one tenth of the trade on eBay.
生產這些玩偶的是一家名叫Ty的公司，該公司的銷售額超過了10億美元（約合66億人民幣），而且豆豆娃玩具的交易一度占到億貝公司交易的十分之一。

The crash came at the end of the 1990s when Ty announced it was ending the toy.
上世紀九十年代末，Ty宣布將終止這款玩具的生產，崩盤發(fā)生了。

Far from creating excitement by reducing supply, the market was spooked, and soon bears that had been fetching thousands were selling three for $10.
市場非但沒有由于供應減少而變得緊俏，反而出現了恐慌，很快這些一度售價達幾千美元的小熊玩具就被以10美元3個的價格拋售。

來源：法新社、參考消息網
編審：yaning