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The answer, I believe, is simple enough. Most middle-class Americans spend a fair amount of time worrying about the things that gobble up large portions of their paycheck month after month: federal, state and local taxes( which, thanks to automatic deductions at the work place, often take over 30% of an income before the paycheck is even printed!); monthly payments for cars bought on credit; health, home and auto insurance premiums; gas oline; utility bills for heating, air conditioning, water and electricity; groceries( typically about 15% of monthly income); unexpected automotive and house hold repairs; and the like. But these monthly outlays are the easy part. The hard part is doing the three things that have come to define the lives of most middle-class Americans:(1) buying a home;(2) paying for their children’s university education; and(3) funding a retirement. Indeed, at its core, the financial dimension of what is broadly termed "the American Dream" can be summed up in these three massive under takings.(I have often felt that the term "dream" is a misnomer, since what is required to make the dream come true is actually a lot of hard work spread over decades- the effort could just as well be called“the Great American Slog”.) The magnitude of the financial burden generated by buying a home, financing college for one’s children, and laying the groundwork for a comfortable retirement cannot be fully appreciated in the abstract, so here are some concrete figures. Today, a middle-class home in an "average" part of the country(e.g., not in expensive cities such as New York or San Francisco) can cost between $75,000 and $200,000, usually requiring a down payment of 10-15% of the sum in question and thirty long years of monthly mortgage payments, with about 7-8% interest factored in. The next big expense for the average middle-class family is college for the children. Experts on education estimate that for a child born in the year 2000, a four-year degree at a state university could cost as much as $180000, while a four-year degree at a private university such as Harvard or Stanford will cost $300000 or more.(These figures, in projected 2018 dollars, include tuition, room, board and books.) Finally, for today’s middle-class parents with an average joint income to live as well in old age as they will have during their final working years, they will almost certainly need to supplement their Social Security checks(provided by the U.S. government) with their own retirement savings. This means it can easily take holdings of as much as several hundred thousand dollars to generate a stream of interest income sufficient to supplement other sources of retirement income (such as Social Security or company pensions) and thereby bring their income in retirement up to the immediate pre-retirement level. (At the risk of stating the obvious, let me add that many middle-class Americans are unable to carry out this ambitious financial program in full and therefore spend their retirement years worrying about money- sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.) My point here is not that Americans manage or fail to save and invest money for these purposes, but that these goals effectively determine an American’s sense of wealth. With such giant expenditures still lying ahead, no middle-class American feels particularly wealthy; and meeting these goals( at least the first two) may well leave an American feeling poor. What’s clear is that these expenses figure prominently in the financial plans of most middle-class Americans. And I think this explains, at least in part, why middle-class Americans think very differently about money than do today's middle-class Russians. Interestingly, I think it also explains, at least to a significant degree, why Americans attend the theater or opera less frequently than our Russian friends. Remember that the cost of tickets for these events is often fairly steep even by US standards (there are few government subsidies for the performing arts in America, so the cost of staging events must be met largely through box office receipts). Reckon in the cost of hiring a baby-sitter, and a "cultural" night out begins to seem prohibitively expensive to many middle-class Americans. Wealthier Americans tend to go to these events in relatively greater numbers because they have higher disposable incomes. 我认为答案极其简单。多数美国中产阶级一月又一月用大量时间盘算那些消耗掉大部分收入的开销：联邦税、州税、地方税(这些税约占总收入30%以上，由于工作单位会自动替你扣税，薪水到手之前就已扣除)、付分期付款买的车的月付款、医疗、家庭财产及汽车的保险费、汽油费、包括暖气、空调、水电等项的杂费、食品支出(该项通常占收入的15%)、始料未及的汽车维修与家用设备维修费，等等。 但这些每月的支出并非难事，难的是三件大事，努力成就这三件大事则成为了多数美国中产阶级的生活特征：1)买房；2)供子女上大学；3)过体面的退休生活，的确，被广而称之的“美国梦”的经济特征的核心，可以用这三大目标来概括，(我常常感到“梦”这个词是不准确的，因为要想使这个梦变为现实，需要的是长达几十年的艰辛劳动--这种努力倒可以称为“美国式长征”) 由买房、供子女上大学、为晚年舒适生活打好基础所带来的经济负担之重仅从抽象概念上是不能完全理解的，因此我在此列出一些具体数字。今天，一户中产阶级的住宅，在全美一般地区(也就是说，不是在诸如纽约、旧金山这样房价昂贵的城市)，价格在7.5万—20万美元，通常需要首付这笔款项的10—15%以及长达30年的每月分期付款，同时还要加上7—8%的利息。一般中产阶级家庭的第二大支出是子女上大学。教育方面的专家预计，对于2000年出生的孩子来说，将来在州立大学上四年大学要耗资18万美元，而在哈佛、斯坦福这样的私立大学上四年要耗资30万美元甚至更多。(这一数字是按预计中的2018年的美元价值计算，包括学费、食宿和书费)。 最后，对于今天处于中产阶级、夫妻双方工资为平均水平的夫妇来说，若想晚年的生活还能达到退休前有工作时的水准，他们几乎肯定需要用自己的储蓄来补充政府给老人提供的社会保险金。也就是说，很可能需要几十万美元的积蓄，从而得到足够利息的涓涓细流，来补充其他方面的退休收入(如社会保险金与公司的退休金)，从而使退休后的收入达到刚退休前的水平。(恕我说句大实话，很多中产阶级美国人并不能完全实现这些雄心勃勃的经济目标，因此在晚年就有令人操心的钱的问题，有时是小问题，有时是大问题。) 在这里，我并不是想说美国人是否在为这些目标存钱或投资，而是想说这些目标实际上决定了一个美国人的财富观。由于有这么巨额的支出在等着自己，美国中产阶级就无人觉得自己很富有；而要实现这些目标(至少是前两个)，就很可能让一个美国人感到自己挺穷的。很清楚的一点是，这些费用在多数美国中产阶级家庭的经济计划中占有突出地位。我想，这也解释了(至少是部分地解释了)为什么美国中产阶级对钱的考虑与今天俄国的中产阶级大相径庭。 有趣的是，这也可以解释(至少是从一个重要方面解释)为什么美国人看戏看歌剧的次数比我们的俄国朋友要少。请记住，这些文化活动的票价往往很高，即便是从美国人的标准来看也是如此(美国的文艺演出几乎没有政府补贴，所以舞台演出的成本主要是通过票房收入来冲抵)，再把请临时照看孩子的保姆的费用算进去，一个外出的“文化之夜”对很多美国中产阶级家庭就是令人却步的昂贵之举了。更富裕一些的美国人参加这些活动的次数多一些，是因为他们拥有更多的可支配的收入。(待续)
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