Over the weekend I read this article in Der Spiegel about the current economic difficulties and saw this quote:
The leftist Berliner Zeitung writes:
"The current mini-crash is a painful sign of what the companies constructed of air and the extremely convoluted financial constructions are capable of. Whether this gambling pays off will all depend on more down-to-earth economics: If Joe Average in the USA can't pay his mortgage, we're all screwed."
That got me wondering, that was translated from German. How did they get "Joe Average"? Not to mention, how did they get "we're all screwed"?
The original from the Berliner Zeitung is here:
Wenn Otto Normalverbraucher, der in den USA Joe Average heißt, seine Hypothek nicht mehr bedienen kann, gehen alle baden.
That's Otto Normal Consumer, who we are informed "is called Joe Average in the USA". And rather than being screwed, everything is going in the bath for us.
