March 2005: it’s official – vice pays. And it’s not even illegal.

This month the Financial Times examined the spectacular growth of The Vice Fund, a Texas-based investment company which encourages its members to invest in the certainty of a vice-ridden future. The Vice Fund restricts its investments to four areas: alcohol, tobacco, gambling and war. The company’s prospectus boasts that its investments are “nearly recession-proof,” on the basis that no matter what the economic climate, the people of the world will continue to drink, smoke, gamble and kill each other. With a growth rate of 20% in the last year alone, The Vice Fund offers us the chance to personally profit from the fairly inevitable future shortcomings of humanity.

该月的金融时报调查了邪恶基金的壮观的增长。这个德克萨斯州的投资公司鼓励其成员为未来肯定会产生的罪恶行径进行投资。邪恶基金把投资限制在以下四个方面：酒精，烟草，赌博和战争。该公司在招股说明书中鼓吹，这些投资可以帮助抵抗经济衰退，理由是无论经济气候如何，全世界人还是会继续喝酒，吸烟赌博和屠杀他人。罪恶基金过去一年的增长率为20%，为人们提供机会通过人类的劣根性来谋取私人收益，因为这些劣根性即使到了将来也难以改变。

Have our vices ceased to be something bad, and instead have become just another market commodity? What exactly is a vice, anyway?

我们的罪恶已经不再是坏事了吗？还是蜕变成了另外一种商品？无论怎样，罪恶到底是什么？

查看音频和文章详情请点击文末左下角“阅读原文”

温馨提示：欢迎大家随时发送“qa+您的问题”提问关于写作、语法和发音的英语问题，每周三下午16：00--17:00英语专家集中回答。每周放出问答精华，敬请留意。

【如果觉得不错的话，点击右上角“...”分享到朋友圈，好东西可别独享】