After the disease, the debt

     This passage discusses how the government should deal with the debt after the pandemic, which is in the area of Public Finance. It is a bit obscure for me.

Words:

Armageddon 末日 Colossal 巨大的 scaremongering 恐吓的 gross 总的 outright 完全的 trim 修剪 treacherous危险的 daunting令人望而生畏的 succumb 屈服 opt  选择

1. Mostly this is a figure of speech, but in one respect they are right.

    Mostly xxx, but in one respect xxx

    It can be used to start a brand-new view in the passage.

2. Public borrowing in the rich world is set to soar to levels last seen amid the rubble and smoke of 1945.

      amid appears frequently, and it seems to be one word usually formally used in academic writing.

      the rubble and smoke: to describe the bad situation.

3. Long after the COVID-19 wards have emptied, countries will be living with the consequences.

      be living with = stand with = withstand

4. An astonishing deterioration in the public finances is unfolding

      unfolding = starting, but the feeling is much better!!!

5. When the national debt is owned by its citizens, a country in effect owes money to itself. Debt may be high, but what matters is the cost of servicing it and, as long as interest rates are low, this is still cheap

      This part is so coherent, although I'm not quite into it.

      So many unpredictable issues happen every day that no one is for sure what they will lose tomorrow. Life may be hard, but what we need to do is to walk.

6. Italy’s towering debt and membership of the eurozone condemn it to live with the perennial threat of a financial panic should the ECB stop buying its bonds.

towering debt 债台高筑

condemn it to live with xxx

in this sentence, “should the ECB xxx” seems to be an objective complement.

7. But so much is still unknown about the virus and its effects that, now of all times, investors cannot see clearly very far into the future. 

      so much is xxx that xxx 可以用来论述其影响。

      see far into the future.  !!!

8. Governments will thus have to walk a treacherous path between stimulus today and prudence tomorrow.

    walk a treacherous path between xxx and xxx.

      Walking through a treacherous path between the rubble and smoke, the amazing view will finally unfold.

9. The pandemic will increase calls for lavish spending

      calls for == in need of something and cry for help

Zoom fatigue

       this passage talks about that people are experiencing “Zoom fatigue” for various reasons, such as time delay, word loss, overlap, lack of contact, and the like. I believe I will always remember when I go to college at my home, classes pale, experiment disgusting, and connection weak.

glitches:  some small faults

10. Readers of a certain age will remember when long-distance calls were expensive, international falls ruinously so, three-way calls exciting and video calls the stuff of science fiction.

       ruinously so = extraordinary expensive.

       n. + adj. is a special syntax structure, which short but precisely express the opinion.

11. a lack of eye contact, self-consciousness (whether about skin, hair or bookshelves), and the like.

and the like = and so on

11. Unfortunately, this means that colleagues who think they are giving forthright answers might come across as cagey on video calls.

        come across: leave an xxx impression to people.

      He came across as a gentle and outgoing man.

12. Any meeting where it is so easy to predict what colleagues will say raises the question of why it is held in the first place.

      raises the question of

The food miracle

13. If you live in the rich world and want an example of trade and global co-operation, look no further than your dinner plate.

      look no further than: just look at

14. Today, thanks to fleets of delivery lorries filling supermarket shelves, you can binge-eat as you binge-watch.

      binge-eat and binge-watch: eat food and watch TV without limitations

15. And there is an irony in seeing the industry grapple with a crisis that probably began with the sale of pangolin meat in a market in Wuhan.

      grapple with = fight with and know how to.

16. This happens in spite of governments, not because of them

      I am not quite into this sentence…

      in spite of: although, regardless of something.

      In spite of others’opinions, he decided to grapple with the tough challenge rather than escaping, and finally win.

17. To understand food as a national-security issue is wise; to bend that understanding to self-sufficiency drives and blunt intervention is not

To do something is xxx; to do other things is not.

bend something to : understand something in a wrong way.