10.3期 经济学人翻译参考-L2 Act before the tyrant dies-中国高翻团队
考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：美国中期选举
考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：美国中期选举America's mid-term elections美国中期选举The silent centre沉寂的中间地带If moderates don't vote next week, extremists willthrive如果中立人士于下周不进行选举，极端主义者将会茁壮发展ALL political campaigns involve a certain amount oflooking voters straight in the eye and lying to them. But America's mid-term electioncampaign has involved more flim-flam than most. The Republicans, if you believe Democraticattack ads, oppose equal pay for women, want to ban contraception and just love it when bigcorporations ship American jobs overseas. The Democrats, according to Republicans, havestood idly by as Islamic State terrorists—possibly carrying Ebola—prepare to cross the southernborder. And they, too, are delighted to see American jobs shipped overseas.所有的政治活动都包含了一定数量的撒谎现象，但是美国中期的选举活动已经包含了比大多情况下更多的欺骗。
如果你相信民主党发出的具有攻击性的广告所说的:共和党们反对妇女同工同酬，想要废止避孕法，并且大企业将美国的工作机会扩展到海外。
考研英语经济学人双语阅读：英国禁毒
考研英语经济学人双语阅读：英国禁毒Britain Dug prohibition英国禁毒Banning the east African stimulant may backfire.东非的兴奋剂禁令可能会适得其反OUTSIDE a newsagent's shop in the Clapham Road,a south London thoroughfare, a man sucks on arolled-up cigarette and asks passers-by whetherthey want to buy some cannabis.在伦敦大街南部的克拉彭路的一个报刊亭旁，一个人正叼着卷烟问路人他们是否需要大麻。
But shoppers seem more interested in khat, a mild narcotic popular with Ethiopians, Somalisand Yemenis.但消费者似乎对阿拉伯茶—在俄塞俄比亚人、索马里人和也门人群中颇受欢迎的一种轻度镇定剂。
Inside, the shopkeeper pulls out bundles of the yellowish leaf and explains that it is the lastbatch he will sell.店里内部，店主拿出少许淡黄色叶片并说明这些是他将卖出的最后一批货了。
“After tomorrow, they stop, no more,”he says.“明日之后，再没有这些东西了，”他说。
On June 24th the sale of khat was prohibited in Britain, almost a year after Theresa May, thehome secretary, told the House of Commons that she intended to ban it.6月24日，阿拉伯茶的销售在英国被喊停，这距离内政部长Theresa May告知下议院她将下令禁止阿拉伯茶几乎有一年的时间了。
经济学人最新中英对照
The Economist 《经济学人》常用词汇总结，太珍贵了！！1、绝对优势（Absolute advantage）如果一个国家用一单位资源生产的某种产品比另一个国家多，那么，这个国家在这种产品的生产上与另一国相比就具有绝对优势。
2、逆向选择（Adverse choice）在此状况下，保险公司发现它们的客户中有太大的一部分来自高风险群体。
3、选择成本（Alternative cost）如果以最好的另一种方式使用的某种资源，它所能生产的价值就是选择成本，也可以称之为机会成本。
4、需求的弧弹性（Arc elasticity of demand）如果P1和Q1分别是价格和需求量的初始值，P2 和Q2 为第二组值，那么，弧弹性就等于-（Q1-Q2）（P1＋P2）/（P1-P2）（Q1＋Q2）5、非对称的信息（Asymmetric information）在某些市场中，每个参与者拥有的信息并不相同。
例如，在旧车市场上，有关旧车质量的信息，卖者通常要比潜在的买者知道得多。
6、平均成本（Average cost）平均成本是总成本除以产量。
也称为平均总成本。
7、平均固定成本( Average fixed cost）平均固定成本是总固定成本除以产量。
8、平均产品（Average product）平均产品是总产量除以投入品的数量。
9、平均可变成本（Average variable cost）平均可变成本是总可变成本除以产量。
10、投资的β(Beta）β度量的是与投资相联的不可分散的风险。
对于一种股票而言，它表示所有现行股票的收益发生变化时，一种股票的收益会如何敏感地变化。
11、债券收益(Bond yield）债券收益是债券所获得的利率。
12、收支平衡图（Break－even chart）收支平衡图表示一种产品所出售的总数量改变时总收益和总成本是如何变化的。
收支平衡点是为避免损失而必须卖出的最小数量。
13、预算线(Budget line）预算线表示消费者所能购买的商品X和商品Y的数量的全部组合。
经济学人中英对照23
It is a remarkable exhibit of revolutionary kitsch. The museum is new, inaugurated on September 28th 2007. Yet on a recent Saturday afternoon it was empty; not one person among the throngs of Cubans and tourists strolling down Calle Obispo felt inspired to cross its threshold. With the mixture of friendly warmth and necessary opportunism that characterises Cubans nowadays, one of the bored women attendants was soon asking your correspondent's wife if she could spare a packet of antacids (“medicines are very scarce”).
布告上广告着古巴革命防御各级委员会(CDRs)的博物馆，这些委员会是由菲德尔?卡斯特罗在1960年建立起来的社区团体，以作为他的革命的基层组织。建立广告的目的在于安排各项社会服务，并告知新近建立起的共产主义路线的异己省份或反叛省份。博物馆里摆设着一些陈列革命大事记的玻璃橱柜。在博物馆的室内的墙上贴着一些用放大的字体摘录的卡斯特罗演讲，并且还有一张显示革命防御各级委员会的成员加入趋势的图表。2007年，这些委员会的成员增加到了 840万古巴人，而全国总人数仅有1100万。博物馆内一楼有一处显眼的物品，那就是一条用石膏制作而成的一些几何模型，其中包括了一条具有古巴特色的街道，一些前门有着希腊复古风格石柱的房屋…，以及一些依次以显眼的粉色、黄绿色、牙膏蓝、桃色与柠檬色粉刷的各个房屋的正面。
8英语阅读-经济学人《Economics》双语版-Ready, fire, aim
《经济学家》读译参考（第8篇）：切尼打鹌鹑，误伤老律师Part AFeb 16th 2006From The Economist print editionReady, fire, aim预备！开火！瞄准！！Foreword：A vice-president, a ★quail[1] and the first glimmer of class warfare in hunting引言：一位副总统，一只鹌鹑，等级矛盾第一次在打猎中凸现。
is （1）a goldmine for both trivia addicts and congenital time-wasters.▲ Do you want to find out about American politicians who were killed in duels (17a______①_____ to the site)? Or about politicians who were murdered (86)? Or politicians who have been to outer space (6)? Or politicians who died while hunting or fishing (14)? Just point and click. But as yet the site doesn't have an entry for politicians who almost kill the poor ★saps[2] they are hunting or fishing with.对于喜欢捕风捉影的人和那些天生爱好浪费时间的人而言，政治墓园网站（）是一个极佳去处。
您想知道有多少美国政治家在决斗中丧生吗（该网站认为是17人）？有多少政治家遭谋杀（86人）？有多少政治家曾去过外太空（6人）？又有多少政治家在打猎或钓鱼时不幸身亡（14人）？点击便知。
《经济学人》杂志原版英文(整理完整版)之欧阳道创编
Digest Of The. Economist. 2006(6-7)Hard to digestA wealth of genetic information is to be found in the human gutBACTERIA, like people, can be divided into friend and foe. Inspired by evidence that the friendly sort may help with a range of ailments, many people consume bacteria in the form of yogurts and dietary supplements. Such a smattering of artificial additions, however, represents but a drop in the ocean. There are at least 800 types of bacteria living in the human gut. And research by Steven Gill of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland, and his colleagues, published in this week's Science, suggests that the collective genome of these organisms is so large that it contains 100 times as many genes as the human genome itself.Dr Gill and his team were able to come to this conclusion by extracting bacterial DNA from the faeces of two volunteers. Because of the complexity of the samples,they were not able to reconstruct the entire genomes of each of the gut bacteria, just the individual genes. But that allowed them to make an estimate of numbers.What all these bacteria are doing is tricky to identify—the bacteria themselves are difficult to cultivate. So the researchers guessed at what they might be up to by comparing the genes they discovered with published databases of genes whose functions are already known.This comparison helped Dr Gill identify for the first time the probable enzymatic processes by which bacteria help humans to digest the complex carbohydrates in plants. The bacteria also contain a plentiful supply of genes involved in the synthesis of chemicals essential to human life—including two B vitamins and certain essential amino acids—although the team merely showed that these metabolic pathways exist rather than proving that they are used. Nevertheless, the pathways they found leave humans looking more like ruminants: animals such as goats and sheep that use bacteria to break down otherwise indigestible matter in the plants they eat.The broader conclusion Dr Gill draws is that peopleare superorganisms whose metabolism represents an amalgamation of human and microbial attributes. The notion of a superorganism has emerged before, as researchers in other fields have come to view humans as having a diverse internal ecosystem. This, suggest some, will be crucial to the success of personalised medicine, as different people will have different responses to drugs, depending on their microbial flora. Accordingly, the next step, says Dr Gill, is to see how microbial populations vary between people of different ages, backgrounds and diets.Another area of research is the process by which these helpful bacteria first colonise the digestive tract. Babies acquire their gut flora as they pass down the birth canal and take a gene-filled gulp of their mother's vaginal and faecal flora. It might not be the most delicious of first meals, but it could well be an important one.Zapping the bluesThe rebirth of electric-shock treatmentELECTRICITY has long been used to treat medical disorders. As early as the second century AD, Galen, a Greek physician, recommended the use of electric eels fortreating headaches and facial pain. In the 1930s Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini, two Italian psychiatrists, used electroconvulsive therapy to treat schizophrenia. These days, such rigorous techniques are practised less widely. But researchers are still investigating how a gentler electric therapy appears to treat depression.Vagus-nerve stimulation, to give it its proper name, was originally developed to treat severe epilepsy. It requires a pacemaker-like device to be implanted in a patient's chest and wires from it threaded up to the vagus nerve on the left side of his neck. In the normal course of events, this provides an electrical pulse to the vagus nerve for 30 seconds every five minutes.This treatment does not always work, but in some cases where it failed (the number of epileptic seizures experienced by a patient remaining the same), that patient nevertheless reported feeling much better after receiving the implant. This secondary effect led to trials for treating depression and, in 2005, America's Food and Drug Administration approved the therapy for depression that fails to respond to all conventional treatments, includingdrugs and psychotherapy.Not only does the treatment work, but its effects appear to be long lasting. A study led by Charles Conway of Saint Louis University in Missouri, and presented to a recent meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, has found that 70% of patients who are better after one year stay better after two years as well.The technique builds on a procedure called deep-brain stimulation, in which electrodes are implanted deep into the white matter of patients' brains and used to “reboot” faulty neural circuitry. Such an operation is a big undertaking, requiring a full day of surgery and carrying a risk of the patient suffering a stroke. Only a small number of people have been treated this way. In contrast, the device that stimulates the vagus nerve can be implanted in 45 minutes without a stay in hospital.The trouble is that vagus-nerve stimulation can take a long time to produce its full beneficial effect. According to Dr Conway, scans taken using a technique called positron-emission tomography show significant changes in brain activity starting three months after treatment begins. Thechanges are similar to the improvements seen in patients who undergo other forms of antidepression treatment. The brain continues to change over the following 21 months. Dr Conway says that patients should be told that the antidepressant effects could be slow in coming.However, Richard Selway of King's College Hospital, London, found that his patients' moods improved just weeks after the implant. Although brain scans are useful in determining the longevity of the treatment, Mr Selway notes that visible changes in the brain do not necessarily correlate perfectly with changes in mood.Nobody knows why stimulating the vagus nerve improves the mood of depressed patients, but Mr Selway has a theory. He believes that the electrical stimulation causes a region in the brain stem called the locus caeruleus (Latin, ironically, for “blue place”) to flood the brain with norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter implicated in alertness, concentration and motivation—that is, the mood states missing in depressed patients. Whatever the mechanism, for the depressed a therapy that is relatively safe and long lasting is rare cause for cheer.The shape of things to comeHow tomorrow's nuclear power stations will differ from today'sTHE agency in charge of promoting nuclear power in America describes a new generation of reactors that will be “highly economical” with “enhanced safety”, that “minimise wastes” and will prove “proliferation resistant”. No doubt they will bake a mean apple pie, too.Unfortunately, in the world of nuclear energy, fine words are not enough. America got away lightly with its nuclear accident. When the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania overheated in 1979 very little radiation leaked, and there were no injuries. Europe was not so lucky. The accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 killed dozens immediately and has affected (sometimes fatally) the health of tens of thousands at the least. Even discounting the association of nuclear power with nuclear weaponry, people have good reason to be suspicious of claims that reactors are safe.Yet political interest in nuclear power is reviving across the world, thanks in part to concerns about globalwarming and energy security. Already, some 441 commercial reactors operate in 31 countries and provide 17% of the planet's electricity, according to America's Department of Energy. Until recently, the talk was of how to retire these reactors gracefully. Now it is of how to extend their lives. In addition, another 32 reactors are being built, mostly in India, China and their neighbours. These new power stations belong to what has been called the third generation of reactors, designs that have been informed by experience and that are considered by their creators to be advanced. But will these new stations really be safer than their predecessors?Clearly, modern designs need to be less accident prone. The most important feature of a safe design is that it “fails safe”. Fo r a reactor, this means that if its control systems stop working it shuts down automatically, safely dissipates the heat produced by the reactions in its core, and stops both the fuel and the radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactions from escaping by keeping them within some sort of containment vessel. Reactors that follow such rules are called “passive”. Most modern designs are passive to someextent and some newer ones are truly so. However, some of the genuinely passive reactors are also likely to be more expensive to run.Nuclear energy is produced by atomic fission. A large atom (usually uranium or plutonium) breaks into two smaller ones, releasing energy and neutrons. The neutrons then trigger further break-ups. And so on. If this “chain reaction” can be controlled, the energy released can be used to boil water, produce steam and drive a turbine that generates electricity. If it runs away, the result is a meltdown and an accident (or, in extreme circumstances, a nuclear explosion—though circumstances are never that extreme in a reactor because the fuel is less fissile than the material in a bomb). In many new designs the neutrons, and thus the chain reaction, are kept under control by passing them through water to slow them down. (Slow neutrons trigger more break ups than fast ones.) This water is exposed to a pressure of about 150 atmospheres—a pressure that means it remains liquid even at high temperatures. When nuclear reactions warm the water, its density drops, and the neutrons passing through it are no longer slowedenough to trigger further reactions. That negative feedback stabilises the reaction rate.Can business be cool?Why a growing number of firms are taking global warming seriouslyRUPERT MURDOCH is no green activist. But in Pebble Beach later this summer, the annual gathering of executivesof Mr Murdoch's News Corporation—which last year led to a dramatic shift in the media conglomerate's attitude tothe internet—will be addressed by several leading environmentalists, including a vice-president turned climatechangemovie star. Last month BSkyB, a British satellite-television company chaired by Mr Murdoch and run by hisson, James, declared itself “carbon-neutral”, having taken various steps to cut or offset its discharges of carboninto the atmosphere.The army of corporate greens is growing fast. Late last year HSBC became the first big bank to announce that itwas carbon-neutral, joining other financial institutions, including Swiss Re, a reinsurer, and Goldman Sachs, aninvestment bank, in waging war on climate-warminggases (of which carbon dioxide is the main culprit). Last yearGeneral Electric (GE), an industrial powerhouse, launched its “Ecomagination” strategy, aiming to cut its output ofgreenhouse gases and to invest heavily in clean (ie, carbon-free) technologies. In October Wal-Mart announced aseries of environmental schemes, including doubling the fuel-efficiency of its fleet of vehicles within a decade.Tesco and Sainsbury, two of Britain's biggest retailers, are competing fiercely to be the greenest. And on June 7thsome leading British bosses lobbied Tony Blair for a more ambitious policy on climate change, even if that involvesharsher regulation.The greening of business is by no means universal, however. Money from Exxon Mobil, Ford and General Motorshelped pay for television advertisements aired recently in America by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, with thedaft slogan “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life”. Besides, environmentalist critics say, some firmsa re engaged in superficial “greenwash” to boost the image of essentially climate-hurting businesses. Take BP, themost prominent corporate advocate of action on climatechange, with its “Beyond Petroleum” ad campaign, highprofileinvestments in green energy, and even a “carbon calculator” on its website that helps consumers measuretheir personal “carbon footprint”, or overall emissions of carbon. Yet, critics complain, BP's recent record profits arelargely thanks to sales of huge amounts of carbon-packed oil and gas.On the other hand, some free-market thinkers see the support of firms for regulation of carbon as the latestattempt at “regulatory capture”, by those who stand to profit from new rules. Max Schulz of the ManhattanInstitute, a conservative think tan k, notes darkly that “Enron was into pushing the idea of climate change, becauseit was good for its business”.Others argue that climate change has no more place in corporate boardrooms than do discussions of other partisanpolitical issues, such as Darfur or gay marriage. That criticism, at least, is surely wrong. Most of the corporateconverts say they are acting not out of some vague sense of social responsibility, or even personal angst, butbecause climate change creates real business risks andopportunities—from regulatory compliance to insuringclients on flood plains. And although these concerns vary hugely from one company to the next, few firms can besure of remaining unaffected.Testing timesResearchers are working on ways to reduce the need for animal experiments, but new laws mayincrease the number of experiments neededIN AN ideal world, people would not perform experiments on animals. For the people, they are expensive. For theanimals, they are stressful and often painful.That ideal world, sadly, is still some way away. People need new drugs and vaccines. They want protection fromthe toxicity of chemicals. The search for basic scientific answers goes on. Indeed, the European Commission isforging ahead with proposals that will increase the number of animal experiments carried out in the EuropeanUnion, by requiring toxicity tests on every chemical approved for use within the union's borders in the past 25years.Already, the commission has identified 140,000 chemicals that have not yet been tested. It wants 30,000 oftheseto be examined right away, and plans to spend between €4 billion-8 billion ($5 billion-10 billion) doing so. Thenumber of animals used for toxicity testing in Europe will thus, experts reckon, quintuple from just over 1m a yearto about 5m, unless they are saved by some dramatic advances in non-animal testing technology. At the moment,roughly 10% of European animal tests are for general toxicity, 35% for basic research, 45% for drugs andvaccines, and the remaining 10% a variety of uses such as diagnosing diseases.Animal experimentation will therefore be around for some time yet. But the hunt for substitutes continues, and lastweekend the Middle European Society for Alternative Methods to Animal Testing met in Linz, Austria, to reviewprogress.A good place to start finding alternatives for toxicity tests is the liver—the organ responsible for breaking toxicchemicals down into safer molecules that can then be excreted. Two firms, one large and one small, told themeeting how they were using human liver cells removed incidentally during surgery to test various substancesforlong-term toxic effects.PrimeCyte, the small firm, grows its cells in cultures over a few weeks and doses them regularly with the substanceunder investigation. The characteristics of the cells are carefully monitored, to look for changes in theirmicroanatomy.Pfizer, the big firm, also doses its cultures regularly, but rather than studying individual cells in detail, it counts cellnumbers. If the number of cells in a culture changes after a sample is added, that suggests the chemical inquestion is bad for the liver.In principle, these techniques could be applied to any chemical. In practice, drugs (and, in the case of PrimeCyte,food supplements) are top of the list. But that might change if the commission has its way: those140,000screenings look like a lucrative market, although nobody knows whether the new tests will be ready for use by2009, when the commission proposes that testing should start.Other tissues, too, can be tested independently of animals. Epithelix, a small firm in Geneva, has developed anartificial version of the lining of the lungs. According toHuang Song, one of Epithelix's researchers, thefirm'scultured cells have similar microanatomy to those found in natural lung linings, and respond in the same way tovarious chemical messengers. Dr Huang says that they could be used in long-term toxicity tests of airbornechemicals and could also help identify treatments for lung diseases.The immune system can be mimicked and tested, too. ProBioGen, a company based in Berlin, is developing anartificial human lymph node which, it reckons, could have prevented the near-disastrous consequences of a drugtrial held in Britain three months ago, in which (despite the drug having passed animal tests) six men sufferedmultiple organ failure and nearly died. The drug the men were given made their immune systems hyperactive.Such a response would, the firm's scientists reckon, have been identified by their lymph node, which is made fromcells that provoke the immune system into a response. ProBioGen's lymph node could thus work better than animaltesting.Another way of cutting the number of animalexperiments would be tochange the way that vaccines are tested, according to CoenraadHendriksen of the Netherlands Vaccine Institute. At the moment, allbatches of vaccine are subject to the same battery of tests. DrHendriksen argues that this is over-rigorous. When new vaccine culturesare made, belt-and-braces tests obviously need to be applied. But if abatch of vaccine is derived from an existing culture, he suggests that itneed be tested only to make sure it is identical to the batch from which itis derived. That would require fewer test animals.All this suggests that though there is still some way to go before drugs,vaccines and other substances can be tested routinely on cells ratherthan live animals, useful progress is being made. What is harder to see ishow the use of animals might be banished from fundamental research.Anger managementTo one emotion, men are more sensitive than women MEN are notoriously insensitive to the emotional world around them. At least, that is the stereotype peddled by athousand women's magazines. And a study by two researchers at the University of Melbourne, inAustralia,confirms that men are, indeed, less sensitive to emotion than women, with one important and suggestiveexception. Men are acutely sensitive to the anger of other men.Mark Williams and Jason Mattingley, whose study has just been published in Current Biology, looked at the way aperson's sex affects his or her response to emotionally charged facial expressions. People from all cultures agreeon what six basic expressions of emotion look like. Whether the face before you is expressing anger, disgust, fear,joy, sadness or surprise seems to be recognised universally—which suggests that the expressions involved areinnate, rather than learned.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley showed the participants in their study photographs of these emotional expressions inmixed sets of either four or eight. They asked the participants to look for a particular sort of expression, andmeasured the amount of time it took them to find it. The researchers found, in agreement with previous studies,that both men and women identified angry expressions most quickly. But they also found that anger was morequicklyidentified on a male face than a female one.Moreover, most participants could find an angry face just as quickly when it was mixed in a group of eightphotographs as when it was part of a group of four. That was in stark contrast to the other five sorts of expression,which took more time to find when they had to be sorted from a larger group. This suggests that something in thebrain is attuned to picking out angry expressions, and that it is especially concerned about angry men. Also, thishighly tuned ability seems more important to males than females, since the two researchers found that men pickedout the angry expressions faster than women did, even though women were usually quicker than men to recognizeevery other sort of facial expression.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley suspect the reason for this is that being able to spot an angry individual quickly hasa survival advantage—and, since anger is more likely to turn into lethal violence in men than in women, the abilityto spot angry males quickly is particularly valuable.As to why men are more sensitive to anger than women, it is presumably because they are far more likely togetkilled by it. Most murders involve men killing other men—even today the context of homicide is usually aspontaneous dispute over status or sex.The ability to spot quickly that an alpha male is in a foul mood would thus have great survival value. It would allowthe sharp-witted time to choose appeasement, defence or possibly even pre-emptive attack. And, if it is right, thisstudy also confirms a lesson learned by generations of bar-room tough guys and schoolyard bullies: if you wantattention, get angry.The shareholders' revoltA turning point in relations between company owners and bosses?SOMETHING strange has been happening this year at company annual meetings in America:shareholders have been voting decisively against the recommendations of managers. Until now, mostshareholders have, like so many sheep, routinely voted in accordance with the advice of the people theyemploy to run the company. This year managers have already been defeated at some 32 companies,including household names such as Boeing, ExxonMobil and GeneralMotors.This shareholders' revolt has focused entirely on one issue: the method by which members of the boardof directors are elected. Shareholder resolutions on other subjects have mostly been defeated, as usual.The successful resolutions called for directors to be elected by majority voting, instead of by thetraditional method of “plurality”—which in practice meant that only votes cast in favour were counted,and that a single vote for a candidate would be enough to get him elected.Several companies, led by Pfizer, a drug giant, saw defeat looming and pre-emptively adopted a formalmajority-voting policy that was weaker than in the shareholder resolution. This required any director whofailed to secure a majority of votes to tender his resignation to the board, which would then be free todecide whether or not to accept it. Under the shareholder resolution, any candidate failing to secure amajority of the votes cast simply would not be elected. Intriguingly, the shareholder resolution wasdefeated at four-fifths of the firms that adopted a Pfizer-style majority voting rule, whereas it succeedednearly ninetimes out of ten at firms retaining the plurality rule.Unfortunately for shareholders, their victories may prove illusory, as the successful resolutions wereall“precatory”—meaning that they merely advised management on the course of action preferred byshareholders, but did not force managers to do anything. Several resolutions that tried to imposemajority voting on firms by changing their bylaws failed this year.Even so, wise managers should voluntarily adopt majority voting, according to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen&Katz, a Wall Street law firm that has generally helped managers resist increases in shareholder power butnow expects majority voting eventually to “become universal”. It advises that, at the very least,managers should adopt the Pfizer model, if only to avoid becoming the subject of even greater scrutinyfrom corporate-governance activists. Some firms might choose to go further, as Dell and Intel have donethis year, and adopt bylaws requiring majority voting.Shareholders may have been radicalised by the success last year of a lobbying effort by managersagainst a proposal from regulators to make it easier for shareholders to put upcandidates in boardelections. It remains to be seen if they will be back for more in 2007. Certainly, some of the activistshareholders behind this year's resolutions have big plans. Where new voting rules are in place, they plancampaigns to vote out the chairman of the compensation committee at any firm that they think overpaysthe boss. If the 2006 annual meeting was unpleasant for managers, next year's could be far worse. Intangible opportunitiesCompanies are borrowing against their copyrights, trademarks and patentsNOT long ago, the value of companies resided mostly in things you could see and touch. Today it liesincreasingly in intangible assets such as the McDonald's name, the patent for Viagra and the rights toSpiderman. Baruch Lev, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, puts theimplied value of intangibles on American companies' balance sheets at about $6 trillion, or two-thirds ofthe total. Much of this consists of intellectual property, the collective name for copyrights, trademarksand patents. Increasingly, companies and their clever bankers are usingthese assets to raise cash.The method of choice is securitisation, the issuing of bonds based on the various revenues thrown off byintellectual property. Late last month Dunkin' Brands, owner of Dunkin' Donuts, a snack-bar chain, raised$1.7 billion by selling bonds backed by, among other things, the royalties it will receive from itsfranchisees. The three private-equity firms that acquired Dunkin' Brands a few months ago have used thecash to repay the money they borrowed to buy the chain. This is the biggest intellectual-propertysecuritisation by far, says Jordan Yarett of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a law firm that hasworked on many such deals.Securitisations of intellectual property can be based on revenues from copyrights, trademarks (such aslogos) or patents. The best-known copyright deal was the issue in 1997 of $55m-worth of “Bowie Bonds”supported by the future sales of music by David Bowie, a British rock star. Bonds based on the films ofDreamWorks, Marvel comic books and the stories of John Steinbeck have also been sold. As well asDunkin' Brands, several restaurant chains andfashion firms have issued bonds backed by logos andbrands.Intellectual-property deals belong to a class known as operating-asset securitisations. These differ fromstandard securitisations of future revenues, such as bonds backed by the payments on a 30-yearmortgage or a car loan, in that the borrower has to make his asset work. If investors are to recoup theirmoney, the assets being securitised must be “actively exploited”, says Mr Yarett: DreamWorks mustcontinue to churn out box-office hits.The market for such securitisations is still small. Jay Eisbruck, of Moody's, a rating agency, reckons thataround $10 billion-worth of bonds are outstanding. But there is “big potential,” he says, pointing out thatlicensing patented technology generates $100 billion a year and involves thousands of companies.Raising money this way can make sense not only for clever private-equity firms, but also for companieswith low (or no) credit ratings that cannot easily tap the capital markets or with few tangible assets ascollateral for bank loans. Some universities have joined in, too. Yale built a new medical complex withsome of the roughly $100m it。
经济学人中英对照
Immigration law移民法Our town我们的城镇A small city passes a controversial immigration ordinance內布拉斯加小镇通过了一项有争议的移民法令SOME of the earliest settlers of Nebraska were Germans. During the first world war the state forbade any teaching in their native language. But that was long ago. These days, just outside the tidy little city of Fremont, a new batch of residents is trying to settle in. The Regency II trailer park houses immigrants, mostly from Mexico. Many of the trailers are just flimsy boxes. Others are painted brightly, or sport day lilies on a small lawn. One house has an American flag beside it. And on June 21st the Regency displayed a white sign at its entrance with the message: “V ote No”.内布拉斯加州最早的定居者中有一些是德国人。
在第一次世界大战期间，该州曾禁止德裔居民用母语教学。
但这是很久以前的事了。
这些天来，就在整洁的弗里蒙特小镇外围，一批新的居民正试着安顿新家。
Regency II拖车场的居民都是移民，多数来自墨西哥。
经济学人双语阅读：世界银行 亟待重整
【经济学人】双语阅读：世界银行亟待重整Finance and economics财经商业Reforming the World Bank世界银行，亟待重整Zen and the art of poverty reduction禅宗思想及扶贫艺术Calm and confusion at the world's biggest development institution世界最大发展机构—平静与骚乱并存THE World Bank may need a period of quiet reflection, but this was ridiculous.世界银行可能需要一段时间来安静的反思，但这在过去是荒谬可笑的。
经济学人下载:世界银行亟待重整On September 10th 300 bankers joined Thich Nhat Hanh, an 87-year-old Vietnamese monk and founder of the Order of Interbeing, for a day of mindful meditation with Jim Kim, the bank's president and an admirer of Mr Hanh.九月十日，300名银行家以及世界银行行长吉姆金同现年87岁的越南高僧一行禅师进行了为期一天的静心冥想的活动。
一行禅师创立了相即共修团，且吉姆金是他的崇拜者之一。
It was all very Zen, one member of staff told the Washington Post.一切都弥漫着佛教气息，其中一位银行家对华盛顿邮报如是说。
Afterwards, Mr Hanh and 20 brown-robed brethren led a walking meditation through Washington —though since the traffic police did not show up, the quiet contemplation was marred by the not-so-Zen honking of angry drivers.在这之后，一行禅师和其他20名身穿棕色长袍的同胞们在华盛顿进行了步行禅修的活动。
经济学人双语阅读 1
经济学人杂志双语阅读Consumer spending in Asia：Shopaholics wantedConsumer spending in Asia亚洲消费状况Shopaholics wanted 购物狂时代该来了？Jun 25th 2009 | HONG KONGFrom The Economist print editionCan Asians replace Americans as a driver of global growth?亚洲人能够代替美国人做全球经济的发动机吗？ASIA'S emerging economies are bouncing back much more strongly than any others. While America's industrial production continued to slide in May, output in emerging Asia has regained its pre-crisis level (see chart 1). This is largely due to China; but although production in the region's smaller economies is still well down on a year ago, it is rebounding in those countries too. Taiwan's industrial output rose by an annualised 80% in the three months to May compared with the previous three months. JPMorgan estimates that emerging Asia's GDP has grown by an annualised 7% in the second quarter.时下亚洲新兴经济体们的恢复势头比其他任何国家都要迅猛。
经济学人中英对照文章 Northern lights
Northern lights北极光The Nordic countries are reinventing their model of capitalism, says Adrian Wooldridge 艾德里-伍尔德里奇（Adrian Wooldridge）指出北欧国家正在重塑它们的资本主义模式THIRTY YEARS AGO Margaret Thatcher turned Britain into the world’s leading centre of “thinking the unthinkable”. Today that distinction has pas sed to Sweden. The streets of Stockholm are awash with the blood of sacred cows. The think-tanks are brimful of new ideas. The erstwhile champion of the “third way” is now pursuing a far more interesting brand of politics.三十年前马格丽特-撒切尔（Margaret Thatcher）将英国转变成了一个在全世界首屈一指“敢于想不可想象之事”的中心。
今天这项荣耀则移到了瑞典头上。
斯德哥尔摩的大街上充满着打破禁忌局限所产生的新气象。
智囊机构的好点子层出不穷。
之前身为“第三条道路”[1]的拥护者，如今瑞典所追求的政治模式要比过去有趣得多。
Sweden has reduced public spending as a proportion of GDP from 67% in 1993 to 49% today. It could soon have a smaller state than Britain. It has also cut the top marginal tax rate by 27 percentage points since 1983, to 57%, and scrapped a mare’s nest of taxes on property, gifts, wealth and inheritance. This year it is cutting the corporate-tax rate from 26.3% to 22%.瑞典政府开支占国民生产总值（GDP）的比例已从1993年的67%降到了今天的49%。
经济学人读译Time for a double dip
Time for a double dip?二次探底的时候到了吗？A lousy debt deal, rising fears of a recession, the danger of longer-term stagnation: America’s outlook is grim债务协议一塌糊涂，衰退之忧与日俱增，长期经济停滞之虞：美国前景堪忧。
Aug 6th 2011 | from the print editionTHIS ought to have been a good week for the American economy. The country’s leaders at last ended a ludicrously irresponsible bout of fiscal brinkmanship, removing the threat of global financial Armageddon by agreeing to raise the federal debt ceiling. Y et far from heaving a sigh of relief, investors are nervous. Stockmarkets around the world have tumbled (see article). On August 2nd, the day the debt deal was signed, the S&P 500 index saw its biggest one-day fall in over a year, and yields on ten-year Treasury bonds dropped to 2.6%, their lowest level in nine months, as investors sought safety.对美国经济而言，这本来应该是表现良好的一周。
经济学人译文精选2
经济学人官方译文2Clearing-housesDouble-crossed清算所豪赌翻番Bigger may not be better when it comes to clearing-houses对清算所来说，大未必好THE bookmaker on Aldgate High Street, on the fringes of London’s financial district, attracts its fair share of risk-takers. But across the road, at the offices of LCH.Clearnet, part of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE), the really big bets are handled. It and other clearing-houses now occupy a central position in high finance. They ensure that trillions of dollars are paid out on derivatives contracts each day. A decade of dealmaking has created five big beasts of clearing: LSE, Deutsche Börse, CME Group, ICE and HKEX.A planned merger between LSE and the Germans would reduce that to four.位于伦敦金融区边缘的阿尔德门大街（Aldgate High Street）上的博彩公司吸引了自己的一批冒险者。
但马路对面，属于伦敦证券交易所集团（LSE）的伦敦清算所集团（LCH.Clearnet）才是真正玩大赌注的地方。
经济学人中英双语阅读精选(每日一篇)
The truth hurts 真相伤人Mar 31st 2010 | WASHINGTON, DC | From The Economist print editionWill the Treasury call China a currency manipulator?财政部会定义中国为货币操纵国吗？TO MOST people, to say that China holds down the value of its currency to boost its exports is to state the obvious. Not, though, to America’s Treasury Department. By law it must report twice a year on which countries fiddle their exchange rates at the world’s expense. China was last fingered in 1994. Ever since then, the Treasury has concluded that the designation would do more harm than good. Speculation is growing that it may decide differently in its next report, due on April 15th.对大多数人来说，说中国通过抑制人民币的价值，刺激出口，等于在陈述一个明显的事实。
然而对美国财政部来说，却不是这么简单。
法律规定它每隔两年对其它国家干涉汇率，危害他国的行为进行汇报。
中国曾在1994年列入汇率操纵国。
自那时候起，财政部得出结论：罗列中国，更多的是带来坏处。
外界猜测财政部可能将在4月15日的报告中推翻原先的结论。
The mood in America resembles that in 2005, when the Senate voted to hit China with tariffs of 27.5% and the Treasury ratcheted up its rhetoric. China abruptly moved to a managed float for the yuan. It was allowed to appreciate by 20% over the next three years before a halt was called during the banking panic of 2008.现在美国的感受类似2005年。
经济学人文章摘录32篇（中英对照）
经济学人文章摘录32篇（中英对照）第一篇：经济学人文章摘录32篇(中英对照)【经济学人】双语阅读：律师事务所标价更高收益更少Business 商业报道Law firms 律师事务所Charging more, getting less 标价更高，收益更少Lawyers' biggest customers are discovering that they can haggle 律师的最大客户们发现他们能与律师还价THERE were groans in big companies' legal departments in the mid-2000s, when the fees of America's priciest lawyers first hit 1,000 an hour.当美国最高的律师酬金达到每小时1000美元，20世纪中期，一些大公司的法律部门里开始抱怨连连。
Such rates have since become common at firms with prestige.自此以后，这样的价格在名企变得普遍。
A survey published this week by the National Law Journal found that they now go as high as 1,800.美国法律期刊刊登的一项调查表明，现在的律师费用已经高达1800美元/时，But the general counsels of large businesses are increasingly finding that they can ignore these extravagant rates, and insist on big discounts.但是那些为大公司效力的法律顾问却逐渐发现，他们忽视高额酬金，并坚持较大折扣。
Price-discounting tends to be associated more with used-car lots than with posh law firms.There was a time when a lawyer could submit his bill and be confident of receiving a cheque for the same amount.价格折扣渐渐常见于二手车交易，并非光鲜的律师律师事务所。
_经济学人_精品文章中英对照
Whopper to go至尊汉堡，打包带走Will Burger King be gobbled up by private equity?汉堡王是否会被私人股本吞并？Sep 2nd 2010 | NEW YORKSHARES in Burger King (BK) soared on September 1st on reports that the fast-food company was talking to several private-equity firms interested in buying it. How much beef was behind these stories was unclear. But lately the company famous for the slogan ―Have It Your Way‖ has certainly not been having it its own way. There may be arguments about whether BK or McDonald‘s serves the best frie s, but there is no doubt which is more popular with stockmarket investors: the maker of the Big Mac has supersized its lead in the past two years.有报道披露，快餐企业汉堡王（BK）正在与数个有收购意向的私人股本接洽，9月1日，汉堡王的股值随之飙升。
这些报道究竟有多少真材实料不得而知。
汉堡王的著名口号是―我选我味‖，但如今显然它身不由己，心中五味杂陈。
汉堡王和麦当劳哪家薯条最好吃，食客们一直争论不休，但股票投资人更喜欢哪家股票，却一目了然：过去两年里，巨无霸麦当劳一直在扩大自己的优势。
经济学人(英语文章带翻译)
Nice work if you can get out 谁都不愿摊上这种好事Free exchange自由交流Why the rich now have less leisure than the poor为什么当今富人的休闲时间比穷人还少Apr 19th 2014 | From the print edition1 FOR most of human history rich people had the most leisure. In “Downton Abbey”, a drama a bout the British upper classes of the early 20th century, one aloof aristocrat has never heard of the term “weekend”: for her, every day is filled with leisure. On the flip side, the poor have typically slogged. Hans-Joachim Voth, an economichistorian at the University of Zurich, shows that in 1800 the average English worker laboured for 64 hours a week. “In the 19th century you could tell how poor somebody was by how long they worked,” says Mr Voth.”2 In today's advanced economies things are different. O verall working hours have fallen over the past century. But the rich have begun to work longer hours than the poor. In 1965 men with a college degree, who tend to be richer, had a bit more leisure time than men who had only completed high school. But by 2005 the college-educated had eight hours less of it a week than the high-school grads. Figures from the American Time Use Survey, released last year, show that Americans with abachelor's degree or above work two hours more each day than those without a high-school diploma. Other research shows that the share of college-educated American men regularly working more than 50 hours a week rose from 24% in 1979 to 28% in 2006, but fell for high-school dropouts. The rich, it seems, are no longer the class of leisure.3 There are a number of explanations. One has to do with what economists call the “substitution effect”. Higher wages make leisure moreexpensive: if people take time off they give up more money. Since the 1980s the salaries of those at the top have risen strongly, while those below the median have stagnated or fallen. Thus rising inequality encourages the rich to work more and the poor to work less.，4 The “winner-takes-all” nature of modern economies may amplify the substitution effect. The scale of the global market means businessesthat innovate tend to reap huge gains (think of YouTube, Apple and Goldman Sachs). The returns for beating your competitors can be enormous. Research from Peter Kuhn of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fernando Lozano of Pomona College shows that the same is true for highly skilled workers. Although they do not immediately get overtimepay for “extra” hours, the most successful workers, often the ones putting in the most hours, may reap gains from winner-takes-all markets. Whereas in the early 1980s a man working 55 hours a week earned 11% more than a man putting in 40 hours in the same type of occupation, that gap had increased to 25% by the turn of the 5 Economists tend to assume that the substitution effec t must at some stage be countered by an “income effect”: as higher wages allow people to satisfy more of their material needs, they forgo extra work and instead choose more leisure. Abillionaire who can afford his own island has little incentive to work that extra hour. But new social mores may have flipped the income effect on its head.6 The status of work and leisure in the rich world has changed since the days of “Downton Abbey”. Back in 1899 Thorstein Veblen, an American economist who dabbled in sociology, offered his take on things. He argued that leisure was a “badge of honour”. Rich people could get others to do the dirty, repetitive work—what Veblen called “industry”. Yet Veblen's leisure class was not idle. Rather they engaged in“exploit”: challe nging and creative activities such as writing, philanthropy and debating.7 Veblen's theory needs updating, according to a recent paper from researchers at Oxford University*. Work in advanced economies has become more knowledge-intensive and intellectual. There are fewer really dull jobs, like lift-operating, and more glamorous ones, like fashion design. That means more people than ever can enjoy “exploit” at the office. Work has come to offer the sort of pleasures that rich people used to seek in their time off. On the flip side, leisure is no longer a sign of social power. Instead it symbolises uselessness and unemployment.8 The evidence backs up the sociological theory. The occupations inwhich people are least happy are manual and service jobs requiringlittle skill. Job satisfaction tends to increase with the prestige ofthe occupation. Research by Arlie Russell Hochschild of the Universityof California, Berkeley, suggests that as work becomes moreintellectually stimulating, people start to enjoy it more than home life. “I come to work to relax,” one interviewee tells Ms Hochschild. And wealthy people often feel that lingering at home is a waste of time. A study in 2006 revealed that Americans with a household income of more than $100,000 indulged in 40% less “passive leisure” (such as watching TV) than those earning less than $20,000.Condemned to relax休闲是无奈之举9 What about less educated workers? Increasing leisure time probably reflects a deterioration in their employment prospects as low-skill and manual jobs have withered. Since the 1980s, high-school dropouts have fared badly in the labour market. In 1965 the unemployment rate of American high-school graduates was 2.9 percentage points higher than forthose with a bachelor's degree or more. Today it is 8.4 points higher. “Less educated people are not necessarily buying their way into leisure,” explains Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago. “Some of that time off work may be involuntary.” There may also be change in the income effect for those on low wages. Information technology, by opening a vast world of high-quality and cheap home entertainment, means that low-earners do not need to work as long to enjoy a reasonably satisfying leisure.从历史上来看，但凡富人都是最闲的。
经济学人文章(英汉双语对照)汇集
经济学人文章(英汉双语对照)汇集The Economist thinks that media is diverging into blockbusters and niches—with everything else struggling. Why are blockbusters still doing well in this world of almost limitless entertainment choice? First,blockbusters are the common topics that people talk about with their friends.Second, all that technology that has made niche content so much more accessible has also proved handy for pushing blockbusters.Third,in a world of growing entertainment options that make people freaking out, it's easier for some people to choose what others are talking about or what they have heard.So,is the increasing polarization of media products into blockbusters and niches a good or a bad thing? Of course it is a challenge for media companies.But is a boon to consumers.Media companies must raise their game to outshine others.Creative types must learn how to move between big-budget blockbusters and niche, small-budget fare, observing the different genre and budget constraints that apply in these worlds.So, the growth of those niche products grab the market of middle class's instead of blockbusters'.It comes to aconclussion by The Economist that there are only a few things that can be guaranteed to delight large numbers of people.Thus the future of blockbusters is stable.经济学人杂志认为娱乐产品正在发生两级分化,一边是风靡一时,流行大卖的娱乐产品,另外一边是满足小部分人需求和兴趣的小众利基产品,而介于两者之间的产品日子越来也难过.在娱乐选择越来越多的年代,流行热卖的作品还能有这么大的市场呢?原因有三.第一,流行大卖作品是人们与朋友交谈时的共同话题,因为人们对此都会略知一二.第二,让小众产品更易获取的因特网技术也帮助流行热卖产品横行世界.第三,在娱乐选择多得让人抓狂的情况下,对很多来讲,选择别人都在谈论的,或是自己听说过的作品总是来得更容易一些.那么娱乐产业的两级分化是好还是坏?当然对于娱乐公司来讲这是巨大的挑战,但对消费者来讲,却是好事,因为娱乐公司为了让他们的产品能够在成千上万的同类产品中脱颖而出,他们必须要精益求精.对于创作者来讲他们必须要在流行大卖作品和小众利基产品的世界做出合适的定位.所以,那些不知名小众产品的增长抢夺的不是流行热卖作品的市场,付出代价的是中等受欢迎,质量一般般的娱乐产品.经济学人杂志得出结论说,注定只有少部分产品会受到绝大多数人的欢迎,所以流行热卖作品的未来是稳固的.。
《经济学人》英中对照翻译版(考研英语必备)
来源于/wordpress/（The Economist《经济学人》中文版）和/（《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版）11月10, 2008[2008.11.08] 美国大选：无限期望America's election：Great expectationsNO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly that any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black (see article).相信无人质疑奥巴马于本周取胜的重要意义。
这位新总统出生于1961年，那时美国很多州的法律都要求强化种族分离、禁止像奥巴马父母那样的跨族通婚、限制选举权利；这些不仅限于南部地区，而出现在全国范围内。
经济学人文章翻译Word版
女孩从小就被教导要避免失败，规避风险。要微笑得体，谨慎行事，门门优秀。而在另一方面，男孩却被教导要玩得粗野，荡到高空，爬上猴架顶端，再纵身跃下。
当他们成年之时，男性习惯于不断冒险，无论是要求加薪还是约某人出去，他们的冒险也时常得到回报。在硅谷人们常说倘若没经过两次创业的失败，没人会把你当回事。换言之，我们教育女孩要完美无缺，而教导男孩学会勇敢。
So many women that I talk to tell me that theygravitatetowards careers or positions that they know they’re going to be great in, that they know they’re going to be perfect in. And it’s no wonder why.
Most girls are taught to avoid failure and risk. To smile pretty,play it safe, get all A’s. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to play rough, swing high, crawl to the top of the monkey bars and then jump off head first.
有人担忧我们的联邦赤字，但我却忧心我们的勇气赤字。正因为我们没有教导女孩们学会勇敢，我们的经济，我们的社会才会不景气。我们的勇气赤字是导致在科学技术与工程数学领域，在高层管理人士中，在会议室里，在国会里，乃至任何所见之处都缺乏女性的原因。
Some people worry about our federal deficit. But I worry about our bravery deficit. Our ecing out because we’re not raising our girls to be brave. The bravery deficit is the reason why women are underrepresented in STEM, in C-suites, in boardrooms, in Congress, and pretty much everywhere you look.
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Leaders 2Act before the tyrant dies在暴君去世前采取行动The world needs to prepare for a Zimbabwe without Robert Mugabe 世界需准备好应对没有罗伯特·穆加贝(Robert Mugabe)的津巴布韦IN ZIMBABWE they are waiting for rain. The region’s worst drought in a decade has withered the maize (or corn) crop, which came in at only about half the size of last year’s. The poor harvest has left at least 1.5m people—more than one in every eight—in desperate need of food aid.津巴布韦人盼望雨水的降临。
该地区遭受了10年来最严重的干旱，大量玉米作物枯萎，产量只有去年的一半。
收成不好导致全国超过八分之一的人口——至少150万人急需粮食援助。
For Zimbabwe’s long-suffering people, waiting has become a national vocation. For 15 years since he rigged a general election in 2000, Zimbabweans have waited for the chance to be shot of Robert Mugabe. He has ruled the country since its independence in 1980, and so gravely wrecked its economy that people are poorer today than they were 25 years ago. Of late, despairing of democratic change, they have simply waited for the 91-year-old to succumb to mortality.长期饱受折磨的津巴布韦人一直在等待。
从15年前，也就是2000年罗伯特·穆加贝操纵大选开始，人们就在等待时机摆脱他的控制。
1980年津巴布韦独立，穆加贝开始执政，国家在他的统治下经济严重衰退，如今人们的生活水平还不如25年前。
最近，人们已不再寄期望于民主变革，他们仅仅等待着这位91岁老人的死期。
The parched harvest and weak economy mean that their patience may soon be rewarded: if Mr Mugabe does not die first, it looks increasingly possible that he may be pushed out by his party, Zanu-PF, over which his ruthless control is slipping. To be sure, he has weathered economic and political crises before. But this time things are different.惨淡的收成和衰退的经济意味着人们的耐心等待很快就会有所回报：穆加贝已无法再用铁腕控制他的党派——爱国阵线(Zanu-PF)，很有可能在去世前就被拉下台。
诚然，穆加贝以前都能安然度过经济和政治危机，但这次的情况有所不同。
One reason is that Mr Mugabe’s mental powers seem at last to be failing him. He recently read out the very same speech that he had delivered to parliament only three weeks earlier. Still more pressing is the fact that his government is running out of the money it needs to pay the public servants, especially policemen and soldiers, who keep it in power and whose wages gobble up more than 80% of public spending.原因之一在于穆加贝的精神状态渐渐不复从前。
他最近把之前对国会的演讲于三周后又重复了一遍。
更加严峻的问题是政府无力向公务员支付薪水，尤其是警察和军人的工资，而警察和军人负责维护政府稳定，他们的工资占公共支出的80%以上。
In previous crises Mr Mugabe could usually pull a rabbit out of the hat. When his popularity fell, he seized land from white farmers and gave it to his supporters. And when, as a result, the money ran out, he printed more. Now Mr Mugabe’s hat is out of rabbits. The government cannot borrow from abroad because it defaulted on its foreign loans in 1999; even China has balked at helping. Nor can it print money, because it was forced to adopt dollars to tame the hyperinflation that rampaged in 2008. And because Zimbabwe imports more than it exports, its supply of currency is shrinking, driving it into deflation. Official estimates of growth are divorced from reality. The amount of beer sold, a good measure of the economy, has dropped by 8% in the past year. Electricity in Harare, the capital, is often cut off for 18 hours a day. Firms are shedding thousands of workers.穆加贝通常有办法应对以往发生的危机。
当他的支持率下降的时候，他就从白人农民手中夺取土地，分给他的支持者。
当他的政府没钱的时候，他就印钞。
如今的穆加贝已经无计可施。
由于政府在1999年就拖欠了外债，其他国家不可能再借钱给他，就连中国也拒绝帮助。
印钞也不大现实，因为津巴布韦在2008年就已被迫使用美元以应对恶性通货膨胀的肆虐。
此外，由于津巴布韦的进口量大于出口量，导致货币供应短缺，最终造成通货紧缩。
官方对经济增长的估计是脱离现实的。
作为衡量经济的重要指标，啤酒的销售量在去年下降了8%。
首都哈拉雷(Harare) 经常每天停电18小时。
工厂裁员人数更是成千上万。
Zimbabwe’s only way out is to make peace with its creditors, which include the IMF and Western governments, in order to get new loans and forgiveness of its foreign debt, which stands at over 100% of GDP. This month the finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, will present a reform plan that includes spending cuts and changes to some of the laws that are holding back investment, such as one insisting that all firms are majority-owned by black Zimbabweans.津巴布韦的外债超出其国民生产总值一倍还多。
政府只有与包括国际货币基金组织和西方政府在内的借贷者处理好关系，才能免除外债并获得新的贷款。
本月，财政部长帕特里克·奇纳马萨(Patrick Chinamasa) 将推行一项改革，包括削减开支和修改阻碍投资的法律，如坚决要求津巴布韦黑人应拥有企业多数股权的法律条款。
Be kind but firm宽容而严格The dilemma for the West is whether to bail out the government with debt relief and new loans—or wait for the demise of the tyrant. The choice need not be so stark. Relative reformists such as Mr Chinamasa should be encouraged, despite his record as a serial human-rights abuser when he was minister of justice; even more sinister party chiefs are sharpening their knives for the succession.西方面临这样一个两难抉择：是通过减免债务和提供新的贷款来帮助津巴布韦，还是等待暴君去世。
其实做出这个抉择没有那么艰难。
尽管奇纳马萨在担任司法部长时曾一度被指控违反人权，甚至其他党魁正在“磨刀霍霍”争夺下一任总统的职位，但是像他们这样的改革者应该得到鼓励。