2018年可锐考研英语阅读经典文章内容讲解

2018年可锐考研英语阅读经典文章内容讲解（三）
一．
Eli Broad
埃利·布罗德
Few businessmen have achieved as much as Eli Broad. Not only did he develop two Fortune500 businesses from scratch , he has also been a serial entrepreneur inthe arts. Mr Broad backed Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman, and founded the Museum ofContemporary Art in Los Angeles . This son of the Bronx now calls the City of Angelshome and has set out to give it a new heart by driving the development of a downtown areawith a strong emphasis on culture. He has also been a significant and controversialphilanthropist, funding scientific research and failing schools.
埃利·布罗德的成就在商人中几乎无人可敌。

不仅在于他从零开始创办了两家世界500强的企业，而且他还多次投资艺术类项目。

布罗德先生是杰夫·昆斯和辛迪·舍曼的资助人，还建立了洛杉矶当代艺术博物馆。

出生在布朗克斯的他如今已视洛杉矶为家，并着手开发这座城市的一片闹市区，着重发展文化主题，打造一个新的城市中心。

他曾一度是位举足轻重又饱受争议的慈善家，成功建立科研机构但筹建学校却差强人意。

Mr Broad s straight-to-the-point narrative—165 pages of text with a 12-page appendix ofhis “career highlights”and just the minimum colour necessary to illustrate the importantlessons that life has taught him—is part of what he is trying to convey about himself. Where,say, Jack Welch spews out hundreds of pages in “Jack: Straight From the Gut”andRichard Branson spares no detail as he explains how he has spent his life trying to “ScrewBusiness As Usual”, Mr Broad has delivered a book that is as brief as he likes to keepeverything else in life .
布罗德先生的文章开门见山，直击主题。

文章正文共165页，12页的附录中列举了他的“事业亮点”，文章并不华丽，平淡地讲述了他的生活教训，但这些都只是他传达自我的冰山一角。

杰克·韦尔奇在他的《杰克·韦尔奇自传》中洋洋洒洒写了几百页，同样理查德·布兰森不遗余力事无巨细地讲述了他《轻松玩商业》的故事，但布罗德的书却简洁明了，正如他在日常生活中喜欢一切从简那样。

The brevity of his autobiography is both a strength and a weakness. Messrs Welch andBranson devote much of their books to selling themselves as heroes, whereas Mr Broad stendency to state the facts and move on often undersells how challenging a life he has led,and how hard won have been his triumphs. He writes of being amused at how films aboutsuccessful people often condense the “critical ingredient to their success”into “momentsoverlaid with catchy music”, yet his book does that without the soundtrack.
他的自传简洁明了，是优点也是缺点。

韦尔奇和布兰森都在自己的书中都用很大的篇幅把自己渲染成英雄，而布罗德却倾向于平铺直叙地讲述事实，根本不足以将充满挑战的生活和艰难取胜的事迹作为卖点。

他在书中写道，电影常常把成功人士的“成功必备要素”简短
截拍成“悦乐相伴的瞬间”，总引他发笑，但在他的书中，他如法炮制，只是没了配乐。

For instance, the controversial story of how he fell out with the board of MoCA, which heco-founded in 1980 and then rescued when it came to the brink of liquidation in 2008, is givena mere page, when it alone could have filled an entire book. And he writes nothing about howhe fell out with the board at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, let alone about MoCA smore recent troubles.
例如，他在1980年是洛杉矶当代艺术博物馆的创建人之一，后虽与博物馆的董事会几经争吵，但他还是在2008年博物馆面临破产倒闭之时挽回了局面，单单这个故事就足以写作一整本书，但这个众说纷纭的故事在书中仅占据了一页篇幅。

他只字未提是怎样陷入与洛杉矶艺术博物馆董事会的争吵中的，读者也就更无从知道当代艺术博物馆新近的麻烦了。

On the other hand, distilling a lifetime into a series of practical lessons has clearly pushed MrBroad to do some hard thinking and self-analysis, which makes his book a useful read,especially for anyone engaging in entrepreneurship or philanthropy. His personality comesthrough clearly enough, though one can quibble over whether his choice of “unreasonable”to describe it is exactly right. Mr Broad means it in the same way George Bernard Shaw did,when he said that the unreasonable man “persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”Mr Broad started adaptingthe world to himself at an early age, telling classmates to rhyme his name with “road”,rather than his immigrant father s “rod”. But he also adapted himself to the world, not least infighting to overcome dyslexia, which he says gave him a work ethic that infuses every partof his life .
另一方面，布罗德要将自己的一生浓缩成一系列的实践指导，就必然迫使他深入地思考，进行自我分析，也就让他的书读来十分实用，对于那些致力于企业产业和慈善事业的人则更甚。

他的个性在书中展露无遗，不过人们对于到底是否应该用“不讲道理”来形容这种个性可能还会有争议。

这和乔治·萧伯纳的理解一致，他曾说过：不讲道理的人会“固执地让整个世界来适应自己。

因此，世上所有的进步都来自于不讲道理的人。

”布罗德年轻时就想摆脱父亲的移民姓氏“布娄德”，为了押韵让同学们叫他“布罗德”，从那时起他就开始让世界适应自己了。

不过他也努力去适应这个世界，尤其是他为克服阅读障碍做出的努力，他认为那让一种职业道德渗透在他生活的方方面面。

Being a solitary child made him less prone than many people to going along with the crowd,and he likes nothing better than to challenge conventional wisdom with a “why not?”.Those are good attributes for an entrepreneur, though they are unlikely to make him lovedin the world of art philanthropy, where his “candour”often “ruffled feathers”. Still,unlike many of his peers among the current generation of American billionairephilanthropists, he does consider giving to the arts a good investment, to “bring beauty,inspiration, and the shock of the new to as many people as possible”.
布罗德从小生性孤僻，与旁人相比不愿多在人群中相处，他最喜欢挑战世俗观点，说上一句：“为什么不能!”。

企业家拥有这些特性再好不过，但在艺术品慈善界就不大行得通，
没能让他广受欢迎，因为正直，便常常引得他人恼怒。

尽管如此，和这一代许多与他同龄的美国亿万富翁慈善家不同，布罗德是真心考虑大力投资艺术，要“将美丽、灵感和新艺术的震撼带给更多的人”。

Two of his rules of business, in particular, are rarely found in books on entrepreneurship.One is that, rather than being the pioneer, it is often better to be second with a new idea—ashe was in launching KB Home, which became his first Fortune 500 firm, selling houses thatwere cheaper because they had no basement, a controversial idea at the time copied froma firm in another state.
他有两条商业规则很特别，在同类企业书籍中很少提及。

一是与其做个开拓者，不如做个有新点子的后来者。

他就是这样创办了他的第一家世界500强企业科比房，出售无地下室所以便宜的房子，这个想法效仿了国外的一家公司，在当时颇受争议。

This second rule challenges the conventional wisdom that the safest diversification is intoan industry closely related to your own: after several years and a great deal of research, MrBroad built his second Fortune 500 firm in an entirely unrelated business: financial productsfor retirement. He may call himself unreasonable, but in this short book, Mr Broad managesto talk a lot of sense.
人们通常认为最安全的多样化转型是朝现有产业的相关领域发展，但布罗德的第二条规则就挑战了这一观点：经过大量调查，历时数年，布罗德在毫不相干的领域创办了他的第二家500强企业，涉足退休理财产品行业。

布罗德也许评价自己是个不讲道理、不可理喻的人，但在这本薄薄的书中，他还是讲出了很多道理。

二．
The success of hedge funds
对冲基金的成功
Two books analyse what makes hedge-fundmanagers great—and reach very differentconclusions.
两本介绍对冲基金的成功之处的书——其结论大相径庭。

The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World s Top Hedge Funds. By Maneet Ahuja.
阿尔法大师：揭秘世界顶尖对冲基金的智慧，Maneet Ahuja著。

The Hedge Fund Mirage: The Illusion of Big Money and Why It s Too Good To Be True. BySimon Lack.
对冲基金的海市蜃楼：巨资的幻象及其难以置信的原因，Simon Lack著。

Forget the one percent denounced by the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Hedge-fundmanagers have made so much money for themselves that they are in the top percent of theone percent. The billions they have raked in make bankers bonuses look titchy. Theirvaunted success trading stocks, bonds and other instruments has helped to transform acottage industry into a behemoth; today hedge funds oversee more than $2.1 trillion. Aclass of moneymen who once only managed funds for buccaneering, rich families now countthe world s largest public pension funds and endowments as clients.
忘记占领华尔街运动中所诋毁的那百分之一。

对冲基金经理帮自己赚的钱足以让其成为这百分之一中的佼佼者。

他们捞回来上百亿的资金让银行家的分红显得寒碜。

他们在股票，债券和衍生品交易上取得了令人赞赏的成绩，这也帮助产业从一家庭作坊式的产业成为龙头产业。

今天对冲基金管理着超过2.1万亿美元。

曾经为喜欢投机的富翁家族理财的金融家，现今已让世界上最大的公共养老金，基金会成为其客户。

Have hedge funds succeeded because of their investment genius, or their craftymarketing? Two new books disagree on whether the hedge-fund managers golden chaliceis half-full or half-empty. Maneet Ahuja, a CNBC producer who worked briefly on Wall Streetbefore taking a job at the Wall Street Journal, has written a homage to hedgies. She was inawe of Wall Street already when she was an intern at Citigroup . She has never shed it. “The Alpha Masters”profiles 11 of theindustry s best-known bosses, and looks at their investment philosophies and their famoustrades. John Paulson made billions predicting the bursting of America s housing bubble;James Chanos, a short-seller, disrobed Enron; and Ray Dalio, the boss of Bridgewater, theworld s largest hedge fund, makes a killing for his investors and keeps calm doingtranscendental meditation.
对冲基金的成功真的是因为他们投资的智慧么?还是因为他们处心积虑的市场企划?两本新书在对冲基金经理们的金杯里究竟是半桶水还是半桶空气的问题上产生异见。

曾短暂任职于华尔街而后加入华尔街日报的CNBC制片人Maneet Ahuja，向对冲这帮家伙写了篇致敬。

在她在花旗实习的时候就十分敬畏华尔街。

他至今没有改变这一印象。

《阿尔法大师》列举了11位业界最知名的总裁，并分析他们投资哲学和经典案例。

约翰?保尔森因预测到美国房地产泡沫而赚了几十亿美元;卖空家James Chanos剥光了安然公司;世界上最大的对冲基金Bridgewater总裁Ray Dalio，为其投资者抓住猎杀机会而通过冥思竟作来保持冷静。

Throughout her book Ms Ahuja seems to be in a trance herself, in thrall to the glamour of hersubjects. She never questions the judgment of her alpha-men and always gives them thelast word. She devotes dozens of pages to Mr Paulson s rise in the hedge-fund industry, butglosses over his poor performance in 2011. His results have led some to speculate that hemay have the unfortunate record of both earning and losing the most money in hedge-fundhistory. She quotes one of his 2011 letters to investors asserting that bank stocks—whosestruggles pulled down his funds performance—would rebound when the economy improves,never criticising what he did or pointing out that investors will have to wait ages to claw backsuch massive losses. Nor does
she grasp at bigger themes or the many common factors thathedge-fund managers share. Is it ego, courage, good networks or charisma that hasbrought them more success than their fellow financiers?
Ahuja在她的整本书里都好似被催眠，完全被其采访对象的成功所迷住。

她从来没有质疑她书中的阿尔法大师的判断力，视他们的话为至理名言。

她为保尔森在对冲基金行业的冉冉升起洋洋洒洒写了十几页，而对他在2011年的糟糕表现则一笔带过。

一些人怀疑保尔森可能会创造一个悲剧性纪录——对冲基金史上既是盈利最高也是亏损最多的经理。

她引用了保尔森2011年写给股东信件里的话，他坚称连累该基金业绩的银行股在经济状况恢复时将反弹。

而她从来没指责过他的所作所为，也并没有指出投资者需要等到天长地久才能从如此之深的亏损里爬出来。

她也并没有抓住整个大环境或其他一些对冲基金经理的共通因素。

究竟是自信，勇气，有关系还是魅力使得他们比金融业同行更成功?
“The Hedge Fund Mirage”attacks the Wall Street worshippers blind adulation. Simon Lack,who spent 23 years at JPMorgan, an investment bank, selecting hedge funds to invest in,grew tired of the free hand that investors all too often gave managers. He has written aprovocative book questioning a central tenet of the hedge-fund industry: itsperformance is always worth paying for. The promise of superior performance is wrong,he says. Of course some investors make a killing, but on average hedge funds haveunderperformed even risk-free Treasury bills. This is because the bulk of investors capitalhas flooded in over the past ten years, whereas hedge funds performed best when theindustry was smaller than it is now. What is more, it is hard to know how hedge fundsactually fare, since indices that track industry performance tend to overstate the returns.Funds that do badly or implode are not usually included in the indices at all.
《对冲基金的海市蜃楼》对华尔街追随者的盲目崇拜进行了攻击。

曾在投资银行摩根大通工作23年的Simon Lack，当时的任务是分配在对冲基金的投资。

后来厌倦了投资者常常给予管理者过多的自由。

他写了本具有挑衅性的书来质疑对冲基金的核心：它的业绩是物有所值的。

他写道，这些对优秀业绩的承诺是错误的。

当然一部分投资者是会有所猎获的，但平均来说对冲基金的表现连无风险的美国国债都不如。

这是因为大部分投资者的资金都是最近这十年才涌入的，而对冲基金表现最佳的时候是比现在小的时候。

更有问题的是不知道对冲基金的表现究竟如何，因为追踪业界表现的的指数通常夸大回报。

那些表现很差或破产了的通常都不包括在这些指数里。

Why would any client continue to pay for such mediocre returns? One reason is that hedge-fund managers are incredibly good salesmen. In addition, industry insiders who are all tooaware of hedge funds shortcomings choose not to expose them, Mr Lack argues. Moreover,the common fee structure, in which hedge-fund managers keep 2% of assets as a “management”fee to cover expenses and 20% of profits generated by performance, hasmade many managers rich, but not their clients. Mr Lack calculates that hedge-fundmanagers have kept around 84% of profits generated, with investors only getting 16% since1998. “Where are the customers yachts?”is the title of one chapter. What is worse, thedisastrous dive of equity markets in 2008 may have wiped out all the profits that hedgefunds have ever generated for investors.
为什么客户要继续为如此普通的回报付费呢?其中一个原因是对冲基金的经理都是不可思议的优秀销售人员。

同时Lack认为，非常了解对冲基金软肋的业内人士选择不披露它们。

再加上通用的费用结构使得许多经理变得富裕，而非他们的客户。

这些费用包括对冲基金经理每年保留总资产的2%作为支付开销的管理费和盈利业绩的20%。

Lack计算自1998年起，对冲基金经理大约保留了84%的总利润，而投资者只拿到了16%。

客户的游艇去哪里? 是第一章的标题。

更可恶的是2008股票市场灾难性跳水可能已经把对冲基金为投资者赚的所有利润都抹杀掉了。

Mr Lack places a good deal of the blame for this on investors who fail to ask tough enoughquestions and have not grasped that they “want yesterday s returns without yesterday s risk”.They invest money with the biggest, best-known funds “that look nothing like those whoseaggregate performance”they want to emulate. Instead investors should stand up tomanagers, negotiate more favourable terms and put their money into smaller funds, whichtend to perform better.
Lack将大部分指责都指向投资者，因为他们没有问足够深入的问题，并且没有意识到他们自己是在祈求获得以前的回报却不希望承担对应的风险。

他们投资给最大，最有名的基金，而这些基金的累积表现跟投资者所希望模仿的表现相差甚远。

投资者应该挑战经理们，跟他们协商一些更有利的条款，并将他们的钱放入小型基金里，因为这些小基金往往表现更好。

Mr Lack points out that large institutional investors always like to invest in bigger hedgefunds. That way they need not worry about being the bulk of a small fund s investor-base.But he offers no solution for these large investors, who cannot put big sums into the small,nimble funds that he touts. Nor does he analyse how hedge-fund performance compareswith other asset classes, such as private equity. As a result, the reader is left with a naggingunanswered question: would investors do better to avoid hedge funds altogether and, if so,where should they put their money in future?
Lack还指出大型机构投资者都喜欢投资大型对冲基金。

这样他们不需要担心自己成为小基金的主要客户。

大型机构不可能将大额资金放入他所推崇的那些敏捷的小基金里，而他并没有提出如何解决这些大型投资者所面临的问题。

同时他也没有进行对冲基金跟其他基金的表现对比，例如私募基金。

因此，这给读者留下了一个令人困惑的问题：投资者如果完全退出对冲基金，表现是不是会更好呢?如果是的话，他们以后又应该把钱投到哪里呢?
In his conclusion Mr Lack argues that most hedge-fund books are written by their “proponents”. His ambition was to spark debate and help to change the industry. Whetherhe succeeds or not remains to be seen. Hedge-fund executives have already reacted angrilyto “The Hedge Fund Mirage”, which suggests that looking into the mirror may be painful. Theyrightly worry the days of easy praise are over.
在他的总结里他写道，大多数关于对冲基金的书都是由它的拥护者写的。

他的野心在于将这场辩论点燃，并寄希望于此以改变整个行业。

至于他在这一点上是否成功了，还有待考证。

对冲基金总裁们已经对《对冲基金的海市蜃楼》一书表示愤怒，这显示了要面对镜子
里的自己是痛苦的。

他们担心民众对其慷慨赞美的日子已经终结，这倒不是杞人忧天。