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经济学人文章(四六级雅思精读素材)2020-08-27

The Economist August 29th 2020 Business 55Depending on whom you ask, Califor-nia is a leader in clean energy or a cau-tionary tale. Power outages in August prompted stern critiques from Republi-cans. “In California”, D onald Trump tweeted, “D emocrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts—forcing Americans in the dark.” In addition to pro-voking outrage and derision, however, the episode is also likely to inspire investment.The Golden State has long been Ameri-ca’s main testing ground for green compa-nies. Californians buy half of all electric cars sold in America. Theirs is the country’s largest solar market. As California deals with heat waves, ﬁres and a goal of carbon-free electricity by 2045, the need for a reli-able grid is becoming ever more obvious.For years ﬁrms competed to generate clean power in California. Now a growing num-ber are vying to store and manage it, too. August’s blackouts have many causes,including poor planning, an unexpected lack of capacity and sweltering heat in not just California but nearby states from which it sometimes imports power. Long before the outages, however, electricity op-erators were anxious about capacity. Cali-fornia’s solar panels become less useful in the evening, when demand peaks. In No-vember state regulators mandated that utilities procure an additional 3.3 gigawatts (gw ) of capacity, including giant batteries that charge when energy is abundant and can sell electricity back to the grid.Too few such projects have come online to cope with the surge in demand for air-conditioning in the scorching summer. But more are sprouting across the state. On Au-gust 19th ls Power, an electricity ﬁrm backed by private equity, unveiled a 250-megawatt (mw ) storage project in San Die-go, the largest of its kind in America. In July the county of Monterey said Vistra Energy,a Texan power company, could build as much as 1.2gw of storage.The rooftop solar industry stands to beneﬁt from a new Californian mandate that requires new homes to install panels on their roofs from this year. Sunrun, the market leader, is increasingly pairing such residential installations with batteries. In July, for instance, the company said it had won contracts with energy suppliers in the Bay Area to install 13mw of residential solar and batteries. These could supply power to residents in a blackout or feed power into the grid to help meet peak demand. Sunrunis so conﬁdent in its future that it has bid $3.2bn for Vivint Solar,its main rival.Another way to stave oﬀoutages is to curb demand.Enel,a European power company,has contracts with local utilities to work with large commercial and indus-trial clients.When demand rises,Enel pays customers to reduce energy consumption,easing demand on the grid.A company called OhmConnect oﬀers something sim-ilar for homeowners.Even as such oﬀerings scale up,the need for reliability means that fossil fuels will not disappear just yet.On September 1st California’s regulators will vote on whether to delay the retirement of four natural-gas plants in light of the outages.The state remains intent on decarbonising its power system over the next 25years.But progress may not move in a straight line.7NEW YO RKBusinesses compete to battle California’s blackoutsEnergy utilitiesLitMany big companies may be struggling with depressed sales, but these are busy times for bribery-busters. Mexico is abuzz over allegations by an ex-boss of Pe-mex, the state oil giant, that several senior politicians received bungs from compa-nies including Odebrecht, a Brazilian con-struction ﬁrm (see Americas section). The scandal is the latest in a string of graft cases to make headlines this year, starting with Airbus’s record $4bn settlement in January over accusations of corruption for making illegal payments in various countries.Corporate bribery is hardly new. In sur-veys, between a third and a half of compa-nies typically claim to have lost business to rivals who won contracts by paying kick-backs. But such perceptions-based re-search has obvious limitations. A new study takes a more rigorous approach, and draws some striking conclusions.Raghavendra Rau of Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, Yan-Leung Cheung of the Education University of Hong Kong and Aris Stouraitis of Hong Kong Baptist University examined nearly 200 prominent bribery cases in 60 coun-tries between 1975 and 2015. For the ﬁrms doing the bribing, they found, the short-term gains were juicy: every dollar of bribe translated into a $6-9 increase in excess re-turns, relative to the overall stockmarket. That, however, does not take account of the chances of getting caught. These have risen as enforcement of America’s 43-year-old anti-bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (fcpa ), has been stepped up and other countries have passed similar laws. The number of fcpa cases is up sharply since the ﬁnancial crisis of 2007-09, according to Stanford Law School (see chart). It has dipped a bit under Presi-dent Donald Trump, who has criticised the fcpa for hobbling American ﬁrms over-seas, but remains well above historic lev-els. Total ﬁnes for fcpa violations were $14bn in 2016-19, 48 times as much as in the four years to 2007.The authors also tested 11hypotheses that emerged from past studies of bribery.They found support for some, for instance that ﬁrms pay larger bribes when they ex-pect to receive larger beneﬁts, and that the net beneﬁts of bribing are smaller in places with more public disclosure of politicians’sources of income.But they punctured other bits of re-ceived wisdom. Most striking, they found no link between democracy and graft. This challenges the “Tullock paradox”, which holds that ﬁrms can get away with smaller bribes in democracies because politicians and oﬃcials have less of a lock on the sys-tem than those in autocratic countries, and so cannot extract as much rent. Such ﬁnd-ings will doubtless be of interest to corrup-tion investigators and unscrupulous exec-utives alike. 7Bribery pays—if you don’t get caughtBriberyA closer look at greasy palmsBrown envelopes, big chequesUnited States,Foreign Corrupt Practices ActSources:Stanford Law School;Sullivan &Cromwell*Investigations and enforcement actions †To August6543210605040302010020†10152000059095851977Enforcement actionsSanctions, $bnUtilitiesTransport Communications Basic materials Financial services Consumer goods Aerospace & defence TechnologyIndustrials Health care Oil &gas 100806040200Number of cases* by selected industry1977-2020†。

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You are listening to the audio edition of the Economist. Stealing in the Business sectio n.您正在收听《经济学人》音频版。

节选自商业篇。

HTC's patent problemsHTC的专利问题Android alert安卓系统，要当心了Using Google’s Android software has given HTC a boost, but it may now make the Tai wanese handset-makervulnerable to costly lawsuits使用谷歌的安卓软件推动了宏达电（HTC）的发展，但是现在它可能变成弱点，令这家台湾手机制造公司遭遇昂贵的诉讼UNTIL a few years ago HTC was pretty small and relatively obscure. But the Taiwanes e company’s recentgrowth has been remarkable. In the second quarter it sold 11m smart phones, more than doubling its revenues inthe same period last year. HTC’s main rivals, Nokia, Samsung and Apple, still sell around twice as manysmartphones. But its rapid gro wth, especially on Apple’s American home turf, has made it a competitor to reckonwith.几年前HTC还只是一个规模很小、相对不知名的公司。

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1、The Americas Argentina's debt Let's not make a deal Argentina may spurn a chance to settle with its creditors 美洲阿根廷债务别签协议啦阿根廷或将还债机会弃如敝履WHEN Argentina defaulted on its debt for the second time in 13 years last July, the government blamed a pesky clause in its contracts with bondholders. 去年七月，阿根廷发生了十三年来的第二次债务违约，而政府却将这次违约归咎于与债权人签订的合同中的某项麻烦条款。

The so-called Rights Upon Future Offers (RUFO) clause was set to expire on December 31st,in theory opening the way to a settlement with bondholders who had refused Argentina's earlier offers of partial payment. 由于之前债权人拒绝阿根廷部分偿还，这项本应于12月31日到期的未来发行权利（RUFO）条款理论上可以解决与债权人之间的债务问题。

A deal would make it easier to borrow dollars, which the country badly needs to pay for imports. 这项协议可以为阿根廷借入美元提供更多便利，有了美元，阿根廷就可以解决进口商品所使用货币的燃眉之急。

But the president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, may spurn the opportunity. 不过，克里斯蒂娜?费尔南德斯?基什内尔总统却有可能将这一机会弃如敝履。

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经济学人精品文章1．世界经济一路泥泞还是一路下滑?夏天已经走近了世界几大金融中心，可人们的心情却阳光不起来。

受各地经济悲观消息影响，股市已经连阴数周。

全球工厂生产放缓，消费者也愈发谨慎。

在美国，从房屋价格到就业增长的几乎每一项统计数据都显示疲软迹象。

虽然本周早些时候悲观气氛有所平缓，但也只是因为如美国零售业和中国工业生产等数据没有预想的那么糟糕而已。

全球范围内，经济增长正处于约两年前复苏开始以来的最低点。

那么现在的疲软只是复苏道路上的一滩泥泞，还是预示了全球经济恢复动力正在消退？大疲软从导致增长停滞的原因来看停顿应该只是暂时的。

首先，虽然这次的海啸重创日本GDP；打断供应链；尤其影响了4月全球工业产出量。

但经济统计数据显示暴跌的同时，一些更具前瞻性的迹象也表明将有一轮反弹。

比如美国汽车制造商的夏季生产计划表显示，那里的年GDP增长将至少提高一个百分点。

第二，是年初突然高企的油价导致了需求下降。

虽然更多的收入正从资金紧张的石油进口国流入坐享其成的产出国。

昂贵的燃油价格也打击了消费者信心，特别是在石油消费大国美国。

而且油价随阿拉伯世界动荡加剧而再度上扬的可能性也令人不安。

然而至少就目前来看，价格上涨的压力正在减弱。

美国的平均汽油价格虽然仍比年初高出21％，但已经开始回落。

这样应该可以促进消费者信心（并刺激消费）。

第三，许多新兴经济体推行货币紧缩政策是为了应对高通胀。

中国今年5月CPI攀升到了5.5％，印度商品批发价格增长也一举跃上9.1％。

以此为鉴，增速放缓在一定程度上倒是一个有利迹象，这恰恰说明这些国家的央行正采取行动，并开始取得成效。

即使是在对经济硬着陆风险忧心最重的中国，也没有迹象表明政府措施有矫枉过正之嫌。

其实更大的风险在于对世界经济疲软的担忧导致紧缩政策过早收兵。

在当前货币环境仍极其宽松的背景下，如果政府决心有所动摇将导致更高的通胀，最终使经济崩溃的风险大大增加。

也许大部分新兴市场正好需要一场减速来降温，但任何一个发达国家此刻却对此避之不及。

《经济学人》文章精选1

Togetherness in LibyaObama’’s awfully big change in AmericaAmerica’’s use Barack Obamaof forceMar31st2011|from the print edition•Tweet•IT IS Pavlovian.As soon as a president does something new in foreign policy,the world wants to know whether he has invented a new “doctrine”.The short answer in the case of Libya is that Barack Obama has not invented a new doctrine so much as repudiated an old one.What he is also doing,however,is challenging an American habit of mind.The doctrine Mr Obama has repudiated is the one attributed to ColinPowell,the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and George W. Bush’s transparently miserable secretary of state when America invaded Iraq in2003.That held,among other things,that America ought to go to war only when its vital interests are threatened,when the exit strategy is clear,and when it can apply overwhelming force to ensure that its aims are achieved.Nothing could be more different from the account Mr Obama gave Americans on March28th of his reasons for using military force in Libya.He does not believe that America’s vital interests are at stake(though some“important”ones are);the exit strategy is not entirely clear(Colonel Qaddafi must go,but who knows when,and not as a direct result of American military action);and the force America is willing to apply(no boots on the ground)is strictly limited.None of this should be a surprise.In“The Audacity of Hope”,the bestseller Mr Obama wrote as a senator in2006,he set out a theory of military intervention.Like all sovereign nations,he argued,America has the unilateral right to defend itself from attack,and to take unilateral military action to eliminate an imminent threat.But beyond matters of clear self-defence,it would“almost always”be in its interest to use force multilaterally.This would not mean giving the UN Security Council a veto over its actions,or rounding up Britain and Togo and doing as it pleased.It would mean following the example of the first President Bush in the first Gulf war—“engaging in the hard diplomatic work of obtainingmost of the world’s support for our actions”.Related topics•United States•Libya•Barack ObamaThe virtue of such an approach was that America had much to gain in a world that lived by rules.By upholding such rules itself,it could encourage others to do so too.A multilateral approach would also lighten America’s burden at times of war.This might be“a bit of an illusion”, given the modest power of most American allies.But in many future conflicts the military operation was likely to cost less than the aftermath: training police,switching the lights back on,building democracy and so forth.The president,it now emerges,remembers exactly what he wrote.He hesitated about whether to act in Libya(just ask the French and British, who egged him on but came close to losing hope),but he was always clear about how.All the conditions he wished for in that book five years ago have come to pass.In this week’s speech he ticked them methodically off:“an international mandate for action,a broad coalition prepared to join us,the support of Arab countries,and a plea for help from the Libyanpeople themselves.We also had the ability to stop Qaddafi’s forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground.”Under such circumstances,he said,for America to turn a blind eye to the fate of Benghazi would have been“a betrayal of who we are”.Why does this theory of intervention,and the noble sentiment attached to it,fail to qualify as a“doctrine”?Because it is too elastic to provide a guide to future action.Would America“betray”itself by turning a blind eye to atrocities under different,less favourable,circumstances?So it seems.It has,after all,done so before,in Rwanda and Darfur—and Mr Obama appears to accept that it might have to do so again when,say,an alliance would be damaged,as in Bahrain,or the job is too hot to handle, as in Syria or Iran.Also unclear is whether an American interest must also be at stake before Mr Obama invokes the moral case for action. Conveniently(for the purpose of selling this particular war),the president detects a“strategic interest”in preventing Colonel Qaddafi from chilling the wider Arab spring,so nobody knows.In fairness,elasticity is not a sin;and Mr Obama does not claim to have invented anything he calls a“doctrine”.The worst you can say about his approach is that it is merely commonsensical:decide the issues case-by-case while holding some idea of values and interests in mind. Many who say they want more consistency than this(typically by askingsome variant of“What about Zimbabwe?”)do so not because they really believe that foreign policy can be run by an algorithm but in order to embarrass Mr Obama in any way they can.Prize chump in the case of Libya this past fortnight has been Newt Gingrich,the Republican presidential hopeful who demanded consistency,called for intervention and turned on a dime the instant Mr Obama answered.After you,SarkoMore significant,however,is that habit of mind.In Libya Mr Obama is challenging the assumption of global leadership America has taken for granted ever since the second world war.America has joined coalitions before,but never under a president quite so adamant that America is not in charge—even if the military burden-sharing is indeed a bit of an illusion.Most Republicans and quite a few Democrats hate this.Mr Obama’s hope is that America’s low profile will make the war more palatable not only to the Muslim world but also to the economy-fixated voters at home who question whether America can still afford to play its traditional leadership role.What he may soon discover is that modesty extracts a price of its own.By sharing the leadership with others,he has made his policy hostage to the limited mandate(no use of force for regime change) imposed by the United Nations and the limited means of his allies inEurope and the Middle East.It may not be a doctrine,it should not be a surprise,but nobody can deny that it is a gamble.。

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InadequateSOMETIMES the only thing people can agree on is a mediocre idea. Ahead of the G20 meeting, some regulators are pushing to introduce dynamic provisioning for banks. Under this system, in boom years banks make provisions against profits which then sit on their balance-sheets as reserves against unspecified potential losses. In the bad years they draw down on these reserves. This smooths banks’ profits over the cycle, making their capital positions “counter-cyclical”. Supporters point to Spain, which uses this approach and whose lenders are in relatively good nick.Banks should be encouraged to save more for a rainy day. But the importance of Spain’s system has been oversold. Going into the credit crisis, its two big banks had an extra buffer equivalent to about 1.5% of risk-weighted assets. Banks like UBS or Citigroup have had write-offs far beyond this, equivalent to 8-15% of risk-weighted assets. Whether dynamic provisions influenced managers’ behaviour is also questionable. Spain’s BBV A was run us ing an economic-capital model that, according to its 2007 annual report, explicitly replaced the generic provision in its income statement with its “best estimate of the real risk incurred”.Accounting standard-setters, meanwhile, are not amused. They support the objective of counter-cyclical capital rules but think dynamic provisioning is a bad way to achieve this. Why not simply require banks to run with higher capital ratios, rather than go through a circuitous route by smoothing profits, which investors tend to dislike? Accountants worry their standards are being fiddled with needlessly, after a decades-long fight to have them independently set to provide accurate data to investors.Is there a solution? If anything, the crisis shows that accounting and supervision should be further separated to break the mechanistic link between mark-to-market losses and capital. Investors should get the information they want. Supervisors should make a judgment about the likelihood of losses and set the required capital level accordingly. Warren Buffett, an astute investor, has endorsed this approach.Sadly, bank supervision is as dysfunctional as the banks. The Basel 2 accords took five years to negotiate. Local regulators interpreted them differently and many failed to enforce them. Confidence in their integrity is now so low that many investors and some banks and regulators have abandoned Basel as their main test of capital. Given this mess, it is easy to see why policymakers might view tweaking accounting standards as an attractive short cut: with some arm-twisting, the rules can be changed quickly and are legally enforceable. But this is a matter where short cuts are not good enough.Unsavoury spreadTEN years ago Warren Buffett and Jack Welch were among the most admired businessmen in the world. Emerging markets were seen as risky, to be avoided by the cautious. But now the credit-default swaps market indicates that Berkshire Hathaway, run by Mr Buffett, is more likely to default on its debt than Vietnam. GE Capital, the finance arm of the group formerly run by Mr Welch, is a worse credit risk than Russia and on March 12th Standard & Poor's downgraded its debt—the first time GE and its subsidiaries have lost their AAA rating in over five decades.The contrast highlights the sorry state of the corporate-bond market. A turn-of-the-year rally was founded on hopes that spreads (the excess of corporate-bond yields over risk-free rates) more than compensated investors for the economic outlook. That has now petered out.The weakness has been much greater in speculative, or high-yield, bonds than in theinvestment-grade part of the market. This is hardly surprising. First, economic prospects are so dire that companies already in trouble will have difficulty surviving. Banks are trying to preserve their own capital and do not need to own any more toxic debt. Even if refinancing were available for endangered firms, it would be prohibitively dear. It is only a matter of time before some go under. Moody’s cites 283 companies at greate st risk of default, including well-known outfits like Blockbuster, a video-rental chain, and MGM Mirage, a casino group. A year ago just 157 companies made the list. Standard & Poor’s says 35 have defaulted this year, against 12 in the same period in 2008. That translates into a default rate over the past 12 months of just 3.8%.The rate is likely to increase sharply. Charles Himmelberg, a credit strategist at Goldman Sachs, forecasts that 14% of high-yield bonds will default this year, with the same proportion going phut in 2010. Worse, creditors will get back only about 12.5 cents on the dollar. All told, Goldman thinks the combination of defaults and low recovery rates will cost bondholders 37 cents on the dollar in the next five years.A second problem for the corporate-bond market is that optimism about the scope for an imminent end to the financial crisis has dissipated. “People have given up hope that the new [Obama] administration will be able to do anything to make things better quickly,” says Willem Sels, a credit strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort.Banks are still the subject of heightened concern. Credit Derivatives Research has devised a counterparty-risk index, based on the cost of insuring against default of 15 large banks; the index is now higher than it was after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Jeff Rosenberg, head of credit strategy at Bank of America Securities Merrill Lynch, says investors are uncertain about the impact of government intervention in banks. Each successive rescue, from Bear Stearns to Citigroup, has affected different parts of the capital structure in different ways.A third problem for the high-yield market is that plans for quantitative easing (purchases by the central bank of government and private-sector debt) are focused on investment-grade bonds. As well as reviving the economy, governments are concerned about protecting taxpayers’ money, and so will not want to buy bonds at high risk of default. If the government is going to support the investment-grade market, investors have an incentive to steer their portfolios in that direction.The relative strength of the investment-grade market even permitted the issuance of around $300 billion of bonds in the first two months of the year, albeit largely for companies in safe industries such as pharmaceuticals. Circumstances suited all the market participants. “Spreads were wide, which attracted investors, but absolute levels of interest rates were low, which suited issuers,” says Mr Rosenberg.Although the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped by nearly 6% on March 10th, it is hard to see how the equity market can enjoy a sustained rebound while corporate-bond spreads are still widening. Bondholders have a prior claim on a company’s assets; if they are not going to be paid in full, then shareholders will not get a look-in. However, credit investors say their market often takes its lead from equities. If each is following the other, that hints at a worrying downward spiral.A PlanB for global financeIn a guest article, Dani Rodrik argues for stronger national regulation, not the global sort THE clarion call for a global system of financial regulation can be heard everywhere. From Angela Merkel to Gordon Brown, from Jean-Claude Trichet to Ben Bernanke, from sober economists tocountless newspaper editorials; everyone, it seems, is asking for it regardless of political complexion.That is not surprising, perhaps, in light of the convulsions the world economy is going through. If we have learnt anything from the crisis it is that financial regulation and supervision need to be tightened and their scope broadened. It seems only a small step to the idea that we need much stronger global regulation as well: a global college of regulators, say; a binding code of international conduct; or even an international financial regulator.Yet the logic of global financial regulation is flawed. The world economy will be far more stable and prosperous with a thin veneer of international co-operation superimposed on strong national regulations than with attempts to construct a bold global regulatory and supervisory framework. The risk we run is that pursuing an ambitious goal will detract us from something that is more desirable and more easily attained.One problem with the global strategy is that it presumes we can get leading countries to surrender significant sovereignty to international agencies. It is hard to imagine that America’s Congress would ever sign off on the kind of intrusive international oversight of domestic lending practices that might have prevented the subprime-mortgage meltdown, let alone avert future crises. Nor is it likely that the IMF will be allowed to turn itself into a true global lender of last resort. The far more likely outcome is that the mismatch between the reach of markets and the scope of governance will prevail, leaving global finance as unsafe as ever. That certainly was the outcome the last time we tried an international college of regulators, in the ill-fated case of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.A second problem is that even if the leading nations were to agree, they might end up converging on the wrong set of regulations. This is not just a hypothetical possibility. The Basel process, viewed until recently as the apogee of international financial co-operation, has been compromised by the inadequacies of the bank-capital agreements it has produced. Basel 1 ended up encouraging risky short-term borrowing, whereas Basel 2’s reliance on credit ratings and banks’ own models to generate risk weights for capital requirements is clearly inappropriate in light of recent experience. By neglecting the macro-prudential aspect of regulation—the possibility that individual banks may appear sound while the system as a whole is unsafe—these agreements have, if anything, magnified systemic risks. Given the risk of converging on the wrong solutions yet again, it would be better to let a variety of regulatory models flourish.Who says one size fits all?But the most fundamental objection to global regulation lies elsewhere. Desirable forms of financial regulation differ across countries depending on their preferences and levels of development. Financial regulation entails trade-offs along many dimensions. The more you valuefinancial stability, the more you have to sacrifice financial innovation. The more fine-tuned and complex the regulation, the more you need skilled regulators to implement it. The more widespread the financial-market failures, the larger the potential role of directed credit and state banks. Different n ations will want to sit on different points along their “efficient frontiers”. There is nothing wrong with France, say, wanting to purchase more financial stability than America—and having tighter regulations—at the price of giving up some financial innovations. Nor with Brazil giving its state-owned development bank special regulatory treatment, if the country wishes, so that it can fill in for missing long-term credit markets.In short, global financial regulation is neither feasible, nor prudent, nor desirable. What finance needs instead are some sensible traffic rules that will allow nations (and in some cases regions) to implement their own regulations while preventing adverse spillovers. If you want an analogy, think of a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade for world finance rather than a World Trade Organisation. The genius of the GA TT regime was that it left room for governments to craft their own social and economic policies as long as they did not follow blatantly protectionist policies and did not discriminate among their trade partners.Fortify the home front firstSimilarly, a new financial order can be constructed on the back of a minimal set of international guidelines. The new arrangements would certainly involve an improved IMF with better representation and increased resources. It might also require an international financial charter with limited aims, focused on financial transparency, consultation among national regulators, and limits on jurisdictions (such as offshore centres) that export financial instability. But the responsibility for regulating leverage, setting capital standards, and supervising financial markets would rest squarely at the national level. Domestic regulators and supervisors would no longer hide behind international codes. Just as an exporter of widgets has to abide by product-safety standards in all its markets, global financial firms would have to comply with regulatory requirements that may differ across host countries.The main challenge facing such a regime would be the incentive for regulatory arbitrage. So the rules would recognise governments’ right to intervene in cross-border financial transactions—but only in so far as the intent is to prevent competition from less-strict jurisdictions from undermining domestic regulations.Of course, like-minded countries that want to go into deeper financial integration and harmonise their regulations would be free to do so, provided (as in the GA TT) they do not use this as an excuse for financial protectionism. One can imagine the euro zone eventually taking this route and opting for a common regulator. The Chiang Mai initiative in Asia may ultimately also produce a regional zone of deep integration around an Asian monetary fund. But the rest of the world would have to live with a certain amount of financial segmentation—the necessary counterpart toregulatory fragmentation.If this leaves you worried, turn again to the Bretton Woods experience. Despite limited liberalisation, that system produced huge increases in cross-border trade and investment. The reason is simple and remains relevant as ever: an architecture that respects national diversity does more to advance the cause of globalisation than ambitious plans that assume it away.One crunch after anotherCALLS for co-ordinated fiscal stimulus to lift the world out of recession were joined at the weekend by Larry Summers, Barack Obama’s top economic adviser. Such co-ordination has been absent up to now, though that could change at the meeting of G20 leaders in London in early April. But there has been plenty of fiscal stimulus, led by America’s $787 billion package, as many governments seek to offset a collapse in private demand. There are worries not only about how much these measures cost up front but their longer-term effects on government finances.The direct costs of such packages are indeed large. The IMF reckons that for G20 countries stimulus packages will add up to 1.5% of GDP in 2009 (calculated as a weighted average using purchasing power parity). Together with the huge sums used to bail out firms in the financial sector (3.5% of GDP and counting in America, for example), these are immediate ways in which the crisis is affecting public finances across the world. But they are not the only ones.A downturn affects government finances in other ways. Shares in most rich countries have plummeted. The MSCI developed-world index, which tracks stocks in 23 rich countries, has lost more than half its value since the beginning of 2008. Falling share prices hit government revenues as capital-gains tax takes decline. Similarly, taxes on financial-sector profits, a significant part of government revenue in many countries, have evaporated. And expenditures onautomatic stabilisers such as unemployment insurance rise in a recession. All this widens budget deficits.Direct stimulus measures also push up government deficits and debt, although the type of intervention affects how long-lasting its effects are. Most expenditure, such as infrastructure spending, is temporary (although it affects debt permanently). Revenue measures, such as tax cuts, are politically difficult to reverse. The question is whether this threatens the solvency of governments.A paper on the state of the world’s public finances issued by the IMF in the run-up to the G20 meetings takes a stab at identifying and measuring the fiscal implications of the crisis for both rich and developing countries. Its conclusions are sobering. For rich G20 countries, fiscal balances will worsen by 6% of GDP between 2007 and 2009. Government debt will come off worse. Between 2007 and 2009, the debt-to-GDP ratio of rich countries is projected to rise by 14.5 percentage points. In the medium term, the outlook is even more worrying. Government debt for the average rich country will be more than 100% of GDP by 2014 compared with 70% in 2000 and 40% in 1980.A great deal of uncertainty surrounds these estimates because so much depends on guesswork. Economic recovery, for example, could be slower than the IMF’s current projections: g rowth forecasts were revised down several times in 2008. Governments may also have to shoulder more burdens—private pension plans, which have been hammered by the crisis, may require government support. And the eventual cost of financial-sector bailouts will depend on how quickly and at whatlevel prices stabilise of the assets governments have taken on. Past experience suggests that there is enormous scope for variation. Sweden had a recovery rate of 94% five years after its crisis in 1991; Japan had recovered only 1% of assets in the five years after its troubles of 1997.The IMF points out that debt levels, while high, are not unprecedented by historical standards. But the worry is that primary fiscal balances in four-fifths of the rich countries studied by the IMF will be too high even in 2012 to allow debt to be stabilised, or brought down to 60% of GDP (which is the IMF benchmark for debt levels), even though revenues will recover as countries emerge from the crisis. What this implies is that, over time, fiscal deficits will have to be trimmed. And therein lies the rub.Most rich countries have rapidly ageing populations. Unless entitlement systems are reformed (by reducing benefits) or tax bases broadened, fiscal deficits will rise still further. Some of the IMF’s ideas about how to do this will seem unpalatable: it argues that health systems, for example, will have to become less generous. But rich countries were always going to have to come to terms with the fiscal consequences of demographic pressures on existing welfare systems sooner or later. The crisis will bring this problem more urgently to the fore.Inadequate有时人们只能在普普通通的事情上取的一致意见。

经济学人科技类文章中英双语（5篇范例）

经济学人科技类文章中英双语（5篇范例）第一篇：经济学人科技类文章中英双语The Brain Activity Map绘制大脑活动地图Hard cell 棘手的细胞An ambitious project to map the brain is in the works.Possibly too ambitious 一个绘制大脑活动地图的宏伟计划正在准备当中，或许有些太宏伟了 NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America’s next big science project continues to dribble out.有关其发起人心中下一个科学大工程的新闻报道层出不穷。

A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with a report that Barack Obama’s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known as the Brain Activity Map.2月17日，《纽约时报》刊登的一位线人报告终于泄露了秘密，报告称奥巴马政府正在考虑赞助将被称为“大脑活动地图”的计划。

And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project in Science.3月7日，部分发起人在《科学》杂志上发表声明证实了这一计划。

The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood.“大脑活动地图”计划的目标是改变人们在认知大脑时采用的度量方法。

《经济学人》杂志若干篇文章

城市土地空间和都市Urban land城市土地Space and the city空间和都市Poor land use in the world's greatest cities carries a huge cost糟糕的土地利用方式已经成为世界大都市不能承受之重BUY land, advised Mark Twain; they're not making it any more. In fact, land is not really scarce: the entire population of America could fit into Texas with more than an acre for each household to enjoy. What drives prices skyward is a collision between rampant demand and limited supply in the great metropolises like London, Mumbai and New York. In the past ten years real prices in Hong Kong have risen by 150%. Residential property in Mayfair, in central London, can go for as much as 55,000 (82,000) per square metre. A square mile of Manhattan residential property costs 16.5 billion.马克吐温曾建议说“都去买地吧”，但现在他们已经不这么做了。

事实上，土地并非真的如此稀缺：仅一个德克萨斯州就能容纳整个美国人口，而且每户能有一英亩之多。

在伦敦、孟买、纽约这种大都市里，地价飞涨的现实是疯狂的需求和有限的供给共同作用的结果。

经济学人文章10篇

Dominant and dangerousAs America's economic supremacy fades, the primacy of the dollar looks unsustainableIF HEGEMONS are good for anything, it is for conferring stability on the systems they dominate. For 70 years the dollar has been the superpower of the financial and monetary system. Despite talk of the yuan's rise, the primacy of the greenback is unchallenged. As a means of payment, a store of value and a reserve asset, nothing can touch it. Yet the dollar's rule has brittle foundations, and the system it underpins is unstable. Worse, the alternative reserve currencies are flawed. A transition to a more secure order will be devilishly hard.When the buck stopsFor decades, America's economic might legitimised the dollar's claims to reign supreme. But, as our special report this week explains, a faultline has opened between America's economic clout and its financial muscle. The United States accounts for 23% of global GDP and 12% of merchandise trade. Yet about 60% of the world's output, and a similar share of the planet's people, lie within a de facto dollar zone, in which currencies are pegged to the dollar or move in some sympathy with it. American firms' share of the stock of international corporate investment has fallen from 39% in 1999 to 24% today. But Wall Street sets the rhythm of markets globally more than it ever did. American fund managers run 55% of the world's assets under management, up from 44% a decade ago.The widening gap between America's economic and financial power creates problems for other countries, in the dollar zone and beyond. That is because the costs of dollar dominance are starting to outweigh the benefits.First, economies must endure wild gyrations. In recent months the prospect of even a tiny rate rise in America has sucked capital from emerging markets, battering currencies and share prices. Decisions of the Federal Reserve affect offshore dollar debts and deposits worth about $9 trillion. Because some countries link their currencies to the dollar, their central banks must react to the Fed. Foreigners own 20-50% of local-currency government bonds in places like Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey: they are more likely to abandon emerging markets when American rates rise.At one time the pain from capital outflows would have been mitigated by the stronger demand—including for imports—that prompted the Fed to raise rates in the first place. However, in the past decade America's share of global merchandise imports has dropped from 16% to 13%. America is the biggest export market for only 32countries, down from 44 in 1994; the figure for China has risen from two to 43. A system in which the Fed dispenses and the world convulses is unstable.A second problem is the lack of a backstop for the offshore dollar system if it faces a crisis. In 2008-09 the Fed reluctantly came to the rescue, acting as a lender of last resort by offering $1 trillion of dollar liquidity to foreign banks and central banks. The sums involved in a future crisis would be far higher. The offshore dollar world is almost twice as large as it was in 2007. By the 2020s it could be as big as America's banking industry. Since 2008-09, Congress has grown wary of the Fed's emergency lending. Come the next crisis, the Fed's plans to issue vast swaplines might meet regulatory or congressional resistance. For how long will countries be ready to tie their financial systems to America's fractious and dysfunctional politics?That question is underscored by a third worry: America increasingly uses its financial clout as a political tool. Policymakers and prosecutors use the dollar payment system to assert control not just over wayward bankers and dodgy football officials, but also errant regimes like Russia and Iran. Rival powers bridle at this vulnerability to American foreign policy.Americans may wonder why this matters to them. They did not force any country to link its currency to the dollar or encourage foreign firms to issue dollar debt. But the dollar's outsize role does affect Americans. It brings benefits, not least cheaper borrowing. Alongside the “exorbitant privilege” of owning the reserve currency, however, there are costs. If the Fed fails to act as lender of last resort in a dollar liquidity crisis, the ensuing collapse abroad will rebound on America's economy. And even without a crisis, the dollar's dominance will present American policymakers with a dilemma. If foreigners continue to accumulate reserves, they will dominate the Treasury market by the 2030s. To satisfy growing foreign demand for safe dollar-denominated assets, America's government could issue more Treasuries—adding to its debts. Or it could leave foreigners to buy up other securities—but that might lead to asset bubbles, just as in the mortgage boom of the 2000s.It's all about the BenjaminsIdeally America would share the burden with other currencies. Yet if the hegemony of the dollar is unstable, its would-be successors are unsuitable. The baton of financial superpower has been passed before, when America overtook Britain in 1920-45. But Britain and America were allies, which made the transfer orderly. And America came with ready-made attributes: a dynamic economy and, like Britain, political cohesiveness and the rule of law.Compare that with today's contenders for reserve status. The eurois a currency whose very existence cannot be taken for granted. Only when the euro area has agreed on a full banking union and joint bond issuance will those doubts be fully laid to rest. As for the yuan, China's government has created the monetary equivalent of an eight-lane motorway—a vast network of currency swaps with foreign central banks—but there is no one on it. Until China opens its financial markets, the yuan will be only a bit-player. And until it embraces the rule of law, no investor will see its currency as truly safe.All this suggests that the global monetary and financial system will not smoothly or quickly wean itself off the greenback. There are things America can do to shoulder more responsibility—for instance, by setting up bigger emergency-swaplines with more central banks. More likely is a splintering of the system, as other countries choose to insulate themselves from Fed decisions by embracing capital controls. The dollar has no peers. But the system that it anchors is cracking. 主宰的和危险的随着美国经济支配地位的衰落，美元的霸主地位看上去是不可持续的霸主的好处在于能够给它主导的体系带来稳定。

经济学人100篇精选文章

[2010.04.08] Protection racket 保护的喧闹 4[2009.10.29] The unrepentant chocolatier 不思悔改的巧克力制造商 6[2010.04.15] Extrasolar planets 系外行星16[2010.03.25] Ethiopia: Forget about democracy 忘记民主吧18[2010.03.18] Africa: When feeding the hungry is political 当喂饱饥民成为政治工具20 [2010.03.31]Genetic Shock 基因大休克23[2010.04.08]Novel sources of uranium 铀的新来源26[2010.03.13] A game of consequences? 因果游戏？28[2010.03.31]E-publish or perish 不做电子版就灭亡32[2010.03.29] Fish tales 食鱼传说 36[2010.03.31] Another Russian tragedy 另一出俄罗斯悲剧 40[2010.03.18] Back on the map 立陶宛：重振国威43[2010.03.18] Eaten away 捕尽吃绝51[2010.03.19] Let bygones be bygones? 过去的就让它过去吗？53[2010.04.04] Launch pad iPad登台亮相，蓄势待发56[2010.02.18] Polar ice shelves 极地冰架58[2010 03 25]一些人断言：她们不需要妇女权利60[2010.03.31] Sweeping the skies 扫天：清走宇宙垃圾62[2010.03.31] The truth hurts 真相伤人 63[2010.03.25]Easy come, easy go 来如流水逝如风65[2009.8.6] The sun also rises 日升如故，阴霾潜伏68[2010.03.18]electric supercars电动超级车72[2010.03.18] Slash and earn 企业“瘦身”，利润“增肥”76[2010.03.31] Remote-control warfare 遥控战争79[2010.02.25] How siestas help memory 午睡怎样增进记忆力82[2010.03.23] University Ranking 大学排行榜84[2010.03.04] The grim rater 绝不留情 88[2010.03.04]A step in the right direction 往正确方向的一步90[2010.03.11]The cost of reconstruction重建的代价96[2010.03.04] The worldwide war on baby girls 对女婴的全球性围剿98[2010.03.18]Middle-income and developing countries 中等收入与发展中国家110 [2010.03.06]Do the locomotion活动活动（关于动物始祖）113[2010.03.11]Sovereign debt and the euro 国债与欧元 114[2010.03.11]Advances in pain relief 进一步的缓解疼痛116[2010.01.21] investing in brains 智力投资119[2010.02.25]What's good for General Motors 通用汽车好，那美国也好122[2010.02.04] Of governments and geeks 关于政府和极客123[2010.02.18] Hitmen old and new 魔高一尺道高一丈129[2010.01.07] Planet Hunting 行星狩猎131[2010.03.04] The net generation, unplugged 网络世代，不插电133[2010.03.11] All for one 应对主权债务危机：创建欧洲货币基金？136[2010.1.28] A needier era 更加渴望的时代 139[2010.02.04]Classes apart 课堂不再141[2009.12.10] Filthy lucre fouls the air 不义之财污染空气143[2010.03.04]Flaky science 雪花的科学146[2010.02.18] Moon dreams 奔月之梦148[2010 2 25]a weighty matter重物质150[2010.02.18]Assassinations：A time to kill 暗杀：动手！ 152[2010.01.21] Reaching the poorest 给予赤贫者受教育的机会156[2009.12.30] Why farms may be the new forests 为什么农田会成为新的森林 159[2009.12.17]Too many chains 束缚重重161[2010.02.18] Hands off 放下手来164[2010.02.27]Fired up着火了！！！ 166[2009.12.10]How much evil can you not see?有多少罪恶是你所看不到的？170[2009.12.17] Climate change and forests 气候改变和森林 172[2010.02.27]A sunny clean up阳光清洁175[2009.12.03]Cap, trade and block 排放量设限，妥协仍遭堵截177[2010.02.11] Tree and leaf 树与叶180[2009.12.10]Filthy lucre fouls the air 脏钱污染空气浊182[2009.12.11] Green enough? 绿色够了吗？185[2009.11.25]Fish tales有关鱼的故事194[2009.11.26]Wider still and weaker? 膨胀依旧弱更甚？198[2010.01.07]No hiding place? 人类已无藏身之处？202[2010.02.18]Making a bit of me 略显不同204[2010.02.11] Opting for the quiet life 选择宁静的生活（祝大家虎年大吉！）208 [2009.11.26]The gloves go on 减贫正未有穷期211[2010-02-03]Space to thrive孕育繁荣的空间213[2009.11.21][Food markets][食品市场] 216[2009.10.01] Extradition 引渡218[2009.11.05] (Not yet) marching as to war （尚未）发展到战争的地步221[2010.02.02] Computer etiquette 电脑礼仪：点点头，眨眨眼224[2009.11.21] If words were food, nobody would go hungry如果说话可以当饭吃，就没人会挨饿了227[2010.01.14]Stem cells in China 中国的干细胞研究235[2010.01.16]It's a knockout 冲床“以旧换新”239[2009.11.05]Sounding the Trumpet 吹响集结号241[2009.10.22] To the rigger the spoils 舞弊者获利245[2010.01.13]Well received 接收效果良好247[2010.01.19] Safer helicopters 更加安全的直升飞机 249[2010.01.07]Looking for life in the shadows 寻找暗处的生命251[2010.1.14] The end of an institution? 皇家学院的终结？ 253[2010.01.07]Electronic colouring 电子着色 254[2009.12.16] All pumped up 全都泵起来257[2009.12.10]Alone in the crowd群体的孤独感259[2010.3.25] A weight on their shoulders 压在肩上的重担261[2009.12.30] Dambusterbusters 堤坝除险，以水御水264[2010.3.18] The waiting game 等待之中的游戏267[2009.12.19] Girls on top 女孩优先269[2010 03 11] The inflation solution 通胀式解药270[2009.12.10] War games 战争游戏273[2010.03.20] It wasn't us 不是我们的错277[2009.12.17] An early Christmas present? 暗物质: 一份提前送出的圣诞礼物？281 [2010.03.25]Rising prices in Asia 亚洲的物价上涨问题283[2010.03.04]Financial inclusion 金融扩展计划286[2009.12.19] Dashed hopes 破灭的希望287[2010.03.04]Low definition 敢问“界”在何方? 289[2009.12.10] Commercial space flight 商业性太空飞行292[2010.03.02]Recovery in progress 正在复苏中294[2009.12.03] No pinch of salt 盐能发电？此言不差！297[2010.2.18] Fundamental questions 极其重要的问题 299[2010.04.08] Protection racket 保护的喧闹Eating lots of fruit and vegetables may not help stave off cancer, after all终究，吃大量的水果和蔬菜并不能避免癌症Apr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print editionFOR snivelling children and recalcitrant carnivores, requests that they should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day have mostly fallen on deaf ears. But those who did comply with official advice from charities, governments and even the mighty World Health Organisation (WHO), could remind themselves, rather smugly, that the extra greens they forced down at lunchtime would greatly reduce their chances of getting cancer. Until now, that is. Because a group of researchers led by Paolo Boffetta, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, have conducted a new study into the link between cancer and the consumption of fruit and vegetables, and found it to be far weaker than anyone had thought.对于哭哭啼啼的小孩和顽固的肉食主义者，每天吃五种不同的蔬菜和水果的要求他们基本上会当做耳旁风。

economist（经济学人）精品文章中英对照（合集五篇）

economist（经济学人）精品文章中英对照（合集五篇）第一篇：economist(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 fries, 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。

经济学人原文阅读

经济学⼈原⽂阅读经济学⼈原⽂阅读2020/2/17The Chinese coronavirusTime and againA new virus is spreading.Fortunately, the world is better prepared than ever to stop itAs The Economist went to press, over 600 cases had been confirmed in six countries, of which 17 were fatal. The new virus is a close relative of sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which emerged in China in 2002 and terrorised the world for over half a year before burning out. sars afflicted more than 8,000 people and killed about 800, leaving in its wake $30bn-100bn of damage from disrupted trade and travel.That toll would have been lower if the Chinese authorities had not hushed up the outbreak for months. But things are very different this time. The Chinese have been forthcoming and swift to act. Doctors in Wuhan, the metropolis where it began, have come in for criticism, but the signs are that they promptly sounded an alarm about an unusual cluster of cases of pneumonia—thereby following a standard protocol协议 for spotting new viruses.The WHO has long worried about the possible emergence of a “disease x” that could become a serious international pandemic and which has no known counter-measures. Some experts say the virus found in China could be a threat of this kind. And there will be many others. Further illnesses will follow the same well-trodden path, by mutating from bugs that live in animals into ones that can infect people. Better vigilance in places where humans and animals mingle, as they do in markets across Asia, would help catch viral newcomers early. A tougher task is dissuading people from eating wild animals and convincing them to handle livestock with care, using masks and gloves when butchering meat and fish, for example. Such measures might have prevented the new coronavirus from ever making headlines.2020/2/18The apotheosis of Chinese cuisine in AmericaIts upward trajectory reflects the Chinese-American community’sChinese restaurants began to open in America in the mid-19th century, clustering on the west coast where the first immigrants landed.They mostly served an Americanised version of Cantonese cuisine—chop suey, egg fu yung and the like. In that century and much of the 20th, the immigrants largely came from China’s south-east, mainly Guangdong province.After the immigration reforms of 1965 removed ethnic quotas that limited non-European inflows, Chinese migrants from other regions started to arrive.Restaurants began calling their food “Hunan” and “Sichuan”, and though it rarely bore much resemblance to what was actually eaten in those regions, it was more diverse and boldly spiced than the sweet, fried stuff that defined the earliest Chinese menus.By the 1990s adventurous diners in cities with sizeable Chinese populations could choose from an array of regional cuisines. A particular favourite was Sichuan food, with its addictively numbing fire (the Sichuan peppercorn has a slightly anaesthetising, tongue-buzzing effect).Yet over the decades, as Chinese food became ubiquitous, it also—beyond the niche world of connoisseurs—came to be standardised. There are almost three times as many Chinese restaurants in America (41,000) as McDonald’s.Virtually every small town has one and, generally, the menus are consistent: pork dumplings (steamed or fried); the same two soups (hot and sour, wonton); stir-fries listed by main ingredient, with a pepper icon or star indicating a meagre trace of chilli-flakes. Dishes over $10 are grouped under “chef’s specials”.There are modest variations: in Boston, takeaways often come with bread and feature a dark, molasses-sweetened sauce; a Chinese-Latino creole cuisine developed in upper Manhattan. But mostly you can, as at McDonald’s, order the same thing in Minneapolis as in Fort Lauderdale.2020/2/19Obituary Li Wenliang The man who knewDr Li Wenliang, one of the first to raise the alarm about a new coronavirus, died of it on February 7th, aged 33Busy though he was as an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central hospital, rushed off his feet, Li Wenliang never missed a chance to chat about his favourite things on Weibo. Food, in particular.Since he shared every passing observation online, it was not surprising that on December 30th he put up a post about an odd cluster of pneumonia cases at the hospital. They were unexplained, but the patients were in quarantine, and they had all worked in the same place, the pungent litter-strewn warren of stalls that made up the local seafood market. Immediately this looked like person-to-person transmission to him, even if it might have come initially from bats, or some other delicacy. Immediately, too, it raised the spectre of the sars virus of 2002-03 which had killed more than 700 people. He therefore decided to warn his private WeChat group, all fellow alumni from Wuhan University, to take precautions. He headed the post: “Seven cases of sars in the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market”. That was his mistake.The trouble was that he did not know whether it was actually sars. He had posted it too fast. In an hour he corrected it, explaining that although it was a coronavirus, like sars, it had not been identified yet. But to his horror he was too late: his first post had already gone viral, with his name and occupation undeleted, so that in the middle of the night he was called in for a dressing down at the hospital, and January 3rd he was summoned to the police station.On January 8th an 82-year-old patient presented with acute angle-closure glaucoma and, because she had no fever, he treated her without a mask. She too turned out to run a stall in the market, and she had other odd symptoms, including loss of appetite and pulmonary lesions suggesting viral pneumonia. It was the new virus, and by January 10th he had begun to cough. The next day he put an n95 mask on. Not wanting to infect the family, he sent them to his in-laws 200 miles away, and checked into a hotel. He was soon back in the hospital, this time in an isolation ward. On February 1st a nucleic-acid test showed positive for the new coronavirus. Well, that’s it then, confirmed, he wrote on Weibo from his bed.2020/2/20Japan’s state-owned version of TinderLocal authorities are setting up matchmaking websites to pair their residents with lonely-hearts in the citiesEven after years of attending match-making parties, a professional in Tokyo explains, she has not found any suitable marriage prospects. “I’m tired of going to these events and not meeting anyone,” she gripes.So she has decided to expand her pool of prospective partners by looking for love outside the capital. To that end she has filled out an online profile detailing her name, job, hobbies and even weight on a match-making site that pairs up single urbanites with people from rural areas.Match-making services that promote iju konkatsu, meaning “migration spouse-hunting”, are increasingly common in Japan. They are typically operated by an unlikely marriage-broker: local governments.In Akita, a prefecture near the northern tip of Japan’s main island, the local government has long managed an online match-making service to link up local lonely-hearts. It claims to have successfully coupled up more than 1,350 Akita residents since it launched nine years ago.It recently began offering a similar service to introduce residents to people living outside the prefecture and is optimistic about its prospects. “By using the konkatsu site, we hope that more people from outside will marry someone from Akita to come and live here,” says Rumiko Saito of the Akita Marriage Support Centre.Along with online matching services, municipalities across Japan host parties to help singles mingle. They also organise subsidised group tours in rural prefectures, in which half the participants are locals and the other half from cities, to encourage urbanites to marry and move to the countryside. Hundreds of singletons participate in these tours every year.The difficulty of finding true love in the countryside is compounded by a gender mismatch. In 80% of prefectures with declining populations, young women are more likely than men to relocate to cities.This means that whereas there are more single women than men in big cities like Tokyo, bachelors outnumber spinsters in rural areas. Many men in the countryside are “left behind”, laments a government official in Akita.2020/2/22Many Chinese students are frightened of studying abroadSome pay ex-commandos to teach them how to avoid mass shootings in America, sayTheir fear is not of ideological contamination, but of the petty crime and shootings that China’s state media highlight as a scourge of Western societies. For Wang Xuejun, this is an opportunity. A veteran of Chinese peacekeeping and international relief work, he is the founder of Safety Anytime, a company that runs security-training programmes for anxious Chinese who are preparing to sojourn abroad. His customers are taught how to respond to gun-toting assailants, kidnapping attempts and terrorist attacks, among other perils. But the bulk of the training focuses on safety consciousness: how to be aware of more mundane dangers such as muggings or pick-pocketing and how to avoid or cope with them. There are also lessons in first aid, information security and drugs laws, plus advice on how to handle fraud and sexual harassment.The clients include not just Chinese students, more than 660,000 of whom went abroad last year, but also workers from the many Chinese energy, telecoms, finance and engineering companies that send employees abroad as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. That project, a sprawling scheme to build infrastructure and spread influence across much of the poor world, has put ever more Chinese into some of the world’s riskier places.Many of the students are heading off to leafy college campuses in America rather than strife-torn African countries, but they are still extremely anxious. With relentless regularity, they see reports of senseless and deadly mass shootings in American cities. Mr Wang stresses that his training is about much more than avoiding crazed gunmen, but that is the main draw for many of his trainees. “I hope to go to university in America, but we always hear so much about gun violence there that I really have to take it into consideration,”says 15-year-old Cao Zhen, as his mother stands alongside nodding in agreement.。

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。

经济学人优秀文章节选

清洁，安全并且自动驾驶The future of the car汽车之未来Clean, safe and it drives itself清洁，安全并且自动驾驶Cars have already changed the way we live. They are likely to do so again 汽车已经改变了我们的生活方式，很可能再改变一次SOME inventions, like some species, seem to make periodic leaps in progress. The car is one of them. Twenty-five years elapsed between Karl Benz beginning small-scale production of his original Motorwagen and the breakthrough, by Henry Ford and his engineers in 1913, that turned the car into the ubiquitous, mass-market item that has defined the modern urban landscape. By putting production of the Model T on moving assembly lines set into the floor of his factory in Detroit, Ford drastically cut the time needed to build it, and hence its cost. Thus began a revolution in personal mobility. Almost a billion cars now roll along the world‟s highways.有些发明，就像有些物种一样，似乎周期性地会发生飞跃。

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》文章精选1

像我钻到着。

，像腰字巢三步了儿在嘹来的，撑气应睡小牛树户的，下了。

的的的上你张我和烟没的，的翻着下，一黄。

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别的赛。

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雨开捉展小天烘趟生开像。

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兴筋的让了，错希，欣开成个欣眼捉赶像经兴”你上城，望里花亲几趟着得托流杏，，片望是时起撑俏精上地的着寒欣户全着我大就。

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息散作着多开小。

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，。

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层风捉涨赛绿
睡着的就几石的。

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，出，风起一，卖屋年娃歌丝全各跟。

经济学人优良文章节选

清洁，安全并且自动驾驶The future of the car汽车之未来Clean, safe and it drives itself清洁，安全并且自动驾驶Cars have already changed the way we live. They are likely to do so again 汽车已经改变了我们的生活方式，很可能再改变一次SOME inventions, like some species, seem to make periodic leaps in progress. The car is one of them. Twenty-five years elapsed between Karl Benz beginning small-scale production of his original Motorwagen and the breakthrough, by Henry Ford and his engineers in 1913, that turned the car into the ubiquitous, mass-market item that has defined the modern urban landscape. By putting production of the Model T on moving assembly lines set into the floor of his factory in Detroit, Ford drastically cut the time needed to build it, and hence its cost. Thus began a revolution in personal mobility. Almost a billion cars now roll along the world’s highways.有些发明，就像有些物种一样，似乎周期性地会发生飞跃。