经济学人杂志一些图表文章

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《经济学人》：9张图看懂2013年全球经济

《经济学人》：9张图看懂2013年全球经济回顾2013年，全球经济经历了不少大事件，但总体而言，世界经济向着更好的方向在发展，尽管这种复苏仍然稍显缓慢。

在2014即将到来的时候，通过9张图表，总结了这一年最重要的变化。

1，全球主要股指纷纷上扬。

下图四条曲线分别为：日经指数、道琼斯工业平均指数、欧洲Stoxx50指数以及富时100指数。

2，为充分利用超低利率的有利条件，2013年全球企业的发债规模有可能创造历史记录。

图片中深蓝色为美国企业的发债量，宝蓝色为世界其他国家的企业发债总量。

3，随着经济重回增长以及债务赤字的下降，市场对发达国家债务危机进一步深化的担忧减弱。

下图五条曲线中，左起从上至下分别为代表希腊、英国、法国、日本和美国的预算赤字与GDP的比率。

4，尽管经济向好，但大多数发达国家的GDP与危机前差不了多少，尤其是在与中国对比的时候。

下图为这6年来中国、美国、日本和欧元区GDP的变化情况。

5，在就业方面，大多数发达国家中已就业的劳动年龄人口所占的比重仍然低于峰值。

下图的红点代表为德国、英国、美国、爱尔兰、西班牙和希腊今年二季度的就业率，蓝点代表各国在2007-2008年的峰值水平。

6，世界各国银行业监管趋严，这使得银行要为金融危机期间的不当行为付出越来越高的代价。

下图为银行支付的与美国抵押贷款活动相关的罚金数额增长情况，单位为百亿美元。

7，这些银行必须符合更加严厉的监管规则，达到更严苛的资本要求。

因此，银行只能以削减信贷来应对监管。

下图为美国、英国和欧元区小企业的贷款数量与GDP的占比。

8，2013年全世界的央行几乎都在实行极度宽松的货币政策。

美联储和日本央行继续印钱然后大规模购债，希望能够拉低长期利率，同时维持短期利率处于零附近。

下图是日本、英国和美国的央行资产与GDP的占比。

9，当美联储在今年五月提到缩减QE的时候，伯南克的一句话引发了新兴市场货币的“大溃败”，投资者纷纷抽出资金寻求发达经济体更高的收益率。

《经济学人》封面文章

荫译：皖东（新浪财经）《经济学人》封面文章：未来的希望投资最忌好高骛远、盲从热潮和短视近利。

———雪拜·戴维斯[美国]WISDOM ·VIEW ·外刊速览·责任编辑:赵迪E-mail:*****************第15期本期《经济学人》封面文章认为世上最大经济体美国已开始了亟需的经济转型。

奥巴马总统在这方面应能有更多作为。

经历了自上世纪30年代以来最严重衰退的美国经济，在去年收缩2.4%以后预计今年可增长3%。

分析师们还预测，美国就业形势最终在今年会改善。

与步入衰退时情形完全不同的是，高失业率、大量丧失抵押房屋赎回权和公共财政的巨大窟窿是走出衰退时仍存在的显著危险。

而消费、住房和负债与出口的关系，投资与储蓄的关系则构成经济中的隐形危险。

未来许多不确定性不仅要靠华府政治人物，而且还有赖于美国之外的政治家。

美国数十年来的增长一直依靠着消费者大量借款进行开支的意愿，资产价格泡沫支撑着虚假安逸。

住房价格崩溃掏空了消费者的财富，让他们现变得更节俭，并更少借款。

靠着消费文化发达起来的众多企业巨头正重新思考增长方式，同时也在收缩自己的借贷规模。

美国住房开发商现在开发的产品是规模更小、形式更简单的产品。

衰退让美国摒弃了贪大求全，追求奢靡的风潮。

诚然，代价更高的稀缺资金是一个原因，而能源不再像以往那般廉价也是影响未来的重要因素。

更多普通消费者选择节能车型，而开采深藏美国地下的石油已是利润丰厚的追求。

若照此趋势发展下去，美国2025年的石油进口可能不到5年前的一半。

随着国内消费者勒紧腰带，美国企业必会向海外出口更多商品。

有竞争力的美元和现有传统市场增长，会让已处在领先地位的象高附加值加工类的美国行业表现不俗。

这会带来更平衡的美国经济，同时也会让全球经济更健康。

但此转型的成功不会被认为是理所当然的。

美国内外的政策制定者们将决定调整究竟是以痛苦或轻松方式进行。

若美国人节俭换来世上其他一些大国的相反做法，世界会因此繁荣。

《经济学人》2021年3月27日刊精彩文章导读

《经济学人》2021年3月27日刊精彩文章导读原计划每天发推文一篇，说明自己在读词典。

BUT，实践证明：说得容易做着难。

要坚持下来，真不容易。

这周还真有些事情。

我们每年3月份调薪。

在职场的朋友应该知道，这个月是最不稳定的时候：1、聪明一点的员工开始抓住机会找领导各种诉苦，申请工资能多涨点。

2、有些员工根据表现知道自己涨幅不高，开始找工作跳槽。

3、还有一部分员工蠢蠢欲动，等发了工资，掂量是否达到预期，再决定是走还是留。

我们公司通常离职率在25%左右，在软件行业属于比较正常的水平。

我所负责的开发部门，大约有一百多人，要想一个都不走，也很难，但自己不希望有大的波动。

这段时间经常晚上接到电话。

如果是普通员工打过来，99%不是好事情。

讨论主题只有两个：“生活不易，申请涨薪”或者“干得不爽，坚决离职”。

心累。

也就没有了写文的心情。

还好，这一波离职潮基本结束。

团队总体尚好，核心人员和骨干基本挽留了下来。

这周微信里有些朋友问我，看《经济学人》有什么好处？你痴迷这本杂志为了什么？有中文翻译吗？你通常3-4点钟起床，干什么？这些问题比较典型。

做个集中答复吧。

看《经济学人》有什么好处？如果带着功利心来讲，短期看不到任何好处。

要考研的话，不如看教辅资料；想跳槽外企的话，不如参与专业的口语和听力培训。

我看《经济学人》纯属爱好。

以我目前实力，我看不出杂志中的遣词造句，欣赏不出英语句子的美感，更别指望能用英文写作。

已到而立之年，做一件事，更多是站在实用性考虑。

那么，我看《经济学人》，主要是为了吸收不同的想法和观点。

现在这个社会，最稀缺的能力是独立思考。

咱们看众多自媒体，为了吸引读者的眼球，不断制造新闻，挑起对立情绪。

在这个流量为王的时代，自己很容易被带节奏，成为其中的韭菜或帮凶。

比如，前段时间，有则新闻说手术医生累了喝了一瓶葡萄糖输液，然后有人发帖质疑，医生喝的输液费用算到了患者账单上。

而后不少自媒体难得抓取这个兴趣点，开局一张图，内容全靠编，煽动医患关系。

《经济学人》2021年6月26日刊精彩文章导读

《经济学人》2021年6月26日刊精彩文章导读我其实更喜欢它的排版风格（虽然《经济学人》称自己是一份报纸，但我看它更像本杂志）。

版面清爽。

你可能认为刊物都是这样的呀。

那你可能就误解了。

咱们看看其它知名刊物的风格，绚丽奔放。

比如，《商业周刊》又如，《纽约客》再如，《卫报周刊》当然，这可能与人爱好有关。

大家找到喜欢的杂志，阅读即可。

博百家之长。

可能有朋友担心我们看批评的文章太多，会走极端。

我认为不会呀。

通过阅读别人的批评，我们可以发现自己的不足，但并不表示我们会反对现行体制。

我们只会希望我们能够更加繁荣强大。

还有一个最最常见的问题：想学英语没时间怎么办？那你可以看看这位大牛刘未鹏（《暗时间》的作者）学英语方法。

我已实践，可行性高，效果不错。

分享之。

我们可以把英语学习的过程夹杂在你"反正"要做的事情里面。

反正要看电影，不如看英文的。

反正要看技术书籍，不如看原版的。

反正要看书籍，不如看原版的。

反正要问问题，不如去国外论坛上问。

反正要查资料，不如查原始出处（往往又是英文的）。

反正要表达，不如试试用英文表达。

反正要唱歌，不如听听、学学英文歌。

简单可行。

我一直都这么干。

我本科的时候英语学校考试不及格过，直到大四才重修，因为要我坐下来背单词短语实在是太痛苦，太痛苦了，跟背历史的痛苦程度有得一拼。

后来看了本原版书，因为对书的内容极其感兴趣，所以对英文的不适感被很大地降低了，看完了之后，我就发现这种方法实在太节省时间了。

几年下来原版书读了N多本，基本上阅读英文资料和中文资料一样快了。

也许对程序员兄弟来说更重要的是这个习惯有利于掌握一手资料，因为技术一手资料一般都来自英文社区，还有很多好书（不仅是技术书）都是只有英文版的，因为语言介质原因失之交臂是很可惜的。

这个方法的优点在于分摊时间复杂度。

弱点在于需要持之以恒的积累（但每天所需时间很少），肉眼几乎看不出提高的，因此时间长，见效慢。

但积累之后效果是相当稳定的，是内功。

TheEconomist《经济学人》常用

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(泛读精选)

Beefed-up burgernomics调整后的汉堡经济学A gourmet version of the Big Mac index suggests that the yuan is not that undervalued该井的巨无霸指数表明人民币并未如想象的那样被低估THE Big Mac index celebrates its 25th birthday this year. Invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level, it was never intended as a precise gauge of currency misalignment, merely a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. Yet the Big Mac index has become a global standard, included in several economic textbooks and the subject of at least 20 academic studies. American politicians have even cited the index in their demands for a big appreciation of the Chinese yuan. With so many people taking the hamburger standard so seriously, it may be time to beef it up.今年巨无霸指数将迎来它的第25个年头。

这一指标由经济学人杂志在1986年确立并且成为衡量一国货币是否处于正常水平的轻松指标，人们从未计划将其视作货币偏离其价值的精确估计，它只是使汇率更加容易理解的工具。

《经济学人》封面文章

荫译：皖东（新浪财经）《经济学人》封面文章：德国还需结构性改革任何靠市场方向来决定获利的投资方式，都注定只能表现平平。

———麦克·劳尔[美国]·外刊速览·WISDOM ·VIEW责任编辑:赵迪E-mail:*****************第12期本期《经济学人》封面文章认为，德国需要改革的原因不只是为自身，而且也为他人。

世界各地通常将欧洲视为经济僵化的大陆，依赖福利的民众不愿工作太多，其工业基础陈旧和能力持续下降。

相应机制让欧洲前景暗淡。

正如本刊本期特别报告所显示的那样，欧洲最大经济体，德国的成功却反应了完全不同的事实。

德国10年前还是位病夫，一直受到缓慢增长和高失业率的拖累，加工业在绝望中外迁寻找低成本之地。

但德国尽管现在也身处衰退，但其失业率仍低于5年前。

德国的出口近期虽让位于世界最大出口国中国，但其出口实力仍毫发无损。

德国今年经常项下盈余占GDP 比重也超过中国。

然而，欧洲其他各国对德国这个欧洲地理和政治中心的强劲经济有着许多要说。

德国的成功确实给邻国造成了许多麻烦，这也是双方需认真面对的问题。

德国令人印象深刻的灵活性是传统和新型优点结合的结果。

传统上以多数意见主导的管理体系有助于让工会在企业成本需要下调时进行合作。

同时，经济政策也转向新式和自由化方向。

施罗德政府2003-2004年间引入了对劳动力市场和福利体系的改革。

因受这些因素刺激和欧洲单一货币体系的竞争压力，德国工商业毫不手软地将实际工资水平压下来。

德国2000-08年间的单位劳动成本年均下降1.4%，而美国仅为0.7%，法英两国确分别上涨0.8%和0.9%。

德国去年虽也遭到衰退沉重打击，但经济仍远好于10年前的形势。

这是法国和南欧各国根本无法相比的。

德国对其控制成本和保持出口的能力感到自豪。

但它应意识到其成功部份是以牺牲邻国利益为代价的。

德国人更愿意相信他们10年因放弃所热爱的马克而做出了巨大牺牲，但他们从欧元上的获益实际上超出任何人。

《经济学人》封面文章

投资最忌好高骛远、盲从热潮和短视近利。

———雪拜·戴维斯[美国]WISDOM ·VIEW ·外刊速览·责任编辑:赵迪E-mail:*****************《经济学人》封面文章：艰难的未来第04期本期《经济学人》封面文章认为，奥巴马在执政的头年内表现良好，但不突出，而且未来事物将变得更难处理。

奥巴马在1年前的总统宣誓就职演说中，在回顾独立战争的黑暗日子时，像华盛顿当年那样做出了保证：面对共同敌人的美国人，在他的领导下将挺身而出勇敢迎接挑战。

人们1年后关心的是他竟做的怎样。

实事求是地说，奥巴马做的不算差。

他在任职的前12个月内成功地稳住了经济；将可承受的，每个美国人几乎都能享受到的医保改革推到了快要成功的边缘；结束了虐囚；恰当地指挥了阿富汗战争，而又同时逐步脱离伊拉克。

然而，可能更显重要是，他清除了大部分布什政府给全世界留下的对美国憎恨和恐慌。

更重要的是奥巴马在运行着一届有胜任能力、自我约束而又能包容不同思想的政府，同时未出现克林顿政府执政头年的混乱局面。

他不仅拒绝了向民主党内民粹主义势力让步的诱惑，而且还以监管手段迫使华尔街循规蹈矩。

他避开了对企业家的惩罚性征税。

他甚至对高调的保护主义的呼声装聋。

奥巴马常处于争论中心之外。

他急于让人们喜欢自己和做受民众欢迎之事，将困难留在后面。

远不说能够实践自己在就职典礼上的诺言，他尚未表现出强硬一面。

奥巴马在国内的危险的缺乏自信，解释了似乎现在有可能通过的医保改革议案为何仍是让人感到的巨大失望。

改革虽能给上千万无医保的美国人，以及众多失业后恐丧失医保的人提供医保。

但此举代价高昂，它只能在控制成本方向上采取渐进式步骤。

一直在上扬的医保开支会以破产方式威胁到整个联邦政府。

所以，历经数代人进行的综合性医疗改革对解决当前问题作用甚微。

奥巴马未能采纳自己党派中的挥霍者的意见会为自己的政治生涯付出代价。

对他的评价开始下降，今年11月的中期选举，他看起来至少有可能丧失在参议院的绝对多数地位。

权威杂志《经济学人》英文原版(整理完全版)。(可打印修改)

Digest Of The. Economist. 2006(8-9)The mismeasure of womanMen and women think differently. But not that differentlyIN THE 1970s there was a fad for giving dolls to baby boys and fire-engines to baby girls. The idea was that differences in behaviour between the sexes were solely the result of upbringing: culture turned women into ironers, knitters and chatterboxes, and men into hammerers, drillers and silent types. Switching toys would put an end to sexual sorting. Today, it is clear why it did not. When boys and girls are born, they are already different, and they favour different toys from the beginning.That boys and girls—and men and women—are programmed by evolution to behave differently from one another is now widely accepted. Surely, no one today would think of doing what John Money, of Johns Hopkins University, did in 1967: amputating the genitalia of a boy who had suffered a botched circumcision, and advising the parents to bring him up as a girl. The experiment didn't work, and the consequences were tragic. But which of the differences between the sexes are “biological”, in the sense that they have been honed by evolution, and which are “cultural” or “environmental” and might more easily be altered by changed circumstances, is still fiercely debated.The sensitivity of the question was shown last year by a furore at Harvard University. Larry Summers, then Harvard's president, caused a storm when he suggested that innate ability could be an important reason why there were so few women in the top positions in mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences.Even as a proposition for discussion, this is unacceptable to some. But biological explanations of human behaviour are making a comeback as the generation of academics that feared them as a covert way of justifying eugenics, or of thwarting Marxist utopianism, is retiring. The success of neo-Darwinism has provided an intellectual underpinning for discussion about why some differences between the sexes might be innate. And new scanning techniques have enabled researchers to examine the brain's interior while it is working, showing that male and female brains do, at one level, operate differently. The results, however, do not always support past clichés about what the differences in question actually are.Differences in behaviour between the sexes must, in some way, be reflections of systematic differences between the brains of males and females. Such differences certainly exist, but drawing inferences from them is not as easy as it may appear.For a start, men's brains are about 9% larger than those of women. That used to be cited as evidence of men's supposedly greater intelligence. Actually, the difference is largely (and probably completely) explained by the fact that men are bigger than women. In recent years, more detailed examination has refined the picture. Female brains have a higher percentage of grey matter (the manifestation, en bloc, of the central bodies of nerve cells), and thus a lower percentage of white matter (the manifestation of the long, thin filaments that connect nerve cells together), than male brains. That, plus the fact that in some regions of the female brain, nerve cells are packed more densely than in men, means that the number of nerve cells in male and female brains maybe similar.Oddly, though, the main connection between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is known as the corpus callosum and is made of white matter, is proportionately smaller in men than women. This may explain why men use only one side of the brain to process some problems for which women employ both sides.These differences in structure and wiring do not appear to have any influence on intelligence as measured by IQ tests. It does, however, seem that the sexes carry out these tests in different ways. In one example, where men and women perform equally well in a test that asks them to work out whether nonsense words rhyme, brain scanning shows that women use areas on both the right and the left sides of the brain to accomplish the task. Men, by contrast, use only areas on the left side. There is also a correlation between mathematical reasoning and temporal-lobe activity in men—but none in women. More generally, men seem to rely more on their grey matter for their IQ, whereas women rely more on their white matter.American exceptionalismThe world's biggest insurance market is too splinteredKANSAS CITY, Missouri, is known more for its historical role as a cattle town than as a financial hub. But it is to this midwestern city, America's 26th largest, that regulators and insurance executives from around the globe head when they want to make sense of the world's largest—and one of its weirdest—insurance markets.For it is in Kansas City that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is housed. It oversees a market accounting for one-third of premiums written worldwide. Outside Kansas City, the market becomes a regulatory free-for-all. Each of America's 50 states, plus the District of Colombia, governs its insurance industry in its own way.In an increasingly global insurance market, America's state-based system is coming under strong pressure to reform. Insurance has changed dramatically since the NAIC was set up in 1871, with growing sophistication in underwriting and risk management. Premiums in America have ballooned to $1.1 trillion and market power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of big players (some of them foreign-owned) that are pushing for an overhaul of the state-based system. “It's an extremely expensive and Byzantine process,” says Bob Hartwig, an economist with the Insurance Information Institute, a research group.Though a fiercely political issue, congressional support for simplifying the system is gaining ground. Both houses of Congress are looking at proposals to change the state-based system. Big insurers favour a version that would implement an optional federal charter allowing them to bypass the state-bystate regulatory process if they choose. A similar system already exists for banks.Proponents of the changes see more efficiency, an ability to roll out products more quickly nationally and, ultimately, better offerings for consumers as a result. Yet some consumer groups favour state-based regulation. They believe it keeps premiums lower than they otherwise would be. Premiums as a percentage of gross output are lower in America than in several other countries.The political headwinds are strong: insurance commissioners are elected officials in some states (California, for instance) and appointed by the governor in others. The industry is also split: most of the country's 4,500 insurers are small, and many of them have close ties with state-based regulators, whose survival they support. But even these forces may eventually be overcome.Elsewhere in the industry in America, there are other calls for reform. In a backdoor form of protectionism, American reinsurance firms have long benefited from a regulation that requires foreign reinsurers writing cross-border business into America to post more collateral than they do. “If you operate outside the borders of the US, they don't trust you one inch,” laments Julian James, head of international business at Lloyd's of London, which writes 38% of its business in America.The collateral requirement was established because of worries about regulatory standards abroad, and the financial strength of global reinsurers. Today regulatory standards have been tightened in many foreign markets. A majority of America's reinsurance cover now comes from firms based abroad, including many that have set up offshore in Bermuda (for tax reasons) primarily to serve America.Too hot to handleDell's battery recall reveals the technology industry's vulnerabilitiesTHERE is the nail test, in which a team of engineers drives a large metal nail through a battery cell to see if it explodes. In another trial, laboratory technicians bake the batteries in an oven to simulate the effects of a digital device left in a closed car on a sweltering day—to check the reaction of the chemicals inside. On production runs, random batches of batteries are tested for temperature, efficiency, energy density and output.But the rigorous processes that go into making sophisticated, rechargeable batteries—the heart of billions of electronic gadgets around the world—were not enough. On August 14th Dell, a computer company, said it would replace 4.1m lithium-ion batteries made by Sony, a consumer-electronics firm, in laptop computers sold between 2004 and last month. A handful of customers had reported the batteries overheating, catching fire and even exploding—including one celebrated case at a conference this year in Japan, which was captured on film and passed around the internet. The cost to the two companies is expected to be between $200m and $400m.In some ways, Dell is a victim of its success. The company was a pioneer in turning the personal computer into a commodity, which meant squeezing suppliers to the last penny, using economies of scale by placing huge orders, and running efficient supply chains with little room for error. It all created a volatile environment in which mistakes can have grave effects.Since lithium-ion batteries were introduced in 1991, their capacity to overheat and burst into flame has been well known. Indeed, in 2004 America banned them as cargo on passenger planes, as a fire hazard. But the latest problems seem to have arisen because of the manufacturing process, which demands perfection. “If there is even a nano-sized particle of dust, a small metal shard or water condensation that gets into the battery cell, it can overheat and explode,” says Sara Bradford of Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy. As the energy needs of devices have grown rapidly, so have the demands on batteries.The computing industry's culture is also partly to blame. Firms have long tried to ship products as fast as they possibly can, and they may have set less store by quality. They used to mock the telecoms industry's ethos of “five-nines”—99.999% reliability—because it meant long product cycles. But now they are gradually accepting it as a benchmark. That is partly why Microsoft has taken so long to perfect its new operating system, Windows Vista.Compared with other product crises, from contaminated Coca-Cola in 1999 to Firestone's faulty tyres in 2000, Dell can be complimented for quickly taking charge of a hot situation. The firm says there were only six incidents of laptops overheating in America since December 2005—but the internet created a conflagration.Keeping the faithMixing religion and development raises soul-searching questionsWORLD Bank projects are usually free of words like “faith” and “soul.” Most of its missions speak the jargon of development: poverty reduction, aggregate growth and structural adjustments. But a small unit within the bank has been currying favour with religious groups, working to ease their suspicions and use their influence to further the bank's goals. In many developing countries, such groups have the best access to the people the bank is trying to help. The programme has existed for eight years, but this brainchild of the bank's previous president, James Wolfensohn, has spent the past year largely in limbo as his successor, Paul Wolfowitz, decides its future. Now, some religious leaders in the developing world are worried that the progress they have made with the bank may stall.That progress has not always been easy. The programme, named the Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics, faced controversy from the start. Just as religious groups have struggled to work with the bank, many people on the inside doubted if the bank should be delving into the divine. Critics argued that religion could be divisive and political. Some said religion clashes with the secular goals of modernisation.Although the bank does not lend directly to religious groups, it works with them to provide health, educational and other benefits, and receives direct input from those on the ground in poor countries. Katherine Marshall, director of the bank's faith unit, argues that such groups are in an ideal position to educate people, move resources and keep an eye on corruption. They are organised distribution systems in otherwise chaotic places. The programme has had success getting evangelical groups to fight malaria in Mozambique, improve microcredit and water distribution in India, and educate people about AIDS in Africa. “We started from very different viewpoints. The World Bank is looking at the survival of a country, we look at the survival of a patient,” says Leonardo Palombi, of the Community of Sant'Egidio, an Italian church group that works in Africa.Although the work continues, those involved in Mr Wolfensohn's former pet project now fret over its future. Some expect the faith unit to be transferred to an independent organisation also set up by Mr Wolfensohn, the World Faiths Development Dialogue, which will still maintain a link with the bank. Religious groups are hoping their voices will still be heard. “If we are going to make progress, faith institutions need to be involved. We believe religion has the ability to bring stability. It will be important for the bank to follow through,” says Agnes Abuom, of the World Council of Churches for Africa, based in Kenya.Like religious groups, large institutions such as the bank can resist change. Economists and development experts are sometimes slow to believe in new ideas. One positive by-product of the initiative is that religious groups once wary of the bank's intentions are less suspicious. Ultimately, as long as both economists and evangelists aim to help the poor attain a better life on earth, differences in opinion about the life hereafter do not matter much.Stand and deliverFor the first time since the epidemic began, money to fight AIDS is in plentiful supply. It isnow time to convert words into actionKEVIN DE COCK, the World Health Organisation's AIDS supremo, is not a man to mince his words. He reckons that he and his colleagues in the global AIDS establishment have between five and seven years to make a real dent in the problem. If they fail, the world's attention span will be exhausted, charitable donors and governments will turn to other matters and AIDS will be relegated in the public consciousness to being yet another intractable problem of the poor world about which little or nothing can be done.For now, though, the money is flowing. About $8.9 billion is expected to be available this year. And, regardless of Dr De Cock's long-term worries, that sum should rise over the next few years. Not surprisingly, a lot of people are eager to spend it.Many of those people—some 24,000 of them—have been meeting in Toronto at the 16th International AIDS Conference. An AIDS conference is unlike any other scientific meeting. In part, it is a jamboree in which people try to out-do each other in displays of cultural inclusiveness: the music of six continents resonates around the convention centre. In part, it is a lightning conductor that allows AIDS activists to make their discontent known to the world in a series of semi-official protests. It is also what other scientific meetings are, a forum for the presentation of papers with titles such as “Differing lymphocyte cytokine responses in HIV and Leishmania co-infection”. But mostly, it is a giant council of war. And at this one, the generals are trying to impose a complete change of military strategy.When AIDS was discovered, there was no treatment. Existing anti-viral drugs were tried but at best they delayed the inevitable, and at worst they failed completely. Prevention, then, was not merely better than cure, it was the only thing to talk about. Condoms were distributed. Posters were posted exhorting the advantages of safe sex. Television adverts were run that showed theconsequences of carelessness.Ten years ago, though, a new class of drugs known as protease inhibitors was developed. In combination with some of the older drugs, they produced what is now known as highly active anti-retroviral therapy or HAART. In most cases, HAART can prolong life indefinitely.That completely changed the picture. Once the AIDS activists had treated themselves, they began to lobby for the poor world to be treated, too. And, with much foot-dragging, that is now happening. About 1.6m people in low- and middle-income countries, 1m of them in sub-Saharan Africa, are now receiving anti-AIDS drugs routinely. The intention, announced at last year's G8 meeting in Scotland, is that the drugs should be available by 2010 to all who would benefit from them.However, those on drugs remain infected and require treatment indefinitely. To stop the epidemic requires a re-emphasis of prevention, and it is that which the organisers have been trying to do.Man, deconstructedThe DNA that may have driven the evolution of the human brainONE of the benefits of knowing the complete genetic sequences of humans and other animals is that it becomes possible to compare these blueprints. You can then work out what separates man from beast—genetically speaking, at least.The human brain sets man apart. About 2m years ago it began to grow in size, and today it is about three times larger than that of chimpanzees, man's closest relative. Human intelligence and behavioural complexity have far outstripped those of its simian cousins, so the human brain seems to have got more complex, as well as bigger. Yet no study has pinpointed the genetic changes that cause these differences between man and chimp.Now a group of scientists believe they have located some interesting stretches of DNA that may have been crucial in the evolution of the human brain. A team led by David Haussler of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in California, compared the human genome with that of mammals including other primates. They reported the results in Nature.The researchers looked at the non-human genomes first, seeking regions that had not changed much throughout evolutionary history. Regions that are untouched by normal random changes typically are important ones, and thus are conserved by evolution. Next the researchers found the equivalent regions in the human genome to see if any were very different between humans and chimps. Such a sudden change is a hallmark of a functional evolutionary shift.They found 49 regions they dubbed “human accelerated regions” (HARs) that have shown a rapid, recent evolution. Most of these regions are not genes as commonly understood. This is because they code for something other than the proteins that are expressed in human cells and that regulate biological processes. A number of the HARs are portions of DNA that are responsible for turning genes on and off.Intriguingly, the most rapidly changing region was HAR1, which has accumulated 18 genetic changes when only one would be expected to occur by chance. It codes for a bit of RNA (a molecule that usually acts as a template for translating DNA into protein) that, it is speculated, has some direct function in neuronal development.HAR1 is expressed before birth in the developing neocortex—the outer layer of the brain that seems to be involved in higher functions such as language, conscious thought and sensory perception. HAR1 is expressed in cells that are thought to have a vital role in directing migrating nerve cells in the developing brain. This happens at seven to 19 weeks of gestation, a crucial time when many of the nerve cells are establishing their functions.Without more research, the function of HAR1 remains mere speculation. But an intriguing facet of this work is that, until now, most researchers had focused their hunt for differences on the protein-coding stretches of the genome. That such a discovery has been made in what was regarded as the less interesting parts of the human genome is a presage of where exciting genomic finds may lie in the future.Keeping it realHow to make digital photography more trustworthyPHOTOGRAPHY often blurs the distinction between art and reality. Modern technology has made that blurring easier. In the digital darkroom photographers can manipulate images and threaten the integrity of endeavours that rely on them. Several journalists have been fired for such activity in recent months, including one from Reuters for faking pictures in Lebanon. Earlier this year, the investigation into Hwang Woo-suk showed the South Korean scientist had changed images purporting to show cloning. In an effort to reel in photography, camera-makers are making it more obvious when images have been altered.One way of doing this is to use image-authentication systems to reveal if someone has tampered with a picture. These usecomputer programs to generate a code from the very data that comprise the image. As the picture is captured, the code is attached to it. When the image is viewed, software determines the code for the image and compares it with the attached code. If the image has been altered, the codes will not match, revealing the doctoring.Another way favoured by manufacturers is to take a piece of data from the image and assign it a secret code. Once the image file is transferred to a computer, it is given the same code, which will change if it is edited. The codes will match if the image is authentic but will be inconsistent if tampering occurred.The algorithm is the weapon of choice for Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Digital images have natural statistical patterns in the intensity and texture of their pixels. These patterns change when the picture is manipulated. Dr Farid's algorithms detect these changes, and can tell if pixels have been duplicated or removed. They also try to detect if noise—the overexposed pixels within the image that create a grainy effect—was present at the time the photograph was taken or has been added later.However, forgers have become adept at printing and rescanning images, thus creating a new original. In such cases, analysing how three-dimensional elements interact is key. Long shadows at midday are a giveaway. Even the tiny reflections in the centre of a person's pupil tell you about the surrounding light source. So Dr Farid analyses shadows and lighting to see if subjects and surroundings are consistent.For its part, Adobe, the maker of Photoshop software, has improved its ability to record the changes made to an image by logging how and when each tool or filter was used. Photoshop was the program used by the journalist fired by Reuters; his handiwork left a pattern in the smoke he had added that was spotted by bloggers. Thus far the internet has proven an effective check on digital forgery. Although it allows potentially fake images to be disseminated widely, it also casts many more critical eyes upon them. Sometimes the best scrutiny is simply more people looking.Collateral damageWhy the war in Iraq is surprisingly bad news for America's defence firmsWHEN Boeing announced on August 18th that it planned to shut down production of the C-17, a huge military cargo plane, the news sent a shiver through the American defence industry. As it winds down its production line at Long Beach, California, over the next two years, Boeing will soon begin to notify suppliers that their services will no longer be needed. It had to call a halt, because orders from America's Defence Department had dried up and a trickle of export deals could not take their place. The company would not support the cost of running the production line for the C-17 (once one of its biggest-selling aircraft) on the off-chance that the Pentagon might change its mind and place further orders.The wider worry for the defence industry is that this could be the first of many big programmes to be shut down. A big part of the problem is that America is at war. The need to find an extra $100 billion a year to pay for operations in Iraq means there is pressure to make cuts in the defence budget, which has been provisionally set at $441 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October. American defence budgets involve a complicated dance starting with what the Pentagon wants, what the White House thinks it should get and, finally, what Congress allows it to get away with. Although the armed forces' extra spending on ammunition, fuel, provisions, medicines and accommodation in Iraq does not strictly come out of the same budget as new weapons, the heavy bill for fighting eventually leads to calls to save money on shiny new equipment.Earlier this month, for example, the Congressional Budget Office expressed “major concerns” about Future Combat Systems, a $165 billion project to upgrade all of the army's vehicles and communications networks. The scheme is the Pentagon's second-biggest development programme and is intended to give the soldiers on the ground access to real-time battlefield information from sources such as satellites and unmanned aircraft. But the programme was initially expected to cost about $82 billion, half the latest estimate, and critics are also worried about how well it will work and whether it will be delivered on time.Last week the army issued a glowing progress report on the project and insisted that Boeing and Science Applications International Corporation, the lead contractors, are on schedule. This was welcome news to defence contractors worried that the grandiose project might fall victim to pressure for budget cuts. Even so, the prospects for many other big weapons programmes are less rosy.The problem is not just the cost of the fighting in Iraq, but also its nature. The shift in the style of warfare, towards such “asymmetric” conflicts, means that there is now less demand for big-ticket weapons systems. Things were simpler in the cold war, when the Pentagon spent about $150 billion a year on new weapons. That fell to around $50 billion after the fall of the Berlin Wall. America's 15 main defence contractors reacted by consolidating into today's top five. When he became president, George Bush promised to increase defence spending, and he has done so: the procurement budget is back up to nearly $160 billion, despite thelack of a Soviet Union.As a result, the five main defence contractors—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon—have had a wonderful five years. Since the terrorist attacks in September 2001, their sales have risen by around 10% a year. Last year their combined profits increased by 25% to almost $13 billion. Although most of the defence budget is spent on big weapons systems that are of little or no use in the fight against terrorists, the political climate after the attacks of September 11th 2001 made it impossible to oppose the administration's desire to increase defence spending. Besides, such spending means more jobs, often in areas where there is little other manufacturing.More media, less newsNewspapers are making progress with the internet, but most are still too timid, defensive orhigh-mindedTHE first thing to greet a visitor to the Oslo headquarters of Schibsted, a Norwegian newspaper firm, is its original, hand-operated printing press from 1856, now so clean and polished it looks more like a sculpture than a machine. Christian Schibsted, the firm's founder, bought it to print someone else's newspaper, but when the contract moved elsewhere he decided to start his own. Although Schibsted gives pride of place to its antique machinery, the company is in fact running away from its printed past as fast as it can. Having made a loss five years ago, Schibsted's activities on the internet contributed 35% of last year's operating profits.News of Schibsted's success online has spread far in the newspaper industry. Every year, says Sverre Munck, the executive vice-president of its international business, Schibsted has to turn away delegations of foreign newspaper bosses seeking to find out how the Norwegians have done it. “Otherwise we'd get several visits every month,” he says. The company has used its established newspaper brands to build websites that rank first and second in Scandinavia for visitors. It has also created new internet businesses such as Sesam, a search engine that competes with Google, and FINN.no, a portal for classified advertising. As a result, 2005 was the company's best ever for revenues and profits.Unfortunately for the newspaper industry, Schibsted is a rare exception. For most newspaper companies in the developed world, 2005 was miserable. They still earn almost all of their profits from print, which is in decline. As people look to the internet for news and young people turn away from papers, paid-for circulations are falling year after year. Papers are also losing their share of advertising spending. Classified advertising is quickly moving online. Jim Chisholm, of iMedia, a joint-venture consultancy with IFRA, a newspaper trade association, predicts that a quarter of print classified ads will be lost to digital media in the next ten years. Overall, says iMedia, newspapers claimed 36% of total global advertising in 1995 and 30% in 2005. It reckons they will lose another five percentage points by 2015.Even the most confident of newspaper bosses now agree that they will survive in the long term only if, like Schibsted, they can reinvent themselves on the internet and on other new-media platforms such as mobile phones and portable electronic devices. Most have been slow to grasp the changes affecting their industry—“remarkably, unaccountably complacent,” as Rupert Murdoch put it in a speech last year—but now they are making a big push to catch up. Internet advertising is growing rapidly for many and is beginning to offset some of the decline in print.Newspapers' complacency is perhaps not as remarkable as Mr Murdoch suggested. In many developed countries their owners have for decades enjoyed near monopolies, fat profit margins, and returns on capital above those of other industries. In the past, newspaper companies saw little need to experiment or to change and spent little or nothing on research and development.Changing connectionsFatherhood alters the structure of your brain—if you are a marmosetPARENTING has obvious effects on mothers, but fathers appear to be affected, too. A study published this week shows that fatherhood increases the nerve connections in the region of the brain that controls goal-driven behaviour—at least, it does in marmosets.Pregnancy and motherhood have long been known to bring about changes—many of them positive—to the female brain. Pregnant and nursing rats have a greater number of neural connections, particularly in the region of the brain that controls hormones and maternal behaviour. The brain changes coincide with improvements in spatial memory and speedier foraging skills, which might help a mother rat protect and feed her young.Just what effect parenting might have on the brains of fathers has remained an open question, however. Male rats sometimes eat their young rather than nurture them, which makes them a poor model for studying how fatherhood affects the brains of species that frown on infanticide. Marmoset fathers on the other hand are a model of paternal devotion. They carry their babies for more。

经济学人杂志一些图表文章

Our interactive overview of global house prices and rents全球房价和租价互动概貌SCARCELY has one bubble deflated when another threatens to pop. While America's housing bust—the crash that began the global financial crisis—is near an end, adjustments elsewhere are incomplete. In a few countries, like China and France, values look dangerously frothy. There is always trouble somewhere. And because buying a house usually involves taking on lots of debt, the bursting of this kind of bubble hits banks disproportionately hard. Research into financial crises in developed and emerging markets shows a consistent link between house-price cycles and banking busts.一个泡沫很少在另一个泡沫行将破灭时自行减退。

当美国房地产泡沫破裂（房地产暴跌导致全球金融危机）接近尾声之时，其他地方的一些调整措施尚在进行中。

在一些国家——如中国和法国——房地产价格看上去依然是危险的泡沫。

总会有地方有麻烦。

并且，买房通常涉及承担大量贷款，这种类型的泡沫破裂之后，对银行造成的冲击会相当的大。

对发达和新兴市场的金融危机的研究表明，房价周期与银行萧条有一致的联系。

《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。

《经济学人》杂志原版英文(整理完整版)

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 people are 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 for treating 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, including drugs 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 circ uitry. 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. The changes 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, concent ration 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 d oubt 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 global warming 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”. For 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 s ome sort of containment vessel. Reactors that follow such rules are called “passive”. Most modern designs are passive to some extent 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, t he 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 slowed enough 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 executives of Mr Murdoch's News Corporation—which last year led to a dramatic shift in the media conglomerate's attitude to the internet—will be addressed by several leading environmentalists, including a vice-president turned climatechange movie star. Last month BSkyB, a British satellite-television company chaired by Mr Murdoch and run by his son, James, declared itself “carbon-neutral”, having taken various steps to cut or offset its discharges of carbon into the atmosphere.The army of corporate greens is growing fast. Late last year HSBC became the first big bank to announce that it wascarbon-neutral, joining other financial institutions, including Swiss Re, a reinsurer, and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, in waging war on climate-warming gases (of which carbon dioxide is the main culprit). Last year General Electric (GE), an industrial powerhouse, launched its “Ecomagination” strategy, aiming to cut its output of greenhouse gases and to invest heavily in clean (ie, carbon-free) technologies. In October Wal-Mart announced a series of environmental schemes, including doubling thefuel-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 7th some leading British bosses lobbied Tony Blair for a more ambitious policy on climate change, even if that involves harsher regulation.The greening of business is by no means universal, however. Money from Exxon Mobil, Ford and General Motors helped pay for television advertisements aired recently in America by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, with the daft slogan “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life”. Besides, environmentalist critics say, some firms are engaged in superficial “greenwash” to boost the image of essentially climate-hurting businesses. Take BP, the most prominent corporate advocate of action on climate change, with its “Beyond Petroleum” ad campaign, highprofile investments in green energy, and even a “carbon calculator” on its website that helps consumers measure their personal “carbon footprint”, or overall emissions of carbon. Yet, critics complain, BP's recent record profits are largely 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 latest attempt at “regulatory capture”, by those who stand to profit from new rules. Max Schulz of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, notes darkly that “Enron was into pushing the idea of climate change, because it was good for its business”.Others argue that climate change has no more place in corporate boardrooms than do discussions of other partisan political issues, such as Darfur or gay marriage. That criticism, at least, is surely wrong. Most of the corporate converts say they are acting not out of some vague sense of social responsibility, or even personal angst, but because climate change creates real business risks and opportunities—from regulatory compliance to insuring clients on flood plains. And although these concerns vary hugely from one company to the next, few firms can be sure 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 the animals, they are stressful and often painful.That ideal world, sadly, is still some way away. People need new drugs and vaccines. They want protection from the toxicity of chemicals. The search for basic scientific answers goes on. Indeed, the European Commission is forging ahead with proposals that will increase the number of animal experiments carried out in the European Union, by requiring toxicity tests on every chemical approved for use within the union's borders in the past 25 years.Already, the commission has identified 140,000 chemicals that have not yet been tested. It wants 30,000 of these to be examined right away, and plans to spend between €4 billion-8 billion ($5 billion-10 billion) doing so. The number of animals used for toxicity testing in Europe will thus, experts reckon, quintuple from just over 1m a year to 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 and vaccines, 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 last weekend the Middle European Society for Alternative Methods to Animal Testing met in Linz, Austria, to review progress.A good place to start finding alternatives for toxicity tests is the liver—the organ responsible for breaking toxic chemicals down into safer molecules that can then be excreted. Two firms, one large and one small, told the meeting how they were using human liver cells removed incidentally during surgery to test various substances for long-term toxic effects.PrimeCyte, the small firm, grows its cells in cultures over a few weeks and doses them regularly with the substance under investigation. The characteristics of the cells are carefully monitored, to look for changes in their microanatomy.Pfizer, the big firm, also doses its cultures regularly, but rather than studying individual cells in detail, it counts cell numbers. If the number of cells in a culture changes after a sample is added, that suggests the chemical in question 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: those 140,000 screenings look like a lucrative market, although nobody knows whether the new tests will be ready for use by 2009, 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 an artificial version of the lining of the lungs. According to Huang Song, one of Epithelix's researchers, the firm's cultured cells have similar microanatomy to those found in natural lung linings, and respond in the same way to various chemical messengers. Dr Huang says that they could be used in long-term toxicity tests of airborne chemicals 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 an artificial human lymph node which, it reckons, could have prevented the near-disastrous consequences of a drug trial held in Britain three months ago, in which (despite the drug having passed animal tests) six men suffered multiple 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 from cells that provoke the immune system into a response. ProBioGen's lymph node could thus work better than animal testing.Another way of cutting the number of animal experiments would be to change the way that vaccines are tested, according to Coenraad Hendriksen of the Netherlands Vaccine Institute. At the moment, all batches of vaccine are subject to the same battery of tests. Dr Hendriksen argues that this is over-rigorous. When new vaccine cultures are made, belt-and-braces tests obviously need to be applied. But if a batch of vaccine is derived from an existing culture, he suggests that it need be tested only to make sure it is identical to the batch from which it is 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 rather than live animals, useful progress is being made. What is harder to see is how the use of animals might be banished from fundamental research.Anger managementTo one emotion, men are more sensitive than womenMEN are notoriously insensitive to the emotional world around them. At least, that is the stereotype peddled by a thousand women's magazines. And a study by two researchers at the University of Melbourne, in Australia, confirms that men are, indeed, less sensitive to emotion than women, with one important and suggestive exception. 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 a person's sex affects his or her response to emotionally charged facial expressions. People from all cultures agree on 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 are innate, rather than learned.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley showed the participants in their study photographs of these emotional expressions in mixed sets of either four or eight. They asked the participants to look for a particular sort of expression, and measured 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 more quickly identified 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 eight photographs 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 the brain is attuned to picking out angry expressions, and that it is especially concerned about angry men. Also, this highly tuned ability seems more important to males than females, since the two researchers found that men picked out the angry expressions faster than women did, even though women were usually quicker than men to recognize every 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 has a survival advantage—and, since anger is more likely to turn into lethal violence in men than in women, the ability to 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 to get killed by it.Most murders involve men killing other men—even today the context of homicide is usually a spontaneous 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 allow thesharp-witted time to choose appeasement, defence or possibly even pre-emptive attack. And, if it is right, this study also confirms a lesson learned by generations of bar-room tough guys and schoolyard bullies: if you want attention, 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, most shareholders have, like so many sheep, routinely voted in accordance with the advice of the people they employ to run the company. This year managers have already been defeated at some 32 companies, including household names such as Boeing, ExxonMobil and General Motors.This shareholders' revolt has focused entirely on one issue: the method by which members of the board of 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 the traditional 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 formal majority-voting policy that was weaker than in the shareholder resolution. This required any director who failed to secure a majority of votes to tender his resignation to the board, which would then be free to decide whether or not to accept it. Under the shareholder resolution, any candidate failing to secure a majority of the votes cast simply would not be elected. Intriguingly, the shareholder resolution was defeated at four-fifths of the firms that adopted a Pfizer-style majority voting rule, whereas it succeeded nearly nine times out of ten at firms retaining the plurality rule.Unfortunately for shareholders, their victories may prove illusory, as the successful resolutions were all “precatory”—meaning that they merely advised management on the course of action preferred by shareholders, but did not force managers to do anything. Several resolutions that tried to impose majority 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 but now 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 scrutiny from corporate-governance activists. Some firms might choose to go further, as Dell and Intel have done this year, and adopt bylaws requiring majority voting.Shareholders may have been radicalised by the success last year of a lobbying effort by managers against a proposal from regulators to make it easier for shareholders to put up candidates in board elections. It remains to be seen if they will be back for more in 2007. Certainly, some of the activist shareholders behind this year's resolutions have big plans. Where new voting rules are in place, they plan campaigns to vote out the chairman of the compensation committee at any firm that they think overpays the 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 lies increasingly in intangible assets such as the McDonald's name, the patent for Viagra and the rights to Spiderman. Baruch Lev, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, puts the implied value of intangibles on American companies' balance sheets at about $6 trillion, or two-thirds of the total. Much of this consists of intellectual property, the collective name for copyrights, trademarks and patents. Increasingly, companies and their clever bankers are using these assets to raise cash.The method of choice is securitisation, the issuing of bonds based on the various revenues thrown off by intellectual 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 its franchisees. The three private-equity firms that acquired Dunkin' Brands a few months ago have used the cash to repay the money they borrowed to buy the chain. This is the biggest intellectual-property securitisation by far, says Jordan Yarett of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a law firm that has worked on many such deals.Securitisations of intellectual property can be based on revenues from copyrights, trademarks (such as logos) or patents. Thebest-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 of DreamWorks, Marvel comic books and the stories of John Steinbeck have also been sold. As well as Dunkin' Brands, several restaurant chains and fashion firms have issued bonds backed by logos and brands.Intellectual-property deals belong to a class known as operating-asset securitisations. These differ from standard securitisations of future revenues, such as bonds backed by the payments on a 30-year mortgage or a car loan, in that the borrower has to make his asset work. If investors are to recoup their money, the assets being securitised must be “actively exploited”, says Mr Yarett: DreamWorks must continue to churn out box-office hits.The market for such securitisations is still small. Jay Eisbruck, of Moody's, a rating agency, reckons that around $10billion-worth of bonds are outstanding. But there is “big potential,” he says, pointing out that licensing 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 companies with low (or no) credit ratings that cannot easily tap the capital markets or with few tangible assets as collateral for bank loans. Some universities have joined in, too. Yale built a new medical complex with some of the roughly $100m it raised securitising patent royalties from Zerit, an anti-HIV drug.It may be harder for investors to decide whether such deals are worth their while. They are, after all, highly complex and riskier than standard securitisations. The most obvious risk is that the investors cannot be sure that the assets will yield what borrowers promise: technology moves on, fashions change and the demand for sugary snacks may collapse. Valuing intellectual property—an exercise based on forecasting the timing and amount of future cashflows—is more art than science.So far, says Mr Eisbruck, these bonds have generally matched investors' hopes. But regulators say that only institutional investors, such as pension funds and hedge funds, can buy them. Fans seeking a slice of the profits from the next instalment of“X-Men” must wait.Nef offThe reason HIV is so virulent may have been foundTHE human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-1, the cause of the global AIDS epidemic, is the most intensively studied pathogen in history. For all that, it still has secrets to reveal. One is why it is so deadly. Many of man's primate relatives in Africa harbour similar viruses. Yet as far as can be seen, these so-called simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) have little impact on their hosts' health.Frank Kirchhoff and Michael Schindler, of the University of Ulm, in Germany, and their colleagues have been looking into why that is. Their investigation, just published in Cell, suggests it is the result of a change in the role of a single viral gene, called nef.They came to this conclusion by looking at those simian equivalents. In most SIVs, they found, one role of nef is to remove a protein called TCR-CD3 from the surfaces of the cells that host the virus. The host cells in question are immune-system cells called T-cells. Specifically, they are “helper” T-cells, which orchestrate the immune system's response to pathogens such as viruses.The way the body recognises an infection is by examining molecules from the infectious agent. These molecules, known as antigens, are picked up by so-called antigen-presenting cells that display them on their surfaces and show them to the helper cells. The job of TCR-CD3 is to assist in the recognition of these antigens. If a helper cell recognises an antigen, it becomes activated. This means that it starts secreting chemicals that stimulate the growth and multiplication of other T-cells, including the killer Tcells that destroy infected cells. Then, its job done, it dies.Usually, this response clears the infection. In the case of AIDS, though, it does not. That means the immune system continues to be stimulated, and this prolonged stimulation results in high death rates among T-cells. Eventually, that exhausts the immune system's capacity to regenerate itself. The result is a collapse in the number of T-cells, and the accompanying symptoms of AIDS.In most simian infections, this does not happen because nef keeps the TCR-CD3 level too low for this exaggerated response to occur. That is also true in a rarer form of human AIDS caused by a virus called HIV-2. This form of AIDS is found in West Africa, but has not spread much beyond that part of the world. Indeed, of the 16 immunodeficiency viruses the researchers looked at, all but five had nef genes that removed TCR-CD3 from the cell surface. Three of those five were closely related monkey viruses. The fourth was HIV-1.The fifth was the chimpanzee virus that is the direct ancestor of HIV-1. Mankind, it seems, was just unlucky that this virus made the leap across the species barrier. If the only barrier-leaper had been HIV- 2 (which is the descendent of a。

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》封面文章

《经济学人》封面文章：美国医改，百尺竿头、更进一步投资最忌好高骛远、盲从热潮和短视近利。

———雪拜·戴维斯[美国]本期《经济学人》封面文章对奥巴马在医保改革上取得的成功表示祝贺，并希望他能在处理今后国内外重大事项时表现出比以往更大的决心和更强的领导力。

美前国务卿基辛格将奥巴马总统比作为一位同时在与6位棋手进行对弈的象棋大师，但他直到本周前未下完过一盘棋。

现在，他终于在绝处逢生境况下赢得首盘胜利。

本周医保改革的胜利对奥巴马来说是巨大成就。

当民主党1月突然在参议院丧失了防止阻碍议案通过的大多数优势后，许多人敦促奥巴马在医改上做出些许让步，以更缓和的内容，而非他23日签署的2400页的大部头法案推动医改。

但他仍坚持原有想法。

他放弃了众议院版本的法案，侧重于参议院版本，并游走各地做推动法案的强势讲演和施压。

总之，他使出浑身解数做了他前期一直在做的事情。

若在耗费如此巨大精力后医改仍失败，奥巴马今后总统任期日子难捱。

一个在国内被视为软弱的总统在国际上会得到同样印象。

此次成功让奥巴马有了让自己的任期回到更强势的轨迹上的机会。

他需要从以往失误中学到经验，而不是对已有的成功夸夸其谈。

全民医保是民主党追求数十年的目标。

奥巴马接近实现这样的目标让党内士气高涨。

但他在向民众推销医保改革的方式并不高明。

大多数民调结果显示反对医改的人已超过了赞同它的人。

已有迹象表明民主党在中期选举中会遭遇厄境，而无一投票赞同医改的共和党人称，若有机会必将扳倒此法案。

另外，此项法案中比原料想结果更糟的问题是，它丝毫未提如何控制医改成本。

美国工商业将会因此受到严重影响。

这也是奥巴马为何需要拿出一个令人信服的，能解决美国巨额预算赤字的计划。

美国公共债务在未来10年内几乎会翻番。

医改法案中对成本控制的软弱机制会进一步增加债务规模。

要将美国预算赤字控制住，最终是要求对所有社会福利项目进行改革。

但令人感到悲哀的是，奥巴马一直未能给出他如何进行这方面改革的蓝图。

《经济学人》2021年2月27日刊精彩文章导读

《经济学人》2021年2月27日刊精彩文章导读如期而至，最新一期的《经济学人》出炉了。

首先咱们来看看喜庆的封面。

这期杂志是周五傍晚拿到的，映入眼帘的大红色，让我以为《经济学人》是为了祝福我们元宵节快乐！细看封面标题，不再是欢乐，而是一种压力和危机，封面文章是《The battle for China’s backyard（中国后院之战）》。

说到中国，免不了要把老美拉进来比较。

这次封面评论的主要观点就是：中美之间日益激烈的竞争将取决于东南亚。

竞争，主要就是拉联盟、秀武力。

在美苏历经45年的冷战时期，两个国家竞争最激烈的地区是欧洲。

而中美竞争与美苏竞争不同，目前在韩国、日本、朝鲜等这些国家，两国各自使力，相互制衡，你中有我，我中有你，处于一个动态平衡。

目前，中美竞争的主要战场应该会是东南亚，而且这种拉锯战会越来越激烈。

两个原因：1、唇亡齿寒。

东南亚对中国战略考虑来说极为重要。

即使东部的一些国家均是美国联盟，那么只要有东南亚，也不会被困死。

2、东南亚假如是一个国家，它可以是继美国、中国、印度之后的第四大经济体。

中国值得与东南亚一直加强合作。

然而，国家之间总会有一些嗑嗑碰碰，比如东南亚国家的一些政府并不希望和一个日益繁荣的国家做生意，但为了利益，又不得已而为之。

所以他们会考虑把美国拉进来，形成竞争：鹬蚌相争，渔翁得利。

杂志给美国提出的建议有两点：1、加强东南亚区域融合，对东南亚的贸易和投资应大于我们的投入；2、加强东南亚与日本、韩国等国家的合作。

最后，还提醒美国不要强迫他们站队，那很可能干不成事。

社论比较简洁。

随后的Breifing栏目的《Tea and tributaries》，以“茶”这个物品切入，介绍了中国和东南亚的关系和分歧。

文章很长，但值得一读。

还有一篇是把中国放到亚洲这个范围内说明中国和周边国家的关系，标题是《Life in the doghouse》。

狗窝里的生活？字面意思是这个。

其实，in the doghouse其实是一个短语，“受冷落的；受排斥的”。

经济学人封面文章中英对照

货币战争|《经济学人》：美元走势节节高，美国是否又要开始剪羊毛2016-12-06从余启欢迎打开“我与我们的世界”，从此，让我们一起“纵览世界之风云变幻、洞察社会之脉搏律动、感受个体之生活命运、挖掘自然之点滴奥妙”。

我与我们的世界，既是一个“奋斗”的世界，也是一个“思考”的世界。

奋而不思则罔，思而不奋则殆。

这个世界，你大，它就大；你小，它就小。

欢迎通过上方公众号名称打开公众号“查看历史信息”来挖掘往期文章，因为，每期都能让你“走近”不一样的世界、带给你不一样的精彩。

本期导读：当今世界，各国经济之间联系的紧密程度，前所未有。

全球化进程，也如历史车轮一样，始终在滚滚向前。

尽管历史上出现过一次又一次反对全球化的浪潮，但全球化总体上呈现出来的那种逐渐深化趋势，依然是一往无前的。

在逐步迈向一体化的全球经济体系中，各国的分量很显然不在同一个档次上，各国在世界经济中所具有的相应话语权，也必然相差悬殊。

整个全球经济体系，就是一个生态链，各个国家都得依照自己所处的那个位置来获得生存、实现发展。

当前，位于全球经济生态链顶端的国家，非美国莫属。

过去的几十年间，随着其他国家特别是新兴市场国家的崛起，美国在全球经济体系中的相对影响力呈现出一种持续下降的趋势。

不过，到目前为止，依然没有哪个国家能与美国相抗衡，特别是在金融领域。

美国之所以能称霸全球，硬实力和软实力缺一不可。

在美国的实力组合中，美元所起到的具体作用，尽管不那么显而易见，但总能在美国需要的时候，起到四两拨千斤的功效。

美国每次发生内部危机，就会通过美元这个百试不爽的工具来解救自己。

20世纪80年代初期，美国财政赤字急剧膨胀，贸易逆差大幅增长，美国就通过《广场协议》实现美元贬值，减轻了国内债务，并剪了全世界，特别是日本，一次羊毛。

近期，美元表现异常，特朗普上台后，是否又要开始剪全世界的羊毛？The mighty dollar强势美元Why a strengthening dollar is bad for the world economy美元走强，世界遭殃The rise of the greenback looks like something to welcome. That is to ignore the central role the dollar plays in global finance有些人觉得，美元走强是个好消息，那是因为没看到美元在全球金融体系中所扮演的关键角色。

《经济学人》2021年10月23日刊精彩文章导读

《经济学人》2021年10月23日刊精彩文章导读昨天发的文章，普遍反映没看懂。

有必要再补充解释下。

•我们有各类电子词典，比如欧路词典、有道词典、百度词典等。

•我们也有很多纸质词典，比如英汉小词典、四级必背、雅思红宝书等等。

•我们还有各类记单词的工具，比如不背单词、扇贝、百词斩等等。

但是这些工具，多多少少会存在不适合自己的地方。

咱们有没有想过做个适合自己的记单词的工具或小词典？电子版的，可以借助Anki方便的打造。

那么，纸质版的呢？假如我们制作出一个自己的专属词汇表，署上自己的大名，比如“王不留专属雅思小词典”、“冷玥必过专八词汇”……然后打印出来，成为真正纸质版的个性化小词典。

我们既能在动手制作过程中，享受到DIY的乐趣，又能在学习过程中，体会到一种成就感。

这将是一件多么美好的事情。

于是，我们决定利用自己的软件开发优势，提供一个可编辑的词典。

大家可以根据这个词典，再打磨出自己特有的词典，省时省力。

我们通过正规渠道获取了一套麦克米伦出版公司提供的6000个核心词汇。

麦克米伦出版公司(Macmillan)是世界知名的英语语言教学(ELT)出版机构之一。

基于其庞大的语料库，麦克米伦的词频统计是非常权威的。

可是，这些核心词汇，只有单词，没有解释。

难道要手工查下词典，再备注上中文解释吗？这种作法效率太低了。

我们写个简单程序即可轻松搞定中文释义的对应。

针对中文释文，我们调研了好几款词典，最终决定选用百度翻译。

因为它的受众面广，使用人数庞大，而这种知识类产品，与食品一样，口碑极为重要。

一旦有重大差错，用户大规模流失是分分秒秒的事情，而用户流失又是一家公司最难以承受的。

为了维护好这个品牌，百度公司自然会投入大量人力和专业人士保障词意的准确性。

所以，百度翻译是比较靠谱的。

目前百度翻译官方提供了公开接口。

即，我提交一个单词，它们的系统可以直接返回汉语解释。

于是，通过编写的程序，我们生成了一份具有单词、音标、中文释义、英文释义、单词时态、词汇标签等内容的词汇表。