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《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版

Translated From 《The Economist》,By ecocn team http://www.teniu.cc 埃及:核武总统

穆罕默德•巴拉迪

From fission to Pharaoh? 从核武到政权

Dec 17th 2009 | CAIRO From The Economist print edition

Egyptian reformers suggest a possible president 埃及的改革者建议的未来总统

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Planting a bomb under Egyptian politics 在埃及的政治舞台埋下炸弹

WHEN Mohamed ElBaradei won the Nobel peace prize in 2005, Egyptians happily proclaimed him a national hero.But now that he has retired after 12 years as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, some are calling him a villain.He may be an American or even an Iranian agent, hint editorials in Egypt’s state-owned press.He bears a nasty grudge against his native country after so long abroad, grumble other government mouthpieces.当穆罕默德•巴拉迪在2005年获得诺贝尔和平奖时，埃及人兴奋的称他为国家英雄。但现在，当他从工作了十二年的国际原子能机构（联合国核武器监察机构）总干事职务上退休时，有些人却称呼他恶棍。埃及的国有新闻机构发表社论，暗指他可能是美国甚至是伊朗的间谍。在国外多年之后，他对自己的祖国怀有恶毒的怨恨，抱怨其他的政府官员。

The reason for this sudden spate of spurious insinuation? Responding to pleas from reform-minded Egyptians despairing of local politics, Mr ElBaradei has suggested he may return to Egypt and run for president in elections due in 2011.Worse yet, he has deigned to propose conditions for his possible candidacy.The poll, he says, must meet internationally accepted standards.突然爆发的这些恶意指责，原因是什么呢？巴拉迪先生响应了埃及国内那些绝望的改革派的呼吁，承认他可能会返回埃及，参与2011年的总统选举。更糟糕的是，他为他的参选提出了条件，他说，投票选举必须符合国际通行的准则。

For so prominent a citizen to toss his hat into the ring would cause scarcely a shrug elsewhere.In Egypt, where five decades under a single party and almost three under its present leader, President Hosni Mubarak, have smothered all but a pretence of democracy, it has raised a big cloud of dust.The notion of Mr ElBaradei’s candidacy brings a frisson of unpredictability to what Egyptians had assumed would be a scripted outcome, giving either a sixth six-year term to Mr Mubarak, now 81, or a win for his son, Gamal, who steers policy in the ruling National Democratic Party(NDP).对于一个如此名声显赫的公民参与选举，在别的地方可能并不能算是什么。但在埃及却能搅起风暴。这个国家在过去的五十年里一直被同一个政党统治，现任总统胡斯尼•穆巴拉克的统治几乎就占了三十年,民主已经成为虚假的表象。埃及人本以为选举的结果已经确定，要么是给已经81岁的穆巴拉克第六个六年任期，要么就是他的儿子贾迈勒当选，目前他已经开始掌控民族民主党（NDP）。但巴拉迪参选的打算给这次选举带来了变数。

More annoyingly for Egypt’s rulers, Mr ElBaradei’s declaration of conditions has cast unwonted light on the crafty constitutional mechanics that allow the stage-managing of Egypt’s supposed democracy.Even to become a legal independent candidate, for instance, Mr ElBaradei would need to collect 250 signatures from a range of “elected” officials, all of whom happen to sit in bodies massively dominated by the NDP.令埃及统治者更加感到恼怒的是巴拉迪所宣称的选举条件，因为这将引起大众对宪法的关注，而在现有的宪法，在机制上可巧妙地确保对埃及所宣称的民主选举进行某种暗箱操作。例如，为了成为一个合法的独立候选人，巴拉迪需要在选举的官员中收集到250签名推荐，而这些官员却大多属于统治党民族民主党（NDP）。

Perhaps not even Mr ElBaradei himself expects that he may be allowed to become a serious challenger.Yet such is the depth of frustration with Egypt’s stagnant politics and many social ills, particularly among the generation that has known no rule except Mr Mubarak’s, that even this distant hope has stirred passions.Surprisingly, considering that he has spent most of the past 40 years outside Egypt, and rarely pronounced on its troubles, some 21,000 enthusiasts have signed on to a Facebook support group.Perhaps theirs is the voice of Egypt’s future.或许即使巴拉迪自己也没有奢望自己会被允许成为一个正式的挑战者。然而正是这种埃及国内沉闷的政治环境和社会问题，特别是那些在穆巴拉克统治下成长起来的一代人中，缥缈的希望也给人们带来了巨大的激情。因此，即使巴拉迪在过去的40年中大部时间都在国外度过，也很少讨论埃及所面临的问题，却仍然有21，000热烈支持者签名加入在Facebook网站的支持群组。或许他们代表了埃及未来的呼声。

发表于09:05 | 阅读全文 | 评论 58 | 编辑 | 分享2  印度:农业转向制造业

2009-12-26

An imperfect storm

一场不完美的风暴

Nov 13th 2009 From The World in 2010 print edition By Simon Cox, DELHI

Thanks partly to the monsoon, manufacturing will overtake agriculture for the first time in India 一定程度上得归功于季风气候，印度的制造业总值将首次超越农业。

From the village of Vijay Pura in the Indian state of Rajasthan, the global financial crisis seems remote.The downturn is something people here read about in the newspapers, according to Dhanna Singh, a member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan(MKSS), a union of activists and farmers.The villages have welcomed back migrant workers from neighbouring states, where people no longer find work twisting steel in Mumbai or polishing diamonds in Surat.But, by and large, India’s rural poor were protected from the crisis by the same things that make them poor.If you never had secure employment or many financial assets, you cannot lose them to the crisis.对于印度拉贾斯坦邦维杰.普拉村来说，全球性金融危机似乎很遥远。根据德哈那.辛格，一名积极分子与农场主联合会MKSS成员的说法，经济低迷只是这里的人们从报纸上读到的谈资而已。很多移民工人从邻国返回到这里，因为他们在那儿找不到工作，既不能在孟买扭钢筋，也不能在苏拉特磨钻石。总的来说，印度贫困地区的人民因其贫困而免受经济危机的影响，因为，既然没有可靠就业和大量的财务资产，也就不会在经济危机中丧失。

In Rajasthan, this resilience is also the result of government policy.The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(NREGA), extended to every rural district in April 2008, is supposed to offer 100 days of work a year, at the minimum wage, to every rural household that needs it.Rajasthan, a parched state with a long history of drought-relief works, comes closer to fulfilling that promise than anywhere else, providing 68 days of work on average in the year to March 2008, according to a survey published in Frontline, an Indian newsweekly.Vijay Pura is cross-hatched with hard-packed roads built by people on the act’s payroll.Thanks to the roll-out of the NREGA and a hike in the minimum wage, “People here are feeling a sense of security for the first time,” says Shankar Singh of the MKSS.在拉贾斯坦邦，这次经济反弹也是政府政策的产物。2008年四月全国农村地区就业保证法案扩展到了每一个农村地区，在最低工资下有望在一年里提供100天的工作时间给每一个需要的家庭。发表在印度的一家新闻周刊《前线》的调查显示，从今年到2008年三月，拉贾斯坦邦这个有着悠久抗旱历史的的“旱邦”将提供平均68天的工作时间，相对其他地方离兑现承诺更近了。维杰.普拉位于几条硬化路的交叉点上，这些路是就业保证法案覆盖到的雇员修建的。幸亏有该法案的出台及最低工资水平的提高，“这里的人们第一次有了一种安全感，”MKSS的成员香卡.辛格说。

The strength of rural demand is one reason why India escaped from the crisis so lightly.Sales of many “fast-moving” consumer goods, such as shampoo and toothpaste, are now growing faster in the villages than in the cities.Rural India’s purchases of chyawanprash, an ayurvedic paste that eases digestion and bolsters the immune system, outpaced urban India’s by over six percentage points in the second quarter.And Maruti Suzuki, India’s biggest carmaker, more than doubled its sales in rural areas in the year to March 2009.农村地区的需求力量是印度得以如此轻易地从金融危机中脱身的原因之一。许多诸如洗发水、牙膏之类的快速消费品需求如今在农村比城市要增长得更快些。第二季度，一些有助于消化、增强免疫系统的阿叔吠陀膏药chyawanprash的农村消费比城镇超出六个百分点，且截至2009年3月，印度最大的汽车制造商马鲁蒂铃木在农村地区的汽车销量翻了一番还多.India’s economy is now on the cusp of an historic transition.印度经济正经历历史性转型

But, having weathered the financial crisis, rural India must now weather the weather.The monsoon rains, which feed India’s unirrigated farmland, have been fickle, inflicting drought on almost half of India’s districts, followed by floods in some areas as the monsoon departed.In a worst-case scenario, India’s agricultural output could shrink by up to 7% in the fiscal year ending in March 2010, according to Citigroup.That would drag India’s GDP growth down to 5.2%, slower than in the thick of the financial crisis.但是度过了这次金融危机后，印度农村还要扛得过气候问题。哺育印度干旱农田的季风雨反复无常，使一半以上的印度地区遭受旱灾的折磨，接着便是季风过后在一些地区发生的涝灾。花旗集团的数据显示，到2010年3月的财政年度，印度的农业产出在最糟糕的情况下将会以7%的速度萎缩，这将使印度的GDP增长减少到5.2%，比金融危机风起云涌时还要低。

The drought will raise food prices, adding to inflation.India is already the only big economy where consumer prices are rising faster now than they were before the crisis.The price of pulses rose by 20% in the year to August 28th;the price of sugar by 35%.That will force the Reserve Bank of India to tighten monetary policy.Goldman Sachs expects it to raise rates by as much as three percentage points in 2010.Spending on drought relief will also add to the government’s yawning fiscal deficit, which will exceed 10% of GDP this fiscal year, if the budget gaps of the state governments are included.干旱将抬高食品价格，助长通货膨胀。当前印度现在已经是唯一一个消费者价格比危机前上升更快的大经济体了，截至今年8月28日，价格已以5%的幅度上升，其中糖价上升35%，这将迫使印度储备银行收紧货币政策。高盛预期印度的价格指数将在2010年上升3个百分点。对旱灾的赈济开支将加剧政府本已高企的财政赤字，如果加上各邦政府的预算缺口在内，2010年的财政赤字将超过GDP的10%。

The monsoon once decided India’s economic fate.Now it only influences it.Agriculture’s share of India’s national output has dropped from 40% 30 years ago to 17% in 2009.Indeed, India’s economy is now on the cusp of an historic transition.In 2010 agriculture will account for a smaller share of GDP than manufacturing: India’s output of widgets will exceed its output of wheat, rice, cotton and the other fruits of the land.The factory will surpass the farm.季风曾经决定印度经济的命运，现在则只能起影响作用。农业在印度全国产出的比重已从三十年前的40%跌到2009年的17%.不错，印度经济正处在历史性转型的关头，GDP中农业产值将比制造业占有更小的比重：印度小机械产品产值将超过小麦，水稻，棉花和其他一些农作物。工厂将超越农场。

Return to the glory days

回到峥嵘岁月

That is not just because agriculture is poised to shrink.Manufacturing, which stagnated during the crisis, should recover smartly in 2010.It was already growing by over 7% in July 2009, according to the index of industrial production.Investment in new plant and machinery will get a boost from the return of foreign capital inflows, some $44.1 billion in the year to March 2010 and $52.1 billion the following year, according to Rohini Malkani of Citigroup.About 35-40% of those flows will be foreign direct investment.这不仅仅是因为农业准备要收缩，在金融危机中停滞的制造业将在2010年悄然复苏，工业生产指数显示其在2009年7月已经增长7%强。依照花旗集团的（首席经济学家）罗希尼•马尔卡尼的观点，在国际资本回流的帮助下，厂房和机器投资将在2010年3月及接下来的一年分别获得441亿、521亿美元的极大提振，其中约35%-40%将属于国外直接投资。

India’s historians often hark back to the glory days of manufacturing in the 18th century, when Indian artisans produced calicoes and other fabrics of such appeal that Britain’s spinners, weavers and printers clamoured(successfully)for import bans to protect their livelihoods.印度的历史学家常常重提18世纪制造业的峥嵘岁月，那时印度的能工巧匠们生产白羊布及其他一些类似的纤维织物，这引起英国的纺纱工人、织布工和印染工嚷嚷着（成功地）颁布进口禁令以保护他们的生计。

During Britain’s industrial revolution, however, Indian weavers were “thrown back on the soil”.India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote that India’s industrial destiny had been thwarted by imperial economics.In 2010, thanks to a failure of the monsoon and a recovery of the world economy, India’s agriculture will at last give way to its manufacturing prowess.然而，英国工业革命期间,印度的纺织工“被摔在了地上”，印度第一任总理贾瓦哈拉尔.尼赫鲁写道：印度工业的命运已经被英帝国经济所击倒。多亏雨水不足的雨季和世界经济的复苏，印度2010年的农业最终将让位于制造技术。

发表于09:00 | 阅读全文 | 评论 19 | 编辑 | 分享 0  西班牙赌博业:全民赌博

2009-12-19

Spain's El Gordo lottery 西班牙的“大肥彩”

Gamblers united 大家联手赌一把

Dec 17th 2009 | MADRID From The Economist print edition

How an original business model got Spaniards hooked 一个古老的商业模式缘何让西班牙人全民皆赌

IT IS called El Gordo(“the Fatty”)because of the huge amount it pays out: *2.3 billion($3.3 billion)in this year’s draw, to be held on December 22nd.Yet Spain’s Christmas lottery is notable not just for the vast sums to be won, but also for its clever business model.我们称它为“大肥彩”（El Gordo(“the Fatty”)），是因为它将在今年12月22号开出的超级巨额大头彩--23亿欧元（33亿美元）。但是西班牙的圣诞博彩之所以值得一提，不仅仅因为它提供的巨额奖金，还因为它精明的商业运作模式。

Spaniards are not especially big gamblers, with spending per head below the average for the European Union, according to a 2006 study by London Economics, a consultancy.Yet they spend about *12 billion a year on lottery tickets, over 1% of GDP—almost as much as the country spends on research and development.Roughly three-quarters of them participate in the Christmas lottery.西班牙人其实不算爱赌博。根据某咨询公司“伦敦经济”（London Economics）2006年的一项研究，西班牙的人均博彩开销低于欧盟的平均水平。但是，他们每年在买彩票上花的钱达120亿欧元，占本国GDP的1%上，几乎和该国的研发开支齐平。其中，大约有四分之三的人会参加圣诞节期间的那次开彩。

Loterías y Apuestas del Estado, the government agency that runs El Gordo and other lotteries during the year, encourages mass participation by piding each *200 ticket into décimos, or tenths, which sell for *20.This, in turn, allows players to improve their odds by buying small shares in many tickets, often by forming syndicates with friends and colleagues.The lottery also offers enough smaller prizes in addition to its jackpots to give participants almost a one-in-six chance of winning something.每年管理“大肥彩”和其他一些乐透的政府机构Loterías y Apuestas del Estado，通过将每张200欧的彩票分割成10小张，每小张售20欧的方式，鼓励国民的广泛参与。这样一来，参与者可以在更多大张彩票中购买数张小额股份，而这一般可通过与朋友同事合购的方式实现。除了头彩，它还设置了很多小额的奖励，使得参与者基本上每抽六次，就可以赢回点东西。

All this has transformed the lottery from a glorified tax on the poor, as it is in most countries, into part of the social fabric.Sharing tickets at Christmas has become a way to reinforce social ties, says Roberto Garvía, a visiting professor at Georgetown University.The practice of forming syndicates, which initially started in the 19th century when lottery tickets became too expensive for working-class folk, has become a tradition among all classes.As one banker says, “I don’t want to be the only idiot who has to turn up to work if the office number wins.” Even the Spanish Civil War did not succeed in shaking the lottery’s grip: each side held its own Christmas draw.这一切使得博彩业由一种被美化了的向穷人征收的税收（多数国家都是这样的情况），变成了社会生活中的一元素。“在圣诞节和别人凑份子买彩票已经成了强化社会关系的纽带。”乔治敦大学（Georgetown University）的做客教授Roberto Garvía如是说道。凑份子的做法最初起源于19世纪，因为当时的彩票贵得让工人阶层买不起。后来，这个传统就在各个阶层就传下来了。正如某个崽银行职员说的：“我可不像成为那个全办公室人都中奖了，却得继续一个人埋头工作的那个傻蛋儿。”

The biggest winner is the Spanish government, which receives 30% of the revenue from ticket sales, less the running costs.But it need not feel too exploitative, argue Mr Garvía and Mauro Guillén of the Wharton School of Business, who have studied lottery syndicates along with Andrés Santana of the Fundación March: “There is some evidence that at Christmas time, syndicates lure into the lottery the relatively wealthy, which might make it less regressive.”

最大的赢家是西班牙政府，它们从彩票销售收入中可以获得30%的收益，还不包括运营成本。“但是也没必要觉得被剥削了”，沃顿商学院的Mr Garvía和Mauro Guillén解围道。他们曾经和“前进基金会”（Fundación March）的Andrés Santana一起研究过博彩业中凑份子现象这一课题。他们解释道：“数据显示，在圣诞节期间，凑份子的做法会吸引更多相对富有的人购买彩票，这就使得它更像是一个累积税。”

发表于01:09 | 阅读全文 | 评论 5 | 编辑 | 分享 0  银行业竞争：速度为王

2009-12-04

A special report on business and finance in Brazil

Survival of the quickest 最速者生存

Nov 12th 2009 From The Economist print edition

Frequent crises have made for strong banks and nimble financiers 频繁发生危机已使银行更健全，金融业者思惟更敏捷

BRAZILIAN businessmen often say that the country’s recent economic past has strengthened companies, and especially banks.The argument goes like this: you need to be good, or at least inventive, to survive and make money when you have no idea whether inflation next year will be 50% or 500%.Bankers and finance directors have had to be particularly nimble.One example is Souza Cruz(a subsidiary of BAT), Brazil’s largest tobacco company, which in the days of high inflation did no better than break even on its cigarette sales.Its profits came from the interest on the cash it held between being paid by retailers and paying tax fortnightly.Companies used to operating in such unusual circumstances flourished when life became more predictable.巴西商人经常说，巴西最近在经济上的经历增强了公司体质，尤其是银行业。类似说法包括︰贵公司必须体质更好（或至少具备创新能力）以存活下来，在意想不到的时机赚大钱，无论明年通货膨胀将是50%或500%。尤其，银行业者和金融主管的思惟必须更敏捷灵活。举一个例子，巴西最大烟草商Souza Cruz（英美烟草BAT子公司）在高通膨期间，香烟销量甚至几乎与歇业时期一样。该公司却从零售商支付货款与隔周缴税之间的盈余现金衍生利息上获利。当景气转好时，过去习惯于在非常时期经营的公司就发大财了。

There is some truth to this argument, even though it brushes aside the fact that until the 1990s Brazilian companies did not have to worry about foreign competitors.No big companies went bust in the recent financial crisis, despite losses on foreign-exchange derivatives that the Bank for International Settlements estimates at $25 billion.Moreover, no big banks wobbled, let alone had to be rescued, though there were some mergers.有一些事实可以支撑这个说法，即使该说法漠视在巴西公司企业在1990年代之前从不必担心外国竞争者的事实。尽管国际结算银行估计，最近金融海啸期间巴西外汇损失高达250亿美元，但没有任何一家大型企业破产。此外也没有一家大型银行财务不稳，遑论需要政府救援，但有发生一些合并。

One reason was that a previous round of bank failures, in 1994, had already cleared out the bad ones.Until then banks made their profits by taking deposits from customers, lending the money to the government overnight and pocketing the difference.With inflation at several hundred per cent a year, many banks’ balance-sheets were hard to decipher.When inflation came down, it became clear that a number of them were insolvent.These folded or merged with other banks, leaving only the stronger ones.理由之一是1994年前一波银行倒闭，已经清理了体质较差的银行。在那之前，这些银行藉由提领客户存款、一夜之间借钱给政府并装进别人的口袋来赚取利润。由于一年内通膨高达几个百分之七八百，很多银行资产负债表根本无法判读。当通膨来临，很明显许多银行面临破产。这些银行纷纷倒闭或与其它银行合并，只留下体质较健全的银行。

Brazil’s financial system got a further boost from reforms carried out when Arminio Fraga was governor of the central bank from 1999 until the start of 2003(he is now at Gávea Investimentos, an investment firm).The country’s bank-settlement system now operates in real time, so all banks know their cash positions at any given moment and the central bank has an overall picture of what is happening.Before this system was introduced the central bank often ended up honouring the debts of banks that went bust, creating a dangerous incentive to be careless.Both Mr Fraga and his successor as governor, Henrique Meirelles, have made sure that banks report what is going on in any off-balance-sheet vehicles they have funded.This has helped to keep under control the special investment vehicles, conduits and other mysterious creatures that have caused so much damage in other countries.巴西金融体系在Arminio Fraga担任央行行长期间（1999至2003年初）进行大刀阔斧改革并获得大幅提升，目前他担任投资公司Gávea Investimentos总裁。巴西的银行结算制度目前以实时方式运作，因此所有银行在任何时刻都能掌握自己的现金状况，而央行则掌控各银行实时情况的总图。这套制度引进之前，央行经常要收拾残局支付破产银行的债务，建立了危险诱因却不自知。Arminio Fraga和下一任行长Henrique Meirelles，确保各银行的报表在他们设立之不列入资产负债的任何平台上继续运转。这些有利于控管曾在其它国家造成严重伤害的特别投资平台、管道和其它神秘工具。

This transparency extends to financial markets too.All fund managers must disclose the net asset value of their funds to Brazil’s Securities and Exchange Commission(CVM)daily, though with a 48-hour delay.At the end of every month funds must disclose what they were holding 90 days ago.Anyone can go to the CVM’s website and look up these numbers.Fund managers may grumble about too much disclosure, but most are happy with the rules.Maria Helena Santana, who chairs the CVM, explains that they make it harder to pull off a scam of the sort run by Bernard Madoff, whose pyramid scheme was hidden behind a veil of secrecy.此一透明制度亦延伸至金融市场。所有基金经理人每天必须向巴西证券交易委员会（CVM）公开他们手上基金的净资产价值，但有48小时延迟。在每个月底，各檔基金必须公开他们90天以前的持股比例，任何人都可以去CVM的网站查阅这些数字。基金经理人虽然可能因公开太多而牢骚满腹，但大多数经理人都乐于接受法规约束。CVM主席Maria Helena Santana阐述，他们会使Bernard Madoff操作的诈骗手法（藏身在秘密面纱后的树状网）更难抽身。

Created equal 建立公平制度

Equity investors, for their part, have benefited from new rules for publicly traded companies brought in by the São Paulo stock exchange(Bovespa)in 2002.Big Brazilian companies used to be notorious for abusing shareholders with minority stakes.Under current guidelines, it is illegal to issue shares that pay out different amounts to different holders in the event of a takeover.Any disputes between shareholders are judged by the CVM.With these rules in place, foreigners have been happy to buy shares and Brazilian companies that were unable to borrow in capital markets are now able to finance their expansion.适用于公开上市公司的新法规在2002年引进圣保罗股市（Bovespa）后，股票投资人亦因而获利。巴西大型企业过去因坑杀持股少数的小股东而臭名昭彰。根据现今规范，在收购过程配发不同股东不同股息比例的股票就是非法的。股东之间的任何争论由CVM裁判。由于这些法规到位，外资乐于购买巴西股票，过去在资本市场借不到钱的巴西企业，现在可以筹措资金大展鸿图。

A boom in initial public offerings(IPOs)followed.At its height, in 2007, 80% of the money for IPOs came from foreign investors.This undoubtedly led to some excesses: at one point there were more listed housebuilders in Brazil than in America.But some of the companies that floated will do well.And the message conveyed by the new rules—that better corporate governance allows people to make money by selling bits of their companies on the stock exchange—has been good for the family businesses that make up the bulk of Brazil’s medium-sized firms.首次公开售股（IPOs）的荣景接踵而至。极盛时期，2007年，八成左右的IPOs资金来自外资。这无疑造成了某些过度现象︰巴西股票上市的房屋营造商曾经一度比美国的还要多。但是，某些流通股票的公司反而业绩亮眼。并且，新的法规传达出一种讯息──更好的公司管理允许员工利用出售部分公司持股在股市赚钱──对于构成巴西中型企业绝大部分的家族企业而言绝对有益。

Reuters

Plenty to Celebrate 很多事情值得庆祝

Santander Brasil’s recent IPO was a test of whether investors’ appetite for Brazil had returned.It proved to be the world’s largest IPO this year, valuing the bank’s Brazilian subsidiary at more than the whole of Deutsche Bank worldwide.The government is so worried about foreign portfolio investors pushing up the value of the real that it imposed a 2% tax in October to discourage them.IPOs have a wider benefit because companies that want to float all or part of their stock need to get their accounts in order, pay their taxes and make sure their workers are not part of the black economy.Santander Brasil（土生金银行巴西子公司）最近一次IPO就是外资是否对于巴西恢复信心的测试。这次发行被证实为今年全球最大一笔IPO，使得 Santander银行巴西子公司资产超越了全球Deutsche Bank（德意志银行）的总和。巴西政府非常担心外资持股投资人会让黑奥（巴西币）强劲升值，于是在今年十月征收2%税金以阻挡外资进场。IPOs拥有很大利益，想要流通全部或部分股票的公司需要按顺序建立自己的账户、支付自己的税款，并确保自己的员工不是逃税的黑市经济之一。

All this has brought sophistication and liquidity to Brazil’s financial markets.São Paulo’s futures and options market is one of the five largest in the world by volume traded.Well-developed markets have been good for consumers too.High interest rates, high inflation and dysfunctional courts once made consumer credit rarer than snow.Thanks in part to a series of reforms carried out in Lula’s first term, credit has grown steadily.Loans for bigger items, such as cars and apartments, have become available for the first time, thanks to a new law under which a lender remains the owner of the asset acquired with the loan until the last repayment is made, whereas previously the money would have had to be chased up through the courts.所有这些已经让巴西金融市场更加成熟和流动。以交易量而言，圣保罗期货市场排名全球五大期货市场之一，完善发展的市场也对于消费者有益。高利率、高通膨和功能不彰的法院一度使消费者贷款消失殆尽。部分归因于鲁拉总统第一任期进行的一连串改革，消费者融资已经稳定成长。大笔金额（例：汽车和公寓）的贷款第一次可以提供，归因于一项新法，出借人在收回最后一笔偿债之前仍是那笔贷款的资产拥有人，不像从前债务必须经由法院去追踪。

Lula’s first administration also introduced a new bankruptcy law that is credited with making it slightly easier to salvage something from companies that go under.There was room for improvement: a few years ago a World Bank study found that bankruptcy proceedings in Brazil took an average of ten years and left creditors with just two cents in every dollar owed.鲁拉的第一任政府亦引进了新破产法，提供贷款使得抢救某些公司免于破产更为容易。还有需要改进的空间︰几年前，世界银行的一项研究发现破产程序在巴西平均要花十年工夫，而债权人仅能从每一美元的欠债拿回两美分。

Yet for all this progress, two glaring problems with Brazil’s financial system remain.First, credit is very expensive.Second, only the government will lend for long periods, and not to everyone.可是，由于全部这些发展使巴西金融制度留下两个耀眼问题。首先，融资非常昂贵。其次，只有政府可以办理长期借款，而且不是提供给每个人。

Tax and lend 征税和放款

Brazil has a hybrid retail banking system, with state-controlled and private-sector banks competing directly.It is highly concentrated: Itaú Unibanco, the largest private bank, is among the world’s 15 biggest on several measures and yet has almost no presence outside Brazil.Banco do Brasil, the largest state-controlled bank and one of the world’s oldest financial institutions, vies with it for the title of the country’s biggest bank.All told, credit from state-controlled banks makes up 37.6% of the total and has recently been growing.巴西拥有一套混合的零售金融制度，由国营银行与民营银行直接竞争。这是高度集中的︰巴西最大的民营银行Itaú Unibanco，从某些标准而言排名全球十五大银行之列，但在巴西以外几乎不存在。最大国营银行和全球最古老的金融机构之一Banco do Brasil（巴西银行），与Itaú Unibanco竞争巴西最大银行头衔。据说，国营银行的融资金额占总金额37.6%，并且最近还在成长。

Despite their different owners, the state-controlled and the private banks seem to be behaving in a remarkably similar way.Aldemir Bendini, the chief executive of Banco do Brasil, talks enthusiastically about international expansion.The bank will soon open five agencies in America to serve Brazilian expatriates.It also wants to help Brazilian multinationals abroad with local-currency financing.Meanwhile it will keep up its role as an instrument of public policy that does the bidding of the federal government, its biggest shareholder, and also look after the 22% of its shareholders who own traded stock.It looks like an incongruous mixture, but it appears to work.Itaú Unibanco too is keen on expansion abroad, but makes so much money at home that it does not seem to be in a rush.尽管他们的所有人不同，但国营和民营银行在行为表现上却似乎非常相似。Banco do Brasil首席执行长Aldemir Bendini热情地谈论在国际上的扩展业务。该银行不久将在美国开设五家分行，提供给移居国外的巴西人，亦想要以当地货币融资协助在海外的巴西跨国企业。同时将保持身为公共政策执行工具的角色，替最大股东联邦政府进行国际招标作业，并且照顾持有上市交易股票比例22%的一般股东。虽然看起来像是不和谐的混合物，但Banco do Brasil似乎却工作。Itaú Unibanco亦对扩展国外业务有强烈兴趣，但在国内赚了太多钱，好像一点都不匆忙。

In theory, all this should provide plenty of competition, with the two types of bank keeping each other honest and making sure that Brazilians have access to credit.In practice it does not quite work like that.Even though Itaú alone has 25,000 cash points, more than 500 municipalities in Brazil lack even a single bank branch.The two kinds of bank compete most fiercely in the comparatively wealthy south and south-east of the country.Banco do Brasil recently added to the geographical concentration by buying Nossa Caixa, a São Paulo state savings bank, and a large stake in Banco Votorantim, a private-sector bank.理论上，这一切应该提供大量竞争力，让两种不同类型银行维持彼此诚实并确保巴西民众可以取得融资。实际上，却完全不是那么回事。虽然单就Itaú银行而言就有25,000家分行，但巴西五百多个市镇甚至连一家分行都没有。两家银行在巴西最富裕的南部和东南部激烈竞争，Banco do Brasil最近藉由并购圣保罗州营储蓄银行Nossa Caixa及民营银行Banco Votorantim的大半股份，来增加在地理上的集中性。

The government has raised the limit for foreign participation in Banco do Brasil to 20% to attract more capital, but the state-controlled banks are not as well run as the private-sector ones, so the hoped-for competition has not materialised.The clearest sign of this is spreads—the difference between a bank’s cost of borrowing and lending.The Institute for Industrial Development, a lobby group, calculates that average lending rates are 35% higher than deposit rates, against less than 10% in the other BRIC countries.The bankers’ lobby disputes these figures, but nobody thinks that banks’ spreads are thin.巴西政府已将外资入股Banco do Brasil的比例限制提高至两成以吸引更多资本，但国营银行并不像民营银行经营完善，因此期盼的竞争一直未具体化。银行扩张业务最明显的征兆──银行存放款成本之间的价差。游说团体「工业发展研究院」计算，巴西平均放款利率较存款比率高出35%，其它金砖国家则不及10%。虽然银行业者的游说团还在争吵这些数字，但没人相信银行的扩张仍嫌不足。

Among the things that make them fatter are a curious tax on bank funding that increases costs, and high reserve requirements which mean that banks must squeeze more revenue from what they are able to lend.Bad-loan provisions are high too, reflecting the fact that consumer credit is concentrated among people who are already stretched.And a lot of credit is subsidised, which pushes up costs for the rest.其中，银行在筹募资金过程巧立名目增税使放款成本提高让银行业者的油水更多，而高额准备金需求意味银行必须从他们的放款能力赚取更多收入。呆帐金额也水涨船高，反映了消费者融资集中在展延偿债期限者的事实。而且许多融资接受补助，抬高了其它项目的成本。

Brazil’s banks have many things to recommend them;indeed they seem to exemplify what might happen if regulators elsewhere got their every wish.They are safe and their lending is well-capitalised and profitable.Two-thirds of Brazilian deposits are in local banks, which is unusually high for Latin America and a big change from the past, when anyone who had money kept it out of the country and in dollars.The banks also offer some things that would surprise American or European customers.Many ATMs provide a wide range of financial services, from dispensing cash to providing loans.Even so, for now credit is likely to remain too expensive for the country’s good.巴西各银行做了很多事情使他们受到欢迎；假若其它地方的金管官员想要达成每一愿望，他们甚至可以举证未来可能发生的情况。巴西银行很安全且放款资本充足和有盈利。巴西三分之二的存款在地方银行，这对拉美国家而言是非常罕见的偏高，过去有钱人喜欢在国外以美元开户存款，现在已经发生了变化。银行亦提供一些令欧美客户惊讶的服务。很多自动提款机提供各种金融服务，从提领现金到提供借款。虽然如此，目前融资很可能对于巴西利益来说仍然太贵了。

For companies trying to get credit, the problems are much the same.To make up for the absence of a market in long-term debt Brazil created a giant development bank, the BNDES, with a balance-sheet larger than the World Bank’s.This is financed by an impost on labour and lends predominantly to Brazil’s biggest companies—the opposite of what you would expect from a left-leaning country.对于试图取得融资的公司来说，面对的问题几乎大同小异。为了弥补长期负债期间欠缺一个市场，巴西成立巨型开发银行BNDES（国营经社发展银行），资产负债表金额甚至较世界银行还大。BNDES从劳务税取得资金而以巴西最大企业为主要放款对象──可以预期来自左倾国家的反对。

Because its large loans to Brazil’s big names carry so little risk, the BNDES is profitable.It also does some more adventurous lending, although trickier credit assessments are farmed out to private banks, which collect a fee for their pains and also assume the risk of loans going bad.The BNDES was useful to Brazil during the recent crisis as a stable source of funding, but its scale as the lender of choice for Brazil’s best credit risks is probably impeding the development of markets in long-term debt, and the way it is funded seems fundamentally unjust.因为BNDES提供巴西大型企业的大笔贷款承担较少风险，所以BNDES仍是赚钱的。BNDES亦进行一些较具风险性的放款，但较棘手的信用评等则外包给民营银行，民营银行因承担痛苦而收取费用，亦假定贷款的风险会变得更糟。BNDES在最近金融海啸期间作为稳定的资金来源，对于巴西非常受用，但作为巴西最佳融资风险的放款者，BNDES的规模或许妨碍了长期负债期间的市场发展，而且BNDES取得资金的方式似乎基本上有欠公平。

Still, compared with the bank failures, frauds, market manipulation, volatility, disregard for contracts and near-absence of credit of the past, Brazil’s financial sector has come a long way.Foreign investors have noticed, and have recently started pouring money into the country.尽管如此，与银行倒闭、欺诈、市场操控、反复无常，漠视合约及过去的几乎缺乏融资相比较，巴西金融业已经走了很长的路。外资已经注意到了，最近已经开始让热钱涌入巴西。

发表于00:35 | 阅读全文 | 评论 15 | 编辑 | 分享1  奥普拉.温芙蕾：结束脱口秀生涯

2009-12-04

Schumpeter

Brand royalty

Nov 26th 2009 From The Economist print edition

Oprah Winfrey's brand has many years of life left in it yet

Illustration by Brett Ryder

IT WAS one of the most tear-stained moments in the 24-year history of a show that specialises in tear-stained moments.On November 20th Oprah Winfrey announced that she will end her eponymous show in September 2011, 26 years after it first aired nationwide.She loves her show enough to know when it is time to say goodbye, she told her traumatised audience.这是24年的专注于打动人心的节目生涯中最令人热泪盈眶的时刻。11月20号，奥普拉.温芙蕾宣布将于2011年结束她的同名脱口秀节目。该节目已在全国广播了26年。奥普拉告诉极度愕然的听众，她很爱她的节目，因此知道什么时候该说再见。

The sound of ululation could be heard from sea to shining sea.For once the pundits sang the same song as “real Americans”—as one of Ms Winfrey’s recent guests, Sarah Palin, likes to call them.They talked breathlessly about Ms Winfrey’s up-from-the-bootstraps achievements—how she came from nothing to amass a fortune of $2.3 billion and how she has viewers in more than 100 countries—and pronounced her retirement the end of an era.The New York Times’s Gail Collins added that she wished politicians, from the 92-year-old Robert Byrd on down, would follow her example and quit while they are ahead.啜泣声从西海岸传到了东海岸。曾经，权威人士唱着同样的歌“真正的美国人”--如温芙蕾女士的最近一位嘉宾，莎拉.佩林就喜欢这样称呼。他们谈论着温芙蕾女士靠自身奋斗一步一步取得的成就--她是怎样从一无所有到聚集了23亿美元的财富，拥有100多个国家的观众--并宣告她的退役是一个时代的结束。纽约时报的盖尔.科林斯补充说她想从政，从92岁的罗伯特.伯德传下来，将以她为例，激流勇退。

The only problem with all this commentary is that Ms Winfrey is not quitting.She is ending her relationship with a big network, CBS, in order to devote herself to an ambitious new venture, a cable-television channel to be called the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN, which she plans to launch in January 2011 as a joint-venture with Discovery Communications.The world is about to be blessed with more Oprah, rather than less.关于这所有评论的唯一一个问题是，温芙蕾女士并不是退役。她正在结束与大网络CBS的合作，是为了让自己致身于抱负远大的新的尝试，被称为奥普莱.温芙蕾网络的有限电视频道，或OWN，这是她计划于2011年公布和“发现探索公司”合资的一览节目。世界即将有更多的奥普拉，而非更少。

This is a tricky transition that raises all sorts of questions about the power of personal brands.Can the star’s brand be separated from the show that has nurtured it for almost a quarter of a century? And can it be used to launch an entire network? Personal brands are easy to damage.Martha Stewart, who was once the nearest equivalent to Ms Winfrey, had started to devalue her brand even before she got into trouble with the law, spreading herself too thin and striking too many deals with retailers.The celebrities who lent their name to Planet Hollywood probably no longer relish being associated with a tacky fast-food chain that has gone bankrupt twice.“The Oprah Winfrey Show” is not just a “delivery channel” that she can close down at will: it has defined its creator for 24 years.By killing off her brand-creating show and diluting her personal contribution across an entire network, she runs the risk of enraging her fans.这是一个微妙的变化，出现各类关于个人品牌力量的问题。明星的品牌能与培养其几乎25年的节目分开吗？它能被用于投放整个网络吗？个人品牌很容易被破坏。玛莎·斯图尔特曾经是几乎与温芙蕾女士等同的人物，但甚至在她惹上法律纠纷之前就已使其品牌贬值了。过分铺张自己的品牌，与众多零售商签订交易，使得其品牌大为贬值。将自己的名字借给好莱坞星球的名人或许不再乐意与破产两次的寒酸的快餐链联系起来。“奥普拉.温芙蕾脱口秀”并不只是随她的意志就能关闭的 “输送频道”：它已塑造其创造者24年了。温芙蕾的离开是冒着激怒自己粉丝的危险，抹灭创造其个人品牌的脱口秀节目以及通过整个网络冲淡自己的个人贡献。

But there are good commercial reasons for Ms Winfrey’s decision.The audience for network television has been declining relentlessly as viewers have migrated to cable and the internet.The audience for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” has shrunk from about 14m viewers in 1998 to about 7m today, though it still remains the highest-rated talk show.Ms Winfrey is simply following her audience into a more fragmented media world.Besides, there is nothing to stop Ms Winfrey reviving “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, or something very like it, on her new platform.但是温芙蕾女士的决定有利好的商业因素。由于观众转向有限电视和网络，网络电视的听众在不断的减少。“奥普拉.温芙蕾脱口秀”节目的听众从1998年的 1400万缩减到如今大约700万，尽管其在脱口秀节目中，收视率仍占据最高。温芙蕾女士简单的跟随她的听众的步伐，进入更加零碎的媒体世界。此外，没有任何东西可以阻止温芙蕾女士复兴“奥普拉.温芙蕾脱口秀”，或在她的新的平台上与其非常相似的东西。

Ms Winfrey also has lots of experience at relaunching herself.She reinvented the daytime talk show not once but twice—first by exposing some of her innermost secrets in public(about how she was raped at the age of nine and experimented with drugs in her 20s, for example)and second by taking her show upmarket.While Jerry Springer and his ilk filled their studios with stump-toothed degenerates, Ms Winfrey introduced her book club and encouraged her viewers to improve themselves.温芙蕾女士也有很多重新推出自己的经验。她重新创新了日间脱口秀不是一次，而是两次--第一次是在公众面前揭露自己的一些内心秘密（例如有关她九岁时怎样被强奸，20多岁时曾吸毒），第二次是谈论她的脱口秀高档。当杰瑞·斯普林格.........................温芙蕾女士引进了读书俱乐部并鼓励她的观众提升自己。

Ms Winfrey is also an experienced brand-stretcher.She has starred in a number of successful films, most notably “The Colour Purple”, for which she was nominated for an Oscar;more importantly, she has launched a succession of Oprah-related products such as her website, Oprah.com and her magazine, O.Each time she succeeded in extending her audience without alienating her most loyal fans: a year after O’s launch in 2000 half its readers were not regular watchers of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, including many professional women who would never dream of watching television in the afternoon.温芙蕾女士也经历了品牌拓展。她在一系列成功的电影中担任主角，最出名的是“紫色”，并被提名为奥斯卡奖；最重要的是，她发布了一系列与奥普拉有关的产品，诸如她的网页Oprah.com，她的杂志O.每次她都成功扩展了自己的听众，而没疏远自己的最忠实的粉丝：2000年，O杂志发行一年后，其读者不再是“奥普拉.温芙蕾脱口秀”的固定观众，包括很多从没想象到自己会在下午看电视的职业女性。

Life without Oprah没有奥普拉的生活

The biggest challenge with the cable channel will be to see whether Oprah’s brand can survive independently from the star herself.But again she has experience here.She has produced several films that deal with the classic Oprah-themes of suffering and redemption in which she did not actually appear.But the best evidence that she can make successful programmes without starring in them is her success in launching Phil McGraw.She first encountered him after she said on air that fears of mad-cow disease had put her off hamburgers;he helped her handle a lawsuit from a group of enraged Texas cattlemen.She invited him onto her show several times, and then helped him get his own program.“Dr Phil” is now the second most popular talk-show host after Ms Winfrey herself.对有线电视的最大挑战就是看奥普拉品牌是否能不依靠明星自己生存下去。再一次，温芙蕾尝试了有线电视。她创作了几部电影，涉及典型的有关受难和救赎的奥普拉主题，而她本人并没哟出现在电影中。但是最能证明她能不用出任主演就能制作成功节目的是她成功激励了菲尔·麦克格劳博士。温芙蕾是在广播中说害怕疯牛病夺去自己的汉堡遭到愤怒的牛肉场主控诉时，首次遇见了菲尔·麦克格劳博士。他帮她摆平了这起控诉。温芙蕾几次邀请他到脱口秀节目，而后帮他获得了他自己的节目。“Dr Phil”是继温芙蕾女士之后的第二个最有名的脱口秀主持人。

Ms Winfrey has always been a vigilant steward of her brand.Almost from the first she wrested as much control as possible from the suits at CBS—and struck famously savvy deals into the bargain.This entailed not only creating her own company, Harpo, but also her own production studio.She is also notorious for her overbearing perfectionism.Ms Winfrey has steadfastly refused to take her company public, as Ms Stewart did.She has also refused to strike deals with retailers or stick her name on merchandise, as numerous celebrity chefs and athletes have done.温芙蕾女士一向对自己的品牌管理警醒。几乎从一开始，她就要求得到CBS的更多的自由掌控权。这包括不仅是创造了她自己的公司Harpo，而且包括她自己的制作工作室。她也因其傲慢的十全十美主义而臭名昭著。温芙蕾女士坚决拒绝让自己的公司上市，和斯图尔特一样。她也拒绝与零售商达成交易或将自己的名字贴在商品上，就如许多名厨和运动员所做的。

Such vigilance about her brand is hardly a guarantee of success in the volatile and cacophonous media market.Her film version of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” earned only $23m, less than half what it cost to make.Her earlier tentative venture into the cable market, with Oxygen Media, enjoyed limited success.But Ms Winfrey’s handful of failures are as nothing compared with her successes.Perhaps more than any of her rivals Ms Winfrey understands that it is hard to fail in the media business if you put your faith in people’s appetite for stories of those who pick themselves up from the floor and make something of their lives.她对自己品牌如此的警惕，很难保证在动荡噪杂的媒体市场取得成功。她的托妮·莫里森版本的电影“被爱”仅赚取2300万美元，比其成本的一半还少。她早期尝试与氧气媒体合作进入有线市场，享受着有限的成功。但温芙蕾女士少数的失败与成功相比，是微不足道的。或许温芙蕾女士比她的任何一个竞争对手都明白，如果你将信念对中人们的胃口，讲述这些从地上爬起来的人们和在自己生活中有所得人的故事，就很难在媒体业务中失败。

 Go for the locals 绑架本国人

Nov 26th 2009 | LAGOS From The Economist print edition

A new scourge is afflicting the rich 富豪们面临新的不安

IT COULD not have happened to a more colourful character.Nkem Owoh, a Nollywood film star is famous for a song about financial fraud entitled ―I Go Chop Your Dollar‖.While driving along a highway in eastern Nigeria earlier this month, he was kidnapped.His abductors originally demanded 15m naira($99,000).He was freed a week later for an unknown ransom, though the local press say the gang was beaten down to a mere 1.4m naira plus the actor‘s fancy car.这本不应发生在一个颇有争议的人物身上。Nkem owoh，一个诺莱坞(Nollywood)电影明星，以一首讽刺财务欺诈的歌―去抢你的钱（Go Chop Your Dollar）‖而出名。这个月早些时候，当Nkem owoh驾车行走在尼日利亚东部的一条高速公路上时，他被绑架。绑架者最初提出15万奈拉（99,000美元）的赎金要求。一周以后他被释放，赎金不为外人所知。但据当地媒体报道，他付出的赎金仅为14万奈拉，外加他的那辆名贵小汽车。

The abduction sounds like a far-fetched script from one of Nigeria‘s popular outlandish films.But kidnapping is a serious business.Nabbing prominent Nigerians is becoming increasingly common, as gangs shift their focus from foreign oil workers to their own rich compatriots.这起绑架案听起来好象是尼日利亚充满异国风味的电影里面的一个蹩脚片段。但是绑架一个严重的社会问题。当犯罪团伙转移绑架重点，从绑架外国石油工人转移到绑架他们国内那些富豪时，尼日利亚的社会名流正日益成为他们的绑架对象。

An American security firm ranks Nigeria in the world‘s top eight kidnapping hotspots, alongside such violent places as Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.According to the State Department, more than 50 foreigners were kidnapped between January 2008 and July this year, most of them in the Delta region, home to Nigeria‘s oil industry.Attacks on foreigners were even more frequent in 2007.Insurgents sought ransoms to draw attention to political grievances and to make cash.一家美国保安公司将尼日利亚归类到世界上八个最易发生绑架的热点地区中，这些充满暴力的地方还包括：阿富汗、伊拉克和索马里。据尼日利亚行政部称，在2008年1月和今年7月之间，共有超过50名外国人被绑架，大多发生在尼日利亚的盛产石油的尼日尔三角洲地区。这些暴徒通过敲诈勒索，表达对国内政治的不满，索取钱物。

But, as foreign oil giants such as Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil have tightened security and shifted professional staff out of the Delta, attackers have started looking for softer targets.Nigeria‘s authorities are most worried by the spread of kidnapping beyond the Delta.但是当外国石油巨头，如皇家荷兰壳牌公司和埃克森美孚公司加强了保安措施，将专业人员迁移出尼日尔三角洲地区后，绑架者们开始搜寻更容易对付的目标。而尼日利亚当权者们最担心绑架案蔓延到这一地区以外。

The father of Chukwuma Soludo, a former central-bank chief, was seized at the end of October in Anambra state, where his son hopes to become governor.Simeon Soludo, in his late 70s, was freed some days later.His family denies that it paid the kidnappers a ransom.A senior official in the predominantly Muslim north was also recently abducted.Yakubu Lame, Nigeria‘s minister of police affairs, said in July that 512 kidnappings had been reported in the first half of this year, against 353 for the whole of 2008.Chukwuma Soludo的父亲simeon soludo是前任中央银行总裁，十月底在阿南布拉（Anambra）州被绑架，Chukwuma Soludo有望成为该州州长。过了一些天后，快80岁的simeon soludo被释放 , 他的家人否认给绑架者支付过赎金。还有一个政府高官员最近在以伊斯兰教徒为主要人口的北部地区，遭遇绑架。尼日利亚警察部长Yakubu Lame在今年7月份时说，今年前半年，上报到警察部的绑架案有512件，而2008年全年这一数字为353件。

Not so bad if you’re white 如果是外国人，则没那么糟

At the same time, the rate of abducting foreigners is going down.Staff who remain in the Delta, rather than in smart new offices in Lagos, the commercial capital, travel in convoys and stew in guarded compounds after dark.A recent fragile peace deal in the oil-producing states, following an amnesty for rebels this summer, has also reduced the abduction rate.Of the 35 Britons known to have been snatched in the Delta since 2006, only four were taken this year, says the British government.同时，发生在外国人身上的绑架案正在下降。那些还呆在尼日尔三角洲地区——而不是在拉各斯（尼日利亚的商业中心）整洁舒服的办公室里－－的工作人员，可以在保安人员陪同下到四处走走，天黑后还可以在有保安的院子里准备晚餐。针对外国人绑架案减少的另一个原因是，今年夏天尼日利亚政府特赦了一些被关押的叛乱分子，由此换来刚刚达成的一项脆弱的和平协议。英国政府称，自2006年至今，共有35人在尼日尔三角洲地区被劫走，其中发生在今年的只有四起。

Western embassies and security firms in Nigeria agree that the shift towards local victims takes the heat off them a bit.Locals are not only easier targets but also give criminals the chance to demand ransoms from emotional families rather than from an oil company‘s hard-headed anti-kidnapping team or insurance firm.在尼日利亚的西方各国使馆和保安公司一致认为，转向针对当地人的绑架案略微减轻了他们的工作压力。绑架本国人不仅易于得逞，也给了犯罪分子从情绪慌乱的家庭－－而不是从石油公司精明且讲究实效的反绑架机构或保险公司－－索取赎金的机会。

Nigeria‘s government has responded to the surge with an anti-kidnapping bill, which, if passed, would mean life sentences for abductors and their accomplices.This year, to the dismay of Amnesty International, six of the country‘s 36 states have adopted the death penalty for the crime.More are considering it.针对猖獗的绑架案，尼日利亚政府提出了一项反绑架法案，如果获得通过，绑架者和同谋者将被判无期徒刑。今年，针对绑架犯罪，尼日利亚36个州的6个州采用了死刑，这令特赦国际（Amnesty International）大为沮丧。而还有更多的州正考虑采用。

However, it is by no means certain that tougher penalties will stem the tide.Despite the huge oil and gas reserves of Africa‘s second-biggest economy, many Nigerians have no work, are on a daily hunt for cash, and are pumped up by the idea of instant wealth acquired by snatching a film star from his car.然而，更加严厉的刑罚并不意味着一定能遏制绑架浪潮。尽管尼日利亚油气储量丰富，是非洲第二大经济体，但有许多尼日利亚人没有工作，他们四处找钱，幻想着通过从小汽车中绑架电影明星而一夜暴富。

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A heated debate 激辩

Nov 26th 2009 From The Economist print edition

Why political orthodoxy must not silence scientific argument 为何有了政治说法，还应有科学的辩论？

Illustration by Claudio Munoz

―WHAT is truth?‖ That was Pontius Pilate‘s answer to Jesus‘s assertion that ―Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.‖ It sounds suspiciously like the modern argument over climate change.―真理是什么？‖耶稣说完―相信真理的人都能听到我‖之后，彼拉多随即如此问道。听起来耳熟？在当代，气候变化引起的争辩就与此有相似之处。

A majority of the world‘s climate scientists have convinced themselves, and also a lot of laymen, some of whom have political power, that the Earth‘s climate is changing;that the change, from humanity‘s point of view, is for the worse;and that the cause is human activity, in the form of excessive emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.国际上，大多数气候科学家不但说服了自己，也说服了很多门外汉（其中包括一些有政治影响力的人）--地球的气候正在改变；这种改变，从人道主义角度来看，是消极的；这种改变的始作俑者是人类，是他们通过排放超量的诸如二氧化碳的温室气体而造成的。

A minority, though, are sceptical.Some think that recent, well-grounded data suggesting the Earth‘s average temperature is rising are explained by natural variations in solar radiation, and that this trend may be coming to an end.Others argue that longer-term evidence that modern temperatures are higher than they have been for hundreds or thousands of years is actually too flaky to be meaningful.少数人对此表示怀疑。有些人提出，最近有充分的数据表明地球平均气温上升是由于太阳辐射的自然变化，而这种变化已接近尾声。其他人也认为长期的证据显示现在的气温高于过去几百年甚至几千年的说法是站不住脚的。

Such disagreements are commonplace in science.They are eventually settled by the collection of more data and the invention of more refined(or entirely new)theories.Arguments may persist for decades;academics may—and often do—sling insults at each other;but it does not matter a great deal because the stakes are normally rather low.对于科学家们来说，这样的争论司空见惯。只要有更多的数据和更完整的（或全新的）理论，他们最终便会折服。争论可能会持续数十年；学者们可能，实际上经常起唇舌之争，出言伤人，但因为赌注通常不大，因此也无伤大雅。

The stakes in the global-warming debate, however, could scarcely be higher.Scientific evidence /that climate change is under way, is man-made, and is likely to continue happening/ forms the foundation for an edifice of policy which is intended to transform the world‘s carbon-intensive economy into one which no longer spews greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.A lot of money, and many reputations—both academic and political—are involved.然而在全球气候变暖这边的争辩，赌注却高得多。科学证据声称气候变化正在进行中，是人类之过，还很可能持续下去。于是各国政府纷纷出台了一摞的政策，试图把目前以碳为主导的经济发展模式转向清洁的发展模式。在这过程中，无论是学者还是政客，一掷千金甚至连名誉也搭上的大有人在。

Sceptics claim that this burden of responsibility is crushing the spirit of scientific inquiry.Scientists, they maintain, are under pressure to bolster the majority view.The recent publication of embarrassing e-mails from the University of East Anglia, an important centre of climate science(see article), revealing doubts about data and a determination not to air such concerns publicly, has strengthened these suspicions.怀疑者们认为，沉重的责任正在碾碎科学探究精神。他们还坚持认为科学家们为了支持多数人的观点而饱受压力的煎熬。最近曝光的一封来自东安吉利大学这所著名气候科学研究中心的电子邮件让人局促不安。邮件的曝光揭示的对数据的疑问和不公开这些忧虑的决心，更印证了以上的怀疑。

There is no doubt that politics and science make uncomfortable bedfellows.Politicians sell certainty.Science lives off doubt.The creation /of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to establish a consensus on the science /was an excellent idea for policymakers, who needed a strong scientific foundation for their deliberations, but it sits uncomfortably with a discipline that advances by disproving accepted theories and overturning orthodoxies.毫无疑问，政治和科学夫唱妇随并不是一件好事。政客们要确凿的事实，而科学家们则以怀疑为乐。对决策者来说，要得出深思熟虑的结果就需要无懈可击的科学性，所以成立国际气候变化小组以达成科学的共识是英明之举。但要前进就必须反对公认的理论和推翻正统的说法。如此规则让这个小组坐立难安。

The danger of dissent 反对的危险

Some would argue that, in matters of great public import, scientific dissent should be silenced.It can, it is true, do harm.When AIDS first reared its ugly head, no one knew what caused it.Gradually, the virus responsible was isolated, identified and then attacked successfully with drugs designed specifically to inhibit its reproduction.A few scientists, though, refused to accept the evidence, and some politicians used their arguments to justify inaction.Since one of those politicians was Thabo Mbeki, then president of South Africa, hundreds of thousands who might have been saved by an anti-AIDS policy grounded in scientific reality died as a result of his policies.有些人反驳道，在关乎公共利益的事物面前，持异议的科学家们应该保持缄默。事实上，这是有百害而无一利的。在艾滋病肆虐伊始，没有人知道原因。然后带病毒者被隔离了，确认染病后又服用专门的药物成功抑制病毒蔓延。只是有部分科学家拒绝接受证据，于是某些政治家就顺水推舟以此为借口不采取任何行动。由于其中一个政客是前南非总统塔博姆贝基，数十万个本来可以通过科学的抗艾滋病政策保住性命的患者死在了他的政策之下。

Yet the damage in that case was done by the politicians.A leader who is determined to pursue a wrong-headed course will always find some scientist to support him.A world in which that were not true would be one in which a dangerously narrow consensus had taken hold.但是这种情况要为损失负责人的应该是政客。一个决意要步向歧途的领导者总是不乏支持他的科学家。要是有那么一个世界不是如此，那么在这个世界里肯定存在着一种狭隘得近乎危险的共识。

This newspaper believes that global warming is a serious threat, and that the world needs to take steps to try to avert it.That is the job of the politicians.But we do not believe that climate change is a certainty.There are no certainties in science.Prevailing theories must be constantly tested against evidence, and refined, and more evidence collected, and the theories tested again.That is the job of the scientists.When they stop questioning orthodoxy, mankind will have given up the search for truth.The sceptics should not be silenced.本刊深信，全球气候变暖是一个严峻的威胁，全人类都需要采取行动改变这种状况--这是政客的职责。但是我们并不认为气候变化已成定局。在科学的世界里面没有肯定。流行的理论必须反复经过验证，修正再验证再修正才能下定论—这是科学家的工作。到他们不再怀疑正统说法之日，便是人类放弃追求真理之时。怀疑的声音是不应该被抹杀的。

Bleak Friday 阴暗星期五

Nov 26th 2009 | NEW YORK From The Economist print edition

Bricks-and-mortar shops struggle to win customers back from virtual ones 实体商场从网络商家手中极力挽回消费者

SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this year, are notoriously aggressive.Some even start queuing outside stores before dawn to be the first to lay their hands on heavily discounted merchandise.Last year berserk bargain-hunters in the suburbs of New York City trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death.Despite the frenzy at many stores, however, the recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar in favour of online retailers—e-tailers, in the jargon.So this year Black Friday(so named because it is supposed to put shops into profit for the year)also marks the start of many conventional retailers‘ attempts to regain the initiative.黑色星期五通常是美国假日消费季节的开端，今年的黑色星期五恰逢11月27日，场面热闹非凡。有些人甚至天没亮就在商店门外排队希望可以第一个抢到―大跳水‖的商品。去年，纽约市郊沃尔玛超市的一名员工因为顾客疯抢打折商品而被踩伤致死。然而，商场销售虽然火爆，但商场萧条之势却越演越烈，因为消费者正在弃实体商场转而投入在线零售商---行话叫电子零售商的怀抱。所以今年的黑色星期五（这样命名源于这一天应该是令商店该年盈利的日子）也标志着传统实体零售商收回失地的第一炮。

E-commerce holds particular appeal in straitened times as it enables people to compare prices across retailers quickly and easily.Buyers can sometimes avoid local sales taxes online, and shipping is often free.No wonder, then, that online shopping continues to grow even as the offline sort shrinks.In 2008 retail sales grew by a feeble 1% in America and are expected to decline by more than 3% this year, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade body.In contrast, online sales grew by 13% in 2008 to over $141 billion and are predicted to grow by 11% in 2009, according to Forrester, a consultancy.在经济大环境恶化的背景下，电子商务具有独特的优势：消费者可以轻松快捷的货比三家。有时在网上购物可以避开当地营业税，而且通常免邮费。这就难怪网络销售可以在即使实体店销售萎缩的情况下仍然保持增长。2008实体商场零售额增长了可怜的1%,而且预计今年的销售量将下滑三个百分点，全美零售商联合会（贸易组织）如是说。而与之形成鲜明对比的是网络销售。根据顾问公司福斯特的报告，网络销售量于2008年增长了13%，达到1410亿美元，预计今年将增长11%。

Online sales now account for 6% of all retail sales in America(up from 5% in 2008)and that figure is expected to reach 8% by 2013.E-commerce is also growing in Europe and Asia, where online sales in 2008 totalled $60 billion and $40 billion, respectively.In Britain, internet shopping now accounts for nearly 4% of total retail sales, according to Planet Retail, a research firm.网络销售目前占全美销售量的6%（2008年为5%），预计到2013年之前这一数字将达到8%。电子商务在欧洲和亚洲也方兴未艾，两洲2008年的网络销售额分别为600亿美元和400亿美元。目前英国的网络销售量占销售总额的4%左右，这一数字引自调研公司行星零售。

Online-only shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay, two e-commerce giants, have thrived in the downturn.Amazon‘s sales rose to around $5.5 billion in the third quarter of the year, up by almost 30% from a year before.Listings, chiefly from commercial vendors, have surged so rapidly on eBay that its website briefly crashed on November 21st.诸如亚马逊和eBAY（网络销售巨头）等不设实体店铺的在线消费网站在经济危机之下茁壮成长。亚马逊今年三季度的销售量达到约55亿美金，与去年相比，增长了30%.eBay亦是如此。订单（以供应商的为主）数激增，导致eBay网站于11月21日暂时瘫痪。

The range of items available online is also growing.Amazon has started selling groceries.Consumer-goods companies such as Procter & Gamble(P&G)are encouraging the sale of things like nappies(diapers)and laundry detergent online.At the opposite extreme, the internet is also being used to sell luxury goods.Fabergé, a defunctjewellery-maker known for its gem-encrusted eggs, relaunched in September.It will not open any shops but will instead operate only online.网络销售的产品种类亦在扩大。亚马逊已经开始在网上销售杂货。保洁等消费品公司也正在网上促销像尿片和洗衣粉等小商品。与这些小商品完全相反的奢侈品也被搬到了网上销售。已经销声匿迹的珠宝制造商Fabergé（以镶嵌宝石的蛋而闻名）于九月重新开业。该公司摒弃实体店只在网络销售产品。

The shift in spending to the internet is good news for companies like P&G that lack retail outlets of their own.But it is a big concern for brick-and-mortar retailers, whose prices are often higher than those of e-tailers, since they must bear the extra expense of running stores.Happily, however, conventional retailers are in a better positionto fight back than last year, when overstocking forced them to resort to ruinous discounting.Inventories are about 15% lower this year.Some big retailers, such as Saks and Target, have recently reported rising revenues and margins.消费者转向网络消费对保洁这种没有自己专营店的公司来说是利好消息。而对于实体零售商来说却是棘手问题。因为实体零售商存在经营成本，其零售价格通常高于网上价格。然而，利好的一面是今年传统的零售商能够扳回一城的几率较去年高。去年库存过多，传统零售商被迫亏本打折，而今年的库存量下降了大约15%。诸如Saks和Target等的一些大型零售商已于最近传来营业额增加，利润率上升的好消息。

The most obvious response to the growth of e-tailing is for conventional retailers to redouble their own efforts online.The online arms of big retailers are performing well, on the whole.Saks, for example, saw online sales rise 9% in the nine months to the end of October while sales in its stores fell by 19%.The company expects online growth to outpace sales in stores for the ―foreseeable future‖, says Stephen Sadove, its boss.传统零售商应对网络销售最直接的应对措施是进一步加强网络销售力度。总的来说，大型零售商的网络销售部门表现抢眼。以Saks为例。该公司一月至十月的网络销售额增长了9%，而实体店销售则下滑19%。Saks希望在―可预见的未来‖网络销售增长超过实体商场，Saks总裁Stephen Sadove如是说。

The concept of ―multichannel‖ shopping, where people can buy the same items from the same retailer in several different ways—online, via their mobile phones and in shops—is gaining ground, and retailers are trying to encourage users of one channel to try another.Growing online traffic may actually increase sales in stores too.According to a spokesman for Macy‘s, a department-store chain, every dollar a consumer spends online with Macy‘s leads to $5.70 in spending at a Macy‘s store within ten days, because consumers learn about other products online and come into stores to look them over before buying them.Many online retailers offer tools that let people locate the nearest outlet that has a given item in stock.―多渠道‖销售的概念是指顾客可以通过网络、手机、亲临实体店等不同方式从同一个零售商手中买到同样的产品。这种概念正在为人们所接受。零售商也在鼓励单一渠道的消费者尝试其他的购买途径。网上交易量增长也可能促进实体店的销量上升。梅西百货公司（百货连锁公司）的发言人表示：顾客在梅西网站每花一美元，十天之内该顾客会在梅西百货商店消费5.7美元，因为顾客在网站上看到其他商品的信息，他们会亲临商场仔细检查在网上看到的商品，然后再购买。很多网络商家还提供专门服务，帮助顾客找到离他们最近的、出售他们中意产品的专营店。

Retailers are also trying to make shopping seem fun and exciting to counteract the economic gloom.One common tactic is to set up ―pop-up‖ stores, which appear for a short time before vanishing again, to foster a sense of novelty and urgency.Following the lead of many bricks-and-mortar outfits, eBay recently launched a pop-up in New York where customers could inspect items before ordering them from kiosks.商家也在绞尽脑汁增加购物的乐趣和刺激感以应对经济颓势。最常见的策略是开设―弹出式‖店铺，这种店铺仅短时间存在，之后便再次消失，给顾客以新鲜感和紧迫感（要赶紧购买，否则便消失不见了）。eBay也加入实体店引领的风潮，于最近在纽约开设了一家弹出式商铺。顾客可以在这个商铺里仔细检查商品品质，然后在网上订购。

Shoppers are increasingly looking for an ―experience‖ when they go to stores, says Jack Anderson of Hornall Anderson, a branding and marketing firm, and are no longer interested in purely ―transaction-based bricks and mortar stores‖.Apple, which encourages customers to try out its devices in its stores, is considered a pioneer of this strategy, and has attracted many imitators.The Walt Disney Company, for example, is rumoured to be redesigning its stores to attract shoppers looking for entertainment, with new features such as ―magic mirrors‖, which will allow children to play with Disney characters.消费者越来越倾向于―体验式‖购物，―纯交易性实体商店‖已经无法打动顾客的心了，品牌与营销公司Hornall Anderson的 Jack Anderson如是说。苹果公司在―体验式‖购物方面是先锋，顾客可以在苹果店试用产品，引来许多商家跟风。迪斯尼公司便是其中之一。据传，该公司正在重新设计店铺吸引喜欢娱乐的顾客。店铺增加了诸如―魔镜‖等特色项目，孩子们还可以和迪斯尼卡通人物一起玩耍。

Stores are also trying to lure customers by offering services that are not available online.Best Buy, a consumer-electronics retailer, has started selling music lessons along with its musical instruments.Lululemon athletica, which sells sports clothes, offers free yoga classes.The idea is to bring people back to its shops regularly, increasing the likelihood that they will develop the habit of shopping there.实体商店也在竭尽全力吸引顾客，为他们提供网上购物无法实现的服务。消费类电子零售商百思买已经开始通过绑定音乐教学课来销售乐器。体育服装公司 Lululemon athletica开设免费瑜伽课（带动产品销量）。这种做法能够把顾客定期拉回到商店，进而增加了顾客在商店购物的可能性。

Another great hope is that mobile phones will come to the rescue of conventional retailers.Some consumers already use internet-enabled handsets to shop online.But many analysts think a technology called near-field communication(NFC)might boost sales at stores, by allowing shoppers to scan products with their phones to learn more about them, and then to pay by swiping their phones at the till.Unfortunately, NFC will not be widely available for some time—too late to help harried retailers through Black Friday.另一个被寄予厚望拯救传统零售商的是手机。有些顾客已经使用具有上网功能的手机在网上购物。但是分析人士认为能够提振商店销量的或许是近距离通信技术（NFC），利用这项技术，消费者可以通过手机了解产品信息，然后再通过手机付款。问题在于，NFC广泛应用尚待时日，帮助腹背受敌的商家实现黑色星期五盈利还无从谈起。

 [2009.07.02] Knocking down the wall 打破成规 Japanese banking liberalisation 日本银行业的自由化

Knocking down the wall 打破成规

Jul 2nd 2009 | TOKYO From The Economist print edition

Japan eases the rules for banks and their securities affiliates 日本放宽对银行及其证券业务分行的监管

REGULATORS around the world are contemplating higher walls between commercial banks and their investment-banking pisions.In Japan the opposite is happening.Last month the country‘s Financial Services Agency(FSA)dramatically eased the regulations on how banks may interact with their securities arms, with sweeping implications for Japan‘s financial markets.就在全世界的监管者都努力在为商业银行及其投资银行分部之间高筑围墙的时候，日本却正在反其道而行之。上个月，日本金融服务厅（FSA）引人注目的放宽了对商业银行如何同其证券业务分行进行合作的监管，这对日本金融市场是一种暗示。

The old system laid huge burdens on financial groups.It prevented bankers from suggesting services that were provided by the same firm but housed in a different unit.Foreign banks, lacking the same holding-company structures as domestic rivals, were the worst hit.Until recently, grouses an employee of a big bank, its Japanese unit generated more paperwork than the rest of its operations across Asia combined.Domestic firms also suffered.And a system designed to minimise risk increased it, says an executive.―If the country manager asks the head of the securities unit, ‗How‘s business?‘, he can‘t say because he is in a different legal entity.‖

旧的制度让财团们承受着巨大的负担。它限制银行家提供建议服务，这些服务其实是由同一家公司提供的，但是却分属不同的部门。外资银行由于缺少和其国内竞争者相同的控股公司的架构，更是遭受到严重打击。直到最近，一家大型银行的员工的抱怨这家银行在日本的分行所产生的书面文件比其在亚洲其他国家的业务部门加起来还多。国内公司也同样深受其害。一项本来用于降低风险的制度却恰恰相反增加了风险，一位员工说道：―如果银行的区域总经理问证券部门的领导业务怎么样？他根本没有办法回答，因为证券部门属于另外一个法人实体。‖

The new rules simplify things.The reform allows employees to work across different units.So support staff can perform tasks for both the banking and securities units, which should increase efficiency, lower costs and improve risk management.It also lets employees cross-sell products, provided that a robust system exists to prevent conflicts of interest.Previously, corporate customers had to opt in to enable the banking group to share client information.Now they must opt out.新的制度让事情简单了。改革后的制度允许银行员工在各部门之间交叉工作。这样员工可以同时完成银行部门和证券部门的业务，从而提高效率，降低成本，以及提高风险管理水平。新的制度还允许员工交叉销售金融产品，并且通过有力的制度来预防利益冲突。以前，为了让银行间共享客户信息，企业客户必须参与进来，而现在，他们则必须退出。

The new responsibility placed on companies to monitor themselves partly explains harsh sanctions that have been handed down by the FSA recently.Hapless Citigroup‘s bad run continues: it has been barred from promoting its retail bank in Japan for a month, starting in mid-July, because of inadequate controls on money-laundering.And Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, a huge local bank, was slapped with sanctions for failing to prevent data theft by a fired employee.新的制度让企业必须肩负起自己监督自己的责任，这也部分解释了为什么FSA最近频频宣布严厉的制裁决定。花旗集团的霉运还在继续：由于对洗钱活动控制不力，从七月中旬起，花旗集团将被勒令暂停在日本推销其零售银行产品一个月。另一家日本本土银行业巨头，三菱UFJ金融集团，也因为其前员工窃取并出售客户信息而受到制裁。

The reform is intended to unleash more sophisticated financial products in Japan.Regional lenders and the country‘s three ―megabanks‖ exert enormous power over companies.Firms tend to rely on bank loans rather than the capital markets for their financing even though the level has decreased since the 1990s banking crisis(see chart).Japanese firms are three times more reliant on bank lending than American firms are.Relationships that span decades are hard to unwind but even the banks recognise that the capital markets need to develop.这项改革的目的旨在在日本推广更加完善的金融产品。民间放款人和日本银行―三巨头‖都正在尽最大努力做企业的工作。相对于从资本市场融资，企业更加信赖通过银行贷款来融资。尽管从上个世纪90年代的银行危机以来，这中信赖程度已经降低了不少，日本企业对银行借款的依赖程度仍然是美国企业的三倍。（参见图表）银行已经认识到资本市场同样需要发展，但是这种持续了数十年的想法，的确很难改变。

The new rules also let the megabanks compete a bit more easily in the securities business, which is dominated in Japan by Nomura.It handled about half of all financing deals in Japan last fiscal year, and 95% of the deals so far this year.New rivalry at home partly explains Nomura‘s interest in looking abroad for growth by acquiring the European and Asian investment-banking arms of Lehman Brothers last autumn.Could Japan yet end up a flag-carrier for liberalisation?

新的制度还能够让银行巨头们在证券市场中的竞争能够轻松一些。日本国内的证券市场被野村证券（Nomura）控制着，它处理了上一财年日本国内大约一半的金融交易，以及本财年迄今为止95%的交易。由于目前日本国内新的竞争形势，野村证券已经把目光投向海外，通过去年秋天并购莱曼兄弟在欧洲和亚洲的投行业务来寻求新的增长。日本能够结束这场银行业的自由化进程吗？

Rags to riches 杂志致富

Jun 18th 2009 | NEW YORK From The Economist print edition

One corner of the print-news industry is relatively healthy 新闻印刷业的一隅相对繁荣

FOR seven of the past eight weeks the front cover of Us Weekly magazine has featured salacious stories about Jon and Kate Gosselin.The Gosselins, who have eight children including sextuplets, are the stars of an obscure American reality-TV programme that briefly became the most watched show on cable.Sensing a surge of interest, other celebrity magazines have piled in with reports of marital disharmony.Even in a recession, tittle-tattle sells.过去的八周有七周,《美国周刊》封面以Jon和Kate Gosselin的粗俗故事为特色。Gosselin一家，有包括6胞胎在内的8个孩子，成了美国现实-TV节目的明星，节目短时间也在有线电视上备受瞩目。其他名人杂志发觉公众兴趣激增，便在杂志中插入关于不和谐婚姻的报道。即使经济衰退，八卦还是有的卖。

Buoyed by recession-resistant food, pharmaceutical and shampoo advertisements, gossip magazines have lost fewer advertising pages in the past year than business or news magazines, according to a tally by Mediaweek.The two biggest, People and Us Weekly, each sold more copies last year than they did in 2001.In a world of fragmenting audiences they boast an enormous reach.Fully 43m Americans, about two-thirds of them women, flick through a copy of People each week.据《媒体周刊》统计，过去一年里，由抵制衰退的食粮——药品和香波广告维持着，比起商业或新闻杂志，八卦杂志失去的广告页较少。两家最大的杂志《人物》和《美国周刊》，每家去年比2001年卖出了更多的杂志。拥有大量分散读者，他们占据了极大的范围。足有四千三百万美国人，妇女大约占三分之二，每周浏览一份《人物》杂志。

This is odd, because the forces blamed for the decline of print news are no less potent in the celebrity sector.Celebrity news has its own online aggregators, several of them linked to web portals, such as omg!, the gossip arm of Yahoo!.The self-publicising Perez Hilton leads a legion of bloggers.Tweets, mobile-phone alerts and gossipy television shows(there are five, up from three in 2000)provide much more timely information about the lives of the beautiful than do magazines.There is more direct competition, too, with three big glossy magazines having launched since 2002.这很奇怪，因为谴责新闻印刷业衰退的力量在名人部分依旧有力。人物新闻有自己的网络聚合器，有几个聚合器链接到了网络门户，像是对象管理集团（omg!）和雅虎（Yahoo!）的八卦部。自我宣传的Perez Hilton带领了一大队博客。Tweets，手机提醒和八卦电视节目（2000年有3个，现在升至5个）提供名人生活信息比杂志更加及时。2002年开办的3家精品杂志，也是个更为直接的竞争。

It may be that the new entrants have simply mopped up excess interest in the doings of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.Larry Hackett, the editor of People, reckons that the public appetite for entertainment news was underserved until recently.Far from harming the established publications, the multimedia gossip barrage may be driving readers to check scurrilous rumours with them.也许新加入者挖一下Paris Hilton和Lindsay Lohan的故事就轻而易举满足公众额外的兴趣。《人物》编辑Larry Hackett认为，公众对娱乐新闻的需求至今未得到满足。多媒体八卦的攻势非但不会波及现有杂志，也许会驱使读者和他们一起核查粗俗的谣言。

The field is probably too crowded.None of the three new publications—In Touch, Life & Style and OK!—sold more than a million copies a week on average last year.The turbulent economy has shaken lucrative news-stand sales in particular.As the weaker publications struggle, though, the strongest ones are expanding boldly into new platforms and products.People has launched an iPhone application and its website receives 13m unique visitors per month, according to comScore, a research firm.Its empire includes a fashion portal, a Spanish-language magazine, a country issue, puzzle books and a pets website, all written in the same reassuring style.这个行业或许太过密集。去年3家新杂志《接触》、《生活&方式》和《OK!》，平均每周没有一家能卖出一百万份。尤其是动荡的经济动摇了有利可图的报摊销售。愈加衰弱的杂志还在挣扎，而顶强大的却在大胆开拓新平台和新产品。据调查公司comScore，《人物》已着手一份iPhone申请，其网站每月接待一千三百万独立访客。《人物》帝国包括一个时尚门户网站、一份西语杂志、一个国家问题、几本智力测验书和一个宠物网站，所有的编辑风格都是统一的并且有所保证。

However far-flung their operations, celebrity publishers know they must drive traffic to the weekly magazine, where the real money is still to be made.The best websites offer titbits, updates and quotes.When it comes to longer articles and scoops, though, online readers are firmly steered to the news-stand with notes that begin, ―To find out more…‖.Janice Min, the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly, reckons the content of her magazine and its associated website overlap by no more than 15%.―Why would you post your entire cover story online?‖ she asks.不论名人杂志出版商的经营多么广泛，他们知道必须驱使人们买周刊才能真正赚到钱。最棒的网站提供花絮趣闻、更新材料和援引。然而一看到较长的文章和独家报道，在线读者会坚定地奔向标有―欲知详情……‖的报摊。《美国周刊》总编辑Janice Min估计，其杂志与相关网站重复的内容不足15%。她问：―为什么要把全部封面专题放到网上呢？‖

 The trail of disaster 灾难的身影

Jun 18th 2009 From The Economist print edition

The downturn is claiming victims that never appear on a balance sheet 萧条引致的受害者是那些从来不会被显示在资产负债表上的人群

A long walk from the boardroom 理论到现实的道路还很漫长

NINE months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the world‘s economic crisis is still usually discussed as though it consisted of dire bank balance-sheets, falling exports and bankruptcies or job losses in the West.But at the other end of the trail that starts with financial woes in rich countries are underweight children and anaemic expectant mothers in poor ones.New research by the United Nations‘ standing committee on nutrition(available on www.teniu.cc)gives a first estimate of how the crisis has hurt the group of people most affected by the crash: the very poorest.在雷曼兄弟破产9个月后，世界经济危机还往往是被描述成包括了恐怖的银行资产负债表，出口的下滑，银行破产以及西方的失业。但是在这场从发达国家的财务困境开始的危机追溯中，位于其另一端的情况是穷国中体重日渐下降的儿童和患贫血症的准妈妈们。联合国营养常设委员会的最新研究针对金融危机给那些遭受重创的人群 — 最贫穷的人群 — 造了多大的伤害给出了一个初步的估算。

In 1990-2007, the number of hungry people rose by about 80m, though this was, by and large, a period of rising incomes in developing countries(and a huge increase in population).In 2008 alone, the number rose a further 40m, to 963m—half as much in one year as during the previous 17.In other words, lots more children and pregnant women are not getting the food they need.The report reckons that the number of underweight children will rise from 121m to 125m by 2010, assuming no change in the size of the world economy(in fact, it is expected to shrink 2% this year).The World Bank has already estimated that until 2015 the crisis will lead to between 200,000 and 400,000 more children dying every year.在1990 – 2007年期间，挨饿人口增加了大约8千万，尽管这是发展中国家收入一直在上涨的一个时期。仅仅是2008年这一年里，这个数字就又增加了4千万，达到了 9.63亿，一年的数据基本是过去17年里总数的一半。换句话说，更多的儿童和孕妇没有得到他们需要的食品。报告认为，如果世界经济规模不变的话，到 2010年体重下降的儿童数量会从1.21亿增加到1.25亿，（事实上，预计今年的世界经济总量会萎缩2%）。世界银行已经估计到2015年危机会导致每年有20万到40万的儿童死亡。

The poorest face two crises: the world recession and the resumption of food-price rises.Food prices had been falling but even then, the global price fall did not translate into a comparable decline on local markets in most poor countries, so the poor did not benefit much.World prices bottomed out in December 2008 and have since risen 26%.In the poorest countries, a rise of 50% in the price of staples pushes up the family food budget from 50% to 60% of household income.最平穷的人面临的是双重困境：世界范围的萧条以及食品价格的新一轮上涨。食品价格过去一直在下降，但是即使是在全球范围内食品价格下降期，在大多数贫穷国家里本国市场上的价格并没有相应的下降，所以穷人并没有从降价中获得什么好处。世界食品价格在2008年12月走出低谷，在此之后上涨了26%。在最贫穷的国家里，主食价格上涨50%会推动家庭的食物预算占到家庭收入的50%所以在一些贫穷国家里，要养活一个五口之家需要额外多工作10个小时或是更长的时间。

The resulting burden falls heavily on women.As the report says starkly: ―Women are usually the last to benefit from increasing income [but] they are usually the first to make sacrifices when the financial situation deteriorates.‖

随之而来的负担更多的压在了妇女肩上。就像联合国营养常设委员会的报告很明确指出的那样：―妇女往往是收入上涨最后的受益人但却往往是经济环境恶化时首先要做出牺牲的人。

No exit 没有退路

Jun 11th 2009 From The Economist print edition

Staying in the euro will be tough for some members, but leaving would be too awful to contemplate 对一些成员国来说，呆在欧元区的日子不好过，但是考虑离开欧元区更可怕

Illustration by M.Morgenstern

IN THE weeks following the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September the number of euro banknotes in circulation suddenly increased.Fears about the rickety state of banks had made many people mistrustful of keeping money on deposit.Far safer to keep cash stuffed under a mattress.The more discriminating hoarders, it was said, were careful to squirrel away banknotes with serial numbers prefixed by the letter “X”, indicating currency issued in Germany.Notes with “U”(French)or “P”(Dutch)prefix were also fine, but those with a “Y” or an “S”, issued by Greece and Italy, were shunned.去年9月自雷曼兄弟破产后的数周内流通中的欧元钞票数量骤增。摇摇欲坠的银行系统令人担忧，使得人们不敢将钱存入银行。人们认为将钱藏在家里更安全。据说，越挑剔的储蓄者，越小心翼翼。他们喜欢储存序列号前缀为X的钞票，即在德国发行的货币。前缀为U（法国）或者P（荷兰）的钞票也可以，但是那些前缀为 Y或者S，分别是在希腊和意大利发行的钞票则是要极力避免的。

The logic was that if you were preparing for financial apocalypse, you had better not rely on the euro area surviving intact.In fact, banknotes are a shared obligation of all euro-zone members, no matter where they are printed.If the issuing country were to leave the single currency, a five-euro note would still be worth five euros, whatever the serial number.However, interest-bearing debt denominated in euros is a different matter, and bond markets quickly started to sort the Xs from the Ys.这背后的逻辑是如果你警惕经济灾难，最好不要试图依靠欧元区而毫发无损。事实上，流通中的钞票是所有欧元区成员国的共同负债，不管它是在哪儿发行。如果发行国打算放弃单一货币，一个5欧元的钞票仍然值5个欧元，不管它的序列号是什么。然而，欧元面值的有息负债却是另一回事，债券市场很快开始将前缀为X和Y 的钞票区分开来。

By early 2009 the yield on a ten-year Greek government bond was almost twice that on a comparable German Bund.The spread over Bunds for Italian, Spanish and Irish bonds also widened dramatically before narrowing again more recently.One explanation was that in skittish markets Bunds were prized for their extra liquidity.Another was that the bond-trading arms of bombed-out banks were less willing to make markets in the issues of small countries, such as Greece and Ireland, which left their prices unmoored.2009年早些时候，希腊政府10年期国债收益率几乎是德国相应国债的两倍。意大利，西班牙和爱尔兰国债间的收益率差距在最近收窄前曾一度急剧扩大。一种解释是在变幻莫测的市场中人们特别青睐流动性特好的债券。另一种解释是遭受重创的银行债券交易机构不愿意承销象希腊、爱尔兰等小国发行的债券，这使得这些小国的国债价格下跌。

But at least part of the rise in spreads reflected concern that countries might find it hard to pay back their borrowings.The government bonds of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain were all downgraded a notch by credit-rating agencies.For some, bond spreads are a crude gauge of the risk that the euro will break up.If a euro-zone member were shut out of capital markets and had to default on its debt, it might be tempted to use the opportunity to recreate its own currency and devalue.In that event, creditors could be forced to convert their bonds into claims in a new currency at a discount linked to a new exchange rate against the euro.Default would be one way for countries to free themselves from the euro’s shackles—or, to look at it from the opposite point of view, for the euro zone to rid itself of troublesome members.但是收益率差距扩大至少部分反映了人们对欧元区一些国家可能很难偿还借款的担忧。希腊、爱尔兰、葡萄牙和西班牙政府的国债评级全部被评级机构降了一级。对一些人来说，国债收益差是对欧元区分裂风险的粗略估计。如果欧元区的一个成员国被资本市场拒之门外以及他不得不拖欠债务，他很可能趁机重新创造自己的货币，然后进行贬值。如果那样，债权人将被迫将他们的债券以与新货币对欧元汇率相关联的新货币折价计算求偿权。违约将是这些国家逃脱欧元枷锁的一种方法或者从相反的角度看，也是欧元区除掉其令人头疼的成员的方法。

A game of consequences 后果游戏

That kind of thinking, however, is found mostly among those who were doubtful that the euro would ever get off the ground in the first place.It is rare in countries seen as candidates for exit.As Eurocrats in Brussels are keen to stress, far from breaking up, the euro zone is growing.Since its launch it has taken on five new members, and more are queuing to join.然而，那种想法主要集中在那些一开始就对欧元能否顺利实施的国家。现在还没有国家准备退出。布鲁塞尔的欧共体官员热衷于强调，欧元区正在扩大，远没有分裂。欧元启动以来已新增了五个成员，还有更多的国家正排队准备加入。

The costs of backing out of the euro are hard to calculate but would certainly be heavy.The mere whiff of devaluation would cause a bank run: people would scramble to deposit their euros with foreign banks to avoid forced conversion to the new, weaker currency.Bondholders would shun the debt of the departing country, and funding of budget deficits and maturing debt would be suspended.中途退出欧元区的成本很难准确计算但是这个代价必然很沉重。仅仅一阵贬值将会引起银行挤兑：人们会争先将他们的欧元存入外国银行从而避免被迫转换为新的弱势货币。债券持有者将会极力避免可能会退出欧元区国家发行的债券，预算赤字的融资以及到期债务将会被延期。

Changing all contracts in euros—bonds, mortgages, bank deposits, wage deals and so on—to the new currency would be a logistical nightmare.The changeover to the euro was planned in detail and the exchange rate was fixed in advance, in co-operation with all the euro members.The reverse operation would be nothing like as orderly, not least because the exchange rate would be a moving target.将债券、抵押贷款、银行存款和劳动合同等所有以欧元表示的合同转化为以新货币表示的合同将是一个后勤上的恶梦。各成员国货币统一为欧元时是经过详细计划的，汇率是同所有成员国合作提前固定的。反向操作不太可能有条理，有序进行，特别是因为汇率将会是一个不断变化的目标。

If businesses converted their debts to a weaker currency, that might constitute default and trigger legal challenges.If they stuck to their covenants, they would have to service their euro debts from earnings in a weaker currency.That would hurt firms which rely mostly on profits from their domestic market.The convulsions would be felt by other euro-area members too.The writedown of the departing country’s government bonds might threaten the solvency of banks in the rest of the euro zone.Around half of Italian government bonds, for instance, are held outside Italy.Other euro-area members could suffer contagion as markets bet on further defaults.如果企业将他们的债务转化成以弱势货币计价，那将会引发一些违约现象并且引起法律上的挑战。如果他们按照原来的以欧元计价的合同，他们不得不用以弱势货币计价的营业收入去偿还他们的欧元债务。那将对严重依赖国内市场的公司造成伤害。欧元区其他成员国也将感受到震荡。对要离开国政府债券的价值减计将会影响到欧元区其他地区的银行的偿付能力。例如，约一半的意大利政府国债被国外的投资者持有。随着市场预期违约风险的加剧，欧元区其他成员国将会受到严重影响。

If the act of leaving would be hard, the aftermath might be even harder.A country that forced bondholders to take a loss would be punished.Continued access to bond markets would come at a high price.Investors would ask for a huge premium to cover the risk of further default.On that count alone, borrowing costs would be far higher than they were within the safer confines of the euro area.如果说退出欧元区本身就困难重重，其影响可能会更严重。那些迫使债券持有者承担损失的国家将受到惩罚。再次进入债券市场的代价将会非常大。投资者会要求更高的溢价来弥补进一步加大的违约风险。仅这一点就会使得借款成本远远高于他们待在更安全的欧元区。

Investors would have to protect themselves from two further risks: exchange-rate volatility and inflation.A former euro member would have to reinvent its own monetary policy and would struggle to convince investors that it could keep a lid on inflation.One of the euro’s big attractions was that it offered many countries a shortcut to a credible monetary set-up.Devaluation could itself trigger a wage-price spiral.For high-debt countries, such as Greece and Italy, the interest rates demanded by markets to insure themselves against such risks would be ruinous.投资者将不得不保护自己免受汇率波动和通货膨胀的风险。之前的欧元区成员国将不得不重新采用自己的货币政策并且努力使投资者相信他可以控制通货膨胀。欧元最大的魅力之一是它为很多国家提供了一个实现有公信力的货币政策的捷径。贬值本身将引发工资-价格螺旋。对象希腊和意大利等高负债国家，市场投资者为确保自身免受此类风险而要求的利率将会太高，且是破坏性的。

And even though the costs are likely to be heavy, the immediate benefits might prove only transitory.A devaluation is a proxy for a national pay cut: it helps exporters but makes consumers of imports poorer.Workforces would put up strong resistance to being paid in a weaker currency.In countries such as Greece and Ireland, whose exports contain a lot of imports, a devaluation would push up inflation.And where a large proportion of wage contracts is indexed to prices, as in Spain, higher inflation would rapidly work its way through to wages.即使成本很可能很高，但最直接的好处却可能很短暂。贬值可以减少国民支出：它对出口商有利，但是对进口商品的消费者不利。劳动者将会强力组织反对以弱势货币来支付薪酬。象希腊和爱尔兰等出口产品中进口大部分原料的国家，贬值会推高通货膨胀。在大部分工资合同根据物价进行调整的国家，例如西班牙，高通胀会很快通过就会导致工资上涨。

The wrong cure 错误处方

An exit from the euro would not tackle weak productivity growth and inflexible wages, which are the root causes of low competitiveness.In time, further devaluations might be needed.Countries with high debts and a history of poor macroeconomic management would be most tempted to leave.But these are also the countries most likely to be hurt.退出欧元区不会解决疲软的产出增长和刚性工资等导致经济低竞争力的根源问题。最终，欧元区可能需要进一步进行贬值。那些高负债以及宏观经济管理一直较差的国家将最有可能退出。但是这些国家也最可能受到伤害的。

A more plausible, though still unlikely, scenario would involve a breakaway by a group of low-debt and cost-competitive countries, centred around Germany.Members of a new, “hard” European currency would leave behind a stock of depreciating euro debt and might be rewarded by lower borrowing costs on debt issues in the new currency.Yet a large part of the appeal to Germany of the single currency has been that it rules out revaluations and rewards its firms for being competitive.Germany, France and the rest have too much invested in the success of the EU and the euro to put it at risk.As Daniel Gros of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels think-tank, puts it: “The weak can’t leave and the strong won’t leave.” 一个更合理但可能性较小的情景是以德国为中心的低负债和具有成本优势的一批国家集体退出。新的硬欧洲通货的成员将面对一些贬值的欧元债务并且采用新货币的好处是债务的借贷成本将减少。但是单一货币对德国的魅力很大部分在于它排除了货币升值的可能性并且国内公司将因其竞争力而获利。德国、法国和其他国家对欧盟的成功付出很多，欧元却将它置于危险境地。布鲁塞尔智囊团－欧洲政策研究中心的Daniel Gros说：“弱国不能离开并且强国不会离开 ”。

The promise and peril of independence 独立的希望和危险

Jun 11th 2009 | NASIR From The Economist print edition

In 2011 Africa is set to get a new country.But South Sudan could well start life as a prefailed state 2011年非洲将诞生一个新的国家。先天不足，南苏丹能步入正轨吗？

MAJOR JOHNSON GUCH of the Sudanese People‘s Liberation Army(SPLA)sits outside a grass hut at the edge of Nasir, a missionary post in Nuerland that in time became a dismal town(see map).Dressed in a tracksuit, he gives the air of a local warlord.A Nuer himself, Mr Guch is commander of a joint integrated unit(JIU)of southern and northern Sudanese soldiers mandated to keep the peace in Nasir.He says he has 150 southern soldiers, each with a small tin of bullets.But he is dismissive of the northern soldiers.He does not know how many there are.He says he does not care.It is not, in any sense of the word, a joint command.苏丹人民解放军（SPLA）MAJOR JOHNSON GUCH坐在纳西尔边境的茅草屋外面，Nuerland的一个行动点不久就变成了凄凉的小镇（见图）。穿着田径装，他颇有当地军阀的气质。自己也是努尔人，Guch先生是南北苏丹士兵联合部队的司令，这支部队被委任保持纳西尔地区的和平。他说他有150名南苏丹士兵，每个士兵有一小罐子弹。但他对北苏丹士兵不感兴趣。他既不知道有多少北苏丹士兵，也不在乎这些。无论怎么说，这都不是联合司令部。

The commander of the northern troops, Captain Osman Mustafa, is more gracious, but also more disingenuous.His tent is a walk across a black wasteland pocked by the twisted wreckage of vehicles blown up in the war and little piles of human faeces left by the locals, who eschew latrines.A Muslim from the Nuba mountains, Mr Mustafa says he has 300 soldiers, enough guns and, of course, very good relations with the southerners.北苏丹部队首领Osman Mustafa更亲切也更虚伪。到他的帐篷要走过一片黑色的废墟，废墟上有许多战争中爆炸遗留下来的车辆遗骸和几堆当地人的粪便，当地人不用厕所。Mustafa先生是来着努巴山区的穆斯林，他称他有300名士兵，足够的枪。当然也和南苏丹人相处得很好。

Together with a hopelessly inactive UN peacekeeping force dug in on the other side of Nasir, the JIU stood by and did nothing when one group of Nuer attacked another last m onth, slaughtering 71 people in the nearby village of Torkej.The Lou-Nuer targeted a cattle camp tended by women and children from the Jikany.Those sleeping outside under mosquito nets were shot point blank.The Lou sprayed the huts with bullets.They drove older children into the river, where they drowned.The Lou took the cattle and Torkej‘s other meagre possessions.Fifty seven wounded were taken to a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital.驻扎在纳西尔另一边的联合国维和部队，同样不能发挥其作用。上个月，一群努尔人在Torkej村庄袭击了另一群努尔人，屠杀了71个人。维和部队和联合部队袖手旁观，无所作为。卢-努尔人将Jikany一个由妇女和儿童看管的牲口棚定为了袭击目标。那些睡在外面蚊帐下的人被近距离枪杀。卢-努尔人扫射了这个牲口棚。他们大一点的孩子赶到河里淹死了。卢-努尔人掳走了Torkej的牲口和少量财产。75名受伤者已经送往Médecins Sans Frontières医院。

The Jikany insist it is unheard of for cattle raiders to target women and children.They are furious that they had no guns to defend themselves.Under South Sudan‘s patchy disarmament programme, the Jikany gave up their guns, the Lou kept theirs.Jikany elders say the Lou are working for the northern government of President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum.They believe the north supplied at least 1,000 machineguns to the Lou in recent months.They say the Lou have been attacking their neighbours on all sides, including the Murle to the south, at the behest of Mr Bashir‘s government.For their part, the Lou say it is the Murle who are proxies of the northern regime.Jikany人坚称对以妇女和儿童为目标的牲口突袭者闻所未闻。没有枪支来自卫更使他们愤怒。在南苏丹不一致的解除武装行动下，Jikany人上交了他们的枪支，Lou人却保留了他们的枪支。Jikany长辈们宣称Lou人在为喀土穆的北方政府奥马尔.巴希尔总统效力。他们认为北方政府在近几个月内提供了至少1000把机关枪给Lou人。他们说Lou人按照巴希尔政府的要求，不停地到处袭击他们的周围地区，包括南部的Murle。对Lou人来说，Murle才是北方政权的代理人。

Whatever the truth, the episode is a sign of a wider breakdown of peace across southern Sudan.In the past month or so hundreds of people have been killed in violent clashes similar to the one in Torkej, as nomadic groups compete for the best cattle and grazing land.Conflict is normal, but it is not normal for so many to be killed in this way—at least in recent years.The UN says that more people are now being killed in the south than in Darfur, Sudan‘s troubled western region.无论真相如何，这一事件标志着南苏丹地区和平全面的崩溃。近几个月，数以百计的人在类似Torkej 的暴力冲突中丧生，比如游牧部落争夺最好的牲口和牧场。这样的冲突再正常不过了，但是至少在近几年，如此之多人丧生就不正常了。联合国宣称，南苏丹所丧生的人口数目，比苏丹西部混乱的达尔富尔地区还要多。

Under the terms of a peace agreement with the northern government of Mr Bashir signed in 2005, the south is expected to vote for secession in a referendum in 2011.The prospect of gaining a new country, South Sudan, raised hopes of an end to Sudan‘s civil war between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, which lasted on and off for the best part of 50 years.At last, the flattened south would rebuild itself.

第二篇：economist(经济学人)精品文章中英对照

Economist经济学人精品文章

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 YORK

SHARES 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。

Recession has favoured McDonald‘s over BK, whose share price has fallen by half since the economy was flame-grilled in the summer of 2008.Shares in McDonald‘s have risen, reaching an all-time high in August.Same-store sales at BK have fallen for five successive quarters.金融危机却更青睐汉堡王，自2008年经济低迷以来，其股票价格跌至原来的一半。而麦当劳的股票不跌反涨，在8月又创下了历史新高。汉堡王的同店销售额连续五个季度下跌。

Why has McDonald‘s been eating BK‘s lunch? Among other things, BK has always had a higher proportion of sales to young men, who have been hit especially hard by the recession.McDonald‘s, by contrast, has for several years wooed women and older people with relatively healthy salads and drinkable coffee.BK has struggled to follow suit.At the same time, it has had to contend with angry shareholders, as the rising cost of beef and other ingredients has clobbered its profits.BK may also have cannibalised its existing sales by offering value meals that were a bit too irresistible.为何麦当劳在与汉堡王的竞争中占得先机？别的不谈，汉堡王的顾客更多的是年轻人，而年轻人受金融危机打击尤其严重。相对地，麦当劳近年来一直以相对健康的沙拉和可口的咖啡，吸引女性和中老年人。汉堡王一直难以模仿。与此同时，随着牛肉等原材料的成本上涨，利润一跌再跌，汉堡王又不得不去对付那些愤怒的股东。汉堡王的套餐太过诱人，可能也影响了其他产品的销量。

BK is used to changes in ownership.It went from being part of Pillsbury, a food company, to Grand Metropolitan, a British conglomerate, then to Diageo, a drinks giant.In 2002 it was sold to a group of private-equity investors: TPG, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs.They did a fair job, improving sales with better marketing.They also helped turn around the most troubled of the franchisees who operate most BK restaurants.In 2006 BK floated its shares again.Its bosses may hope that going private once more will protect them from short-term stockmarket pressures while they ponder how to beat McDonald‘s.汉堡王此前多次易主，已经习以为常了。它曾是皮尔斯百利食品公司的一部分，后转入英国大都会集团，继而转投饮品巨头帝亚吉欧。2002年又被转手卖给一批私人股本投资者：德克萨斯太平洋集团（TPG），贝恩资本和高盛。他们经营良好，利用优秀市场策略增加了销售。大部分汉堡王餐厅的运营商当时经营不善，他们还助其扭亏为盈。2006年汉堡王再度上市。其老板可能希望再度私有化以规避短期股市压力，为其争取时间定策击败麦当劳。

If BK does go private, it may be part of a trend in the private-equity industry—now that some of the bigger firms have rediscovered their appetite for deals—of gobbling up the companies they had taken public during the bubble years but which are now trading cheaply.TPG, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs still own a sizeable stake in BK, despite listing it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006.However, it seems that other private-equity firms are interested in buying it.If that happens, no doubt BK servers will appreciate the irony: the act of passing a company from one private-equity firm to another is known in the business as ―flipping‖.私人股本行业——如今一些大公司重新对收购有了兴趣——吞并那些他们在经济泡沫时代卖掉，现在十分廉价的公司，俨然已成一股大潮，如果汉堡王真的私有化，就将融入这股大潮之中。德克萨斯太平洋集团（TPG），贝恩资本和高盛虽然2006年在纽约证券交易所已经兜售了汉堡王，但他们仍握有可观的股份。然而，其他私人股本公司似乎也有意收购。要是真被他们收购，无疑汉堡王的服务生都能领会其中的讽刺：在私人股本公司中被倒卖，在做汉堡这行叫―翻面‖。

本主题由 shiyi18 于 2010-11-12 13:16 移动 评分

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Down the slipway下水

―Quantitative easing‖ is unloved and unappreciated—but it is working ―量化宽松‖不受待见，但是有效 Nov 4th 2010 | Washington, dc

EVEN before the Federal Reserve unveiled its second round of quantitative easing(QE)on November 3rd, critics had already denounced it as ineffectual or an invitation to inflation.It cannot be both and it may not be either.美联储的第二轮量化宽松政策在11月3日公布之前便已受到了各方抨击，有人说它不会起效，也有人说这样会导致通胀。这两者根本不可能同时发生，甚至一个都不会发生。The announcement of ―QE2‖ was hardly breathtaking.The Fed said it will buy $600 billion of Treasuries between now and next June, at about $75 billion a month, although it also said it could adjust the amount and timing if need be.That was about what markets expected but far less than the $1.75 trillion of debt it bought between early 2009 and early 2010 in its first round of QE.Yet QE2 seems already to have exceeded the low expectations it has aroused.Since Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, hinted at it at Jackson Hole on August 27th, markets have all done exactly what they should(see chart).第二轮量化宽松并没有惊人之处。美联储称，从现在起到明年6月，它将购买6 000亿美元美国国债，相当于每月购买750亿美元，但具体数字可能随情况进行调整。这一规模与市场预期相当，远低于2009年初至2010年初第一轮量化宽松（总共购买债务1.75万亿美元）。但第二轮量化宽松似乎已经超过了它所引起的低预期。自美联储主席本?伯南克于8月27日在杰克森霍尔（Jackson Hole）暗示这一计划以来，市场对此已有了充分的反映（见图）。

Under QE the Fed buys long-term bonds with newly created money.This lowers long-term yields and chases investors into riskier, alternative investments.The real yield on ten-year, inflation-indexed Treasury bonds has fallen from 1.05% to 0.5%, a result of relatively flat nominal yields and a rise in expected inflation.The yield on their five-year cousins is negative(see Buttonwood).Share prices are up by 14% in the same period.Lower yields make the dollar less appealing: it has duly fallen by 5% against the Japanese yen, by 9% against the euro and by 5% on a trade-weighted basis.―You can declare QE to be a success already,‖ says one hedge-fund economist.―Whether this translates into real activity remains a question-mark.But the question of whether the mechanism would work has been answered.‖

在量化宽松计划中，美联储将通过发行新钞买入长期债券。这压低了后者的收益率，使投资者转向风险更高的替代投资品。在名义收益率相对较平和预期通胀的双重作用下，10年期通胀指数化美国国债真实收益率从1.05%下降至0.5%。五年期品种则已呈现负利率（见本期Bottonwood）。同期，股票市场上涨了14%。收益率的下降使美元失去了吸引力：美元对日元下跌了5%，对欧元下跌了9%，从贸易加权角度看，则下跌了5%。一位对冲基金经济学家说：―可以说，量化宽松已经获得了成功。它能不能转化为实际行动还不好说。但其机制是否起作用已经毋庸置疑了。‖

With a bit of a lag, these easier financial conditions are supposed to boost growth through three channels.First, lower real yields spur borrowing and investment.This channel is bunged up: many households cannot borrow because their homes have fallen in value and because banks are less willing to lend.But the remaining two channels remain open.Higher share prices have raised household wealth by some $1.4 trillion, which will spur some spending.And the lower dollar should help trade.American factory purchasing managers reported a sharp jump in export orders in October and a drop in imports.一般认为，宽松的金融环境将通过三个渠道提振经济增长（可能存在时滞）。第一，真实收益率下降能够刺激借贷与投资。这一渠道目前已经失去了作用：许多家庭因为房价下跌和银行不愿意借贷而无法得到贷款。但剩下的两个渠道仍然畅通。股价上涨已使家庭财富增加了1.4万亿美元，这将刺激支出。美元下跌则应该有利于贸易。美国工厂采购经理报告显示，10月份出口订单出现了大幅增长，进口则有所下降。

Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, reckons that the Fed will eventually buy $1.5 trillion of debt under QE2, and that this will raise growth next year to 3.6% from 3.3% without QE.That‘s not exactly overwhelming: the firm thinks the Fed would have to buy $5.25 trillion of bonds to achieve the equivalent of a –4% federal-funds rate, which is what the economy needs.The Fed will not do that for fear of unknown consequences, among them the response of Congress‘s newly empowered Republicans.In a Bloomberg poll, 60% of self-identified tea-party supporters favoured overhauling or abolishing the Fed.咨询公司Macroeconomic Advisers认为，美联储在第二轮量化宽松中将总共购买1.5万亿美元债务，使明年的经济增长率从3.3%（如果不实行量化宽松的话）提高到3.6%。这还不是最令人震惊的：该公司还认为，美国经济需要联邦基金利率下降到-4%的水平，要达到这一效果，美联储必须购买5.25万亿美元债券才行。要美联储抛出如此大手笔是不可能的，因为它害怕因此导致不可预料的后果，比如引起最近在国会中重掌大权的共和党人的激烈反应。彭博社（Bloomberg）的调查显示，60%自称茶党支持者的人赞成改组甚至取消美联储。

Could QE work too well and drive inflation expectations to dangerous levels? ―The odds aren‘t zero,‖ says Don Kohn, a former Fed vice-chairman, but they‘re small.There‘s more risk that expectations could rise once credit loosens up and spending accelerates.That, however, would be a signal that the Fed has succeeded;it can then tighten policy.量化宽松会过犹不及、将通胀预期推高到危险水平吗？―并非不可能。‖前美联储副主席邓?考恩（Don Kohn）说，但可能性很小。更大的风险是通胀预期在信贷放松和支出增速之后抬头。但这正是美联储成功的信号，届时它已经可以采取紧缩措施了。

Other countries complain that QE is merely bringing them overvalued currencies and bubbly asset markets by pushing investors to seek higher returns elsewhere.But that may be unavoidable given their pergent growth paths.Both India and Australia raised interest rates this week despite rising currencies.其他国家抱怨量化宽松的唯一作用是，将美国投资者驱向其他国家寻找高收益，是当地货币升值并产生资产泡沫。但这是无论如何都不能避免的事情，因为各个国家的增长路径各不同。印度和澳大利亚本周均在本国货币升值的情况下提高了利率。

A damaging round of beggar-thy-neighbour currency interventions cannot be ruled out.But the Bank of Japan, after intervening directly to weaken the yen in September, has struck upon a more benign response.It had been scheduled to release details of its own QE at a regular policy meeting in mid-November but moved the date forward to this week.Analysts suspect this was to counteract upward pressure on the yen because of the Fed‘s move.If central banks all print money in unison, and don‘t mop up excess liquidity, then the result could be a worldwide monetary fillip.QE‘s benefits should not be over-egged.Nor should they be dismissed.不能排除发生一种危险情况，那就是各国竞相采取以邻为壑的货币市场干预手段。日本银行在9月就曾经直接干预外汇市场使日元贬值，但这一回，日本银行的反应较为温和。原定11月中旬政策例会上宣布的日本量化宽松计划将提前至本周。分析师认为日本央行此举是为了缓和美联储动作给日元带来的升值压力。如果各国央行一起开动印钞机，而不顾流动性过剩的后果，那么结果将是全球货币刺激。没有必要过分强调量化宽松的好处，但也不应该刻意贬低。

Opening stand 登场

Luck may play a big role in launching successful careers 上佳的运气是成功职业开端的一半

Nov 18th 2010

IN CRICKET batsmen often need a slice of luck to build a decent innings.Might that be true of cricketers‘ careers in general, and even of other jobs? In an IMF working paper Shekhar Aiyar and Rodney Ramcharan suggest that it is lucky for international cricketers to play their debut Test(international)match at home.在板球比赛中，击球手通常需要点运气才能打出不错的击球局。所有板球选手都是这样吗？其他职业也是如此吗？在一篇IMF工作论文中，Shekhar Aiyar和Rodney Ramcharan提出，就（国际）对抗赛（Test）而言，能在主场上演职业生涯首秀对于板球选手来说是件幸事。

Playing at home means familiar pitches and climatic conditions, and a more supportive crowd(just ask the English cricketers whose series against Australia starts in Brisbane on November 25th).Sifting through the data on 790 cricketers who made their Test debuts between 1950 and 1985, the authors find that playing at home rather than away raises the average number of runs scored in their first series by 33% and reduces the runs that a bowler concedes by 18%.主场作战意为着更熟悉的场地和天气状况，以及更高的观众支持率（关于这一点，11月25日做客布里斯班与澳大利亚进行系列赛的英格兰板球队队员将有切身体会）。通过分析1950至1985年间790位板球手在对抗赛处子秀上的表现，两位作者发现，主场作战平均能将处子系列赛得分―跑‖次数较客场提高33%，将被对方投手封杀的―跑‖的次数降低18%。

This would not be luck, of course, if team selectors deliberately give home debuts to better players.But first starts are often the result of random events such as the injury or poor performance of existing team members.By using age as a proxy for ability(assuming that younger players who force their way into international sides tend to be more talented), the authors find that the distribution of cricketers‘ ages is almost identical for home and away debuts.当然，如果各队有意将主场处子秀的机会留给较为优秀的选手的话，那么出现上述结果就并非运气了。但处子秀本身是由一系列随机事件决定的：比如队友受伤或是状态低迷等。两位作者将年龄作为能力的一个代表因素（假设选手成功登上国际赛场的年龄越低，则其水平就越优秀），结果发现，板球选手主场处子秀年龄分布和客场没有区别。

A strong debut seems to lead to a shinier career.Every additional ten runs scored in a debut series adds an extra five runs to a player‘s career average.The effects of initial success are similar for bowlers.One possibility is that a good start builds confidence and experience that boosts future performance.A bad start, in contrast, is not easily forgiven: selectors appear to discard potentially high-ability players who had the misfortune to debut abroad.强势处子秀似乎意味着辉煌的职业生涯。系列赛处子秀上得分跑次数每增加10次，选手职业生涯平均得分跑次数就能增加5次。开门红效应对投手也适用。原因可能是成功的开端所带来的信心和经验能够刺激选手的未来表现。反之，如果处子秀演砸了，就可能留下持久的阴影：首秀是在客场，又没能出彩，那么即使你很有潜质，在后来的比赛中也可能得不到出场机会。

A good start may have a persistent, positive impact in other fields, too.That‘s especially likely if employers take things at face value and fail to discount the impact of other factors that might enable good performance—a boom in financial markets for a trader, let‘s imagine.良好的开端在其他领域也可能有持久的正面效应。特别是，当雇主只看表面结果而忽略其他可能带来良好表现的因素时，开门红效应就尤为显著。大牛市对于交易员的影响就是其中之一。

A rock, not a hard place 选石的，不选硬的

Boom time for miners in a resource-hungry region 资源饥渴地区的矿业繁荣

Nov 11th 2010 | Hong Kong

IT CAN sometimes feel as if bankers in Asia are shifting their focus backwards along the economic food chain.First they moved from manufacturing to property.Now it‘s the turn of rocks.有时候，银行家在亚洲的一举一动让人感到他们是在逆经济食物链而动。他们先是将注意力从制造业转向房地产。现在则轮到了矿石。

In Hong Kong alone seven mining and natural-resources firms have gone public this year, raising HK$36 billion($4.6 billion)in the process.Another 13 listed in 2009, raising HK$58 billion, up from not very much the year before.A further 10-15 firms are due to list over the next year and the sums raised will almost certainly be bigger than before, thanks to Asia‘s appetite for raw materials and inexorably rising commodities prices.光是在香港，今年以来便已有7家矿产和自然资源公司上市，总融资额高达360亿港币。2009年全年共有13家矿产类公司在香港上市，融资580亿港币，较清淡的2008年有所增长。明年还有10~15家公司等着上市。由于亚洲对原材料的巨大需求和不断上涨的商品价格，总融资额达到空前高度已是板上钉钉。

One of the more meteoric ascents has been that of Sino Prosper State Gold Resources Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company which a year ago was barely more than a shell company.It had an agreement to buy what was thought to be a small mine in Inner Mongolia, along with five undeveloped tracts of land in a remote area of Heilongjiang, in China‘s north-eastern tip.The firm was valued on the Hong Kong stock exchange at HK$400m.Since then the price of gold has spiked, and the mine has been bought and turned out to be not so very small after all.Sino Prosper‘s valuation is currently HK$3.5 billion and it has become a beacon for other minerals firms.矿产类股票中火速蹿升，其中中盈国金控股有限公司的表现尤其耀眼。这家香港上司公司一年前还是个皮包公司，手里握有一张协议，内容据说是关于收购内蒙古一家小型金矿和黑龙江省边远地区五块未开发地皮的，去年的市值为4亿港币。从那儿以后，金价开始飙涨，于是小金矿摇身一变成了大宝库，中盈国金的市值目前已高达35亿港币，成了矿业股中的明星。

Hong Kong‘s Canadian Chamber of Commerce this week held an invitation-only conference on mining.It was packed with Canadian companies in search of capital either through a direct listing(difficult, given profitability requirements at the Hong Kong stock exchange)or a partial investment by a cash-laden, resource-hungry Chinese firm.Investors seemed less concerned by the risks of digging up minerals, more by potential political obstacles in the wake of the Canadian government‘s intervention to block BHP Billiton‘s hostile takeover of Potash Corporation.上周，众多加拿大公司出席了一个由香港加拿大商会（Canadian Chamber of Commerce）举办的凭柬入场矿业会议，或是争取直接上市（这比较困难，因为香港股票交易所对上市公司盈利能力要求较高），或是寻求手握重金又急切需要资源的中国企业作为部分投资人，以获得资本。投资者们似乎不太担心挖矿风险，而是更加顾忌潜在的政治障碍——加拿大政府干预叫停了必和必拓（BHP Billiton）对Potash公司的敌意收购。

Enthusiasm for minerals firms is not found just in Hong Kong.There are stirrings in less likely places, too.The Mongolian stock exchange, located in a lovely old cinema in Ulan Bator, has been transformed into a meeting place for international bankers.Locally listed miners are booming.A tie-up between the Mongolian bourse and the London Stock Exchange is expected to be announced by the end of the month.并非只有香港出现了矿业公司狂热。在某些意想不到的地方，矿业股也是热火朝天。位于乌兰巴托一座漂亮的老剧院内蒙古证券交易所最近成了国际银行家的聚会之地。本地的上市矿业公司非常火爆。蒙古证券交易所与伦敦证券交易所（London Stock Exchange）的合作预计将于本月末公布。

Only two large mines are currently being developed—gold and copper in Oyu Tolgoi, coal in Tavan Tolgoi—but there are numerous smaller mines throughout the country and 15 major deposits that are the source of serious discussions between global mining giants and the government, says Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt of TenGer, a bank holding company.Financiers are on the hunt for investment opportunities in other businesses, too.Mr Hutagt calls Mongolia a wolf economy, hungry and eager.Just like the bankers.目前蒙古只有两个较大的矿处于开发中——Oyu Tolgoi的金铜伴生矿和Tavan Tolgoi的煤矿。但是，TenGer银行控股公司的Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt透露，有传言说蒙古政府正在就全国众多小型矿和15个主要大矿与全球矿业巨头进行重要谈判。除了矿产企业之外，金融家也在蒙古寻求着其他业务机会。Hutagt用―狼‖来形容蒙古经济，认为它又饥饿又迫切。这倒是与银行家颇为相似。America's budget deficit 美国的预算赤字

Speak softly and carry a big chainsaw 轻声细语的德州电锯

Sorting out America‘s fiscal mess is relatively simple.What‘s needed is political courage 欲解美国财政乱局何其简单，政治勇气足以

Nov 18th 2010

LAST week Asia, this week Europe: no wonder Barack Obama has been to so many foreign summits since his party took a pounding in the mid-term elections.With the prospect of gridlock at home, a president naturally turns abroad.Yet Mr Obama badly needs to show that he can still lead on domestic policy.He should start by cajoling Congress into an agreement to tackle America‘s ominous fiscal arithmetic.自从奥巴马领军的民主党在中期选举中身受重创后，他两周内接连出访欧亚两洲；因此频繁出席境外峰会也就不稀奇了。既然国内前景仍是一片僵局，那么总统先生转战国外也算是自然而然的事情。然而奥巴马目前急需证明自己仍有能力引领国内政局；鉴于目前美国的―预算数学题‖非常难解，他不妨从这里开始，但需要拉拢国会以便达成共识。

Conventional wisdom says such an agreement is impossible: the problem is too big, the politics too difficult.But it is wrong to suppose that the deficit is unfixable, as two proposals for fixing it have shown this month(see article).And even the politics may not be totally intractable.公众的态度是这种共识无法形成：问题太严重，政见太复杂。不过认为赤字问题无药可救也是片面的，因为仅本月就已经出现了两个应对提案。甚至掌控政治问题也非难事。

A trillion-dollar trove 上万亿的聚宝盆

The scale of America‘s fiscal problem depends on how far ahead you look.Today‘s deficit, running at 9% of GDP, is huge.Federal debt held by the public has shot up to 62% of GDP, the highest it has been in over 50 years.But that is largely thanks to the economy‘s woes.If growth recovers, the hole left by years of serial tax-cutting and overspending can be plugged: you need to find spending cuts or tax increases equal only to 2% of GDP to stabilise federal debt by 2015.But look farther ahead and a much bigger gap appears, as an ageing population needs ever more pensions and health care.Such ―entitlements‖ will double the federal debt by 2027;and the number keeps on rising after then.The figures for state and local debt are scary too.美国财政问题的严重程度取决于预期时间的长短。目前巨额的赤字水平已经达到了GDP的9%。拜美国的苦难经济所赐，社会需求造成的联邦债务对GDP比例达到了62%，这是过去50多年来从未出现过的。如果经济恢复增长，那么连续数年减税政策和过度消费导致的缺口就有可能得到弥补：如果希望在2015年使联邦债务达到稳定水平，仅需相当于GDP2%的支出削减或者税收增加就可以实现。但如果预测更长远的未来，那么人口老龄化会增高的养老金和健康保障计划的需求，缺口就将变的更大。类似的―社保支出‖将会迫使联邦债务在2027年翻倍；而且会越来越高。州债务和地方债务看起来同样可怕。The solution should start with an agreement between Mr Obama and Congress on a target for a manageable level of publicly held federal debt: say, 60% of GDP by 2020.They should also agree on the broad balance between lower spending and higher taxes to achieve this.This newspaper believes that the lion‘s share of the adjustment should come on the spending side.Entitlements are at the root of the problem and need to be trimmed, and research has shown that although spending cuts weigh on growth in the short run, they hurt less than higher taxes.And in the long run later retirement and other reforms will expand the labour force and thus potential output, whereas higher taxes dull incentives to work and invest.解决问题的前提是奥巴马必须同国会达成共识，目标是将社会需求造成的美国政府债保持在可控的水平内；比如2020年达到GDP的60%。同时还要在减少支出和增加税收上形成一致意见，以便寻求二者之间的大体平衡。本刊认为调整的重头戏是在支出方面。社保支出是问题的根源，需要进行削减；尽管研究表明削减支出在短期内会影响到经济增长，但对经济造成的伤害却远不及税收增加。从长期来看，延长退休年龄及其他改革举措必将扩张劳动力大军，进而增加潜在产出；但高税收弱化了工作的激励机制，同时使投资热情也大大衰退。

Yet even to believers in small government, like this newspaper, there are good reasons for letting taxes take at least some of the strain.Politically, this will surely be the price of any bipartisan agreement.Economically, there is sensible room for manoeuvre without damaging growth.American taxes are relatively low after the reductions of recent years.In an ideal world the tax burden would be gradually shifted from income to consumption(including a carbon tax).But that is politically hard—and there is a much easier target for reform.本刊属于笃信小政府的人，甚至对于所有这样的人来说，都有充足的理由认为税收应该分担部分压力。从政治角度上来说，两党取得的任何共识都要付出一定的代价；从经济角度上看，在不伤害经济增长的情况下还有一定的调整空间。经过近些年的连续削减，美国的税率水平已经达到了相当低的程度。在完美状态下，税收负担应该逐渐从收入领域转移到消费领域（包括烟尘排放税）。不过这对政治是一个巨大的挑战，毕竟还有很多容易解决的改革目标。

America‘s tax system is riddled with exemptions, deductions and credits that feed an industry of advisers but sap economic energy.Simply scrapping these distortions—in other words, broadening the base of taxation without any new taxes—could bring in some $1 trillion a year.Even though some of this would have to go in lowering marginal rates, it is a little like finding money behind the sofa cushions.The tax system would be simpler, fairer and more efficient.All this means that America can sensibly aim for a balance between spending cuts and higher taxes similar to the benchmark set by Britain‘s coalition government.A ratio of 75:25 is about right.美国的税收体系给税收豁免、税收扣减和信贷留了许多开口，这不仅养活了整个顾问行业，还消耗了经济的整体能量。每年仅仅为了冲抵这些差异（换而言之，没有新税种增加的情况下增加税收基础）就要耗费一万亿美元。为了实现这个目的不得不降低边际税率，但多少有点儿像在沙发垫子后面寻找钱财。税收体系将会更加简单、公平和高效。所有这些意味着美国可以理智的在职出削减和提高税收之间找到平衡，类似于英国联合政府设定的基准。75:25差不多就是正确的比例了。

There is legitimate concern that, done hastily, austerity could derail a weak recovery.But this strengthens the case for a credible deficit-reduction plan.By reassuring markets that America will control its debt, the government will have more scope to boost the economy in the short term if need be—for instance by temporarily extending the Bush tax cuts.这其中还有一些合理的担忧：如果操之过急，限制消费必将颠覆原本就很羸弱的经济复苏。这种忧虑让人们主张削减赤字方案必须值得信赖。如果美国政府可以向市场证明自己仍然可以控制债务，那么在需要的时候仍有更大的余地去推动经济发展，比如继续延长布什政府时期的税务削减政策。

Mr Obama and the Republicans are brimming with ideas for freezing discretionary spending, which covers most government operations from defence to national parks.They have found common cause in attacking ―earmarks‖, the pet projects that lawmakers insert into bills.But discretionary outlays, including defence, are less than 40% of the total budget.Entitlements, in particular Social Security(pensions)and Medicare and Medicaid(health care for the elderly and the poor), represent the bulk of spending and even more of spending growth.奥巴马和共和党人都热衷于冻结机动支出的理念，这涵盖了从国防到国家公园的大部分政府部门。他们已经将声讨―特定用途之处‖作为共同事业，这正是法律制定者们梦寐以求的计划。问题在于包括国防在内的机动支出仅占总预算的40%。社保支在支出中的权重很高，增长幅度也比较大；特别是社会保障（养老金）、医疗保险和医疗补助制度（针对老年人和贫困人群的健康保障计划）。

On pensions, the solution is clear if unpopular: people will need to work longer.America should index the retirement age to longevity and make the benefit formula for upper-income workers less generous.The ceiling on the related payroll tax should be increased to cover 90% of earnings, from 86% now.养老金方面的应对举措可能不太受欢迎，但是却非常明了：延长人们的工作年限。美国应该根据寿命调整退休年龄系数，同时应该调低高收入工人的福利。目前相关的工资税应税上限是收入的86%，这个比例应该增加到90%。

Health-care spending is a much tougher issue, because it is being fed by both the ageing of the population and rising per-person demand for services.Richer beneficiaries should pay more of their share of Medicare, while the generosity of the system should be kept in check by the independent panel set up under Mr Obama‘s health reform to monitor services and payments.The simplest way for the federal government to restrain Medicaid would be to end the current system of matching state spending and replace this with block grants, which would give the states an incentive to focus on cost-control.健康保障支出方面的问题要麻烦得多，因为人口老龄化现象和增高的人均服务需求共同促进了这项支出的增长。富裕的受益者应该为他们的医疗保险付出更多，同时保障体系的恩惠必须长期受都独立委员会的监察，该组织成立于奥巴马的健康改革过程中，指责是对服务和各项支付进行监督。联邦政府也有简单易行的方法来限制医疗补助制度的开销：取消各州相同的现行体系，代之以分类财政补贴，此举可以激励各州政府关注与支出控制。

Chainsaw you can believe in 电锯绝对值得信赖

Devising a plan that reduces the deficit, and eventually the debt, to a manageable size is relatively easy.Getting politicians to agree to it is a different thing.The bitter pide between the parties means that politicians pay a high price for consorting with the enemy.So Democrats cling to entitlements, and Republicans live in fear of losing their next party nomination to a tea-party activist if they bend on taxes.Even the president‘s own bipartisan commission can‘t agree on what to do.设计方案来压缩目前的赤字、并最终缩减债务，使其达到可控的水平是非常容易的。困难的事让政客们同意这个方案。两党分歧之痛意味着政敌间的结交需要高昂的代价。因此民主党人紧抓社保支出；如果共和党人专注于税收变革，就会终日担心在下次党内选举中败给茶党。即使总统的两党工作组也无法决定下一步的举措。

But true leaders turn the hard into the possible.Two things should prompt Mr Obama.First, the politics of fiscal truth may be less awful than he imagines.Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both won second terms after trimming entitlements or raising taxes.Polls in other countries suggest that nowadays tough love can sell.Second, in the long term economics will tell: unless it changes course, America is heading for a bust.If Mr Obama lacks the guts even to start tackling the problem, then ever more Americans, this paper and even those foreign summiteers will get ever more frustrated with him.但真正的领袖可以胜任人所不能。奥巴马面前有两个提示：第一，财政真相政治后果应该没有他想象的那么恐怖，里根和克林顿就在削减社保计划或提高税收后谋得连任。其他国家的选举也表明今时今日专制的爱同样有市场。第二，从长远来看，除非美国可以改变发展方向，否则必然走向衰败。如果奥巴马连着手应对问题的勇气都没有，那么更多的美国民众、本刊和那些峰会的参与者对他将更加泄气。Divided we fall 不合则亡

Britain and France need each other to continue as great(ish)powers

英国和法国要想继续保持其全球大国（或准大国）的地位，两国就必须牢牢捆在一起

Nov 4th 2010 2010年11月4日

表1:防务能力的混合与重组

英国

法国

2009年国防预算

583亿美元

639亿美元

武装部队总人数

17.8万人 25万人

航空母舰

2艘

1艘

驱逐舰

6艘

11艘

护卫舰

17艘

20艘

攻击型潜艇

7艘

6艘

作战飞机

300架

360架

武装直升机

233架

246架

战略导弹核潜艇

4艘

4艘

数据来源: ⅡSS；DASA/MOD：经济学人杂志社

THEY may not always see eye to eye, but when it comes to defence, the interests of France and Britain converge.The two countries are respectively the third and fourth biggest military spenders in the world.Both see themselves as global players, ready and willing to project expeditionary force.But fiscal austerity has threatened the ability of both to live up to those grandiose ambitions.Only by working much more closely together, they have concluded, can two medium-sized European countries hope to stay in the great-power game.Hence the 50-year defence and security co-operation treaty signed this week in London by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy.法国和英国偶尔可能也会出现一些纷争，但涉及到国防，他们的利益就无甚差别了。这两国的军事开支分别居世界第三和第四位。两国都认为自己是全球事务参与者，具有远距投送军事力量的能力与意愿。但紧缩的财政已经威胁到两国实现上述宏大目标的能力。这两个欧洲大国已经得出结论，要想继续参与全球大国的博弈，他们只有进行更加紧密地合作。正是有鉴于此，卡梅伦与萨科齐本周在伦敦签订了这项为期50年的防务与安全合作条约。

The main items in the pact are a combined joint expeditionary force and an agreement to operate aircraft-carrier strike groups using aircraft and escort vessels contributed by both countries.But much of the treaty deals with less glamorous equipment and capabilities.Training and maintenance for the new A400M transport aircraft that the two nations are buying will be pooled.Britain is keen to share its new A300-based aerial tankers, if a financial deal to do so can be reached.该条约的主要条款包括组建一支联合远征部队和一个联合航母作战群，舰载机与护航舰只由两个国家分摊。但条约的大量条款涉及的都是不那么引人注目的装备与能力。这两个国家都正在购买A400M型军用运输机，这种新机型的培训与维护将联合进行。如果能够达成资金分摊的协议，英国是急切地想要两国共享其新购进的A300改型空中加油机。

The two countries will jointly develop nuclear-submarine technologies, satellite communications and maritime-mine countermeasures.The big defence industries of both will be encouraged to co-operate on the next generation of surveillance drones and assorted new missiles, with the aim of forging a single prime European contractor for ―complex weapons‖.两国将联合研发核潜艇技术，联合发展卫星通信和反水雷战的能力。将鼓励两国的大型国防工业企业合作研发新一代的无人侦察机和各种新型导弹，目标是要打造单一的―复杂武器系统‖欧洲总承包商。

Most dramatically, a separate treaty has been signed on nuclear co-operation.This is remarkable, given the different approaches that France and Britain have taken towards their nuclear deterrents(Britain depends heavily on American kit, while France‘s force de frappe is a supreme symbol of national sovereignty).With the blessing of the United States, Britain‘s Aldermaston research establishment will concentrate on developing technology, while its French counterpart at Valduc will carry out simulated warhead testing.最有戏剧性的是，两国还签订了一个单独的核合作条约。考虑到英法两国在构建核威慑力量上的不同做法，这一点颇为引人注目。（英国的核武系统严重依赖美国提供的装备，而法国的核攻击力则是其国家主权的最高象征）。由于有美国盟友的帮助，英国的奥尔德玛斯顿研究机构可以专注于研发技术，而法国位于瓦尔杜克（Valduc）的核研究机构就必须进行核弹头的模拟试验。

Predictably, there was much harrumphing in Britain‘s jingoistic popular press.A few retired politicians were dragged out to reminisce about slights suffered at the hands of the perfidious Frogs.The reaction in France was more muted, perhaps because the agreement carefully avoids any of the visionary language about European architectures that excites French imaginations, but which many British Conservatives, such as the defence secretary, Liam Fox, viscerally loathe.可以预见，在支持强硬外交政策的英国大众媒体上会出现一片不满和反对之声。还会拖出几个退休赋闲的政客来追忆背信弃义的法国佬在过去给英国带来的小小不快。法国的反应则要温和的多，原因也许是该协议小心翼翼地回避了对欧洲架构的预见性表述。只要提起欧洲架构就会激起法国人的想象力，但许多英国保守党人，如国防部长利亚姆?福克斯（Liam Fox）之流，就发自内心地厌恶之。

In fact, most of the objections raised seem either ignorant or anachronistic.Even before France rejoined NATO‘s integrated military structure last year, British and French forces had frequently worked and fought together under the command of one or other country.With the exception of the Iraq controversy, the two have rarely found themselves on opposite sides during recent international crises.For example, Britain‘s defence secretary during the Falklands war, John Nott, revealed in his memoirs that France had been Britain‘s staunchest ally, providing information that helped to render the Exocet anti-ship missiles used by Argentina ineffective, and supplying Mirage and Super-Etendard fighters for British Harrier pilots to pit themselves against in training.事实上，大多数持反对观点的人似乎要么是无知，要么就是落伍于时代。甚至在法国去年重返北约军事一体化架构之前，英法两国的军队就已经频繁地在对方指挥下共同工作和作战。除了伊拉克战争的论战之外，两国在最近出现的国际危机中很少出现对立。例如，英国在马岛战争期间的国防部长约翰?诺特（John Nott）就在他的回忆录中透露，法国在这场冲突中是英国最坚定的盟友，法国提供的情报使阿根廷的飞鱼反舰导弹收效甚微，法国还提供―幻影‖和―超军旗‖式战斗机供英国的鹞式战斗机飞行员进行对抗训练。

Difficulties could arise, however, over shared use of the two countries‘ aircraft carriers, if national priorities and policies do not coincide during future conflicts.One solution would be for Britain not to sell the second carrier it is currently building, which at present seems its likely fate, but to operate it on a timeshare basis with the French.That way it could be made available without caveats to whichever country needed it when its main ship was in refit(a three-year job required every seven years or so).Just don‘t call it Trafalgar.然而共用两国的航母的话，在未来可能爆发的冲突中如果出现国家利益优先和对外政策不相一致的情况，就可能会出现困难。一个解决办法就是英国不卖第二艘在建的航母（目前看来它可能面临胎死腹中的命运），而是与法国分时共享这艘航母。这样一来就可以在其航母整修期间（大约每航行七年左右要有三年时间进行整修），哪个国家需要它都可以不受限制的进行使用。但绝对不要把它命名为―特拉法尔加‖号。

The liquefaction of hardware 硬件熔解

The rise of the virtual computer 虚拟计算机兴起

Nov 18th 2010

IMAGINE a personal computer that has two souls.One moment it is your work machine, complete with a set of corporate applications and tight security settings.Then it becomes an entertainment centre, allowing you to watch any video and download any program.想象一下，一台个人电脑有两个化身，一会是你的工作机器，配有一套企业应用软件和严密的安全设置，一会又变成了一个娱乐中心，准许你随心所欲看视频，下程序。

Thanks to a process called ―virtualisation‖, such computers are now being created.Ever more processing power and clever software are allowing devices of all kinds to separate from their hardware vessels and move to new homes.If this process continues as some expect, it will change computing radically.And more than one IT company will have to rethink how it does business.多亏一种称为―虚拟化‖的技术，这种电脑正被制造出来。处理能力日益强大，聪明软件越来越多，正让各种设备从所在的硬件容器中剥离出来，迁入新居。如若虚拟化进程，像某些人所料那般持续下去，就将从根本上改变计算机运作。而多家IT公司将不得不重新考虑，如何运用该技术做生意。

Virtualisation dates back to the age of mainframe computers.To make better use of them they were sometimes split into smaller ―virtual machines‖, each of which could run its own operating system and application.But the approach took off only in recent years, when VMWare, a software firm, applied it to servers, the powerful computers that populate today‘s corporate data centres.VMWare and its main rivals, Citrix and Microsoft, have since developed all kinds of software tools to manage virtual machines—moving them between data centres, for example.虚拟化始于大型机时代。为优化利用，大型机有时被分割成一些小型―虚拟机‖，每个虚拟机都能运行自己的操作系统及应用软件。但此法近几年突然风行，当时，一家软件公司VMWare将其运用到服务器上，正是这些功能强大的服务器，构成了今天的企业数据中心。VMWare及其主要对手Citrix和Microsoft，那时起就开发了各种虚拟机管理软件工具，比如让虚拟机在数据中心间迁移的软件。

The success of server virtualisation has inspired IT firms and their customers to do the same thing with other types of hardware, such as devices to store data.Software now pools their capacity and allocates ―virtual disks‖ as needed.Going further, Dropbox, an online storage service, saves identical files only once.Even large files can take only seconds to upload if they already exist somewhere on one of these firms‘ disks.服务器虚拟化的成功，启发IT公司及其顾客在其他类型的硬件（如数据存储设备）上，做同样的事。现在，软件可共用这些设备的存储容量，并按需分配―虚拟磁盘‖。进一步来说，一种网络存储服务Dropbox，同一份文件仅存一次。即便是大文件，只要已存在这些公司某个磁盘的某处，上传也只需数秒。

The virtualisation of PCs is now under way.Many company computers can already work with applications that run on a central server.But start-ups are pushing the concept further.Desktone offers virtual desktops as an online service.NComputing, a maker of computer terminals, virtualises PCs so they can be shared by up to 30 users.It has already sold more than 2.5m devices, mostly to developing countries and schools.And technology from MokaFive can send an entire virtual machine—complete with operating systems, applications and data—over the network and install it on any PC.Eventually people may no longer need to carry laptops at all.Virtual computers, including data and applications, will follow them everywhere.个人电脑虚拟化正在进行。许多公司的电脑已能使用运行在一台中心服务器上的应用软件。不过，一些新兴企业正推动此概念进一步深化。Desktone公司提供虚拟桌面网络服务。而一家电脑终端制造商NComputing公司，则将个人电脑虚拟化，使之能为多达30个用户共享。该公司已售出了超过250万台设备，大部分销往了发展中国家与学校。MokaFive公司的技术则能将一整台虚拟机——包括操作系统、应用软件及数据——在网络上迅速迁移，并安装在任一台个人电脑上。最终，人们也许根本不再需要随身携带笔记本电脑。虚拟计算机，包括数据与应用软件，将如影随形。

In the long run, smartphones and other mobile devices may also become shells to be filled as needed.Open Kernel Labs, a start-up in which Citrix has a stake, already lets smartphones run applications, multimedia and radio functions on a single processor, cutting manufacturing costs.Software from Citrix turns the iPad, Apple‘s tablet computer, into a terminal for applications that run in a corporate data centre.终究，智能电话与其他设备也可能变成空壳，按需填充各种软件数据。一家Citrix持股的新兴企业Open Kernel Labs，已使智能电话在一个单处理机上运行应用软件、实现多媒体及收音机功能，削减了制造成本。Citrix的软件，把苹果的平板电脑iPad，变成了一个应用软件终端，而这些软件运行在一个企业数据中心内。

How quickly will virtualisation advance? Gartner, a market-research firm, predicts that the overall market for virtualisation software will grow from $2.7 billion this year to $6.3 billion in 2014.There is certainly no lack of demand.Virtualisation lowers costs by enabling firms to make better use of their servers and buy fewer new ones.The technology also allows PCs to be maintained remotely, which is much cheaper.But improved reliability and security are even more of an attraction.Users of MokaFive, for instance, can relaunch their virtual machine should a computer virus infect it.And it can be shut down if a laptop is lost or stolen.虚拟化步伐将会多快？市场调查公司Gartner预计，虚拟软件整体市场将从今年的27亿美元，增至2014年的63亿美元。需求当然不缺。虚拟化让企业优化使用服务器，减少新服务器采购，从而降低了成本。该技术也允许远程维护个人电脑，这相当便宜。不过，可靠性及安全性改善，则更具吸引力。例如，MokaFive的用户，一旦电脑染毒，虚拟机就重启。而要是其笔记本电脑丢失或被偷，虚拟机就会完全关闭。

Yet the technology also has to overcome a few hurdles.The virtualisation of servers is well understood, but for PCs and mobile devices the technique has yet to mature.In the longer run institutional barriers will prove more of a problem, argues Simon Crosby, Citrix‘s chief technology officer.Virtualising IT systems, he says, is only the first step to automating their management.This is seen as a threat to existing workers and makes many IT departments hesitant to embrace the technology.然而，该技术还须攻克几个障碍。服务器虚拟化，大家都很清楚，但对个人电脑及移动设备而言，该技术尚未成熟。Citrix公司首席技术官Simon Crosby表示，从更长远来看，制度障碍也将证实是个问题。他称，IT系统虚拟化仅是其管理自动化的第一步。这被在职员工视为一个威胁，令许多IT部门接受这种技术犹豫不决。

Still, analysts believe virtualisation will win out.Its impact will be felt through the industry.The technology not only makes IT systems more flexible, but allows firms to switch vendors more easily—which will weigh on the vendors‘ profits.Big software firms such as Microsoft and Oracle may be hit hardest.But many hardware-makers may suffer as well, since their wares will become even more of a commodity than they are today.尽管如此，分析家认为虚拟化将最终胜出。整个IT业都将感受到其影响。该技术不仅使IT系统更为灵活，也让企业更换销售商更为容易，这将给这些销售商盈利造成压力。诸如Microsoft及Oracle之类的软件巨头可能受打击最重。但许多硬件制造商，由于其产品将变成比现在更有价值的一种商品，也可能遭受重创。

What‘s up, BYOC?（注1）

―自带电脑‖如何？

Moreover, virtualisation makes it much easier to add new servers or storage devices.Alternatively, firms can simply rent extra capacity from operators of what are called ―computing clouds‖, such as Amazon Web Services.That outfit has built a network of data centres in which virtual machines and disks can be launched in seconds.As a result, IT systems will increasingly no longer be a capital expense（注2）, but an operational cost（注3）, like electricity.此外，虚拟化使得增添新服务器或存储设备非常容易。如若不然，企业也能简单地从所谓的―计算云‖运营商（如Amazon Web Services公司）那租用额外磁盘容量。这家厂商已建立了一个数据中心网络，其中的虚拟机及磁盘能在数秒内启动。结果，IT系统愈来愈不是一种资本支出，而是一种运营成本，跟电力一样。

Yet the most noticeable change for computer users will be that more employees will be allowed to bring their own PC or smartphone to work, says Brian Madden of TechTarget, a consultancy.Companies can install a secure virtual heart on private machines, doing away with the need for a separate corporate device.A ―bring your own computer‖ or ―BYOC‖ movement has already emerged in America.Companies such as Citrix and Kraft Foods pay their employees a stipend, which they can use to buy any PC they want—even an Apple Mac.然而，电脑用户感受到的最显著变化，则是更多雇员将获准携带自己的个人电脑或智能电话工作，一家咨询公司TechTarget的Brian Madden这样说。企业可在私人机器上安装一个可靠的虚拟心脏，这也摆脱了对企业设备的单独需求。一种―自带电脑‖或―BYOC‖运动已在美国出现。像Citrix和Kraft Foods这样的公司，付给雇员津贴，让他们用其购买想要的任何电脑，甚或苹果Mac电脑。

Such innovations may help to ease growing tensions between workers and IT departments.New privacy regulations and rampant cybercrime are pushing firms to tighten control of company PCs and smartphones.At the same time more and more ―digital natives（注4）‖ enter the workforce.They have grown up with the freewheeling internet and do not suffer boring black corporate laptops gladly.Giving workers more freedom while helping firms keep control may prove to be the biggest benefit of virtualisation.这类创新或许有助于缓解员工与IT部门间日益紧张的关系。新的隐私规则出台，网络犯罪猖獗，正推动企业加强对公司个人电脑与智能电话的管控。与此同时，越来越多的―数码原住民‖步入职场。他们与无拘无束的互联网一起长大成人，很高兴不用忍受单调乏味的公司黑笔记本电脑。给予员工更多自由，同时协助企业管控，或许证明是虚拟化的最大收益。

注1：What‘s up, BYOC?

小标题源自美国1972年出品的电影―What‘s up, Doc?‖，中文片名一般译为《爱的大追踪》，或―出什么事了，大夫？ / 疯狂飞车大闹唐人街 / 爱的大逃亡‖。

注2：capital expense Capital Spending/Capital Expenditures/Capital Expense 资本支出

某些支出—如购置厂房、机器、设备等—可以使以后多个会计受益而非当年消耗完毕，这种支出形成的企业的生产能力，称为资本支出(capital expenditures)。当一个企业花钱购买固定资产或给已有固定资产增加价值时，这就产生了资本支出。在会计中，把支出记作资产的办法，称为资本化。

由于税收的目的，资本支出不能在它们被支付或发生的扣除成本，并且必须被资本化。一般的规则是，如果收购的物业的使用年限超过纳税的年限，成本必须被资本化。资本开支成本会在以上资产的使用时期被分期偿还或贬值。

如上所述，资本支出给资产或财产创造或增加了基准，而一旦资本支出调整，将决定出售或转让时的税务责任。

对任何公司的会计问题是，特定的支出是该被资本化还是被算作开销。某个月里被算作开销的支出会很简单的作为成本出现在当月的财务报表中。而资本化的开支，会很多年来分期偿还。资本化的开支会出现在资产负债表上。大多数普通的商业开支很明显的是资本化或是被算作开销，但是某些开支会因公司的偏好而被放在任何一类。

注3：operational cost 营业成本(Operating costs)，也称经营成本、运营成本，是指企业所销售商品或者提供劳务的成本。营业成本应当与所销售商品或者所提供劳务而取得的收入进行配比。营业成本是与营业收入直接相关的，已经确定了归属期和归属对象的各种直接费用。营业成本主要包括主营业务成本、其他业务成本。销售产品、商品和提供劳务的营业成本，是由生产经营成本形成的。工业企业产品生产成本（也称制造成本）的构成主要包括：

1.直接材料：包括企业生产经营过程中实际消耗的直接用于产品的生产，构成产品实体的原材料、辅助材料、备品备件、外购半成品、燃料、动力、包装物以及其他直接材料。2.直接工资：包括企业直接从事产品生产人员的工资、奖金、津贴和补贴。

3.其他直接支出：包括直接从事产品生产人员的职工福利费等。

4.制造费用：企业可以根据自身需要，对成本构成项目进行适当调整。

注4：digital natives 从80年代就开始接触PC的人，现在通常都已过不惑之年。90年代中国PC进入普及阶段的用户，现在也都30出头。这些人经历了模拟时代(机械时代)的种种生活方式和工具，他们试着去转变自己的使用习惯和思维方式，这些人可称为―数字移民(Digital Immigrants)‖。然而1985年之后出生的人，则大不相同：他们成长的年代，已经是数字化的年代。他们属于天生数字(Born Digital)，而且习惯且依赖连接世界(Live Connected)。这类人称为第一代―数字原住民(Digital Native)‖。

A digital native is a person who was born after the general implementation of digital technology, and as a result, has had a familiarity with digital technologies such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones,and digital audio players over their entire lives.A digital immigrant is an inpidual who was born before the existence of digital technology and adopted it to some extent later.Alternatively, this term can describe people born in the latter 1970s or later, as the Digital Age began at that time;but in most cases the term focuses on people who grew up with 21st Century technology.This term has been used in several different contexts, such as education(Bennett, Maton & Kervin 2008)(in association with the term New Millennium Learners(OECD 2008)).More complicated than you think 比你想象的复杂

A new, giant virus is confounding old certainties 新的、巨型病毒正在挑战人类的思维定势 Oct 28th 2010

BIODIVERSITY is not just a matter of tigers and whales, or butterflies and trees, or even coral reefs and tuna.It is also about myriad creatures too small to see that live in numbers too large to count in ways too numerous to imagine.It is easy to forget, especially at meetings like the one to discuss the Convention on Biological Diversity that has been taking place in Nagoya under the auspices of the United Nations, that most of biology is in fact microscopic.Indeed, the more microscopic biology gets, the more perse it becomes.生物多样性不仅仅是指老虎和鲸鱼、蝴蝶和森林，甚至也不仅仅是珊瑚礁和金枪鱼。它还指各种小得无法看见、多得无法计算、生存方式令人无法想象的生物。尤其是在联合国主持在名古屋（Nagoya）召开的生物多样性大会上，人们很容易忘记讨论生物学的绝大部分事实上是关于微生物的。实际上，生物越微观，多样性也越明显。

In that context, the discovery by Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia and his colleagues of a critter they propose to call Cafeteria roenbergensis virus, or CroV, should not be surprising.But for those brought up on a textbook definition of what a virus is, it is still a bit of a shock.For CroV is not a very viruslike virus.It has 544 genes, compared with the dozen or so that most viruses sport.And it may be able to make its own proteins—a task that viruses usually delegate to the molecular machinery of the cells they infect.从这个意义上讲，英属哥伦比亚大学的Curtis Suttle和他的同事发现的一种新生物，不应该太出人意料。他们建议将其命名为Cafeteria roenbergensis病毒，或CroV。但是对于那些从小到大就熟悉课本对病毒的定义的人而言，这还是让人有点儿让他们震惊。因为CroV是一种不太象病毒的病毒。它有544个基因，而大多数病毒只有十几个。此外，它还可能制造自己的蛋白质—而病毒通常将这一任务交给自己感染的细胞由其通过分子机械功能来完成。

CroV, as its full name suggests, is a parasite of Cafeteria roenbergensis, a single-celled planktonic organism that was itself discovered only in 1988.Despite the recentness of its discovery, C.roenbergensis is one of the commonest creatures on the planet.It is also reckoned by some, given that it hunts down and eats bacteria, to be the most abundant predator on Earth.It is found in every ocean.The samples of C.roenbergensis from which Dr Suttle and his team extracted their quarry were collected off the coast of Texas.CroV，正如其名字所表示的一样，是Cafeteria roenbergensis的一种寄生虫，而前者则是一种人们于1988年发现的以浮游生物为食的单细胞生物。尽管其发现历史不长，Cafeteria roenbergensis是我们这个星球上最常见的物种之一。此外，由于它猎杀、捕食其他细菌，有人据此推断它是地球上数量最多的捕食者。各大洋都能见到其身影。Scuttle和他的团队从中发现CroV的Cafeteria roenbergensis的样品就是来自德州海岸的海水。

To see a world in a grain of sand 从一粒沙子看到一个世界

That quarry‘s nature, reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is not a complete surprise.A larger virus, called Mimivirus, which lives in freshwater amoebas, turned up in 2003 and a few other, similar, viruses have been found since then.But CroV is by far the biggest to come out of the sea.本周的《美国国家科学院院刊》报道了这一新发现病毒的性质，这也并非完全出人意料。因为另一个比较大称为―Mimivirus‖的病毒，是一种生活在淡水中变形虫，在2003年就被人发现，还有其他几个类似的病毒之后也相继被人发现。但是CroV是来自海洋的最大的病毒。

Those who like their categories cut and dried may wonder whether viruses are alive or not.Wise biologists do not struggle too much with such questions.Viruses have genes, can reproduce and are subject to the evolutionary pressures imposed by natural selection.That is enough for biology to claim them.As for CroV, those 544 genes(composed of 730,000 base pairs, the DNA letters in which the language of the genes is written)mean its genome is bigger than those of several bacteria—creatures which everyone agrees are alive.那些习惯于传统分类学的人可能想知道病毒是活的还是死的。真正明智的生物学家不太纠缠于这类问题。病毒有基因，能再生，需要应对自然选择的进化压力。对生物学而言，这足以让其有资格成为生物了。至于CroV，那些544个基因（由73万组碱基对组成，这是构成基因语言的DNA字母）表明其基因图谱比几种大家认为是活体的细菌生物要大。

The problem with categorical thinking in biology is that evolution does not work like that.It actually works by whatever works working.If an organism can successfully subcontract part of the business of metabolism to another while retaining the rest itself, rather than offloading the whole lot as most viruses do, then there are no rules to stop it happening.在生物学上，对什么都要分门别类的思维面临的问题是生物进化的方式并非一成不变。进化实际上是不拘一格，随遇而安。如果一种生物能够成功地将部分新陈代谢工作分包给另一个生物，但同时又保留其余的新陈代谢工作，而不是象大多数病毒那样把工作全部推掉，那么，就没有任何规则阻止其进化。

CroV seems to do just that.Besides the genes that relate to protein synthesis it has others which encode DNA repair mechanisms and still others which are involved with protein recycling and signalling within cells.This is not mere hijacking.It is tantamount to a complete personality transplant for the infected cell.Crov似乎正是这么做的。除与蛋白合成有关的基因外，它将DNA修复机制的编码工作以及细胞内蛋白的回收和发送信号工作都交给其他生物完成。这不仅仅是简单的劫持。这相当于将特性完整植入被感染的细胞。

About a third of CroV‘s genes are similar to Mimivirus genes, suggesting they share a distant ancestor.On the other hand, two-thirds are not.A significant chunk of them seem to have been copied from bacteria.But the majority are unique, and previously unknown to science.A whole new chapter of life, in other words, has been opened.CroV的基因中，约有三分之一同Mimivirus基因类似，说明它们之间都拥有共同的祖先。从另一方面讲，它们之间还有三分之二的基因不同。其中很大一部分似乎是从细菌中复制的。但大多数基因在科学上特性明显，属于新发现的基因。换句话说，人类已经翻开了生命研究的新篇章。

This discovery, then—and the earlier one of C.roenbergensis itself—speak volumes, albeit in a microscopic language, about biopersity.Two centuries after Carl Linnaeus invented the system now used to describe it, and a century after Charles Darwin worked out what causes it, the ability of that persity to surprise is still staggering.这一发现—以及早先发现的C.roenbergensis —充分说明了生物的多样性，尽管是以微生物的语言表述的。生物多样性至今依然让人眼花缭乱，目不暇接，尽管卡尔?林奈（Carl Linnaeus）200年前就发明了我们现在仍然使用的其描述体系，尽管达尔文100年前就找到了其发生的原因。

Science and Technology

译者心得：

1.本文是科技文章，又是微生物的，很多业外人士有恐惧感（我也不例外），想象拉丁文名字就够头大的。但这类文章语言比较规范，逻辑性强，所以，通过专业工具书解决掉最困难的名称之外，其他部分的翻译，同一般英文一样。

2.几个词汇的处理。首句中的―matter‖很多人译为―事情‖，―是关于什么什么的事情‖，这样的译文读起来很罗嗦，其实担子大一些，置之不理，中文意思也出来了。另外，―Viruses have genes, can reproduce and are subject to the evolutionary pressures imposed by natural selection.That is enough for biology to claim them‖本段中的―Claim‖不太好翻，for biology to claim them，让生物学对它们有主张，让生物学认领它们，其实就是―它们有资格属于生物范畴‖的意思，如果直译，估计译者本人也觉得不是滋味。

3.一个复杂句子的处理。―In that context, the discovery by Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia and his colleagues of a critter they propose to call Cafeteria roenbergensis virus, or CroV, should not be surprising‖，先看一下直翻，―从这个意义上讲，由英属哥伦比亚大学的Curtis Suttle和他的同事发现的一种他们建议命名为Cafeteria roenbergensis 病毒的生物，或CroV，不应该太出人意料。‖这样的句子不能说不对，但但起来非常罗嗦，翻译腔太强，因此，在准确表述愿意的前提下，我译为―从这个意义上讲，英属哥伦比亚大学的Curtis Suttle和他的同事发现的一种新生物，不应该太出人意料。他们建议将其命名为Cafeteria roenbergensis病毒，或CroV。‖将原句拆为两句，使其更符合中文行文习惯。这在翻译中很常见，毕竟译出的东西是让中国人看的。

4.一个简单句型的处理。―It is found in every ocean‖，这句话很简单，它被发现于各大洋，它存在于各大洋等等，都不错。但鉴于前文出现―hunts down and eats bacteria, to be the most abundant predator ‖这类动作性很强的语句，我们不妨在这里也―生动‖一些，译为―各大洋都能见到其身影‖。

5.关于逻辑性。翻译其实就是理解外语的逻辑性，然后将其外语按照译入语的逻辑性进行翻译。本文中CroV和Cafeteria roenbergensis什么关系？不要被名字吓倒，注意这句―CroV, as its full name suggests, is a parasite of Cafeteria roenbergensis, a single-celled planktonic organism that was itself discovered only in 1988‖，说得是CroV其实是寄生在Cafeteria roenbergensis上的一种生物，是宿主身上的一种病毒。关系弄清了，下文接着讲的都是宿主Cafeteria roenbergensis的事情，它们如何捕食，生存在什么地方。这其实也就间接介绍了CroV。

6.名言警句的引用。《经济学人》的文章经常不经意间引用一些名言警句、诗词歌赋，恰当地表述其意义。本文不例外。―To see a world in a grain of sand‖在本文中就有类似中文―麻雀虽小，五脏俱全‖的意思，即使是一粒沙子，那上面生存着芸芸众生。建议大家看一部动画片，―Horton hears a who‖，里边讲的是一头大象如何同一朵蒲公英上的生命群体沟通的故事。这句话来自英国诗人William Blake的一首诗： ―A Grain of Sand 一粒沙子

William Blake/威廉.布莱克 To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.从一粒沙子看到一个世界，从一朵野花看到一个天堂，把握在你手心里的就是无限，永恒也就消融于一个时辰。‖（摘自网络）

总之，翻译需要什么都懂，否则译出的东西要么让人如坠五里雾中，要么让人笑掉大牙，因此，译完之后，多次校对，是必不可少的步骤。

Raúl the pragmatist 实用主义者劳尔

Bold changes intended to preserve Cuban communism may herald the beginning of its end 旨在保护古巴共产主义的大胆变革反而有可能变成了掘墓人

Nov 11th 2010

SHORTLY after he took charge of Cuba from his ailing brother, Fidel, in 2006, Raúl Castro declared that his country‘s moribund communist economy needed to change.But his failure to make anything more than marginal adjustments disappointed hopes that he would follow Chinese and Vietnamese communist leaders in combining capitalist economics and growing social freedom with continued party control.劳尔.卡斯特罗2006年从他罹病的兄长—菲德尔卡.斯特罗手中接过了执掌古巴的大权，不久之后他宣称祖国的经济处于垂死边缘，亟需改变。但他最大的失败在于只进行不管痛痒的调整，这让人们的期望大大落空；大家原以为他可以效法中国和越南的共产党领导者，将资本主义经济及日益增长的社会自由性与党的持续控制有效的结合在一起。

Now, at last, Mr Castro is showing signs of boldness.Over the past few weeks he has launched some potentially far-reaching changes.By April 1st 500,000 Cubans will be laid off from their state jobs and encouraged to make their own living in small businesses.Over the next two or three years, another 800,000 are likely to join them.Eventually up to two Cubans in five will no longer work for the state.从现在的形式看来，卡斯特罗先生最终还是显现出了果敢的迹象。过去数周时间里，他推行了一些极其深远的变革举措。截至到4月1日，50万古巴民众丢掉了国家工作的铁饭碗，政府鼓励他们用小买卖自谋生路。未来2-3年的时间中，另外80万人也将加入下岗大军的队伍。最终将有五分之二的古巴人不会再为国家工作。

This week Mr Castro convened a much-postponed Congress of the Communist Party for late April: its job will be to bless the new economic model(see article).Meanwhile, the government has released more than 50 political prisoners.Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is Cuban communism finally on the way out?

本周卡斯特罗先生召开了从4月底一直推迟到现在的共产党代表大会，会议的主旨是批准全新的经济模式歌；与此同时，政府已经释放了超过50名政治犯。在柏林墙倒塌20年后的今天，难道古巴共产主义最终还是难逃过时的命数？

Any answer must be hedged about with caveats.The economists advising Mr Castro are barred from talking of ―reform‖.In its guidelines for the party congress, the leadership declares that ―only socialism [ie, communism] is capable of overcoming our difficulties and preserving the gains of the revolution‖ and that in the new economy ―planning will be paramount, not the market.‖ No Cuban official has matched Deng Xiaoping‘s embrace of ―market socialism‖, let alone his(perhaps apocryphal)injunction that ―to get rich is glorious‖.The welcome release of prisoners seems merely to have been a move to deflect outside criticism after the death of one of them in a hunger strike, rather than a first step in dismantling the island‘s police state.Indeed the army is playing a bigger role in the economy and in government.任何答案都必须谨小慎微。给卡斯特罗先生提供咨询的经济学家们被禁止谈论改革。领导在会议纲领中指示―只有社会主义，暨共产主义才有能力克服当前的艰难困苦，并保持革命取得的胜利果实‖；同时还指出，在新经济模式中―占据最高地位的是计划，而不是市场‖。没有一个古巴官员可以达到邓小平的高度，领悟到―社会主义市场‖的真谛，更不必说他―致富最光荣‖的命令了（也许这是杜撰出来的）。在一名囚徒因绝食斗争送命后，深受欢迎的释放囚犯行为似乎只是为了转移外界的批判，而非迈出了废除本岛极权国家的第一步。实际上军界才是在经济和政府中更为重要的角色。

Yet Raúl‘s reforms go much further than Fidel‘s reluctant acceptance of foreign investment and limited self-employment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, partially reversed on the appearance of a new benefactor, Hugo Chávez‘s Venezuela.For the first time since the 1960s Cubans will be able to employ other Cubans(even though the constitution bans such ―exploitation‖).Many of the rules under which these new businesses will operate are still being drawn up.But it seems that Cubans will now be able to get loans and rent and buy property.Other changes are likely to follow.Mr Castro talks of gradually eliminating the free food rations that Cubans get, and moving towards targeted social assistance(as elsewhere in Latin America).The corollary is that wages will have to go up—and increasingly they will be set in the market.苏联解体后，菲德尔极不情愿的接纳了境外投资和有限的自由职业者；然而劳尔的改革比他的兄长深入很多，在委内瑞拉的大恩人查韦斯登台后，部分举措与从前大相径庭。从上世纪60年代至今，尽管宪法禁止这类―剥削‖，但古巴人首次可以对本国公民进行雇佣。很多对新型企业的生产经营进行规范的法规还正在规划中；但古巴人似乎已经可以获得贷款、出租房屋以及购买不动产。一些其他的变革也很有可能紧随其后。卡斯特罗提及逐渐取消古巴民众正在获得的免费的食物配给，而是同拉美其他地区一样，向着计划好的社会救济发展。必然出现的结果是工资不得不上调，并且日益受到市场的控制。

In all this Mr Castro is bowing to reality.He has been withering in his criticism of the featherbedding that has bankrupted the state.He has also refused to blame the American economic embargo for problems which he rightly says are self-inflicted.His pragmatism has finally won out against his brother‘s doctrinaire Utopianism.卡斯特罗在这些方面都屈从于现实：他对于导致国家破产的额外雇工进行了极尖刻的批判；同时也拒绝对美国采取贸易禁运所造成的问题进行批判，他认为这些问题都是自寻烦恼。在卡斯特罗兄弟的较量中，劳尔的使用主义最终战胜了菲德尔教条的乌托邦主义。

Apart from the economy, the other big task facing Mr Castro, who is 79(and Fidel 84), is to start handing over power to a younger generation.That may come after the party congress next year.In the meantime, his new boldness represents an opportunity for those who hope that Cuba will eventually join the rest of Latin America in accepting democracy and the market economy, for once the market‘s green shoots appear they tend to flourish.除了经济问题以外，现年79岁了劳尔（菲德尔已经84岁了）所面临的更艰巨的任务是开始着手将全力传递到年轻一代手中，不过这将是明年党代会以后的事情了。同时，对于那些希望古巴最终可以加入拉美其他国家的行列，接受民主和市场经济的人来说，他果敢的新政代表着希望；只要市场经济出现一抹新绿，必将是一派繁花似锦的景象。

How to help kill communism 怎样搭把手，灭了共产主义

Outsiders should take their lead from the common position that Europe adopted in 1996, which allows it to help in ―the progressive and irreversible opening of the Cuban economy‖ while predicating closer friendship on moves towards democracy.Offering training and credit—as Brazil has done—to Cuba‘s incipient private sector would be a good move.Rewarding Cuba for releasing prisoners who should never have been locked up in the first place—as Miguel Moratinos, Spain‘s recently sacked foreign minister, wanted—would not.局外人应该从1996年欧洲采用的共同立场中着手，旨在帮助―古巴进行先进且不可逆的经济改革‖，同时在走向民主的道路上还能建立日益深厚的友谊。象巴西一样给古巴的早期私营经济提供培训和信贷，不失为一个很好的尝试。如果象最近遭解雇的西班牙外长Miguel Moratinos,所希望的那样，古巴因为释放那些原本就不应该遭到逮捕的犯人而得到奖励，就不是一个好的尝试。

America‘s embargo remains as futile and counter-productive as ever.Although Barack Obama has commendably reversed George W.Bush‘s restrictions on visits and remittances by Cuban-Americans, Republican control of Congress will make it even less likely that the embargo will be dismantled.That‘s a great shame.The embargo has allowed the Castros to pose as proud Cuban nationalists standing up to a bullying hegemon and thus helped them cling to power.If change is at last under way it is despite the embargo, not because of it.美国的贸易禁运一如既往的无效甚至是达到了反效果。奥巴马已经很好的撤销了小布什针对古巴裔美国人实施的拜访及汇款禁令，但共和党掌舵的国会让接触贸易禁运的可能性变得更加渺茫；这将是非常大的遗憾。贸易禁运让卡斯特罗兄弟摆出一副古巴民族主义者的英雄形象，直面恃强凌弱的至高强权；他们更是借此紧握政权。如果说改变正在发生，那这些改变不是因贸易禁运而起，甚至无视它的存在。Lebanon and the region 黎巴嫩与中东地区

Can there be justice as well as stability? 既要正义也要稳定，可能吗？

As the UN prepares to announce indictments for a series of murders and assassinations, the mood in Lebanon is getting edgy

联合国准备宣布针对一系列谋杀案的起诉，黎巴嫩人的心情日渐紧张

Nov 11th 2010 | Cairo

IT IS the strangest of courtroom dramas.Distinguished judges and a prosecutor sit in a sleepy suburb of the Dutch capital, The Hague.The case has plenty of victims: 61 people, including Lebanon‘s then prime minister, Rafik Hariri, were murdered and 494 injured in a spree of bombings and assassinations that racked Lebanon from 2004 to 2008.But though the UN-sponsored Special Tribunal for Lebanon has yet to convene or to charge anyone for the crimes, the impending trial threatens not only to reignite a firestorm in Lebanon, but also to spread sectarian tensions across the Middle East and to vex relations even more between the region‘s big adversaries, Iran and the United States.If Lebanon were to blow up again, Israel and Syria could well step in once more, turning the current Middle East peace process into a slide back towards war.这是一部最为怪诞的法庭剧。尊贵的法官大人们与检察官坐在荷兰首都海牙郊外昏昏欲睡。此案受害者甚多：从2004至2008年间发生了一系列疯狂的爆炸和暗杀事件，包括黎巴嫩前总理拉菲克?哈里里（Rafik Hariri）在内共有61人被害，494人受伤。这些事件使黎巴嫩陷入痛苦之中。尽管联合国成立了黎巴嫩问题特别法庭，但尚未开庭或指控任何人对上述罪行负责。即将到来的开庭审判不仅可能引燃黎巴嫩国内的火药桶，而且还可能将教派冲突扩散到整个中东地区，对本地区最大的一对冤家——伊朗和美国的关系火上浇油。如果黎巴嫩内战再次爆发，以色列和叙利亚也很有可能再次介入，如此将导致目前的中东和平进程发生逆行，滑向另一场中东战争。

Few foresaw this when the UN Security Council ordered an investigation into the car-bombing of February 2005 in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, when Mr Hariri, a billionaire Sunni who was seeking his sixth turn at running the government, was assassinated along with 22 others.That sparked a furious popular backlash, prompting the exit of Syrian troops who had lingered, increasingly unwanted, to enforce peace after Lebanon‘s civil war of 1975-90.Then followed the electoral triumph of Mr Hariri‘s pro-Western coalition, known as the March 14th alliance, after the date of a big anti-Syrian demonstration.Many Lebanese, as well as the UN‘s first investigating team, assumed that Syria had arranged Mr Hariri‘s murder, and expected the case‘s swift resolution.2005年2月在黎巴嫩首都贝鲁特发生了一起汽车炸弹爆炸事件，当时伊斯兰逊尼派的亿万富翁哈里里正在寻求第六次就任黎巴嫩总理一职，在这起暗杀中哈里里与其他22人一同遇难。当联合国安理会下令对这起事件进行调查时，没有任何人预见到其后果会如何。这一事件引发了公众愤怒的反应，促使了叙利亚的撤军行动。黎巴嫩于1975至1990年间爆发了内战，叙利亚随后派出了这支维和部队，这支部队尽管愈来愈不受欢迎，但之前一直赖着不走。接着，在随后进行的一场大规模反叙利亚示威游行后，哈里里的亲西方盟友，所谓的―3?14联盟‖获得了选战的胜利。许多黎巴嫩人以及联合国派出调查此案的第一个调查团都认为是叙利亚策划了哈里里的谋杀案，并预期此案能够得到迅速解决。

It was not to be.Over the next three years sporadic bombings and shootings targeted prominent backers of the March 14th alliance, Christian areas, and Lebanese officers involved in the investigation.Even as the investigators‘ brief widened to include these later attacks, their credibility fell when it emerged that key witnesses implicating Syria had apparently made up their testimony.但这是不可能的。在随后的三年内又陆续出现了几起针对―3?14联盟‖支持者中有影响力的人士、基督教派系人士及参与调查此案的黎巴嫩官员的爆炸和枪击事件。正当调查人员们将调查范围扩大到后来的这些袭击事件时，人们对调查小组的信任却下降了。因为此时关键证人暗示叙利亚显然是编造了证词。

Meanwhile, March 14th‘s pro-Syrian adversaries, led by Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia which emerged strengthened from a war with Israel in July 2006, mounted a tenacious and effective campaign to challenge the pro-Western faction.This culminated in an invasion of central Beirut in May 2008 by Hizbullah gunmen that forced March 14th to accept a power-sharing deal.Hizbullah and its allies thereby secured a veto over government decisions but at the cost of deepening the bitter schism that now largely pits Lebanon‘s Sunnis and Shias, each with nearly one-third of the population, against each other, and splits the third who are Christian into sparring factions backing one side or another.此时，―3?14联盟‖的对手，由真主党领导的亲叙利亚的黎巴嫩什叶派政党暨民兵组织通过2006年7月与以色列的一场战争而强大起来，他们展开了一场挑战亲西方派别的顽强而有效的运动。这场夺权运动的高潮出现在2008年5月，真主党武装人员闯入贝鲁特市中心，用武力迫使―3?14联盟‖接受一项权力分享协议。真主党及其盟友从而获得了对政府所作决定的否决权，但其代价是加深了教派的分裂，使黎巴嫩的逊尼派和什叶派间的深沟难以与逾越。这两个派系各占有黎巴嫩近1/3的人口，双方水火不相容，并使黎巴嫩另1/3信仰基督教的人口也分裂成两派，他们支持伊斯兰派系的一方或另一方，争吵不休。

Since then, as the tribunal‘s work has dragged on, many Lebanese have grown weary of the whole process.Lately, this weariness has turned to alarm.The court is expected to issue an indictment soon.Leaks strongly suggest it will not accuse Syria but rather senior officers of Hizbullah itself.The implications of such a charge are explosive.The party has long exalted its role as a heroic protector of Lebanon, justifying its impressive arsenal on the grounds, however implausible to outsiders, that its weapons are trained solely on Israeli invaders and not fellow Lebanese.自那以后，随着特别法庭的开庭审判一拖再拖，许多黎巴嫩人已经对整个过程感到了厌倦。最近，这种厌倦的情绪变得让人吃惊。预计该法庭很快就会签发一项起诉书。据透漏出的消息，这份起诉书很可能不会指控叙利亚，而将指控真主党高级官员为暗杀事件的主谋。这样一份起诉书将产生爆炸性的后果。真主党长期以来一直自封为的黎巴嫩英勇的保护者，将之作为维持其庞大武装的冠冕堂皇的理由，但外人难以相信其枪口只是对准以色列侵略者而不是黎巴嫩同胞的说法。

Along with Hizbullah‘s devoted followers, many non-Shias readily accept such arguments.But should Hizbullah be proven to have mounted a systematic campaign of extermination against Sunni Muslim and Christian political opponents in Lebanon, the party‘s reputation would be severely damaged, along with that of its main backer, Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made a recent festively triumphant visit to Lebanon.与真主党的忠实追随者一道，许多非什叶派黎巴嫩人也准备接受这种说法。真主党策划了针对黎巴嫩逊尼派穆斯林及基督教政治对手的系统消灭行动一旦获得证实，该党连同其主要后台——伊朗的声望都将受到严重损害。伊朗总统内贾德最近刚刚结束了黎巴嫩节日一般喜气洋洋的访问。

Mr Hariri‘s son Saad, who now leads March 14th as Lebanon‘s prime minister, has quietly reassured Hizbullah that he would publicly insist that any of its members implicated in the killings would be considered merely rogue actors.Conveniently also, the man most widely believed to have orchestrated the killings is dead.Imad Mughniyeh, well known since being implicated in bombings and hostage-takings during Lebanon‘s civil war, headed Hizbullah‘s special operations forces, and was a key link to Iran‘s Revolutionary Guard before his unexplained assassination in Damascus in February 2008.Curiously, the killings in Lebanon stopped abruptly at the same time.哈里里的儿子萨阿德现在是―3?14联盟‖的领导人，也是黎巴嫩现任总理，他私下向真主党保证他将公开坚持其观点，即任何与这起暗杀事件有牵连的真主党成员都将被视为仅仅是制造了一起无赖行为。更便当的是，人们普遍认为是精心策划了这起暗杀事件的人已经死了。伊迈德?穆尼耶（Imad Mughniyeh）是真主党特种作战部队的首脑，也是真主党同伊朗革命卫队保持联系的一个关键人物，他以黎巴嫩内战期间制造了一系列爆炸和劫持人质事件而臭名昭著，2008年2月他在发生在大马士革的一场难以解释的暗杀中身亡。令人奇怪的是，同一时间内黎巴嫩的暗杀事件突然停止了。

But Hizbullah, apparently confident in its strength, rejects any suggestion of its involvement.Instead, its leaders have attacked the tribunal with growing vigour, accusing it of being an American tool and of ignoring purported evidence of Israel‘s hand in the killings.In Beirut last month party loyalists posing as a pack of angry veiled women scratched, punched and bit members of a team from the UN investigation in southern Beirut.Hizbullah leaders followed this staged provocation with denunciations of the UN‘s supposed affront to the virtue of Lebanese womanhood, declaring that henceforth any co-operation with the tribunal would be equated to collaboration with the ―Zionist enemy‖.真主党显然是对自身实力信心满满，拒绝接受任何它参与了谋杀的指控。相反，其领导人攻击特别法庭的调门不断升高，指责该法庭为美国的工具，对传说中以色列制造了这起谋杀的证据不予采信。上个月在贝鲁特，一群真主党的支持者扮成蒙着面纱的愤怒妇女，对来自贝鲁特南部的联合国调查人员是又挠又咬又打。真主党领导人在这起挑衅事件后谴责联合国调查人员冒犯了黎巴嫩妇女的高贵操守，声称今后任何与特别法庭的合作行为都将被视为与―犹太复国主义敌人‖同流合污。

The party‘s allies have made a noisy issue of the initial false testimony cited by investigators and long since discarded, in an effort to discredit the entire judicial process.More ominously, voices sympathetic to Hizbullah whisper that its militia, widely seen as far tougher than Lebanon‘s ill-equipped conscript army, is ready to take swift control of ports, borders and main cities.Such a move might well provoke Israeli generals, whose itch to tame the Shia party is as intense as it was when they launched their fierce but inconclusive war in 2006, after a spat between Hizbullah and an Israeli border patrol.真主党的盟友们抓住调查人员最初采信了伪证的问题小题大做，闹得沸沸扬扬。其实这个伪证被废弃已久，他们这样做的目的无非是千方百计想抹黑整个司法调查过程。更严重的是，真主党的同情者们透漏说，真主党民兵武装正在准备采取行动以迅速控制黎巴嫩的港口、边境和主要城市。真主党民兵武装的实力远远超过黎巴嫩装备低劣的正规军，这已经成了人们的普遍看法。此举很可能会激怒以色列的将军们，他们对驯服什叶派武装的冲动与发动2006年那场战争时同样强烈。那场战争的起因是真主党武装与以色列边境巡逻队间出现的摩擦。战争的过程非常惨烈，但无果而终。

In Lebanon‘s polarised landscape Hizbullah‘s large core of loyalists is unlikely to be shaken, even by firm evidence of the party‘s involvement in the killing of Mr Hariri and others.Some of its allies, however, especially in the Christian camp, may prove less immune to repulsion.For such a small country, even one with such a violent past, 555 dead and wounded is a big number.Lebanese nerves are jangling.在黎巴嫩泾渭分明的政治版图中，即使有明确的证据证实真主党卷入了暗杀哈里里和其他人的行动，真主党的大批核心支持者也不太可能出现动摇。然而真主党的一些盟友，尤其是基督教派营垒中的盟友，也许会因此而出现离心的倾向。对于黎巴嫩这样一个小国，即使过去暴力事件不断，555人的死伤也绝对不是一个小数目。这件事正在刺激着黎巴嫩人的神经。

Pros clicking at war An American firm wants to turn computer games into a global spectator sport

电脑游戏

职业选手的鼠标大战

一家美国公司试图将电脑游戏变成世界级的观赏性体育项目

Oct 28th 2010

Arriving for a big e-sports match参加电竞大赛

THE first round is over and 32 of the world‘s best professional computer-game players are through to the next stage of the Global Starcraft 2 League being played in Seoul, South Korea.Over the next two weeks the players, including the reigning champion, Kim Won-ki(better known by his online moniker ―FruitDealer‖), will marshal their armies, ponder their strategies and crush their foes.The finalists will play in front of an audience of thousands(and hundreds of thousands more online)for an $87,000 first prize and the respect due the best Starcraft 2 player on the planet.第一轮比赛硝烟落定，世界上最优秀的32名职业电脑游戏选手登上了新的舞台，参加在韩国首尔举行的星际争霸2世界联赛。卫冕冠军金宏基（大家更熟悉他在线上使用的ID―水果贩子‖）也在这批选手当中。在接下来的两周时间里，他们将运筹帷幄，挥师征战，直指敌酋。进入决赛的选手将在数千名观众（以及数以十万计的在线观众）面前争夺8.7万美元的奖金，以及全世界最好的星际2选手这一头衔。

This is e-sports, or professional computer-gaming, at its highest level.Just like football or baseball, computer games can be played competitively and in front of paying spectators.South Korea, where the original Starcraft game was released in 1998, is the spiritual home of e-sports.这就是电子竞技（或者说职业化电脑游戏）的最高盛会。像足球和棒球一样，电脑游戏也成了一项具有竞赛性质的运动，可以吸引付费的观众。1998年，星际争霸在韩国首发，从那之后，韩国成了电子竞技精神上的故乡。

South Korean fans watch games broadcast on cable television and the players are celebrities.Teams flush with sponsorship money pay stars salaries on top of their prize money.(One player, Lee Yoon-Yeol, aka ―Nada‖, is rumoured to earn around $200,000 a year;a journeyman player might make $20,000).Now Activision Blizzard, the California-based company that developed the Starcraft games, is keen to spread the popularity of e-sports in the West.韩国的电竞爱好者通过有线电视观看比赛，电竞选手也都成了名人。战队通过赞助商筹集资金，再按照获得的奖金为明星玩家发薪水。据称，绰号Nada的选手李云龙每年大约能赚20万美元，而一位新人选手也差不多能拿2万美元左右。星际争霸的开发者，总部位于加州的动视-暴雪公司正致力于在西方提升电子竞争的流行度。

Will it work? Professional computer-gaming in the West has been around for several years, with outfits like the Electronic Sports League in Europe and Major League Gaming in America.But it has never taken off to the extent that it has in South Korea.Activision Blizzard thinks that will change as faster broadband makes it easier to broadcast games over the internet.The company designed Starcraft 2 with spectators in mind and has flown famous Korean players to America to play an exhibition match.GomTV, the Korean firm that runs the league, is providing English commentary on games and it has opened the tournament to any non-Korean player that can manage to qualify.这种努力是否能够获得成果？职业电子竞争在西方也已经开展了不少年头了，在欧洲有电子体育联赛（ESL），美国则有游戏大联盟（MLG），然而其发展程度始终没有达到韩国的水平。动视-暴雪认为，随着宽频网络的发展，在网络上转播比赛会变得更加容易，这种局面也会随之改变。在星际争霸2的设计中，公司始终以竞技性为核心理念，还邀请韩国选手到美国打了一场表演赛。韩国方面负责运营这次表演赛的GomTV公司提供了英文解说，并表示支持所有非韩国选手参加预选赛。

Advertisers are attracted by the ability of e-sports to target an audience with plenty of spending money;Sony Ericsson is sponsoring the tournament in Seoul.The average American gamer is in his 30s and well-educated.With sponsorship comes the money necessary to attract players to pursue computer gaming as a career, says Sean Plott(better known as ―Day[9]‖), an American player-turned-commentator.Intel recently sponsored a European tournament with a $15,000 prize pool.Perhaps the biggest obstacle to exporting e-sports to the West is a lingering belief that playing computer games is not a proper job—an idea that would no doubt sound familiar to pioneers of professional sports from tennis to snooker.由于电子竞技面向的观众具有相当的消费能力，广告商也非常感兴趣。索尼-爱丽信赞助了在首尔举行的比赛。美国的游戏玩家平均年龄都在30岁以上，且受过良好的教育。Sean Plott（即著名选手Day[9]）曾经是一名电竞选手，现在改行做了解说员。他表示随着赞助商的加入，电子竞技会有更多的资金来源，也会鼓励电脑游戏的玩家将电子竞技作为自己的职业。因特尔最近就为一项欧洲电竞赛事提供了15000美元赞助作为资金。也许将电子竞技引入西方国家的最大障碍，是人们仍然认为玩电脑游戏并不能算一份真正的工作。这种想法听起来并不陌生，在网球和斯诺克这些职业体育的发展过程中，其行业先锋无疑也听到过类似的声音。

Silver lining 银光闪闪

Gold's poor relation is on a winning streak 黄金的穷二弟阔起来了 Sep 30th 2010

AT THE first Olympic games of the modern era in 1896, winners were awarded silver medals.Since then the metal has had to get used to second-class status.But for some time now silver prices have been outpacing those of gold(see chart), its flashier neighbour on the periodic table.On September 29th silver exceeded $22 an ounce, a price not seen since 1980 when the Hunt brothers, a pair of Texan oil barons, unwisely attempted to corner the market.Then silver spiked as high as $50 an ounce before the strategy unravelled, sending the price crashing and the Hunts back to the oil business.在1896年第一届现代奥运会上，冠军获得的奖牌是银质的。从那以后，白银便沦为了老二的象征。不过，近来银价上扬之速已超过黄金（见图，银价一直压着它在元素周期表上的光鲜邻居一头）。9月29日，银价突破22美元/盎司。上一次白银达到如此高度还要追溯到1980年，当时德州石油大亨亨特兄弟（Hunt brothers）妄图操纵银市，使银价一度站上了50美元/盎司。接着，他们的如意算盘破产，银价随之崩盘，兄弟俩只能回去继续做石油生意。

The explanation for the steady rise of silver this time round is less dramatic.But high prices have a better chance of enduring.For investors, silver and gold have much of the same allure.The combination of a weak dollar, low interest rates and economic uncertainty that has convinced some to buy gold and pushed its price up to around $1,300 an ounce has also encouraged them to put their money into other likely-looking stores of value.Silver not only offers investors persity but it is also supported by real industrial demand.此次银价稳步上升背后的就没有如此精彩的故事了。但此次银价高企可能会持续更长时间。对投资者而言，白银与黄金吸引力相当。弱势美元、低利率以及经济不确定性促使人们大笔购入黄金，将金价推上1300美元/盎司；也促使他们把钱投向与黄金相似的价值储藏物。白银不但可以为投资者提供多元化之选，而且其价格还受到真实产业需求的支持。

Whereas around 25-30% of gold is bought by investors, only about a tenth of global silver production goes the same way.Roughly half the world‘s silver goes to industrial users(the balance is accounted for by jewellery and other silverware), although their identity has undergone a huge shift over the past decade.大约25~30%的黄金是由投资者购买的，而白银的这一比例只有大约10%。大约有一半的白银被用于工业用途（其余则被制成首饰和银器），不过数十年来用途不尽相同。

Old-fashioned film for cameras required mountains of silver.According to Merrill Lynch, an investment bank, photographic demand for silver has fallen by more than 60% in the past decade.Even in 2004, when the popularity of digital cameras was already well established, the photographic industry consumed 5,600 tonnes of silver, a fifth of total production.That compares with just 9% in 2009.老式胶片需要大量使用白银。据投资银行美林公司的数据，过去十年摄影业的白银需求量下降了六成以上。在2004年数码相机已开始流行时，摄影业年白银消费量仍高达5 600吨，相当于产量的二成。到2009年已下降到9%。

New uses for the metal plugged the gap left by film.Silver is widely used in electronics, whether in buttons for TVs, in membrane switches in computer keyboards or as a coating for CDs and DVDs.But the great hope for silver is the solar-power industry.Photovoltaic cells, the technology used in 70% of solar panels, contain silver.Although other technologies that do not use silver are on the rise, heavy government subsidies are forecast to help keep the solar industry growing.新用途填补了胶片需求萎缩留下的空白。白银被广泛用于电子器件，包括电视按钮、计算机键盘薄膜开关以及CD和DVD碟片涂层。但白银的未来需求主要存在于太阳能产业。70%的太阳能面板使用含银的光伏电池。尽管不使用白银的技术正在不断发展，但政府的大幅补贴预计仍将助太阳能产业蓬勃发展。

Demand for silver is likely to keep rising in developing countries in particular: China, which used to export the metal, now imports it.The same cannot be said for supply.As Michael Lewis of Deutsche Bank points out, three-quarters of the world‘s supply comes as a by-product from copper, lead and zinc mines.So ramping up production is difficult.Total supplies of the metal in 2009, at 27,650 tonnes, were barely higher than in 2004.Athletes of the future may not feel quite so bad about taking home a silver medal.发展中国家对白银的需求可能持续上升。特别是中国，已由白银出口国变为进口国。供给方的情形则非如此。德意志银行的迈克尔?刘易斯（Michael Lewis）指出，白银供给中有75%是铜、铅和锌矿开采过程中的副产品。因此大举增加产量并不容易。2009年，白银总供给量为27 650吨，只比2004年略高。或许未来运动员拿块银牌回家也不会感到多沮丧了。

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Athletes of the future may not feel quite so bad about taking home a silver medal.或许未来运动员拿块银牌回家也会感到多沮丧了。

翻译反了吧！

Ambac's fall Ambac倒闭

And then there was one 已成过去

The bond-insurance industry struggles for survival

债券保险业挣扎求存

Nov 4th 2010

AMERICA‘S municipal-bond market is worth around $2.8 trillion.But ―monoline‖ insurers, which insure municipal bonds issued by American cities and counties, are barely breathing.On November 1st the industry edged closer to extinction when one of the largest bond insurers, Ambac, announced that it would skip an interest payment.The company could file for bankruptcy by the end of the month.美国的市政债券市场市值约为2.8万亿。但为美国市县所发市政债券提供保险的单一险种保险公司只能苟延残喘。11月1日，当最大的债券保险公司之一Ambac宣布停付一期利息时，这个行业离灰飞烟灭又近了一点。该公司月底前可能申请破产。

It didn‘t need an oracle to predict Ambac‘s demise.Earlier this year a state regulator siphoned off some of Ambac‘s most toxic assets and put them into ―rehabilitation‖.Ambac has over $1.6 billion in debt, but only $76m in cash and short-term securities.One of its most coveted assets is its $7 billion ―net operating loss tax carry forward‖, which could translate into $2.5 billion in tax savings if it ever manages to turn a profit.Rob Haines of CreditSights, a research firm, does not think it will: ―Ambac is a dying company with a finite life.‖

预测Ambac的破产并非难事。今年早些时候，一家州监管机构抽取Ambac的一些最为不良的资产，将它们投入―改造‖。Ambac欠下超过16亿美元的债务，但只有7.6千万的现金和短期证券。该公司最遭人觊觎的资产之一是其70亿美元的―净营业损失免税金额‖，如果该公司有机会盈利，该免税金额可转换成25亿美元的节税金额。CreditSights研究公司的罗布?海恩斯（Rob Haines）认为Ambac不会盈利：―Ambac时日无多了。‖

The prospects for other monoline insurers look equally bleak.The industry got going in the 1970s and at first provided insurance only for municipal-bond issuers, which rarely defaulted.Over the past decade, however, the industry has branched out into structured products, such as risky mortgage-backed securities and collateralised-debt obligations.Big mistake.When subprime mortgages soured, bond insurers such as Ambac and MBIA, another embattled monoline, were on the hook to pay up.Their credit ratings dropped, which meant issuers were less willing to buy insurance from them.其他单一险种保险公司的前景看来一样惨淡。这个行业始于20世纪70年代，起出只为很少违约的市政债券发行人提供保险。但过去十年，这个行业涉足结构化产品，如高风险的按揭贷款支持证券和抵押债务债券。大错特错。当次级房贷恶化时，Ambac和MBIA（另一家处境艰难的单一险种保险公司）等债券保险公司拖延偿还欠款。它们的信用等级下降，意味着发行人更不愿意向它们买保险。

In 2005 bond insurers covered around 57% of new bond issuance, but now they cover a mere 7% or so.Only one monoline remains active: Assured Guaranty, which sat out most of the structured stampede.All its pre-crisis peers are either being restructured, face litigation or are out of business.Even Warren Buffett, who entered the bond-insurance market in 2008, has pulled back.―We‘re like an only child,‖ says Dominic Frederico, the boss of Assured Guaranty.―We don‘t have anybody to play with but all the toys are ours.‖ Still, life isn‘t all fun and games.Standard & Poor‘s, a ratings agency, last month stripped the firm of its AAA rating.2005年，债券保险公司覆盖了大约57%的新债券保险，但现在它们仅覆盖大约7%。只有一家单一险种保险公司仍有活力：对结构化浪潮浅尝辄止的Assured Guaranty。它在危机之前的所有同行要么正在重组，要么面临诉讼，要么破产。即使是2008年进入债券保险市场的沃伦?巴菲特（Warren Buffett）也撤出。―我们就像独生子，‖ Assured Guaranty的老板多米尼克?弗雷德里克（Dominic Frederico）说，―我们没有玩伴，但所有玩具都是我们的。‖然而，生活并非只有欢乐与游戏。评级机构标准普尔上月剥夺了该企业的AAA等级。

Some still believe there is hope for the industry.The National League of Cities, a non-profit organisation, thinks there should be a mutual insurance company owned and operated by local governments.But monolines will have to embrace a new model to succeed.Stanislas Rouyer of Moody‘s, another ratings agency, says monolines need to emphasise that they provide not just insurance but also monitoring and surveillance capabilities.This would enable them to sell their wares directly to retail investors, who account for 36% of the buyer base for municipal bonds.一些人仍然认为这个行业还有希望。非营利组织全国城市联盟（National League of Cities）认为应有一家由地方政府拥有和运营的互助保险公司。但单一险种保险公司将不得不采用新模式以求成功。另一家评级机构穆迪公司（Moody‘s）的斯丹尼斯拉斯?劳耶尔（Stanislas Rouyer）表示单一险种保险公司需要强调它们不仅提供保险，而且具备监控和监督的能力。这样做将使它们能够直接向占市政债券买家基数36%的散户销售产品。

There are other hurdles to jump first.The shaky finances of some municipalities could put what‘s left of the industry to another huge test.Fragile issuers and nervous investors ought to be a boon to insurers.But mass defaults by cities and counties could be the final blow for Assured Guaranty and its zombie peers.还有其他障碍尚需先行跨越。一些市政府不稳固的财务状况可能使这个行业剩下的公司面临另一个巨大的考验。脆弱的发行人和紧张的投资者应该对保险公司有所裨益。但市县大量违约可能成为Assured Guaranty及其毫无活力的同行的致命一击。

Finance and Economics 财经 Oracle v SAP Oracle对阵SAP

Maintaining fees 捍卫维护费

A lawsuit against SAP is about more than illegal downloads 针对SAP的讼案不仅仅与非法下载有关

Nov 4th 2010

SOMETIMES a tackle says much about a match and even the entire season.This is the case with a trial that opened on November 1st, pitting the world‘s two biggest makers of corporate software, Oracle and SAP, against each other.The dispute goes back to SAP‘s purchase in 2005 of TomorrowNow, which provided maintenance services for some of Oracle‘s software.Its aim was to poach customers.But in 2007 Oracle sued SAP, alleging that TomorrowNow had made illegal downloads from its website.有时，一次阻截抢断就足以说明一场球赛甚或整个赛季。11月1日开庭、挑起全球最大两家企业软件商Oracle与SAP相互火拼的讼案，就属于这种情况。这场争论要追溯至2005年SAP收购TomorrowNow一事，后者为某些Oracle软件提供维护服务，意在挖走顾客。不过2007年Oracle起诉SAP，声称TomorrowNow从其网站非法下载。

SAP has since admitted that TomorrowNow had done wrong and closed it down.It will not even contest allegations that it was aware of the copyright infringement and has reportedly agreed to pay $120m in legal fees to Oracle.This essentially leaves only two questions open: the damages—SAP thinks $40m is enough;Oracle wants about $2 billion—and whether Léo Apotheker, SAP‘s former boss and now head of Hewlett-Packard(HP), will appear in court.SAP自那时起就承认TomorrowNow行为失当，并关闭了该公司。而面对Oracle指控自个对版权侵害心知肚明一说，SAP甚至不会辩解。并且，据说其同意向Oracle支付1.2亿美元的诉讼费。这实质上只留下了两个问题悬而未决。一是Oracle的损失，SAP认为4000万美元足够了，而Oracle想要约20亿美元；二是Léo Apotheker这位SAP前老板、HP现领袖，是否会出庭。

As a result, it will be up to another trial to answer the underlying question: what are the rules for third-party maintenance? In January Oracle sued another maintenance firm, Rimini Street.It has since countersued, accusing Oracle of anticompetitive behaviour.因此，SAP将面临另一场讯问，要回答如下问题：第三方维护的规则是什么？今年1月，Oracle起诉了另一家软件维护公司Rimini Street。该公司那时就提起反诉，指控Oracle的反竞争行为。

The issue is the same as with independent car-repair shops: what access to the intellectual property of the original vendor should they have? If the court favours Rimini Street and others, their business could take off.A growing number of firms are thinking about defecting from Oracle and SAP, even though they would no longer get regular updates.They are happy with their existing applications and could cut their maintenance costs in half.这个问题跟独立汽修店面临的问题是一样的：这些店铺应通过何种途径获得创始者的知识产权？若法庭站到Rimini Street及其他企业一边，这些企业就将蓬勃发展。越来越多企业正考虑背弃Oracle与SAP，即便不再获得定期升级。它们满意现有应用，可能会削减一半维护费。

If many customers jump ship, this would weigh heavily on the results of Oracle and SAP.Maintenance fees, usually 22% of a program‘s price per year, have become a bigger part of firms‘ technology budgets and of software vendors‘ income.For both firms, maintenance generates twice as much revenue as software sales—and all of the profits.若众多用户掉头离去，将会极大影响Oracle跟SAP的业绩。维护费通常占一个程序年费的22%，已成为企业科研预算及软件销售收入的大部分来源。对Oracle与SAP两家公司而言，维护费是软件销售收入的两倍，也是全部利润。

Yet if the TomorrowNow trial has attracted so much attention, it is also because of a new epic rivalry in the industry.It started when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems last year, becoming a direct rival to HP.Things got worse in September when Oracle hired HP‘s ex-boss, Mark Hurd, who had been pushed out the previous month.The relationship became downright hostile when HP then appointed Mr Apotheker as successor and installed as chairman, of all people, Ray Lane, who left Oracle in 2000 after falling out with its flamboyant boss, Larry Ellison.然而，倘若TomorrowNow一案吸引了如此多关注，也是因为该行业产生了新一轮重大对抗。这种对抗始于去年Oracle收购Sun Microsystems时，这场收购变成了一场直接针对HP的竞争。今年9月，情况变糟了，当时Oracle雇佣了HP前老板Mark Hurd，而他上个月刚被HP炒了鱿鱼。HP接着任命Apotheker先生充当继任者，安排Ray Lane担任董事长，而偏偏就是此人2000年与Oracle趾高气扬的老板Larry Ellison大吵一场后，离开了Oracle。因而此时，两家公司间的关系变得彻头彻尾充满敌意。

Mr Ellison, who has shown restraint in recent years, has since rediscovered his previous more belligerent form.He compared HP‘s board to ―idiots‖ when they forced Mr Hurd out.He spoke of ―madness‖ after Mr Apotheker‘s appointment.Later he accused HP‘s new boss, who started his new job on the first day of the trial, of having ―overseen an industrial-espionage scheme‖.Ellison先生最近几年表现克制，但从那时起，他又找回了从前更好斗的模样。当HP董事会逼迫Hurd先生离开时，他将其比作―白痴‖。在HP任命Apotheker先生后，他说这是―蠢事‖。后来，他指责HP新老板（此案开庭首日他走马上任）正―监管一项工业间谍活动计划‖。

All this has entertainment value.And it may impress Wall Street.But it is unlikely to make firms buy more of Oracle‘s products.Nor will it do anything to counter the growing anger among customers of Oracle(and of SAP, for that matter)over how much they pay in maintenance fees, with so little in return.这一切充满了娱乐价值，并会让华尔街印象深刻，却不大可能让企业购买更多的Oracle产品。而Oracle用户（就此事而言，SAP的用户同样）日益愤怒：他们付出了这么多维护费，回报却如此之少。要平息他们的怒气，这一切也毫无用处。

Transparency International 透明国际 Murk meter 阴暗量表

The best-known corruption index may have run its course 最著名的腐败指数或许已走到尽头。

Oct 28th 2010 | BERLIN

CORRUPTION takes many forms;in some countries it is blatant, in others it is barely visible.So the idea that it can quantified on a simple scale is appealing;it gives the impression that an elusive aspect of behaviour can be pinned down.腐败形式五花八门：它在某些国家明目张胆地存在，而在其他国家则几乎深藏不露。因此，以一个简单的尺度对其加以量化的想法颇具吸引力。这给人留下一种印象：一种难以捉摸的行为也可被清晰界定。

No wonder, then, that the annual corruption perceptions index(CPI), which orders countries according to the perceived degree of graft, is closely watched.But when its compilers—Transparency International(TI), an organisation based in Berlin—released their 16th annual ranking on October 26th, there was criticism as well as curiosity.于是，也难怪按被察觉到的贪腐程度对国家进行排序的腐败认知指数(CPI)会受到密切关注了。不过当其编纂者（位于柏林的透明国际组织）在10月26日发布第16份排名时，既引发了好奇，也招至了批评。

To be sure, TI has done a lot for the anti-corruption cause.The group has had an ―enormous impact‖, says Richard Boucher, a deputy secretary-general at the OECD, a rich-country club.The CPI was the first index comparing corruption globally.透明国际无疑已为反腐事业做出许多努力。富裕国家俱乐部——经合组织的副秘书长理查德?鲍彻(Richard Boucher)称透明国际已拥有 ―巨大的影响力‖。腐败认知指数是第一个在全球层面上对腐败程度进行比较的指数。

But it has always been controversial.As might be expected, early complaints came from poor places which felt they were being singled out by an organisation that reflected the ethos of wealthy countries.不过这一指数始终存有争议。正如你可能预料的那样，早期的抱怨来自于贫困地区，这些地区感到自己受到了一个反映富裕国家精神特质的组织的区别对待。

Now there are more subtle critiques, too.Some people take issue, for example, with the methodology based on 13 surveys of experts and business people.Its precise working varies from country to country, and it has changed over time—so that year-on-year comparisons can be misleading.如今也出现了更为精巧的批评。例如，某些人士反对指数的计算方法，该方法以13项针对专家和商务人士的调查为基础。在不同国家，这种方法的准确运作会有差异，而且它也会随时间变化而变化，因此同比结果可能具有误导性。

The CPI highlights the general level of corruption, but offers little clue about which aspects are most serious, or how to fight it.Frustration has grown with the idea that ―a single number for a whole country is enough‖, says Nathaniel Heller of Global Integrity, an anti-corruption outfit.腐败认知指数强调了腐败的整体水平，但却没有为哪些领域腐败最盛或应如何打击腐败提供多少信息。反腐败组织——环球廉正(Global Integrity)的纳撒尼尔?海勒(Nathaniel Heller)表示，对于那种认为―就整个国家而言，一个数据便足够了‖的想法，人们已产生受挫感。

The CPI ―has more than run its course‖, in the view of Claudio Weber Abramo, director of Transparência Brasil, a former chapter that left the TI umbrella in 2007.在透明巴西(Transparência Brasil)主席克劳迪奥?韦伯?阿布拉莫(Claudio Weber Abramo)看来，腐败认知指数―已经过时‖。该组织曾是透明国际组织网中的一个分支，但已于2007年退出。

TI is aware of the index‘s shortcomings.The CPI, it says, is ―an annual snapshot‖ with ―less of a focus on year-on-year trends‖.Yet the group stands by its ranking.―We are comfortable we have an important tool—but it is only one tool‖, says Huguette Labelle, TI‘s chair.透明国际明白指数所存有的缺陷。该组织指出，腐败认知指数是一种―较少聚焦于同比趋势‖的―快照‖。不过该组织仍支持自己的排序。透明国际主席胡吉特?拉贝勒(Huguette Labelle)表示：―我们为自己拥有一种重要工具而感到安心——不过这只是一种工具‖。

TI is far from a one-trick pony.It now focuses on boosting international accords and helping enforce them.At the local level, it also does much more than in the past.In some developing countries, legal advice centres help victims of corruption.Still, the CPI looms large, and the organisation faces a dilemma.The index gets a much-needed attention, but it overshadows other activities and exposes it to criticism.If TI had the courage to ditch its score-card, or at least publish it in a less misleading form, its other work might fare better.透明国际远非黔驴技穷之辈。目前，该组织正在关注推动国际协议并助其实施。而在地区层面上，该组织的所作所为也比以往多上许多。在一些发展中国家，法律咨询中心向腐败受害者伸出援手。不过，腐败认知指数影响巨大，透明国际正面临着两难局面。这一指数既赢得了其所急需的关注，却又盖住了其他活动的风头，并将自己推至风口浪尖。如果透明国际有勇气抛弃这块记分牌，或者至少是以一种误导性较小的方式加以发布的话，该组织其他工作的进展或许就将更加顺利。

Broadband in America 美国宽带业

Come sooner, future 快来吧，未来

Verizon has paid dearly to build a fast network.Now it needs customers Verizon公司付出了高昂代价建设高速网络。现在，它亟需用户

Oct 28th 2010

VERIZON can get shirty about the word ―fibre‖.America‘s second-biggest telecoms operator successfully complained to the Better Business Bureau that competitors had touted ―fibre-optic fast‖ to consumers, even though their broadband networks did not run fibre all the way to the home, as Verizon does.This is not just a techies‘ argument.By an order of magnitude, an all-fibre network is the fastest way to move information from one place to another on the internet and Verizon has the largest such network in America.The difficult bit is making money from it.Verizon可能生―纤‖字的气。因为这家美国第二大电信运营商向商业促进局申诉成功，称其竞争者的宽带网即便并未如自己那般从头至尾光纤延伸入户，却纷纷向消费者兜售―光纤高速‖。这并非只是愤愤之辞。就数量级而言，全光网是互联网信息异地迁移速度最快的方式，而Verizon拥有美国最大的全光网。难点在于用它赚钱。

The company is betting that highbandwidth web services will create a huge demand for fast networks—and profits.But that is in the future.In Japan and South Korea, two other countries with fast networks, the government has subsidised the laying of new fibre.In America, which has relied on private investment, Verizon is having to shoulder more of the risk.该公司正打赌，高带宽网络业务将创造对高速网络的巨大需求，并产生巨额利润。不过，这尚未到来。拥有高速网络的日韩两国，政府补贴新光纤铺设。而在依赖私人投资的美国，Verizon不得不承受更多风险。

The reason why the company was so keen to build a fast network goes back to how America was wired originally.In the beginning there was copper wire, which telephone companies ran to almost every house.Then, in the 1980s, cable-television companies secured local monopolies to provide coaxial cable as well.该公司热衷高速网络建设的原因，要追溯至美国当初如何布线。起初是铜线，电话公司铺至几乎每家每户。接着，在上世纪八十年代，有线电视公司获得了本地垄断权，也布设了同轴电缆。

At first the two networks had a fair fight, delivering the internet at about the same speed.No network, however, can run faster than the speed of its ―last mile‖, from the neighbourhood node to the house.This is the most expensive place to lay networks and the last mile of cable is faster than a copper wire.So the telephone companies would, eventually, be unable to deliver the internet as fast as their cable competitors.最初，这两种网络公平竞争，互联网传输速度大致相同。然而，没有网络能快过其―最后一英里‖（即从小区节点至用户家里那段）的速度。这是网络布设造价最贵之处，而电缆最后一英里比铜线快。因此电话公司也许最终，其互联网传输速度不能像有线竞争者那样快。

Verizon, formed in 2000 out of several regional telephone companies, decided to create a third network.Since 2004 it has strung optic fibre to 60% of the homes where it already had copper wires, mainly in Texas, California and on the East Coast.Verizon calls its new network ―FiOS‖.It cost about $23 billion to build and, according to Sanford Bernstein, an investment firm, contributed to the $32 billion debt of Verizon‘s wireline pision.2000年成立、由几家区域电话公司组成的Verizon，决定创建第三种网络。2004年来，光纤拉进了60%已铺有铜线的家庭（主要在德克萨斯、加利福尼亚及东海岸地区）。Verizon称其新网络为―FiOS‖。其建设费约230亿美元，而据投资公司Sanford Bernstein的数据，这导致Verizon有线部门负债320亿美元。

To counter FiOS, the cable companies have run fibre to the neighbourhood node, from where the connection continues to the home through their existing cable.This technology now reaches more than 70% of homes(see chart)and, unlike Verizon, the cable companies did not have to pay to replace the last mile.为抗衡FiOS，有线公司已将光纤延伸至小区节点，从这儿继续用其现有电缆连接至用户家里。该技术现抵达了超过70%的家庭（如图所示），且与Verizon不同，有线公司无须掏钱更换最后一英里网络。

Basic copper and cable internet access cannot run faster than about 5 megabits per second, which is just about fast enough to watch something on YouTube or for a video chat over Skype.But networks seldom run as fast as advertised.The cable networks upgraded with fibre can run at speeds in the hundreds of megabits per second, enough to handle most present-day applications and many in the immediate future, like high-definition video.Yet Verizon‘s network could leave these in the dust.In tests in Massachusetts its fibre network has run as fast as 10,000 megabits per second, and it could go faster.基本的铜线及电缆互联网接入速度不超过5Mbits/s，仅够看YouTube或Skype视频聊天。不过，网速鲜有宣传得那样快。光纤升级后的有线网络，网速达几百兆每秒，足以应付现在的大部分应用，而在不远的将来出现的许多应用，如高清视频，处理起来也绰绰有余。然而，Verizon的网络将令上述网络望尘莫及，在马萨诸塞州进行的试验中，其光纤网速高达10Gbits/s,还能更快。

This puts Verizon in a tricky position.Its old copper network, still 40% of its customer base, is not fast enough but FiOS is faster than most consumers need.So the company is having to weather the transition to a time when faster networks become more important.On October 22nd Verizon said that its overall revenue, at $26.5 billion in the third quarter, was 2.9% down on the same period a year ago.Its mobile-phone pision performed strongly, with revenue rising by 6%, to $16.3 billion.But its wireline business remained under pressure: revenue fell by 3.6% in the period and operating profit slumped by 90%.这令Verizon处境棘手。仍有40%客户基础的旧有铜线网速不够快，但FiOS却快得超过了大部分用户所需。因此该公司现在不得不挨过这一过渡期，直到高速网络日渐重要的那一天。10月22日，Verizon称今年第三季度总收入达265亿美元，较去年同期下降2.9%。其移动电话部门表现强劲，收入增加了6%，达163亿美元。但其有线业务仍面临压力：这一时期收入下跌3.6%，营业利润大幅下滑90%。

For now, Verizon has halted new investment in fibre while it tries to drum up more customers for FiOS.And for the long term it is trying to create demand for an even faster internet.Verizon has suggested that it be allowed to offer companies super-fast, premium access to its network while continuing to provide what it calls ―the open internet‖ to its customers.Verizon sees its fast network supplying programmes to 100-inch television screens and providing 3-D online gaming.More speed-demanding video games are coming(see article).The company has also been discussing linking medical devices in hospitals and doctors‘ surgeries.It is building connections to intelligent power grids, which businesses and homes could use to reduce their energy bills.For Verizon, the future cannot come fast enough.目前，Verizon暂停往光纤上再投资，同时设法力争更多FiOS顾客。而长期以来，它一直试图创造同样的高速互联网需求。Verizon表明，它应获准向企业提供高速、优惠的网络接入，同时继续向用户提供其所称的―开放式互联网‖。Verizon考虑让其高速网络提供100英寸电视屏幕节目及3D网络游戏。更多苛求速度的视频游戏正在涌现。该公司也一直在谈论用高速网络连接医院医疗设备及医生手术室。它正构建智能电网连接，企业及家庭用户可用其削减能源开销。对Verizon而言，未来来得还不够快。Born digital 数码人生

National libraries start to preserve the web, but cannot save everything 各国的图书馆开始保存网站，但不能面面俱到 Oct 21st 2010

The library of the future

IN THE digital realm, things seem always to happen the wrong way round.Whereas Google has hurried to scan books into its digital catalogue, a group of national libraries has begun saving what the online giant leaves behind.For although search engines such as Google index the web, they do not archive it.Many websites just disappear when their owner runs out of money or interest.Adam Farquhar, in charge of digital projects for the British Library, points out that the world has in some ways a better record of the beginning of the 20th century than of the beginning of the 21st.在数码界，出乎意料的事情屡见不鲜。当谷歌忙于将书籍扫描成数字文档时，各国图书馆已经开始保存这个在线巨人漏掉的资料。尽管谷歌这类搜索引擎提供网站的索引服务，但并没有把网站保存起来。很多网站因其所有人缺乏资金或失去兴趣而昙花一现。Adam Farquhar负责大英博物馆的数字项目，他指出在某种程度上全世界对20世纪初期的记录比21世纪初期的记录要好。

In 1996 Brewster Kahle, a computer scientist and internet entrepreneur, founded the Internet Archive, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving websites.He also began gently harassing national libraries to worry about preserving the web.They started to pay attention when several elections produced interesting material that never touched paper.在1996年，一个名为Brewster Kahle的计算机科学家和因特网企业家，成立了英特网档案室，这是一个非营利性的组织，致力于网站的保存。他也开始委婉地敦促各国的图书馆关注保存网站的问题。几轮选举中出现很多有意义材料，但从未以书面形式保留下来时，此时，各国图书馆开始关注这一问题。

In 2003 eleven national libraries and the Internet Archive launched a project to preserve ―born-digital‖ information: the kind that has never existed as anything but digitally.Called the International Internet Preservation Consortium(IIPC), it now includes 39 large institutional libraries.But the task is impossible.One reason is the sheer amount of data on the web.The groups have already collected several petabytes of data(a petabyte can hold roughly 10 trillion copies of this article).2003年，11家各国图书馆和因特网档案室启动一个保护数码信息的项目：此类信息没有以数码之外的任何其他形式存在过。这个称为―国际因特网保护联合体‖的项目，现有39家大型机构图书馆。但是这一任务几乎无法完成。理由之一是网络上的数据量极其庞大。这些团体已经收集了几拍（petabytes）的数据（一拍大约能装下10万亿篇本文）。

Another issue is ensuring that the data is stored in a format that makes it available in centuries to come.Ancient manuscripts are still readable.But much digital media from the past is readable only on a handful of fragile and antique machines, if at all.The IIPC has set a single format, making it more likely that future historians will be able to find a machine to read the data.But a single solution cannot capture all content.Web publishers increasingly serve up content-rich pages based on complex data sets.Audio and video programmes based on proprietary formats such as Windows Media Player are another challenge.What happens if Microsoft is bankrupt and forgotten in 2210? 另一个问题是如何确保现在储存数据的格式，在几个世纪之后依然存在。古代的一些书稿人们到今天还能读。但是很多过去的数字媒体，即使勉强能读，也仅限于为数不多的几台老掉牙的机器。国际因特网保护联合体已经单独创立一种格式，让未来的历史学家更有可能找到读取这些数据的机器。但一种解决方案不能抓取所有内容。网站发布工具越来越多地按照数据的复杂程度提供内容丰富的网页。以各类专有格式（如windows media player)储存的音频和视频内容也是个大问题。万一2210年微软破产或无人知晓怎么办？

The biggest problem, for now, is money.The British Library estimates that it costs half as much to store a digital document as it does a physical one.But there are a lot more digital ones.America‘s Library of Congress enjoys a specific mandate, and budget, to save the web.The British Library is still seeking one.现在面临的最大问题是钱。大英博物馆估计储存数字文件的花费是储存物理文件的一半。但是数字内容要多很多。美国国会图书馆很幸运，因为国家有具体的保护网站的命令和预算。大英博物馆还在争取这种命令。

So national libraries have decided to split the task.Each has taken responsibility for the digital works in its national top-level domain(web-address suffixes such as ―.uk‖ or ―.fr‖).In countries with larger domains, such as Britain and America, curators cannot hope to save everything.They are concentrating on material of national interest, such as elections, news sites and citizen journalism or innovative uses of the web.因此，各国的图书馆决定共同完成这个任务。它们分别承担其顶级域名内的数字作品（如后缀为―.uk‖或―.fr‖的网址）。如果某些国家域名庞大，如英国和美国，馆长们不要指望把什么都保存下来。他们需要重点处理关系国计民生的材料，如选举、新闻网站和公民的报章杂志或创意使用网站的方法。

The daily death of countless websites has brought a new sense of urgency—and forced libraries to adapt culturally as well.Past practice was to tag every new document as it arrived.Now precision must be sacrificed to scale and speed.The task started before standards, goals or budgets are set.And they may yet change.Just like many websites, libraries will be stuck in what is known as ―permanent beta‖.每天，都有无数网站消失，更让人感到时间紧迫——图书馆也不得不根据社会文化需要，灵活处理。过去习惯做法是凡是新文件，一一标注保存。现在则必须牺牲准确性换取规模和速度。标准、目标或预算都没确定，就开始工作了。而标准、任务、预算还可能变更。同很多网站一样，图书馆也将陷入所谓―永久试用‖的境地。

译者注：

本文不长，语言相对简单，但要译出―韵味‖，还是不容易。我觉得有几点需要大家尤其注意： 1.大意的把握。两方面内容，保存什么？保存的是网站内容，不是某个网页。谁来保存？各国的图书馆，这不是一个国家的图书馆能做得了的工作。这两点弄不好，文中web、national libraries就不好翻。某些具体语句的把握。除了要翻出意思，还要翻出感情色彩。就拿开头一句―things seem always to happen the wrong way round‖来说，有人翻成―倒行逆施‖，这就说明译者没有理解中文的倒行逆施有―贬义‖，用来形容某个不得人心、逆历史潮流而动的做法等，感情色彩很浓厚。而本文则没有这种强烈的情绪，因此，我认为―出乎意料的事情屡见不鲜‖、―事情的发展总是让人摸不透‖等比较贴切，看似―不准确‖，其实意思出来了。

Virtual outsourcing 虚拟外包业

Mobile work 移动工作

A way to earn money by texting 发短信赚钱之法

Oct 28th 2010 | new york

Mobile worker 移动工作者 THE idea came to Nathan Eagle, a research scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when he was doing a teaching stint in rural Kenya.He realised that, as three-quarters of the 4.6 billion mobile-phone users worldwide live in developing countries, a useful piece of technology is now being placed in the hands of a large number of people who might be keen to use their devices to make some money.To help them do so, he came up with a service called txteagle which distributes small jobs via text messaging in return for small payments.麻省理工学院研究员Nathan Eagle在肯尼亚乡下进行短期教学时，冒出了这一念头。他意识到，全世界46亿手机用户有四分之三生活在发展中国家，因而一项实用技术，此刻正掌握在大量或许渴望用自己手机赚钱的人手中。为帮助他们那样做，Eagle先生想出了一种叫做txteagle的业务，可以靠发文字短信分发零活来换取小额报酬。

Only 18% of people in the developing world have access to the internet, but more than 50% owned a mobile-phone handset at the end of 2009(a number which has more than doubled since 2005), according to the International Telecommunication Union.One study shows that adding ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts growth in GDP per person by 0.8 percentage points.根据国际电信联盟的数据，2009年底，发展中国家仅有18%的人接入了互联网，却有超过一半的人拥有手机（这一数据自2005年以来增加了一倍以上）。一项研究表明，在一个典型的发展中国家，每百人增加十部手机，会使人均GDP提升0.8个百分点。

Mr Eagle hopes txteagle will do its bit by mobile ―crowdsourcing‖—breaking down jobs into small tasks and sending them to lots of inpiduals.These jobs often involve local knowledge and range from things like checking what street signs say in rural Sudan for a satellite-navigation service to translating words into a Kenyan dialect for companies trying to spread their marketing.A woman living in rural Brazil or India may have limited access to work, adds Mr Eagle, ―but she can still use her mobile phone to collect local price and product data or even complete market-research surveys.‖ Payments are transferred to a user‘s phone by a mobile money service, such as the M-PESA system run by Safaricom in Africa, or by providing additional calling credit.Eagle先生希望txteagle业务通过移动―众包‖（将工作拆分成零星任务后派发给众多个体）有所贡献。这些工作通常牵涉本地知识，涵盖各种事情，如为一种卫星导航业务核对种种路标在苏丹乡下表明什么，为那些试图扩展市场的公司将文字翻译为肯尼亚土语。一位住在巴西或印度乡下的妇女，或许工作机会有限，Eagle先生补充道，―但她仍能用自己的手机搜集当地价格及产品数据，甚或完成市场调研。‖报酬通过一种手机钱包业务（比如非洲Safaricom移动通信公司运营的M-PESA移动转账系统）转到用户手机上，或者打入额外的手机预付费。

Working with over 220 mobile operators, txteagle is able to reach 2 billion subscribers in 80 countries.It already has the largest contract-labour force in Kenya and new ways of using it are being found all the time.Recently a large media firm asked Mr Eagle for help in monitoring its television commercials across Africa.The company was concerned that, although it had paid for broadcasting rights, its ads could be replaced with others by local television companies.So txteagle pays locals to watch and then text notes about which ads are shown.―I would never think of that myself,‖ says Mr Eagle.Which is why he is not sure just how big all these small text jobs could become.txteagle业务与220多个移动运营商合作，能到达80个国家的20亿订户。在肯尼亚已拥有了最大的包工力量，新的使用方式一直层出不穷。最近一家媒体巨头向Eagle先生求助，监视其在非洲全境的电视商业广告。该公司担心，尽管其已为播映权掏了钱，但自个的广告却可能被当地电视公司的广告替换。于是txteagle业务付钱给当地人观察哪些广告播出了，然后用文字标注。Eagle说，―我自己决不会想到这个法子。‖他不确定所有这些零星的文字工作究竟会变成多大的力量，而这就是原因。The Big Mac index 巨无霸指数 An indigestible problem 难题

Why China needs more expensive burgers 为什么说中国的巨无霸太便宜了 Oct 14th 2010 | Hong kong

A WEAK currency, despite its appeal to exporters and politicians, is no free lunch.But it can provide a cheap one.In China, for example, a McDonald‘s Big Mac costs just 14.5 yuan on average in Beijing and Shenzhen, the equivalent of $2.18 at market exchange rates.In America, in contrast, the same burger averages $3.71.出口商和政客所吁求的弱势货币绝非免费的午餐。不过它确实可以使午餐变得很便宜。比如说，在中国的北京和深圳，一个麦当劳巨无霸汉堡平均只需14.5元人民币即可买到，按市场汇率计算，相当于2.18美元。而在美国，相同的汉堡要卖到3.71美元。

That makes China‘s yuan one of the most undervalued currencies in the Big Mac index, our gratifyingly simple guide to currency misalignments, updated this week(see chart).The index is based on the idea of purchasing-power parity, which says that a currency‘s price should reflect the amount of goods and services it can buy.Since 14.5 yuan can buy as much burger as $3.71, a yuan should be worth $0.26 on the foreign-exchange market.In fact, it costs just $0.15, suggesting that it is undervalued by about 40%.这使得人民币成为本周巨无霸指数——本刊的实用单一货币失调指标——中最被低估的货币（见图）。巨无霸指数的基础是购买力平价，即一种货币的价格应该反映它所能买到的商品和服务。14.5元人民币可以买到3.71美元的汉堡，因此1元人民币应该在外汇市场中价值0.26美元。而事实上1元人民币只能兑换0.15美元，这意味着人民币被低估了40%。

The tensions caused by such misalignments prompted Brazil‘s finance minister, Guido Mantega, to complain last month that his country was a potential casualty of a ―currency war‖.Perhaps it was something he ate.In Brazil a Big Mac costs the equivalent of $5.26, implying that the real is now overvalued by 42%.The index also suggests that the euro is overvalued by about 29%.And the Swiss, who avoid most wars, are in the thick of this one.Their franc is the most expensive currency on our list.The Japanese are so far the only rich country to intervene directly in the markets to weaken their currency.But according to burgernomics, the yen is only 5% overvalued, not much of a casus belli.在货币失调所造成的国际紧张局面面前，巴西财政部长曼特加（Guido Mantega）上个月发出了巴西是―货币战争‖潜在受害者的感叹。或许他是在抱怨自己吃的东西太贵了。在巴西，一个巨无霸汉堡的价格相当于5.26美元，表明雷亚尔被高估了42%。巨无霸指数还显示欧元被高估了29%。而传统的中立国瑞士这次站在了货币战争最前线。瑞士法郎已成为指数中最昂贵的货币。日本是目前唯一直接干预货币市场使本国货币贬值的发达国家。但从我们的汉堡经济学视角来看，日元只被高估了5%，显然不能作为发动货币战的借口。

If a currency war is in the offing, America‘s congressmen seem increasingly determined to arm themselves.A bill passed by the House of Representatives last month would treat undervalued currencies as an illegal export subsidy and allow American firms to request countervailing tariffs.The size of those tariffs would reflect the scale of the undervaluation.货币战争是否一触即发姑且不论，美国的国会议员们似乎是铁了心要开始武装戒备了。上个月，众议院通过了一项法令，将被低估的货币视同非法出口补贴，美国公司有权要求征收抵消性关税。具体的税率体现了被低估的程度。

How does the bill propose to calculate this misalignment? It relies not on Big Macs, but on the less digestible methods favoured by the IMF.The fund uses three related approaches.First, it calculates the real exchange rate that would steadily bring a country‘s current-account balance(equivalent to the trade balance plus a few other things)into line with a ―norm‖ based on the country‘s growth, income per person, demography and budget balance.这一法令通过什么方法计算货币失调程度呢？不是巨无霸指数，而是IMF所惯用的深奥算法。IMF使用三种相互关联的手段来计算汇率。一是根据使一国经常项目收支（相当于贸易收支在加上少数其他项目）与―标准‖（由该国增长率、人均收入、人口和财政收支等因素决定）相匹配的原则来计算真实汇率。

The fund‘s second approach ignores current-account balances and instead calculates a direct statistical relationship between the real exchange rate and things like a country‘s terms of trade(the price of its exports compared with its imports), its productivity and its foreign assets and liabilities.The strength of Brazil‘s currency, for example, may partly reflect the high price of exports such as soyabeans.第二种算法忽略经常项目收支，而是计算一国真实汇率与该国进出口比价（出口品价格与进口品价格之比）、生产力、对外资产负债情况等因素的直接统计关系。比如，巴西里亚尔的强势一定程度上是拜其出口品（如大豆）价格较高所赐。

Third, the fund also calculates the exchange rate that would stabilise the country‘s foreign assets and liabilities at a reasonable level.If, for example, a country runs sizeable trade surpluses, resulting in a rapid build-up of foreign assets, it probably has an undervalued exchange rate.三是计算使一国对外资产和负债稳定在合理水平的汇率。比如，如果某国有着巨大的贸易盈余，因而对外资产迅速囤积，那么该国货币就有可能是被低估的。

The IMF has typically assessed its members‘ policies one at a time.But the fund‘s managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now proposes to assess its biggest members all at once to make sure their macroeconomic strategies do not work at cross-purposes.He is keen to identify the ways in which a country‘s policies, including its exchange-rate policies, ―spill over‖ to its neighbours.在通常情况下，IMF会逐一评估各成员国的政策。但总干事多米尼克?斯特劳斯-卡恩（Dominique Strauss-Kahn）最近建议同时评估所有最重要成员国，以确保它们的宏观经济策略目标不会相互冲突。卡恩急切地想弄明白一国的政策——包括汇率政策在内——是如何―溢出‖从而影响到邻国的。

Those spillovers depend on the size of the economy as much as the scale of any misalignments.But the biggest economies are also the hardest to bully.The fund‘s last annual report on the Chinese economy, in July, included the government‘s rebuttal of every criticism the fund offered.In a decorous compromise the report concluded that the yuan was ―substantially‖ undervalued but refrained from quantifying the size of the problem.溢出效应既取决于失调的严重程度，也取决于经济规模的大小。但大经济体通常也是强硬派。在IMF最新一期的中国经济年报（7月发布）中，中国政府逐条反驳了IMF提出的所有批评。IMF只能作出适当让步，仅仅称人民币被―显著‖低估了，而没有给出到底低估多少的具体数字。

Big revaluations of the kind required to satisfy the fund or equalise the price of burgers are unlikely.A recent study of the Big Mac index by Kenneth Clements, Yihui Lan and Shi Pei Seah of the University of Western Australia showed that misalignments are remarkably persistent.As a result, the raw index did a poor job of predicting exchange rates: undervalued currencies remain too cheap and overvalued currencies remain too pricey.要被低估的货币一下子升值到符合IMF的标准或者使巨无霸汉堡价格一致的水平是不可能的。西澳大利亚大学的肯尼斯?克莱门茨（Kenneth Clements）、Yihui Lan和Shi Pei Seah对巨无霸指数的最新研究表明，失调具有明显的持久性。因此，原始指数无法很好地预测汇率走势：被低估的货币通常会持续低估，而被高估的货币则持续高估。

But since this bias is systematic, it can be identified and removed.Once that is done, the three economists show that a reconstituted index is good at predicting real exchange rates over horizons of a year or more.Since The Economist costs just $6.99(a little less than two burgers)on the news-stand, the index provides decent value for money for would-be currency speculators, the authors conclude.The Big Mac index may itself be undervalued.但这一偏差是系统性的，因此可以被识别和移除。只要修正这一偏差，三位经济学家显示，改进的巨无霸指数就可以很好地在年及年以上时间单位上预测汇率走势。鉴于本刊报摊零售价不过6.99美元（还不到两个汉堡的价钱），笔者认为我们的指数对欲从事货币投机者来说绝对物超所值。也许巨无霸指数本身也被低估了。Microsoft's mobile operating system 微软的移动操作系统

Windows or curtains（注1）良机还是死路？

The software giant is desperate to make a splash in the smart-phone business 软件巨头孤注一掷，想要在智能电话行业大展拳脚

Oct 7th 2010 | San Francisco

AT A company meeting last year, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft‘s pugnacious boss, spied an employee taking a photo on an Apple iPhone.He promptly grabbed the offending device and pretended to stamp on it.Microsoft would love to crush competitors in the smart-phone market, but it has repeatedly failed to come up with compelling offerings of its own.Now the software firm is gearing up for another assault on a business that is crucial to its future.去年，在一次公司会议上，斗志旺盛的微软老板斯蒂夫?鲍尔默，发现一名雇员正在用苹果的iPhone拍照。他一把夺过这台令其不快的设备，作势猛踩。微软巴不得击垮智能电话市场上的对手，却一而再再而三地、未能整出强有力的产品。现在，这家软件公司正憋足了劲，要在智能手机行业发起又一轮出击，该行业对其未来至关紧要。

On October 11th Microsoft is due to unveil phones from manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung that incorporate its new operating system, Windows Phone 7(WP7).An accompanying media blitz will seek to position it as an attractive alternative to Apple‘s iPhone, Google‘s Android and Symbian, which powers many Nokia phones(see chart).The stakes are high for Microsoft and for Mr Ballmer, whose stewardship of the firm is the subject of intense debate.Microsoft‘s share price has fallen by almost 20% since the beginning of this year, while the S&P 500 stockmarket index has risen by 4%.10月11日，微软打算揭晓几款含有其新操作系统WP7的手机（由诸如HTC与三星等制造商生产）。随之而来的媒体广告狂轰滥炸，试图将此操作系统定位成苹果iPhone、谷歌Android及驱动许多诺基亚电话的塞班系统的替代物（如图所示）。无论对于微软还是因公司管理工作而饱受非议的鲍尔默先生来说，这一赌注的风险都极高。今年初以来，微软的股价下跌了近20%，而标准普尔500股价指数却上涨了4%。

Microsoft hopes not only to profit from selling licences for its software but also to push its other services via the phones.Bing, the firm‘s internet search engine, Xbox Live, its gaming platform, and Zune, its music and video player, are baked into the new operating system.Microsoft is also betting that WP7 will help it preserve its once vice-like grip on the workplace.That hold is slipping as firms let employees toting iPhones and Android-based devices use them for work.微软不仅希望从软件授权销售中获利，也期望通过这种智能手机推销别的业务。该公司的互联网搜索引擎Bing，游戏平台Xbox Live，及音乐视频播放器Zune，均植入了这款新操作系统。微软也打赌说，WP7将帮助其捍卫昔日在工作场所中坚不可摧的掌控地位。由于许多公司让雇员配备iPhone及基于Android系统的设备用于工作，这种掌控正慢慢松弛。

The new phones boast a slick touch-screen interface and several novel features, including one that makes it easier than on most smart-phones to post news and photos to social networks on the move.Microsoft has also laid down minimum standards to which phonemakers must adhere for things such as built-in cameras.Some earlier Windows phones suffered from poor hardware.―There isn‘t a thing about our approach to this business that we haven‘t changed,‖ says Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft executive.这种新电话自诩拥有平滑流畅的触摸屏界面及数个新颖的特点，其中之一，是人们移动时用其发布新闻及照片到社交网络上，要比其它大部分智能手机更为轻松方便。微软也制定了电话制造商必须支持的某些事物如内置摄像头的最低标准。早期的某些Windows系统手机深受工艺落后的硬件之苦。―我们进入这个行业，没有什么是一成不变的，‖微软高级主管格雷格?沙利文说。

The firm is also expected to spend enormous sums promoting its new system.According to some estimates, it has earmarked $400m-500m to boost WP7, an amount that is likely to be matched by phonemakers and telecoms companies that will offer the new devices.By comparison, Motorola, Verizon and Google spent $100m on the launch of the Android-powered Droid smart-phone at the end of 2009, reckons Deutsche Bank.Microsoft is also taking to the courts.Last week it sued Motorola, arguing that the firm‘s phones violated some of its patents.微软也料到新系统推销会花费巨大。根据一些估计，它将拨出4到5亿美元专款宣传WP7，这一数额可能相当于那些提供这种新设备的手机制造商与电信公司的行销费用。相比之下，根据德意志银行估计，2009年底，摩托罗拉、弗莱森与谷歌公司发布Android驱动的Droid智能电话花了1亿美元。微软也习惯上法庭了。上周，它起诉摩托罗拉，理由是该公司的智能电话侵犯了自己的某些专利。

Such legal quarrels are unlikely to halt the rise of Android.Google‘s operating system is now the most popular one among recent buyers of smart-phones in America, although Apple will become a stronger competitor if it releases a Verizon iPhone, as has been rumoured.―Microsoft is way behind the competition and the chances of it catching up are fairly low,‖ says Brent Thill of UBS, an investment bank.He points out that it will take time to persuade developers to create a rich range of software applications for Microsoft‘s operating system.IDC, another research company, reckons that by 2014 Microsoft will still trail both Apple and Android, as well as Research in Motion(RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry.此类法律争端不大会遏制Android的发展。若苹果如传言那般，发布一款Version iPhone，它就将成为更为强有力的竞争者，但即便如此，近期的美国智能电话买家，目前最亲睐的仍是谷歌的操作系统。―微软在竞争中远远落后，赶上的机会也极为渺茫，‖一家投资银行瑞士联合银行（UBS）的布伦特?希尔称。他指出，要说服开发者创建出一系列适用于微软操作系统的丰富多彩的软件应用，尚需时日。另一家研究公司国际数据集团（IDC）估计，到2014年，微软仍会被苹果及Android甩在身后，亦将落后于黑莓手机制造商移动研究所（RIM）。

Hence persistent speculation in Silicon Valley that the software behemoth, which has a $37 billion cash pile, might be tempted to bid for RIM, whose phones are popular with corporate road-warriors.If Mr Ballmer is still around to negotiate such a deal, it might be the best chance he has of putting Microsoft‘s stamp on the smart-phone world.因此，硅谷不断推测，这家拥有370亿美元现金资产的软件巨无霸，试图竞购RIM，而RIM的智能电话广受经常出差的公司员工欢迎。若鲍尔默先生仍盘算着要谈判这样一项交易，那么，这将是其所拥有的、在智能电话领域打上微软烙印的一个最佳机会。

注1：windows or curtains

标题语带双关，windows既指微软的―视窗‖操作系统，又指―最佳时机、有可能完成某事的一段时间或机会‖；curtains俚语指灾难、死亡、完蛋，同时对应windows，是一种文字游戏。

Charlemagne

Economic sanctions? Yes, please 经济制裁？拜托，快来吧

Brussels wants to delve deep into the running of national economies.It should beware of digging too far 欧盟想深入钻研国家经济的运行。应该留神不要钻的太深。

Sep 30th 2010 2010.09.30

THEY came to Brussels this week in their tens of thousands, from Finland to Greece, to say no to austerity.Their message was simple: the poor and the workers are being made to pay for the sins of the bankers and the speculators.To judge from some banners, they may have a new category of enemy: Eurocrats.数以万计的抗议者们从芬兰到希腊的广大地域内来到布鲁塞尔，抗议财政紧缩政策。他们传达的信息很简单：穷人和工人正在被迫为银行和投机者犯下的罪行买单。从一些打出的标语来看，他们又有了新的一群敌人---欧盟官员。

José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, keeps saying that the days of stimulus spending are over;now is the time for budget cuts.To ensure that members of the European Union maintain fiscal discipline, he proposed on September 29th stern new measures to give the commission power to scrutinise their budgets and impose hundreds of millions of euros‘ worth of penalties on the profligate.Even those that pig-headedly refuse to reform their economies could be punished.欧盟委员会主席巴罗佐一直在说，刺激经济的支出已告结束，到了削减预算的时候了。为了保证欧盟成员国继续遵守财政纪律，他于9月29日提出了一份苛刻的新方法，授予委员会对成员国预算的审查权，以及有权对肆意铺张的国家处以相当于上亿欧元的处罚。连那些顽固地拒绝对本国进行经济改革的国家也可能被罚。

For Mr Barroso this ―economic governance‖ is the only way to ensure the survival of the euro.But outside the commission, demonstrators see things differently.To John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, the EU is turning into a ―punishment squad‖.Left-wing members of the European Parliament are in a quandary.They want ―more Europe‖, but in this case more Europe means more austerity.在巴罗佐看来，这种―经济管理‖是保证欧元得以存续的唯一方式。但在欧盟委员会之外的示威者可不这么看。在欧洲工会联邦总干事John Monks看来，欧盟正在变成一个―惩罚班‖。欧洲议会中的左翼成员左右为难，他们想要―更加欧洲化‖，但就此情况下，更加欧洲化意味着更严厉的财政紧缩。

This year‘s Greek crisis exposed the inadequacies of the euro, a single currency without a joint economic or fiscal policy.Trouble in even a peripheral country like Greece, whose GDP is less than a tenth of Germany‘s, posed dangers to all.Loose agreements have not proved strong enough to stop reckless behaviour.Sanctions exist, in theory, in the stability and growth pact, which requires euro-area countries to keep deficits below 3% of GDP and government debt below 60% of GDP, but they have never been imposed.Governments have been reluctant to criticise each other in public, let alone to mete out fines.今年希腊的危机暴露了欧元的缺陷，身为单一货币却没有共同的经济和财政政策。就连希腊这种GDP不到德国十分之一的次要国家有了麻烦，就使所有国家都陷入了危险。事实证明，松散的协议不足以阻止鲁莽的行为。制裁只在理论上存在于稳定与增长公约【注1】中，公约要求欧盟区国家的赤字要低于GDP的3%，政府债务低于GDP的60%，但制裁从未真正

第三篇：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 YORK

SHARES 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。

Recession has favoured McDonald’s over BK, whose share price has fallen by half since the economy was flame-grilled in the summer of 2008.Shares in McDonald’s have risen, reaching an all-time high in August.Same-store sales at BK have fallen for five successive quarters.金融危机却更青睐汉堡王，自2008年经济低迷以来，其股票价格跌至原来的一半。而麦当劳的股票不跌反涨，在8月又创下了历史新高。汉堡王的同店销售额连续五个季度下跌。

Why has McDonald’s been eating BK’s lunch? Among other things, BK has always had a higher proportion of sales to young men, who have been hit especially hard by the recession.McDonald’s, by contrast, has for several years wooed women and older people with relatively healthy salads and drinkable coffee.BK has struggled to follow suit.At the same time, it has had to contend with angry shareholders, as the rising cost of beef and other ingredients has clobbered its profits.BK may also have cannibalised its existing sales by offering value meals that were a bit too irresistible.为何麦当劳在与汉堡王的竞争中占得先机？别的不谈，汉堡王的顾客更多的是年轻人，而年轻人受金融危机打击尤其严重。相对地，麦当劳近年来一直以相对健康的沙拉和可口的咖啡，吸引女性和中老年人。汉堡王一直难以模仿。与此同时，随着牛肉等原材料的成本上涨，利润一跌再跌，汉堡王又不得不去对付那些愤怒的股东。汉堡王的套餐太过诱人，可能也影响了其他产品的销量。BK is used to changes in ownership.It went from being part of Pillsbury, a food company, to Grand Metropolitan, a British conglomerate, then to Diageo, a drinks giant.In 2002 it was sold to a group of private-equity investors: TPG, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs.They did a fair job, improving sales with better marketing.They also helped turn around the most troubled of the franchisees who operate most BK restaurants.In 2006 BK floated its shares again.Its bosses may hope that going private once more will protect them from short-term stockmarket pressures while they ponder how to beat McDonald’s.汉堡王此前多次易主，已经习以为常了。它曾是皮尔斯百利食品公司的一部分，后转入英国大都会集团，继而转投饮品巨头帝亚吉欧。2002年又被转手卖给一批私人股本投资者：德克萨斯太平洋集团（TPG），贝恩资本和高盛。他们经营良好，利用优秀市场策略增加了销售。大部分汉堡王餐厅的运营商当时经营不善，他们还助其扭亏为盈。2006年汉堡王再度上市。其老板可能希望再度私有化以规避短期股市压力，为其争取时间定策击败麦当劳。

If BK does go private, it may be part of a trend in the private-equity industry—now that some of the bigger firms have rediscovered their appetite for deals—of gobbling up the companies they had taken public during the bubble years but which are now trading cheaply.TPG, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs still own a sizeable stake in BK, despite listing it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006.However, it seems that other private-equity firms are interested in buying it.If that happens, no doubt BK servers will appreciate the irony: the act of passing a company from one private-equity firm to another is known in the business as “flipping”.私人股本行业——如今一些大公司重新对收购有了兴趣——吞并那些他们在经济泡沫时代卖掉，现在十分廉价的公司，俨然已成一股大潮，如果汉堡王真的私有化，就将融入这股大潮之中。德克萨斯太平洋集团（TPG），贝恩资本和高盛虽然2006年在纽约证券交易所已经兜售了汉堡王，但他们仍握有可观的股份。然而，其他私人股本公司似乎也有意收购。要是真被他们收购，无疑汉堡王的服务生都能领会其中的讽刺：在私人股本公司中被倒卖，在做汉堡这行叫“翻面”。

本主题由 shiyi18 于 2010-11-12 13:16 移动 评分 收藏2 分享0 0 0

Down the slipway下水

“Quantitative easing” is unloved and unappreciated—but it is working “量化宽松”不受待见，但是有效 Nov 4th 2010 | Washington, dc

EVEN before the Federal Reserve unveiled its second round of quantitative easing(QE)on November 3rd, critics had already denounced it as ineffectual or an invitation to inflation.It cannot be both and it may not be either.美联储的第二轮量化宽松政策在11月3日公布之前便已受到了各方抨击，有人说它不会起效，也有人说这样会导致通胀。这两者根本不可能同时发生，甚至一个都不会发生。

The announcement of “QE2” was hardly breathtaking.The Fed said it will buy $600 billion of Treasuries between now and next June, at about $75 billion a month, although it also said it could adjust the amount and timing if need be.That was about what markets expected but far less than the $1.75 trillion of debt it bought between early 2009 and early 2010 in its first round of QE.Yet QE2 seems already to have exceeded the low expectations it has aroused.Since Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, hinted at it at Jackson Hole on August 27th, markets have all done exactly what they should(see chart).第二轮量化宽松并没有惊人之处。美联储称，从现在起到明年6月，它将购买6 000亿美元美国国债，相当于每月购买750亿美元，但具体数字可能随情况进行调整。这一规模与市场预期相当，远低于2009年初至2010年初第一轮量化宽松（总共购买债务1.75万亿美元）。但第二轮量化宽松似乎已经超过了它所引起的低预期。自美联储主席本?伯南克于8月27日在杰克森霍尔（Jackson Hole）暗示这一计划以来，市场对此已有了充分的反映（见图）。

Under QE the Fed buys long-term bonds with newly created money.This lowers long-term yields and chases investors into riskier, alternative investments.The real yield on ten-year, inflation-indexed Treasury bonds has fallen from 1.05% to 0.5%, a result of relatively flat nominal yields and a rise in expected inflation.The yield on their five-year cousins is negative(see Buttonwood).Share prices are up by 14% in the same period.Lower yields make the dollar less appealing: it has duly fallen by 5% against the Japanese yen, by 9% against the euro and by 5% on a trade-weighted basis.“You can declare QE to be a success already,” says one hedge-fund economist.“Whether this translates into real activity remains a question-mark.But the question of whether the mechanism would work has been answered.”

在量化宽松计划中，美联储将通过发行新钞买入长期债券。这压低了后者的收益率，使投资者转向风险更高的替代投资品。在名义收益率相对较平和预期通胀的双重作用下，10年期通胀指数化美国国债真实收益率从1.05%下降至0.5%。五年期品种则已呈现负利率（见本期Bottonwood）。同期，股票市场上涨了14%。收益率的下降使美元失去了吸引力：美元对日元下跌了5%，对欧元下跌了9%，从贸易加权角度看，则下跌了5%。一位对冲基金经济学家说：“可以说，量化宽松已经获得了成功。它能不能转化为实际行动还不好说。但其机制是否起作用已经毋庸置疑了。”

With a bit of a lag, these easier financial conditions are supposed to boost growth through three channels.First, lower real yields spur borrowing and investment.This channel is bunged up: many households cannot borrow because their homes have fallen in value and because banks are less willing to lend.But the remaining two channels remain open.Higher share prices have raised household wealth by some $1.4 trillion, which will spur some spending.And the lower dollar should help trade.American factory purchasing managers reported a sharp jump in export orders in October and a drop in imports.一般认为，宽松的金融环境将通过三个渠道提振经济增长（可能存在时滞）。第一，真实收益率下降能够刺激借贷与投资。这一渠道目前已经失去了作用：许多家庭因为房价下跌和银行不愿意借贷而无法得到贷款。但剩下的两个渠道仍然畅通。股价上涨已使家庭财富增加了1.4万亿美元，这将刺激支出。美元下跌则应该有利于贸易。美国工厂采购经理报告显示，10月份出口订单出现了大幅增长，进口则有所下降。

Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, reckons that the Fed will eventually buy $1.5 trillion of debt under QE2, and that this will raise growth next year to 3.6% from 3.3% without QE.That’s not exactly overwhelming: the firm thinks the Fed would have to buy $5.25 trillion of bonds to achieve the equivalent of a –4% federal-funds rate, which is what the economy needs.The Fed will not do that for fear of unknown consequences, among them the response of Congress’s newly empowered Republicans.In a Bloomberg poll, 60% of self-identified tea-party supporters favoured overhauling or abolishing the Fed.咨询公司Macroeconomic Advisers认为，美联储在第二轮量化宽松中将总共购买1.5万亿美元债务，使明年的经济增长率从3.3%（如果不实行量化宽松的话）提高到3.6%。这还不是最令人震惊的：该公司还认为，美国经济需要联邦基金利率下降到-4%的水平，要达到这一效果，美联储必须购买5.25万亿美元债券才行。要美联储抛出如此大手笔是不可能的，因为它害怕因此导致不可预料的后果，比如引起最近在国会中重掌大权的共和党人的激烈反应。彭博社（Bloomberg）的调查显示，60%自称茶党支持者的人赞成改组甚至取消美联储。

Could QE work too well and drive inflation expectations to dangerous levels? “The odds aren’t zero,” says Don Kohn, a former Fed vice-chairman, but they’re small.There’s more risk that expectations could rise once credit loosens up and spending accelerates.That, however, would be a signal that the Fed has succeeded;it can then tighten policy.量化宽松会过犹不及、将通胀预期推高到危险水平吗？“并非不可能。”前美联储副主席邓?考恩（Don Kohn）说，但可能性很小。更大的风险是通胀预期在信贷放松和支出增速之后抬头。但这正是美联储成功的信号，届时它已经可以采取紧缩措施了。

Other countries complain that QE is merely bringing them overvalued currencies and bubbly asset markets by pushing investors to seek higher returns elsewhere.But that may be unavoidable given their pergent growth paths.Both India and Australia raised interest rates this week despite rising currencies.其他国家抱怨量化宽松的唯一作用是，将美国投资者驱向其他国家寻找高收益，是当地货币升值并产生资产泡沫。但这是无论如何都不能避免的事情，因为各个国家的增长路径各不同。印度和澳大利亚本周均在本国货币升值的情况下提高了利率。

A damaging round of beggar-thy-neighbour currency interventions cannot be ruled out.But the Bank of Japan, after intervening directly to weaken the yen in September, has struck upon a more benign response.It had been scheduled to release details of its own QE at a regular policy meeting in mid-November but moved the date forward to this week.Analysts suspect this was to counteract upward pressure on the yen because of the Fed’s move.If central banks all print money in unison, and don’t mop up excess liquidity, then the result could be a worldwide monetary fillip.QE’s benefits should not be over-egged.Nor should they be dismissed.不能排除发生一种危险情况，那就是各国竞相采取以邻为壑的货币市场干预手段。日本银行在9月就曾经直接干预外汇市场使日元贬值，但这一回，日本银行的反应较为温和。原定11月中旬政策例会上宣布的日本量化宽松计划将提前至本周。分析师认为日本央行此举是为了缓和美联储动作给日元带来的升值压力。如果各国央行一起开动印钞机，而不顾流动性过剩的后果，那么结果将是全球货币刺激。没有必要过分强调量化宽松的好处，但也不应该刻意贬低。

Opening stand 登场

Luck may play a big role in launching successful careers 上佳的运气是成功职业开端的一半

Nov 18th 2010

IN CRICKET batsmen often need a slice of luck to build a decent innings.Might that be true of cricketers’ careers in general, and even of other jobs? In an IMF working paper Shekhar Aiyar and Rodney Ramcharan suggest that it is lucky for international cricketers to play their debut Test(international)match at home.在板球比赛中，击球手通常需要点运气才能打出不错的击球局。所有板球选手都是这样吗？其他职业也是如此吗？在一篇IMF工作论文中，Shekhar Aiyar和Rodney Ramcharan提出，就（国际）对抗赛（Test）而言，能在主场上演职业生涯首秀对于板球选手来说是件幸事。

Playing at home means familiar pitches and climatic conditions, and a more supportive crowd(just ask the English cricketers whose series against Australia starts in Brisbane on November 25th).Sifting through the data on 790 cricketers who made their Test debuts between 1950 and 1985, the authors find that playing at home rather than away raises the average number of runs scored in their first series by 33% and reduces the runs that a bowler concedes by 18%.主场作战意为着更熟悉的场地和天气状况，以及更高的观众支持率（关于这一点，11月25日做客布里斯班与澳大利亚进行系列赛的英格兰板球队队员将有切身体会）。通过分析1950至1985年间790位板球手在对抗赛处子秀上的表现，两位作者发现，主场作战平均能将处子系列赛得分“跑”次数较客场提高33%，将被对方投手封杀的“跑”的次数降低18%。

This would not be luck, of course, if team selectors deliberately give home debuts to better players.But first starts are often the result of random events such as the injury or poor performance of existing team members.By using age as a proxy for ability(assuming that younger players who force their way into international sides tend to be more talented), the authors find that the distribution of cricketers’ ages is almost identical for home and away debuts.当然，如果各队有意将主场处子秀的机会留给较为优秀的选手的话，那么出现上述结果就并非运气了。但处子秀本身是由一系列随机事件决定的：比如队友受伤或是状态低迷等。两位作者将年龄作为能力的一个代表因素（假设选手成功登上国际赛场的年龄越低，则其水平就越优秀），结果发现，板球选手主场处子秀年龄分布和客场没有区别。

A strong debut seems to lead to a shinier career.Every additional ten runs scored in a debut series adds an extra five runs to a player’s career average.The effects of initial success are similar for bowlers.One possibility is that a good start builds confidence and experience that boosts future performance.A bad start, in contrast, is not easily forgiven: selectors appear to discard potentially high-ability players who had the misfortune to debut abroad.强势处子秀似乎意味着辉煌的职业生涯。系列赛处子秀上得分跑次数每增加10次，选手职业生涯平均得分跑次数就能增加5次。开门红效应对投手也适用。原因可能是成功的开端所带来的信心和经验能够刺激选手的未来表现。反之，如果处子秀演砸了，就可能留下持久的阴影：首秀是在客场，又没能出彩，那么即使你很有潜质，在后来的比赛中也可能得不到出场机会。

A good start may have a persistent, positive impact in other fields, too.That’s especially likely if employers take things at face value and fail to discount the impact of other factors that might enable good performance—a boom in financial markets for a trader, let’s imagine.良好的开端在其他领域也可能有持久的正面效应。特别是，当雇主只看表面结果而忽略其他可能带来良好表现的因素时，开门红效应就尤为显著。大牛市对于交易员的影响就是其中之一。

A rock, not a hard place 选石的，不选硬的

Boom time for miners in a resource-hungry region 资源饥渴地区的矿业繁荣

Nov 11th 2010 | Hong Kong

IT CAN sometimes feel as if bankers in Asia are shifting their focus backwards along the economic food chain.First they moved from manufacturing to property.Now it’s the turn of rocks.有时候，银行家在亚洲的一举一动让人感到他们是在逆经济食物链而动。他们先是将注意力从制造业转向房地产。现在则轮到了矿石。

In Hong Kong alone seven mining and natural-resources firms have gone public this year, raising HK$36 billion($4.6 billion)in the process.Another 13 listed in 2009, raising HK$58 billion, up from not very much the year before.A further 10-15 firms are due to list over the next year and the sums raised will almost certainly be bigger than before, thanks to Asia’s appetite for raw materials and inexorably rising commodities prices.光是在香港，今年以来便已有7家矿产和自然资源公司上市，总融资额高达360亿港币。2009年全年共有13家矿产类公司在香港上市，融资580亿港币，较清淡的2008年有所增长。明年还有10~15家公司等着上市。由于亚洲对原材料的巨大需求和不断上涨的商品价格，总融资额达到空前高度已是板上钉钉。

One of the more meteoric ascents has been that of Sino Prosper State Gold Resources Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company which a year ago was barely more than a shell company.It had an agreement to buy what was thought to be a small mine in Inner Mongolia, along with five undeveloped tracts of land in a remote area of Heilongjiang, in China’s north-eastern tip.The firm was valued on the Hong Kong stock exchange at HK$400m.Since then the price of gold has spiked, and the mine has been bought and turned out to be not so very small after all.Sino Prosper’s valuation is currently HK$3.5 billion and it has become a beacon for other minerals firms.矿产类股票中火速蹿升，其中中盈国金控股有限公司的表现尤其耀眼。这家香港上司公司一年前还是个皮包公司，手里握有一张协议，内容据说是关于收购内蒙古一家小型金矿和黑龙江省边远地区五块未开发地皮的，去年的市值为4亿港币。从那儿以后，金价开始飙涨，于是小金矿摇身一变成了大宝库，中盈国金的市值目前已高达35亿港币，成了矿业股中的明星。

Hong Kong’s Canadian Chamber of Commerce this week held an invitation-only conference on mining.It was packed with Canadian companies in search of capital either through a direct listing(difficult, given profitability requirements at the Hong Kong stock exchange)or a partial investment by a cash-laden, resource-hungry Chinese firm.Investors seemed less concerned by the risks of digging up minerals, more by potential political obstacles in the wake of the Canadian government’s intervention to block BHP Billiton’s hostile takeover of Potash Corporation.上周，众多加拿大公司出席了一个由香港加拿大商会（Canadian Chamber of Commerce）举办的凭柬入场矿业会议，或是争取直接上市（这比较困难，因为香港股票交易所对上市公司盈利能力要求较高），或是寻求手握重金又急切需要资源的中国企业作为部分投资人，以获得资本。投资者们似乎不太担心挖矿风险，而是更加顾忌潜在的政治障碍——加拿大政府干预叫停了必和必拓（BHP Billiton）对Potash公司的敌意收购。

Enthusiasm for minerals firms is not found just in Hong Kong.There are stirrings in less likely places, too.The Mongolian stock exchange, located in a lovely old cinema in Ulan Bator, has been transformed into a meeting place for international bankers.Locally listed miners are booming.A tie-up between the Mongolian bourse and the London Stock Exchange is expected to be announced by the end of the month.并非只有香港出现了矿业公司狂热。在某些意想不到的地方，矿业股也是热火朝天。位于乌兰巴托一座漂亮的老剧院内蒙古证券交易所最近成了国际银行家的聚会之地。本地的上市矿业公司非常火爆。蒙古证券交易所与伦敦证券交易所（London Stock Exchange）的合作预计将于本月末公布。

Only two large mines are currently being developed—gold and copper in Oyu Tolgoi, coal in Tavan Tolgoi—but there are numerous smaller mines throughout the country and 15 major deposits that are the source of serious discussions between global mining giants and the government, says Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt of TenGer, a bank holding company.Financiers are on the hunt for investment opportunities in other businesses, too.Mr Hutagt calls Mongolia a wolf economy, hungry and eager.Just like the bankers.目前蒙古只有两个较大的矿处于开发中——Oyu Tolgoi的金铜伴生矿和Tavan Tolgoi的煤矿。但是，TenGer银行控股公司的Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt透露，有传言说蒙古政府正在就全国众多小型矿和15个主要大矿与全球矿业巨头进行重要谈判。除了矿产企业之外，金融家也在蒙古寻求着其他业务机会。Hutagt用“狼”来形容蒙古经济，认为它又饥饿又迫切。这倒是与银行家颇为相似。America's budget deficit 美国的预算赤字

Speak softly and carry a big chainsaw 轻声细语的德州电锯

Sorting out America’s fiscal mess is relatively simple.What’s needed is political courage 欲解美国财政乱局何其简单，政治勇气足以

Nov 18th 2010

LAST week Asia, this week Europe: no wonder Barack Obama has been to so many foreign summits since his party took a pounding in the mid-term elections.With the prospect of gridlock at home, a president naturally turns abroad.Yet Mr Obama badly needs to show that he can still lead on domestic policy.He should start by cajoling Congress into an agreement to tackle America’s ominous fiscal arithmetic.自从奥巴马领军的民主党在中期选举中身受重创后，他两周内接连出访欧亚两洲；因此频繁出席境外峰会也就不稀奇了。既然国内前景仍是一片僵局，那么总统先生转战国外也算是自然而然的事情。然而奥巴马目前急需证明自己仍有能力引领国内政局；鉴于目前美国的“预算数学题”非常难解，他不妨从这里开始，但需要拉拢国会以便达成共识。

Conventional wisdom says such an agreement is impossible: the problem is too big, the politics too difficult.But it is wrong to suppose that the deficit is unfixable, as two proposals for fixing it have shown this month(see article).And even the politics may not be totally intractable.公众的态度是这种共识无法形成：问题太严重，政见太复杂。不过认为赤字问题无药可救也是片面的，因为仅本月就已经出现了两个应对提案。甚至掌控政治问题也非难事。

A trillion-dollar trove 上万亿的聚宝盆

The scale of America’s fiscal problem depends on how far ahead you look.Today’s deficit, running at 9% of GDP, is huge.Federal debt held by the public has shot up to 62% of GDP, the highest it has been in over 50 years.But that is largely thanks to the economy’s woes.If growth recovers, the hole left by years of serial tax-cutting and overspending can be plugged: you need to find spending cuts or tax increases equal only to 2% of GDP to stabilise federal debt by 2015.But look farther ahead and a much bigger gap appears, as an ageing population needs ever more pensions and health care.Such “entitlements” will double the federal debt by 2027;and the number keeps on rising after then.The figures for state and local debt are scary too.美国财政问题的严重程度取决于预期时间的长短。目前巨额的赤字水平已经达到了GDP的9%。拜美国的苦难经济所赐，社会需求造成的联邦债务对GDP比例达到了62%，这是过去50多年来从未出现过的。如果经济恢复增长，那么连续数年减税政策和过度消费导致的缺口就有可能得到弥补：如果希望在2015年使联邦债务达到稳定水平，仅需相当于GDP2%的支出削减或者税收增加就可以实现。但如果预测更长远的未来，那么人口老龄化会增高的养老金和健康保障计划的需求，缺口就将变的更大。类似的“社保支出”将会迫使联邦债务在2027年翻倍；而且会越来越高。州债务和地方债务看起来同样可怕。

The solution should start with an agreement between Mr Obama and Congress on a target for a manageable level of publicly held federal debt: say, 60% of GDP by 2020.They should also agree on the broad balance between lower spending and higher taxes to achieve this.This newspaper believes that the lion’s share of the adjustment should come on the spending side.Entitlements are at the root of the problem and need to be trimmed, and research has shown that although spending cuts weigh on growth in the short run, they hurt less than higher taxes.And in the long run later retirement and other reforms will expand the labour force and thus potential output, whereas higher taxes dull incentives to work and invest.解决问题的前提是奥巴马必须同国会达成共识，目标是将社会需求造成的美国政府债保持在可控的水平内；比如2020年达到GDP的60%。同时还要在减少支出和增加税收上形成一致意见，以便寻求二者之间的大体平衡。本刊认为调整的重头戏是在支出方面。社保支出是问题的根源，需要进行削减；尽管研究表明削减支出在短期内会影响到经济增长，但对经济造成的伤害却远不及税收增加。从长期来看，延长退休年龄及其他改革举措必将扩张劳动力大军，进而增加潜在产出；但高税收弱化了工作的激励机制，同时使投资热情也大大衰退。

Yet even to believers in small government, like this newspaper, there are good reasons for letting taxes take at least some of the strain.Politically, this will surely be the price of any bipartisan agreement.Economically, there is sensible room for manoeuvre without damaging growth.American taxes are relatively low after the reductions of recent years.In an ideal world the tax burden would be gradually shifted from income to consumption(including a carbon tax).But that is politically hard—and there is a much easier target for reform.本刊属于笃信小政府的人，甚至对于所有这样的人来说，都有充足的理由认为税收应该分担 部分压力。从政治角度上来说，两党取得的任何共识都要付出一定的代价；从经济角度上看，在不伤害经济增长的情况下还有一定的调整空间。经过近些年的连续削减，美国的税率水平已经达到了相当低的程度。在完美状态下，税收负担应该逐渐从收入领域转移到消费领域（包括烟尘排放税）。不过这对政治是一个巨大的挑战，毕竟还有很多容易解决的改革目标。

America’s tax system is riddled with exemptions, deductions and credits that feed an industry of advisers but sap economic energy.Simply scrapping these distortions—in other words, broadening the base of taxation without any new taxes—could bring in some $1 trillion a year.Even though some of this would have to go in lowering marginal rates, it is a little like finding money behind the sofa cushions.The tax system would be simpler, fairer and more efficient.All this means that America can sensibly aim for a balance between spending cuts and higher taxes similar to the benchmark set by Britain’s coalition government.A ratio of 75:25 is about right.美国的税收体系给税收豁免、税收扣减和信贷留了许多开口，这不仅养活了整个顾问行业，还消耗了经济的整体能量。每年仅仅为了冲抵这些差异（换而言之，没有新税种增加的情况下增加税收基础）就要耗费一万亿美元。为了实现这个目的不得不降低边际税率，但多少有点儿像在沙发垫子后面寻找钱财。税收体系将会更加简单、公平和高效。所有这些意味着美国可以理智的在职出削减和提高税收之间找到平衡，类似于英国联合政府设定的基准。75:25差不多就是正确的比例了。

There is legitimate concern that, done hastily, austerity could derail a weak recovery.But this strengthens the case for a credible deficit-reduction plan.By reassuring markets that America will control its debt, the government will have more scope to boost the economy in the short term if need be—for instance by temporarily extending the Bush tax cuts.这其中还有一些合理的担忧：如果操之过急，限制消费必将颠覆原本就很羸弱的经济复苏。这种忧虑让人们主张削减赤字方案必须值得信赖。如果美国政府可以向市场证明自己仍然可以控制债务，那么在需要的时候仍有更大的余地去推动经济发展，比如继续延长布什政府时期的税务削减政策。

Mr Obama and the Republicans are brimming with ideas for freezing discretionary spending, which covers most government operations from defence to national parks.They have found common cause in attacking “earmarks”, the pet projects that lawmakers insert into bills.But discretionary outlays, including defence, are less than 40% of the total budget.Entitlements, in particular Social Security(pensions)and Medicare and Medicaid(health care for the elderly and the poor), represent the bulk of spending and even more of spending growth.奥巴马和共和党人都热衷于冻结机动支出的理念，这涵盖了从国防到国家公园的大部分政府部门。他们已经将声讨“特定用途之处”作为共同事业，这正是法律制定者们梦寐以求的计划。问题在于包括国防在内的机动支出仅占总预算的40%。社保支在支出中的权重很高，增长幅度也比较大；特别是社会保障（养老金）、医疗保险和医疗补助制度（针对老年人和贫困人群的健康保障计划）。

On pensions, the solution is clear if unpopular: people will need to work longer.America should index the retirement age to longevity and make the benefit formula for upper-income workers less generous.The ceiling on the related payroll tax should be increased to cover 90% of earnings, from 86% now.养老金方面的应对举措可能不太受欢迎，但是却非常明了：延长人们的工作年限。美国应该根据寿命调整退休年龄系数，同时应该调低高收入工人的福利。目前相关的工资税应税上限是收入的86%，这个比例应该增加到90%。

Health-care spending is a much tougher issue, because it is being fed by both the ageing of the population and rising per-person demand for services.Richer beneficiaries should pay more of their share of Medicare, while the generosity of the system should be kept in check by the independent panel set up under Mr Obama’s health reform to monitor services and payments.The simplest way for the federal government to restrain Medicaid would be to end the current system of matching state spending and replace this with block grants, which would give the states an incentive to focus on cost-control.健康保障支出方面的问题要麻烦得多，因为人口老龄化现象和增高的人均服务需求共同促进了这项支出的增长。富裕的受益者应该为他们的医疗保险付出更多，同时保障体系的恩惠必须长期受都独立委员会的监察，该组织成立于奥巴马的健康改革过程中，指责是对服务和各项支付进行监督。联邦政府也有简单易行的方法来限制医疗补助制度的开销：取消各州相同的现行体系，代之以分类财政补贴，此举可以激励各州政府关注与支出控制。

Chainsaw you can believe in 电锯绝对值得信赖

Devising a plan that reduces the deficit, and eventually the debt, to a manageable size is relatively easy.Getting politicians to agree to it is a different thing.The bitter pide between the parties means that politicians pay a high price for consorting with the enemy.So Democrats cling to entitlements, and Republicans live in fear of losing their next party nomination to a tea-party activist if they bend on taxes.Even the president’s own bipartisan commission can’t agree on what to do.设计方案来压缩目前的赤字、并最终缩减债务，使其达到可控的水平是非常容易的。困难的事让政客们同意这个方案。两党分歧之痛意味着政敌间的结交需要高昂的代价。因此民主党人紧抓社保支出；如果共和党人专注于税收变革，就会终日担心在下次党内选举中败给茶党。即使总统的两党工作组也无法决定下一步的举措。

But true leaders turn the hard into the possible.Two things should prompt Mr Obama.First, the politics of fiscal truth may be less awful than he imagines.Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both won second terms after trimming entitlements or raising taxes.Polls in other countries suggest that nowadays tough love can sell.Second, in the long term economics will tell: unless it changes course, America is heading for a bust.If Mr Obama lacks the guts even to start tackling the problem, then ever more Americans, this paper and even those foreign summiteers will get ever more frustrated with him.但真正的领袖可以胜任人所不能。奥巴马面前有两个提示：第一，财政真相政治后果应该没有他想象的那么恐怖，里根和克林顿就在削减社保计划或提高税收后谋得连任。其他国家的选举也表明今时今日专制的爱同样有市场。第二，从长远来看，除非美国可以改变发展方向，否则必然走向衰败。如果奥巴马连着手应对问题的勇气都没有，那么更多的美国民众、本刊和那些峰会的参与者对他将更加泄气。Divided we fall 不合则亡

Britain and France need each other to continue as great(ish)powers 英国和法国要想继续保持其全球大国（或准大国）的地位，两国就必须牢牢捆在一起

Nov 4th 2010 2010年11月4日

表1:防务能力的混合与重组

英国

法国

2009年国防预算 583亿美元 639亿美元

武装部队总人数 17.8万人 25万人

航空母舰 2艘 1艘

驱逐舰 6艘 11艘

护卫舰 17艘 20艘

攻击型潜艇 7艘

6艘

作战飞机 300架 360架

武装直升机 233架 246架

战略导弹核潜艇 4艘 4艘

数据来源: ⅡSS；DASA/MOD：经济学人杂志社

THEY may not always see eye to eye, but when it comes to defence, the interests of France and Britain converge.The two countries are respectively the third and fourth biggest military spenders in the world.Both see themselves as global players, ready and willing to project expeditionary force.But fiscal austerity has threatened the ability of both to live up to those grandiose ambitions.Only by working much more closely together, they have concluded, can two medium-sized European countries hope to stay in the great-power game.Hence the 50-year defence and security co-operation treaty signed this week in London by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy.法国和英国偶尔可能也会出现一些纷争，但涉及到国防，他们的利益就无甚差别了。这两国的军事开支分别居世界第三和第四位。两国都认为自己是全球事务参与者，具有远距投送军事力量的能力与意愿。但紧缩的财政已经威胁到两国实现上述宏大目标的能力。这两个欧洲大国已经得出结论，要想继续参与全球大国的博弈，他们只有进行更加紧密地合作。正是有鉴于此，卡梅伦与萨科齐本周在伦敦签订了这项为期50年的防务与安全合作条约。

The main items in the pact are a combined joint expeditionary force and an agreement to operate aircraft-carrier strike groups using aircraft and escort vessels contributed by both countries.But much of the treaty deals with less glamorous equipment and capabilities.Training and maintenance for the new A400M transport aircraft that the two nations are buying will be pooled.Britain is keen to share its new A300-based aerial tankers, if a financial deal to do so can be reached.该条约的主要条款包括组建一支联合远征部队和一个联合航母作战群，舰载机与护航舰只由两个国家分摊。但条约的大量条款涉及的都是不那么引人注目的装备与能力。这两个国家都正在购买A400M型军用运输机，这种新机型的培训与维护将联合进行。如果能够达成资金分摊的协议，英国是急切地想要两国共享其新购进的A300改型空中加油机。

The two countries will jointly develop nuclear-submarine technologies, satellite communications and maritime-mine countermeasures.The big defence industries of both will be encouraged to co-operate on the next generation of surveillance drones and assorted new missiles, with the aim of forging a single prime European contractor for “complex weapons”.两国将联合研发核潜艇技术，联合发展卫星通信和反水雷战的能力。将鼓励两国的大型国防工业企业合作研发新一代的无人侦察机和各种新型导弹，目标是要打造单一的“复杂武器系统”欧洲总承包商。

Most dramatically, a separate treaty has been signed on nuclear co-operation.This is remarkable, given the different approaches that France and Britain have taken towards their nuclear deterrents(Britain depends heavily on American kit, while France’s force de frappe is a supreme symbol of national sovereignty).With the blessing of the United States, Britain’s Aldermaston research establishment will concentrate on developing technology, while its French counterpart at Valduc will carry out simulated warhead testing.最有戏剧性的是，两国还签订了一个单独的核合作条约。考虑到英法两国在构建核威慑力量上的不同做法，这一点颇为引人注目。（英国的核武系统严重依赖美国提供的装备，而法国的核攻击力则是其国家主权的最高象征）。由于有美国盟友的帮助，英国的奥尔德玛斯顿研究机构可以专注于研发技术，而法国位于瓦尔杜克（Valduc）的核研究机构就必须进行核弹头的模拟试验。

Predictably, there was much harrumphing in Britain’s jingoistic popular press.A few retired politicians were dragged out to reminisce about slights suffered at the hands of the perfidious Frogs.The reaction in France was more muted, perhaps because the agreement carefully avoids any of the visionary language about European architectures that excites French imaginations, but which many British Conservatives, such as the defence secretary, Liam Fox, viscerally loathe.可以预见，在支持强硬外交政策的英国大众媒体上会出现一片不满和反对之声。还会拖出几个退休赋闲的政客来追忆背信弃义的法国佬在过去给英国带来的小小不快。法国的反应则要温和的多，原因也许是该协议小心翼翼地回避了对欧洲架构的预见性表述。只要提起欧洲架构就会激起法国人的想象力，但许多英国保守党人，如国防部长利亚姆?福克斯（Liam Fox）之流，就发自内心地厌恶之。

In fact, most of the objections raised seem either ignorant or anachronistic.Even before France rejoined NATO’s integrated military structure last year, British and French forces had frequently worked and fought together under the command of one or other country.With the exception of the Iraq controversy, the two have rarely found themselves on opposite sides during recent international crises.For example, Britain’s defence secretary during the Falklands war, John Nott, revealed in his memoirs that France had been Britain’s staunchest ally, providing information that helped to render the Exocet anti-ship missiles used by Argentina ineffective, and supplying Mirage and Super-Etendard fighters for British Harrier pilots to pit themselves against in training.事实上，大多数持反对观点的人似乎要么是无知，要么就是落伍于时代。甚至在法国去年重返北约军事一体化架构之前，英法两国的军队就已经频繁地在对方指挥下共同工作和作战。除了伊拉克战争的论战之外，两国在最近出现的国际危机中很少出现对立。例如，英国在马岛战争期间的国防部长约翰?诺特（John Nott）就在他的回忆录中透露，法国在这场冲突中是英国最坚定的盟友，法国提供的情报使阿根廷的飞鱼反舰导弹收效甚微，法国还提供“幻影”和“超军旗”式战斗机供英国的鹞式战斗机飞行员进行对抗训练。

Difficulties could arise, however, over shared use of the two countries’ aircraft carriers, if national priorities and policies do not coincide during future conflicts.One solution would be for Britain not to sell the second carrier it is currently building, which at present seems its likely fate, but to operate it on a timeshare basis with the French.That way it could be made available without caveats to whichever country needed it when its main ship was in refit(a three-year job required every seven years or so).Just don’t call it Trafalgar.然而共用两国的航母的话，在未来可能爆发的冲突中如果出现国家利益优先和对外政策不相一致的情况，就可能会出现困难。一个解决办法就是英国不卖第二艘在建的航母（目前看来它可能面临胎死腹中的命运），而是与法国分时共享这艘航母。这样一来就可以在其航母整修期间（大约每航行七年左右要有三年时间进行整修），哪个国家需要它都可以不受限制的进行使用。但绝对不要把它命名为“特拉法尔加”号。

The liquefaction of hardware 硬件熔解

The rise of the virtual computer 虚拟计算机兴起

Nov 18th 2010

IMAGINE a personal computer that has two souls.One moment it is your work machine, complete with a set of corporate applications and tight security settings.Then it becomes an entertainment centre, allowing you to watch any video and download any program.想象一下，一台个人电脑有两个化身，一会是你的工作机器，配有一套企业应用软件和严密的安全设置，一会又变成了一个娱乐中心，准许你随心所欲看视频，下程序。

Thanks to a process called “virtualisation”, such computers are now being created.Ever more processing power and clever software are allowing devices of all kinds to separate from their hardware vessels and move to new homes.If this process continues as some expect, it will change computing radically.And more than one IT company will have to rethink how it does business.多亏一种称为“虚拟化”的技术，这种电脑正被制造出来。处理能力日益强大，聪明软件越来越多，正让各种设备从所在的硬件容器中剥离出来，迁入新居。如若虚拟化进程，像某些人所料那般持续下去，就将从根本上改变计算机运作。而多家IT公司将不得不重新考虑，如何运用该技术做生意。

Virtualisation dates back to the age of mainframe computers.To make better use of them they were sometimes split into smaller “virtual machines”, each of which could run its own operating system and application.But the approach took off only in recent years, when VMWare, a software firm, applied it to servers, the powerful computers that populate today’s corporate data centres.VMWare and its main rivals, Citrix and Microsoft, have since developed all kinds of software tools to manage virtual machines—moving them between data centres, for example.虚拟化始于大型机时代。为优化利用，大型机有时被分割成一些小型“虚拟机”，每个虚拟机都能运行自己的操作系统及应用软件。但此法近几年突然风行，当时，一家软件公司VMWare将其运用到服务器上，正是这些功能强大的服务器，构成了今天的企业数据中心。VMWare及其主要对手Citrix和Microsoft，那时起就开发了各种虚拟机管理软件工具，比如让虚拟机在数据中心间迁移的软件。

The success of server virtualisation has inspired IT firms and their customers to do the same thing with other types of hardware, such as devices to store data.Software now pools their capacity and allocates “virtual disks” as needed.Going further, Dropbox, an online storage service, saves identical files only once.Even large files can take only seconds to upload if they already exist somewhere on one of these firms’ disks.服务器虚拟化的成功，启发IT公司及其顾客在其他类型的硬件（如数据存储设备）上，做同样的事。现在，软件可共用这些设备的存储容量，并按需分配“虚拟磁盘”。进一步来说，一种网络存储服务Dropbox，同一份文件仅存一次。即便是大文件，只要已存在这些公司某个磁盘的某处，上传也只需数秒。

The virtualisation of PCs is now under way.Many company computers can already work with applications that run on a central server.But start-ups are pushing the concept further.Desktone offers virtual desktops as an online service.NComputing, a maker of computer terminals, virtualises PCs so they can be shared by up to 30 users.It has already sold more than 2.5m devices, mostly to developing countries and schools.And technology from MokaFive can send an entire virtual machine—complete with operating systems, applications and data—over the network and install it on any PC.Eventually people may no longer need to carry laptops at all.Virtual computers, including data and applications, will follow them everywhere.个人电脑虚拟化正在进行。许多公司的电脑已能使用运行在一台中心服务器上的应用软件。不过，一些新兴企业正推动此概念进一步深化。Desktone公司提供虚拟桌面网络服务。而一家电脑终端制造商NComputing公司，则将个人电脑虚拟化，使之能为多达30个用户共享。该公司已售出了超过250万台设备，大部分销往了发展中国家与学校。MokaFive公司的技术则能将一整台虚拟机——包括操作系统、应用软件及数据——在网络上迅速迁移，并安装在任一台个人电脑上。最终，人们也许根本不再需要随身携带笔记本电脑。虚拟计算机，包括数据与应用软件，将如影随形。

In the long run, smartphones and other mobile devices may also become shells to be filled as needed.Open Kernel Labs, a start-up in which Citrix has a stake, already lets smartphones run applications, multimedia and radio functions on a single processor, cutting manufacturing costs.Software from Citrix turns the iPad, Apple’s tablet computer, into a terminal for applications that run in a corporate data centre.终究，智能电话与其他设备也可能变成空壳，按需填充各种软件数据。一家Citrix持股的新兴企业Open Kernel Labs，已使智能电话在一个单处理机上运行应用软件、实现多媒体及收音机功能，削减了制造成本。Citrix的软件，把苹果的平板电脑iPad，变成了一个应用软件终端，而这些软件运行在一个企业数据中心内。

How quickly will virtualisation advance? Gartner, a market-research firm, predicts that the overall market for virtualisation software will grow from $2.7 billion this year to $6.3 billion in 2014.There is certainly no lack of demand.Virtualisation lowers costs by enabling firms to make better use of their servers and buy fewer new ones.The technology also allows PCs to be maintained remotely, which is much cheaper.But improved reliability and security are even more of an attraction.Users of MokaFive, for instance, can relaunch their virtual machine should a computer virus infect it.And it can be shut down if a laptop is lost or stolen.虚拟化步伐将会多快？市场调查公司Gartner预计，虚拟软件整体市场将从今年的27亿美元，增至2014年的63亿美元。需求当然不缺。虚拟化让企业优化使用服务器，减少新服务器采购，从而降低了成本。该技术也允许远程维护个人电脑，这相当便宜。不过，可靠性及安全性改善，则更具吸引力。例如，MokaFive的用户，一旦电脑染毒，虚拟机就重启。而要是其笔记本电脑丢失或被偷，虚拟机就会完全关闭。

Yet the technology also has to overcome a few hurdles.The virtualisation of servers is well understood, but for PCs and mobile devices the technique has yet to mature.In the longer run institutional barriers will prove more of a problem, argues Simon Crosby, Citrix’s chief technology officer.Virtualising IT systems, he says, is only the first step to automating their management.This is seen as a threat to existing workers and makes many IT departments hesitant to embrace the technology.然而，该技术还须攻克几个障碍。服务器虚拟化，大家都很清楚，但对个人电脑及移动设备而言，该技术尚未成熟。Citrix公司首席技术官Simon Crosby表示，从更长远来看，制度障碍也将证实是个问题。他称，IT系统虚拟化仅是其管理自动化的第一步。这被在职员工视为一个威胁，令许多IT部门接受这种技术犹豫不决。Still, analysts believe virtualisation will win out.Its impact will be felt through the industry.The technology not only makes IT systems more flexible, but allows firms to switch vendors more easily—which will weigh on the vendors’ profits.Big software firms such as Microsoft and Oracle may be hit hardest.But many hardware-makers may suffer as well, since their wares will become even more of a commodity than they are today.尽管如此，分析家认为虚拟化将最终胜出。整个IT业都将感受到其影响。该技术不仅使IT系统更为灵活，也让企业更换销售商更为容易，这将给这些销售商盈利造成压力。诸如Microsoft及Oracle之类的软件巨头可能受打击最重。但许多硬件制造商，由于其产品将变成比现在更有价值的一种商品，也可能遭受重创。

What’s up, BYOC?（注1）“自带电脑”如何？

Moreover, virtualisation makes it much easier to add new servers or storage devices.Alternatively, firms can simply rent extra capacity from operators of what are called “computing clouds”, such as Amazon Web Services.That outfit has built a network of data centres in which virtual machines and disks can be launched in seconds.As a result, IT systems will increasingly no longer be a capital expense（注2）, but an operational cost（注3）, like electricity.此外，虚拟化使得增添新服务器或存储设备非常容易。如若不然，企业也能简单地从所谓的“计算云”运营商（如Amazon Web Services公司）那租用额外磁盘容量。这家厂商已建立了一个数据中心网络，其中的虚拟机及磁盘能在数秒内启动。结果，IT系统愈来愈不是一种资本支出，而是一种运营成本，跟电力一样。

Yet the most noticeable change for computer users will be that more employees will be allowed to bring their own PC or smartphone to work, says Brian Madden of TechTarget, a consultancy.Companies can install a secure virtual heart on private machines, doing away with the need for a separate corporate device.A “bring your own computer” or “BYOC” movement has already emerged in America.Companies such as Citrix and Kraft Foods pay their employees a stipend, which they can use to buy any PC they want—even an Apple Mac.然而，电脑用户感受到的最显著变化，则是更多雇员将获准携带自己的个人电脑或智能电话工作，一家咨询公司TechTarget的Brian Madden这样说。企业可在私人机器上安装一个可靠的虚拟心脏，这也摆脱了对企业设备的单独需求。一种“自带电脑”或“BYOC”运动已在美国出现。像Citrix和Kraft Foods这样的公司，付给雇员津贴，让他们用其购买想要的任何电脑，甚或苹果Mac电脑。

Such innovations may help to ease growing tensions between workers and IT departments.New privacy regulations and rampant cybercrime are pushing firms to tighten control of company PCs and smartphones.At the same time more and more “digital natives（注4）” enter the workforce.They have grown up with the freewheeling internet and do not suffer boring black corporate laptops gladly.Giving workers more freedom while helping firms keep control may prove to be the biggest benefit of virtualisation.这类创新或许有助于缓解员工与IT部门间日益紧张的关系。新的隐私规则出台，网络犯罪猖獗，正推动企业加强对公司个人电脑与智能电话的管控。与此同时，越来越多的“数码原住民”步入职场。他们与无拘无束的互联网一起长大成人，很高兴不用忍受单调乏味的公司黑笔记本电脑。给予员工更多自由，同时协助企业管控，或许证明是虚拟化的最大收益。

注1：What’s up, BYOC? 小标题源自美国1972年出品的电影“What’s up, Doc?”，中文片名一般译为《爱的大追踪》，或“出什么事了，大夫？ / 疯狂飞车大闹唐人街 / 爱的大逃亡”。

注2：capital expense Capital Spending/Capital Expenditures/Capital Expense 资本支出

某些支出—如购置厂房、机器、设备等—可以使以后多个会计受益而非当年消耗完毕，这种支出形成的企业的生产能力，称为资本支出(capital expenditures)。当一个企业花钱购买固定资产或给已有固定资产增加价值时，这就产生了资本支出。在会计中，把支出记作资产的办法，称为资本化。

由于税收的目的，资本支出不能在它们被支付或发生的扣除成本，并且必须被资本化。一般的规则是，如果收购的物业的使用年限超过纳税的年限，成本必须被资本化。资本开支成本会在以上资产的使用时期被分期偿还或贬值。如上所述，资本支出给资产或财产创造或增加了基准，而一旦资本支出调整，将决定出售或转让时的税务责任。

对任何公司的会计问题是，特定的支出是该被资本化还是被算作开销。某个月里被算作开销的支出会很简单的作为成本出现在当月的财务报表中。而资本化的开支，会很多年来分期偿还。资本化的开支会出现在资产负债表上。大多数普通的商业开支很明显的是资本化或是被算作开销，但是某些开支会因公司的偏好而被放在任何一类。

注3：operational cost 营业成本(Operating costs)，也称经营成本、运营成本，是指企业所销售商品或者提供劳务的成本。营业成本应当与所销售商品或者所提供劳务而取得的收入进行配比。营业成本是与营业收入直接相关的，已经确定了归属期和归属对象的各种直接费用。营业成本主要包括主营业务成本、其他业务成本。销售产品、商品和提供劳务的营业成本，是由生产经营成本形成的。工业企业产品生产成本（也称制造成本）的构成主要包括：

1.直接材料：包括企业生产经营过程中实际消耗的直接用于产品的生产，构成产品实体的原材料、辅助材料、备品备件、外购半成品、燃料、动力、包装物以及其他直接材料。2.直接工资：包括企业直接从事产品生产人员的工资、奖金、津贴和补贴。3.其他直接支出：包括直接从事产品生产人员的职工福利费等。

4.制造费用：企业可以根据自身需要，对成本构成项目进行适当调整。

注4：digital natives 从80年代就开始接触PC的人，现在通常都已过不惑之年。90年代中国PC进入普及阶段的用户，现在也都30出头。这些人经历了模拟时代(机械时代)的种种生活方式和工具，他们试着去转变自己的使用习惯和思维方式，这些人可称为“数字移民(Digital Immigrants)”。然而1985年之后出生的人，则大不相同：他们成长的年代，已经是数字化的年代。他们属于天生数字(Born Digital)，而且习惯且依赖连接世界(Live Connected)。这类人称为第一代“数字原住民(Digital Native)”。A digital native is a person who was born after the general implementation of digital technology, and as a result, has had a familiarity with digital technologies such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones,and digital audio players over their entire lives.A digital immigrant is an inpidual who was born before the existence of digital technology and adopted it to some extent later.Alternatively, this term can describe people born in the latter 1970s or later, as the Digital Age began at that time;but in most cases the term focuses on people who grew up with 21st Century technology.This term has been used in several different contexts, such as education(Bennett, Maton & Kervin 2008)(in association with the term New Millennium Learners(OECD 2008)).More complicated than you think 比你想象的复杂

A new, giant virus is confounding old certainties 新的、巨型病毒正在挑战人类的思维定势 Oct 28th 2010

BIODIVERSITY is not just a matter of tigers and whales, or butterflies and trees, or even coral reefs and tuna.It is also about myriad creatures too small to see that live in numbers too large to count in ways too numerous to imagine.It is easy to forget, especially at meetings like the one to discuss the Convention on Biological Diversity that has been taking place in Nagoya under the auspices of the United Nations, that most of biology is in fact microscopic.Indeed, the more microscopic biology gets, the more perse it becomes.生物多样性不仅仅是指老虎和鲸鱼、蝴蝶和森林，甚至也不仅仅是珊瑚礁和金枪鱼。它还指各种小得无法看见、多得无法计算、生存方式令人无法想象的生物。尤其是在联合国主持在名古屋（Nagoya）召开的生物多样性大会上，人们很容易忘记讨论生物学的绝大部分事实上是关于微生物的。实际上，生物越微观，多样性也越明显。

In that context, the discovery by Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia and his colleagues of a critter they propose to call Cafeteria roenbergensis virus, or CroV, should not be surprising.But for those brought up on a textbook definition of what a virus is, it is still a bit of a shock.For CroV is not a very viruslike virus.It has 544 genes, compared with the dozen or so that most viruses sport.And it may be able to make its own proteins—a task that viruses usually delegate to the molecular machinery of the cells they infect.从这个意义上讲，英属哥伦比亚大学的Curtis Suttle和他的同事发现的一种新生物，不应该太出人意料。他们建议将其命名为Cafeteria roenbergensis病毒，或CroV。但是对于那些从小到大就熟悉课本对病毒的定义的人而言，这还是让人有点儿让他们震惊。因为CroV是一种不太象病毒的病毒。它有544个基因，而大多数病毒只有十几个。此外，它还可能制造自己的蛋白质—而病毒通常将这一任务交给自己感染的细胞由其通过分子机械功能来完成。CroV, as its full name suggests, is a parasite of Cafeteria roenbergensis, a single-celled planktonic organism that was itself discovered only in 1988.Despite the recentness of its discovery, C.roenbergensis is one of the commonest creatures on the planet.It is also reckoned by some, given that it hunts down and eats bacteria, to be the most abundant predator on Earth.It is found in every ocean.The samples of C.roenbergensis from which Dr Suttle and his team extracted their quarry were collected off the coast of Texas.CroV，正如其名字所表示的一样，是Cafeteria roenbergensis的一种寄生虫，而前者则是一种人们于1988年发现的以浮游生物为食的单细胞生物。尽管其发现历史不长，Cafeteria roenbergensis是我们这个星球上最常见的物种之一。此外，由于它猎杀、捕食其他细菌，有人据此推断它是地球上数量最多的捕食者。各大洋都能见到其身影。Scuttle和他的团队从中发现CroV的Cafeteria roenbergensis的样品就是来自德州海岸的海水。

To see a world in a grain of sand 从一粒沙子看到一个世界

That quarry’s nature, reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is not a complete surprise.A larger virus, called Mimivirus, which lives in freshwater amoebas, turned up in 2003 and a few other, similar, viruses have been found since then.But CroV is by far the biggest to come out of the sea.本周的《美国国家科学院院刊》报道了这一新发现病毒的性质，这也并非完全出人意料。因为另一个比较大称为“Mimivirus”的病毒，是一种生活在淡水中变形虫，在2003年就被人发现，还有其他几个类似的病毒之后也相继被人发现。但是CroV是来自海洋的最大的病毒。

Those who like their categories cut and dried may wonder whether viruses are alive or not.Wise biologists do not struggle too much with such questions.Viruses have genes, can reproduce and are subject to the evolutionary pressures imposed by natural selection.That is enough for biology to claim them.As for CroV, those 544 genes(composed of 730,000 base pairs, the DNA letters in which the language of the genes is written)mean its genome is bigger than those of several bacteria—creatures which everyone agrees are alive.那些习惯于传统分类学的人可能想知道病毒是活的还是死的。真正明智的生物学家不太纠缠于这类问题。病毒有基因，能再生，需要应对自然选择的进化压力。对生物学而言，这足以让其有资格成为生物了。至于CroV，那些544个基因（由73万组碱基对组成，这是构成基因语言的DNA字母）表明其基因图谱比几种大家认为是活体的细菌生物要大。

The problem with categorical thinking in biology is that evolution does not work like that.It actually works by whatever works working.If an organism can successfully subcontract part of the business of metabolism to another while retaining the rest itself, rather than offloading the whole lot as most viruses do, then there are no rules to stop it happening.在生物学上，对什么都要分门别类的思维面临的问题是生物进化的方式并非一成不变。进化实际上是不拘一格，随遇而安。如果一种生物能够成功地将部分新陈代谢工作分包给另一个生物，但同时又保留其余的新陈代谢工作，而不是象大多数病毒那样把工作全部推掉，那么，就没有任何规则阻止其进化。

CroV seems to do just that.Besides the genes that relate to protein synthesis it has others which encode DNA repair mechanisms and still others which are involved with protein recycling and signalling within cells.This is not mere hijacking.It is tantamount to a complete personality transplant for the infected cell.Crov似乎正是这么做的。除与蛋白合成有关的基因外，它将DNA修复机制的编码工作以及细胞内蛋白的回收和发送信号工作都交给其他生物完成。这不仅仅是简单的劫持。这相当于将特性完整植入被感染的细胞。

About a third of CroV’s genes are similar to Mimivirus genes, suggesting they share a distant ancestor.On the other hand, two-thirds are not.A significant chunk of them seem to have been copied from bacteria.But the majority are unique, and previously unknown to science.A whole new chapter of life, in other words, has been opened.CroV的基因中，约有三分之一同Mimivirus基因类似，说明它们之间都拥有共同的祖先。从另一方面讲，它们之间还有三分之二的基因不同。其中很大一部分似乎是从细菌中复制的。但大多数基因在科学上特性明显，属于新发现的基因。换句话说，人类已经翻开了生命研究的新篇章。

This discovery, then—and the earlier one of C.roenbergensis itself—speak volumes, albeit in a microscopic language, about biopersity.Two centuries after Carl Linnaeus invented the system now used to describe it, and a century after Charles Darwin worked out what causes it, the ability of that persity to surprise is still staggering.这一发现—以及早先发现的C.roenbergensis —充分说明了生物的多样性，尽管是以微生物的语言表述的。生物多样性至今依然让人眼花缭乱，目不暇接，尽管卡尔?林奈（Carl Linnaeus）200年前就发明了我们现在仍然使用的其描述体系，尽管达尔文100年前就找到了其发生的原因。

Science and Technology

译者心得：

1.本文是科技文章，又是微生物的，很多业外人士有恐惧感（我也不例外），想象拉丁文名字就够头大的。但这类文章语言比较规范，逻辑性强，所以，通过专业工具书解决掉最困难的名称之外，其他部分的翻译，同一般英文一样。

2.几个词汇的处理。首句中的“matter”很多人译为“事情”，“是关于什么什么的事情”，这样的译文读起来很罗嗦，其实担子大一些，置之不理，中文意思也出来了。另外，“Viruses have genes, can reproduce and are subject to the evolutionary pressures imposed by natural selection.That is enough for biology to claim them”本段中的“Claim”不太好翻，for biology to claim them，让生物学对它们有主张，让生物学认领它们，其实就是“它们有资格属于生物范畴”的意思，如果直译，估计译者本人也觉得不是滋味。

3.一个复杂句子的处理。“In that context, the discovery by Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia and his colleagues of a critter they propose to call Cafeteria roenbergensis virus, or CroV, should not be surprising”，先看一下直翻，“从这个意义上讲，由英属哥伦比亚大学的Curtis Suttle和他的同事发现的一种他们建议命名为Cafeteria roenbergensis 病毒的生物，或CroV，不应该太出人意料。”这样的句子不能说不对，但但起来非常罗嗦，翻译腔太强，因此，在准确表述愿意的前提下，我译为“从这个意义上讲，英属哥伦比亚大学的Curtis Suttle和他的同事发现的一种新生物，不应该太出人意料。他们建议将其命名为Cafeteria roenbergensis病毒，或CroV。”将原句拆为两句，使其更符合中文行文习惯。这在翻译中很常见，毕竟译出的东西是让中国人看的。

4.一个简单句型的处理。“It is found in every ocean”，这句话很简单，它被发现于各大洋，它存在于各大洋等等，都不错。但鉴于前文出现“hunts down and eats bacteria, to be the most abundant predator ”这类动作性很强的语句，我们不妨在这里也“生动”一些，译为“各大洋都能见到其身影”。

5.关于逻辑性。翻译其实就是理解外语的逻辑性，然后将其外语按照译入语的逻辑性进行翻译。本文中CroV和Cafeteria roenbergensis什么关系？不要被名字吓倒，注意这句“CroV, as its full name suggests, is a parasite of Cafeteria roenbergensis, a single-celled planktonic organism that was itself discovered only in 1988”，说得是CroV其实是寄生在Cafeteria roenbergensis上的一种生物，是宿主身上的一种病毒。关系弄清了，下文接着讲的都是宿主Cafeteria roenbergensis的事情，它们如何捕食，生存在什么地方。这其实也就间接介绍了CroV。

6.名言警句的引用。《经济学人》的文章经常不经意间引用一些名言警句、诗词歌赋，恰当地表述其意义。本文不例外。“To see a world in a grain of sand”在本文中就有类似中文“麻雀虽小，五脏俱全”的意思，即使是一粒沙子，那上面生存着芸芸众生。建议大家看一部动画片，“Horton hears a who”，里边讲的是一头大象如何同一朵蒲公英上的生命群体沟通的故事。这句话来自英国诗人William Blake的一首诗： “A Grain of Sand 一粒沙子

William Blake/威廉.布莱克 To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.从一粒沙子看到一个世界，从一朵野花看到一个天堂，把握在你手心里的就是无限，永恒也就消融于一个时辰。”（摘自网络）

总之，翻译需要什么都懂，否则译出的东西要么让人如坠五里雾中，要么让人笑掉大牙，因此，译完之后，多次校对，是必不可少的步骤。

Raúl the pragmatist 实用主义者劳尔

Bold changes intended to preserve Cuban communism may herald the beginning of its end 旨在保护古巴共产主义的大胆变革反而有可能变成了掘墓人

Nov 11th 2010

SHORTLY after he took charge of Cuba from his ailing brother, Fidel, in 2006, Raúl Castro declared that his country’s moribund communist economy needed to change.But his failure to make anything more than marginal adjustments disappointed hopes that he would follow Chinese and Vietnamese communist leaders in combining capitalist economics and growing social freedom with continued party control.劳尔.卡斯特罗2006年从他罹病的兄长—菲德尔卡.斯特罗手中接过了执掌古巴的大权，不久之后他宣称祖国的经济处于垂死边缘，亟需改变。但他最大的失败在于只进行不管痛痒的调整，这让人们的期望大大落空；大家原以为他可以效法中国和越南的共产党领导者，将资本主义经济及日益增长的社会自由性与党的持续控制有效的结合在一起。

Now, at last, Mr Castro is showing signs of boldness.Over the past few weeks he has launched some potentially far-reaching changes.By April 1st 500,000 Cubans will be laid off from their state jobs and encouraged to make their own living in small businesses.Over the next two or three years, another 800,000 are likely to join them.Eventually up to two Cubans in five will no longer work for the state.从现在的形式看来，卡斯特罗先生最终还是显现出了果敢的迹象。过去数周时间里，他推行了一些极其深远的变革举措。截至到4月1日，50万古巴民众丢掉了国家工作的铁饭碗，政府鼓励他们用小买卖自谋生路。未来2-3年的时间中，另外80万人也将加入下岗大军的队伍。最终将有五分之二的古巴人不会再为国家工作。

This week Mr Castro convened a much-postponed Congress of the Communist Party for late April: its job will be to bless the new economic model(see article).Meanwhile, the government has released more than 50 political prisoners.Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is Cuban communism finally on the way out? 本周卡斯特罗先生召开了从4月底一直推迟到现在的共产党代表大会，会议的主旨是批准全新的经济模式歌；与此同时，政府已经释放了超过50名政治犯。在柏林墙倒塌20年后的今天，难道古巴共产主义最终还是难逃过时的命数？

Any answer must be hedged about with caveats.The economists advising Mr Castro are barred from talking of “reform”.In its guidelines for the party congress, the leadership declares that “only socialism [ie, communism] is capable of overcoming our difficulties and preserving the gains of the revolution” and that in the new economy “planning will be paramount, not the market.” No Cuban official has matched Deng Xiaoping’s embrace of “market socialism”, let alone his(perhaps apocryphal)injunction that “to get rich is glorious”.The welcome release of prisoners seems merely to have been a move to deflect outside criticism after the death of one of them in a hunger strike, rather than a first step in dismantling the island’s police state.Indeed the army is playing a bigger role in the economy and in government.任何答案都必须谨小慎微。给卡斯特罗先生提供咨询的经济学家们被禁止谈论改革。领导在会议纲领中指示“只有社会主义，暨共产主义才有能力克服当前的艰难困苦，并保持革命取得的胜利果实”；同时还指出，在新经济模式中“占据最高地位的是计划，而不是市场”。没有一个古巴官员可以达到邓小平的高度，领悟到“社会主义市场”的真谛，更不必说他“致富最光荣”的命令了（也许这是杜撰出来的）。在一名囚徒因绝食斗争送命后，深受欢迎的释放囚犯行为似乎只是为了转移外界的批判，而非迈出了废除本岛极权国家的第一步。实际上军界才是在经济和政府中更为重要的角色。

Yet Raúl’s reforms go much further than Fidel’s reluctant acceptance of foreign investment and limited self-employment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, partially reversed on the appearance of a new benefactor, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.For the first time since the 1960s Cubans will be able to employ other Cubans(even though the constitution bans such “exploitation”).Many of the rules under which these new businesses will operate are still being drawn up.But it seems that Cubans will now be able to get loans and rent and buy property.Other changes are likely to follow.Mr Castro talks of gradually eliminating the free food rations that Cubans get, and moving towards targeted social assistance(as elsewhere in Latin America).The corollary is that wages will have to go up—and increasingly they will be set in the market.苏联解体后，菲德尔极不情愿的接纳了境外投资和有限的自由职业者；然而劳尔的改革比他的兄长深入很多，在委内瑞拉的大恩人查韦斯登台后，部分举措与从前大相径庭。从上世纪60年代至今，尽管宪法禁止这类“剥削”，但古巴人首次可以对本国公民进行雇佣。很多对新型企业的生产经营进行规范的法规还正在规划中；但古巴人似乎已经可以获得贷款、出租房屋以及购买不动产。一些其他的变革也很有可能紧随其后。卡斯特罗提及逐渐取消古巴民众正在获得的免费的食物配给，而是同拉美其他地区一样，向着计划好的社会救济发展。必然出现的结果是工资不得不上调，并且日益受到市场的控制。

In all this Mr Castro is bowing to reality.He has been withering in his criticism of the featherbedding that has bankrupted the state.He has also refused to blame the American economic embargo for problems which he rightly says are self-inflicted.His pragmatism has finally won out against his brother’s doctrinaire Utopianism.卡斯特罗在这些方面都屈从于现实：他对于导致国家破产的额外雇工进行了极尖刻的批判；同时也拒绝对美国采取贸易禁运所造成的问题进行批判，他认为这些问题都是自寻烦恼。在卡斯特罗兄弟的较量中，劳尔的使用主义最终战胜了菲德尔教条的乌托邦主义。

Apart from the economy, the other big task facing Mr Castro, who is 79(and Fidel 84), is to start handing over power to a younger generation.That may come after the party congress next year.In the meantime, his new boldness represents an opportunity for those who hope that Cuba will eventually join the rest of Latin America in accepting democracy and the market economy, for once the market’s green shoots appear they tend to flourish.除了经济问题以外，现年79岁了劳尔（菲德尔已经84岁了）所面临的更艰巨的任务是开始着手将全力传递到年轻一代手中，不过这将是明年党代会以后的事情了。同时，对于那些希望古巴最终可以加入拉美其他国家的行列，接受民主和市场经济的人来说，他果敢的新政代表着希望；只要市场经济出现一抹新绿，必将是一派繁花似锦的景象。

How to help kill communism 怎样搭把手，灭了共产主义

Outsiders should take their lead from the common position that Europe adopted in 1996, which allows it to help in “the progressive and irreversible opening of the Cuban economy” while predicating closer friendship on moves towards democracy.Offering training and credit—as Brazil has done—to Cuba’s incipient private sector would be a good move.Rewarding Cuba for releasing prisoners who should never have been locked up in the first place—as Miguel Moratinos, Spain’s recently sacked foreign minister, wanted—would not.局外人应该从1996年欧洲采用的共同立场中着手，旨在帮助“古巴进行先进且不可逆的经济改革”，同时在走向民主的道路上还能建立日益深厚的友谊。象巴西一样给古巴的早期私营经济提供培训和信贷，不失为一个很好的尝试。如果象最近遭解雇的西班牙外长Miguel Moratinos,所希望的那样，古巴因为释放那些原本就不应该遭到逮捕的犯人而得到奖励，就不是一个好的尝试。

America’s embargo remains as futile and counter-productive as ever.Although Barack Obama has commendably reversed George W.Bush’s restrictions on visits and remittances by Cuban-Americans, Republican control of Congress will make it even less likely that the embargo will be dismantled.That’s a great shame.The embargo has allowed the Castros to pose as proud Cuban nationalists standing up to a bullying hegemon and thus helped them cling to power.If change is at last under way it is despite the embargo, not because of it.美国的贸易禁运一如既往的无效甚至是达到了反效果。奥巴马已经很好的撤销了小布什针对古巴裔美国人实施的拜访及汇款禁令，但共和党掌舵的国会让接触贸易禁运的可能性变得更加渺茫；这将是非常大的遗憾。贸易禁运让卡斯特罗兄弟摆出一副古巴民族主义者的英雄形象，直面恃强凌弱的至高强权；他们更是借此紧握政权。如果说改变正在发生，那这些改变不是因贸易禁运而起，甚至无视它的存在。Lebanon and the region 黎巴嫩与中东地区

Can there be justice as well as stability? 既要正义也要稳定，可能吗？ As the UN prepares to announce indictments for a series of murders and assassinations, the mood in Lebanon is getting edgy 联合国准备宣布针对一系列谋杀案的起诉，黎巴嫩人的心情日渐紧张

Nov 11th 2010 | Cairo

IT IS the strangest of courtroom dramas.Distinguished judges and a prosecutor sit in a sleepy suburb of the Dutch capital, The Hague.The case has plenty of victims: 61 people, including Lebanon’s then prime minister, Rafik Hariri, were murdered and 494 injured in a spree of bombings and assassinations that racked Lebanon from 2004 to 2008.But though the UN-sponsored Special Tribunal for Lebanon has yet to convene or to charge anyone for the crimes, the impending trial threatens not only to reignite a firestorm in Lebanon, but also to spread sectarian tensions across the Middle East and to vex relations even more between the region’s big adversaries, Iran and the United States.If Lebanon were to blow up again, Israel and Syria could well step in once more, turning the current Middle East peace process into a slide back towards war.这是一部最为怪诞的法庭剧。尊贵的法官大人们与检察官坐在荷兰首都海牙郊外昏昏欲睡。此案受害者甚多：从2004至2008年间发生了一系列疯狂的爆炸和暗杀事件，包括黎巴嫩前总理拉菲克?哈里里（Rafik Hariri）在内共有61人被害，494人受伤。这些事件使黎巴嫩陷入痛苦之中。尽管联合国成立了黎巴嫩问题特别法庭，但尚未开庭或指控任何人对上述罪行负责。即将到来的开庭审判不仅可能引燃黎巴嫩国内的火药桶，而且还可能将教派冲突扩散到整个中东地区，对本地区最大的一对冤家——伊朗和美国的关系火上浇油。如果黎巴嫩内战再次爆发，以色列和叙利亚也很有可能再次介入，如此将导致目前的中东和平进程发生逆行，滑向另一场中东战争。

Few foresaw this when the UN Security Council ordered an investigation into the car-bombing of February 2005 in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, when Mr Hariri, a billionaire Sunni who was seeking his sixth turn at running the government, was assassinated along with 22 others.That sparked a furious popular backlash, prompting the exit of Syrian troops who had lingered, increasingly unwanted, to enforce peace after Lebanon’s civil war of 1975-90.Then followed the electoral triumph of Mr Hariri’s pro-Western coalition, known as the March 14th alliance, after the date of a big anti-Syrian demonstration.Many Lebanese, as well as the UN’s first investigating team, assumed that Syria had arranged Mr Hariri’s murder, and expected the case’s swift resolution.2005年2月在黎巴嫩首都贝鲁特发生了一起汽车炸弹爆炸事件，当时伊斯兰逊尼派的亿万富翁哈里里正在寻求第六次就任黎巴嫩总理一职，在这起暗杀中哈里里与其他22人一同遇难。当联合国安理会下令对这起事件进行调查时，没有任何人预见到其后果会如何。这一事件引发了公众愤怒的反应，促使了叙利亚的撤军行动。黎巴嫩于1975至1990年间爆发了内战，叙利亚随后派出了这支维和部队，这支部队尽管愈来愈不受欢迎，但之前一直赖着不走。接着，在随后进行的一场大规模反叙利亚示威游行后，哈里里的亲西方盟友，所谓的“3?14联盟”获得了选战的胜利。许多黎巴嫩人以及联合国派出调查此案的第一个调查团都认为是叙利亚策划了哈里里的谋杀案，并预期此案能够得到迅速解决。

It was not to be.Over the next three years sporadic bombings and shootings targeted prominent backers of the March 14th alliance, Christian areas, and Lebanese officers involved in the investigation.Even as the investigators’ brief widened to include these later attacks, their credibility fell when it emerged that key witnesses implicating Syria had apparently made up their testimony.但这是不可能的。在随后的三年内又陆续出现了几起针对“3?14联盟”支持者中有影响力的人士、基督教派系人士及参与调查此案的黎巴嫩官员的爆炸和枪击事件。正当调查人员们将调查范围扩大到后来的这些袭击事件时，人们对调查小组的信任却下降了。因为此时关键证人暗示叙利亚显然是编造了证词。

Meanwhile, March 14th’s pro-Syrian adversaries, led by Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia which emerged strengthened from a war with Israel in July 2006, mounted a tenacious and effective campaign to challenge the pro-Western faction.This culminated in an invasion of central Beirut in May 2008 by Hizbullah gunmen that forced March 14th to accept a power-sharing deal.Hizbullah and its allies thereby secured a veto over government decisions but at the cost of deepening the bitter schism that now largely pits Lebanon’s Sunnis and Shias, each with nearly one-third of the population, against each other, and splits the third who are Christian into sparring factions backing one side or another.此时，“3?14联盟”的对手，由真主党领导的亲叙利亚的黎巴嫩什叶派政党暨民兵组织通过2006年7月与以色列的一场战争而强大起来，他们展开了一场挑战亲西方派别的顽强而有效的运动。这场夺权运动的高潮出现在2008年5月，真主党武装人员闯入贝鲁特市中心，用武力迫使“3?14联盟”接受一项权力分享协议。真主党及其盟友从而获得了对政府所作决定的否决权，但其代价是加深了教派的分裂，使黎巴嫩的逊尼派和什叶派间的深沟难以与逾越。这两个派系各占有黎巴嫩近1/3的人口，双方水火不相容，并使黎巴嫩另1/3信仰基督教的人口也分裂成两派，他们支持伊斯兰派系的一方或另一方，争吵不休。

Since then, as the tribunal’s work has dragged on, many Lebanese have grown weary of the whole process.Lately, this weariness has turned to alarm.The court is expected to issue an indictment soon.Leaks strongly suggest it will not accuse Syria but rather senior officers of Hizbullah itself.The implications of such a charge are explosive.The party has long exalted its role as a heroic protector of Lebanon, justifying its impressive arsenal on the grounds, however implausible to outsiders, that its weapons are trained solely on Israeli invaders and not fellow Lebanese.自那以后，随着特别法庭的开庭审判一拖再拖，许多黎巴嫩人已经对整个过程感到了厌倦。最近，这种厌倦的情绪变得让人吃惊。预计该法庭很快就会签发一项起诉书。据透漏出的消 息，这份起诉书很可能不会指控叙利亚，而将指控真主党高级官员为暗杀事件的主谋。这样一份起诉书将产生爆炸性的后果。真主党长期以来一直自封为的黎巴嫩英勇的保护者，将之作为维持其庞大武装的冠冕堂皇的理由，但外人难以相信其枪口只是对准以色列侵略者而不是黎巴嫩同胞的说法。

Along with Hizbullah’s devoted followers, many non-Shias readily accept such arguments.But should Hizbullah be proven to have mounted a systematic campaign of extermination against Sunni Muslim and Christian political opponents in Lebanon, the party’s reputation would be severely damaged, along with that of its main backer, Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made a recent festively triumphant visit to Lebanon.与真主党的忠实追随者一道，许多非什叶派黎巴嫩人也准备接受这种说法。真主党策划了针对黎巴嫩逊尼派穆斯林及基督教政治对手的系统消灭行动一旦获得证实，该党连同其主要后台——伊朗的声望都将受到严重损害。伊朗总统内贾德最近刚刚结束了黎巴嫩节日一般喜气洋洋的访问。

Mr Hariri’s son Saad, who now leads March 14th as Lebanon’s prime minister, has quietly reassured Hizbullah that he would publicly insist that any of its members implicated in the killings would be considered merely rogue actors.Conveniently also, the man most widely believed to have orchestrated the killings is dead.Imad Mughniyeh, well known since being implicated in bombings and hostage-takings during Lebanon’s civil war, headed Hizbullah’s special operations forces, and was a key link to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard before his unexplained assassination in Damascus in February 2008.Curiously, the killings in Lebanon stopped abruptly at the same time.哈里里的儿子萨阿德现在是“3?14联盟”的领导人，也是黎巴嫩现任总理，他私下向真主党保证他将公开坚持其观点，即任何与这起暗杀事件有牵连的真主党成员都将被视为仅仅是制造了一起无赖行为。更便当的是，人们普遍认为是精心策划了这起暗杀事件的人已经死了。伊迈德?穆尼耶（Imad Mughniyeh）是真主党特种作战部队的首脑，也是真主党同伊朗革命卫队保持联系的一个关键人物，他以黎巴嫩内战期间制造了一系列爆炸和劫持人质事件而臭名昭著，2008年2月他在发生在大马士革的一场难以解释的暗杀中身亡。令人奇怪的是，同一时间内黎巴嫩的暗杀事件突然停止了。

But Hizbullah, apparently confident in its strength, rejects any suggestion of its involvement.Instead, its leaders have attacked the tribunal with growing vigour, accusing it of being an American tool and of ignoring purported evidence of Israel’s hand in the killings.In Beirut last month party loyalists posing as a pack of angry veiled women scratched, punched and bit members of a team from the UN investigation in southern Beirut.Hizbullah leaders followed this staged provocation with denunciations of the UN’s supposed affront to the virtue of Lebanese womanhood, declaring that henceforth any co-operation with the tribunal would be equated to collaboration with the “Zionist enemy”.真主党显然是对自身实力信心满满，拒绝接受任何它参与了谋杀的指控。相反，其领导人攻击特别法庭的调门不断升高，指责该法庭为美国的工具，对传说中以色列制造了这起谋杀的证据不予采信。上个月在贝鲁特，一群真主党的支持者扮成蒙着面纱的愤怒妇女，对来自贝鲁特南部的联合国调查人员是又挠又咬又打。真主党领导人在这起挑衅事件后谴责联合国调查人员冒犯了黎巴嫩妇女的高贵操守，声称今后任何与特别法庭的合作行为都将被视为与“犹太复国主义敌人”同流合污。

The party’s allies have made a noisy issue of the initial false testimony cited by investigators and long since discarded, in an effort to discredit the entire judicial process.More ominously, voices sympathetic to Hizbullah whisper that its militia, widely seen as far tougher than Lebanon’s ill-equipped conscript army, is ready to take swift control of ports, borders and main cities.Such a move might well provoke Israeli generals, whose itch to tame the Shia party is as intense as it was when they launched their fierce but inconclusive war in 2006, after a spat between Hizbullah and an Israeli border patrol.真主党的盟友们抓住调查人员最初采信了伪证的问题小题大做，闹得沸沸扬扬。其实这个伪证被废弃已久，他们这样做的目的无非是千方百计想抹黑整个司法调查过程。更严重的是，真主党的同情者们透漏说，真主党民兵武装正在准备采取行动以迅速控制黎巴嫩的港口、边境和主要城市。真主党民兵武装的实力远远超过黎巴嫩装备低劣的正规军，这已经成了人们的普遍看法。此举很可能会激怒以色列的将军们，他们对驯服什叶派武装的冲动与发动2006年那场战争时同样强烈。那场战争的起因是真主党武装与以色列边境巡逻队间出现的摩擦。战争的过程非常惨烈，但无果而终。

In Lebanon’s polarised landscape Hizbullah’s large core of loyalists is unlikely to be shaken, even by firm evidence of the party’s involvement in the killing of Mr Hariri and others.Some of its allies, however, especially in the Christian camp, may prove less immune to repulsion.For such a small country, even one with such a violent past, 555 dead and wounded is a big number.Lebanese nerves are jangling.在黎巴嫩泾渭分明的政治版图中，即使有明确的证据证实真主党卷入了暗杀哈里里和其他人的行动，真主党的大批核心支持者也不太可能出现动摇。然而真主党的一些盟友，尤其是基督教派营垒中的盟友，也许会因此而出现离心的倾向。对于黎巴嫩这样一个小国，即使过去暴力事件不断，555人的死伤也绝对不是一个小数目。这件事正在刺激着黎巴嫩人的神经。

Pros clicking at war An American firm wants to turn computer games into a global spectator sport

电脑游戏

职业选手的鼠标大战

一家美国公司试图将电脑游戏变成世界级的观赏性体育项目

Oct 28th 2010

Arriving for a big e-sports match参加电竞大赛

THE first round is over and 32 of the world’s best professional computer-game players are through to the next stage of the Global Starcraft 2 League being played in Seoul, South Korea.Over the next two weeks the players, including the reigning champion, Kim Won-ki(better known by his online moniker “FruitDealer”), will marshal their armies, ponder their strategies and crush their foes.The finalists will play in front of an audience of thousands(and hundreds of thousands more online)for an $87,000 first prize and the respect due the best Starcraft 2 player on the planet.第一轮比赛硝烟落定，世界上最优秀的32名职业电脑游戏选手登上了新的舞台，参加在韩国首尔举行的星际争霸2世界联赛。卫冕冠军金宏基（大家更熟悉他在线上使用的ID“水果贩子”）也在这批选手当中。在接下来的两周时间里，他们将运筹帷幄，挥师征战，直指敌酋。进入决赛的选手将在数千名观众（以及数以十万计的在线观众）面前争夺8.7万美元的奖金，以及全世界最好的星际2选手这一头衔。

This is e-sports, or professional computer-gaming, at its highest level.Just like football or baseball, computer games can be played competitively and in front of paying spectators.South Korea, where the original Starcraft game was released in 1998, is the spiritual home of e-sports.这就是电子竞技（或者说职业化电脑游戏）的最高盛会。像足球和棒球一样，电脑游戏也成了一项具有竞赛性质的运动，可以吸引付费的观众。1998年，星际争霸在韩国首发，从那之后，韩国成了电子竞技精神上的故乡。

South Korean fans watch games broadcast on cable television and the players are celebrities.Teams flush with sponsorship money pay stars salaries on top of their prize money.(One player, Lee Yoon-Yeol, aka “Nada”, is rumoured to earn around $200,000 a year;a journeyman player might make $20,000).Now Activision Blizzard, the California-based company that developed the Starcraft games, is keen to spread the popularity of e-sports in the West.韩国的电竞爱好者通过有线电视观看比赛，电竞选手也都成了名人。战队通过赞助商筹集资金，再按照获得的奖金为明星玩家发薪水。据称，绰号Nada的选手李云龙每年大约能赚20万美元，而一位新人选手也差不多能拿2万美元左右。星际争霸的开发者，总部位于加州的动视-暴雪公司正致力于在西方提升电子竞争的流行度。

Will it work? Professional computer-gaming in the West has been around for several years, with outfits like the Electronic Sports League in Europe and Major League Gaming in America.But it has never taken off to the extent that it has in South Korea.Activision Blizzard thinks that will change as faster broadband makes it easier to broadcast games over the internet.The company designed Starcraft 2 with spectators

in mind and has flown famous Korean players to America to play an exhibition match.GomTV, the Korean firm that runs the league, is providing English commentary on games and it has opened the tournament to any non-Korean player that can manage to qualify.这种努力是否能够获得成果？职业电子竞争在西方也已经开展了不少年头了，在欧洲有电子体育联赛（ESL），美国则有游戏大联盟（MLG），然而其发展程度始终没有达到韩国的水平。动视-暴雪认为，随着宽频网络的发展，在网络上转播比赛会变得更加容易，这种局面也会随之改变。在星际争霸2的设计中，公司始终以竞技性为核心理念，还邀请韩国选手到美国打了一场表演赛。韩国方面负责运营这次表演赛的GomTV公司提供了英文解说，并表示支持所有非韩国选手参加预选赛。

Advertisers are attracted by the ability of e-sports to target an audience with plenty of spending money;Sony Ericsson is sponsoring the tournament in Seoul.The average American gamer is in his 30s and well-educated.With sponsorship comes the money necessary to attract players to pursue computer gaming as a career, says Sean Plott(better known as “Day[9]”), an American player-turned-commentator.Intel recently sponsored a European tournament with a $15,000 prize pool.Perhaps the biggest obstacle to exporting e-sports to the West is a lingering belief that playing computer games is not a proper job—an idea that would no doubt sound familiar to pioneers of professional sports from tennis to snooker.由于电子竞技面向的观众具有相当的消费能力，广告商也非常感兴趣。索尼-爱丽信赞助了在首尔举行的比赛。美国的游戏玩家平均年龄都在30岁以上，且受过良好的教育。Sean Plott（即著名选手Day[9]）曾经是一名电竞选手，现在改行做了解说员。他表示随着赞助商的加入，电子竞技会有更多的资金来源，也会鼓励电脑游戏的玩家将电子竞技作为自己的职业。因特尔最近就为一项欧洲电竞赛事提供了15000美元赞助作为资金。也许将电子竞技引入西方国家的最大障碍，是人们仍然认为玩电脑游戏并不能算一份真正的工作。这种想法听起来并不陌生，在网球和斯诺克这些职业体育的发展过程中，其行业先锋无疑也听到过类似的声音。

Silver lining 银光闪闪

Gold's poor relation is on a winning streak 黄金的穷二弟阔起来了 Sep 30th 2010

AT THE first Olympic games of the modern era in 1896, winners were awarded silver medals.Since then the metal has had to get used to second-class status.But for some time now silver prices have been outpacing those of gold(see chart), its flashier neighbour on the periodic table.On September 29th silver exceeded $22 an ounce, a price not seen since 1980 when the Hunt brothers, a pair of Texan oil barons, unwisely attempted to corner the market.Then silver spiked as high as $50 an ounce before the strategy unravelled, sending the price crashing and the Hunts back to the oil business.32 在1896年第一届现代奥运会上，冠军获得的奖牌是银质的。从那以后，白银便沦为了老二的象征。不过，近来银价上扬之速已超过黄金（见图，银价一直压着它在元素周期表上的光鲜邻居一头）。9月29日，银价突破22美元/盎司。上一次白银达到如此高度还要追溯到1980年，当时德州石油大亨亨特兄弟（Hunt brothers）妄图操纵银市，使银价一度站上了50美元/盎司。接着，他们的如意算盘破产，银价随之崩盘，兄弟俩只能回去继续做石油生意。

The explanation for the steady rise of silver this time round is less dramatic.But high prices have a better chance of enduring.For investors, silver and gold have much of the same allure.The combination of a weak dollar, low interest rates and economic uncertainty that has convinced some to buy gold and pushed its price up to around $1,300 an ounce has also encouraged them to put their money into other likely-looking stores of value.Silver not only offers investors persity but it is also supported by real industrial demand.此次银价稳步上升背后的就没有如此精彩的故事了。但此次银价高企可能会持续更长时间。对投资者而言，白银与黄金吸引力相当。弱势美元、低利率以及经济不确定性促使人们大笔购入黄金，将金价推上1300美元/盎司；也促使他们把钱投向与黄金相似的价值储藏物。白银不但可以为投资者提供多元化之选，而且其价格还受到真实产业需求的支持。

Whereas around 25-30% of gold is bought by investors, only about a tenth of global silver production goes the same way.Roughly half the world’s silver goes to industrial users(the balance is accounted for by jewellery and other silverware), although their identity has undergone a huge shift over the past decade.大约25~30%的黄金是由投资者购买的，而白银的这一比例只有大约10%。大约有一半的白银被用于工业用途（其余则被制成首饰和银器），不过数十年来用途不尽相同。

Old-fashioned film for cameras required mountains of silver.According to Merrill Lynch, an investment bank, photographic demand for silver has fallen by more than 60% in the past decade.Even in 2004, when the popularity of digital cameras was already well established, the photographic industry consumed 5,600 tonnes of silver, a fifth of total production.That compares with just 9% in 2009.老式胶片需要大量使用白银。据投资银行美林公司的数据，过去十年摄影业的白银需求量下降了六成以上。在2004年数码相机已开始流行时，摄影业年白银消费量仍高达5 600吨，相当于产量的二成。到2009年已下降到9%。

New uses for the metal plugged the gap left by film.Silver is widely used in electronics, whether in buttons for TVs, in membrane switches in computer keyboards or as a coating for CDs and DVDs.But the great hope for silver is the solar-power industry.Photovoltaic cells, the technology used in 70% of solar panels, contain silver.Although other technologies that do not use silver are on the rise, heavy government subsidies are forecast to help keep the solar industry growing.新用途填补了胶片需求萎缩留下的空白。白银被广泛用于电子器件，包括电视按钮、计算机键盘薄膜开关以及CD和DVD碟片涂层。但白银的未来需求主要存在于太阳能产业。70%的太阳能面板使用含银的光伏电池。尽管不使用白银的技术正在不断发展，但政府的大幅补贴预计仍将助太阳能产业蓬勃发展。

Demand for silver is likely to keep rising in developing countries in particular: China, which used to export the metal, now imports it.The same cannot be said for supply.As Michael Lewis of Deutsche Bank points out, three-quarters of the world’s supply comes as a by-product from copper, lead and zinc mines.So ramping up production is difficult.Total supplies of the metal in 2009, at 27,650 tonnes, were barely higher than in 2004.Athletes of the future may not feel quite so bad about taking home a silver medal.发展中国家对白银的需求可能持续上升。特别是中国，已由白银出口国变为进口国。供给方的情形则非如此。德意志银行的迈克尔?刘易斯（Michael Lewis）指出，白银供给中有75%是铜、铅和锌矿开采过程中的副产品。因此大举增加产量并不容易。2009年，白银总供给量为27 650吨，只比2004年略高。或许未来运动员拿块银牌回家也不会感到多沮丧了。

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Athletes of the future may not feel quite so bad about taking home a silver medal.或许未来运动员拿块银牌回家也会感到多沮丧了。

翻译反了吧！

Ambac's fall Ambac倒闭

And then there was one

已成过去

The bond-insurance industry struggles for survival

债券保险业挣扎求存

Nov 4th 2010

AMERICA’S municipal-bond market is worth around $2.8 trillion.But “monoline” insurers, which insure municipal bonds issued by American cities and counties, are barely breathing.On November 1st the industry edged closer to extinction when one of the largest bond insurers, Ambac, announced that it would skip an interest payment.The company could file for bankruptcy by the end of the month.美国的市政债券市场市值约为2.8万亿。但为美国市县所发市政债券提供保险的单一险种保险公司只能苟延残喘。11月1日，当最大的债券保险公司之一Ambac宣布停付一期利息时，这个行业离灰飞烟灭又近了一点。该公司月底前可能申请破产。

It didn’t need an oracle to predict Ambac’s demise.Earlier this year a state regulator siphoned off some of Ambac’s most toxic assets and put them into “rehabilitation”.Ambac has over $1.6 billion in debt, but only $76m in cash and short-term securities.One of its most coveted assets is its $7 billion “net operating loss tax carry forward”, which could translate into $2.5 billion in tax savings if it ever manages to turn a profit.Rob Haines of CreditSights, a research firm, does not think it will: “Ambac is a dying company with a finite life.”

预测Ambac的破产并非难事。今年早些时候，一家州监管机构抽取Ambac的一些最为不良的资产，将它们投入“改造”。Ambac欠下超过16亿美元的债务，但只有7.6千万的现金和短期证券。该公司最遭人觊觎的资产之一是其70亿美元的“净营业损失免税金额”，如果该公司有机会盈利，该免税金额可转换成25亿美元的节税金额。CreditSights研究公司的罗布?海恩斯（Rob Haines）认为Ambac不会盈利：“Ambac时日无多了。”

The prospects for other monoline insurers look equally bleak.The industry got going in the 1970s and at first provided insurance only for municipal-bond issuers, which rarely defaulted.Over the past decade, however, the industry has branched out into structured products, such as risky mortgage-backed securities and collateralised-debt obligations.Big mistake.When subprime mortgages soured, bond insurers such as Ambac and MBIA, another embattled monoline, were on the hook to pay up.Their credit ratings dropped, which meant issuers were less willing to buy insurance from them.其他单一险种保险公司的前景看来一样惨淡。这个行业始于20世纪70年代，起出只为很少违约的市政债券发行人提供保险。但过去十年，这个行业涉足结构化产品，如高风险的按揭贷款支持证券和抵押债务债券。大错特错。当次级房贷恶化时，Ambac和MBIA（另一家处境

艰难的单一险种保险公司）等债券保险公司拖延偿还欠款。它们的信用等级下降，意味着发行人更不愿意向它们买保险。

In 2005 bond insurers covered around 57% of new bond issuance, but now they cover a mere 7% or so.Only one monoline remains active: Assured Guaranty, which sat out most of the structured stampede.All its pre-crisis peers are either being restructured, face litigation or are out of business.Even Warren Buffett, who entered the bond-insurance market in 2008, has pulled back.“We’re like an only child,” says Dominic Frederico, the boss of Assured Guaranty.“We don’t have anybody to play with but all the toys are ours.” Still, life isn’t all fun and games.Standard & Poor’s, a ratings agency, last month stripped the firm of its AAA rating.2005年，债券保险公司覆盖了大约57%的新债券保险，但现在它们仅覆盖大约7%。只有一家单一险种保险公司仍有活力：对结构化浪潮浅尝辄止的Assured Guaranty。它在危机之前的所有同行要么正在重组，要么面临诉讼，要么破产。即使是2008年进入债券保险市场的沃伦?巴菲特（Warren Buffett）也撤出。“我们就像独生子，” Assured Guaranty的老板多米尼克?弗雷德里克（Dominic Frederico）说，“我们没有玩伴，但所有玩具都是我们的。”然而，生活并非只有欢乐与游戏。评级机构标准普尔上月剥夺了该企业的AAA等级。

Some still believe there is hope for the industry.The National League of Cities, a non-profit organisation, thinks there should be a mutual insurance company owned and operated by local governments.But monolines will have to embrace a new model to succeed.Stanislas Rouyer of Moody’s, another ratings agency, says monolines need to emphasise that they provide not just insurance but also monitoring and surveillance capabilities.This would enable them to sell their wares directly to retail investors, who account for 36% of the buyer base for municipal bonds.一些人仍然认为这个行业还有希望。非营利组织全国城市联盟（National League of Cities）认为应有一家由地方政府拥有和运营的互助保险公司。但单一险种保险公司将不得不采用新模式以求成功。另一家评级机构穆迪公司（Moody’s）的斯丹尼斯拉斯?劳耶尔（Stanislas Rouyer）表示单一险种保险公司需要强调它们不仅提供保险，而且具备监控和监督的能力。这样做将使它们能够直接向占市政债券买家基数36%的散户销售产品。

There are other hurdles to jump first.The shaky finances of some municipalities could put what’s left of the industry to another huge test.Fragile issuers and nervous investors ought to be a boon to insurers.But mass defaults by cities and counties could be the final blow for Assured Guaranty and its zombie peers.还有其他障碍尚需先行跨越。一些市政府不稳固的财务状况可能使这个行业剩下的公司面临另一个巨大的考验。脆弱的发行人和紧张的投资者应该对保险公司有所裨益。但市县大量违约可能成为Assured Guaranty及其毫无活力的同行的致命一击。

Finance and Economics 财经

Oracle v SAP Oracle对阵SAP

Maintaining fees 捍卫维护费

A lawsuit against SAP is about more than illegal downloads 针对SAP的讼案不仅仅与非法下载有关

Nov 4th 2010

SOMETIMES a tackle says much about a match and even the entire season.This is the case with a trial that opened on November 1st, pitting the world’s two biggest makers of corporate software, Oracle and SAP, against each other.The dispute goes back to SAP’s purchase in 2005 of TomorrowNow, which provided maintenance services for some of Oracle’s software.Its aim was to poach customers.But in 2007 Oracle sued SAP, alleging that TomorrowNow had made illegal downloads from its website.有时，一次阻截抢断就足以说明一场球赛甚或整个赛季。11月1日开庭、挑起全球最大两家企业软件商Oracle与SAP相互火拼的讼案，就属于这种情况。这场争论要追溯至2005年SAP收购TomorrowNow一事，后者为某些Oracle软件提供维护服务，意在挖走顾客。不过2007年Oracle起诉SAP，声称TomorrowNow从其网站非法下载。

SAP has since admitted that TomorrowNow had done wrong and closed it down.It will not even contest allegations that it was aware of the copyright infringement and has reportedly agreed to pay $120m in legal fees to Oracle.This essentially leaves only two questions open: the damages—SAP thinks $40m is enough;Oracle wants about $2 billion—and whether Léo Apotheker, SAP’s former boss and now head of Hewlett-Packard(HP), will appear in court.SAP自那时起就承认TomorrowNow行为失当，并关闭了该公司。而面对Oracle指控自个对版权侵害心知肚明一说，SAP甚至不会辩解。并且，据说其同意向Oracle支付1.2亿美元的诉讼费。这实质上只留下了两个问题悬而未决。一是Oracle的损失，SAP认为4000万美元足够了，而Oracle想要约20亿美元；二是Léo Apotheker这位SAP前老板、HP现领袖，是否会出庭。

As a result, it will be up to another trial to answer the underlying question: what are the rules for third-party maintenance? In January Oracle sued another maintenance firm, Rimini Street.It has since countersued, accusing Oracle of anticompetitive behaviour.因此，SAP将面临另一场讯问，要回答如下问题：第三方维护的规则是什么？今年1月，Oracle起诉了另一家软件维护公司Rimini Street。该公司那时就提起反诉，指控Oracle的反竞争行为。

The issue is the same as with independent car-repair shops: what access to the

intellectual property of the original vendor should they have? If the court favours Rimini Street and others, their business could take off.A growing number of firms are thinking about defecting from Oracle and SAP, even though they would no longer get regular updates.They are happy with their existing applications and could cut their maintenance costs in half.这个问题跟独立汽修店面临的问题是一样的：这些店铺应通过何种途径获得创始者的知识产权？若法庭站到Rimini Street及其他企业一边，这些企业就将蓬勃发展。越来越多企业正考虑背弃Oracle与SAP，即便不再获得定期升级。它们满意现有应用，可能会削减一半维护费。

If many customers jump ship, this would weigh heavily on the results of Oracle and SAP.Maintenance fees, usually 22% of a program’s price per year, have become a bigger part of firms’ technology budgets and of software vendors’ income.For both firms, maintenance generates twice as much revenue as software sales—and all of the profits.若众多用户掉头离去，将会极大影响Oracle跟SAP的业绩。维护费通常占一个程序年费的22%，已成为企业科研预算及软件销售收入的大部分来源。对Oracle与SAP两家公司而言，维护费是软件销售收入的两倍，也是全部利润。

Yet if the TomorrowNow trial has attracted so much attention, it is also because of a new epic rivalry in the industry.It started when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems last year, becoming a direct rival to HP.Things got worse in September when Oracle hired HP’s ex-boss, Mark Hurd, who had been pushed out the previous month.The relationship became downright hostile when HP then appointed Mr Apotheker as successor and installed as chairman, of all people, Ray Lane, who left Oracle in 2000 after falling out with its flamboyant boss, Larry Ellison.然而，倘若TomorrowNow一案吸引了如此多关注，也是因为该行业产生了新一轮重大对抗。这种对抗始于去年Oracle收购Sun Microsystems时，这场收购变成了一场直接针对HP的竞争。今年9月，情况变糟了，当时Oracle雇佣了HP前老板Mark Hurd，而他上个月刚被HP炒了鱿鱼。HP接着任命Apotheker先生充当继任者，安排Ray Lane担任董事长，而偏偏就是此人2000年与Oracle趾高气扬的老板Larry Ellison大吵一场后，离开了Oracle。因而此时，两家公司间的关系变得彻头彻尾充满敌意。

Mr Ellison, who has shown restraint in recent years, has since rediscovered his previous more belligerent form.He compared HP’s board to “idiots” when they forced Mr Hurd out.He spoke of “madness” after Mr Apotheker’s appointment.Later he accused HP’s new boss, who started his new job on the first day of the trial, of having “overseen an industrial-espionage scheme”.Ellison先生最近几年表现克制，但从那时起，他又找回了从前更好斗的模样。当HP董事会逼迫Hurd先生离开时，他将其比作“白痴”。在HP任命Apotheker先生后，他说这是“蠢事”。后来，他指责HP新老板（此案开庭首日他走马上任）正“监管一项工业间谍活动计划”。

All this has entertainment value.And it may impress Wall Street.But it is unlikely to make firms buy more of Oracle’s products.Nor will it do anything to counter the growing anger among customers of Oracle(and of SAP, for that matter)over how much

they pay in maintenance fees, with so little in return.这一切充满了娱乐价值，并会让华尔街印象深刻，却不大可能让企业购买更多的Oracle产品。而Oracle用户（就此事而言，SAP的用户同样）日益愤怒：他们付出了这么多维护费，回报却如此之少。要平息他们的怒气，这一切也毫无用处。Transparency International 透明国际

Murk meter 阴暗量表

The best-known corruption index may have run its course 最著名的腐败指数或许已走到尽头。

Oct 28th 2010 | BERLIN

CORRUPTION takes many forms;in some countries it is blatant, in others it is barely visible.So the idea that it can quantified on a simple scale is appealing;it gives the impression that an elusive aspect of behaviour can be pinned down.腐败形式五花八门：它在某些国家明目张胆地存在，而在其他国家则几乎深藏不露。因此，以一个简单的尺度对其加以量化的想法颇具吸引力。这给人留下一种印象：一种难以捉摸的行为也可被清晰界定。

No wonder, then, that the annual corruption perceptions index(CPI), which orders countries according to the perceived degree of graft, is closely watched.But when its compilers—Transparency International(TI), an organisation based in Berlin—released their 16th annual ranking on October 26th, there was criticism as well as curiosity.于是，也难怪按被察觉到的贪腐程度对国家进行排序的腐败认知指数(CPI)会受到密切关注了。不过当其编纂者（位于柏林的透明国际组织）在10月26日发布第16份排名时，既引发了好奇，也招至了批评。

To be sure, TI has done a lot for the anti-corruption cause.The group has had an “enormous impact”, says Richard Boucher, a deputy secretary-general at the OECD, a rich-country club.The CPI was the first index comparing corruption globally.透明国际无疑已为反腐事业做出许多努力。富裕国家俱乐部——经合组织的副秘书长理查德?鲍彻(Richard Boucher)称透明国际已拥有 “巨大的影响力”。腐败认知指数是第一个在全球层面上对腐败程度进行比较的指数。

But it has always been controversial.As might be expected, early complaints came from poor places which felt they were being singled out by an organisation that reflected the ethos of wealthy countries.39

不过这一指数始终存有争议。正如你可能预料的那样，早期的抱怨来自于贫困地区，这些地区感到自己受到了一个反映富裕国家精神特质的组织的区别对待。

Now there are more subtle critiques, too.Some people take issue, for example, with the methodology based on 13 surveys of experts and business people.Its precise working varies from country to country, and it has changed over time—so that year-on-year comparisons can be misleading.如今也出现了更为精巧的批评。例如，某些人士反对指数的计算方法，该方法以13项针对专家和商务人士的调查为基础。在不同国家，这种方法的准确运作会有差异，而且它也会随时间变化而变化，因此同比结果可能具有误导性。

The CPI highlights the general level of corruption, but offers little clue about which aspects are most serious, or how to fight it.Frustration has grown with the idea that “a single number for a whole country is enough”, says Nathaniel Heller of Global Integrity, an anti-corruption outfit.腐败认知指数强调了腐败的整体水平，但却没有为哪些领域腐败最盛或应如何打击腐败提供多少信息。反腐败组织——环球廉正(Global Integrity)的纳撒尼尔?海勒(Nathaniel Heller)表示，对于那种认为“就整个国家而言，一个数据便足够了”的想法，人们已产生受挫感。

The CPI “has more than run its course”, in the view of Claudio Weber Abramo, director of Transparência Brasil, a former chapter that left the TI umbrella in 2007.在透明巴西(Transparência Brasil)主席克劳迪奥?韦伯?阿布拉莫(Claudio Weber Abramo)看来，腐败认知指数“已经过时”。该组织曾是透明国际组织网中的一个分支，但已于2007年退出。

TI is aware of the index’s shortcomings.The CPI, it says, is “an annual snapshot” with “less of a focus on year-on-year trends”.Yet the group stands by its ranking.“We are comfortable we have an important tool—but it is only one tool”, says Huguette Labelle, TI’s chair.透明国际明白指数所存有的缺陷。该组织指出，腐败认知指数是一种“较少聚焦于同比趋势”的“快照”。不过该组织仍支持自己的排序。透明国际主席胡吉特?拉贝勒(Huguette Labelle)表示：“我们为自己拥有一种重要工具而感到安心——不过这只是一种工具”。

TI is far from a one-trick pony.It now focuses on boosting international accords and helping enforce them.At the local level, it also does much more than in the past.In some developing countries, legal advice centres help victims of corruption.Still, the CPI looms large, and the organisation faces a dilemma.The index gets a much-needed attention, but it overshadows other activities and exposes it to criticism.If TI had the courage to ditch its score-card, or at least publish it in a less misleading

form, its other work might fare better.透明国际远非黔驴技穷之辈。目前，该组织正在关注推动国际协议并助其实施。而在地区层面上，该组织的所作所为也比以往多上许多。在一些发展中国家，法律咨询中心向腐败受害者伸出援手。不过，腐败认知指数影响巨大，透明国际正面临着两难局面。这一指数既赢得了其所急需的关注，却又盖住了其他活动的风头，并将自己推至风口浪尖。如果透明国际有勇气抛弃这块记分牌，或者至少是以一种误导性较小的方式加以发布的话，该组织其他工作的进展或许就将更加顺利。

Broadband in America 美国宽带业

Come sooner, future 快来吧，未来

Verizon has paid dearly to build a fast network.Now it needs customers Verizon公司付出了高昂代价建设高速网络。现在，它亟需用户

Oct 28th 2010

VERIZON can get shirty about the word “fibre”.America’s second-biggest telecoms operator successfully complained to the Better Business Bureau that competitors had touted “fibre-optic fast” to consumers, even though their broadband networks did not run fibre all the way to the home, as Verizon does.This is not just a techies’ argument.By an order of magnitude, an all-fibre network is the fastest way to move information from one place to another on the internet and Verizon has the largest such network in America.The difficult bit is making money from it.Verizon可能生“纤”字的气。因为这家美国第二大电信运营商向商业促进局申诉成功，称其竞争者的宽带网即便并未如自己那般从头至尾光纤延伸入户，却纷纷向消费者兜售“光纤高速”。这并非只是愤愤之辞。就数量级而言，全光网是互联网信息异地迁移速度最快的方式，而Verizon拥有美国最大的全光网。难点在于用它赚钱。

The company is betting that highbandwidth web services will create a huge demand for fast networks—and profits.But that is in the future.In Japan and South Korea, two other countries with fast networks, the government has subsidised the laying of new fibre.In America, which has relied on private investment, Verizon is having to shoulder more of the risk.该公司正打赌，高带宽网络业务将创造对高速网络的巨大需求，并产生巨额利润。不过，这尚未到来。拥有高速网络的日韩两国，政府补贴新光纤铺设。而在依赖私人投资的美国，Verizon不得不承受更多风险。

The reason why the company was so keen to build a fast network goes back to how America was wired originally.In the beginning there was copper wire, which telephone companies ran to almost every house.Then, in the 1980s, cable-television companies secured local monopolies to provide coaxial cable as well.该公司热衷高速网络建设的原因，要追溯至美国当初如何布线。起初是铜线，电话公司铺至几乎每家每户。接着，在上世纪八十年代，有线电视公司获得了本地垄断权，也布设了同轴电缆。

At first the two networks had a fair fight, delivering the internet at about the same speed.No network, however, can run faster than the speed of its “last mile”, from the neighbourhood node to the house.This is the most expensive place to lay networks and the last mile of cable is faster than a copper wire.So the telephone companies would, eventually, be unable to deliver the internet as fast as their cable competitors.最初，这两种网络公平竞争，互联网传输速度大致相同。然而，没有网络能快过其“最后一英里”（即从小区节点至用户家里那段）的速度。这是网络布设造价最贵之处，而电缆最后一英里比铜线快。因此电话公司也许最终，其互联网传输速度不能像有线竞争者那样快。

Verizon, formed in 2000 out of several regional telephone companies, decided to create a third network.Since 2004 it has strung optic fibre to 60% of the homes where it already had copper wires, mainly in Texas, California and on the East Coast.Verizon calls its new network “FiOS”.It cost about $23 billion to build and, according to Sanford Bernstein, an investment firm, contributed to the $32 billion debt of Verizon’s wireline pision.2000年成立、由几家区域电话公司组成的Verizon，决定创建第三种网络。2004年来，光纤拉进了60%已铺有铜线的家庭（主要在德克萨斯、加利福尼亚及东海岸地区）。Verizon称其新网络为“FiOS”。其建设费约230亿美元，而据投资公司Sanford Bernstein的数据，这导致Verizon有线部门负债320亿美元。

To counter FiOS, the cable companies have run fibre to the neighbourhood node, from where the connection continues to the home through their existing cable.This technology now reaches more than 70% of homes(see chart)and, unlike Verizon, the cable companies did not have to pay to replace the last mile.为抗衡FiOS，有线公司已将光纤延伸至小区节点，从这儿继续用其现有电缆连接至用户家里。该技术现抵达了超过70%的家庭（如图所示），且与Verizon不同，有线公司无须掏钱更换最后一英里网络。

Basic copper and cable internet access cannot run faster than about 5 megabits per second, which is just about fast enough to watch something on YouTube or for a video chat over Skype.But networks seldom run as fast as advertised.The cable networks upgraded with fibre can run at speeds in the hundreds of megabits per second, enough to handle most present-day applications and many in the immediate future, like

high-definition video.Yet Verizon’s network could leave these in the dust.In tests in Massachusetts its fibre network has run as fast as 10,000 megabits per second, and it could go faster.基本的铜线及电缆互联网接入速度不超过5Mbits/s，仅够看YouTube或Skype视频聊天。不过，网速鲜有宣传得那样快。光纤升级后的有线网络，网速达几百兆每秒，足以应付现在的大部分应用，而在不远的将来出现的许多应用，如高清视频，处理起来也绰绰有余。然而，Verizon的网络将令上述网络望尘莫及，在马萨诸塞州进行的试验中，其光纤网速高达10Gbits/s,还能更快。

This puts Verizon in a tricky position.Its old copper network, still 40% of its customer base, is not fast enough but FiOS is faster than most consumers need.So the company is having to weather the transition to a time when faster networks become more important.On October 22nd Verizon said that its overall revenue, at $26.5 billion in the third quarter, was 2.9% down on the same period a year ago.Its mobile-phone pision performed strongly, with revenue rising by 6%, to $16.3 billion.But its wireline business remained under pressure: revenue fell by 3.6% in the period and operating profit slumped by 90%.这令Verizon处境棘手。仍有40%客户基础的旧有铜线网速不够快，但FiOS却快得超过了大部分用户所需。因此该公司现在不得不挨过这一过渡期，直到高速网络日渐重要的那一天。10月22日，Verizon称今年第三季度总收入达265亿美元，较去年同期下降2.9%。其移动电话部门表现强劲，收入增加了6%，达163亿美元。但其有线业务仍面临压力：这一时期收入下跌3.6%，营业利润大幅下滑90%。

For now, Verizon has halted new investment in fibre while it tries to drum up more customers for FiOS.And for the long term it is trying to create demand for an even faster internet.Verizon has suggested that it be allowed to offer companies super-fast, premium access to its network while continuing to provide what it calls “the open internet” to its customers.Verizon sees its fast network supplying programmes to 100-inch television screens and providing 3-D online gaming.More speed-demanding video games are coming(see article).The company has also been discussing linking medical devices in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries.It is building connections to intelligent power grids, which businesses and homes could use to reduce their energy bills.For Verizon, the future cannot come fast enough.目前，Verizon暂停往光纤上再投资，同时设法力争更多FiOS顾客。而长期以来，它一直试图创造同样的高速互联网需求。Verizon表明，它应获准向企业提供高速、优惠的网络接入，同时继续向用户提供其所称的“开放式互联网”。Verizon考虑让其高速网络提供100英寸电视屏幕节目及3D网络游戏。更多苛求速度的视频游戏正在涌现。该公司也一直在谈论用高速网络连接医院医疗设备及医生手术室。它正构建智能电网连接，企业及家庭用户可用其削减能源开销。对Verizon而言，未来来得还不够快。Born digital 数码人生

National libraries start to preserve the web, but cannot save everything 各国的图书馆开始保存网站，但不能面面俱到

Oct 21st 2010

The library of the future IN THE digital realm, things seem always to happen the wrong way round.Whereas Google has hurried to scan books into its digital catalogue, a group of national libraries has begun saving what the online giant leaves behind.For although search engines such as Google index the web, they do not archive it.Many websites just disappear when their owner runs out of money or interest.Adam Farquhar, in charge of digital projects for the British Library, points out that the world has in some ways a better record of the beginning of the 20th century than of the beginning of the 21st.在数码界，出乎意料的事情屡见不鲜。当谷歌忙于将书籍扫描成数字文档时，各国图书馆已经开始保存这个在线巨人漏掉的资料。尽管谷歌这类搜索引擎提供网站的索引服务，但并没有把网站保存起来。很多网站因其所有人缺乏资金或失去兴趣而昙花一现。Adam Farquhar负责大英博物馆的数字项目，他指出在某种程度上全世界对20世纪初期的记录比21世纪初期的记录要好。

In 1996 Brewster Kahle, a computer scientist and internet entrepreneur, founded the Internet Archive, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving websites.He also began gently harassing national libraries to worry about preserving the web.They started to pay attention when several elections produced interesting material that never touched paper.在1996年，一个名为Brewster Kahle的计算机科学家和因特网企业家，成立了英特网档案室，这是一个非营利性的组织，致力于网站的保存。他也开始委婉地敦促各国的图书馆关注保存网站的问题。几轮选举中出现很多有意义材料，但从未以书面形式保留下来时，此时，各国图书馆开始关注这一问题。

In 2003 eleven national libraries and the Internet Archive launched a project to preserve “born-digital” information: the kind that has never existed as anything but digitally.Called the International Internet Preservation Consortium(IIPC), it now includes 39 large institutional libraries.But the task is impossible.One reason is the sheer amount of data on the web.The groups have already collected several petabytes of data(a petabyte can hold roughly 10 trillion copies of this article).2003年，11家各国图书馆和因特网档案室启动一个保护数码信息的项目：此类信息没有以数码之外的任何其他形式存在过。这个称为“国际因特网保护联合体”的项目，现有39家大型机构图书馆。但是这一任务几乎无法完成。理由之一是网络上的数据量极其庞大。这些团体已经收集了几拍（petabytes）的数据（一拍大约能装下10万亿篇本文）。

Another issue is ensuring that the data is stored in a format that makes it available in centuries to come.Ancient manuscripts are still readable.But much digital media from the past is readable only on a handful of fragile and antique machines, if at all.The IIPC has set a single format, making it more likely that future historians will be able to find a machine to read the data.But a single solution cannot capture all content.Web publishers increasingly serve up content-rich pages based on complex

data sets.Audio and video programmes based on proprietary formats such as Windows Media Player are another challenge.What happens if Microsoft is bankrupt and forgotten in 2210? 另一个问题是如何确保现在储存数据的格式，在几个世纪之后依然存在。古代的一些书稿人们到今天还能读。但是很多过去的数字媒体，即使勉强能读，也仅限于为数不多的几台老掉牙的机器。国际因特网保护联合体已经单独创立一种格式，让未来的历史学家更有可能找到读取这些数据的机器。但一种解决方案不能抓取所有内容。网站发布工具越来越多地按照数据的复杂程度提供内容丰富的网页。以各类专有格式（如windows media player)储存的音频和视频内容也是个大问题。万一2210年微软破产或无人知晓怎么办？

The biggest problem, for now, is money.The British Library estimates that it costs half as much to store a digital document as it does a physical one.But there are a lot more digital ones.America’s Library of Congress enjoys a specific mandate, and budget, to save the web.The British Library is still seeking one.现在面临的最大问题是钱。大英博物馆估计储存数字文件的花费是储存物理文件的一半。但是数字内容要多很多。美国国会图书馆很幸运，因为国家有具体的保护网站的命令和预算。大英博物馆还在争取这种命令。

So national libraries have decided to split the task.Each has taken responsibility for the digital works in its national top-level domain(web-address suffixes such as “.uk” or “.fr”).In countries with larger domains, such as Britain and America, curators cannot hope to save everything.They are concentrating on material of national interest, such as elections, news sites and citizen journalism or innovative uses of the web.因此，各国的图书馆决定共同完成这个任务。它们分别承担其顶级域名内的数字作品（如后缀为“.uk”或“.fr”的网址）。如果某些国家域名庞大，如英国和美国，馆长们不要指望把什么都保存下来。他们需要重点处理关系国计民生的材料，如选举、新闻网站和公民的报章杂志或创意使用网站的方法。

The daily death of countless websites has brought a new sense of urgency—and forced libraries to adapt culturally as well.Past practice was to tag every new document as it arrived.Now precision must be sacrificed to scale and speed.The task started before standards, goals or budgets are set.And they may yet change.Just like many websites, libraries will be stuck in what is known as “permanent beta”.每天，都有无数网站消失，更让人感到时间紧迫——图书馆也不得不根据社会文化需要，灵活处理。过去习惯做法是凡是新文件，一一标注保存。现在则必须牺牲准确性换取规模和速度。标准、目标或预算都没确定，就开始工作了。而标准、任务、预算还可能变更。同很多网站一样，图书馆也将陷入所谓“永久试用”的境地。

译者注： 本文不长，语言相对简单，但要译出“韵味”，还是不容易。我觉得有几点需要大家尤其注意： 1.大意的把握。两方面内容，保存什么？保存的是网站内容，不是某个网页。谁来

保存？各国的图书馆，这不是一个国家的图书馆能做得了的工作。这两点弄不好，文中web、national libraries就不好翻。

某些具体语句的把握。除了要翻出意思，还要翻出感情色彩。就拿开头一句“things seem always to happen the wrong way round”来说，有人翻成“倒行逆施”，这就说明译者没有理解中文的倒行逆施有“贬义”，用来形容某个不得人心、逆历史潮流而动的做法等，感情色彩很浓厚。而本文则没有这种强烈的情绪，因此，我认为“出乎意料的事情屡见不鲜”、“事情的发展总是让人摸不透”等比较贴切，看似“不准确”，其实意思出来了。

Virtual outsourcing 虚拟外包业

Mobile work 移动工作

A way to earn money by texting 发短信赚钱之法

Oct 28th 2010 | new york

Mobile worker 移动工作者

THE idea came to Nathan Eagle, a research scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when he was doing a teaching stint in rural Kenya.He realised that, as three-quarters of the 4.6 billion mobile-phone users worldwide live in developing countries, a useful piece of technology is now being placed in the hands of a large number of people who might be keen to use their devices to make some money.To help them do so, he came up with a service called txteagle which distributes small jobs via text messaging in return for small payments.麻省理工学院研究员Nathan Eagle在肯尼亚乡下进行短期教学时，冒出了这一念头。他意识到，全世界46亿手机用户有四分之三生活在发展中国家，因而一项实用技术，此刻正掌握在大量或许渴望用自己手机赚钱的人手中。为帮助他们那样做，Eagle先生想出了一种叫做txteagle的业务，可以靠发文字短信分发零活来换取小额报酬。

Only 18% of people in the developing world have access to the internet, but more than 50% owned a mobile-phone handset at the end of 2009(a number which has more than doubled since 2005), according to the International Telecommunication Union.One study shows that adding ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts growth in GDP per person by 0.8 percentage points.根据国际电信联盟的数据，2009年底，发展中国家仅有18%的人接入了互联网，却有超过一半的人拥有手机（这一数据自2005年以来增加了一倍以上）。一项研究表明，在一个典型的发展中国家，每百人增加十部手机，会使人均GDP提升0.8个百分点。

Mr Eagle hopes txteagle will do its bit by mobile “crowdsourcing”—breaking down jobs into small tasks and sending them to lots of inpiduals.These jobs often involve local knowledge and range from things like checking what street signs say in rural Sudan for a satellite-navigation service to translating words into a Kenyan dialect for companies trying to spread their marketing.A woman living in rural Brazil or India may have limited access to work, adds Mr Eagle, “but she can still use her mobile phone to collect local price and product data or even complete market-research surveys.” Payments are transferred to a user’s phone by a mobile money service, such as the M-PESA system run by Safaricom in Africa, or by providing additional calling credit.Eagle先生希望txteagle业务通过移动“众包”（将工作拆分成零星任务后派发给众多个体）有所贡献。这些工作通常牵涉本地知识，涵盖各种事情，如为一种卫星导航业务核对种种路标在苏丹乡下表明什么，为那些试图扩展市场的公司将文字翻译为肯尼亚土语。一位住在巴西或印度乡下的妇女，或许工作机会有限，Eagle先生补充道，“但她仍能用自己的手机搜集当地价格及产品数据，甚或完成市场调研。”报酬通过一种手机钱包业务（比如非洲Safaricom移动通信公司运营的M-PESA移动转账系统）转到用户手机上，或者打入额外的手机预付费。

Working with over 220 mobile operators, txteagle is able to reach 2 billion subscribers in 80 countries.It already has the largest contract-labour force in Kenya and new ways of using it are being found all the time.Recently a large media firm asked Mr Eagle for help in monitoring its television commercials across Africa.The company was concerned that, although it had paid for broadcasting rights, its ads could be replaced with others by local television companies.So txteagle pays locals to watch and then text notes about which ads are shown.“I would never think of that myself,” says Mr Eagle.Which is why he is not sure just how big all these small text jobs could become.txteagle业务与220多个移动运营商合作，能到达80个国家的20亿订户。在肯尼亚已拥有了最大的包工力量，新的使用方式一直层出不穷。最近一家媒体巨头向Eagle先生求助，监视其在非洲全境的电视商业广告。该公司担心，尽管其已为播映权掏了钱，但自个的广告却可能被当地电视公司的广告替换。于是txteagle业务付钱给当地人观察哪些广告播出了，然后用文字标注。Eagle说，“我自己决不会想到这个法子。”他不确定所有这些零星的文字工作究竟会变成多大的力量，而这就是原因。The Big Mac index 巨无霸指数 An indigestible problem 难题

Why China needs more expensive burgers 为什么说中国的巨无霸太便宜了 Oct 14th 2010 | Hong kong

A WEAK currency, despite its appeal to exporters and politicians, is no free lunch.But it can provide a cheap one.In China, for example, a McDonald’s Big Mac costs just 14.5 yuan on average in Beijing and Shenzhen, the equivalent of $2.18 at market exchange rates.In America, in contrast, the same burger averages $3.71.出口商和政客所吁求的弱势货币绝非免费的午餐。不过它确实可以使午餐变得很便宜。比如说，在中国的北京和深圳，一个麦当劳巨无霸汉堡平均只需14.5元人民币即可买到，按市场汇率计算，相当于2.18美元。而在美国，相同的汉堡要卖到3.71美元。

That makes China’s yuan one of the most undervalued currencies in the Big Mac index, our gratifyingly simple guide to currency misalignments, updated this week(see chart).The index is based on the idea of purchasing-power parity, which says that a currency’s price should reflect the amount of goods and services it can buy.Since 14.5 yuan can buy as much burger as $3.71, a yuan should be worth $0.26 on the foreign-exchange market.In fact, it costs just $0.15, suggesting that it is undervalued by about 40%.这使得人民币成为本周巨无霸指数——本刊的实用单一货币失调指标——中最被低估的货币（见图）。巨无霸指数的基础是购买力平价，即一种货币的价格应该反映它所能买到的商品和服务。14.5元人民币可以买到3.71美元的汉堡，因此1元人民币应该在外汇市场中价值0.26美元。而事实上1元人民币只能兑换0.15美元，这意味着人民币被低估了40%。

The tensions caused by such misalignments prompted Brazil’s finance minister, Guido Mantega, to complain last month that his country was a potential casualty of a “currency war”.Perhaps it was something he ate.In Brazil a Big Mac costs the equivalent of $5.26, implying that the real is now overvalued by 42%.The index also suggests that the euro is overvalued by about 29%.And the Swiss, who avoid most wars, are in the thick of this one.Their franc is the most expensive currency on our list.The Japanese are so far the only rich country to intervene directly in the markets to weaken their currency.But according to burgernomics, the yen is only 5% overvalued, not much of a casus belli.在货币失调所造成的国际紧张局面面前，巴西财政部长曼特加（Guido Mantega）上个月发出了巴西是“货币战争”潜在受害者的感叹。或许他是在抱怨自己吃的东西太贵了。在巴西，一个巨无霸汉堡的价格相当于5.26美元，表明雷亚尔被高估了42%。巨无霸指数还显示欧元被高估了29%。而传统的中立国瑞士这次站在了货币战争最前线。瑞士法郎已成为指数中最昂贵的货币。日本是目前唯一直接干预货币市场使本国货币贬值的发达国家。但从我们的汉堡经济学视角来看，日元只被高估了5%，显然不能作为发动货币战的借口。

If a currency war is in the offing, America’s congressmen seem increasingly determined to arm themselves.A bill passed by the House of Representatives last month would treat undervalued currencies as an illegal export subsidy and allow American firms to request countervailing tariffs.The size of those tariffs would reflect the scale of the undervaluation.货币战争是否一触即发姑且不论，美国的国会议员们似乎是铁了心要开始武装戒备了。上个月，众议院通过了一项法令，将被低估的货币视同非法出口补贴，美国公司有权要求征收抵消性关税。具体的税率体现了被低估的程度。

How does the bill propose to calculate this misalignment? It relies not on Big Macs, but on the less digestible methods favoured by the IMF.The fund uses three related approaches.First, it calculates the real exchange rate that would steadily bring a country’s current-account balance(equivalent to the trade balance plus a few other

things)into line with a “norm” based on the country’s growth, income per person, demography and budget balance.这一法令通过什么方法计算货币失调程度呢？不是巨无霸指数，而是IMF所惯用的深奥算法。IMF使用三种相互关联的手段来计算汇率。一是根据使一国经常项目收支（相当于贸易收支在加上少数其他项目）与“标准”（由该国增长率、人均收入、人口和财政收支等因素决定）相匹配的原则来计算真实汇率。

The fund’s second approach ignores current-account balances and instead calculates a direct statistical relationship between the real exchange rate and things like a country’s terms of trade(the price of its exports compared with its imports), its productivity and its foreign assets and liabilities.The strength of Brazil’s currency, for example, may partly reflect the high price of exports such as soyabeans.第二种算法忽略经常项目收支，而是计算一国真实汇率与该国进出口比价（出口品价格与进口品价格之比）、生产力、对外资产负债情况等因素的直接统计关系。比如，巴西里亚尔的强势一定程度上是拜其出口品（如大豆）价格较高所赐。

Third, the fund also calculates the exchange rate that would stabilise the country’s foreign assets and liabilities at a reasonable level.If, for example, a country runs sizeable trade surpluses, resulting in a rapid build-up of foreign assets, it probably has an undervalued exchange rate.三是计算使一国对外资产和负债稳定在合理水平的汇率。比如，如果某国有着巨大的贸易盈余，因而对外资产迅速囤积，那么该国货币就有可能是被低估的。

The IMF has typically assessed its members’ policies one at a time.But the fund’s managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now proposes to assess its biggest members all at once to make sure their macroeconomic strategies do not work at cross-purposes.He is keen to identify the ways in which a country’s policies, including its exchange-rate policies, “spill over” to its neighbours.在通常情况下，IMF会逐一评估各成员国的政策。但总干事多米尼克?斯特劳斯-卡恩（Dominique Strauss-Kahn）最近建议同时评估所有最重要成员国，以确保它们的宏观经济策略目标不会相互冲突。卡恩急切地想弄明白一国的政策——包括汇率政策在内——是如何“溢出”从而影响到邻国的。

Those spillovers depend on the size of the economy as much as the scale of any misalignments.But the biggest economies are also the hardest to bully.The fund’s last annual report on the Chinese economy, in July, included the government’s rebuttal of every criticism the fund offered.In a decorous compromise the report concluded that the yuan was “substantially” undervalued but refrained from quantifying the size of the problem.溢出效应既取决于失调的严重程度，也取决于经济规模的大小。但大经济体通常也是强硬派。在IMF最新一期的中国经济年报（7月发布）中，中国政府逐条反驳了IMF提出的所有批评。IMF只能作出适当让步，仅仅称人民币被“显著”低估了，而没有给出到底低估多少的具体数字。

Big revaluations of the kind required to satisfy the fund or equalise the price of burgers are unlikely.A recent study of the Big Mac index by Kenneth Clements, Yihui Lan and Shi Pei Seah of the University of Western Australia showed that misalignments are remarkably persistent.As a result, the raw index did a poor job of predicting exchange rates: undervalued currencies remain too cheap and overvalued currencies remain too pricey.要被低估的货币一下子升值到符合IMF的标准或者使巨无霸汉堡价格一致的水平是不可能的。西澳大利亚大学的肯尼斯?克莱门茨（Kenneth Clements）、Yihui Lan和Shi Pei Seah对巨无霸指数的最新研究表明，失调具有明显的持久性。因此，原始指数无法很好地预测汇率走势：被低估的货币通常会持续低估，而被高估的货币则持续高估。

But since this bias is systematic, it can be identified and removed.Once that is done, the three economists show that a reconstituted index is good at predicting real exchange rates over horizons of a year or more.Since The Economist costs just $6.99(a little less than two burgers)on the news-stand, the index provides decent value for money for would-be currency speculators, the authors conclude.The Big Mac index may itself be undervalued.但这一偏差是系统性的，因此可以被识别和移除。只要修正这一偏差，三位经济学家显示，改进的巨无霸指数就可以很好地在年及年以上时间单位上预测汇率走势。鉴于本刊报摊零售价不过6.99美元（还不到两个汉堡的价钱），笔者认为我们的指数对欲从事货币投机者来说绝对物超所值。也许巨无霸指数本身也被低估了。Microsoft's mobile operating system 微软的移动操作系统

Windows or curtains（注1）良机还是死路？

The software giant is desperate to make a splash in the smart-phone business 软件巨头孤注一掷，想要在智能电话行业大展拳脚

Oct 7th 2010 | San Francisco

AT A company meeting last year, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s pugnacious boss, spied an employee taking a photo on an Apple iPhone.He promptly grabbed the offending device and pretended to stamp on it.Microsoft would love to crush competitors in the smart-phone market, but it has repeatedly failed to come up with compelling offerings of its own.Now the software firm is gearing up for another assault on a business that is crucial to its future.去年，在一次公司会议上，斗志旺盛的微软老板斯蒂夫?鲍尔默，发现一名雇员正在用苹果的iPhone拍照。他一把夺过这台令其不快的设备，作势猛踩。微软巴不得击垮智能电话市场上的对手，却一而再再而三地、未能整出强有力的产品。现在，这家软件公司正憋足了劲，要在智能手机行业发起又一轮出击，该行业对其未来至关紧要。

On October 11th Microsoft is due to unveil phones from manufacturers such as HTC and

第四篇：辞职考研文章

一年没来这里了,一口气看了好多帖子,仿佛昨日重现,感慨万千.有人热血沸腾,也有人谈到社会黑暗,学问无用等.这些情绪,我都经历过.但是我想说说我的看法:也许辞职考研的意义,不在于一个硕士文凭,而在于你开始认识自己,开始动手主宰自己的命运.退一步讲,30岁以前的道路,就算犯了错误又何妨?即使读了研,绝大多数人的命运也许依然是平庸的,但是你至少给了自己一个机会.有句话'你的胸怀有多大,你的舞台就有多大'.也许现在看身边的人都很平庸,再过10年,也许差别很大了.我01年至04年5月在一家甲级设计院工作,收入从3K到10K,然后辞职,复习大半年,05年,英语其实很差,一半时间花在英语上吧.就学业来说,读研以后,其实以前的东西要放弃很多,现在读书也未必能学很多东西,有时候也打游戏,浪费时间.甚至毕业后的第一个工作收入多半比以前辞职时的少.但我真的不后悔.我是农民的儿子,父母不能提供任何社会关系,大学时也郁闷过.毕业后发现其实生活的底线原来是很容易的.后来认识的人多了,越发觉得很多事情远没有那么难.如果你在跟社会接触的过程中逐渐体会到了自己独特的与人相处的方法,依然可以有很多优秀的朋友.单就学业来说,我对辞职考研做个总结:得到的没有想象的那么多,失去的也没有想象的那么多.但是其他方面的收获却是意料之外的:

失去一份工作的感觉考研中意外的结交了很多朋友.跟一个考研失败的人成了结拜兄弟;跟一个网球教练成了铁哥们,农民的儿子后来成了网球高手.考试的成功弥补了当年高考失误的创伤.树立理性的自信

上研后发现身边的人都很聪明,原来自己的IQ也没有想象中那么高.选了一个很多人吹捧的导师,接近后发现......考研的副产品真的很多,也许我这种说法有点得意的口气,希望不要见怪.其实有一天你走过来了,回过头来,也可以如此,象央视的名嘴来一句“不过如此”.的确也不过如此,要想成功,要走的路还远着呢.最近英语口语成了自己的瓶颈,郁闷着.最近又开始专心做点股票,昨天在网上认识一个大概是大二的本科生,上海本地人,居然已经有了5年的股龄,在学校附近一家证券公司做投资,操作手法成熟无比,几万块钱去打高挂说是好玩.令我汉颜.后生可畏,时代进步如此的快,不学习,行吗?好久不上自习了,今晚坚决去教室学习了.想表达的意思是,选择考研,就选择了风雨兼程.而不仅仅是选择了1年的地下生活.最后想说一个关于父母的问题.放弃安逸的生活,心里的确最对不起的就是自己的父母,他们都是农民.我当时的思想阻力绝对比这里多数人都大.然而最另我感动的是,我辞职时我的父母都全力支持了我.那一刻,我觉得他们真的很了不起,我觉得有他们,这一生我很满足.也许你不相信有这样的农民,前提是要好好与之沟通,不要以为上一代人是蛮不讲理的.父母的热情需要子女去感染他们.让我们去实现他们年轻时候的梦想.他们经历过动荡,现在他们只求我们的平安.我在辞职前做了比较充分的思想工作,就是让他们明白一点:你们的儿子很优秀,无论怎么折腾,他都会活的很健康.他们比我更相信这一点,压力我一个人抗着,然后只身来到上海学习.当时没敢想如果考不上该如何.考完以后等带成绩的日子倒是最难熬的.说了这么多,一个意思,就是不后悔.生活是一种体验.走在陌生的地方,才发现世界的精彩.本来是一直喜欢潜水的人,今天说了这么多,感觉很空虚.不过以此对自己前几年的生活做个告别,也希望能给同路人一些正面的希望.社会的丑恶也许不少,但不要让那也污染你我的心.以上面的话自勉,愿我们好好学习,天天向上.各位很给面子,谢先.前面主要说了心态的问题.具体备考,我的建议是:以宏观把握考试要求,吃透书本细节为主.坚决不迷信任何参考书和任何辅导班.(所考学校的专业课辅导班可以上一下)反正我是这样做的.1.数学,现在考题倾向于题目简单,量大,所以可:定期细读教材

和课后习题(同济教材最好)练基本能力+卡表做套题练速度(用几个不同版本的,变化风格)+消化套题中的弱点回头再有针对性地读教材.2.英语以高教出的参考书和历年题为核心(历年题最后几个月用).+每天一两篇阅读,+快速读作文+后期作文模板和作文练习.3.专业课容易拉开距离,特别是名校,教材看懂为基础(这个其实最难了,有时候觉得自己懂了,也许根本还在门外)+真题分析+对出题趋势的方向预测.4.政治只要考前两个月多翻多看,不一定

要死背,考试时会不会都要答满,60分以下真的很难!

看到有些考得不错的谈自己经验时大谈自己用的某一本辅导书如何如何经典,我觉得这是个误导.不要被任何外界信息干扰,独立思考.教材吃透加主流的习题就好.有人说,教材太简单啦.我考研时经常看数学教材就有研友不理解,其实仔细看你做的套题做错的地方,一定可以在教材中找到被你忽略的细节.细到牛角里,细到骨子里.然后是培养速度.我140多.最后呢,还有个绝招,那就是制度.给自己每个月定计划,细化到每半天做什么事情.(前期也许不需要,最后三个月一定需要!)也许有时候计划不能实现,进度会比计划慢一点,正常,可

以每个月留一周的机动时间,计划单子适时修改.贴到墙上.用红笔标注.想成功的话,这个必须做.也许很多人性格跟我一样,喜欢信马由缰.计划是痛苦的,但必须如此.我出去旅游一般走到哪里是哪里,觉得流浪汉最酷.可是考研上,我很痛苦地做了计划.没

办法,竞争最不浪漫了.充分的自主思路+计划=∞

抓住了青春的尾巴,也选择了学生的轮回之苦

两个多月没有来这里了,这个帖子居然还在精华里,发帖谢一声斑竹.对我来说,辞职跨专业考研的故事还在继续.不过,一切似乎在向好的方向发展.暑假有偶然机缘在央行上海总部实习了一个半月,虽然没多大成就,站在央行的大楼上俯视浦东大道,眺望金茂大厦和正在逐步崛起的世界第一高楼,仿佛觉得自己已经逐渐成为一个金融从业人士.读了一年,还余一年,学校的生活更多的是卧薪尝胆,跟孩子们在一起,仿佛自己从来就没有工作过.在上海这样的城市里,校园只是一个物质的存在,而我心灵的宁静校园,我还不知道它在哪儿.九月毕业论文开题,很快就要面对毕业和就业了,真的很快呀.九月开始在学校机关里做一个兼职,导师给谋的差事,心里非常感激.能得到一位老学者的器重,我想也许并不是因为我有多少才华,而是在人生之路上我学会了怀着一颗敬畏之心.这样的一颗心,经历过拥有到失去,经历过没钱到有钱再到没钱,经历过暂时的得意和深度的自我怀疑,经历过羡慕,嫉妒,佩服.虽然世事艰辛,它却总在向着一个好的方向发展.在本科毕业的前一段时间,曾痛苦地想过,也许有一天,钱不再是问题,将会怎么样?这种预言很快就变成了现实.而5年后的现在,我依然在想:也许有一天,钱不再是问题,生活将会怎样?这是个很难预见很难回答的问题.网球教练在读了一年研究生之后,终于厌倦了科举的虚荣,决定在上海真刀真枪地创业了,我真心希望他尽快成为一个有钱人.他对我说:你很幸运.是啊,无尽的自我怀疑和举棋不定,没有光环,却发现自己满怀敬畏地走在一条幸运之路上.就连陪我一路艰辛走出来的女朋友也这样质问过我:你究竟有什么优点呢?我无言以对.这几年,也许就是考研这一仗干的漂亮.可是它毕竟只是个开始,是正确还是错误都没有定论.不过肯定不需要后悔.上了船,迟早要到对岸.辞职考研的故事还在继续.很想对后来的同道说:也许你当初担心的东西都不成其为问题;也许你当初失去的也没那么重要;也许不论得意和失落,不论成功了失败了,你还得面对同样的问题;也许你找到了成就,却不一定找了快乐,不一定找到了答案.半年多没来论坛了.今天看计量经济学的书看到半夜,无聊来逛逛.这帖子还浮着,我就再说说自己近况.我的没考上研的结拜兄弟当上了一个小工厂的销售总监,而在上海创业的网球教练彻底失败了,打算回老家发展了.他们都是非常自信的人,他们的成败让我学习了很多东西.而我自己呢,今年6月就要毕业工作了,目前有两个国内公司的OFFER,不太满意,还在努力.今年3月接连中了两篇核心期刊,去年的心血也算有了交代,非常欣慰,为此也使我的专业综合测评排到了专业第3名,跟我考研的名次一样,冥冥中似有轮回.可是我现在非常着急,基于导师的期望,我的毕业论文选择了一个比较复杂的计量模型,还要学习统计软件.而我也想通过这个机会把数理基础补上来,到现在论文还没有动笔.加上还想找一份满意一些的工作,最后的两个多月,就犹如考研的冲刺一般.我选择了学业,而没有花许多时间出去实习,因此对找工作有了一定影响,但我不后悔.我想,学校的生活,来的不易,好好珍惜.此外,还想劝告跨专业考研的同学,如果专业完全没有连贯性,在读研后的学习和找工作中会多许多困难,耗费很多精力.因此如果跨专业,一定要早早提醒自己努力.我觉得自己也不算笨,可是还是没发周全.想起古人一句话,天生我才必有用.如果如愿,三个月后我再回此处还愿.祝各位

考研顺利.我写的报告、财

务模型一转眼就被顶头上司把作者改成了他的名字，而奴隶一样伺奉领导的同事也突然

得到了培训的机会。虽然我的财务知识有所提高，财务模型做得也算漂亮，但是好象这

些都不重要。大型国企动辄上十个亿的投资项目，财务预测好象远远没有陪领导好好喝

一顿酒重要。才来半年，突然就感觉有点倦了，虽然工作不忙不累、收入也不比同学低

。跟顶头上司的关系表面和气，实则很紧张，他不懂财务、人也委琐，但已经进入“编

制”的利益圈子，我做的事情就算漂亮，也是他的功绩。有时候想，是不是人快到30，有点急噪了。但是我分明感觉自己还想跳一次巢，上一个台阶后好好休整一下。多年的女友分手有一年多了，一直割舍不下。今天老爸老妈都打电话批评我了，很烦躁，但是

心里知道他们说的也对。其实身边看好我的人也不少，帮我介绍的几次不错的女孩，我都一直没有心思好好去相处。考研的瓶颈静悄悄地过去了，现在我知道又是一个瓶颈—

—30而立的其实我的智商能力还算过关，但是正是这个原因，自己的意愿和方式活着，任性而不肯改变自己，对女友、对上司均是如此。而能以本性

游刃有余地生活的人，必须有高于一般人的能力。而现实中多数的人，都只能是少数人的工具。当你有一天意识到这个残酷的问题的时候，也许会发现自己的学习、自己的积累真的远远不够。从今天晚上开始，我突然感觉到了孤独，对前任女友的宽容、慷慨，、期盼似乎在这一刻渐渐走到了尽头，一直担心她、放不下她、希望她回头，但我募然发现最孤独的人好象是我自己。前几天去云南见到了2003年得了白血病的大学宿舍的舍

友，他花了40多万在北京做了干细胞移植，神奇地捡回了一条命，但身体并为完全恢复，脸上因为化疗而沉淀的黑色素看上去有点害怕。他的坚强和他的悲壮一样时刻刺痛着

我，让我有时突然发现自己是一个软弱的人。若不是大学时有一次死里逃生的事故，在心情极度沮丧的时候我还真找不到什么借口来安慰自己。好些人都说挺好的，明年办公

地点搬到外滩的别墅了，看上去更风光了，但是在一个奴性的世界里我为什么总是敏感地不快乐呢？也许依旧是我太任性了。我希望作为一名专业的投资者，去思考，去发现价值，而不是去附和、应酬和斗争。也许这在中国目前的体制里还是个奢望。“价值投

资”的美梦时刻会被当权者或者利益团体以近乎野蛮的方式惊醒，就犹如股改后猛于洪

水的大小非几乎把股市拖入了万劫不复的深渊。我天真着，所以不快乐；如果不天真了，恐怕更不快乐。有人在我辞职考研的时候，告诉我一个真理，说所有的不安，是因为没有爱情，没有找到真正所爱的人。也许现在依然如此。或许此刻需要一双温婉的手，悄悄地埋葬我的不安、惶恐、理想、敏感以及虚荣，让我在现实的土壤里伴着小草和腐

叶成长。我此刻多么期待你的出现，而又多么矛盾。我也清楚，也许这是我人生中最后一个瓶颈了。越过这里，也许我的人生再与理想、奋斗这样的词语无缘。我的父母、朋

友都在催促我离开这里，可我究竟在犹豫什么呢？也许，离开这里，我将拥有房子、家

庭、财富、地位，和一颗平静的心。可是，有一样东西也许我再也无力带走了。那是什

么？像苦行僧一样辞职而回到教室自习的朋友们，你们可知道，我在这里没法带走的，是什么？当你们如我当年一样，踏早上5点的晨曦和晚上10点的路灯往返在教师和陋室之间，当你深夜因为孤独无法入睡而听歌或者看电视的时候，当你因为年迈母亲的期望而

深深自责的时候，我都理解……可是当多年以后你如我一样回首往事的时候，你发现有一样东西就刻在的时间的年轮里了，你永远无法带走了。不仅仅是理想，不仅仅是热情。那究竟是什么？我现在告诉，请你不要流泪。那是无悔的青春。

看到前面有朋友关注这个帖子,很抱歉,我很久没来了。考研这事,也许对我已经太遥远了。我在央企工作已经1年多了,做投资,现在在泉州。南南北北去了很多港口,认识了很多业内的人。金融风暴使09年的资本市场冷冷清清,股市开始反弹,IPO还没有开闸。然而欧美比我们糟糕得多,周小川不失时机地提出了以非主权货币来取代美元作为世界货币的问题,让人感觉是一种具有某种象征意义的叫板。国人经过了资产的大幅缩水,隐约着又看到了希望,看到了大国梦。不知道是不是真的。

故地重游2

下面谈一下我对辞职考研,以及今后工作的看法。以作为前面有朋友问到问题的参考。如果你是个有一定的学习基础,并且对目标难度有清晰的认识的人,并且辞职后能够静下心来学习半年以上,那么,对你来说,考研已经不是问题,问题是考研以后该做些什么。我有一个好朋友,基础并不好,愣头青考了三年北大法学,后来放弃了,也不考研了,这叫没有自知之明。虽然当年也有人劝我考复旦,但我觉得安稳上上财,行了。我有自知之明,比较谨慎,因此把风险降低到了最低。但是也很惭愧,我研究生时的生活,过多用在网球上面,跨专业以后并没有在专业知识上更上一层楼,因此工作之后捉襟见肘,时时需要补习。并且英语口语也没有练出来,大大约束了自己的发展。因此研究生毕业以后的工作经历不算成功,只是平平淡淡。工作中接触到集团里一些本科毕业就开始工作的,已经有了7、8年的工作经验,研究生学历也在职修到了,好一点的已经提了科长,与他们比,但从职业角度讲是落后的,比他们好的地方可能是多一些经历、多一些朋友、更全面的知识体系。对他们来说,换一份工作很难,因为得到的已经放不下;对我来说,换工作比较容易,可选择的面广一点,但是换来换去,要上一个新台阶很难,因为每一份工作经历太短。在中国,业绩、人脉、信任都是靠时间和勤恳的态度累积起来的。30岁了,面临对自己一个清晰的定位的问题,后面的路得无悔地走下去,一直付出。在央企工作一年多,学习了很多,主要是处理人际关系方面的,业务方面其实完全靠自学;也见识了一些很差的人,他们在体系里混得太久,已经没救了。以前读书读得太多,总以考试的心态面对工作。殊不知考试是用一个结果来证实你所有的努力,但工作却是在点点滴滴中积

累走向成功,深悟职场之道的人会告诉你:如履薄冰。以前我不明白为什么,现在我知道一点,因为如果你对职场有所求,那么工作中一点小的失误,得罪一个小人,都可能影响你的前程。在成功前,你得搞定一切。这是我在央企学到的东西,而且也接触了一些较为上层的人,他们能够掌控一方资源,的确可以搞定一切,让所有的人服服帖帖。回到专业定位的问题,我以前是想在央企积累一些行业经验后去金融机构,眼下的经济形势进金融机构很难、而且每多大意义了。我最近在谋划进政府机构,当然也是与我的基建投资背景相关的。由于最近一直在福建出差,前几天私下飞回上海参加了政府下属机构的面试,还是得到了他们的肯定。有趣的是,当面试的最大领导问到我“当时为什么要辞职考研,要是考不上怎么办”时,我并没有吹嘘“破釜沉舟”之类的感受,只简单回答了句“以前基础还可以,当时估计考研问题不大”。我后来意识到自己真的把考研这事放了很久了,没一点激动的情绪了。这事“不过如此”。所以我预感这次面试应该成功了,我会再次回到一个像设计院一样稳定的平台,娶妻生子,酝酿一个成熟的计划。一切好像回到了起点,但也许还是不一样的。当经历了很多事情,认识了很多行业的人,会开始以一种凌驾于行业之外的眼光和思维来看待问题。也许有一天,时机成熟了,再次回到企业或者进入金融机构会是理所当然的事,就像考研一样。很多东西,如果我们害怕,如果我们曾经表现不好,可能是因为经历得太少,积累得太少,学习、工作,都是如此。这一路,或许离成熟近一点了。对于列为准备辞职考研的朋友,给一些建议:1,想清楚自己要做什么,为什么要考研;一旦考上了,赶紧继续往你的理想去走。2,如果你目前工作很好,而且也不需要要换专业,仅仅是因为人事方面、社会经验方面的不满,而以考研作为逃避,那就坚持工作下去,创造条件读在职的研究生,因为那是你性格方面的问题,跟知识无关,读了研究生这些问题你还得从头面对,还不如现在就让自己克服自己的性格弱点、适应社会。3,如果工作时间在3年以上,又想换专业,那么一定要谨慎,因为起点已经落后了,青春很短暂。这些是我的肺腑之言,虽然我混得不算失败,但是的确也不算成功。而且我的考研、工作历程基本还算一路顺风。如果你运气比我差一点,或者精力、韧性比我差一点,那么一样的经历可能带给你痛苦。当然,我自己也有很多问题,幸运的是我发现了,比如我的懒惰、感性和缺乏主动性。所以我成长了。当然如果我在考研前就成长到现在的程度,那就更好了。作为后来人的朋友,希望你正视自己在知识层面和性格、心理层面的问题,考研只能解决某一个目标。愿我们一同进步。我感觉中国的经济饱受磨难后,也许还是会好,所以未来不会太差。坚持你

应该坚持的,改进你自身应该改进的,祝你成功!

第五篇：考研励志文章（精选）

题记：这是去年我在网路上看到的一篇同类文章的题目，但我认为天底下一切的考研体会皆可以此为题，因为它真实地反

应了考研者在硝烟过后的心境。唯一不足的是，它无疑给考研带来了几分悲壮的色彩，然而回首前尘，我们仅仅是

跨过了人生中的又一道坎„„

痛过之后是涅槃„„

也不知道自己是什么时候下定考研的决心。也许来自于大一那堂高数课战胜了老师那道“不可一世”的难题后，老师投来的带着赞许的目光；也许来自三年级，参加完数学建模比赛，那种气吞万里如虎的气魄；也许来自课堂上，研友们悄悄递来的一道道被自己迎刃而解的数学题；也许是受不了兄弟们的“臭骂”和“鄙夷”；还也许是受不了三年级那个暑假的无所事事„„

如果告诉你，我考研是因为热爱学习，是为了提高自己的档次，那我也许是在敷衍你，但事实如此。我曾经这样形容过自己——我是挣扎着不想被埋没的一群。年轻人，谁没有一番雄心壮志，谁没有广袤的理想？对于我们而言，平凡意味着平庸，意味着青春的消逝„„如何可以挣扎出来呢？对于别无长技的我，选择考研、选择深造是义无返顾的，且若能成功，更给我平添了一份失去七年的虚荣心，平添了读书人的那股不可或缺的酸气。

讲讲我自己吧，初三那年，天真烂漫的我天真烂漫地在中考战场上败走麦城，以7分之差没能考取自己原来读的那所录取分数线已低得可怜的重点中学——广州铁路第一中学。凭着父母的关系，花了万把元钱，我当了一名择校生，重新回到了铁中。到了高中，好容易从入学时的年级200多名冲到了15名，在高考战场上踌躇满志的我，再次“惨”遭滑铁卢。我没能如愿考取第一志愿的院校攻读自己最热爱的数学，最后拿着手里可怜巴巴的631分，战战兢兢地走进了广东工业大学。可以说老天还是对我不薄，因为我走进的毕竟是一所老牌院校中录取分数最高、最热门，也是最优秀的计算机系。只是在考场上经历了两次挫折的我，竟显得脆弱起来，对读书多少有点心灰意懒。大学头三年过去了，三年里我的学业成绩分别在班里排名21、17、7，大学物理上册还参加了补考。莫说别人，就连班里较能交心的朋友都会认为，假如我考上了，会给这所对考研并不感冒的院校及其后来者带来巨大的动力„„

这样的调侃也许还不够。大一下学期的某天，我和一名女生回母校看老师。当我们见到我的物理老师，并带着点郁郁不得志的味道对她诉说了我的情况时，老师看着我，毫不留情但却语重心长地说：“再好的大学也有它的差学生，再差的大学也有它的高材生，你现在这所学校也不错了，虽然没能读上自己喜欢的专业，但你不要轻言放弃，不要在读书期间花前月下、风花雪月„„”我窘了，只觉得手中牵着的另一只小手透出了一丝湿气，慢慢地抽了开去„„就这样，我和那位女生的关系定格在普通朋友，再一次见到她时已是在去年底的某考研冲刺讲座上，而现在她已顺利考取省内一所老牌重点院校的研究生。

就是在这样的状况下，我走上一条“考研贫民”的道路，“贫”之所在，不言而喻。

为了起到破釜沉舟的效果，2000年7月中旬，懒得冒烟的我终于搬到了华工(华南理工)，住进了浩的宿舍。因为我不想再让自己懒下去，而耗子（浩）是最让我讨厌的一个死党——又一个考研先驱。他从不给我面子，哪怕是在中央领导人面前他也会指着我骂，从不让我有借口松任何一口气，所以他也是最忠于我的诤友。就这样，我成日价喊着：“考研难，难于上青天！”但却总会在每天早上8：00就躲进了华工一号楼，也就这样，我开始找到了考研的感觉。

8月底，快开学了，耗子的宿舍不能再收留我，于是带着刚找到的感觉我回到了广工，也仿如回到了快乐的伊甸园中。这样的说法也许比较苛刻，但在这所院校中，大家对考研并不感冒，也没有那种热火朝天的“寄托”现象。在班上，只有零零星星的几个人发出了自己的考研宣言，另有几个也“偷偷摸摸”地准备着，好象怕被人知道了会嘲笑似的，绝大部分的人在讨论着哪款手机比较好，哪个新出的游戏如何如何。如果要我给后来者什么建议，作为一名“考研贫民”我要大声地喊：“考研就是考研，没什么好退缩的，更不用偷偷摸摸，如果旁人有什么指指点点、戏謔，那么我要恭喜你，因为你又多了一分压力，更多了一分动力！”但从“叫嚣”中回到现实，我不得不说考研热在这里降温。连仅有的一些研友间也缺乏交流、缺乏那种你追我赶的气氛，暑假那种争分夺秒，热辣辣的感觉荡然无存，有时甚至很怀疑研友们的忠诚度，而在复习期间甚

至到了冲刺阶段仍有人陆陆续续地退出，不断地“证实”了我的看法。

我是一名走读生，更是一名懒学生，懒得出油，和其他年轻人一样，我极度缺乏自控能力，如果没人给我一鞭子，我就爱懒洋洋地沉溺在家里的“温床”中。但在当时，我潜意识地保持了那种在华工培养出来的兢兢业业，对考研无比忠诚，每天仍能坚持复习10小时以上，只是环境的使然让我相当迷茫，找不到北。我开始怀疑自己的选择，有时甚至借酒浇愁、酩酊大醉，然后第二天一早又醉醺醺地爬起来背单词。终于到了10月份的那一天，女友忍不住对我说：“你就会读书和喝酒，我们分开算了„„”是吗？那么好吧。考研，让爱情走开。也许她只是一时的冲动，而我则任性得近乎于幼稚地作出了同样的决定——分手。而这个决定，现在回顾起来，相当明智。既然没本事“考研，找mm，两手抓，两手都要硬”，这样的决定是迟早要做的，迟不如早。人们常说，学会了抉择就学会了人生；是的，我的决定让我今生无悔。就在这种内外交困的状态下，我继续果敢地把考研进行到底，继续果敢地作出了下一个决定——二进华工。10月16日，我和另一个沙煲兄弟“阿狗”搬进了华工西秀村旁的一间刚出租不久的一室一厅里。和“耗子”一样，“阿狗”也是华工的学生，又一位对考研执迷不悔的好同志，为了考研，放弃了欢声笑语的宿舍，和我住到了一起。有时，我也会打趣地说，华工的课室“藏乌纳狗”，不是躲着黑不溜秋的“耗子”，就是留着貌似温驯的“阿狗”。可就这样，我和“阿狗”、“耗子”躲进了华工图书馆，把“雄心壮志”完完全全地寄托到了继高考后的又一次“赌博”中„„

以下的故事比较感人。华工的图书馆是早上7：10开门，在这里要高度赞扬图书馆开门的大姐，因为她从不迟到，以至于当我们7：15去到图书馆，都已人满为患。然后我们就要打起游击，这里占了去吃早餐的同志的位置复习一下，又马上被赶到另一位恰巧去了上课但书包罢住了位置的仁兄座位上背背单词，还要求神拜佛求那位老兄千万别翘课，如果真的是个老哥，我们说不定还要死皮赖脸一番；而如果翘课的是个mm，她很可能会很温柔地轻声道：“看到这里的书包了吗？”，这时，感觉上我们糗大了！于是乎，我和阿狗决定翌日起6：30起床罢位，当天，我们不再相信自己的call机，迅速添置了两个闹钟。呵呵，结果决定早起罢位的第一天早上，我们不约而同地把刚响起来的闹钟按了下去，7：40，我率先爬了起来„„当天晚上，通过“开会研究”，我们决定把我的闹钟放在了厅里。于是第二天6：30，我顺利地再度率先从床上爬了起来，对着“阿狗”床头就是一脚！都是他的馊注意！可就从那天开始，我们坚持每天6：30爬起来，7：00准时啃着面包把自己安插在图书馆前排着的长长的人龙中，7：10直捣图书馆三楼！除了早起，我们还养成了许多考研所必需的“良好习惯”。例如三天洗一次澡，换一次衣裤鞋袜，一个礼拜洗一次衣服；又例如，我们决定在进了图书馆以后，12：00才许出馆吃午饭；每天中午一定要看点报纸之类的东西，12：40准时午睡，13：40准时起床，14：00准时到达图书馆，18：00准时出馆吃晚饭（选这个时间是因为我每天都要看这个时候的体育新闻，要不然就闹得不让“耗子”和“阿狗”复习！），18：30准时回馆复习，22：00吹了离馆哨才准回宿舍，回到宿舍，要赶在22：45前吃完宵夜，然后趁着一点暖意复习到凌晨2：00，然后睡觉，然后6：30起床，然后7：00排队，然后7：10进馆，然后，再然后„„

只觉得当时过着的是苦行僧式的生活，时间已经精确到以小时计算，如果今天这一小时我念的是烛台器（朱泰祺）的“金刚经”，那么明天这个时候，我绝不会读（灯哥）陈文灯的“菩萨咒”，还有什么保哥（龚冬保）啦、索老太（索爱群）啦等等的宝典。每天最让我热心的事就是和“温驯”的“阿狗”打架，和“不解风情”的“耗子”干仗，然后大喊着：“读书都读到有自虐倾向啦！”，高唱着《笨小孩》，高唱着《红日》，老找着碴偷懒，然后往书店里跑，借口寻找“秘籍”、寻找“飞刀”„„

就这样我熬到了2001年1月13号。那天早上，我骑着自行车赶往考场，一边唱着《笨小孩》，一边不期然地流下了眼泪„„

1月15号，从考场走出来，阳光依旧灿烂、春风依旧明媚，22岁的我依然那么帅，只是不管最后是否考上，我均会感觉到自己浑身上下连每一根汗毛都已涅槃重生„„

尾记：带着忐忑和略显激动的心情，我写下了此文，也许言语中不自然地透着点浮躁和轻佻，文风也比较散漫，但我仍衷

心地希望能有更多的战友投入到考研中来。当然，这绝不是一条坦途，如果不“磨掉”一层皮，你很可能闯不过来，但是只要步伐坚定，就算磨掉了一层皮，也值！

最后谨借此诗勉励来者并表达我此刻心情：高山种芙蓉/复经黄檗坞/果得一莲时/流连婴辛苦