Economist Debate 阅读写作分析

qtangtangs

说在前面的话

虽然不是dies 小组滴..  不过既然向jesi拿了题目 好歹也得做做才行.

做下来才发现一个debate真的是个好东西  一个debate里面包含了同类里面很多的素材  像我做的这个就是跟经济有关的(貌似Issue没有经济类.. )

但是变一变完全可以用于政治类和国际类  

虽然 看这么大把大把的英文很累..  但是 如果能坚持下来的话  那收获绝对不是一点点.

===================================没有什么作用的分割线==================================


Regulating business and financial risks http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/126

结构： 1# 无聊的话 和导航
          2# about this debate                                               done
          3# background reading                                            done
          4# opening  (the moderator's opening remarks)         done
          5# opening  (the proposer's opening remarks)           done
          6# opening  (the opposition's opening remarks)         done
          7# opening  (featured guest)                                    done
          8# rebuttal  (the moderator's rebuttal remarks)          done
          9# rebuttal  (the proposer's rebuttal remarks)            done
          10# rebuttal  (the opposition's rebuttal remarks)
          11# rebuttal  (featured guests 有两个)
          12# closing  (the moderator's closing remarks)
          13# closing  (the proposer's closing remarks)
          14# closing  (the opposition's opening remarks)
          15# closing  (featured guest)   
          16# comments


这个debates 分了opening rebuttal closing 三个部分  其中一些提到的政策阿 人阿 或者是经济上的一些方针之类的我都维基了一下 收集素材～

草木也知愁

坐在沙发上舒舒服服等着看LZ的分析~加油加油

qtangtangs

Economist Debates--Regulating business and financial risks

About this debate
Corporations and governments are increasingly worried about risk. And, governance(统治、管理方法) of technology, in the work world and in cyberspace, is becoming more prevalent and accepted (or at least acknowledged). However, with such a deep focus on mitigating(减轻、缓和) potential problems, does aggressive risk management stifle(使窒息) innovation, which in turn ultimately hurts the vibrancy(活跃、活力) of a free-market system and consumer choice? What is the optimal risk-reward balance(这种表达方法其实还蛮值得借鉴的，说白了就是符号的运用吧)? Have regulatory bodies(监察当局) overstepped(逾越、超出…的限度) their bounds?


Representing the sides

Defending the motion

Mr John Berlau

Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship(企业家能力) at the Competitive Enterprise Institute

In the first few years after the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the post-Enron corporate governance law that mandated(委托管理) elaborate(详尽的) processes for controlling risks, many executives groused(抱怨，发牢骚) about the costs of compliance(服从，顺从).


Against the motion

Dr Paul Moore
Senior Lecturer and Subject Leader for the Creative Arts at the University of Ulster, Magee campus

In his latest volume, "Violence" (2008 Profile Books), the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, referred to as the 'Elvis of cultural theory' by the Chronicle of Higher Education, discusses what he calls systemic paradoxes.



关于Sarbanes-Oxley：

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Pub.L. 107-204, 116 Stat. 745, enacted July 30, 2002), also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called Sarbanes-Oxley, Sarbox or SOX, is a United States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002, as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets. Named after sponsors U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH), the act was approved by the House by a vote of 334-90 and by the Senate 99-0. President George W. Bush signed it into law, stating it included "the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt."[1]

The legislation set new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms. It does not apply to privately held companies. The act contains 11 titles, or sections, ranging from additional corporate board responsibilities to criminal penalties, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement rulings on requirements to comply with the new law. Harvey Pitt, the 26th chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), led the SEC in the adoption of dozens of rules to implement the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Debate continues over the perceived benefits and costs of SOX. Supporters contend the legislation was necessary and has played a useful role in restoring public confidence in the nation's capital markets by, among other things, strengthening corporate accounting controls. Opponents of the bill claim it has reduced America's international competitive edge against foreign financial service providers, saying SOX has introduced an overly complex and regulatory environment into U.S. financial markets.[2]

The act creates a new, quasi-public agency, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB, charged with overseeing, regulating, inspecting and disciplining accounting firms in their roles as auditors of public companies. The act also covers issues such as auditor independence, corporate governance, internal control assessment, and enhanced financial disclosure.

qtangtangs

Background reading

Credit crisis

Fixing finance

Apr 3rd 2008
From The Economist print edition

AS IF collapsing prices were not enough, American mortgage firms(借贷机构) now have to cope with home rage. Borrowers vent(表达，发泄强烈感情) their fury(vent 和 fury完全表达出了那种感觉了) on the system that is repossessing their properties by smashing holes in walls and tipping paint over living-room carpets. Something similar is going on in the house(这里指的应该是众议院) finance built. Faith in open markets has been poisoned by a crisis that has spread from one asset to the next. First there was disbelief and denial. Then fear. Now comes anger.(First Then Now 嗯.. 简单但是我觉得有效果..)

For three decades, public policy has been dominated by the power of markets—flexible and resilient, harnessing(治理，利用) self-interest for the public good, and better than any planner-in-chief. Nowhere are markets deeper and more liquid than in modern finance. But finance has stumbled and there are growing calls from all sides for bold(冒失的，鲁莽的) re-regulation.…

限制阅读了…

Financial regulation

The new financial regulation

Apr 3rd 2008
From The Economist print edition

BIRD-WATCHING is high on the list of Hank Paulson's leisure pursuits. This week America's Treasury Secretary made it quite clear which avian creature his country's system of financial regulation most resembled: the albatross(这个地方真的很强，albatross一表信天翁，又表示沉重负担，这个词承上启下的真绝). His “blueprint” for change, presented on March 31st, is the boldest attempt to overhaul the rulebook since the Depression, when much of it was written. Most of the proposals are long-term, and will thus be pulled around by the next administration and Congress. But the plan marks an important first step in a much-needed facelift for an outdated regime. “He's teed it up in a way that can't be ignored,” says James Lockhart, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which regulates America's quasi-official mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Though the proposals are entwined(缠绕，盘绕) with the credit crisis, they predate it: the original impetus(推动力), a year ago, was fear over America's waning(渐亏的) capital-markets competitiveness. The finished product is thus an odd mix of streamlining and tougher regulation, such as a new oversight body for mortgage markets. The timing struck some as odd too, but the Treasury(财政部) says it wants to provoke debate, not distract from market woes(困难). The report may also have been timed to head off what one official calls “very silly” new banking rules threatening to emanate from Congress.…

限制阅读了..

Managing risk

May 15th 2008
From The Economist print edition

A SENIOR risk manager at one of the world's biggest banks says his moment of truth came when he was looking at HSBC's numbers for the third quarter of 2006: “I remember saying to my assistant: 'This is strange. Have a look at this'.”

What he had spotted was a sharp increase in loss provisions at HSBC's American unit, prompted in(对…很迅速) part by higher delinquencies on mortgage loans. He dug deeper and found that HSBC's problems were concentrated in the subprime market and portended much worse to come. …

又限制阅读了…

Banks

Defending the banking system

May 15th 2008
From The Economist print edition

BANKS have endured a brutal nine months since credit markets froze(形象的表达!) in August. Losses and write-downs already total $335 billion; many of their best businesses have disappeared. In developed economies, almost all banks are facing economic and regulatory headwinds(顶头风) that will cut revenues and jobs. Yet the biggest danger facing Western finance is not a fall in its earning power but a loss of faith in how it works.

Two criticisms assail the industry, one based on fairness and the other on efficiency. The first argues that finance is rigged(作弊的，非法操纵的) to enrich bankers, rather than their customers, shareholders or the economy at large(很多意思，这里我觉得是一般说来地). Some worry about the way bonuses are calculated; others about moral hazard(由于投保人可能不可靠所冒的风险). Bankers will take wild bets because they know they will be bailed out by the taxpayer. Look at Bear Stearns or Northern Rock. …

再次限制阅读了…   = =


从这几篇文章就看得出老美文章写的都很形象，不属于硬邦邦说理型，词可能不是很生僻，但是用的很绝!
这可能对argu没什么帮助，但是issue的话就很能启发我们如果没例子纯叙述应该怎么写了

qtangtangs

The moderator's opening remarks

Mar 17th 2008 | Mr Daniel Franklin

In some of our debates one wonders at the start whether there will be genuine areas of disagreement between the two sides. Not this one. To judge by their opening statements, John Berlau and Paul Moore are poles apart.

Mr Berlau, the director of the centre of entrepreneurship at the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think-tank(一个自由市场的思考坦克?..其实这种词感觉只能意会), attacks the notion that "politicians can somehow dictate risk management(风险管理) for individual firms". He starts with the example of a company that religiously applied the rules imposed after the previous spate of corporate scandal (the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002), only to come unstuck in the current financial turmoil(混乱). Government-imposed risk management is simply too rigid to allow firms to adapt properly to the next set of risks that emerge, he argues: a market in risk management would be a far better and more flexible solution.

Mr Moore, from the University of Ulster, argues from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum: government regulation is in fact the basis of what he calls the myth of free-market liberalism. The state, for example, regulated the mass spread of broadband connectivity, and (via the defence budget) funded the Californian economy that is now the dynamo(发电机) of the digital age. It is the state, in short, that allows the market to thrive. Free-market advocates should acknowledge that "regulation is the very foundation on which freedom of trade is constructed".

Yet on closer inspection it may be that there is, after all(这句可以用在argu里), some common ground(共同点) between these opposing views. At issue is not whether the state has any role at all in setting regulations for business. Clearly, it does. A basic rule of law is essential for business to thrive (it is this, as Mr Moore points out, that has too often been sadly lacking in Africa). The question before us is whether government intervention to manage business and financial risk has made things better or worse.

I would therefore urge participants in this debate to focus on the matter of risk management rather than on broader aspects of regulation. Have government's attempts to manage risks stifled innovation? Have the regulators got the balance right, or gone too far? Can a market-based system of regulation, as advocated by Mr Berlau, really work better?

These questions could hardly be more topical. As the list of casualties from the credit crunch lengthens (Northern Rock, IKB, Bear Stearns), governments and regulatory agencies face acute tests. Their actions will not only shape the course of the current crisis but influence the business environment for years to come. Should the regulators step in or step back?

qtangtangs

The proposer's opening remarks

Mar 17th 2008 | Mr John Berlau

In the first few years after the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the post-Enron corporate governance law that mandated(委托统治的) elaborate(精心制作的) processes for controlling risks, many executives groused about the costs of compliance. But one firm and one CEO wholeheartedly embraced the law and claimed to use it as the background for its sophisticated risk-management system.
In 2003, less than a year after the law was enacted, this firm's CEO put an independent accounting expert on the board of directors(董事会), and reconfigured the board so that 11 out of its 13 directors were independent, as prevailing corporate governance theory encouraged. "While our board possessed strong financial proficiency(熟练、精通)," the CEO stated proudly in a company press release(新闻稿), "it was important to have a board member who met the specific criteria outlined by Sarbanes-Oxley for financial expertise as we chart the course for [the firm] over the next several years."1

In the next few years, many laudatory(颂扬的) stories were written about this company's seemingly marvellous approach to risk management. In 2007, the Institute of Internal Auditors' Research Foundation profiled it in a case study of "how compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 can be expanded into Enterprise Risk Management."2 The study described in breathless tones how the company's unique risk management software featured "530 risk matrices, 9,500 risks, and 27,000 controls."3
Since the beginning of this year, this firm has been in the news even more often for its approach to risk management. But the stories have not been quite as laudatory. The name of this firm touted just a year ago as paragon(模范) of corporate compliance virtue: Countrywide Financial Corporation(例子!).

And the CEO who praised Sarbanes-Oxley as helping set the course for the next few years is Angelo Mozilo, who is now trying to explain the company's risk management of mortgage securities to angry shareholders and federal agencies from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Written only a year ago, these passages in the Auditors' Research Foundation study on Countrywide's enterprise risk management(企业风险管理) (ERM) programme now seem impossible to read without laughing, or for many in the financial industry, crying.
The passage reads: "Countrywide Financial Corporation, the subject of our first case study, has the most comprehensive ERM program we have seen. Readers who want to know how a state-of-the-art(艺术级的) ERM program operates will see it illustrated through Countrywide's example."4

The irony(具有讽刺意味的事) is that all these descriptions of Countrywide's risk management practices may be essentially true. The company certainly did have many bells and whistles(浮华的装饰) and may have been doing just what laws such as SOX prescribed. The real folly(愚蠢的行为) that this illustrates is the notion that politicians can somehow dictate risk management for individual firms. Rather, risk management should be thought of as any other commodity. And that is as an item that a market, free of distortion(失真) from government regulations and subsidies, will produce at an optimum level due to forces of supply and demand(这位仁兄的point).

My boss, the president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Fred L. Smith, has made the distinction between risk management that is "hierarchic(等级制的) and political" and that which is "decentralized(权力下放的) and competitive". In his essay "Cowboys Versus Cattle Thieves", published in the 2003 Cato Institute book Corporate Aftershock, Smith argues that the question is not whether risks should be managed, "but rather how they should be regulated and by whom(跟自己的中心呼应)".

Examples of competitive risk management that have developed in the private sector include the famous "Six Sigma" practices. Originated at Motorola in 1986, the practices have been picked up by many companies as a method of reducing product defects(产品缺陷). These types of "competitive risk management institutions", Smith writes, "evolve to enforce a set of general principles rather than explicitly prescribe permissible behavior(又一次提出自己的point，反对政府来控制..)". He argues that this has the virtue of(具有…长处) "allowing the parties to better obtain the level of risk they prefer" and "remaining open to further refinements(细微的改良) over time".

Political, or government-mandated, risk management, by contrast, "is futile(无效的，无用的) because the risk management strategies of today will prove inadequate to address the risks of tomorrow," Smith writes. And indeed that seems to be what happened with SOX and the situation at Countrywide. Section 404 of SOX, as interpreted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, mandates(授权) that auditors verify(证实) a broadly defined set of "internal controls" at public companies. Auditors have been known to look at things of such little relevance to shareholders as the number of letters in employee passwords and which employees have office keys5.

Countrywide jumped through these hoops very well. But the best set of internal controls cannot replace business judgment. And as debt replaced equity(公平、公正) for much of business financing, in significant part as a result of the high costs of SOX, and business financing was mixed with mortgage debt in innovations such as asset-backed commercial paper, new risks emerged.

With the multiple players involved in mortgage woes, the current crisis may seem at first appearance a failure of decentralised risk management. But in at least one important respect, the failure was due to reliance on top-down(组织管理严密的) institutions protected by regulation. These are America's two main credit rating agencies. Since the 1970s, The SEC has blocked competition by not accrediting competing firms, while other US financial regulators have required institutions such as banks and pension funds to only carry assets given a high rating by these firms.

This has led to an unnatural reliance on the rating agencies to evaluate debt instruments. It is worth noting, as the American Enterprise Institute's Peter Wallison does6, that lightly regulated hedge funds were some of the only financial institutions going against the subprime grain(违反意愿).

The market for risk management, like the market for all goods, does not lead to perfection. There will always be bankruptcies and business failures, unless we want to shut down growth and have a lower standard of living for all of us. But if risk management institutions were allowed to emerge, evolve and truly compete, much of today's volatility and uncertainty would be greatly reduced.

条理很清楚， 先由一个follow SOX 的公司最后是失败的这么一个例子，引出自己的观点，再用自己boss的话穿插自己的论证来加强～ 而且还穿插的很精妙.
为什么这些arguer的例子都这么随手拈来阿...


关于Angelo Mozilo：

Angelo R. Mozilo (born 1938 in New York City) was the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Countrywide Financial until July 1, 2008[1]. CNBC named Mozilo as one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time".[2]

He is the son of a Bronx butcher. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham University in 1960 and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Pepperdine University.[citation needed]

In 1978 he and his former mentor David S. Loeb, who had already started a mortgage lending company, founded Countrywide Credit Industries in New York. They later moved the headquarters to Calabasas, California in Los Angeles County. Mozilo and Loeb also cofounded IndyMac Bank, which was founded as Countrywide Mortgage Investment, before being spun off as an independent bank in 1997. IndyMac collapsed and was seized by federal regulators on July 11, 2008.[3]

Since Countrywide was listed on the NYSE in 1984, Mozilo has sold $406 million worth of its stock, mostly obtained through stock option grants. $129 million of this was realized in the 12 months ending August 2007.[4]

Perhaps more than any single individual, Mozilo has come to symbolize, and bear the blame for, the subprime mortgage crisis. In a New York Times feature on October 20, 2008, Henry G. Cisneros, a former HUD chairman and member of the Countrywide board of directors, describes Mr. Mozilo as “sick with stress — the final chapter of his life is the infamy that’s been brought on him, or that he brought on himself.” CNN named Mozilo as one of the "Ten Most Wanted: Culprits" of the 2008 financial collapse in the United States.[5]

Compensation

Mozilo's compensation during the United States housing bubble of 2001–06 has come under scrutiny. During that period, his total compensation (including salary, bonuses, options and restricted stock) approached $470 million.[6]

His compensation also includes payment of his annual country club dues at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, CA, The Quarry at La Quinta golf club in La Quinta, CA and Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, VA.[7]

Shortly after University of San Diego invited Mozilo to be the keynote speaker a conference for "sustainable real estate," DisinviteMozilo.com was created in protest on January 10, 2008. Mozilo pulled out six days later. Shortly after that, Congress invited Mozilo to testify about his compensation.

Mozilo testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 7, 2008, calling reports of their pay "grossly exaggerated" in some instances and pointing out that they lost millions as well. He defended the pay: The compensation was a function of how the company did ahead of the mortgage crisis.[8]

Insider Sales

Over many years, Mozilo sold hundreds of millions of dollars in stock personally[9], even while publicly touting the stock and using shareholder funds to buy back stock to support the share price. On June 4, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged former CEO Angelo Mozilo with insider trading and securities fraud[10][11].

"Friends of Angelo" VIP program

Further information: Countrywide financial political loan scandal

In June 2008 Conde Nast Portfolio reported that several influential lawmakers and politicians, including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, and Fannie Mae former CEO Jim Johnson, received favorable mortgage financing from Countrywide by virtue of being "Friends of Angelo."[12][13]

Senator Dodd received a $75,000 reduction in mortgage payments from Countrywide at allegedly below-market rates on his Washington, D.C. and Connecticut homes.[12][14] Dodd nonetheless called for stronger regulation of mortgage lenders and proposed that predatory lenders should face criminal charges. [15]

Clinton Jones III, senior counsel of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, and "an adviser to ranking Republican members of Congress responsible for legislation of interest to the financial services industry and of importance to Countrywide." was given special treatment. Jones is now state director for federal residential-mortgage bundler Freddie Mac. Alphonso Jackson, acting secretary of HUD at the time and long time friend and Texas neighbor of President Bush, received a discounted mortgage for himself and sought one for his daughter. "In 2003, using V.I.P. loans for nearly $1 million apiece, Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and C.E.O. from 1999 to 2004, twice refinanced his seven-bedroom home, which has a pool and movie theater." [15]

E-mail Controversy

In May 2008, Mozilo made the news by accidentally hitting "reply" instead of "forward" in response to an e-mail from a distressed homeowner named Daniel Bailey of North Carolina. Mr. Bailey had created a hardship letter to request a loan modification from Mr. Mozilo on a website forum named LoanSafe.org. Mr. Bailey then sent his request directly to the Office of the President of Countrywide and this was Angelo Mozilo's reply.

"This is unbelievable. Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the internet. Disgusting."[16]

qtangtangs

关于Motorola “Six Sigma” practice:

Six Sigma is a business management strategy, initially implemented by Motorola, that today enjoys widespread application in many sectors of industry.

Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and variation in manufacturing and business processes.[1] It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Black Belts" etc.) who are experts in these methods.[1] Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction or profit increase).[1]

Historical overview

Six Sigma was originally developed as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to other types of business processes as well.[2] In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction.[1]

The particulars of the methodology were first formulated by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986.[3] Six Sigma was heavily inspired by six preceding decades of quality improvement methodologies such as quality control, TQM, and Zero Defects, based on the work of pioneers such as Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Taguchi and others.

Like its predecessors, Six Sigma asserts that –

• Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (i.e. reduce process variation) are of vital importance to business success.
• Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled.
• Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include –

• A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.[1]
• An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.[1]
• A special infrastructure of "Champions," "Master Black Belts," "Black Belts," etc. to lead and implement the Six Sigma approach.[1]
• A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data, rather than assumptions and guesswork.[1]

The term "Six Sigma" is derived from a field of statistics known as process capability studies. Originally, it referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of output within specification. Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).[4][5] Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better.

Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola, Inc.[6] Motorola has reported over US$17 billion in savings[7] from Six Sigma as of 2006.

Other early adopters of Six Sigma who achieved well-publicized success include Honeywell (previously known as AlliedSignal) and General Electric, where the method was introduced by Jack Welch.[8] By the late 1990s, about two-thirds of the Fortune 500 organizations had begun Six Sigma initiatives with the aim of reducing costs and improving quality.[9]

In recent years, Six Sigma has sometimes been combined with lean manufacturing to yield a methodology named Lean Six Sigma.

Origin and meaning of the term "six sigma process"Sigma (the lower-case Greek letter σ) is used to represent the standard deviation (a measure of variation) of a statistical population. The term "six sigma process" comes from the notion that if one has six standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit, there will be practically no items that fail to meet specifications.[5] This is based on the calculation method employed in process capability studies.
In a capability study, the number of standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit is given in sigma units. As process standard deviation goes up, or the mean of the process moves away from the center of the tolerance, fewer standard deviations will fit between the mean and the nearest specification limit, decreasing the sigma number and increasing the likelihood of items outside specification.[5]

Role of the 1.5 sigma shiftExperience has shown that in the long term, processes usually do not perform as well as they do in the short.[5] As a result, the number of sigmas that will fit between the process mean and the nearest specification limit is likely to drop over time, compared to an initial short-term study.[5] To account for this real-life increase in process variation over time, an empirically-based 1.5 sigma shift is introduced into the calculation.[10][5] According to this idea, a process that fits six sigmas between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in a short-term study will in the long term only fit 4.5 sigmas – either because the process mean will move over time, or because the long-term standard deviation of the process will be greater than that observed in the short term, or both.[5]
Hence the widely accepted definition of a six sigma process is one that produces 3.4 defective parts per million opportunities (DPMO). This is based on the fact that a process that is normally distributed will have 3.4 parts per million beyond a point that is 4.5 standard deviations above or below the mean (one-sided capability study).[5] So the 3.4 DPMO of a "Six Sigma" process in fact corresponds to 4.5 sigmas, namely 6 sigmas minus the 1.5 sigma shift introduced to account for long-term variation.[5] This is designed to prevent underestimation of the defect levels likely to be encountered in real-life operation.[5]

Sigma levelsSee also: Three sigma rule
Short-term sigma levels correspond to the following long-term DPMO values (one-sided):

• 1 sigma = 690,000 DPMO = 31% efficiency
• 2 sigma = 308,000 DPMO = 69.2% efficiency
• 3 sigma = 66,800 DPMO = 93.32% efficiency
• 4 sigma = 6,210 DPMO = 99.379% efficiency
• 5 sigma = 230 DPMO = 99.977% efficiency
• 6 sigma = 3.4 DPMO = 99.9997% efficiency

These figures assume that the process mean will shift by 1.5 sigma towards the side with the critical specification limit some time after the initial study determining the short-term sigma level. The figure given for 1 sigma, for example, assumes that the long-term process mean will be 0.5 sigma beyond the specification limit, rather than 1 sigma within it, as it was in the short-term study.

Methods
Six Sigma has two key methods: DMAIC and DMADV, both inspired by Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle.[9] DMAIC is used to improve an existing business process; DMADV is used to create new product or process designs.[9]
DMAICThe basic method consists of the following five steps:

• Define high-level project goals and the current process.
• Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
• Analyze the data to verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.
• Improve or optimize the process based upon data analysis using techniques like Design of experiments.
• Control to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, move on to production, set up control mechanisms and continuously monitor the process.

DMADVThe basic method consists of the following five steps:

• Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
• Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks.
• Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
• Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations.
• Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owners.

DMADV is also known as DFSS, an abbreviation of "Design For Six Sigma".[9]

Implementation roles

One of the key innovations of Six Sigma is the professionalizing of quality management functions. Prior to Six Sigma, quality management in practice was largely relegated to the production floor and to statisticians in a separate quality department. Six Sigma borrows martial arts ranking terminology to define a hierarchy (and career path) that cuts across all business functions and a promotion path straight into the executive suite.

Six Sigma identifies several key roles for its successful implementation.[11]

• Executive Leadership includes the CEO and other members of top management. They are responsible for setting up a vision for Six Sigma implementation. They also empower the other role holders with the freedom and resources to explore new ideas for breakthrough improvements.
• Champions are responsible for Six Sigma implementation across the organization in an integrated manner. The Executive Leadership draws them from upper management. Champions also act as mentors to Black Belts.
• Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts. Apart from statistical tasks, their time is spent on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments.
• Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma.
• Green Belts are the employees who take up Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities. They operate under the guidance of Black Belts.

Criticism
Six Sigma has made a huge impact on industry and is widely employed as a business strategy for achieving and sustaining operational and service excellence.[1] However, there have also been various criticisms of Six Sigma.
Lack of originalityNoted quality expert Joseph M. Juran has described Six Sigma as "a basic version of quality improvement," stating that "[t]here is nothing new there. It includes what we used to call facilitators(服务性企业). They've adopted more flamboyant(炫耀的) terms, like belts with different colors. I think that concept has merit to set apart, to create specialists who can be very helpful. Again, that's not a new idea. The American Society for Quality long ago established certificates, such as for reliability engineers."[12]
Role of consultantsThe use of "Black Belts" as itinerant(流动的) change agents is controversial as it has created a cottage industry of training and certification. Critics argue there is overselling of Six Sigma by too great a number of consulting firms, many of which claim expertise in Six Sigma when they only have a rudimentary understanding of the tools and techniques involved(have...invovled).[1]
The expansion of the various "Belts" to include "Green Belts," "Master Black Belts" and "Gold Belts" is commonly seen as a parallel to the various "belt factories" that exist in martial arts(武术).[citation needed]
Potential negative effectsA Fortune article stated that "of 58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs, 91 percent have trailed the S&P 500 since." The statement is attributed to "an analysis by Charles Holland of consulting firm Qualpro (which espouses a competing quality-improvement process)."[13] The gist of the article is that Six Sigma is effective at what it is intended to do, but that it is "narrowly designed to fix an existing process" and does not help in "coming up with new products or disruptive technologies." Many of these claims have been argued as being in error or ill-informed.[14][15]
A Business Week article says that James McNerney's introduction of Six Sigma at 3M may have had the effect of stifling creativity. It cites two Wharton School professors who say that Six Sigma leads to incremental innovation at the expense of blue-sky work.[16] This phenomenon is further explored in the book, Going Lean, which provides data to show that Ford's "6 Sigma" program did little to change its fortunes.[17]
Based on arbitrary standardsWhile 3.4 defects per million opportunities might work well for certain products/processes, it might not be ideal or cost-effective for others. A pacemaker process might need higher standards, for example, whereas a direct mail advertising campaign might need lower ones. The basis and justification for choosing 6 as the number of standard deviations is not clearly explained. In addition, the Six Sigma model assumes that the process data always conform to the normal distribution. The calculation of defect rates for situations where the normal distribution model does not apply is not properly addressed in the current Six Sigma literature.[1]
Criticism of the 1.5 sigma shiftBecause of its arbitrary nature, the 1.5 sigma shift has been dismissed as "goofy" by the statistician Donald J. Wheeler.[18] Its universal applicability is seen as doubtful.[1]
The 1.5 sigma shift has also been contentious because it results in stated "sigma levels" that reflect short-term rather than long-term performance: a process that has long-term defect levels corresponding to 4.5 sigma performance is, by Six Sigma convention, described as a "6 sigma process."[5][19] The accepted Six Sigma scoring system thus cannot be equated to actual normal distribution probabilities for the stated number of standard deviations, and this has been a key bone of contention about how Six Sigma measures are defined.[19] The fact that it is rarely explained that a "6 sigma" process will have long-term defect rates corresponding to 4.5 sigma performance rather than actual 6 sigma performance has led several commentators to express the opinion that Six Sigma is a confidence trick.[5]

对于sig sigma的要是想收录为例子记住个大概和他的critisism就差不多了

qtangtangs

The opposition's opening remarks

Mar 17th 2008 | Dr Paul Moore

In his latest volume, "Violence" (2008 Profile Books), the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, referred to as the 'Elvis of cultural theory' by the Chronicle of Higher Education, discusses what he calls systemic paradoxes(系统矛盾?). These paradoxes are the conduits(管道) through which modern capital and modern governments operate. Through a series of masterly arguments he leads the reader to the undeniable conclusion that, whatever capital speaks, the opposite is more than likely to be true.

The idea of free market liberalism operating without regulation is a paradigmatic example of this systemic paradox(一开始便提出来自己的主题，尽管我还没读懂到底systemic paradox是什么..). The market in question is far from free for the majority of those who engage with it as part of their everyday lived experience; it fails the basic definition of market economics, access being controlled by multinational conglomerates(跨国公司); and its liberalism is constructed on the presumption that large areas of the so-called(所谓的) global ecology will have to sacrifice choice and liberal living to ensure the myth of liberalism for the rest.

A key element of the myth of free-market liberalism is what Hardt and Negri refer to as big government (Hardt and Negri (2000) Empire, Harvard University Press), the desire of centralized(集中的) political agencies to regulate and control our buying and spending to the detriment of the market and, by association, profits. In the UK the attack on big government started with Margaret Thatcher and her sell-all organisational sensibility, but her counterparts in the US, most notably the darling of the wired intelligentsia, Newt Gingrich, carried it to extreme lengths. The foundation on which this economic myth was constructed was the argument that the advent of a converged(会合的?) information age and the fragmentation(分裂) of post-modern(后现代主义的) states and economies made it illogical to attempt to regulate or administer that which could simply function according to the continually changing expectations of the market.

Ironically, the apparently successful development of the information age, which underpins much of free-market liberalism, has in fact been due to the continued intervention of the state. It is the state (in whichever national context) that has regulated the construction and mass availability of broadband networks; it has been the state which has controlled the fluctuations of currency and stock value to ensure the vagaries of speculation have not scuppered the networks, and it has been the state which has introduced the necessary legislation, employment and educational, which has ensured that the population is prepared for work under post-Fordist production models.(三句排比说出了state来控制market的益处及重要性)

Most crucially(决定性的) it is the government, particularly in the UK, which has been most active in creating the discourse(演说) of the creative industries through the legislation(法律) and regulation of the arts. Government-funded research such as the "Work Foundation's Staying Ahead" (2007), written by Will Hutton, has created a springboard(跳板) from which it is safe for those who bemoan(抱怨) governmental interference to dive into(很形象的表达，跟前面的springboard呼应) the economy without a safety net, sure in the knowledge that if all goes wrong another state life-jacket will be along at any moment.

One of the most incisive(直接的) and scathing(不留情的) attacks on this cyber-liberalism has come from Richard Barbrook in his work "California Ideology", published in 1995. In this analysis he underlines the hypocrisy(虚伪) of those who claim that state interference is limiting economic growth: "One of the weirdest things about the rightwards drift of the "Californian Ideology" is that the West Coast itself is a creation of the mixed economy. Government dollars were used to build the irrigation systems, highways, schools, universities and other infrastructural projects which make the good life possible in California. On top of these public subsidies, the West Coast hi-tech industrial complex has been feasting off the fattest pork barrel in history for decades. The US government has poured billions of tax dollars into buying planes, missiles, electronics and nuclear bombs from Californian companies. For those not blinded by 'free-market' dogmas, it was obvious that the Americans have always had state planning: only they call it the defence budget."1

Speaking of defence budgets, does the military-industrial system at the dark heart of what Mr Zizek calls the mediated humanitarian crises that are contemporary war zones really believe that their position, or profits, could be sustained without the political manoeuvring, national finance regulation and media legislation that come together to maintain the present hegemony which the fear of terrorism has over us?(这段加以改变可以用在要证明强国实力时的一个侧面例子)

Not only has state regulation not, therefore, made things worse, it has created the ecology on which it has been possible to export neo-liberal(新自由主义的) economic models to less well regulated nations. As someone who has worked a great deal in a number of African states, it is clear to me that many of the central economic problems faced by such states stem from the fact that, with western encouragement, they have leapfrogged modernism and moved from ruralism to post-digitisation and the embracing of free-market liberalism without the protective framework of government regulation and legislation. The result is that they are subject to the worst excesses of the free-market economy packaged as western aid, whether it be AIDS education, media development or educational and vocational training.

The fact is that those who rail most against(严厉责骂) the apparent straitjacket of regulation know that the free-market economy is built on a rigid structure of unseen legislation which ensures the free movement of capital to which virtually all of us will never have access. One is reminded of Bentham's panopticon, a structure which allowed those in control to oversee the entire workings of any given penal institution without ever being seen themselves. Similarly the free-market panopticon makes sure that the necessary economic legislation will be passed unseen at the very moment when the gatekeepers are invading the public space with spurious claims of governmental interference.
Ultimately those who wish the free market to continue will have to concede that regulation is the very foundation on which the freedom of trade is constructed(中心句). They will have to accept that legislation is like Mr Zizek's story of the chocolate laxative; paradoxically more of the very thing that appears to make you ill will have to be taken if freedom of economic movement is to be ensured.


关于Californian Ideology：

The Californian Ideology is a name given by two authors to a set of beliefs combining bohemian and anti-authoritarian attitudes from the counterculture of the 1960s with techno-utopianism and support for neoliberal economic policies. These beliefs are thought by some to have been characteristic of the culture of the IT industry in Silicon Valley and the West Coast of the United States during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s.[citation needed]

Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron coined the phrase in their 1995 essay The Californian Ideology.

qtangtangs

Featured guest

Mr Robert Pollin

I would like to offer two simple points to this debate:

1. Unregulated financial markets are self-destructive.

US and global financial markets are today mired in a severe crisis due to the collapse of the US housing bubble and the subprime mortgage market. A recession has arrived.

Particulars aside, there is an awful lot about the current financial crisis that is familiar. It was only in 2001 that the US stock market crashed, after having been driven during the late 1990s to unprecedented high levels of speculative(投机的) frenzy by the dot.com boom. More generally, Charles Kindleberger's classic book, "Manias, Panics and Crashes", documents that, from 1725, financial crises have occurred throughout the Western capitalist economies at an average rate of about one every 8.5 years.

The most severe instance of an overwrought(神经紧张的) financial market leading to an overall economic calamity was the roaring twenties(美国兴旺的20年代), which produced the 1929 Wall Street crash. This led to a collapse of the US banking system, with the consequent disappearance between 1929 and 1933 of nearly 40% of the nation's banks. The 1930s great depression ensued.

Roosevelt's New Deal government(例子!) put in place an extensive system of financial regulations in the US. For example, mortgage loans in the US could be issued only by savings and loans (S&Ls) and related institutions. The government regulated the rates S&Ls could charge on mortgages, and the S&Ls were prohibited from holding highly speculative assets in their portfolios.

These and similar regulations faced by banks and securities markets worked. From the end of the second world war to the mid-1970s, financial markets were much more stable than in any previous phase of capitalism. This historical period is widely recognised as having been the golden age of capitalism in the advanced Western economies. Economic growth was relatively rapid and stable, unemployment was low, average real wages were rising and poverty fell.

But even during the New Deal years, financial-market titans were fighting vehemently to eliminate or at least de-fang the regulations. Starting in the 1970s and continuing to the present, they have almost always got their way. As a result, our now largely unregulated financial markets operate according to their own self-destructive logic.

2. Unregulated labour markets are immoral.

Economists from Adam Smith onward have recognised that market economies—dominated as they are by self-seeking and competition—can survive over time only if they are buttressed by social institutions that support our inclinations(倾向) towards fairness. This is the justification for minimum wage laws and related measures that protect the rights of workers. If we truly embraced the principle that labour markets should be unregulated, that would mean not only abolishing minimum wage laws. It would also mean eliminating prohibitions on both child labour and slavery. What are these prohibitions if not attempts—successful in fact, as far as they have gone—at imposing heavy regulations on what would otherwise be the free choices of market participants to bargain for themselves without government interference?

Guest提出的这两点很关键。很有力道。 列举出两个政府介入市场调控起到积极作用的不可否认的例子。
再加上前面Mr Moore 的论证很明显就让赞成方放弱了一成
看的出如果要强有力的支撑自己的观点的话   例子还是很必不可少的阿..  而且 句子并没有多长多难的  

qtangtangs

Rebuttal statements

The moderator's rebuttal remarks

Mar 20th 2008 | Mr Daniel Franklin

Look at the voting so far: a virtual dead-heat. None of our debates so far has been as finely balanced at this stage. And the comments from the floor show a discussion that has taken off quickly and with a sense of engagement.

In such circumstances the moderator's role is to step back and let the debate take its course. Let us see whether the rebuttals from Messrs Berlau and Moore sway the house in a particular direction. A number of guest participants will weigh in, starting with Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

I will just make one obvious observation. We are conducting this virtual debate against the background of high drama in the real world's financial markets. Businesses and regulators alike are urgently asking the same questions that we are pondering here. When and how should governments intervene? How to balance the desire for stability with the need for dynamism(精力) and innovation(改革) in the longer run? What are the lessons from previous financial crises around the world?

As you would expect, these are the sort of questions that were in the air(悬而未决) at The Economist's weekly editorial meeting on Monday. The editor's Monday-morning meeting is in some ways a concentrated version of the Oxford-style debate we are having here, and this week's session was a particularly memorable one, with an intense focus on Wall Street's tremors.

The result is a long cover leader plus ten pages of background and analysis. Because of the Easter holiday, it is published a day earlier than usual, so its appearance coincides conveniently with this stage of our online debate. You might like to turn to it for a pertinent perspective on the proposition before us. Consider this week's Economist, if you like, as an extra, unexpected guest participant in this debate.