1006G备考日记 by pluka——Pursuit of simplicity（谢幕）

plukaUID：2721764

comments作业--12.18
https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=1042731&pid=1773446654&page=1&extra=#pid1773446654

好句：

In most of the world the climate changes to date are barely perceptible or hard to pin on warming. 

But nobody really knows, and nobody wants to know.喜欢这个语气

Some scientists think that the planet is already on an irreversible journey to dangerous warming. A few climate-change sceptics think the problem will right itself. Either may be correct.Predictions about a mechanism as complex as the climate cannot be made with any certainty.这一段都写得好啊~

It is a prisoner’s dilemma, a free-rider problem and the tragedy of the commons all rolled into one. 

The closest parallel is the world trading system. 

To suggest that much has gone wrong is not to denigrate the efforts of the many people who have dedicated two decades to this problem. 

comments：
Anything involving negotiation between countries turns out difficult. The more detailed the contents and the larger compromises it suggests, the deeper the gap created by various politic and economic stances. It is quite natural that open conflict and insidious conspiracy pervade. Political leaders, who must in the first place be responsible to their own government, own people, and own sponsors, have no reason to lavish budget on projects meaningful yet unprofitable--at least in short term. UN or any other organizations will help little as far as the true authority is still governed solely by powerful yet selfess nations. Balance is never something easy to achieve, especially when power and money is involved. Personally I'm not optimistic about such negotiations. Yes, agreement may be reached, but surely there will be long and exhaustive journey before.

plukaUID：2721764

12.19 COMMENTS作业
NOTE
THE longest bull（牛市） run in a century of art-market history ended。
It was a last hurrah（【美】最后的努力，尤指最一次竞选活动）. 
The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising vertiginously since 2003.


bail-out：跳伞，以优先股发给股东作为红利之行为。


downturn：低迷时期。

slump：衰退，（物价）暴跌。


But this special report will argue that it will bounce back, and that the key to its recovery lies in globalisation. The supply of the best works of art will always be limited, but in the longer run demand is bound to rise as wealth is spreading ever more widely across the globe.
Last year China overtook France as the world’s third-biggest art market after America and Britain 。


sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf：波斯湾的酋长国
Guggenheim：古根海姆：美国一工业家及慈善家家族，包括梅尔 （1828-1905年），他经营铜业，大大增加了家族财富。其子 丹尼尔 （1856-1930年）和 西蒙 （1867-1941年）及其孙女，被称为“伯蒂”的 玛格丽特 （1898-1979年），都是艺术事业的赞助者。该家族在纽约捐助建立了古根海姆现代艺术博物馆（1959年） 


Straddling all areas of the art market is a handful of individuals who have emerged as the key figures in the art world in recent years.

emporiums：商场、商业中心、大百货商店。


...with Christie’s and Sotheby’s taking the lion’s share. 

By comparison with that private world, Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction business looks like a model of transparency.


One thing that differentiates the two auction houses is their ownership structure. 


Sotheby’s, for its part, is still smarting (刺痛、痛苦、懊恼）from the public beating...

Both houses have their eye on the Middle East. 

With a hugely expanded international client base, it was only a matter of time before both auctioneers started to muscle in（[俚]硬挤进；侵入；干涉；强夺）on areas that had previously been the preserve of private dealers。

COMMENT
Always have I puzzled about the criterion  of art. Paintings, especially modern ones, seem baffling to me. Sometimes guessing out their meaning is just like finding a way out of an intriguing and complex labyrinth. Though in some cases the metaphor may be obvious, seldom can I find a striking force right to the heart. It is more a feast to the eyes or brains than to the heart---at least to me, in most cases. One thing must be admitted, in the meantime, is that surely the reconstruction performed by viewers, as well as the creation by artists, is largely subjective. Therefore how a price tag is attached is kinda difficult to figure out for me---yet apparently not for bidders and auctioneers. Commercialism finds its way to every end of the earth.
=============================
前三天考托福去了……
对于半裸考的俺来说，发挥还正常吧……
补作业！
=============================

12.20 COMMENTS作业
NOTE
Now it is America that looks uneasily on the rise of a potential challenger.

A shared cultural and political heritage helped America to eclipse（超越，使黯然失色） British power without bloodshed（流血）, but the rise of Germany and Japan precipitated（促成） global wars.对比。

many politicians and intellectuals in both China and America feel that the balance of power is shifting more rapidly in China’s favour.

On October 1st China offered a stunning display of the hard edge of its rising power（亮剑） as it paraded its fast-growing military arsenal through Beijing.


The financial crisis has sharpened（动词！） fears of what Americans often see as another potential threat.

China is exploring the rubble of the global economy（探路） in hopes of accelerating its own rise.

China may have growing financial muscle（上一篇也有用muscle这个词的，很生动）, but it still lags far behind as a technological innovator and creator of global brands.

By any measure, China’s power is still dwarfed by America’s.因XX而相形失色，表示比较的好词~


socialism with Chinese characteristics：中国特色的社会主义。


But it is a relationship fraught with（充满） contradictions.

...could eventually drain(耗尽，动词~） the country’s fiscal strength and leave it with “no more drivers for growth”.

Protests are on the rise, corruption is rampant, crime is surging. 几个词都相当贴切。The leadership is fearful of its own citizens. Mr Obama is dealing with a China that is at risk of overestimating its strength relative to America’s. Its frailties（脆弱、虚弱、意志薄弱、品德过失）—social, political and economic—could eventually imperil both its own stability and its dealings with the outside world.

COMMENT
Perhaps one of the most important underlying issues of the Sino-American relationship is the differences in ideology. While most of Chinese deem it natural to have centralized government, Americans, on the other hand, seem to regard any oneparty dominance notoriously authoritarian, insidious and with aggressive intentions. From such an biased perspective, every development China makes is viewed as impending menace and as maneuver to steal the leading position held by America at present. Such misunderstanding may derive from their conception that there can only one superpower manipulating and ''protecting'' the world as savior, and that alternation means suffering to the loser. As implied in this article, despite of the potential mutual benefits of cooperation, America tend to view China as threat rather than partner.

plukaUID：2721764

12.21 COMMENTS
NOTE


Saddled（承受） with the worst credit rating in the country, the “Golden State” is cutting spending on schools, prisons and health care for the elderly, as well as closing parks and laying off staff for three days a month.
Financial shenanigans（恶作剧，诡计） are not the sole province of the banking industry.

The world economy is fitfully（断断续续地） getting back to normal, but it will be a “new normal”.

The crisis invited a forceful government entry into several of capitalism’s inner sanctums（圣地圣所密室）. Mr El-Erian worries that the state may overstay(逗留过久） its welcome.

But some forecasters now harbour（持有或抱有（某种特殊的思想或感情）） higher expectations.

Friedman’s story is heartening, but it can come unstuck（未黏住的，松开的，紊乱的） in two ways.
If so, the economy will never recoup（赔偿补偿扣除） its losses, even after spending picks up again.

Financial crises can pose such a threat to national incomes because of the way they erode national wealth.

This was a protracted（拖延的） slog（艰难行进）. In the meantime Japan’s economy stagnated. By 2002 its output was almost 23% below its pre-crisis trajectory（轨道轨线弹道，原来可以这么用）.

China is outpacing expectations（超出预料）.

Goldman Sachs is making hay（再创高峰）. 

But the relief is likely to be short-lived. Just over a year ago, the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the world economy fell off a precipice. When you are falling, you do not look up. Only when you hit bottom can you stop and contemplate the cliff you must now climb.（有意思~）

The travails（辛苦，艰辛劳动） of finance, in turn, may prevent the recovering economy from backing and exploiting innovations.

==================
SUMMARY

This report explored the question whether the economy could recover steadfastly during post-crisis time.

After rumination, ''revert to mean'' prospect as well as a new norm featured by subdued growth and higher employment were suggested by Pimco.

Still, on the other hand, some people believed the economy could restore itself to the former state before this crisis. Among those optimistic opinion lies Friedman's piece of string and board metaphor, revealing that vigorous spending could stimulate the economy and employ its resources fully. 

String theory claimed that after crisis, the idled energy(work force, unexploited innovations,etc.) thrust the economy. Yet this statement overlooked the possibly permanent harm imposed by the shrinking spending during the crisis as the tie between laborers and economic world loosens, activity of companies declined, and ceilings of production lowered. The economy, therefore, may hardly to regain the same pace as before.

Meanwhile, financial crisis pose threat on national wealth. Not like other natural disasters, economic crisis not only shattered overpriced assets, but also left burdensome or even unfulfilled liabilities that hampered the developments afterwards. That is a ''balance-sheet recession''.

Months afer Pimco's meeting, world's economy seems to start bouncing back. Yet it may be short-lived. This special report argued that the influence of crisis required more cautions than expected.

================
COMMENT

Economy has long been a intriguing subject.Turmoils today have witnessed breakdowns of big companies as well as sufferings of laid-off workers. Unemployment rate will continue to be high, as mentioned in the report, stability of society will be challenged. To relieve such stress, government of China has already launched several programs motivating individuals to start enterprises of their own. And this seems to be the trend. Rapidly developed technologies, in the meantime, provide opportunities to small yet innovative newcomers to set root on the turbulent or unexploited fields.The advanced chip-making technics, for example, help many bandit(or shanzhai) cellphone makers gaining prosperity. The breakdown of monopoly, though appears disordered initially, may rewards the end.

plukaUID：2721764

三日不见，作业积压量暴涨=口=|||不过总算可以把托福抛开啦!
补作业呀补作业……还剩三篇精读、三天份的阅读……这意味着熬夜的日子又要开始了咩？
渺渺兮予怀，望周公兮天一方……

嗯，情绪已经loop回来了，渡过低潮期，开始high起来吧！
12.21

plukaUID：2721764

12.22 COMMENTS
https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=1044038&page=1&extra=#pid1773457203
NOTE


tooth-and-nail：拼命

Shortly after 1am on Monday December 21st, the health bill cleared the first, and the most difficult, of the procedural hurdles it has to leap in order to secure passage through the Senate.

nose-counting：[口]清点人数，投票计数，凭投票数作出的决定。

...there was no room for error whatsoever（无论什么）...

The health bill has been stripped of something very dear to many of then: a “public option” of a government-backed insurance scheme that would compete with private insurers in order, supposedly, to keep costs down and guarantee access.

...will have those worries lifted from their shoulders.放下心头大石。

Republicans, however, hate the bill, mostly on the ground of cost.

The public option is one big stumbling block（绊脚石）。

arm-twisting：压力或影响。

COMMENTS

Be it legendary or notorious, Mr. Obama seems bound to leave marks on history. His most attacked proposal, the medicare reform bill, appears perfect and ideal, yet stirs irritation among public--why?

Let's check the core of president's bill first. Aiming at solve the two stubborn maladies of contemporary medicare system(i.e., a huge number of people without medicare insurance and a growing fee for medical treatment), Mr. Obama claimed that the reform will provide a full coverage to all American citizens with lower medical cost. The exchequer, as he stated, can save a large sum of money in the meantime. Such prospect is so ideal that looks more a fantasy or contrived trick than pragmatic method.

Factually, many Americans deem it a trick indeed. Two reasons can explain the protest. The first one is money. Republicans, as well as some economists, has pointed out that the reform bill will add to the fiscal crunch with huge deficit, deteriorating post-crisis economy. To plug the gap, as many perceived and predicted, higher tax will be imposed, especially on middle-class citizens, sparking spleens and remonstrance.

Next to the financial concern lies the people's anger of being deprived of freedom to arrange their own medicare. Mr.Obama's ambition is to swallow the medicare industry, which counts up to 17% GDP and is contemporary owned by private practitioners, by interjecting governmental programs and new set of rules. Those who have already signed up medicare or those want to make decisions of their own may find it difficult, were the bill put into effect, to maintain original insurance from private-owned companies or to choose particular doctor they want. Further fear includes extensive governmental interference in other fields relating to medical once the government gains the authority in medicare area.

Now as the reform looms, Mr.Obama again faces pressure and challenges. Personally I do not think the bill(even a compromised one) can be carried out smoothly and effectively. The presidential term is too short for Mr.Obama's huge ambition, and he looks in a rush.

plukaUID：2721764

晚上自习回来稍微松懈了一下，结果任务补完计划失败，还剩一套LSAT阅读没做= =|||
今天看文体指要，突然觉得很对不起中文......看着英文的作文指导书觉得醍醐灌顶，却从没看过中文的写作指南（中学作文书无视掉= =）。很想好好学一学该怎么写中文。
12.22

kulewy531UID：2603031

同感啊！老师让写个小论文，结果都是写出的长难句，根本不符合中文表达习惯。

plukaUID：2721764

114# kulewy531
唉，中文不能写从句，麻烦啊……

12.23&24 COMMENTS
NOTE

Is the anger justified? Some argue that executive pay is a long-standing（长期存在的） disgrace. Pay is often not tethered（束缚，栓系） to performance. Huge rewards for the few demotivate the rest of the workforce. Others are more sanguine（乐天的，满怀希望的，可以用来形容人啊）. Successful executives, such as Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, can add hugely to a firm's profitability, benefiting workers, managers and shareholders alike. The growing pay of executives has to be balanced against the growing difficulty of their jobs, particularly as turnover in the boardroom increases.一整段都很顺畅~

In the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, CEOs are routinely（例行公事地） criticised for being overpaid.

Excessive executive compensation of the past decade is both a symptom and a cause of the current economic mess.

One of the few things that anti-globalisation campaigners and stock market investors agree upon is that executive pay is out of control. It is not hard to understand this shared outrage: executive pay has exploded since the 1980s. For most of the postwar era executives earned a few multiples of the median pay.

Critics of executive pay worry that even mediocre bosses are given outsized rewards.

Numerous governments are planning to deal with their rising deficits by freezing public-sector pay.

Such bold opening statements raise questions galore（adv丰富地）.

Boards are criticised for not tying CEOs' pay to performance.

The final myth to bust is that CEOs controltheir boards and earn high pay through this control and notperformance.

And the post-meltdown（彻底垮台后的） awards are all but guaranteed to continue to create perverse incentives that will reward management and further damage the interests of shareholders and everyother participant in the economy.

...making it clear to everyone in the executive suite that the pay-performance link was not a priority.

SUMMARY&COMMENTS

Here're two different(interestingly) styles of argument in my eyes. 

Start from Mr K, the proposer. He generally made two points, stating firstly that the truth about CEO's compensation was that it was lower, rather than higher, compared with the median payment for the majority and incomes in some booming industries such as hedgefund, private equity and venture capital investors; the second point was that payment of CEO's was actually tied to his/her performance and that unqualified executives would be fired by boards. To justify his argument, Mr K made some statistic comparison with histograms showing the relation of payments between CEO's and other groups, which well supported his contention that CEOs now were actually not better off but worse than before.He next explored the underlying reason for the ostensible rising compensation: the market force. Senior executives and talented people shifted swiftly across industries, seeking for better pay. Such competitive market drived companies, even governments, to offer high pension to keep capable personnel. Also he cited some recent issues illustrating this point. 

I appreciate Mr K's argument. It is clear and clean. Definite contentions, detailed figures and statistics, deeper explorations and relevant examples all together organized in a way that clarifes the main idea and the extensive structure.I feel rather comfortable and convinced when reading such an well-organized article. Excellent samples on argument writing~

Ms M's part, on the other hand, was saturated with compelling examples. She cited several notorious CEOs to prove that the post-meltdown compensation nurtured negative attitude of executives towards their jobs and that the board almost cosseted CEOs, allowing them to take advantage of their position in pursuit of personal gain. Those senior executives, as she pointed, got overpaid unreasonably and unmatched to their contributions. 

What upsets me a little is that Ms M's concentration on examples, though vigorous and compelling, is a little bit less clear than Mr K's. I'm the kind of person who want to see a clear-cut statement and then be convinced by materials author provided afterwards. The foregoing assertion help me reconstruct the line of argument. Ms M gave different examples one after another, yet for me the structure seems not as tangible as Mr K's. Meanwhile, Mr K dealt largely a holistic situation while Ms M lined up several specific cases. Emotionally I'm moved by vivid and specific recountal, but somehow another part of my mind keeps questioning the validity of such underlying generalization...

plukaUID：2721764

静下心来做comments还是挺有意思的。summary是必不可少——不然真记不住呀！记摘要的同时也练习一下句子表达之类，还会发现comments的长度上去了;P
另外今天把落下的进度都赶回来了，好~！
算了算材料，发现这周可以让CF告一段落，嗯~可以找新资料了~~~
晚上自习搞懂了工程法计算，额耶~~~
12.23

plukaUID：2721764

昨晚睡晚了点，结果现在脑袋昏沉沉……
草草大概就快发布作业了吧~唔，自己再确认一下当前的日常任务：单词、精读、泛读、复习精读笔记，每日comment和单词互查贴(今天开始要记得做！以前老忘记）~！
文体指要看了一半，获益匪浅，争取本周看完~！
12.24

plukaUID：2721764

12.25 COMMENT
NOTE
rank and file：基层，普通成员，士兵。
wording：措辞。
a few attention-grabbing anecdotes：引人注意的轶闻。
diametrically：直接地。
leverage：杠杆作用。经济学中指由于一项经济活动引起的一个经济指标很小的变动从而使另一个经济指标有较大的变动的现象。比如财务杠杆作用是由于债务存在而导致普通股股东权益大于息税前利润变动的杠杆效应。
oxymoron：矛盾修饰法。pay is uncoupled from performance.
boatloads of money（boatload:船的载货量，一条船的货物） 

the system is out of whack（重打、击败）。

SUMMARY

Stating that the plural of anecdote was data, Mr K rebuted Ms M's claims by firstly, again, turning to general data and reseaches. He cited Mr Yermack's recent article that CEOs as a whole lost fortunes in 2008, including those bad performers. CEOs, as Mr K explained, received a large proportion of their pay in stock and options instead of money, which made them bear a downside risk when crisis came. If the company lost money, so would the CEO. It seemed that Mr K mentioned those citations as long and general studies  particularly in order to contrast Ms M's certain anecdotes. And it worked.

Then, he refuted Ms M's claim on untied payment with performance as false, saying that financial CEOs were compensated for the quaility of their transactions but not, as Ms M suggested, for the quantity.Once more general studies were refered to.

What put the argument more compelling was Mr K's skillful penetration that veered Ms M's attractive examples into counterexamples. Angelo Mozillo, though gained unfair share as Ms M attacked before, faced the legal charge and dim future. Mr McClendon, criticized by Ms M as one of the crisis causer, ran an energy company that has nothing to do with the financial crunch. 

Ended by providing alternative reasons for economic crisis, Mr K convincingly proved that CEOs did have lost fortune and did not have caused crisis.

Ms M started defending her claim on the company's disguise of current run and pay as well as the governmental inability of curbing outrageous CEOs' compensation by recent news and testimony from cooperation and government respectively. She confirmed once again that the incentive compensation was badly designed.

After that, Ms M responded several points of Mr K. The first was on the calculation of payment.The second was related to compensation-performance tie(the outrageous retirement package for bad performers could hardly be justified). The third was about the comparison of payment among CEOs and other professionals(other vocations received bonus from arm's length system but CEOs decided the pay for themselves indirectly).

She ended up with seven sins in executive compensation plans.

COMMENT

For me, this debate is an interesting one yet without clear-cut. The significant point is, as Mr K maintained, whether the performance deserves the reward. I thought that question before, puzzled by the wild difference on salary between the CEO and other personnel,say, an engineer. Though Mr K offered evidences that CEOs have lost a lot by now, one may still wonder if the baseline for their payment has been badly designed from the initial and thus the downsize may prove no abnormal lost but a just return.Ms M's contention that CEOs could actually govern their own income hits me. If that is true(I'm not familiar to economy and cannot judge it), healthier, stronger and more independent compensation system is surely necessary. 
Oh I don't know what to comment~~~though intriguing, it's still a hard topic for me to delve...

zhengchangdianUID：2563082

加油加油哈，小螃蟹，吼吼~~:lol

plukaUID：2721764

119# zhengchangdian
我加速爬，我横着爬~~~~

唔，今天把CASK EFFECT的SCI看完啦~周末两天CET也该结束了，继续做LSAT就好，要开始挪时间过题库了。同样在周末，可以做完手头的time选集和一个economist精读贴（老帖，没更新了，追了俺快两个月= =总算搞定了）。嚯嚯，我爱另辟天地的感觉~~~
12.25

zhengchangdianUID：2563082

120# pluka

天啊，小犇人，我崇拜你！！！

豆腐店的86UID：2512956

看了pluka的楼，受益匪浅啊·~~~ 自觉要越发努力才行！！
顶你！ 加油呀~~~