1006G 备考日记 by qxn_1987——now

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.12
时间还真是不经混呢。。
照旧按杨鹏的方法背单词和复习单词，&几个句子，温习了部分之前看过的第一次作业。。其它的就没什么了。。
感觉一天还没做什么呢，唰一下，就没了。。

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.13
上午排队注射了疫苗。。
照旧还是背单词，&几个句子，读了一篇英文文章，看了一点I打印的资料，其它的也就没什么了。。
今天困得不行了，还是先睡吧。。

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.14
终于终于可以上网了。。。折腾了那么久，还以为电脑有故障了。。。

今天效率还真低啊。。检讨！！
任务还没有完成，单词还有一个List没背，一会还要看看我的作文（A143），用最近学的改一下。。
先把日志补上，然后继续奋斗了。。。

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.15
照旧是背单词，每天的单词任务量开始增多。。感觉单词一天占得时间有点多。。&几个句子，列了2个A提纲。。

刚看了Frances0412(笑笑)的一篇贴：
1.“所以对于A，我的观点是：不要从一个批判者的角的看，ETS不是想让你把这篇文章批驳得一无是处，而是想让你帮助这篇文章如何改进，所以不要说一些很肯定的反对之类的话语，而要委婉的提出他这个遗漏了啥”
2.“你一定要在举了例子后好好分析这个例子为什么能支持你的TS，这个才是体现你的analytical 的地方”

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.16
依旧是单词，句子。。写了1篇A提纲。。
现在觉得一天光单词时间就要花费不少。。。貌似还是不能很合理的安排时间。。

明天又是一个新起点，加油！呵。。

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.17
呃，今晚组开会了。。
今天还是背单词之类。。今天又看了一下自己写的A，实在是改不动了，发现不了问题。。。自己改果然不行，希望有人来拍。。

1.“对考查逻辑的分析性写作考试而言，识别题目的关键字至少有两点基本作用：其一，阐明和确立所进行讨论的前提，不仅是为了在文章中明确体现自己的认识，更同时是给自己明确自己的认识——免得因为对关键词的认识从一开始就模糊摇摆然后写到后半背叛前半；其二，明确了关键字，也就抓住题目的核心问题和关系所在，从关键字入手进行思考，自然是打开思路源泉的首选。”
2.“把contrast做足了。”

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

发的贴看不到。。。又出故障了？

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.18
今天是做comments第一天，，，呃。。真是糟糕透了。。
不过草木说了“觉得写得恶心没事 恶心习惯了就适应了 ”“谁都得经过写作畏难期”。。原本正郁呢，巨大的鼓励！！加油吧！！哈。。

不管怎么样，还是要贴一下今天的comments：
Comments:
Nowadays, one phenomenon is calling for people’s attention, i.e., the changing of climate, which is caused by superfluous Carbon-dioxide emissions. You needn’t have to go too far to see the effects of climate change, at the mean time, the solution of the problem needs the cooperation and communication of every country in the world, since the climate change has been a worldwide worry.

The speaker asserts that only through economy moving, which requires businesses to change their investment patterns through signals given by governments, from carbon-intensive to low-carbon—and, in the long term, to zero-carbon—products and processes could we solve the problem. Nonetheless, its performance is so difficult for various reasons.

今天还有N多任务没完成，先不多说了。。

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

日志还是看不到吗？算了，写一下今天的。。

12.19
写给自己：
恩，是，相当的差劲，不管原来如何如何。。，都不要再狡辩！！不管怎么样，你现在都很差劲了，是，有点小小的忧伤，可是有这时间倒还不如猛劲补上！！不补？那你就继续享受痛苦的纠结吧！！自己看着办吧！！

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.19(comments)

THE longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”, at Sotheby’s in London on September 15th 2008 (see picture). All but two pieces sold, fetching more than £70m, a record for a sale by a single artist. It was a last hurrah（最后的努力，尤指最后一次竞选活动）. As the auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy.

背景资料：

Damien Hirst（达米安.霍斯特）: Damien Steven Hirst (born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and the most prominent member of the group known as "Young British Artists" (or YBAs), who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reputed to be the richest living artist to date. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended. Death is a central theme in Hirst's works.

“小时候，他被母亲看作是病态的古怪孩子；上学时，他的成绩常常是D；青年时期，他吸毒、酗酒。然而，这一切都不妨碍未到41岁的他成为当代最有名、最富有、最成功的艺术家。”

The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising vertiginously since 2003. At its peak in 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, a research firm—double the figure five years earlier. Since then it may have come down to $50 billion. But the market generates interest far beyond its size because it brings together great wealth, enormous egos, greed, passion and controversy in a way matched by few other industries.

In the weeks and months that followed Mr Hirst’s sale, spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable, especially in New York, where the bail-out of the banks coincided with the loss of thousands of jobs and the financial demise of many art-buying investors….Within weeks the world’s two biggest auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, had to pay out nearly $200m in guarantees to clients who had placed works for sale with them.

背景资料：

Christie’s：佳士得（Christie's）是一家著名的艺术品拍卖行

Sotheby’s：苏富比（Sotheby's），是一家拍卖行，以拍卖艺术品及文物而著称。首次举行的拍卖会在1744年3月11日举行，由创办人山姆·贝克(Samuel Baker)为处理其数百本“稀少而贵重”的书籍而进行。

一直以来，苏富比与佳士得激烈地争夺世界最重要艺术品拍卖人的地位。这个主要地位透过多种方式取得，包括自然增长，收购及在过去一个世纪的艺术衰退里仍然妥善管理而得来。

downturn（低迷时期）

Straddling（straddle v.跨骑）

What makes this slump different from the last, he says, is that there are still buyers in the market, whereas in the early 1990s, when interest rates were high, there was no demand even though many collectors wanted to sell. Christie’s revenues in the first half of 2009 were still higher than in the first half of 2006. Almost everyone who was interviewed for this special report said that the biggest problem at the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell. The three Ds—death, debt and divorce—still deliver works of art to the market. But anyone who does not have to sell is keeping away, waiting for confidence to return.

The best that can be said about the market at the moment is that it is holding its breath. 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.
…
By contrast…This report will concentrate on that part of the market, which accounts for about half the world’s art trade and most of the excitement.

背景资料：

Andy Warhol：安迪·沃霍尔，被誉为20世纪艺术界最有名的人物之一，是波普艺术的倡导者和领袖，也是对波普艺术影响最大的艺术家。沃霍尔除了是波普艺术的领袖人物，他还是电影制片人、作家、摇滚乐作曲者、出版商，是纽约社交界、艺术界大红大紫的明星式艺术家。沃霍尔的作品没有欧洲设计师那么观念化、哲学化、个人化，他的作品风格体现出了：实用主义、商业主义、多元化、幽默性。

Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), more commonly known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats.Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films.

背景资料：

François Pinault：François Pinault（弗朗克斯.皮诺特） (born 21 August 1936) is a billionaire French businessman who runs the retail company PPR（Pinault-Printemps-Redoute）. He is a friend of former French President Jacques Chirac. According to Forbes List of billionaires (2008) he is ranked 39th in the world, with an estimated fortune of US$16.9 billion.

His holding company Artemis S.A., owns (or owned), among others, Converse shoes, Samsonite luggage, Château Latour, the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado, and Christie's auction house. Artemis also owns Executive Life (now Aurora Life) in California, which was sued by policy holders when the company failed.

是佳士得拍卖行最大的股东。藏品涵盖了欧美主要的艺术流派，从现代主义到抽象表现、极简主义。他不仅是世界很多主要画廊、拍卖会的大主顾，也是多家知名博物馆的董事和赞助人。2006年，皮诺荣登西方权威艺术杂志《艺术评论》评选的“全球当代艺术界最有影响力100人”榜单第一名。

The popularity of blockbuster art exhibitions and the emergence of buyers with a different cultural history have helped change tastes.

Many dealers now prefer to take art works on consignment, matching sellers to buyers for a commission rather than investing in stocks of art.

背景资料：

Price fixing scandal

In February 2000, A. Alfred Taubman and Diana (Dede) Brooks, the CEO of the company, stepped down amidst a price fixing scandal. The FBI had been investigating auction practices in which it was revealed that collusion involving commission fixing between Christie's and Sotheby's was occurring.

With a hugely expanded international client base, it was only a matter of time before both auctioneers started to muscle in on areas that had previously been the preserve of private dealers, matching buyers and sellers and selling new art rather than items that had already been in the market.

chalked up（记下；得到）

put the wind up（【口】紧张不安起来；害怕；惊慌）

Comments:

The speaker asserts that globalisation should help the art market recover, which has suffered from the recession. To confirm this, the speaker first made a description of the current situation of downturn in the art market, then pointed out, by comparing with the slump of art in the early 1990s, the biggest problem of this slump is “not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell.” As a result, the way how to sell the art became crucial in recovering the art market, the speaker suggests the key in its recovery lies in gobalisation, to illustrate this the speaker cited two examples, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, both of which are famous arts auction houses.

Though I am not familiar with this topic, I learned a lot through the article, such as some knowledge about Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Sotheby’s, Christie’s and so on.

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.20(comments)

A special report on China and America

A wary respect
Oct 22nd 2009 From The Economist print edition


America and China need each other, but they are a long way from trusting each other, says James Miles.

“OUR future history will be more determined by our position on the Pacific facing China than by our position on the Atlantic facing Europe,” said the American president as he contemplated the extraordinary commercial opportunities that were opening up in Asia. More than a hundred years after Theodore Roosevelt made this prediction, American leaders are again looking across the Pacific to determine their own country’s future, and that of the rest of the world. Rather later than Roosevelt expected, China has become an inescapable part of it.



资料：Theodore Roosevelt：西奥多·罗斯福(Theodore Roosevelt，Jr.，人称老罗斯福，获诺贝尔和平奖)
was the 26th President of the United States. He is well remembered for his energetic persona, his range of interests and achievements, his leadership of the Progressive Movement, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party of 1912. Before becoming the 26th President (1901–1909) he held offices at the municipal, state, and federal level of government. Roosevelt's achievements as a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier are as much a part of his fame as any office he held as a politician.

Born to a wealthy family, Roosevelt was an unhealthy child suffering from asthma who stayed at home studying natural history. In response to his physical weakness, he embraced a strenuous life.

In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt became president at the age of 42, taking office at the youngest age of any U.S. Roosevelt attempted to move the Republican Party in the direction of Progressivism, including trust busting and increased regulation of businesses. Roosevelt coined the phrase "Square Deal" to describe his domestic agenda, emphasizing that the average citizen would get a fair shake under his policies. As an outdoorsman and naturalist, he promoted the conservation movement. On the world stage, Roosevelt's policies were characterized by his slogan, "Speak softly and carry a big stick". Roosevelt was the force behind the completion of the Panama Canal; he sent out the Great White Fleet to display American power, and he negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.


Back in 1905, America was the rising power. Britain, then ruler of the waves, was worrying about losing its supremacy to the upstart. Now it is America that looks uneasily on the rise of a potential challenger. A shared cultural and political heritage helped America to eclipse British power without bloodshed, but the rise of Germany and Japan precipitated global wars. President Barack Obama faces a China that is growing richer and stronger while remaining tenaciously authoritarian. Its rise will be far more nettlesome（恼人的） than that of his own country a century ago.

With America’s economy in tatters and China’s still growing fast (albeit not as fast as before last year’s financial crisis), many politicians and intellectuals in both China and America feel that the balance of power is shifting more rapidly in China’s favour. Few expect the turning point to be as imminent as it was for America in 1905. But recent talk of a “G2” hints at a remarkable shift in the two countries’ relative strengths: they are now seen as near-equals whose co-operation is vital to solving the world’s problems, from finance to climate change and nuclear proliferation.
Choose your weapons

Next month Mr Obama will make his first ever visit to China. He and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (pictured above) stress the need for co-operation and avoid playing up their simmering trade disputes, fearful of what failure to co-operate could mean. On October 1st China offered a stunning display of the hard edge of its rising power as it paraded its fast-growing military arsenal through Beijing.

The financial crisis has sharpened fears of what Americans often see as another potential threat. China has become the world’s biggest lender to America through its purchase of American Treasury securities, which in theory would allow it to wreck the American economy. These fears ignore the value-destroying (and, for China’s leaders, politically hugely embarrassing) effect that a sell-off（证券的跌价） of American debt would have on China’s dollar reserves. This special report will explain why China will continue to lend to America, and why the yuan is unlikely to become a reserve currency（储备货币） soon.

When Lawrence Summers was president of Harvard University (he is now Mr Obama’s chief economic adviser), he once referred to a “balance of financial terror” between America and its foreign creditors, principally China and Japan. That was in 2004, when Japan’s holdings were more than four times the size of China’s. By September 2008 China had taken the lead. China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, said in July that China’s massive holdings of US Treasuries meant it could break the dollar’s reserve-currency status any time. But it also noted that in effect this was a “foreign-exchange version of the cold-war stalemate based on ‘mutually assured destruction’”.

China is exploring the rubble of the global economy in hopes of accelerating its own rise. Some Chinese commentators point to the example of the Soviet Union（苏联）, which exploited Western economic disarray during the Depression to acquire industrial technology from desperate Western sellers. China has long chafed at（发怒） controls imposed by America on high-technology exports that could be used for military purposes. It sees America’s plight as a cue to push for the lifting of such barriers and for Chinese companies to look actively for buying opportunities among America’s high-technology industries.

The economic crisis briefly slowed the rapid growth, from a small base, of China’s outbound direct investment. Stephen Green of Standard Chartered predicts that this year it could reach about the same level as in 2008 (nearly $56 billion, which was more than twice as much as the year before). Some Americans worry about China’s FDI, just as they once mistakenly did about Japan’s buying sprees（狂乱购买；抢购风）, but many will welcome the stability and employment that it provides.

China may have growing financial muscle, but it still lags far behind as a technological innovator and creator of global brands. This special report will argue that the United States may have to get used to a bigger Chinese presence on its own soil, including some of its most hallowed turf, such as the car industry. （对“hallowed turf”理解，在此感谢小组各位成员！）A Chinese man may even get to the moon before another American. But talk of a G2 is highly misleading. By any measure, China’s power is still dwarfed by America’s.

Authoritarian though China remains, the two countries’ economic philosophies are much closer than they used to be. As Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University puts it, socialism with Chinese characteristics (as the Chinese call their brand of communism) is looking increasingly like capitalism with American characteristics. In Mr Yan’s view, China’s and America’s common interest in dealing with the financial crisis will draw them closer together strategically too. Global economic integration（全球经济一体化）, he argues with a hint of resentment, has made China “more willing than before to accept America’s dominance”.

The China that many American business and political leaders see is one that appears to support the status quo（现状） and is keen to engage peacefully with the outside world. But there is another side to the country. Nationalism is a powerful, growing and potentially disruptive force. Many Chinese—even among those who were educated in America—are suspicious of American intentions and resentful of American power. They are easily persuaded that the West, led by the United States, wants to block China’s rise.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between America and China, which proved a dramatic turning point in the cold war. Between the communist victory in 1949 and President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 there had been as little contact between the two countries as there is between America and North Korea today. But the eventual disappearance of the two countries’ common enemy, the Soviet Union, raised new questions in both countries about why these two ideological rivals should be friends. Mutual economic benefit emerged as a winning answer. More recently, both sides have been trying to reinforce the relationship by stressing that they have a host of new common enemies, from global epidemics to terrorism.

But it is a relationship（be）fraught with contradictions. A senior American official says that some of his country’s dealings with China are like those with the European Union; others resemble those with the old Soviet Union, “depending on what part of the bureaucracy you are dealing with”.

Cold-war parallels are most obvious in the military arena. China’s military build-up in the past decade has been as spectacular as its economic growth, catalysed by the ever problematic issue of Taiwan, the biggest thorn in the Sino-American relationship. There are growing worries in Washington, DC, that China’s military power could challenge America’s wider military dominance in the region. China insists there is nothing to worry about. But even if its leadership has no plans to displace American power in Asia, this special report will say that America is right to fret that this could change.

Politically, China is heading for a particularly unsettled period as preparations gather pace for sweeping leadership changes in 2012 and 2013. Mr Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, will be among many senior politicians due to retire. As America moves towards its own presidential elections in 2012, its domestic politics will complicate matters. Taiwan too will hold presidential polls in 2012 in which China-sceptic politicians will fight to regain power.
Triple hazard

This political uncertainty in all three countries simultaneously will be a big challenge for the relationship between China and America. All three will still be grappling with the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Urban Chinese may be feeling relaxed right now, but there could be trouble ahead. Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China’s central bank, says wasteful spending on things like unnecessary infrastructure projects (which is not uncommon in China) could eventually drain the country’s fiscal strength and leave it with “no more drivers for growth”. In recent weeks even Chinese leaders have begun to sound the occasional note of caution about the stability of China’s recovery.

This special report will argue that the next few years could be troubled ones for the bilateral relationship. China, far more than an economically challenged America, is roiled by social tensions. Protests are on the rise, corruption is rampant, crime is surging. 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—social, political and economic—could eventually imperil both its own stability and its dealings with the outside world.

Comments:
As China is growing more richer and stronger, it has become an inescapable part of the World. Numerous global problems require the participation and cooperation of China. China is playing more and more vital role in adressing global the World’s problem, from finance to climate change, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation. As a result, as a big country, it is necessary for America to cooperate with China to deal with various difficulties it or all the World confront with. Nevertheless, at the mean time, to some extent, America sees China as a potential threat. They reckon that China will challenge America’s dominance position in the World, politically and economically.


Admittedly, there still exist some social problems in China, though it has developed dramatically, such as rampant corruption, surging crime.

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.20
做comments三天了，貌似略有那么丁点好转，虽然还是很差劲，但不管怎样还是可以学到不少东西。。

感觉一天的时间实在是不够分。。今天偷懒，剪掉一个List，一下午脑袋都沉的不行了，晕晕乎乎。。时间全砸进去了。。心疼，检讨！！！

另外，感谢“不是又八”！！
今天背了一篇新概念。。

↖(^ω^)↗加油！！

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.21
今天课还是不少的。。
今天偶认识一个G友，嘻。。。
作业刚开始。。。先把日志补一下，继续了。。

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

12.21(comments)
financial disaster
String theory

NEWPORT BEACH, California, is not a bad place to contemplate the future of the world economy. Its information office promises nine miles of pristine sand, fine dining for devoted epicureans and an atmosphere of laid-back（松弛的；懒散的） sophistication. Yet students of economic turmoil will find their subject matter conveniently close to hand. California’s unemployment rate has doubled to 12.2% since the start of 2008. Saddled with
the worst credit rating（信用评价；信用等级） 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. It will pay its workers a day late at the end of the fiscal year so that the expense will show up in next year’s budget. Financial shenanigans（恶作剧；诡计） are not the sole province of the banking industry.

Newport Beach is also the home of Pimco, the biggest bond manager in the world, which handles $840 billion on behalf of pension funds, universities and other clients. In May the company held its annual “Secular Forum”, in which it tries to peer five years into the economic future. After two days of rumination, Pimco’s laid-back sophisticates concluded that the financial markets may well “revert to mean”, which is a statistician’s way of saying that what comes down must go up. But the next five years will not resemble the five preceding the crisis. Not every change wrought by the financial breakdown will be reversed. The world economy is fitfully getting back to normal, but it will be a “new normal”.
Click here to find out more!

That phrase has caught on（抓牢；理解；流行）, even if people disagree about what it means. In the new normal, as defined by Pimco’s CEO, Mohamed El-Erian, growth will be subdued and unemployment will remain high. “The banking system will be a shadow of its former self,” and the securitisation markets, which buy and sell marketable（适于销售的） bundles of debt, will presumably be a shadow of a shadow. Finance will be costlier and investment weak, so the stock of physical capital, on which prosperity depends, will erode.

He likened the economy to a piece of string stretched taut on a board. The more forcefully the string is plucked, the more sharply it snaps back.

Friedman’s story is heartening, but it can come unstuck in two ways. If the shortfall in demand persists it can do lasting damage to supply, reducing the level of potential output (scenario 2) or even its rate of growth (scenario 3). If so, the economy will never recoup its losses, even after spending picks up again.

In a recession firms shed labour and mothball（n.卫生球；樟脑球；v.封存；a.后背的） capital.

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

Natural disasters also wipe out wealth by destroying buildings, possessions and infrastructure, but the economy rarely slows in their aftermath. On the contrary, output often picks up during a period of reconstruction.

The answer lies on the other side of the balance-sheet（资产负债表）. Before the crisis the overpriced assets held by banks and households were accompanied by vast debts. After the crisis their assets were shattered but their liabilities remained standing. As Irving Fisher, a scholar of the Depression, pointed out, “overinvestment and overspeculation…would have far less serious results were they not conducted with borrowed money.”

The typical post-war recession begins when the flow of spending in the economy puts a strain on its resources, forcing prices upwards. Central banks raise interest rates to slow spending to a more sustainable pace. Once inflation has subsided, the authorities are free to turn the taps back on.

But the relief is likely to be short-lived. Just over a year ago, the day Lehman Brothers filed for（申请；报名参加竞选） 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.


The mobilisation of capital will be fitful as the financial system copes with past mistakes and impending regulation.


Comments:
Though, last year, we just experienced the financial breakdown which had effected our life deeply and dramatically from various aspects, such as unemployment, the world economy, now, is recovering from it. The speaker points out that “not every change wrought by the financial breakdown will be reversed.” To demonstrate this, the speaker first cites “string theory.” Then the example of Japan’s bubble years was given to reinforce the speaker’s opinion.

As far as I am concerned, I generally agree with the speaker’s view that the world economy is recovering but won’t return to the same level as before in a short time, since the effect of financial disaster is so large-scale, deep, and serious. “More haste, less speed.”

qxn_1987UID: 2610437

Republicans, who have been fighting tooth-and-nail（拼命） to block passage of the bill seem to have given up the fight, and have given warning instead that this will be a wish that he comes to regret.

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. Technically only a motion to end debate on a “manager's amendment” put together by the Senate's majority leader, Harry Reid, what the vote really represented was a crucial exercise in nose-counting（投票计数；凭票数做出的决定；清点人数）. The result was a vote on precisely partisan lines, with all 40 Republicans opposed, and all 58 Democrats plus the two independents who are grouped with them voting in favour. Since 60 votes is the precise number needed to
avoid a filibuster,
there was no room for error whatsoever, the reason why the procedural motion had taken so long. But with all 60 members of the “Democratic caucus” now signed up, the final vote, on Christmas Eve, looks like a formality.
From the point of view of the Democrats, this victory has come at a high price. 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. The version of the bill already passed by the House of Representatives does contain just such a public option, one of several reasons why final passage of a
reconciled bill is still a way off. Some Democrats hope, however, that a public option can be added later on, after the initial bill has gone into effect.


Republicans, however, hate the bill, mostly on the ground of cost. The advertised price-tag of the Senate bill is a bit under $900 billion over the next ten years, but Republicans
contend
that the numbers will be much higher than that, as the cost of subsidies has been underestimated and predicted savings will not materialise. Even at the stated number, this is a large bill at a time when America is running huge deficits that it urgently needs to tackle. The Senate bill is "paid for", but only
in the sense that
it provides for large charges on the most expensive private insurance policies, and because it factors in deep cuts to Medicare（（美国政府办的）医疗保险制度） the health-insurance scheme for the elderly. Republicans say these will never be enacted. Past history provides them with evidence to back up
that claim.

Less politically involved observers also note that it is unprecedented for such a substantive and expensive bill to have been forced through Congress on such a narrow vote. The bill passed the House on a margin of just five votes, and in the Senate it has no safety margin. With no bipartisan support at all, Democrats will be held solely responsible if the reform turns out to be a disappointment. Some studies have suggested that private insurance premiums could rise substantially in response to the new burdens being placed on insurers.

Completion of work on the bill is by no means a formality, though it does now look more or less certain that the Senate will vote the bill out before Christmas. The next difficulty will come in producing a single “reconciled” version from the very different bills that the Senate and House have produced; that reconciled bill then has to go back for final clearance by both chambers. The public option is one big stumbling block（障碍物；绊脚石）. It is clear that the Senate cannot pass any version of a bill that contains a public option, so the House will have to give ground, which is going to require a lot of presidential
arm-twisting（压力或影响）
in January.


Comments:
Obama became a well-known name since 2008 presidential campign. He defeated his competitor---Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States as the first black president. And most Amercians place high expectation on him. Obama has made several vital decisions since his inauguration. One among of them is America’s health-care bill which he has supported intensively and called for Congress to pass. Obviously, the sweeping reform Bill has met various of obstacles and barriers in the process. Republicans remain almost unanimously opposed, decrying its huge cost and the tax increases needed to pay for it., while Democrats support it strongly.