【clover】组外跟帖 ECO analysis by 环游世界

环游世界UID: 2743584

虽然还没入组，先把作业跟着
每日一贴。
1.好词好句摘抄
2.分析行文结构以及逻辑推理技巧
3.挖掘可以作为自己文章里example的事例，观点，人物
4.通篇再阅读，提高自己的阅读能力和速度

环游世界UID: 2743584

01.25   Where to now?
A ticklish（棘手的） week for Barack Obama


Jan 25th 2010
From Economist.com
好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构

THE president’s annual state-of-the-union speech, despite the fuss and standing ovations in Congress, is often a forgettable laundry list of priorities. But Barack Obama’s first proper go at the address to Congress on Wednesday January 27th as mandated by the constitution (his inaugural speech last year did not count as a state-of-the-union talk) will be watched with unusual interest, and not only because he is a far better speaker than his predecessor, George Bush. After the recent stinging loss of a Massachusetts Senate seat to the Republicans, the president’s domestic agenda is imperilled. He needs to present a clear idea of what he plans to do next.

Health care is still foremost in many minds（在许多人的脑海中） despite the arguments surrounding Mr Obama's continuing efforts to rein in America's bankers. The Massachusetts vote means that Republicans, now with 41 of 100 seats, have denied the Democrats a super-majority and so can use a filibuster to talk out almost any bill（并列谓语）. Scott Brown, the new senator for Massachusetts, has promised to do just that. How the Democrats respond will matter greatly, both for the prospects of the bill and the performance of the two main political parties at mid-term elections in November year. Some Democrats want to push the Senate version of the health bill through the House of Representatives without amendment, which would mean not putting it back through the Senate. But that would appear to ignore the voters' wishes in Massachusetts, risking a big voter backlash later in the year.

Mr Obama has instead hinted that he would like to build support for a bill “around those elements of the package that people agree on.（围绕人们达成共识的各个方面）” But if this means only the populist bits(平民主义者的伎俩), this looks like bad policy. For example, both Democratic bills would make it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to customers because of a pre-existing condition. This would make premiums more expensive, by putting more unhealthy people in the system, as Mr Obama himself has conceded. （政府为了照顾弱势群体，牺牲了一部人的利益）It is not clear what other elements the president believes could be agreed on.（与开头对比）

A bolder option Mr Obama might pursue is to make the bill bigger not smaller. Last year, he talked of bringing America’s famously plaintiff-friendly medical malpractice litigation under control. This helped to win the support of the American Medical Association. But none of this proposal made it into either the House or Senate bill. Offering this, the thing the Republicans say they want most out of health-care reform, could put Republicans on the spot. If they obstruct the bill, they would look like they have no interest but bringing Mr Obama down. But adding tort reform could lose Democrats, who are closer to trial lawyers.

Mr Obama may instead want to move away from health care and to talk instead about the economy overall. One reason for the punishment in Massachusetts might have been voter anger that politicians are paying too little attention to joblessness and the recession. Mr Obama has claimed that the same anger that brought Mr Brown’s victory in Massachusetts carried Mr Obama himself to office. But the president can pose as an outsider only for so long. He needs to develop some of the empathy that Bill Clinton famously showed when he adopted and made famous the phrase “I feel your pain”. Mr Obama might try: “I feel your anger.”

This could mean even more of Mr Obama's bank-bashing populism. His latest plans, unveiled on Thursday, will restrict the size and range of activities of American banks. They come a week after he announced plans to make the banks pay back, through special taxes, the bail-out money they received during the financial crisis. The latest rules to curb America's banks were inspired by the thinking of Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman and Obama adviser. If this has made Ben Bernanke, current Fed boss, a little nervous, the wavering last last week of some Senate Democrats over backing his confirmation for a second term will not have improved his composure. Mr Obama's team spent the weekend shoring up support for Mr Bernanke.

Other domestic agenda-items, such as cap-and-trade legislation on greenhouse gases, will be wrapped up in the language of（在…的借口下） energy security, job-creation and boosting American competitiveness, rather than by talking about the climate changing, about which voters appear relatively unconcerned.

Most attention will be on domestic issues, but in foreign policy, too, the president has daunting challenges. He has won Republican support (and Democratic grousing) for his decision to boost troop numbers temporarily in Afghanistan. His vice-president, Joe Biden, has been deployed to hold hands in Iraq, where a de-Baathification commission has banned a large number of Sunni Arabs from the forthcoming elections, stoking fears of renewed sectarian war. And Iran remains a conundrum, with Mr Obama still committed to offering negotiations over nuclear matters, while gradually stepping up criticism of the regime’s violent handling of opposition protests. It would not surprise to hear Mr Obama offer his most ringing（斩钉截铁的） condemnation of Iran yet.
先说奥巴马要做个全国演说，在通过民主党丢了麻省的议员席位过渡到他要讲的内容。接下来以奥巴马可能的想法为引线，介绍了医疗措施，经济改革等方面他遇到的困难，每段结尾都有过渡。从老掉牙的医疗到沸沸扬扬的银行限制法案，逐渐深入。

环游世界UID: 2743584

The British economy
Stuck in the mud
The British economy is struggling to get out of the mire
Jan 26th 2010 | From The Economist online
好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构

1. BRITAIN’S long-awaited(被期待已久的) exit from recession has moved from thwarted prediction to firm fact. But the welcome news came with a painful sting. The economy barely crawled forward, expanding by just 0.1% between the third and the fourth quarters of 2009, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday January 26th. This was much feebler（metaphor as adj.） than the median forecast among City economists for an increase of 0.4%.
叙述背景，经济虽复苏，但有隐患。紧接着用事实证明。
2. The recession lasted a year and a half and was both the longest and deepest since the mid-1940s (when output fell owing to demobilisation rather than an economic downturn). Indeed the slump of 4.8% in GDP last year was the steepest since 1931, when output fell by 5.1%.
背景说明
3. Britain’s recession was the longest among the G7 economies, which typically had downturns lasting a year, although Italy’s lasted five quarters. It was not the most severe, measured from the pre-recession peak to the trough（低谷）. That unfortunate accolade went to Japan (8.6%) followed by Germany (6.7%) and then Italy (6.5%). Their earlier recovery meant, however, that Britain’s 6.0% fall in output between early 2008 and the third quarter of 2009 was surpassed only by Japan (7.7%).
还是背景
4. All these figures will be revised in due course(到一定时候). Usually this is a routine matter but in the run-up to the general election, which must be held by June 3rd at the latest（最晚）, but is widely expected to be on May 6th, any changes will be politically potent. In Britain, the ONS has already moderated its initial estimate of a fall in GDP of 0.4% in the third quarter of 2009, to 0.2%. Gordon Brown, the prime minister, will be hoping that the meagre increase（无力的增长） in national output for the fourth quarter may be pushed up when the official number-crunchers（尤指用计算机与数字打交道的人）, armed with more information, revisit the figures on February 26th and March 30th. Business surveys have suggested a more robust upturn（强壮的上升趋势） and the labour market has been more resilient（迅速恢复的） than expected.
首段通过统计数据过渡到竞选，延伸主题
5. But there is a potential pitfall for Mr Brown. The ONS will unveil its initial estimate of GDP in the first quarter on April 23rd. If this were to show a return to recession the news would torpedo Labour’s already slender hopes of averting a Conservative victory. Such a relapse could happen because the main rate of VAT（value added tax）, a consumption tax charged on most goods and services, went up to 17.5% on January 1st, following 13 months when it was lowered to 15% in order to combat the recession. Since consumers brought purchases forward in late 2009 to dodge the impending increase ,they are likely to cut back now, hindering a further expansion in national output.
深化延伸的主题，a challenging idea。看跌
6. Looking longer ahead, the outlook is for a pretty modest recovery this year. GDP will increase by 1.4% in 2010 according to the average of 28 independent forecasts in early January assembled by the Treasury (which itself predicted 1.25% in December). Much of the recovery will come from a turnaround in the stockbuilding cycle(存货循环的周期的上升段), through （凭借）inventories being run down far less than before.存货大大减少
更长远考虑，看涨。观点全面,类似go ahead-wait a minute
7. Ensuring that this fragile upturn is sustained will require some skill from policymakers(决策者). The recovery has been helped by an extraordinary stimulus, both fiscal and monetary（政府财政和金融市场的）. The budget deficit has burgeoned to a post-war record（迅速发展到..水平）, the base rate is at a 300-year low （？）and the policy of “quantitative easing” has been vigorously pursued. As Britain belatedly leaves recession behind, so(不用的话读起来更顺畅) the Treasury and the Bank of England will want to execute their own “exit strategies”. Co-ordination will be vital. The tougher the fiscal tightening, the easier monetary policy（货币政策） can remain. But none of these crucial decisions will be made until Britain has a new government after the general election.
Conclusion采用了展望未来的方式。如何保住不稳定的经济回升>回升的原因>回升后的关键因素。

环游世界UID: 2743584

01.26
好词好句
好的phrase:
Noun: That unfortunate accolade the meagre increase（无力的增长）
number-crunchers（尤指用计算机与数字打交道的人）
a potential pitfall
a pretty modest recovery
policymakers(决策者)
exit strategies monetary policy（货币政策）
Adj: long-awaited(被期待已久的) much feebler（metaphor as adj.）than the median forecast
Verb: suggested a more robust upturn（强壮的上升趋势）
Adv: in due course(到一定时候)
at the latest（最晚）Looking longer ahead
好的句子
the welcome news came with a painful sting.
from the pre-recession peak to the trough
any changes will be politically potent.,
labour market has been more resilient（迅速恢复的） than expected.
torpedo (用鱼雷破坏，比喻 as a verb)Labour’s already slender hopes of averting（避免） a Conservative victory.
Since consumers brought purchases forward in late 2009 to dodge the impending increase ,they are likely to cut back now, hindering a further expansion in national output.
both fiscal and monetary（政府财政和金融市场的）.
has burgeoned to a post-war record（迅速发展到..水平）
结构：

1叙述背景，经济虽复苏，但有隐患。紧接着用事实证明。
2背景说明
3还是背景
4首句通过统计数据过渡到竞选，延伸主题
5深化延伸的主题，a challenging idea。看跌
6更长远考虑，看涨。观点全面,类似go ahead-wait a minute
7Conclusion采用了展望未来的方式。如何保住不稳定的经济回升>回升的原因>回升后的关键因素。

环游世界UID: 2743584

01.27


Professional-services firms
Laid-off lawyers, cast-off consultants

The downturn is sorting the best professional-services firms from the rest
Jan 21st 2010 | NEW YORK | From The Economist print edition

好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构
TS, supporting details,
conclusion

1.WHAT do you say to a recent law-school graduate? “A skinny（极瘦的，生动） double-shot latte（双杆拿铁） to go, please.” From New York to Los Angeles, Edinburgh(爱丁堡) to Sydney, the downturn of the past two years has hit the legal profession with unprecedented severity. As even some leading law firms struggle for survival, recruitment has dried up. The lucky few who get jobs are often being told to find something else to do for now, and report for duty（报到上班） on some far-off date. The same is true for MBA graduates seeking jobs in management consulting（sth consulting）. Even the mighty McKinsey is said to be postponing start dates by several months.
///////提问式引入主题句
2.Given that new graduates are the grunts of the professional-services industries, earning less than anyone else and working the longest hours（grunt的含义）, the lack of demand for their services is the clearest indicator of how bad things are. Although a deeper-than-usual cyclical downturn is largely to blame—and is hitting hardest those firms that specialised in financial-market activities such as mergers and acquisitionsf(合并), and private equity—it is already clear that there will be long-term structural consequences, not least a growing gap between the best firms and the rest.
///////通过简单的分析，跳跃得到conclusion.接下来具体说明原因。
3.Cutting lawyers’ jobs used to be frowned upon in the profession and thus rarely happened, even in recessions. But last year was the “worst year ever for law-firm lay-offs”, reckons Law Shucks, a legal-industry blog. It counted 218 reports of lay-offs at 138 big firms, including no less than ten rounds of cuts at Clifford Chance, a British firm whose ambitious global expansion before the crisis now seems a big mistake. Thacher, Proffitt & Wood, a New York firm which by 2007 earned around half its revenues from structured finance, was devastated by the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble and ended up being dissolved in December 2008. It was followed in March 2009 by the venerable but property-exposed Philadelphia（费城） firm of Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen.

4.As for（至于） management consulting, in the third quarter of last year Marsh & McLennan reported a 10% decline in its consulting revenues, in line with the overall shrinkage of the industry. Figures from other big firms are patchy, since they are private partnerships. Still, in 2009, to ensure they had enough cash to weather（挨过） the financial storm, even leading firms such as McKinsey and BCG held back a chunk of their partners’ bonuses. Of the big three, McKinsey and Bain are said to have suffered slight falls in revenues last year, while BCG, after a strong second half, was slightly up. All three deny making lay-offs—although it is said that they made their “attrition rates（流失率）” increase, by significantly raising the bar on their traditional “up or out” policy. McKinsey now has 10% fewer consultants.

5.The experience of some once-booming boutique（精品店） consultancies has been even worse. Marakon Associates was bought for a song by CRA International after the bankruptcy last January of its parent, Trinsum; and Katzenbach Partners was saved by Booz & Company after shrinking alarmingly in the first six months of 2009.

6.Perhaps the hardest hit of the professional services has been human-resources consulting, where revenues fell by 20% in Britain last year. Pay-and-benefits consultants also suffered: sharply falling revenues were one reason why Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt decided to merge last year.And although accounting firms are less exposed to the cycle than most professional-services firms—annual reports still have to be prepared and audited, whatever the state of the economy—in the year to last June the two biggest accountants, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, each suffered 7% falls in revenues.
///////GO AHEAD! 介绍赔钱的业务
7.Of course, firms with countercyclical activities, such as bankruptcy work, have fared better. Consultants offering outsourced services, like IBM and Accenture(埃森哲咨询公司), have also done well as cost pressures have driven other companies to use their services. In particular, legal-process outsourcing is booming, as law firms parcel out some of their more basic work to reduce costs. One of the leaders of this nascent market, Pangea3, whose offices in Delhi（德里）and Mumbai（孟买） take on work from clients worldwide, expects to earn twice as much revenue this month as in January 2009.

8.Another booming business is helping the government sort out the economic mess. This is favouring the market leaders most, says Heidi Gardner of Harvard Business School, because the crisis has made governments risk-averse about whom they hire. Slaughter and May, a big London law firm, earned £33m ($54m) for its work on the financial crisis, including on the nationalised Northern Rock bank. Sullivan & Cromwell in New York has also done nicely from helping the American government with troubled banks. Big management consultancies have done well too, despite their poor record in the public sector (see Schumpeter). BCG, for instance, has advised the quango（半官方机构） created to oversee America’s state-rescued car firms.
///////WAIT A MINUTE，介绍市场好的业务

Under the knife
9.Though the best will gain at the expense of the rest throughout professional services, the legal profession seems likely to undergo the most profound structural changes.（照应开头，structural consequences）For the first time—long after IT and finance departments went through the same experience—the corporate legal departments that hire law firms are under great budgetary pressure, and are thus demanding much better value from them.

10.In a recent paper, “The Death of Big Law”, Larry Ribstein, a law professor at the University of Illinois, argued that after decades without changing, law firms are likely to have an outburst of experimentation with different business models: even the venerable and lucrative “billable hour” method of charging clients is in doubt. The experimentation may include more firms abandoning their traditional partnership model to go public, following in the footsteps of an Australian law firm, Slater & Gordon, which went public in 2007.

11.Not everyone is excited by this idea. “At firms like McKinsey it was the partnership ethos（合作精神） that helped them through the crisis, as partners believed they were in it for the long term. At some law firms too,” says Jay Lorsch of Harvard Business School. Contrast that with the investment banks that switched from being partnerships to public companies, such as Goldman Sachs. “If you talk to some older Goldman partners they are unhappy with the behaviour of those now running the firm, who have abandoned the partnership ethos in favour of aggressively pursuing profits and have ended up looking like greedy bastards.” As they adapt to survive a tougher climate, lawyers and consultants will need to ensure that any changes do not put their culture of professionalism at risk.
///////照应开头的conclusion,分析改革方案。也是从正反两方面来分析的。

环游世界UID: 2743584

结构：
1.提问式引入主题句
2通过简单的分析，跳跃得到conclusion:咨询公司要发生结构变革。接下来具体说明原因。
3.4.5.6GO AHEAD! 介绍赔钱的业务
7.8WAIT A MINUTE，介绍市场好的业务
9.10.11：照应开头的conclusion,分析改革方案。也是从正反两方面来分析的。

好词
Noun ：Laid-off lawyers, cast-off consultants
sth consulting

the clearest indicator of mergers and acquisitionsf(合并)
an outburst of experimentation with different business models
“billable hour” method
partnership ethos（合作精神）
their culture of professionalism

Adj：
skinny（极瘦的，生动）far-off
mighty
that specialised in financial-market activities
patchy
once-booming
firms with countercyclical activities
outsourced
risk-averse
this nascent(初期的) market

Verb report for duty（报到上班）postponing start dates by several months.
demand for

is largely to blame
used to be frowned upon in the profession
parcel out some of their more basic work to reduce costs
weather（挨过） the financial storm
hold back a chunk of their partners’ bonuses.
have fared better
take on work from clients worldwide
end up looking like greedy bastards
follow in the footsteps of an Australian law firm
Adv
As for（至于） in line with the overall shrinkage of the industry.

under great budgetary pressure
好句
The downturn is sorting the best professional-services firms from the rest
hit the legal profession with unprecedented severity.
recruitment has dried up
was devastated by the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble(次贷危机) and ended up being dissolved（破产） in December 2008.
who have abandoned the partnership ethos in favour of aggressively pursuing profits

生词：
Edinburgh(爱丁堡)
Grunts：工作乏味收入低的工人
Philadelphia（费城）
attrition rates（流失率）
Accenture(埃森哲咨询公司)
Delhi（德里）
Mumbai（孟买）
quango（半官方机构）
难句：
And although accounting firms are less exposed to the cycle than most professional-services firms--annual reports still have to be prepared and audited, whatever the state of the economy--in the year to last June ,the two biggest accountants, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, each suffered 7% falls in revenues.
中间的是插入语，in the year to last june 截止到去年六月，前半部分是一个让步状语从句。后半部分是主句。没什么高级语法，就是打岔太多。

环游世界UID: 2743584

补 01.28 Business this week
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构
TS, supporting details,
conclusion

Barack Obama presented his administration’s latest proposals for bank reform. Advised by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve（美联储）, the president wants to stop banks with insured deposits from trading on their own account and from owning or investing in private equity and hedge funds（私有股本和对冲基金）. To restrict banks that “are too big to fail”, the cap on the size of a bank, limiting it to holding no more than 10% of the share of insured deposits, would be expanded to take in other sources of funding. See article

Tim Geithner was grilled in Congress over the rescue of American International Group in 2008. America’s treasury secretary headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time and was involved in early bail-out negotiations. Officials have been accused of not disclosing enough about deals that ensured banks got their money back on AIG derivatives contracts. See article

Bank of China announced that it would offer new shares, which could raise up to $30 billion in capital. Meanwhile, China’s stockmarkets wobbled on more speculation that the government was reining in lending and ordering banks to increase their capital reserves.

Risky business
Rusal(俄罗斯铝业公司) made its much-heralded debut on the Hong Kong stockmarket after a delay during which officials pondered the risk to investors from the Russian aluminium company’s debt. Its share price plunged by 11% on the first day of trading amid a broad sell-off in Asian markets.

America’s biggest-ever residential property deal unravelled when Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty decided to hand over control of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a residential estate in Manhattan, to creditors（债权人） rather than engage in a contested bankruptcy proceeding. The complex（综合企业） was bought in 2006 for $5.4 billion, but is now valued at $1.9 billion. The venture struggled to restructure debt and the courts blocked（觉得应该用blocking？） increases to the regulated rents.

Britain’s economy started growing again in the fourth quarter of 2009. However, the country’s GDP was a mere 0.1% bigger than in the previous three months. Britain’s mounting debt burden, which is forecast to rise to 78% of GDP by 2014, continued to worry investors. Pimco, one of the world’s biggest bond investors（债券投资者）, declared that British gilts（高度可靠的债券） were “resting on a bed of nitroglycerine”. See article

Greek bond yields（收益率） hit a ten-year high when the government denied reports that it had asked China to help it in funding public debt. Financial markets have been jittery（紧张不安的） over Greece’s deficit—although the government completed a successful sale of five-year bonds this week that brought in (eur)8 billion ($11 billion). See article

A publishing phenomenon
Apple unveiled its latest must-have device. The iPad tablet computer（平板电脑）, which has a ten-inch touch screen, resembles a more advanced iPhone. Apple also launched an online iBooks store for downloading print media, which pitches the iPad against Amazon’s Kindle and other e-readers. Earlier, Apple had reported a 50% increase in quarterly profit thanks to strong sales of iPhones and Mac computers. See article

Yahoo! reported a profit of $153m in the fourth quarter. Revenue from display advertisements rose by 26% compared with the third quarter. Google said recently that its paid clicks in America (the number of times a user clicks on an ad) rose by 9% in the last three months of 2009 compared with the third quarter.

Toyota took the unprecedented step of halting the sale of eight of its models in America because of concerns that the accelerator pedal can become stuck. It also suspended production of the cars, which include the bestselling Camry and Corolla sedans, and then extended the warning to Europe. It is a huge blow for the Japanese carmaker.

General Motors appointed Ed Whitacre as chief executive. Mr Whitacre, who is also GM’s chairman, had been given the job on an interim basis after Fritz Henderson’s abrupt resignation in December, just months after the carmaker emerged from bankruptcy protection. GM also said it would repay the debt portion of its government aid by June, sooner than it had forecast.

Meanwhile, GM found a new buyer for Saab, two months after a deal with Sweden’s Koenigsegg fell apart. In a complex deal, Spyker, a Dutch maker of sports cars, will now acquire the marque and save thousands of jobs at Saab’s Swedish factories. See article


The Na’vi triumph
“Avatar” passed “Titanic” to become the world’s highest grossing（票房） film, according to its distributor, Twentieth Century Fox. The movie has racked up around $2 billion in receipts just seven weeks after its release.

结构：
对一周经济的回顾，平行结构。每段开头主题句，后面details.

好词
Noun:the cap on the size of a bank  America’s treasury secretary
bond investors（债券投资者）

verb: was reining in
plunge by（突降）hit a ten-year high become stuck suspend
Adj：much-heralded  mounting

好句
racked up around $2 billion in receipts
生词
Federal Reserve（美联储）   private equity and hedge funds（私有股本和对冲基金）
AIG derivatives contracts.    Rusal(俄罗斯铝业公司)    creditors（债权人）
complex（综合企业） gilts（高度可靠的债券）
yields（收益率）
jittery（紧张不安的） tablet computer（平板电脑） grossing（票房）
奇怪，竟然发不上来欧元的符号

环游世界UID: 2743584

01.29 Populists and bankers
Strange meeting
The populist left meets the populist right to hammer the Fed
Jan 28th 2010 | ORLANDO, FLORIDA | From The Economist print edition

好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构
TS, supporting details,
conclusion

1.DEMOCRATS seldom come more partisan than Alan Grayson, who represents Florida’s eighth congressional district in the House of Representatives(众议院). He calls Republicans “foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals” and a “selfish party” whose advice to sick Americans is “Die quickly.” Yet when he dropped in on a convention of small-government libertarians in his home town of Orlando, Florida, last year, he was greeted like a rock star. He received two standing ovations（又一次遇到了） and requests for his autograph.
介绍democrat的populist
2.The audience was not applauding Mr Grayson’s stand on health care or any other beloved Democratic cause, but his unrelenting attacks on the Federal Reserve. Though he has been in Congress only a year, his cross-examinations of Fed officials there are YouTube sensations. One, in which he demands to know who got more than $1 trillion in Fed emergency loans, has been viewed more than 3m times.（怎么翻译呢？）
第一段的detail
3.Mr Grayson’s antipathy towards the Fed is part of a resurgence of political populism on both the left and the right.（过渡到本段主题） This week that upsurge even threatened Ben Bernanke’s confirmation for a second term as chairman of the Fed, as senators in both parties looked for a scapegoat（替罪羊） for both the financial crisis and continuing economic hard times. One of the few things populists of both left and right agree on is that bankers have been rescued at the expense of ordinary Americans, with the Fed’s help (see chart). Mr Grayson and Ron Paul, a conservative House Republican from Texas who briefly flirted with（生动。。） the presidency in 2008, have already succeeded in tacking on to（顶着压力得到） a larger financial-regulation bill an amendment that would expose more of the Fed to congressional scrutiny.（审查，monitor侧重监测）
Democrat和Republican中populists的共同点
4.In Kentucky Mr Paul’s son Rand, an ophthalmologist, is running for（竞选） the Republican Senate nomination and threatening to defeat the party’s preferred candidate there. Mr Paul junior spent his student years in North Carolina agitating against taxes, and his campaign is heavily staffed by founders of a local “tea-party”. He opposes abortion and gay marriage, but seldom raises either issue. Instead he hammers away at government spending, the budget deficit and the prospect that it will be inflated away（华而不实的） by the Federal Reserve. “It’s what motivates me,” he says. “What happens to our country when you destroy a currency? Out of the Weimar Republic, they elected Hitler.”
介绍Paul’s son，a Republican的观点
5.Populism in recent years has been mostly a phenomenon of the right, arrayed against big government, taxes and social permissiveness. But the current wave bears similarities to the strains（重压之下出现的问题） of the 1890s and 1930s. Back then, populists drew strength from anger with bankers and their government enablers for impoverishing workers, farmers and businessmen.
分析populism的原因
6.In the 1890s America’s adherence to the gold standard（金本位制） brought on deflation（通货紧缩） that crushed debt-laden farmers. William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee in 1896, campaigned against the “cross of gold” and “the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world.” In the 1930s Father Charles Coughlin, a fiery populist priest, inveighed against “debt merchants”, the “ventriloquists of Wall Street” and the Fed, “a system owned by a group of your masters and not by the American people”. Huey Long, a governor and senator from Louisiana, attacked “imperialistic banking control” but, like many populists, made an exception for small banks, on whose behalf he forced changes to both Franklin Roosevelt’s banking reforms and the Fed.
介绍历史，与今天对比
7.Populism’s standard-bearers today also thrive on the anger fed by financial chaos: bail-outs, bankers’ big bonuses and record budget deficits. Mr Grayson hardly has a radical background. He holds three degrees from Harvard University (something he plays down, since it makes people less likely to vote for him) and worked as an economist before earning a fortune in telecoms and law. The Fed, however, is an effective way to grab voters’ attention. “There are very few issues”, he says, “that bring you into contact with numbers with 13 digits in them.”
分析当今的populism火热的原因

环游世界UID: 2743584

结构：
1.2通过描写a democratic populist的观点和回家的场面介绍populism的现状
（1．引入；2。第一段的detail）
3. Democrat和Republican中populists的共同点
4. 介绍Paul’s son，a Republican的观点
5. 6，7分析当今populism火热的原因
（5，引入；6. 介绍历史，与今天对比；7.分析）
好词好句
Noun: standing ovations   requests for his autograph            antipathy    resurgence
scapegoat（替罪羊）  strains（重压之下出现的问题） congressional scrutiny
deflation（通货紧缩）   standard-bearers
Verb: dropp in on a convention          applaud (sb.) on (sth.)
tack on to（顶着压力得到）  run for（竞选）   hammers away at   
corner the money of the world        nveigh against
Adj: unrelenting          is part of             is heavily staffed              debt-laden
be inflated away（华而不实的arrayed against
Adv :on whose behalf
难句：
Huey Long, a governor and senator from Louisiana, attacked “imperialistic banking control” but, like many populists, made an exception for small banks, on whose behalf he forced changes to both Franklin Roosevelt’s banking reforms and the Fed.
Huey Long,路易斯安娜州的州长和参议员，抨击了帝国主义式的银行控制，但像许多平民主义者一样，这个抨击不包含小银行，而且为了小银行的利益他强迫罗斯福的银行改革案和联邦议案发生改变。

环游世界UID: 2743584

01.30  Apple unveils the iPad
Steve Jobs and the iPad of hope
Apple's innovation machine churns out another game-changing device
Jan 27th 2010 | SAN FRANCISCO | From The Economist print edition

1.“HEROES and heroics” is one of the central themes of the current season at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, which prides itself on showcasing contemporary artists who challenge conventional ways of doing things. On January 27th the centre played host to one of the heroes of the computing industry: Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, who launched the company’s latest creation, the iPad. Mr Jobs also has a reputation for showcasing the unconventional. He did not disappoint.
介绍背景，引入主题
2.The iPad, which looks like an oversized Apple iPhone and boasts(有（引以为荣的东西）) a colour screen measuring almost ten inches (25cm), promises to change the landscape of the computing world. It is just half an inch thick and weighs 1.5lb (680 grams). “It’s so much more intimate than a laptop, and so much more capable than a smartphone,” Mr Jobs said of the device, which will be available in late March.

3.The new iPad has important limitations, which critics were quick to point out. It does not have a camera or a phone and users cannot run multiple applications on it at the same time. But Apple should be able to correct such flaws in due course. Together with a host of other touch-screen “tablet” computers that are expected to reach shops over the next year or so, the iPad looks set to revolutionise the way in which digital media are consumed in homes, schools and offices.
2，3介绍iPad的优缺点
4.The flood of devices is likely to have a profound impact on parts of the media business that are already being turned upside-down by the internet. The move from print to digital has not been easy for newspaper or magazine publishers. Readers have proved reluctant to pay for content on the web. Companies are unwilling to pay as much for online advertisements as for paper ones—hardly surprising, given the amount of space on offer（削价出售）. The iPad will probably accelerate the shift away from printed matter towards digital content, which could worsen the industry’s pain in the short term. Yet publishers hope that tablets will turn out to be the 21st-century equivalent of the printed page, offering them compelling new ways to present their content and to charge for it. “This is really a chance for publishers to seize on a second life,” says Phil Asmundson of Deloitte, a consultancy.
iPad的市场背景
5.It does not come as a surprise, then, that Apple has already attracted some blue-chip（独特值钱的） media brands to the iPad’s platform. During his presentation Mr Jobs revealed that the company had struck deals with leading publishers such as Penguin and Simon & Schuster. They will provide books for the iPad, to be found and paid for in Apple’s new iBooks online store. More agreements ought to be signed before the first iPads are shipped（上市） in March. Users will also be able to download applications that give them access to electronic versions of newspapers such as the New York Times, which presented an iPad app at the launch.
iPad适应市场采取的策略
6.Apple’s media partners no doubt have mixed feelings about dealing with Mr Jobs. Apple is now widely demonised in the music industry for dominating the digital downloading business with its iTunes store. The firm has been able to control the price of music, boosting sales of iPods but not bringing the record companies a great deal of money. That said, Apple did provide a way for the music business to make a profit online, which had hitherto eluded it. Apple’s sleek iPhone has also given plenty of content producers a platform on which they can charge for their wares.
这种策略的结果
7.The firm’s record suggests that it will be able to make one of the computing industry’s most fervent wishes come true. Technology companies have repeatedly tried to make a success of tablets or similar devices. But the zone between laptops and mobile phones has been something of a Bermuda Triangle for device-makers, points out Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies, a consultancy. “Products launched in there have usually disappeared from the radar screen（生动）,” he says.
过渡段，引入tablets的历史背景。
8.Among them are previous generations of tablet-style computers. In the 1990s various companies experimented with the machines, including Apple. When its Newton personal digital assistant failed to take off（比喻生动）, Mr Jobs killed the project. Tablets were once again briefly in the limelight when Microsoft’s Bill Gates predicted they would soon become people’s primary computing device—powered, of course, by his company’s software. That did not come to pass because consumers were put off by tablets’ high prices, clunky user interfaces and limited capabilities. Instead the devices, which cost almost as much as proper PCs, have remained a niche product used primarily in industries such as health care and construction.
解释原来为什么不制造tablets
9.Why are tablets causing so much excitement these days? One reason is that innovations in display, battery and microprocessing technologies have greatly reduced their cost. Apple’s iPad is priced at between $499 for the basic version and $829 for one with lots of memory and a 3G wireless connection, bringing it within the reach of ordinary consumers. Another reason for optimism is that interfaces have improved greatly. The iPad boasts a big virtual keyboard, which pops up when needed. It also features multi-touch, meaning that two fingers can be used to change the size of a photo. Furthermore, tablets will benefit from the fact that people have become accustomed to buying and consuming content in digital form (see chart on previous page).
分析tabllet最近火热的原因
10.All this explains why other firms are eyeing the tablet market too. Dozens of prototypes were on show at a consumer-electronics trade fair in Las Vegas earlier this month, including ones from Motorola, Lenovo and Dell. Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of NVIDIA, a maker of graphics chips, reckons this is the first time he has seen telecoms firms, computer-makers and consumer-electronics companies all equally keen to produce the same product. “The tablet is the first truly convergent electronic device,” he says.
介绍下火热场面算是对上一段分析的support details
Netbooks and e-books
11.The iPad and other tablets could shake up the computing scene. There has been some speculation that they could dent sales of low-end PCs, including Apple’s MacBook. But a more likely scenario is that they eat into sales of netbooks, the cheap mini-laptops that are used mainly for web surfing and watching videos.（转折过渡）Netbooks have been on a roll（连连获胜） recently, with global sales rising by 72% to $11.4 billion last year, according to DisplaySearch, a market research company. That makes them a tempting target.
背景介绍Netbooks，通过ipad的影响引入主题
12.Apple’s new device also poses a threat to dedicated（专门用途的） e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle, though these will probably remain popular with the most voracious bookworms. Apple’s long-expected entry into the tablet market has already forced e-reader firms to consider making their devices more versatile and exciting. “You will see more readers using colour and video over the next five years,” predicts Richard Archuleta of Plastic Logic, which produces the Que proReader. And more makers of e-readers may mimic Amazon’s recent decision to let third-party developers create software for its line of Kindles.
iPad对同行业的影响
13.Book publishers are quietly hoping that Apple’s entry into e-books will help to reduce the clout of Amazon: the Kindle has 60% of the e-reader market, according to Forrester, a research firm. They are also excited by the opportunities that tablets offer to combine various media. Bradley Inman, the boss of Vook, a firm that mixes texts with video and links to people’s social networks, believes the iPad will trigger an outpouring of creativity. “Its impact will be the equivalent of adding sound to movies or colour to TV,” he says.
Book publishers对iPad的推出的看法
14.Newspaper and magazine publishers are also thrilled by tablets’ potential. Their big hope is that the devices will allow them to generate revenues both from readers and advertisers. People have proven willing to pay for long-form journalism on e-readers. But these devices do not allow publishers to present their content in creative ways and most cannot carry advertisements. Skiff, a start-up spun out of Hearst, is a rare exception to this rule. Its 11.5-inch reader is large enough to show off all elements of a magazine’s design and accommodates advertising too.
Newspaper and magazine publishers对iPad的推出的看法
15.Apple’s arrival in the tablet market means that publishers will have to develop digital content for these devices, as well as for e-readers and smart-phones. Many will prove unable or unwilling to do so themselves. That may boost firms such as Zinio, which has developed a digital-publishing model called Unity. This takes publications’ content, repurposes it for different gadgets and stores it in “the cloud”, the term used to describe giant pools of shared data-processing capacity. Users pay once for the content and can access it on various Zinio-enabled devices, increasing the chances that it will be consumed.
进一步延伸主题，iPad对第三方公司的影响
16.Apple has other ambitions for the iPad. It hopes it will become a popular gaming machine and has designed the device so that many of the games among the 140,000 apps available for other Apple products will run on it straight away. The company has also revamped its iWork suite of word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software for the iPad in an effort to ensure that the new device will catch on with business folk.
Apple对iPad的其他期待
17.Apple’s shareholders are no doubt hoping that the iPad will live up to its billing as a seminal（对以后发展有巨大影响的） device in the history of computing. They have already seen the company’s share price soar. Defying the recession, on January 25th Apple announced the best quarterly results in its 34-year history, with revenues rising to $15.7 billion and profits to $3.4 billion—an increase of 32% and 50% respectively over the previous year. They will be keeping their fingers crossed that the iPad turns into another billion-dollar hit.date? Whether or not that turns out to be the case, Mr Jobs has already proven heroic enough to merit（值得） a portrait on the Yerba Buena Center’s walls.
Conclusion,照应开头。

环游世界UID: 2743584

结构：
1．介绍背景，引入主题
2，3介绍iPad的优缺点
4.iPad的市场背景
5.iPad适应市场采取的策略
6.这种策略的结果
7.过渡段，引入tablets的历史背景。
8.解释原来为什么不制造tablets
9.分析tabllet最近火热的原因
10.介绍下火热场面算是对上一段分析的support details
11.背景介绍Netbooks，通过ipad的影响引入主题
12.IPad对同行业的影响
13.Book publishers对iPad的推出的看法
14.Newspaper and magazine publishers对iPad的推出的看法
15.进一步延伸主题，iPad对第三方公司的影响
16.Apple对iPad的其他期待
17.Conclusion,照应开头。
这篇文章有点长。我感觉主要有三部分.首先还是introduction，中间是主题，介绍iPad的优缺点并延伸主题，分析iPad推出的目的与影响。最后是总结，并照应开头。延伸主题采用的是权重排序213，市场分析-历史背景-对同类产品和其他行业的影响（对市场分析的深化）。
好词
Noun：the computing industry mixed feelings   fervent wishes  something of a Bermuda Triangle
a niche product   speculation

a tempting target     third-party developers
the clout of Amazon
another billion-dollar hit
Verb: unveil
churns out

played host to(接待)    boast（拥有） a colour screen have a profound impact on   come as a surprise failed to take off（比喻生动） killed the project
pops up      dent sales of low-end PCs,   
trigger an outpouring of creativity   
Defying the recession,
Adj :on offer（削价出售）compelling blue-chip（独特值钱的）
are shipped（上市）in the limelight dedicated（专门用途的）
spun out of   on a roll（连连获胜） are also thrilled by tablets’ potential.
Adv: Together with  in an effort to

好句：
accelerate the shift away from printed matter towards digital content
is now widely demonised in the music industry for dominating the digital downloading business with its iTunes store

tablets will benefit from the fact that people have become accustomed to buying and consuming content in digital form（同位语从句修饰，读起很顺）
a more likely scenario is that they eat into（蚕食） sales of netbooks, the cheap mini-laptops that are used mainly for web surfing and watching videos.
Apple’s shareholders are no doubt hoping that the iPad will live up to its billing as a seminal（对以后发展有巨大影响的） device in the history of computing.

环游世界UID: 2743584

01.31
Development
The Bihari enlightenment
India’s most notorious state is failing to live up to its reputation
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构
TS, supporting details,
conclusion

1.ONE of the more unlikely(难以置信) case studies offered by Harvard Business School describes the turnaround of Indian Railways under Lalu Prasad Yadav, a shrewd, roguish politician who ruled Bihar, India’s most depressed and unruly state, for 15 years. His predecessor at the railways, Nitish Kumar, now leads Bihar. He may one day draw similar interest from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, for rarely has a failed state escaped political bankruptcy so fast (see article).
通过新闻引入主题，最后一句是主题句。引用fundamental的说法“不假大空，吸引读者，没有绝对论调（rarely），引导了上下文”，这几点好像都做到了。好句！
2.With a population bigger than Germany’s, Bihar still suffers from potholed roads, indolent teachers, apathetic officials, insurgent Maoists, devastating floods, shortages of power, skewed landholdings, caste resentments and an income per head that is only 40% of India’s as a whole. And yet, bad as that may sound, Bihar is far better today than it was in November 2005, when Mr Kumar came to power.
过去Bihar的状况
3.Today Bihar has pot-holes, where formerly it didn’t have roads. Businessmen grumble that they cannot raise money to invest in the state, whereas before they spirited their capital out of it.（whereas和before在一起，这句话十分费解） People complain that Mr Kumar’s government has fallen short of its ambitious development plans. But at least it has ambitions. Mr Yadav did not offer development. At best, he promised izzat, or self-respect, to downtrodden castes, who once voted as their landlords demanded, and later enjoyed picking someone their “superiors” could not abide.
现状
4.How has Mr Kumar pulled off this transformation? He first imposed law and order, restoring the state to its role as night-watchman rather than rogue. He has put several gangsters—the sort of people who in the past became heroes—behind bars. He demanded speedy trials, where formerly defendants could intimidate witnesses and drag out proceedings. He has ensured that convicted criminals no longer get lucrative licences for liquor stores and ration shops, which sell subsidised food and fuel. And just as police reformers in America fixed broken windows, Mr Kumar’s police improved perceptions of safety by forcing Bihar’s many gun-owners to conceal their weapons, rather than brandishing them out of their cars.
变化的原因
5.People now feel confident enough to buy cars and go out after dark. The economy, always volatile, has grown at double-digit rates, on average, since he took power, partly thanks to funds from Delhi. He built over 2,400km of roads last year. In Bihar’s villages, posters advertising immunisation compete with adverts offering cheap mobile-phone calls.
结果，比3更具体些。
Thanks. Now what?
6.The policies Mr Kumar has pursued so far have broad appeal. After the national elections in May 2009, a survey found that 88% of people were at least somewhat satisfied with the state government’s work. His second act will be trickier. He has shied away from land reform, which is both fiendishly（凶猛地） complex and deeply unnerving to the upper-caste landowners included in his coalition. And to overcome what one minister describes as a “crisis of implementation”—teachers who don’t teach, nurses who don’t nurse, roads built but not maintained, funds received but not spent—he will have to overcome the most obdurate caste of all: the local bureaucracy.

7.More than the floods that frequently test Bihar’s embankments（岸堤）, local officials fear the rising expectations of people who no longer meekly accept their lot in life. Their instinct is to contain the waters by discouraging such self-assertion.（暂时容忍这些缺点的意思吧，猜测） But it is only by giving people their say, by turning unmet need into a political demand, that the state apparatus will begin to do its job. Mr Kumar must win re-election before the year is out. The biggest risk to him may be the rising expectations of his constituents. But that is also the measure of his success.
6,7以展望未来作为总结，6是说明难点，7是对策。

环游世界UID: 2743584

结构：
1通过新闻引入主题，Bihar发展很快，最后一句是主题句。
2,3,4,5通过对比，解释原因。（要说清楚现象，ISSUE里抽象的概念，也要先剖析好才是）
（2过去Bihar的状况；3现状；4变化的原因；5结果，比3更具体些。）
6,7以展望未来作为总结，
（6是说明难点，7是对策）
好词：
Noun: turnaround    potholed roads   indolent teachers,
apathetic officials

insurgent Maoists
devastating floods,
shortages of power
skewed landholdings
caste resentments
liquor stores     subsidised food
Verb: pull off
this transformation

impose law and order
intimidate witnesses
brandishing them out of their cars
drag out
grumble
Adj: notorious downtrodden

好句：
But it is only by giving people their say, by turning unmet need into a political demand, that the state apparatus will begin to do its job.
accept their lot in life.

环游世界UID: 2743584

02.01 Tech.view

Running out of juice
How will we recharge all the electric cars?
Jan 29th 2010 | From The Economist online
好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构

1.IN THE ten years since hybrid electric vehicles first hit the highways and byways(偏僻小路) of America, they have come to represent 2.5% of new car sales. Yet, in places like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC, every other car seems to be a Toyota Prius. That is because hybrids like the Prius have sold overwhelmingly where well-heeled early adopters reside.
从熟悉的Prius引入主题
2.Expect the new generation of “Post-Prius” electrics—plug-in hybrids like the Chevrolet Volt from General Motors and those relying only on a battery such as the Nissan Leaf—to end up nosing around the same upscale neighbourhoods. With more than a dozen plug-in and pure-electric models arriving in showrooms over the next year or so, sales are expected to outstrip even those enjoyed by the Prius and other hybrids in their early days. A couple of million of the new electric vehicles could be bought by early adopters during the first few years.

3.That would be a problem. Unlike the Prius and its ilk—which use their petrol engines, along with energy recovered from braking, to recharge their batteries while motoring—plug-in hybrids and pure electrics have to be recharged direct from the grid（天然气，电力等网络）. The popular assumption is that they will be plugged into a wall socket in the garage late at night, taking advantage of cheap off-peak power. Unfortunately, things are not that simple.
说明问题
4.For a start, the new generation of electric vehicles are not glorified golf-carts, but cleaner and more frugal alternatives to today’s petrol-powered family cars. When fully charged, the Volt (to be called the Ampera in Europe) can travel 40 miles (64km) on electric power, enough for three out of four commuters in America to get to work and back without needing to burn a single drop of fuel. Beyond that range, a 1.4-litre engine kicks in to generate electricity and simultaneously propel the car and recharge its batteries.

5.The medium-sized hatchback（有后车门的小轿车） Leaf can carry five adults 100 miles on a single charge. To go farther, Nissan has put its faith in a network of rapid-charging stations it is developing with partners. The Leaf is expected to cost $25,000-30,000, about the same as a comparable diesel-powered（柴油发动） car. But the battery pack will have to be leased separately (for around $150 a month).

6.One thing the new plug-ins and pure electrics have in common is a beefy lithium-ion battery pack that needs a lot of heavy charging. At the very least, that involves installing 220-volt wiring in the home. Trying to recharge a modern electric car with a standard American 110-volt supply takes too long to be practical (up to 18 hours in the case of the Leaf).

7.Of course, if not fully charged at night it may have to be recharged during the day—when electricity rates can be up to five times more expensive. Average peak rates in America are 33 cents a kilowatt-hour compared with seven cents off-peak. Charging at the peak rate is equivalent to buying petrol at $3.63 a gallon (80 cents a litre), instead of 77 cents a gallon off-peak, reckons Southern California Edison, a utility based in the Los Angeles area. In America, peak-rate charging totally destroys any economic advantage an electric car may have.
具体解释问题。
8.At least the electricity companies ought to be pleased at the prospect of selling more power, day or night. In theory, recharging electric vehicles during off-peak hours should help utilities “fill the valley”—the trough in electricity demand between midnight and six in the morning, and thereby get better utilisation from their coal- or gas-fired generating stations. But, again, things are not quite as they seem. No utility wants to run its network flat out. Scheduling maintenance becomes difficult, which can lead to more frequent failures. The net result is that additional capacity has to be installed at a cost that would not otherwise be justified.
反面观点分析
9.A study done a few years ago by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, suggested there was enough idle generating capacity in America to recharge three quarters of the country’s 230m cars if they were plug-ins of one sort of another—provided they only connected to the grid during off-peak hours, and preferably in the coal-rich midwest. But the vast majority of new plug-ins will be located in a handful of urban centres on the east and west coasts, which, unlike the midwest, do not have huge reserves of cheap, coal-fired generating capacity. Nor can they import it easily from the middle of the country, given the fragile nature of the grid.
8的论据
10.Southern California Edison has been operating a fleet of 300 electric vehicles to find out how customers will use and recharge them. Above all, it wants to make sure that a conversion to electric motoring goes smoothly, unlike a previous attempt in the mid-1990s. Back then, California thought electric cars like the Honda EV+ and the General Motors EV1 were the wave of the future, and thousands of public charging points were hurriedly installed in shopping centres, libraries and airports. But the enthusiasm collapsed when the motor industry successfully lobbied the California Air Resources Board in 2001 to get it to relax a mandate requiring 10% of new cars sold in the state to be emission-free by 2003. With no need to worry about zero-emission vehicles any more, GM and Honda promptly called in all their leased electric cars and crushed them.

11.This time the Californian utilities are being more circumspect. They are concerned about highly concentrated pockets of ownership and the effects of everyone deciding to recharge their electric vehicles at once—as they inevitably will do when they return home from work. The local electricity system could be easily overwhelmed, and wider swathes of the grid brought to its knees in the process. Preparing for this means beefing up（加强） local transformers（变压器） as well as installing heavy-duty wiring and smart meters in homes to provide early warning of network troubles ahead. Sooner or later, those additional costs will have to be passed on to customers.

12.Much, of course, will depend on how quickly the new plug-ins and pure electrics become part of mainstream motoring. Generally speaking, it takes 15-20 years for a new technology to capture 10% of an established market, and a further 10-15 years for it to own 90%. That was the case when steam ships replaced clippers in the mid-19th century, and when petrol-engined taxis took over from horse-drawn cabs in the early 20th century. The same sort of lag occurred with the introduction in the 1970s of emission controls on cars. It takes years for the benefits of volume production（批量生产） to work their way through to the market, and for the supply chain to catch up.
13.If plug-in electrics follow a similar demand curve to other disruptive technologies, there could be 25m of them humming quietly around by 2025, and ten times that number by 2040. Hopefully, by then, the utilities will have learned to cope with recharging them.
政府应采取的措施

环游世界UID: 2743584

结构：
1-9可以看做说明问题；10-13则是政府如何解决用电高峰与充电的矛盾
1-3是引子，从熟悉的混合动力到纯电力驱动。通过对电力汽车普遍的看法，转折引入下面具体的问题解释。
4-9：通过比较插入式和纯电力汽车的不同点和相同点，提出电力汽车的4个缺点：充电时间长，电压不足，电力网络改造，电力高峰矛盾；
10-13：通过历史教训，提出政府改革建议和对消费者的影响
（10：历史,11：要采取的措施，12：技术换代的时间，13：总结）
好词：
Noun: hy brid electric vehicles
ilk
frugal alternatives


beefy lithium-ion battery pack
Verb: outstrip
Adj: well-heeledplug-in and pure-electric    is equivalent to

circumspect
part of mainstream motoring
from the grid（天然气，电力等网络）
Adv: Back then.
好句：
In theory, recharging electric vehicles during off-peak hours should help utilities “fill the valley”—the trough in electricity demand between midnight and six in the morning
run its network flat out
those additional costs will have to be passed on to customers.
follow a similar demand curve
It takes years for the benefits of volume production（批量生产） to work their way through to the market, and for the supply chain to catch up.