【clover】ECO analysis by 黑竹

黑竹UID: 2753377

Make or brake

Toyota suffers another blow to its already wavering reputation

Jan 27th 2010 | From The Economist online

IN A race that matched Formula One for its predictability, Toyota Motor Corporation slipped past General Motors just under two years ago to become the world’s biggest carmaker. But even as Toyota built up the revs, all has not been well. The latest setback came on Tuesday January 26th when the firm announced that it would halt production temporarily at six assembly plants in north America and suspend sales of eight of its most popular models, including the Camry, the best-selling car in the United States.

Toyota’s latest troubles in America had begun to surface a week before when it announced a huge recall of 2.3m vehicles to fix accelerator pedals that could jam open, sending cars racing forwards without warning. Toyota is mulling a similar move in Europe that could affect a further 2m cars. The firm’s decision to stop sales and production in America is a substantial blow for the stumbling car giant. The output of these plants accounted for some 60% of sales in 2009. The news put a banana skin under its share price.

Although recalls are a routine matter for carmakers, taking cars off the market is not. And while the car-buying public will tolerate occasional recalls Toyota is making a habit of advertising the defects of its latest models. Last November, Toyota issued a safety recall affecting 4.2m American vehicles that were also potentially subject to sudden acceleration. That time, Toyota blamed badly fitted floor mats for a problem that has affected its vehicles since 2007. The company insists that instances are rare and has issued safety advice to loyal customers for bringing their cars to a halt in the event of a malfunction. The question for Toyota is how far it can test that devotion to its vehicles.

Toyota eased ahead of other carmakers largely because of its reputation for producing good-quality, reliable cars at reasonable prices. These attributes won over buyers who were prepared to overlook the fact that those cars were often dull. But in America, Toyota’s biggest and most profitable market, the company seemed to be losing some traction, even before the latest woes struck. In 2009 its market share was 17%, much the same as the year before even as America’s home-grown car industry fell apart. However sales were 20% down on the year before, better than GM’s performance but worse than Ford’s. It has also fallen back in China, the world’s fastest-growing car market, and in Europe. It is likely that Toyota’s share of the world market fell below 12% last year.

Toyota’s dash to become the biggest carmaker may have had unfortunate consequences. The pursuit of volume seems to have dented the company’s enviable record for reliability. In 2006, after another bout of recalls, the company promised a “customer first” strategy to restore its slipping reputation. But recalls continued and Toyota started to slide in customer-reliability polls while Ford, VW and others such as Hyundai, which added to sales in America last year, caught up. And these rivals are making cars that are often more desirable than those Toyota has to offer. The latest troubles can only make customers more wary of buying a Toyota. Even Toyota’s much vaunted leadership in electric and hybrid vehicles is under threat as other big carmakers prepare to launch their own green models soon.

The sense of alarm sweeping Toyota found a voice last October. Akio Toyoda, the company’s boss since June and grandson of Toyota’s founder, gave a stark warning about the firm's spiral of decline to a group of astounded Japanese journalists. At least he also recognises that Toyota has to make more exciting vehicles. But the firm needs to rebuild its reputation for rock-solid reliability too. The drastic step of halting vehicle production in America is sure to set back that aim for a long while.

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上文中我个人比较有感觉的短语和句子如下：

1、名词性短语：

latest setback

latest troubles

reputation for producing good-quality,reliable cars at reasonable prices

attributes

its market share is 17%

share of the world market fell

the pursuit of volume

2、动词性短语和句型

...the firm announce that...

...halt production temporarily...

...suspend sales of eight of his most popular models...

...begun to surface a week before when it announced a huge recall of ...

...account for some 60% of sales in 2009.

...tolerate occasional recall...

...make a habit of advertising the detects of its latest models...

...be also potentially subject to sudden acceleration...

...insist...

...issued safety advice to loyal customers for bringing their cars to a halt in the event of a malfunction...

...restore its slipping reputation...

...more desirable than those Toyota has to offer.

黑竹UID: 2753377

Stimulating debateThe markets, and developed economies(发达国家的经济体), are too dependent on government actionFeb 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
Illustration by S. Kambayashi
AS JANUARY goes, so goes the year. That old stockmarket saying does not augur well for 2010, given that the MSCI World index fell by 4.2% in the month, the biggest decline（下降，衰退） since February 2009, and emerging markets（新兴市场） dropped by 5.6%.

Although markets rallied a bit（恢复） in early February on better-than-expected economic data（比预期的好的经济数据）, the poor start to the year reflected an inherent contradiction to the rebound（反弹） of 2009. That rally seemed to be dependent both on extraordinary stimulus measures（极端的刺激措施） by governments and central banks（政府和中央银行）, and on a vigorous economic recovery（强劲的经济复苏）. But both cannot co-exist for long: either the recovery will not last or, if it does, the stimulus will be taken away.

In addition, governments’ ability to provide that stimulus（政府刺激经济的能力） is dependent on the markets’ own willingness（市场的意愿） to fund huge deficits（为巨额财政赤字提供资金） at very low yields（以极低的收益率）. But why would investors accept meagre yields（接受低收益率） if they expected a vigorous recovery? In a sense（在某种程度上 ，in some sense）, the market seemed to be hauling itself up by its own bootstraps.（这段的逻辑推理太好了）

Sure enough, the bullish story has started to unravel, if only at the edges. In the developing world China has attempted to tighten monetary policy（试图紧缩货币政策）. That has caused some alarm because China was acting as the engine of global growth（作为世界增长的发动机）.

And in the developed world investors have started to question（开始质疑） the ability of governments to keep financing their deficits（政府为赤字融资的能力）. The obvious example is in Greece, where ten-year bond yields（十年期债券收益率） reached 7% late last month. At that level, which is well above likely Greek GDP growth, the country’s indebtedness would grow very rapidly. However unpopular it may prove to be, an austerity package is needed to prevent Greece from falling into this debt trap（掉入债务陷阱） (see article).

So even in places where governments may wish to maintain fiscal stimulus, the markets may force them into corrective action. Britain, France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and others have all indicated their determination to keep deficits under control（determination to do，做。。。的决心；keep deficits under control，控制住财政赤字）, with varying degrees of conviction（以不同程度的信仰）.

But withdrawal of even small parts of the stimulus packages can send an economy back into the doldrums. As an example, American new-home sales slowed sharply after an initial end-of-November deadline for the expiry of a buyers’ tax credit. Although the credit has since been extended until April, December’s sales were just 342,000, compared with 329,000 in January 2009, at the height of the crisis（在危机的鼎盛时期）.

The stimulus may have prevented the global economy from slipping into depression（衰退）. In the medium term（中期来看）, however, academic studies（学术研究） suggest that higher government spending leads to slower economic growth（引起经济慢速增长）. A 2008 paper by Antonio Afonso of the European Central Bank and Davide Furceri of the University of Palermo calculates that for every one-percentage-point rise in government spending as a proportion of GDP, the growth rate falls by 0.12-0.13 percentage points.

What’s more, the packages have not really dealt with the problem of excessive（过度的） debt, but merely transferred(转移) it from the private to the public sector（从私人部门到公共部门）. This buys time, but is akin to those debt-consolidation plans that are sold to consumers on TV. The pain is spread out over a longer period. But pain there will be, in the form of higher taxes（高税收的形式）, higher bond yields（高的债权收益率）, slower growth（低增长） or a combination of all three.

The authorities face a dilemma（进退两难）. Reduce the stimulus（减少刺激） now and they risk plunging（risk doing，冒。。。的风险） the economy back into recession, as happened in America in 1937 and Japan in 1997. But leave the stimulus in place for too long, and they risk damaging long-term growth prospects.

The bulls hope that the economy can escape from this trap by the simple expedient of private-sector growth. That is why they welcomed the rise in manufacturing activity signalled in this week’s latest purchasing managers’ indices. If the private sector rebounds of its own accord, unemployment will fall and budget deficits will decline.

But hopes for a strong private-sector recovery are undermined（被削弱） by the data on credit growth. In the year to December, the broad measure of money supply（货币供给的广泛度量，应该就是指广义货币供应量） fell by 0.2% in the euro zone and grew by just 3.4% in America. In Britain the annual growth rate（年增长率） is higher (6.4% in December), but David Owen, an economist at Jefferies International, estimates that quantitative easing (QE), whereby central banks create money to buy assets, has been boosting the figure by an annualised rate of 10%. If the Bank of England stops QE entirely, the credit-growth rate could collapse. For the stockmarket rally to resume properly in 2010, economies in the developed world need to show they can stand on their own two feet.

黑竹UID: 2753377

A time for introspectionIncreasing scrutiny of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, in particular, its chairman, should lead to reformsFeb 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
AFP
THE past month has not been a good one for Rajendra Pachauri (pictured above), the charismatic chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general(局长) of TERI, an Indian research institute（研究机构）. His numerous positions（很多职位） on boards and industrial advisory panels, in India and beyond, have led to charges of conflicts of interest. His intemperate defence of mistakes about Himalayan glaciers in the most recent IPCC report had to be followed by a public statement of regret as it became clear that the IPCC had indeed been wrong—and that its source has been a magazine article rather than a piece of scientific literature. And, to cap it all, public mockery of mildly salacious passages in his recently published novel (he writes poetry, too) has added further spice, if not substance, to the stories.

The mistaken claim about the glaciers—that they could disappear by 2035—“never really came to my attention” before the end of last year, Dr Pachauri maintains, though the opportunities for it to have done so were numerous. Syed Hasnain, the researcher cited by press reports as a source for the number (though he denies saying it), is now a consultant（顾问） at TERI, though Dr Pachauri says he “hardly interacts” with him. The claim featured prominently in a presentation that Anastasios Kentarchos of the European Union gave at a TERI meeting where Dr Pachauri was to deliver a “keynote” address. Dr Pachauri, however, says he left without attending any of the actual sessions. Pallava Bagla, who brought the story to wide attention in Science last November, says he discussed the matter with Dr Pachauri and e-mailed him about it. Dr Pachauri says the discussions were just a question at a press conference（记者招待会） that he did not really take on board, and that he read no such e-mails.

Shades of greyThe glacier story has led the IPCC’s critics to pore over its most recent report, focusing on claims that arise from the “grey literature”—normally taken to mean reports by governments and other organisations that are not published commercially or passed through academic channels. It is widely believed the IPCC looks only at peer-reviewed studies, but the panel’s guidelines（小组的指导方针） do allow information from elsewhere, as long as it is critically assessed（批判性的评价） and has proper references（恰当的出处）.

What counts as grey, though, is itself a grey area. Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution, who is co-chairman of the IPCC’s working group II, defends his decision（defend保卫，辩护；defendant被告） to cite a story（引用一个故事） from the New York Times as an illustration of the effect of poor electricity supply during a heatwave: it was not being used to provide quantitative data, or an assessment of how（评价） confident one should be in a result, but just to say that something happened. Still, most would not see the Gray Lady as grey literature.

To accept a role for grey literature at the IPCC, provided it is properly and critically assessed by the authors, is not to say that peer-reviewed publications should not dominate the assessments. They should. But to allow nothing but peer-reviewed literature would not only cut the IPCC off from some relevant material, it could also help well-placed insiders to marginalise opinions they do not approve of. There are indications of this in some of the e-mails from and to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that were released on to the web late last year.

The IPCC’s own review process is more catholic; it is quite easy to become a reviewer. But that may not, in itself, be enough. One reviewer of the previous report pointed out work by Roger Pielke junior of the University of Colorado that contradicted what the IPCC was saying about climate-related trends in the costs of disasters. In responding, an anonymous IPCC author said that he or she believed Dr Pielke had changed his mind on the matter, without either asking him or, apparently, studying his most recent publications on the subject, which showed he had not. (Dr Pielke also thinks a graph on the subject was redrawn to buttress a case that cannot actually be stood up.)

The fact that critics can dig far enough into the reviewing process to see such details speaks well of the IPCC’s transparency, but not all of its procedures are easy to scrutinise. The selection of authors, for example, is something of a black box. Since it is on the expertise, judgment and character of these authors, as much or more than on procedure, that the whole enterprise rests, this needs reform.

Other procedures are simply lacking. Charges of conflict of interest levelled at Dr Pachauri are hard to judge because the governments which organise the IPCC have provided no way for interests to be declared, or for conflicts to be assessed. Dr Pachauri says he would be quite happy for them to do so. At the same time, interpreting such conflict as suggestive of personal gain, he rejects charges made against him. He says that, on his appointment in 2002, he refused even to take money for his office from the IPCC, and that all payments for his advice and services go to TERI, not to him. Though he has brought new resources and standing to the institute, his TERI salary, he says, has risen only in line with inflation. How much that would be, though, he cannot say. He does not, apparently, trouble himself to know what his salary actually is.