【clover】eco debate by mintsh

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~~这个~作业敢死队 小猫~~

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1# mintsh
Background

Mr Obama's unpromising year

Americans will blame bad times on the president

Nov 13th 2009 | From The World in 2010 print edition
By Peter David, WASHINGTON, DC

When they voted to send a black man to the White House at the end of 2008, Americans performed one of the most remarkable acts of rebranding in the history of their remarkable nation. The coming year, however, will be a miserable one for Barack Obama. This is not only because of the iron law of waning novelty 新鲜感逐渐消失. His second year as president will expose the underlying weakness of the political coalition结盟，同盟 that elected him, the scale of the difficulties he inherited, the stubborn resistance of Americans to sudden change, and their enduring attachment to the dream of small government and individual opportunity.

Note first that the novelty of Mr Obama’s colour and style did not last all that long even during his first year. The approval ratings of 70% or thereabouts that he enjoyed at the beginning of 2009 fell by the end of the summer to around 50%, pretty much the average (if anything a bit lower) for presidents after their first eight months. That this happened so soon after he performed some decisive economic firefighting—the fiscal stimulus, the restructuring of Detroit’s carmakers—suggests that voters in 2010 will not be inclined to thank him for averting a depression that did not come.

They are more likely to blame him for the recession that did. And most Americans will not feel good about their prospects. Jobs will continue to be scarce; taxes will rise in spite of Mr Obama’s rash promise not to raise them for the middle classes; and the deficit will still be rocketing heavenwards on an unsustainable trajectory轨道.

By 2010, moreover, Mr Obama will no longer be able to fall back on the excuse that all of this was beyond his control. Given the scale of the crisis he inherited, he could have decided to focus the whole of his first term single-mindedly专心致志
on economic recovery. Instead he made a bold—and some will say reckless—decision to reach for more.

In 2010 most Americans will not feel good about their prospects

It is true that large constituencies选区supported Mr Obama’s call for comprehensive health-care reform and legislation to tackle global warming. But in 2010 many of these true believers, who wanted and expected audacious大胆的change, will be feeling let down by the weak legislation that will squeak out of Capitol Hill美国国会大厦. Others will say that it was a mistake all along to embark on expensive reform at a time of acute economic distress. Beyond this, an underlying problem for Mr Obama is that in 2010 most voters will be feeling the short-term costs of changes in health care and energy and not yet any of the long-term benefits.

这一部分讲述奥巴马带给大家的新鲜感已经渐渐淡去，他曾经承诺的诺言无法兑现及其应对经济危机时并不令人感到满意的表现，使得选民动摇了对他的信心。

The politics of change

This points to another vulnerability. The coalition Mr Obama marshaled指挥的
in 2008 around the alluring but ambiguous banner of “change” will splinter分裂. The most ideological members of that coalition are already dismayed惊恐，气馁
by “betrayals” such as the president’s inaction on causes such as gay marriage, and by policy calls such as the continuing detention滞留，扣留 of suspected terrorists without trial. Disappointed expectations will keep some of them at home in the mid-term congressional elections in November. Other stay-at-homes will include many of those first-time voters, mainly the black and the young, who in 2008 were electrified by his person rather than his policies. Many are likely to take the view that they did enough when they sent Mr Obama to the White House. Unexcited by the ins and outs of cap-and-trade and health-care legislation, and by an election in which Mr Obama’s own job is not up for grabs, why should they turn out again?

Since the complaint of the left is that Mr Obama is governing from the centre, you might expect the self-described independent voters who backed Mr Obama in 2008 to stay with the Democrats in the mid-terms.

A good number of Americans in the middle of politics are furious暴怒的，狂怒的

Think again. A number of independents will feel no less betrayed by Mr Obama than the left already does. The Republican message that Mr Obama has presided over the biggest expansion of government for decades, and that he has done nothing to rein in使。。停步，拉缰绳
the Democratic Party’s worst partisans党徒
and protectionists on Capitol Hill, will gain traction牵引力，拉力. A good number of Americans in the middle of politics are furious at the spectacle大规模，大场面
of Wall Street being bailed out while so many ordinary Joes are losing their jobs, homes and pensions. Hard times in 2010 will ensure that their anger is not going to subside平息 quickly.

Mr Obama will find no consolation安慰，慰藉 on the world stage. Whatever his long-term decisions on Afghanistan and Iraq, American forces will still be suffering casualties in both countries in 2010. In his second year it will become increasingly clear to people at home that America risks losing its status as the world’s sole superpower and undisputed top nation as its relative economic power wanes. This trend may be inexorable坚决不变的，不为所动的 with the rise of new powers in Asia, but that will not stop voters from blaming the fellow in the White House.

奥巴马这两年来的政治表现同样影响了他所领导的团队，民主党mid-term的选举形势将不容乐观。

Losing his House?

Above all, the result of November’s mid-term elections will reflect the fact that even an economic crisis of extra-ordinary proportions cannot make most Americans ditch放弃 their ingrained根深蒂固的 belief in a free-market system and embrace bigger government. The perception that Mr Obama is tilting too far left will cost the Democrats a host of seats. Although the Senate will remain out of the Republicans’ reach, they might take control of the House of Representatives. No fewer than 84 of the Democrats’ seats in the House represent districts that were won by George Bush in 2004 or Senator John McCain in 2008; they could turn Republican again.

It is worth remembering that a miserable 2010 does not mean that Mr Obama will necessarily fail to win re-election in 2012, or that his presidency is destined to be remembered as a failure. Other presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, managed to bounce back from wretched 可怜的second years and setbacks in the mid-terms. But the coming year will be a trying one for America’s no-longer-so-fresh new president.

下议院有可能会被共和党所控制，但是白宫2012年是否会易主现在下判断为时过早。

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The moderator's rebuttal remarks

Feb 5th 2010 | Robert Guest

It's round two, and our distinguished debaters are once again politely slugging each other on the jaw个人猜想是指不相上下.

先总结正反双方辩论形势，下面切入正题

David Boaz concedes that President Obama still commands great personal respect. Then he goes on the attack. Addressing Elaine Kamarck's worry about the lack of trust Americans have for their government, he retorts: "One thing that surely reduces trust is the growing size and scope of government." A government that takes on more and more responsibilities is bound to disappoint more and more people, he says. "If government is going to fund and direct health care, then people are going to fight over whether it will cover abortion or Christian Science treatments; which providers or patients will get less than they expected; which treatments will be denied; and so on. Each one of those decisions will reduce someone's trust in government to do the right thing."

首先Boaz提出政府过度集权将使情况变得更糟糕，人们将对政府失去信任。

Mr Boaz accuses Mr Obama of using the financial crisis as an excuse to lengthen the government's tentacles: "[Since 2008], we got expanded powers for the Federal Reserve, Wall Street bailouts, takeovers of financial companies and car makers … the kitchen-sink spending bill known as stimulus [and] expanded federal control over energy, education and health care."

具体列举，例如美联储的权利扩张。

Some people think that Mr Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, is doing a good job of standing up to reactionary unions and promoting reform. But I'm guessing Mr Boaz would rather leave that job to the states.

从侧面再次体现Boaz对于教育管理集中于中央政府的不满。

Ms Kamarck says that Mr Obama has had problems in his first year because he tried to do everything at once. "Congress and the administration should make one simple rule for themselves," she says: "No more 1,000-page pieces of legislation." No one understands mammoth庞大的 health and energy bills, she says, so it is easy for misguided voters to imagine that they include "death panels".

But she thinks Mr Obama is on the right track. His policies are "sensible and centrist". Americans like environmental and consumer protections, she says. She challenges Mr Boaz "to find anyone in the country who thinks it's a good idea to allow health insurance companies drop coverage when people get very sick". And she would like to see Mr Obama use all his rhetorical skills to push for急切，强烈地要求 a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. "There are plenty of people out there who got flim-flammed"这里还是没理解 into taking on debt they couldn't afford, she says. She doubts they would object "to the government making sure that that doesn't happen again".

This is no doubt true, but if Mr Obama makes it harder for less creditworthy Americans to borrow, sooner or later another politician will start a campaign to make it easier again. People have short memories.

而Ms Kamarck认为奥巴马只是在一开始操之过急，他对于次级贷款的限制在目前是有必要的，他的举措也是敏感和中立的。

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汗死，我的彩色哪儿去了。怎么部分有部分没有的。。

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The proposer's rebuttal remarks

Feb 5th 2010 | David Boaz

If the measure of failure for President Obama is whether it looks like he is on the road to slowing the rise of the oceans, ending a war and restoring our image as the last, best hope on Earth, then he doesn't look so good. Elaine Kamarck proposes a stricter test: Has he encountered a swift and deadly drop in his personal reputation to Nixonian depths?（反方观点）

风趣地开头，提出奥巴马的表现并不好。

If we set a standard somewhere between these extremes, then Mr Obama does seem to be on shaky ground. His policies are not working, his ability to drive his agenda seems to have ground to a halt and the political environment has shifted sharply against him.

奥巴马的计划并没有有效实施，他所面临的政局已发生变化。

Ms Kamarck is right to say that Mr and Mrs Obama still command great personal respect. He looks good by comparison with such scandalous rivals as John Edwards. A recent Washington Post feature hailed the inspiring example he has set for young African-Americans, and given the plight of young people in many black communities, that is an achievement worth celebrating.

承认反方观点，奥巴马夫妇的个人魅力不可否认。

Actually, his personal approval rating has fallen from near 70% to just above 50%, though I do think the broad centre of Americans still admire him. But he has lost his aura气息—that "tingle up my leg," "agent of transformation," "quantum leap in American consciousness," "sort of God" image—that journalists and many voters swooned over. That matters when your personal power is part of your political strategy. A Democratic congressman told his home-state paper last month that Obama had wooed Blue Dog Democrats by telling them that health care would go better this time than in 1994 because "the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me".这段不太理解

Boaz指出奥巴马的支持率直线下降，他所采取的利用个人能力的政治策略是有问题的，此时Congressman的例子

One question here is how do you measure a politician's failure. Is it, for instance, a failure to get his policies enacted, or his success in enacting bad policies? Surveys of historians always give high marks to presidents who expanded government or fought wars. Washington's most-quoted political scientist, Norman Ornstein, recently defended the productivity of the current Congress; his article illustrated that to the Washington establishment the very definition of a productive Congress is the spending of more taxpayers' money, the creation of new agencies and bureaucracies, and the concentration of more power in the hands of federal regulators. Citizens might prefer a government that kept us out of war, let the economy grow, and left us alone.

这段提出了怎么判定一个领导人的失败，在这里提出了对反方有利的证据。

That gets us to the problem of trust in government, which Ms Kamarck warned him back in 2008 not to ignore. One thing that surely reduces trust is the growing size and scope of government. When the federal government confined itself to a limited range of constitutional duties, voters trusted it more. Over the past few decades, as government took on more and more duties, trust fell. An expansive government is less able to satisfy everyone, even as it doles out分发 more benefits to more people. The more complex and encompassing a policy gets, the more different aspects of life it touches. If government is going to fund and direct health care, then people are going to fight over whether it will cover abortion or Christian Science treatments; which providers or patients will get less than they expected; which treatments will be denied and so on. Each one of those decisions will reduce someone's trust in government to do the right thing.

紧接上文，提出公民对政府的信任问题，政府越庞大权责越集中就越容易丧失信任。

In her 2008 study Ms Kamarck warned that Americans were evenly split on whether they want more activist government (43% for, 43% against). The numbers may be worse than that. As I mentioned previously, in a January Washington Post-ABC News poll, Americans said they prefer "smaller government and fewer services" to "larger government with more services" by 58% to 38%. And when you remind people that the cost of more services is higher taxes, and ask them whether they prefer a smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes or a more active government with more services and higher taxes, you get a margin of 66% to 22% in favour of smaller government (Rasmussen Reports, December).

正方举了三个不同来源的数据，反驳Kamarck的evenly split的论断

In a country where government is already larger than the voters would prefer, and trust in government is low, it is difficult to advance ambitious activist programmes, unless there's a crisis. For 200 years the US government has tended to expand during wars and economic crises. After the 9/11 attacks we got the Patriot Act, federalisation of airport screeners, the Department of Homeland Security, rapid spending increases and arguably the war in Iraq. After the financial crisis of 2008 we got expanded powers for the Federal Reserve, Wall Street bailouts, takeovers of financial companies and carmakers and the kitchen-sink spending bill known as stimulus. Moreover, the Obama administration tried to present its programme of expanded federal control over energy, education, and health care as a response to the crisis.

继续以上对政府过度集权的讨论，认为民众只有在面临巨大危机时才愿意接受larger government

Mr Obama now seems to have switched tactics转变战术. He is campaigning as a trust-busting, bank-bashing populist 美国人民党党员who is here to take on同。。较量 the big boys. But that is a problem for him. Not only was his career boosted by the biggest boys in Washington—Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy—he has also been a Wall Street man. He took in more money from Wall Street than John McCain did, and four times as much money from lawyers and lobbyists, and he reappointed or promoted two of the three architects of the Wall Street bailout. Huey Long he ain't.？？

奥巴马面临转换战术的窘境。

And then there is the basic cognitive dissonance不和谐 in his new theme, as George F. Will noted after the state-of-the-union address: "Obama's leitmotif主乐调 is: Washington is disappointing, Washington is annoying, Washington is dysfunctional, Washington is corrupt, verily真实的，肯定的 Washington is toxic—yet Washington should conscript征召 a substantially larger share of GDP, and Washington should exercise vast new controls over health care, energy, K-12 education, etc."

引用Will的话来反映华盛顿-中央政府的离谱现状。

Some analysts note that Ronald Reagan had low ratings at this point in his term, and a bad midterm election, but came back strong. As it turns out, tax cuts, spending restraint, deregulation and sound money tend to create strong economic recoveries. Threats of tax hikes, unprecedented levels of deficits, a wave of new regulations and fears about Fed monetisation may not.

打消人们认为奥巴马在以后能够像里根一样迎头赶上的想法

Has Mr Obama failed, a year into his term? Of course not. But that's the direction he's headed.

总结，奥巴马正在走向失败

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早上起来补

The opposition's rebuttal remarks

Feb 5th 2010 | Elaine Kamarck

David Boaz begins his piece by quoting President Obama's soaring 2008 convention rhetorical opening that is not particularly relevant to the topic at hand. American presidents (or American presidential speechwriters, to be precise) are all about promising the moon许下自己办不到的诺言. The fact that they over-promise and under-deliver may be a problem for American democracy but it is a bi-partisan problem. Who can forget George Bush's second inaugural address就职演说? In it he promised: "All who live in tyranny残暴，暴虐
and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors." George Bush did not deliver the world from oppression. But in a media-savvy country like the United States where we know in our heart of hearts that a new hair colour will not give us everlasting youth, did anyone really expect him to? No.

首先指出Boaz开头时所引用的素材与探讨的话题不怎么相关；然后指出总统上任前总是会过多地承诺，这是可以理解的。

But Mr Boaz is correct in identifying the anti-government sentiment that has motivated the American pubic for decades, a factor contributing to their low trust in government discussed in my opening remarks. What he is wrong about is the substance of Mr Obama's policies. In robust, healthy capitalist societies government is important on two counts: it regulates markets and provides a social safety net that protects their citizens from the creative destruction of capitalism. Does any American really want to live in a country where there is no effective regulation of the market? Does anyone really want to live in a place where there is no social safety net? There is no large-scale migration to Russia, Nigeria or any one of the dozens of countries where there is no effective government.

承认正方在民众对于政府职权期望方面所作出正确论述，指出当今社会政府必须肩负自己的职责

The fact of the matter is that Americans are very angry about big government in the abstract but not government in the particular. Democrats never understand the former but Republicans never understand the latter.

指出民众对于政府权责的真实态度，不过没咋地看懂，汗

Let us walk through some of the issues of Mr Obama's first year. As he was beginning the general election campaign the bottom fell out of the US economy. As the housing bubble burst (with no warning or preventative actions on the party of the Bush administration) the possibility of a US and a global meltdown was terrifyingly real. The stimulus package (ridden with pork as it was) did indeed prevent a much worse situation. Highly respected economists like a Nobel prize-winner, Joe Stiglitz, think we need more, not less. But Mr Boaz sees this as the first in a series of big government takeovers. He ignores, however, the fact that most of the big banks rushed to pay the government back in order to get out from under the government's thumb. In the process they created a new problem for Mr Obama: the massive bonuses they paid themselves. But wait a minute, if they were under government control this wouldn't be happening!

By and large Americans like environmental protection laws, especially when it keeps the air clean and fish in the lakes and deer in the woods (for shooting). Mr Boaz calls the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to regulate greenhouse gases "previously unknown". Well, three years ago the United States Supreme Court, a court heavily influenced by conservative appointees, decided that the EPA did indeed have the right to regulate greenhouse gases. Americans are also very fond of government that protects them against pollutants and against health hazards like bad hamburger meat at fast-food restaurants. In the mid-1990s Newt Gingrich led a conservative revolution against big government. He took over the Congress but in the end he failed to do anything about big government—a political victim of cryptosporidium (a parasite found in polluted water.)

Americans like environmental protections and they like consumer protections. I hope that as the Obama White House picks itself up from its bruising first year that it will use all the president's rhetorical skills to pass a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. There are plenty of people out there who got flim-flammed into houses and credit cards that they cannot afford. I doubt that they would object to the government making sure that that does not happen again.

The fact is that most of Mr Obama's policies are sensible and centrist. I challenge Mr Boaz to find anyone in the country who thinks it is a good idea to allow health insurance companies drop coverage when people get very sick.

To the extent that Mr Obama has had problems in his first year it is because he fell for a style of legislation and a political strategy that called for doing everything at once. I am not sure where this propensity to solve every conceivable problem simultaneously came from, but Congress and the administration should make one simple rule for themselves: no more 1,000-page pieces of legislation. Those pieces of legislation provoke suspicion, as well they should. They are dense and incomprehensible. They are larded with special deals. It is easy to read death panels into such legislation. How on earth is any normal person expected to read this kind of bill and conclude: "No, Mildred, there really aren't any death panels in here."

There is no reason why the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration shouldn't pass pieces of their agenda in an orderly sequence. For instance, first pass insurance reform, then expand Medicaid to the parents of poor children, then offer some subsidies to the middle class. And why take on the boogey man of the "public option" when you could put more money into the already existing public health service? Similarly on climate change, why not pass tough standards for new buildings and follow it up with a new look at nuclear power, as the president suggested in his speech the other night?

The strategy of trying to do everything at once allows people like Mr Boaz (who is more like most of America than Democrats want to admit) to conjure up the spectre of big government.

It is time to step away from grand plans and move towards financial reform, health-care reform and climate-change legislation in a series of bills that the public can understand. There is no better way to show that the big government boogeyman is nothing more than a figment of the conservative imagination.

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一个关于 European Holiday 的 debate

The opposition's opening remarks

Dec 22nd 2009 | John de Graaf

I must say that when I first read this resolution I thought there was some mistake, that the real resolution must be: "This house believes that Americans get too little holiday time." Of course, in that case I would have argued in the affirmative以赞成的态度, and my sense is that Professor Gordon might have agreed with me.
In all honesty, my visits to Europe have made me very jealous of European holiday time. I have yet to还需要，还有待于talk to a European who wishes to see his or her vacation time reduced. This does not mean they want to see American vacations extended: I recall meeting a man from London in California's Yosemite National Park two summers ago. When I asked if he thought Americans got too little vacation, he quickly responded, "Oh, no! After all, I get five weeks off and I can come to this beautiful place and it's not even that crowded because the Americans are all chained to their bloody desks. I’d be having less fun if they had more vacation."
But this is not an argument about preference. The long holidays that Europeans take are justified, not simply because they enjoy those holidays, but because their access to holiday time brings benefits for their health, their family connections, their environment, their overall life satisfaction and even their hourly productivity.
提出欧洲的长假期并非完全处于喜好而是有其现实意义的。
Let us start with health. Vacation time is a hedge against coronary disease冠心病. Indeed, men who do not take regular vacations are some 32% more likely to suffer heart attacks than those who do, while for women the figure is even higher, at 50%. Women who do not take regular vacations are also two or three times more likely to suffer from depression than those who do. Dr Sarah Speck, a Seattle cardiologist心脏病专家, calls workplace stress “the new tobacco”. She suggests that taking regular blocks of time away from work may be nearly as good for your health as stopping smoking.
It is thus perhaps no accident that nearly all western European countries can boast longer life expectancies than the United States (while spending half as much on health care), or that a Los Angeles Times story reported that Europeans are only a little over half as likely as Americans to suffer from such chronic illnesses as heart disease and high blood pressure in old age. Meanwhile, Americans are also about twice as likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. All together, these infirmities虚弱 account for a lion’s share of 最好的，最大的the enormous health-care costs borne by Americans.
Further evidence for the positive impact of shorter working time, including vacation time, on health comes from new findings that American health has actually improved during the recession (while many workers have received extended furloughs 延长的休假), and that the shorter working hours associated with recessions regularly lead to health improvements, while periods of rapid economic growth are associated with poorer health outcomes. Moreover, a recent Greek study found that around the world, mortality rates are at their lowest in the periods of the year immediately after most people in a given country take their vacations. In simple terms, rather than being an economic drain经济上的开支, vacations may significantly decrease unproductive expenditures associated with poor health.
从健康角度展开论证，说明较长的假期不仅保持了健康状态还节约了庞大的医疗开支。
Vacations also improve family life and the welfare of children. Researchers have documented the degree to which many of children's strongest memories are of their vacations with their families. Vacations help bond families and often reintroduce romance into the lives of parents. They have even been shown to improve children's academic performance. Extended holiday time allows for more tourism—a benefit to many national economies—which, as a travel specialist, Rick Steves, points out, helps increase international understanding and connection, vital in these times of worldwide distrust.
这段从家庭关系入手，进行展开。
Moreover, lengthy periods of time off improve life satisfaction. As even Forbes magazine pointed out, annual Gallup Polls have found the highest rates of happiness in such countries as Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands (with the world's shortest working hours) and Sweden, nations where attention is paid to work-life balance and of course where holiday time is lengthy. And psychologists such as Tim Kasser and Leaf Van Boven have found that for most citizens of the industrial North, time affluence, including ample vacation time, brings more long-term satisfaction than material affluence does.
此段论证了假期能够给以物质丰富所不能提供的对生活的满足感。
Those who oppose long European vacations often do so in the name of greater economic growth. But ever higher growth rates are not sustainable in the long run. According to the Global Footprint Network, Americans, with their emphasis on material consumption rather than time off, have roughly twice the environmental impact of Europeans. A study by CEPR, a Washington DC think-tank, found that by reducing their working hours to European levels, including European-length holidays, Americans would cut their energy use and carbon outputs by 20-30%.
Even so, extended periods of time off such as Europeans enjoy are not a threat to productivity. In fact, an Air New Zealand study found that after two weeks off, workers experienced an extra hour of quality sleep each night and showed 30-40% faster reaction times on the job. A recent Harvard Business School study found that in one large company, workers who experimented with predictable and required time off actually produced more than their colleagues who worked longer hours. Their work was more focused and the quality of their communication with fellow workers improved dramatically.
这两段重点论述假期在保护环境的同时还能够提高生产率。
Yet even if they produced a bit less, the tradeoff would be worth it. Many of the great joys in life cannot be measured by the crude index of GDP, as even Nicolas Sarkozy has recently noted. Europeans have a high quality of life (as so many Americans observe) precisely because they take time to live, time for conversation, for good food and wine, for travel at bicycle speed, time for family and time for long and memorable holidays. They are right in not wanting to sacrifice these non-material joys for the stuff extra hours of work can buy. People in the United States have much to learn from them. And they might even want to consider taking longer holidays.
全文总结，虽然会蒙受一定的经济损失，但是考虑到假期带来的种种好处，也许假期更应该被延长而不是被缩短。

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The proposer's opening remarks

Dec 22nd 2009 | Robert J. Gordon

To engage in this debate in December 2009 requires that we play a fantasy game. Whether European vacations are too long is a side show to the main issue of digging the world out of its 2007-09 economic crisis. Right now, everyone everywhere is taking too much vacation, there is too much idleness, there are too many people whose most heartfelt衷心的 wish is that they could replace their current idleness, their “long holiday”, with a steady full-time job.

开头便将holidays跟经济危机相联系，同时用了好几个以 too+much/many 结尾的分句来表明目前非正常的长假并不是人们所想的。

We must debate as if we were in the summer of 2007, before the worldwide crisis started. Way back then, the unemployment rate was at the normal or "natural” level in both the United States and Europe, and we did not see millions forced into long involuntary holidays.指出非自愿长假

And for clarity we must ignore all the differences among European nations and pretend that there is a single composite European nation made up of the countries in the pre-2004 EU-15.

为了便于论证，作者假定我们处于07间paralysis前，并且假定将欧洲看做一个整体。

To put the case in a nutshell, Europe makes itself poor by working many fewer hours per person than Americans. Low European work effort combines the impact of long vacations, high unemployment, low labour force participation and early retirement. Excessively long vacations are only the tip of the iceberg. Even though Europeans are roughly 90% as productive as Americans, they devote so few hours to work that their income per head (i.e. their standard of living), is only about 68% of that in the United States. That 22 percentage point difference is by definition the result of lower hours per person in Europe compared with the United States. Short work hours per person provides the answer to the puzzle, "How could Europe be so productive but so poor?"

提出了在欧洲生产率较高但是收入较低的问题

Long European holidays constitute just one of the
five reasons why annual hours of work per person in Europe are so short. Those in Europe who have jobs not only work fewer weeks per year due to long vacation, but they work fewer hours per week when they are not on vacation. Forcing employees to work shorter hours as a way to create jobs is known as the "lump of labour fallacy" and dates back to Herbert Hoover. In France there are the "hours police" who snoop打听，窥伺 on employees to make sure offices are empty at night.

The third reason is a high normal or natural rate of unemployment, as in the contrast between America's 4.5% and Europe's 7.5% in 2007. Fourth is a low level of labour force participation, especially among females in the Mediterranean countries (Greece, Italy, Spain). Fifth is early retirement, caused by a set of financial incentives embedded in state pension schemes that push Europeans into idleness and boredom at ages (57, 58) when most Americans are at their prime maximum earning ages. In fact the US retirement eligibility age for full Social Security benefits is gradually being raised from 65 to 67, reflecting increased life expectancy.

以上阐述了引发欧洲平均工作时间短的五个原因。

Because Europeans work shorter hours, they have only 70% of the real market income per person as Americans (adjusted for differences in prices across countries). As a result Europeans face their holidays from a position of poverty rather than abundance.

Those long European holidays are pitiful. They are inefficient, they hurt consumers and they reveal the tedium冗长乏味 of European family life. And because Europeans are relatively poor, they cannot afford the frequent upscale高档的 vacations that many Americans take for granted.

Americans first learn about the lavish provision of European vacations when they read their guidebooks and find that one restaurant after another in Paris or Rome is "ferme en Aout". The big advantage of Europe from its own perspective is that, generally speaking, it takes its five-week vacations all at once. The big horror of Europe from an American perspective is that it takes its five-week vacations all at once.

The American mind recoils退缩 at the image of European five-week holidays, so many of them in August. These summer holidays typically take northern European families via train, car or Ryanair from their gloomy northern rain-plagued homes to the promise of sunny Spain, Corfu or Crete.

Because Europeans are poor, they cannot pay for decent vacation accommodation. They stay in trailer camps and jerry-built偷工减料 vacation hotels crammed挤，塞 together on the Spanish coast in foreign ghettos where sunburned tourists huddle together to avoid contact with the locals.

Worse yet, they are there for four or five weeks. This violates the basic economist instinct that there is a law of diminishing returns that applies to everything, especially being in the same small hotel room or rocky beach for a month with the same set of screaming children or nagging唠叨的
grandmothers.

In some European countries, families are plagued with children who just won’t grow up, especially in Italy where the typical 30-year-old male lives at home with mama and expects free food and laundry. Is this the kind of person with whom you would want to spend a five-week holiday? No wonder many European countries have much lower fertility rates出生率 than the United States: "Living at home with your family is the most effective method of contraception避孕 ever invented."

Data showing that Americans take two-week vacations in contrast to five weeks in Europe are misleading. Americans are expert at juggling three-day holiday weekends and holidays that occur in the middle of the week into full-week vacations at the cost of only three or four days off.

Americans' multiple one-week vacations in contrast to the European five-week August exodus大批外出，成群离开 are much more efficient. The city doesn’t close down, diminishing returns of being bored with your relatives does not set in, and because American incomes per head are about 45% higher than European, there is plenty of money for Americans to travel, and they do. Americans take a week in the summer at a nearby lake or seashore beach, a few days at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas to be with the relatives, and a week in winter to ski in the many resorts that are within driving distance of much of the population, not to mention the Utah and Colorado Rockies that are easily reachable by air.

The typical European five-week August vacation is inefficient, congested拥挤的 and boring. The typical short American vacation taken several times per year to different places with different people provides a higher payoff of leisure per day. The perennial终年的，长久的 law of diminishing returns never seemed more appropriate.

以上几段都用于对比欧洲和美国度假的质量，提出美国由于收入和有效地假期安排能够更好地享受假期。