[1010G]Economist阅读帖 by lynnuana

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

[1010G]Economist阅读帖--决战2010
主贴链接：https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1081436-1-1.html
他山之石：https://bbs.gter.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1086876&page=1#pid1773862540

电梯直达：
1 【03.01】Chile's earthquake: In need of repair
2 【03.05】China: Flowering friendliness?
3 【03.18】Climate-change politics: Cap-and-trade's last hurrah
4 【03.31】Jesus Christ:Paradox
5 【04.02】California schools：From bad to worse
6 【03.31】Schumpeter：The panda has two faces
7 【04.08】Volunteers Translation
8 【04.09】Social democracy: A plea for liberalism
9 【04.10】DEBATE：Sustainable development
10【04.11】DEBATE：Innovation
11【04.13】Businessview：The celebrity effect
12【04.14】Schumpeter：Brand rehab
13【04.16】Obama's Inaugural Speech
14【04.17】DEBATE：Technology in Education
15【04.23】DEBATE：International Migration
16【04.25】The Meaning of Art and Beauty
17【04.27】TIME：When Artists Distort History
18【0504】DEBATE：GDP
19【0506】Greece's woes：The end of the party
20【0510】Wikipedia：Innovation
21【0512】The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico：Deep Trouble
22【0512】Wikipedia：Civilization
23【0515】DEBATE：Fair Trade
24【0518】Globalization
25【0519】Methuselah gene
26【0523】How Should Justices Judge?
27【0524】Education：a Research University
28【0525】Morality and Politics
29【0527】Boys in blue : Britain and the second world war
30【0602】GreenView：How to be urban
31【0604】The Ethics of Reverence for Life

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2 粉色-- 重点单词（adv）
3 蓝色-- 词组
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5 下划线+绿-- 句子
6 橘色-- 例子
7 括号--点评

相关网站：
    * U.S. News and World Report: notable current events
    * The Economist: political and economic ideology
    * Reason: ideology and culture (loads of cross-discipline articles)
    * The New Yorker: arts, humanities, sociology, popular culture
    * The Christian Science Monitor
    * Time
    * scientific american

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Chile's earthquake
In need of repairChile counts the cost of a devastating earthquake and makes plans for recovery Mar 1st 2010 | SANTIAGO | From The Economist online

RELIEF救援物资 was the initial reaction in Chile to what seemed relatively limited damage given the scale of the earthquake that shook the centre and south of the country in the early hours of凌晨 Saturday February 27th. That picture has been replaced gradually by dismay as the full extent of最大程度的 the cost begins to emerge. By Sunday evening, the number of confirmed deaths had reached over 700 and is still likely to rise, according to President Michelle Bachelet. This is still a low toll损失伤亡人数, however, for a quake of 8.8magnitude, one of the largest in the world since 1900.

Felt throughout almost all the country, the quake hit most strongly in six central regions, from the capital, Santiago, and the nearby port of Valparaiso in central Chile to the city of Temuco in the Araucanía region of the south. These parts of the country are home to about 60% of Chile's 17m inhabitants住户居民 and account for around 70% its GDP. An estimated估计的 1.5m homes are thought to have been damaged and around a third may have to be demolished.

The greatest damage and loss of life, however, appears to have been caused not by the earthquake itself but by a subsequent tidal wave潮汐 that washed over fishing towns on the coast of south-central Chile. In one such town, Constitución, rescue workers found over 300 bodies on Sunday. Much of the only town in the Juan Fernández archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, which belongs to Chile and is best-known as the place where Robinson Crusoe was marooned, was also destroyed.

Chile has developed an efficient disaster-response system to cope with应对处理 what Ms Bachelet has described as “a history plagued with natural disasters”. However,
looters抢劫者, particularly in the southern city of Concepción and other nearby towns, have dented the image of影响形象 a country swinging into action to开始运转 relieve its suffering people. Though some looters may have merely been in search of scarce food and water others were out for what they could take. As a result, on Sunday, the government imposed a curfew宵禁 in some of the worst-affected影响最严重 areas.

The earthquake struck just as the Chilean economy was beginning to recover after an estimated contraction of 0.9% in 2009. The after-effects will hamper the exports that drive the country's growth. Copper, Chile's biggest earner abroad, is produced mainly in the north of the country which was unscathed. But damage to ports further south may hamper shipments of forestry products, including wood pulp, while exports of fruit, now at the height of the harvest season in the southern hemisphere, will face delays as a result of damage to the main roads of central Chile.

Despite the earthquake’s likely impact on growth in the first and, possibly, the second quarter, it may actually provide a boost for the economy in the medium term as作为媒介提供契机 the government spends heavily to repair the damage. This is welcome news for the country’s president-elect, Sebastián Piñera, who is set to take office就职 on March 11th and was voted in on an ambitious promise of average economic growth of 6% annually over his four-year term.

Until assessment of the damage is complete, it is hard to estimate the cost of reconstruction.（Argument句型！） Eqecat, an American catastrophe-management company, has suggested that it could total as much as $30 billion, equivalent to 20% of Chile’s GDP in 2009. Part of the cost can readily容易 be financed out of the public purse国库, drawing on主要是 savings accumulated while copper price boomed between 2005 and 2008.

However, Mr Piñera, who has indentified increased private investment as one of the most important components of higher growth, has indicated that the government will not do all the work. He expects Chilean companies to play an important role in the reconstruction through a “Lift Chile” plan, which he outlined on Sunday. This may well include a revival复兴 of a public-works-concession scheme that Chile successfully launched in the mid-1990s precisely恰好 to build many of the motorways that were damaged by Saturday’s earthquake.

参考译文：
最初智利的救援物资相对减少了2月27日周六凌晨中部和南部地震带来的损失。但是这种局面逐渐被显露出来地震全貌带来的沮丧所取代。截至周日晚间，死亡确认人数超过了700并且还在增加。根据总统的说法，这还是一个低的伤亡人数。但这是1900年以来最大的一次8.8级地震。
地震几乎席卷智利全境，最强的主要发生在6个中心区域-从首都圣地亚哥和附近的Valparaiso港到南部的Araucanía地区的Temuco。这些区域居住了1700万人中的60%，占了70%的GDP。据估计，150万房屋被损坏，三分之一被夷平。
但是最大的生命财产损失不是因为地震本身，而是随之而来的席卷了中南部海岸渔村的潮汐波。像Constitución，救援队员周日找到了300多具尸体。太平洋中因为鲁宾逊漂流记闻名的孤岛Juan Fernández archipelago也被损坏了。
智利已经建立了有效的灾难反应机制来应对Bachelet女士描述为自然灾害的历史困扰。但是抢劫者，尤其在Concepción和附近的城市，已经严重影响动摇了地震受难者的国家形象。虽然一些抢劫者只不过抢食物和水，另一些则去拿他们能拿的。结果，周日政府在一些受影响最严重的区域实行了宵禁。
地震刚好发生在智利在经历了2009年0.9%收缩的经济恢复期。随后会阻碍作为国家支柱的出口贸易。最大的国外收入来源铜主要在北方生产，没有受损失。但是损害巨大的南部港口会阻碍木材的运输，包括木质纸浆。而出口的水果，现在处于南半球收获高峰期，也会因为中部主要公路的破坏而延迟。
相对于地震造成的损失，实际上，它很可能提供一个中期经济改善的契机，因为政府会投巨额资金修复损失。对于大选后3月11日走马上任并作出每年6%经济增长率的总统，这是一个值得欢迎的消息。
除非损失评估完成，否则估计重建费用很困难。美国灾难管理公司Eqecat认为总额高达300亿美元，相当于智利2009年20%的GDP。部分损失费用可以比较容易来源于国库，主要是2005年到2008年的铜价猛涨的积累。
但是曾经指出增长的私人投资是高增长的重要主城部分的Piñera先生，认为政府不会组织所有的工作。他周日预计智利企业将通过Lift Chile计划在重建中起重要作用。这可能会包括一个公共工程优惠计划，在上世纪90年代中期成功推出后，兴建了不少高速公路。这些公路也在地震中损害了。

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

China
Flowering friendliness?
China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, offers some gestures of conciliation和解姿态
Mar 5th 2010 | BEIJING | From The Economist online

AT THE opening of the annual session of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, could not resist忍不住 a bit of boasting自夸. China’s economy, he said, in a two-hour speech, had been the first in the world to make a turnaround复苏好转. With an implied sneer at the West’s continuing malaise, he spoke of socialism’s “advantages”: quick decision-making, effective organisation and an ability to “concentrate resources to accomplish large undertakings”.

Yet despite China’s swagger at having achieved 8.7% GDP growth last year (under the “firm leadership” of the Communists, Mr Wen reminded the nearly 3,000 party-picked delegates in the Great Hall of the People), its government has used the launch制定的计划 of the ten-day NPC session to make an unusual gesture of conciliation. The budget预算 submitted to the legislature立法机构 calls for the lowest rate of growth in defence spending国防支出 since 1988, a period in which almost every budget has called for double-digit increases. This year it proposes a mere 7.5%, quite a plunge骤降 from last year’s growth of 17.8%.

Mr Wen did not attempt to explain the change of gear, which was all the more unexpected given recent tensions between China and America over American arms sales to Taiwan, trade, Tibet and more. His speech did not even mention military spending and suggested no slowdown in China’s military modernisation. Mr Wen said that this year China would “strengthen all aspects of the army” to make it better able to win “informationised local wars” (a euphemism for a high-tech war with America in the Taiwan Strait) and to respond to “multiple security threats”.

The budget report was even less forthcoming信息不足. It said military spending would be 519 billion yuan this year ($76 billion). It added that “these funds will mainly be used to modernise the army”—an even more terse explanation than China’s normally opaque budgets are wont to惯于 give on military matters. The NPC’s spokesman, Li Zhaoxing, said that China had always paid attention to controlling its defence spending and
keeping it in line with保持一致 the pace of economic development. But this year’s projected growth would be only 1.2 percentage points higher than the budgeted increase in overall central government spending, a far narrower gap缩小的差距 than in previous years.

In the absence of a far more detailed breakdown缺少对...的详细分析 of China’s military budget, the Americans will not be very impressed.（argument句子！） The Pentagon五角大楼 said last year that despite persistent efforts to persuade the Chinese to be more forthcoming, its understanding of how China’s military accounting works had “not improved measurably”. It estimated that China’s actual military spending in 2008 was between $105 and $150 billion, compared with an officially declared官方公布 budget of $60 billion that year.

But China’s decision to announce a much lower rate of growth in 2010 may be intended to send a signal.释放一个信号 For all China’s increased assertiveness internationally over the past year (including its obduracy at climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen last December and heavy sentencing of dissidents despite Western appeals for clemency), it does not want to be seen as a potential military threat. Mr Wen repeated China’s usual target of 8% GDP growth this year, but many analysts believe that China could again exceed this figure. Few would have blinked if he had announced an increase in military spending well into double digits. But it would have reinforced longstanding worries about China’s military development, not least among its neighbours.

China is certainly keen to ^ send a positive signal to Taiwan, whose China-friendly president, Ma Ying-jeou, has lost popularity since his inauguration in 2008. Opposition politicians have highlighted China’s continuing build-up of missiles on the coast facing Taiwan as evidence that Mr Ma’s attempts to improve ties with加强联系 the mainland have produced no reciprocal互惠 gestures in the security realm. Mr Wen, however, said a “positive trend towards peaceful development” had emerged and that China would promote a “win-win situation” by signing a trade agreement with the island.

Despite their obvious relief that China has fared relatively well表现良好 during the recent economic storm, Chinese leaders still fret担忧 that bad times could follow. China’s economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, acknowledged in a report to the NPC that house prices were “overheating” in some cities, consumer spending was unlikely to grow significantly this year and the effect of stimulus measures激励政策 “might wear off减弱”. Yet the government says it wants to keep the budget deficit财政亏空 to 2.8% of GDP this year, about the same as last year. The world’s largest army could be a good place to look for savings.（argument句子）

参考译文：
在一年一度的全国人大开幕式上，中国总理温家宝忍不住要自夸一番。中国的经济，他在两个小时的演讲中说，已经在全球率先复苏。好象是带着一点对西方一直以来的不安的嘲讽，温家宝列举了社会主义制度的“优越性”：快速决策，有效组织和“集中力量办大事”的能力。
尽管中国因为2009年8.7%的GDP增速（温家宝提醒人民大会堂里的近3000名记者说，这是在党的“坚强领导”下取得的）而得意，中国政府还是利用为期十天的全国人大会议的开幕摆出了一个不寻常的和解姿态。提交人大的预算里包含了1988年以来最低的国防预算增速，这段时间里几乎每年预算中的国防部分都以两位数的速度增长。今年的国防预算增速仅有7.5%，与去年的17.8%相比低了不少。
温家宝并没有解释这一变化的原因，在最近中美关系因台湾军售、贸易、西藏和很多其它问题而紧张的背景下更加意外。他在讲话中并没有提到军事开支，并且没有表示中国将在国防现代化上减速。温家宝说，今年中国将“全面加强军队建设”，使其能够更好的打赢“信息化局部战争”（在台湾海峡与美国展开高技术战争的委婉说法），应对“多种安全威胁”。
预算报告提供的信息则更少。报告中提到今年的国防开支将为5190亿元人民币（760亿美元）。同时说“这些经费将主要用于军队现代化建设”——比中国在其不透明的预算中对国防方面的管用说法更加简短。人大发言人李肇星说，中国始终坚持适度控制的国防投入，以使之与经济建设协调发展。但是今年的国防开支增幅仅仅比整个中央预算增幅高了1.2个百分点，大大低于之前两者的差距。
由于缺少对于中国国防预算的详细统计分析，美国人并不会对此留下深刻印象。五角大楼去年表示，尽管一直在努力说服中国变得更加透明，它对于中国国防开支运作的了解“并没有明显进展”。五角大楼估计中国2008年的实际国防开始大约在1050到1500亿美元之间，而官方公布的预算数字仅有600亿美元。
但是中国2010年宣布的这一明显低得多的数字也许是在释放一个信号。因为中国去年在全球范围内不断增强的自信（包括它在哥本哈根会议上的固执立场和对西方要求宽恕异议人士的视而不见），它并不像被看成是一个潜在的军事威胁。温家宝反复强调今年GDP增速的目标是8%，但很分析人士认为中国可以再次超越这个数字。如果中国今年再次宣布其国防开支将保持两位数增长的话，没有几个人会觉得奇怪，但是这样会加深外界长久以来对中国军力事发展的担忧，而且不仅仅是它的邻国有这样的担忧。
中国也很敏锐地要给亲大陆的台湾“总统”马英九发出一个积极信号，2008年当选至今，马英九已经失去了他的高支持率。在野党政客们强调，中国在面对台湾的沿海地区不断部署导弹的做法证明了马英九与大陆修好的努力并没有在军事领域得到对等的表示。而温家宝则表示，“和平发展的良好势头”已经出现，大陆会通过与台湾签署贸易协议来推进一个“双赢的局面”。
尽管金融危机中的良好表现可以让中国领导人好好松一口气，他们仍然为可能到来的坏时光而担忧。国家发改委在给人大提交的一份报告中承认，某些城市的房价已经“过热”，今年消费很难大幅增长，刺激政策的效果可能减退。尽管如此，中国政府仍然表示它希望将赤字控制在GDP的2.8%以内，与去年的水平保持一致。世界上最庞大的一支军队也许要好好想办法省钱了。

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Climate-change politics
Cap-and-trade交易's last hurrah欢呼
The decline of a once wildly popular idea
Mar 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition



Gaia大地女神 指地球 lent an unhelpful hand


IN THE 1990s cap-and-trade—the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by auctioning off竞拍 a set number of pollution permits, which could then be traded in a market—was the darling of宠儿 the green policy circuit. A similar approach to sulphur dioxide emissions, introduced under the 1990 Clean Air Act, was credited with有利于归功于 having helped solve acid-rain problems quickly and cheaply. And its great advantage was that it hardly looked like a tax at all, though it would bring in a lot of money.

The cap-and-trade provision expected in the climate legislation that Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham have been working on, which may be unveiled出炉 shortly, will be a poor shadow of that once alluring idea. Cap-and-trade will not be the centrepiece重点 of the legislation (as it was of last year’s House climate bill, Waxman-Markey), but is instead likely to apply only to electrical utilities, at least for the time being.至少现在如此 Transport fuels will probably be approached with some sort of tax or fee; industrial emissions will be tackled with采用 regulation and possibly, later on, carbon trading. The hope will be to cobble together拼凑 cuts in加入 emissions similar in scope to像...一样 those foreseen under the House bill, in which the vast majority of domestic cuts in emissions came from utilities.

This composite approach is necessary because the charms of economy-wide cap-and-trade have faded badly. The ability to raise money from industry is not so attractive in a downturn低迷期. Market mechanisms市场机制 have lost their appeal失去吸引力 as a result of the financial crisis. More generally, climate is not something the public seems to feel strongly about at the moment, in part because of that recession, in part perhaps because they have worries about the science (see article), in part, it appears, because the winter has been a snowy one.（连续三个原因的写法！！！）

The public is, though, quite keen on热心 new initiatives on energy, which any Senate bill will shower with大量 incentives刺激 and subsidies补助 whether the energy in question be renewable, nuclear, pumped out from beneath the seabed海底 or still confined to research laboratories处于研究阶段. So the bill will need to raise money, which is why cap-and-trade is likely to remain for the utilities公共工程, and revenues will be raised from transport fuels. A complex way of doing this, called a linked fee, would tie the revenues to the value of carbon in the utility market; a straightforward carbon tax may actually have a better chance of passing通过的几率更大.


Energy bills have in the past garnered bipartisan support得到支持, and this one also needs to. That is why Senator Graham matters. He could bring on board参与 both Democrats and Republicans. Mr Graham’s contribution has been to focus the rhetoric not just on near-term jobs, but also on longer-term competitiveness. Every day America does not have climate legislation, he argues, is a day that China’s grip on紧紧抓住 the global green economy gets tighter.


He also thinks action on the issue would be good for his party. While short-term Republican interests call for opposition, the party’s long-term interests must include broadening its support. Among young people, for example, polling民意测验 suggests that the environment, and the climate, matter a great deal.


Unfortunately for this argument, tactics matter, and young voters are unlikely to play a great role in the mid-term election. Other Republicans may think it better to wait before re-establishing the party’s green credentials. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, is happy to talk about climate as a problem, and talks about the desirability of some sort of carbon restriction—perhaps a tax, or some version of Maria Cantwell’s “cap-and-dividend” scheme. But she expresses no great urgency about the subject. And she has introduced one of two measures intended to curtail the power the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now has to regulate carbon, on the ground that理由是 that is a matter for legislation sometime in the future.

The EPA’s new powers undoubtedly make the charms of legislation greater. Some industrial lobbies技术官 may decide that the bill will provide the certainty they need to decide about future investment, and get behind it. The White House has been supportive of支持 late, inviting senators over to talk. But it remains an uphill费力漫长艰难 struggle, and the use of reconciliation to pass health care could greatly increase the gradient of the hill增加难度, as Mr Graham has made abundantly clear这一点已经充分说明.

If the bill does not pass, it will change environmental politics in America and beyond国内外. The large, comparatively business-friendly environmental groups that have been proponents of反对 trading schemes will lose ground站不住脚, with organisations closer to the grassroots, and perhaps with a taste for civil disobedience非暴力温和抵抗, gaining power. Carbon-trading schemes elsewhere in the world have already been deprived of a vast new market—Waxman-Markey, now dead, would have seen a great many carbon credits bought in from overseas—and if America turned away from cap-and-trade altogether they would look even less transformative than they do today. And as market-based approaches lose relevance失去相关性, what climate action continues may come to lean more heavily on依靠 the command-and-control techniques they were intended to replace.


参考译文

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Jesus Christ
Paradox
An atheist无神论者 and a Roman Catholic罗马天主教 offer a fresh take on an old question旧题新解
Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist print edition


Jesus: A Biography From a Believer. By Paul Johnson. Viking; 242 pages; $24 and £17.99.
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel卑鄙无赖的 Christ. By Philip Pullman. Canongate; 245 pages; $24 and £14.99.

WAS Jesus of Nazareth拿撒勒 divine or human, or did he combine both attributes属性 in a unique, mysterious way（是神性是人性还是两者都有）? On every page of the Gospels福音书 there are passages that have been used as evidence on one side or the other辩论双方 of that 2,000-year-old discussion. Traditional Christian theology offers subtle, mind-bending晦涩难懂 formulas套话模式 which aim to settle the matter in so far as在...范围内 it can be settled within the limits of human language. But for many ordinary believers, the question is just a paradox that they are forced perpetually to grapple with不断和...角力 without ever quite resolving it.


Nowhere is the paradox thrown into sharper relief than in the readings that will be heard by hundreds of millions of people, from Mexico to Vladivostok, on April 4th（倒装句式）. (This is a year when the rotating calendars of the Christian West and the Christian East agree on the same date for Easter Sunday.) According to those readings, the resurrected Christ is not a ghost but a flesh-and-blood human being, who breaks bread and consumes吃 fish. But he is not instantly recognisable; it is not his physical attributes but a “burning in their hearts” that tells the world who he is. And when Jesus successfully challenges his sceptical disciple信徒, Thomas, to touch his wounded hand, the gasped response is not simply relief at the return of an old, human friend, but…“My Lord and my God.”
Two new books, one by a British journalist who is a Roman Catholic and the other by an atheist novelist whose cultural reference-points are Christian, offer modern responses to the Jesus paradox.

As a commentator (once on the centre left but now on the traditionalist right) and a writer of big, broad works on history, Paul Johnson has the literary skills to make a compelling narrative out of the Gospels’ disjointed account of the words, deeds, death and resurrection支离破碎的... of Jesus. As a Catholic, he is committed to the belief that Christ was both “True God from True God” (in the words of the Nicene creed教义) and a man who experienced sorrow, temptation, loneliness and all the other features of human life（人类本性）. But he explains in the opening pages开篇 that he considers it “futile” to delve into挖掘 divine realities神性实体, and will therefore focus on the earthly life of Jesus.

Dedicated to his late mother “who first taught me about Jesus” and with a subtitle that makes his own position crystal-clear清晰, this is a book that some readers—especially non-believers—may find sentimental or cloying. It assumes the Nativity基督诞生 stories are more or less literally true, skirting round the problems posed by differences between the accounts of Luke and Matthew（假设...是真的，但是对...却避而不谈。argument假设！！）. But there are some good observations about the differences between the Gospels and other contemporary texts; Mr Johnson notes the prominent role played by women and the empathy of Jesus with female dilemmas（对...的同情）. He shows how Jesus mixed compassion for children and their parents with insistence that ultimately, obedience to God supersedes取而代之 family ties.

Philip Pullman addresses the apparent separateness属性个性 of his subject’s divinity and humanity in a far more provocative way用挑衅方式. Brought up by a clerical grandfather, Mr Pullman is a declared adversary of organised Christianity and is best known for his bestselling children’s trilogy, “His Dark Materials”. As he tells the Gospel story, Mary did not have one son but twins—a gifted but pious and humble神赐虔诚谦卑 one called Jesus and his more calculating and sophisticated brother, Christ. Observing his modest sibling兄弟姐妹, Christ concludes that the story needs to evolve in certain ways if the wandering faith-healer’s work is to become the basis of a world religion. In the end Christ colludes with his brother’s death and helps, directly and indirectly, to construct a new narrative about his resurrection. When the disciples meet their risen master, it is really Christ they are encountering, not his twin, Jesus.

Many Christian readers will recoil退缩回避 in horror at Mr Pullman’s plunge into heresy异端邪说. But he is wrestling with the same question思考同样问题 they are: how divinity and humanity could co-exist in the founder of their religion. Thomas wondered about that, too.

注1：Gospel 福音书，指新约圣经的前四卷——马太福音、马可福音、路加福音和约翰福音。
注2：Easter Sunday复活节，每年春分月圆之后第一个星期日，因东西方基督教计算方法不同，东西方复活节常出现在不同的日期。
注3：burning in their hearts，路加福音24:32-“And they said to one another, Were not our hearts burning in us while he was talking to us on the way, making clear to us the holy Writings?”
注4：Nicene creed《尼西亚信经》，由325年召开的尼西亚公会议制定，故名。此信经主要内容与《使徒信经》大致相同，但更详尽，强调了圣父、圣子、圣灵三位一体的意义，明确了三个位格之间的关系。

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

California’s schools
From bad to worse
Lessons from a state that has let its pupils down
Mar 31st 2010 | LOS ANGELES | From The Economist print edition

More basics required

AS THE Obama administration spreads enthusiasm about充满热情地 a proposal to replace a patchwork各种各样层次不一东拼西凑 of state education standards with national ones, it might also heed留意注意 a cautionary tale警示性的故事实例. In the 1990s California too（位置！！） established rigorous严密 standards. “We thought they were the highest,” up there with比..还要高 those of Massachusetts and Indiana, says Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think-tank智囊 in Washington, DC. But California never translated
those standards into results将...执行到底. Its public schools are, with some exceptions, awful. Moreover, the state’s fiscal crisis财务危机 is about to将会 make them even worse. （教育政策推广面临两大难题，以加州为例：1执行到底 2 财政危机）

California’s 8th-graders (14-year-olds), for example, ranked排名 46th in maths last year. Only Alabama, Mississippi and the District of Columbia did worse仅仅比...好. California also sends a smaller share of所占比例很少 its high-school graduates to college than all but（简单有效） three other states. One of its roughly 1,000 school districts, Los Angeles Unified, which happens to be恰巧成为 the second-largest in the country, has just become the first to be investigated by the federal Office for Civil Rights about whether it adequately teaches pupils who have little or no English.

Eli Broad, a Los Angeles philanthropist慈善家 who is trying to reform education, blames a combination of组成 California’s dysfunctional governance政府管理不当, with “elected school boards校董 made up of wannabes有同样想法的人 and unions”, and the fact that the state’s teachers’ union is both more powerful and “more regressive” than elsewhere别的地方.（学习将短句变长句！！） The California Teachers Association (CTA) is the biggest lobby组织 in the state, having（将应为which的句子变成doing） spent some $210m in the past decade—more than any other group— to intervene in干预 California’s politics.

The CTA has used its money to defeat almost any reform打击任何政策 that might have turned the standards into reality将政策推广到现实. It helped to defeat ballot measures公投 that, for example, would have given California a school-voucher system学校补助金券 and changed the probation period试用期 for teachers. It ensured that the state has “laughably easy teacher tests”, as Mr Petrilli puts it. It is also the biggest donor to the state’s Democratic Party.

Another factor is money. California’s infamous Proposition 13 of 1978 cut property taxes, the main source of revenue for municipalities市政当局 and school districts. Other ballot measures, such as Proposition 98 in 1988, were meant to restore school spending, with horrendously complex funding formulas. But although schools account for the largest part of California’s budget, California entered the recession进入经济衰退期 ranking 46th in spending per pupil. It has the largest classrooms in the country, with 23.4 students per teacher in 2008, almost twice the national average. Schools in black and Latino districts fare much worse than those in white areas.

Now spending is being cut further, as California has to keep plugging budget holes填补漏洞. Funding per pupil in the state has dropped almost 11% in the past two fiscal years, and is certain to drop further. This fiscal year, the school districts have been able to use federal funds from the stimulus programme to mitigate缓和减轻 the effects. But those funds end in the fiscal year that starts in July.

参考译文

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Schumpeter
The panda has two faces
Doing business in China
is no stroll in the people’s park不是闲庭信步—and never will be
Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist print edition




GOOGLE and Rio Tinto are the chalk and cheese相去甚远 of the business world: the former a bits-and-bites电脑数位 wunderkind神童 born in 1998, the latter a grizzled mining company that has been around since 1873. But over the past few months they have both found themselves in trouble with the Chinese authorities.

To avoid censorship, Google has closed its Chinese search engine and diverted traffic from the country to its site in Hong Kong. Rio Tinto has seen four of its employees sentenced to lengthy prison terms for taking bribes from Chinese firms. Google and Rio are only the most recent of a long line of长期...的最近几个 Western companies to have been bruised by China. Unilever suffered for years because it was forced into shotgun强迫的 marriages with unsatisfactory Chinese partners. The government has prevented Coca-Cola from buying a local juice-maker out of seemingly spurious concerns about competition. A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce美国商会 in China found that a high proportion of American firms doing business in the country feel that they are the victims of discriminatory or inconsistent treatment.

The most obvious reason for this is that the ruling Communist Party is a nightmare to deal with—all smiles one moment and snarls the next. The party has been wooing foreign investors for decades with access to cheap labour and a huge market, not to mention特别称道的还有 fancy office parks and world-class世界级 infrastructure基础设施: since the mid-1990s Shanghai has built a second international airport, a new subway, inner and outer ring roads, two elevated freeways and a light-rail system. （基础设施举例子）

But at the same time the Chinese want their pound of flesh合法但不合理的要求. The party regards foreign investment as a mechanism for acquiring foreign know-how技术知识 rather than just jobs and capital; hence the insistence on joint ventures合资. It also regards economic growth as a tool for entrenching巩固 its own power; hence the application of the iron fist whenever business threatens to get out of control.

These political difficulties are piled on top of建立在...之上 cultural difficulties. The Chinese emphasis on personal connections (guanxi) makes it hard to distinguish between business-as-usual and corruption. And the weakness of the legal system means that companies operate in a confusing half-light处于灰色地带. Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perceptions Index ranks China 79th out of 180 countries.

Corruption, legal caprice and the government’s determination to control and exploit剥削 foreign firms all seem to have played a part in 成为...原因 Rio’s troubles. Although the trial of Rio’s employees hinged on the bribes they confessed to taking, the government’s decision to arrest them in the first place came hot on the heels of关键时期 Rio’s decision to pull out of a deal with one Chinese state-controlled firm, and amid在...中间，处于 tense negotiations over the price of iron ore with others. The government has done nothing to bring the Chinese bribe-payers to book. In the case of Google, the government not only insisted on censoring search results, but was also thought to be behind attempts to背后指使 hack into黑客侵入 dissidents’ correspondence on the company’s webmail service.

All very messy.一切都令人生厌
Yet the only thing more dangerous than dealing with China is not dealing with it. China is already well on the way to becoming the world’s biggest market for anything you can think of. It has 400m internet-users compared with America’s 240m and India’s 80m. Last year car sales in China surpassed those in the United States. And the Chinese market is only going to get bigger. China’s economy is growing at 10% a year at a time when the developed world looks set for a period of prolonged lethargy处于昏昏欲睡的状态. No wonder more than 300,000 foreign firms have invested in the Middle Kingdom.

How can these companies boost their chances of riding the Chinese wave rather than being dragged down拖入 by the undertow潜流? The fact that some of the world’s best companies have struggled in China suggests that there are no easy answers.事实证明不太容易 But several decades of corporate agonies长期积累的经验教训 suggest two clear rules for doing business in the country.

Just add butter 巴结就行

The first is that companies need to show an almost exaggerated respect for China’s traditions: the Chinese are simultaneously immensely proud of their history and highly suspicious of foreigners who, in their view, have repeatedly mistreated them. This means making a long-term bet做长线准备 on the country. P&G took three years to become profitable in China. L’Oreal took nine. KFC spent ten years perfecting its business model before becoming the powerhouse行业龙头 that it now is, with restaurants in 450 cities. It also means investing heavily in politicking政治活动. Stanley Wong, head of Standard Chartered渣打’s Chinese operations, reckons that multinationals’ senior representatives in China must spend 30-40% of their time buttering up巴结 officials and regulators.

The second rule is that companies should never abandon their principles for short-term gains不为五斗米折腰. Freedom of information is so central to Google’s identity that it was right to declare it sacrosanct神圣不可侵犯 and repudiate摈弃拒绝...效力权利 its previous willingness to negotiate it away妥协 for commercial advantage. Although the Chinese government may not accept such intransigence不妥协, as in Google’s case, the odds优势优胜性 are better if firms slavishly言听计从地 follow the first rule.

That is a price worth paying.这个代价值得 There is growing evidence that the Chinese market is living up to its promise. The American Chamber reported in 2008 that three-quarters of the companies that it surveyed were finally making money in China, and almost half were enjoying margins that are higher than the global average, up from 13% a decade before. But there is equally no doubt that the Chinese will remain tough customers. They have profited mightily from their ability to squeeze concessions迫使让步 from Western firms. And the financial crisis has boosted their confidence in their way of doing things. There will be plenty more cases like Google and Rio Tinto in the years to come.

参考译文

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Volunteers Put the Economist Into Chinese 将...翻译为...

By ANDREW BAIO
Published: March 1, 2009
From The New York Times online

Every day, Chinese fans produce unauthorized translations of Western pop culture products and put them online, like subtitled episodes配字幕 of “Heroes” or the final Harry Potter novel. But a group calling itself自称为 the Eco Team has picked a more cerebral智力，引申为专业 target: the British newsweekly The Economist.

With each new issue, the group’s members work together to sharpen their language skills by通过某种手段 translating the magazine from cover to cover一期又一期.

The group meets on a message board at ecocn.org/bbs that is led by Shi Yi, a 39-year-old insurance broker保险经纪人（agent） in Beijing. “Different people come from different backgrounds with their own purpose（AW句子！！）,” Mr. Yi said. “But we all like the style of The Economist.”

Thirty to 40（注意No. to No. 段首写法） of the group’s members work on each issue, Mr. Yi said. On the message board, they interweave paragraphs of English and Chinese text英汉段落穿插 and collaborate on合作 the translations. The final versions are bundled into合成为 Eco Weekly, a publication in the PDF format以...格式 that is released出版 biweekly and can be freely downloaded and printed.

The translators know they are taking a political risk. The Chinese authorities have ripped controversial articles和谐某些文章 about China out of some issues of The Economist before they hit the stands上市销售 there. In 2002, a full issue was banned取缔.

As a result, several topics are taboo. In its published guidelines, the Eco Team bans articles about China’s relationship with Taiwan, Tibet, Falun Gong and the Tiananmen Square protests.

Articles about China’s restrictions on the news media are also off limits禁止, as is discussion of the “Great Firewall of China,” a system used to block some Internet content. “Political issues are quite sensitive in current China,” Mr. Yi said. “We do not want to make any trouble to irritate the government.”

So far迄今为止, neither the Chinese authorities nor The Economist has tried to stop the noncommercial, volunteer effort. Mr. Yi said that he had met members of the magazine’s staff, including its editor, John Micklethwait, and that they had granted their approval得到许可. A spokesman for The Economist, Justin Hendrix, was unable to confirm that arrangement as of Sunday night.

Meanwhile, the group is hard at work on加紧工作 the 50th issue of Eco Weekly. Who needs the latest episode of “Lost” when a cover story on the fate of European unity awaits?
参考译文

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Social democracy
A plea辩护 for liberalism自由主义
Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Lessons from the 20th century

Ill Fares the Land. By Tony Judt. Penguin Press; 237 pages; $25.95. Allen Lane; £20.

“ILL Fares the Land” is poignant and arresting辛辣而吸引, both for who wrote it（注意名词的多变性，没有用author之类，ISSUE！！） and for what it says. Its author, a British 20th- century historian at New York University, is dying of motor-neurone disease神经元疾病 that has robbed him of（使...失去） movement and will soon rob him of speech. He dictated描述口述 this cri de coeur about the need for social democracy to an amanuensis笔记者.

Social democracy, which Tony Judt calls “the prose of European politics”, is what Americans call liberalism. Though wounded还未成熟 as a theory, it limps on跛行-->有困难地发展 under assumed names as the practice of government on both sides of the Atlantic for want of寻求，为了 credible alternatives可行之道、变通的措施. As an idealist, Mr Judt hopes for a revived social democracy that will again speak its name被津津乐道，流行. As a realist, he recognises that it may be grievously, even terminally vulnerable文章第一句之变体.

He writes, he says, for the young, who have to deal with the mess he believes his own generation has made of Western society. He scolds斥责 it for letting inequalities grow. Not everyone will like the tone论调, although such charges are today harder to brush off抹掉洗去 than in the boom years. Preaching aside, his key point is sound: neither right nor left has any longer a plausible story to tell about the state.
（除...之外，还认为，AW！！）

Whichever label you use, liberalism or social democracy was the bipartisan outlook意见 that underpinned巩固 American and European politics for 30 years after 1945. It achieved a balance between market and state. It oversaw a fruitful truce between business and labour that produced a golden period for capitalism with benefits all round. Then came stagflation滞涨, taxpayer revolts抗税, fiscal crisis财政危机 and a triumphant revival of free-market ideas（列举经济负面）. For the next 30 years, a new shrink-the-state “paradigm” ruled, with its own promise of open horizons and benefits all round各个方面. Now weakened and indebted governments are counted on for依赖 handouts from every side, banks and businesses included. Nobody is sure what to believe.没有人知道信仰什么（学习本段按时间顺序概括主题）

Though many will agree with that diagnosis, Mr Judt himself is hesitant about the cure. Ideally he wants another post-1945 social compact合约. But he is too aware of注意到 the internal conditions that made it possible—economic depression经济衰退, sacrifice in war战争伤亡, the totalitarian shadow极权主义—to think it restorable on the earlier terms. The external conditions have changed utterly完全 as well. The West has lost economic eminence经济优势. Increasingly social democracy must borrow from foreigners to pay for itself. That cannot last.

The future is not inevitably bleak萧条严峻 for the Euro-American way. As the rest of the world grows richer富强, perhaps it too（位置） will see the benefits of a compact that, for those lucky enough to enjoy it, struck a unique balance between economic growth, social equity and personal freedom在...中找到平衡. Then again, perhaps not, he says.（注意转折，深度！） Mr Judt explores neither possibility in depth, ending instead with an eye cast back to反观 the past century. How easily, he reminds readers, stable-looking societies can totter摇摇欲坠. His final case for social democracy is a “show-me-a-better-foxhole”天无绝人之路 plea. Nothing else looks more desirable.没有更好的 Without it, much that Western people value may be lost. “If social democracy has a future,” Mr Judt concludes, “it will be as a social democracy of fear.”

参考译文

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

  

环境发展：保持稳定还是变革？

About this debate
Sustainability implies stability. Development implies change. How can the two be reconciled? And what is the role of chemistry in that reconciliation? In a debate linked to the Annual Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, which this year gathers winners of the chemistry prize, we investigate this question.

Chemistry has an important role in bringing about any reconciliation. It can produce substitutes for things that now require expensive and polluting mineral extraction. It can clean up effluent, including carbon dioxide, that would otherwise contribute to climate change. And it can help with the efficient capture of sunlight to make electricity and non-fossil fuels. But will that be enough? Or is "sustainable development" truly the oxymoron that it sounds?

Background reading
Follow the blog from the Lindau meeting
Watch live streams of lectures and panels from the Lindau meeting

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Representing the sides

Defending the motion 支持派

The proposer's opening remarks
David G. Victor  
Law Professor at Stanford & Prof. of International Relations, University of California at San Diego

Sustainable development is a beautiful-sounding idea that has become intellectually bankrupt完全失败 and should be abandoned.（定主题基调） It leads to wrongheaded thinking about the real causes of economic and environmental troubles. And it encourages governments to adopt terrible policies.（负面影响）

The original thinking behind sustainable development was smart and proper.（让步） Back in 1987 the Norwegian prime minister, Gro Brundtland, chaired a commission on economics and greenery绿色环保 that famously called sustainable the kind of development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

In the decades since, the concept of sustainable development has grown more popular because its meaning has become fuzzier. The problems have arisen on four fronts.（现在出现了如下问题）

First, advocates for sustainable development have used the concept's ambiguity as a licence to embrace引起 stasis and autonomy. There is no question that we face severe environmental challenges because we are using some resources at a rate faster than they can regenerate. But that is hardly new: human society, especially in the industrial eras工业时代, has always leaned hard on its resources. And we have fixed most of those problems through radical彻底 changes in technology and behaviour.（泛泛谈一下） Three hundred years ago analysts were terrified about a scarcity不足 of salt needed to cure foods, and reminiscent of使人想起 today's oil security woes不幸灾难, governments created national champion companies to make their nations independent in salt. But as Mark Kurlansky's history, Salt, has shown, society fixed the salt problem mainly through innovation: canning and refrigeration, in particular. And the societies that did best in managing their salt troubles were those most open to change and international trade in ideas and technologies.（具体事例剖析）
Nothing in the original idea of sustainable development mandated要求 independence and stasis.（Nothing引起...） But as the deep greens have taken hold of影响 the idea they have pushed it this direction向...方向推进. In reality, well-focused technological change is a saviour, not an evil that undermines sustainable development.（比喻！！！） Today's challenges, such as global warming, are no different. Global warming is so huge a challenge that it seems unsolvable. But it can and will be solved the same way that society shook its dependence on salt: through new technologies and shifting to new resources.

The second trouble with sustainable development has arisen with future generations. Indeed（让步）, it was this aspect of Brundtland's report—a focus on stewardship管理 for future generations—that garnered the most attention得到关注. Yet on this front woolly混乱的乱糟糟的 thinking has also destroyed the original idea. Concern about对于...的担心 future generations has become a one-sided game that focuses only on harms.（表达只带来危害的好句！！！） In reality, the damage of extracting resources also produces huge benefits such as new ideas and investment in infrastructure基础设施 that also pass to future generations. It has proved hard to measure and value all the goods and bads, but the assets that most generations pass to their descendants usually far exceed the liabilities超过应该负的责任（很难判断好坏，AW！！）.

The third front is policy. The original concept of sustainable development encouraged policies that used resources so long as the depletion was efficient and focused on long-term investment.（先引申一段） On that basis, societies extracted salt from the earth, depleted消耗 minerals and engaged in a host of许多 seemingly unsustainable activities. Yet they were exactly the right thing to do because they promoted economic growth that, with smart regulation, shifted our societies to other resources. Yet today the deep green advocates for sustainable development seek energy independence and autonomy. （注意两个YET）They are terrified of恐惧 treading on践踏 any resource and thus undermine the human ingenuity创造力换词 that is essential for us to sustain our place on the planet地球换词.
Today, ground zero in the sustainable development debate is so-called renewable power可再生能力. Many governments are spending a fortune on the logic that if it is renewable it must be sustainable. Yet the reality is totally different. Many renewable sources may recharge their energy resources, yet they have other heavy footprints on our resources. Wind turbines风力发电, for example, are an eyesore眼中钉 on open spaces and wilderness. Like the oil pipelines of yesteryear去年, they need access roads that open landscapes to abuse, and all the power lines that carry renewable wind to markets are an extra pressure on the land. And this problem is hardly unique for wind.（过渡句，不仅是...） Disastrous renewable biofuels生物燃料 policies, wrapped in the deep green of sustainable development and energy independence, have caused a horror on the landscape and, some say, threaten food supplies.
For policy, what matters most is getting the accounting and the regulatory signals right.（提出问题所在） Global warming persists because barely仅仅 any government has really tackled应对 that challenge, not because societies are underspending on花费少 favoured renewable energy technologies or other darlings好处 of the deep green. Just because fossil fuels are finite does not mean that they should not be used, if married with密切联系 clear and strong incentives刺激 to be frugal and to lighten their environmental footprint减少影响.

Finally, sustainable development has become about greenery. But in Brundtland's sage definition it was about many other dimensions维度: protection of human rights, dignity and fairness权利尊重公正. Those ideas, vague all, remain essential today. Indeed, the developing world is rightly afraid that all the greenery in the North will be an excuse借口 to ignore these many other aspects of welfare that, in the end, are what civilisation is all about.

Back in 1987 sustainable development was a smart and attractive idea because nobody really knew what it meant. As I outlined in more detail in the magazine Foreign Affairs ("Recovering Sustainable Development", January 2006), the last two decades have yielded an empty debate空洞辩论. Intellectually and politically, sustainable development is not sustainable and has become dangerous. It should be abandoned.

（点评：论述完整，开头总领，然后回顾历史原因，body四点分析，结尾总结全文。注意body段的写法：多少多少的形式，多的段举例子+提出解决办法。主要从历史角度阐发）

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Against the motion 反对派

The opposition's opening remarks

Dr Peter Courtland Agre M.D.
University Professor and Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute

With apologies to English teachers everywhere, my position to this statement is the double negative—"sustainability is not unsustainable."（委婉的写法，可能要提及english teacher） But this may be true only if we in America get a firm national grip on reality紧紧抓住问题. I focus my argument on America as it is the world's biggest economy and (with China) its worst polluter.(旗帜鲜明的指向)

Our situation is indeed exceedingly极其 grim—increasing release of toxins into the environment, energy gluttony and the appearance of epidemic obesity（环境问题非常好的举例！！！环境污染资源浪费瘟疫横行）. Compounding these problems is the nearly total lack of thrift among Americans whose uncontrollable consumerism用户至上 is sufficient to support multiple shopping channels on the television 24 x 7 x 365 at a time of unprecedented debt.（指出原因）

To have the world's biggest economy is irrelevant if we squander our wealth on fluff浪费钱财在无价值的东西上. Popular television advertising revenues alone could sustain significant educational reform in the US. Consider for example that one second of advertising during the Super Bowl retails for零售 $100,000—twice the annual salary of a beginning schoolteacher. The wisdom behind the rising economy in China must be questioned, since they now have 3% of the world's paved roadways铺设道路 but 21% of the world's highway fatalities致命的. If this truly reflects giving the public what it wants, we are most certainly doomed.（学习super bowl 和 paved roadways例子）

Rather than arguing that science will save us simply through new inventions, let me suggest that it is wisdom from our history that may save us.

Altering behaviour is exceedingly difficult but not impossible.Before the arrival of the Europeans, North America was home to the Native American Indians. Their culture had remarkable beauty but was technologically primitive. Native Americans lacked the wheel, had no units to measure time shorter than one day, and often faced starvation in winter. But in terms of wisdom, they had remarkable ability. Important tribal decisions were only made after the elders considered consequences their decisions would have seven generations in the future.The concept of "Seven Generation Sustainability" was known to our Founding Fathers. If we consider the mindset of America's leaders seven generations back, it would include wisdom not commonly articulated by提出 many of our leaders today. Moreover, is it possible that the Founding Fathers' wisdom is still current? Let us revisit some pearls dropped by two of our Founding Fathers who also happen to have been scientists—Benjamin Franklinand Thomas Jefferson.（学习前辈的宝贵经验，承上启下）

Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned" and "Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle." Would our current Federal Reserve联邦储备银行 Chairman question Franklin's thoughts on thrift? "Never spend your money before you have earned it": excellent advice from Jefferson, but a trait that he did not adhere to personally. While Franklin was not well known for his positions on natural conservation, his wit was poignant: "When the well's dry, we know the worth of water." Jefferson was more outspoken直率 on issues of the natural world. "There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me."

Wisdom and political mobilisation动员鼓动 of the sort achieved by the Founding Fathers are needed today to bring about sustainable development. Given proper investment, scientific development of renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy is likely合适. Design of modern, livable cities with expedient forms得当措施 of public transportation is feasible可行. But the determining factor决定因素 is likely to be our national will. Are we willing to do the necessary belt-tightening紧密联系? Do we want this enough to make the sacrifices necessary?（让步+质疑）

Achievement of sustainability can only occur if the public demands it. My view is that a populist平民 revolt for反对 sustainability must be initiated, and it must include the young. Jefferson claimed that "Every generation needs a new revolution," and Franklin that "Many people die at 25 but are not buried until they are 75." Our younger generation will determine if the right decisions are undertaken by becoming engaged in the most important issue of our time.

Specifically确切的说, we must place greater emphasis on what can be done currently and less on wishful thinking about miracle inventions that are allegedly依其引述 imminent. Ranks of the progressives are consumed with internecine内讧/两败 conflict about use of coal, our most plentiful energy source, for the generation of electricity. Let us not delay the opportunity让我们抓住机会, both in the US and in China, to convert from traditional coal-burning technology to modern integrated coal-gasification power with dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases because perfection has not yet been achieved从没有完成.

We Nobel laureates桂冠 are often congratulated on being brilliant and important (in truth we like it), but this needs to be reconsidered from a different perspective.从另一个角度看问题 As President Kennedystated at the White House dinner for 49 Nobel laureates in May 1962, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

This underscores强调 Jefferson's view that "One man with courage is a majority."（quote：个人和社会关系的论题） A call for national activism行动派 is necessary. If Franklin and Jefferson were here today, I suspect that they would tell us that the future of society and the future of the planet seven generations from now will most certainly reflect the decisions made by today's leaders and the actions of our younger generation.

While Barack Obama may not be a modern-day当代换词 Thomas Jefferson, he demonstrated remarkable wisdom by appointing Nobel laureate Steven Chu as secretary of energy. Chu is a hero to many young scientists and environmentalists in the United States, and as a first-generation Chinese-American, he is celebrated widely in China. At last we may have national leadership that can pull us up to our full stature会得到较好发展. I choose to be optimistic.
（引用历史名人言论，寄希望于政府新措施和年轻行动派，历史结合时事）

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政府与创新之辩

Content  About this debate & Background reading
                The proposer's opening remarks vs The opposition's opening remarks
                The moderator's opening remarks
                Comments from the floor
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About this debate
What is the right role for government in spurring innovation? The outlines of this age-old debate will be familiar to many. One side argues that governments inevitably get it wrong when they get too involved in innovation: picking the wrong technology winners, say比如说, or ploughing subsidies into提供资金支持 politically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The other rebuts that given the grave global challenges we face today面对挑战—in the 1960s America thought it was the Soviet race into space, today many countries worry about climate change and pandemic threats—governments need to do much more to support innovation.（学习此句用于ISSUE开头段，论述政府改革革新类）

Background reading
Private-sector space flight: Moon dreams
Climate-change politics: Cap-and-trade's last hurrah
Genetically modified food: Attack of the really quite likeable tomatoes
Business.view: Can America keep its innovative edge?

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Defending the motion 从小处着眼

The proposer's opening remarks
Amar Bhidé  
Visiting Scholar, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Innovation now attracts innumerable worshippers but their prayers are often quite narrow and sectarian. （学习此句宗教metaphor）Silicon Valley硅谷 or possibly the Israeli high-tech industry以色列高端科技产业 is the promised land: a wondrous combination of private high-tech enterprise underpinned by支持 government-financed universities and research labs. （...之间的合作）

This is, alas, a dubious conception of paradise（常用metaphor）. For all the high-tech prowess of Silicon Valley, the economy of California is on the edge of disaster处于灾难边缘. Unemployment in eight counties now tops 20% and the government pays its bills in IOUs债务. And in spite of its extraordinary concentration of scientific and engineering talent and entrepreneurship创业精神, Israel's GDP per head in 2009 was lower than of Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.（高科技泡沫！学习首句用metaphor做转折，承上启下）

Or remember Japan's omnipotent, visionary MITI（Ministry of International Trade and Industry 日本贸易部） working hand and glove with the likes of亲密结合 NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu? Put aside撇开 fiascos such as the ten-year Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project, by standard measures the overall level of Japanese engineering and scientific performance, either because of or in spite of government subsidies, is impressive. More tellingly, Hong Kong's GNP per head is nearly 30% higher than Japan's, 24% higher than Germany's and 505% higher than Israel's. Yet Hong Kong's government and private businesses pay scant attention to很少关心 cutting-edge scientific and technological research.（地区对比！学习用put aside...more tellingly支撑起一个段落）

The techno-fetishist技术盲从者 view of innovation and the kind of government support it demands fails to appreciate the enormous variety of innovations that we need. （主题句自成一段）

The measure of a good economy lies in the satisfaction it provides to the many, not a few, not in the wealth or accomplishment of a few individuals or organisations（学习转折+进一步解释写法）. And these satisfactions go beyond高于 the material or pecuniary rewards earned: they include, for instance, the exhilaration of overcoming challenges战胜挑战的喜悦. Indeed they go hand in hand结合在一起: a good economy cannot provide widespread prosperity经济繁荣 without harnessing利用使用 the creativity and enterprise of the many. All must have the opportunity to innovate, to try out new things: not just scientists and engineers but also graphic artists, shopfloor workers, salespersons and advertising agencies; not just the developers of new products but their venturesome consumers.（先散开说，再利用分号总说！！） The exceptional performance of a few high-tech businesses, as the Silicon Valley and Israeli examples show, is just not enough.（学习此句冒号的不断用法！！特色）

This widely diffused, multifaceted form of innovation entails意味着换词 a circumscribed外接的 role for governments: they should not to put their finger on the scale bribing people to do basic research instead of, say, the kind of graphics design that has made Apple such an iconic company标志性公司. Mandating more math and science in high schools要求... when most of us never use trigonometry几何三角 or calculus微积分 in our working lives takes away time from learning skills that are crucial极其重要 in an innovative economy: how to listen and persuade, think independently and work collaboratively, for instance.（ISSUE论题：学校通开课）

Yes, there is a problem with global warming, but that is best solved by innumerable tinkerers taking their chances with renewable energy and resourceful conservation, not by throwing money at projects that a few savants大学士专家贬义换词 have determined to be the most promising.（形象类比） The apparent duplication副本附加作用 of autonomous initiative独立创新 isn't a waste: no one can foretell what is going to work. Even the most successful venture-capital companies投资公司 have more misses than hits错过机会. Therefore putting many independent experiments in play放...在游戏中 raises the odds提高几率 that one will work起作用（metaphor）. When government gets into the game of placing bets, for instance, on new battery technologies, innovators who don't have the savvy机智, credentials证明 and connections with politicians or the scientific establishment are at a severe disadvantage处于劣势. Yet history shows that it is often the nonconformist不墨守成规 outsiders who play a pivotal关键换词 role. Would Ed RobertsPC发明者 have been able to secure a government grant to寻求政府支持 build the world's first personal computer, a virtually useless toy when it was introduced in 1974?

Of course a government doing the least doesn't mean a government doing nothing at all. Moreover, （进一步解释）the least is a moving and ever expanding target. The invention of the automobile, for example, necessitated使...成为必需 driving rules and a system of vehicle inspections（metaphor）. The growth of air travel required a system to control traffic and certify the airworthiness of aircraft飞机耐飞性. Similarly, radio and television required a system to regulate the use of the
airwaves无线广播频道.

Modern technology created new forms of pollution that did not exist in agrarian economies. Governments had to step in参与, in one way or the other用这样那样的方式, to make it unrewarding没有价值 to pollute. Likewise, antitrust反托拉斯 laws to control commercial interactions and conduct emerged after new technologies created opportunities to增加几率 realise认识到 economies of scale and scope经济范围—and realise oligopoly寡头垄断 or monopoly profits. These opportunities were largely absent in不存在 pre-industrial economies.

But the principle of the least is best remains a true compass指南针（metaphor）. New technologies not only create the need for desirable new rules, they but also generate more opportunities for unwarranted meddling参与换词 and a cover forrent-seeking寻租概念. It is one thing for the Federal Aviation Administration美联航 to manage the air traffic control system, quite another for the Civil Aeronautics Board (b. 1938, d. 1985) to regulate airfares, routes and schedules.（issue：国家参与管理的例子） The construction of the interstate highway system州级高速 may have been a great boon to带来好处 the US economy, for example, but it did not take long for Congress to start appropriating funds for bridges to nowhere到处连接.

Entrepreneurial leaps into the dark are best sustained by支持 great caution in expanding the scope of开拓眼界 government intervention政府干预; the private virtue of daring冒险精神 can be a public vice缺点. The US chief justice has often repeated the maxim至理名言: "If it is not necessary to decide an issue to resolve a case, then it is necessary not to decide that issue." Similarly, if it is not necessary to intervene to promote innovation, it should be considered necessary not to intervene.（名言重复写法！！） The government should focus on things that private enterprise simply cannot provide and stay away from promoting activities that would allegedly依其引申 be undersupplied. If nothing,（如果没有的话） this maxim frees up resources for crucial public goods. So traffic police, emission rules and carbon taxes: absolutely. Subsidising networks of hydrogen pumps and new engine or battery technologies: no thanks.（微言大义，学习句式，鲜明观点）

学习出神入化的段落连接方法+冒号用法+metaphor

to be continued......

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Against the motion

The opposition's opening remarks

David Sandalow  
Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs, US Department of Energy


Governments spur innovation. Governments shape innovation. Many of the most important innovations in recent decades grew from the work of governments.（学习首段扼要写法）

In 1965, a US government employee named Bob Taylor had an idea about how computers could communicate. He took the idea to his boss Charles Herzfeld, head of the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), who invested government funds in exploring it. That investment led to the ARPAnet and, in turn, to the internet, without which so many things (including this online debate) would not be possible.

An isolated example? Hardly. Among the innovations that grew directly from government funding are the Google search engine, GPS devices, DNA mapping, inexpensive mass data storage and even Teflon. （学习以上两段举例方法，ISSUE！！科技与政府投入）

Why is government important to innovation?（总起句，一问五答）

First, because the private sector私人部分 underinvests投资不足 in fundamental research. That is natural.Time horizons（时间水平：企业经营里,到开始生产或是获利,公司或是个人所愿意等待的时间长度.） in many businesses are short. Few companies are in a position to能够变词 capture benefits获利 from fundamental research they might fund on their own. In many fields, fundamental research requires resources available only to governments and the largest companies. As Professor Henry Chesbrough documents in his book "Open Innovation", the big corporate research labs of decades past过去的变词 have given way to让路给 more distributed approaches to innovation. That gets many technologies to market faster, but at the expense of fundamental research. Without government support for such research, the seed corn有远大前景的人或事物 for future generations would be at risk.

Second, because innovation depends on an educated workforce劳动力, which is a job for...的责任 governments. Biomedical research requires medical technicians. Energy research requires engineers. Computer research requires programmers. Although private companies often provide specialised training, an educated workforce is the essential starting point根本出发点基础变词. Primary and secondary education中小学教育 is a vital precursor to much innovation. That is a job for governments everywhere. And universities play a central role, with training of promising young innovators often made possible by government funding.（教育ISSUE：educational stage）

Third, because market failures stifle压制 innovative technologies. The recent financial crisis choked off阻碍变词 capital for innovators. Without governments stepping in介入 to provide backstop support提供支持, thousands of promising远大前景变词 innovations would have been lost due to the unrelated vagaries变幻莫测 of failing financial markets. There are many other examples. Lack of capital and information prevents homeowners from investing in投资 energy-saving technologies with very short payback投资回报 periods. Split incentives between architects, builders, landlords and tenants房客 prevent widespread adoption of similar technologies in commercial buildings. Governments have a central role in overcoming these barriers, and more.

Fourth, because government policies and standards can lay a strong foundation打下基础 for innovation. Last century, the United States benefited from government policies requiring near universal access to electricity and telephone services, laying the groundwork for打下基础变词 a vibrant充满活力 consumer electronics industry. This century, Finland and Korea (among others) are benefiting from government policies to promote broadband access宽带连接, helping position each country for global leadership in a vast global market. New technologies require standards that allow them to operate within larger systems. The NTSC television broadcast standard, 110V AC current and FHA housing loans, to pick just three examples, each helped market actors coordinate, encouraging innovation. Or consider Israel, which has a teeming innovation culture in which the Israeli government plays a central role, providing the foundation for startups that commercialise civilian uses of military technologies in materials, semiconductors, medical devices and communications.（学习例子的写法）

Finally, because governments help make sure innovation delivers public benefits. Not all innovation is good. Collateralised debt obligations抵押债务证券 were an important financial innovation. Yet as the recent financial crisis demonstrated, financial markets cannot be relied upon to self-regulate自我调节 innovation. As government encourages and promotes innovation, it also has a role in guiding it引导作用.

In the academic literature on innovation, the number of patents专利 issued in a country is often used as a proxy for the rate of innovation. Patents are, of course, issued by governments. As this suggests, governments play a central role in innovation.

In his inaugural address就职演说, President Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…" That should guide us in引导 thinking about this motion. The notion that "Innovation works best when government does least" is simplistic and wrong（AW结论评价！！！）. There may be instances in which government meddling chokes off innovation. (Past US government restrictions on stem cell research干细胞研究 come to mind.) Yet governments can and do play a central role in spurring innovation and making sure innovation delivers benefits. We should embrace government's role in innovation, always seeking to refine and improve it, not diminish it with broad generalities（AW建议句写法！！）.

学习变换的词语，对比句排比句写法和多样的例子写法

to be continued......

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* 高亮蓝：AW常用指出说出承认类动词
-----------------------------------------------
The moderator's opening remarks

Mr Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran


What is the right role for government in spurring innovation? The outlines of this age-old debate will be familiar to many. One side argues that governments inevitably get it wrong when they get too involved in innovation: picking the wrong technology winners, say, or ploughing subsidies into politically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The other rebuts that given the grave global challenges we face today—in the 1960s America thought it was the Soviet race into space, today many countries worry about climate change and pandemic threats—governments need to do much more to support innovation. （ISSUE开头句：自问自答+两派意见）

Happily for us幸运的是, gentle reader, the two sides in the Economist's latest debate are moving beyond such platitudes陈词滥调 to novel arguments与时俱进的辩论. Arguing in favour of the motion that指出...的是 innovation works best when government does least is Amar Bhide, a professor at Harvard and author of "The Venturesome Economy". His opening statement roundly彻底 denounces驳斥 the visions of home-grown本土培养的 Silicon Valleys that dance in the heads of bureaucrats worldwide在官僚世界中生存 as "a dubious值得怀疑 conception of paradise". California's bloated臃肿肿胀膨胀 government is bankrupt and Japan's once formidable强大 MITI agency is in tatters没落支离破碎破败不堪, he observes, but market-minded Hong Kong is flourishing (and its hyper-commercial denizens民众 far richer than their coddled被宠坏的 Japanese counterparts对方变词).

He adds for good measure that the "techno-fetishist技术盲从者" view of innovation represented by the top-heavy Japanese model pales变得苍白无血色 in comparison with a robust, bottom-up自上而下 version of innovation that harnesses the creativity and enterprise of the many（与复数名词及动词连用，尤用于否定句或正式用语，表示大量；也用于疑问句以询问数字大小，并可与 as 和 too 连用）, （与复数动词连用）大多数人, （与单数名词及动词连用）许多，大量）, including the "venturesome consumers". He does acknowledge that governments have a role to play: "Doing the least doesn't mean doing nothing at all." However, his advocacy（Advocacy 是trying to influence the outcome，希望影响事件的结果；而Propaganda是trying to influence people’s opinion and behavior，试图左右人们的思想和行为） of a least is best policy, though conceptually elegant, seems a bit slippery and is probably unhelpful in practice. In future postings, perhaps he will explain how exactly governments should decide whether they are doing too little or too much to help innovation.

David Sandalow, author of "Freedom from Oil" and a senior official in America's Department of Energy, presents a robust defence of government. He does make the familiar points about the need for governments to invest in education and fundamental research. He also adds slightly more controversial arguments about why government policies are required to overcome market failures (such as the recent financial crisis, which unfairly sapped innovators of credit) and misaligned incentives转嫁风险 that hold back阻碍变词 the adoption of worthwhile innovations (like energy-saving technologies with speedy paybacks).

More striking is Mr Sandalow's linkage of the global trend towards open innovation（联系）, which means因为 companies increasingly rely on ideas from outside their own research laboratories, with the need for greater government spending on innovation. He argues that open innovation will get technologies faster to market, but at the expense of fundamental research of the sort that AT&T Bell Labs or Xerox Parcused to do. He insists that "without government support for such research, the seed corn for future generations would be at risk". That is a clever point, but it does not answer the obvious rebuttal反证 that governments would inevitably invest in the wrong sorts of research (think, to stick with his analogy支持论点, of the money spent by the American government subsidising corn ethanol, an environmentally questionable but politically popular fuel).

Are you waiting for further rounds of jousting争论厮打 to decide which side to support? Don't be a mugwump中立派, sitting on the fence with your mug in one hand and your wump on the other（lol）. Cast your vote now.

to be continued......

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Comments from the floor

Nom Deplume wrote:
Mr. Moderator, distinguished panel members, and fellow commentators -
Interesting premise and some very thought provoking comments, thus firstly thank you. I must say in my opinion government in and of itself does NOT spur or shape innovation (at least not technological innovation). What government can or cannot do is provide the proper legislative and cultural environment that fosters the proper conditions for private individuals and businesses to innovate. Government can also protect us from 'uncontrolled' innovation (i.e. inventing a new bio-toxin may be helpful to the medical industry, but doing it in an unsafe manner in which an 'industrial accident' occurs killing many people is a bad thing) which is a necessary function of government. Just my two cents of course.

Ohio  wrote:
Dear Sir,
Government has a role in pricing externalities外部形式 (e.g. a carbon tax), and at times in guaranteeing a first customer for an expensive and risky new technology (e.g. rocket launches for satellites). Beyond that innovation is best left to markets. Government is most useful when it creates a clear playing field with well understood rules, including common standards (a useful government role oft neglected). Government is no worse at picking winners than entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, but governments are unwilling to fail, unwilling to start over from scratch从头开始, unwilling to be patient while technologies mature. Only private markets do that well.

WMstudentDC  wrote:
Dear Sir,
While government-aided innovation has had its successes, they do not measure up to the high levels of高标准 efficiency and the leaps in innovation that could have been achieved had the innovative forces been left to open market. For example, the development of the synthetic textile industry in Japan is often heralded欢呼 as the ultimate success story of government induced innovation since Japan successfully created a market dominating industry from scratch; however, proponents of government intervention in innovation fail to account for the extremely high opportunity cost of sacrificing other industries for the controlled growth of a single industry. With so many resources being funneled into specific industries throughISI-esque policies and increased regulations overall innovation is hindered阻碍. Governments are too risk averse喜欢 to truly pursue innovation; thus, their pursuit of stability works to stimy阻碍 effective innovation. Government intervention is only acceptable in instances of establishing a secure market for industries to thrive, providing public goods, and dealing with market externalities. Beyond these specific instances ther government presents too much of a hindrance to efficiency to be an effective aid to innovation.

bjornbjorn  wrote:
Dear Sir,
The argument for this motion, though well written, is laughable. Sandalow admits that private research may not work, but criticizes government research for possibly not working. Cherry-picking examples of countries based on their success economically and then turning around and saying that we can't just measure success based on financial gains doesn't help.
To pick apart one of the examples: Sandalow cites Apple's design creativity as key to their success. Yes, creativity is important, but noone is talking about having the government fund creativity research. Give me a break. Moreover, government funding hardly precludes any of this, just as many many things have been invented (including the personal computer) in the presence of government grants and intervention, many many things will continue to be invented regardless of what the government does. Another cornerstone to Apple, by the way, is their technology. Sandalow didn't mention this. Why? Because almost all of their recent technological innovations have benefitted tremendously, in one way or another, from government funding: the internet (invented thanks to military funding), audio and video encoding (research for which which has, over the years, received a lot of funding in Europe) LASERs, and much more. Oh, and a lot of folks at apple DO use calculus every day.
The cure for cancer may come from an innovative company, but that basic research leading to it will be 100% NIH美国卫生问题研究所 grants (and their equivalent overseas). Same goes for many of the big innovations of the past. Saying that the government has no role in this except to regulate the cure after it's invented is laughable.


anticipayo  wrote:
Dear Sir,
For most of the innovations of the last century were owed to either governemnts or huge corporations with structures analogous to governemnts (think ATT, Sony etc).
Let me put a few examples of innovations that mean 100 years worth of innovation:
Internet (created by ARPA, a US Space agency)
Nuclear Energy (US Government)
Apollo Project (US Government)
Transistor (ATT Huge US monopoly)
The Silicon Valley (Product of the US defense industry and huge money from the US government to the university system)
Consumer driven innovation is slow at best mediocre and a lie on the average. This is because innovation is often painful but necessary and consumers dont like pain. For example, it took thousands of years for humans to prefer cooked food. Companies often chose "short cuts" with no fundamental innovation.
This is not the time to decentraliza innovation. This is the time forMEGA projects at the planetary level with involvement from many coordinated governments and universities.
The world is in urgent need of big innovative steps that most companies cannot handle.
We need..
Large capacity-cheap energy storage systems (without this the world will be in a world of pain relying on wind energy and hydro energy).
Cheaper energy distribution systems (without a fuel economy the grid needs to be more robust and cheap)
Controllable fusion reactors (It maybe an impossible dream but humankind needs to try this avenue)

taylor62  wrote:
Dear Sir,
Government promotes innovation best when it helps bear the risks of basic research, unexplored markets, and the undefined Commons (i.e. the Radio Spectrum, Fishing Rights, Mineral Rights, Pipeline and Pathway Easements,and Air Rights). Lincoln's Land Grant University Act, Homestead Act, and Transcontinental Railroad Act are good examples of Government developing new markets and a base for research to help entreprenuers take reasonable business risks. The Government seeded and fertilized the soil that sprouted the Canals, Transoceanic Cables, Telephony,Power and Water Utilties,Postal Service and Air Transport, Computer Industry, E-Mail,GPS devices,rocket and satellite technology, agricultural technology, and the wireless Internet that world uses and buys today from businesses like Google,ADM, Intel, Boeing, and Microsoft. Only corrupt politicians cause Government agents to make poor choices that are better left to the free market. We must watchout for the demagogic哗众取宠 politicians and keep them out of power. Good Government has an important role to play in encouraging new entrepreneurs to take resonable business risks that transform technology into new products and services that benefit all of us if we choose to pay for what these innovations cost to deliver.

finish

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Business.view
The celebrity effect 名人效应
The magical神奇 effect of putting a famous face on a company's board
Mar 30th 2010 | From The Economist online

IN MARCH 1998 the Coca-Cola Bottling Company announced the appointment of a most unlikely new director to its board: Evander Holyfield, a former heavyweight重量级选手 boxing champion, best-known for having part of his ear bitten off in a bout回合 by a fellow boxer, Mike Tyson. He was not the only top athlete at the time with a seat in the boardroom: Michael Jordan, a celebrated大名鼎鼎 basketball player, was a director of Oakley, a sunglasses manufacturer. Other sports stars to try their hand at小试身手 directing corporate America in the past 25 years include Billie Jean King, a tennis player appointed to the board of Altria (then called Philip Morris) in 1999 and Nancy Lopez, a golfer, who became a director of J.M. Smucker, a jam-maker, in 2006.（体育界例子，注意连接）

Boards have also recruited from the ranks of Hollywood. Disney appointed Sidney Poitier to its board in 1994, for example. Deepak Chopra, an author and lifestyle guru精神领袖, was recruited to the board of Men’s Wearhouse, a suit retailer, in 2004. Stretching the definition of celebrity a bit, General “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopfwas appointed a director by the Home Shopping Network in 1996. And you can take your pick from scores of politicians-turned-directors, including Al Gore戈尔, a former vice-president and a member of Apple’s board since 2003.（文艺界政治界例子）

Gerald Fordwas a particularly enthusiastic collector of boardroom seats after he left the White House. While on the board of American Express he stunned惊吓使目瞪口呆 his fellow directors by asking Harvey Golub, the chief executive at the time, to explain the difference between “equity” and “revenue”, according to Vicky Ward’s new book on Lehman Brothers, “The Devil’s Casino”. This was perhaps not so surprising for a man Lyndon Johnson once said had “played too much football with his helmet off”. But it prompts提示 a broader thought about why companies recruit celebrity directors.

Michael Eisner, the boss of Disney when Mr Poitier joined the board, may have been right to say that the actor’s “talent is more than screen deep,” and that his “election to our board brings us not only his exhaustive knowledge of the entertainment industry but the judgment and wisdom of an exceptional man.” Even so, it would seem a reasonable assumption that the lack of business nous商业常识 displayed by the late President Ford is more typical of the celebrity in the boardroom. So what is the point of having them?

Because they increase the value of the firms whose boards they join, apparently. According to “Reaching for the Stars: The Appointment of Celebrities to Corporate Boards”, a new study by four American-based economists, simply announcing that a celebrity is joining a board gives the company’s share price股份 a boost. Disney’s share price jumped by 4.2% on the day Mr Poitier was appointed. But, for the more than 700 celebrity director appointments (out of over 70,000 board appointments in all) that the study examines during 1985-2006, the firms’ shares continued to outperform超额完成 significantly over the subsequent one, two and three years.

Why is this? In some cases—a former president, say—powerful connections and the ability to open the right doors were surely a factor. And, as Mr Eisner claimed of Mr Poitier, some celebrities may bring relevant experience (the study muddies the waters somewhat by including several famous business people, such as Rupert Murdoch and Martha Stewart, within its definition of celebrity). On average, the study found a bigger impact on share prices when celebrity directors had “related” experience than when they had none. Yet “unrelated” celebrity directors had a bigger impact on巨大影响换词 share prices than unrelated non-celebrities.

To explain this, the economists point to the “visibility effect能见度效应”—that appointing a celebrity helps draw the attention of investors to a company which, all else being equal, increases demand for its shares and thus its share price. Certainly, a celebrity director seems to increase the proportion of a firm’s shares bought by institutional investors机构投资者 (whom the economists think are especially prone to趋向 the visibility effect both directly and as a result of the greater attention paid by stockmarket analysts).

So, should companies respond to this study by picking a few directors at random from the pages of People magazine, or beating a path to开创道路 Brangelina Towers皮特和茱莉? It might work, at least for a while. On the other hand, surely sooner or later investors will realise that if the appointment of a director who has nothing to offer but a famous name boosts a firm’s share price, it delivers a damning verdict on the value of the rest of the board. Rather than a reason to cheer, perhaps the celebrity effect on companies’ shares should be seen instead as an indicator that boards are failing to do their job properly and that they contribute little in return for相对于 their generous pay. Or indeed that professional investors, who ought to know better, are as starstruck追星族 as the readers of gossip magazines八卦杂志.

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