[1010G]Economist阅读帖 by lynnuana

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Schumpeter
Brand rehab修复重建
A surprising number of companies spend some time in the clinic
Apr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
（可用于scandal类ISSUE文章）




THE venerable古老的 Augusta National Golf Club has been playing host to the Masters Tournament名人赛大师赛 since 1934. But this year it is also playing host to another great drama戏剧性一幕, the relaunching重建修复变词 of the most valuable personal brand in the world. Tiger Woods’s penchant for cocktail waitresses and porn actresses ended up costing an astonishing amount of money: two economists at the University of California, Davis, have calculated that his biggest corporate sponsors, such as Nike and Gatorade, saw as much as $12 billion wiped off勾销 the value of their shares in the wake of the scandal. But Mr Woods’s warm reception at Augusta suggests that he is well on his way to recovering his star power.

Brand Tiger is thus likely to join a long list of brands that have come back refreshed after a spell休息 in rehab. These include not just the predictable roster of celebrity brands不仅包括名人品牌 such as Martha Stewartand Kobe Bryant, but also a surprising number of solid corporate citizens such as Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola. Brand-threatening scandals品牌丑闻 are becoming a regular feature of the corporate landscape一道亮丽的风景, thanks to a toxic mixture of globalisation全球化毒害, which scatters corporate activities开展企业活动 hither and yon<古>到处, and the internet, which allows bad news to spread like wildfire蔓延.（可用于文章主题句，总括原因） Oxford Metrica, a consultancy, estimates that executives have an 82% chance of facing a corporate disaster within any five-year period, up from 20% two decades ago. Indeed, just the day after Mr Woods made his return to golf, the American government fined Toyota over $16m for its tardiness过慢反应 in addressing safety concerns解决安全隐患.

The key to a successful relaunch lies in making a cool-headed assessment冷静估算 of how much the scandal damages your company. Does it involve life and limb严重伤害, rather than less consequential matters重大事件? Has it spread beyond particular products or particular divisions to afflict the entire corporate brand? If the answer to both questions is yes, then companies are well advised to go into collective overdrive全力以赴; if it is no, then they can experiment with more nuanced responses见机行事, such as lopping off砍掉 a tainted受影响的 product or sacrificing a rogue division受丑闻影响的部门.（段落写法：解决方式----自问自答）

Marsh & McLennan and JetBlue provide good examples of companies that took a no-holds-barred毫无保留 approach to brand rehabilitation. In 2004 Marsh & McLennan was accused of taking kickbacks回扣 to recommend insurance providers to its clients, an accusation that went to the very heart of its identity as one of the country’s biggest insurance brokers. The firm was not content with issuing grovelling apologies and paying $850m in compensation作为赔偿. It also appointed a new boss, Michael Cherkasky, who was the head of its financial-investigation division, Kroll. Mr Cherkasky proceeded to de-emphasise the insurance business and boost other divisions, such as Mercer Consulting and Kroll.

In 2007 bad weather presented JetBlue with a nightmare of its own. Thousands of passengers were left stranded滞留 and one planeload飞机上的人 of unfortunates spent eight hours sitting on the tarmac停机坪, with precious little food or drink to sustain them. The company’s founder and boss David Neeleman immediately recognised that this made a mockery of对...的嘲讽 his promise to “bring humanity back to air travel”. He threw himself into dealing with the problem, issuing public apologies, telling his employees to contact passengers personally by phone and e-mail, producing a retroactive事后可以被追溯的 passengers’ “Bill of Rights” and ponying up付账 around $25m in compensation.

The JetBlue case underlines two of the most important rules of successful crisis management危机处理. First, the boss needs to take charge. This means sidelining使...退出 corporate cluck-cluckers主要决策人群 such as lawyers (who worry that any admission of guilt will lead to lawsuits) or financial officers (who obsess about the bottom line). It also means putting the survival of the company above personal considerations（把公司利益置于个人之上） (Mr Neeleman stepped down three months after the crisis). Many of the most damaging crises, by contrast, have resulted from foot-dragging at the top—as appears to就像 be the case with Toyota today.

The second rule is that crisis-racked处于危机之中 firms should redouble their focus on加强关注 their customers. One former aide助手 to George Bush junior小布什, David Frum, tells the story of another, Karen Hughes, who sees a small plane towing a banner飞机拖着横幅 reading, “Jill, please come back. I am nothing without you. Jack.” Her response is, “Wrong message. It’s too much about you, not enough about her.”

Companies have a habit of acting like Jack when their brands are in trouble—talking endlessly about how they are fixing this or reorganising that. But most successful decontaminators洗去污垢的公司 look at the world’s from Jill’s point of view. Johnson & Johnson’s handling of the Tylenol crisis (when an unidentified attacker poisoned some bottles of the painkiller) is the gold standard黄金标准 of crisis management because the company simply recalled all Tylenol without hesitation or demur. Similarly, Edward Breen, the boss of Tyco, rescued the conglomerate联合聚集成团’s reputation after his predecessor, Dennis Kozlowski, was imprisoned, by launching a public-relations campaign公共关系处理活动 that focused on what the company’s products do to improve people’s lives.

Never waste a crisis
Crises can even give brands a long-term boost, provided如果 the rehabilitation is properly handled.（结尾句---总结陈词） Coca-Cola emerged stronger from its disastrous recipe change in 1985. In response to widespread outrage愤怒 from customers, it reverted to回复到 the original formulation within three months. The whole episode小插曲 reminded consumers of their fierce attachment to强烈依赖 Coke, and thus ended up最终 increasing sales. Tiger Woods, too, could well emerge with added lustre重发耀眼光彩 from his own debacle崩溃. There is nothing Americans like more than a redemption救赎 story再没有...更让人喜欢的了—particularly when the man being redeemed is supremely good at his job.

参考译文

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Inaugural Address
By President Barack Hussein Obama

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled卑微渺小 by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed荣耀给予, mindful of牢记 the sacrifices borne（作出牺牲） by our ancestors祖先变词.（metaphor--表语排比） I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath宣誓就职. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.（metaphor--以水为喻） Yet,（小句内平衡转折） every so often,通常 the oath is taken amidst在期间 gathering clouds and raging storms.（metaphor--以乌云风暴为喻） At these moments, America has carried on艰难前行 not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office身处高位之人, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers祖先变词, and true to our founding documents立国文献. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.（以前如此，现在更要如此）--追溯过往

That we are in the midst of crisis处于危机之中 is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching广泛深远 network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some由于某些人, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered萧条（无家可归；无事可做；经济萧条）. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many不孚众望; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. --目前危机：政治、经济、医疗、教育、能源

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics.根据数据和统计 Less measurable but no less profound虽无测量但意义重大 is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging时时刻刻纠缠 fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation mustlower its sights放低目标.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.短时间 But know this, America: They will be met.（精彩语录：相信美国一定会克服--applause）

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.（applause）

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to结束了 the petty grievances喋喋不休抱怨 and false promises虚假承诺, the recriminations 相互指责 and worn-out dogmas陈词滥调, that for far too long have strangled阻碍换词 our politics.（applause）

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.（精彩语录：美国还是年轻的国家，但是圣经*上说，到了抛弃幼稚的时刻了） The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.（exciting：现在应是我们让永恒的精神发扬光大的时侯，应是选择创造更佳历史业绩的时侯，应是将代代相传的宝贵财富、崇高理想向前发展的时侯：上帝赋予所有人平等、所有人自由和所有人充分追求幸福的机会。）（quote--圣经）

* 圣经语出著名的《哥林多前书》Corinthians 13章11节（爱的箴言 verses about love）-- 13：11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]." America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

参考译文

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科技在教育中的应用

Content  About this debate & Background reading
                The moderator's opening remarks
                The proposer's opening remarks vs The opposition's opening remarks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About this debate
Over the last several decades, large investments have been made to equip primary and secondary schools with computers and teacher training. Now it is time to examine whether there has been a sufficient return on this investment. Does technology really offer substantive advantages to students? Does technology accelerate or impede real progress in education? Similarly, does technology serve as a teaching crutch（metaphor教育技术是拐杖） or does it offer the ability to promote sustainable合理的 change in the world’s classrooms? And if so, is the technology deployed today being used to best possible advantage? What conditions need to exist in schools for technology to have an impact?（连续反问句开头）

Background reading
Tech.view: One clunky laptop per child
Higher education: The brains business
Technology and education: Mandarin 2.0
Intelligence: Dimming

The moderator's opening remarks

Welcome. Thank you. We have the opening arguments. Now is the time to argue back. I invite comments and questions from the floor.

Proposition: This house believes that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to对..作用小 the quality of most education.

The opening statements for and against the motion观点 give some ground for agreement , and much ground for argument.
某些一致，更多反对

Both of our speakers, I deduce推断, are persuadable that认为 technology could in principle原则上 be a vital source of advancement in learning-if only it was to be implemented with与...一起执行实施 enough brilliance and resources. But is even this true? I would be pleased to hear from commenters who believe that education is primarily a matter of character building, and, as such, an activity best conducted among human beings, with the least possible mediation最低可能的调和. Will any of our grandchildren look back on his or her schooldays, and credit his or her success in确信...成功源于 life to "a really good computer"?（类比---学习此句用最简单的逻辑联系表达题目复杂难辨的主题）

Is there an argument for keeping new technology out of the classroom, precisely because it is so ubiquitous everywhere else already? Can a child who is chatting online or video-gaming for six hours every day really benefit from spending even more time staring at a screen盯着屏幕发呆 in the classroom?

How do we even measure-and how broadly should we measure-the educational impact of new technologies? （如何衡量..）No doubt, by putting iPods in the classroom, we can improve iPod skills. No doubt a newer generation of microprocessors微处理器 can help the maths class calculate pi圆周率 to even more decimal places. But what about social skills? Kindness? Common sense? Happiness? Physical fitness? Latin and Greek? Do those go into the metrics十进制，指代上文?（让步...让步...转折，AW！！！）

All of this, moreover, assumes that resources are plentiful. But what about school districts with very limited budgets, or education ministries in poorer countries? Should they see technology as a way to cut the cost of delivering education? Or as an expensive add-on投入 to basic teaching methods? We are in danger of encouraging them to take the first approach走出第一步, only to discover that new technologies are all too often disastrously complicated and expensive to implement-as we find often enough in other areas of government and industry.

Finally, for now现在, let us remember that we are talking here about new technologies. Their application is, by definition, a matter of experiment.（下定义的句子，issue） Do we want to experiment with our children's education? Do you want someone experimenting on your children? Perhaps you do, and perhaps you should, since only by experimenting can we ever make progress. But if you prefer educational methods tried and tested over centuries, please say so. Likewise还有换词, if you feel it would be barmy to exclude from education technologies that are commonplace elsewhere in life, please say so too. These are both defensible-and assailable-positions.（既可攻击又可防御的立场）

Robert Cottrell Deputy Editor, Economist.com, The Economist Newspaper

学习此文改换概念（or偷换概念），变复杂概念为简单事实的论述方式！！

to be continued......

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The proposer's opening remarks

Sir John Daniel  
President and Chief Executive Officer of The Commonwealth of Learning

Technology has transformed everyday life in much of the world. Goods that were once the preserve of the rich are now household items. Food is abundant and varied. Travel has been transformed. News and entertainment come to us instantly from around the world. Technology and the media have transformed all aspects of human life - except education!（科技改变生活的例子，ISSUE！！！）（最后的转折impressive）

Politicians still campaign for 'education, education, education', lamenting抱怨 the poor performance of their schools. America, the earliest country to be infatuated with痴迷于 computers in the classroom, gets mediocre outputs产出回报 from its school system by international standards. Most poor countries struggle to reach the Millennium Development Goal黄金时代 of universal primary education. For them universal secondary access is a distant dream遥远的目标. Meanwhile rich countries worry about boys dropping-out of school.

Technology is replacing scarcity by abundance变...为... 替代 in other aspects of life: why not in education?

It is not for lack of prophets先知. Ever since the invention of the blackboard each new communications medium
has been hailed欢迎 as an educational revolution.（稍微提下以往的句子，Issue！！） Rosy forecasts about the impact of radio, film, television, programmed learning, computers and the Internet具体媒体举例 succeeded each other through the 20th century although, revealingly有启发地, each prophet compared the revolutionary potential of the newest medium to the printing press, not to the previous technological white hope（团队、组织等）被寄予厚望的人!

Why hasn't it worked? Why has the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media added little to几乎没有作用 the quality of most education? What can we learn from those few applications of communications media that are acknowledged公认的 successes?

Technology is the application of scientific and other organized knowledge科学系统知识 to practical tasks by organizations consisting of people and machines包含. In "The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith described how applying knowledge to the practical task知识应用于实践 of making pins led to a factory that produced them with consistent quality in higher volume and at lower cost物美价廉 than artisans making each pin by hand. The technological bases of Adam Smith's pin factory were the principles of specialisation专门化分工, division of labour and economies of scale规模经济.

Most applications of technology科技应用 in education disappoint because they ignore these principles and so fail to use technology's intrinsic固有的 strengths to tackle real problems处理实际问题. What are the practical tasks that challenge education?

In my work at UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning学习共同体 I spend many hours with ministers of education; sometimes individually, sometimes in groups at international meetings. The practical task facing ministers of education is to expand access to quality education as economically as possible. They want the same outcomes结果 as Adam Smith's pin factory: higher volume, consistent quality, lower cost.（个人例证，issue）

This is the great opportunity for technology in education. Tinkering with补充 traditional classroom teaching cannot achieve these three outcomes because improving any one outcome makes the others worse. Increasing volume with larger classes lowers quality. Enhancing提高增加加强变词 quality with more learning materials raises costs, and so on.

Successful ways of introducing technology and media to education tackle this challenge head on相撞: cutting costs, increasing volume and assuring quality all at the same time.

The best examples are the open universities. The UK Open University开放大学 has created a multi-media learning system that enrols 200,000 students annually, operates at a lower cost than other UK universities, and ranks 5th, just above Oxford University, on aggregate ratings of teaching quality. In a quite different context India's Indira Gandhi National Open University英迪拉·甘地国立开放大学 enrols 1.5 million students and places 17th in the latest web ranking of universities on the sub-continent.

The secret of the open universities' success is twofold.（两方面写法，AW！！！） First, they tackle real problems, in this case scaling up educational provision扩大教育供给 and taking it to people who cannot access conventional teaching. Second they combine people and technology, using the principles of specialisation, division of labour, and economies of scale, to create new learning systems that are scaleable at low cost with consistent quality.

The tragedy, and why you must vote for the motion, is that these successes are rare. Most attempts to introduce media into education do not take advantage of technology's strengths. Instead, they continue in the tradition of education as a cottage industry家庭作坊, hoping to make it more effective by providing the individual artisan, the classroom teacher, with fancier空想 tools.

This approach is doomed to failure.肯定一定 It increases costs because the technology is simply an add-on. The number of learners remains essentially unchanged. Quality goes down下降 because few teachers know how to use the new tools effectively and the students, who often do know how to use them, would rather apply them to other tasks.

Having devoted much of my life to promoting the effective use of technology in education it saddens悲哀 me that I have to support this motion because there are still so few examples of its effective deployment. I only hope that your passing the motion will be a wake-up call to educators and make them reflect seriously on why their use of technology has been such a disappointment. I suggest three reasons. （技术不能有效利用的原因！issue）

First, we assume too often that technology is the answer without asking what the question was. Successful applications begin with a clear and difficult problem to solve instead of a vague assumption that technology will enhance teaching.

Second, we usually focus on improving existing teaching systems whereas technology is better used to create new learning systems. Enjoining all teachers to become artisans of eLearning is not going to improve educational outcomes.

Third, there is the quest for the magic medium, the ultimate technology that will revolutionise education. Yesterday it was the Internet; today it is Open Educational Resources. But there is no magic medium and never will be. Each technology has its strengths优点变词. The task is to use them to create a world where education of quality is abundantly available.

We are still a long way from that goal. To pretend otherwise is to sell technology far too short. So far,
and I say it with regret,抱歉的说the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media has added little to the quality of most education.
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The opposition's opening remarks

Dr Robert Kozma  
Emeritus Director and Principal Scientist at SRI International

In this debate I would like to take the contrary position and claim that new technologies and new media do make a significant contribution to促进作用 the quality of education, at least under certain circumstances. More specifically, before the end of the debate, I will demonstrate that technology can make a particularly significant contribution when coordinated with the training of teachers to integrate technology into将...应用于 their teaching, with applications that draw on the unique capabilities of technology, and with supportive curricular, assessment, and school contexts that advance complex problem solving, creative thinking, and life-long learning—skills that are needed to support an information society and knowledge economy.

Certainly, one can not defend the position that all applications of technology make significant contributions to the quality of education in all situations. There have been numerous studies from around the world which have appeared in the popular press that show no relationship between computer availability or use and student test scores没有联系, such as the study by Banks, Cresswell, and Ainley in Australia (2003) and the study by Dynarski, et al., in the U.S. (2007). There have even been studies that show a negative relationship between computer use and learning, such as the Fuchs and Woessmann OECD study (2004) and the Wenglinsky study in the U.S. (1998).

But there have also been studies that show a positive relationship between computer use and learning, such a U.S. study published by the National Center for Educational Statistics (2001) and studies in England published by BECTA (Cox 2003; Harrison, et al., 2003).

How do we make sense out of these mixed results?

Often single studies—even those that are well-designed—are constrained by被限制 the particular context or situation in which they were conducted and this limits the generalizability of their conclusions. Let us take as an example a study conducted in Israeli schools by Angrist and Lavy (2001), which was featured in The Economist several years ago. This study examined the relationship between the use of "computer-assisted instruction" (or CAI, i.e. tutorial software) and test scores in 4th and 8th grade mathematics and Hebrew classes in a random sample of schools that successfully applied to participate in a national program to increase the use of computers in Israeli schools. Scores of students in these schools were compared to those in schools that elected not to participate in the program or were not chosen to do so. Typically, self selection is a fatal design flaw致命缺点 in research studies but the researchers went to great lengths to statistically equate the two types of schools by including a variety of school, student, and teacher variables in their analyses. They found no evidence that the increased use of tutorials raised pupil test scores; indeed, they found a negative and marginally significant relationship between program participation and 4th grade math scores. However, as in many similar studies, there are important features of this study that limit the results. First, this study is limited to a particular use of computers (tutorials), within specific grades (4th and 8th) and subject areas (math and Hebrew) and within a particular timeframe时间范围 (after one year of implementation) and a particular country (Israel) with a particular national curriculum. Furthermore, in an analysis of teacher surveys, the researchers found no evidence of differences between participating and non-participating classrooms in inputs, instructional methods, or teacher training. More significant is that fact that even the most active participants (4th grade math teachers) indicated that they used computers somewhere between "never" and "sometimes". Consequently, the study is particularly limited by the marginal nature of the intervention. All of these factors constrain the generalizability of the findings and certainly do not allow the authors to make the general claim, as they do, that "CAI is no better and may be even be less effective than other teaching methods."（研究分析，Argument）

In order to make a general statement about the impact of technology on education, a large number of studies that cover a variety of situations must be included in the analysis. For this, I turn to a meta-analysis荟萃分析 (or an analysis of analyses) done in 2003 by James Kulik of the University of Michigan. Kulik included in his statistical analysis the results of 75 carefully-designed studies collected from a broad search of the research literature.
As a group, these studies looked at several types of educational technology applications (such as tutorials, simulations, and word processors), in a variety of subjects (such as mathematics, natural science, social science, reading and writing), and a range of grade levels (from vary young to high school).（Argument常用分析！！！） His findings across studies can be summarized as follows:

Students who used computer tutorials in mathematics, natural science, or social science scored significantly higher in these subjects compared to traditional approaches, equivalent to an increase from 50th to 72nd percentile in test scores. Students who used simulation software in science also scored higher, equivalent to a jump from 50th to 66th percentile.

Very young students who used computers to write their own stories scored significantly higher on measures of reading skill, equivalent to a boost from 50th to 80th percentile for kindergarteners and from 50th to 66th percentile for first graders. However, the use of tutorials in reading did not make a difference.

Students who used word processors or otherwise used the computer for writing scored higher on measures of writing skill, equivalent to a rise from 50th to 62nd percentile.

By including a large and diverse set of studies in the analysis, it is clear that technology can make contributions to the quality of education that are both statistically significant and educationally meaningful. Nonetheless, the classrooms included in this meta-analysis were, by and large, conducted within the traditional educational paradigm and the uses of technology were fairly ordinary. What if advanced technologies were used to ignite a major transformation of the educational system? How much more of a contribution could it make under these circumstances? These are questions to which I will return later in the debate.（以上荟萃分析研究，Argument！段首句+结论句学习）

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国际移民

Content  About this debate & Background reading
                The proposer's opening remarks vs The opposition's opening remarks
                The moderator's opening remarks
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About this debate

A dramatic rise in international migration, both legal and illegal, means at least 200m people now live abroad. European countries that were long sources of emigration are importing foreign labour and the number of foreigners born in America has reached record levels破纪录. Migrants provide flexible labour, but also strain welfare and local cultures; they send home over $300 billion annually, but also represent a brain drain人才流失 from poorer countries.（正负影响并存，ARGU！） Given the global economic slowdown and xenophobia排外主义, should governments now impose more restrictions? Should would-be migrants be seeking opportunities at home?

Background reading                               
Remittances: Big, but dipping
Limiting migration: People protectionism
Cracking down on illegal immigration: The Missouri way
Immigration reform: All together now
Immigration and America: Seeking order on the border
Economics focus: Give me your scientists...
Global migration and the downturn: The people crunch
Immigration: The border closes
                                                        

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The moderator's opening remarks

Are there too many migrants? Your answer probably depends, first, on where you sit. A young African bobbing in a boat in the Mediterranean地中海, hoping for a job in Europe, of course believes there is room for one more migrant in the ageing老式老旧 rich world. His relatives back home, who probably clubbed together to fund his trip, also expect a return on their investment. Remittances汇款 are a lifeline for poorer countries, and more migration should mean more capital for the poorest. Last year, says the World Bank, migrants in rich countries sent home over $300 billion to poor ones (and extra money flows from mid-income countries).（设问句开头+虚拟例子+简要归纳原因+引用官方数据，issue！！）

Similarly a highly skilled engineer who moves from America to work in the Gulf, or a French banker taking a job in London, or a wealthy Swede who has retired to Greece, a Indian student in California, would all support more migration. If one believes that the freer flow of traded goods or capital helps make the world wealthier, then it makes similar sense to promote freer movement of labour too.（如果相信...那么也一定理解...） Look at ageing and withering老旧萎缩 Japan, say migration enthusiasts: it is reluctant to allow large-scale大规模 immigration and it pays a price付出代价.（举例写法，看看...）

But sit（呼应第一句） elsewhere and the argument is not so clear-cut明显. There are economic costs to migration, too. A skilled young African emigrant represents a drain of educated talent from the poorest countries to the richest受教育人才外流. How will countries develop if the brightest jump ship弃船潜逃? And what of mid-income places, such as South Africa, which struggle to develop while also absorbing millions of migrants from neighbouring countries? For richer economies, too, how will Spain, Britain and America tackle worsening inequality, long-term unemployment among the lower skilled and a lack of mobility among certain groups (such as African Americans in the United States, or some older immigrant populations in Europe) as long as inflows are high?

Nor is migration just about economics.（承上） Many move country not as workers but as dependants: think of those who flock to America, Canada and Britain under family reunification programmes. Cold calculations about the flow of labour being good for the world economy ignore that migrants are people who carry personal, cultural, religious, political and social identities.（具有不同背景的人） Integrating them can be costly and difficult. Shouldn't we dare to admit that where migrants come from undoubtedly affects how willing a society is to accept them? Ireland has seen a boom in migration, with hundreds of thousands of white-skinned Catholic Poles assimilating吸收同化 remarkably well. But if the same number of Nigerians or Pakistanis had moved there, would the influx移民换词 have proceeded so smoothly?

This debate will help us to weigh up衡量 these issues and more. The context is clear: we are in a period of historically high levels of migration, with many countries in Europe, for example, importing people at a rate they have never seen before.
Despite the recession slowing migration flows slightly, there is no sign that a substantial collapse in migration is under way.（与..相反，没有迹象表明...）

Be warned at the outset开始开头出发点 that statistics in this field are rarely to be trusted. We are not even sure how many migrants there are in the world—perhaps 200m, but much depends on how one defines a migrant in the first place究竟到底. In rich countries the numbers are far from远非 rock-solid坚如磐石 (it is hard to count illegal migrants, especially); in poorer countries statistics on migrants are guesses at best. So subsequent precise calculations attempting to quantify migrants' impacts, good or bad, might be taken with a pinch of salt持怀疑态度.

Our debate should dare to wander away from徘徊 narrow economics. We might want to tackle questions such as whether migrants are a boon好处换词 or a cost to welfare states: do they pay more taxes or claim more benefits? But we also should keep in mind that migrants influence everything from sports (would English football be a poorer thing without the legions of foreign players?), to military matters (note the South Africans, Nepalese and others serving in the British army), to discussions of terrorism.（从..到.. 全世界）

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The proposer's opening remarks

There is little doubt that legal, organised and well-managed migration can bring great economic benefits to receiving societies, immigrants and their families, both at origin and destination. And in an increasingly interdependent world, migration's benefits that are not directly economic, such as greater cultural, social and even political understanding, cannot be ignored, though typically they are.

Unfortunately, however, there are too many cases where migration is not legal, organised or well-managed, where flawed policymaking, irrationality, incompetence or corruption chip away at migration's benefits. One of the most telling consequences is that huge numbers of people move outside legal channels.

Illegal immigration now probably stands at about 30m. About 40% of it is found in a single country, the United States, where between the late 1990s and 2006, more workers may have entered the country illegally than legally. But every region now hosts millions of illegal immigrants, demonstrating that the combined efforts of the market and human nature and need are overwhelming压倒战胜 government regulators, and that thoughtfully widening the channels for legal immigration must also become part of the response to illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration is a problem. It fuels a robust and growing industry of organised criminal syndicates辛迪加企业联合 and human traffickers who transport people across borders for profit. In the receiving country, unauthorised migrants have little recourse to legal protection and are vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers, to whom they offer an often massive competitive advantage. Meanwhile, illegal immigration compromises receiving countries' ability to protect their low-wage labour markets from unplanned inflows of new workers that may depress native workers' wages and job prospects. This makes a mockery of轻蔑 the rule of law, puts unwelcome pressures on a country's social infrastructure, and fuels anger and anxiety among voters which, in turn, reduces policymakers' manoeuvring room for how to manage migration.

But legal migration can also create problems when badly managed. Immigration cannot realise its full package of benefits全部利益 if receiving countries are inattentive to its growth, composition and impacts on local workers (as some European Union countries and in some ways the United States have been) and fail to invest in immigrant integration by seeking to reap the benefits of immigrants' labour without encouraging them to become part of society. These efforts can seriously backfire事与愿违, both in the form of popular reactions against immigrants and in fostering an underclass of precariously positioned immigrant workers and families on the margins of society.

The current recession makes clear the risks of too much exuberance繁华背后的风险 when it comes to immigration. Countries like Spain or Ireland that embraced large-scale immigration during their economic boom years have been experiencing a form of buyer's remorse once their economies went into a freefall经济衰退, while soaring猛增 unemployment spawned programmes (so far unsuccessful) to pay immigrants to return home. The lesson appears to be that large, abrupt increases in immigration without measures to anticipate and prepare for cyclical changes in the demand for labour, or to build the legal and institutional infrastructure to manage the inflow and facilitate immigrants' long-term integration, can be just as counter-productive as knee-jerk本能的 restrictions of immigration that deny a country the benefits of well-managed migration.

These benefits are substantial. Immigration can boost receiving countries' economic growth and competitiveness, providing their firms and universities with talent from around the world (not to mention healthy numbers of innovators, entrepreneurs and even Nobel prize-winners), while cushioning the blow of demographic decline. Openness to immigration brings in its wake new ideas, technologies and openings to trade and cultural exchange with sending countries across the globe. Such countries also gain hefty相当大 sums in remittances, the skills and knowledge of returning expats who can form a valuable generation of political, social and industrial entrepreneurs and, increasingly, the benefits from members of a country's diaspora散居犹太人 who act as investors, mentors and physically remote, but more and more engaged, agents of change. Meanwhile, migration gives immigrants access to family-sustaining wages and opportunities to build human capital, whether or not they intend eventually to return home.（移民双方advantage）

But can one have too much of a good thing? Has there been too much international migration? The proper way to think about—and act upon—对待...最正确方法 international migration is not to ask whether there are too many or too few migrants. 设问句写法AW！！！There is no optimal quantity of migration either from an economic or social perspective, and any attempt to argue otherwise would have little credibility任何尝试都不可信. The relevant questions instead for those involved in migration are not the mere number of migrants, but rather the flow's composition (e.g. age, skills, experience and education), its channels of entry (e.g. employment or family, temporary or permanent（人的举例）) and in the case of permanent settlement, whether a society is willing or not to commit actively to their integration同化. And these questions are the critical components of the overarching中心的 question of how international migration can be made safer, more legal and more consistent with broader policy goals and values. The answers to these questions (and they will differ by country and change over time) provide the blueprint for how countries can get the most out of international migration and avoid the drawbacks弊病 of current flawed regimes.

Of course, immigration should not become an excuse for falling behind in other policy fields. Immigrants typically bring enormous大量 energy and valuable skills, but they cannot substitute for取代 effective schools, modern workforce training systems and great universities, as well as policies that encourage and reward work.（人才培养必要条件！！！） Immigrants can boost the labour force in ageing societies, but cannot—and should not—be the primary solution to this problem. Indeed, while immigration can provide motivated workers in both high- and low-skilled jobs, we must acknowledge that migration has winners and losers, and that the losers have legitimate concerns that must be addressed.

Taking into account
both the long-term needs for migration to help address demographic imbalances and economic competitiveness needs as well as lessons from the current global recession, receiving countries should:

• Resist the temptation to slam the door shut without regard for their long-term need for immigrants. Equally同样, however, many might do well to resist the temptation to admit more immigrants than they will subsequently be prepared support.
• Redouble加强 efforts on immigrant integration. The current recession is exacerbating恶化 already troubling differences in social and economic well-being based on immigrant status or ethnicity种族. Carefully crafted policies for local language acquisition and training, the recognition of foreign credentials and the enforcement of labour standards in low-paying immigrant jobs can help to bridge these gaps架起沟通桥梁.
• Take serious and thoughtful steps to谨慎小心 address illegal immigration. Law-enforcement activities can make it less attractive for employers to hire illegal immigrants. They must be combined, however, with sufficiently attractive and efficient legal channels to hire foreign workers. More sophisticated—rather than just more—border controls are needed in many countries, alongside在旁边 internationally coordinated measures to crack down on organised criminal syndicates and smugglers.

Finally, those involved in these issues must prepare for a new way of thinking about migration, finding ways to regulate mobility through new migration policy products that are more consistent both with the market and with human behaviour.

Most promising among them will be circular migration systems that move us away from the current norms of permanent or temporary migration only, and towards mechanisms of earning immigration benefits by playing by the rules, learning the local language and embracing the civic ethos of the host society.沟通的途径

Every country will need to work much better and harder if it is to harness the benefits of migration more fully and avert避免 the process's downside负面, since growing global economic integration and demographic trends will only increase the need for well-managed migration flows for decades to come.

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The opposition's opening remarks

Far from there being too much international migration, I believe there is too little of it.（amazing beginning~~）

There is no denying that毫无疑问 anxieties about immigration levels are high and rising in many countries around the world. And it is true that some types of international migration need to be curbed抑制 (for example, human trafficking).

Yet we should not let concerns about the scale of immigration in particular countries or about particular flows distract us from the fact that migration is generally a good thing.（不能分散注意力，注意套句--以偏概全--AW！！！） This is not, and indeed cannot be, a debate about whether there is too much immigration in any one country at any one time. Rather, the question is whether fewer or more people should be on the move around the world.

International migration can have immense benefits for individuals who move, the societies they leave, the countries they move to and most of all for the world as a whole.

Throughout human history（追忆历史句） people have moved to better their lives. If it were not for the ability to migrate, humankind would still be hanging around the Rift Valley东非大裂谷. However, the advent of the nation state, borders, passports and suchlike（等等 举例子） has led to an unusually restrictive moment in human history. Although great nations like the United States, Australia and Canada were created out of mass movements of people, international migration plays a less important role these days.

The global stock of people born outside their country of origin is estimated to stand at估计在 around 200m. This means that only around 3% of the world's population has migrated. With the exception of例外 some Middle Eastern countries, the proportion of migrants in the most popular destination countries rarely exceeds one in four and is closer to one in eight in countries like the United States and the UK.

In addition to border and visa controls that regulate migratory flows, considerable cultural, linguistic and other barriers limit international migration. For example, even in the European Union, where policymakers have desperately tried to remove barriers to mobility, less than 2% of the population is thought to live in another member state. This should be compared with some 3% of Americans move to a different US state every year.

Unfortunately, one reason people object to the apparent levels of migration is because they exaggerate the scale of it. Opinion polls in several countries have found that people overestimate the numbers of immigrants in their midst. （调查类~）In the case of one recent UK poll, the greatest number of respondents thought that immigrants made up more than half of the UK population.

But misperception is only a small part of the story; a more compelling reason for more international migration is that potential economic gains from greater mobility have yet to be realised fully. Just like in international trade, freeing up the movement of people will allow for a more efficient allocation of resources around the world and, in turn, lead to greater aggregate benefits. Migration can also promote labour market flexibility and stimulate innovation.（移民的优点）

According to World Bank economic modelling, adding around 15m workers to the labour force of rich countries by 2025 (a 3% increase) through international migration from poorer countries would increase world income by over $350 billion over baseline底线. Importantly, the gains of this increased migration would be shared between the migrants themselves, residents in the recipient country and those in the sending country.

While the comparison with trade is important, it is staggering to think that难以置信 this same modelling suggests that increasing international migration even by this small amount would yield grater gains than removing all remaining merchandise trade barriers.

Looking ahead, there is good reason to think that the growing demographic imbalance between rich and poor countries will mean that more international migration, like it or nor, will be necessary. As the working-age population of rich countries shrinks and dependency rates (the ratio of non-workers to workers) increase, the supply of working-age people in developing countries is projected to预计 rise sharply (by around 1 billion by 2025). Whether it is through importing workers into ageing rich societies or exporting older people to where the workers are, increased international migration will be a necessary, though admittedly not sufficient, element of dealing with the demographic challenges that face the world.

It should be emphasised that far too much international migration happens for the wrong reasons. Too many people are forced to flee远离 persecution迫害 or abject poverty, risking life and limb to clamber across borders. In these cases, migration is often an essential safety valve阀门; the route through which political dissidents can save themselves or the means by which vital remittance income can be secured. Yet arguing that there is too much of this sort of migration is simply to argue that there are too many authoritative regimes权威政权 in the world or that there is too much poverty. It would of course be better if no one felt compelled to emigrate, but until we address the underlying基本根本 factors that drive people away from a country, international migration is a necessary outlet for some of the most desperate people around the world.

All this is not intended to sound like a politically naive wish for a world with no borders. Rather, it is simply to point out that given its historical importance, the small scale of current flows and huge potential gains from more of it, the world needs more not less international migration.（不是...而是）

the end

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What is the meaning of art and beauty? This is not a philosophical question for intellectuals to juggle in their minds during their leisure time. Art and beauty are in fact matters of everyday life. They profoundly affect us all. How we interpret art and beauty thus have immense social, political, and economic ramifications分支.
         Some have said that the actions of Prajak Petchsingha, a former monk who has played a crucial role in preserving the Dongyai forest, and of Sulak Sivaraksa and his colleagues who are protesting against the construction of gas pipelines in Kanchanaburi province are responsible for preserving and promoting beauty: they are trying to preserve natural beauty as well as to expose the truth to the public.
         On the other hand, many have praised the present King of Siam for his multifaceted多层面的 artistic talent. For example, His Majesty’s version of The Story of Mahajanaka, which concerns a story from the Tripitaka, is widely acclaimed as an artistic project with an objective of teaching people more about Buddhist wisdom. Such praises—however sincere—are expected. However at times, I wonder how profoundly the king understands the meaning of art and beauty. Is not he the same person who has ordered the construction of huge dams, which are responsible for environmental degradation环境退化 and for uprooting铲除 many local and traditional communities? How necessary are these dams for our society? And particularly for the scope of this speech, what are the aesthetic contributions of these dams?

I

         There are indeed many different and even opposing conceptions of art and beauty. The selection that I have chosen below provides the necessary context for the rest of my speech.
         In the book On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry draws the connection between beauty, on the one hand, and morality and religions, on the other hand. Scarry however contends that this dimension of beauty is weakening, if not disappearing. She argues that individuals who seek or are basking in happiness along with the ones who are protecting beauty do not necessarily have to be beautiful—that is ethically beautiful—persons. On the contrary, individuals who seek or are protecting the truth and honesty must know the distinction between right and wrong, must also be virtuous and just persons. She insists that although we can behold the beautiful sky we cannot see justice. The sky is a matter; justice is not. Beauty is reflected in matters. But matters may reflect justice via beauty. In sum, beauty and justice are interconnected.
         In the book Conjunctions and Disjunctions by Octavio Paz, real beauty is depicted as something beyond the apparent world, beyond the temporary and the transient. He argues that if we look deeply at our faces, it will dawn upon us that they are no different from our buttocks: our buttocks are not aesthetically different from our faces. Paz’s view is quite similar to Buddhist teachings.
         Let us now turn to the thoughts of the eminently quotable Vaclav Havel. In a 1990 speech, Havel laments that although we know a lot more empirically about the universe and the natural environment than our ancestors, we do not understand their essence or substance as well as our forebears. In many respects, Havel continues, our lives have benefited substantially from the advancements in technology—from modernity. But at the same time, we feel at a lost. We do not know where to turn to. We become increasingly estranged from our lives—from the meaning and contents of living. With a heavy heart, Havel concludes that the postmodern world is verging towards nihilism where everything is possible, where anything goes.
        Almost seven decades ago, Kumarswarmi pointed out the distinctive features of Indian and Chinese arts. He noted that Indian art mirrors the experience of community life, and like food it serves life. Indian art reflects the wants and needs of local communities. In contrast, the modern world prioritizes the importance and desire of individuals.
         Discussing the nature of Chinese art, Kumarswarmi explained that it is based on a long and rich tradition. Chinese artists do not emphasize novelty or uniqueness, do not focus on the unexpected. If there are any discernible changes in the form or substance of artistic outputs, the artists generally did not will so. Rather, these changes provide invaluable glimpses into the changing way of life in a particular period and locality. Again, Chinese art reflects the power of life and the shifting taste of the people. In other words, tradition is alive. Tradition is not something that mummifies art; tradition is not a static model to be copied or emulated. In conclusion, Kumarswarmi insisted that for the Chinese there is no such conception as art for art’s sake because art is inseparable from life. An artistic manifestation is not an expression of the love of art but of the love of life.
         Let me end this introductory section with a few remarks about the meaning of art and beauty by highlighting the differences between the Eastern and the Western conceptions of life. In the West, the people are taught that the more is the better: they should seek more of everything everyday. In the East, we are taught from our cradles to constantly reduce our attachments or wants. In the West, the quality or number of personal gains and possessions marks the good life. In the East, the good life simply means successfully overcoming the attachment to those gains and possessions. Lastly, in the West most people near the end of their lives simply want to lead a carefree lifestyle unburdened by work or stress. In the East, we hope to have successfully extinguished all worldly attachments by the twilight of our lives, preparing ourselves for the next world.

II
         Any visitor to Luang Prabang will be struck by its unassuming beauty. The royal palace is a single-storied building, humbly and harmonically coexisting with the surrounding temples and natural environment. The French colonnades that were subsequently built are also unimposing. In fact, they even help enrich the beauty of Luang Prabang. The French seemed to have understood well the meaning of beauty. They also did a remarkably job in renovating Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, enabling beauty and ancient glory to blend with the surrounding forests and hills.
         The city of Chiang Mai was also once very beautiful. Its charm and beauty appreciably declined after it lost the autonomy to govern itself. The Chiang Mai rulers were important patrons of the art and beauty and hence of goodness. As a result, the temple served as the symbol and the center of beauty and goodness. As you all can see, there are many beautiful temples in this city. The Buddhists believe that beauty and goodness help pave the road towards the highest truth.
         Equally important, the rulers of Chiang Mai enabled their subjects, including ethnic minority groups, to express their artistic talents freely—to search for beauty according to their beliefs or faiths. In large part, this meant allowing their subjects to live according to their distinct hopes and traditions.
         The rulers of Chiang Mai and not to mention of Luang Prabang were also at the forefront of environmental preservation in their regions.
         Against this backdrop, to offer a vivid example, the hill peoples were able to live among the forests, mountains, and streams, upholding beauty and goodness as their standard of living. They had their own rich cultures and traditions. The rotational farming practices of the hill peoples never contributed to deforestation. Although they also hunted for food, the hill peoples never threatened wild animals and fish with extinction. They hunted for survival, not greed. In this context, they related harmonically and beautifully with nature for hundreds of years. Of course, the hill peoples did fight among themselves. After all, conflict is a natural part of human existence. But they did not resort to violent arms that lead to disproportionate harm and immeasurable suffering.
         Artistic beauty as expressed through music and dancing was not a monopoly of the northern kingdom of Chiang Mai. In the past, whenever a ruler or official representative from Bangkok visited Chiang Mai, the northern ruler would dance to welcome and entertain his distinguished guest. The southern guest would likewise dance along with the host as they entered the city together. Needless to say, it was an impressive spectacle.
         When Prince Damrong Rajanubharb first visited Chiang Mai he no longer knew how to dance along with his host. He had to send an envoy to do so for him. This was a sign that the sun of the old form of beauty was setting. During the reign of King Rama V, Siam began to incorporate—at times unequivocally—the Western way of life into its social fabric.
         Even war was transformed into science, devoid of artistic beauty. War was no longer conceived as a sport.
         Life in the countryside was also greatly and negatively impacted. Beauty and goodness inherent in the traditional way of life were being undermined. In the past, farmers often wove their own clothes, including the ones they wore to till the land. While weaving their clothes, songs were often sung and musical instruments were played. Similarly, songs were often heard while tilling the lands or harvesting the crops. The food crops that were reaped were also shared with neighbors and presented to the monks. Beauty and goodness were interwoven with such lifestyle. Additionally, the people’s way of life reflected the harmony between the seasons and traditions—between nature and human beings.   
         In Buddhism there is a saying that goes as follows. If a monarch upholds dhamma, his officials will do likewise. The head of each household and the clerics will also uphold dhamma—and so will all the citizens. When all the inhabitants of the society practice dhamma, there will be equilibrium in nature. In other words, there is a connection between morality, beauty, and harmony in nature. Buddhism envisages moral conduct as the natural state of being, as natural as the cycles of nature.
         Technology and modernity—often couched in terms such as progress and civilization—are uprooting and destroying the traditional way of living and the traditional conception of beauty and goodness. Ugliness is supplanting beauty. The color of goodness is now gray. The quest for truth is now steered by falsity and injustice, is now guided by money and power. All this is done in the name of ‘being civilized’ or Western civilization. Science and technology are said to provide the answer to every question. The fact that the latest science and technology may trample beauty and goodness is easily and conveniently discarded. For instance, self-reliance has immeasurably weakened; nature is raped and diversity is not nourished in human relations with nature; and millions of people are being exploited in the name of progress.

to be continued

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III
         What does civilization or being civilized mean? Rabindharanand Tagore once said that the civilization or culture of Asia is derived from the jungle whereas the civilization of the West has its roots in the city. The term civilization is often incorrectly defined either as the human race or as a society and its culture and way of life during a particular period of time or in a particular part of the world. But civilization does not really refer to any type of society. In Latin, civilization originally meant the city way of life. Thus being civilized simply means living like the city folks.
         The Greek philosopher Aristotle even unabashedly declared that living in the city is the only way to develop oneself and cultivate beauty, goodness, and truth. He argued that an individual living in the forest would have no time to do so. The bulk of that person’s time would be spent simply on survival—on finding food, maintaining sanitation, fending off bandits, etc. The larger and more complex the city, the higher it is in the hierarchy of progress, Aristotle argued. Beauty, stability, political power and technological superiority are indicators of progress and civilization. The Romans, even more so than the Greeks, emphasized political power and technology. This seemed to be the dominant trait of the culture of the Roman empire.
         As mentioned earlier, my country began to uncritically absorb the Western conception of progress and civilization during the reign of King Rama V. As a result, the traditional way of life began to be seen as inferior—as the source of the country’s backwardness. We looked down on our values and culture without really understanding their roots or virtues. For instance, the moral underpinnings of the Tebhumi or the Three Spheres are belittled.
         We tried to replace traditional visions of beauty with Western ones. This is dangerous. Perhaps this still remains the greatest threat confronting Siam. Of course, we have still retained Buddhism; we have not adopted Christianity. But willfully accepting the Western notion of civilization is even more dangerous than converting to Christianity.   
         Buddhism has become only a formality. It is no longer a living tradition. It no longer reflects the marriage of seasonal cycles and lifestyle.
         In a book of etiquette that was composed during the reign of King Rama V and was a required reading in many schools, the inhabitant of the city is portrayed as superior to the jungle-dweller. This view is contrary to the traditional vision, which sees the jungle as the root of civilization.
         The jungle like the life of a monk represents natural beauty. Upholding celibacy, a monk leads a noble life. Monks lead a simple lifestyle voluntarily. They want so little for themselves, giving to others much more than taking from them. The way they sleep, eat, live, dress, etc., is simple yet beautiful. Since they rely on mindfulness to conduct their lives beautifully, beauty merges with goodness. This beauty is also pure. And through further meditation and mindfulness, purity combines with peacefulness. At this point, if one’s inner potentials are used to serve all sentient beings, one becomes literally enlightened.
         The purity, peacefulness, and enlightenment of monks contribute to their beautiful behavior and help make temples exemplary centers of goodness in terms of religious teachings, morality, artistic development, healing, and disease prevention.

IV
         Many of the royal palaces in this country are built according to the Western conception of beauty. For instance, it was believed that a marble palace is a reflection of civilization. However formidable and awe-inspiring, these palaces look out of place. They represent the sad juxtaposition of Western architecture and Asian background. There is no real synthesis. These palaces do not reflect the living experience of the local community. There is no harmony with the natural setting. The same logic applies to the construction of the numerous high-rises and the heavy reliance on automobiles, which are polluting the environment.
         Between the reigns of King Rama V and King Rama VII, the indoctrinated ruling circles fed the populace with the illusion of Western progress and prosperity. Progress meant being like the West; there was only one way to be civilized. As a consequence, Western ideas heavily penetrated the kingdom’s social fabric, influencing the Thai culture and art, mode of thinking, developmental strategy, legal system, and telecommunications system. Most Thai students who went to study abroad became severed from their cultural roots, uncritically admiring the West. They no longer understood the essence of their nation’s art and beauty and believed that the truth can only be reached via Western logic and sciences. To sum up, they ended up in the worst of all worlds, failing to understand both the West and their own roots. At present, this problem has not abated. For instance, I can only wonder out loud how well the present Harvard-educated minister of finance of Siam understand about beauty and natural harmony.   
         The Thai people were abruptly and radically uprooted from their cultural foundation during the dictatorship of Field Marshal Phibunsonggram. The kingdom’s name was changed from Siam to Thailand in 1939. The Thai people literally underwent a crash course in Westernization. For instance, they were ordered to wear Western clothes and were prohibited from sitting on the pavements and from chewing betel nuts. Worse, since 1947 and especially after 1957, a handful of families virtually held the Thai population as hostages. In the name of redeeming ideas like development and democracy, they kowtowed to Pax Americana and capitalism, setting in motion another tremendous cultural and social shock waves. Popular movements were also crushed, and the people were robbed of their power and rights. Political and economic power was heavily centralized in Bangkok. Bangkok became the habitat of the giant octopus of American imperialism and transnational corporations. The modern mass media and infrastructures enabled the octopus to spread its tentacles to other Thai provinces. Not surprisingly, Chiang Mai was unable to escape from their stranglehold. Like elsewhere in Siam, the people in Chiang Mai were thrown off-balance. The traditional conceptions of beauty and goodness, which include, among other things, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, humility, giving and sharing, were transformed into vices or weaknesses.
         Shopping malls uncontrollably proliferated in the kingdom, and they have replaced temples as the center of community life. The upper and middle classes indulge in consumerism, leading selfish and apathetic lives, greedily depleting the natural resources, and polluting the environment. In many respects, they are no longer human beings: they have turned into human havings. So far, higher education in Siam as well as throughout the world has played a dismal role, more successful at producing competent servants of power than responsible and compassionate human beings. Things are unlikely to change soon as the center of power has shifted to the central bank, the gatekeeper of the rich men’s club—of the interests of transnational corporations, World Bank, IMF, international banks, and so on.
         If every individual lacks beauty inside, lacks goodness, lacks moral courage, and lacks an understanding of the structural causes of injustices at the local, national, and international levels how can beauty be found in buildings, literature, sculptures, and paintings? We must learn and strive to live life as if it is work of art.  

V
         Despair will lead us nowhere in times like these. In fact, there are some good reasons not to despair. All is not lost. The initiatives undertaken by the Assembly of the Poor in Siam in its quest for beauty, truth, and goodness are inspirational and heartening. We have a lot to learn from them. We must respect the poor.   
         The Assembly is a sustained, nonviolent, and popular grassroots movement that first became visible in the mid-1990s, but its origins probably rooted in the early 1980s. The Assembly is an amalgamation of seven distinct networks, representing almost every region in Siam and comprising more than half a million members. At the heart of the Assembly are urban and rural small-scale agriculturists and manual laborers. They form the absolute majority in the movement. In varying degrees, all of them have been hardly hit by the mainstream developmental strategies—by the dominant conceptions of progress, beauty, and civilization. Worse, the government has shown callous disregard for their plight, cynically hoping that the will of these awakened souls would eventually smother. It won’t be that easy.   
         Non-governmental organizations, monks, environmentalists, responsible intellectuals, students, and some individuals from the business community are strengthening the sinews of the Assembly. Simply put, the movement is able to transcend class and regional divisions. They have come to care about, promote, and benefit from one another’s wellbeing. The circle of the Assembly’s kalyanamittata is also expanding. The Assembly of the Poor is a living symbol of a participatory movement that is organized from the bottom up. It is a call for a comprehensive reevaluation of the mainstream conception of beauty and for rediscovering the virtues of our cultural roots.   
         Moreover, the Assembly has set up a university for its members. Based on local wisdom and culture and enriched with lessons on, to cite some random examples, sustainability, conflict resolution, Buddhism, resource management, and networking, it is the kind of education that seeks to preserve and foster pride in their simple and beautiful way of life. It is the kind of education that they need to lead a prosperous life—one that is according to their hope, that is rewarding and fulfilling, and that helps minimize their exploitation and oppression.     
         In conclusion, if we are able to fathom the subtlety, appropriateness, and crux of traditional conceptions of beauty and incorporate this understanding into our non-violent struggles for equality, justice, and environmental preservation, then we may begin to savor beauty and goodness and eventually open the door to the truth.

finish

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Written by Lance Morrow(TIME)

King Richard III was a monster. He poisoned his wife, stole the throne from his two young nephews and ordered them to be smothered in the Tower of London. Richard was a sort of Antichrist the King -- "that bottled spider, that pois'nous bunch-back'd toad."

Anyway, that was Shakespeare's version. Shakespeare did what the playwright does: he turned history into a vivid, articulate, organized dream -- repeatable nightly. He put the crouchback onstage, and sold tickets.

And who would say that the real Richard known to family and friends was not identical to Shakespeare's memorably loathsome creation? The actual Richard went dimming into the past and vanished. When all the eyewitnesses are gone, the artist's imagination begins to conjure.

Variations变体 on the King Richard Effect are at work in Oliver Stone's JFK. Richard III was art, but it was propaganda too. Shakespeare took the details of his plot from Tudor都德 historians who wanted to blacken Richard's name. Several centuries passed before other historians began to write about Richard's virtues and suggest that he may have been a victim of Tudor malice and what is the cleverest conspiracy of all: art.

JFK is a long and powerful harangue about the death of the man Stone keeps calling "the slain young king." What are the rules of Stone's game? Is Stone functioning as commercial entertainer? Propagandist? Documentary filmmaker? Historian? Journalist? Fantasist? Sensationalist? Paranoid conspiracy-monger? Lone hero crusading for the truth against a venal Establishment? Answer: some of the above.

The first superficial effect of JFK is to raise angry little scruples like welts in the conscience. Wouldn't it be absurd if a generation of younger Americans, with no memory of 1963, were to form their ideas about John Kennedy's assassination from Oliver Stone's report of it? But worse things have happened -- including, perhaps, the Warren Commission report.

Stone's movie and the Warren report are interestingly symmetrical: the Warren Commission was stolidly, one might say pathologically, unsuspicious, while in every scene of the Stone film conspiracy theories writhe underfoot like snakes. In a strange way, the two reports balance one another out. It may be ridiculous to accord Stone's movie a status coequal with the Warren report. On the other hand, the Warren report has endured through the years as a monolith of obscure suppression, a smooth tomb of denial. Stone's movie, for all its wild gesticulations手势, at least refreshes the memory and gets a long- cold curiosity and contempt glowing again.

The fecklessness of the Warren report somehow makes one less indignant about Stone's methods and the 500 kitchen sinks that he has heaved into his story. His technique is admirable as storytelling and now and then preposterous as historical inquiry. But why should the American people expect a moviemaker to assume responsibility for producing the last word on the Kennedy assassination when the government, historians and news media have all pursued the subject so imperfectly?

Stone uses a suspect, mongrel art form, and JFK raises the familiar ethical and historical problems of docudrama文献电视片. But so what? Artists have always used public events as raw material, have taken history into their imaginations and transformed it. The fall of Troy vanished into the Iliad. The Battle of Borodinofound its most memorable permanence in Tolstoy's imagining of it in War and Peace.

艺术与生活~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Especially in a world of insatiable electronic storytelling, real history procreates, endlessly conjuring new versions of itself. Public life has become a metaphysical breeder of fictions. Watergate became an almost continuous television miniseries -- although it is interesting that the movie of Woodward and Bernstein's All The President's Men stayed close to the known facts and, unlike JFK, did not validate dark conjecture.

Some public figures have a story magic, and some do not. Richard Nixon possesses an indefinable, discomfited dark gleam that somehow fascinates. And John Kennedy, despite everything, still has the bright glamour that works best of all. Works, that is, except when the subject is his assassination. That may be a matter still too sacred, too raw and unassimilated. The long American passivity about the death in Dallas may be a sort of hypnosis -- or a grief that hardened into a will not to know. Do not let daylight in upon magic.

Why is Stone's movie different from any other imaginative treatment of history? Is it because the assassination of John Kennedy was so traumatic, the baby boomers' End of Childhood? Or that Americans have enshrined it as official tragedy, a title that confers immunity from profane revisionists who would reopen the grave? Are artists and moviemakers by such logic enjoined from stories about the Holocaust大屠杀? The Holocaust, of course, is known from the outset to be a satanic plot. For some reason -- a native individualism, maybe -- many Americans resist dark theories about J.F.K.'s death, and think those retailing them are peddling foreign, anarchist goods. Real Americans hate conspiracies as something unclean.

Perhaps the memory of the assassination is simply too fresh. An outraged movie like Stone's intrudes upon a semipermanent mourning. Maybe the subject should be embargoed for some period of time, withheld from artists and entertainers, in the same way the Catholic Church once declined to consider sainthood until the person in question had been dead for 50 years.

No: better to opt for information and conjecture and the exhumation of all theories. Let a hundred flowers bloom, even if some of them are poisonous and paranoid. A culture is what it remembers, and what it knows.

【参考译文】论艺术家扭曲史实

(1)英王理查三世是个魔鬼。他毒死了自己的妻子，篡夺原属于两个年轻侄儿的王位，还下令在伦敦塔中让他们窒息而死。理查可说是一位撒旦似的国王——“那瓶中的蜘蛛，那阴毒的驼背蟾蜍。”

(2)至少这是莎士比亚的说法。莎士比亚所做的只是剧作家的本分：把历史转变为鲜明、清晰、条理分明的梦——可以每晚上演。他把这个驼背怪物搬上台，卖票给人看。

(3) 又有谁敢说在亲朋好友眼中的真正的理查不是这样，和莎翁创造出来的那个令人厌恶得难以忘怀的剧中人物不同？真正的理查，随着历史远去而了无踪迹。所有的目击证人都已不在了，艺术家的想像力就开始施展魔力了。

(4) 在奥利佛?斯通的《谁杀了肯尼迪》中可以看到这种“理查国王效应”的变奏。《理查三世》是艺术，但也是宣传：莎翁剧情的细节取材自同时期的都铎王朝的历史家，而这些人蓄意丑化理查的形象。要过好几百年才有别的历史家出来记述理查的好处，并且暗示理查可能是都铎王朝恶意宣传的牺牲品，也是最巧妙的阴谋——艺术——的牺牲品。

(5) 《谁》片是有力的长篇大论，主题是一位人物的死亡——斯通一直称为“遇害的青年国王”的那个人。期通的把戏到底用的是哪种规则？他是扮演提供商业化娱乐的角色？还是宣传家？纪录片电影制作者？历史家？记者？幻想家？危言耸听者？有偏执狂的阴谋论者？独行侠式的英雄，为真理出征，挑战腐败的体制？答案：以上有些是。

(6) 《谁》片所造成的第一种比较表面化的效果，就是激起观众愤怒的原则问题的小抗议，好像良心上的一道道鞭痕：如果年轻一代的美国人，不复记得1963（肯尼迪遇刺年代），对于肯尼迪遇刺案的观念全凭斯通的报道，这不是太荒谬了吗？可是比这更糟的事也不是没发生过——也许包括华伦委员会报告在内。

(7)斯通的电影和华伦委员会的报告形成有趣的对称：华伦委员会是反应迟钝，毫无疑心，几乎可以说到了病态的地步：而在斯通电影的每一场戏中，阴谋论像蛇一样在脚下到处窜动。这两种报告很微妙地可以互相平衡。当然，把斯通的片子赋予和华伦报告相同的地位，有点不伦不类。反过来说，华伦报告历经多年至今，像一块巨石般，隐隐压抑着所有不同的说法，好像一座平滑的坟墓，泰然否定一切。斯通的片子虽然从头到尾比手划脚，十分夸张，至少让人重温旧事，让观众心中早已冷却的好奇与轻蔑重新烧了起来。

(8) 因为华伦报告如此不痛不痒，所以让观众似乎比较能忍受斯通的手法与他搬到电影中的堆积如山的垃圾。从说故事的角度来看，他的手法高明，从调查史实的角度来看则不时显得荒谬。可是政府、历史学家与新闻媒体追查这个主题都无法令人满意，美国人又怎能指望一位电影人来负责对肯尼迪遇刺案下断语？

(9) 斯通采用的艺术形态是纪录剧情片，这种形态血统不纯正，可靠性也令人怀疑。《谁》片也再度引起关于纪录剧情片的道德性、历史性问题。可是这又怎样？艺术家一向都采用公共事件做原始素材，把历史纳入想象中加以改造。特洛伊城的陷落淹没在《伊利亚特》中。波罗金诺之役能够不朽，永为后人追忆的，不是史实，而是托尔斯泰在《战争与和平》中的想象。

(10)尤其在电子媒体无止境渴求故事的今日，真实历史不断创造、繁衍出千奇百怪的新版本。公共人物的生活好像成了虚构故事的哺育者。水门事件爆发后，变成几乎不间断的电视迷你剧集——不过有一点颇堪玩味：描写伍华德与伯恩斯坦揭发水门事件的《大阴谋》一片紧守已知的事实，不像《谁》片把阴暗的揣测当真。

⑾ 有些公共人物有成为故事的魅力，有些则不然。尼克松有一种不可名状的、好像要掩饰什么的阴暗的光芒，产生一种莫明的吸引力。肯尼迪不论如何还是有他灿烂的光彩，最适合编故事。或许应该说，他遇刺这个故事除外。这个主题可能还是太神圣、太生硬，还没有消化完毕。美国人长久以来对达拉斯市那宗死亡事件一直处于被动、消极状态，这可能是一种催眠——也可能是悲痛化为不愿去了解的意志。神奇的事物不要摊在阳光下。

⑿ 斯通的电影和别人利用历史做想象的素材为什么感觉不同？是否因为肯尼迪遇刺造成太深的心理创痛，象征了婴儿潮一代童年的结束？还是因为美国人把它当做国家悲剧供奉起来，使它得以免于被亵渎神明的翻案者从坟墓中挖出来？依此逻辑，艺术家与电影人是否就禁止用纳粹大屠杀来做故事材料？当然，纳粹大屠杀不同，打从一开始很清楚就是撒旦式的情节。许多美国人不知何故——也许天生的个人主义的关系吧——会排斥关于肯尼迪之死的阴谋论，而且认为兜售阴谋论的人是在贩卖外国无政府主义的货物。真正的美国人好像把阴谋看成不洁的事物而讨厌它。

⒀ 也许只是因为对刺杀肯尼迪案的记忆还太鲜明了。像斯通这种忿忿不平的电影侵犯到美国人近乎永恒的哀悼。也许这个题材应该禁用一段时间，不准艺术家和娱乐界人士使用，就像天主教从前不愿考虑把死亡未满50年的人封为圣徒一样。

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原帖地址：https://bbs.gter.net/viewthread.php?tid=1081933&page=1#pid1773925653

Debates
This house believes that the German economy is too dependent on exports for growth.

About this debate

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In 2009 China was the world's top exporter of goods but Germany, with less than a tenth of China's population and much higher wages,（插入语。。好好学习，希望自己可以写出来） is the leading challenger. Exports are the main driver of Germany's economic growth. Its current-account surplus will exceed China's as a share of GDP this year. This makes Germany vulnerable: its economy was hit harder by the global slump暴跌 than those less reliant on trade. But that is a small price to pay, most Germans think, for a vibrant生气勃勃 manufacturing sector and the skilled, high-wage jobs that go with it.. \/ ?7 N- A! V0 X

But is export-led growth sustainable? Germany's current-account surplus contributes to the strains that threaten the stability of the euro. France's finance minister, Christine Lagarde, recently suggested that Germany cut taxes or raise wages to stimulate imports. If deficit-ridden赤字缠身 countries in Europe and elsewhere are to export their way out of trouble, surpluses somewhere will have to fall. Germany, the world's fourth largest economy, looks like a prime candidate. Does Germany have to rethink its economic model?

The proposer's opening remarks

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Among the deluge泛滥 of comments on the crisis of European Monetary Union (EMU), few focus the most crucial point: the external imbalance inside EMU. Greece's budget problems and those of other southern members of EMU are important, but they are closely related to external deficits. In contrast, Germany's sound budget position is to a large extent the result of the huge external stimulus it has received in the past decade. The key to the future of EMU is to be found in external adjustment in all countries and not in lopsided不平衡的 governments' belt-tightening around the Mediterranean Sea. It is the external imbalances that will force the dissolution of EMU if strong corrective action is not taken soon.（issue） And if it comes to make or break in the currency union, only external adjustment will provide the basis for a proper judgment on misdoings, wrongdoers and those who have to take the first step. Germany has to move definitively because it has misunderstood EMU more than any other country.

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deluge：洪水

lopsided：adj 倾向一方的；不平衡的
【记】lop（v 砍伐；v 下垂）；sided边：向一边倾斜的。- _& \/ {8 O  _' \8 t7 C
【反】even handed（平衡）"5 a" M4 ~/ I) N* {' }* m( L8 A3 I- R

The drama of EMU is not Hellenic希腊. Greece is only the tip of a large iceberg冰山一角. But a comparison of Greece and Germany reveals the core of the problem. Greece's current account deficit had reached nearly 15% of GDP in 2007 and has recently come down slightly as a result of falling imports. Between 2000 and 2010 Greece's exports were sluggish at 1.8% in real terms, but domestic demand rose at a healthy 2.3%.（上升vs下降） (All figures are from the Statistical Annex of European Economy.) Real compensation to labour increased at 1.9% per employee annually, a little less than productivity and solid indeed. But nominal compensation grew by 4.9% and the ratio of nominal compensation to productivity (unit labour costs), the most important measure of international competitiveness in a currency union, advanced at a rate of 2.7% per year and reached a level of 130 in 2010 if 2000 is 100.

The biggest country in the EU, Germany, accumulated a huge current account surplus in the same period, culminating at 8% in 2007. Between 2003 and 2007 Germany's real exports exploded but domestic demand stagnated. Nominal compensation and unit labour costs in Germany also rose only marginally over the decade, the latter reaching a level of 105.5 in 2010 (0.5% annual rate). Stagnant real compensation explains the sluggish domestic demand given that employment creation did not follow the wage restraint. Flat unit labour costs explain the explosion of exports, in particular before the crisis and against EMU members; the share of intra-EU exports of goods in Germany's GDP rose from 16.6% in 1999 to 25.7% in 2007.

Culminate:告终

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Stagnate: 停滞的

Sluggish:怠慢的

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The gap in unit labour costs means that a comparable basket of goods and services produced at the same cost in 2000 in all the EU member states now costs 25% more if it comes from Greece than if it comes from Germany.
The difference is similar for Spain, Portugal and Italy. But the difference is also 13% for France, although France was the only country where unit labour costs followed strictly the inflation target of 2% set by the European Central Bank.

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Indeed, the inflation target is crucial for the judgment on wrongdoers. EMU was not meant to be a zero inflation union but a 2% inflation union. Measured against this scale the conclusion is obvious: a 2% inflation target is compatible with a 2% unit labour cost increase. An increase of 2.7%, as in Greece, has meant that the country is living beyond its means but has violated the rule to a lesser degree than Germany, living at 0.4% below its means Germany has explicitly agreed to the target of close to 2% because it was its own target before EMU. Given this target and the overriding importance of unit labour costs for inflation, Germany headed towards a clear violation of the common target once its government started to put enormous pressure on wage negotiations to improve the country's competitiveness inside and outside EMU.

Some people believe that the difference is not relevant as Germany had absolute disadvantages before the beginning of EMU, mainly because of the burden of German unification. However, logic says otherwise. If your belt-tightening makes up for absolute disadvantages, you will not end up with absolute advantages. But this is exactly the German case. Germany is the only big country in Europe that was able to stabilise its global market share in the first decade of this century—all the others, including France, lost dramatically.

unification  

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n 统一；一致( N& w' S3 i) J/ ]! R! T$ K
【记】源于：unify（v 统一）
【反】divergence（n 分歧）"

That leads to the final line of Germany's defence, namely换句话说 that high unemployment has justified German wage dumping. Wrong again—unemployment is a feature in most EMU member states and German wage restraint did not remove it because the domestic demand gap has compensated for the external demand boom. Between 2000 and 2010 overall German growth performance was a meagre贫乏的可怜的 0.6% annually—only half of France's. Gross fixed capital formation fell by 0.2%, compared with an increase of 1.4% in France. Moreover, countries seeking to depress wages for domestic or other reasons should not join currency unions and agree to pursue a 2% inflation target. It was obvious; with open borders and permanent transfers excluded， no country could survive economically a huge absolute disadvantage triggered by因为 its biggest trading partner.(都不理解。。。。哎。。)

# P% X# Y/ a; V

meagre
瘦的，不足的，贫乏的

European politicians are wrong if they believe that there will be national solutions. If Germany continues with belt-tightening, and there is every indication that显示 it will, the countries with absolute disadvantages will need to cut wages. The result will be protracted deflation and depression for EMU as a whole but with
no Phoenix rising from the ashes比喻-复活 as long as no one opts for exit. But the crisis is more a German tragedy than a Greek one. If Germany cannot agree to concerted action with explicit decisions about wage adjustment paths for many years, indeed for decades, to rebalance its trade, it could still save Europe by leaving EMU and allowing a strong revaluation of its new currency.

protracted  

adj 拖延的【反】summary（adj 概要的）；transient（adj 短暂的）"

7 i: T. Z5 s/ k1 Z4 o
opt
vi.(for)选择，挑选

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

About this debate                                
When economists want to compare living standards in one country with those in another, or to track how much richer a country has become over time随着时间, they usually look at gross domestic product (GDP). The growth of GDP, adjusted for changes in population and prices, is the commonest measure of changes in living standards. But is it a good one?（开头点背景-->反问）

GDP was designed to estimate the value of goods and services produced in a country. Critics say that as a measure of living standards it misses out too much很多被忽略, such as the state of the environment, people's health, leisure and the distribution of income. Does a rising GDP mean that people are happier as well as richer? Is it time, as a Nobel economics laureate has said, for an end to "GDP fetishism"? Or is GDP, for all its flaws, a good enough estimate of society's material well-being? Should GDP be ditched抛弃, or is the search for better measures a fool's errand差事?

Background reading                                
Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress
Economics focus: Measuring what matters
GDP and Beyond: Measuring Economic Progress and Sustainability

The moderator's opening remarks

Finding ways to improve humanity's living standards is the point of economics. Having a good measure of living standards, you may think, is therefore pretty fundamental to the discipline. For decades economists have turned to gross domestic product (GDP) when they want an estimate of how well off people are. By how much are Americans better off than Indians, or than their parents' generation? Chances are the answer will start with GDP.

GDP is really a measure of an economy's output, valued at market prices (to the extent that you have them). As societies produce more, and therefore earn more, their material well-being rises. So it is no surprise that so many economists and official statisticians broadly accept GDP as a measure of living standards.

It isn't the only measure. Even before the recent recession, a lot of debate over American living standards was based not on GDP, which was growing healthily¬, but on median incomes, which were not:
the point was that national output was growing, but that its fruits were not being evenly shared. It doesn't cover everything: not all the things that we value are bought and sold in the marketplace. But when economists want to measure the living standards of whole societies, GDP is where they usually start.

That said, economists and statisticians have been debating for years whether GDP measures what truly matters. It may capture material wealth, broadly, but is that enough? If it is not enough, with what should it be replaced—or, more likely, supplemented代替或者补充? With assessments of the environment? Measures of people's health? Estimates of their happiness? And how might all these different aspects be combined? If some new measure is closely correlated with GDP, then GDP, though imperfect, may be good enough. If it is not, then focusing on GDP could be an error of more than just measurement: governments that pursue GDP growth may be making their citizens worse off than they might be.

The Economist's latest online debate is intended to力图 wrestle with these questions争论议题. Andrew Oswald, of the University of Warwick, is proposing the motion that "GDP growth is a poor measure of improving living standards". Opposing him is Steven Landefeld, director of the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which produces America's national income and product accounts, of which GDP is a prominent feature.

Mr Oswald's starting point is a report published last year by a commission chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economics laureate. The Stiglitz commission (of which Mr Oswald was a member, and which was written about in The Economist last September argued that official statistics should shift away from measuring production to measuring "well-being". Mr Oswald points to two pieces of evidence in particular特别指出: the Easterlin Paradox, the finding that increasing wealth does not make countries happier; and global warming, which is a sign that people should produce less and enjoy the planet more.

Mr Landefeld remarks that GDP was not intended to be a comprehensive measure of society's well-being. Even so, he says, it has stood up well as a measure of living standards. Nothing has bettered it yet. That isn't to say that GDP can't be improved, though—and Mr Landefeld points to ways in which the BEA has been trying to bring that about. He too notes the conclusions of Mr Stiglitz's commission.

This promises to be a lively and enjoyable debate on an important subject: how much use is GDP in measuring how well off people are? Mr Oswald and Mr Landefeld have set out what they think. I'm glad that we have two such prominent people to lead the debate. And I'm looking forward to the next round of arguments and to what you, on the floor of our online chamber, have to say.

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

The proposer's opening remarks

"A … key message, and unifying theme of the report, is that the time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people's well-being."
(Executive Summary: Stiglitz Commission Report)--背诵quotation

GDP is a gravely dated pursuit. It is time to listen to the Stiglitz Report.
The first reason is the evidence known as the Easterlin Paradox伊斯特林悖论(the empirical finding that countries do not become happier as they grow wealthier). The second reason is that global warming means it is necessary for Homo sapiens智人 to make fewer things rather than more, to travel less except on their feet, to lean on the direct energy of the sun and water rather than on the smashed fuel of buried trees, to value tranquil beauty more and 160mph motor cars less.

These arguments are key parts of the recent Stiglitz Report斯蒂格利茨分析报告

• Life is now more complex and services dominate ("The time has come to adapt our system of measurement … to better reflect the structural changes which have characterised the evolution of modern economies.")
• We, as a society, need to measure well-being per se本质上. ("A … unifying theme of the report is that the time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people's well-being.")
• Official government statistics should blend objective and subjective well-being data. ("Statistical offices should incorporate questions to capture people's life evaluations, hedonic experiences and priorities in their own survey.")
• Sustainability must be a criterion尺度. ("Sustainability assessment requires a well-identified dashboard of indicators … the components of this dashboard should be … interpretable as variations of some underlying "stocks".)

I am optimistic. Eventually the green movement will discover the data of the Easterlin Paradox, named after Richard Easterlin, a famous Californian economist, and also become aware of the statistical evidence on declining emotional prosperity that I describe below. Although fine young scholars like Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers doubt the veracity of it, they are heavily outnumbered: the weight of published evidence is in line with Mr Easterlin's paradox. Moreover, Ms Stevenson and Mr Wolfers themselves agree that America, perhaps the iconic GDP-chasing nation, is not becoming happier through time.

If we look at broader measures of psychological well-being, the newest longitudinal research suggests there are reasons to be more pessimistic than Easterlin. Although further research evidence needs to be collected, this is what we currently know.

Worryingly, emotional prosperity and mental health appear from the latest data to be getting worse through time. This disturbing conclusion emerges from these seven studies:

• Sacker and Wiggins (2002)
• Hodiamont et al. (2005)
• Verhaak et al. (2005)
• Green and Tsitsianis (2005)
• Wauterickx and Bracke (2005)
• Oswald and Powdthavee (2007)
• Sweeting et al. (2009)

Why? We are not yet certain. But, first, humans are animals of comparison (some of the newest evidence, from brain scans, is reported in Fliessbach et al., 2007). What I want subconsciously is to have three zoomy BMWs and for my colleagues in the office corridor at work to have mere rusting, spluttering Fords. Unfortunately, the tide of economic growth lifts all boats, so where having three glamorous cars was unusual, eventually it becomes the norm, and any relative gains are thereby neutralised. Second, people choose things—such as high-pressure kinds of work and long commutes away from their families and their dogs and their fishing buddies—that, despite what they think, will often not make them happier. Economists have ignored the research on "affective forecasting mistakes" by psychologists like Daniel Gilbert; they need to wake up to it.

Unsurprisingly, the citizens of the rich nations find it difficult to grasp that higher gross domestic product from this point onwards will not make society happier. Like people in earlier times who could not conceive of themselves as creatures glued by gravity onto a spherical planet, they trust their intuitions (because as individuals they like to become richer and assume whole countries must be the same). One cannot blame them. But the evidence shows they are wrong.

As an undergraduate, I was taught that economics is a social science concerned with the efficient allocation of scarce resources. In 2010, a better definition is needed. Economics is a social science concerned with the way to allocate plentiful resources to maximise a society's emotional prosperity and mental health.

A gravely dated pursuit.


Research evidence
Easterlin, R.A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In: David, P.A. and Reder, M.W. (eds), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramowitz. Academic Press: New York; p. 89-125.
Fliessbach, K., Weber, B., Trautner, P., Dohmen, T., Sunde, U., Elger, C. and Falk, A. (2007). Social comparison affects reward-related brain activity in the human ventral striatum. Science, 318: 1305-1308.
Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. Alfred A. Knopf: New York.
Green, F. and Tsitsianis, N. (2005). An investigation of national trends in job satisfaction in Britain and Germany. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 43: 401-429.
Hodiamont, P.P.G., Rijnders, C.A.T., Mulder, J. and Furer, J.W. (2005). Psychiatric disorders in a Dutch Health Area: A repeated cross-sectional survey. Journal of Affective Disorders, 84: 77-83.
Oswald, A.J. and Powdthavee, N. (2007). Obesity, unhappiness, and the challenge of affluence: Theory and evidence. Economic Journal, 117: F441-454.
Sacker, A. and Wiggins, R.D. (2002). Age-period-cohort effects on inequalities in psychological distress, 1981-2000. Psychological Medicine, 32: 977-990.
Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic growth and subjective well-being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring: 1-102.
Sweeting, H., Young, R. and West, P. (2009). GHQ increases among Scottish 15 year olds 1987–2006. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 44: 579–586.
Verhaak, P.F.M., Hoeymans, N., Garssen, A.A. and Westert, G.P. (2005). Mental health in the Dutch population and in general practice: 1987-2001. British Journal of General Practice, 55: 770-775.
Wauterickx, N. and Bracke, P. (2005). Unipolar depression in the Belgian population: Trends and sex differences in an eight-wave sample. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40: 691–699

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

The opposition's opening remarks

Gross domestic product (GDP) is a key measure of a country's economic activity—the purpose for which it was designed. It was not designed to be, nor should be regarded as, a comprehensive measure of society's well-being. Nonetheless, it has also proven useful as a gauge of an economy's capacity to improve living standards. It was a catastrophic decline in living standards that prompted the development of national, or GDP, accounts. Trying to design policies in the 1930s to combat
the Great Depression大萧条, President Roosevelt had only such sketchy data as stock prices, freight car loadings and incomplete indices of industrial production on which to rely. In response, the US Department of Commerce developed a set of national economic accounts that for the first time provided a comprehensive framework to guide policy decisions to assist the millions of people who were out of work.

GDP, and the broader set of national income, product and wealth accounts, has stood the test time and no other measure has proven a worthy alternative. Simon Kuznets, one of the early architects of the accounts, in 1941 recognised the limitations of focusing on market activities and excluding household production and a broad range of other non-market activities and assets that have productive value or yield satisfaction. Yet 75 years and lots of research later, there is no broader social measurement tool that officials would agree is valid and useful.

It would, therefore, seem irresponsible to abandon the most comprehensive and reliable system currently available to tell us how a society is faring economically. GDP may not be a complete measure of improving living standards, but that does not make it a poor one, especially when considering what could possibly replace it today.

There is, of course, room to improve GDP through better measuring of the distribution of the gains from economic growth and the sustainability of that growth, and selected measures of non-market activities that affect the economy—and these concepts have merit. Rather than replacing GDP, the goal might be extending and supplementing GDP and the national accounts, rather than their replacement.

Over time the national accounts have been constantly updated and extended to address changes in the economy and to keep them relevant, and many of the measurement issues raised in the current debate can be addressed within the context of these accounts. Yet extensions of the national accounts cannot be allowed to subject a critical tool for economic policy to uncertainty. Past efforts to expand conventional GDP have foundered on the inevitable problems of subjectivity and uncertainty inherent in measuring happiness, household work and other non-market activities. Critics rightly fear that the inclusion of such uncertain and subjective values in GDP will seriously diminish the essential role of the national accounts to financial markets, central banks, tax authorities and governments worldwide in measuring and managing the market economy.

Much work has focused on how to successfully broaden the utility of GDP, while preserving its core integrity. Several National Academy of Sciences studies on accounting for the environment (Nordhaus and Kokkelenberg, eds, 1999) and non-market production (Abraham and Mackie, eds, 2005), as well as the System of National Accounts (1993) guidelines for compiling GDP, have concluded that an expansion of the GDP accounts should take place in supplemental, or satellite, accounts that extend their scope without reducing the usefulness of the core GDP accounts. They also conclude that such an expansion should focus on economic aspects of non-market and near-market activities—such as energy and the economy's use of natural resources, the impact of investments in research and development (R&D), health care, or education—and not attempt to measure the welfare effect of such interactions.

Recognising the concerns of subjectivity and uncertainty, the focus should remain on creating "new" estimates within the framework of the existing accounts. For example, the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission (2009), which explored expanded welfare measures, has suggested a number of ways that "classical GDP issues" can be addressed within existing GDP accounts or through an extension and improvement of measures included in existing accounts.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis focuses on just such improvements, and President Obama this year proposed extensions within the scope of the existing accounts that would provide new measures of:

• how growth in income is distributed across households, other sectors and regions;
• the sustainability of trends in saving, investment, asset prices and other key variables important to understanding business cycles, economic growth and living standards.

There are, however, limits to what can reasonably be included in GDP. For many years the problem has not been with GDP, but rather the singular focus on GDP alone as a measure of society's welfare. Many non-market measures of welfare may be better included in such measures as the newly authorised US National Academies Key National Indicators System.

These and other efforts in the coming years will lead to a more inclusive set of measurement tools that will enhance our understanding of countries' standards of living. This progress is inevitable, but it does not render current GDP data inadequate. GDP will continue to play a crucial role in measuring social progress in and among countries.

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lynnuanaUID: 2772328

Greece's woes
The end of the party
Greeks greet another austerity plan from the government with incensed protests激烈抗议
May 5th 2010 | ATHENS | From The Economist online

RIOTS骚乱, petrol bombs汽油弹, tear gas催泪弹 and strikes greeted the Greek's government's latest attempt to persuade its citizens of the merits of reducing the country's budget deficit. In Athens雅典 demonstrators示威游行者 stormed up to涌向 the very steps of the parliament building, where an austerity plan was about to be debated, calling on the parliamentary “thieves” to come out. Three people were killed when protesters set fire to a bank building on Wednesday May 5th. Hours later,几小时后 with tear gas drifting through the adjacent square, parliamentary leaders held a brief, sombre阴沉昏暗 exchange on the signficance of the deaths, vowing to宣誓 protect the principle that protest must be peaceful. Many citizens agreed that it was a sad moment for the birthplace of democracy.

Yet Athenians were also saying, with wistful smiles感伤的微笑, that it had been a good party while it lasted. The backdrop背景 to the riots was that, in a mixed mood of resignation, black humour and bitterness, Greeks were bidding farewell to a decade in which everything good and bad about their country grew feverishly兴奋. There were sporting and cultural extravaganzas, starting with the 2004 Olympics. Archaeological sites were spruced up, new buildings erected. The middle class grew larger and more sophisticated. And many people at the lower end of the pile breathed a bit easier, if only because immigrants from poorer places came to harvest their olives and work in their restaurants.

At the same time, Greece’s worst habits—the plundering搜刮 of state coffers, the hiring of cronies裙带关系, the abuse of public office, impunity面与惩罚 for the powerful—were multiplied on an ever larger scale. A handful of少数 Cassandrassaid it would end in tears but, while the party lasted, nobody listened. Now, with the announcement on May 2nd of loans from the IMF and the European Union worth a total of