[1010G]Economist 阅读帖---By Weasel

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主楼汇总

红色：new words & phrases
蓝色：remembered words & phrases， but have not mastered
黄色：usable for AW
绿色：existing questions

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http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/168

About this debate

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

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Background reading

http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15543675

Private-sector space flight
Moon dreams
The Americans may still go to the moon before the Chinese

WHEN America’sspace agency, NASA, announced its spending plans in February, some people worried thatits cancellation of the Constellation moonprogramme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rockysatellite. The next footprints on the lunarregolith were therefore thought likely to beChinese. Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending planactually makes it more likely Americawill return to the moon.


The new plan encourages firms to compete to provide transport to low Earth orbit (LEO). The budget proposes $6 billion overfive years to spur the development ofcommercial crew and cargo services to the international space station. Thismoney will be spent on “man-rating” existing rockets, such as Boeing’s Atlas V,and on developing new spacecraft that could be launched on many differentrockets. The point of all this activity isto create healthy private-sector competition for transport to the spacestation—and in doing so to drive down the costof getting into space.


Eric Anderson, the boss of a space-travel company calledSpace Adventures, is optimistic about thechanges. They will, he says, build “railroads into space”. Space Adventures hasalready sent seven people to the space station, using Russian rockets. It wouldcertainly benefit from a new generation ofcheap launchers（发射器）.


Another potential beneficiary（受惠者）—（注意此处破折号）and advocate of private-sector transport—isRobert Bigelow, a wealthy entrepreneur whofounded a hotel chain called Budget Suites of America. Mr Bigelow has so far spent $180mof his own money on space development—（注意此处破折）probably more than any otherindividual in history. He has been developing so-called expandable space habitats, a technology he bought from NASA anumber of years ago.
These habitats, which are folded upfor launch and then inflated in space, weredesigned as interplanetary vehicles for a trip to Mars, but they are alsolikely to be useful general-purposeaccommodation. The company already has two scaled-down（规模缩小的） versions in orbit.


Mr Bigelow is preparing to build a space station that willoffer cheap access to space to other governments—something he believes willgenerate a lot of interest. The current plan is to launch the first full-scalehabitat (called Sundancer)in 2014. Further modules will be added to this over the course of a year, and the result will be aspace station with more usable volume than theexisting international one. Mr Bigelow’s price is just under $23m per astronaut.That is about half what Russia chargesfor a trip to the international station, a pricethat is likely to go up after the space shuttleretires later this year. He says he will be able to offer this price bybulk-buying launches on newly man-rated rockets. Since most of the cost ofspace travel is the launch, the price might come down（回降） even more if the private sectorcan lower the costs of getting into orbit.


The ultimate aim of all hisinvestment, Mr Bigelow says, is to get to the moon. LEO(上文有个括号，这里可以输入简写) is merely his proving ground（试验场）. He says that if the technology does work in orbit, the habitatswill be ideal for building bases on the moon. To go there, however, he willhave to prove that the expandable habitat does indeed work, and also generate substantial returns on his investment in LEO, toprovide the necessary cash.


If all goes well, the next targetwill be L1, the point 85% of the way to the moon where the gravitational pulls（引力） ofmoon and Earth balance（vi）. “It’sa terrific dumping off point,” he says. “Wecould transport a completed lunar base [to L1] and put it down on the lunarsurface intact.”


There are others with lunar ambitions, too. Some 20 teamsare competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, a purse of $30m that will be given to the first private missionwhich lands a robot on the moon（让机器人登陆月球）, travels across thesurface and sends pictures back to Earth. Space Adventures, meanwhile, is indiscussions with almost a dozen potential clients about a circumlunar（绕月的） mission, costing $100ma head.


The original Apollo project（阿波罗计划） was mainly a race to provethe superiority of American capitalism（资本主义）over Soviet communism（共产主义）. Capitalism won—but at the cost of creating, in NASA, one of thelargest bureaucracies in American history. If the United States is to return tothe moon, it needs to do so in a way that isdemonstrably（确实adv.）superior to thefirst trip—for example, being led by business rather than government. Engaging in another government-driven spendingbattle, this time with the Chinese, will do nothing more than show that Americahas missed the point.

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Climate-change politics
Cap-and-trade's last hurrah
The decline of a once wildly popular idea



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

The cap-and-trade provision条款 expected in the climate legislation that Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham have been working on, which may be
unveiled揭露 shortly, will be a poor shadow of that once alluring idea. Cap-and-trade will not be the centrepiece（桌子中间的装饰品，最引人注意的地方，焦点） of the legislation (as it was of last year’s House climate bill, Waxman-Markey), but is instead likely to apply only to（apply不及物） electrical utilities（utility工具，实用程序/utilitarian有效用，功利主义者）, at least for the time being暂且. Transport fuels will probably be approached with some sort of tax or fee; industrial emissions will be tackled阻截 with regulation and possibly, later on, carbon trading. The hope will be to cobble （to make or put together roughly or hastily）together cuts in emissions similar in scope to those foreseen under the House bill, in which the vast majority of domestic cuts in emissions came from utilities.

This composite综合成的 approach is necessary because the charms of economy-wide cap-and-trade have faded badly. The ability to raise money from industry is not so attractive in a downturn衰退期. Market mechanisms have lost their appeal as a result of the financial crisis. More generally, climate is not something the public seems to feel strongly about at the moment, in part because of that recession,in part perhaps because they have worries about the science (see article), in part, it appears, because the winter has been a snowy one.

The public is, though, quite keen on（热衷于） new initiatives on energy, which any Senate bill will shower with incentives and subsidies whether the energy in question考虑中的，被谈论着的 be renewable（可持续的）, nuclear, pumped out from beneath the seabed or still confined to research laboratories. So the bill will need to raise money, which is why cap-and-trade is likely to remain for the utilities, and revenues will be raised from transport fuels. A complex way of doing this, called a linked fee, would tie the revenues to the value of carbon in the utility market; a straightforward（直接的，坦率的） carbon tax may actually have a better chance of passing.

Energy bills have in the past garnered获得 bipartisan两党的 support, and this one also needs to. That is why Senator Graham matters. He could bring on board both Democrats and Republicans. Mr Graham’s contribution has been to focus the rhetoric（雄辩的言辞/花言巧语） not just on （focus sth on）near-term（短期） jobs, but also on longer-term competitiveness（competition/competitive）. Every day America does not have climate legislation, he argues, is a day that China’s grip on the global green economy gets tighter.

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

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

The EPA’s new powers undoubtedly make the charms of legislation greater. Some industrial lobbies（游说议员的团体） may decide that the bill will provide the certainty they need to decide about future investment, and get behind it. The White House has been supportive of 支持，赞同late, inviting senators over to talk. But it remains an uphill艰难的 struggle, and the use of reconciliation（和解，调和） to pass health care could greatly increase the gradient of the hill, as（as引导的定语从句，as代表前面整句，并在后面做宾语） Mr Graham has made abundantly clear.

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

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Genetically modified food

Attack of the really quite likeable tomatoes

The success of genetically modified crops provides opportunities to winover their critics

IN THE14 years since the first genetically modified crops were plantedcommercially, their descendants, relatives and remixes have goneforth and multiplied like profitable, high-tech pondweed水池草. A new report (see article
) shows that 25 countries nowgrow GM crops, with the total area under cultivationnowlarger than Peru.Three-quarters of the farmland used to grow soya大豆黄豆 is now sownwith a genetically modified variant变种, and the figures for cotton arenot that （adv） far behind, thanks to
its success in India. China recentlygave the safety go-ahead to its first GM rice variety and a new GM maize thatshould make better pig feed. More and more plants are having their genomes
染色体组sequenced: a full sequence for maize was published late last year, the soya genome in January. Techniques for altering genomesare moving ahead almost as fast as the genomes themselves are stacking up, andnew crops with more than one added trait（基因决定的characteristic） are coming to market.

Such stories of success will strike fear into some hearts, and not only in GM-averse（反对的，不喜欢的） Europe; a GMbacklash（强烈反对） is under way in India, focusedon insect-resistant（抗虫）aubergines（India的一种植物）. Some of these fears areunderstandable, but lacking supporting evidence they have never been compelling. On safety, the fear which cuts closest tohome, the record continues to look good. Governments need to keep testingand monitoring, but that may be becoming easier. More precise modifications, andbetter technologies for monitoring stray（走失的，迷途的） DNA both within plants and inthe environment around them, mean that it is getting easier to be sure thatnothing untoward（not favorable） is going on.

Then there is the worry that GM crops are a way forbig companies to takeover（接替，接管） the livelihoods of small farmersand, in the end, achunk（大块） of nature itself. Seen in this light the fact that 90% of the farmers growingGM crops are comparativelypoor
and indeveloping countries is sinister危险的，不吉祥的, not salutary有益健康的; givenMonsanto’s dominance in America’s soyabean market, it seems tosuggest
incipient初期的
world domination. It is certainly true that big firms make a lot of moneyselling GM seeds: the GM seed market was worth $10.5 billion in 2009, and thecrops that grew from that seed were worth over $130 billion. But multinationals合资企业 are not the only game in town. The governments of China (which has increased agricultural researchacross the board), India andBrazilare also developing new GM crops. In 2009 a GM version of an Indian cotton variety,developed in the publicsector部门, came to market, and a varietyengineered by a private Indian firm has been approved for
commercialisation商业化. Charities, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are also funding efforts in
various countries to make cropsmore hardy（耐寒的，另外还有吃苦耐劳的意思） or nutritious. GM seeds that comefrom government research bodies, or from local firms, may not arouse quite somuch opposition（反对） as those from large foreign companies, especially when they providecharacteristics that make crops better, not just easier to farm.

Moreover, where the seeds come from is a separate question from who should pay for them, as MrGates points out. As with drugs and vaccines, it is possible to get products that were developedwith profit inmind to the people who need them using donor捐款机构的 money and clever pricing and licensing deals. In the longer term, if theseeds deliver what the farmers require, the need for such special measuresshould diminish. After all, the whole idea is not that poor farmers should goon being poor. It is that poor farmers should get a bit richer, be able toinvest a bit more, and thus increase the food available to a growing and predominantly占主导地位地
urban population.

More than strange fruits

There is another worry about GM technology, though,that should be taken seriously. It is that its success and appeal totechnophiles may, in the minds of those who pay for agricultural research, crowd out（挤出） other approaches to improving farming. Because it depends on intellectual property财产 that can be protected, GM is ripe成熟的 for private investment. There is a lot of otheragricultural research that is less amenable to corporate ownership but stillneeds doing.
From
soil management to weather forecasts to the preservation, study and useof agriculturalbiodiversity生物多样性, there are many ways to improvethe agricultural systems on which the world’s food supply depends, and makethem more resilient适应力强 as well as more profitable. A farm is not a just a clever crop: it is anecosystem managed with intelligence. GM crops have a great role to play in that development, but theyare only a part of the whole.

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彻底晕死，同样的办法，一会有色，一会没色:@

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哎！手工在帖子上又编辑了一遍

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The moderator（主持人）'sopening remarks

What is the right role for government in spurring innovation? The outlinesof this age-old debate will be familiar to many. One side argues thatgovernments inevitably get it wrong when they get too involved in innovation:picking the wrong technology winners, say, or ploughing subsidies intopolitically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The otherrebuts that given the grave global challenges we face today—in the 1960s America thoughtit was the Soviet race into space, today many countries worry about climatechange and pandemic threats—governments need to do much more to supportinnovation.

Happily for us, gentle reader, the two sides in the Economist's latestdebate are moving beyond such platitudes陈词滥调 to novel新颖的 arguments.

Arguing in favour of 赞同the motion that innovation works best when government does least isAmar Bhide, a professor at Harvard and author of "The VenturesomeEconomy". His opening statement roundly严厉地denounces谴责 the visions幻想 of home-grownSilicon Valleys that dance in the heads of bureaucrats（bureaucracy中的一员） worldwide as "a dubious conception of paradise天堂，乐园". California's bloated肿胀的 government is bankrupt and Japan's once formidableMITI agency is in tatters, he observes, but market-mindedHong Kong is flourishing (and its hyper-commercial denizens外籍居民 far richer than their coddled Japanese counterparts

1 : one of two corresponding copies of a legalinstrument : DUPLICATE
2 a : a thing that fitsanother perfectly b : something that completes : COMPLEMENT
3 a : one remarkablysimilar to another b : one having the same function or characteristics asanother <college presidents and their counterparts in business>).

He adds for good measure that the "techno-fetishist（belief inmagical fetishes）" view of innovation represented by the top-heavyJapanese model pales in comparison with a robust, bottom-up version ofinnovation that harnesses利用 thecreativity and enterprise of the many, including the "venturesome consumers".He does acknowledge that governments have a role to play: "Doing the least doesn't mean doing nothing atall." However, his advocacy of a least isbest policy, though conceptually elegant优美, seems abit slippery靠不住的 and is probably unhelpfulin practice. In future postings, perhaps hewill explain how exactly governments should decide whether they are doing toolittle or too much to help innovation.

David Sandalow, author of "Freedom from Oil"and a senior official一位高级官员 in America's Department of Energy, presents a robust defence of government. He does makethe familiar points about the need for governments to invest in education andfundamental research. He also adds slightly more controversial arguments aboutwhy government policies are required to overcomemarket failures (such as the recent financial crisis, which unfairly sapped耗尽innovators of credit) and misaligned（mis+align） incentives that hold back theadoption of worthwhile innovations (like energy-saving technologies with speedy paybacks).

More striking显著的，突出的 is Mr Sandalow's linkage结合 of theglobal trend towards open innovation, which means companies increasingly relyon ideas from outside their own research laboratories, with the need forgreater government spending on innovation. He argues that open innovation willget technologies faster to market, but at the expenseof在损失某事物的情况下 fundamental research of thesort that AT&T Bell Labs or Xerox Parc used to do. He insists that"without governmentsupport for such research, the seed corn for future generations would be atrisk". That is a clever point, but it does not answer the obvious rebuttal反驳 that governments would inevitably invest in the wrongsorts of research (think, to stick with跟着 hisanalogy, of the money spent by the Americangovernment subsidising （注意此句句型，先spent后subsidising）cornethanol乙醇, anenvironmentally questionable but politically popularfuel).

Are you waiting for further rounds of jousting to decidewhich side to support? Don't be a mugwump中立者, sitting on the fence with your mug in one hand and yourwump on the other. Cast your vote now.

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The opposition'sopening remarks

Mar 22nd 2010 | DavidSandalow

Governments spur innovation. Governments shapeinnovation. Many of the most important innovations in recent decades grew fromthe work of governments.

In 1965, a US governmentemployee named Bob Taylor had an idea about how computers could communicate. Hetook the idea to his boss Charles Herzfeld, head of the Pentagon's AdvancedResearch Projects Agency (ARPA), who invested governmentfunds in exploring it. That investment led tothe ARPAnet and, in turn, to the internet, without which so many things (including this onlinedebate) would not be possible.

An isolated example? Hardly. Among the innovations that grew directly fromgovernment funding are[among…are] the Google search engine, GPS devices, DNA mapping, inexpensive mass data storage and even Teflon.

Why is government important to innovation?

First, because the private sector under investsin fundamental research. That is natural. Time horizons in many businesses areshort. Few companies are in a position to capturebenefits from fundamental research theymight fund[vt.拨款] on their own. In manyfields, fundamental research requires resources available only to governmentsand the largest companies. As Professor Henry Chesbrough documents in his book"Open Innovation", the big corporate research labs of decades pasthave given way to more distributedapproaches to innovation. That gets many technologies to market faster,but at the expense of fundamental research. Without government support for suchresearch, the seed corn for future generationswould be at risk.

Second, because innovationdepends on an educated workforce[the workers engaged ina specific activity or enterprise], which is a job for governments. Biomedical research requiresmedical technicians. Energy research requires engineers.Computer research requires programmers.Although private companies often provide specialised training, an educatedworkforce is the essential starting point. Primary and secondary education is avital precursor to much innovation. That[自己常用it，不对] is a job forgovernments everywhere. And universities play a central role, with training of promising young innovators often made possible by government funding.[注意此处句型]

Third, because market failures stifle[压制] innovativetechnologies. The recent financial crisis[再次注意经济危机的表达方式] choked off capital[资金，同fund，grant的区别？] for innovators.Without governments stepping in to provide backstop[增援] support, thousands ofpromising innovations would have been lost due to the unrelated vagaries[变化莫测] of failing financialmarkets[vagary of market市场的风云莫测]. There are many otherexamples. Lack of capital and information prevents homeownersfrom investing in energy-saving technologies with veryshort payback periods[注意这里，with+非常短的回报时期]. Split incentives between architects, builders, landlordsand tenants prevent widespread adoption of similar technologies in commercialbuildings. Governments have a central role in overcoming these barriers, and more.

Fourth, because government policies and standards can laya strong foundation for innovation. Last century, the United Statesbenefited from government policies requiring near[这里adv.几乎，差不多] universal access toelectricity and telephone services, laying the groundwork[基础] for a vibrant[充满活力的] consumer electronicsindustry. This century, Finlandand Korea(among others) are benefiting from government policies to promote broadbandaccess, helping position[v.] each country forglobal leadership in a vast global market. New technologies require standardsthat allow them to operate within larger systems. TheNTSC television broadcast standard, 110V AC current and FHA housing loans, to pick just three examples[这个插入语有用，替换for example，for instance等], each helped marketactors coordinate, encouraging innovation. Or considerIsrael, which has a teeming [丰富的]innovation culture inwhich the Israeli government plays a central role, providing the foundation forstartups that commercialisecivilian uses of military technologies in materials, semiconductors, medical devices and communications.[此长句句型！]

Finally, because governments helpmake sure innovation delivers public benefits. Not all innovation is good. Collateralized debt obligations[] were an importantfinancial innovation. Yet as the recentfinancial crisis demonstrated[showed/inditated],financial markets cannot be relied upon to self-regulate innovation. As government encourages andpromotes innovation, it also has a role inguiding it.

In the academicliterature on innovation, the number of patents[专利] issuedin a country is often used as a proxy for the rate ofinnovation. Patents are, of course, issued by governments. As thissuggests, governments play a central role in innovation.

In his inauguraladdress[就职演说],President Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether ourgovernment is too big or too small, but whether it works…" That should guide us in thinking about this motion. The notion[替代concept，idea等] that "Innovationworks best when government does least" is simplisticand wrong. There may be instances in which government meddling chokes off innovation. (Past US governmentrestrictions on stem cell research come to mind.)Yet governments can and do play a central role in spurring innovation andmaking sure innovation delivers benefits. We should embracegovernment's role in innovation, always seeking to refine and improve it, not diminish it with broad generalities.

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The proposer's openingremarks

Mar 22nd 2010 | AmarBhidé

Innovation now attracts innumerable worshippersbut their prayers are often quite narrow and sectarian.Silicon Valley or possibly the Israeli high-tech industry is the promised land: a wondrous combination of private high-tech enterprise underpinned by government-financed universities andresearch labs.

Underpin

1 : SUPPORT, SUBSTANTIATE<underpin a thesis with evidence>
2 : to form part of, strengthen, or replace the foundation of<underpin a structure> <underpin a sagging building>

This is, alas,a dubious conception of paradise. For all thehigh-tech prowess of Silicon Valley, the economyof Californiais on the edge of disaster. Unemployment in eight counties now tops 20% and the government pays its bills in IOUs.And in spite of its extraordinary concentration of scientific and engineeringtalent and entrepreneurship, Israel's GDP perhead in 2009 was lower than of （这里of对应的是前面Israel’s ?）Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.

Alas：

used to expressunhappiness, pity, or concern

prowess：

1 : distinguishedbravery especially : military valor and skill
2 : extraordinary ability <his prowess on the footballfield>

entrepreneurship

1 : distinguishedbravery especially : military valor and skill
2 : extraordinary ability <his prowess on the footballfield>

Or remember Japan's omnipotent(全能的), visionary（有远见的） MITI working hand andglove with the likes of NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu? Putaside fiascos such as the ten-year Fifth Generation Computer SystemsProject, by standard measures the overall level of Japanese engineering andscientific performance, either because of or in spiteof government subsidies, is impressive. More tellingly,Hong Kong's GNP per head is nearly 30% higher than Japan's,24% higher than Germany'sand 505% higher than Israel's.Yet Hong Kong's government and private businesses payscant（不足的）
attentionto cutting-edge scientific and technological research.

Telling：

carrying great weight andproducing a marked effect : EFFECTIVE,EXPRESSIVE<the most telling evidence>

The techno-fetishist（科技盲目崇拜者） view of innovationand the kind of government support it demands fails to appreciate the enormousvariety of innovations that we need.

The measure of a good economy lies in the satisfaction itprovides to the many, not a few, not in thewealth or accomplishment of a few individuals or organisations. Andthese satisfactions go beyond the material or pecuniary（金钱上的） rewards earned: they include,for instance, the exhilaration （兴奋，高兴）of overcomingchallenges. Indeed they go hand in hand: a good economy cannot provide widespread prosperity without harnessing the creativity and enterprise（进取心） of the many人民大众. All must have the opportunityto innovate, to try out new things: not just scientists and engineers but also graphic artists, shopfloorworkers（车间工人）, salespersons and advertisingagencies; not just the developers of new products but their venturesome（冒险的） consumers. The exceptional performance of a few high-tech businesses,as the Silicon Valley and Israeli examplesshow, is just not enough.

Exceptional：

1 : formingan exception : RARE<an exceptional number of rainy days>
2 : better than average : SUPERIOR<exceptional skill>
3 : deviating from the norm: as a : having above orbelow average intelligence b : physically disabled

weaselUID: 2739489

由每周三次，改为每天45min-1h的eco，，这样不会长时间不更新了，嘿嘿

weaselUID: 2739489

This widely diffused, multifaceted多层面的 form of innovation entails a circumscribed（替代limited） role for governments:they should not to put their finger on the scale bribing行贿 people to do basicresearch instead of, say, the kind of graphics design(图形设计) that has made Applesuch an iconic图像的 company.Mandating more math and science in high schools when most of us never use trigonometry（三角学） or calculus（微积分） in our working lives takes away time（替换waste time）from learning skillsthat are crucial in an innovative economy: howto listen and persuade, think independently and work collaboratively,for instance.

Entail a circumscribe role for …..: they should …..

Entail：
1 : torestrict (property) by limiting the inheritance to the owner's linealdescendants or to a particular class thereof

2 a : toconfer, assign, or transmit as if by entail : FASTEN<entailed on them indelible disgrace ― Robert Browning> b :to fix (a person) permanently in some condition or status <entailhim and his heirs unto the crown ― Shakespeare>
3 : to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment orresult <the project will entail considerable expense>

Mandate：
1 : toadminister or assign (as a territory) under a mandate

2 : to make mandatory :

Yes, there is a problem withglobal warming, but that is best solved by innumerable tinkerers（修补匠） taking their chanceswith renewable（可持续的） energy andresourceful conservation, not by throwing money at projects that a few savants have determined to be the most promising. Theapparent duplication of autonomous initiativeisn't a waste: no one can foretell（predict）what is going to work.Even the most successful venture-capital companies（风投公司） have moremisses than hits. Therefore putting many independent experiments in play raises the odds（chance） that one will work. Whengovernment gets into the game of placing bets, for instance, on new batterytechnologies, innovators who don't have the savvy, credentials and connectionswith politicians or the scientific establishment are at a severe disadvantage.Yet history shows that it is often the nonconformistoutsiders who play a pivotal role. Would Ed Roberts have beenable to secure a government grant to build the world's first personal computer,a virtually useless toy when it was introducedin 1974?

Secure：

1 a archaic :unwisely free from fear or distrust : OVERCONFIDENTb : easy in mind : CONFIDENTc : assured in opinion or expectation : having no doubt
2 a : free fromdanger b : free from risk of loss c : affordingsafety <a secure hideaway> d : TRUSTWORTHY,DEPENDABLE<a secure foundation>
3 : ASSURED1 <a secure victory>

Of course a government doing theleast doesn't mean a government doing nothing at all. Moreover, the least is amoving and ever（不断地） expanding target. The inventionof the automobile, for example, necessitateddriving rules and a system of vehicle inspections. The growth of air travelrequired a system to control traffic and certify the airworthiness of aircraft.Similarly, radio and television required a system to regulate the use of the airwaves.

Ever：

1 : ALWAYS<ever striving to improve> <the ever-increasingpopulation>

2 a : at anytime <more than ever before> b : in any way <howcan I ever thank you>
3 ― used as an intensive <looks ever so angry> <am I everhappy to see you>

Modern technology created newforms of pollution that did not exist in agrarian economies. Governments had tostep in, in one way or the other, to make it unrewardingto pollute. Likewise, antitrustlaws to control commercial interactions and conduct emerged after newtechnologies created opportunities to realise economies of scale and scope—andrealise oligopoly or monopoly profits. These opportunities were largely absent（not existing） in pre-industrial economies（工业化前的经济）.

But the principle of the least isbest remains a true compass. New technologiesnot only create the need for desirable new rules, they but also generate moreopportunities for unwarranted meddling and acover for rent-seeking. It is one thing for theFederal Aviation Administration to manage the air traffic control system, quite another for the Civil Aeronautics Board (b.1938, d. 1985) to regulate airfares, routes and schedules. The construction ofthe interstate highway system may have been a great boonto the USeconomy, for example, but it did not take long for Congress to startappropriating funds for bridges to nowhere.

It is one thing for…, quite another for….

Meddle：
to interest oneself inwhat is not one's concern : interfere without right or propriety

boon:

1 : BENEFIT, FAVOR especially: one that is given in answer to a request

2 : a timely benefit : BLESSING

weaselUID: 2739489

红色：question

蓝色：熟词生义

粉色：借鉴

Finding waysto improve humanity's living standards is the point of economics. Having a goodmeasure of living standards, you may think, is therefore pretty fundamental tothe 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（？倒装）
better off than Indians, or than their parents'generation? Chances are the answer will start with GDP.（？句式不解）

GDP is really a measure of an economy's output（这里是做产量，不是输出）, valued at market prices(to the extent that you have them). As societies produce more, and thereforeearn more, their material well-being rises（虽然熟，但自己常用increase，goup，improve等）. So it is no surprise that so many economists andofficial statisticians broadly accept GDP as a measure of living standards.

It isn't the only measure. Even before the recent recession, a lot ofdebate over（关于，在。。。方面，自己常用about） Americanliving standards was based not on GDP, which was growing healthily, but on median incomes, which were not: thepoint was that national output was growing, but that its fruits were not being evenly（平均地） shared. Itdoesn't cover everything: not all the things that we value are bought and soldin the marketplace. But when economists want to measure the living standards ofwhole societies, GDP is where they usually start.
Mediam incomes：Median income is the amount whichdivides the income distributioninto two equal groups, halfhaving income above that amount, and half having income below that amount.

That said,（即便如此） economists and statisticians have been debating foryears 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 bereplaced—or, more likely, supplemented? With assessmentsof the environment? Measures of people'shealth? Estimates of their happiness? Andhow might all these different aspects be combined? If some new measure is closely correlated with GDP, then GDP, thoughimperfect, may be good enough. If it is not, then focusing on GDP could be an error of more than（？句式不解） just measurement: governments that pursue GDP growth maybe making their citizens worse off than theymight be.
Measure，assessment，estimate

The Economist's latest online debate is intended to wrestle with these questions. Andrew Oswald,of the University of Warwick, is proposing the motion that "GDP growth is a poormeasure of improving living standards". Opposing him is Steven Landefeld,director of the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which producesAmerica's national income and product accounts, ofwhich GDP is a prominent（取代我的sticking，outstanding）

feature（取代我的factors）.

intransitiveverb

2 : to combat an opposing tendency or force<wrestling with his conscience>
3 : to engage in deep thought, consideration, or debate
transitive verb
2 : to move, maneuver, or force with difficulty

Mr Oswald's starting point is a report published last year by a commissionchaired（把持）

byJoseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economics laureate（not a Nobel owner）. The Stiglitz commission (of which Mr Oswald was amember, 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: the Easterlin Paradox, the finding that increasingwealth does not make countries happier; and global warming, which is a signthat people should produce less and enjoy the planetmore.（can be used when facing environmental issues）

Shift awayfrom…to…
EasterlinParadox：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox（GDP VS happiness）

Mr Landefeld remarks（替代say，speak，announce等） that GDP was not intended to be a comprehensive measureof society's well-being. Even so, he says, it has stood up well as a measure ofliving standards. Nothing has bettered it yet. That isn't to say that GDP can'tbe improved, though—and（？句式不解）Mr Landefeld points to ways in which the BEA has beentrying to bring that about. He too（替代自己常用的also） notes the conclusions of MrStiglitz'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 MrLandefeld have set out（摆出，替代state） what theythink. I'm glad that we have two such prominent people to lead the debate. AndI'm looking forward to the next round of arguments and to what you, on thefloor of our online chamber, have to say.

weaselUID: 2739489

THE timing could hardly have been more conspicuous. After weeks of speculation, early onMonday May 3rd Kim Jong Il, the not-so-endearing Dear Leader of North Korea,arrived in Chinaby armoured train (he prefers not to fly).The trip, his first in more than four years, comes at a time of high tension on the Korean peninsula. The sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan,in disputed（有争议的）

waters inMarch is widely suspected to have been the result of a North Korean attack.After laying to rest the 46 sailors who perished, in a solemn（庄严的） ceremony onApril 29th, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, wastedno time(can’t wait) in flying to meet his Chinese counterpart(同仁) the following day on the sidelines of （在。。。的场边）the ShanghaiWorld Expo.he It must be galling（难堪） for Mr Kimto trundle（慢步走，重提某事）along behind him.

Lay to rest: 埋葬,了解,不再过问,搁置,淡忘
lie: 躺
过去式 lay,过去分词 lain , 现在分词 lying; lie: 说谎
过去式 lied,过去分词 lied , 现在分词 lying; lay:安放
过去式 laid,过去分词 laid, 现在分词 laying;

Rest：transitive verb
1 : to give rest to
2 : to set at rest
3 : to place on or against a support
4 : to cause to be firmly fixed <rested all hope in his child>
5 : to desist voluntarily from presenting evidence pertinent to (a case at law)

It is little surprisethat both Koreas are courting China. As North Korea’s staunchest ally, China is probably the only countrythat can rein in the worst of its troublemaking. China is also the host of the stalledsix-party talks that are aimed at ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.

Court：to seek an alliance with

Staunch: 可靠的，可信赖的

Ally：同盟

Rein：to check or stop by or as if by a pull at thereins <reined in her horse> <couldn't rein his impatience>

Stalled：to cause (an engine) to stop usuallyinadvertently
Rid…of…：使。。。摆脱。。。

North Korea has beenstalling those negotiations by setting preconditions—such as the lifting of sanctions制裁 and thesigning of a peace treaty和平协定—that Americawill not abide. It has become an old routine. The North holds out for further sweeteners（交易中附加的优惠条件）, only to skitter away oncethe survival of its repressive regime is assured. Reflectingback on the seven years of six-way talking, one South Korean diplomat外交官 describes North Koreaas having been spoiled by South Korean and Chinese indulgence宽容.

Indulgence：宽容，放纵

Self-indulgence

Spoiled it may be, but North Koreais indulged no longer. South Korean benevolence ended in 2008 with the electionof Mr Lee, who favours a hardline强硬路线 policy. TheUN Security Council tightened its sanctions after North Korea conducted its secondnuclear test last May, which has left the regime increasingly isolated and strapped for cash. North Korea's economic woes（灾难，替代disaster） have worseneddramatically following a botched（弄砸的）
redenominationof its currency on November 30th and the interception中途拦截 of some ofits remunerative有利可图的 armsshipments. Even humanitarian aid人道主义援助 is drying up（用光，耗尽）, accordingto the World Food Programme. North Korea’s renewed efforts to lure foreign investment to the “special city” ofRajin-Sonbong—and the frequent tantrums突然发怒 in which it demands that the South resume sending tourists toits resort at Mount Kumgang—speakvolumes about its strained finances.

Leave…done

Worsen：及物or不及物

The depletion耗尽 of sympathy from abroad has leftNorth Korea more dependent on China thanever before. Analysts believe that North Korearelies on Chinafor 90% of its energy imports and 80% of its consumer goods. With the DearLeader paying a call to Beijing, undoubtedly（adv放在to前，自己不常用） to extract yet moreeconomic and diplomatic support, the time is ripe toexert some leverage

Leverage：

1 : the action of a lever杠杆 or the mechanical advantage gained byit
2 : POWER EFFECTIVENESS<trying to gain more political leverage>
3 : the use of credit to enhance one's speculative capacity思考能力.

Yet China’spriorities are not clear. It has imposed sanctions on North Korea twice in the past, butonly in response to red-handed rule-breaking, and eventhen its punishments were watered-down.When it comes to the Korean peninsula, China appears to rank stability even more highly than getting rid of nukes. While the South is preoccupied with finding the culprit that sank its ship, America needs toconvince China that nuclear weapons in the hands of its unruly不守规矩的
neighbour are incompatible with long-term stability.

Priority：优先权/优先考虑的事
Rank：to take precedence of

weaselUID: 2739489

"A … key message, andunifying theme of the report, is that the time is ripefor our measurement system to shift emphasisfrom measuring economic production tomeasuring people's well-being."

GDPis a gravely dated pursuit.It is time to listen to the Stiglitz Report.

Grave： significantly serious

The first reason is the evidence known as the Easterlin Paradox (the empiricalfinding that countries do not become happier as they grow wealthier).The second reason is that global warming means it is necessary for Homo sapiens to make fewer things rather than more, totravel less except on their feet, to lean onthe 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.

Homo sapiens：现代人的学名（智者）

lean on：依赖于。。。

tranquil：free from disturbance or turmoil

These arguments are key parts of the recent StiglitzReport.

• 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.     ("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. ("Sustainability assessment     requires a well-identified dashboard of     indicators … the components of this dashboard should be … interpretable as     variations of some underlying     "stocks".)

Blend：混合

Incorporate…to…：把…纳入

Hedonic：乐观的

Sustainability：可持续性

Criterion：标尺，标准

Dashboard：仪表

I am optimistic. Eventually the green movement willdiscover the data of the Easterlin Paradox, namedafter Richard Easterlin, a famous Californian economist, and also becomeaware of the statistical evidence on decliningemotional prosperity that I describe below. Although fine young scholarslike Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers doubt the veracityof it, they are heavily outnumbered: the weightof published evidence is in line with MrEasterlin's paradox. Moreover, Ms Stevenson and Mr Wolfers themselves agreethat America,perhaps the iconic GDP-chasing nation, is notbecoming happier through time.

Named after…：以。。。命名

Decliningemotional prosperity：下降的精神繁荣

Veracity：devotion to the truth

Iconic GDP-chasingnation：形象上的GDP雕琢国家

If we look at broader measures of psychologicalwell-being, the newest longitudinal research suggeststhere are reasons to be more pessimistic thanEasterlin. Although further research evidence needs to be collected, this iswhat we currently know.

longitudinal：involving the repeated observation or examination of a set of subjectsover time with respect to one or more study variables

pessimistic：悲观的

Worryingly, emotional prosperity and mentalhealth appear from the latest data to be getting worse through time. This disturbingconclusion 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)

Worryingly和disturbing意思都是令人烦恼的

Mental health

Why? We are not yet certain. But, first, humans are animals of comparison (some of the newest evidence, frombrain 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 ashigh-pressure kinds of work and long commutes away from their families and theirdogs and their fishing buddies—that, despite what they think, will often not make themhappier. Economists have ignored the research on "affective forecastingmistakes" by psychologists like Daniel Gilbert; they need to wake up toit.

Where…,it…

Animals ofcomparison：（人类是喜欢）比较的动物

Subconsciously：潜意识地

Rusting：（正）生锈的

Spluttering：发出呲呲声的

Neutralize：瓦解to counteract the activity or effect of

Unsurprisingly, the citizens of the rich nations find it difficult tograsp that higher gross domestic product fromthis point onwards will not make society happier. Likepeople in earlier times who could not conceive of themselvesas creatures gluedby gravity onto a spherical planet, they trusttheir intuitions (because as individuals theylike to become richer and assume whole countries must be the same). One cannotblame them. But the evidence shows they are wrong.

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

Concerned with:关于….
Efficient allocation of scarceresources：对于稀缺资源的高效分配