[1010G]决战2010Economist 阅读帖--by lvruochen

lvruochenUID: 2792806

有经验的帮忙看一下
我总觉得有很多要改进的
在这里先谢谢提出宝贵意见的好人了

传送门
主帖
https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1081436-1-1.html
备考日志
https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1081744-1-1.html



学习了一下别人的Eco
差距很明显呀
继续加强
文章分析变强
单词形式不变
2010.4.18


单词总结换了一种模式，更注重语言积累
2010.4.17


开始涉及句子写法
发现头些天的中文写的有些少
应该补上

既然如此
尝试新的复习Eco方法
即先英文后填中文
接着去英文填英文
做一下实验

另外发现头些天的颜色用的比较乱
从下一篇开始使用和今天一样的颜色配置
GRE词汇
人名地名组织名
词组
句式
特别的（会注明原因的）
——2010.4.11


目前水平较低
暂时先积累单词词组用法
对整体思路较少涉及
——2010.4.9

lvruochenUID: 2792806

http://www.economist.com/world/u ... ource=features_box3

America’s nuclear posture

Logic v politics

Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev（德米特里·梅德韦杰夫）sign a new strategic arms-reduction treaty战略武器削减条约 in Prague

Apr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

HE HAD stopped over briefly in Prague for a handshake with Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, on a new strategic arms-reduction treaty—and a new start also, it is hoped,插入语，和希望的一样 in relations with America’s still prickly 刺头的cold-war rival. And then Barack Obama was due back in Washington to play host to做东 more than 40 heads of government for his own nuclear-security summit峰会 on April 12th and 13th. Mr Obama wants pledges保证 from them to secure nuclear materials around the world and to crack down harder on illicit traffickers（traffic交易）, ahead of next month’s five-yearly 五年一次review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the world’s main bulwark（堡垒） against proliferation（繁殖，扩散） and nuclear terrorism.

Yet when it comes to 当谈到recasting 重塑America’s own nuclear-weapons policy to deal more efficiently with the same threats, Mr Obama may have a battle ahead. In many ways, this week’s delayed nuclear posture review simply brings America’s official nuclear thinking into line with long-standing practice, including that of his more warlike predecessor好战的前任, George Bush. With the demise 解体of the old Soviet threat, nuclear weapons play a diminishing role in 影响逐渐缩小America’s defences. Like Mr Bush, Mr Obama plans instead to rely more on America’s array部署 of powerful conventional weapons to deter 阻止future adversaries对手 in a crisis.

But Mr Obama has followed this logic several steps further. He did not, as some inside and outside his administration wanted, declare that America would never be the first to use its nuclear weapons. That would have unsettled allies in exposed places who still rely for their safety on America’s nuclear umbrella.

Instead the review repeats a past pledge that America will not use nuclear weapons against states that do not have them and are in compliance, Mr Obama says, with their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That leaves Iran, Syria and others suspected of illicit nuclear dabbling still theoretically on the potential target list. Yet Mr Obama has also ruled out, as Mr Bush never did, nuclear retaliation against chemical, biological or cyber与计算机有关 attacks by the nuclear have-nots—unless, that is, America’s fundamental security or that of its allies is at risk.

He agrees with Mr Bush that America can make deep cuts in the weapons stocks it keeps in reserve to hedge against technical failure or a surprise new threat. Mr Bush would have done this while building fewer, but more modern, replacement nuclear warheads. Mr Obama prefers instead to refurbish some existing ones. He also plans to upgrade further America’s nuclear-weapons labs and other facilities. The vice-president, Joseph Biden, has called the labs “national treasures”. Mr Obama’s budget includes $624m beyond the sum Congress earmarked last year for such work, with more to come over five years.

But already there are grumbles. The extra cash has not stopped the labs’ directors asking for more. Mr Obama needs their support. For he intends to do something Mr Bush refused to do: to work to win Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)全面禁止核试验条约, which was rejected on a partisan vote in 1999.

The leader of the attack last time was Arizona’s Jon Kyl, still a Republican senator. Mr Kyl insists, as he did then, that a CTBT is unverifiable—and, by banning future testing, puts America’s nuclear safety and security at risk. In fact, America has not felt any need to test its bombs since 1992. Advances in high-speed computing and other technologies allow today’s labs to solve problems that actual weapons tests never could. Meanwhile, the treaty’s global monitoring system is now a reality. Unlike other enemies, however, Mr Kyl is undeterred.

lvruochenUID: 2792806

We might err, but science is self-correcting科学的真谛If claims about climate change need to be debunked, you can rely on scientists to do it. Scepticism is what we are all about

My non-scientist friends are beginning to ask me “What’s gone wrong with science?” Revelations about melting glaciers and potentially dodgy emails about global warming, the resurfacing of Andrew Wakefield and the MMR
腮腺炎联合疫苗 scare, and the sacking of the Government’s drugs adviser, have created the impression for some people that science is in a mess.

Of course science isn’t in a mess, nor has anything changed. But the stories underline two important features of scientists and science. First, scientists, just like every other trade — bus drivers, lawyers and bricklayers — are a mix. Most are pretty average, a few are geniuses, some are a bit thick可能是愚蠢, and some dishonest.

Second, science itself is often misunderstood. Scientists tend to be portrayed as voices of authority who are able to reveal truths about arcane problems, be it the nature of quarks or the molecular basis of ageing. In fact, science is almost the opposite of this. In The Trouble With Physics, physicist Lee Smolin considers how to describe science and concludes that Nobel Prize winner Richard Feyman’s phrase says it best: “Science is the organised scepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.”

An Oxford colleague, one of the world’s top climate scientists, made the same point last week when he said to me: “It’s odd that people talk about ‘climate sceptics’ as though they are a special category. All of us in the climate science community are climate sceptics. It’s our job to question and challenge everything.” Any scientist will tell you that when you turn up at a conference the audience will do its best to tear your findings to pieces: no one takes anything for granted.

This philosophy of science was formally instituted 350 years ago in London by the small band of men, including Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle, who founded the Royal Society, the world’s oldest national academy of science. Their motto, Nullius in verba (“Take nobody’s word for it”) embodies the Royal Society’s founding principle of basing conclusions on observation and experiment rather than the voice of authority. Scientists don’t have all the answers, but they do have a way of finding out, and the fact that our lights come on, our computers compute and our mobile phones phone are among the myriad daily reminders that the scientific way works.

You might retort that science and scientists often don’t live up to this ideal. And you would be right. Scientists, like everyone else, have human frailties（frail） and are susceptible to fashion and orthodoxy. Nevertheless, over time, science is self-correcting because someone will have the courage to challenge the prevailing view and win the argument, provided he or she has sufficient evidence.
There is, of course, no excuse for scientists who over-egg or massage their results, or who underplay the uncertainties in their conclusions. The prevailing view in many areas of science will include significant uncertainties (as with climate change), so challenge is central to the progress of understanding. The claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt in the next 30 years is an example of this self-correction. It was debunked from within the scientific community and not by outside commentators, it does not undermine the core conclusions about man-made global warming, and the mistake that the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made was to dismiss this challenge without studying the evidence.


Scepticism is fine but science is not a free-for-all. Whether or not you accept the sceptics’ view should depend on careful weighing of the evidence. Dr Wakefield had no good evidence to support his claim of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Equally, the Department of Health’s claim that the “MMR vaccine is perfectly safe” is wrong. No vaccine is perfectly safe, but not vaccinating your children exposes them to a far bigger risk than the tiny risk associated with the vaccine.

貌似有个对应关系Given what I have said, it is not surprising that the interaction between science and government can be edgy. Ministers look to their expert advisers for clear-cut answers, a unanimous view, and preferably one that is politically convenient. Scientific advisers are prone to disappoint on all fronts. “I am sorry minister, but science is not clear-cut, what is more, different experts take a different view, and our best advice is to do X” (where X is not a vote winner). When I was asked to advise, in 1996, on whether or not to kill badgers as a way of controlling bovine tuberculosis, I said that without a proper experiment it is not possible to tell whether or not the policy would work. To its credit, the Ministry of Agriculture set up what was perhaps the largest ecological experiment ever carried out in this country. The result showed that killing is not a cost-effective policy, and disappointed farmers.

Last year David Nutt, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, was sacked by the Home Secretary for being too outspoken about the Government’s rejection of his committee’s advice on the classification of cannabis and Ecstasy. If ministers are going to reject expert advice, they should explain why. What they should definitely not do, as both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary did in this case, is to announce, before they have received the expert advice, that they have made up their mind.

Equally, independent experts should not be gagged by ministers, even if their views are inconvenient. Science, warts and all, is still the best way of finding out, and is absolutely vital in informing government policy. That is why the Government must strongly reaffirm its commitment to freedom of expression for independent scientific advisers. At the same time, if scientists have a right to be heard, they have a responsibility to be scrupulously honest and not to claim more than is justified by the evidence.

Lord Krebs is Principal of Jesus College, Oxford

lvruochenUID: 2792806

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

Innovation

This house believes that innovation works best when government does least.

正在学习debae是什么
明天发

lvruochenUID: 2792806

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

lvruochenUID: 2792806

Background reading
Attack of the really quite likeable tomatoesThe success of genetically modified crops provides opportunities to win over their critics

IN THE 14 years since the first genetically modified crops were planted commercially, their descendants, relatives and remixes have gone forth and multiplied like profitable, high-tech pondweed. A new report (see article) shows that 25 countries now grow GM(genetically modified) crops, with the total area under cultivation now larger than Peru. Three-quarters of the farmland used to grow soya is now sown with a genetically modified variant, and the figures for cotton are not that far behind, thanks to its success in India. China recently gave the safety go-ahead to its first GM rice variety and a new GM maize that should make better pig feed. More and more plants are having their genomes sequenced: a full sequence for maize was published late last year, the soya genome in January. Techniques for altering genomes are moving ahead almost as fast as the genomes themselves are stacking up, and new crops with more than one added trait are coming to market.

Such stories of success will strike fear into some hearts, and not only in GM-averse Europe; a GM backlash is under way in India, focused on insect-resistant aubergines. Some of these fears are understandable, but lacking supporting evidence they have never been compelling. On safety, the fear which cuts closest to home, the record continues to look good. Governments need to keep testing and monitoring, but that may be becoming easier. More precise modifications, and better technologies for monitoring stray DNA both within plants and in the environment around them, mean that it is getting easier to be sure that nothing untoward is going on.

Then there is the worry that GM crops are a way for big companies to take over the livelihoods of small farmers and, in the end, a chunk of nature itself. Seen in this light the fact that 90% of the farmers growing GM crops are comparatively poor and in developing countries is sinister, not salutary; given Monsanto’s dominance in America’s soyabean market, it seems to suggest incipient world domination. It is certainly true that big firms make a lot of money selling GM seeds: the GM seed market was worth $10.5 billion in 2009, and the crops that grew from that seed were worth over $130 billion. But multinationals are not the only game in town. The governments of China (which has increased agricultural research across the board), India and Brazil are also developing new GM crops. In 2009 a GM version of an Indian cotton variety, developed in the public sector, came to market, and a variety engineered by a private Indian firm has been approved for commercialization. Charities, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are also funding efforts in various countries to make crops more hardy or nutritious. GM seeds that come from government research bodies, or from local firms, may not arouse quite so much opposition as those from large foreign companies, especially when they provide characteristics 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 Mr Gates points out. As with drugs and vaccines, it is possible to get products that were developed with profit in mind to the people who need them using donor money and clever pricing and licensing deals. In the longer term, if the seeds deliver what the farmers require, the need for such special measures should diminish. After all, the whole idea is not that poor farmers should go on being poor. It is that poor farmers should get a bit richer, be able to invest a bit more, and thus increase the food available to a growing and predominantly 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 to technophiles may, in the minds of those who pay for agricultural research, crowd out other approaches to improving farming. Because it depends on intellectual property that can be protected, GM is ripe for private investment. There is a lot of other agricultural research that is less amenable to corporate ownership but still needs doing. From soil management to weather forecasts to the preservation, study and use of agricultural biodiversity, there are many ways to improve the agricultural systems on which the world’s food supply depends, and make them more resilient as well as more profitable. A farm is not a just a clever crop: it is an ecosystem managed with intelligence. GM crops have a great role to play in that development, but they are only a part of the whole.

lvruochenUID: 2792806

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

WHEN America’s space agency, NASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration), announced its spending plans in February, some people worried that its cancellation of the Constellation moon programme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rocky satellite. The next footprints on the lunar regolith were therefore thought likely to be Chinese. Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending plan actually makes it more likely America will return to the moon.

The new plan encourages firms to compete to provide transport to low Earth orbit (LEO). The budget proposes $6 billion over five years to spur the development of commercial crew and cargo services to the international space station. This money 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 different rockets. The point of all this activity is to create healthy private-sector competition for transport to the space station—and in doing so to drive down the cost of getting into space.

Eric Anderson, the boss of a space-travel company called Space Adventures, is optimistic about the changes. They will, he says, build “railroads into space”. Space Adventures has already sent seven people to the space station, using Russian rockets. It would certainly benefit from a new generation of cheap launchers.

Another potential beneficiary—and advocate of private-sector transport—is Robert Bigelow, a wealthy entrepreneur who founded a hotel chain called Budget Suites of America. Mr Bigelow has so far spent $180m of his own money on space development—probably more than any other individual in history. He has been developing so-called expandable space habitats, a technology he bought from NASA a number of years ago.

These habitats, which are folded up for launch and then inflated in space, were designed as interplanetary vehicles for a trip to Mars, but they are also likely to be useful general-purpose accommodation. The company already has two scaled-down versions in orbit.

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

The ultimate aim of all his investment, Mr Bigelow says, is to get to the moon. LEO is merely his proving ground. He says that if the technology does work in orbit, the habitats will be ideal for building bases on the moon. To go there, however, he will have to prove that the expandable habitat does indeed work, and also generate substantial returns on his investment in LEO, to provide the necessary cash.

If all goes well, the next target will be L1, the point 85% of the way to the moon where the gravitational pulls of moon and Earth balance. “It’s a terrific dumping off point,” he says. “We could transport a completed lunar base [to L1] and put it down on the lunar surface intact.”

There are others with lunar ambitions, too. Some 20 teams are competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, a purse of $30m that will be given to the first private mission which lands a robot on the moon, travels across the surface and sends pictures back to Earth. Space Adventures, meanwhile, is in discussions with almost a dozen potential clients about a circumlunar mission, costing $100m a head.

The original Apollo project was mainly a race to prove the superiority of American capitalism over Soviet communism. Capitalism won—but at the cost of creating, in NASA, one of the largest bureaucracies in American history. If the United States is to return to the moon, it needs to do so in a way that is demonstrably superior to the first trip—for example, being led by business rather than government. Engaging in another government-driven spending battle, this time with the Chinese, will do nothing more than show that America has missed the point.

lvruochenUID: 2792806

March 22
Moderator

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

Happily for us, gentle reader, the two sides in the Economist's latest debate are moving beyond such platitudes to novel arguments. Arguing in favour of the motion that innovation works best when government does least is Amar Bhide, a professor at Harvard and author of "The Venturesome Economy". His opening statement roundly denounces the visions of home-grown Silicon Valleys that dance in the heads of bureaucrats worldwide as "a dubious conception of paradise". California's bloated government is bankrupt and Japan's once formidable MITI agency is in tatters, he observes, but market-minded Hong Kong is flourishing (and its hyper-commercial denizens far richer than their coddled Japanese counterparts).

He adds for good measure that the "techno-fetishist" view of innovation represented by the top-heavy Japanese model pales in comparison with a robust, bottom-up version of innovation that harnesses the creativity 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 at all." However, his advocacy of a least is best policy, though conceptually elegant, seems a bit slippery and is probably unhelpful in practice. In future postings, perhaps he will explain how exactly governments should decide whether they are doing too little or too much to help innovation.

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

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

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

lvruochenUID: 2792806

文章模式
总分总模式
正说后返说
应该是一篇介绍性的

4.17
单词分析
MITI agency	日本机构
techno-fetishist	技术狂
top-heavy	不稳定的
bottom-up	从细节到总体的
AT&T Bell Labs	贝尔实验室
Xerox Parc	施乐实验室
corn ethanol	玉米乙醇
platitude	陈词滥调
venturesome	冒险的
joust	马上对决，斗争
mugwump	酋长，骑墙
cast	投
roundly	全面的
denounce	贬低
dubious	怀疑的
bloat	膨胀
rebuttal	辩驳
formidable	强大的
tatter	碎片
hyper-commercial	经济的
denizen	居民
harness	利用（水电），上马具
sap	侵蚀
misalign	不重合，位移
incentive	动机
linkage	连接
复习
spur	刺激
outline	大纲
inevitably	不可避免
plough	播种
rebut	反驳
grave	严重的
pandemic	流行的
novel	新
coddle	溺爱
counterpart	副本
robust	精力充沛
advocacy	拥护
conceptually	概念的
slippery	猾
speedy	快
stick	坚持
analogy	类推
subsidize	津贴
age-old	长期
home-grown	自产的

lvruochenUID: 2792806

The proposer's opening remarks

Mar 22nd 2010 | Amar Bhidé

Innovation now attracts innumerable worshippers but their prayers are often quite narrow and sectarian. Silicon Valley or possibly the Israeli high-tech industry is the promised land这样的地方: a wondrous combination of private high-tech enterprise underpinned by被支持 government-financed universities and research labs.

This is, alas, a dubious conception of paradise. For all the high-tech prowess of Silicon Valley, the economy of California is 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 engineering talent and entrepreneurship, Israel's GDP per head in 2009 was lower than of Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.

Or remember Japan's omnipotent, visionary MITI working hand and glove亲密的 with the likes of NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu? Put aside fiascos such as the ten-year Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project, by standard measures the overall level of Japanese engineering and scientific performance, either because of or in spite of government subsidies, is impressive. More tellingly更生动的, Hong Kong's GNP per head is nearly 30% higher than Japan's, 24% higher than Germany's and 505% higher than Israel's. Yet Hong Kong's government and private businesses pay scant attention to 不注意cutting-edge scientific and technological research.

The techno-fetishist view of innovation and the kind of government support it demands fails to appreciate the enormous variety of innovations that we need.

The measure of a good economy lies in the satisfaction it provides to the many, not a few, not in the wealth or accomplishment of a few individuals or organisations. And these satisfactions go beyond the material or pecuniary rewards earned: they include, for instance, the exhilaration of overcoming challenges. Indeed they go hand in hand: a good economy cannot provide widespread prosperity without harnessing the creativity and enterprise of the many. All must have the opportunity to innovate, to try out new things: not just scientists and engineers but also graphic artists, shopfloor workers, salespersons and advertising agencies; not just the developers of new products but their venturesome consumers. The exceptional performance of a few high-tech businesses, as the Silicon Valley and Israeli examples show, is just not enough.

This widely diffused, multifaceted form of innovation entails a circumscribed role for governments: they should not to put their finger on the scale bribing people to do basic research instead of, say, the kind of graphics design that has made Apple such an iconic company. Mandating more math and science in high schools when most of us never use trigonometry or calculus in our working lives takes away time from learning skills that are crucial in an innovative economy: how to listen and persuade, think independently and work collaboratively, for instance.

Yes, there is a problem with global warming, but that is best solved by innumerable tinkers taking their chances with renewable energy and resourceful conservation, not by throwing money at projects that a few savants have determined to be the most promising. The apparent duplication of autonomous initiative isn't a waste: no one can foretell what is going to work. Even the most successful venture-capital companies have more misses than hits. Therefore putting many independent experiments in play raises the odds that one will work. When government gets into the game of placing bets, for instance, on new battery technologies, innovators who don't have the savvy, credentials and connections with politicians or the scientific establishment are at a severe disadvantage. Yet history shows that it is often the nonconformist outsiders who play a pivotal role. Would Ed Roberts have been able to secure a government grant to build the world's first personal computer, a virtually useless toy when it was introduced in 1974?

Of course a government doing the least doesn't mean a government doing nothing at all. Moreover, the least is a moving and ever expanding target. The invention of the automobile, for example, necessitated driving rules and a system of vehicle inspections. The growth of air travel required 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.

Modern technology created new forms of pollution that did not exist in agrarian economies. Governments had to step in, in one way or the other, to make it unrewarding to pollute. Likewise, antitrust laws to control commercial interactions and conduct emerged after new technologies created opportunities to realise economies of scale and scope—and realise oligopoly or monopoly profits. These opportunities were largely absent in pre-industrial economies.

But the principle of the least is best remains a true compass. New technologies not only create the need for desirable new rules, they but also generate more opportunities for unwarranted meddling and a cover for rent-seeking. It is one thing for the Federal 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 of the interstate highway system may have been a great boon to the US economy, for example, but it did not take long for Congress to start appropriating funds for bridges to nowhere.

Entrepreneurial leaps into the dark are best sustained by great caution in expanding the scope of government intervention; the private virtue of daring can be a public vice. The US chief justice has often repeated the maxim: "If it is not necessary to decide an issue to resolve a case, then it is necessary not to decide that issue." Similarly, if it is not necessary to intervene to promote innovation, it should be considered necessary not to intervene. The government should focus on things that private enterprise simply cannot provide and stay away from promoting activities that would allegedly be undersupplied. If nothing, this maxim frees up resources for crucial public goods. So traffic police, emission rules and carbon taxes: absolutely. Subsidising networks of hydrogen pumps and new engine or battery technologies: no thanks.

lvruochenUID: 2792806

worshipper	崇拜者
sectarian	帮派主义者
silicon valley	硅谷
underpin	加强
government-financed	政府资金支持的
alas	哎
county	县
IOU	我欠你I owe you
entrepreneurship	企业家身份
GDP	gross domestic product
GNP	gross national product
visionary	幻想的
fiasco	大失败
scant	不足，缺乏
cutting-edge	刀刃
techno-fetishist	技术狂热
pecuniary	金钱上的
exhilaration	愉快
diffuse	散步
multifaceted	多面的
entail	使必须
circumscribe	限制
mandate	要求，委托
trigonometry	三角法
tinker	补锅的人
savant	专家
duplication	复制
autonomous	自治
initiative	主动
venture-capital	风险投资
savvy	智慧
credential	委任状
pivotal	关键的
virtually	实质上
necessitate	使必须
airworthiness	耐飞性
antitrust	反独裁
scale	刻度
scope	范围
oligopoly	求大于供
monopoly	垄断
meddle	多管闲事
rent-seeking	寻租
Federal Aviation Administration
Civil Aeronautics Board
boon	福利
appropriate	挪用
entrepreneurial	企业的
allegedly	依其所说
undersupply	供应不足

lvruochenUID: 2792806

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.背景

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.介绍GDF

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.GDF缺点

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? 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.分析GDP缺点，寻求解决方法

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 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.介绍双方

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: 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.正方，GDP和生活无关

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.反方，GDP可以被改进

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.

总结

lvruochenUID: 2792806

gross domestic product (GDP)

well off

estimate of

to the extent that

a measure of

economy's output

valued at

well-being

corelate

recession

chair

laureate

Finding ways to XXX is the point of XXX

, you may think,

is therefore pretty fundamental to the discipline

turned to

Chances are the answer will start with XXX

it is no surprise that

not all the things that

but is that enough? If it is not enough, with what should it be replaced—or, more likely, supplemented?

to the extent that

is closely correlated with

though imperfect, may be good enough.

could be an error of more than just measurement:

proposing the motion that

Opposing him is

shift away from

remarks that

intended to

comprehensive measure of society's well-being

hat isn't to say that

lead the debate.

This promises to be a lively and enjoyable debate on an important subject

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The proposer's opening remarks

Apr 20th 2010 | Andrew Oswald

"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)

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

The first reason is the evidence known as the Easterlin Paradox (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 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.两个论点

These arguments are key parts of the recent Stiglitz Report.

1.
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.") 生活复杂了

2.
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.") 规则复杂了

3.
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.") 以前的不全面了

4.
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".) 可持续

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.支持佯谬

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.继续用事实支持

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这个都证明). 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.人心不足 Second, 人不快乐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.分析原因

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.分析GDP论是直观的

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.

lvruochenUID: 2792806

key message, and unifying theme of the report,

the time is ripe for

shift emphasis from doing to doing

XXX is a gravely dated pursuit

The first reason is the evidence known as

Homo sapiens

make fewer things rather than more,

to travel less except on their feet,

lean on XXXXX rather than on

to value XXX more and XXX less.

tranquil beauty

smashed fuel of buried trees

the direct energy of the sun and water

These arguments are key parts of the recent Stiglitz Report.

adapt our system of measurement … to

characterised

, as a society,

vice versa

per se

blend objective and subjective well-being data

components of

I am optimistic

Paradox

declining emotional prosperity

in line with

Moreover

themselves

becoming happier through time

pessimistic

Although further research evidence needs to be collected, this is what we currently know.

Worryingly,

This disturbing conclusion emerges from these seven studies:

Why? We are not yet certain.

humans are animals of comparison

What I want subconsciously is to

Unfortunately,

the tide of economic growth lifts all boats,

ventually it becomes the norm

any relative gains are thereby neutralised

away from their families and their dogs and their fishing buddies

wake up to it.

Unsurprisingly,

conceive of themselves as creatures glued by gravity onto a spherical planet,

economics is a social science concerned with the efficient allocation of scarce resources.

a better definition is needed

One cannot blame them

Economics is a social science concerned with the way to allocate plentiful resources to maximise a society's emotional prosperity and mental health.

unify	统一一体
empirical	经验主意
homo	人
sapiens	类现代人的
smash	打碎
tranquil	平静
incorporate	合并
hedonic	享乐主义
priorities	优先
Sustainability	可持续
criterion	标准
dashboard	挡泥板
interpretable	可说明
assessment	评估
well-identified	识别的好
underlying	潜在的
veracity	精确 诚实
iconic	典型的
psychological	心理学上的
longitudinal	纵向的，经度的
pessimistic	悲观的
splutter	杂乱的声音
subconscious	下意识
glamorous	迷人的
norm	规范
neutralise	使中立 中和
grasp	抓住领会
onwards	在先
intuition	直觉
scarce	缺乏