【甚解小组】【TASK1】原文抄抄抄

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

21st. JAN
International rankings
Wrong numbers


Global league tables are interesting, but not always reliable

Measuring things is hard. Counting mentions of them is easy. Google’s new search tool Ngram viewer lets users find out how often a word occurs in the millions of books the firm has scanned. It also helps analyze the salience of abstract ideas-corruption, say-in different languages and places.
引入对于measuring things的讨论
Lots of new numbers will be grist to the mills(有益的或有利的东西,尤指对某事物的补充或补助)
of those who compile international rankings. The hunger for crunchy comparisons of everything from venality to brainpower is huge and growing, not least among media such as this newspaper. It is tempting to try and pin ideas down(使明确说明，使评述；确定，证实) by turning them into figures. Such measures can be handy. But they have serious flaws.
文章主题：将想法、观点仅转换成数字去量度看似简单实际上有很多不足

The quality of economic statistics is often dubious in developing countries, for example. Figures are often only rough estimates and revised often and extensively. Inferences are risky. The latest version of Penn World Tables, the best sources for such numbers, has Equatorial Guinea’s GDP growing by 4% annually between 1975 and 1999. The 2002 version put the rate at minus 2.7%. The country may thus have been sub-Saharan Africa’s slowest-growing economy-or the second-fastest.
数字经常大范围地改动，由此进行推断是不一定是准确的，数据推断不可靠。
At least teachers have drilled generations of economics students in the limitations of GDP data, even if the public and politicians give them undue weight. But expert too can be fooled by “synthetic” indices combining several related measures into a single number which are often used to back broad claims. For instances, an index may rely on data on a few rather narrow items, such as the number of convictions for certain crimes, but claim to measure something broader, such as the quality of a country’s legal system.
仅由特定的数据综合起来有时也会让专家做出错误的判断，数据会使人以面盖全
Rankings based on perceptions are particularly problematic. One example is the World Bank’s survey on the quality of developing countries’ infrastructure. In places where potholes and dirt tracks are norm, the people interviewed may be so used to them that they do not see poor roads as much of a problem. Those accustomed to good roads may grumble more loudly about much smaller shortcomings.
从人的认知上排名也是有问题的，通过对比，指出人的认知会影响数据的准确性
Combined indices can also be oversensitive to updates. A recent study of the United Nations Development Project’s widely cited Human Development Index (HDI) by the economists Hendrik Wolff, Maximilian Aufhammer and Howard Chong finds that small revisions to the data that go into the index can substantially alter a country’s position in the rankings.
数据的更新也会让指数变化敏感，存在较大的落差
Part of the problem is that few people pay attention to margins of error. As a result, even differences that are too small to be statistically significant are used to rank countries. Unsurprisingly, such rankings changed with every minor revision. A detailed internal evaluation of the World Bank’s influences Doing Business index in 2008 found that because countries were given different ranks despite fairly similar index values, small data revision could send them shooting up or down the indices of business-friendliness.
指数不同的走向是因为数据上很小的差别也拿来进行比较
This would matter less if the rankings were used as broad guides. But phoney(假的)
precision (among users if not producers of these data) is endemic. The UNDP puts countries into three categories based o n their HDI numbers: low, medium, and high human development. Mr Wolff and his co-authors find that the probability that any country is in the wrong category is as high as 45%. Yet Merck, a pharmaceutical company, based local prices for some medicines on a country’s HDI category. Some even want a country’s HDI number to determine the effort it has to put into reducing carbon emissions.
一些地方上的裁定依赖于这些排名，使得这个排名的不准确事关重大（对于衡量方式的不准确性分析后果和影响）
Ranking based on large global databases such as Google’s will also have their share of problems. In the case of the Ngram Viewer, the body of books in different languages may not be comparable, for instances.
同类的统计软件的结果也许没有可比性（其他补充说明）
Yet few will grumble as the number and scope of international rankings mushroom(迅速增长，含贬义). Many agree with Lord Kelvin, the 19th-century physicist after whom the unit of absolute temperature is named: he reckoned that measuring something provides additional knowledge, And so it does, in the physical sciences. But where humans are involved, more data sometimes yield less truth.
引用绝对温度单位命名者的话进行调侃，作者认为，对于人文社科上的统计数据往往会得到悖与真相的结果（引用、总结）


From-- “Economist”


从这篇文章的写作思路，可以看出作者对于关于经济社科等类型的数据排名作出了质疑，并从5个方面进行了原因的分析和对数据衡量方法的驳议，以让读者认同他的观点。对我在驳斥一些观点的写作题型有了一定的建议与提醒。即需抓住要反驳事物的特点进行多方面发散性思考。本文中的论证，给出的例子的段落结构和句型对issue和argument都很有帮助。

文章中新词汇用大一号蓝字 红宝书词汇为加粗红字

周九UID: 2769406

鼓掌~沙发~

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

22nd.JAN

Chomsky         The Responsibility of Intellectuals

The issues that Macdonald raised are as pertinent today as they were twenty years ago. We can hardly avoid asking ourselves to what extent the American people bear responsibility for the savage American assault on a largely helpless rural population in Vietnam, still another atrocity in what Asians see as the "Vasco da Gama era" of world history. As for those of us who stood by in silence and apathy(无动于衷、漠不关心) as this catastrophe slowly took shape over the past dozen years—on what page of history do we find our proper place? Only the most insensible can escape these questions. I want to return to them, later on, after a few scattered remarks about the responsibility of intellectuals and how, in practice, they go about(着手做)meeting this responsibility in the mid-1960s.
It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over(对…不加考虑) without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious. Thus we have Martin Heidegger writing, in a pro-Hitler declaration of 1933, that “truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge”; it is only this kind of “truth” that one has a responsibility to speak. Americans tend to be more forthright. When Arthur Schlesinger was asked by The New York Times in November, 1965, to explain the contradiction between his published account of the Bay of Pigs(猪湾事件，即1961年，1400多名在古巴革命后逃到美国的古巴流亡分子，在美国中央情报局的支持下，从猪湾（Bay of pigs）登陆，试图在古巴制造内乱，推翻卡斯特罗政府。但是，这次战斗仅仅持续了72个小时，入侵的流亡分子有114人被击毙，另有1189人被俘。当时肯尼迪政府否认支持推翻卡斯特罗的行动。)incident and the story he had given the press at the time of the attack, he simply remarked that he had lied; and a few days later he went on to compliment the Times for also having suppressed information on the planned invasion, in “the national interest.” As this term was defined by the group of arrogant and deluded men of whom Schlesinger gives such a flattering portrait in his recent account of the Kennedy Administration. It is of no particular interest that one man is quite happy to lie in behalf of a cause which he knows to be unjust; but it is significant that such events provoke so little response in the intellectual community-for example, no one has said that there is something strange in offer of a major chair in the humanities to a historian who feels it to be his duty to persuade the world that an American-sponsored invasion of a nearby country is nothing of the sort. And what of the incredible sequence of lies on the part of our government and its spokesmen concerning such matters as negotiations in Vetnam? The facts are known to all who care to know. The press, foreign and domestic, has presented documentation to refute each falsehood as it appears. But the power of the government's propaganda apparatus is such that the citizen who does not undertake a research project on the subject can hardly hope to confront government pronouncements with fact.





这篇文章节选自Chomsky（乔姆斯基）的”The Responsibility of Intellectuals”,作者是当代语言学家和一个在政治上敢于发表言论的知识分子。他的写作手法和思想都是在AW中可以被借鉴的。
节选的两段文字表达了作者对于美国知识分子在当权者行为不当之时所表现出的冷漠感到愤慨，也殷切希望每一个公民都可以承担起一份职责，敢于质疑政府的抉择，以至可以让公正、真相得以伸张，这些才是人类应当追求的目标。

我觉得这片文章可以作为一下论证题目的 素材
23. To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards. 一个公仆如果想成为一位杰出的领导者就必须保持最高的伦理和道德标准。
23≈149（政治和伦理道德）

232. It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public. 对于政治领导者来说，向人民大众隐瞒信息通常是必要的，甚至有益的。

25. Government officials should rely on their own judgment rather than unquestioningly carrying out the will of the people whom they serve. 政府官员应该依靠自己的判断而不是不管三七二十一的遵从人民的意愿

59. Major policy decisions should always be left to politicians and other government experts, who are more informed and thus have better judgment and perspective than do members of general public. 主要的决策权应该全部交给政治家和其他的政府专家，他们更加见多识广且比一般的老百姓具有更好的判断能力和洞察力。

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

红宝书单词：savage atrocity暴行 arrogant delude  apparatus refute
引用：“truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge”                           --Martin Heidegger德国哲学家

周九UID: 2769406

For 'Wrong Numbers'


137. There is no such thing as purely objective observation. All observation is subjective; it is always guided by the observer’s expectations or desires. 纯粹客观的观察是不存在的。所有的观察都是主观的；观察总是被观察者的预期或者喜好所左右。

219. Much of the information that people assume is ‘factual’ actually turns out to be inaccurate. Thus, any piece of information referred to as a ‘fact’ should be mistrusted since it may well be proven false in the future. 大多数人们认为是事实的信息结果实际上都是不准确的。因此，任何据称是事实的信息都应该被质疑，因为它在将来很可能会被证明为是错误的。


第一篇文章为这两个topic都提供了很好的角度和例子，尤其是能给No。137 一个新角度

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

谢谢组长的补充！ 继续今天的作业

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

23rd.JAN
Boundary between protoscience, science, and pseudoscience
The boundary lines between the science and pseudoscience are disputed and difficult to determine analytically, even after more than a century of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in varied fields, and despite some basic agreements on the fundaments of scientific methodology. The concept of pseudoscience rests on an understanding that scientific methodology has been misrepresented or misapplied with respect to a given theory, but many philosophers of science maintain that different kinds of methods are held as appropriate across different fields and different eras of human history. Paul Feyerabend, for example, disputes whether any meaningful boundaries can be drawn between pseudoscience, “real” science, and what he calls “protoscience”, especially where there is a significant cultural or historical distance.
There are well-known cases of fields that originally considered pseudoscience but which are now accepted scientific effects or valid hypotheses, for example, continental drift, cosmology, ball lightning, and radiation hormesis. As another example, osteopathy(整骨术) has, according to Kimball Atwood, “for the most part, repudiated its pseudoscientific beginnings and joined the world rational healthcare” for lower back pain although it is not particularly effective. Others, such as phrenology(颅相学) or alchemy were originally considered scientific, but now are taken as pseudoscience. Further, there are protosciences which are not pseudoscience because their proponents do not claim the practices to be scientific according to today’s standards of scientific method.
踢出疑问：科学，伪科学和原生科学，之间是否有明确的区分界限？举出例子：原来被认为是伪科学，现在是真的假设命题，而原来一度被认为是真理，现在反而是伪科学。并且还有原生科学这一说法。

The term pseudoscience can also have political implications that eclipse (fig 比喻) make (sb/sth) appear dull by comparison; outshine 使（某人[某事物]）相形见绌; 使黯然失色any scientific issues. Imre Lakatos, for instance, points out that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at one point declared that Mendelian genetics was pseudoscientific and had its advocates, including well-established scientists such as Nikolai Vavilov, sent to Gulag, and that the “liberal Establishment of the West” denies freedom of speech to topics it regards as pseudoscience, particularly where they run up against(遭遇、遇到) social mores(社会习俗).
伪科学这一术语暗含政治意义，让科学黯然失色，苏维埃党将孟德尔遗传学视为伪科学，并将其提倡者关入集中营；西方文学的建立，遭遇到社会习俗时，在他们视为伪科学的话题上，没有言论自由。（以讽刺的口吻，写出了一部分人不能区分真伪科学，颠倒是非。）
In the philosophy of science, a “protoscience” is an area of scientific endeavor that is in the process of becoming established. Protoscience is distinguished from pseudoscience by its standard practices of good science, such as willingness to be disproven by new evidence, or to be replaced by a more-predictive theory. Sometimes scientific skeptics refer to protoscience as “pathological science”. “Protoscience” is a term sometimes used to describe a hypothesis which has not yet been tested adequately by the scientific method, but which is otherwise consistent with existing science or which, where inconsistent, offers reasonable account of the inconsistency. Some protosciences go on to become an accepted part of mainstream science, e.g., astrology and alchemy(at a time before invention of the scientific method), might be called “protosciences” by historians of science, but after the invention of the scientific method, when some practitioners refused to adopt the scientific method, the fields were then labeled “pseudoscience”. Several sciences started as branches of philosophy: mathematics, natural philosophy, economics, psychology, sociology, and the same may end up, historically, being the case for some cultural, traditional, or Ancient practices. A “protoscience” may be a field where the hypothesis presented may or may not be in accordance with the known evidence at that time, and a body of associated predictions have been made, but the predictions have not yet been tested, or cannot be tested, due to current technology limitations. Such was the case for general relativity at the time of its proposal, which is now considered science, and the case for string theory, which at the time of this article writing is a protoscience. Similarly, cultural, traditional, or Ancient practices may have standards of evidence not yet recognized by science, and evolve into a science, or pseudoscience, as was the case for astrology and alchemy.
在哲学上，原生科学是科学建立过程中需要付出的代价，但它愿意被新的证据推翻，被新的理论代替，所以往往原生科学也被称为病态的科学，是在没有充分论据之下的对于一种假说的一致性的合理描述或者不一致性的合理解释。一些原生科学已经被主流科学所接受。在科学方法论之前，占星学和炼金术是可以被称为原生科学，但是在有了科学的论证方法后，科学从业者仍然拒绝使用，则这些领域就将被叫作伪科学。在现有科学技术的限制下，一定领域的假说和现有证据不一致或者还不能被验证，就比如基因相关性，现在被认为是真科学，而线性理论，现在还是原生科学。相似的是，文化、传统和老的习俗都会有还没能被科学完全证实的地方，他们就会像占星术和炼金术一样衍化为真理和伪科学。

节选自“wiki encyclopedia” on “pseudoscience”

适用的ISSUE：
21. Such nonmainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science. 研究界的一些非主流领域，比如星象学、占卜术和意念及超自然探索，在社会中起到了很重要的作用，因为它们满足了人们无法从主流科学获得的需求。

特别是这篇文章的最后一段，清楚地阐释了科学、原生科学和伪科学之间的联系与区别，通过例子让我们了解了科学的发展过程、发展规律，并且使我们明白了正确科学价值观的取向。这篇文章挺适合于ISSUE21的论证：如果在现有的科学条件下，能在一定程度上说明，或者给出假说，对于科学的研究起到正面的帮助作用，那么他可以被认为是原生科学而存在，并且研究，争取找到新的证据，支持或者推翻。而如果当在这方面领域已经建立起完善的科学依据，那么以在科研的道路上，仍然一味的研究这些所谓的非主流领域，则是走入了伪科学的误区。题目中，“他满足了人们无法从主流学科获取的需求”，可看作是不完善科学的条件。但需要在文中，举例说明并论证这些领域的发展方向。我觉得，在科学日益完善，世界规律越趋于明朗之时，这些非主流领域的影响越来越小，我们还是应将研究的重心侧重于主流学科之上。这些都是人类研究科学的过程，无可厚非，但是我们需要保持正确的科学观，以避免误入歧途。
以上是我对这篇文章和ISSUE的一些想法和行文思路。

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

红宝书主要单词：repudiate alchemy

周九UID: 2769406

小法同学，你选的文章都真独特呀，全是针对那些纠结issue topic哇

布丁的爱恋UID: 2769395

我也天天看eco，为啥我就找不到像你这么好滴例子捏。。sigh~

布丁的爱恋UID: 2769395

For 'Wrong Numbers'


137. There is no such thing as purely objective observation. All observation is subjective; it is always guided by the observer’s expectations or desires. 纯粹客观的观察是不 ...
周九 发表于 2011-1-23 06:50

太太厉害啦。。我在eco上把原文看了一遍都没想过可以这么套用。。学习啦~

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

24号抄抄抄作业：

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

24th.JAN
                                   The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself

And I am certain, that on this day, my fellow American expect that on my induction into the presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself－nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again gives that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours, we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of our industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no market for their produce; and the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.萧条生活现状的描述，表达的词汇、方法
I am prepared, under my constitutional duty, to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom; I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
For the trust reposed（1、安睡，憩息；2、repose your trust/hope etc. in sb.信赖，希望某人） in me, I will return the courage and the devotion that befits the time. I can do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national utility; with a clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern（1、严厉；2、船尾） performance of duty（恪尽职守） by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded, a permanent national life.（生活圆满，长治久安）
We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift, I take it.（将自己视为人民的工具）

From --  “First Presidential Inaugural Address by Franklin Roosevelt”   
delivered by Franklin Roosevelt on March 4, 1933

这篇文章是罗斯福总统的第一次就职演说，用词生动、精炼，可以学习之中对于一些词汇地道的表达方法。罗斯福总统的例子可以作为一下几个Issue引用的例据：唯一连任4届的总统，而且是“轮椅上的总统”。他把美国从大萧条中拯救出来，还帮助世界摆脱了法兰西的魔掌，1933年3月4日，罗斯福就任美国总统，正值大萧条时期，应对危机提出了一系列措施（新政New Deal，3R： reform recovery relief）

与之相关的Issue：
150. The surest indicator of a great nation is not the achievements of its rules, artists, or scientists, but the general welfare of all its people. 一个伟大的国家最真实的体现不是它的统治者、艺术家或者科学家的成就，而是他所有老百姓的普通福利（幸福）。

69. Leaders are created primarily by the demands that are placed upon them. 领导者主要是由身负的责任所造就的。

36. Governments should focus more on solving the immediate problems of today rather than trying to solve the anticipated problems of the future. 政府应该把更多的注意力放在解决当务之急，而不是试图解决将来预期的问题上。

77. It is unfortunate but true that political decisions and activities affect all aspects of people’s lives. 尽管很不幸，但是这却是真实存在的事实，政治决策和活动影响着人们生活的方方面面。（政治与生活）


23. To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards. 一个公仆如果想成为一位杰出的领导者就必须保持最高的伦理和道德标准。

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

25th.JAN
                                    Is Facebook really worth $50 billion?
                                                      And will its new financing scheme fall foul of regulators?


In 2009 Rilling Srone described Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, as “a great vampire squid” that likes to stick its “blood funnel” into anything that can make it money. This week the dquid inked yet another high-profile deal. Together with Digital Sky Technology (DTS), a Russian group, Goldman invested a total of $500m in Facebook, valuing the world’s most popular social network at a whopping(极大地) $50 billion. The bank is also planning to set up a fund it will manage that will pump up to $1.5 billion more from wealthy investors into the company.
For Facebook, the deal provides a mountain of extra cash to invest in things such as new data centres and acquisitions. It gives it fuel for further growth without the hassle（麻烦、困难） of listing its shares. For Goldman, the transaction represents an opportunity to stick its “funnel” into an internet firm that makes investors drool（垂涎）. As well as benefiting from any further appreciation in Facebook’s value, the bank plans to suck up fees for managing the new fund. And it is no doubt hoping that by cosying up to Facebook’s top brass it is boosting its chances of leading an eventual initial public offering (IPO) of the company’s stock.
News of the deals has sparked vigorous debate. Facebook’s implicit value has risen fivefold since mid-2009, but sceptic doubt that a firm whose business model is unproven is worth more than established media giants such as Time Warner.
Since Facebook is not obliged to divulge financial information, it is hard to know for certain whether Goldman and DTS, which already owned a sizeable chunk of Facebook stock, are overpaying. But Facebook bulls argue that the network’s sheer scale is proving irresistible to advertisers. Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer, a research firm, notes that Facebook has even begun to attract notoriously conservative－and deep-pocketed（富有的）－advertisers such as Procter & Gamble.
The company is also starting to look more and more like a natural monopoly. My space, which used to dominate the social-networking arena, has come to look like My Empty Space. It is rumored to be about to make yet more cuts to its workforce. And networking upstarts such as Twitter, which has also seen its valuation soar (to $3.7 billion), have revenues that are a mere fraction of Facebook’s, which are said to have hit $2 billion last year.
Still, at $50 billion Facebook looks rather expensive. If its sales really are $2 billion a year, that implies that Goldman and DST are playing 25 times current revenues for their shares. That would be a breathtaking steep multiple, even by the giddy（眩晕的） standards of the start-up world.

Squid’s in
Moreover, Facebook has nowhere near as robust an advertising model as, say, Google, whose search-related ads are served up to users when thay are often on the point of making a purchase. Much of Facebook’s revenue comes from low-end display advertising. And though it will benefit from marketer’s growing interest in word-of-mouth promotion, the company will have to scrap for those dollars with traditional media brands, whose rich content makes them attractive venues for social-media advertising too.
In spite of this, investors are still falling over one another to get their hands in Facebook’s shares－and Goldman is keen to help them, so long as they agree to abide by certain rules. Clients considering signing up to its proposed Facebook fund are reportedly being asked to commit at least $2m each to it and to hold on to any shares they receive until at least 2013.
A different problem for Facebook and Goldman is that Goldman’s planned fund could fall foul of（冒犯） the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), On January 3rd SecondMarket, a broker-dealer in private-company shares, said it had been asked by the SEC for data about pooled investment funds formed to buy private-company stock－precisely the kind of vehicle that Goldman has in mind for would-be Facebook investors.
In recent months several other financial institutions have formed similar special-purposed vehicles that invest in private companies’ stock, piquing（fall foul of） the SEC’s interest. This has promoted predictions that regulators may end up treating such entities not as single shareholder, but as a collection of individual investors. That would have important implications for the companies in which they invest. An SEC rule requires private firms with 500 or more shareholders of record in a given type of stock to publish quarterly accounts and audited financial statements. Faced with such obligations, most firms seek a public listing. This rule was one of the reasons that Google ultimately decided to go public in 2004.
Having to go public now would be a nightmare for Facebook and Mark Zuckerburg, its founder and chief executive, who is said to be keen to put off an IPO for as long as possible. The firm reportedly had fewer than 500 shareholders at the end of last year, including employees and venture capitalists, so it is no doubt hoping to avoid having its arm twisted.
Facebook and Goldman seem to have the letter of the law on their side. Joseph Grundfest, a professor at Stanford Law School that a fund such as the one Goldman has in mind should be treated as single shareholder. “If someone says Goldman is violating the law, then they obviously don’t know the law,” he says. Were regulators to interpret the rule in any other way, it would have far-reaching consequences for, say, the venture-capital industry, in which funds with multiple investors routinely take stakes in private firms.
However, some observers say that the SEC may be tempted to conclude that the new breed of special-purpose vehicles being created by the likes of Goldman have been set up specifically to get around（规避） the 500-shareholder rule. They have potential to include a much wider range of investors than a typical venture fund, and may attract heightened scrutiny.
Regulators have a duty to protect investors and weigh the concerns of companies that wish to remain private. It is a delicate balancing act. But anyone who invests in a market this frothy must surely realize it is also risky. Meanwhile, Goldman and the other banks which hope to turn these vehicles into a big business should consider friending some lawyers.
From—“Economist”



这篇文章是关于Facebook和其投资公司之间关系的一片经济学文章，对于我一个理科生，提供了一些经济知识：IPO。

我觉得这篇文章可以作为以下几个Issue的例子：

39. Too much emphasis is placed on role models. Instead of copying others, people should learn to think and act independently and thus make the choices that are best for them. 太多的注意力被放在了模式化方面。与其模仿别人，人们还不如学习独立思考和做出最合适自己的选择。

121. Most people recognize the benefits of individuality, but the fact is that personal economic success requires conformity. 虽然大多数人都承认个人的利益，但是事实上个人的经济成功需要的是合作。

132. The only responsibility of corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, is to make as much money as possible for their companies. 公司的经营者们唯一的责任就是在法律规定范围之内为他们的公司赚取尽可能多的钱。

法布雷加欣UID: 2901617

昨天有事哈 今天补齐两片：