【甚解小组】【TASK 2】原文抄抄炒 FROM 某水

某水UID: 2982144

Inequality: The rich and the rest - What to do (and not do) about inequality
http://www.economist.com/node/17959590

红色单词：红宝
紫色句子：Thesis
绿色句子：作者个人论点，TS
下划线句子：Issue例证的好选材，有些也可做TS

APART from being famous and influential, Hu Jintao, David Cameron, Warren Buffett and Dominique Strauss-Kahn do not obviously have a lot in common. So it tells you something about the breadth of global concerns about inequality that China’s president, Britain’s prime minister, America’s second-richest man and the head of the International Monetary Fund have all worried, loudly and publicly, about the dangers of a rising gap between the rich and the rest.


Mr Hu puts the reduction of income disparities, particularly between China’s urban elites and its rural poor, at the centre of his pledge to create a “harmonious society”. Mr Cameron has said that more unequal societies do worse “according to almost every quality-of-life indicator”. Mr Buffett has become a crusader for a higher inheritance tax, arguing that America risks an entrenched plutocracy without it. And Mr Strauss-Kahn argues for a new global growth model, claiming that gaping income gaps threaten social and economic stability. Many others seem to share their concerns. A new survey by the World Economic Forum, whose annual gathering of bigwigs in Davos begins on January 26th, says its members see widening economic disparities as one of the two main global risks over the next decade (alongside failings in global governance).


Equally muddled
      
   The debate about inequality is an old one. But in the wake of a financial crisis that is widely blamed on Wall Street fat cats, from which the richest have rebounded fastest, and ahead of public-spending cuts that will hit the poor hardest, its tone has changed. For much of the past two decades the prevailing view among the world’s policy elite—call it the Davos consensus—was that inequality itself was less important than ensuring that those at the bottom were becoming better-off. Tony Blair, a Labour predecessor of Mr Cameron’s, embodied that attitude. His New Labour party was famously said to be “intensely relaxed” about the millions earned by David Beckham (a footballer) provided that child poverty fell.


Now the focus is on inequality itself, and its supposedly pernicious consequences. One strand of argument, epitomised by “The Spirit Level”, a book that caused a stir in Britain, suggests that countries with greater disparities of income fare worse on all manner of social indicators, from higher murder rates to lower life expectancy. A second thread revisits the macroeconomic consequences of income disparities. Several prominent economists now reckon that inequality was a root cause of the financial crisis: politicians tried to counter the growing gap between rich and poor by encouraging poorer folk to take on more credit. A third argument is that inequality perverts politics, with Wall Street’s influence in Washington often cited as exhibit A of the unhealthy clout of a plutocratic elite.


If these arguments are right, there might be a case for some fairly radical responses, especially a greater focus on redistribution. In fact, much of the recent hand-wringing about widening inequality is based on sloppy thinking. The old Davos consensus of boosting growth and combating poverty is still a better guide to good policy. Rather than a sweeping assault on inequality itself, policymakers would do better to take on the market distortions that often lie behind the most galling income gaps, and which also impede economic growth.

Begin with the facts about inequality. Globally, the gap between the rich and the poor has actually been narrowing, as poorer countries are growing faster. Nor is there a monolithic trend within countries. In Latin America, long home to the world’s most unequal societies, many countries—including the biggest, Brazil—have become a bit more equal, as governments have boosted the incomes of the poor with fast growth and an overhaul of public spending to improve the social safety-net (but not by raising tax rates for the rich).


The gap between rich and poor has risen in other emerging economies (notably China and India) as well as in many rich countries (especially America, but also in places with a reputation for being more egalitarian, such as Germany). But the reasons for this differ. In China inequality has a lot to do with the hukou(户口？囧) system of residency permits, which limits internal migration to the towns; by some measures inequality has peaked as rural labour becomes more scarce. In America income inequality began to widen in the 1980s largely because the poor fell behind those in the middle. More recently, the shift has been overwhelmingly due to a rise in the share of income going to the very top—the highest 1% of earners and above—particularly those working in the financial sector. Many Americans are seeing their living standards stagnate, but the gap between most of them has not changed all that much.


The links between inequality and the ills attributed to it are often weak. For instance, some of the findings in “The Spirit Level” were distorted by outliers: strip out America’s high murder rate (which many would blame on guns, not inequality) or Japan’s longevity (diet, not equality), and flatter societies no longer look so much healthier. As for the mooted link to the financial crisis, the timing is dodgy: America’s poor fell behind in the 1980s, the credit bubble took off two decades later.


Message to Davos

These nuances suggest that rather than fretting about inequality itself, policymakers need to differentiate between its causes and focus on ways to increase social mobility. A global market offers far bigger returns to those at the top of their game, be they authors, lawyers or fund managers. Modern technology favours the skilled. These economic changes are themselves often reinforced by social ones: educated men now tend to marry educated women. The result of all this, as our special report this week shows, is the rise of a global elite.

At heart, this is a meritocratic process; but not always. Rules and institutions are often rigged in ways that limit competition and favour insiders at the expense both of growth and equality. The rules can be blatantly unfair: witness China’s limits to migration, which keep the poor in the countryside. Or they can involve more subtle distortions: look at the way that powerful teachers’ unions have stopped poorer Americans getting a good education, or the implicit “too big to fail” system that encouraged bankers to be reckless and left the rest with the tab. These are very different problems, but they all lead to wider inequality, fewer rungs in the ladder and lower growth.

Viewed from this perspective, the right way to combat inequality and increase mobility is clear. First, governments need to keep their focus on pushing up the bottom and middle rather than dragging down the top: investing in (and removing barriers to) education, abolishing rules that prevent the able from getting ahead and refocusing government spending on those that need it most. Oddly, the urgency of these kinds of reform is greatest in rich countries, where prospects for the less-skilled are stagnant or falling. Second, governments should get rid of rigged rules and subsidies that favour specific industries or insiders. Forcing banks to hold more capital and pay for their implicit government safety-net is the best way to slim Wall Street’s chubbier felines. In the emerging world there should be a far more vigorous assault on monopolies and a renewed commitment to reducing global trade barriers—for nothing boosts competition and loosens social barriers better than freer commerce.


Such reforms would not narrow all income disparities: in a freer world skill and intellect would still be rewarded, in some cases magnificently well. But the reforms would strike at the most pernicious, unfair sorts of income disparity and allow more people to move upwards. They would also boost growth and leave the world economy more stable. If the Davos elites are worried about the gap between the rich and the rest, this is the route they should follow.

某水UID: 2982144

Disparity: (n)difference or inequality 不同
Pledge: (n/v)promise solemnly and formally 保证，宣誓
Plutocracy: (n)government by a rich and powerful class 财阀统治
Pernicious: (adj)extremely harmful, potentially causing death 致命的，有害的
Monolithic: (adj)exhibiting or characterized by often rigidly fixed uniformity巨大的
Egalitarian: (adj)asserting, resulting from, or characterized by belief in the equality of all people 人人平等的
Nuance: (n)subtle difference in meaning, colour, feeling, etc 细微的差异
Blatant: (adj)extremely (offensively) obvious; loudly offensive 显而易见的
Abolish: (v)cancel; put an end to 废除

某水UID: 2982144

这篇讲贫富差距的文章引用了很多上好的例证和非常实用的写作方法，尤其是中国国情方面的讨论、以及拓展到全球性的对比都非常值得一看。

从“If these arguments are right”这句话大抵就能感受出来这篇文很有argument行文的感觉，从总结概括问题 - 提出先有争论 - 论述自己观点 - 讨论可行方式这个流程来看，就更有体会了。

本文关键词：贫富差异  社会  政府  个人

可能会采用到的Issue：
政治
97 "It is unfortunate but true that political decisions and activities affect all aspects of people's lives."
170 "The surest indicator of a great nation is not the achievements of its rulers, artists, or scientists, but the general welfare of all its people."
195 "The goal of politics should not be the pursuit of an ideal, but rather the search for common ground and reasonable consensus."

社会
3 "It is more important to allocate money for immediate, existing social problems than to spend it on long-term research that might help future generations."
137 "What we call progress is a matter of exchanging one problem for another."
211 "Any decision-whether made by government, by a corporation, or by an individual person-must take into account future conditions more than present conditions."
197 "The material progress and well-being of one country are necessarily connected to the material progress and well-being of all other countries."

律法
180 "Many problems of modern society cannot be solved by laws and the legal system because moral behavior cannot be legislated."

某水UID: 2982144

5 Brainpowered Tools — Endless New Jobs
http://blogs.forbes.com/mindmakeover/2011/02/05/5-brainpowered-tools-endless-new-jobs/

红色：红宝
绿色：Issue例证
蓝色：Thesis

Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chair, challenged leaders in today’s Associated Press, for US organizations to view a new economy with stronger job creation. Bernanke warned the White House to come up with a plan for job creation.

Since the unemployment rate sneaked up to 9.5 per cent it’s a critical time to shift directions. Here are five strongholds that could generate endless jobs if you lead innovation across genders, ages and cultures – with the brain in mind.

1. Universities could add brainpowered leadership courses. Leadership programs that cross silos beyond outmoded traditional restraints, open faster to brainpowered learning and leading practices. How so? Learning would consist of looking for broken cogs in current workplace wheels, and designing innovative alternatives in class to apply at work. Call the course Lead Innovation with the Brain in Mind, and convert lectures into questions, theory critiques into designing collaborative improvements, demands for similarity into fostering quality differences, rewarded talents at the top, into developing multiple intelligences for innovative solutions across differences. Brainpowered tool: Raise IQ for new job creations by developing and supporting multiple intelligences for solutions to current problems, across diverse groups.

2. Organizations can blast open bolted rusty gates that block renewal. Start by hosting an open brainpowered contest for innovations, across departments, and by rewarding new job creations from unlikely places. It’s critical to judge these contests with a very open rubric – of specific criteria that all can see. Recently, an international group hosted a contest for innovation and then sadly broke trust for many, by hiding the judging criteria. Some contestants thought it important to gain peer grades on their offering, others thought it important to gain outside support for novel ideas and did so, a few thought videos counted more and so added YouTube. Nobody knew for sure — what was key to winning! Then one contestant called me to report that leaders confessed to using a secret formula for selecting winning entries. The result? Trust was lost and wonderful leaders dropped out of the once promising leadership community. Brainpowered tool: Evaluation of innovative designs is intelligence-fair when exact same criteria that creates a design, is also used to judge that design. Avoid secrets hidden within judges’ heads and you’ll also increase serotonin for trust across differences – with intelligence-fair results as new job opportunities.

3. Government funding and support will frequently find innovative minds outside of stagnant, broken systems. It’s time to step past tired traditions, highly paid grant writers and commonly corrupt practices. Look for places commonly passed over – move forward with innovative mindsets, and support those with pieces still missing to bring about new job adventures the next generation values. Follow through and ensure cynicism or corruption does not follow the dollars. In NY the government made one feeble attempt to fund women business leaders who made a difference. At the celebration dinner several cynical young men at one table bragged about the fact they simply shifted their business into their wives’ names and won the grab. On another occasion we lead a brainpowered conference to CEO’s who complained that to get contracts in NY takes lots of money to controllers. Only one at the table that raised this problem, said he refused to pay bribes on ethical grounds. Cynics concluded that was NY’s way, and added that nobody talks about it. Brainpowered tool: Celebrate ethical advances for ongoing growth – and sidestep cynics who toss toxins into the mix, and shut down innovation.

4. Media take risks daily to air genuine innovation with opposing views well articulated, at all of its unique and different stages. Replace programs on the airwaves currently, that truncate genuine renewal because poor tone, blaming or angry opinions that increase cortisol and chase away the most brilliant innovative thinkers. Cross the ages, so that the elderly and youth can mix innovative offerings for new adventures – in ways that pull together for rewired brains and new possibilities forward. Brainpowered tool: Expect youthful plasticity to change brains from youth to senior years – as innovators reboot for renewal in settings fueled by serotonin.

5. Publishers pony up for innovative books that will change the world from places of hidden or less-known brainpower. It takes risk from innovative publishers who draw more on dopamine to win innovatively, to exchange books by movie stars or political backstabbing to run with an innovative challenge from unsung heroes for a finer employment future. Brainpowered tool: Risk to increase dopamine that fuels ongoing progress, and watch new jobs result because of books that publish designs for a finer future.

Bernanke stated that December, 2010 added 146,00 jobs. In his words, job creation needs to double that amount in order to make a noticeable dent in unemployment. How might brainpowered tools create new jobs, because you took the risk to lead innovation with the brain in mind?

某水UID: 2982144

Blast: smash, apply a draft or strong wind to 冲击，爆破
Stagnant: not growing or changing不景气的
Cynicism: a skeptical, scornful or pessimistic attitude愤世嫉俗，犬儒主义
Truncate: to shorten something as if by cutting off part of it截短

某水UID: 2982144

forbes的文章学术性较低但是比较贴近实际生活。选这篇主要是因为Ben Bernanke， 其次是文中提到的5个方面university, organization, government, media, publisher都是Issue中的常见话题，再者文章的结构组织是先例题后TS，比较少见，但也可以在写AW参考一下这种行文。