读eco&time--6.9--joyce

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Financial regulation
Bolting the stable door
Mar 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition
As the City crumbles, is it too late to fix its watchdog?
“THE TEMPEST”, or “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”? Scenes from both plays looked down on Lord Turner in the Drapers’ Hall as he explained on March 18th how the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the financial watchdog he chairs, will change and get much tougher. He chose to speak in the heart of the once-glorious City rather than in the casino-country of Canary Wharf, London’s wholesale financial district. There, the FSA has made itself perhaps too much at home.


His review anticipates a meeting of G20 leaders in London on April 2nd, which has financial regulation high on its agenda. European, indeed global, co-ordination is an important component of any effective new approach. But no matter what anyone else does, the FSA, whose reputation has been battered by the collapse of various banks under its supposedly watchful eye, must clean up its act at home, as it freely admits. This is a start.


The FSA plans, says its chairman, to look beyond single institutions to the systemic risks they may be heaping up in aggregate. It will check that pay does not give bankers an incentive to take on more risk than the bank can safely manage. It will rationalise the wildly different ways in which banks account for complex assets.


The FSA wants to make banks keep more capital to cushion possible losses on the assets they hold to trade, and proposes bigger charges on those that are likely to be harder to sell in a crisis. It will put less trust in the home supervisors of the many foreign banks with branches in Britain: the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and two Icelandic banks had financial
repercussions in the host country. European Union banks branch freely in other member states, a principle that may need revision.


All this sounds fine, if overdue（后半句if overdue什么意思 ）; but can the FSA really reform itself without a more radical redesign of the system? Apart from Lord Turner, who took over last September, and about 200 new specialists hired to sharpen supervision, the old crew is still there. “Light touch” regulation, which gave bank bosses plenty of room provided they seemed to know what they were doing, is to be replaced with a much heavier hand, but it is attached to the same people.（这个句子中间那个which从句结构没看明白）


Lord Turner talks some fine talk. He dismisses past errors as the result of a mistaken worldwide philosophy which held that markets and those competing in them could safely be left to self-correct. Banks will no longer be allowed to rely on deposit insurance and being “too big to fail” as a basis for taking big bets, he says. But he stops short, as do most policymakers, of calling for a split between banks that operate as a casino, playing the markets actively for profit, and those that see their role mainly as a utility, converting deposits into loans, processing transactions and the like.


Hector Sants, the FSA’s chief executive, says his outfit has been seared by recent events but is “tougher and better as a result”. A more cynical view is that the FSA has survived as long as it has without bloodletting because it is the brainchild of Gordon Brown.


In 1997 Mr Brown, then chancellor of the exchequer, took bank supervision from the Bank of England and gave it to a new creation, the FSA, with a view to integrating the oversight of increasingly diversified financial firms. The central bank retained theoretical responsibility for the stability of the financial sector, but few tools to secure it. Memoranda of understanding were supposed to ensure seamless co-ordination between the FSA, the Treasury and the central bank in a crisis.


Whether it was the policies or the personalities that were wrong, the system didn’t work. But Mr Brown, now prime minister, is not a man to admit that he has made a mistake. Nor does Lord Turner believe that tinkering with the structure will improve supervision. One of the FSA’s proposals, however, does include strengthening the central bank’s systemic-scrutiny role; giving it power to adjust banks’ capital charges to mitigate booms and busts.（不过这个貌似跟红宝给的意思不一样）


Designing sturdier financial regulation is high among most countries’ priorities these days. But Britain faces a particular dilemma: it may have to choose between continuing to host the world’s biggest international financial centre, with the jobs and revenues this has brought, and cracking down on excessive risk-taking. Investment banks are already threatening to take their trades offshore if the FSA goes ahead with proposed new rules on liquidity.


Lord Turner hopes such rules will be applied globally. But that will happen slowly, if at all. The FSA may enjoy its reprieve only until the next election. Among the many proposals drawn up for the opposition Conservatives is a plan to replace it with one conduct-of-business and one prudential supervisor.


对我来说的生单词：casino：n. 娱乐场            rationalise: v. 合理化
repercussion: v. 反响，弹回，反射               overdue: a. 过期的，未兑的，迟到的
outfit：n. 用具，配备，机构；v. 配备，供应      bloodletting: n. 放血
brainchild: n. 脑力劳动的产物                    memoranda: n. 备忘录
bust : n. 萧条，不景气                          offshore：a. 海面的;ad. 向海面
reprieve: n. 缓刑；v. 暂时解救                   heap： n. 堆，许多，累积；v. 堆积





GRE级别词汇，我不知道什么算，感觉在红宝里见过的都记一下吧,也可能记忆出现了偏差，我没拿着红宝对，用蓝色标出。不知道是不是我记忆有问题，居然这么多····




词组的话，紫色吧，呃，水平问题，也许有的不是词组····有的好象不是，就是用在一起我觉得顺眼···好像后面看文章去了，找的不仔细了···


相对不是那么容易读懂的句子，或者是我现在都还没懂得地方，划线

关于写作什么的，我一时还真把握不了。感觉第一段最后一句非常鲜明的表现了作者对FSA的态度，批评加一点讽刺
后面多处细节中使用到的形容词和副词强化了这种态度。用到了对比的手法····目前只想到这么多

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Coca-Cola and China
Hard to swallow
Mar 19th 2009 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition

China indicates the real targets of its anti-monopoly law: outsiders

LAST August, after 14 years of debate, the Chinese government at last imposed what was informally referred to as its “economic constitution”, a broad anti-monopoly law for a country rife with state-imposed monopolies. Since then people have wondered how the law would be applied, and whether it would advance China’s transformation into a market economy, or serve as an impediment to genuine competition. On March 18th an answer emerged with the rejection of the largest outright acquisition by a foreign firm, a $2.4 billion offer by Coca-Cola for China Huiyuan, China’s largest juice company.

When the deal was announced last September, it was at a price three times Huiyuan’s valuation. Since then, as global markets have collapsed, it has only become more appealing. Huiyuan is a private company and juice had previously been free of government control, so theoretically it should have been available for（有效，有空做某事） purchase. “It is a very unfortunate outcome in an industry that has no economic or national-security significance,” says Lester Ross of WilmerHale, a law firm, in Beijing. 那个free of government control，available for purchase太扯了，虽然不是行文上的或者逻辑错误，但是忍不住要说。不了解中国国情，按西方经济学的头脑思考问题··

The most benign interpretation of the rejection being bandied about by lawyers and bankers is that it reflects a political response to critical comments by America’s new administration. The more worrying interpretation is that, even as China publicly urges other countries to commit to（对··作出承诺） opening their markets to Chinese investment and trade, it is imposing yet another barrier to outsiders. Worse still, the barriers are in its domestic consumer sector, one of the few global economic bright spots（亮点）. 这一段层层深入···虽然观点我很不认同，但是写法很好

Adding irony to the decision, （算是逻辑连接吧）it comes just as the Chinese government is actively encouraging consolidation and greater market concentration in several areas, including steel, cars and airlines, and just after it imposed a new oligopoly in telecoms. No domestic Chinese transactions have fallen foul of （与··冲突，不一致）the new monopoly law. 算是反讽的写法么？

Signs that foreign companies might be the primary targets of the law began to emerge in November, when a merger between two brewers, America’s Anheuser-Busch and Belgium’s InBev, was endorsed by Chinese regulators only on the condition that the combined firm’s existing interest in several domestic breweries be frozen. In particular, Anheuser-Busch’s non-controlling 27% stake in Tsingtao, a leading Chinese brewer, was largely liquidated in January after what is presumed to be pressure from the government. 举例论证

The Coca-Cola Company holds around half of the domestic Chinese market for carbonated beverages, but the juice business is highly fragmented. Together, the two firms would control slightly more than 20% of the juice business. In a brief statement, China’s ministry of commerce said Coke’s “dominant status” might imperil small competitors and force consumers to face higher prices and less choice. 本来就是，难道cola要收购不是这个目的么

After the decision was announced, investment banks were left wondering, in the words of one employee, whether “a key plank in their business had just blown up（突然产生）.” Coke has spent years developing its presence in China, and has invested heavily, presumably making it one of the world’s more acceptable buyers. It is also one of the few companies able to finance a big deal in today’s difficult circumstances. If Coke was not acceptable to the Chinese authorities, then who would be? 这算不算非此即彼的错误。不找cola就没别的公司能买。可是一定要卖么？？The rejection will inevitably be used as evidence of non-reciprocity, and of the collusion between the country’s state and private sectors, by anyone opposed to China’s recent efforts to buy companies abroad.

Furthermore, another new law comes into effect on May 1st, subjecting any transfer of a state-controlled asset to yet another layer of review, this time by a local commission. Theoretically this is not aimed at any particular kind of acquirer, and would not block well-conceived deals, but that, of course, was said about the monopoly law as well. The new law had not received much attention. It will now.
为什么我们就是关税壁垒，倾销，不是市场经济；他们BUY AMERICAN就没问题。不多说了，貌似再说就过了····

生词： genuine       真的；真诚的                         oligopoly       供过于求的市场情况
         telecom       电信，通讯，远距通信               merger         （两个公司）的合并
         brewer         啤酒制造者                            frozen          冷冻的，结冰的      （这个词于我居然是生单词，惭愧···）
          plank          厚木板；政策要点                   non-reciprocity      非互惠原则
         collusion      共谋，勾结，串通                    outright         完全地，彻底地；直率地；立即
         national-security    国家机密

红宝词
绿色：逻辑连接词

joyceww88UID: 2599492

American banks
It takes two to tango

Mar 26th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Are America’s banks prepared to sell their toxic assets?

AMERICA’S government is a willing buyer of bad assets, but are its banks willing sellers? (以问句开头，引起人的关注和好奇，同时给读者一个提示：下文要写关于banks sell bad assets方面的东西了)If a lender flogs a loan or security for less than the value at which it is booked on its balance-sheet（资产负债表）, it suffers a loss, depleting its capital. It follows that if banks’ carrying values are still above those that state-sponsored bidders want to pay, they will not sell voluntarily.

Just how optimistic are banks’ books（账簿）? Two-thirds of the Treasury scheme’s purchasing power will be directed towards legacy loans. America’s ten biggest banks had plenty of （虽然这个很低能，但是我貌似都不会用）these—$3.6 trillion at the end of 2008, or about a third of their assets. However by global convention loans are not marked to market（按市值计算）, but carried at cost and impaired gradually. Some categories of risky loans, for example to private-equity（私募股权） firms, have been written down（贬低）. But the vast majority of loans have not. In aggregate the carrying value of the top-ten banks’ loan books was 3% above the market price in December. That gap may not seem much, but it amounts to over $110 billion; if it were crystallised, it would wipe out（彻底摧毁） a quarter of these banks’ tangible common equity（普通股本，普通股权益）, their purest form of capital. The loss is also likely to be concentrated on the dodgiest loans, making them hard to sell.

The remainder of the scheme’s firepower will be directed at securities, which at $3.7 trillion comprise another third of the top-ten banks’ assets. These are marked to market and have been the main source of the savage write-downs that banks have suffered.

Many fear that banks are still being over-optimistic about their nastiest assets. For the top ten banks, 16% of securities were classified as “Level 3”, equivalent to 1.5 times their equity (see chart). Level 3 means there are no reliable market prices available, leaving the banks free to use models. The assumptions in these may not be particularly pessimistic: at the end of 2008, $12 billion of Citigroup’s Level 3 structured-credit exposures were valued according to a fall in house prices of 33% from the peak—a smaller drop than the one in the government’s own “stress test”（压力测试）. Those banks with the least capital probably have more generous valuations. And the scheme will buy only securities that originally had an AAA credit rating, which rules out（排除··可能性） the nastiest stuff.

That still leaves about $3 trillion of securities that are marked to market using more reliable direct or indirect price inputs. But banks may be reluctant to sell their loans and their most toxic securities—exactly what the scheme is meant to target. The obvious remedy is to force banks to write down their assets further as part of the governments’ continuing stress tests. But with capital ratios tight and the Treasury’s bail-out kitty now almost depleted, that could push several big banks towards insolvency.

生词：flog   抽打，鞭打；出售             balance-sheet     资产负债表              
       dodgy    冒险的，危险的             firepower      火力                           
        nasty         令人讨厌的；严重的

joyceww88UID: 2599492

The G20 and tax
Haven hypocrisy（这标题真有档次，俩词全是红宝上的呵呵）
Mar 26th 2009 | BERLIN
From The Economist print edition
Big economies are leaning on offshore tax havens（国外避税地）. But greater abuse may be taking place at home
MONEY launderers（洗钱） are moved by greed, unlike Jason Sharman, a political scientist at Australia’s Griffith University. Yet with a budget of $10,000 and little more than Google (and the ads at the back of this paper), he showed how easy it was to circumvent prohibitions on banking secrecy, forming anonymous shell companies and secret bank accounts across the world. In doing so he has uncovered an uncomfortable truth for many of the leaders of Group of 20 nations meeting on April 2nd to discuss, among other things, sanctions against offshore tax havens. The most egregious examples of banking secrecy, money laundering and tax fraud are found not in remote alpine（高山的，阿尔卑斯山的） valleys or on sunny tropical（热带的） isles（岛） but in the backyards of the world’s biggest economies. （最后一句感觉有点小讽刺的意味）（用对比，引出一个出人意料的结果，美国作为“biggest economies”居然是避税天堂）

At issue is not banking secrecy as the Swiss once knew it, where discreet men in plush offices promised to take the names of their clients to the grave. This is a more insidious form of secrecy, in which authorities and bankers do not bother to ask for names, something long outlawed in offshore tax centres such as Jersey and Switzerland but which has persisted in America. For shady（可疑的） clients, this is a far better proposition: what their bankers do not know, they can never be forced to reveal. And their method is disarmingly simple. Instead of opening bank accounts in their own names, fraudsters and money launderers form anonymous companies, with which they can then open bank accounts and move assets.（简要介绍如何避税，还用与瑞士的对比引出）

Nowhere is this more prevalent（流行的，普遍的） than in America. Take Nevada, for example. Its official website touts its “limited reporting and disclosure requirements（公开资料规定）” and a speedy one-hour incorporation service. Nevada does not ask for the names of company shareholders（股东）, nor does it routinely share the little information it has with the federal government. （举例，使得美国的这种避税手法在读者心中更具体）

There is demand for this ask-no-questions approach. The state, with a population of only 2.6m, incorporates about 80,000 new firms a year and now has more than 400,000, roughly one for every six people. A study by the Internal Revenue Service found that 50-90% of those registering companies were already in breach of（违反，与··相违背） federal tax laws elsewhere.(对于Nevada的例子，给出数据支持，使结果更令人信服)

A money-laundering threat assessment in 2005 by the federal government found that corporate anonymity offered by Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming rivalled that of familiar offshore financial centres. For foreigners, America is a particularly attractive place to stash cash, because it does not tax the interest income they earn. Thus with both anonymity and no taxation, America offers them all the elements of a tax haven. （仍然是美国与大家所熟知的避税中心比，更加强调了如今的严峻情况）

Change may be coming in America, but slowly. In March Senator Carl Levin proposed a law forcing states to identify the beneficial owners of corporations. “For too long, criminals have misused US corporations to hide illicit activity, including money laundering and tax fraud,” said Mr Levin. “It doesn’t make sense that less information is required to form a US corporation than to obtain a driver’s licence.”（提出要解决这个问题，并提到了它的危害，使人赞同作者的说法）

Yet a similar bill introduced last year died a quiet death in committee.

America is not the only rich nation Mr Sharman tested. He tried to open anonymous shell companies and bank accounts 45 times across the world. These were successful in 17 cases, of which 13 were in OECD（经济合作发展组织） countries. One example was Britain, where in 45 minutes on the internet he formed a company without providing identification, was issued with（发给） bearer shares（无记名股票） (which have been almost universally outlawed because they confer completely anonymous ownership) as well as nominee（被提名者） directors and a secretary. All was achieved at a cost of £515.95 ($753). （指出该情况并不只在美国发生，在一些OECD countries 同样存在。同样举例并列出数据，使人更加信服）

In other cases Mr Sharman formed companies by providing no more than a scanned copy of his driving licence. In contrast, when trying to open accounts in Bermuda and Switzerland, he was asked for documentation such as notarised（公证的） copies of his birth certificate. （与那些没有这种情况的国家做个小对比，更加谴责美国及一些存在这种问题的国家）“In practice OECD countries have much laxer regulation on shell corporations than classic tax havens,” Mr Sharman concludes. “And the US is the worst on this score, worse than Liechtenstein and worse than Somalia.”（又是对比）

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Can Obama Win Russia's Cooperation on Iran? By Vivienne Walt Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009


Don't expect President Barack Obama to look into President Dmitri Medvedev's eyes(直视某人) and "get a sense of his soul" when he meets his Russian counterpart on Wednesday at the G-20 summit in London. That was what then President George W. Bush claimed to have done during his first meeting with Vladimir Putin early in 2001, but Obama and Medvedev have more immediate and practical concerns: Washington urgently needs Moscow's help in achieving one of its key foreign policy priorities — containing Iran's nuclear ambitions. But Russia will cooperate only if it's satisfied that Obama has abandoned the more confrontational（挑衅的，对抗的）approach of the Bush Administration toward Iran.

Russia's centrality to the issue lies in the facts that it is building Iran's civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr and it is the Islamic Republic's key supplier of high-tech weaponry. Moscow's support is also critical to the U.S.'s efforts to use sanctions to pressure Iran to back down on the nuclear issue. Wednesday's meeting between Obama and Medvedev could provide an important indicator of whether Washington will get the help it seeks.

According to Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, Moscow will use the Obama-Medvedev meeting as an opportunity to assess how far the new Administration plans to go in pursuit of Obama's promised "new beginning" with Iran. The answer could shape Moscow's decisions with respect to supplying key military technology to Tehran.

"All the issues of Iran will be decided on what we have more of in our talks — the hope for peace, or the 'hope' of threats," Rogozin tells TIME.

Iran has negotiated an agreement for Russia to supply it with the S-300 surface-to-air missile system(地对空导弹系统), which is far more accurate, and at a far greater range, than Iran's current air defenses are and would greatly enhance Iran's capacity to ward off（避开，挡住） a pre-emptive（有先买权的） Israeli or U.S. air strike aimed at its nuclear facilities. The State Department's key adviser on Iran, Dennis Ross, warned last month that Israel could be tempted to strike（受··引诱） before the delivery of S-300 missiles (whose deployment（展开，部署，调度） had been expected sometime next year).

But, says Rogozin, Russia could hold back on delivering the enhanced air defenses if Obama signals a change in Iran policy. "The best thing that Washington can offer [Russia] is realigning its own attitude with Iran," says Rogozin. Moscow will be encouraged by Tuesday's news that Obama's special envoy（使节） to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, met with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Akhoundzadeh at a conference in the Hague on Tuesday and that the two had agreed to "remain in touch."

Russia, in fact, appears to（似乎，好像） already have put the S-300 delivery to Iran on hold while it waits to see what approach Obama's Administration adopts in dealing with Tehran's nuclear program. "On a political level, [the Russians] have put the sale on hold — that's new," says Cliff Kupchan, an expert on Russia and Iran at the Eurasia Group in Washington.

Rogozin sees Iran's need for missiles as being related to Washington's own stance. "The harsher the U.S. policy is toward Iran, the harsher the response is to the U.S. and the whole world," he says. "If you drive into a corner（将某人逼上绝路） a small nation（一种倒装）, [its people] will do anything they can to protect their security." Yet although Russia has long defended Iran's right to develop its civilian nuclear program, Kupchan claims that officials in Moscow were taken aback（意外地，吃惊地） when Iran tested a medium-range missile last month. Still, Russia has been unwilling to abandon the S-300 contract. Rogozin indicates that Russia is waiting until "after the first meeting of the two Presidents, and then we will decide on our plans."

Besides a new stance toward Tehran, Obama can offer Russia two further inducements to cooperate on Iran: a tacit delay — perhaps for years — in plans to deploy a U.S. missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and plans to extend NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine. Both issues are on the table at this week's NATO summit in France and Germany, although with no link to Iran. Indeed, Iran is not the only issue on which the U.S. and its allies need Russian help: Moscow's cooperation may be the key element in securing alternative supply routes for NATO troops in Afghanistan, given the ease with which Taliban-aligned forces are able to attack the supply lines through Pakistan on which the mission currently depends. （从句套从句）

Even with concessions on the missile shield and on Ukraine and Georgia, Russia remains deeply suspicious of NATO. "There is still no mutual understanding or trust between us," Rogozin says. "Russia should become a reliable partner to both the U.S. and NATO, but for that, Russia needs to be respected in both Washington and Brussels." Moscow would prefer to reduce the alliance's footprint not only on its southern flank（侧边） in Georgia and Ukraine but also on its western frontier with Poland and the Baltic states — although any reversal of the integration of those countries into NATO would render the alliance itself meaningless. So the relationship is likely to remain testy, even if it becomes more cooperative. "We are not a naive people, but we feel a lot of hope," says Rogozin. "We are optimistic."

NATO:１９４９年４月４日，美国、加拿大、英国、法国、比利时、荷兰、卢森堡、丹麦、挪威、冰岛、葡萄牙和意大利等１２国在美国首都华盛顿签订了北大西洋公约，宣布成立北大西洋公约组织（North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- NATO），简称北约。截止２００４年３月２９日，北约成员国有２６个。秘书长是夏侯雅伯 (Jaap de Hoop Scheffer) ，２００４年１月上任

　　北大西洋公约共１４条，其宗旨是缔约国实行“集体防御”，任何缔约国同它国发生战争时，成员国必须给予帮助，包括使用武力。北约最初的成员国包括：美国、加拿大、比利时、法国、卢森堡、荷兰、英国、丹麦、挪威、冰岛、葡萄牙和意大利。

joyceww88UID: 2599492

The G20 in London
G-forceApr 2nd 2009
From Economist.com
The G20 outcome is better than nothing(总比没有的好), but can the IMF save the world?
WHEN an infamous（臭名昭著的） summit of world powers in London ended in 1933, such was the mood of protectionist acrimony that many argued it would have been better if the meeting had not been held at all. At times in the run up to（在···之前） the G20 gathering of world leaders in London on Thursday April 2nd it looked as if history might be repeated. But the leaders have shown some grit, and some ingenuity in finding money when little is about. Many holes can be picked in（挑毛病，破绽） their pledges（保证，誓言） to reflate the world economy and re-regulate global finance. But, at the very least, it was better that they met than not.

The centerpiece of the leaders’ plan is, conveniently, the IMF, which they believe can add an extra $1 trillion in funding to the world economy without the risk of ballooning national budgets, or obstruction from national politicians. That financial conjuring trick（魔术） gets the G20 out of a bind. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has made much of $5 trillion in public spending that governments around the world have promised to help shunt their economies out of recession in 2009-10. But big spenders such as America and Britain are up against（面临，面对） their limits and fiscal hawks（指那些有权决定国家预算去向的政界要人） such as Germany are stubbornly convinced they have done enough.

That leaves the IMF as pump-primer（引水泵） of last resort, although not all of the funding promises made on Thursday were new. Japan and the European Union had already agreed to put $100 billion each into the IMF’s kitty. Rich countries such as America will provide a $500 billion credit line（信用额度）, known as New Arrangements to Borrow. This was trailed（追踪） several weeks ago. Significantly, the IMF will print $250 billion of its own currency, known as special drawing rights（特别提款权）, allocating sums to its members according to their quotas. It is not clear whether this can be redirected from rich countries to poor ones.

This flood of extra resources, plus an enhanced oversight role the G20 has given to the fund, will be a huge turnaround for an institution whose relevance had slumped in the boom years. Now the new money must be directed to developing countries, especially in eastern Europe. Many such countries have been loth to tap the fund because of the stigma involved. A pledge by the G20 to reform the fund’s governance soon may convince them that the leopard has changed its spots.（算是比喻句吧） This week Mexico secured a $47 billion credit line with the fund, with no strings attached, which may set a trend. Eswar Prasad of the Brookings Institution believes the commitment to reform is credible. His evidence is that China has agreed to chip in（捐助，捐钱） $40 billion, prior to any changes to its voting power in the IMF (it has the same heft（重量，体积） as Belgium). Others, however, remain sceptical. “This is still supply chasing demand,” says Arvind Subramanian of the Centre for Global Development.

The importance of offering new sources of funds to the developing world should not be underestimated, however.
By some estimates poor countries have $1.4 trillion of debts to roll over this year alone and Western creditors are hoarding their cash. These countries have far less fiscal room for manoeuvre than rich economies. They are also areas of the world where growth could rebound（返回，弹回） quite quickly, because households are not weighed down（使下沉） by the crushing debts typical in America and Europe. In a further fillip（刺激） to many of them, the G20 agreed to ensure $250 billion in trade finance to help reboot（重启） global trade—though it was not clear how much of this was new money.

As for efforts to drag the developed world out of the mire, the G20 went perhaps further than had been expected, though undoubtedly not far enough. It emphasised the problem of scrubbing toxic assets off banks’ balance-sheets, but gave little guidance on how banks should be forced to mark down（减价） their assets to saleable prices. (Undermining that effort, on Thursday American accounting standard-setters watered down（掺水，消弱） a mark-to-market provision that would have forced banks to value their assets at market prices. The short-sighted reprieve led to a huge rally in the shares of stricken banks such as Citigroup.)

It also, in a nod to strongly held German and French sentiments, called for regulation of hedge funds and other parts of the shadow banking system, a crack down（制裁） on tax havens and banking secrecy, and more oversight of credit-rating agencies. There was little to suggest that one of the main causes of the crisis, incentives for banks to grow too big to fail, was being tackled.

Financial markets rallied after the G20 news, though this was as much because of sprigs of good economic news emerging as the harmony that was displayed. This was despite disappointment that the European Central Bank had cut its main interest rate on Thursday, by just a quarter of a percentage point, to 1.25%. American unemployment figures on Friday, which could be shocking, may puncture some of that optimism, and should temper any temptation among G20 leaders to claim success. Their efforts to reflate the world economy may have avoided a 1930s-style depression so far. But rising joblessness and years of pain may lie ahead（摆在眼前，即将发生） as banks, businesses and households in the West continue to struggle to pay down（付定金） their debts.


还是先暂时发着吧

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Regulating banks
Basel brush
Apr 2nd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Regulators’ new blueprint for bank supervision avoids the trickiest bits
IT HASN’T got to the stage of taxi drivers demanding a crackdown on tier-one（紧密结合） capital, but in general terms the world agrees that banks need to be regulated until they weep（渗水，哭泣）. The detail is best left to the experts, and ahead of the G20 summit, they worked overtime, producing several big reports for the Financial Stability Forum（辩论的场所，讲坛） (FSF), which brings together central banks（倒装）, financial regulators and treasuries from the big Western economies.

Investors’ confidence in the old rules, governed mainly by the Basel 2 regime, is at rock bottom（最低点） and some fear that banks are still massaging（揉捏） their balance-sheets. One of London’s leading investors in financial firms complains of “window dressing（弄虚作假） and truth dodging” which, he thinks, “gives the lie to（揭穿某事的虚伪性） the complacent assumption that nothing like Japan in the 1990s could ever happen in the West.” That suggests tacit collusion by some regulators, possibly even those sitting on the FSF.

Against this backdrop of scepticism, the FSF has acted to close many of the loopholes banks had exploited. Off-balance-sheet vehicles, models that allow capital ratios to be gamed by understating assets’ risks, over-reliance on wholesale funding and gung-ho（同心协力的，雄心壮志的） compensation policies will all be verboten（禁止的，严禁的）. Simple ratios of equity to assets will be monitored, as well as the more fiddly（要求高精度的） risk-based approach of Basel 2. Banks will be required to build up capital during the good times, although the exact mechanism and amounts of capital have yet to be decided. Regulators will have to scrutinise the risk of the system overall and not just that of individual lenders.

That is the easy bit. The FSF sidesteps several trickier issues. One is mark-to-market accounting where it is ambivalent, for example endorsing the idea that banks be allowed to shift assets into loan books where they need not be written down immediately. That is unfortunate given that political pressure and intense lobbying by banks now seem likely to force American standard-setters（提供标准者，标准创立者） to water down their rules. It may also be inconsistent with America’s toxic-asset plan, which needs loans and securities to be carried at market-clearing prices（保证市场供求平衡的价格） to work. If the thrust of the new capital rules is to create conservative standards and to reduce management discretion over them, it seems odd not to endorse the same principles for accounting.

The FSF shies away from（躲开） discussing enforcement. The old system failed partly because the rules were flawed, but also because regulators were captured: witness supervisors’ decision to allow the leveraged（杠杆型） take over of ABN AMRO, a Dutch lender; the widespread use of hybrid debt to inflate capital; and the permissive stance of the Securities and Exchange Commission towards American broker-dealers like Lehman Brothers. This time the rules need to be enforced, and that may require a big shake-up（动摇，革新，权宜之计） of the regulators themselves.

Finally, consider the taxi driver. He may accept that the banks needed to be bailed out, but in the future wants to protect his high-street bank（高街银行）, which enjoys implicit（含蓄的） taxpayer backing, from the risk-takers who should live and die（生存关头，你死我活） by the sword（刀剑）. Yet the industry has moved in the opposite direction. Deposit-taking（吸收存款） giants such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have bought investment banks, and bailed-out lenders such as Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup and UBS plan on keeping much of their investment-banking units intact. The FSF has addressed the fine print, but the question of how to ensure taxpayers do not underwrite private risk-taking again remains unanswered.

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Barack Obama's foreign policy
Two cheers and a jeerApr 8th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Most Americans like having a leader whom foreigners adore. But some wish he was feared a bit more

AFTER Barack Obama’s first long jaunt abroad as president, Americans are in two minds. Some are delighted that so many foreigners love him. Others fret, like Machiavelli, that it is often better to be feared than loved, and that the people who ought to fear America don’t take Mr Obama seriously.

Everywhere you go, optimists note, Mr Obama is more popular than his predecessor. European leaders jostle(推，挤，撞) to be snapped（拍···快照） standing next to him. Star-struck crowds strain their necks for a glimpse of his wife. At the G20 summit in London last week, the world’s rich nations rallied behind him to tackle the global financial crisis. Mr Obama is well-received（受到欢迎的，受到款待的） even in Muslim countries such as Turkey, where George Bush would struggle to fill a single room with friendly faces. All this goodwill must be in America’s interest.

So far, the optimists form a sizeable majority. Pundits lauded Mr Obama’s performance in Europe. Public approval for his handling of foreign policy rose from 54% in February to 61% at the end of March, according to Gallup. These are impressive numbers. But the same poll found that disapproval of his handling of foreign policy had also gone up by six points, from 22% to 28%. Only the “don’t knows” declined. As Mr Obama starts to have a track record（记录）, more Americans are forming opinions（表达意见） about it.

It is all very well, say the sceptics, for Mr Obama to make airy promises（轻率的许诺） about everyone standing together for “the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century”. But his main policy proposal towards that end—the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons—is “a dangerous fantasy”, said Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, in an online chat with readers of Politico, a newspaper.

On April 5th in Prague, Mr Obama reiterated a campaign promise to hold talks with（与···举行会谈） Russia to reduce both American and Russian nuclear stockpiles（屯聚的物资）, to push for（强烈的要求，奋力争取） a global nuclear test ban and to set up an international nuclear fuel bank to help with peaceful nuclear-energy programmes. The same day, North Korea, which has already made at least one illegal nuclear bomb, fired a test missile over Japan.

Though the missile crashed into the sea, many Republicans think it illuminated Mr Obama’s naiveté. The problem is not the great powers with nuclear stockpiles, they say, but rogue（强盗，恶棍） regimes such as North Korea and Iran. Hawks scoff that Mr Obama approaches such rogues with fine words but no stick. He promises that North Korea’s treaty-breaking will have consequences, but so far these have consisted mostly of ineffectual scolding.

The conservative critique of Mr Obama is that he is Jimmy Carter redux（回来的，回家的）: a woolly（糊涂的，不清楚的） idealist who thinks he can sweet-talk（奉承，用花言巧语骗诱） bad guys into behaving. While he pursues talks with Iran, Republicans fret, Iran’s leaders chuckle behind their beards and carry on enriching uranium（铀）. For many conservatives, the defining image of Mr Obama’s European tour was not the adoring crowds but the way America’s new president bowed（鞠躬，低头，俯首） before the king of Saudi Arabia. Bloggers juxtaposed his cursory nod to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth with the deep bow he gave to the dictatorial ruler of a far less reliable ally.

Such complaints reflect increasing polarisation. A Pew poll this month found that the gap between Mr Obama’s early approval ratings among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) was wider than that of any president in the past four decades. But since the number of Republicans is dwindling, that still leaves Mr Obama with a healthy level of support. For example, 81% of Americans agree with his goal of improving relations with the Muslim world, and 65% trust him to pursue that goal in a way that is “about right”, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week. (Meanwhile, roughly one American in ten still believes, incorrectly, that Mr Obama is a Muslim.)

Most Americans also reckon that, despite his touchy-feely（肉麻） manner, their new president is tough enough. His surprise visit to Iraq on April 7th attracted favourable headlines. Nearly two-thirds of Americans now believe the war there is winnable. Most think Mr Obama is doing a good job in Iraq, and a plurality（多元化；相对多数） think his plan to withdraw most American troops by the end of 2010 is about right.

Americans are less confident, however, that things are going well in Afghanistan. Many view Mr Obama’s plan to send more American forces there as a necessary evil（不可避免的灾祸）. By 51% to 41%, they would rather concentrate on crushing the Taliban militarily than rebuilding the Afghan economy. Conservatives note that, despite Mr Obama’s popularity abroad, America’s allies are sending precious few troops to help him do this.

One or two aspects of Mr Obama’s foreign policy are unpopular at home. The attempts of his secretary of homeland security to replace the word “terrorism（恐怖主义）” with “man-caused disasters” attracted much ridicule. More seriously, Americans disapprove of Mr Obama’s plan to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay by 50% to 44%. But since it is unclear what he will do with the inmates—he has left open the possibility of detaining the most dangerous ones indefinitely—that could change. Even less popular is Mr Obama’s lifting of the ban on federal aid for groups, such as Planned Parenthood, which provide abortions or advise about them in foreign countries. Only 35% of Americans approve of this, with 58% opposed.

For the most part, however, Mr Obama’s foreign policies run with the grain of public opinion. For example, he proposes a slight thawing of relations with Cuba. Most Americans have long favoured full normalisation. An embargo persists only because its advocates are more passionate than its opponents, but that too is changing. Cuban-Americans who fled Fidel Castro’s dictatorship for the barrios of Miami still favour sanctions, but their children have long been less sure about them. And since the diehards seldom vote Democratic anyway, Mr Obama may see little risk in upsetting them.

There are even fewer risks in Mr Obama’s recent announcement that he may send extra troops to the Mexican border to curb violence by drug gangs. Alarmed by sensational（轰动的） television coverage—for example, a CNN correspondent breathlessly（屏息地，气喘地） asked a Mexican gangster how much it would cost to assassinate（暗杀，行刺） someone in America—85% of Americans support this idea.

In general, Americans are comfortable with Mr Obama’s preference for talking to troublesome foreigners, rather than blacklisting（记于黑名单） them. But not if he starts talking to the guys who once sheltered al-Qaeda. An ABC poll last month found that 53% of Americans would oppose negotiating with the Taliban even if they agreed to suspend attacks on American and Afghan forces. And Americans have little faith in global talking-shops: nearly two-thirds think the UN does a poor job of tackling the problems it faces.

图书馆的无线网不好使，弄一点发一点，不然全没了就哭死了

zhudidiUID: 2627332

谢谢拉！

joyceww88UID: 2599492

An earthquake in Italy
Death in the mountainsApr 8th 2009 | L’AQUILA
From The Economist print edition
Mourning those lost, with bitter memories of past disasters

IT BEGAN with a roar under the earth and a tremor that lasted for what the mayor of L’Aquila, Massimo Cialente, later called “20 interminable seconds”. The epicentre of the most lethal and destructive earthquake in Italy for almost 30 years lay a few kilometres outside the city.

Its shock waves spread through L’Aquila, shaking to the ground a hotel and several apartment blocks. They wrecked a university residence, trapping(困住，使陷入绝境) many students inside. The earthquake gashed solid 18th-century palazzi and shook the brickwork out of flimsy structures thrown up in the 1960s. Bridges and viaducts in the city, high up in the Apennine mountains that form Italy’s backbone, were left perilously fractured. Beyond L’Aquila, the shock waves ripped through villages, reducing the houses of farmworkers to piles of rubble. They were felt as far away as Naples.

The earthquake that struck the Abruzzo region at 3.32am on April 6th was another grim reminder of how vulnerable Italy is to natural disasters. At least 250 people were killed. Over 1,000 were injured. A single village, Onna, lost 39 inhabitants. As many as 13,000 buildings, including historic and artistic monuments, were damaged.
By April 7th, when most of its population had fled, L’Aquila was like a city that had been extensively shelled: a ghost town in which almost the only sounds were of house alarms, ambulance sirens and the earth-movers of rescue workers. （描写的太好了）After-shocks, some severe, continued to affect the area, making the rescue workers’ task harder and more dangerous. By April 8th the increased deployment（展开，部署，调度） of heavy machinery hinted（暗示，示意） that, in most places, rescuers had given up hope of finding survivors.

Two questions were immediately raised. One was why some buildings crumbled but others did not. Many of those that collapsed were put up before 1980 when Italy brought in stricter regulations for construction in areas of seismic activity. But others were not. Prosecutors in L’Aquila announced that they would investigate to see if there were grounds for bringing charges against（提出控告） those responsible.

The second question was how Silvio Berlusconi’s government would cope. Disasters can make or break politicians, as Rudy Giuliani and George Bush could both testify. Mr Berlusconi’s initial reaction was both vigorous and sure-footed. He cancelled a trip to Moscow, rushed to the area and toured it in a helicopter. A day later, he returned to announce the dispatch of 14,500 tents for the homeless. But then he made an ill-judged quip that those huddling in tent cities should think of themselves as being on a “weekend of camping”. He also declined offers of foreign help, insisting that Italians were a “proud people” and prosperous. True, yet the magnitude of the damage is daunting. And the government, which is burdened by a public debt that exceeds Italy’s annual GDP, is constrained over how much it can do.

Some 17,000 people who have lost their homes are being cared for by the government in makeshift accommodation. But the number who are unable to return to their homes until they have been thoroughly inspected is much higher, perhaps as many as 70,000. They too have had their lives fractured and will expect (and deserve) some help.

Mr Berlusconi said that he intended to tap European Union funds, as well as spending some of the cash set aside for construction projects as part of Italy’s response to the global economic crisis. In particular, he said he would like to build the first of a batch of British-style new towns alongside L’Aquila. It could be ready in two years, he said.

Locally, this news was greeted with as much scepticism as hope. Italy’s past recovery programmes have a mixed record. The performance of the authorities following the most recent big earthquake, in Umbria and Marche 12 years ago, was slow but steady. By last September, some 92% of the damaged houses had been made habitable again. But what really haunts the survivors of the latest disaster is the Irpinia earthquake that hit Campania and Basilicata in 1980. It was the prelude to a scandalous case of waste and corruption. Some of the money was diverted to the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia（黑手党）. Even today some victims are still living in what were intended to be only temporary lodgings.

Past Italian governments did not pay for their bungling（拙劣的工作） because they usually fell before its consequences became apparent. Mr Berlusconi and his ministers expect to be in office until 2013. This time they may well be held to account.

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Thailand protests
Thailand's ugly crisisApr 13th 2009 | BANGKOK
From Economist.com
Red shirts defy a state of emergency, as Thailand again teeters on the brin

THE Thai new year dawned on Monday April 13th not with water fights but with live rounds and tear gas(催泪瓦斯) as the army moved against red-shirted protesters who last week had seized control of much of the government district of Bangkok, laying siege to Government House, the prime minister’s seat. The army had cleared at least two big junctions held by the red shirts, including the Victory monument. The army opened fire, though for the most part soldiers appeared to be aiming over the heads of the protesters, who attacked with Molotov cocktails（鸡尾酒，混合物） launched from slingshots（弹弓）. Dozens of protesters and a handful of soldiers have been injured. In one ugly development in Phetchaburi, a Muslim neighbourhood, red shirts shot at the mosque and threw petrol bombs along a narrow shopping street. In response what seemed to be the whole community, including old women, rushed out with swords and sticks to fight the attackers.

This may mark the definitive start to an operation to clear away tens of thousands of protesters which the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, ordered when he declared a state of emergency on Sunday. By breakfast time protesters had blocked another crossing with commandeered（霸占的，征用的） buses and burning tires. More Molotov cocktails were lobbed at soldiers, who loaded their automatic rifles and began to advance. But then two of the red shirts asked to talk. The army officer in charge stepped forward. The conversation ended with an exchange of mobile-phone numbers, handshakes all round and an agreement for both sides to move back. “This situation hurts me here,” said the officer later hitting his heart. “I won’t order the troops to shoot. We don’t want Thais to fight Thais. How this ends is not up to us, it’s up to Thaksin.”

Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 2006, and then fled the country. Thai politics has been dominated by a tussle between his supporters and enemies ever since. From exile(流放，放逐，流亡) in Dubai he directs his red-shirted followers, known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD). In a phone message broadcast on Sunday night to the protesters camped around the government complex, Mr Thaksin declared: “Now that the military has brought tanks out on the streets, it’s time for the people to come out for a revolution.” He has promised to return and lead it.

Mr Thaksin has thus hugely raised the stakes. He senses that the failure of the police and army to deal with the protests is a sign of ambivalence. Policemen and soldiers are drawn from the same ranks of the great unwashed（下层民众）, country folk and the urban poor, who make up so many of the red shirts’ numbers. Mr Thaksin’s populist（平民论） policies in office benefited the poor, many of whom now feel that the moneyed Bangkok elite behind Mr Abhisit have cheated the country of democracy. They demand the prime minister’s resignation.

The ambivalence was made abundantly clear on Saturday in Pattaya, where Mr Abhisit was hosting a summit of 16 Asian leaders that had already once been postponed because of Thailand’s political turmoil. Although the protesters there were few, they broke through half-hearted lines of police and army with ease. As they tore through the summit venue（会场）, the leaders were lifted from a hotel roof by helicopter and sent scurrying（急忙，匆忙） home, the summit cancelled. It is a huge loss of face for Mr Abhisit.

The prime minister, a 44-year-old educated at Oxford, is decent enough as opportunists go, but appears out of his depth in Thailand’s cruel and intricate politics. He may regret not having moved earlier against the Thaksin forces. He came to office last December on the back of a movement of popular protests. The yellow shirts, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), are a loose grouping of businessmen, urban middle class and ultra-royalists (yellow is the royal colour). PAD protests contributed to Mr Thaksin’s ouster in 2006. Last year fresh yellow-shirt protests helped to bring down the successor to Mr Thaksin’s banned Thai Rak Thai party. In a fine irony, the red shirts have now borrowed many of the PAD’s tactics.

As well as exacerbating class divisions in calling for revolution, Mr Thaksin is playing a more dangerous game over the rule of octogenarian King Bhumibol. Although they are supposed to be strictly above politics, members of the royal family have for long left their paw marks on politics, and appear to be sympathetic to the yellow shirts. Mr Thaksin has called for the resignation of two privy（个人的，当事人） counsellors whom he says were behind the 2006 coup. Since privy counsellors serve at the king’s pleasure, the call comes pretty close to lèse-majesté in a country with draconian treason laws. On Saturday evening in the red-shirt encampment, one man loudly blamed the king for Thailand’s troubles, an act that would ordinarily mean a harsh term in jail.

Many Thais are heartily（强烈的） sick of the crisis and its enormous damage to the economy in terms of lost investment and tourists. Another military coup is rumoured（谣言）, although it is unclear where the army’s political inclinations lie. Presumably Mr Abhisit’s days are numbered as prime minister, though who might succeed him is anyone’s guess（表示不确定）. Mr Thaksin hopes to ride the protests and return to power. Yet with plenty of scores to settle, his would presumably be a brittle and autocratic rule at a time when reconciliation is badly needed. Fresh elections are probably the best bet, with the promise of a search for a broad political consensus for constitutional change to allow a more representative politics. For now, with violence in the streets again, Thailand teeters on the brink.

joyceww88UID: 2599492

East Asian economies
Under pressureApr 14th 2009
From Economist.com
East Asia has been hard-hit by the global economic slowdown

EAST ASIA was once one of the world economy's brightest regions. Some even reckoned that “decoupling（退藕）” might allow the region to ride out（安然度过，经受得住） the storm that began in rich-country financial markets. But the global economic crisis is hitting the East Asia hard. The World Bank's forecasts for economic growth have been downgraded steeply. Excluding China, which will announce first quarter GDP figures later this week, the bank now expects developing countries in the region to grow by 1.2% in 2009, down from an estimate of 4.8% in 2008. Some economies will even contract this year. The bank predicts that the GDP of Malaysia and Cambodia will shrink by 1% and Thailand’s economy will shrivel by 2.7%.

This is a return to earth with an alarming bump. In 2007 Cambodia’s economy expanded by 10.2% and Malaysia’s by 6.3%. Other economies will grow, but at nothing like the pace of recent years. China's economy is likely to expand by 6.5% in 2009 compared with 13% in 2007. The Philippines will see growth of 1.9% this year, compared with 7.2% in 2007.

The World Bank points out that most countries in East Asia were relatively well placed to（相对有条件） withstand the financial turmoil that has swept through developed countries. This is partly a result of learning the lessons of a financial crisis of 1997-98, which originated in the region. They have used the decade since then to build up reserves of foreign currency and strengthen external balances (which, in part, helped to finance the West’s spendthrift ways and hasten the crisis). They have also reduced government debt and strengthened bank regulation.

However, some of these changes were aided by a boost in exports, both within the region and to the rest of the world. But heightened integration with global markets through trade has exposed the region to the effects of the recession in rich countries. This has led to a dramatic fall in exports that has battered regional economies. In fact, the World Bank reckons that the effects of the crisis have been more severe in countries most open to trade and whose exports are concentrated in particular industries such as electronics, garments and textiles.

The drop-off in trade has been dramatic the world over, but parts of East Asia have felt the pain more than most. In January, Taiwan and the Philippines saw the value of exports plummet by over 40% compared with a year earlier. Electronics, which account for a quarter to two-thirds of exports from most of the larger economies in the region, have been hard hit.

Poorer countries in the region, whose export sectors are dominated by garments and commodities, have been hurt badly too. Cambodia, the country most dependent on garments, endured a 31% fall in exports in January compared with a year ago. As the World Bank puts it, the region, which prospered through exporting, is now suffering for the same reason.

The collapse in exports is leading to a jobs crisis, though this is not necessarily reflected in official figures. Less-developed countries in the region have a greater share of employment in the informal export sector. This makes it harder to obtain reliable data. But reports suggest huge job losses. In Cambodia 50,000 garment workers, 17% of the workforce in the industry, have been laid off since September. In Vietnam, 100,000 garment workers lost their jobs in January and February. And in China some 2.7m garment industry job may have gone.

Years of rapid growth have allowed the richer countries in the region the room to use monetary and fiscal policy to contain the crisis. Some countries, notably China, Malaysia and South Korea, have announced substantial stimulus packages, including big spending on infrastructure. However, Indonesia and the Philippines have to rely more on tax cuts than on public spending, partly because “shovel-ready（已准备就绪）” projects are lacking. Monetary policy has been eased in all the countries of the region.

Some good news exists. The bank's assessment is that China’s fiscal stimulus (amounting to spending worth around 12% of GDP spread over two years) is beginning to take effect. The bank predicts that the Chinese economy will bottom out(降至最低点) by the middle of the year. The fortunes of other economies in the region are tied up with those of China. Many export parts and components that are then assembled in China for re-export. But the Chinese stimulus package cannot hope to fix the problem（解决问题） of contracting demand for the region's output in the rest of the world. The bank points out that a more complete bounce back（受挫折后恢复原状） from the economic crisis still depends on a broader worldwide recovery.

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Study: Energy Drinks Boost the Brain, Not BrawnBy Alice Park Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2009


The promise of energy drinks is pretty irresistible — push your body, work hard, sweat(汗) buckets, and if you need an extra boost, down a bottle or two of liquid fuel to drive you through the rest of your workout.

Makes sense, since the drinks provide your body with carbohydrates in the form of sugars — the fuel that cells and tissues like muscle need to keep working. But exercise experts say that despite what you may think, energy drinks have no effect at all on your tired muscles. Instead, when your energy is petering out（逐渐减少）, a swig（大口，吞咽） of an energy drink works on the brain to keep you inspired and motivated to push on.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham and Manchester Metropolitan University report in the Journal of Physiology that sugary（含糖的） energy drinks activate reward and pleasure regions in the brain, a boost that can translate to better performance — and one that does not occur with other artificially sweetened beverages. In the study, volunteers who got sugary energy drinks were able to complete a physical-training session 2% faster than those who got artificially sweetened drinks, and improved their mean power（平均功率） output as well.

"What we are suggesting is a central-governor model," says Ed Chambers, one of the study's co-authors and a researcher at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham. "Ultimately, the brain controls exercise performance by controlling the neural outflow to the exercising muscles."

Chambers decided to test this theory after a 2004 study found that energy drinks enhanced athletic performance even in short periods of physical activity. Intuitively, this makes sense, but physiologically, it doesn't. The human body is capable of generating enough fuel in the form of glucose to sustain itself, even in vigorous exercise, for about an hour. So in short periods of activity, energy drinks shouldn't have any effect on performance. Added carbs from drinks would be useful only after several hours of exertion, when the body starts to draw upon（利用） its stored glucose, known as glycogen, for energy. But the subjects in the study were showing improved times and greater power in sessions（一段时间） lasting 60 minutes or less. Were they experiencing a sugar rush from the beverages they were gulping?

To answer that question, Chambers gathered a couple of dozen competitive and recreational cyclists and put them on bikes in his lab. He asked one group to rinse with a sugar-based drink and another to rinse with an artificially sweetened drink. Then he took a third group of volunteers, asked each of them to rinse with the same solutions（溶液）, and put them through an MRI scanner（检测装置，扫描设备） to see whether their brain reacted similarly to the two beverages.

To his surprise, they did not. The sugar-drinking volunteers showed activity in the reward and pleasure centers of the brain, while those drinking the artificially sweetened beverages did not. Chambers suspects that it's this activation of the brain that explains the enhanced performance effect of sugary energy drinks during short workouts. This theory is supported by other studies in which researchers infused carbohydrate sugar solutions directly into the body intravenously — in those cases, subjects experienced no improvement in their physical performance.

Chambers' work supports the idea that the brain plays a critical role in pushing the body to achieve optimum performance. When the mouth tastes sugar, it may anticipate an influx of added fuel and therefore trigger the satisfaction and reward areas of the brain, in turn egging the body on（鼓动，怂恿） to do more. At Loughborough University in Britain, Clyde Williams, emeritus（退休的） professor of sports science, and his team found that distance runners on a treadmill（跑步机） selected faster running speeds after swishing with a sugared energy drink than with a placebo solution.

Other sports physiologists are currently studying how ingesting the sugared solution, as opposed to just rinsing with it, affects physical performance, and how the body responds to artificially sweetened drinks. The body may undergo a kind of metabolic letdown in anticipation of a sugar rush that never comes, which could affect performance. "In some ways, the body's reaction is to the 'promise' of an incoming carbohydrate load, so one wonders what happens when that promise is not fulfilled," says Williams.

So the next time you're pushing your body to its limits, remember that energy drinks could give you a boost — in mind as well as body.

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Goldman Sachs
Desperate to be differentApr 14th 2009
From Economist.com
Goldman Sachs produced decent earnings in the first quarter, but its fate rests partly on others
MUCH of the rise in stockmarkets over the past few weeks has reflected optimism about banks’ profits. The faster banks’ underlying earnings recover, the quicker they can rebuild their capital and get lending again. In mid-March Citigroup and other big American and European lenders made positive noises about their performance. Now Goldman Sachs has begun the reporting season with a set of figures so strong that for a moment it felt like the bear market was just a bad dream. Net income was $1.7 billion in the first quarter, similar to the run rate back in 2005-06. And, signalling a return to normality, Goldman put aside almost $5 billion in salaries and bonuses（奖金，红利） for employees, while raising new equity（筹集新股本） to help to pay back the $10 billion of capital that it took, after a bit of strong-arming, from the government.（感觉eco里插入语特多啊）

Under closer examination, the performance looks less rosy. Almost all divisions were weak with the exception of Goldman’s fixed income, currency and commodity unit which had a record quarter. Like most surviving investment banks Goldman is enjoying a surge in activity as pent up demand（被抑制的需求） from companies keen to issue bonds（发行债券）, wider spreads and very low short-term interest rates, create a “sweet spot” for big players in debt markets. It may help, too, that some competitors have disappeared. This is probably not sustainable, as Goldman itself hinted. Moreover, as measured by value-at-risk, a yardstick（比较或衡量的标准） of how big your gambles are, Goldman took twice as much interest-rate risk as a year ago. Bigger profits in part reflect bigger bets, a fact that taxpayers, who have extended an implicit guarantee to big banks such as Goldman, should not be too comfortable about.

It is precisely to escape this conflict that Goldman has raised fresh equity to help repay the $10 billion of bail-out（以优先股发给股东作为红利的行为） capital. Taxpayer cash brings unwelcome interference, particularly on pay. And with a Tier 1 ratio of 16%, Goldman’s capital position is far stronger than most other big banks. Yet the reason why Goldman may struggle to get permission to repay the state immediately is because in a highly contagious banking crisis it is not enough to prosper on your own: things only get back to normal once your peers are on an even keel（翻身） too. It is politically awkward, too. On Tuesday Reuters reported that a Treasury spokesman saw Goldman's wish to repay government funds as a “sign of strength”, but also as a threat, as it risks stigmatising weaker banks that remain dependent on the funds.

That means the upcoming（即将到来的） stress-tests for all big banks, due to be published at the end of April, are crucial. Any banks that fail will have several months to find private capital, or face new injections（注入） of government money. Until the capital of the system as a whole is at an acceptable level, regulators may err on the side of（偏向··的一方） caution with Goldman and insist that it keeps the government money. Whether the rest of the banking sector passes the stress test will depend in part on how far their bad debts are forecast to rise, but also on the strength of their core profits.（很简单，但这么长的句子写得这么顺，要学习） To be free of the government, Goldman may need its peer group to report strong results, not just itself.

joyceww88UID: 2599492

Torture and the CIA
Laid out in the lightApr 18th 2009 | AUSTIN
From Economist.com
Memos on CIA interrogation methods have been published. Could prosecutions for torture follow?

“WE HAVE been through a dark and painful chapter in our history,” said Barack Obama on Thursday April 16th, as he released memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel during the previous administration. Dark indeed. The memos lay out, in bland legalese（法律措辞，法律术语）, the reasoning that led Bush administration lawyers to approve the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, which are commonly held to be（通常被认为） torture.

Mr Obama had apparently been mulling（深思） for weeks whether to release the memos. In a thoughtful statement he said that America has a right to a certain amount of secrecy in its national-security operations. In this case, however, the techniques described have already been well reported and documented. As important, the practices have been ended. Thus full transparency was best.

The first memo was written by Jay Bybee, in August 2002, after the CIA had become frustrated in its efforts to interrogate Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaeda operative. The agency believed that he was withholding information, and that it might be a matter of pressing concern, so sought permission to increase the pressure on Mr Zubaydah in a bid to “dislocate his expectations”. Mr Bybee considered ten suggested techniques, ranging from “attention grasp” (grabbing him by the shoulders) and “walling” (bouncing a suspect against a flexible wall) to waterboarding (simulated drowning) and prolonged sleep deprivation.

One method was proposed especially for Mr Zubaydah, who was thought to be afraid of bugs: they would put him in a small box with an insect in it. They would tell him, falsely, that the insect was dangerous. Would all of this be legal? Mr Bybee said yes.

The subsequent memos, from May 2005, were written by Steven Bradbury and corroborate Mr Bybee’s reasoning. It took some contortions to arrive at this position. The United States Code defines torture as an act “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” That language gave the lawyers room for interpretation, and they wriggled like snakes. The memos are particularly focused on whether the techniques were “specifically intended” to harm the subject, which gives the impression that torture is only torture if the investigator was trying to be malicious. Mr Bybee concluded, for example, that waterboarding is terrifying（极大的，可怕的）. The suspect would have the sensation of drowning, and would not be aware of any medical personnel in the room or other precautions. However, the experience is short—no more than 40 seconds at a time, in the memo’s discussion—whereas suffering, suggested the author, has the “connotation” of being a long experience.

The lawyers also noted that most of the techniques, including waterboarding, have long been used on military personnel as part of survival-training programmes without any lasting physical harm or mental distress. Of course, the context is rather different. A soldier would have no reason to fear what is known to be a training exercise.

Where does the United States go from here? Mr Obama says that he will not seek to prosecute the CIA operatives who carried out（执行，贯彻） directives（指令） while “relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice.” Mr Obama’s critics say that he has done the intelligence community a disservice（伤害，虐待） simply by releasing the memos. Michael Hayden and Michael Mukasey, respectively the former director of the CIA and former attorney-general, say that the move will “invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination（揭丑，反控） that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely（强烈地，疼痛地，非常地） to regret on Sept 11, 2001.”

In any case, the decision to protect the CIA officers has some support. If the administration decides to pursue prosecutions, the greater responsibility lies with（是···的责任） the officials who authorised torture, or with agents who went beyond the instructions given. There is no word on what will happen to the lawyers. Mr Obama has not commented, though he has said that he wants to look forward, arguing that this is “a time for reflection, not retribution.” Of course, reflection would require a full accounting of what went on during this dark chapter in America’s legal history. The memos offer only a part of the story.

感觉比之前看的难些呃，还是先发着吧，有空了再看一遍再做笔记