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cnwzlyUID: 2634423

社会类

The opposition's rebuttal remarks

Jun 19th 2009 | Christian E. Weller

It is ironic that George Magnus' proposed solution to the presumed retirement crisis is for people to work longer or simply not to retire when they want to. The arguments in favor of pushing older people to work longer are based on fundamental misunderstandings of economics, data and policy. The inevitable conclusion that follows from a clearer understanding of all these factors is that retirement is still affordable if we have the will to make it so.

Let us start with the policy argument. Public policy should indeed make it easier for people to work longer, not because a greater labor supply translates into faster growth, but because eliminating obstacles to working longer will allow some older workers to live happier, more fulfilled lives.（公共政策的职能）

The economic rationale for promoting work among older workers, on the other hand, is a fallacy. Economics suggests that business will figure out how to use the scarce（缺乏的） input—labor—more efficiently and thus become more productive. Pushing older workers into the labor market will thus reduce the incentive（动力） for businesses to become more productive because labor is no longer scarce.

What is more, the data do not support the argument of the coming labor shortage. Unemployment rates among young and middle-aged university graduates in many industrialized countries are high, the labor force participation rates of women are still very low, and youth unemployment remains a persistent problem（描述失业的社会问题）. There is a very large untapped labor pool with increasing skill levels, thanks to more people going to college and more government support for training programs. Businesses may not have to look much harder to find the skilled workers they need in the future—they will just have to look in different places.

Even if a labor shortage were looming, the market could handle it. If businesses need more workers than they can find, they will have to pay more or find ways to use their existing workers more efficiently. Neither option requires the government to intervene on behalf of businesses.

The question still remains of how we can afford retirement in the future if we want to keep it. The average worker's productivity level is the relevant measure to judge whether we will be able to support future retirees. This is the economic equivalent of the demographic（人口统计学的） concept of a dependency ratio: how many people each worker has to support. If the old-age dependency ratio doubles from, say, four workers for each retiree to two workers per retiree and each worker's productivity level also doubles, the tax burden should double, too, e.g. from 10% to 20%. If at the same time the before-tax income also doubles, the after-tax income will have increased by close to 80%. Higher productivity levels mean that we can accomplish a lot more with the same resources, including paying for the necessities of current workers and for the promises made to current retirees.

Demographic trends actually speak in favor of slowing cost increases for retirement. The life expectancy（平均寿命） at age 65, for instance, is expected to increase in the United States, a relatively young country, by 0.7 months each year through 2003; thereafter these increases are projected to slow to 0.5 months annually and stay there through 2085. This is a natural reflection of the fact that we cannot live for ever. These changes, though, are too small to sharply drive up tax rates, and they will slow in the future, suggesting decelerating increases in tax rates. Public pensions（退休金） are often compared with a Ponzi scheme, implying accelerating life expectancy and tax rates on workers, but as we have seen here, this is simply not the case.

The other demographic benefit comes from the fact that we have fewer children to support. The United States serves as a good example since families there still have comparatively many children. The number of people—young and old—that each working-age person must support stands at 0.7 in 2009. It is expected to increase to 0.9 in 2085, an average annual increase of 0.3%. Much of the increase will occur in the next 30 years as the baby-boomers are retiring. Once they are gone, the growth rate of the overall dependency rate will slow to 0.1% per year. Considering that productivity growth is expected to equal 1.7%, 17 times the growth rate for dependency, it is a fairly easy lift to pay for both future children and future retirees.

This brings me to the last logical fallacy in the argument for ending retirement as we know it.（如argument中对攻击点的攻击） We supposedly cannot afford higher tax rates and need to replace public retirement systems with private savings. The truth, though, is that it does not matter how we pay for retirement. It is irrelevant, from an economic perspective, if retirement is funded out of future taxes or out of the capital gains, interest payments and dividends on individual savings. In both cases, future workers somehow have to pay for future retirees. The only difference is the delivery mechanism of future retirement income. With taxes, it is the government that extracts income from future workers, while with private retirement; it is companies that extract part of the value that workers generate to pay future interests and dividends. Either way, future workers will have to give up some part of their income that they otherwise would have received to support future retirees.

There is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater and scrap retirement as we know it. Advanced economies easily afforded retirement in the 1950s and 1960s and they still can afford it today. Our productivity levels and standards of living have substantially increased since then, which makes it a lot easier to pay for retirees today than 50 or 60 years ago. Keeping retirement as we know it is thus easily affordable and feasible. There is no need to destroy retirement to save it.

cnwzlyUID: 2634423

社会类

The proposer's rebuttal remarks

Jun 19th 2009 | George Magnus

In Christian Weller's view, we have a retirement affordability problem, but the three-legged stool of public and employer pension schemes and private savings can be strengthened to address the problem. It is largely a question of the willingness to change. I would concur（同时发生） if the retirement debate were purely about the ways in which we might augment pension funding in the next five years. However, the fundamental issue is not pension systems, but a unique and extreme change in age structure. Incremental（递增） changes to pension systems comprise a far too narrow lens through which to view the retirement challenge we face, for three reasons.

First, retirement pension systems face severe solvency（偿付能力） problems, which will not be overcome easily. Professor Weller asserts correctly that the concept of public retirement systems is sound, relying as it does on the government's ability to raise taxation. I dispute, however, that small changes in revenues and benefits will suffice to put pension and other age-related financing on to a sound footing. While the beneficiary universe expands vigorously in the next decades, the tax base, as measured by the size of the working-age population will shrink or grow far more slowly. Even in the United States, where the working-age group will rise by about 35m, the over-65 population will increase by about 50m. How high do we really want to tax our progeny（后代）, and what will they have to say about it?

Even though the age structure of the United States will rise more slowly than in Europe and Japan, it is noteworthy that this year's annual report of the Social Security Board of Trustees warned that programme costs will exceed tax revenues by 2016 and the trust funds' assets will be exhausted by 2037, just as America's rapid ageing moves into top gear（高速档，比喻）. The Economist reported just this week that the unfunded obligations to give older citizens pensions and health care are equivalent to a debt of $483,000 for every household. There are no small revenue and benefit options, especially as the legacy effects of the economic and financial crisis on public borrowing and public debt mean that most of us will face years of fiscal restraint as the deleveraging of the public sector occurs.

The financial position of employer-funded pension schemes is more immediately threatening. I doubt—and companies dispute that—the solvency of their schemes would change with improvements in the clarity of accounting, actuarial and legal requirements. The schemes are failing because of rising longevity, weak investment returns and low interest rates, and the unwillingness of companies and shareholders to write blank cheques year after year to underfunded company pension schemes. In the current environment, companies are continuing to terminate defined-benefit schemes, and are cutting back their contributions to defined-contribution schemes for hard financial, not governance reasons. In time this might change, of course, but rising longevity and the pressure to contain business costs will not.

Second, as far as individual savings are concerned, I agree completely with Professor Weller's view that they should play a strengthened role, but that, in effect, most people score low marks when it comes to financial literacy, save too little and/or manage their savings through their working lives poorly. It is indeed important for companies and the state to emphasis financial education from a young age, and to encourage a stronger savings habit that is more readily transformable into pension savings as people age into their 40s and beyond.（从小的经济教育） But that still means we have to introduce flexible retirement patterns, partly because older citizens may want to work longer, and partly so that people can save for longer, and simultaneously, help to lower the financing obligations on the state.

Third, in ageing societies, pensions are only a part of the economic and financial challenge. Health care, disability benefits, the delivery of goods and services to older citizens, and old-age residential care（老年人的相关花费）
will also stake a growing claim on private and public resources. In the United States, in particular, the age-related spending burden is not really about pensions at all, but about health care, as is evident from the current proposals for reform. In Europe and Japan, the pension burden is probably the more significant, but with health and other care costs also scheduled to rise sharply. Rather than think about pensions alone, we have to think holistically（整体地） about the broad array of income and the health, social and residential care programmes that will increase significantly as our age structure continues to shift. Longer working lives could play a significant contribution.

Professor Weller states that in the United States the overall dependency ratio of the under-20s and over-64s on the working age population is the same today as it was in 1950 at roughly one worker per 0.7 dependent people (0.67 in 2010), implicitly asserting that there is no dependency problem, to date at least. However, using these age groups, each worker will be supporting 0.8 dependants by 2050—a 20% increase—and this is to treat youth and old-age dependency as identical, when empirical evidence suggests strongly that child-care costs are a fraction of old-age care costs. According to the UN, by 2050, the overall US dependency ratio of under-15s and over-65s will have risen from 50% to 63%, at which point the old-age dependency ratio will have nearly doubled, to 35%.

Strengthening the three-legged stool of retirement security, as Professor Weller says, is indeed a desirable strategy, which may work for some individuals. However, this is to overlook the structural demographic change under way in our societies, to which our response has to be structural too. That means we have to address not only retirement security and quality-of-life issues, but also the tyranny of demographic numbers, and the financing and delivery of care. We cannot assume higher productivity growth will appear out of thin air, and we have to recognize the positive aspects of the humane extension of working lives, both in human terms and from the standpoint of the economy and society

cnwzlyUID: 2634423

社会类

The moderator's opening remarks

Jun 5th 2009 | Mr Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

What is the proper role for the private sector in development? The very question stirs up passions, not to mention a hornet's nest of issues. Our new online debate will tackle these controversies head on.

On one side of the divide are those who argue that the poor are best served by functioning institutions and decent governments. On this view, it is naive to think of the "bottom billion", many of whom live hardscrabble(贫穷的) lives in rural areas, as consumers-in-waiting. Demonizing(成魔鬼) foreign aid and downplaying the role of multilateral institutions only make the task of delivering necessary resources to needy governments harder. Worse yet, argue such folk, redirecting money and talent to the private sector ends up eviscerating the very government ministries that are needed to improve the lives of the poor.

Nonsense, insist advocates of market-based approaches. They note that in just the past few years, the Gates Foundation has emerged as the most influential and richest force in global development. Yet even as that goliath takes a seat at the top table alongside governments and UN agencies, countless smaller charities, micro-enterprise outfits, inventive entrepreneurs and "social venture capital funds" are flourishing too. Boosters of this point of view suggest that, taken together, the fresh capital and innovative methods injected by these nimble private upstarts can do more to address the neglected needs of the world's poor than the stodgy giants funded by official aid.

Arguing in favor of the motion is Michael Green, co-author of "PhilanthroCapitalism: How the Rich Can Save The World", a fine book on the fast-evolving nature of philanthropy. He is a writer and consultant with over two decades of experience in development. Challenging the motion will be Carol Lancaster, professor at Georgetown University and author of several distinguished works. She has served in several important posts in America's State Department and at its Agency for International Development (USAID).

Though the global crisis in capitalism has put the spotlight on the role of markets and governments in the rich world, the controversy is just as intense and arguably more important in the developing world. Which of our debaters will persuade The Economist's online audience?

terraliUID: 2599465

Positive aspects of government
Governments often seek to manipulate their nations' economies ¡ª ostensibly for the nations' benefits. However, another aspect of this kind of intervention is the fact that the members of government often take opportunities to shape economic policies for their own benefits. For example, capitalists in a government might adjust policy to favor capitalism, so capitalists would see that government as a friend.

政府和自由的辩证关系
Social contract theorists believe that governments reduce people's freedom/rights in exchange for protecting them, and maintaining order. Many people question however, whether this is an actual exchange (where people voluntarily give up their freedoms), or whether they are taken by threat of force by the ruling party.

Democracy government and separation of powers
Democracy are best able to use authority without ignorance to maximize political power. Democratic governments are created to serve the people and also draws its power directly from the people. In order to prevent the accumulation of too much power into the hands of a single person, people design the system of checks and balances. Under this system, the state is divided into branches or estates, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The normal division of estates is into an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary. The checks and balances allows one branch to limit another, such as the power of Congress to alter the jurisdiction of the federal courts. This independence of the executive and legislative branches is partly maintained by the fact that they are separately elected and are held directly accountable to the public.

三权分立的优缺点
The system of checks and balances is  self-reinforcing. [1] Potential abuse of power may be deterred, and the legitimacy and sustainability of any power grab is hindered by the ability of the other two branches to take corrective action. [2] This is intended to reduce opportunities for tyranny sometimes. [-1] But the systems with clearly defined separation of powers are complex and difficult for any person to understand, resulting in a nebulous political process and leading to a lack of engagement. [-2] The division of powers has often been criticized as promoting inefficiency; when different parties hold Congress and the Presidency, a lack of co-operation may deadlock the legislative process. And if the executive have to waiting for the legislature to deliberate before operate, government action to solve problems might be delayed. In that cases, how to give each department a proper power of self-defense also is a political dilemma.

民主的表现
However, for a parliamentary system to work effectively, institutional arrangements such as fair electoral laws, freedom of the press, independent courts, due process, and the independence of the Houses of Parliament must be so designed as to prevent executive supremacy over the legislative and judicial branches while also encouraging a culture of public debate, open government, accountable office holders, and policy contest-ability and compromise, rather than a culture of "winner takes all" political domination. But maintain balance in separation of powers also is necessary.

terraliUID: 2599465

政府和媒体的关系,言论自由,媒体保障民主
A radical alternative view of the source of political power follows the formula: information plus authority permits the exercise of power. Political power is intimately related to information.

[1] The press has been described as a "fourth power" because of its considerable influence over public opinion, as well as its indirect influence in the branches of government by, for example, its support or criticism of pending legislation or policy changes.[2] It providing information about governmental activities to the public to keeping government somewhat in check. [3]And the media outlet also providing opportunities to affect public opinion in ways that may contradict public interest. In all cases, the "voice of the people"  is modified by the opinions of those producing the stories.

The freedom of the reporting media is generally considered to be essential for the perpetuation of democratic governments, and it is found in all strong democracies. Those governments financially support public broadcasting in some way, and media outlets can enjoy wide editorial latitude.  The press is immune to censorship and compulsion from the government, Such as the First Amendment of the United States Constitution explicitly guaranteed freedom of the press only against interference by the federal government. Later this right was extended by the United States Supreme Court in the Incorporation Cases to cover state and local governments.

媒体和金钱的关系,和政治观点(这个是看一个美剧里的,觉得观点很新颖,但是如果要用语言要改改.例子我已经改过)
Political bias is rampant throughout the news business. This is is nott about political content. This is corporation looking to make money. They began as alternative news programming to grab a market share. They saw ratings and profit in some view and they¡¯ve been waving the flag ever since and so what! News today, all of it, is infotainment. Few months ago a deadly chemical substance known as Melamine was found in formula. Headline news led with Zhang Ziyi's exposed breast. Last year, while we¡¯re in the middle of snowstorms, news casts all across the country led with Chen Guanxi's sex party. It¡¯s a business! And while some news groups go with the deeper social issues like Brad and Jennifer¡¯s breakup, the one here chooses to run with government. Of course it makes it right! Because the rule in infotainment is, give the people what they want. This is money, not politics.

I grew up watching television. It was a time the news seemed to be fair, objective, trusted. In fact whenever we doubted the blather coming out of the politician¡¯s mouths, it was the press we turned to get a sense of the truth. On days like 9/11 or for other world-changing events the news programs are nothing short of spectacular. When Martin Luther King delivered I Have a Dream. When we walked on the moon. Our lives are shaped by these events, in part because of the news.  on all other days they¡¯re businesses, like anybody else in a highly competitive marketplace. They sell product. it's probably more about money than ideology. And being about money, well, why shouldn¡¯t networks be free to adopt a bias in hopes of attracting a bigger audience? This is market economy.

terraliUID: 2599465

这个是政治家处理权利的问题
A politician is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making through the influence of politics or a person who influences the way a society is governed.This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest, right of inheritance or other means.

Politicians can also be criticized for becoming "career politicians." A politician who makes politics the source of their income, yet has to face re-election every few years can be less likely to make bold decisions or side with an unpopular bill. Some feel that fear of "rocking the boat" leads to a stagnant political climate, in which it becomes hard to address injustices and create change. Various measures have been taken in attempt to mitigate this effect, such as the implementation of term limits and paying them less.

民主和霸权
Authoritarianism and libertarianism refer to the amount of individual freedom each person possesses in that society relative to the state. One author describes authoritarian political systems as those where "individual rights and goals are subjugated to group goals, expectations and conformities", while a libertarian political system is one in which individual rights and civil liberties are paramount. More extreme than libertarians are anarchists, who argue for the total abolition of government, while the most extreme authoritarians are totalitarians who support state control over all aspects of society.

For instance, classical liberalism is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, free markets, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, and individual freedom from restraint. "the libertarian, or 'classical liberal,' perspective is that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by 'as much liberty as possible' and 'as little government as necessary.

terraliUID: 2599465

Fundamental purpose of government政府的职能,破题的时候看看有思路
The fundamental purpose of government is the maintenance of basic security and public order. It including:

Military defense. The national defense mechanism¡ªa military is to defend themselves against potentially thousands of neighbors. One of the most important role of the government is to provide security, and to enforce Law. The instruments that are used for this purpose are Police, the management of Identity documents.

Economic security. As the complexity and interdependency's of human communities moved forward, economies began to dominate the human experience enough for an individual's survival potential to be affected substantially by the region's economy.  For the purpose of increasing people's survival potential,  governments became involved in manipulating and managing regional economies. One of a great many examples would be Wang Mang's attempt to reform the currency in favor of the peasants and poor in ancient China. At a bare minimum, government ensures that money's value will not be undermined by prohibiting counterfeiting, but in almost all societies¡ªincluding capitalist ones¡ªgovernments attempt to regulate many more aspects of their economies.  However, very often, government involvement in a national economy has more than just a purpose of stabilizing it for the benefit of the people. Often, the members of government shape the government's economic policies for their own benefits.

Social security is related to economic security.这里和超生联系到一起了,挺有意思 Throughout most of human history, parents prepared for their old age by producing enough children to ensure that some of them would survive long enough to take care of the parents in their old age. In modern, relatively high-income societies, a mixed approach is taken where the government shares a substantial responsibility of taking care of the elderly.This is not the case everywhere since there are still many countries where social security through having many children is the norm. Although social security is a relatively recent phenomenon, prevalent mostly in developed countries, it deserves mention because the existence of social security substantially changes reproductive behavior in a society, and it has an impact on reducing the cycle of poverty.  By reducing the cycle of poverty, government creates a self-reinforcing cycle where people see the government as friend both because of the financial support they receive late in their lives, but also because of the overall reduction in national poverty due to the government's social security policies--which then adds to public support for social security.

Healthcare. Governments play a major role in contributing to the health of the cititzens. This role includes funding (directectly or indirectly via subsidies) and even managing the healthcare system. It also intervenes by elaborating Laws aiming at protecting the health of the citizens.

Environmental security. Governments play a crucial role in managing environmental public goods such as the atmosphere, forests and water bodies. Governments are valuable institutions for resolving problems involving these public goods at both the local and global scales (e.g., climate change, deforestation, overfishing). This situation needs governmental intervention and regulation and the rule of law is still required for the proper, just and sustainable management of the environment.

Education. The government plays a central role in the education of the citizens. In particular it finances (directly or via subsidizing) a huge portion of the educational system (Schools, Universities, continuous education).

Brian78UID: 2604416

政治，国际类

America's new hope

Nov 19th 2008
From The World in 2009 print edition

But in 2009 Barack Obama will have to learn how to say no both at home and abroad, argues John Micklethwait

So, Mr President, what exactly are you going to do? As Barack Obama stares down（用目光压倒） at the cheering crowds at his inauguration（就职典礼） on January 20th 2009, America’s first black president may well remember the great buzzword of his campaign—and smile ruefully（可怜地）. His mantra（颂歌） of “Change” propelled（推进） him all the way to the White House in some style. Mr Obama did not just win the electoral college handsomely; he has the full backing of a Democratic Congress and the overwhelming(无法抵抗的) support, if national polls are to be believed, of most of the rest of the world. George Bush never had such a broad political mandate（权利，命令）.

Yet change will constrain（抑制） what President Obama can actually do in 2009. Most obviously there is the cathartic（导泻的） change over the past year in the economy: whereas Mr Bush inherited（继承） a healthy budget surplus（盈余） in 2001, in 2009 America’s budget deficit is projected to be as high as $1 trillion. But there is also foreign affairs. Back in 2000 the United States, the undisputed（无可置辩的） hegemon（霸权）, was mainly at peace with the world. In 2009 Mr Obama will have troops under fire in Iraq and Afghanistan, and power is shifting away from America towards the faster-growing economies of the emerging world.

How Mr Obama deals with these very different changes will determine the success of his presidency. A man who has often been accused of being all things to all people will have to start making choices. Many of these choices may disappoint his own party as well as some of his most fervent（炽热的） supporters around the globe.

The immediate focus in 2009 will understandably be on the economy. Mr Obama promised a lot of things to a lot of people. Even if there were more money available, he would have had to concentrate on just a few core things, such as his middle-class tax cut and his health-care plan; with fewer funds, that will be essential. He may even be able to turn the need to economise（有效地利用） to his advantage. On health care, some of the mooted（有争议的） reforms in Congress look more efficient than his own one (and still deliver the universal coverage America ought to have). Meanwhile, the empty government coffers（保险箱） provide a perfect excuse to escape from his more pork-laden（政府资金） commitments（承诺义务）.

Nevertheless, frustrations will mount（上演）, especially in his own party. With an economy in recession there will be protectionist（保护贸易论者） growling（发牢骚） from Congress which needs to be firmly resisted. There will also be reams（欺骗） of regulation. Many of the main Democratic constituencies have waited a long time to get their man in the White House: the unions will demand new labour rules; lawyers will want liability（责任） laws; greens will wage new environmental campaigns. All of these could slow down any economic recovery.

Around the world the young new president has become a symbol of what people think America should be

Young ambitious presidencies（任期） can get derailed（出轨） by small causes early on: think of what the “gays in the military” fuss（乱子） did to Bill Clinton in 1993. A particular worry about Mr Obama is that in his brief political career he has never obviously crossed his party on any significant issue. He will need to start saying no to Democrats soon in 2009 if he is not to betray the many independent voters who believed his campaign talk about representing the whole country.

If expectations are too high for Mr Obama in domestic policy, they are off the scale（过分） when it comes to the world abroad. Once again, the Democratic base will be a problem: it expects him to extract（拔出） America from Iraq rapidly and smoothly. That was what Mr Obama once promised; but he now seems to realise that a rapid retreat from Iraq would be disastrous both for that country and for America’s reputation in the region. Meanwhile, he will also need to re-sell the Afghanistan campaign to a weary（令人厌烦的） electorate（选民）: the West’s chances of prevailing（主要的，流行的） depend on having more troops there, not fewer.

That brings in the issue of America’s allies（同盟）. Around the world the young new president has become a symbol of what people think America should be. Merely because he is not the loathed（令人讨厌的） Mr Bush, he may be able to deliver some things. The rapid closure of Guantánamo Bay would be a good start. But other things the world hopes for, such as a global-warming pact（公约）, will take a long time. Peace in the Middle East will not break out just because the new president’s middle name is Hussein: hard compromises need to be made. Mr Obama needs to spell out（清楚地说明） what he will do; and he also needs to demand more from America’s allies. That so few of them help in Afghanistan, for instance, is a disgrace（丢脸的事）, and he should say it loudly.

Just as much as at home, the new president will be tested by events abroad. There are plenty of troublemakers like Iran who will want to test the new president’s mettle（勇气）. Yet, as he scrambles to deal with these immediate challenges, Mr Obama should also look to the long term—and to one thing in particular.

Salesman to the world

When historians look back on his presidency, they may well judge him most on whether he managed to bring the emerging powers into the world order and unite them behind Western values. By the time Mr Obama leaves office, which, assuming he serves two terms, will be 2017, powers like China, India and Brazil will surely have taken larger roles in the world economy. At the moment, none of them is in the G8 club, and only China has a spot on the UN Security Council. If America cannot find a way to bring China and India into the existing global power structure, they will start drifting away to form their own clubs.

It is not just institutional（制度上的）. China especially is nervous about Western values. The financial crisis coupled with the shredding（撕碎）
of America’s reputation over the past eight years has given weight to those people in the regime（政权） who argue that Western capitalism（资本主义） and democracy are flawed（有缺陷的）, old models. The new president will have to re-sell what America stands for. That will be a long process; but, even allowing for all his other priorities, President Obama needs to start work on it in 2009.

zyp8756UID: 2594775

政治

IN THE early hours of January 1st 1959, as New Year parties were in full swing in an otherwise unnaturally quiet Havana, Fulgencio Batista stole away. He flew from Camp Columbia, the city’s main military base, to exile in the Dominican Republic with an entourage of relatives and cronies. The

dictator’s flight meant that just 25 months after landing with 81 men, all but a dozen of whom were

immediately killed or captured, Fidel Castro, a lawyer and former student leader, had led his guerrilla

force to an improbable triumph against Batista’s American-backed army【lead to结合against适合argument 推荐】. The next day Mr Castro spoke

to a jubilant multitude, many dressed in the red and black colours of his July 26th Movement, in the main

square of Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second city. “The revolution begins now,” he proclaimed,

adding: “This time, luckily for Cuba, the revolution will truly come into being. It will not be like 1895,

when the North Americans came and took over…For the first time the republic will really be entirely free.”

As they descended from the mountains of the Sierra Maestra and entered Santiago, the columns of bearded rebels “were literally swept off their feet by the overjoyed people”, as one of them, Carlos

Franqui, recorded in his diary. “It was the hour of freedom after a long tyranny【暴政】 and a very tough fight.” Such scenes were repeated across the island as Mr Castro embarked on a week-long triumphal march to Havana. They were echoed in the rest of Latin America, and beyond it. The dictatorship of Batista, a

former army sergeant, had become notorious for its corrupt brutality【插入还真的不少】. To many people, Mr Castro and his similarly handsome lieutenants, including Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine doctor, seemed to be

romantic heroes. To others, they represented a renewal of socialism. Jean-Paul Sartre hailed Mr Castro’s revolution as “the most original I have known”.

Just as he had pledged, Mr Castro prevented the Americans from derailing his victory. But he did so at

the cost of the freedom he had promised. Less than two years after his speech in Santiago—and before

the United States imposed its economic embargo against the island—he had taken decisive steps to turn

Cuba into the first, and still the only【经典组合 ONLY换成last也可以
第一个也是最后一个】, communist country in the Americas.

Half a century on, the euphoria is long gone. Everyday life in Cuba is a dreary affair of queues and shortages, even if nobody starves and violent crime is rare. It is the only country in the Americas whose government denies its citizens freedom of expression and assembly. Cuba’s jails contain 58 “prisoners of

conscience” detained purely for their beliefs, according to Amnesty International, a human-rights group.

But to the chagrin【懊恼】 of the United States, and in defiance of its futile【无效的】 embargo, Mr Castro and Cuban communism stubbornly cling on just 90 miles (145km) across the Florida Straits. He and it have

outlasted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of his Soviet patron, and lived to see new allies

emerge in Latin America and elsewhere.

Fidel himself has not appeared in public since he underwent abdominal surgery in July 2006. But his

views, expressed in a column entitled “Reflections of the Commander” that is published every few days in the state newspapers, still dominate Cuba. His slightly younger brother Raúl, who succeeded him as

president last February, may be more pragmatic【实际的】 and more open to capitalism (though not to liberal

democracy). But Raúl’s plans for economic reform, already cautious, have been further stalled by two devastating hurricanes that hit Cuba this year (see article). What will be officially celebrated in Havana

this week is not the prospect of change. It is the stubborn survival of a revolution that has had profound

consequences for the Americas—though rarely those that Mr Castro wanted.

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政治

Building on the B in BRIC

Nov 19th 2008

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, sees a growing global role for big emerging economies

Upon first taking office in 2003, I pledged to end hunger in my country. Under

the “Zero Hunger” banner, I put poverty-eradication and the alleviation of

inequality at the forefront of government action【放在行动的最前部
说法灵活】. I was convinced that without

dealing squarely with these two evils【用邪恶进行比喻
可以代替problems 当然是在大问题的基础上
小问题用这个比较勉强】, it would be impossible to overcome

centuries of economic backwardness【落后】 and political unrest【不稳定
不安
好词】.

After nearly six years, much progress has been made. The number of very poor

in Brazil has been slashed【深砍
代替decrease】 in half. The middle class is now in a majority, 52% of the population. There is no cause for complacency. Many Brazilians are still unable to support themselves with dignity. Yet Brazilian society's response to eliminating social and economic deprivation is an indication of the profound changes the country

is undergoing【遭受
忍受】. Brazil has never been in a better position to meet the challenges ahead and is fully aware of its growing global responsibilities.

A global agenda

Brazil’s ethanol and biodiesel programmes are a benchmark for alternative and renewable fuel sources.

Partnerships are being established with developing countries seeking to follow Brazil’s achievements—a 675mtonne reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions, a million new jobs and a drastic【猛烈地】 reduction in dependence on imported fossil fuels coming from a dangerously small number of producer countries. All of this has been accomplished without compromising food security, which, on the contrary, has benefited from rising agricultural output.

Food scarcity threatens to undermine our achievements in reducing world poverty【谓语在哪里啊？】.

Brazil is expanding agricultural production, reinforcing the country’s position as the

world’s second-largest food exporter. At the same time, the pace of deforestation in

the Amazon has been reduced by half【减少是被动的】, an indication that Brazil’s modern agroindustry poses no threat to the rainforest. We are setting up offices in developing

countries interested in benefiting from Brazilian know-how in this field.

The replication【复制】 in Latin America and Africa of many Brazilian social initiatives,

including the Zero Hunger and HIV-AIDS programmes, is proof that the Millennium

Development Goals are attainable at a relatively low cost. The antiretroviral

manufacturing plant Brazil is set to open in Mozambique in 2009, for example, will

help Africa to fight the HIV-AIDS epidemic【传染病
传染的 G词汇】.

In tackling【处理
工具】 climate change, collective action is the only way forward. The question-mark around the relevance

of the G8 and the unreformed Security Council—not to mention the Bretton Woods institutions—highlights that

it is no longer possible to exclude major emerging economies from the debate on issues of paramount【adj.1. 最高的；至上的；首要的；卓越的2. 拥有最高权力的3. 胜过…的；(比…)优秀的n.1. 最高掌权者；元首2. 最高；至上；主要】

importance to the global agenda. Greater democracy in international decision-making is essential if truly

effective answers to global challenges are to be found. The magnitude of the current financial crisis, for

instance, requires a vigorous response from the multilateral institutions.

Brazil remains committed to the successful conclusion of the Doha round. We wish to eliminate all barriers to

international trade that strangle the productive potential of countless countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. I have been in direct contact with leaders from some of the main players—the United States, India,China, Indonesia, Britain—and believe we still have a real chance to achieve a breakthrough【突破
好词】 on the relatively

minor outstanding issues.

The industrialised world should take the lead in【导入】 reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and provide support for developing nations to follow, but without having to compromise on domestic growth. Similarly, intellectualproperty

protection cannot take precedence over the ethical imperative of ensuring that poor populations have

access to life-saving drugs.

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政治

Originally designed to last for a year, the London Eye, like that other “temporary【暂时的】” attraction, the Eiffel Tower,

is not going anywhere. Instead, with over 3.5m visitors a year London’s Ferris wheel has paved the way for

other cities hoping to cash in on the effect. In 2009 Chicago, the original home of the Ferris, will upgrade its

Navy Pier wheel to double its original size, to over 91 metres (300ft), and Berlin’s wheel, around 50 metres

higher than its 135-metre London rival, will be the tallest in Europe at almost 185 metres. But China will set the world record with【这里用with做解释】 its 208-metre Beijing wheel. It will take over from Singapore’s 165-metre wheel. Beijing’s Great Observation Wheel, as it is formally known, is a government-sponsored project set in Chaoyang park. With 48 air-conditioned capsules, each weighing 18 tonnes and containing 40 people, its

maximum capacity of 1,920 people per rotation will dwarf【名词活用动词】 the London Eye’s 800.

Dubai, if its spending spree lasts, launches its 185-metre wheel as part of the Dubailand theme park. But things won’t stop there. World Tourist Attractions, the company behind wheels in York【插入放在名词丛中】, Manchester and Brisbane, will open its first Indian wheel in the southern city of Bangalore in April, and in 2010 the Great Wheel Corporation (responsible for the ones in Singapore, Berlin and Beijing) plans to open the Orlando wheel in Florida, standing at 122 metres and with panoramic views stretching 25 miles (40km).

With violence seemingly on the wane【变小
衰弱】, Baghdad’s authorities are beginning the tough sell of tourism in the Iraqi capital, having recently launched a design competition for a Baghdad wheel. Although details of the wheel, even its location【这个插入点也不错】, are sketchy, a municipal spokesman has confirmed that it will reach 198 metres intothe sky and carry some 30 capsules. It may be just over a century since G.W. Ferris designed his attraction,

but it seems no modern city skyline can be complete without a wheel—and the bigger the better。

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人物

The United States will start its next political season with a remarkable event. On January 20th a country that,

within living memory, denied some black citizens the right to vote will inaugurate its first black president. A man with a funny name and African blood will stand where 43 white men have stood before him and take the oath of office.

Barack Obama’s inauguration will do much to improve two things that desperately need improving—America’s

reputation abroad and its mood at home. The Bush era had produced a dramatic decline in America’s global image, with anti-Americanism taking root around the world, from European capitals to the Arab street. In October 2008 only about 10% of Americans thought that the country was on the right track. In these circumstances Mr Obama is as close to a cure-all as you can get【as close to
as很好的形象表达】. His inauguration will mark the culmination of the civil-rights revolution. It will also help repair America’s relations with the rest of the world.

It will be hard for Muslims to accuse America of prejudice when its president is a man whose first name means “blessed” in Arabic and whose middle name is Hussein. And it will be hard for Europeans to accuse

America of being a land of yahoos when its president is the highly educated author of two excellent books. The balance of power in Washington will also be favourable to the new president. Democrats will be in charge【负责
主观】 of both Houses of Congress, in particular with a large majority in the Senate【参议院】, the chamber that can most often

frustrate presidents. Moreover, the Republicans【共和党人】, who have a history of tormenting ambitious Democrats, will be in no condition to torment anybody but themselves. Repudiated【拒绝】 at the ballot box and locked out of power

in the White House and Congress, they will spend the next few years squabbling among themselves.

However fortunate his position, Mr Obama will face three big problems in 2009. The

first is inflated expectations. Mr Obama made numerous promises during his

campaign—universal health care, investment in infrastructure and green energy, a

cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and much else.

Democrats on the Hill also have their own shopping list.

But Mr Obama will inherit one of the most difficult legacies of any president since

Truman: two wars, a dodgy economy and a fiscal black hole. The national debt is

more than $10 trillion, and in 2009 the federal budget is projected to run as much as a $1 trillion deficit, having taken into account the cost of recent bail-outs.

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科技

Twitching China
Nov 19th 2008
Discovered: a new species【新品种】 whose numbers are actually soaring
Mere amateurs in 2009 will make ornithological history in China by
discovering birds unknown to science. Notch【刻痕】 up another of the country’s
transformations: the arrival of the homegrown twitcher.
Until recently local bird-watchers were unknown. Professionals studied
China’s “signature” birds—pheasants, cranes and swans—and foreigners
were responsible for much of the knowledge about the remaining 1,200-
odd bird species.
The number of twitchers has exploded in the past few years, with a few
thousand members in two dozen clubs. Most are in the affluent areas
along China’s seaboard. You need free time to watch birds, and money.
Yet the physical changes that go with affluence destroy the habitats of
migratory shorebirds and seabirds, wreaking havoc on their numbers
along the crucial East Asian-Australasian flyway. The rediscovery earlier
this decade of the Chinese crested tern, long thought extinct, was cause【引起】
for celebration. But with a population of only 30, and only two breeding
pairs in 2008, its fate hangs by a thread【命悬一线】.
Another surprise discovery along the coast is unlikely【不大可能发生的】. But China’s mountain forests of the south-west are nearly virgin territory【处女地】 for ornithologists. This is where amateur bird-watchers will drag their scopes and
cameras, and cause the world’s professionals to admit they’ve been out-twitched.

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政治

Crime will rise slightly in 2009, thanks largely to America’s wobbly【不稳定】 economy. Higher unemployment will drive

more people to seek an illegitimate income, and budget shortfalls will force cities and counties to cut back on

police officers, or at least fail to hire enough new ones to cope with their growing populations. The search will

be on for a cheaper, smarter crime-fighting method—and one will be found.

For the past 15 years a single model of policing, developed in a single city, has dominated thinking about law

and order in America. In the early 1990s New York hired thousands of extra police officers and told them to

crack down on petty offenders in high-crime areas. Local commanders were held accountable for recorded

crimes in their territory, which were tracked by means of a simple spreadsheet programme known as

Compstat. The results were extraordinary. Murders fell from more than 2,200 in 1990 to fewer than 500 in

2007.

New York’s “zero tolerance” methods seemed simple, and have been widely copied. Yet no other city in

America or anywhere else has achieved quite such good results. This may be because most cities are poorer

and less densely populated than New York, and so find it harder to flood the streets with cops. And New York

had two big advantages in the early 1990s: its police chief, William Bratton, who now manages the cops of

Los Angeles, and its mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who was last seen running for the American presidency. Both

men had a superb feel for police culture and knew how to motivate officers through a combination of praise and fear.

The approach that【使用不见得主语一定是一个从句】 will come to prominence in 2009 is almost the exact opposite of zero tolerance. Rather

than cracking down on petty offenders such as turnstile-jumpers and squeegee men, the authorities will focus

on those【指代不清可以用those】 who are most likely to kill or be killed. Some may be drug dealers recently released from prison.

Others may be the associates of people recently wounded by gunfire. What【两句话后面这句用what指代】 makes the approach particularly novel is that it depends on local people. Rather than insisting on zero tolerance from the police, it tries to

change what the residents of crime-infested areas will tolerate.

The new method has been quietly honed for almost a decade in Chicago, where it is

known as Operation Ceasefire. It has two main tools. The more conventional one is a

team of outreach workers who try to mobilize communities to oppose violence, often

in partnership with local clergy. Then, at night, “violence interrupters” hit the streets

to sniff out trouble. Often former gang members and graduates of the prison system,

the interrupters have a hard-nosed approach to law and order. They may, for

example, encourage an aggrieved man to consider beating someone instead of

shooting him, or try to convince rival drug-dealers that a turf war would be bad for

business, as it would attract the police.

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Look for the silver lining Jul 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Piracy is a bad thing. But sometimes companies can turn it to their advantage

Illustration by Claudio Munoz
“MERCHANT and pirate were for a long period one and the same person,”（挺有意思的表达） wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. “Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement（精炼） of piratical morality.” Companies, of course, would strongly disagree with this suggestion. Piracy is generally bad for business. It can undermine sales of legitimate products, deprive a company of its valuable intellectual property and tarnish its brand. Commercial piracy may not be as horrific as the seaborne version off the Horn of Africa (see article). But stealing other people’s R&D, artistic endeavour or even journalism is still theft.

That principle is worth defending. Yet companies have to deal with the real world—and, despite the best efforts of recorded-music companies, luxury-goods firms and software-industry associations, piracy has proved very hard to stop. Given that a certain amount of stealing is going to happen anyway, some companies are turning it to their advantage.


For example, around 20 times as many music tracks are exchanged over the internet on “peer to peer”（同等的） file-sharing networks as are legitimately sold online or in shops. Statistics about the traffic on file-sharing networks can be useful. They can reveal, for example, the countries where a new singer is most popular, even before his album has been released there. Having initially been reluctant to be seen exploiting this information, record companies are now making use of it (see article). This month BigChampagne, the main music-data analyser, is extending its monitoring service to pirated video, too. Knowing which TV programmes are being most widely passed around online can help broadcasters when negotiating with advertisers or planning schedules.

Innovators ahoy
Piracy can also be a source of innovation, if someone takes a product and then modifies it in a popular way. In music unofficial remixes can boost sales of the original work. And in a recent book, “The Pirate’s Dilemma”, Matt Mason gives the example of Nigo, a Japanese designer who took Air Force 1 trainers made by Nike, removed the famous “swoosh” logo, applied his own designs and then sold the resulting shoes in limited editions at $300 a pair under his own label, A Bathing Ape. Instead of suing Nigo, Nike realised that he had spotted a gap in the market. It took a stake in his firm and also launched its own premium “remixes” of its trainers. Mr Mason argues that “the best way to profit from pirates is to copy them.”（这是个很有趣的观点）