决战1010精英组Economist阅读汇——makeithappen分贴

makeithappenUID: 2585223

[1010G]Economist阅读帖--决战2010
主贴链接：https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1081436-1-1.html;




批注说明：
1红色-- 重点单词
2蓝色-- 词组/特定名词/惯用说法
3橙色—例子+AW点评
4.绿色-不理解的地方
5.加粗-好句子

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University rankings
Leagues apart
How tall is my ivory tower? University league tables give different answers
Mar 25th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

JUST as magpies adorn their nests with shiny trinkets, young people seeking to burnish their credentials love（这个什么意思啊？证明书的爱？） to scour league tables to spot the world’s brightest universities. Time at such places, they hope, will stoke both brainpower and future earnings.
magpie
[ˈmægpai]
n.鹊，饶舌的人
shiny
[ˈʃaini]
a.
发光的；磨光的
trinket
[ˈtriŋkit]
n.小装饰品，不值钱的珠宝
credentials
[kriˈdenʃəlz]
n.证明，资格；证明书，证件
scour
[ˈskauə]
vt.四处搜索；洗涤；冲刷
League Tables大学联盟排行
That creates a big global business. The OECD, a rich-country think-tank, reckons that more than 3m students are enrolled outside their country of citizenship. The number has trebled over the past 30 years. Most go to America, which attracted some 600,000 students in 2007, the latest year for which data are available. Britain, Germany, France and Australia are also popular destinations.

treble
[ˈtrebəl]

a.三倍(重)的

American institutions also shine in the rankings of university performance: exercises that are themselves of varying merits. The success comes despite growing grumbles about visa difficulties for foreign students, and rocketing costs. Harvard consistently tops a league table produced by Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. First published in 2003, this rates institutions according to the excellence of the research they produce.

grumble  

v 粗鲁地抱怨；不满地嘟哝
【记】源于mutter（n /v 咕哝；嘀咕）rumble（v 隆隆声；低沉地说）读：grow ball－长成一个ball的形状，重200ton－粗鲁地抱怨
【参】grouch骨肉吃；grouse骨肉死，groan骨肉嗯（2个抱怨，一个呻吟）"

In the most recent Shanghai table Europe fares remarkably poorly. It is certainly striking that from all of Europe only Oxford and Cambridge feature in the top 20. In the top 50 entries, Europe has only ten places (but 32 in the top 100). By contrast, fully 17 of the top 20 are American.
But many question the Jiao Tong rankings’ methodology, which appears to favour those specialising in natural sciences over those with other merits. In any case, what research excellence actually means for most students is unclear. Catching a distant glimpse of a star professor is not the same as being taught by him. And the best researchers are not necessarily the best teachers. For many, the quality of teaching is what matters. Measuring it is far harder. （Issure:从不同角度看问题的例子，出名教授教学的利弊）
So in 2004 a rival appeared. It was compiled jointly by the Times Higher Education Supplement, a British periodical, and Quacquarelli Symonds, a provider of guides to higher education. This gave the main weight to outsiders’ views—chiefly of other academics and of employers that recruit graduates. It included the staff-student ratio as a measure of teaching quality. Harvard still gained the top spot, but the number of British universities in the top 20 rose to twice that of the Jiao Tong rankings.
That attracted criticism too, not least（=most?） for volatility. After a change in methodology in 2007, the London School of Economics, usually regarded as one of Britain’s top five academies, crashed from 17th to 59th place. The LSE says crossly that the table does not capture excellence in social sciences.

crossly  ['krɔsli]  

adv. 生气地，发怒地

Other rankings have mushroomed. One is based on how many links a university’s website receives from other highly rated institutions. Another is based solely on the contents of a database of academic articles. The Economist publishes a ranking of MBA providers. The THES and its partner have now split: this year each will produce its own league table.

mushroom
[ˈmʌʃru:m]

n.蘑菇 vi.迅速成长(或发展)

Plenty more such rankings are coming—including a heavyweight attempt by the European Union. It believes that the continent’s higher-education institutions, the oldest in the world, are underrated. It has commissioned five European universities to compile tables which compare institutions that are similar in terms of their missions and structures. That should get around the oddity of trying to rank, say, a small mainly postgraduate outfit concentrating on economics against a big university that does brilliantly at teaching engineering to undergraduates. If a feasibility study goes well, the final results will be published next year.( Issure:不公平/ 不可比性)

commission  

n 委托（授予权力以实现特定任务的行为）；佣金（给予销售代表或代理人的酬金或其百分比）；v 委托
【例】I gets 30% commission on my sales   我卖出东西可得10%的佣金。I have two small commissions for you   我有两件事托你办。
【记】com共同，miss＝mit送－共同送东西到指定处－委托com共同，mission（n 使命，任务）－受了别人的委托，说明你得到了别人的信任，所以这是一种使命。"

Ending in tiersFlawed or not, league tables have a big impact on the universities they measure. Do they deserve so much influence? Ellen Hazelkorn, who studies this at the Dublin Institute of Technology, says that the rankings are driven by their creators’ objectives: the Chinese ones were intended to gain more state funding for university research; the European ones aim to give member countries greater status. ( Issue:注重结果还是过程（感觉是有一个ISSUE的）；)
The confusion of aims risks creating perverse incentives. University bosses may manipulate pass marks to give the appearance of success. Students game the system too. They can give spuriously flattering assessments of their own institution—thus raising its ranking and the value of the degrees it issues. Places with an undeservedly poor rating may find it hard to better themselves. However good a university’s teaching may be, a lowly ranking carries a stigma, at least in some eyes. The Netherlands, for example, has a special visa programme for those holding masters degrees from universities that come in the top 150 in two international league tables.

perverse  

adj （从正确的事物上）堕落的；刚愎自用的（顽固坚持错误的）
【记】per全部，verse转－全部与别人反着转－堕落的
【参】adversary（n 对手）；pervert（v 反常；使堕落）"

spuriously  

adv. 虚假地(乱真地，不合逻辑地)

stigma  

n 耻辱；坏名声
【记】原指：在罪犯或奴隶身上烙入皮肤的烙印－耻辱stig小棍，ma妈妈：妈妈有坏名声要用小棍打。
【参】stigmatize（v 诬蔑）
【反】mark of esteem（尊敬的标志）"

undeservedly  

adv. 不应得地，不当地

The more that higher education looks merely like a market for an expensive product (true perhaps for MBAs but less so for classics courses), the more league tables matter. They give at least the impression of consumer choice. Students spending their own money (or their parents’) seem to mind more about league-table rankings than those who receive state support.
Yet none of the league tables shows how well universities teach in practice. Later this year, the OECD will begin to test the abilities of final-year university students in different countries. That is tricky but not unprecedented. The OECD has, since 2000, measured how well 15-year-olds are educated in different countries by testing them on how well they can use what they have learned. That should add a welcome note of realism to the frenzied competition, especially at the top of the rankings. All that remains undone is a credible, rigorous ranking of league tables themselves.

frenzied  ['frenzid]  

adj. 疯狂的，激怒的

动词frenzy的过去式和过去分词形式

makeithappenUID: 2585223

Tiananmen Square's buildings
Don't tell anyone
China’s parliament is used to being ineffectual; its new offices are invisible
Mar 25th 2010 | BEIJING | From The Economist print edition

IN THE south-west corner of Tiananmen Square, a grandiose new building looms behind a shabby row of low-rise structures facing the plaza. These will be bulldozed in the coming months, unveiling in its full glory a monumental edifice that will be the first new structure in the square since Mao Zedong’s mausoleum was plonked in the middle of it in 1977. The authorities, however, seem oddly sheepish about the new arrival.

shabby  

adj 衣衫破烂的；下贱卑鄙的
【记】读：傻bby－衣衫破烂的；下贱卑鄙的"

plunk  [plʌŋk]   

v. （使）发声，（使）沉重地坠落

n. 使劲投掷，<俚>

一美元

adv. 扑通一声地=plonk

mausoleum  

n 陵墓（大面积的墓地，包括好几个墓地）
【记】读：冒死leum－去陵墓要冒着死的危险。"

Few but the most observant of Beijing residents are yet aware that （大多数居民是观察到了，还是没有观察到啊？）the appearance of the city’s most famous landmark is soon to change. The official press has largely kept quiet about the new building, which occupies what used to be a block of slum-like courtyard houses of pre-Communist vintage, together with a school and some offices and shops. The edifice is about half the size of the Great Hall of the People, to its north, a 1950s building which houses China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC). It shares its dour mien.
It took just 18 months from the laying of the foundation stone in February 2008 to its topping out ceremony last year. Yet the Chinese media have been coy about this feat, and the painstaking relocation further down a side road to make way for it of the historic 1920s’ building that was once home to the All-China Journalists’ Association. A government website briefly described the topping out ceremony, but did not say where the building-site was. It identified the project, however, as the “NPC Office Building”. It said workers had completed the outer structure (with a “high sense of political responsibility”) a month before schedule.
Back in 2004 the Chinese press was a little less reticent. Oriental Outlook, a magazine controlled by China’s government-run news agency, Xinhua, said then that plans for such an NPC office building had been suspended as part of efforts to rein in a bubbling economy. But Chinese sources say blueprints were quietly dusted off again in 2005. In December the following year the building was officially designated a “project involving state secrets”, though its purpose was revealed in notices posted around the area in 2007 warning residents that their block would be flattened. The government ordered that the building be ready for use by the middle of this year. An NPC spokesman for the legislature refuses to give any details of the cost or confirm when the project would be finished. A budget of 1.3 billion yuan, or $190m, was submitted in 2003, sources say.

reticent  

adj 沉默不语的（倾向于保留某人的想法、感情及个人事务的）
【记】re反复，ti踢，cent钱币：失恋后在路上发现一枚硬币，反复踢回家，这个过程一般是沉默不语的。Re反复，ticent读：提神－因为reticent所以需要反复提神
【类】reticent:talk  ＝abstemious:gorge＝parsimonious:spend沉默的不说话＝节制的不贪食＝小气的不花费
【反】loquacious（adj 多话的）；vociferous（adj 喊叫的）；voluble（adj 爱说话的）；effusive（adj 感情横溢的）"

rein  

n 缰绳；v 控制
【记】rei＝reg统治
【反】prod（v 刺；激励）"

Since 2007 the Communist Party has been stepping up efforts to curb a rash of lavish office building by local governments. “We will strictly control the construction of office buildings for Party and government bodies”, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, cautioned again at this month’s annual NPC session, which is likely still to be held in Great Hall of the People even after the new offices are ready. Mr Wen has reason to be furtive.

curb  

v 控制，抑制＝restrain＝check＝control；n 路缘（街道边沿砌成的一排石头）；马勒（马下颚的绳子或皮带，用来控制马）
【记】读：可悲！被象马勒一样的东西抑制住，难道不可悲吗？读：磕吧！走路不看脚地下，磕到马路牙子上，活该！Cur＝curr跑，b不：不能跑了－被马勒一样的东西抑制住了
【区】curd（n 凝乳）；中的d读：豆（腐）；curt（adj 简洁的；唐突的）
【反】goad（v /n 刺激（物））"

rash  

adj 鲁莽的（轻率快速为特点的）
【记】源于：brash（adj 仓促无礼的）r＝run，ash灰：跑到灰里去了－鲁莽的
【类】obsessed:attracted＝loquacious:talkative＝rash:adventurous被迷住的是过分被吸引的＝蝶蝶不休的是过分多嘴的＝鲁莽的是过分勇敢的rash:circumspective＝imperious:servile轻率的不是慎重的＝专横的不是卑屈的
【反】circumspective（adj 慎重的）"

furtive
[ˈfə:tiv]

a.偷偷的

整篇文章。。都不知道想表达重点是什么。。更别说例子了。。感觉是个政治文章

makeithappenUID: 2585223

China's currency

Bending, not bowing

The Chinese case for a stronger, more flexible currency

Apr 8th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

CHINA’s trade with America is notoriously skewed. But diplomatic exchanges between the two countries are more finely balanced. On April 3rd Tim Geithner, America’s treasury secretary, tactfully postponed a report due this month that might have condemned China for manipulating its currency, keeping it weak to favour its exporters. Mr Geithner, who made an unscheduled trip to Beijing this week, said he would rather press America’s case at its regular “Strategic and Economic Dialogue” with China in May and at the G20 summit in Canada in June. The delay puts America’s diplomatic account with China briefly in surplus. What will China offer to clear the balance?

notorious  

adj 臭名昭著的＝infamous
【记】not＝note知道，ori，ous多－很多人都知道你的坏名声"

skew  [skju:]

a.不直的，歪斜的

The immediate quid pro quo is the presence of China’s president, Hu Jintao, at a summit on nuclear proliferation in Washington, DC on April 12th-13th. There is also talk of allowing the yuan to wobble a little more in daily trading with the dollar. In time it is expected to resume the slow crawl upwards that ended in July 2008.

wobble  

n /v 摇晃；犹豫
【记】wo我，bb宝宝，le乐：我的宝宝乐了－摇晃身体
【反】stabilize（v 稳定）"

crawl  

v 爬行（缓慢、无力、费劲或经常停歇地前进）＝creep；自由游
【类】crawl:proceed＝dwindle:decrease爬是缓慢前进＝逐渐缩小是缓慢减少"

America’s Treasury is willing to bide its time. But its patience is not shared by members of Congress. Last month 130 of them wrote to Mr Geithner urging tougher action against China. After the currency report was postponed, Chuck Schumer, a New York senator, said he would push his bill to slap anti-dumping duties on some Chinese goods and countervailing tariffs on all of them if China did not allow its currency to strengthen.

bide  [baid]

vt.忍耐；等候；住

countervail  ['kauntəveil;'kauntəˌveil]  

v. 偿，补偿，抵销

The tussle in America between a cautious Treasury and slap-happy senators is mirrored by subtle divisions in China. Its policymakers and economists are, of course, united in their distaste for America’s tariff talk. Many can scarcely believe that a country so indebted to China would try to intimidate it. (Mr Schumer points out that the Chinese cannot dump their dollar holdings without undermining their own peg, thereby “cutting off their nose to spite their face”.) But the noisy dispute between the two countries is drowning out an interesting debate within China on the virtues of its inflexible currency.

tussle  

v （激烈而粗暴地）扭打；争辩＝scuffle
【记】读：他搜。他无缘无故要搜你的身体，导致扭打。"

indebted  

adj 感恩的；有义务的（有义务偿还某人的）
【例】I am greatly indebted to you for your help   我非常感激你的帮助。
【记】in进入，debt（n 罪过；债务）－欠人一笔感情债，所以要感恩"

spite  

n 怨恨；v 使发怒
【记】我对你有spite就会bite你。Spit（v 吐吐沫）使你spite"

drown out  

(更大的声音)使听不见

On one side of the discussion is the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank. Its chairman, Zhou Xiaochuan, suggested last month that keeping the yuan stable against the dollar was a crisis measure which would be withdrawn “sooner or later”. With China’s recovery well advanced, the central bank is keen to get a grip on bank lending and keep a lid on inflationary pressures. A stronger yuan would cut import prices; a suppler one would give the central bank a freer hand to raise interest rates, without worrying about the capital inflows such rates might attract despite China’s capital controls.

grip  [grip]

n.紧握；控制 vt.握紧，抓牢；引起注意

lid

lid n. 盖子, 限制, 眼睑vt. 给...盖盖子

suppler

1.
上游供应商

On the other side of the debate are China’s commerce ministry and some members of its National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which formulates long-term economic strategy. Beyond the PBOC, Chinese policymakers do not see the yuan as a tool to manage inflation. They see it instead as a tool to “maximise export employment”, says Stephen Green of Standard Chartered Bank, one that they are not yet ready to give up.

Although China’s output grew by over 10% in the year to the fourth quarter, its policymakers believe they have done a better job of shoring up GDP than of shoring up employment, according to Eswar Prasad of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. The World Bank says that rural wages (outside farms) fell by almost a fifth between 2007 and 2009 as migrant workers fled to their villages in search of jobs.

shore up  

支撑，支持

What accounts for this jobless recovery? Much of China’s epic stimulus was channelled through its banks. But in doling out credit Chinese banks still follow a “political pecking order”, as Yasheng Huang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put it. They reserve the first and biggest bites for large state-owned enterprises. These firms in turn favour capital-intensive investment projects, which add more to the output figures than to the payrolls. As a result China’s policymakers still count on the country’s exporters to create jobs, Mr Prasad argues. They are reluctant to do anything to jeopardise their prospects.

peck  [pek]

vt./ n.啄；匆匆轻吻 vi.啄食；小口地吃

jeopardise  ['dʒepədaiz]

vt. 使 ... 遭遇危险，危及

=jeopardize（美）

How much damage might a stronger yuan inflict? Several studies suggest that China’s exports fall by about 1.5% when its trade-weighted exchange rate, adjusted for inflation, strengthens by 1% (see chart). But if the yuan did move against the dollar, the currencies of China’s neighbours and rivals might rise in sympathy, limiting the damage to its competitiveness. And China’s coastal workshops have staged an impressive recovery from the worst days of the crisis, when factories closed and container ships idled in the ports. Exports in February were 8% higher than two years earlier. A few more months of robust figures may reassure policymakers that the country’s exporters are back on their feet.

Some of China’s rulers, it is true, see no benefit to China from a stronger yuan. But they are also the ones most determined to resist foreign pressure. They would, therefore, back down only if American tariffs inflicted real pain. Theirs are not the only voices in the government. The PBOC recently appointed three scholars to advise it, two of whom, David Daokui Li and Xia Bin, have advocated currency reform. Whether they can overcome the commerce ministry and its allies remains to be seen. But their efforts to sell their ideas will come to naught if they are crowded out by imported arguments from America.

makeithappenUID: 2585223

The effect on business and leisure

Volcanic fallout

The ban on flights caused anger among airlines and chaos for travellers

Apr 22nd 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Welcome back

BY THE early hours of April 15th, Britain’s air-traffic controllers feared the worst. They had hoped the wind would carry the ash from Eyjafjallajokull south-east of the country, but the wind had changed. Guided by computer models used by volcanic-ash watchers at the Met Office, the air-traffic agency said it was withdrawing service. British airspace was closed.

As the ash cloud spread eastwards, northern Europe’s airports shut down one by one, stranding millions of passengers, many of them attempting to return from Easter holidays, all over the world. On April 17th nearly 17,000 flights to and from Europe were cancelled out of about 22,000 on a normal day. With weather forecasts suggesting that the cloud might not budge for five days and talk of months of disruption, desperate travellers began trying to get home by any means possible.

Budge budge  

v 微微移动一点＝move a little；妥协（改变立场或态度）＝yield
【例】He can't budge this rock   他搬不动这块岩石。Money can't budge her   金钱不能使她改变立场。
【记】budget（n 预算），去掉t（微微移动一点）就变成了‘budge’
【类】obdurate  :budge＝lachrymose:cheer＝hidebound:innovation顽固的
不会让步＝悲哀的不会高兴＝死板的不会创新palter:candor＝vagary:predict   含糊其词不会直率＝奇特行为不会预知"

Trains and coaches filled up; car-rental firms were ransacked for vehicles, despite rocketing prices; the most affluent and impatient hired taxis to drive them home or to Channel ports. A rail strike in France did not help. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, mindful of the general election next month, said three naval vessels would be sent to rescue stranded Britons abroad. (Only one was.) Those stuck in the Americas or Asia could try to get an over-booked flight to southern Europe and then strike north over land or just sit it out.

vessel
[ves·sel || 'vesl]

n.
船, 脉管, 容器

strand
[str&aelig;nd]

n.
海滨, 海滩; 湖滨; 河岸#绳、线之一股; 绳; 线

v.
使搁浅; 使处于困境; 搁浅; 处于困境; 搓, 绞; 弄断的一股

Meanwhile, the airlines were becoming more and more restless. Some suspected that the models used to justify the flight ban were based on sketchy data and incomplete science. IATA, their trade body, claimed the disruption was costing them up to $400m a day in lost revenues and passenger compensation. European airlines are obliged to provide hotels and food for passengers awaiting re-routing, and European airports say they have lost

makeithappenUID: 2585223

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That’s more than a folksy aphorism when it comes to infectious diseases. Because according to a report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, it’s more cost effective to reduce the cases of a disease in hard-hit areas than to struggle to find a cure.

The trick, say the scientists, is identifying the populations most at risk. To figure out where disease-prevention dollars would be best spent, the scientists crunched the numbers. They looked at the diversity of disease-causing organisms and at the number of victims in regions all around the world. And they examined a variety of variables, from climate conditions to the money spent on health care.

crunch
[krʌntʃ]

n.
咬碎; 扎扎地踏; 咬碎声

v.
嘎吱作响地咬嚼; 嘎扎嘎扎地碾过; 嘎吱作响地咀嚼; 嘎扎嘎扎地碾过

Their finding, perhaps not surprisingly, is that the places where infections are most rampant are those with the largest populations and the worst disease-control measures. The good news is: the data show that efforts to control these scourges do work. So where eradication has failed, prevention can help.

rampant  

adj （不受限制地）蔓生的，猖撅的
【记】ram羊，pant裤子：样都穿裤子了－猖獗的"

scourge
[skɜrdʒ /skɜːdʒ]

n.
鞭, 苦难的根源, 笞

v.
鞭打, 蹂躏, 痛斥

The scientists note that reducing illness in heavily populated, poor areas also lowers the chance of a disease spreading to uninfected regions. Just as it’s in your best interest to keep your neighbor’s house from going up in flames.
这篇文章的内容可以用于在Time主题的文章中，现在少量的工作可以换取未来的舒服。或者是防患于未然的主题中。

makeithappenUID: 2585223

Debates
This house believes that the German economy is too dependent on exports for growth.

About this debate

In 2009 China was the world's top exporter of goods but Germany, with less than a tenth of China's population and much higher wages,（插入语。。好好学习，希望自己可以写出来） is the leading challenger. Exports are the main driver of Germany's economic growth. Its current-account surplus will exceed China's as a share of GDP this year. This makes Germany vulnerable: its economy was hit harder by the global slump than those less reliant on trade. But that is a small price to pay, most Germans think, for a vibrant manufacturing sector and the skilled, high-wage jobs that go with it.

But is export-led growth sustainable? Germany's current-account surplus contributes to the strains that threaten the stability of the euro. France's finance minister, Christine Lagarde, recently suggested that Germany cut taxes or raise wages to stimulate imports. If deficit-ridden countries in Europe and elsewhere are to export their way out of trouble, surpluses somewhere will have to fall. Germany, the world's fourth largest economy, looks like a prime candidate. Does Germany have to rethink its economic model?

makeithappenUID: 2585223

The proposer's opening remarks

Among the deluge of comments on the crisis of European Monetary Union (EMU), few focus the most crucial point: the external imbalance inside EMU. Greece's budget problems and those of other southern members of EMU are important, but they are closely related to external deficits. In contrast, Germany's sound budget position is to a large extent the result of the huge external stimulus it has received in the past decade. The key to the future of EMU is to be found in external adjustment in all countries and not in lopsided governments' belt-tightening around the Mediterranean Sea. It is the external imbalances that will force the dissolution of EMU if strong corrective action is not taken soon. And if it comes to make or break in the currency union, only external adjustment will provide the basis for a proper judgment on misdoings, wrongdoers and those who have to take the first step. Germany has to move definitively because it has misunderstood EMU more than any other country.

deluge：洪水

lopsided：adj 倾向一方的；不平衡的
【记】lop（v 砍伐；v 下垂）；sided边：向一边倾斜的。
【反】even handed（平衡）"

The drama of EMU is not Hellenic. Greece is only the tip of a large iceberg. But a comparison of Greece and Germany reveals the core of the problem. Greece's current account deficit had reached nearly 15% of GDP in 2007 and has recently come down slightly as a result of falling imports. Between 2000 and 2010 Greece's exports were sluggish at 1.8% in real terms, but domestic demand rose at a healthy 2.3%. (All figures are from the Statistical Annex of European Economy.) Real compensation to labour increased at 1.9% per employee annually, a little less than productivity and solid indeed. But nominal compensation grew by 4.9% and the ratio of nominal compensation to productivity (unit labour costs), the most important measure of international competitiveness in a currency union, advanced at a rate of 2.7% per year and reached a level of 130 in 2010 if 2000 is 100.

The biggest country in the EU, Germany, accumulated a huge current account surplus in the same period, culminating at 8% in 2007. Between 2003 and 2007 Germany's real exports exploded but domestic demand stagnated. Nominal compensation and unit labour costs in Germany also rose only marginally over the decade, the latter reaching a level of 105.5 in 2010 (0.5% annual rate). Stagnant real compensation explains the sluggish domestic demand given that employment creation did not follow the wage restraint. Flat unit labour costs explain the explosion of exports, in particular before the crisis and against EMU members; the share of intra-EU exports of goods in Germany's GDP rose from 16.6% in 1999 to 25.7% in 2007.

Culminate:告终

Stagnate: 停滞的

Sluggish:怠慢的

The gap in unit labour costs means that a comparable basket of goods and services produced at the same cost in 2000 in all the EU member states now costs 25% more if it comes from Greece than if it comes from Germany. The difference is similar for Spain, Portugal and Italy. But the difference is also 13% for France, although France was the only country where unit labour costs followed strictly the inflation target of 2% set by the European Central Bank.

Indeed, the inflation target is crucial for the judgment on wrongdoers. EMU was not meant to be a zero inflation union but a 2% inflation union. Measured against this scale the conclusion is obvious: a 2% inflation target is compatible with a 2% unit labour cost increase. An increase of 2.7%, as in Greece, has meant that the country is living beyond its means but has violated the rule to a lesser degree than Germany, living at 0.4% below its means Germany has explicitly agreed to the target of close to 2% because it was its own target before EMU. Given this target and the overriding importance of unit labour costs for inflation, Germany headed towards a clear violation of the common target once its government started to put enormous pressure on wage negotiations to improve the country's competitiveness inside and outside EMU.

Some people believe that the difference is not relevant as Germany had absolute disadvantages before the beginning of EMU, mainly because of the burden of German unification. However, logic says otherwise. If your belt-tightening makes up for absolute disadvantages, you will not end up with absolute advantages. But this is exactly the German case. Germany is the only big country in Europe that was able to stabilise its global market share in the first decade of this century—all the others, including France, lost dramatically.

unification  

n 统一；一致
【记】源于：unify（v 统一）
【反】divergence（n 分歧）"

That leads to the final line of Germany's defence, namely that high unemployment has justified German wage dumping. Wrong again—unemployment is a feature in most EMU member states and German wage restraint did not remove it because the domestic demand gap has compensated for the external demand boom. Between 2000 and 2010 overall German growth performance was a meagre 0.6% annually—only half of France's. Gross fixed capital formation fell by 0.2%, compared with an increase of 1.4% in France. Moreover, countries seeking to depress wages for domestic or other reasons should not join currency unions and agree to pursue a 2% inflation target. It was obvious; with open borders and permanent transfers excluded no country could survive economically a huge absolute disadvantage triggered by its biggest trading partner.(都不理解。。。。哎。。)

meagre
a.瘦的，不足的，贫乏的

European politicians are wrong if they believe that there will be national solutions. If Germany continues with belt-tightening, and there is every indication that it will, the countries with absolute disadvantages will need to cut wages. The result will be protracted deflation and depression for EMU as a whole but with no Phoenix rising from the ashes as long as no one opts for exit. But the crisis is more a German tragedy than a Greek one. If Germany cannot agree to concerted action with explicit decisions about wage adjustment paths for many years, indeed for decades, to rebalance its trade, it could still save Europe by leaving EMU and allowing a strong revaluation of its new currency.

protracted  

adj 拖延的
【反】summary（adj 概要的）；transient（adj 短暂的）"

opt
vi.(for)选择，挑选

makeithappenUID: 2585223

The opposition's opening remarks

For different reasons, Germany is expected to reduce its dependence on exports. There are two arguments for this reduction, and they must be assessed separately. The first is put forward by German Keynesians and the trade unions. Domestic demand, they say, should be boosted by a targeted promotion of private consumption, to be made possible by an expansionary course in both wage and fiscal policies. In those sectors with predominantly domestic customers and little international competition, a minimum wage level should be set to raise overall domestic demand even further. This argument focuses mainly on social equity within Germany. It has been around for some time but has been given added impetus by the global economic crisis.

Keynesians 凯恩斯主义者

an expansionary course in both wage and fiscal policies: I am the one who learn Finance, so these word is some kind of proper noun.

The second argument is propounded on a European level. A European debate on German exports has recently been triggered by the fiscal debacle in Greece. The argument is as follows. The low competitiveness of the Greek economy is worsened by the extraordinary efficiency and strength of German companies. Germany, as an economy with huge export surpluses, forces other countries—like Greece—into a deficit position, and is therefore at least partly responsible for their difficulties. This reasoning leads to calls for lower German competitiveness, especially in export sectors, to be achieved through higher wages, which would make it easier for other economies to sell their products. The Greek crisis may be recent, but this line of reasoning is old. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the European Monetary System had fixed—but not immutable—exchange rates, some European governments used similar arguments. A devaluation of their currencies against the Deutschemark was considered an embarrassment. To avoid this, they tried to nudge Germany towards a lax monetary and fiscal policy, hoping thus to spare themselves the necessity of a desirable but difficult reorganisation of government finances and moderation in wage policies.

Devaluation 货币贬值

Nudge助推

Lax 松懈的

Thus it becomes clear: the demand for a weakening of the German export position is based exclusively on distributive arguments—at both national and international levels.

Take a look at the facts. Has German economic growth been lopsided? Looking at the data for 2005-08, which constituted a recent strong cyclical upswing in Germany, net exports contributed an average 0.7 percentage points to GDP growth. Domestic demand, however, contributed more: 1.2 percentage points. These numbers indicate that Germany need not be overly worried about its dependence on exports. On the contrary, Germany is in the desirable position of having its economic growth sustained by both national and international demand. In France things looked completely different, as French economic growth was exclusively driven by domestic demand, which grew by 2.2 percentage points on average, while the country's net exports fell by an average of 0.5 percentage points. In Britain, the average economic growth of 2% per year was driven almost entirely by domestic demand.

It is true that the German export surplus has its counterpart in other countries' import surpluses. Nevertheless, the view that Germany has provoked the difficulties of countries like Spain or Greece is at best inaccurate, at worst malign. A quick look at the statistics for trade between Greece and Germany shows that the German share of all Greek imports increased from 13.1% in 2000 to 13.5% in 2008—hardly a life-draining stranglehold on the Greek economy. Many other countries have benefited as much or more from soaring Greek imports. To make the point even clearer: if Germany had not exported any goods at all to Greece, the Greek balance of trade deficit would have decreased by only 20% in 2008.

malign  

v 诽谤；adj 恶毒的
【记】mal坏，ign
【参】benign（adj 良性的；仁慈的）
【反】extol（v 赞美）；laud（n /v 赞美）"

stranglehold  

n. 压制自由

One fact often ignored in the debate is that the balance of payments current account is the inverse of the capital account. If Germany saves, it then exports capital and thus creates a potential for investment in other countries, so that opportunities for more growth and employment occur there. Similar opportunities arise from unilateral transfers, such as those provided by the EU Structural Fund and the EU Cohesion Fund, into which Germany—as the largest net contributor to the EU—pays considerable sums. What matters is how capital imports or unilateral transfers are used in the recipient countries. On the whole, in Greece, Spain and Portugal this capital has not been put to productive use. Additionally, on the path to European Monetary Union, these countries did not primarily use the economic stimulus of decreasing real interest rates, caused by real interest rate convergence, for investment.

What, then, are the reasons behind Germany's export strength? France's finance minister, Christine Lagarde, has pointed to a German competitive advantage based on the development of wages. In fact, in 2008, industrial labour costs per hour worked in Germany (

makeithappenUID: 2585223

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

About this debate

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

spur
[spɜr /spɜː]

n.
马刺, 鼓舞, 刺激物

v.
用靴刺踢; 给...装踢马刺; 鞭策, 鼓励; 策马飞奔; 给予刺激; 急速前进

       plough
[plaʊ]

n.
犁, 耕地

v.
耕, 开路, 犁; 用犁耕田, 开路

makeithappenUID: 2585223

The proposer's opening remarks
Mar 22nd 2010 | Amar Bhidé


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

sectarian
[sec·tar·i·an || sek'terɪən /-'teər-]

n.
属于宗派的人, 宗派心强的人

adj.
宗派的; 偏执的; 派别的

underpin  

v.
从下头支持, 支持, 支撑

This is, alas, a dubious conception of paradise. For all the high-tech prowess of Silicon Valley, the economy of California is on the edge of disaster. Unemployment in eight counties now tops 20% and the government pays its bills in IOUs. And in spite of its extraordinary concentration of scientific and engineering talent and entrepreneurship, Israel's GDP per head in 2009 was lower than of Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.

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

scant
[sk&aelig;nt]

v.
减少, 限制, 吝啬

adj.
不充分的, 不足的

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

fetishist
['fet·ish·ist || 'fɪːtɪʃɪst /'fet-]

n.
拜物教徒, 物神崇拜者; 恋物癖者; 盲目崇拜者

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

pecuniary
[pe·cu·ni·ar·y || pɪ'kjuːnɪerɪ /-nɪərɪ]

adj.
金钱的, 课罚款的, 金钱上的

venturesome
['ven·ture·some || 'ventʃə(r)səm]

adj.
冒险的, 不顾一切的, 冒危险的

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

multifaceted  [ˌmʌlti'f&aelig;sətid]

adj. 多层面的

bribe
[braɪb]

n.
贿赂

v.
贿赂, 收买; 行贿

trigonometry
[trig·o·nom·e·try || ‚trɪgə'nɑmɪtrɪ /-'nɒm-]

n.
三角; 三角法

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

savant
[sa·vant || s&aelig;'vɑnt /'s&aelig;vənt]

n.
学者, 专家, 博学者

duplication
[du·pli·ca·tion || ‚djuːplɪ'keɪʃn]

n.
副本; 复制

savvy  

adj 有见识的；精明能干的；n 知识；才智
【记】savv＝saw锯，y：发明锯子的鲁班－有才智的
【反】tactless（adj 不老练的）；simplicity（n 头脑简单；直率）"

credential  

n （使某人可以信任的）证明；凭据；证件"

pivotal
['piv·ot·al || 'pɪvətl]

adj.
枢轴的, 关键的

makeithappenUID: 2585223

Of course a government doing the least doesn't mean a government doing nothing at all. Moreover, the least is a moving and ever expanding target. The invention of the automobile, for example, necessitated driving rules and a system of vehicle inspections. The growth of air travel required a system to control traffic and certify the airworthiness of aircraft. Similarly, radio and television required a system to regulate the use of the airwaves.

airworthiness  

n.
适航性; 飞行性能

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

oligopoly
['ɑlɪ'gɑpəlɪ /'ɒlɪgɒ-]

n.
求过于供的市场情况, 寡头卖主垄断

But the principle of the least is best remains a true compass. New technologies not only create the need for desirable new rules, they but also generate more opportunities for unwarranted meddling and a cover for rent-seeking. It is one thing for the Federal Aviation Administration to manage the air traffic control system, quite another for the Civil Aeronautics Board (b. 1938, d. 1985) to regulate airfares, routes and schedules. The construction of the interstate highway system may have been a great boon to the US economy, for example, but it did not take long for Congress to start appropriating funds for bridges to nowhere.

compass
[com·pass || 'kʌmpəs]

n.
罗盘; 圆规; 指南针; 境界; 周围

v.
图谋, 计划; 达到, 获得; 包围; 理解

meddling
['medlɪŋ]

n.
干预; 瞎管

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

allegedly
[al'leg·ed·ly || -dʒɪdlɪ]

adv.
据传说, 据宣称

makeithappenUID: 2585223

The moderator's opening remarks
Mar 22nd 2010 | Mr Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

What is the right role for government in spurring innovation? The outlines of this age-old debate will be familiar to many. One side argues that governments inevitably get it wrong when they get too involved in innovation: picking the wrong technology winners, say, or ploughing subsidies into politically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The other rebuts that given the grave global challenges we face today—in the 1960s America thought it was the Soviet race into space, today many countries worry about climate change and pandemic threats—governments need to do much more to support innovation.
Happily for us, gentle reader, the two sides in the Economist's latest debate are moving beyond such platitudes to novel arguments. Arguing in favour of the motion that innovation works best when government does least is Amar Bhide, a professor at Harvard and author of "The Venturesome Economy". His opening statement roundly denounces the visions of home-grown Silicon Valleys that dance in the heads of bureaucrats worldwide as "a dubious conception of paradise". California's bloated government is bankrupt and Japan's once formidable MITI agency is in tatters, he observes, but market-minded Hong Kong is flourishing (and its hyper-commercial denizens far richer than their coddled Japanese counterparts).

platitude
[plat·i·tude || 'pl&aelig;tɪtuːd /-tjuːd]

n.
单调, 陈腐, 平凡

bloat
[bləʊt]

v.
使膨胀; 使自大; 使肿起; 腌熏; 膨胀; 得意; 肿起

tatter
[tat·ter || 't&aelig;tə(r)]

n.
破布条; 破衣服; 碎片

v.
扯碎, 撕碎; 使破烂; 变破烂

He adds for good measure that the "techno-fetishist" view of innovation represented by the top-heavy Japanese model pales in comparison with a robust, bottom-up version of innovation that harnesses the creativity and enterprise of the many, including the "venturesome consumers". He does acknowledge that governments have a role to play: "Doing the least doesn't mean doing nothing at all." However, his advocacy of a least is best policy, though conceptually elegant, seems a bit slippery and is probably unhelpful in practice. In future postings, perhaps he will explain how exactly governments should decide whether they are doing too little or too much to help innovation.

pale  [peɪl]

n.
尖板条, 尖桩; 围起的地方, 围场; 界限, 范围; 管区, 辖区

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

sap
[s&aelig;p]

n.
液, 汁; 边材; 精力, 元气; 笨蛋#坑道; 削弱, 破坏; 挖掘

v.
使大伤元气; 使干枯; 在...下挖掘; 在...下挖掘坑道; 破坏...的基础; 削弱, 逐渐消耗; 挖坑道

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

ethanol  

n.
乙醇, 酒精

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

joust
[dʒaʊst]

n.
马上长矛比武; 竞技; 竞争

v.
骑马进行长矛比武; 竞争

mugwump
[mug·wump || 'mʌgwʌmp]

n.
超然派; 中立者; 骑墙派

makeithappenUID: 2585223

The house believes that making trade fairer is more important than making it freer.
About this debate

Driven in part by a progressive lowering of barriers to trade in both rich and developing countries, global trade expanded faster in the decades leading up to the crisis than the global economy grew. （是指带来危机，而不是全球的增长？）Economists argue that free trade makes everyone better off, allowing more, and more varied, goods, and lower prices, than would otherwise be possible. Some also argue that it leads to faster economic growth and less poverty.

Some critics of free trade argue, however, that its supposed benefits for poor people and developing countries are illusory. Trade, they say, benefits rich countries at the expense of poor ones, increasing inequality between nations. Others say that it hurts rich-country workers, particularly the less skilled, thus increasing economic equality within rich countries. All would rather that the world concentrate its efforts on making trade "fairer" rather than further attempt to reduce trade barriers.

makeithappenUID: 2585223

Chief executive turnover
Trouble at the top
The turnover of bosses at the world's big companies remains high

turnover  

n.
翻倒, 翻转; 反转; 倒转; 转移

May 19th 2010 | From The Economist online

THE proportion of chief executives forced from office fell to 3.3% last year from 5.1% in 2008, the lowest level since 2003. According to an annual study by Booz & Company, a consultancy, the turnover rate at the world's 2,500 biggest publicly listed companies remains high at 14.3%. Unsurprisingly, the financial sector saw most blood-letting, with 5.2% of bosses fired and a turnover rate of 17.2%. The report also notes a preference for promoting chief executives from within a company. Over the past ten years around 80% of boards choose insiders for the top job. These CEOs are dismissed less frequently than those brought in from outside, while steering companies to give better returns to shareholders.

这个例子可以说明 有时候人们更倾向于选择熟悉的人