外刊赏读《经济学人》

Ask people to name someone they find charming and the answers are often predictable. There’s James Bond, the fictional spy with a penchant for shaken martinis. Maybe they’ll mention Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton or a historical figure, like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi. Now ask the same people to describe, in just a few seconds, what makes these charmers so likable.要是你让人说出一个他心目中有魅力的人的名字，答案通常都可以预测。

有人会说詹姆斯·邦德，那个偏爱摇酒法调制的马提尼的虚构的间谍。

也许会有人提到欧普拉·温弗里，比尔·克林顿，或是某个历史人物，比如小马丁·路德·金牧师，或是圣雄·甘地。

那么现在再让同一个人来用区区几秒钟描述，到底是什么特质让这些魅力十足的人物如此受人爱戴呢？It’s here, in defining what exactly charisma is, that most hit a wall. Instinctually, we know that we’re drawn to certain people more than others. Quantifying why we like them is an entirely different exercise.到此为止，在魅力到底是什么的确切定义过程中，通常就是到这里走进了死胡同。

Diageo last week took a majority stake in Seedlip, a non-alcoholic spirit sold as an alternative to gin — a move seen by analysts as the drinks giant’s attempt to grab more of the growing teetotal market. The young are more abstemious than their elders, and manufacturers and marketers need to keep up.帝亚吉欧(Diageo)不久前收购了Seedlip的多数股权，这是一种被作为金酒替代品出售的无酒精型烈酒——市场分析师们将此举解读为酒业巨头试图在日益扩张的无酒精饮料市场中分一杯羹。

年轻一代相对于他们的长辈在饮酒方面更加节制，酒类生产商和营销机构必须跟上这种趋势。

For those of us who don’t drink or, in my case, only occasionally, a reduction in others’ drinking, along with a fall in the antisocial consequences, is a welcome development. At a wedding in Italy this summer, I marvelled as a group of Italian and French guests partied under a hot afternoon sun and late into the night, without anyone staggering or slurring in the way they would inevitably have done in the UK.对于我们当中那些不喝酒——或者以我自己为例——仅偶尔喝一杯的人来说，他人饮酒量的下降，以及与之相随的危害社会公共利益问题的减少，是一种令人愉快的新变化。

When bosses walk in employees’ shoes当老板站在员工的角度思考It is hard for managers to understand what life is like for staff. But not impossible 管理者很难理解员工的处境，但也不是不可能Any manager worth their salt knows the value of spending time “walking in their customers’ shoes”. There are many ways to do it. You can observe customers in their natural habitat.任何称职的管理者都知道花时间“站在客户的角度思考”的价值。

想做到这一点有很多办法可行。

你可以对处在自然状态下的顾客进行观察。

Pernod Ricard’s boss recently told Bloomberg, a news service, about his habit of bar-hopping in order to see what people want to drink. Such research is a lot less fun if your company makes soap dispensers for public toilets but the same principle applies.保乐力加的老板最近向彭博社(一家新闻服务机构)透露，他经常会去酒吧看看人们爱喝什么酒。

如果你公司的产品是公厕皂液器，那这种研究方式就不太合适了，不过道理都是一样的。

You can be a customer yourself, buying your company’s products, ringing your own helplines and enduring the same teeth-grinding muzak. Or you can hear from your customers directly.你可以试着购买自家的产品，拨打自家的客服热线，忍受让人咬牙切齿的同款音乐。

The Guardian view on unaffordable homes: building injustice into the economy《卫报》关于难以负担的住房的观点：在经济中制造不公The average wage of the top 1% in Britain rose to £13,770 a month in December. Jeevun Sandher, an economist at King’s College London, points out the very richest saw their incomes rise the fastest during the pandemic. This group were also likely to have been able to save the most while Covid raged. Where do the very wealthiest spend their cash? One place is housing, for which there is a low level of stock being released on to the market. The result is rising house prices. Over the past 12 months, asking prices have gone up by 9.5%.12月，英国最富有的1%人群的平均工资上升至每月13770英镑。

伦敦国王学院的经济学家桑德尔指出，在疫情期间，最富有的人的收入增长最快。

在新冠病毒肆虐期间，这一群体也可能是能够存最多钱的人。

最富有的人把钱花在哪里？其中一个地方就是住房，因为住房市场上的存量很低。

结果就是房价上涨。

在过去12个月里，住房要价上涨了9.5%。

This has a knock-on effect for renters. UK rents rose by 8.3% in the last three months of 2021. For would-be first-time buyers, the situation is as bad if not worse, with the current average price of £277,000 nearly £25,000 higher than just a year ago. Those looking to have a roof to live under will find little solace in official figures. These record an 11% drop in the number of total homes added in 2021 compared with the year before. The number of new affordable houses that began being built dropped 16% year-on-year. Shortages of labour and materials, as well as planning delays, will make it harder for the 11th Tory housing minister since 2010 to meet government targets for new homes.这对租客产生了连锁反应。

A global house-price slump is coming全球房价即将暴跌It won’t blow up the financial system, but it will be scary虽然不会摧毁金融体系，但仍然令人恐慌Over the past decade owning a house has meant easy money. Prices rose reliably for years and then went bizarrely ballistic in the pandemic. Yet today if your wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar it is time to get nervous.过去十年里，拥有一套房就意味着轻松赚钱。

房价多年来一直稳步上涨，甚至在疫情期间还异乎寻常地飙升了。

然而现如今，如果你的财富被套牢在房产上，那你应该感到紧张了。

House prices are now falling in nine rich economies. The drops in America are small so far, but in the wildest markets they are already dramatic. In condo-crazed Canada homes cost 9% less than they did in February.九个发达经济体的房价都在下跌。

到目前为止，美国房价的跌幅还不大，但最疯狂的市场的房价跌幅已经非常大了。

在热衷于共管公寓的加拿大，房价较今年2月下跌了9%。

As inflation and recession stalk the world a deepening correction is likely—even estate agents are gloomy. Although this will not detonate global banks as in 2007-09, it will intensify the downturn, leave a cohort of people with wrecked finances and start a political storm.随着通货膨胀和经济衰退的风险在全球范围内蔓延，房价或将迎来一场深度调整——甚至房地产经纪人也对此感到悲观。

One afternoon in April 2020, I took an old bamboo rod out of my shed and cut it to a length of 115cm. Stood on the ground, it came about halfway up my chest. I laid it on a scrubby patch of our garden on the island of Aegina, in Greece: one end next to a tough-looking dandelion, the other pointed northwards. Then I dug up the dandelion with a trowel and replanted it at the other end of the stick. A small step for humans, but quite the leap for the dandelion.2020年4月的一个下午，我从棚子里拿出一根旧竹竿，把它切成了115厘米的长度。

立在地上，它的长度大概是到我胸部高度的一半。

我把它搁在花园中的一小片灌木丛生的土地上，花园位于希腊的埃吉纳岛（Aegina）上。

竹竿的一端挨着一株看上去很强韧的蒲公英，另一端朝着北方。

随后我用泥铲把蒲公英挖了出来，再把它重新种进竹竿另一端的土里。

对人类来说，这是一小步的距离，但对蒲公英而言却是一次不小的跃进。

This 115cm corresponds to a particular measurement. It is the present average velocity of climate change — how fast the effects of global heating are moving across the surface of the planet — and thus represents the speed we need to move in order for the conditions around us to stay the same. It also implies a direction: the bubble habitats where different forms of life can survive and thrive are moving uphill, and towards the poles.这115厘米所对应的是一个特定的尺寸。

7.23经济学人外刊精读| 米老鼠可能退出迪士尼经济学人原文Mickey Mouse could exit Disney as 95-year copyright expiry date hovers【1】Disney could soon lose the exclusive rights to some of its most famouscharacters, including Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain in the year 2024, almost 95 years after his creation on 1 October 1928– the length of time after which the copyright on an anonymous or pseudo-anonymous body of artistic work expires under US copyright law.【2】The mouse that now acts as the entertainment giant’s mascot first appeared inthe black-and-white cartoon Steamboat Willie. The cartoon wasa pioneer in animation for its use of synchronised sound –where movements on screen correspond to the music and soundeffects, launching one of the most recognisable images in film and television. According to the National Museum of American History: “Over the years, Mickey Mouse has gone through several transformations to his physical appearance and personality. In his early years, the impish and mischievous Mickey looked morerat-like, with a long pointy nose, black eyes, a smallish body with spindly legs and a long tail.” While this first rat-like iteration of Mickey will be stripped ofits copyright, Disney retains its copyright on any subsequent variations in other films or artwork until they reach the 95-year mark.【3】Daniel Mayeda is the associate director of the Documentary Film Legal Clinicat UCLA School of Law, as well as a longtime media and entertainment lawyer. He said the copyright expiration does not come without limitations. “You can use the Mickey Mouse character as it was originally created to create your own Mickey Mouse stories or stories with this character. But if you do so in a way that people will think of Disney – which is kind of likely because they have been investing in this character for so long – then in theory, Disney could sayyou violated my copyright.”【4】Other characters have already moved into the public domain:with unpredictable and somewhat shocking results. Honey-loving bearWinnie-the-Pooh from the Hundred Acre Wood and most of his animal friends entered public domain in January this year and some have wasted no time in capitalising on the beloved characters. A Mint Mobile advert in the US features a charac ter called ‘Winnie the-Screwed,’ a bear with a costly phone bill.More disturbingly, Pooh and his good friend Piglet are now the stars ofWinnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a soon-to-be released horror film, written and directed by Rhys Waterfield, that sees the two go on a bloody rampage of killing after being abandoned by their old friend, Christopher Robin.【5】Mayeda said it’s important for artists like Waterfield not to cross the line whenit comes to creating new works based on the old characters.certain aspects of a character that the general public recognises as part of the Disney brand are off-limits for artists who wish to make use of the copyright expirations. Ifa particular work confuses the public into thinking it is actually affiliated with Disney, there could be major legal consequences. “Copyrights are time-limited,” Mayeda said. “trademarks are not. So Disney could havea trademark essentially in perpetuity, as long as they keep using various things as they’re trademarked, whether they’re words, phrases, characters or whatever.”【6】Disney may still maintain trademarks on certain catchphrasesor signature outfits worn by the characters, such as Pooh’s red shirt, which Waterfield intentionally avoided using in his movie.Disney also retains exclusive rights to the bouncing tiger, Tigger, for not much longer since his first appearance was in 1928 in The House at Pooh Corner, the series of stories written by Winnie-the-Pooh creator A A Milne.。

外刊赏读|《经济学人》In the hands of an angry God新祥旭考研：十年专注考研一对一辅导本文选自《经济学人》一篇名为“In the hands of an angry God”（《落在愤怒上帝手中》）的文章。

本文并非从神学角度讨论“上帝”是否存在，而是从心理学角度论证，认为相信超自然能力的存在是人类固有的心理，即使是无神论者也是如此。

这种心理倾向在生物进化和社会发展方面都发挥了积极的作用。

本文不谈玄学，完全从理性和证据出发，论证有力，语言流畅，值得品读。

原文Ⅰ①Many people think that religious belief is inherent to human psychology.②This does not mean that specific beliefs are wired,but that the brain is predisposed to believe in super natural agents.③Some proponents of this idea argue that supernatural beliefs have hijacked innocent or otherwise useful features of the mind.④But Dominic Johnson argues in“God Is Watching You”,belief in God—specifically,in supernatural forces that can punish—is a useful evolutionary adaptation.Ⅱ①Mr Johnson argues that there is little harm if you over react to something that turns out not to exist.②But underestimating a rustling in the undergrowth,which might conceal a predator,could be fatal,leading to evolutionary selection of a tendency to see agents everywhere.③The instinct is easily triggered,even in atheists.④Even pictures can set it off:in one experiment,an office honour-system to pay for shared coffee got more contributions when someone taped a picture of a pair of eyes on the collecting tin.Ⅲ①There is also a tendency in most people to put greater emphasis on punishment than on reward:losing$100is far more painful than winning the same amount is pleasing.②Why would belief in an angry god be any use?③When humans developed language,they could spread word of cheating,freeriding and the like.④Raping your neighbour’s mate might once have made evolutionary sense—spreading your own genes at little cost—but“in a clever and gossiping species,knowledge of selfish actions could spread and come back to haunt us”in the form of a furious husband or a village mob.⑤Since cheating is now costlier,belief in an invisible monitor helps people avoid those costs,and so survive with their reputations intact,and pass on their genes.Ⅳ①Mr Johnson noted that societies which punish cheaters are more likely to survive and grow.②He quotes John Locke,a17th century English philosopher:“Those who deny the existence of the Deity are not to be tolerated at all.③Promises,covenants and oaths,which are the bonds of human society,can have no hold upon or sanctity for an atheist.”④Those bonds and covenants allow societies to co-ordinate action and plan for the future.⑤Mr Johnson’s own research into 186preindustrial cultures found that moralising religious beliefs were more prevalent in larger and more complex societies.⑥The fact that moralising religious beliefs are more prevalent in more complex societies does not prove that one caused the other.⑦But the striking number and variety of examples add credence to Mr Johnson’s theory.Ⅴ①The religious instinct is too deep-seated,he thinks.②Instead,critics of superstition are best advised to work with the grain of human psychology rather than against it,finding more benevolent ways to satisfy human yearning for something“out there”.③What form such an atheist religion should take,though,God only knows.[481words]词汇短语1.wire[ˈwaɪəd]v.接通电源2.*predisposed[pri:dɪs'pəʊzd]adj.倾向于3.*proponent[prəˈpəʊnənt]n.支持者4.*rustling[ˈrʌslɪŋ]n.沙沙声5.honour-system无看守监禁制6.furious[ˈfjʊəriəs]adj.狂怒的7.*covenant[ˈkʌvənənt]n.协议8.hold upon控制力9.*sanctity[ˈsæŋktəti]n.神圣10.credence[ˈkri:dns]n.相信11.grain[greɪn]n.细粒12.*benevolent[bəˈnevələnt]adj.慈善的13.*yearning[ˈjɜ:nɪŋ]n.渴望（注：标*的为超纲词）点评Ⅰ①Many people think that religious belief is inherent to human psychology.②This does not mean that specific beliefs are wired,but that the brain is predisposed to believe in supernatural agents.③Some proponentsof this idea argue that supernatural beliefs have hijacked innocent or otherwise useful features of the mind.④But Dominic Johnson argues in“God Is Watching You”,belief in God—specifically,in supernatural forces that can punish—is a useful evolutionary adaptation.翻译：很多人认为，宗教信仰是人类心理固有的。

Have baby, stay in school生孩子还是继续上学？Why teenage mothers in Zimbabwe struggle to get educated为什么津巴布韦的未成年妈妈很难继续接受教育Brilliant Ndlovu has never really known childhood. Since the age of seven she has headed her household in Tsholotsho, a town in rural western Zimbabwe, after her parents went to work abroad. The oldest of five, she scraped a living growing crops while trying to keep up with her schoolwork.聪明的恩德洛夫从未真正经历过童年。

自从7岁起，她的父母去国外工作后，她就一直在津巴布韦西部乡村小镇茨洛特肖主持家务。

她是五个孩子中的老大，一边靠种庄稼勉强糊口，一边还要努力完成学业。

But in 2020 the covid-19 pandemic struck, coming shortly after a devastating drought. Farmers could not afford to pay child labourers like Ms Ndlovu. “So I looked for a man to help support my family,” she recalls. She found one who demanded sex in exchange for money. Aged 17, she got pregnant.但在2020年，经历一场毁灭性的干旱后，新冠疫情又紧随其后。

Britain’s young face a poorer future英国年轻一代面临更加贫穷的未来Economic statistics will never fully capture the extent of the sacrifices of Britain’s youth during the pandemic. For a generation of students and pupils it was a lost chance to make friends, explore who they are and, gradually, become adults — as well as to learn, in person. In the face of the deaths in the broader population, it is easy to dismiss as frivolous the setbacks of those who missed partying, travelling and dating during the long months stuck inside but these are still years of carefree youth they will not get back. What is more, most of these privations were primarily to protect those from older generations, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.经济统计数字将永远不能完全反映出英国青年在这场大流行病中牺牲了多少。

对于这一代学生来说，他们失去了结交朋友、探索自我并逐渐成长为人,以及亲身学习的机会。

在有人死于新冠疫情之际，我们很容易认为被困在室内长达数月而错过聚会、旅行和约会的人所经历的这些挫折无关痛痒，但这是他们再也无法重返的无忧无虑的青春时光。