《经济学人》杂志原版英文(The Economist整理版4-5)

经济学人｜得克萨斯州寒潮暴露美国基建缺陷The freeze in Texas exposes America’s infrastructural failingsYou ain’t foolin’ nobody with the lights outUnited StatesFeb 20th 2021 edition得克萨斯州寒潮暴露美国基建缺陷电都停了，你糊弄不了所有人美国2021年2月20日文本—————————————————————When it rains, it pours, and when it snows, the lights turn off. Or so it goes in Texas. After a winter storm pummelled the Lone Star State with record snowfall and the lowest temperatures in more than 30 years, millions were left without electricity and heat. At the worst moment on February 16th, 4.5m Texan households were cut off from power, as providers were overloaded with demand and tried to shuffle access to electricity so the entire grid did not collapse.如若下雨，便是倾盆大雨；如若下雪，便会停电。

得克萨斯州（以下简称“得州”）大概就是这种情况。

孤星州（得州别名）遭遇暴风雪，降雪量创30多年来新纪录，低温也达到30多年来之最，数百万人被置于断电断暖的境地。

2月16日的情况最糟糕，得州停电家庭高达450万户，供电公司用电负荷超载，在努力改变用电顺序后，整个输电网络才未瘫痪。

2010年考研英语阅读理解第四篇文章属于经济类，节选于09年4月份的《经济学人》（The Economist），文章的结构形式和我们以前考过的结构类型相似。

原文如下（加粗部分为真题节选部分）：/article.cfm/13476293?f=relatedMessenger, ShotAccounting rules are under attack. Standard-setters should defend them. Politicians and banks should back off.Economist Staff - The EconomistApril 10, 2009In public, bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch. Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be arcane, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult.On April 2nd, after a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognising losses on long-term assets in their income statements. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, decried those who "impugn our motives". Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobbying group politely calls "the use of judgment by management".European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to be "piecemeal", but the pressure to fold when it completes its overhaul of rules later this year is strong. On April 1st Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did "not live in a political vacuum" but "in the real world" and that Europe could yet develop different rules.It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But banks' shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are sceptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains.To get the system working again, losses must be recognised and dealt with. Japan's procrastination prolonged its crisis. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by appeasing critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions.To reveal, but not to regulateStandard-setters should defuse the argument by making clear that their job is not to regulate banks but to force them to reveal information. The banks, their capital-adequacy regulators and politicians seem to dream of a single, grown-up version of the truth, which enhances financial stability. Investors and accountants, however, think all valuations are subjective, doubt managers' motives and judge that market prices are the least-bad option. They are right. A bank's solvency is a matter of judgment for its regulators and for investors, not whatever a piece of paper signed by its auditors says it is. Accounts can inform that decision, but not make it.Banks' regulators have to take responsibility. If they want to remove the mechanical link between drops in market prices and capital shortfalls at banks, they should take the accounts that standard-setters create for investors and adjust them when they calculate capital. They already dothis to some degree. But the banks' campaign to change the rules is making inevitable a split between two sets of accounts, one for regulators and another for investors. The FASB and IASB can help regulators to create whatever balance-sheet they want. But in doing so they must not compromise their duty to investors.。

Digest Of The. Economist. 2006(6-7)欧阳光明（2021.03.07）Hard to digestA wealth of genetic information is to be found in the human gutBACTERIA, like people, can be divided into friend and foe. Inspired by evidence that the friendly sort may help with a range of ailments, many people consume bacteria in the form of yogurts and dietary supplements. Such a smattering of artificial additions, however, represents but a drop in the ocean. There are at least 800 types of bacteria living in the human gut. And research by Steven Gill of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland, and his colleagues, published in this week's Science, suggests that the collective genome of these organisms is so large that it contains 100 times as many genes as the human genome itself.Dr Gill and his team were able to come to this conclusion by extracting bacterial DNA from the faeces of two volunteers. Because of the complexity of the samples, they were not able to reconstruct the entire genomes of each of the gut bacteria, just the individual genes. But that allowed them to make an estimate of numbers.What all these bacteria are doing is tricky to identify—the bacteria themselves are difficult to cultivate. So the researchers guessed at what they might be up to by comparing the genes they discovered withpublished databases of genes whose functions are already known.This comparison helped Dr Gill identify for the first time the probable enzymatic processes by which bacteria help humans to digest the complex carbohydrates in plants. The bacteria also contain a plentiful supply of genes involved in the synthesis of chemicals essential to human life—including two B vitamins and certain essential amino acids—although the team merely showed that these metabolic pathways exist rather than proving that they are used. Nevertheless, the pathways they found leave humans looking more like ruminants: animals such as goats and sheep that use bacteria to break down otherwise indigestible matter in the plants they eat.The broader conclusion Dr Gill draws is that people are superorganisms whose metabolism represents an amalgamation of human and microbial attributes. The notion of a superorganism has emerged before, as researchers in other fields have come to view humans as having a diverse internal ecosystem. This, suggest some, will be crucial to the success of personalised medicine, as different people will have different responses to drugs, depending on their microbial flora. Accordingly, the next step, says Dr Gill, is to see how microbial populations vary between people of different ages, backgrounds and diets.Another area of research is the process by which these helpful bacteria first colonise the digestive tract. Babies acquire their gut flora asthey pass down the birth canal and take a gene-filled gulp of their mother's vaginal and faecal flora. It might not be the most delicious of first meals, but it could well be an important one.Zapping the bluesThe rebirth of electric-shock treatmentELECTRICITY has long been used to treat medical disorders. As early as the second century AD, Galen, a Greek physician, recommended the use of electric eels for treating headaches and facial pain. In the 1930s Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini, two Italian psychiatrists, used electroconvulsive therapy to treat schizophrenia. These days, such rigorous techniques are practised less widely. But researchers are still investigating how a gentler electric therapy appears to treat depression.Vagus-nerve stimulation, to give it its proper name, was originally developed to treat severe epilepsy. It requires a pacemaker-like device to be implanted in a patient's chest and wires from it threaded up to the vagus nerve on the left side of his neck. In the normal course of events, this provides an electrical pulse to the vagus nerve for 30 seconds every five minutes.This treatment does not always work, but in some cases where it failed (the number of epileptic seizures experienced by a patient remaining the same), that patient nevertheless reported feeling much better after receiving the implant. This secondary effect led to trials for treating depression and, in 2005, America's Food and DrugAdministration approved the therapy for depression that fails to respond to all conventional treatments, including drugs and psychotherapy.Not only does the treatment work, but its effects appear to be long lasting. A study led by Charles Conway of Saint Louis University in Missouri, and presented to a recent meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, has found that 70% of patients who are better after one year stay better after two years as well.The technique builds on a procedure called deep-brain stimulation, in which electrodes are implanted deep into the white matter of patients' brains and used to “reboot” f aulty neural circuitry. Such an operation is a big undertaking, requiring a full day of surgery and carrying a risk of the patient suffering a stroke. Only a small number of people have been treated this way. In contrast, the device that stimulates the vagus nerve can be implanted in 45 minutes without a stay in hospital.The trouble is that vagus-nerve stimulation can take a long time to produce its full beneficial effect. According to Dr Conway, scans taken using a technique called positron-emission tomography show significant changes in brain activity starting three months after treatment begins. The changes are similar to the improvements seen in patients who undergo other forms of antidepression treatment. The brain continues to change over the following 21 months. Dr Conway says that patients should be told that the antidepressant effects could be slow in coming.However, Richard Selway of King's College Hospital, London,found that his patients' moods improved just weeks after the implant. Although brain scans are useful in determining the longevity of the treatment, Mr Selway notes that visible changes in the brain do not necessarily correlate perfectly with changes in mood.Nobody knows why stimulating the vagus nerve improves the mood of depressed patients, but Mr Selway has a theory. He believes that the electrical stimulation causes a region in the brain stem called the locus caeruleus (Latin, ironically, for “blue place”) to flood the brain with norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter implicated in alertness, concentration and motivation—that is, the mood states missing in depressed patients. Whatever the mechanism, for the depressed a therapy that is relatively safe and long lasting is rare cause for cheer.The shape of things to comeHow tomorrow's nuclear power stations will differ from today's THE agency in charge of promoting nuclear power in America describes a new generation of reactors that will be “highly economical” with “enhanced safety”, that “minimise wastes” and will prove “proliferation resistant”. No doubt they will bake a mean apple pie, too.Unfortunately, in the world of nuclear energy, fine words are not enough. America got away lightly with its nuclear accident. When the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania overheated in 1979 very little radiation leaked, and there were no injuries. Europe was not so lucky. The accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 killed dozens immediatelyand has affected (sometimes fatally) the health of tens of thousands at the least. Even discounting the association of nuclear power with nuclear weaponry, people have good reason to be suspicious of claims that reactors are safe.Yet political interest in nuclear power is reviving across the world, thanks in part to concerns about global warming and energy security. Already, some 441 commercial reactors operate in 31 countries and provide 17% of the planet's electricity, according to America's Department of Energy. Until recently, the talk was of how to retire these reactors gracefully. Now it is of how to extend their lives. In addition, another 32 reactors are being built, mostly in India, China and their neighbours. These new power stations belong to what has been called the third generation of reactors, designs that have been informed by experience and that are considered by their creators to be advanced. But will these new stations really be safer than their predecessors?Clearly, modern designs need to be less accident prone. The most important feature of a safe design is that it “fails safe”. For a re actor, this means that if its control systems stop working it shuts down automatically, safely dissipates the heat produced by the reactions in its core, and stops both the fuel and the radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactions from escaping by keeping them within some sort of containment vessel. Reactors that follow such rules are called “passive”. Most modern designs are passive to some extent and some newer onesare truly so. However, some of the genuinely passive reactors are also likely to be more expensive to run.Nuclear energy is produced by atomic fission. A large atom (usually uranium or plutonium) breaks into two smaller ones, releasing energy and neutrons. The neutrons then trigger further break-ups. And so on. If this “chain reaction” can be controlled, the energy released can be used to boil water, produce steam and drive a turbine that generates electricity. If it runs away, the result is a meltdown and an accident (or, in extreme circumstances, a nuclear explosion—though circumstances are never that extreme in a reactor because the fuel is less fissile than the material in a bomb). In many new designs the neutrons, and thus the chain reaction, are kept under control by passing them through water to slow them down. (Slow neutrons trigger more break ups than fast ones.) This water is exposed to a pressure of about 150 atmospheres—a pressure that means it remains liquid even at high temperatures. When nuclear reactions warm the water, its density drops, and the neutrons passing through it are no longer slowed enough to trigger further reactions. That negative feedback stabilises the reaction rate.Can business be cool?Why a growing number of firms are taking global warming seriously RUPERT MURDOCH is no green activist. But in Pebble Beach later this summer, the annual gathering of executivesof Mr Murdoch's News Corporation—which last year led to a dramatic shift in the mediaconglomerate's attitude tothe internet—will be addressed by several leading environmentalists, including a vice-president turned climatechangemovie star. Last month BSkyB, a British satellite-television company chaired by Mr Murdoch and run by hisson, James, declared itself “carbon-neutral”, having taken various steps to cut or offset its discharges of carboninto the atmosphere.The army of corporate greens is growing fast. Late last year HSBC became the first big bank to announce that itwas carbon-neutral, joining other financial institutions, including Swiss Re, a reinsurer, and Goldman Sachs, aninvestment bank, in waging war on climate-warming gases (of which carbon dioxide is the main culprit). Last yearGeneral Electric (GE), an industrial powerhouse, launched its “Ecomagination” strategy, aiming to cut its output ofgreenhouse gases and to invest heavily in clean (ie, carbon-free) technologies. In October Wal-Mart announced aseries of environmental schemes, including doubling the fuel-efficiency of its fleet of vehicles within a decade.Tesco and Sainsbury, two of Britain's biggest retailers, are competing fiercely to be the greenest. And on June 7thsome leading British bosses lobbied Tony Blair for a more ambitious policy on climate change, even if that involvesharsher regulation.The greening of business is by no means universal, however. Money from Exxon Mobil, Ford and General Motorshelped pay for television advertisements aired recently in America by the CompetitiveEnterprise Institute, with thedaft slogan “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life”. Besides, environmentalist critics say, some firmsare eng aged in superficial “greenwash” to boost the image of essentially climate-hurting businesses. Take BP, themost prominent corporate advocate of action on climate change, with its “Beyond Petroleum” ad campaign, highprofileinvestments in green energy, andev en a “carbon calculator” on its website that helps consumers measuretheir personal “carbon footprint”, or overall emissions of carbon. Yet, critics complain, BP's recent record profits arelargely thanks to sales of huge amounts of carbon-packed oil and gas.On the other hand, some free-market thinkers see the support of firms for regulation of carbon as the latestattempt at “regulatory capture”, by those who stand to profit from new rules. Max Schulz of the ManhattanInstitute, a conservative think tank, not es darkly that “Enron was into pushing the idea of climate change, becauseit was good for its business”.Others argue that climate change has no more place in corporate boardrooms than do discussions of other partisanpolitical issues, such as Darfur or gay marriage. That criticism, at least, is surely wrong. Most of the corporateconverts say they are acting not out of some vague sense of social responsibility, or even personal angst, butbecause climate change creates real business risks and opportunities—from regulatory compliance to insuringclients on flood plains. And although theseconcerns vary hugely from one company to the next, few firms can besure of remaining unaffected.Testing timesResearchers are working on ways to reduce the need for animal experiments, but new laws mayincrease the number of experiments neededIN AN ideal world, people would not perform experiments on animals. For the people, they are expensive. For theanimals, they are stressful and often painful.That ideal world, sadly, is still some way away. People need new drugs and vaccines. They want protection fromthe toxicity of chemicals. The search for basic scientific answers goes on. Indeed, the European Commission isforging ahead with proposals that will increase the number of animal experiments carried out in the EuropeanUnion, by requiring toxicity tests on every chemical approved for use within the union's borders in the past 25years.Already, the commission has identified 140,000 chemicals that have not yet been tested. It wants 30,000 of theseto be examined right away, and plans to spend between €4 billion-8 billion ($5 billion-10 billion) doing so. Thenumber of animals used for toxicity testing in Europe will thus, experts reckon, quintuple from just over 1m a yearto about 5m, unless they are saved by some dramatic advances in non-animal testing technology. At the moment,roughly 10% of European animal tests are forgeneral toxicity, 35% for basic research, 45% for drugs andvaccines, and the remaining 10% a variety of uses such as diagnosing diseases.Animal experimentation will therefore be around for some time yet. But the hunt for substitutes continues, and lastweekend the Middle European Society for Alternative Methods to Animal Testing met in Linz, Austria, to reviewprogress.A good place to start finding alternatives for toxicity tests is the liver—the organ responsible for breaking toxicchemicals down into safer molecules that can then be excreted. Two firms, one large and one small, told themeeting how they were using human liver cells removed incidentally during surgery to test various substances forlong-term toxic effects.PrimeCyte, the small firm, grows its cells in cultures over a few weeks and doses them regularly with the substanceunder investigation. The characteristics of the cells are carefully monitored, to look for changes in theirmicroanatomy.Pfizer, the big firm, also doses its cultures regularly, but rather than studying individual cells in detail, it counts cellnumbers. If the number of cells in a culture changes after a sample is added, that suggests the chemical inquestion is bad for the liver.In principle, these techniques could be applied to any chemical. In practice, drugs (and, in the case of PrimeCyte,food supplements) are top of the list. But that might change if the commission has its way: those 140,000screenings look like a lucrative market, although nobody knowswhether the new tests will be ready for use by2009, when the commission proposes that testing should start.Other tissues, too, can be tested independently of animals. Epithelix, a small firm in Geneva, has developed anartificial version of the liningof the lungs. According to Huang Song, one of Epithelix's researchers, the firm'scultured cells have similar microanatomy to those found in natural lung linings, and respond in the same way tovarious chemical messengers. Dr Huang says that they could be used in long-term toxicity tests of airbornechemicals and could also help identify treatments for lung diseases.The immune system can be mimicked and tested, too. ProBioGen, a company based in Berlin, is developing anartificial human lymph node which, it reckons, could have prevented the near-disastrous consequences of a drugtrial held in Britain three months ago, in which (despite the drug having passed animal tests) six men sufferedmultiple organ failure and nearly died. The drug the men were given made their immune systems hyperactive.Such a response would, the firm's scientists reckon, have been identified by their lymph node, which is made fromcells that provoke the immune system into a response. ProBioGen's lymph node could thus work better than animaltesting.Another way of cutting the number of animal experiments would be tochange the way that vaccines are tested, according to CoenraadHendriksen of the Netherlands Vaccine Institute. At themoment, allbatches of vaccine are subject to the same battery of tests. DrHendriksen argues that this is over-rigorous. When new vaccine culturesare made, belt-and-braces tests obviously need to be applied. But if abatch of vaccine is derived from an existing culture, he suggests that itneed be tested only to make sure it is identical to the batch from which itis derived. That would require fewer test animals.All this suggests that though there is still some way to go before drugs,vaccines and other substances can be tested routinely on cells ratherthan live animals, useful progress is being made. What is harder to see ishow the use of animals might be banished from fundamental research.Anger managementTo one emotion, men are more sensitive than womenMEN are notoriously insensitive to the emotional world around them. At least, that is the stereotype peddled by athousand women's magazines. And a study by two researchers at the University of Melbourne, in Australia,confirms that men are, indeed, less sensitive to emotion than women, with one important and suggestiveexception. Men are acutely sensitive to the anger of other men.Mark Williams and Jason Mattingley, whose study has just been published in Current Biology, looked at the way aperson's sex affects his or her response to emotionally charged facial expressions. People from all cultures agreeon what six basic expressions of emotion look like. Whether the face before you is expressing anger, disgust, fear,joy,sadness or surprise seems to be recognised universally—which suggests that the expressions involved areinnate, rather than learned.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley showed the participants in their study photographs of these emotional expressions inmixed sets of either four or eight. They asked the participants to look for a particular sort of expression, andmeasured the amount of time it took them to find it. The researchers found, in agreement with previous studies,that both men and women identified angry expressions most quickly. But they also found that anger was morequickly identified on a male face than a female one.Moreover, most participants could find an angry face just as quickly when it was mixed in a group of eightphotographs as when it was part of a group of four. That was in stark contrast to the other five sorts of expression,which took more time to find when they had to be sorted from a larger group. This suggests that something in thebrain is attuned to picking out angry expressions, and that it is especially concerned about angry men. Also, thishighly tuned ability seems more important to males than females, since the two researchers found that men pickedout the angry expressions faster than women did, even though women were usually quicker than men to recognizeevery other sort of facial expression.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley suspect the reason for this is that being able to spot an angry individual quickly hasa survival advantage—and, since anger is more likely to turn into lethal violence in men than inwomen, the abilityto spot angry males quickly is particularly valuable.As to why men are more sensitive to anger than women, it is presumably because they are far more likely to getkilled by it. Most murders involve men killing other men—even today the context of homicide is usually aspontaneous dispute over status or sex.The ability to spot quickly that an alpha male is in a foul mood would thus have great survival value. It would allowthe sharp-witted time to choose appeasement, defence or possibly even pre-emptive attack. And, if it is right, thisstudy also confirms a lesson learned by generations of bar-room tough guys and schoolyard bullies: if you wantattention, get angry.The shareholders' revoltA turning point in relations between company owners and bosses?SOMETHING strange has been happening this year at company annual meetings in America:shareholders have been voting decisively against the recommendations of managers. Until now, mostshareholders have, like so many sheep, routinely voted in accordance with the advice of the people theyemploy to run the company. This year managers have already been defeated at some 32 companies,including household names such as Boeing, ExxonMobil and General Motors.This shareholders' revolt has focused entirely on one issue: the method by which members of the boardof directors are elected. Shareholder resolutions on other subjects have mostly been defeated, asusual.The successful resolutions called for directors to be elected by majority voting, instead of by thetraditional method of “plurality”—which in practice meant that only votes cast in favour were counted,and that a single vote for a candidate would be enough to get him elected.Several companies, led by Pfizer, a drug giant, saw defeat looming and pre-emptively adopted a formalmajority-voting policy that was weaker than in the shareholder resolution. This required any director whofailed to secure a majority of votes to tender his resignation to the board, which would then be free todecide whether or not to accept it. Under the shareholder resolution, any candidate failing to secure amajority of the votes cast simply would not be elected. Intriguingly, the shareholder resolution wasdefeated at four-fifths of the firms that adopted a Pfizer-style majority voting rule, whereas it succeedednearly nine times out of ten at firms retaining the plurality rule.Unfortunately for shareholders, their victories may prove illusory, as the successful resolutions were all“precatory”—meaning that they merely advised management on the course of action preferred byshareholders, but did not force managers to do anything. Several resolutions that tried to imposemajority voting on firms by changing their bylaws failed this year.Even so, wise managers should voluntarily adopt majority voting, according to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen &Katz, a Wall Street law firm that has generally helped managers resist increases in shareholder powerbutnow expects majority voting eventually to “become universal”. It advises that, at the very least,managers should adopt the Pfizer model, if only to avoid becoming the subject of even greater scrutinyfrom corporate-governance activists. Some firms might choose to go further, as Dell and Intel have donethis year, and adopt bylaws requiring majority voting.Shareholders may have been radicalised by the success last year of a lobbying effort by managersagainst a proposal from regulators to make it easier for shareholders to put up candidates in boardelections. It remains to be seen if they will be back for more in 2007. Certainly, some of the activistshareholders behind this year's resolutions have big plans. Where new voting rules are in place, they plancampaigns to vote out the chairman of the compensation committee at any firm that they think overpaysthe boss. If the 2006 annual meeting was unpleasant for managers, next year's could be far worse.Intangible opportunitiesCompanies are borrowing against their copyrights, trademarks and patentsNOT long ago, the value of companies resided mostly in things you could see and touch. Today it liesincreasingly in intangible assets such as the McDonald's name, the patent for Viagra and the rights toSpiderman. Baruch Lev, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, puts theimplied value of intangibles on Americancompanies' balance sheets at about $6 trillion, or two-thirds ofthe total. Much of this consists of intellectual property, the collective name for copyrights, trademarksand patents. Increasingly, companies and their clever bankers are using these assets to raise cash.The method of choice is securitisation, the issuing of bonds based on the various revenues thrown off byintellectual property. Late last month Dunkin' Brands, owner of Dunkin' Donuts, a snack-bar chain, raised$1.7 billion by selling bonds backed by, among other things, the royalties it will receive from itsfranchisees. The three private-equity firms that acquired Dunkin' Brands a few months ago have used thecash to repay the money they borrowed to buy the chain. This is the biggest intellectual-propertysecuritisation by far, says Jordan Yarett of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a law firm that hasworked on many such deals.Securitisations of intellectual property can be based on revenues from copyrights, trademarks (such aslogos) or patents. The best-known copyright deal was the issue in 1997 of $55m-worth of “Bowie Bonds”supported by the future sales of music by David Bowie, a British rock star. Bonds based on the films ofDreamWorks, Marvel comic books and the stories of John Steinbeck have also been sold. As well asDunkin' Brands, several restaurant chains and fashion firms have issued bonds backed by logos andbrands.Intellectual-property deals belong to a class known as operating-asset securitisations. These differ fromstandard securitisations of future revenues, such as bonds backed by the payments on a 30-yearmortgage or a car loan, in that the borrower has to make his asset work. If investors are to recoup theirmoney, the assets being securitised must be “actively exploited”, says Mr Yarett: DreamWorks mustcontinue to churn out box-office hits.The market for such securitisations is still small. Jay Eisbruck, of Moody's, a rating agency, reckons thataround $10 billion-worth of bonds are outs tanding. But there is “big potential,” he says, pointing out thatlicensing patented technology generates $100 billion a year and involves thousands of companies.Raising money this way can make sense not only for clever private-equity firms, but also for companieswith low (or no) credit ratings that cannot easily tap the capital markets or with few tangible assets ascollateral for bank loans. Some universities have joined in, too. Yale built a new medical complex withsome of the roughly $100m it raised securitising patent royalties from Zerit, an anti-HIV drug.It may be harder for investors to decide whether such deals are worth their while. They are, after all,highly complex and riskier than standard securitisations. The most obvious risk is that the investorscannot be sure that the assets will yield what borrowers promise: technology moves on, fashions changeand the demand for sugary snacks may collapse. Valuing intellectual property—an exercise based。

Business;Face value;商业；价值人物；Doctor or decorator?整改还是整容？Stéphane Richard, the new boss of France Telecom, wants to overhaul its strategy as well as its offices;法国电信新任CEO Stéphane Richard 准备大举革新经营战略，办公环境也待旧貌换新颜; When Stéphane Richard appeared recently in Paris Match, a celebrity and news magazine, lightly tanned in an open-necked shirt and leaning jauntily against the corporate logo of his new firm, France Telecom, he raised eyebrows in the buttoned-down world of French telecoms. Mr Richard did not attend the elite engineering school which produces almost all of France’s senior telecoms executives, including his predecessor at France Telecom, Didier Lombard, and the boss of Vivendi, a rival. Instead, he is a political operator who has made a fortune in property. He is a friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, and worked until recently as chief of staff to the finance minister. He became boss of France Telecom last month with the immediate task of responding to a wave of suicides among employees which had prompted a political outcry.最近，Stéphane Richard的照片登上了名人新闻杂志《巴黎竞赛画报》，他穿着敞领衬衫，肤色微黑，背靠着公司的标志，看起来很时尚，他新执掌的公司法国电信相当传统，这一举动也让全公司吃了一惊。

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。

考研英语外刊《经济学家》读译参考之五十六：新意－中国日益关注创新Something new新意(陈继龙编译)Aug 3rd 2006 | BEIJINGFrom The Economist print editionAFTER years of prospering as the world's workshop, China now wants to be its laboratory as well. “Innovation”has become a national buzzword[1], and Chinese leaders have been tossing it into their speeches since the beginning of the year, when President Hu Jintao started an ambitious campaign to drive China's economy further up the value chain. (1)True, new campaigns and catchphrases[2] are declared by the government and the Communist Party in China all the time, and mostly end up fizzling out[3] in puddles[4] of rhetoric. But there are signs that the government i_______①to back its innovation campaign with more than just words.中国作为“世界工场”，多年来发展蒸蒸日上，但现在它也希望成为“世界实验室”。

“创新”已经成为举国上下一个时髦词儿。

今年年初，胡锦涛主席启动了一项雄心勃勃的规划，旨在推动中国经济进一步与价值链接轨。

2020 《经济学⼈》学习整理2020.2.111. compromised cloud system 受损的云端系统2. Coronavirus: a pandemic in the making? ⼤规模的流⾏病（正在发⽣的流⾏病）3. impose quarantine4. scale back 缩⼩；减弱5. S&P 500 标准普尔500指数 （美国500家上司公司的股票指数）$US 30 道琼斯指数 （65家上司公司）6. white-listed ⽩名单7. impede 阻⽌；阻碍8. sedition 暴动；煽动性语⾔或⾏为9. detention 扣留；拘留10. push cases for witnesses to sth11. impeachment trial 弹劾审判12. a central plank 核⼼产业13. shore up ⽀持；加固；⽀撑14. food stamps ⾷品救济券15. a green light to sth 开绿灯 （have a green light 获批同意）16. annex vt./n. 附属；吞并17. embargo 禁令；禁⽌；禁运18. work havoc on sth 造成严重的破坏19. holocaust ⼤屠杀（纳粹）20. resurgent anti-semitism 复兴的反犹太主义21. populist 平民主义；平民论者22. Brexit Deal 英国脱欧协议23. drubbing n. 彻底击败24. absolve 宣告⽆罪；赦免25. allegation 陈述；主张26. interim 临时的27. abdomen 腹部；下腹28. hydroelectric ⽔利电⽓的 K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s3. to cap it all 更有甚者4. dock vi/n. 进⼊船坞 in the ～ 在受审5. maiden adj. ⾸次的；未婚的6. rebound 产⽣反作⽤7. moribund adj/n. 垂死的⼈；停滞不前的 ～ growth8. market capitalization 市值 9. plunge v/n. 陷⼊；投⼊；10. benchmark 标杆 ～ interest rate 基准利率11. quantitative easing 量化宽松 （⽇本以长期的低利率向市场投放⼤量货币）12. like-for-like 销售额；同⽐销售额13. generic adj. 通⽤的；⼀般的14. bar sb／sth from 阻⽌15. overhaul 彻底⼤修；检查 ～ the oversight （疏忽；失察）16. hate speech 仇恨⾔论17. bullish 乐观的；看涨的（股市）18. bail-out 保释；优先股给公司股东作为红利的⾏为 19. surge 汹涌；奔放；⬆20. step down 辞职21. lingerie ⼥⼠贴⾝内⾐(Victoria’s Secret)22. trafficker 商⼈；贩⼦23. lodestar 北极星；⽬标；指导⽅针24. administer ⽀配；管理；给予；执⾏25. recalibrate 重新校准25. Thatcherism 撒切尔主义（保守党内出现占统治地位的新右派）26. brew up 酿造27. the underpinning of sth 在...的基础上 underpin 加强… 的基础28. throw up 放弃；（匆忙）⽣产；呕吐29. ultra-liberal 极端⾃由的30. statist 中央集权主义31. parochial adj. 眼界狭⼩的；狭隘的32. sceptics 怀疑论者 K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y3. Beneath the … lies the discontent that springs from …4. cronyism 任⽤亲信；任⼈唯亲5. glossy adj. 光滑的（例如头发）；虚有其表的6. self-determination （民族）⾃决7. leach away from ／ steer away from 远离 leach 过滤8. bloc 集团 en ～ 总的来说9. exponentially 指数地 spread ～10. run away with 轻易获得11. upheaval 剧变；动乱 social ～／unrest12. put about 散布；使苦恼 put it about that13. take hold vi. 掌握；固定下来；掌控 + on sth14. recurrent adj. 经常发⽣的；复发性的15. lethal adj./n. 致命的（因⼦）16. palm civet 果⼦狸；狸猫 ferret badger 鼬獾17. wet market 传统市场／市集18. rudimentary 基本的19. seal off 封闭 （the city）20. draconian ⾮常严峻的／严厉的21. ripple through 涉及 ripple 波纹；起波痕22. international body 国际组织23. come off 表现 China’s politicians ~ less well.24. spawn vt. 酿成；造成；产卵25. play down 贬低；减少26. take substantial toll 造成实质性的伤害27. dent n./ vt. 凹痕；削弱 a noticeable ~ on global economy28. heavy-handed 迟钝的；严厉的29. crop up 突然出现30. buy time 争取时间31. mutate 突变；转变32. encroach（on）侵犯；逐渐遍布33. swine flu 猪流感34. gush vi. 滔滔不绝讲；喷涌35. shower vt. ⼤量给予K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y36. unveiling 公之于众的；揭露的37. hardliner 强硬派38. settlement building （以⾊列给犹太⼈设置的）定居点建筑39. whip up 煽动；激起40. perilous 危险的41. apartheid 种族隔离制度42. Oslo 挪威⾸都 奥斯陆 2020.2.191. imperil 危害；危机2. haughty 傲慢的3. grubby 肮脏的 ～ game4. suck up to 拍马屁5. enigmatic = secretive 神秘的6. wager vi. 打赌 + on7. JPMorgan Chase 摩根⼤通公司8. laggard 落后者（lag）9. predicament 困境10. full-service firm 提供全⽅位服务的公司11. MDB = Malaysia Development Bank12. tangible equity 有形资产13. consolation 宽慰；慰藉14. flailing 摇摇欲坠的 ～ banks15. macho culture 男性⽂化；⼤男⼦主义16. balance sheet 资产负债表17. matchmaking 牵线搭桥；做媒18. transgender adj./n. 变性的（⼈）19. dysphoria = depression 烦躁不安20. gender-reassignment surgery 变性⼿术21. sterility 不育；内容匮乏22. hysterectomy ⼦宫切除 hyster — womb / ectomy — cutting out23. reckless 鲁莽的；不顾后果的24. purport vt./n. 声称；意义；内涵25. unjustified 不正当的；未被证实其正确的25. smack 带有... 的味道；掌掴 fad 时尚；⼀时的狂热 smack of a fad 带有时尚的意味⼉26. solace 安慰（consolation）K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s熟词⽣义27. be sitting pretty 处境很好28. flex one’s muscle 秀肌⾁；展⽰实⼒（作为警告）29. caught／stuck between a rock and a hard place 左右为难30. take sth in your stride 从容处理31. on the rocks 加冰不加⽔ 32. a case of dog eat dog 残酷⽆情的竞争33. cold/ hard cash 现⾦（美式／英式）34. keep sb up 使某⼈熬夜；开夜车35. show sb／learn／know the ropes 像某⼈展⽰/学会/知道如何做某事36. attitude 姿势 in an ～ of prayer 以祈祷的姿势37. have a head for 擅长做38. a counsel of perfection 听上去完美去难以实施的建议39. the breathless excitement ⽆⽐兴奋40. learner’s permit 实习（驾驶）执照41. break the back of 完成任务最重要的部分42. get one’s head down 睡觉；保持低调43. a smoke-filled room 少数⼈密谋决策的密室44. short-change vt. 少找零钱；对... 不公平2020.2.201. denote 表⽰；指⽰（⽤符号）2. give substance to 把…具体化／实质化3. menace n. 威胁；恐吓4. adorn vt.装饰；使⽣⾊5. MPS Microprocessor System6. anti-intellectualism 反智主义 （对知识/知识分⼦的怀疑态度）7. catchphrase 醒⽬的⼴告⽤语；标语（政治中）8. plug the gap 填补空缺9. wind at one’s back 背后有动⼒10. landmine n. 地雷11. mismanage 对...管理不善12. medicalization 药物治疗13. nominal adj. 名义上的14. leisure firms 娱乐公司K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s15. opiate adj. 鸦⽚的；安眠的；vt. 使缓和16. MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging 核磁共振成像 17. acronym ⾸字母缩略词18. hard-nosed adj. 顽固的；不屈不挠的；不讲情⾯的19. blunder vi./n. 犯错误 20. foul n. 犯规；缠绕；adv.不正当地21. sharpen one’s pencil 审价削减22. spat n.⼜⾓；击掌；vi. 争吵23. commend vt. 推荐；称赞；表扬24. trenchant adj. 简明的；锐利的25. faeces n.粪便26. threshold n. 门槛；开始 on the ～ of 在...的开始27. pus 脓 28. yuck n. 讨厌的东西 熟词⽣义29. play it cool 故意装作⽆所谓30. play hardball 采取强硬⽅式31. play for time 故意拖延时间32. pit your wits against sth 与... ⽃智 33. take it／things one day at a time 得过且过；做⼀天和尚撞⼀天钟34. make like 装出…的样⼦35. above oneself 狂妄⾃⼤36. dead to the world 熟睡37. shake in your shoes ⾮常害怕；胆战⼼惊38. false alarm 假警报；虚惊39. cut corners 做事⾛捷径40. under the gun 承受很⼤的压⼒41. show sb the door 下逐客令42. loaded ⾮常富有的43. go through the roof 价格飞涨44. as good as gold ⾮常乖；规规矩矩45. chicken out of sth／of doing sth 因为害怕⽽放弃；临阵退缩K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s2020.2.211. malignant 恶性的；致命的2. contend 为… 做⽃争3. edible adj./n. 可吃的；⾷品4. discern 辨别；了解5. segregate 隔离；使分开6. from all quarters 来⾃四⾯⼋⽅；彼此呼应7. allege 宣布；声称8. intimation 暗⽰ ～ email9. chorister 唱诗班男童 10. unaccompanied treble ⽆伴奏的三重唱11. in keeping with 按照12. chapel 礼堂13. hit-and-miss ⽋考虑的；时好时坏的14. be up to the mark 合乎标准15. secretariat 秘书处16. have the presence (of mind) to do sth 有决⼼做某事17. referendum n. 公平投票表决18. once-in-a-generation opportunity 千载难逢的机会19. at loggerheads with 与...发⽣争执 loggerhead 傻⼦20. retaliate 报复21. punitive adj. 惩罚性的22. crooning n. 低唱23. in poor shape 状态不好24. Suez crisis 第⼆次中东战争 （以、英、法先后攻打埃及，夺取苏伊⼠运河，被美、苏联、联合国击退）25. tug 拖；拽26. lopsided adj. 不平衡的；倾向⼀⽅的27. quip n/v. 嘲讽28. fret n. 苦恼29. proponent n. 提倡者30. wield influence on ⾏使作⽤31. a pretty pass 困境32. fraternal 兄弟的33. kindred 同类的34. play Athen’s to America’s Rome 英国之于美国 = 雅典之于罗马35. play out 结束；破产K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s36. valedictory adj. 告别的37. fraught adj. 充满的；担忧的38. chummy 合得来的39. smite 打到；神魂颠倒的40. as much as anything else 同样重要的是41. tandem adv.协同地； n. 双⼈⾃⾏车42. come to the fore 崭露头⾓43. defray ⽀付 44. arsenal 军⽕库45. formulation 公式；阐述2020.2.231. inflammation 炎症2. thyroid function 甲状腺功能3. phytoestrogen/ˌfa ɪto’ɛstrəd ʒən/ 植物雌激素4. pigmentation n. 染⾊,着⾊,⾊素沉着5. pasteurized (⽜奶等)巴⽒消毒的6. be tasked with 被指派去做7. haemolymph (⽆脊椎动物的)⾎淋巴8. vein n.⾎管；岩脉；纹理；[动]翅脉；[植]叶脉；性情9. pike n. (昔⽇⼠兵⽤的)⽭; 梭鱼, 狗鱼10. thunk n. 铮;铛,锵 —— 拟声词11. limbo n. 监狱；[宗]地狱的边境；放置丢弃物的场所；处于中间的或不定的状态12. roam v/n. 漫游；漫步13. tampon 卫⽣棉塞14. weighty 重⼤的；严重的15. exchequer n. (英国)财政部16. riposte n. 机敏的回答17. proxy n. 代表权；代理权；代理⼈18. regulatory divergence 监管分歧19. compliance check 依法检查；⼀致性检查20. codify vt. 把… 编成法典21. snarl up 使纠缠22. nimbly 敏捷地；机敏地23. derivate 衍⽣物24. finetech 制造技术K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s25. mutagenesis 突变形成26. de facto ban 实际上存在的禁令27. fiddle with 玩弄；摆弄28. take a stance on 表明⽴场29. rile 使恼怒30. the green movement 绿⾊运动31. toe 触碰 32. seamless adj. ⽆缝合线的；⽆缝的；⽆伤痕的2020.2.27 1. a strong card 有势⼒的⼈2. pesky 烦⼈的；讨⼈厌的3. predate 提早⽇期；居先；捕猎4. entail 使…成为必要5. litigation 打官司；诉讼6. unfetter 释放；使⾃由7. polarisation 极化；分化8. trade away 卖掉9. castrate 阉割；删掉重要部分10. paucity 少量；不⾜2020.2.281. now-defunct adj. 现已停业的2. incumbent 在职的；义不容辞的3. emphatic 加强语⽓的；着重的4. abstain 放弃；避免5. xenophobic 恐惧外国⼈的6. intercom 对讲机；内置通话装置7. mafia ⿊⼿党8. invincibility ⽆敌；绝对不败9. dismal 凄凉的；抑郁的10. disarray ⽆秩序；杂乱11. all the more so 更是如此12. in coalition with 与...联盟13. stopgap 临时代替者；临时应急措施K a n g k a n g ’s D a i l y P r og r e s s14. The lower house 下议院15. assort 交往，协调；把…分级16. compact 合同；紧凑的17. a wild card ⾏为不可测的⼈18. sit tight 挺直坐着,固执⼰见；潜伏着19. hyperactive 极度活跃的 20. publicity-hungry 喜爱曝光的21. not to be sneezed at 值得认真对待；不可轻视22. put your shoulder to the wheel 着⼿⼤⼲起来；全⼒以赴23. pull your wight 尽本分；尽职责24. wear the pants 起指挥的作⽤25. hit-and-run 突袭后迅速撤离26. take the cake／biscuit 空前惊⼈；极其讨厌27. cute as the dickens 可爱极了28. strike it rich 发⼤财29. You throw a peach to me, I give you a white jade for friendship 投我以⽊桃，报之以琼瑶30. high-flown 浮夸的；故弄⽞虚的31. look to your laurels ⼩⼼翼翼地保持成就／优势32. put out feelers 试探33. driven 发奋图强的34. snowbird 到温暖地区过冬的⼈35. five o’clock shadow 早上刮脸下午又长胡渣⼉？？？36. half-and-half 咖啡伴侣；两种事物各半的37. keep open house 好客 keep a good house 待客周到38. a firm hand 铁腕；严格纪律39. pant for／after sb／sth 渴望40. Next to them I feel like a fraud. 与他们相⽐，我感觉⾃⼰是滥竽充数。

TEXT 41The bane of Italy祸起意大利（陈继龙编译）Jun 29th 2006From The Economist print editionALEXANDER STILLE'S new book on Silvio Berlusconi, the flamboyant[1] former I talian prime minister, is neither a b________① nor a work of investigative journalism. Its real value is that it represents the firstattempt,in English at least, to recount in a readable fashion the story, not of Mr Berlusconi himself, but ofBerlusconi-ism.（1）That gives it a wide appeal, for, as its author argues persuasively, Berlusconi-ism is the extrapolation[2] to grotesque[3] extremes of a phenomenon that has gradually, and all too imperceptibly, become widespread.亚历山大·斯蒂莱的新作写的是个性张扬的意大利前任总理西尔维奥·贝鲁斯科尼，但它并非是一本传记，也不是新闻调查作品。

其真正的价值在于，它首次尝试以一种可读性较强的风格，记述了“贝鲁斯科尼主义”而不是贝鲁斯科尼的生平。

这也是本书独具魅力之所在，因为诚如作者很有说服力地论证的那样，“贝鲁斯科尼主义”是对某种现象怪诞至极时的推论，这种现象日趋普遍而所有人却都浑然不觉。

House of Cards纸牌屋The mounting case for MPs to abandon Westminster议员们正被要求撤离威斯敏斯特宫OBSERVE the Palace of Westminster on a rainynight, and you may see lights strangely flickering in its 1,100 rooms. Leaks not caught bybuckets interfere with mice-gnawed cables crammed into Victorian holes. But the damp anddrips have one advantage: they temporarily curb the risk of fires in the many bits of thiscreaking, neo-Gothic edifice that are not protected by sprinklers.雨夜里的威斯敏斯特宫，怪异的灯光充斥着1100间房屋。

满是老鼠啮痕的绳子捆绑着的水桶，并未接住渗入的雨水，任其流进威斯敏斯特宫中的维多利亚时期的孔洞。

但这潮湿的环境和渗入的雨滴却有一优势：在这种老式房屋中可暂时抑制火灾发生的可能，而带有自动喷水灭火装置的新哥特式建筑却并未有此般防护性能。

The palace is in a bad way. In a speech on March 2nd John Bercow, the Speaker of the House ofCommons, argued that it is decaying faster than it is being repaired. He claimed that fixingParliament could cost some 3 billion. It came to only about a third more to build a new terminal at Heathrow Airport.威斯敏斯特宫的状况很不好。

Immigration law移民法Our town我们的城镇A small city passes a controversial immigration ordinance內布拉斯加小镇通过了一项有争议的移民法令SOME of the earliest settlers of Nebraska were Germans. During the first world war the state forbade any teaching in their native language. But that was long ago. These days, just outside the tidy little city of Fremont, a new batch of residents is trying to settle in. The Regency II trailer park houses immigrants, mostly from Mexico. Many of the trailers are just flimsy boxes. Others are painted brightly, or sport day lilies on a small lawn. One house has an American flag beside it. And on June 21st the Regency displayed a white sign at its entrance with the message: “V ote No”.内布拉斯加州最早的定居者中有一些是德国人。

在第一次世界大战期间，该州曾禁止德裔居民用母语教学。

但这是很久以前的事了。

这些天来，就在整洁的弗里蒙特小镇外围，一批新的居民正试着安顿新家。

Regency II拖车场的居民都是移民，多数来自墨西哥。