The Economist magazine bilingual reading summary

2009 年经济学人杂志双语阅读连载汇总 大家网[www.topsage.com]考研论坛整理更新至 8 月份 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Consumer spending in Asia：Shopaholics wanted...............................3 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Return of the grave-dancers 坟墓舞者又回来了 .................................7 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Muffled signals 模糊的信号...............................................................10 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Fatalism v fetishism 宿命论 VS 进口至上说 ....................................12 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Dismal science 沉闷的科学 ...............................................................16 经济学人杂志双语阅读：The regulatory rumble begins 大张旗鼓的金融监管改革开始了.....18 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Eggs and baskets 鸡蛋和篮子 ............................................................23 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Wide girls 诈欺女...............................................................................25 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Microfinance 微型金融 ......................................................................27 经济学人杂志双语阅读：A conqueror, not an end-user 是征服者，而不是最终用户..............30 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Language problems 都是文字惹的祸 ................................................32 经济学人杂志双语阅读：No thanks, Geneva 日内瓦，盛情被却 .............................................34 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Charlemagne: Lonely at the top：高处不胜寒 ..................................37 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Out of sight, out of mind 眼不见，心不烦 ........................................40 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Battery Farm 笼架式的养鸡场...........................................................44 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Blooms in the bust 百花怒放..............................................................47 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Still in the soup 犹陷困境...................................................................49 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Motor ways and wherefores 公路及其来龙去脉 ...............................51 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Mr Nepal lucks out 内帕尔侥幸成功.................................................53 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Chasing ghosts 追逐战争幽灵............................................................54 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Some are on their own 自力更生........................................................58 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Old problems in the new south 苏丹南部的老问题...........................60 经济学人杂志双语阅读：A merry dance 愉快的舞蹈 ................................................................63 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Prudence can win 谨慎为上 ...............................................................64 经济学人杂志双语阅读：In need of some snake-blood 蛇血之渴..............................................66 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Back to the future?回归未来？ ..........................................................68 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Not by aircraft alone 并不仅仅依赖航空业.......................................70 经济学人杂志双语阅读：New York's new casino 纽约市新的赌场...........................................73 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Tough enough?够不够强硬？............................................................74 经济学人杂志双语阅读：大不列颠哥伦比亚沦为南美哥伦比亚？.........................................78 经济学人杂志双语阅读：California's budget crisis 加州预算危机............................................79 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Milestones 里程碑 ..............................................................................82 经济学人杂志双语阅读：The last judgment 最后的审判...........................................................86 经济学人杂志双语阅读：It is far from over 远未结束 ...............................................................90 经济学人杂志双语阅读：It may make life easier and cheaper 生活简捷，物价低廉 ...............93 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Regrettable facts 遗憾的事实.............................................................95 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Good game?游戏有益？ ....................................................................98

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Ding dong! Empowerment calling 叮咚！灌能在召唤 ...................100 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Muck, brass and spleen 污泥、黄铜还有怨气 ................................104 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Reading between the lines 杂志业：字里行间地读........................105 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Tough enough?够不够强硬？..........................................................108 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Unlocking the cloud 解开“云锁”......................................................112 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Still in the soup 犹陷困境.................................................................114 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Bauxite bashers 铝土矿盛怒者 ........................................................116 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Dismal science 沉闷的科学 .............................................................119 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Scuttlebutt 谣言 ................................................................................121 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Bash for help 猛击求生 ....................................................................123 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Connecting Up 网络情缘 .................................................................125 经济学人杂志双语阅读：The United States of Entrepreneurs 创业家合众国..........................127 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Asia, An astonishing rebound 亚洲，惊人的反弹...........................135 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Taiwan's disastrous typhoon 毁灭性台风袭击台湾.........................139 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Overseas and under siege 困居海外.................................................140 经济学人杂志双语阅读：No way to start out in life 何去何从.................................................144 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Separated brothers 分离的兄弟........................................................147 经济学人杂志双语阅读：The decline of the English divorce 英国离婚衰退曲.......................150 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Raising Alabama 阿拉巴马，竿头日进...........................................153 经济学人杂志双语阅读：A mountain of trouble 是非之地 ......................................................154 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Iceland and the European Union 冰岛与欧盟 ..................................158 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Virtual worlds for children 孩子们的虚拟世界 ...............................159 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Towers of debt 债“塔”高筑 ..............................................................161 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Rise of the machines 机器为王 ........................................................165 经济学人杂志双语阅读：A souring relationship 不断恶化的关系 ..........................................168 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Mervyn's reality check 马尔文审视现状 .........................................170 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Zarema's end 萨利玛之死.................................................................174 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Keeping a grip 保持抓地力..............................................................176 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Pigheaded policies 针对猪的政策....................................................178 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Spies in the sky 空中间谍.................................................................181

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Consumer spending in Asia：Shopaholics wanted Consumer spending in Asia 亚洲消费状况 Shopaholics wanted 购物狂时代该来了？ Jun 25th 2009 | HONG KONG From The Economist print edition Can Asians replace Americans as a driver of global growth? 亚洲人能够代替美国人做全球经济的发动机吗？ ASIA'S emerging economies are bouncing back much more strongly than any others. While America's industrial production continued to slide in May, output in emerging Asia has regained its pre-crisis level (see chart 1). This is largely due to China; but although production in the region's smaller economies is still well down on a year ago, it is rebounding in those countries too. Taiwan's industrial output rose by an annualised 80% in the three months to May compared with the previous three months. JPMorgan estimates that emerging Asia's GDP has grown by an annualised 7% in the second quarter. 时下亚洲新兴经济体们的恢复势头比其他任何国家都要迅猛。在美国工业生产继续下滑的 5 月，亚洲新兴 国家的产出已经回到了它们危机前的水平(见表一)。这很大程度上要归功于中国，此外尽管该地区较小经 济体的生产比去年仍有所下降，但最近这些国家也在渐渐恢复。台湾截至 5 月的工业产出年度化增长较前 三个月上升了 80%。摩根大通预计二季度亚洲新兴经济体年度化增长率将达到 7%。 Asia's ability to decouple from America reflects the fact that the region's downturn was caused only partly by the slump in American activity. In most Asian economies falling domestic demand was more important than the drop in net exports in explaining the collapse in GDP growth. The surge in food and energy prices in the first half of

2008 squeezed profits and spending power. Tighter monetary policy aimed at curbing inflation then further choked domestic demand. 亚洲与美国脱钩的能力说明该地区经济下滑只是部分由于美国经济活动的影响。大多数亚洲经济体内需下 降要比净出口下降对经济影响更大，这就解释了 GDP 增长率暴跌的原因。2008 年上半年食品和能源价格 的暴涨让利润和消费能力双双缩减。从紧的货币政策旨在遏制通胀却进一步使得内需受到抑制。 The recent recovery in industrial production reflects the end of destocking by manufacturers as well as the large fiscal stimulus by most governments. But the boost from both of these factors will fade. Meanwhile, export markets in developed economies are likely to remain weak. So the recovery in Asian economies will stumble unless domestic spending, notably consumption, perks up. 近期工业生产的回复显示制造商产品积压的状况正在结束，同时多国政府大规模经济刺激计划也已起效。 但是这些原因造成的增长终会消失，同时面向发达经济体的出口市场看上去依旧疲软。因此除非让内需， 尤其是让消费振作起来，否则亚洲经济体的回复之路依旧前途坎坷。 Consumers' appetite to spend varies hugely across the region. In China, India and Indonesia spending has increased by annual rates of more than 5% during the global downturn. China's retail sales have soared by 15% over the past year. This overstates the true growth rate because it includes government purchases, but official household surveys suggest that real spending is growing at a still-impressive rate of 9%. In the year to May, sales of household electronics were up by 12%, clothing by 22% and cars by a stunning 47%. 消费者消费的胃口在这一地区有着巨大的差异性。中国、印度和印尼在全球经济下滑期间消费额年度化增 长率超过了 5%。中国的零售销售额去年暴增了 15%,但这个数字是被夸大的,因为它包括了政府采购的花销, 但是官方的家庭调查显示真实的消费增长率依然达到了令人印象深刻的 9%。今年截至五月，家用电器销售 增长 12%，服装销售增长 22%而汽车销售增长则达到了惊人的 47%。 Elsewhere in the region, spending has stumbled, squeezed by higher unemployment and lower wages. In Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea real consumer spending was 4-5% lower in the first quarter than a year earlier, a much bigger drop than in America. But Frederic Neumann, an economist at HSBC, sees tentative signs that spending is picking up. Taiwan's retail sales rose in May for the third consecutive month. Department-store sales in South Korea rose by 5% in the year to May. 该地区其它地方由于受增高的失业率和工资水平下降的影响，消费增长步履蹒跚。香港、新加坡和韩国一 季度真实消费较去年下降了 4-5%，这比美国的情况还要糟糕。但是汇丰银行的经济学家弗雷德里希-纽曼 认为，当下消费止跌上升的趋势已初露端倪。台湾的零售业销售额到五月为止已连续 3 月上升。韩国百货 商场销售额到五月为止也上升了 5%。 It is often argued that emerging Asian economies have large current-account surpluses-and are thus not pulling their fair weight in the world-because consumers like to save rather than spend. Yet this does not really fit the facts. During the past five years consumer spending in emerging Asia has grown by an annual average of 6.5%, much faster than in any other part of the world. It is true that consumption has fallen as a share of GDP, but that is because investment and exports have grown even faster, not because spending has been weak. Relative to American consumer spending, Asian consumption has soared (see chart 2).

人们通常认为新兴亚洲经济体有着大量的国际收支经常项目顺差，而这却并不能使它们在世界贸易中占有 应有的比重，因为亚洲的消费者倾向储蓄多过消费。但这却并不真正符合事实，在过去五年中崛起的亚洲 国家消费年均增长率达到了 6.5%，这要比世界上任何其他地区都要快。消费占 GDP 比重确实下降了，但 这并不表明消费减弱，而是因为投资和出口增长的更快。与美国消费相比，亚洲消费是暴增了。 (见表二) In most Asian economies, private consumption is 50-60% of GDP, which is not out of line with rates in countries at similar levels of income elsewhere. China, however, is an exception. Private consumption there fell from 46% of GDP in 2000 to only 35% last year-half that in America. In dollar terms, spending is only one-sixth of that in America. (Singapore's consumption is also low, at just under 40% of GDP.) 在大多数亚洲经济体中，个人消费占 GDP 的 50-60%，这个数字并不比收入水平相同的其他任何地方低。 然而中国是个例外。个人消费占 GDP 从 2000 年的 46%下降到了去年的 35%，这个数字才是美国的一半。 以美元结算的话，消费只有美国的六分之一。(新加坡的消费也很低，不足 GDP 的 40%) This explains why China's government has recently taken bolder action than others to boost consumption. Over the past six months the government in Beijing has introduced a host of incentives to encourage households to open their wallets. Rural residents get subsidies for buying vehicles and other goods such as televisions, refrigerators, computers and mobile phones; urban residents get a subsidy if they trade in cars and home appliances for new goods; tax rates on low-emission cars have also been cut. There is huge potential for higher consumption in the countryside as incomes rise: only 30% of rural households have a refrigerator, for example, compared with virtually all urban households. 这也解释了中国政府为何最近比任何国家都大力促进消费。在过去 6 个月中北京政府颁布一揽子激励政策 来鼓励家庭打开他们的钱包。农村居民得到了购买车辆和电视、冰箱、电脑以及手机等商品的政策倾斜； 城市居民则得到了购买汽车和家电换新方面的政策倾斜；小排量汽车的税率也被下调。随着农村收入增加， 消费上升有着巨大潜力：与城市家庭近乎每家一台相比，只有 30%的农村家庭拥有电冰箱。 The government has also introduced several measures this year to improve the social safety net, such as spending more on health care, pensions and payments to low-income households. On June 19th it ordered all state-owned firms that had listed on the stockmarket since 2005 to transfer 10% of their shares to the National Social Security

Fund to shore up its assets. The short-term impact is likely to be modest but if such measures ease households' worries about future pensions and health care, it could in the long term encourage them to save less and spend more. 政府也在今年颁布了几项举措改善社保网络，比如对医疗卫生领域加大投入、向低收入家庭发放养老金和 收入补助。6 月 19 日还命令 2005 年以来的国有上市公司向国家社保基金转让 10%的股份，以稳固后者资 产。虽然看起来短期效果有限，但是如果这一系列举措能够缓解家庭对未来养老金和医疗问题的担忧，长 远的看还是能鼓励人们存得更少花得更多的。 Another way to boost consumption is to make it easier to borrow. In most Asian economies household debt is less than 50% of GDP, compared with around 100% in many developed economies; in China and India it is less than 15%. South Korea is the big exception: households have as much debt relative to their income as Americans and their saving rate has fallen over the past decade from 18% of disposable income to only 4%. In many other Asian economies financing for consumer durables is virtually nonexistent. Promisingly, the Chinese bank regulator announced draft rules in May to allow domestic and foreign institutions to set up consumer-finance firms to offer personal loans for consumer-goods purchases. 另一个刺激消费的方法是让借贷更容易。多数亚洲国家家庭借贷不足 GDP 的 50%，与此对比发达经济体这 个数字在 100%左右；在中国和印度则更是少于 15%。韩国却是个特例：与美国一样，家庭举债和他们收 入一样多，储蓄率也已经在过去十年中从可支配收入的 18%下降到了只有 4%。在其他亚洲经济体中面向 耐用消费品的金融服务事实上是不存在的。幸运的是，中国银监机构已经在 5 月宣布了一些规则草案，允 许中外机构建立消费金融公司为消费者购买商品提供个人贷款。 These measures are a modest step in the right direction. But a bigger test of Asian governments' resolve to shift the balance of growth from exports towards domestic spending is whether they will allow their exchange rates to rise. A revaluation would lift consumers' real purchasing power and give firms reason to shift resources towards producing for the domestic market. But so far, policymakers have been reluctant to let currencies rise too fast. 这些措施只不过是正确方向上有限的一小步。但亚洲各国政府想要将增长平衡由出口向内需转变的更大实 验能否成功将取决于它们是否允许本国货币汇率上升。这种再估价将会提升消费者的实际消费能力，并让 企业有理由转移资源为国内市场生产商品。但迄今为止，政策制定者们都不情愿让货币升值太快。 Asian spending is already an important engine of global growth. Even before the crisis, emerging Asia's consumer spending contributed slightly more (in absolute dollar terms) to the growth in global demand than did America's. But it could be even bigger if Asians enjoyed the full fruits of their hard labour, rather than subsidising Western consumers through undervalued currencies. It is time for an even greater shift in spending power from the West to the East. 亚洲的消费已经是世界经济增长的重要引擎。甚至在危机之前，亚洲新兴经济体的消费者对全球经济增长 的贡献也要比美国消费者稍大一点点(在完全以美元作为结算单位的前提下)。而如果亚洲人能够充分享用 他们辛勤劳动的果实，而不是通过低估本国货币补贴西方消费者的话，这种作用将会更明显。现在是将消 费能力从西向东做更大转移的时候了。

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Return of the grave-dancers 坟墓舞者又回来了 Banks and private equity 银行和私人股本 Return of the grave-dancers 扫墓舞者又回来了 Jun 4th 2009 | NEW YORK From The Economist print edition Buy-out firms chafe under ownership restrictions, but pile in nonetheless 尽管被严格的所有权监管挫伤，但是投标人还是有一大堆 PRIVATE equity has been bitten once, but it doesn't do shy. Though some of its better-known names were left scarred after investing too early in troubled banks and thrifts-remember TPG's disastrous foray into Washington Mutual-buy-out shops are lining up for a second shot at finance as confidence picks up again. 私人股本已经上过一回当了，但是他们并不为此感到害羞。尽管他们中已经对过早投资那些问题银行和存 款机构而留下了可怕的名声-记得摩根大通对华互银行损失惨重的收购-但是现在当对金融市场重拾信心 后，第二轮的收购者们又排成了队。 For much of 2008 dealmaking was dead. But since the sale of IndyMac, a collapsed Californian lender, to a group of private buyers in January, “the logjam has broken”, says Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School. In recent weeks Blackstone, Fortress, Carlyle, Wilbur Ross and others have bought stakes in banks, among them Florida's First Southern and BankUnited, the state's largest home-grown lender. Several other deals are said to be in the works, including the possible sale of Atlanta-based Silverton Bank, seized by regulators in May, to a group that includes Carlyle. Bidding wars are even breaking out. 2008 年很多收购几乎停滞。但自从 1 月份私人买家团体对加州一个名为 IndyMac 的破产贷款公司的收购“打 破了僵局”，哈佛商学院的乔希.勒纳如是说。最近几周，黑石公司、要塞公司、凯雷集团、威尔伯•罗斯等 都在购买银行的股权，其中有佛罗里州最大的贷款机构，第一南方联合银行。还有几个收购案据说也在进 行中，包括亚特兰大的希尔佛顿银行，其在五月被监管机构责令停业，买方包括了凯雷集团。竞标的战争 甚至都要爆发了。 Private equity has piles of unallocated capital, although it has become much more difficult to wrest undrawn funds from investors. It also has a lot more raw material to work with, as the pace of bank failures accelerates (see chart). Hundreds of lenders will need help to survive but most large banks are too capital-constrained to step in. Those that have raised fresh equity, such as JPMorgan Chase, will use it to repay taxpayers. 尽管它越来越难从投资者那里获得那些不打算取回的资金，私人股本仍然怀揣大量无处可投的资金。随着 银行破产步伐的加快，他会有更多的原材料可以利用。数以百计的贷款机构需要帮助来存活，但是多数大 银行对准入资本的限制太严格。那些获得注资的，如摩根大通，将会用它来偿还纳税人。

Hence the focus on private equity. The favoured strategy is to snap up a small bank, healthy or not, and turn it into a vehicle to scoop up failed local rivals. John Kanas, a veteran banker charged with reviving BankUnited, sees in it the foundation of a regional powerhouse. The Florida market is particularly attractive, he says, as many competitors there are shackled by regulatory or government restrictions. 因此焦点放到了私人股本。有利的战略是抢购一个小银行，不管健康与否，然后用它做媒介来铲平那些失 败的当地对手。约翰.喀纳斯，一个资深银行家，担任银行联盟的复苏，将它看作是地区经济动力的基础。 佛罗里达州的市场非常吸引人，他说，这里很多竞争者都被政府监管或限制所桎梏。 Investing is still risky. Smaller banks are riddled with commercial-property loans, which are going bad at an alarming rate. American banks' loan-loss reserves are falling ever further behind actual losses and now cover just 70% of the total, according to Moody's, a rating agency. But buyers are growing cannier, pouncing only once a bank has been seized and insisting the government shoulders much of the downside in loss-sharing agreements. 投资依然是有风险的。小型银行饱受商业物业贷款之苦，这些贷款正在以惊人的速度变为坏账。根据评级 机构穆迪的统计，美国银行的坏账准备只是涵盖了全部损失的 70%，远低于实际损失。 The bigger problem for buy-out firms is posed by long-standing restrictions on bank takeovers by non-financial firms. Those unwilling to become bank-holding companies, with the extra regulation that entails, have to make do with a maximum stake of 33% (and voting rights of less than half that). Acquisitions are thus only possible via “club”deals, in which several buyers band together and regulators police the arrangement to ensure they are not acting in concert thereafter. 对于收购方更大的问题是，对非金融机构接管银行长期存在的限制。那些不愿意成为持股银行的公司(为此 将接受额外的监管)将最多只能得到 33%的股权(且投票权则不能超过股权的一半)。因此，将只有可能通过 “俱乐部式并购”实现，即几个买家捆绑在一起，监管者将监督整个安排以确保他们没有幕后交易。 Alternatively, investors can use their personal wealth to buy entire banks. Christopher Flowers, a specialist in bank buy-outs, did just that, splashing out on a small Missouri lender and rebranding it Flowers Bank. But these solo buyers are barred from tapping their firms' funds for expansion, greatly limiting the appeal of such moves. 另一种方法是，投资者们可以用其私人财富来买下整个银行。克里斯托弗.弗拉沃，银行并购的专家，就是 这样做的，买下一个小贷款机构，并重整品牌为弗莱沃银行。但是这些个人买家被禁止用他们公司的资金 来进行扩张，这极大地限制了这种方式的吸引力。 As the crisis has rumbled on, regulators have reluctantly ceded some ground to the barbarians at the banks' gates. They can now, for instance, appoint more directors without this being deemed to constitute control. Clubs of investors are being pre-cleared so they can pick up bank charters quickly when opportunities arise. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates nationally chartered banks, has even developed a “shelf charter”, which such groups can secure in advance of deals. It has already handed out two. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which handles failed banks and is expected to release new guidelines on private-equity investment soon, has also softened its stance. Sheila Bair, its chairman, believes buy-out firms should be considered eligible bidders if they show they can run a bank prudently and are “good corporate citizens”.

随着金融危机的车轮继续滚滚向前，监管者也不情愿地将通往银行大门前的土地割让给所谓的野蛮人。例 如他们现在可以任命更多的董事而不为视为是机构控制。投资者团体可以被事先审查，这样当机会出现时， 他们可以迅速获得银行执照。负责监管全国性银行的货币监理署官员甚至发明出了“执照货架”，这些团体 可以确保是交易安全的。他们已经递出了两个。负责解决破产银行的联邦存款保险公司，也放低了姿态， 他们可能会在近期出台对私人股本投资的新指导方针。主席希拉.拜尔相信如果收购者能够证明他们可以审 慎地经营银行，并且是好的企业公民的话，就可以考虑被认为是合格的投标人。 The Office of Thrift Supervision, which watches over lenders with around $1 trillion of assets, has gone even further. It recently permitted a single buy-out shop, MatlinPatterson, to take over a thrift in Michigan and has indicated that it will wave through similar deals. 储蓄机构监理局(他们负责监管拥有 10000 亿美元资产的贷款机构)更是大刀阔斧。它最近允许一个单一收 购者 MatlinPatterson 接管了密歇根的一个储蓄机构，并宣称还会有类似的并购案浪潮。 This puts it at odds with the more cautious Federal Reserve, which oversees the holding companies that sit atop most banks. The Fed will not permit a firm that is not regulated as a bank to own a controlling stake in one, even if the investment is ringfenced. The central bank worries about mixing commerce and finance, which have been legally separated for decades in America. 这一切都使得美联储(负责监管大多数银行控股公司)的更加审慎的态度显得奇怪。美联储将不允许任何一 个不是被作为银行来监管的公司取得银行控股权，即便投资是专项的。央行担心几十年以来一直被分开监 管的商业和金融业混为一谈。 Most investors accept that banks, unlike thrifts, are out of bounds to lone buyers. Some complain that not being able to control a bank forces them to demand a higher return, which will raise the cost of recapitalising the industry. But there will still be money to be made, says Mr Kanas, because even minority investors will be able to meet their hurdle rates of return if the government is generous enough in its risk-sharing. Mr Flowers, unable so far to make much progress at home and licking his wounds from setbacks abroad, believes riches lie ahead. As he colourfully predicted earlier this year: “Lowlife grave-dancers like me will make a fortune.” 大多数投资者也认为，银行不像是储蓄机构，如果被单独买家买下是有些越轨的。一些人抱怨，如果不能 够控股一家银行，就会迫使它们要求更高的资本回报，这将会提高调整产业结构的成本。但是还是有钱可 赚，喀纳斯说，因为如果政府能够慷慨的分担风险，总是会有少数的投资人能够达到要求的回报率。截至 目前弗拉沃还在舔那些国外的创伤，家里的生意也还没有什么大的起色，但是他相信，财富就在前方。正 如他今年早些时候所预言的那样，“像我这样下层的扫墓舞者会发财。” 译者注：坟墓舞者来源于山姆·泽尔(Sam Zell)，一位将资产建立在业界周期之上的地产投资大师。泽尔有个 著名的别号叫“坟墓舞者”(the grave dancer)。泽尔说，这个词来自于他曾撰写的一篇文章的标题，该文阐述 了市场经历过热投资带来的必然经济泡沫后，他怎样从萧条房产市场得利的策略。泽尔说这篇文章展示了 他是怎样“在他人错误的尸骸上起舞的”。

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Muffled signals 模糊的信号 Sovereign credit-default swaps 主权信用违约掉期 Muffled signals 模糊的信号 Jun 11th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print edition Credit derivatives on countries are behaving oddly 主权信用衍生品市场表现奇异 GOVERNMENTS in the rich world are announcing record-breaking deficits and their credit ratings are under threat. Yet the market that should be most worried is not. An index of credit-default-swap (CDS) spreads on the seven biggest rich economies maintained by Credit Derivatives Research (CDR), a research outfit, has widened in recent weeks, but still signals half the risk it did in February, before the full scale of the damage to public finances became clear (see chart). The trend holds true even for Britain, which is threatened with a credit-rating downgrade, and Ireland, which on June 8th suffered its second sovereign downgrade in three months. 发达国家的政府们正在不断宣布着打破纪录的赤字额，他们的信用评级也正面临着危险。然而理应最为人 们所担心的(信用违约)市场却没有显示出相应风险。(尽管)一项由信用衍生品研究机构(CDR)提供的、基于 七个最大最富有经济体的信用违约掉期利差在最近几周内有所扩大，但是在公共财政面临的全方位威胁一 览无余之际，信用违约掉期利差仍然仅显示出相当于其今年二月时所显示的一半的风险。(如图。即“仅从 信用违约掉期利差的走势图中，并未显示出与利差走势相适应的公共财政风险”)这一趋势即使对英国和爱 尔兰也是如此，英国正面领着信用评级遭降级的威胁，而爱尔兰在 6 月 8 日那天遭到其三个月中第二次主 权信用降级。 Dave Klein at CDR admits to being puzzled by the trend. He reckons that investors associate sovereign-default

risk with overall financial risk because governments now backstop so much of the system. When America bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the country's two big mortgage agencies, its CDS spreads widened sharply. Conversely, a recovering economy means fewer bank failures, so government balance-sheets are less likely to be strained by bail-outs. 信用衍生品研究机构(CDR)的 Dave Klein 承认他对这一趋势感到困惑。他认为由于政府如今对于金融系统 做了如此多的增援支持，投资者会将主权违约风险和总体金融风险联系起来。当美国对国内最大的两家房 屋抵押贷款机构房利美和房地美实行救市计划时，其信用违约掉期的利差迅速扩大。反之，经济复苏意味 着更少的银行倒闭事件，因此政府的资产负债表被救市计划拖累的可能性也就越小。 Sovereign CDSs are in any case harder to interpret than corporate CDSs. Rich-country defaults are extremely rare (emerging markets, less so) which makes it difficult for investors to estimate how much they would recover in bankruptcy, a key determinant in CDS pricing. Moreover, payouts on the swaps are triggered in different ways. A corporation generally has a grace period on its debt payments before a credit event is declared and protection is paid off. Governments have no such grace period. If America is 30 seconds late, a credit event is declared, says Mr Klein. Sovereign CDSs also tend be priced in dollars-except for swaps on America's debt, which are priced in euros-so currency risk blurs things too. 主权信用违约掉期在任何情况下都比公司信用违约掉期更加难以解读。发达国家的违约事件极其罕见，而 新兴市场则相反。这就让投资者难以估计信用违约掉期定价中的一项关键因素，即他们能从(发达国家中的) 破产事件中回收多少钱。此外两种掉期的偿付有着不同的触发方式。对于公司的信用违约掉期而言，在申 明该公司发生了违约事件并赔付补偿金之前，对其债务偿付都有一段宽限期。而对于政府债务而言则没有 这段宽限期。(所以) Klein 说，“即使美国晚了 30 秒钟还债，仍会申明其违约。”主权信用违约掉期通常用 美元计价(美国债务的信用掉期除外，为欧元计价)。所以，外汇风险的加入会把情况搞得更加复杂。 Sovereign CDS volumes have held up better than other parts of the market. According to figures from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC. the number of contracts and the notional value of derivatives on some 60 sovereign borrowers have generally held steady or grown a bit faster than the overall CDS market. 主权信用违约掉期交易量的维持要好于市场中的其他产品，根据美国证券托管清算公司(Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation)提供的数字，基于大约 60 个主权国家借款的衍生品的合约数和名义价值基本上与信用 违约掉期整体市场维持相对稳定，或增速略高于整体市场。 But most of this activity remains concentrated on emerging markets like Turkey, Brazil, Russia and Mexico. For rich countries, the amounts at stake are minuscule. DTCC puts the notional value of CDS contracts on American debt at $9 billion, barely 0.1% of the total amount of publicly held debt. The value of sovereign CDSs is just 6% of all CDSs, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Clues to the rickety state of public finances are better found elsewhere. 但是大部分这样的交易活动集中在诸如土耳其、巴西、俄罗斯、墨西哥等新兴市场。对于富国而言，在外 交易的主权信用违约掉期数额则小的不值一提。据美国证券托管清算公司(DTCC.估算，美国债务签订的信 用违约掉期合同的名义价值为 90 亿美元，仅仅只占公开交易债务总额的 0.1%。而根据国际结算银行的统

计，主权信用违约掉期的价值只占所有信用违约掉期的 6%。所以，最好还是从别处找找关于公共财政已经 摇摇欲坠的线索~~ 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Fatalism v fetishism 宿命论 VS 进口至上说 Economics focus 经济聚焦 Fatalism v fetishism 宿命论 VS 进口至上说 Jun 11th 2009 From The Economist print edition How will developing countries grow after the financial crisis? 金融危机后发展中国家将如何成长？ FORTY years ago Singapore, now home to the world's busiest port, was a forlorn outpost still garrisoned by the British. In 1961 South Korea was less industrialised than the communist north and dependent on American aid. In 1978 China's exports amounted to less than 5% of its GDP. These countries, and many of their neighbours, have since traded their way out of poverty. Given their success, it is easy to forget that some development economists were once prey to “export fatalism”. Poor countries, they believed, had little to gain from venturing into the world market. If they tried to expand their exports, they would thwart each other, driving down the price of their commodities. 现今世界最繁忙的港口坐落于新加坡-在 40 年前它还只是英国人驻军的遥远哨所。1961 年的南朝鲜靠美国 援助度日，在产业化的路上远远落后于他们北面的社会主义邻居。1987 年的中国出口额占 GDP 总量不到

5%。之后，这些国家和他们的邻居们靠开放商路脱离了贫穷。在这些国家成功的光环下，过去许多发展经 济学家深受“出口宿命说”(注一)折磨的往事被淡忘了。他们曾经相信，穷国投身全球市场并无利可图。一旦 他们试图扩大出口，那么穷国之间便会互相伤害并造成他们出产的商品价格下降。 The financial crisis of the past nine months is stirring a new export fatalism in the minds of some economists. Even after the global economy recovers, developing countries may find it harder to pursue a policy of “export-led growth”, which served countries like South Korea so well. Under this strategy, sometimes called “export fetishism”, countries spur sales abroad, often by keeping their currencies cheap. Some save the proceeds in foreign-currency reserves, rather than spending them on imports. This strategy is one reason why the developing world's current-account surplus exceeded $700 billion in 2008, as measured by the IMF. In the past, these surpluses were offset by American deficits. But America may now rethink the bargain. This imbalance, whereby foreigners sell their goods to America in exchange for its assets, was one potential cause of the country's financial crisis. 过去九个月里的金融危机在某些经济学家的脑海里搅起了新的出口宿命论。就算是在金融危机过后，也许 发展中国家也可能会觉得他们要想采用那种使南朝鲜一类的国家受益颇多的“出口带动型增长”政策变得更 加困难了。在这种被称为“出口至上主义”的策略下，政府常以保持本国货币的廉价来激励跨国贸易。一些 国家选择把出口收益存入外汇储备，而不是用它们来进口。国际货币基金组织统计出，2008 年发展中国家 的经常账户(注二)有 7 千亿美元的结余，这(出口至上主义的策略)也许就是原因之一。在过去，这些结余会 被美国的贸易逆差抵消。但是美国现在可能要重新考虑一下这笔交易了。外国人通过此类失衡来出售货物 给美国人以换取美国资产，这也是美国金融危机的潜在原因之一。 If this global bargain does come unstuck, how should developing countries respond? In a new paper*, Dani Rodrik of Harvard University offers a novel suggestion. He argues that developing countries should continue to promote exportables, but no longer promote exports. What's the difference? An exportable is a good that could be traded across borders, but need not be. Mr Rodrik's recommended policies would help countries make more of these exportables, without selling quite so many abroad. 若这种全球交易确实还可行，发展中国家该如何应对？哈弗大学的 Dani Rodrik (注三)在他的新论文中提供 了一个新颖的建议。他认为发展中国家应该继续鼓励“可出口”，但不要促进“出口”。这两者的差异是什么 呢？“可出口”指那些可以但不必出口的货物。Mr Rodrik 所推荐的政策会帮助发展中国家生产更多的“可出 口”货物同时避免将它们大量售往国外。 Countries grow by shifting labour and investment from traditional activities, where productivity is stagnant, to new industries, which abound in economies of scale or opportunities to assimilate better techniques. These new industries usually make exportable goods, such as cotton textiles or toys. But whatever the fetishists believe, there is nothing special about the act of exporting per se, Mr Rodrik argues. For example, companies do not need to venture abroad to feel the bracing sting of international competition. If their products can be traded across borders, then foreign rivals can compete with them at home.

当生产力停滞后，国家通过从传统经济活动中转移劳力和投资到新兴产业里来成长，这些新产业大量存在 于规模经济或是那些吸纳了更先进技术的商机中。这类新产业往往制造的是“可出口”货物，像是棉织物或 玩具。但是 Mr Rodrik 也谈到，无论贸易至上主义者怎么想，出口本身并无异处。举例来说，公司并不一 定要冒险开展国外业务来受国际竞争的刺激。一旦他们的货品被出口，那么国外竞争者便将可以在本国土 地上展开反击。 As countries industrialise and diversify, their exports grow, which sometimes results in a trade surplus. These three things tend to go together. But in a statistical “horse race”between the three-industrialisation, exports and exports minus imports-Mr Rodrik finds that it is the growth of tradable, industrial goods, as a share of GDP, that does most of the work. 伴随着国家产业化和产品多样化进程的是出口增加，这有时会带来贸易过剩。这三种状况相伴相生。但在 产业化，出口和净出口的数据化对比中，Mr Rodrik 发现，作为 GDP 的一部分，是“可交易”的产业产品起 了主要作用。 How do you promote exportables without promoting exports? Cheap currencies will not do the trick. They serve as a subsidy to exports, but also act like a tax on imports. They encourage the production of tradable goods, but discourage their consumption-which is why producers look for buyers abroad. 那如何来刺激“可出口”同时避免促进出口呢？廉价货币办不到。它们削减出口，但同时又像增收进口关税。 他们促进“可出口”货物的生产同时又抑止它们被消费，这就是为什么生产者会寻求外国买家的原因。 Policymakers need a different set of tools, Mr Rodrik argues. They should set aside their exchange-rate policies in favour of industrial policy, subsidising promising new industries directly. These sops would expand the production of tradable goods above what the market would dictate. But the subsidy would not discourage their consumption. Indeed, policymakers should allow the country's exchange rate to strengthen naturally, eliminating any trade surplus. The stronger currency would cost favoured industries some foreign customers. But these firms would still do better overall than under a policy of laissez-faire. Mr Rodrik 认为决策者需要另一套不同的工具。他们应该以产业政策取代汇率政策并直接向有前途的新产业 补助。这些操作可以在市场确定数额的基础上拓展“可交易”货物的生产。但是这些补助金又不会影响“可出 口”货物的销售。事实上，决策者应该允许他们国家的汇率自由上浮，以消除贸易过量。更强的货币将会抑 止外国资金流入过热部门。但就算这样，这些企业也会比在自由放任政策下来得更好。 Return of the cargo cult 货物崇拜归来 Mr Rodrik offers a solution to an awkward problem: how policymakers can restore the growth strategies of the pre-crisis era without reviving the trade imbalances that accompanied them. But is his solution as neat as it sounds? Start with the theory. Mr Rodrik claims there is nothing special about exporting. He is probably right. But his statistical test is unlikely to be the last word on the matter, given the difficulties of disentangling variables that move together. Mr Rodrik's model also assumes a single tradable good. Under his policies, countries sell the same kind of stuff at home that they formerly sold to foreigners. In a more elaborate model, foreign and local tastes would differ. China, for example, made most of the world's third-generation mobile phones long before 3G

telephony was available at home. Firms in poor countries can learn a lot from serving richer customers abroad. 在后金融危机时代，决策者该如何在保留利于增长的策略同时又避免随之而来的贸易失衡呢？Mr Rodrik 提 供了他对这个令人尴尬的问题的解决办法。但是他的办法和听上去的一样有效吗？ Mr Rodrik 以\"贸易没什 么大不了的\"作为他理论的开始。这可能没错。但当遇到无法理清同时变化的诸多变量这类困难时，他的统 计实验不可能给这个问题盖棺论定。同时，Mr Rodrik 的模型只假设了单一“可出口”货物。在他的政策下， 所有国家都在本国出售同一种他们之前卖到国外的商品。在更精确的模型下，国外与国内的偏好应该不同。 举例来说，远在 3G 电话可以使用前，中国国内就已经制造了世界上最多的第三代移动电话。穷国的企业 可以在取悦富国的消费者的过程中学到许多。 What about the practice? Subsidies are notoriously prone to error and abuse. Even before the crisis, Mr Rodrik was keen to rehabilitate industrial policy in the eyes of many economists, who doubt governments' ability to pick winners but have every faith in their aptitude for favouring corporate friends. In these circles, a cheap currency is often seen as the least disreputable form of industrial policy, because it benefits exporters in general, without favouring any particular industry or firm. 那实践方面又如何呢？补助金有着臭名昭著的倾向，那就是易于发放出错和被滥用。甚至在金融危机前， Mr Rodrik 在许多经济学家的眼里就是一个执着于整顿产业政策的人，这些经济学家怀疑政府是否能在挑选 受助者的同时不滥用这种可以惠及盟友的能力。在这些圈子中，由于廉价货币一般来说会有利于出口者而 对特定产业和企业没有好处，这种政策是最为声名狼藉。 This ingenious economist may also be preparing for a future that is further off than you might think. American policymakers are certainly worried about their country's trade deficit. But they are far more concerned about unemployment. Most of their efforts to revive demand will tend to widen the trade gap, at least in the short run. The American government is also more anxious than ever to sell its paper, and whatever they say in public, the central banks of China and other big emerging economies still seem happy to buy. Export fetishism seems fated to endure. 这位天才的经济学家可能是在为一个你无法想象的未来做着准备。美国的决策者确实很担心他们国家的贸 易逆差。但失业率更让他们操心。至少在短期，他们的大部分拉动需求的努力都将会扩大贸易壁垒。同时 美国政府正前所未有地热切盼望能够售出他们所谓“中国央行和其他新兴经济体依然十分情愿购买”的债 券。似乎出口至上主义者命中注定得等等了。 注一：关于进口宿命说，可参看 Speech by Hon'ble Thiru Murasoli Maran, Union Commerce&IndustryMinister http://www. ficci. com/media-room/speeches-presentations/2002/Mar/march-sez-maran. htm 注二：经常账户(Current Account,或译为“经常项目”)，是经常发生的国际经济交易，是最基本、最重要的账 户。包括货物、服务、收入和经常转移四个项目。 经常账户(即“经常项目”)，和资本与金融账户相对，指在国际收支平衡表中贸易和服务而产生的资金流动。 这一部分所以被看成是一种更加合理的资金流动。 国际收支中的经常账户是指贸易收支的总和(商品和服务的出口减去进口)，减去生产要素收入(例如利息和 股息)，然后减去转移支付(例如外国援助)。经常项目顺差(盈余)增加了一个国家相应金额的外国资本净额；

经常项目逆差(赤字)则恰好相反。 贸易收支是经常账户下典型的最重要的部分。也就是说贸易状况的变化是经常账户的主要影响因素。然而， 对于那些少数的拥有大量海外资产和负债的国家，生产要素支付净额可能作用显著。 经常账户，资本账户，金融账户以及官方储备的变化一起，总和为零构成账户的定义。这个总和被称为国 际收支。通常来说，官方储备的变化非常小 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Dismal science 沉闷的科学 Paul Krugman's London lectures 保罗克鲁格曼伦敦演讲 Dismal science 沉闷的科学(注 1) Jun 11th 2009 From The Economist print edition The Nobel laureate speaks on the crisis in the economy and in economics 诺贝尔奖得主就经济危机和经济学问题发表演讲 THE London School of Economics was once so popular among young American scholars that British students used to joke that LSE stood for “Let's See Europe”. A distinguished sightseer, Paul Krugman, returned to the LSE on June 8th to give the annual Lionel Robbins memorial lectures. Mr Krugman, who gave the Robbins lectures 21 years ago, tried to answer two big questions in the course of his three talks. Why did economists not foresee calamity? And how will the world economy climb out of recession? 伦敦经济学院曾经在美国青年学者中是如此的受欢迎，以至于英国学生曾笑称其为欧洲的象征。六月八日， 令人尊敬的客人-保罗克鲁格曼先生，回到伦敦经济学院为一年一度的莱昂内尔罗宾斯纪念典礼做演将。克 鲁格曼先生曾在二十一年前的罗宾斯纪念典礼上发表过演说，在当时的三场演讲中，他试图解说两大问题， 即“为什么经济学家不对灾难进行预测？”和“世界经济如何走出衰退？” The immediate cause of the crisis, “the mother of all global housing bubbles”, was spotted by many economists. That house prices had risen too far was obvious, even if policymakers had seemed less sure. The surprise was that the bursting of the bubble would be so damaging. “I had no idea it would end so badly,”said Mr Krugman. 许多经济学家认为，引发危机的的直接原因是“全球房地产泡沫之母”。很明显，住房价格已经涨得太高了， 虽然决策者们对此看上去并不是很肯定。令人吃惊的是泡沫的破灭竟然会具有如此破坏性。“我不曾想到它 会产生如此糟糕的结果，”克鲁格曼先生说。 One big blind spot was the financial system. The mistake was to think “a bank had to look like something Jimmy Stewart could run”, with rows of tellers taking deposits in a marble-fronted building. In fact a bank is anything that uses short-term borrowing to finance long-term assets that are hard to sell at a push. The shadow banking system

was as important to the economy as the ordinary kind, but was far more vulnerable. Its collapse was the modern re-run of the bank failures of the 1930 s, said Mr Krugman. 金融系统是一个大盲点。人们所犯的错误是认为“银行看上去就像是吉米·史都华(注 2)能够掌控一样”，出纳 员在大理石建筑中排队领取保证金。(注 3)而事实上银行是任何通过短期借款来进行长期融资的机构，很难 一下子卖出所有金融品。影子银行体系对于经济来说与普通商业银行体系同样重要，但却脆弱的多。这一 体系的崩溃其实是上世纪三十年代中的银行倒闭在现代的重演罢了，克鲁格曼先生说。 The excess borrowing that did for shadow banks threatens consumers, too. They are scrambling to save more as house prices plunge. Their mortgage debts loom larger because of vanishing inflation. This urge to shore up wealth is self-defeating in aggregate, as it curbs spending and incomes. It also renders conventional monetary policy impotent, as the interest rate that prevents too much saving is below zero. 影子银行(注 4)过度借款也造成了消费恐慌。由于房价的暴跌，消费者们争着将更多的钱放进银行。通货膨 胀的消失使他们的抵押债务所面临的形势变得相当严峻。这种强烈的财富保值意识宏观加总后反而弄巧成 拙，因为这抑制了支出和收入。它也使得传统的货币政策变得无能为力，因为为了阻止过多的储蓄，利率 已经为负了。 That creates a role for fiscal policy. If zero interest rates cannot get consumers to spend, then governments must spend instead. That remedy comes from economics so the discipline is not without merit. The trouble is, “the analysis we're using is decades old”. It dates back to Keynes, one of the few economists whose reputation has been burnished by the crisis. (Another is Hyman Minsky, whose main insight was that stability leads to too much debt, and then to collapse.) Most work in macroeconomics in the past 30 years has been useless at best and harmful at worst, said Mr Krugman. 这创造了一个财政政策的新作用。如果零利率不能刺激消费，那么政府就必须代为支出。这个补救措施源 自经济学研究，因此不是毫无价值的。但问题是“我们所使用的这种经济学分析已经有几十年的历史了”。 这可以追溯到凯恩斯，他是为数不多的因危机而成名的经济学家中的一位。(另一位是海曼明斯基，他的主 要观点是稳定导致过多债务从而引发崩溃。)宏观经济学在近 30 年中的多数研究说得好听点是毫无用处的， 说的难听点甚至是有害的，克鲁格曼先生如是说。 As for the economy, the road back to health will be long and painful. The big lesson from past bubbles is that recovery is export-led, which is not helpful “unless we can find another planet to export to”. Otherwise, recovery will have to wait for savings to be rebuilt, and that will not happen quickly. Higher inflation than before the crisis might help, he said. 至于经济，恢复健康的道路将是漫长而又痛苦的。从过去的泡沫危机中得到的启示是由出口带动经济复苏 是无益的，“除非我们能找到另一个星球并对其进行出口”。否则，想要经济复苏就不得不等待储蓄的重建， 而那不是短时间内能够完成的。比危机发生前更高的通胀也许有帮助，他说。 - 注释： 1.经济学常常被称为“沉闷的科学”，因为经济学家经常带来坏消息。经济学不那么讨人喜欢，认真的经济学

家常常带来泼冷水似的意见。他们会指出一个表面上看来很吸引人的项目，很可能结局并不那么美妙。 2.吉米·史都华：即詹姆斯·史都华(James Stewart)，好莱坞影星，主演过《费城故事》、《后窗》、《迷魂 记》、《桃色血案》等名片。 3.关于这句话，我网上查了很多资料，克鲁格曼所指的应该是史都华所演的《风云人物》中的场景，这部 片子我现在在下，看过之后应该就可以理解了。 4.所谓影子银行系统，就是一群非银行机构，但是它们又确实在发挥着一整套银行的功能。比如它们将房 地产贷款加工成有价证券，交易到资本市场，房地产业传统上由银行系统承担的融资功能逐渐被投资所替 代，属于银行的证券化活动。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：The regulatory rumble begins 大张旗鼓的金融监管改革 开始了 Overhauling financial regulation 金融监管大变革 The regulatory rumble begins 大张旗鼓的金融监管改革开始了 May 28th 2009 | BERLIN AND NEW YORK From The Economist print edition In America and Europe, new rules are already running into stiff resistance-mostly from regulators themselves 在美国和欧洲，新的监管制度已经在遭受严重的抵制–而大部分的抵制来自监管 者本身

“YOU want to move at the point where people still have the memory of the trauma,”Tim Geithner explained recently when asked about financial regulation. Aware that the crisis is moving into a new phase, with the emphasis shifting from firefighting to working out how supervision should be restructured, America's treasury secretary wants to seize the moment. He plans to unveil a comprehensive regulatory overhaul by mid-June. Barack Obama has said he wants to sign the changes into law by the year's end. 最近，在被问及金融监管问题时盖特纳解释道：“在民众仍然对伤痛记忆深刻的时候你是想要做出改变的”。 在意识到危机已经进行到一个新的阶段，并且在一直强调要从救火队员转变到制定出监管应该如何改革时， 美国财政部想要把握住时机。盖特纳计划在六月中旬开始对金融监管进行一项彻头彻尾的改革。巴拉克- 奥巴马说过他希望在年底前将监管改革签署为正式法案。 In Europe, too, the pressure is on. “There's no room for more delays,”JoséManuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said on May 27th when he unveiled a blueprint for reform of financial supervision. He announced plans to form two new grandly named institutions: a European Systemic Risk Council, which is supposed to provide early warning of possible risks, and a European System of Financial Supervisors, which would be a super-committee of regulators from across the European Union. 欧洲也面临着同样的压力。在 5 月 27 号公布一份金融监管改革的蓝本时，欧盟主席巴罗佐称：“已经没有 耽搁的余地了”他宣布计划成立两个名字响当当的机构：一个是欧洲系统风险理事会，希望它能就可能出现 的风险提供早期警示，另一个是欧洲金融监管者系统，这应该是一个汇集了全欧盟监管者的超级委员会。 The goals of the two new institutions are admirable. Both are intended to correct a fundamental flaw in European bank regulation and supervision; namely, that although banks are free to operate across borders, they are supervised only by their home countries. Slack oversight by one country can, as the crisis has revealed, spread chaos across many. Yet it is not at all clear that the proposals have been thought through properly. “The European Commission is confusing speed with haste,”says Nicolas Véron of Bruegel, a think-tank in Brussels. “The governance, mandate and funding of these new authorities is not really addressed.”Britain, which has the biggest banking centre, is particularly concerned about the proposed rules, which may cede aspects of the City of London's

banking supervision to Brussels. 成立这两个机构的初衷是很好的。二者都倾向于修正欧洲银行制度和监管的基础法案；也就是说，尽管银 行可以自由的进行跨境操作，但是他们只受本国政府的监管。就像危机所揭示的那样，一个国家的疏忽会 将混乱延伸到其它很多国家。然而，这项计划的可能性有没有被考虑过还不清楚。“欧盟委员会将速度和草 率搞混淆了”布鲁塞尔的一家咨询业巨头 Bruegel 的 Nicolas Véron 说道，“这些新的权力机构的管理方法， 授权以及资金来源都还没有真正的安排好”拥有最大的银行中心的英国尤其关心被提及的这些制度，因为它 们可能会将伦敦城银行的部分监管权转交给布鲁塞尔。 In America, meanwhile, the plans taking shape face resistance, partly from the bankers they will shackle but even more from regulators and lawmakers. Bankers accept they will be forced to build up bigger capital buffers, which will crimp profitability, and that the liquidity of their balance-sheets will be policed more intensively. The regulatory net will be cast over the “shadow”banking network of hedge funds, money-market funds and the like, to which much financial activity gravitated during the boom. 同时，在美国，监管制度的改革遭遇了严酷的正面抵制，抵制部分来自会被束缚的银行家，但是来自监管 者和法律制定者的抵制甚至更猛烈。银行家可以接受今后被强制要求设立更大的资本金缓冲，虽然这样可 以抑制其收益率，他们也能接受更强的针对资产负债平衡表流动性的管辖。监管网络会覆盖到涉及对冲基 金的灰色银行体系，货币市场基金等等诸如此类在繁荣时期吸引了大量金融行为的方面。 Big banks, however, still have enough lobbying power to ensure that not every decision goes against them. True, they are still licking their wounds after the recent passage of draconian credit-card reforms. But they are happier with the government's proposals on derivatives, under which dealers will be able to continue peddling customised swap contracts away from exchanges, albeit with a higher capital charge. 然而，大型的银行仍然具有足够的游说能力来确保并非每一项改革决议都是针对他们的。的确，在经历了 最近针对信用卡的严酷改革后他们还处在舔舐伤口的阶段。但是政府关于衍生品的改革提议令银行家们感 到很高兴，尽管该提议要求的资本金充足率更高，但是在这一提议下证券商可以继续在交易所外兜售按客 户特定需求制定的掉期交易合同。 As the crisis has deepened, American bankers have tempered their opposition to the idea of new rules that reduce the chances of another blow-up. “Would I accept regulation that slows innovation a bit and knocks three percentage points off my returns if it promised greater stability? Absolutely,”says the head of one large bank. 随着危机的加深，美国的银行家们为监管者想到了一个办法：制定新的制度来减少危机再次大面积爆发的 可能性。一家大银行的行长称：“我会接受一项将创新速度略微减慢并且会减少我 3%收入的制度吗？如果 这种新的制度承诺带来更大的稳定性的话，我当然会接受。” For some, more stringent regulation even has a silver lining. With tougher mortgage rules, banks will no longer have to lower their standards to compete with the industry's unregulated parts. The survivors could also benefit from higher barriers to entry. 对一些人来说，更严谨的监管制度甚至可以带来黑暗中的一丝曙光。在更加苛刻的贷款条件下，银行再都 不能为了迎合企业的非监管部分而降低自己的借款标准。银行界的幸存者们还可以从更加高的准入门槛中

获益。 On the whole, Wall Street sees a welcome disconnect between the Obama administration's rhetoric and its actions. The Treasury is “gradually learning”how to square the circle of showing that it understands the public's anger on the one hand, and maintaining a dynamic financial sector on the other, says one bank lobbyist. Another test of its capacity to resist pitchfork-wielding urges will come in the next few weeks, when it is expected to issue guidelines on executive pay. 从整体来看，华尔街经历了奥巴马班组的言行不一。一位银行说客称：“财政部正在逐渐的学习如何一方面 做一些自己力不能及的事情以表示他们能够理解政府的愤怒，另一方面维持一个生机勃勃的财政部门”.另 外一项针对其顶住权利机构催促能力的测试会在接下来几周公布，也就是财政部公布高管薪资制度的时候。 The stiffest resistance to change is coming not from Wall Street but from Washington, DC, where government officials, regulators and congressional leaders are locked in turf wars and ideological battles. “Opinion has splintered. Everyone is fighting everyone,”says Bert Ely, a consultant on regulatory issues. 对监管制度改革最顽强的抵制并不是来自华尔街而是来自华盛顿，华盛顿的政府官员，监管者和国会领导 人们正深陷在地位之争和意识形态斗争中。监管制度方面的咨询专家 Bert Ely 称：“关于改革的观点被搞得 七零八落，每个人都在反对每一个观点”。 Even the main banking agencies are at odds with each other. Sheila Bair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC. and John Dugan, the Comptroller of the Currency, have fallen out over Ms Bair's deposit-insurance reforms. Mr Dugan also opposes the FDIC's push for sole authority to liquidate failing non-banks, as it already does with banks. 即使是主要的银行机构间意见也不一致。联邦储蓄保险公司的 Sheila Bair 和财政部金融局的 John Dugan 曾 就 Bair 先生提出的储蓄保险改革的想法展开过争论。同样，Dugan 先生也反对联邦储蓄保险公司推行的对 衰退的非银行机构进行清算的单一职权主张，这一主张曾经运用在银行机构身上。 Worse, there is no consensus on the proposed systemic-risk regulator, which would identify and act on emerging “macro-prudential”dangers. The administration wants the Fed to assume the role, but many in Congress oppose this. Dick Shelby, an influential senator, has accused Mr Geithner of using the crisis to hand the Fed unacceptable levels of power. Meanwhile, Ms Bair has suggested that systemic regulation be done (or at least overseen) by a multi-agency council, an idea that is gaining traction even if others (including, again, Mr Dugan) worry that such supervision-by-committee is a recipe for inaction. 更糟的是，各方还没有就系统风险监管达成一致意见，而这项监管可以识别并作用于还处在萌芽状态的会 对宏观经济产生重大影响的危险。管理者希望联储能扮演这一角色，但是国会的很多人士反对这样的提议。 一位具有影响力的参议员 Dick Shelby 曾经指控盖特纳借危机之际给予了联储过多令人无法接受的权利。同 时，Bair 先生建议由一家综合机构理事会来执行(或者至少是监督)系统监管，尽管包括许多人 Dugan 在内 的许多人担心这样的监管委员会会引发无作为，但是 Bair 先生的建议还是很具有吸引力。 An even bigger battle is brewing over the shake-up of existing regulators. No one doubts that the archaic, overlapping patchwork of agencies needs modernising, with regulation refocused on a firm's activities rather than its legal form. Reportedly, the White House is considering rolling the four banking-supervision agencies into one,

though the idea is still in flux. 针对现有监管的革新而展开的更大的一场争论正在酝酿中。各机构之间陈旧的相互重叠的链接需要通过将 重心重新转移到公司行为上而非其法律形式来进行革新，这一点毋庸置疑。据称，白宫正在考虑将四家银 行监管机构合并成一家，尽管这一想法变数还很大。 But an embryonic plan to create a super-regulator for consumer products, such as mortgages, credit cards and mutual funds, is already encountering stiff opposition. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC., which would lose out in such a shuffle, has powerful friends on Capitol Hill, especially on the Senate banking committee that oversees the agency-and any overhaul would require congressional approval. Public pension funds have also joined together to lobby against a reduction in the SEC's power. 针对诸如贷款，信用卡和共同基金这样的消费者产品成立一个超级监管机构的计划还处在萌芽状态就已经 遭到了强烈的抵制。在这轮洗牌中会惨遭重创的美国证券交易委员会同美国国会尤其是负责对其进行监管 的参议员银行委员会之间有着深刻的友谊，而任何一项革新都是需要国会点头的。公共抚恤基金也加入到 了削减 SEC 权利的游说中。 Moreover, the economically rational may not be politically feasible. Though it would make sense to merge the SEC with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates derivatives, Congress's powerful agriculture committee would probably block the move. 此外，经济学上合理的东西在政治层面上可能并不具有执行力。尽管将 SEC 和商品期货交易委员会合并在 监管衍生品上确实有意义，但是在国会权势巨大的农业特别委员会可能会阻碍这样的变革。 Debate about other thorny issues, such as what restrictions to place on, or whether to dismantle, banks that are too big to fail has barely begun. Congressional leaders cannot even agree on whether to pass new rules in pieces or roll them up into one mega-bill. 在其他一些几首的问题上，争论才刚刚开始，例如：针对那些规模太大从而表现不好的银行，该执行什么 样的制约或是是否要拆分一些银行。国会领导们甚至在是否要逐一的通过新制度还是将所有的制度都揉成 一个巨无霸的法案上都无法达成共识。 All of which explains why pundits now expect to see few, if any, further financial reforms passed in 2009. Delay could play into the financial industry's hands, to the extent that it reduces the likelihood of heat-of-the-moment laws like Sarbanes-Oxley, rushed through after the Enron scandal. But if measures that would increase stability fall victim to politics, everyone will be worse off. 所有这些都能用来解释为什么权威人士预计 09 年可以通过的新的金融监管制度(如果有的话)是凤毛麟角。 金融监管改革的姗姗来迟会正中金融业下怀，同时会达到像当年的萨班斯•奥克斯利法案一样轰动一时的效 果，萨班斯•奥克斯利法案是在安然公司丑闻后仓促制定的。但是，如果一项本可以提高稳定性的措施沦为 政治受害者的话，所有人的处境都会变得更糟糕。

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Eggs and baskets 鸡蛋和篮子 Lloyd's of London 伦敦劳埃德商船协会 Eggs and baskets 鸡蛋和篮子 May 28th 2009 From The Economist print edition After AIG, firms buying insurance are keener to spread their risk. But how? AIG 之后，多数买保险的公司更加热衷扩大他们的风险。而他们又是怎么做的呢 Rex Features Spelling is not the only improvement 拼写并不是唯一改进的地方 WHEN American International Group (AIG), the world's biggest, meanest and supposedly safest insurer, collapsed into the government's arms in September 2008, there must have been a few cheers from its rivals. Many hoped to win its customers, particularly large firms paranoid about having high exposure to one (dodgy) counterparty. It also seemed possible that the model for insuring companies' big risks-buildings or a mine, for example-might change. Instead of placing them with a few insurers, it might be better to syndicate out those risks to many, not least through Lloyd's, the insurance market founded in a London coffee house in 1688. 世界上最大的、最吝啬的、据认为最安全的保险公司-美国国际集团于 2008 年 9 月倒闭，变成了美国政府 的兵器，它的竞争对手肯定发出了一些欢呼声。许多人希望赢得它的客户，特别是一些大公司，他们妄想 着与他们地位相当的公司会高度曝光。保险公司的大风险投保模式，像建筑和矿井，也有可能改变。与其 让少数保险公司向这些建筑业和矿井业发出订单，也许把这些风险出售给更多公司会更稳妥些，不仅仅通 过劳埃德商船协会，该保险市场于 1688 年在伦敦的一个咖啡馆建立。 Eight months on, the revolution has yet to arrive. There has been no stampede of corporate customers from AIG, says Andrew Rear of Oliver Wyman, a consultancy. Loyalists reckon this reflects the fact that its insurance operations were safely ringfenced from its kamikaze derivatives adventures. Sceptics point out that since the

bail-out it has the backing of a government that (for now) retains a AAA credit rating. Yet despite AIG's refusal to die, the instinct of customers to diversify is still alive. Sally Bramall of Willis, an insurance broker, says that big insurers are no longer assumed to be safest or best, and that clients are prepared to put their eggs in more baskets. 大概 8 个月左右，重大变革还未开始。奥纬咨询公司的一位顾问 Andrew Rear 说，美国国际集团的客户没 有被惊跑。公司的忠诚分子认为这反映了一个事实，保险业部分的营运仍然安全，避免了它的敢死队引发 的冒险。持怀疑态度的人指出，自从保释法案得到了政府的支持，保持 3A 级信贷率。尽管美国国际集团 拒绝破产，但客户们的直觉告诉他们自己多样化还是有可能继续维持得下去的。伟莱集团的保险经纪人 Sally Bramall 说，大的保险公司不再被认为是最安全或者最好的，而且客户也希望将他们的投资投放到更 多的篮子里去。 How they do this is, however, less clear. One possibility is that traditional subscription markets do better, most noticeably Lloyd's. There, the end customer enlists a broker to place his risk among multiple syndicates (which are, in turn, often dominated by outside insurance firms). The customer gets a single contract, but the potential losses are spread. And because the market is partly mutually owned, the customers have the security of both syndicate members' capital and, as a last resort, a shared cash pool funded by all members. 投资者该怎么做呢？然而，他们当中很少人清楚该怎么做。也许传统的期约市场会是比较好的选择，最著 名的就是劳埃德商船协会。那么，客户雇用一个经纪人来将自己的风险放到多个企业集团去(这些企业集团 通常由外部的保险公司主导)。即使客户得到一个合约，但潜在的损失已经被分散转移了。因为市场在一定 程度上时共同拥有的，客户作为最后贷款者，同时拥有企业集团成员的资金和由所有成员建立的共享现金 池的有价证券。 Mark Gregory, chief executive of Bowring Marsh, a unit of insurance broker Marsh, says clients particularly admire the skill of Lloyd's underwriters at dealing with unusual and complex risks (try Ugly Betty's smile). Most observers note its improved risk management too, which should prevent individual syndicates from losing their discipline, or falling victim to the “herd mentality”that one industry veteran says is Lloyd's' historical weakness. Bowring Marsh 是一个保险经纪人美世公司的一个单位，其首席执行官马克•格雷戈里称，客户尤其赞赏劳 埃德商船协会的保险公司在处理不同寻常且复杂的风险时的技巧(尝试让丑女贝蒂微笑)。大多数观察者注 意到它也在改善风险管理，这样应该能防止私人集团不受规矩约束，或者变成“一哄而起”的受害者，一个 业界经验丰富的人士说“一哄而起”是劳埃德商船协会历史上的弱点。 Furthermore, even by the relatively hygienic standards of most insurers, the asset side of Lloyd's' balance-sheet is squeaky clean, while the toxic claims that brought it to its knees in the 1990 s are now parcelled off to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. And, for the customer, the benefits of having a single contract with one set of wording and terms should not be underestimated. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, some insurance companies, which had written slightly different contracts, disputed whether one or two events had occurred, says Chris Hitchings, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. 此外，大多数保险公司相关的清洁标准，劳埃德商船协会资产负债表的资产方非常干净，然而对有毒资产 的索赔于 20 世纪末把协会推到了崩溃的边缘，现在被分成了若干部分给沃伦•巴菲特的伯克希尔哈撒韦公

司。对于客户来说，用一套措辞和术语来订立一份单独的合约，这好处是不可低估的。在 911 恐怖袭击之 后，一些保险公司，已经立下了内容略有不同的合约，这不同之处引发了一两件事情是否发生的争辩，一 位 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods 的分析家 Chris Hitchings 说道。 Yet for all that, a big shift towards subscription markets does not seem imminent. In part that reflects the relative lack of scale of Lloyd's. Europe's leading insurance companies rival it in terms of non-life premiums written and balance-sheet oomph. Such firms' big books of business should allow their customers to benefit from diversification. And just in case they “do an AIG”, there are other ways to spread risk. Brokers already take big bits of business and split them between individual companies, Lloyd's and other markets such as Bermuda (where rather than using a subscription model, the lead insurer often subcontracts risk to peers). In future many clients may just instruct their brokers to divide up the business even more-and sort out the resulting complexity. 尽管如此，向期约市场大幅度转移似乎还不会马上实现。在某种程度上反映了劳埃德商船协会的规模相对 缺乏。欧洲首席保险公司就非人身保险金的文书和负债资产表魅力可以与之匹敌。这样公司的商业巨作应 该允许他们的客户从多样化中受益。万一他们制造一个“美国国际集团”。就还有其他方法转移风险。经纪 人已经拿到了大单的生意，并且在私人公司当中分散开来，劳埃德商船协会和其他市场，比如百慕大(这不 仅用期约模型，而且还经常将保险公司的分包合同风险转移给同行公司)。以后，许多客户可能只指示他们 的经纪人分割业务甚至解决整理复杂事务。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Wide girls 诈欺女 Japanese stocks 日本股市 Wide girls 诈欺女 Mar 26th 2009 | TOKYO From The Economist print edition Mrs Watanabe is tiptoeing back into Japan's stockmarket ”渡边太太“潜回日本股市

Illustration by S. Kambayashi “NOT trusted”is how Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso described stockbrokers this month, before calling them kabuya, or “wide boys”. And with the Tokyo stockmarket scraping 26-year-lows in mid-March before soaring 20% in the past fortnight, the reputation of equities as an investment is shoddy at best. Yet some Japanese investors are throwing caution to the wind and beginning to buy. New trading accounts are being opened at an unusually quick pace. Monex, the biggest online broker, doubled the number of new accounts in the last three months of 2008 to 210,000, as the market hit a two-decade trough. Nomura, the biggest broker, had a sudden 20% surge in new accounts. For the first time in 18 years, Japanese retail investors ended the year having bought more shares than they sold. They have been net buyers so far this year as well. 本月，日本首相麻生太郎公然宣称股票经纪人”是靠不住“的，并且将他们形容为“kabuya”，日语中有诈欺 之意。东京股市在经历过去两周的大涨 20%之前，三月中旬一度跌至 26 年来的最低点，作为投资物的股票， 几近声名狼藉。然而一些日本投资者却孤注一掷的跟进。股票交易帐户开户数飞速增长。最大的在线经纪 公司 Monex 在 08 年近三个月的帐户开户数就翻了一番，达到了 210000 户，其时正逢股市进入近二十年来 的低潮期。最大的经纪公司 Nomura 的帐户开户数也递增了 20%。日本的散户投资者全年买入的股票数要 大于卖出股票数的，这可是 18 年了头一次。而且今年到目前为止，他们仍是净买家。 The trend is not nearly powerful enough to call a market bottom. Although the number of retail accounts has increased, their trading activity has not, suggesting many are still being cautious. Those who have taken the plunge have suffered; even after the recent rally, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average has fallen by 7% this year. The difference between sellers and buyers is small-5-10% since November-and trading activity among individuals was low to start with, so only a small shift in trading volumes can tip the trend from net seller to net buyer. 这种趋势还不足以让市场探底。虽然散户数量增加了，但他们的交易量却停滞不前，这表示许多人仍在持 币观望。那些按捺不住的人都已被深套，就算在最近股市回暖的大环境下，日经 225 指数今年也下跌了 7%。 卖家和买家之间的差距并不大，十一月以来徘徊在 5-10%，个人投资者交易行为的萎靡不振，使得交易量 的微小波动就能使净卖家变为净买家。 A lot rests on Mrs Watanabe, the fabled retail punter who plays the markets while running her household's finances.

Since the stockmarket bubble burst in 1990, its value remains at a quarter of its peak. But Japanese shares yield 2.7% whereas short rates are virtually zero, and the potential is huge when Mrs Watanabe eventually does wade in. She and her kind sit on financial assets of around $15 trillion, half in cash and bank deposits. As the population ages and declines, earning income from those savings is essential. Christopher Wood of CLSA, a brokerage, has long predicted that Japan's stockmarket will turn around only when retail investors return. 一度销声匿迹的“渡边太太”是一个虚构的人物，她用丈夫的资产在股市里投机获利。自从 1990 年股市泡沫 破灭后，整个市场的市值维持在鼎盛时期的 1/4。虽然日本的短期利率几乎为零，但股市收益率仍能达到 2.7%，而当“渡边太太”涉足股市之际，正是股市潜力无穷之时。“渡边太太们”坐拥着 15 万亿的商业资产， 其中现金和银行储蓄各占一半。随着人口老龄化和人口数量的减少，人们不得不从储蓄中创收。里昂股票 策略师 Christopher Wood 一直把日本股市的复苏的希望，寄托在个人投资者的回归上。 Why might they be tempted? Perhaps the market has been oversold by foreigners, who have sold shares to pay for losses elsewhere. Shares also trade at about 70-80% of their book value (implying that firms are worth more as a collection of assets to be sold than as going concerns). 为何“渡边太太们”乐此不疲呢？日本股市正被外国投资者卖空，他们大量抛售股票以弥补在别处的损失。 股价还在面值的 70-80%时就被交易了，这说明卖掉那些公司的获利远比长期投资来得丰厚。 Moreover, share prices may gain if the government becomes a buyer (as it did during recessions in the 1950 s and 1960 s). It wants to. Banks and insurance firms own 15% of the market by value; giving the market a lift would be a big fillip for them. 而且当政府成为买家的时候，股票就将增值，50，60 年代的经济大萧条时期，政府就是这么做的。这也符 合政府的意愿。银行和保险公司占了市值的 15%，股市的小幅上扬，都将使他们受益匪浅。 Yet when a board member of a local broker in December ventured into the stockmarket for the first time, it elicited only cynicism from seasoned hands. “Sure, push up the share price so institutional investors can sell,”sniped one international banker. Just another kabuya. 然而十二月，当一名地方经济公司的董事会成员初次涉足证交所时，面对的是操盘老手的冷嘲热讽。一个 国际银行家嘲笑道：“做的好，抬高股价吧，让机构投资者先跑”，这只不过是另一种诈欺罢了。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Microfinance 微型金融 Microfinance 微型金融 Sub-par but not subprime “微”而不“次” Mar 19th 2009 | LONDON AND TOKYO 2009 年 3 月 19 日伦敦、东京

From The Economist print edition 摘自《经济学家》打印版 Lending to the poor has held up well but it is not as safe from the credit crisis as its champions hoped 适逢信贷危机，面向贫困者的贷款业务还算稳定，不过也没能像拥护者们期望的那样独善其身 A GLOBAL credit crisis caused by subprime mortgages is hardly the ideal backdrop for a business making unsecured loans to poor people without a credit history. Yet big microfinance companies, which do exactly that, seem to be in rude health. Mohammad Yunus, the unflappably optimistic founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, a microfinance institution for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is adamant that business remains unscathed. “We have not been touched in any way by the financial crisis,”he said on a recent visit to Japan. “The simple reason is because we are rooted to the real economy-we are not paper-based, paper-chasing banking. When we give a loan of $100, behind the $100 there are chickens, there are cows. It is not something imaginary.” 虽然次级抵押贷款引发的全球信贷危机很难成为开展面向穷人的无抵押品贷款业务的理想条件，但是那些 经营该业务的大型微型金融[注 1]公司看起来却异常稳健。位于孟加拉国的格莱珉银行[注 2]就是一家提供 微型金融服务的机构，其创始人穆罕默德•尤努斯因为成立该机构，于 2006 年获得了诺贝尔和平奖。沉稳、 乐观的尤努斯坚信公司业务未受影响，并在最近一次日本之行中表示：“我们在金融危机中毫发无损，原因 很简单，我们扎根于实体经济，而不是有价证券，也不是纸片追逐游戏[注 3]式的银行模式。当我们贷出 100 美元的时候，这笔钱要么用来养鸡，要么养牛，都是些看得见摸得着的东西” 。 He is not alone in thinking that microfinance is insulated from the problems of the global economy. Its proponents argue that any similarity with subprime loans is misleading. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) lend relatively small sums of money to people in developing countries to start small, profitable businesses, not to buy overpriced homes. Many of those businesses serve local needs, which has more merit at a time when exports are collapsing. And microfinance's reliance on peer pressure for repayment must be the envy of any mainstream banker struggling with rising foreclosures and “jingle mail”; delinquency rates are microscopic. 并非尤努斯一人认为微型金融可以在全球经济陷入困境时独善其身。追随者们认为，任何在微型金融和次 级贷款之间寻求共性的举动都是一种误导。微型金融机构提供数额较小的贷款，发展中国家的人们以此做 些有利可图的小买卖，而不是购买充满泡沫的房产。许多这类小买卖主要是为满足当地需求，一旦出口萎 缩，其优势也就体现出来了。另外，微型金融依靠的是竞相还贷的趋同心理，这也必定让主流银行家们眼 红，因为他们要疲于应付日渐增多的抵押贷款违约(表现为日益上升的止赎率[注 4]和越来越多的寄钥匙的 包裹[注 5])，而微型金融的违约率微乎其微。 Some MFIs, however, do not enjoy the same isolation that their borrowers do. Many of them are funded internationally. According to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a research centre in Washington, DC, foreign-capital flows into microfinance tripled between 2004 and 2006. About half the industry's funding comes from aid budgets, but the share of private money is growing. The World Bank's private arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC. gave 55% more each year to microfinance lenders between 2004 and 2007. MFIs, especially those in eastern Europe and Central Asia, also borrowed from foreign banks. Meanwhile the microfinance portfolios of private investment funds grew from $600 m in 2004 to $2 billion in 2006.

不过有些微型金融机构并不像他们的借款人那样轻松，这些机构中很多都是跨国融资的。扶贫协商小组 (CGAP)是一家设在美国华盛顿特区的研究中心，据该小组称，2004 年~2006 年间流入微型金融的外国资本 增长了两倍。微型金融机构的资本约有一半来自援助预算，不过民间资本的比重正在增加。2004 年~2007 年间，世界银行所属的国际金融公司(IFC.每年为微型融资机构提供 55％以上的融资。微型融资机构也从外 国银行贷款，尤其是东欧和中非的微型融资机构。同时微型融资机构的资本组合中，民间资本也由 2004 年 的 6 亿增加到 2006 年的 20 亿。 Funding from development institutions like the IFC is likely to be stable, but aid budgets are being cut and other sources of funding are threatened, too. Kimanthi Mutua, who runs K-Rep Bank, a big Kenyan microlender, says that in 2007 he fielded calls from prospective investors every couple of weeks. For the past six months he has not had a single call. According to CGAP's Elizabeth Littlefield, borrowing costs have risen by up to four and a half percentage points in some markets. Foreign-currency borrowers may have exchange-rate fluctuations to cope with. And some global banks are pulling out altogether. Even MFIs that borrow locally may find their banks' funding is constrained by global conditions. 从发展援助机构融资可能比较稳定，不过援助预算正在削减，其他的融资渠道也受到威胁。齐曼西•穆托 (Kimanthi Mutua)在肯尼亚经营一家较大的微型金融机构，名为 K-Rep 银行，他说 2007 年的时候每隔几周 就会接到潜在投资者的电话，然而过去的六个月里，他一个电话也没接到。据来自扶贫协商小组(CGAP) 的伊丽莎白.利特菲尔德(Elizabeth Littlefield)称，有些市场借款成本增加了 4.5％。借外币的人要应对汇率波 动的问题。一些跨国银行完全撤出这一市场。全球形势甚至令在本地融资的微型金融机构在贷款时也受到 了限制。 An even more pressing concern is refinancing existing debt. Most MFIs have loans with one-or two-year tenures. According to the IFC, there is a potential refinancing gap of $1.8 billion over the next 18 months. The IFC and the German government have put together a $500 m fund to help microfinance firms with refinancing. 更为紧迫的一个问题是债务再融资。多数微型金融机构都背负 1~2 年期的贷款。据国际金融公司(IFC.称， 未来 18 个月可能出现 18 亿美元的再融资缺口。国际金融公司(IFC.和德国政府共同设立了一个 5 亿美元的 基金以帮助这些微型金融机构再融资。 All this, some experts argue, should encourage the institutions to start raising funds by collecting deposits rather than relying on fickle markets or donors. In Africa many MFIs already do this. The slow slog of attracting depositors can be off-putting, however, and may become harder if the crisis deepens. The World Bank estimates that worsening economic conditions could push an additional 65 m people under the $2-a-day poverty line. These people-formerly known as the “nearly poor”-were just the sort whose savings deposit-taking MFIs had hoped to target. 一些人认为，所有这些都应该促使这些微型金融机构通过吸收存款来筹集资金，而不是单靠变数过多的市 场和捐赠。许多非洲的微型金融机构已经这么做了。或许老牛拉车般吸收存款有些恼人，然而一旦危机进 一步恶化，想让人存钱也难。世界银行估计，江河日下的全球经济可能再将 6500 万人推到每天 2 美元的贫 困线以下。这些此前被列入“准贫困”行列的人，恰恰是微型金融机构吸收存款的对象。 The squeeze on credit could expose additional frailties in the microfinance model. Many observers suspect that at

least some microfinance loans actually finance consumption, not investment, and that borrowers use new loans from one MFI to pay off their debts with another. As long as new credit is readily available, this strategy works-much as paying off one credit card with another once did in the rich world. But the credit crunch may expose this as a problem, reckons Justin Oliver, who runs the Centre for Microfinance, a research centre in Chennai, India. Meanwhile, the IFC reports that data from the top 150 microfinance institutions show that the share of borrowers 30 days delinquent on their loans has increased from 1.2% before the crisis to between 2% and 3% now. This is still very low by most standards and Mr Yunus says that repayment rates at Grameen remain impeccable. But the worry is that a prolonged credit crunch could make microfinance clients start to look more like those hapless subprime borrowers. 信贷的收紧可能令微型金融模式暴露出新的弱点，至少在许多观察家眼里，一些来自微型金融机构的贷款 实际上没有用于投资，而是用于消费，借款人用从这家微型金融机构获得贷款，再偿还其在另一家微型金 融机构的贷款。只要能够轻易获得新贷款，这种策略就会奏效，酷似一度在发达国家出现的用一张信用卡 为另外一张信用卡埋单的现象。而在贾斯廷•奥利弗(Justin Oliver)看来，信贷紧缩的情况下，这种现象可能 会产生问题，奥利弗(Oliver)来自位于印度钦奈的微型金融模式研究中心。同时，据国际金融公司(IFC.称， 排名前 150 的微型金融机构的数据显示，30 天贷款违约的借款人比例由金融危机前的 1.2％上升到现在的 2~3％。按照大多数标准衡量，这一数字仍旧很低，同时微型金融模式创始人尤努斯说格莱珉银行的贷款偿 还率依旧让人无可挑剔。不过人们担心的是，旷日持久的信贷紧缩可能让微型金融模式下的借款人越长越 像那些倒霉的次贷申请者。 译者注： 注 1：微型金融是为贫困、低收入人口和微型企业提供的金融服务，包含小额信贷、储蓄、汇款和微型保 险等金融服务，国际上称为 microfinance。从发展过程和业务开展情况看，微型金融中最主要的业务还是小 额信贷和储蓄，其他业务往往是在小额信贷业务和客户群基础上开发的，并与小额信贷业务配合开展。 注 2：格莱珉银行(Grameen Bank),又称乡村银行，官方网站网址:http://www. grameen-info. org 格莱珉银行的 创办者尤努斯博士因获得诺贝尔和平奖而声名鹊起。 注 3：一种撒纸追逐游戏(领头者作越野跑,沿途撒纸屑供他人循踪追逐)。 注 4：止赎是指取消抵押物品的赎取权。 注 5：寄钥匙的包裹是指业主因各种原因无法继续偿还贷款而把抵押房屋的钥匙寄给银行。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：A conqueror, not an end-user 是征服者，而不是最终用 户 Silvio Berlusconi's woes 贝卢斯科尼的麻烦事 A conqueror, not an end-user

是征服者，而不是最终用户 Jun 25th 2009 | ROME From The Economist print edition More embarrassment, but the prime minister toughs it out 虽然糗事不断，但总理先生还是决定死皮赖脸地混下去 AN ELECTION win would gladden most politicians. But Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, was not inclined to lead the celebrations after his party did well in the second round of local polls on June 21st and 22 nd. For on June 18th it had emerged that magistrates in Bari were investigating a possible call-girl ring, and that some of its women had been guests of Mr Berlusconi in Rome. 大部分政治家会因为一次选举胜利而开心，不过意大利总理贝卢斯科尼是个例外-他领导的政党在 6 月 21 日及 22 日的第二轮选举中表现良好，但他不会牵头庆祝选举胜利的活动。造成总理先生兴致不高的原因是： 6 月 18 日，巴里的地方法官对电话招妓事件及去过贝卢斯科尼罗马住所的应召女郎们进行了调查。 This has pushed questions about Mr Berlusconi's relations with a young woman from Naples called Noemi Letizia into the background. But it has also meant that he has had to focus more energy on efforts to limit the damage to his reputation than on running Italy or helping its economy. 这样一来，贝卢斯科尼与那不勒斯年轻女子诺埃米•莱蒂齐亚说不清道不明的关系反倒退居次席了。不过(电 话招妓事件调查活动)也意味着他不得不费更大力气来捍卫自己的名声，在这样的情况下，贝氏还能花多少 精力来领导意大利和恢复经济呢？ Mr Berlusconi has turned to his media empire for help. The latest issue of Chi, a weekly magazine published by a firm controlled by Fininvest, Mr Berlusconi's family holding company (see article), includes nine pages of photographs and text promoting the prime minister as a family man. In it he denies ever paying women for sex, saying: “I never understood where the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest.”Italians have been mostly kept in the dark about the Bari investigation, which has been mentioned only briefly and obliquely on the main television channels. Mr Berlusconi and his children own the three main commercial channels and he exerts strong influence over two of the three owned by the state. 贝卢斯科尼已经开始向其缔造的媒体帝国寻求帮助。由贝氏家族芬尼维斯特集团控股的周刊《谁》，最近 就发表了一篇长达 9 页、图文并茂的文章，不遗余力地塑造总理先生“家庭好男人”的形象。文中，贝卢斯 科尼称自己从未有过买春的行为，还表示：“我不明白，那些没有经过征服过程的行为，会有什么快乐的满 足感吗？”意大利民众对巴里调查的详细情况几乎一无所知，关于这项调查的报道只是在主要电视频道里被 一笔带过。贝卢斯科尼及其子女拥有三个主要的商业电视频道，他还能对三个国有电视频道中的两个施加 重大影响。 Yet parts of the Roman Catholic Church have now decided that the prime minister is setting a bad example. Famiglia Cristiana, an influential weekly, argues that the church cannot ignore Italy's moral emergency. In a strongly worded article the magazine accuses Mr Berlusconi's supporters of defending the indefensible. It attacks Mr Berlusconi's lawyer for describing prostitutes as “goods”, and a man who pays them as an “end-user”.

而罗马天主教会的一部分人士也断定，贝卢斯科尼树立了一个坏榜样。极具影响力的杂志《天主教家庭周 刊》认为，教会不应无视意大利的道德危机。在一篇言辞尖锐的文章里，杂志指责贝卢斯科尼的支持者们 是在为一个罪人开脱。文中还谴责了贝卢斯科尼律师的言论-此君称妓女是“商品”，付费招妓者是“最终用 户”。 Noting that politicians in other countries who transgress moral standards often resign, Famiglia Cristiana asks, “why is Italy so different?”Yet Mr Berlusconi is a man of resolve: comparisons with other countries will cut little ice. Nor will calls for him to go be echoed by politicians in his own party-they owe their positions to him. Mr Berlusconi has never enjoyed much standing in international circles. His latest problems will raise a laugh among his guests at the G8 summit next month. But he is unlikely to quit or be driven out. 其他国家的政治家一旦出现道德丑闻，往往会主动辞职，《天主教家庭周刊》就此发问：“为何意大利不能 这样？”但贝卢斯科尼赖着不走的决心可是很大的，拿他跟其他国家政治家做比较，可以说是完全无济于事。 有关于他的问题，也甭想从他党内政客的口中得到一个字的回答，原因很明显-这些人的官职是拜贝氏所赐 的嘛。其实一直以来，贝卢斯科尼在国际事务中也没怎么露过脸，但他最近的糗事在下个月举行的 G8 峰 会上也许会遭到欧洲同行们的嘲笑。管他呢，反正贝卢斯科尼是既不会辞职，也不会被取代的。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Language problems 都是文字惹的祸 Silvio Berlusconi and the press 西尔维奥•贝卢斯科尼和媒体 Language problems 都是文字惹的祸 Jun 18th 2009 | ROME From The Economist print edition Italy's prime minister campaigns against the foreign media 意大利总理正与外国媒体纠缠不清 Please don't read all about it 还是别读完的好

NO POLITICIAN likes a critical press and Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, is no exception. In recent weeks he has come in for close scrutiny by foreign journalists, and what they have written has not made pleasant reading. Yet the knocks to his standing are partly of his own making. Questions hang over his relations with young women and with David Mills, a British lawyer paid by him and recently convicted of giving false evidence in his favour (Mr Mills is appealing). Mr Berlusconi tried to stop publication of photographs of guests at his Sardinian villa. He said that this would be an invasion of privacy, but the foreign media see it is part of a pattern that betrays a dislike of a free press. 没有政治家喜欢那些对自己大放厥词的媒体，意大利总理西尔维奥•贝卢斯科尼也不例外。近几周以来，他 正被众多外国记者密切盯梢，由此见诸于报的新闻大多是关于他的负面消息。落得今天这般局面，贝卢斯 科尼多少也有点自作自受-他与几位年轻女性及英国律师大卫•米尔斯(此君受雇于贝氏，最近因为贝氏作假 证而被定罪，他不服，目前正提出上诉)之间扯不清的关系受到了广泛质疑。外国媒体曾拍摄了一组众宾客 在贝氏撒丁岛别墅寻欢作乐的照片，贝卢斯科尼试图阻止这组图片的公开，他声称，这是对个人隐私的侵 犯。而外国媒体则称，他们的做法正体现了媒体自由。 Mr Berlusconi believes that the best form of defence is attack. Last month his foreign minister called a critical leading article in the Financial Times, a British business newspaper (and part-owner of The Economist), bad and dishonest journalism. Early this month Mr Berlusconi himself accused the foreign press of being at the service of the centre-left opposition. He has attacked newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, especially the Times, for their recent highly critical coverage. Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Mr Berlusconi's brother, has described the work of the foreign press as poison and lies, pointing especially at publications based in Britain, France, Germany and Spain. 最好的防守即进攻，这是贝卢斯科尼的信条。上周，他的外交部长就跳出来指责英国商业报纸《金融时报》 (该报拥有本杂志的一部分股权)一篇批评贝氏的文章是“恶劣和不实的”；本月早些时候，贝卢斯科尼还亲自 出马，谴责外国媒体已经成为中左反对派的傀儡-他向鲁珀特•默多克旗下的报纸尤其是《泰晤士报》发难， 全因这些报纸最近对他的批评铺天盖地；贝卢斯科尼兄弟旗下的《意大利日报》还将外国媒体-尤其是英国、 法国、德国、西班牙媒体-的批评报道斥之为毒药和谎言。 Some Italian ambassadors have been putting pressure on media hostile to Mr Berlusconi. The Italian ambassador in Madrid wrote to the newspaper El País to complain of a “systematic campaign of demolition of Italy's image”. A foreign journalist in Rome was recently summoned to the foreign ministry. Mr Berlusconi's staff have tried to get one foreign ambassador to bring journalists from his country into line. Yet Mr Berlusconi and his supporters refuse to engage directly with critics. Foreign correspondents complain that it is often impossible to secure interviews with any ministers in the government. 意大利的一些驻外大使，已经开始向对贝卢斯科尼出言不逊的外国媒体施加压力了：意大利驻西班牙大使 向《国家报》发出了书面抗议，指责其对贝氏的报道是“对意大利形象彻头彻尾的污损”；罗马的一名外国 记者最近被传唤到外交部问话；贝卢斯科尼的幕僚们还试图通过一位驻意使节来转变其国内媒体的口风。 但是，贝氏及其支持者们从不愿正面回应对他们的非议。外媒记者开始抱怨很难采访到意大利政府官员。 Some journalists believe their telephones are tapped. And the threat of legal action is constant. Mr Berlusconi's

lawyer is bringing an action against El País because it published the Sardinian photographs. Until Mr Berlusconi came along, Italian prime ministers tended not to sue newspapers. Mr Berlusconi sues plenty (including The Economist). He has all the power that comes from great personal wealth, extensive media and publishing interests and control over commercial television, as well as influence on state-owned broadcasting. On June 13th he issued a call to Italian businessmen (later withdrawn) not to place advertising with critical domestic publications. 一些记者相信，他们的电话肯定被窃听了，同时，他们还面临着被起诉的风险。这不，贝氏的律师正准备 以私自公开撒丁岛照片的罪名起诉《国家报》。之前，还没有哪一任意大利总理敢起诉报纸咧，但贝卢斯 科尼这一次就起诉了很多家媒体(包括本杂志)。巨额的个人财产、来自媒体和出版业的丰厚收益、对商业 电视台的控制。以及对国有广播的影响，这一切，都是贝卢斯科尼权力的来源。6 月 13 日贝氏向意大利所 有商人发出通告(此通告不久后被收回)，指示他们不得刊登曾对其发出批评的国内出版物的广告。 The prime minister also has a habit of not answering questions. In 2002 he refused to help prosecutors in an anti-Mafia case. More than 50 questions that The Economist first sent him in April 2001 remain unanswered. Recently Mr Berlusconi failed to respond to ten questions put by La Repubblica over his relationship with a young woman, Noemi Letizia. 总理先生还有沉默不语的癖好：2002 年，他拒绝向起诉黑手党的公诉人提供帮助；2001 年 4 月，本杂志对 他提出了 50 个以上的问题，直到现在还没有一个得到解答；最近，他还在《共和报》抛出的 10 个问题(针 对贝氏和年轻女子诺埃米•莱蒂齐亚之间的关系)面前哑口无言。 As he prepares to chair a summit of G8 rich countries in L'Aquila, Mr Berlusconi might want to consider the effect that his attacks on the foreign press have both on his image and on that of his country. 在贝卢斯科尼即将出席拉奎拉 G8 峰会之际，他也许得好好思考一下，对国外媒体的攻击，会对自己及意 大利的形象造成何种影响。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：No thanks, Geneva 日内瓦，盛情被却 Russia and Western clubs 俄罗斯和西方俱乐部 No thanks, Geneva 日内瓦，盛情被却 Jun 18th 2009 | MOSCOW From The Economist print edition Why Russia is turning its back on the World Trade Organisation 世贸组织为俄罗斯所抛弃的原因 IT HAD become almost a ritual. Every year Russian officials promised that by the end of the following year their country would complete the negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation. Every year the timetable slipped by

another year. But now Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, has broken with the ritual by announcing that, after 16 years of trying to get in, Russia no longer wants to join the WTO on its own but only as part of a customs union that it has forged with Belarus and Kazakhstan. The turnaround shocked trade negotiators on both sides, who only weeks ago were trying to iron out the last wrinkles in a deal. 俄罗斯入世谈判几乎成了例行公事。俄国官员每年承诺：俄罗斯将于下一年内完成入世谈判。时间表明年 复明年地一再被推迟。俄罗斯总理普金的声明废除了这种形式主义。他在声明中说到，经过了 16 年的争取 入世，俄罗斯自身不再入世，而只加入与白俄和哈萨克斯坦相关的部分关税同盟。360 度的大转变使谈判 双方为之哗然，一周前双方还在为扫除一项协议最后的障碍而努力。 Why the change? The Kremlin may just be fed up with endless new demands and delays. After last August's war with Georgia, Mr Putin accused the West of politicising the trade talks and said that Russia would not be pushed around. Both Ukraine and Georgia, two former Soviet republics that cause big headaches in the Kremlin, are now in the WTO, leaving Russia behind (and, not incidentally, acquiring a veto over its membership). By making his announcement before Barack Obama's visit to Moscow, Mr Putin removed an easy concession the American president might have offered. “We really thought we could have completed [the talks] by the end of the year,”said a senior American official. 变由何生？俄国政府也许厌倦了没完没了的新要求和拖延。去年 6 月俄格战争之后，普金指责西方将贸易 谈判政治化，俄罗斯不会任由摆布。前苏联成员乌克兰和格鲁吉亚都令俄国头痛，如今他们都加入了世贸 组织(WTO)，将俄国抛在一边不理，而且要求退出联盟也绝非偶然。普金在奥巴马访俄前作此声明，轻而 易举地推掉了美国总统有可能提供的妥协方案。美国一位高级官员称：“我们真的认为，在今年之内能和俄 国完成入世谈判”。 In practical terms Russia will lose little. It exports mainly oil and gas, which are largely not covered by the WTO. Being outside the organisation for a bit longer gives it more freedom to raise import duties on second-hand cars or export duties on timber. Some observers suggest that the Kremlin was never truly comfortable with the idea of free trade and saw the rules as a nuisance rather than a stimulus to restructure the economy. 实际上，俄国损失无几。俄国只要出口石油和天然气，而这方面 WTO 都没怎么涉及到。短时间内不入世， 俄国将获得更大的经济自由，可以提高二手车进口或者木材出口的关税。有观察家认为，俄政府对自由贸 易并不感冒，他们认为世贸规则有害无益，并不能刺激调整俄国经济结构。 Yet Russia's aspiration to membership, which in turn opened up the prospect of joining the Paris-based OECD club of rich countries, demonstrated its desire for integration into the global economic system. Now the Kremlin seems to prefer being a distinct regional power that can offer alternative economic and military institutions and alliances to the West's. Mr Putin has long argued that international organisations such as the WTO and the International Monetary Fund have outlived their day and should be supplemented or even replaced by regional clubs. In the multipolar world that Russia advocates, it sees itself as a centre of regional influence. A military alliance between Russia and Uzbekistan, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, called the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), should be “no worse than NATO”, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, argued recently.

然而俄国入世的渴望反过来开创了加入经合组织(OECD.的新局面，显示其融入全球经济体系的要求。经合 组织总部设在巴黎，是富国俱乐部。现今俄政府更倾向于成为明显的区域强权，相对于西方来说，这样可 拥有更多供选择的经济军事机构和联盟。普金早就说过，像 WTO 和 IMF (国际货币基金组织)等国际机构 已成昨日黄花，它们应该应由地区组织补充甚至取代。俄国推崇多极化世界，它自认为是区域影响力的中 心。俄国与乌克兰，白俄罗斯，亚美尼亚，哈萨克斯坦，吉尔吉斯斯坦和塔吉克斯坦结成的独联体(CSTO) 应不比北约(NATO)差。俄国总统梅德韦杰夫最近如是说。 Russia sees any foreign project that touches the former Soviet Union, including the European Union's new eastern partnership, as a direct challenge. Yet the bigger threat to its ambitions to reassert regional influence lies in its own attitude towards the neighbours. Even as it was signing a customs union with Belarus, Russia imposed a ban on Belarusian milk products, which it claimed did not meet its new packaging rules (rather as it once argued that Georgian wine, fruit and mineral water were of substandard quality). But Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the autocratic president of Belarus, interpreted this (probably accurately) as a punishment for being rude about Russia and refusing to back its policy of recognising the independence of the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 俄国视任何触及前苏联成员国的外国计划项目为直接挑战，其中包括欧盟东扩。俄国妄图重振区域影响力 的威胁在于其对邻国的态度。即使与白俄签订了关税同盟，俄国强行禁止进口白俄奶产品，宣称没有达到 新的包装要求，而不是对于格鲁吉亚酒，水果和矿泉水所说的质量不达标。白俄威权总统卢卡申科解释到(很 有可能很精确)，这是俄国对白俄的惩罚，惩罚白俄对其粗鲁，拒绝支持其承认格领土阿布哈兹和南奥塞梯 独立的政策。 Mr Lukashenka is known for his own blackmailing tactics. When Alexei Kudrin, Russia's finance minister, questioned Belarus's solvency and withheld a $500 m loan offer a few weeks ago, Mr Lukashenka hit back by saying: “If it does not work with Russia… we will have to try our luck in another part of the planet.”In response to the milk ban, he boycotted the latest CSTO summit, insisting that talk of collective security against the background of trade wars waged by some CSTO members against others made a mockery of common sense. Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign-policy pundit in Moscow, commented that, as soon as the CSTO ceased functioning as a mere symbol of loyalty to Russia and began to set concrete goals, “it became clear how little the organisation met the real interest of its members.” 卢卡申科以其恐吓战术而闻名。但几周前，俄财长库德林质疑白俄的偿付能力，扣留了其 5 亿美元的贷款。 卢卡申科回击道，如果和俄国无法合作，我们将不得不向其他地区寻求帮助。作为对奶产品禁令的回应， 卢卡申科抵制了最近的独联体峰会，坚持认为在独联体国家内部商战的背景下，讨论集体安全是一种嘲讽。 独联体一开始停止成为忠于俄国的标志和设定具体目标，莫斯科一位外交政策学者 Fyodor Lukyanov 就评 论道，该组织很明显没有满足其成员的确实利益。

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Charlemagne: Lonely at the top：高处不胜寒 Charlemagne Lonely at the top 查理曼 高处不胜寒 Jun 4th 2009 From The Economist print edition 原载 2009 年 5 月 35 日，《经济学家》印刷版 The president of the European Commission is under fire from many in Brussels 布鲁塞尔的欧洲委员会主席正在受到多方攻击 ATTACKS on JoséManuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, have intensified before the European election held between June 4th and 7 th, and ahead of a European Union summit when national leaders will discuss his reappointment to a second five-year term. On the left, the Party of European Socialists (PES) calls Mr Barroso a conservative who “puts markets before people”. Should the PES emerge as the largest group in the European Parliament, it will try to block him. 5 月 35 日到 6 月 7 日欧洲大选即将举行，而在即将到来的欧盟蜂会上，各国领导人将对欧洲委员会主席乔 斯•曼纽尔•巴罗佐 JoséManuel Barroso 是否继续能够再连任五年进行讨论。随着以上两件大事的临近，针对 巴罗佐的攻击也越来越强烈了。左翼的欧洲社会党(PES)称巴罗佐过于保守，“将市场置于人民之前”。若是 社会党在欧洲议会中获得最多的席位，巴罗佐的前程可能不保。 But prominent federalists are also unimpressed. Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, speaks for many in Brussels when he denounces Mr Barroso for a lack of ambition for Europe. Mr Verhofstadt invokes the memory of Jacques Delors, the pugnacious Frenchman who ran the commission from 1985 to 1995. Mr Delors

proposed many ambitious plans, he says, and got 30% of them: that 30% then became the European internal market. Mr Verhofstadt thinks that last autumn Mr Barroso should have proposed such things as a single EU financial regulator, a single European bad bank, or a multi-trillion issue of “Eurobonds”. That would have triggered a “big fight”with national governments, he concedes. But “maybe the outcome would have been 10%, 20% or 30% of his plan.” 而与此同时，联邦主义者中的精英对他也颇为不满。前比利时总理居伊•费尔霍夫施塔 Guy Verhofstadt 称， 对于欧洲的未来，巴罗佐有些胸无大志；这也代表了欧盟领导层中许多人的看法。费尔霍夫施塔举了 1985-1995 年期间任委员会主席雅克•狄洛 Jacques Delors 做例子，他说，这位性格火爆的法国人提出了许多 野心勃勃的计划，虽然其中只有 30%付诸了实践，然而如今欧洲统一市场的建立，正是拜这 30%的计划所 赐。费尔霍夫施塔认为，去年秋天巴罗佐就应当开始倡导建立全欧洲统一的财政监管系统或是坏帐收托银 行，抑或数以万亿计的“欧盟基金”。他承认，这将触发欧盟与各国政府之间的“一场大战”，然而“计划的一 部分也许会成为现实，10%，20%，或许是 30%。” The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has endorsed a second term for Mr Barroso, a former centre-right prime minister of Portugal. Yet he seems keen to make him sweat. French officials have briefed that the decision on Mr Barroso's future taken at the June 18 th-19th summit should be only political, leaving a legally binding nomination for later. 法国总统尼古拉•萨科奇对巴罗佐(前葡萄牙中右翼总理)的连任表示了支持，不过他也很不打算让巴罗佐的 日子那么好过。法国政府在简报中表示，6 月 18-19 日的峰会上对巴罗佐未来的决定只是政策性的，此后还 要依照欧洲宪法进行提名程序。 Yet the attacks on Mr Barroso are unlikely to block him. No opinion poll shows the PES overtaking the centre-right European People's Party in the European Parliament. The centre-right leaders who hold power in most of Europe have endorsed Mr Barroso, as have the (nominally) centre-left leaders of Britain, Spain and Portugal. This helps to explain why the PES, for all its bluster, has not fielded a candidate against Mr Barroso. 然而这些攻击似乎并不会对巴罗佐的政策生涯造成阻碍。在民意调查中，并没有数据显示 PES 会在欧洲议 会中压过中右阵营的欧洲人民党一头。欧洲大多数国家中的中右翼领导人都会对巴罗佐表示支持，英国、 西班牙和葡萄牙那些名义上的中左翼领袖亦是如此。这也可以解释为什么虽然 PES 在宣传上采取高调，却 没有推出任何一名候选人与巴罗佐唱对台。 It is equally wrong to pretend that Europe was ready for a federalist big bang last autumn. Officials say Mr Barroso spent the first weeks of the economic crisis bridging differences between Britain and France on such issues as accounting standards and the regulation of rating agencies. Later, he kept the peace between Mr Sarkozy and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, after the French president pushed for summits of EU leaders from euro-area countries (Ms Merkel thought that sounded like a two-speed Europe). In any case France has no veto over Mr Barroso's reappointment: the decision is now taken by majority vote. Some diplomats suggest that France's stalling tactics are meant to extract such concessions as a plum portfolio for its commissioner. 同样，若说联邦主义者们准备大张旗鼓搞什么动作，去年秋天也不是时候。按欧盟官员的说法，经济危机

到来之后的第一周，巴罗佐的主要工作是在英法之间斡旋，弥补双方在会计准则、评级机构监管等方面的 分歧。此后，在法国总统萨科奇积极鼓吹由欧元区国家召开欧盟领导峰会时，他又忙于维持萨科奇与德国 总理安格拉•默克尔之间的和平(默克尔女士认为萨科奇的这一主张与双速欧洲计划如出一辙)。无论如何， 法国对巴罗佐的连任没有否决权，现在选举是多数投票决定的了。许多外交家认为，法国采取拖延战术的 目的是获得更多的好处，例如为委员会成员争取更好的职位。 Those calling for “European”action often talk as if they are describing an elegant mechanism, needed to make the union work properly. They argue that only a single financial regulator can police Europe's single market, or complain that 27 national bail-out plans lack “coherence”. In fact, these apparently structural calls for “more Europe”are pitches for specific ideological programmes. Thus, in a joint statement on May 30th Mr Sarkozy and Ms Merkel announced that “Liberalism without rules has failed.”They called for a European economic model in which capital serves “entrepreneurs and workers”rather than “speculators”, and hedge funds and bankers' pay are tightly regulated. They added that competition policies should be used to favour the “emergence of world-class European companies”, and gave warning against a “bureaucratic Europe”that blindly applies “pernickety rules” (translation: if Paris or Berlin want to aid national champions or broker mergers, they will). If all this sounds like Europe as a giant Rhineland economy, that is no accident. “欧洲化”行动的鼓吹者们往往声称，他们期待简洁高效的运行机制，对维护欧盟的正常工作是必不可少的。 他们称，要对欧洲单一市场进行监管，必须设置单一的财政监管机构；或称 27 个国家各自出台保释体系缺 乏“一致性”。事实上，这些有组织有计划的呼声，明显是为某种意识形态服务。5 月 30 日，萨科奇和默克 尔发表联合声明，表示“不加限制的自由主义已经宣告失败”。他们呼吁建立新的欧洲经济模型，使资产服 务于“企业和工人”，而非“投机商”；同时要求对对冲基金和银行家的支出进行严格的监控。此外他们还说， 应当采取竞争策略，以“形成世界级的欧洲公司”，并发出警示，盲目地遵从“鸡毛蒜皮的教条”会使整个欧 洲“官僚主义化”(意即，如果法德两国愿意帮助民族国家的拥护者或是对冲合并公司，他们一定会这样做的)。 如果有人觉得这样的态势是想把欧洲变成大莱茵经济圈，也不会让人感到意外。 Mr Verhofstadt, a continental liberal, means something different by “Europe”. He agrees that the crisis “represents the crash of the Anglo-American model”. But he is not keen on heavy regulation. When he calls for economic policies to reflect Europe's “way of thinking”, he means things like raising savings. Above all, he considers the nation-state to be incapable of managing today's “globalised”economy, so Europe must take over. This is fighting talk. Britain, notably, does not accept that everything about the Anglo-Saxon model has failed, nor is it about to cede more power to Brussels. And it has allies, notably in eastern Europe. 对大陆派自由主义者费尔霍夫施塔来说，“欧洲”的意义则有所不同。他同样认为这场经济危机“标志着盎格 鲁-美利坚模式的破产”，但仍然对严格的监管制度情有独钟。他所宣扬的反应“欧洲的思维方式”的经济政 策，其实指的就是提高存款率之类的手段。另外，他认为民族化国家已经无法应对今天“全球化”的经济， 所以欧盟必须开始接手了。这是一个争议甚广的话题。值得注意的是，英国并不接受“盎格鲁-萨克逊模式 已经破产”的说法，也不愿将权力移交给布尔塞尔。某些国家也对英国表示支持，尤其是东欧国家。 Holding the ring Mr Barroso's job is to act as referee. His first five years made his instincts clear. Although he favours EU

integration in many spheres, he does not believe that nation-states are the enemy of Europe. He thinks national governments enjoy a democratic legitimacy that hard-core integrationists ignore at their peril. But he is not without faults. He likes the limelight, and talks forever at press conferences. At times, he has been slow to speak out against big EU governments when they bend the rules. His allies counter that he wants to achieve things, and dislikes playing to the Brussels gallery with bold statements or doomed projects. 巴罗佐所需要担任的是一个裁判的角色。他在第一个五年的任期里已经显示了自己的天分。虽然他在许多 方面都倾向于欧盟的整体化，但他也明白，民族国家并非欧洲的敌人。他认为许多强硬的统一主义者们都 置民族国家政府的民主合法性于不顾，这一态度可能会带来危险的后果。不过巴罗佐的工作并非完美无暇。 他喜欢万众瞩目的感觉，在发布会上总是喋喋不休。当欧盟政府放宽条例时，他屡次没有及时出面制止。 他的盟友会反驳说，巴罗佐所关注的是切实的政绩，而非在欧盟会议上用莽撞的发言和注定失败的项目去 哗众取宠。 But he also has more virtues than Brussels insiders admit. It matters greatly that Mr Barroso grew up under a dictatorship in Portugal. He is a liberal who believes in open borders, for people and goods. Coming from a small, peripheral country, he feels the clubbishness of the old guard keenly, says an ally, adding: “He loathes bullies, this is a man who stood up to a dictatorship's police when he was young.” 巴罗佐身上的某些特质也深受布鲁塞尔内部人士的嘉许。他在葡萄牙的独裁政体下长大，这一点很被人看 重。他是自由主义者，信奉开放政策、公民权和财产权。他的一位同盟者说，由于他出身自周边小国，对 守旧派的拉帮结派非常敏感，“巴罗佐从青年时代起就挺身而出，面对独裁者手下的警察。对所有的霸权他 都深恶痛绝。” Above all, he sees Europe as it is: a fractious collection of 27 members. He does not see it as a proto-superstate, or a union cohesive enough to become a giant version of France, Germany or Britain. Such pragmatism may not please the Euro-enthusiasts in Brussels. But thankfully it is not up to them to decide. 在他的眼中，欧盟是一个由 27 名成员组成的、轻率急躁的集体。他并不认为欧盟已经成为了一个超级大国， 或是一个像扩大版的法国、德国和英国那样有足够凝聚力的共同体。他的实用主义风格也许不会受布鲁塞 尔那些欧洲统一化的狂热者们喜爱，不过万幸的是，欧盟的事务也不是由这些人决定。 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Out of sight, out of mind 眼不见，心不烦 Britain's relationship with Europe 英欧关系 Out of sight, out of mind 眼不见，心不烦 May 28th 2009 From The Economist print edition

Europe is invisible in the European election campaign. It shouldn't be 欧洲竞选跟欧洲无关，本来不应该是这样。 EUROPE helped bring down two of Britain's recent prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. But at least they were casualties of weighty conflicts over their country's future in the European Union (EU). On June 4th Gordon Brown may be mortally wounded by nothing grander than election results for the European Parliament. A poor showing for the Labour Party could be used by some of the prime minister's colleagues, already glum about his chances of leading them to victory at the general election likely to be held next year, as the cue for a putsch. 英国近代两位首相玛格丽特·撒切尔和约翰·梅耶下台都是拜欧洲所赐。但是至少他俩都是关系到英国将来在 欧盟地位的重要冲突的“阵亡”功臣。6 月 4 号，欧洲议会的选举结果将可能给戈登·布朗首相致命一击。工 党表现不佳导致首相一些同盟开始担心这是大变动的信号，并开始担忧首相能否带领他们赢得明年大选。 In fact Labour will struggle to do much worse than it did in 2004 (see article). But judging by the campaigns that political parties are waging, the European elections in Britain will have even less to do with Europe than in most EU member countries. Contrite plans to reform British politics in the wake of the parliamentary expenses scandal that broke earlier this month have flowed from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats (see article). Europe has rated only perfunctory mention. Mr Brown called for a European economic-growth strategy on May 27 th, dutifully chiding the Tories for their supposed isolationism along the way. Even smaller outfits for whom Euroscepticism is a defining creed, such as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the far-right British National Party (BNP), have run more on an anti-politics than an anti-EU platform. 事实上工党竭尽全力也远远不如 2004 年的表现。但是考虑到英国政党的不作为，相比欧盟其它成员国，在 英国的欧洲选举与欧洲更无联系。本月初由于“报销门”引发对英国政治改革的补救计划已经影响到工党， 保守党和自由民主党。欧洲基本没有用武之地。5 月 27 日布朗首相提出欧洲经济增长计划，并且批评保守 党一贯的孤立立场。质疑欧洲仅仅是个幌子，从中获益无多，比如英国独立党(UKIP)，以及极右翼英国国 家党(BNP)比起反欧来更加反政治。

Some of this indifference is easy to explain. The tide of European integration has slowed in recent years, leaving Britain with less to get worked up about. (Renewed talk of joining the single currency several months ago, as sterling was sinking, has fizzled out.) Tony Blair was constantly talking up the EU; his successor as prime minister has rarely shown the same zeal, and is anyway preoccupied with fighting a recession. And it is not as if voter interest has fallen to worrying levels. Turnout is likely to be about as high as in the European elections of 2004, and much higher than in 1999. 这种漠不关心很好理解。近几年来欧洲一体化进程放缓，英国无用武之地(伴随着英镑地位下降，几个月之 前英国重启加入单一货币区的谈判现在已经烟消云散)。托尼·布莱尔对欧盟热情有加，其继任首相则无此热 情，而且现在正忙于对付衰退。选民情绪看来还没有到值得担忧的程度。参选人数很可能和 2004 年欧洲选 举持平，并远远高于 1999 年的水平。 Explaining Europe's low profile in the European election campaign is one thing; excusing it is another. In all the usual ways-as a trading partner, source of legislation and growing geopolitical presence-the EU remains important for any member state. But there are reasons for the British to take it more seriously than most. 欧盟在欧洲竞选中地位不高是一回事，其原因是另一回事。从各个方面考虑，如作为贸易伙伴，立法渊源 以及地理政治存在，欧盟对于任何成员国都很重要。以下是英国要特别重视欧盟的几点原因。 For one, Britain's likely next government faces a crisis over the EU's Lisbon treaty, which Parliament ratified last year. Opposed to what they see as a repackaged version of the EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, the Tories have promised a referendum on the treaty if it is not in force by the time they come to power. If it were then voted down, as is likely, they would withdraw Britain's ratification-to the certain outrage of the rest of the EU. If, on the other hand, the treaty has been ratified by all EU countries (Ireland will hold a referendum in October, and three other countries have yet to complete the treaty process), the Tories have pledged not to “let matters rest there”. 首先，英国下一任政府很可能面临英国议会去年批准的欧盟里斯本协议的挑战。保守党反对这一协议，认 为这一协议是 2005 年法国和荷兰公投反对过的欧洲宪法的改头换面版本，并且承诺若该党掌权后协议尚未 强制实施，该党将举行全民公投。如果公投不通过，则撤销对协议的批准，这意味着英国可能要惹怒某些 欧盟成员。另外即使欧盟其他国家都批准这一协议(爱尔兰 10 月份将举行全民公投，另外三个国家还没有 完成协议进程)，保守党承诺也不会“放任不管”。 The awkward ambiguity of those words attests to the dilemma facing David Cameron, the Tory leader: swallow the treaty and alienate his party, or scupper it and infuriate the EU (as well as Barack Obama, who is rumoured to be exasperated by Tory hostility to the union). Britain's very membership of the EU could come into question. 保守党说法这一尴尬的模棱两可说明保守党领导人大卫·卡麦隆(David Cameron)的为难：认可协议致使政党 不合，还是拒绝协议但是得罪欧盟呢(据说美国巴拉克·奥巴马被英国保守党对欧盟的敌视态度惹怒)。看来 英国的欧盟成员国身份要成问题。 On the campaign trail, however, Mr Cameron has escaped the scrutiny that his line on the treaty merits. More eyes have been trained on his decision to shift his MEPs from a centre-right to a farther-right, Eurosceptic caucus in the European Parliament. But deflecting attention from a problem is not the same as solving it. Unless the convoluted

strategies for finessing the treaty dilemma now being kicked around in Tory circles come to something, a showdown with the party or the continent seems likely for Mr Cameron. 至于竞选，卡麦隆已成功“抹杀”自己促进协议通过的“功绩”。公众关注点在他的引导下更多关注他从中右 翼议会成员转向极右翼，他现在是欧洲议会中质疑欧洲的中坚人物。但是仅仅转移公众的注意力不等于解 决问题。除非保守党内部已经就如何解决协议两难局面停止推诿，制定可行措施，否则保守党或者整个英 国的日子都不好过。 There is another reason why British politicians should grapple more thoughtfully with the issue of Europe. Their country's role in the EU as champion of liberal economic reform needs work. The plausibility of the Anglo-Saxon model, with its reliance on financial services and light-touch regulation, has been diminished by the credit crisis and recession. There is still a job to be done defending open and competitive markets from the protectionist pressures that are emerging across the EU, not just in dirigiste France. Important struggles lie ahead over financial regulation, social legislation and more. 英国政治家必须看重欧盟事务还有另外一个原因。英国作为欧盟区自由经济改革的倡导者仍需努力。看似 合理的盎格鲁-撒克逊模式，以其对金融服务的依赖和轻监管为特征，已经在信用危机和经济衰退的打击下 辉煌不再。英国还必须抵御来自欧盟其他国家愈演愈烈的保护主义压力，以保护开放和竞争的市场，而且 压力不止来自于计划性强的法国。艰难的工作还牵涉到金融监管，社会立法等等。 But Britain cannot easily reprise its Blair-era identity as the freewheeling California of Europe. It needs non-economic causes to champion as well. A report by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a think-tank, says that Britain should push for further enlargement and closer collaboration in security-related areas such as home affairs and defence. Though the Tories think NATO sacrosanct, the Americans are increasingly relaxed about military co-operation within Europe. 但是英国不能简单沿用布莱尔首相时期的定位，当时英国彷佛欧洲随心所欲的加利福尼亚。现在英国必须 在非经济事务上显示自己的能力。一家智库，国际事务皇家委员会的报告指出，英国必须在安全领域，如 国内事务和防御上推动(和欧盟的)深入合作和紧密联系。虽然英国保守党认为北约合作坚不可摧，但是美 国人越来越觉得和欧洲军事合作更加舒心。 Public opinion in Britain, meanwhile, seems to be growing more Eurosceptic (see article). Campaigning to push power to Brussels, so that decision-making becomes even more remote from ordinary voters, seems foolhardy in the current anti-political climate. This coolness toward Europe suits the Tories most, free as they now are of the splits on the subject that did for the Thatcher and Major administrations. 与此同时，英国公众对欧盟的怀疑态度与日俱增。政治运动赋予布鲁塞尔权利，使得决策指定越来越集中 在少数人手中，这一行为在当前反政治背景下得不偿失。这种对欧盟的冷漠态度对保守党有利，？ Party leaders' unblinking focus on political reform may be warranted: voters' fury at MPs caught with their hands in the public till is intense. But the coming years hold challenges for Britain in its relations with the EU. It is hard to believe that its politicians, especially the Tories, will not come to regret their failure to think these through while they had the chance.

政党领导人对政治改革一刻不敢松懈有重要理由：选民对议会成员“报销门”的极度不满。但是几年以后英 欧关系必然迎来大的改变。到时候政治家们尤其是保守党，就要后悔当时有机会认真考虑的时候却错过了 机会。 【注】anti-politics：「反政党政治」。政党是十九、二十世纪社会现代化的产物。随著发达国家进入后现 代(post-modernity)社会，不同的需求在积累，政治动员、政治沟通、政府管理等方面的问题更加尖锐，而 作为仲介组织的政党却不能有效地因应。因此有了政党在衰退的说法。的确，党员人数在普遍减少，投票 率在降低，对政客，不仅是政党政客，普遍缺乏信任，以至于选民也更加反复无常，抛弃执政党的情绪相 当普遍，政党在政府中的作用被驾空，等等。这些现象也许是暂时的，但也可能表明不少国家的公民的政 治意识在转变，或者是民主政治运作方式变革的重要信号。西方甚至有学者称这种现象为「反政治」 (anti-politics)，或者至少是「反政党政治」(anti-party politics) 经济学人杂志双语阅读：Battery Farm 笼架式的养鸡场 Nurturing Small Businesses 孵化小企业 Battery Farm 笼架式的养鸡场 May 28th 2009 | EASTLEIGH From The Economist print edition A Heaven of Hopeful Endeavors 抱着希望的奋斗者之天堂 THOUGH British carmakers may face further shrinkage as General Motors abandons its Vauxhall plants at Luton and Ellesmere Port to sale or closure, there is life in the undergrowth where industrial monsters have fallen. Take Eastleigh in Hampshire, whose railway works once sustained the town. Pirelli also closed a cable factory there in 2002, and Ford has just cut 500 jobs and suspended production of vans at nearby Swaythling. 通用汽车通过出售或者关闭的方式放弃了其在卢顿与埃尔斯米尔港的沃克斯豪尔工厂，导致英国的汽车制 造厂商许将面对更进一步的萎缩，即便如此，行业巨无霸倒下之处，荆棘之中依然有生机。拿铁路工业一 度是支柱产业的汉普郡伊斯特雷格来说，倍耐力在 2002 年关闭了在当地的一家电缆工厂，而福特刚刚裁减 了 500 个工作岗位，推迟了在邻近斯威凌地区的小货车生产。 Eastleigh is hardly a tourist town-a dour bronze railwayman is its main public monument-but it has a brilliant formula for incubating new businesses. Wessex House is a 40,000-square-foot redbrick building with 100 offices housing about 70 small firms. Among them are Happy's Circus, run by Happy the Clown, Finblade, which makes mobile video games, and builders, architects and other providers of services based on clever ideas. Outstanding Results, a debt collector, has been busy chasing late payments, some of them on behalf of fellow tenants.

伊斯特雷格并非一个旅游城市-一座阴郁的铁路工人青铜雕像是它主要的公共纪念雕塑-但是在培养新办企 业方面，伊斯特雷格确有聪明办法。韦塞克斯大楼是一座 40,000 平方英尺的红砖建筑，有 100 间办公室， 容纳着大约 70 家小公司。这些小公司包括由\"快乐小丑“经营的”快乐马戏团”，制造手机视频游戏的 Finblade, 还有建筑商、建筑师以及其他凭借金点子立足的服务提供商。“outstanding results ”是一家追债公司，忙于 追讨拖欠债务，有时也代表大楼里其他房客追讨债务。 Wessex House is owned and run by Eastleigh Borough Council and makes enough money to pay its way. Firms can rent anything from a one-person office to a whole floor. Some have grown, shrunk and expanded again. A former tenant-Murphx, which provides IT services-now lives next door: the Bentley and Aston Martin in the car park tell the story. 伊斯特雷格区委会拥有并经营着韦塞克斯大楼，大楼收入足够支付各种开销。从一人办公室至整个楼层， 公司都可以租赁。有些公司已经经历了成长、萎缩到再次扩张的过程。提供 IT 服务的公司 Murphx 是过去 的租户，现在在隔壁大楼办公：停在汽车公园里的豪华车宾利、阿斯顿马丁说明了问题。 Some of these businesses are growing in the teeth of recession. Tucasi, a brainwave of three school governors, is selling software packages to schools, to manage the money parents pay for school dinners, outings and so on. So far Tucasi has collared 1,300 primary and secondary schools. Business has doubled in a year, says Peter Redding, a director. He could easily treble it but “that would bring its own risks,”he says. 部分公司在经济衰退中艰难成长。三个学校的管理人员灵机一动，创立了 Tucasi,卖给学校管理费用的软件 套装，管理家长支付的学校餐费、出游费等费用。目前为止，Tucasi 已经包办了 1300 家中小学业务。一主 管彼特·瑞丁说一年之内生意增加了一倍，可以轻而易举地实现三倍增长，但他说，“这样也会带来自身风 险”。 Rob Poole at Blacks, an estate agent, has found a niche between rivals on the internet and high-street firms. He operates from 韦塞克斯大楼, without a shop-window, and charges half the high-street fee. This is the model of the future, he says, insisting that business is “brisk”. 房产中介公司 Blacks 的罗勃·波勒在网络上和繁华商业圈内的竞争对手中找到了一条生存夹缝。他在韦塞克 斯大楼办公，没有明亮大窗，费用只有繁华商圈一半。这是将来的模式，他坚称，这个行业是“充满活力” 的。 Are such motley enterprises a barometer of British business in recession? The Confederation of British Industry's May survey on the service sector points to an “outbreak of optimism”in the property world and a similar uptick in almost every consumer branch except travel. But expectations of new orders and business expansion in fact show only a marginal improvement on the dire mood that has prevailed since November. The Wessex House experience reflects that. Martin Brand, at Outstanding Results, has seen a huge increase in work but, as times are tough, “not necessarily an increase in what is collectable”. 这样混杂的小公司们是否是衰退中的英国商业晴雨表呢？英国工业联合会的五月份服务业调查指出房产界 出现了“乐观情绪爆发“，除旅游业之外几乎所有消费行业都显现了相似的回升。但是对新订单与商业扩张 的期望值实际上只在去年十一月开始蔓延的悲观情绪上有了一点微不足道的好转。韦塞克斯大楼的经验反

映了这一点。就职于“Outstanding Results ”的马丁·布兰德见证，随着时世艰难，业务量出现了巨幅增长，“并 不一定是追讨的债务金额出现了增加。” Phil Davis, a building contractor, has no work at all, despite cutting his margins by ten percentage points. He and his wife are considering shifting their office to their home. The ability to move in and out of Wessex House with only a month's notice is its major attraction for uncertain businesses. “Several tenants have gone back to work from home,”says Sandra Giles, who manages the business centre. Others have negotiated lower rents while slashing their own salaries too. Finblade, whose video-game team have been there in various guises since 2001, was forced to cut its staff savagely last year, from 14 to six, because of financial problems with customers that its bank was reluctant to ease. For all the human cost, “in a strange way it has left us in a better position as the market picks up,” says Fergus McNeill, the chief executive. 菲尔·戴维斯是一名建筑承包商，尽管将他的利润减少了 10％，依然完全没工可开。他跟他老婆正在考虑将 办公室搬回家。吸引不稳定的公司的一个主要因素是在韦塞克斯大楼迁出迁入只需提前一个月通知。“几个 租户已经搬回家工作了”，管理着商务中心的桑德拉·贾尔斯说。其他公司一方面与她商量降低租金，一方 面也在减少自己的薪水。Finblade 的手机游戏团队自 2001 年已经变动许多次，去年不得不残酷地将员工数 量从 14 名减少到 6 名，因为与顾客发生财政问题，而银行又不愿意出手相援。至于所有的人工开销，“从 一个古怪的层面说来，市场又回暖之时，将我们置于一个较为有利的位置”，董事长费格斯·麦克尼尔说。 Other firms in the rabbit warren are apparently recession-proof: Solent International, which fits out yachts abroad for the super-rich; Alkoomi, a consultancy which imparts “safety leadership” at construction sites such as Heathrow's Terminal 5 and Britain's Olympic Village; Kevin Walls, an architect upgrading hospitals for the National Health Service. “养兔场”的其他公司显然都不惧怕衰退：Solent International,为国外超级富豪订做帆船；Alkoomi,为诸如希 思罗机场的 5 号航运楼以及英国奥运村这些建筑工地提供“安全管理”的咨询；Kevin Walls,是家为英国国民 保健署翻新医院的建筑公司。 The veterans of Wessex House are survivors but not shooting stars. They are service providers who live on low overheads, exploit niches and rely on smart staff. That is hardly a cross-section of the British Mittelstand. Nor is Eastleigh a post-industrial wasteland like some of north-eastern England. The railway works never died completely: in 2006 Knights Rail Services took over the premises to overhaul locomotives. But Eastleigh Council also plans to develop 130 hectares of the site, to encourage new businesses. Wessex House, it seems, has something to teach. 韦塞克斯大楼的老房客都是幸存者而非流星。他们是靠收取低廉服务费用维持的服务提供者，他们开发缝 隙市场，他们依赖聪明的员工。伊斯特雷格基本不能反映英国中小企业的情况，也非像英国东北部的部分 地区一样是工业衰退的荒岛。铁路工业从未完全死亡：2006 年骑士铁路公司接下一块地基用来修理机车。 但是伊斯特雷格委员会也计划开发 130 公顷土地以鼓励培养新兴企业。看来韦塞克斯大楼颇有教益。

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Blooms in the bust 百花怒放 Green shoots in garden centres 绿意盎然 Blooms in the bust 百花争艳 May 28th 2009 From The Economist print edition The recession has sent Britons back to the land 经济衰退使英国人重返园林 LIKE all quintessentially British things, gardening is a pastime that has long been in decline. From a high point of £5 billion in 2001, spending on plants, tools and garden furniture has fallen every year since then, to around £3 billion in 2008. The arrival of economic recession only deepened the gloom: to credit-crunched consumers, shrubs and hanging baskets seemed obvious candidates for cuts. 像所有典型的英国特色的事物一样，作为消遣娱乐的园艺活动很早之前就在衰落。用于植物、工具和园艺 设备的花费从 2001 年最高的 50 亿英镑开始每年都在减少，到 2008 年就只有大概 30 亿英镑。经济衰退只 能使形势更加黯淡，继消费者信贷紧缩之后，接下来要削减的很有可能就是矮树丛和吊篮。 Yet the latest figures from the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA. suggest a bumper year for garden-related expenditure is in the making. Sales volumes were up by 21% in March and 28% in April compared with the same months a year earlier. This was not the result of deep discounting, a strategy that many other retailers have been adopting. The value of garden goods sold was 37% higher in March and 42% higher in April than a year earlier, whereas the value of all sales had increased by just 3% in April. Datamonitor, a market-research firm, reckons that gardening will continue to outperform the rest of retailing for at least the next two years. 然而英国园丁协会最近的统计数字显示，园艺相关支出正在反弹。与去年同期相比，三月销售量增加了 21%， 四月增加了 28%。这并非大幅打折的结果，其他商品的零售商正普遍采用的这一策略，可是园艺商品的售 价与去年相比，三月提高了 37%，四月提高了 42%，因而四月所有商品的销售额总计只增加了 3%。市场

调查公司 Datamonitor 预计，至少在未来两年内，园艺商品的销量将会好于其它零售商品。 Much of the good news is due to the weather, admits Tim Briercliffe, the HTA's director of business development. Last year the vital spring months were damp and miserable; this year sunshine (and weathermen's prediction of a hot summer) has boosted custom. But the economic downturn itself has turned out to be as much a blessing as a curse… … . Gardening may be a luxury, argues Mr Briercliffe, but it competes with other, more expensive luxuries. “People who might have otherwise booked a city break to Prague are staying at home and making the best of what they have,”he maintains. According to Ipsos MORI, a pollster, three-quarters of people plan to spend at least as much on their garden this year as last. 出现这一好消息很大部分是因为天气，英国园丁协会商业区理事 Tim Briercliff 承认。去年关键的春季月份 潮湿阴冷，而今年阳光灿烂的好天气促进了消费(天气预报预测今年夏天将会很炎热)。而这也证明了经济 衰退本身既是祸也是福。Tim Briercliff 认为，园艺可能是项奢侈的娱乐活动，但跟其它更昂贵的奢侈娱乐 相比，它就逊色多了。“本来会预定去布拉格休假的人们现在更多地呆在家里，最大限度地利用他们已有的 东西。”Tim 说。根据民意调查公司 Ipsos 的数据，四分之三的人们计划至少花费与去年一样的时间用于园 艺。 Economic hardship has created a new breed of gardener too. Partly, that reflects people making the most of their enforced leisure: “We get some unemployed City types who are just filling time while looking for another job,” admits a garden-centre worker near the London commuter town of Guilford. But there are more positive developments. Much of the growth in Garden spending has come from the under-35 s, not traditionally a green-fingered demographic. One explanation is that environmentalism and thriftiness have made growing vegetables trendy, an idea that is supported by growing shortage of allotments. 经济不景气产生了一种新型的园艺师。一方面这反映出人们正最大限度地利用他们已有的消遣方式。“我们 有一些失业的城市园艺师，他们一边在这里打工一边继续找工作。”在伦敦通勤城市吉尔福得附近的园艺中 心的一位工人说到。不过更为积极乐观的发展是，园艺支出增长的部分很大程度来源于 35 岁以下的人群， 而非传统的专业园艺人员。其中一个解释是环保主义和勤俭节约之风使得种植蔬菜成为潮流，而这一想法 也是由副业生产地日渐紧缺带来的。 But there is more to it than pleasant weather and belt-tightening. The HTA detects deeper, and darker, changes in the national psyche. Citing research from the Future Foundation, a prognosticatory consultancy, it reckons that people are spending more time in their homes, fortifying them into havens from an unwelcoming world haunted by crime, bureaucracy and rising unemployment. The longer the downturn persists, the greener the grass may grow. 然而除了好天气和勤俭节约之外，还有更多的原因。园丁协会从国民心理的变化方面更深入地发掘了这一 问题。预测咨询机构未来基金(Future Foundation)的研究认为人们正花费越来越多的时间在家中营造避风港， 以远离外面充斥着犯罪、官僚主义和不断失业的并不友好的世界。经济衰退持续得越久，英国的园林就会 越繁茂。

经济学人杂志双语阅读：Still in the soup 犹陷困境 Poland's legacy of 1989 波兰的 1989 年遗产 Still in the soup 犹陷困境 May 28th 2009 | WARSAW From The Economist print edition Political squabbles 20 years after the collapse of communism 共产主义崩溃二十年后的政治争论 IN THE eyes of Poles, their country shattered communist rule in Europe, thus bringing down the Berlin Wall and freeing the nations of the Soviet empire. In Poland's telling, the heroes of the tale were the Polish pope, John Paul II, and the Solidarity trade union led by Lech Walesa, who founded the movement after a shipyard strike in Gdansk in 1980. Their influence, the story runs, forced the communist regime to concede nearly-free elections in June 1989. Poles voted overwhelmingly for non-communist candidates, inspiring other countries to cast off Soviet rule. 在波兰人看来，他们的国家打破了共产党在欧洲的统治，因此让柏林墙倒塌，令苏维埃帝国内的各国得以 解放。在波兰的故事中，这段传奇的主角是波兰籍教皇约翰•保罗二世，以及列赫•瓦文萨于 1980 年格但斯 克船厂罢工事件之后创立并加以领导的团结工会；故事发展下去，是他们的影响力迫使共产党政权勉强同 意了 1989 年 6 月近乎自由的选举，波兰人用压倒性的选票对非共产党候选人加以支持，激发了其它国家挣 脱苏维埃的统治。 Many might quibble over the details of that account, but few would dispute the Poles' vital role in freeing Europe from totalitarian rule. Elmar Brok, a veteran German member of the European Parliament, says events in Poland were “fundamental”in bringing down the Berlin Wall. But two decades later, the message of Polish courage and success is mixed with a different one, of squabbles and economic difficulty. And the resulting rows are threatening to upset celebrations for the anniversary of the 1989 election. 许多人可能会对这一叙述的细枝末节有所争议；但很少有人会对波兰人在将欧洲从极权主义统治下解放出 来的过程中所扮演的至关重要的角色加以质疑。一位欧洲议会的德国籍资深议员艾玛•布洛克就指出，波兰 发生的事件对推倒柏林墙有“基础性”的作用。但二十年过去后，关于波兰的勇气与成功的信息被另一种不 同的信息所混杂，后者包括争论与经济困难。而且，随之而来的争吵正在危及为 1989 年选举二十周年纪念 而开展的庆祝活动。 The prime minister, Donald Tusk, himself from Gdansk, had wanted to invite leaders of neighbouring countries to a big party there. But he changed his mind after a protest by shipyard workers, during a meeting in Warsaw in April of Mr Tusk's centre-right European allies, turned violent. Police responded with tear-gas and batons. The

workers threatened to spoil the party in Gdansk, so Mr Tusk moved it to Poland's southern university city, Cracow. He blames the opposition for using the union rally to make the government look bad. 波兰总理唐纳德•图斯克(他本人就来自格但斯克)曾希望邀请邻国的领导人来波兰参加大型聚会。但在四月， 图斯克的中右翼欧洲盟友在华沙举行会议时，船厂工人的抗议活动演化为暴力事件，这一情况令图斯克改 变了主意。当时，警察用催泪弹和警棍回击；而这些工人则威胁会破坏在格但斯克举行的聚会，因此图斯 克将聚会地点改在了波兰南部的大学城克拉科夫。他谴责反对党利用这次工会集会令政府出丑。 Communist rulers mismanaged but also pampered Poland's three Baltic shipyards. Since 1989 the shipyards have failed to restructure and found it hard to compete. The Gdansk yard, indebted and ill-run, was sold in 2007 to ISD, a Ukrainian investor. But rows with the European Commission over state aid and restructuring plans make its future uncertain. The other two Polish yards have just been sold to a Caribbean-registered company, on unknown terms. Many shipyard workers have already lost their jobs. Others see unemployment looming. Union leaders have largely escaped the blame, though their inflexibility and self-importance is part of the reason for their members' plight. 共产党统治者虽然对波兰的三座波罗的海造船厂管理失当，但却对它们多有迁就。而 1989 年之后，这些船 厂未能重建并且发现难以(与他人)竞争。格但斯克船厂负债累累，经营不善，于 2007 年被乌克兰投资者顿 巴斯工业联盟(ISD.收购；但与欧盟委员会就国家补助和重建计划的争吵使得其前景并不明朗。另两家波兰 船厂则刚被卖给一家在加勒比地区注册的公司，交易条件不明。许多船厂工人已经失业，另一些人的饭碗 也摇摇欲坠。工会领导人基本上未受到指责，尽管他们的顽固与自负正是导致其成员受此痛苦的部分原因。 Many Poles might have hoped that the importance of the anniversary would transcend such internal disputes. But the unity of 20 years ago is gone. Both Mr Tusk's party and its main rival claim to have inherited Solidarity's moral legacy. Mr Walesa, whose election to the presidency epitomised Poland's transition to democracy, has long since left the political mainstream. His views on the European Union have caused confusion. He has addressed rallies of Libertas, a Eurosceptic party that opposes the Lisbon treaty, only to declare that he supports the treaty. 许多波兰人可能曾希望二十周年纪念的重要意义能压倒此类国内争端，但 20 年前的团结一致已经不复存 在。图斯克的党派与其主要竞争者都声称继承了团结工会的道德遗产。瓦文萨成为总统的那次选举正是波 兰向着民主制度转型的典型缩影，但他早已离开政界的主流；瓦文萨关于欧盟的观点已经导致了困惑，他 曾向对欧盟持质疑态度并反对里斯本条约的自由党的集会发表演讲，但却仅仅宣布自己支持这一条约。 Mr Walesa once said that imposing communism on Poland was like turning an aquarium into fish soup, and that the transition to democratic rule involved the rather harder task of turning fish soup into an aquarium. Although Poland's achievements then and since have been hugely impressive, the water is still cloudy. 瓦文萨曾说过，将共产主义强加于波兰，就好比将一缸鱼煮成鱼汤，而向民主制统治的转型则包含将这锅 汤再变回一缸鱼这样一个更加艰巨的任务。尽管波兰当年与之后的成就令人印象非常深刻，但如今(缸内的) 水却依然混浊。