economist(经济学人)精品文章中英对照
Whopper to go至尊汉堡，打包带走Will Burger King be gobbled up by private equity?汉堡王是否会被私人股本吞并？Sep 2nd 2010 | NEW YORKSHARES in Burger King (BK) soared on September 1st on reports that the fast-food company was talking to several private-equity firms interested in buying it. How much beef was behind these stories was unclear. But lately the company famous for the slogan “Have It Your Way” has certainly not been having it its own way. There may be arguments about whether BK or McDonald’s serves the best fries, but there is no doubt which is more popular with stockmarket investors: the maker of the Big Mac has supersized its lead in the past two years.有报道披露，快餐企业汉堡王（BK）正在与数个有收购意向的私人股本接洽，9月1日，汉堡王的股值随之飙升。
这些报道究竟有多少真材实料不得而知。
汉堡王的著名口号是“我选我味”，但如今显然它身不由己，心中五味杂陈。
汉堡王和麦当劳哪家薯条最好吃，食客们一直争论不休，但股票投资人更喜欢哪家股票，却一目了然：过去两年里，巨无霸麦当劳一直在扩大自己的优势。
Recession has favoured McDonald’s over BK, whose share price has fallen by half since the economy was flame-grilled in the summer of 2008. Shares in McDonald’s have risen, reaching an all-time high in August. Same-store sales at BK have fallen for five successive quarters.金融危机却更青睐汉堡王，自2008年经济低迷以来，其股票价格跌至原来的一半。
而麦当劳的股票不跌反涨，在8月又创下了历史新高。
汉堡王的同店销售额连续五个季度下跌。
Why has McDonald’s been eating BK’s lunch? Among other things, BK has always had a higher proportion of sales to young men, who have been hit especially hard by the recession. McDonald’s, by contrast, has for several years wooed women and older people with relatively healthy salads and drinkable coffee. BK has struggled to follow suit. At the same time, it has had to contend with angry shareholders, as the rising cost of beef and other ingredients has clobbered its profits. BK may also have cannibalised its existing sales by offering value meals that were a bit too irresistible.为何麦当劳在与汉堡王的竞争中占得先机？别的不谈，汉堡王的顾客更多的是年轻人，而年轻人受金融危机打击尤其严重。
相对地，麦当劳近年来一直以相对健康的沙拉和可口的咖啡，吸引女性和中老年人。
汉堡王一直难以模仿。
与此同时，随着牛肉等原材料的成本上涨，利润一跌再跌，汉堡王又不得不去对付那些愤怒的股东。
汉堡王的套餐太过诱人，可能也影响了其他产品的销量。
BK is used to changes in ownership. It went from being part of Pillsbury, a food company, to Grand Metropolitan, a British conglomerate, then to Diageo, a drinks giant. In 2002 it was sold to a group of private-equity investors: TPG, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs. They did a fair job, improving sales with better marketing. They also helped turn around the most troubled of the franchisees who operate most BK restaurants. In 2006 BK floated its shares again. Its bosses may hope that going private once more will protect them from short-term stockmarket pressures while they ponder how to beat McDonald’s.汉堡王此前多次易主，已经习以为常了。
它曾是皮尔斯百利食品公司的一部分，后转入英国大都会集团，继而转投饮品巨头帝亚吉欧。
2002年又被转手卖给一批私人股本投资者：德克萨斯太平洋集团（TPG），贝恩资本和高盛。
他们经营良好，利用优秀市场策略增加了销售。
大部分汉堡王餐厅的运营商当时经营不善，他们还助其扭亏为盈。
2006年汉堡王再度上市。
其老板可能希望再度私有化以规避短期股市压力，为其争取时间定策击败麦当劳。
If BK does go private, it may be part of a trend in the private-equity industry —now that some of the bigger firms have rediscovered their appetite for deals—of gobbling up the companies they had taken public during the bubble years but which are now trading cheaply. TPG, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs still own a sizeable stake in BK, despite listing it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. However, it seems that other private-equity firms are interested in buying it. If that happens, no doubt BK servers will appreciate the irony: the act of passing a company from one private-equity firm to another is known in the business as “flipping”.私人股本行业——如今一些大公司重新对收购有了兴趣——吞并那些他们在经济泡沫时代卖掉，现在十分廉价的公司，俨然已成一股大潮，如果汉堡王真的私有化，就将融入这股大潮之中。
德克萨斯太平洋集团（TPG），贝恩资本和高盛虽然2006年在纽约证券交易所已经兜售了汉堡王，但他们仍握有可观的股份。
然而，其他私人股本公司似乎也有意收购。
要是真被他们收购，无疑汉堡王的服务生都能领会其中的讽刺：在私人股本公司中被倒卖，在做汉堡这行叫“翻面”。
本主题由 shiyi18 于 2010-11-12 13:16 移动评分收藏2 分享0 0 0Down the slipway下水“Quantitative easing” is unloved and unappreciated—but it is working“量化宽松”不受待见，但是有效Nov 4th 2010 | Washington, dcEVEN before the Federal Reserve unveiled its second round of quantitative easing (QE) on November 3rd, critics had already denounced it as ineffectual or an invitation to inflation. It cannot be both and it may not be either.美联储的第二轮量化宽松政策在11月3日公布之前便已受到了各方抨击，有人说它不会起效，也有人说这样会导致通胀。
这两者根本不可能同时发生，甚至一个都不会发生。
The announcement of “QE2” was hardly breathtaking. The Fed said it will buy $600 billion of Treasuries between now and next June, at about $75 billion a month, although it also said it could adjust the amount and timing if need be. That was about what markets expected but far less than the $1.75 trillion of debt it bought between early 2009 and early 2010 in its first round of QE. Yet QE2 seems already to have exceeded the low expectations it has aroused. Since Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, hinted at it at Jackson Hole on August 27th, markets have all done exactly what they should (see chart).第二轮量化宽松并没有惊人之处。
英语学习_（6-10）《经济学人》中英对照_必备
英语学习_（6-10）《经济学⼈》中英对照_必备弃我去者，昨⽇之⽇不可留乱我⼼者，今⽇之⽇多烦忧TEXT 6Travelling with baggage背着⾏囊去旅⾏Feb 16th 2006From The Economist print edition（1）FEW modern travel writers excite more hostility and awe than Sir ★Wilfred Thesiger[1], who died in 2003. Despising the “drab uniformity of the modern world”, Sir Wilfred ★slogged across [2] Africa and Asia, especially Arabia, on animals and on foot, immersing himself in tribal societies. He delighted in killing—lions in Sudan in the years before the second world war, Germans and Italians during it. He disliked “soft”living and “★intrusive[3]”women and revered murderous savages, to whom he gave guns. He thought educating the working classes a waste of good servants. He kicked his dog. His journeys were more notable as feats of ★masochistic[4] endurance than as exploration. Yet his first two books, “Arabian Sands”, about his crossing of the Empty Quarter, and “The Marsh Arabs”, about southern Iraq, have a ★terse[5] brilliance about them. As records of ancient cultures on the ★cusp[6] of ★oblivion[7], they are unrivalled.现代游记作家鲜有⼈能⽐2003年去世的威福瑞?塞西格爵⼠更令⼈敬畏。
经济学人文章(四六级雅思精读素材)2020-08-27
The Economist August 29th 2020 Business 55Depending on whom you ask, Califor-nia is a leader in clean energy or a cau-tionary tale. Power outages in August prompted stern critiques from Republi-cans. “In California”, D onald Trump tweeted, “D emocrats have intentionally implemented rolling blackouts—forcing Americans in the dark.” In addition to pro-voking outrage and derision, however, the episode is also likely to inspire investment.The Golden State has long been Ameri-ca’s main testing ground for green compa-nies. Californians buy half of all electric cars sold in America. Theirs is the country’s largest solar market. As California deals with heat waves, fires and a goal of carbon-free electricity by 2045, the need for a reli-able grid is becoming ever more obvious.For years firms competed to generate clean power in California. Now a growing num-ber are vying to store and manage it, too. August’s blackouts have many causes,including poor planning, an unexpected lack of capacity and sweltering heat in not just California but nearby states from which it sometimes imports power. Long before the outages, however, electricity op-erators were anxious about capacity. Cali-fornia’s solar panels become less useful in the evening, when demand peaks. In No-vember state regulators mandated that utilities procure an additional 3.3 gigawatts (gw ) of capacity, including giant batteries that charge when energy is abundant and can sell electricity back to the grid.Too few such projects have come online to cope with the surge in demand for air-conditioning in the scorching summer. But more are sprouting across the state. On Au-gust 19th ls Power, an electricity firm backed by private equity, unveiled a 250-megawatt (mw ) storage project in San Die-go, the largest of its kind in America. In July the county of Monterey said Vistra Energy,a Texan power company, could build as much as 1.2gw of storage.The rooftop solar industry stands to benefit from a new Californian mandate that requires new homes to install panels on their roofs from this year. Sunrun, the market leader, is increasingly pairing such residential installations with batteries. In July, for instance, the company said it had won contracts with energy suppliers in the Bay Area to install 13mw of residential solar and batteries. These could supply power to residents in a blackout or feed power into the grid to help meet peak demand. Sunrunis so confident in its future that it has bid $3.2bn for Vivint Solar,its main rival.Another way to stave offoutages is to curb demand.Enel,a European power company,has contracts with local utilities to work with large commercial and indus-trial clients.When demand rises,Enel pays customers to reduce energy consumption,easing demand on the grid.A company called OhmConnect offers something sim-ilar for homeowners.Even as such offerings scale up,the need for reliability means that fossil fuels will not disappear just yet.On September 1st California’s regulators will vote on whether to delay the retirement of four natural-gas plants in light of the outages.The state remains intent on decarbonising its power system over the next 25years.But progress may not move in a straight line.7NEW YO RKBusinesses compete to battle California’s blackoutsEnergy utilitiesLitMany big companies may be struggling with depressed sales, but these are busy times for bribery-busters. Mexico is abuzz over allegations by an ex-boss of Pe-mex, the state oil giant, that several senior politicians received bungs from compa-nies including Odebrecht, a Brazilian con-struction firm (see Americas section). The scandal is the latest in a string of graft cases to make headlines this year, starting with Airbus’s record $4bn settlement in January over accusations of corruption for making illegal payments in various countries.Corporate bribery is hardly new. In sur-veys, between a third and a half of compa-nies typically claim to have lost business to rivals who won contracts by paying kick-backs. But such perceptions-based re-search has obvious limitations. A new study takes a more rigorous approach, and draws some striking conclusions.Raghavendra Rau of Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, Yan-Leung Cheung of the Education University of Hong Kong and Aris Stouraitis of Hong Kong Baptist University examined nearly 200 prominent bribery cases in 60 coun-tries between 1975 and 2015. For the firms doing the bribing, they found, the short-term gains were juicy: every dollar of bribe translated into a $6-9 increase in excess re-turns, relative to the overall stockmarket. That, however, does not take account of the chances of getting caught. These have risen as enforcement of America’s 43-year-old anti-bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (fcpa ), has been stepped up and other countries have passed similar laws. The number of fcpa cases is up sharply since the financial crisis of 2007-09, according to Stanford Law School (see chart). It has dipped a bit under Presi-dent Donald Trump, who has criticised the fcpa for hobbling American firms over-seas, but remains well above historic lev-els. Total fines for fcpa violations were $14bn in 2016-19, 48 times as much as in the four years to 2007.The authors also tested 11hypotheses that emerged from past studies of bribery.They found support for some, for instance that firms pay larger bribes when they ex-pect to receive larger benefits, and that the net benefits of bribing are smaller in places with more public disclosure of politicians’sources of income.But they punctured other bits of re-ceived wisdom. Most striking, they found no link between democracy and graft. This challenges the “Tullock paradox”, which holds that firms can get away with smaller bribes in democracies because politicians and officials have less of a lock on the sys-tem than those in autocratic countries, and so cannot extract as much rent. Such find-ings will doubtless be of interest to corrup-tion investigators and unscrupulous exec-utives alike. 7Bribery pays—if you don’t get caughtBriberyA closer look at greasy palmsBrown envelopes, big chequesUnited States,Foreign Corrupt Practices ActSources:Stanford Law School;Sullivan &Cromwell*Investigations and enforcement actions †To August6543210605040302010020†10152000059095851977Enforcement actionsSanctions, $bnUtilitiesTransport Communications Basic materials Financial services Consumer goods Aerospace & defence TechnologyIndustrials Health care Oil &gas 100806040200Number of cases* by selected industry1977-2020†。
《经济学人》英中对照翻译版(考研英语必备)
来源于/wordpress/（The Economist《经济学人》中文版）和/（《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版）11月10, 2008[2008.11.08] 美国大选：无限期望America's election：Great expectationsNO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly that any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black (see article).相信无人质疑奥巴马于本周取胜的重要意义。
这位新总统出生于1961年，那时美国很多州的法律都要求强化种族分离、禁止像奥巴马父母那样的跨族通婚、限制选举权利；这些不仅限于南部地区，而出现在全国范围内。
重点总结的经济学人-中英文版)
Finance and EconomicsOffshore private banking离岸私人银行业Bourne to survive伯恩的幸存Aug 6th 2009From The Economist print editionDespite the woes of UBS, Swiss private banking remains in reasonable shape尽管瑞银处境不佳，瑞士的私人银行业仍保有相当规模Illustration by S. KambayashiA FTER visiting his bank in Zurich, Jason Bourne, an amnesic assassin, wonders: “Who has a safety-deposit box full of money and six passports and a gun?” In the popular imagination as well as Hollywood films the answer is clear: customers of Swiss banks do.当失忆的杀手詹森•伯恩(Jason Bourne)从其位于苏黎世的银行走出后，自问到：”什么样的人会有一个装满了钱、6本护照还有一把枪的银行保险箱？”在大众的想像与好莱坞的电影中，这个答案是明确的：瑞士银行的客户就是这样的人。
If this reputation for skulduggery is right, Switzerland, home to about one-quarter of the world’s offshore money, is in big trouble. After nearly going bust, UBS, its biggest bank, is now being pistol-whipped by America’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which wants it to hand over the names of tens of thousands of alleged tax dodgers. A preliminary settlement between the two was agreed on July 31st, although its details have yet to be made public. In March Switzerland agreed to comply with an OECD tax code that will oblige it to reveal information on clients that other governments say they need to enforce their laws. Where will crooks, despots and war criminals go now? And what will Swiss private banks do when they leave?如果这种隐秘而无原则的名声不是空穴来风的话，瑞士，这个坐拥世界四分之一离岸资金的国家将会有大麻烦。
economist经济学人文摘(中英双语)：Pink cabs rev up
Gender politics in Mexico City墨西哥城的性别政治Pink cabs rev up粉紅色出租车浪潮A blow for feminism—or against it?女权运动的前进——抑或倒退？Aug 26th 2010 | MEXICO CITYSINCE electing its first left-wing mayor in 1997, Mexico City has been a self-consciously liberal oasis in a conservative country. The current mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, has legalised abortion on demand, gay marriage and gay adoption in his first four years in office. His latest move, cheered by environmentalists, was a ban on free plastic shopping bags, implemented on August 19th. Eye-catching reforms such as these are enhancing Mr Ebrard’s profile ahead of a likely presidenti al bid in two years’ time.自从1997年第一任左翼市长上任以来，墨西哥城就成了一块自由绿洲，与这个保守之国显得格格不入。
现任市长马赛罗•艾布拉德在首个四年任期内即承认堕胎、同性婚姻、同性伴侣领养孩子合法化。
艾布拉德最近的举措是禁止免费塑料购物袋的使用，这项禁令于8月19日生效，并得到众环保人士的拥护。
一系列诸如此类吸引眼球的改革提升了艾布拉德的形象，与此同时，总统选举有可能在两年内举行。
economist经济学人文摘(中英双语)：If only it were that easy
If only it were that easy不当家不知柴米贵，不生孩子不知肚子痛American comments about T urkey betray a lack of understanding of the European Union美国对欧盟拒绝接纳土耳其的指责纷纷扬扬，反而暴露出其对欧盟缺乏理解Jun 17th 2010SHUT up, please, you are not helping. That, with respect, would be Charlemagne’s advice to America’s foreign-policy establishment, as its big guns nag the European Union into admitting Turkey swiftly, so as to anchor Turks to “the West”.闭嘴吧，你们是在帮倒忙。
这就是查理曼对美国外交当局的建议，但绝无不敬之意。
美国外交界的大人物们喋喋不休，催促欧盟出于将土耳其拴在西方阵营的目的迅速接纳土耳其入盟。
It is no pleasure to offer such advice. Successive American governments have been right to say that EU membership for Turkey—a dynamic, officially secular, youthful Muslim nation, sitting astride vital trade and energy routes—is in the strategic interests of Europe. The very process of negotiating membership has promoted reform inside Turkey. Americans are right that such advances are imperilled when leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy of France say Turks have no place in the EU. Americans are also right to point out that EU leaders have already pledged to admit Turkey if it meets a long list of legal requirements.查理曼提出如此建议实为不得已之策。
英语学习《经济学人》中英对照
从太空采集太阳能Solar power from space,Beam it down 从太空采集太阳能,传送电力到地球吧Harvesting solar power in space, for use on Earth, comes a step closer to reality将太空收获的太阳电能在地球上利用，这种理想又向现实迈出了一大步。
THE idea of collecting solar energy in space and beaming it to Earth has been around for at least 70 years. In "Reason", a short story by Isaac Asimov that was published in 1941, a space station transmits energy collected from the sun to various planets using microwave beams.从太空中收集太阳能并将其传送到地球的想法已经存在了至少70年。
艾萨克·阿西莫夫(Isaac Asimov )在1941年出版的短篇小说Reason中曾设想利用微波束将空间站收集到的太阳能传送到各类行星上。
The advantage of intercepting sunlight in space, instead of letting it find its own way through the atmosphere, is that so much gets absorbed by the air. By converting it to the right frequency first (one of the so-called windows in the atmosphere, in which little energy is absorbed) a space-based collector could, enthusiasts claim, yield on average five times as much power as one located on the ground.从太空直接截获太阳光而不任由它们穿过大气层的优点是大部分光能量不会被大气吸收。
经济学人中英对照23
It is a remarkable exhibit of revolutionary kitsch. The museum is new, inaugurated on September 28th 2007. Yet on a recent Saturday afternoon it was empty; not one person among the throngs of Cubans and tourists strolling down Calle Obispo felt inspired to cross its threshold. With the mixture of friendly warmth and necessary opportunism that characterises Cubans nowadays, one of the bored women attendants was soon asking your correspondent's wife if she could spare a packet of antacids (“medicines are very scarce”).
布告上广告着古巴革命防御各级委员会(CDRs)的博物馆，这些委员会是由菲德尔?卡斯特罗在1960年建立起来的社区团体，以作为他的革命的基层组织。建立广告的目的在于安排各项社会服务，并告知新近建立起的共产主义路线的异己省份或反叛省份。博物馆里摆设着一些陈列革命大事记的玻璃橱柜。在博物馆的室内的墙上贴着一些用放大的字体摘录的卡斯特罗演讲，并且还有一张显示革命防御各级委员会的成员加入趋势的图表。2007年，这些委员会的成员增加到了 840万古巴人，而全国总人数仅有1100万。博物馆内一楼有一处显眼的物品，那就是一条用石膏制作而成的一些几何模型，其中包括了一条具有古巴特色的街道，一些前门有着希腊复古风格石柱的房屋…，以及一些依次以显眼的粉色、黄绿色、牙膏蓝、桃色与柠檬色粉刷的各个房屋的正面。
权威杂志《经济学人》英文原版(整理完全版)。(可打印修改)
Digest Of The. Economist. 2006(8-9)The mismeasure of womanMen and women think differently. But not that differentlyIN THE 1970s there was a fad for giving dolls to baby boys and fire-engines to baby girls. The idea was that differences in behaviour between the sexes were solely the result of upbringing: culture turned women into ironers, knitters and chatterboxes, and men into hammerers, drillers and silent types. Switching toys would put an end to sexual sorting. Today, it is clear why it did not. When boys and girls are born, they are already different, and they favour different toys from the beginning.That boys and girls—and men and women—are programmed by evolution to behave differently from one another is now widely accepted. Surely, no one today would think of doing what John Money, of Johns Hopkins University, did in 1967: amputating the genitalia of a boy who had suffered a botched circumcision, and advising the parents to bring him up as a girl. The experiment didn't work, and the consequences were tragic. But which of the differences between the sexes are “biological”, in the sense that they have been honed by evolution, and which are “cultural” or “environmental” and might more easily be altered by changed circumstances, is still fiercely debated.The sensitivity of the question was shown last year by a furore at Harvard University. Larry Summers, then Harvard's president, caused a storm when he suggested that innate ability could be an important reason why there were so few women in the top positions in mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences.Even as a proposition for discussion, this is unacceptable to some. But biological explanations of human behaviour are making a comeback as the generation of academics that feared them as a covert way of justifying eugenics, or of thwarting Marxist utopianism, is retiring. The success of neo-Darwinism has provided an intellectual underpinning for discussion about why some differences between the sexes might be innate. And new scanning techniques have enabled researchers to examine the brain's interior while it is working, showing that male and female brains do, at one level, operate differently. The results, however, do not always support past clichés about what the differences in question actually are.Differences in behaviour between the sexes must, in some way, be reflections of systematic differences between the brains of males and females. Such differences certainly exist, but drawing inferences from them is not as easy as it may appear.For a start, men's brains are about 9% larger than those of women. That used to be cited as evidence of men's supposedly greater intelligence. Actually, the difference is largely (and probably completely) explained by the fact that men are bigger than women. In recent years, more detailed examination has refined the picture. Female brains have a higher percentage of grey matter (the manifestation, en bloc, of the central bodies of nerve cells), and thus a lower percentage of white matter (the manifestation of the long, thin filaments that connect nerve cells together), than male brains. That, plus the fact that in some regions of the female brain, nerve cells are packed more densely than in men, means that the number of nerve cells in male and female brains maybe similar.Oddly, though, the main connection between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is known as the corpus callosum and is made of white matter, is proportionately smaller in men than women. This may explain why men use only one side of the brain to process some problems for which women employ both sides.These differences in structure and wiring do not appear to have any influence on intelligence as measured by IQ tests. It does, however, seem that the sexes carry out these tests in different ways. In one example, where men and women perform equally well in a test that asks them to work out whether nonsense words rhyme, brain scanning shows that women use areas on both the right and the left sides of the brain to accomplish the task. Men, by contrast, use only areas on the left side. There is also a correlation between mathematical reasoning and temporal-lobe activity in men—but none in women. More generally, men seem to rely more on their grey matter for their IQ, whereas women rely more on their white matter.American exceptionalismThe world's biggest insurance market is too splinteredKANSAS CITY, Missouri, is known more for its historical role as a cattle town than as a financial hub. But it is to this midwestern city, America's 26th largest, that regulators and insurance executives from around the globe head when they want to make sense of the world's largest—and one of its weirdest—insurance markets.For it is in Kansas City that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is housed. It oversees a market accounting for one-third of premiums written worldwide. Outside Kansas City, the market becomes a regulatory free-for-all. Each of America's 50 states, plus the District of Colombia, governs its insurance industry in its own way.In an increasingly global insurance market, America's state-based system is coming under strong pressure to reform. Insurance has changed dramatically since the NAIC was set up in 1871, with growing sophistication in underwriting and risk management. Premiums in America have ballooned to $1.1 trillion and market power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of big players (some of them foreign-owned) that are pushing for an overhaul of the state-based system. “It's an extremely expensive and Byzantine process,” says Bob Hartwig, an economist with the Insurance Information Institute, a research group.Though a fiercely political issue, congressional support for simplifying the system is gaining ground. Both houses of Congress are looking at proposals to change the state-based system. Big insurers favour a version that would implement an optional federal charter allowing them to bypass the state-bystate regulatory process if they choose. A similar system already exists for banks.Proponents of the changes see more efficiency, an ability to roll out products more quickly nationally and, ultimately, better offerings for consumers as a result. Yet some consumer groups favour state-based regulation. They believe it keeps premiums lower than they otherwise would be. Premiums as a percentage of gross output are lower in America than in several other countries.The political headwinds are strong: insurance commissioners are elected officials in some states (California, for instance) and appointed by the governor in others. The industry is also split: most of the country's 4,500 insurers are small, and many of them have close ties with state-based regulators, whose survival they support. But even these forces may eventually be overcome.Elsewhere in the industry in America, there are other calls for reform. In a backdoor form of protectionism, American reinsurance firms have long benefited from a regulation that requires foreign reinsurers writing cross-border business into America to post more collateral than they do. “If you operate outside the borders of the US, they don't trust you one inch,” laments Julian James, head of international business at Lloyd's of London, which writes 38% of its business in America.The collateral requirement was established because of worries about regulatory standards abroad, and the financial strength of global reinsurers. Today regulatory standards have been tightened in many foreign markets. A majority of America's reinsurance cover now comes from firms based abroad, including many that have set up offshore in Bermuda (for tax reasons) primarily to serve America.Too hot to handleDell's battery recall reveals the technology industry's vulnerabilitiesTHERE is the nail test, in which a team of engineers drives a large metal nail through a battery cell to see if it explodes. In another trial, laboratory technicians bake the batteries in an oven to simulate the effects of a digital device left in a closed car on a sweltering day—to check the reaction of the chemicals inside. On production runs, random batches of batteries are tested for temperature, efficiency, energy density and output.But the rigorous processes that go into making sophisticated, rechargeable batteries—the heart of billions of electronic gadgets around the world—were not enough. On August 14th Dell, a computer company, said it would replace 4.1m lithium-ion batteries made by Sony, a consumer-electronics firm, in laptop computers sold between 2004 and last month. A handful of customers had reported the batteries overheating, catching fire and even exploding—including one celebrated case at a conference this year in Japan, which was captured on film and passed around the internet. The cost to the two companies is expected to be between $200m and $400m.In some ways, Dell is a victim of its success. The company was a pioneer in turning the personal computer into a commodity, which meant squeezing suppliers to the last penny, using economies of scale by placing huge orders, and running efficient supply chains with little room for error. It all created a volatile environment in which mistakes can have grave effects.Since lithium-ion batteries were introduced in 1991, their capacity to overheat and burst into flame has been well known. Indeed, in 2004 America banned them as cargo on passenger planes, as a fire hazard. But the latest problems seem to have arisen because of the manufacturing process, which demands perfection. “If there is even a nano-sized particle of dust, a small metal shard or water condensation that gets into the battery cell, it can overheat and explode,” says Sara Bradford of Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy. As the energy needs of devices have grown rapidly, so have the demands on batteries.The computing industry's culture is also partly to blame. Firms have long tried to ship products as fast as they possibly can, and they may have set less store by quality. They used to mock the telecoms industry's ethos of “five-nines”—99.999% reliability—because it meant long product cycles. But now they are gradually accepting it as a benchmark. That is partly why Microsoft has taken so long to perfect its new operating system, Windows Vista.Compared with other product crises, from contaminated Coca-Cola in 1999 to Firestone's faulty tyres in 2000, Dell can be complimented for quickly taking charge of a hot situation. The firm says there were only six incidents of laptops overheating in America since December 2005—but the internet created a conflagration.Keeping the faithMixing religion and development raises soul-searching questionsWORLD Bank projects are usually free of words like “faith” and “soul.” Most of its missions speak the jargon of development: poverty reduction, aggregate growth and structural adjustments. But a small unit within the bank has been currying favour with religious groups, working to ease their suspicions and use their influence to further the bank's goals. In many developing countries, such groups have the best access to the people the bank is trying to help. The programme has existed for eight years, but this brainchild of the bank's previous president, James Wolfensohn, has spent the past year largely in limbo as his successor, Paul Wolfowitz, decides its future. Now, some religious leaders in the developing world are worried that the progress they have made with the bank may stall.That progress has not always been easy. The programme, named the Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics, faced controversy from the start. Just as religious groups have struggled to work with the bank, many people on the inside doubted if the bank should be delving into the divine. Critics argued that religion could be divisive and political. Some said religion clashes with the secular goals of modernisation.Although the bank does not lend directly to religious groups, it works with them to provide health, educational and other benefits, and receives direct input from those on the ground in poor countries. Katherine Marshall, director of the bank's faith unit, argues that such groups are in an ideal position to educate people, move resources and keep an eye on corruption. They are organised distribution systems in otherwise chaotic places. The programme has had success getting evangelical groups to fight malaria in Mozambique, improve microcredit and water distribution in India, and educate people about AIDS in Africa. “We started from very different viewpoints. The World Bank is looking at the survival of a country, we look at the survival of a patient,” says Leonardo Palombi, of the Community of Sant'Egidio, an Italian church group that works in Africa.Although the work continues, those involved in Mr Wolfensohn's former pet project now fret over its future. Some expect the faith unit to be transferred to an independent organisation also set up by Mr Wolfensohn, the World Faiths Development Dialogue, which will still maintain a link with the bank. Religious groups are hoping their voices will still be heard. “If we are going to make progress, faith institutions need to be involved. We believe religion has the ability to bring stability. It will be important for the bank to follow through,” says Agnes Abuom, of the World Council of Churches for Africa, based in Kenya.Like religious groups, large institutions such as the bank can resist change. Economists and development experts are sometimes slow to believe in new ideas. One positive by-product of the initiative is that religious groups once wary of the bank's intentions are less suspicious. Ultimately, as long as both economists and evangelists aim to help the poor attain a better life on earth, differences in opinion about the life hereafter do not matter much.Stand and deliverFor the first time since the epidemic began, money to fight AIDS is in plentiful supply. It isnow time to convert words into actionKEVIN DE COCK, the World Health Organisation's AIDS supremo, is not a man to mince his words. He reckons that he and his colleagues in the global AIDS establishment have between five and seven years to make a real dent in the problem. If they fail, the world's attention span will be exhausted, charitable donors and governments will turn to other matters and AIDS will be relegated in the public consciousness to being yet another intractable problem of the poor world about which little or nothing can be done.For now, though, the money is flowing. About $8.9 billion is expected to be available this year. And, regardless of Dr De Cock's long-term worries, that sum should rise over the next few years. Not surprisingly, a lot of people are eager to spend it.Many of those people—some 24,000 of them—have been meeting in Toronto at the 16th International AIDS Conference. An AIDS conference is unlike any other scientific meeting. In part, it is a jamboree in which people try to out-do each other in displays of cultural inclusiveness: the music of six continents resonates around the convention centre. In part, it is a lightning conductor that allows AIDS activists to make their discontent known to the world in a series of semi-official protests. It is also what other scientific meetings are, a forum for the presentation of papers with titles such as “Differing lymphocyte cytokine responses in HIV and Leishmania co-infection”. But mostly, it is a giant council of war. And at this one, the generals are trying to impose a complete change of military strategy.When AIDS was discovered, there was no treatment. Existing anti-viral drugs were tried but at best they delayed the inevitable, and at worst they failed completely. Prevention, then, was not merely better than cure, it was the only thing to talk about. Condoms were distributed. Posters were posted exhorting the advantages of safe sex. Television adverts were run that showed theconsequences of carelessness.Ten years ago, though, a new class of drugs known as protease inhibitors was developed. In combination with some of the older drugs, they produced what is now known as highly active anti-retroviral therapy or HAART. In most cases, HAART can prolong life indefinitely.That completely changed the picture. Once the AIDS activists had treated themselves, they began to lobby for the poor world to be treated, too. And, with much foot-dragging, that is now happening. About 1.6m people in low- and middle-income countries, 1m of them in sub-Saharan Africa, are now receiving anti-AIDS drugs routinely. The intention, announced at last year's G8 meeting in Scotland, is that the drugs should be available by 2010 to all who would benefit from them.However, those on drugs remain infected and require treatment indefinitely. To stop the epidemic requires a re-emphasis of prevention, and it is that which the organisers have been trying to do.Man, deconstructedThe DNA that may have driven the evolution of the human brainONE of the benefits of knowing the complete genetic sequences of humans and other animals is that it becomes possible to compare these blueprints. You can then work out what separates man from beast—genetically speaking, at least.The human brain sets man apart. About 2m years ago it began to grow in size, and today it is about three times larger than that of chimpanzees, man's closest relative. Human intelligence and behavioural complexity have far outstripped those of its simian cousins, so the human brain seems to have got more complex, as well as bigger. Yet no study has pinpointed the genetic changes that cause these differences between man and chimp.Now a group of scientists believe they have located some interesting stretches of DNA that may have been crucial in the evolution of the human brain. A team led by David Haussler of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in California, compared the human genome with that of mammals including other primates. They reported the results in Nature.The researchers looked at the non-human genomes first, seeking regions that had not changed much throughout evolutionary history. Regions that are untouched by normal random changes typically are important ones, and thus are conserved by evolution. Next the researchers found the equivalent regions in the human genome to see if any were very different between humans and chimps. Such a sudden change is a hallmark of a functional evolutionary shift.They found 49 regions they dubbed “human accelerated regions” (HARs) that have shown a rapid, recent evolution. Most of these regions are not genes as commonly understood. This is because they code for something other than the proteins that are expressed in human cells and that regulate biological processes. A number of the HARs are portions of DNA that are responsible for turning genes on and off.Intriguingly, the most rapidly changing region was HAR1, which has accumulated 18 genetic changes when only one would be expected to occur by chance. It codes for a bit of RNA (a molecule that usually acts as a template for translating DNA into protein) that, it is speculated, has some direct function in neuronal development.HAR1 is expressed before birth in the developing neocortex—the outer layer of the brain that seems to be involved in higher functions such as language, conscious thought and sensory perception. HAR1 is expressed in cells that are thought to have a vital role in directing migrating nerve cells in the developing brain. This happens at seven to 19 weeks of gestation, a crucial time when many of the nerve cells are establishing their functions.Without more research, the function of HAR1 remains mere speculation. But an intriguing facet of this work is that, until now, most researchers had focused their hunt for differences on the protein-coding stretches of the genome. That such a discovery has been made in what was regarded as the less interesting parts of the human genome is a presage of where exciting genomic finds may lie in the future.Keeping it realHow to make digital photography more trustworthyPHOTOGRAPHY often blurs the distinction between art and reality. Modern technology has made that blurring easier. In the digital darkroom photographers can manipulate images and threaten the integrity of endeavours that rely on them. Several journalists have been fired for such activity in recent months, including one from Reuters for faking pictures in Lebanon. Earlier this year, the investigation into Hwang Woo-suk showed the South Korean scientist had changed images purporting to show cloning. In an effort to reel in photography, camera-makers are making it more obvious when images have been altered.One way of doing this is to use image-authentication systems to reveal if someone has tampered with a picture. These usecomputer programs to generate a code from the very data that comprise the image. As the picture is captured, the code is attached to it. When the image is viewed, software determines the code for the image and compares it with the attached code. If the image has been altered, the codes will not match, revealing the doctoring.Another way favoured by manufacturers is to take a piece of data from the image and assign it a secret code. Once the image file is transferred to a computer, it is given the same code, which will change if it is edited. The codes will match if the image is authentic but will be inconsistent if tampering occurred.The algorithm is the weapon of choice for Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Digital images have natural statistical patterns in the intensity and texture of their pixels. These patterns change when the picture is manipulated. Dr Farid's algorithms detect these changes, and can tell if pixels have been duplicated or removed. They also try to detect if noise—the overexposed pixels within the image that create a grainy effect—was present at the time the photograph was taken or has been added later.However, forgers have become adept at printing and rescanning images, thus creating a new original. In such cases, analysing how three-dimensional elements interact is key. Long shadows at midday are a giveaway. Even the tiny reflections in the centre of a person's pupil tell you about the surrounding light source. So Dr Farid analyses shadows and lighting to see if subjects and surroundings are consistent.For its part, Adobe, the maker of Photoshop software, has improved its ability to record the changes made to an image by logging how and when each tool or filter was used. Photoshop was the program used by the journalist fired by Reuters; his handiwork left a pattern in the smoke he had added that was spotted by bloggers. Thus far the internet has proven an effective check on digital forgery. Although it allows potentially fake images to be disseminated widely, it also casts many more critical eyes upon them. Sometimes the best scrutiny is simply more people looking.Collateral damageWhy the war in Iraq is surprisingly bad news for America's defence firmsWHEN Boeing announced on August 18th that it planned to shut down production of the C-17, a huge military cargo plane, the news sent a shiver through the American defence industry. As it winds down its production line at Long Beach, California, over the next two years, Boeing will soon begin to notify suppliers that their services will no longer be needed. It had to call a halt, because orders from America's Defence Department had dried up and a trickle of export deals could not take their place. The company would not support the cost of running the production line for the C-17 (once one of its biggest-selling aircraft) on the off-chance that the Pentagon might change its mind and place further orders.The wider worry for the defence industry is that this could be the first of many big programmes to be shut down. A big part of the problem is that America is at war. The need to find an extra $100 billion a year to pay for operations in Iraq means there is pressure to make cuts in the defence budget, which has been provisionally set at $441 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October. American defence budgets involve a complicated dance starting with what the Pentagon wants, what the White House thinks it should get and, finally, what Congress allows it to get away with. Although the armed forces' extra spending on ammunition, fuel, provisions, medicines and accommodation in Iraq does not strictly come out of the same budget as new weapons, the heavy bill for fighting eventually leads to calls to save money on shiny new equipment.Earlier this month, for example, the Congressional Budget Office expressed “major concerns” about Future Combat Systems, a $165 billion project to upgrade all of the army's vehicles and communications networks. The scheme is the Pentagon's second-biggest development programme and is intended to give the soldiers on the ground access to real-time battlefield information from sources such as satellites and unmanned aircraft. But the programme was initially expected to cost about $82 billion, half the latest estimate, and critics are also worried about how well it will work and whether it will be delivered on time.Last week the army issued a glowing progress report on the project and insisted that Boeing and Science Applications International Corporation, the lead contractors, are on schedule. This was welcome news to defence contractors worried that the grandiose project might fall victim to pressure for budget cuts. Even so, the prospects for many other big weapons programmes are less rosy.The problem is not just the cost of the fighting in Iraq, but also its nature. The shift in the style of warfare, towards such “asymmetric” conflicts, means that there is now less demand for big-ticket weapons systems. Things were simpler in the cold war, when the Pentagon spent about $150 billion a year on new weapons. That fell to around $50 billion after the fall of the Berlin Wall. America's 15 main defence contractors reacted by consolidating into today's top five. When he became president, George Bush promised to increase defence spending, and he has done so: the procurement budget is back up to nearly $160 billion, despite thelack of a Soviet Union.As a result, the five main defence contractors—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon—have had a wonderful five years. Since the terrorist attacks in September 2001, their sales have risen by around 10% a year. Last year their combined profits increased by 25% to almost $13 billion. Although most of the defence budget is spent on big weapons systems that are of little or no use in the fight against terrorists, the political climate after the attacks of September 11th 2001 made it impossible to oppose the administration's desire to increase defence spending. Besides, such spending means more jobs, often in areas where there is little other manufacturing.More media, less newsNewspapers are making progress with the internet, but most are still too timid, defensive orhigh-mindedTHE first thing to greet a visitor to the Oslo headquarters of Schibsted, a Norwegian newspaper firm, is its original, hand-operated printing press from 1856, now so clean and polished it looks more like a sculpture than a machine. Christian Schibsted, the firm's founder, bought it to print someone else's newspaper, but when the contract moved elsewhere he decided to start his own. Although Schibsted gives pride of place to its antique machinery, the company is in fact running away from its printed past as fast as it can. Having made a loss five years ago, Schibsted's activities on the internet contributed 35% of last year's operating profits.News of Schibsted's success online has spread far in the newspaper industry. Every year, says Sverre Munck, the executive vice-president of its international business, Schibsted has to turn away delegations of foreign newspaper bosses seeking to find out how the Norwegians have done it. “Otherwise we'd get several visits every month,” he says. The company has used its established newspaper brands to build websites that rank first and second in Scandinavia for visitors. It has also created new internet businesses such as Sesam, a search engine that competes with Google, and FINN.no, a portal for classified advertising. As a result, 2005 was the company's best ever for revenues and profits.Unfortunately for the newspaper industry, Schibsted is a rare exception. For most newspaper companies in the developed world, 2005 was miserable. They still earn almost all of their profits from print, which is in decline. As people look to the internet for news and young people turn away from papers, paid-for circulations are falling year after year. Papers are also losing their share of advertising spending. Classified advertising is quickly moving online. Jim Chisholm, of iMedia, a joint-venture consultancy with IFRA, a newspaper trade association, predicts that a quarter of print classified ads will be lost to digital media in the next ten years. Overall, says iMedia, newspapers claimed 36% of total global advertising in 1995 and 30% in 2005. It reckons they will lose another five percentage points by 2015.Even the most confident of newspaper bosses now agree that they will survive in the long term only if, like Schibsted, they can reinvent themselves on the internet and on other new-media platforms such as mobile phones and portable electronic devices. Most have been slow to grasp the changes affecting their industry—“remarkably, unaccountably complacent,” as Rupert Murdoch put it in a speech last year—but now they are making a big push to catch up. Internet advertising is growing rapidly for many and is beginning to offset some of the decline in print.Newspapers' complacency is perhaps not as remarkable as Mr Murdoch suggested. In many developed countries their owners have for decades enjoyed near monopolies, fat profit margins, and returns on capital above those of other industries. In the past, newspaper companies saw little need to experiment or to change and spent little or nothing on research and development.Changing connectionsFatherhood alters the structure of your brain—if you are a marmosetPARENTING has obvious effects on mothers, but fathers appear to be affected, too. A study published this week shows that fatherhood increases the nerve connections in the region of the brain that controls goal-driven behaviour—at least, it does in marmosets.Pregnancy and motherhood have long been known to bring about changes—many of them positive—to the female brain. Pregnant and nursing rats have a greater number of neural connections, particularly in the region of the brain that controls hormones and maternal behaviour. The brain changes coincide with improvements in spatial memory and speedier foraging skills, which might help a mother rat protect and feed her young.Just what effect parenting might have on the brains of fathers has remained an open question, however. Male rats sometimes eat their young rather than nurture them, which makes them a poor model for studying how fatherhood affects the brains of species that frown on infanticide. Marmoset fathers on the other hand are a model of paternal devotion. They carry their babies for more。
economist经济学人文摘(中英双语)：Faith and faithfulness
Faith and faithfulness信仰和忠诚Praying for your partner stops you straying为你的情侣虔诚祈祷使你不去沾花惹草Aug 26th 2010INFIDELITY is rampant in nature. Birds, mammals, amphibians and even fish all cheat if the conditions are right, forcing mates to remain perpetually vigilant. People are no different. Although cheats are publicly condemned, or in some cases impeach ed, infidelity is common and public disapproval does little to dissuade the sinner. The disapproval of God, however, is a different matter, and a new study suggests that prayer can indeed guide people away from adulterous behaviour.不忠是自然界中滥生无控的现象。
鸟类、哺乳动物、两栖动物、以至鱼类一旦在条件许可的情况下都会四处留情，迫使其配偶不得不时刻严密提防。
人类也一样。
虽然偷情在公开场合下受到谴责，或在某些特例中更有被弹劾的遭遇，但不忠仍然相当普遍，大众对不忠之徒的谴责并没起到多少恫吓的作用。
然而，上帝对不忠的不悦则非同儿戏了。
近期一项新研究显示，祈祷可以确实引导人们避开沾花惹草的邪路。
Frank Fincham at Florida State University and his colleagues knew from looking at past studies that couples who attend religious services are more likely to be satisfied with their marriages and less likely to be unfaithful than those who do not, but they did not understand why. Speculating that the act of praying might itself cause romantic relationships to become more resilient, the team set up an experiment to explore prayer and fidelity.佛罗里达州立大学的弗兰克•芬查姆（Frank Fincham）博士和他的同事根据分析以往的研究发现，相比那些不去参加宗教仪式的夫妇，参与夫妇对自己的婚姻满意程度比较高，而且较少涉及婚外情。