经济学人中英对照Phoney currency wars

Phoney currency wars

货币战争？危言耸听！

The world should welcome the monetary assertiveness of Japan and America

世界应该欢迎日本与美国的货币自信

OFFICIALS from the world’s biggest economies meet on February 15th-16th in Moscow on a mission to avert war. Not one with bombs and bullets, but a “currency war”. Finance ministers and central bankers worry that their peers in the G20 will devalue their currencies to boost exports and grow their economies at their neighbours’ expense.

2月15至16日,来自世界几大经济体的官员集聚莫斯科,旨在避免一场战争。这不是一场真刀真枪的战争，而是“货币战争”。20国集团国家的财政部长、央行行长们都担心对方会贬低货币价值来拉动出口，即采取以邻为壑的措施来促进经济增长。

Emerging economies, led by Brazil, first accused America of instigating a currency war in 2010 when the Federal Reserve bought heaps of bonds with newly created money. That “quantitative easing” (QE) made investors flood into emerging markets in search of better returns, lifting their exchange rates. Now those charges are being levelled at Japan. Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister, has promised bold stimulus to restart growth and vanquish deflation. He has also called for a weaker yen to bolster exports; it has duly fallen by 16% against the dollar and 19% against the euro since the end of September (when it was clear that Mr Abe was heading for power).

2010年，以巴西为首的新兴国家率先指责美国挑起货币战。当时，美联储用新印刷的钞票购买大量债券。该“量化宽松”（QE）措施导致投资者蜂拥至新兴国家寻求更高回报，推高新兴国家货币的汇率。而今，新兴国家把矛头指向日本。日本新任首相安倍晋三承诺会采取大胆的刺激措施重振日本经济，摆脱通货紧缩。他也要求压低日元以推动出口；自9月底（即安倍上台的消息明确时）以来，日元兑美元汇率下跌16%,兑欧元下跌19%。

The complaints, however, are overdone. Rather than condemning the actions of America and Japan, the rest of the world should praise them—and the euro zone would do well to follow their example.

然而，各国似乎抱怨过度。他们不应一味指责美日的行为，反而应表示赞赏，欧元区国家最好应效仿才是。

Turning swords into printing presses

化印钞机为利剑

The war rhetoric implies that America and Japan are directly suppressing their currencies to boost exports and suppress imports. That would be a zero-sum game which could degenerate into protectionism and a collapse in trade. But this is not what they are doing. When central banks have lowered their short-term interest rate to near zero and thus exhausted their conventional monetary methods, they turn to unconventional means such as QE or convincing people that inflation will rise. Both actions should lower real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates. This may now be happening in Japan.

此番战争言论，言下之意是美日在直接压低本国货币以促进出口抑制进口。这就是一场零和博弈，

使保护主义盛行，贸易崩溃。但事实并非如此。美日央行已将短期利率调至接近零，用光了传统的货币政策工具，于是，他们只好使用非传统的货币政策，如QE或说服人们通货膨胀率会上升。二者都会降低真实（消除通胀因素）利率。这正是日本现在的情况。

The principal goal of this policy is to stimulate domestic spending and investment. As a by-product, lower real rates usually weaken the currency as well, and that in turn tends to depress imports. But if the policy is successful in reviving domestic demand, it will eventually lead to higher imports.

该政策的主要目的是刺激内需和投资。更低的利率常常也会附带压低货币，从而抑制进口。但如果该政策能重振内需，就能最终增加进口。

Aggressive monetary expansion in a big economy suffering from weak demand and subdued inflation is good for the rest of the world, not bad. The International Monetary Fund concluded that Americ a’s first rounds of monetary laxity boosted its trading partners’ output by as much as 0.3%. The dollar did weaken, but that became a motivation for Japan’s stepped-up assault on deflation. The combined monetary boost on opposite sides of the Pacific has been a powerful elixir for global investor confidence.

一个需求疲软、通胀率低的大国，大幅采取货币扩张政策对其他各国并非坏事，而是好事。国际货币基金组织（IMF）称，美国第一轮货币宽松使其贸易伙伴国出口增幅高达0.3%。美元的确贬值了，但这也促使日本加大力度遏制通胀紧缩。太平洋两岸的货币扩张成为提振全球投资者信心的灵丹妙药。

European officials, fearful that their countries’ exports are cau ght in the crossfire, have entertained loopy ideas such as directly managing the value of the euro. Instead, the euro zone should stop grumbling and start emulating Japan: the European Central Bank should ease monetary policy, if necessary through QE. This would both blunt the euro’s rise and combat recession in the zone’s periphery.

欧洲国家官员因害怕他们自己国家的出口卷入交火，曾有过诸如直接管制欧元汇率的糊涂想法。恰恰相反，欧元区应该停止抱怨，效仿日本。欧洲中央银行应该放松货币政策，必要时可启动QE。这既能防止欧元升值还能防止欧元区边缘经济体陷入衰退。

That option may not be available to emerging markets, such as Brazil, where inflation remains a problem. In their case, limited capital controls may be a sensible short-term defence against destabilising inflows of hot money.

新兴国家如巴西面临着通胀问题，可能无法效仿日本。对他们来说，限制性的资本管制可能在短期是明智之举，来抵御热钱涌入，防止市场紊乱。

Should Japan’s attack on t he yen move beyond rhetoric to actual intervention in the markets to drive its value down, then the rest of the world would be right to condemn it. Until that happens, other countries should avoid groundless fearmongering about currency wars. Finance ministers and central banks should be fighting stagnation, not each other.

倘若日本不仅只是嘴上说要压低日元，而是真的干预市场使日元贬值，那么其他各国谴责日本便理所当然。在此之前，其他国家不应空穴来风，散布有关货币战争的谣言。财政部长和央行应该致力于防止经济停滞，而不是各国之间起内讧。

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15年每周经济学人报刊中英文对照讲课讲稿

15年每周经济学人报刊中英文对照

空气污染英国需要采取更多措施来净化污浊的空气 Air pollution空气污染The big smoke雾都 Britain needs to do more to clean up its dirty air 英国需要采取更多措施来净化污浊的空气VISITING Oxford Street, a road teeming with tatty shops and overcrowded with people, is plainly a trial. Less plainly, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a noxious gas, have been found to be around three times higher there than the legal limit. In 2013 the annual mean concentration of NO2 on the street was one of the highest levels found anywhere in Europe. 来到牛津街，你会看到街道两边布满了各式杂乱的商店，而道路上人满为患。行走在这条街上，很明显是个磨练。不为人觉察的是，这里有毒气体二氧化氮(NO2)测出含量超出法定水平的约三倍以上。２０１３年，这条街的NO2年均浓度是欧洲最高之一。 British air is far cleaner than it was a few decades ago. Fewer people use coal-burning stoves; old industrial plants have been decommissioned. But since 2009 levels of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, coarse or fine particles that are linked to lung cancer and asthma, have fallen more slowly. The exact number of deaths caused by dirty air is unknown. But in 2010 a government advisory group estimated that removing man-made fine particulate matter from the atmosphere would increase life expectancy for those born in 2008 by an average of six months. 英国的空气比几十年前干净多了。使用燃煤炉灶的人越来越少；老工业厂已经停产。但自2009年起，氧 化氮、微粒物质、以及与肺癌和哮喘相关的粗、细颗粒含量的下降速度减慢了。因污浊空气所引发的死亡人数是未知的。但2010年，一个政府顾问组估算如果将大气中人为造成的微粒物质除去的话，2008年的出生人口人均寿命将增加六个月。 Much of the slowdown is the result of fumes from diesel cars, which were championed by successive governments because they use less fuel and thus produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars. In 2001 only 14% of all cars ran on diesel; by 2013 the proportion had increased to 35%. (Greener “hybrid” and electric cars have increased ninefold since 2006, but account for just 0.5% of the entire fleet.) Second-hand cars are particularly noxious, but even newer ones have not been as clean as hoped. Many cars that belched out few pollutants in tests produced more when on the roads. 下降速度放缓的大部分原因在于柴油汽车排放的尾气—这为历任政府所支持，因为柴油汽车耗用更少的能源，比汽油汽车排放更少的二氧化碳。2001年，仅14%的汽车使用柴油。2013年，这个比例上涨到了35%。（更绿色的“混合动力”和电瓶车自2006年以来增加了九倍，但仅占汽车总量的0.5%。）二手汽 车尤其有害，但新车也没所期望的那样清洁。很多车在污染物排放测试中排放量低，车在上路时却排放了更多。 Climate change and geoengineering气候变化与地质工程学Fears of a bright planet 地球发光，令人担心Experiments designed to learn more about ways of geoengineering the climate should be allowed to proceed为更好地利用工程学手段研究气候问题所设计的实验应该获准进行下去。SHINY things absorb less heat when left in the sun. This means that if the Earth could be made a little shinier it would be less susceptible to global warming. Ways to brighten it, such as adding nanoscale specks of salt to low clouds, making them whiter, or putting a thin haze of particles into the stratosphere, are the province of “geoengineering”. The small band of scientists which have been studying this subject over the past decade or so have mostly been using computer models. Some of them are now proposing outdoor experiments—using seawater-fed sprayers to churn out particles of the exact size needed to brighten clouds, or spewing sulphur particles from underneath a large balloon 20km up in the sky.发光的物体放在太阳下面会吸收较少的热量。这就意味着如果让地球发一点光的话，受到全球变暖的影响就会小一些。让地球发光的方式，比方说在低空云层上添加纳米级的盐微粒，让云变得更白，或者是将一层薄的雾状物洒向平流层，这些都属于地质工程学的范畴。过去十年左右研究这一领域的一小批科学家主要使用计算机模型，其中一些人现在提出要做室外实验――就是用装有

《经济学人》英中对照翻译版(考研英语必备)

来源于https://www.wendangku.net/doc/e818772386.html,/wordpress/（The Economist《经济学人》中文版）和https://www.wendangku.net/doc/e818772386.html,/（《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 expectations NO 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。从本周开始，美国可以更加自信的宣称：任何其他的西方国家都变得有些政治色盲了。在通向民权的道路上，其它里程碑似的重大历史事件都是在痛苦与血泊中通过的；而此次总统选举则以愉快著称，受到了包括白人及黑人在内的全国选民的称赞。 Mr Obama lost the white vote, it is true, by 43-55%; but he won almost exactly same share of it as the last three (white) Democratic candidates; Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. And he won heavily among younger white voters. America will now have a president with half-brothers in Kenya, old schoolmates in Indonesia and a view of the world that seems to be based on respect rather than confrontation. 奥巴马丢掉了大约43%-55%的白人选票，这是不争的事实；但他与过去三位白人民主党候选人–克林顿、戈尔和肯尼迪–得到的白人选票几乎相同。同时，他在年轻一代的白人选民中取得了重大胜利。这位新总统有一个同父异母的兄弟在肯尼亚，有老同学在印尼，他的世界观似乎建立在尊重而不是对抗的基础之上。 That matters. Under George Bush America’s international standing has sunk to awful lows. This week Americans voted in record-smashing numbers for many reasons, but one of them was an abhorrence of how their shining city’s reputation has been tarnished. Their country will now be easier for its friends to like and harder for its foes to hate. 这很重要。在布什治下，美国的国际声誉降到了糟糕地步。本周美国选民的投票数量突破了历史纪录，其中原因很多，有一个就是他们对曾经辉煌无比的城市形象已然黯淡无光而感到愤恨。现在他们的国家将会更易赢得朋友的喜爱，而不易引起敌人的仇恨。 In its own way the election illustrates this redeeming effect. For the past eight years the debacle in Florida in 2000 has been cited (not always fairly) as an example of shabby American politics. Yet here was a clear victory delivered by millions of volunteers-and by the intelligent use of technology to ride a wave of excitement that is all too rare in most democracies. Mr Obama showed that, with the right message, a candidate with no money or machine behind him can build his own.

经济学人双语阅读：政治遗传学 人体政治

【经济学人】双语阅读：政治遗传学人体政治 Science and technology 科学技术 The genetics of politics 政治遗传学 Body politic 人体政治 Slowly, and in some quarters grudgingly, the influence of genes in shaping political outlook and behaviour is being recognized 在某些方面，塑造政治前景和行为的基因影响正在慢慢地被人们所接受，虽然还是不情愿。 IN 1882 W.S. Gilbert wrote, to a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan, a ditty that went I often think it's comical how Nature always does contrive/that every boy and every gal that's born into the world alive/is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative. 在1882年，W.S吉尔伯特写的一首小诗-是为阿瑟-沙利文爵士的一首曲子而作，我一直认为，大自然的精工雕作是那么可笑/每个出生到这个世界上，并存活下来的男孩和女孩们/不是有一点自由倾向，就是有一点保守。 In the 19th century, that view, though humorously intended, would not have been out of place among respectable thinkers. 在十九世纪，这个观点虽然有一点幽默的意味，但是在那些备受尊敬的思想家眼中，也并不是一无是处。 The detail of a man's opinion might be changed by circumstances. 一个人意见的详细观点可能会由于环境而改变。 But the idea that much of his character was ingrained at birth held no terrors. 但是，这种与生俱来的，由他的性格决定的观念也没什么恐怖的。 It is not, however, a view that cut much ice in 20th-century social-scientific thinking, particularly after the second world war. 然而，它在二十世纪的社会科学思想中没有占到一席之地，特别是二战之后。 Those who allowed that it might have some value were generally shouted down and sometimes abused, along with all others vehemently suspected of the heresy of believing that genetic differences between individuals could have a role in shaping their behavioural differences. 那些认为它有一些价值的人们发出的呐喊，通常会被持不同观点人们的声音所掩盖，有时还会遭到辱骂，和那些对当时的异端邪说----即个体之间的遗传差异在塑造他们各自不同的行为上起了一定的作用----有些猜测的人们一样受到不公平对待。

经济学人双语版1

Europe's debt crisis 欧洲债务危机 Spot the pattern 看变化模式 Jul 5th 2011, 18:55 by R.A. | WASHINGTON 2011年7月5日18：55 R.A./华盛顿 HERE'S a chart showing the yields on 10-year Greek debt over the past three months. See the pattern? 本图显示的是在过去3个月10年期希腊债券的收益率。变化模式看清楚了吧？ There's a spike, followed by a decline, followed by a higher spike, followed by a decline to a higher trough, and so on. European leaders keep taking steps to avert disaster, and each time markets are less assuaged. 有个尖峰，接着是下跌，然后又是稍高一些的尖峰，接着跌入一个较高的波谷，如此反复。欧洲国家的领导人一直在采取措施避免灾难，而每一次市场都没有大的起色。 The latest spike corresponds to the stalemate over the IMF's willingness to continue making bail-out payments without a new, long-term rescue package in place (and the corresponding disagreement over how to rollover Greek debt, plus the drama surrounding the passage of Greece's new austerity plan). The IMF agreed to keep paying, French and German banks seemed willing to sign on to a rollover plan, and Greece got its new austerity programme through parliament. But it wasn't long before trouble kicked up again. 最近的尖峰反映了这样一个困境：国际货币基金组织愿意继续救助，但又没有制定出一个长期的一揽子救助计划（同时也反映出如何缓解希腊债务各方存在分歧，以及希腊的新紧缩计划能否通过依然有变数）。国际货币基金组织同意继续提供支付，法国和德国的银行似乎愿意签署资金周转计划书，希腊国会通过了新的紧缩计划。但是，没过多久，麻烦又来了。 Moody's and Standard and Poor's have both suggested that the agreed-upon rollover plan might well constitute a default. Since that's precisely the outcome European leaders were hoping to avoid, this news has sent everyone scurrying to come up with a new and better deal. Meanwhile, Moody's has cut Portugal's debt rating to junk. Portugal may well need a new rescue package, which will surely include debate over the fate of creditors, which will mean more questions about bank finances and more brinksmanship. And the European economy continues to slow, even as the European Central Bank continues to tighten policy. 穆迪和标准普尔都暗示，商定好的周转计划很可能得不到执行。因为这种结果正是欧洲国家的领导人们想避免的，所以这条消息让每个人都急不可待地要制定出一个新的、更好的解决办法。与此同时，穆迪公司已经将葡萄牙的债务评级降至垃圾级。葡萄牙很可能需要一个新的一揽子救援计划，这必将包括对债权人命运的辩论，而辩论的内容将更多的是关于银行财政方面的问题和边缘政策。欧洲经济增长速度持续放缓，尽管欧洲央行继续收紧货币政策。 I don't know that there's any broad lesson here, other than: for all the steps already taken by European leaders, the euro zone hasn't really gotten any closer to solving the underlying issues of insolvency and institutional weakness.