作者：Eco Team

Carmaking in France

Mover and shaker 风雨飘摇的法国汽车业

Apr 2nd 2009
From The Economist print edition

Christian Streiff makes another exit
Christian Streiff亦遭辞退。

IF GENERAL MOTORS’ Rick Wagoner was fired for not being confrontational enough, the other car boss to lose his job last weekend, Christian Streiff, was almost certainly ousted from PSA Peugeot Citroen for precisely the opposite reason.

如果说通用前CEO瓦格纳被解雇的原因是对抗危机能力不足，那么上周另一家汽车公司——标致雪铁龙公司（PSA Peugeot Citroen）——CEO Christian Streiff被炒几乎肯定就与此相反了。
继续阅读“”

 

Turkey and Armenia
土耳其与亚美尼亚

Mountain chess
山地对弈

Apr 30th 2009 | ANKARA AND YEREVAN
From The Economist print edition

Recent moves towards a peace deal may come unstuck
近期向着和平协议走出的棋路可能变得杂乱不一

 

继续阅读“[2009.04.30] Mountain chess 山地对弈”

 

The world economy
世界经济

A glimmer of hope?
一丝希望？

Apr 23rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

The worst thing for the world economy would be to assume the worst is over
对世界经济来说，再也没有比想当然地认为最糟糕的时候已经过去更糟糕的事情了。

Illustration by Jon Berkeley

THE rays are diffuse, but the specks of light are unmistakable. Share prices are up sharply. Even after slipping early this week, two-thirds of the 42 stockmarkets that The Economist tracks have risen in the past six weeks by more than 20%. Different economic indicators from different parts of the world have brightened. China’s economy is picking up. The slump in global manufacturing seems to be easing. Property markets in America and Britain are showing signs of life, as mortgage rates fall and homes become more affordable. Confidence is growing. A widely tracked index of investor sentiment in Germany has turned positive for the first time in almost two years.

虽然光线是漫射开来的，那一点点光亮的存在却是确凿无误的。股票价格正大幅上涨。尽管在这周前几天走低，本刊跟踪的42个股市中的三分之二还是在过去六周中上涨了超过五分之一。全球各地的各种经济指标均有所起色。中国经济正在复苏。全球制造业的衰退似乎也正在减缓。随着抵押贷款利率下调以及房价愈加处于可承受范围内，英美的房地产市场正表现出恢复生气的迹象。信心正在增长。德国一项受到广泛跟踪的投资者情绪指数已经由负转正，这还是近两年来的第一次。
继续阅读“[2009.4.23] A glimmer of hope? 一丝希望？”

The Roma in eastern Europe
东欧的吉普赛人

Canada home and dry
加拿大，家在那儿

Apr 30th 2009 | PRAGUE
From The Economist print edition

How Roma fleeing persecution win asylum in Canada

逃避迫害的吉普赛人怎样获得去加拿大的政治避难权

Looking over the fence to Canada
隔栏遥望加拿大

EMIGRATION to Canada was a well-trodden road for dissidents after the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is 20 years since the country’s leaden communist regime perished in the velvet revolution. The Czech Republic is a regional success story. Yet rising numbers of Roma (gypsy) citizens are making the same journey to the same faraway country, because life at home is intolerable.

1968年，以苏联为首的多国部队入侵捷克斯洛伐克。之后，许多持不同政见人士都移民到加拿大。20年前的“丝绒革命”[1]将捷克灰沉的共产主义政权推入了坟墓之中，于是捷克共和国建立，成为独树一帜的成功范例。但是现在，又有越来越多的人开始了移民之旅，目的地同样是那片遥远的土地——加拿大，这次换成了捷克的吉普赛公民。他们移民的原因是家里的日子太苦了。
继续阅读“[2009.04.30] Canada home and dry 加拿大，家在那儿”

Indonesia’s election results
印尼大选结果

One winner, many losers
一人功成万骨枯

 

Apr 16th 2009 | JAKARTA
From The Economist print edition

The president on course for re-election
总统连任指日可待

IN THE week after Indonesia’s parliamentary election on April 9th, the much-criticised election commission tabulated less than 7.5% of the estimated 123m votes cast. But five independent “quick counts”, based on samples of several thousand polling stations, produced almost identical results. So no surprises are expected.

4月9日举行的印尼议会选举结束一周后，饱受批评的选举委员会完成计票量只占了总共1.23亿张投下的选票中的不到7.5%。但是基于来自数千所投票站的样本的五家独立的“快速计票”却得出了几乎相同的结果。因此冷门是等不来了。

继续阅读“[2009.4.16] One winner, many losers 一人功成万骨枯”

Globalisation under strain
全球化何去何从

Homeward bound
资本回流

Feb 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition

A great financial retrenchment is under way, the product of both market forces and political pressure on banks to lend at home rather than abroad. In other industries (see article) globalisation looks harder to unpick
市场力量和政治压力迫使银行减少国外贷款，增加国内贷款，金融业正在倒退。在其他产业，全球化暂无大患

AT THE annual pilgrimage to Davos last month, politicians were united in agreement: the biggest danger facing the world economy is protectionism. Many of the mountaintop sermons picked out the risk of financial mercantilism, a reflux of capital from foreign markets to home ones. Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, preached against a “retreat into domestic lending and domestic financial markets”. But back in the real world the barriers to the free flow of capital are rising fast. Are the politicians hypocrites, toothless or misguided? A bit of all three.
今年1月，在一年一度的达沃斯论坛上，各国政客达成了一个共识：保护主义是当今世界经济面临的最大威胁。期间许多“山顶宝训”（注1）指出，金融重商主义（financial mercantilism注2）的风险正在抬头——国际资本开始流回母国。英国首相戈登•布朗言之凿凿，号召抵制“借贷国内化和金融市场国内化的倒退。”然而在现实世界中，资本自由流动壁垒正在迅速增长。是政客在巧言令色？还是舌头本无骨？或者是他们自己也被误导了？恐怕三者兼而有之。
继续阅读“[2009.02.05] Globalisation under strain 全球化何去何从”

Central banks
中央银行

The monetary-policy maze
货币政策的迷宫

Apr 23rd 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

The simple rules by which central banks lived have crumbled. A messier, more political future awaits
各国中央银行的生存法则轰然倒下。等待它们的将是更加紊乱、更加政治性的未来。

Illustration by Derek Bacon

IN THE world that existed before the financial crisis, central bankers were triumphant. They had defeated inflation and tamed the business cycle. And they had developed a powerful intellectual consensus on how to do their job, summarised recently by David Blanchflower, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, as “one tool, one target”. The tool was the short-term interest rate, the target was price stability.

在金融危机尚未袭来之时，央行官员们个个得意洋洋。他们击退了通货膨胀，驯服了经济周期。他们还就如何开展他们的工作达成了一项强大的智力共识。英格兰银行货币政策委员会委员David Blanchflower最近将这一共识概括为“一种工具，一个目标”。这里说的工具就是短期利率，而目标则是价格稳定。
继续阅读“[2009.4.23] The monetary-policy maze 货币政策的迷宫”

Global health
世界健康

An unwelcome Mexican wave
不受欢迎的墨西哥潮

Apr 27th 2009 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com

A mysterious new virus is spreading from Mexico. Could it spark a global pandemic?
神秘新病毒从墨西哥蔓延开来：这会引发一场全球性流感疫情吗？

AFP

THE football stadiums and cathedrals in Mexico City were empty this weekend for the first time in living memory. But these are not ordinary times for the nearly 20m chilangos that live in this sprawling metropolis. Mexican officials shut down all schools, banned large public gatherings and otherwise discouraged human interaction in order to control an emerging global viral scourge that by Monday April 27th had claimed over 100 lives. As the threat spread to other parts of North America and beyond, officials at the World Health Organisation (WHO) and at America’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC) declared public-health emergencies.

本周末墨西哥城的各足球场和大教堂空无一人，这在世人的记忆中还是第一次。但是对于生活在这座布局杂乱的大都市中的2000万墨西哥人而言，这并不是普通的时刻。墨西哥当局下令关闭了所有学校，禁止大型的公共集会以及其他减少人与人接触的指令，以此来控制突发地全球性病毒灾难：截止4月27日星期一，猪流感病毒已经夺走100条生命。随着威胁传到北美其他地区甚至更远，美国疾病控制中心以及世界卫生组织的官员宣布处于公共卫生紧急状态。
继续阅读“[2009.4.27] An unwelcome Mexican wave 不受欢迎的墨西哥潮”