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1Nestlé

The unrepentant chocolatier
不思悔改的巧克力制造商

Oct 29th 2009 | LAUSANNE AND VEVEY
From The Economist print edition

The world’s biggest food company is betting on an emerging class of health and nutrition products to spur its growth. But risks abound
世界头号食品公司将宝压在健康营养产品的新兴阶层以促进公司壮大。然而，危机四伏

IT IS a curious blend of kitchen and laboratory. From one room wafts the bittersweet smell of chocolate being gently heated and stirred by chocolatiers. Around the corner it is all science. A double row of cubicles contains human guinea pigs who sniff and taste from little tubs, scoring each on criteria such as sweetness or bitterness to produce complex flavour charts. Down the corridor, women in comfortable chairs talk about how chocolate makes them feel. Cameras and microphones record their most minute gestures for the scrutiny of psychologists and anthropologists

这种厨房与实验室的结合着实新奇。制造商将巧克力微微加热，使其散发出甜中带苦的口味。事情虽小确是科学。两排小隔间的实验对象嗅闻、品尝小盒中的食物，并根据甜、苦等标准打分，制造商据此创造复杂的口味系列。穿过走廊，很多女士坐在舒服的座椅上，描述吃巧克力的感觉。她们每一个细微的动作都被摄像机和麦克风记录下来，稍后心理学家和人类学家将对这些数据进行仔细分析。

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Food quest
寻找粮食

Sep 8th 2009
From the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire

Qatar claims to have a new approach in its quest for food security
卡塔尔声称在寻求粮食安全方面有了新方法
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Government v market in America
美国政府vs.美国市场

The visible hand
看得见的手

May 28th 2009 | INDIANAPOLIS AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Americans have grown slightly more receptive to the idea of an activist government. Will they go along with Barack Obama’s aspirations?
美国人现在已些许倾向接受政府积极介入这一观点。那么他们愿不愿意同巴拉克.奥巴马一道呢？

THE demonstrators thronging the steps of the war memorial in central Indianapolis are a small but spirited bunch. Steps away from the head office of one of the country’s biggest health-insurance companies, they chant slogans calling for a single government-run health plan and wave signs with slogans like “One plan one nation” and “Patients not profits”. One cheekily advises: “Accept personal responsibility. Do your own colonoscopy”. After pursuing their cause for years, advocates of universal health care got a jolt of energy when Barack Obama took office. “Something happened in January that changed our cultural story for ever,” a folk singer tells the crowd before launching into a song, “If not now, tell me when.”
印第安纳波利斯市中心的战争纪念碑前，游行者人头攒动——他们不过是“一小撮”，却精神充沛。距美国最大的健康保险公司总部只有几步之遥，他们高唱口号，呼吁单一政府健康保险，手中挥舞着诸如“一个计划，一个国家”、“病人第一，盈利第二”的标语。有人厚颜无耻地建议：“认你的个人责任，做你的结肠检查。”普及健康保健的倡议者们在多年努力之后，终于在巴拉克.奥巴马上任时冒出来一股劲儿。“1月永远地改变了我们的文化史。”一位民谣歌手在开唱前这样告诉他面前的人群。“若非现在，更待何时？” 继续阅读“”

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Seabed mining
海底矿产

The unplumbed riches of the deep
来自深海的宝藏

 May 14th 2009 | WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
From The Economist print edition

And why they’ll wait a while longer before being disturbed
开采这些宝藏，还需等多久


IN TEENSPEAK, if a star such as Madonna or J.Lo is huge, that is a reference not to her size but to her popularity. Similarly, in the world of seabed geology, if a sulphide deposit is massive, it is not necessarily big, but formless and rich in metals. As it happens, seafloor massive sulphides are also huge—at least they were until recently. The collapse in commodity prices last year has diminished them a bit, but many expect their popularity to recover.

按照青少年的话语，如果像麦当娜和詹妮弗.洛佩兹这些明星是巨星，并不是因为她的体格,而是因为她的知名度。同样，海底地质认为，如果硫化物矿床是巨大的，并不需要其体积大，只需其不定型和其金属含量高。碰巧的是，至少目前海底块状硫化物也是巨大的。虽然由于去年的物品价格暴跌已经使其减弱了很多，但大多数人估计其会反弹。
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The news business
新闻产业

Tossed by a gale
狂风过后

May 14th 2009
From The Economist print edition

It isn’t just newspapers: much of the established news industry is being blown away. Yet news is thriving
不仅仅是报纸，如今新闻界的大部分产业都处在下坡路，但新闻本身，依然兴旺发达



PERHAPS the surest sign that newspapers are doomed is that politicians, so often their targets, are beginning to feel sorry for them. On May 9th Barack Obama ended an otherwise comic speech with an earnest defence of an embattled business. House and Senate committees have held hearings in the past month. John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts, called the newspaper “an endangered species”.
报纸业还是在劫难逃，其中最明显的标志就是：过去一贯为他们所评论的政客们，如今却为其感到惋惜。5月9号，巴拉克奥巴马总统发表了一次不同寻常的充满幽默的演讲，面对如今岌岌可危的局势，奥巴马总统表示会认真做好防御措施。上个月，众议院委员会，参议院委员会分别举行了听证会。约翰克里，一名来自马塞诸塞州的初级参议员，称报业为“一个岌岌可危的行业”。

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[2009.4.30] The butcher’s bill 屠夫的账单

Flu and the global economy
流感与全球经济

The butcher’s bill
屠夫的账单

Apr 30th 2009 | LONDON AND MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition

Recession may dampen the economic cost of a swine-flu epidemic
经济衰退或许会降低猪流感大规模流行所造成的经济损失

THE scares over bird flu since 1997 and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 have spurred research into the economic costs of pandemics. Studies paint a grim picture of what swine flu could mean for the world economy. For example, World Bank economists estimated last year that a pandemic with death rates similar to those in the Spanish flu that swept the world in 1918-19 could shrink global GDP by 4.8%.

1997年以来对禽流感的恐惧和2003年以来对SARS的恐惧促使人们加紧研究世界性大规模疫病流行所造成的经济损失。多项研究都对猪流感对世界经济所造成的影响深表悲观。例如，世界银行的经济学家们去年预测一场死亡率接近1918-1919年席卷全球的西班牙流感的世界性大规模疫病流行将导致全球国内生产总值萎缩4.8%。
继续阅读“[2009.4.30] The butcher’s bill 屠夫的账单”

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[2009.02.05] Globalisation under strain 全球化何去何从

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”

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[2009.4.23] The monetary-policy maze 货币政策的迷宫

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”