The Economist 经济学人 经济学家 中文版

The end of the Labour government
工党政府之末

Last, do no harm
以至最后，勿造伤害
Nov 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition

How Gordon Brown and the Labour Party should use their last months in power
戈登布朗及工党应如何利用掌权的最后几个月

Reuters

TWO syndromes often beset governments whose time is almost up. One is listlessness and drift, as discipline crumbles, morale plummets and ideas dry up. Conversely, some moribund administrations embrace desperate hyperactivity to stave off their doom. Gordon Brown and his Labour government, facing probable defeat in the general election that must be held in Britain by next June, have alternately exhibited both these contradictory tendencies. But there is a course between them, and a respectable way for Labour to spend what are likely to be the last six months of a 13-year stint in office: confront the fiscal predicament it has helped to create, and pursue those worthwhile policies it has already got.
任期即将结束的政府常常会被两种状况所困扰。其一是由于纪律瓦解、士气下降、思想枯竭而引起的迟缓低迷。相反，另一些即将离任的政府则具有回光返照的活力可以延迟劫数的到来。可能会在明年一月的英国大选中面对失败的布朗及工党政府交替展现出了这两种矛盾的倾向。但是在这两者之间有一段过程，工党可以以一种体面的方式度过可能是其十三年执政期的最后六个月：直面自己促成的财政困境，实行现行的有价值的政策。
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Google
谷歌

Facing the frenemy
面对友敌
Nov 12th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.
Google一下:我们所能知道的世界尽头

By Ken Auletta. Penguin Press; 384 pages; $27.95. Buy from Amazon.com

SOMETIMES it seems as if Google has never come across an industry it doesn’t want to disrupt. Best known for its hugely popular search engine, the internet giant has spread its tentacles into an ever-growing array of businesses, including advertising, telecoms and, most recently, digital-navigation software. The company’s habit of selling services cheaply or giving them away for free has endeared it to consumers. But its tactics have enraged competitors, who complain their new rival is out to destroy the economics of entire industries.

有时候看起来Google好像对任何行业都想插上一脚。因其广受欢迎的搜索引擎而广为人知，这家网络巨头把触角伸向了越来越多领域，包括广告、电信以及最近涉及的电子导航软件。该公司一惯的低价甚至免费服务的做法深得客户欢心。但这种战略惹恼了竞争者，他们抱怨这个新来的对手根本就是存心来搞垮整个行业。
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本帖最后由 lilywizardry 于 2009-11-19 08:34 编辑

The DNA database
英国DNA数据库

Slightly less big brother

Nov 12th 2009
From The Economist print edition

The vast police directory is trimmed, but only a little
整理了庞大的警查目录，但这只是九牛一毛

AT THE start of the 20th century, Scotland Yard’s fingerprint bureau began a quiet revolution in policing. A hundred years on, detectives have a new tool at their disposal in the form of DNA matching. In 1995 the government set up a national database recording the DNA of everyone who was convicted of a crime, hoping that it would make future cases easier to crack. Since then the England and Wales database has swollen to 5.5m entries, covering 4.8m citizens (some profiles are duplicates), or some 9% of the population. It is thought to be the biggest DNA database in the world. Despite plans announced this week to limit its growth, it looks likely to stay that way.
20世纪初，伦敦警察厅指纹局悄无声息地开始了一场警界革命。一百年以来，侦探们一直拥有可以随意使用的DNA匹配工具。1995年，英国政府建立了国家数据库，记录每一位犯人的DNA，希望将来可以更轻易地查案。自那以后，英国和威尔士的数据库有550万个条目，涵盖480万公民，或9%的人口的资料（有一些资料重复）。人们认为，这是世界上最大的数据库。尽管本周有计划宣布限制其增长，但该数据库似乎只能那样。
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College enrolment
大学注册

Boom times
雨后春笋般增长
Nov 12th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

The recession drives young Americans back to learning
经济危机促使美国的年轻人重返校园
A BUSINESS that jacks up its prices during a recession is usually asking to lose customers. Not so America’s colleges, which are simultaneously raising tuition fees and experiencing record levels of enrolment. The Technical College System of Georgia, for instance, whose 28 campuses teach everything from power-line maintenance to dental hygiene, has sharply raised its fees, yet the number of students is up 24% from a year earlier. Campus parking lots are so full that “we got them parking in cow pastures,” says a spokesman.
通常来说，如果有一桩生意在经济危机时期提高价格，那么定会丧失其顾客。但是这一法则对美国的大学来说却毫不适用，它们在提高学费的同时却招来了史无前例的众多报名者。就拿乔治亚技术学院系统来说，其28个校区中从电力维修专业到牙科卫生专业均大幅增加了学费，但学生人数却比一年前增加了24%。一位发言人说，校园里的停车位已经满得“使我们不得不将车停到养牛的牧场里”。
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Six Sigma
六西格玛
Nov 6th 2009
From Economist.com

A popular way for managers to put quality management into effect
管理者有效实施质量管理的途径

This is an approach to quality improvement based on the statistical work of Joseph Juran, one of two American pioneers of quality management in Japan. Sigma is a Greek letter used in mathematics to denote standard deviation, a statistical measure of the extent to which a series of numbers or readings deviates from its mean. One Sigma indicates a wide scattering of the readings. If the mean is the required quality standard of a particular process or product, then One Sigma quality is not very good. The higher the number, the closer the readings come to total perfection. At the Six Sigma level, there are only 3.4 defects per million.
这一方法是由约瑟夫•朱兰的统计结论发展而来，朱兰是将质量管理理念引入日本的两位先驱者中的一员。西格玛（σ）是一个希腊字母，表示数学里的标准差，即一系列数字偏离其均值的程度。一西格玛（σ）就表示这些产品（流程）的质量不如人意。西格玛（σ）的值越大，产品的合格率就越高。6西格玛（6σ）就表示次品率为3.4/100万。
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India’s gold purchase
印度的黄金交易

Adornment and investment
装饰品与投资

Nov 5th 2009 | DELHI
From The Economist print edition

India is eager for the IMF’s bullion
印度渴望国际货币基金组织的黄金
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Video games move online
视频游戏的云端转移

A giant sucking sound
巨大的吸食声

Nov 5th 2009
From The Economist print editio

The internet swallows another media business, but spits out some hope
互联网吞噬掉的是另一个媒体商业，但吐出的是希望

Now you can steal cars online, with your friends
现在你可以和朋友一起在线偷窃汽车

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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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伊拉克脆弱的防御

Jangling nerves
忧心忡忡

Oct 22nd 2009 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition

As the Americans prepare to go and an election looms, anxiety is rising again
美军撤离 选举在即 忧虑又生
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