Perhaps because he was Swedish, he proposed setting coal mines on fire to speed it up, since he thought a warmer climate was an excellent idea.	或许因为他是瑞典人的缘故，他甚至提出点燃煤矿来加速全球变暖，因为他认为气候变暖是个不错的主意。


But it was all just theory in Arrhenius’s time, since nobody had measurements to prove that CO2 levels in the atmosphere were in fact increasing.	但在阿列纽斯的时代一切还只停留在理论阶段，因为没有人能用实测的方法证明大气中的二氧化碳浓度的确在升高。


That changed only in the late 1950’s, when Charles Keeling started to measure CO2 with unprecedented accuracy in Antarctica and on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, far away from any sources.	直到20世纪50年代情况才发生了变化，查尔斯·基林开始以前所未有的精度测量南极洲和夏威夷莫纳罗亚山的二氧化碳含量，这两个测量点都远离任何热源。


By 1960, he was able to prove that CO2 was indeed on the rise.	直到1960年，他才成功地证实了二氧化碳含量的确呈上升趋势。


It then took only a few years until, in 1965, an expert report – the first of many – to US President Lyndon B. Johnson warned of global warming: “By the year 2000, the increase in carbon dioxide will be close to 25%.	短短几年后的1965年，一份警告全球变暖的专家报告提交到时任美国总统的林登·贝恩斯·约翰逊手中，这是众多类似报告中的第一份。 这份报告指出：“到2000年，二氧化碳的增量将接近25%。


This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate.”	这或许足以对气候造成可测量的明显变化。


In 1972, a more specific prediction was made in the leading science journal  Nature , namely that temperatures would warm by half a degree Celsius by 2000.	”1972年，最有影响力的科学杂志 《自然》 做出了更加具体的预测，认为到2000年气温将升高摄氏0. 5度。


And, in 1979, the US National Academy of Sciences issued a stark warning of impending global warming.	接下来在1979年，美国国家科学院发布了全球变暖正日益迫近的真正警告。


We did not have to wait until 2000 to find these predictions were correct: by the 1980’s, global warming became apparent in temperature measurements from weather stations around the world.	我们用不着等到2000年就已经能够证实这些预测的正确性：到20世纪80年代，全球变暖已经在世界各地气象站的气温监测中变得非常显著。


In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded to analyze the issue in more detail, and in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro world leaders signed a historic treaty: the Framework Convention on Climate Change.	1988年成立了政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC），目的是对这个问题进行更为细致的分析，1992年在里约热内卢召开的地球首脑会议上，世界领袖签署了一份历史性的《气候变化框架公约》协议。


Its goal: “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”	公约的目标是：“将大气中温室气体的含量稳定在足以防止对气候系统产生危险人为干预的水平上。 ”


Unfortunately, little has been achieved in the 17 years since then.	遗憾的是，从那以后的17年中几乎没有任何这方面的进展面世。


In fact, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were almost 40% higher in 2008 relative to 1990.	实际上，2008年来自化石燃料的二氧化碳排放已经比1990年增长了近40%。


And even the rate at which emissions are increasing is now three times higher than in the 1990’s.	甚至连排放的增长速度也比20世纪90年代快了三倍。


Global temperatures had already risen by 0.5 ºC above preindustrial levels by the early 1990’s, and another 0.3ºC have been added to that since the Rio Earth Summit.	20世纪90年代的全球气温已经比工业化之前升高了0. 5摄氏度，从里约地球首脑会议召开后又升高了0.


And they keep rising.	3摄氏度。 而且温度还在持续升高。


Most countries now agree that global warming should be stopped at a maximum of two degrees centigrade.	多数国家现在同意全球变暖应当控制在两摄氏度的范围之内。


But this has become an extremely tough challenge, as growth in greenhouse-gas emissions and atmospheric stocks accelerated in the years since Rio.	但这已经成为一个极端艰苦的挑战，因为温室气体排放和大气碳存量自里约会议以后呈加速增长态势。


That is why Copenhagen is so important: it may well be our last to address climate change before it addresses us.	这也说明了哥本哈根为何如此重要：它可能是我们在受气候变化影响前解决气候变化问题的最后一次机会了。


Tyndall’s measurements 150 years ago showed that carbon dioxide traps heat and causes warming.	廷德尔在150年前的测量证明二氧化碳能够捕获热量，并导致温度上升。


And, 50 years ago, Keeling’s measurements showed that CO2 levels are increasing.	50年前，基林的测量结果显示二氧化碳水平正在升高。


In the meantime, earth’s climate has been heating up, as predicted.	与此同时，地球的温度正在如预测一样升高。


How much more proof do we need before we act?	我们还需要多少证据才能采取行动？


The Scoundrels of Economic Patriotism	经济爱国主义的恶棍们


Samuel Johnson called patriotism “the last refuge of a scoundrel.”	赛密欧·约翰逊将爱国主义称为“恶棍的最后避难所”。


If that is true, what should we think of today’s mounting economic nationalism, sometimes euphemistically described as “economic patriotism”?	果真如此，那么我们又怎么看待今天日益高涨的经济国家主义，这种有时被委婉地称为“经济爱国主义”的现象呢？


Indeed, economic nationalism is exceptionally vigorous at the moment.	的确，经济国家主义目前甚嚣尘上。


Vigorous popular opposition to a Dubai company’s plan to take over ports in the United States shocked the American government.	民众对一家迪拜公司收购美国港口的计划的普遍强烈反对，着实让美国政府吃了一惊。


Poland is witnessing a populist backlash against foreign ownership of banks.	本国银行易主外资也在波兰引发了民粹主义的强烈反弹。


France is blocking the acquisition of French utilities by the Italian electricity company Enel.	法国正在阻止意大利电力公司Enel对其公用事业的收购。


Together with other European governments, France is also agitating against the takeover of the Luxembourg-based steel company Arcelor by a Netherlands company largely controlled by an Indian steel magnate.	法国还和其他欧洲国家政府一起积极阻挠一家荷兰公司对卢森堡的Arcelor钢铁公司的收购。 而这家荷兰公司是由一位印度钢铁业巨子控股的。


Defenders of these ill-fated cross-border takeovers worry that a sinister whiff of the twentieth century’s worst moments is in the air.	这些命运多舛的跨国收购的捍卫者们在惴惴不安中嗅到了20世纪最险恶的历史重演的气息。


An outraged Italian minister warned of a new mobilization of populist nationalism in an “August 1914” scenario.	一位出离愤怒的意大利部长警告说民粹国家主义在“1914年8月”的情景中蠢蠢欲动。


The better analogy is from the 1930’s: in 1933, the year in which Hitler came to power, the world’s most famous economist, John Maynard Keynes, produced a plea for “national self-sufficiency.”	而更好的类比则是来自于1930年代：在1933年，也就是希特勒掌权的那一年，当时世界上最负盛名的经济学家凯恩斯提出了“国家自足” (national self-sufficiency) 的理念。


Both the 1914 and the 1933 analogies point to the most striking characteristic of the current debate: the key role of security worries in justifying protectionism.	1914年和1933年的两种类比都指出了目前的争论最显著的特点：关于安全的担忧在保护主义合理化过程中所发挥的作用。


Nobody worried about foreign ownership of US ports as long as the owner was a British company; the new fears reflect the belief that Dubai might be a channel for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.	只要国外的所有人是一家英国公司，那么就没有人担心美国港口的归属问题； 这种新的恐惧反映了一种观点，即迪拜可能成为被伊斯兰原教旨主义和恐怖主义利用的渠道。


Likewise, the deterioration of international relations before World Wars I and II was marked by governments’ increased propensity to use economics as a tool of power politics.	无独有偶，在第一、二次世界大战前国际关系恶化的标志就是各国政府日渐将经济学作为权力政治的工具的倾向。


In 1911, the diplomatic crisis over Morocco was accompanied by a French speculative attack on German financial markets.	在1911年，摩洛哥外交危机伴随着法国对德国金融市场的投机性攻击而发生。


In the 1930’s, both France and Germany used this kind of technique as a way to bolster their own security.	在1930年代，法、德两国都采用了这种手段来巩固其自身的安全。


The US tried to control Japanese expansion in Asia by limiting Japan’s energy (especially petroleum) imports.	美国则企图通过限制日本的能源（特别是石油）进口来控制日本在亚洲的扩张。


The most obvious reason for increased worries about security in America is the challenge of meeting the threat of terrorism after the attacks of September 2001.	美国对其安全日渐增强的担心最显著的一个原因就是2001年9月恐怖袭击以来，它所面临的恐怖主义挑战。


But that can scarcely explain European nervousness and the protectionist reaction.	但这一理由却完全不能解释欧洲的紧张和保护主义反应。


In Europe’s case, two contrasting explanations exist. The first is that the new worries are a strange case of psychological transference.	对于欧洲的情况，有两种截然不同的解释：第一种，就是认为新的担忧是心理干预的奇特表现。


People in places like France and Poland who worry about national decline seek to blame somebody outside the country.	在法国人和波兰人由于担心国力衰落，所以总是企图找到国外的原由来顶罪。


There was certainly a great deal of this type of sentiment in the 1930’s, when the populist response to the Great Depression attributed it to the sinister forces of “international capital.”	这样的情绪在1930年代当然不鲜见。 当时的民粹主义观点将“大萧条”归咎于险恶的“国际资本”。


The modern version of this explanation holds that the world is changing so quickly that national security and, indeed, national identity, are under threat.	这种解释的现代版认为世界瞬息万变，使得国家安全，特别是国家身份受到威胁。


An alternative scenario suggests that these fears emanate from a real problem.	另一种解释则认为这些恐惧源自一个真正的问题。


Modern economic growth still depends in almost every advanced industrial country on imported energy (Norway is an exception).	在几乎每一个发达工业国家，现代经济增长仍然依赖进口的能源（挪威是个例外）。


Because of fears about pollution, or about the safety of nuclear energy, most countries neglected to build up their own capacity.	由于对污染或是原子能的安全性的担心，大多数国家都忽视了打造自身的能源供给能力。


The resulting vulnerability was highlighted by the Russian reduction of gas supplies to Ukraine in January, which resulted in reduced flows to central and western Europe.	由此带来的脆弱性集中体现在今年一月俄罗斯削减对乌克兰的天然气供应事件上。 它使得输往中欧和西欧的天然气也有所减少。


The experience made Poles particularly jittery, and pushed the country’s populist right-wing government down the road of economic nationalism.	这一经历使波兰人变得特别神经过敏，继而推动该国的人民主义右翼政府走上了经济国家主义的道路。


But West Europeans remember their own traumas, including electricity grid failures and widespread blackouts.	但西欧人对电网瘫痪和大面积停电都有切肤之痛。


Wouldn’t an Italian company facing grid failure prefer to shut down French rather than Italian consumers?	在面临电网瘫痪的时候，一家意大利公司是更倾向于停止向法国消费者供电，还是停止向意大利消费者供电呢？


These two scenarios of the origins of economic nationalism, one irrational and the other not, are not real alternatives, but describe responses that intertwine: the more rational the fear, the more that fear can be used as an instrument of politics.	对于经济国家主义来源的这两种解释，一种是非理性的，另一种则不是。 这两者都不能真正地说明问题，但却描绘了一种相互交织的反应：恐惧越理性，它就越容易沦为政治工具。


Fear creates a demand for state action.	恐惧引发对国家行为的需求。


Politicians like this because it increases demand for their services.	政客们喜欢这样，因为它可以提升人们对他们的服务需求。


They point out the potential problem and then attempt to sell solutions that lie within their nationally defined spheres of competence.	他们指出潜在的问题，然后就试图在国家定义的能力范围内推销他们的解决之道。


One modern politician, in particular, has been effective in placing nervousness about energy supply at the center of a new political vision.	有一位现代政客特别擅长于将对能源供应的紧张心态置于新政治愿景的中心地位。


According to Vladimir Putin, the need to control and secure energy justifies a massive extension of state intervention in the economy.	据弗拉季米尔·普京称，出于对能源供应的控制和保障的需求，国家有理由对经济进行大规模的广泛干预。


Putin’s vision was apparently vindicated by the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the US.	普京显然可以用美国遭受恐怖袭击以来的一系列后遗症为自己的政治愿景辩护。


Since then, Putin has projected his vision of politicized energy in a way that makes all Europeans, not just Russians, nervous.	自那以后，普京就大力推行其政治化能源的愿景。 这不仅仅使俄罗斯人捏了一把汗，也使所有欧洲人为之紧张。


That bolsters his strength in the Russian setting.	此举巩固了普京在俄罗斯的势力。


But a Putin in one country has a tendency to produce Putin imitators elsewhere.	但在其他国家，普京的效仿者似乎还大有人在。


We should be concerned about the efficiency losses in markets where restrictions stemming from economic nationalism have so far been imposed.	我们应该关注那些已经在限制性政策影响下遭受效益损失的市场。 这些限制都源自经济国家主义。


But we should be far more worried that fear about the collapse or manipulation of markets creates a demand for action that makes such a collapse more rather than less likely.	然而我们更应该担心的是对市场崩溃和市场操纵的恐惧所引发的对（国家）行为的需求。 恰恰是这种行为更容易引起市场崩溃。


Fear generates a demand for more security that is in the end paralyzing.	恐惧所激发的对更强安全感的需求最终会让市场瘫痪。


The Search for Quality on the Web	The Search for Quality on the Web


NEW YORK – In the not-so-distant future, students will be able to graduate from high school without ever touching a book.	纽约-在不太遥远的将来，从未碰过一本书的学生就能从高中毕业。


Twenty years ago, they could graduate from high school without ever using a computer.	20年前，从没有使用过计算机的学生也可以从高中毕业。


In only a few decades,amp#160;computer technology and the Internet have transformed the core principles of information, knowledge, and education.	区区几十年里，计算机技术和因特网已经改变了信息、知识和教育的核心准则。


Indeed, today you can fit more books on the hard disk of your laptop computer than in a bookstore carrying 60,000 titles.	事实上，如今你的笔记本电脑硬盘上就可以存上比一家出售6万本不同书籍的书店更多的书籍。


The number of Web pages on the Internet is rumored to have exceeded 500 billion, enough to fill 10 modern aircraft carriers with the equivalent number of 500-page, one-pound books.	在互联网上的网页数量据说已超过5000亿页，这些信息用来印刷成每本500页重1磅的书籍，可足以装满10艘现代化航空母舰。


Such analogies help us visualize the immensity of the information explosion and ratify the concerns that come with it.	这种类比可以帮助我们想象出信息爆炸幅度之巨大，并证明随之引发的担忧是并不是空穴来风。


Web search engines are the only mechanism with which to navigate this avalanche of information, so they should not be mistaken for an optional accessory, one of the buttons to play with, or a tool to locate the nearest pizza store.	搜索引擎是浏览这种如海洋般的信息量的唯一的机制，因此这些搜索引擎不应该被误认为仅是一个可有可无东西，一个随便玩玩的按钮，或仅是一种能找出最近的比萨饼店在哪里的工具。


Search engines are the single most powerful distribution points of knowledge, wealth, and yes, misinformation.	搜索引擎是知识、财富，是的，还有错误的信息的最强大的扩散中心。


When we talk about Web search, the first name that pops up is, of course, Google.	我们提到网络搜索引擎时，脑海中浮现出的第一个名字当然是谷歌。


It is not far-fetched to say that Google made the Internet what it is today.	如果说是谷歌造就了互联网的今天，这样的说法也并不夸张。


It shaped a new generation of people who are strikingly different from their parents.	谷歌也造就了一代与父母辈全然不同的新人。


Baby boomers might be the best placed to appreciate this, since they experienced Rock 'n’ Roll as kids and Google as parents.	婴儿潮时代出生的人可能是最能体会这一点的了，因为他们在孩提时代经历了摇滚乐，也在他们为人父母时又经历了谷歌。


Google’s design was based on statistical algorithms.	谷歌的设计是基于统计算法之上的。


But search technologies that are based on statistical algorithms cannot address the quality of information, simply because high-quality information is not always popular, and popular information is not always high-quality.	但是，基于统计算法的搜索技术是没有能力处理信息的质量的，这是因为高质量的信息并不总是受欢迎的，而受欢迎的信息并不总是高质量的。


You can collect statistics until the cows come home, but you cannot expect statistics to produce an effect beyond what they are good for.	我们永远可以收集统计数字，但却不能指望统计数字产生的影响超出其本身的统计作用。


In addition, statistics collection systems are backward-looking.	此外，统计数据收集系统是往后看的。


They need time for people to make referrals, and time to collect them.	他们需要一段时间让人推介并收集它们。


Therefore, new publications and dynamic pages that change their content frequently are already beyond the scope of the popularity methods, and searching this material is vulnerable to rudimentary techniques of manipulation.	因此，新的发表内容和动态网页，由于它们的内容经常改变且已超出流行的使用方法的范围，搜索这种资料很容易受到基本操作技术的误导。


For example, the inefficiencies of today’s search engines have created a new industry called Search Engine Optimization, which focuses on strategies to make Web pages rank high against the popularity criteria of Google-esque search engines.	例如，如今效率低下的搜索引擎引带来了一个称之为搜索引擎优化的新产业，它专门使某些网页排名在用谷歌搜索引擎的流行度的标准所搜索出来的结果之上。


It is a billion-dollar industry.	这是一个数十亿美元的产业。


If you have enough money, your Web page can be ranked higher than many others that are more credible or higher quality.amp#160;Since the emergence of Google, quality information has never been so vulnerable to the power of commercialism.	如果你有足够的钱，你的网页排名可以高于许多更可信的或更高的质量的网页。 自从出现了谷歌，高质量的信息从未在商业威力面前如此脆弱过。


Information quality, molded in the shadow of Web search, will determine the future of mankind, but ensuring quality will require a revolutionary approach, a technological breakthrough beyond statistics.amp#160;This revolution is underway, and it is called semantic technology.	信息的质量将决定人类的未来，而这样的质量是在网络搜索的阴影下塑造起来的。 但确保质量需要一种革命性的方法，一种超越统计的技术突破。


The underlying idea behind semantic technology is to teach computers how the world operates.	语义技术的基本概念是教导计算机这个世界是如何运作的。


For example, when a computer encounters the word “bill,” it would know that “bill” has 15 different meanings in English.	例如，当计算机遇到“bill” 一词时，它会知道， “bill” 在英文中有15个不同的含义。


When the computer encounters the phrase “killed the bill,” it would deduce that “bill” can only be a proposed law submitted to a legislature, and that “kill” could mean only “stop.”	当计算机遇到“ killed the bill” 这一词组时，它会推断， “ bill”只能是一个提交给立法会的法律草案，而“kill”仅可能是“停止”的意思 。


By contrast, “kill bill” would only be the title of the movie by that name.	而与上述相比， “ kill bill”只会是一部电影的名字。


At the end, a series of deductions like these would handle entire sentences and paragraphs to yield an accurate text-meaning representation.	最后，一系列的这样的推断会处理整个句子或段落，然后产生在上下文中的准确的含义。


To achieve this level of dexterity in handling languages by computer algorithms, an ontology must be built.	为了达到如此级别的由计算机算法来处理的语言的灵巧性，必须建立一种本体论。


Ontology is neither a dictionary nor a thesaurus.	本体论既不是一本字典，也不是一本词汇分类集。


It is a map of interconnected concepts and word senses that reflect relationships such as those that exist between the concepts of “bill” and “kill.”	它是一张相互关联的概念和字意之间的地图，它反映了诸如 存在于“bill”和“kill” 之间的概念。


Building an ontology encapsulating the world’s knowledge may be an immense task, requiring an effort comparable to compiling a large encyclopedia and the expertise to build it, but it is feasible.	建立一个囊括世界上所有知识的本体可能是一项艰巨的任务，这需要编撰一部大百科全书这样的精力和专业知识，但它还是可行的。


Several start-up companies around the world, like  Hakia ,  Cognition Search , and  Lexxe , have taken on this challenge.	世界各地的一些创业公司如Hakia公司、认知搜索公司、 Lexxe公司 等，已经在挑战这项艰巨的任务了。


The result of these efforts remains to be seen.	这些努力的结果还有待观察。


But how would a semantic search engine solve the information quality problem?	但是，语义搜索引擎将如何解决信息质量的问题呢？


The answer is simple: precision.	答案很简单：精确度。


Once computers can handle natural languages with semantic precision, high-quality information will not need to become popular before it reaches the end user, unlike what is required by Web search today.	一旦计算机能够以语义精确度来处理自然语言，高质量的信息将不再需要在流行以后才能到达最终用户那儿，这就不同于如今的搜索引擎所需要的条件了。


Semantic technology promises other means of assuring quality, by detecting the richness and coherence of the concepts encountered in a given text.	通过检测某一文本中所遇到的概念的丰富性和连贯性，语义技术还承诺了保证质量其它手段。


If the text includes a phrase like “Bush killed the last bill in the Senate,”amp#160;does the rest of the text include coherent concepts?	如果一段文字中包含一个短语，比如“布什否决了参议院的最后一个议案”，这段文字的其余部分是否包含了连贯的概念？


Or is this page a spam page that includes a bunch of popular single-liners wrapped with ads?	还是说此网页仅是个垃圾网页其中并包括了许多流行的包含广告的单句？


Semantic technology can discern what it is.	语义技术可以辨别出来。


Given humans’ limited reading speed (200-300 words per minute) and the enormous volume of available information, effective decision-making today calls for semantic technology in every aspect of knowledge refinement.	鉴于人类有限的阅读速度（每分钟200-300字）和现有的巨大的信息量，当今有效的决策在知识精密化的每一个方面都需要语义技术。


We cannot afford a future in which knowledge is at the mercy of popularity and money.	如果未来的知识只能为流行度和金钱所奴役，这个代价我们将负担不起。


The Second Coming of Barack Obama	奥巴马的第二个任期


WASHINGTON, DC – The race was tough, but US President Barack Obama has won re-election.	华盛顿—竞争是激烈的，但总统奥巴马已经赢得连任。


The question now, for the United States and the world, is what will he do with a fresh four-year term?	对美国和世界来说，现在的问题是，在新的四年任期里他会做些什么。


To win re-election with a still-weak economy and unemployment close to 8% was not easy.	在经济依然疲软、失业率接近8%的时候赢得连任并不容易。


Many leaders – Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero come to mind – have been swept away by economic discontent in recent years.	近年来，许多领导人——眼前马上浮现出萨科齐、布朗、萨巴莱塔等人的身影——都因经济令人不满而被赶下了台。


Although the financial disaster erupted on George W. Bush’s watch, after eight years of a Republican presidency, Obama had to carry the burden of an anemic recovery.	尽管金融灾难是在共和党总统小布什执政的八年后爆发的，但欧巴马需要接过复苏不振的重担。


Obama won not only because of his extraordinary personal resilience, but also because a sufficient number of middle-class voters, while unhappy with the pace of economic progress, sensed that an Obama presidency would help them more than the policies championed by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, which were perceived as tilted to the affluent.	奥巴马获胜的原因不仅在于其卓越的韧性，也在于足够多的中产阶级选民尽管不满经济复苏速度，但仍认为奥巴马当总统能够比其共和党挑战者罗姆尼偏袒富人的政策更好地帮助自己。


Moreover, America’s ongoing demographic transformation makes it harder for candidates who are unable to reach out strongly to Latinos and other minority communities – something that Romney singularly failed to do – to carry the country.	此外，美国的人口结构变化决定了无法获得拉丁裔和其他少数族裔支持的候选人更难管理好国家了，而罗姆尼在这方面劣势昭然。


Some aspects of the campaign, particularly the amount of money spent and its negative tone, struck many observers as objectionable.	此次竞选的一些特点，特别是投入的资金和负面宣传让很多观察者感到震惊，并对此表示质疑。


But the competitiveness of American democracy – the fact that an alternative always exists, and that those in power have to fight hard to stay there – was on admirable display for the whole world to see.	但美国民主的竞争力——替代者总是存在，掌权者需要努力奋斗才能保住手中的权力——仍受到了全世界羡慕的关注目光。


Obama will embark on his second term with the global economy at a crossroads.	奥巴马将在全球经济的十字路口开始自己的第二个任期。


In the US, the uneven and weak recovery has been sustained by extraordinarily expansive monetary policies and ongoing large fiscal deficits.	在美国，疲软而不平等的复苏是由不同寻常的宽松货币政策和持续的大规模财政赤字支撑起来的。


While corporate coffers hold mountains of cash, private investment stagnates.	企业囤积着大量现金，私人投资却停滞不前。


In Japan, solid economic performance remains elusive, while prime ministers succeed each other at a breathtaking pace.	日本则仍然在寻找稳健经济表现之道，走马灯似地换着首相。


Likewise, Europe is on life support, thanks to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s astute maneuvering and promises of unlimited intervention in sovereign-debt markets.	类似地，欧洲也在靠输血救命——欧洲央行行长德拉吉巧妙的周旋和无限制干预主权债务市场的承诺。


But unemployment is at its highest in decades and growth has essentially stalled, even in Germany, while the troubled southern economies are mired in deep recession.	但失业率正处于几十年来的最高水平，增长已经事实停滞（即使德国也是如此），与此同时，受困南欧经济体深陷衰退泥淖。


The situation in Greece, moreover, has become socially unsustainable; Greece is small, but a total collapse there could have very negative financial and psychological effects elsewhere.	此外，希腊的社会稳定已经无法维持； 希腊是个小国，但它的全面崩溃可能对其他地区造成极严重的消极金融和心理效应。


The world’s emerging-market economies are in better shape; but, while their underlying trend growth in potential output is much higher than that of the advanced economies, there is no cyclical de-coupling.	全球新兴市场经济体情况要好一些，但是，尽管它们潜在产出的基本趋势增长率比发达经济体高得多，却仍然不可能做到周期性脱钩。


The world economy is an interdependent whole: trouble in any important part of it is transmitted globally.	世界经济是一个相互联系的整体：任何重要部分遇到麻烦都会传染全球。


That is true beyond the purview of narrowly macroeconomic problems as well: for example, the need to address climate change can no longer be ignored.	即使将视界放宽到狭义宏观经济问题之外，情况仍然如此：比如，气候变化问题已不容忽视。


The US cannot determine the world economy’s future on its own, but the course taken by America nonetheless has huge global importance, given that it remains the largest economy and retains considerable influence in venues such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G-20.	美国不可能单枪匹马决定世界经济的未来，但美国决定怎么做仍然对世界有着巨大的影响，因为它仍是世界第一大经济体，在IMF、世界银行和G20中仍然一言九鼎。


American ideas continue to affect the policy debate worldwide.	美国的观点继续影响着世界政策争论。


So, what should Obama’s top economic-policy priorities be in his second term?	那么，欧巴马在第二个任期中应该把什么作为经济政策的当务之急？


Despite the difficulties facing the global economy, there are huge investible resources in the US, China, Germany, and elsewhere.	尽管全球经济面临着诸多困难，但在美国、中国、德国和其他国家还存在着巨额可投资资源。


While there are climate and resource constraints, we are still at the beginning of a technological revolution that holds tremendous potential for higher productivity and greater prosperity, along with challenging implications for labor and employment.	尽管存在气候和资源约束，但我们仍站在技术革命的开端，拥有无限潜力增加生产率、创造繁荣，与此同时，劳动力和就业也面临着挑战性影响。


But sustainable economic growth requires that those with investible resources actually invest them.	但可持续的经济增长要求手握可投资资源的国家真的开始投资。


And that will not happen unless and until a broad-based recovery of the middle- and lower-income groups in advanced economies, including the US, delivers the prolonged rebound in demand for which investors are waiting.	而这在包括美国在内的发达经济体中等收入和低收入群体全面复苏、提供投资者所等待的需求持续反弹之前是不可能发生的。


There are plenty of profits to be made – actual taxes on capital are not too high, and cheap finance is available to the corporate sector.	利润空间很大——实际资本税率并不太高，企业部门也可以获得廉价的融资。


But the concentration of income at the top – more than 90% of the gains from US economic growth in 2011, for example, went to the top 1% – is constraining broad-based recovery and leaving macroeconomic policy caught between the need for continued “stimulus” and the dangers of growing public debt and asset bubbles inflated by record-low interest rates.	但收入向顶尖阶层集中——比如，美国2011年经济增长好处的90%流向了最顶尖的1%——在阻挠全面复苏，导致宏观经济在继续“刺激”的需要和创纪录低利率导致公共债务和资产泡沫的风险之间摇摆不定。


In other words, a more balanced income distribution is not only a social or ethical issue; it is crucial for macroeconomic and, indeed, long-term corporate success.	换句话说，更平衡的收入分配不仅是一个社会和道德问题； 它对于宏观经济——事实上，对企业的长期成功也是如此——也很关键。


This is vital for many countries, above all the US and China.	这对于很多国家来说是决定性的大问题，尤其是美国和中国。


Then there is the pressing need – in the US and globally – for education and appropriate skill formation.	此外，美国和全世界对教育和合适技能培养需求迫切。


Without the skills required by new and incipient technologies, too many workers will simply be unemployable.	由于缺少适合尚处于雏形阶段的新技术的技能，太多工人将保持失业状态。


A key benefit of prioritizing broad-based quality education is that it also helps to solve the income-distribution problem.	将全面高质量教育作为当务之急的一个关键好处是这也有助于解决收入分配问题。


Finally, there is the need for effective international cooperation.	最后，还需要有效的国际合作哦。


China’s current-account surplus has declined, but now northern Europe runs a $500 billion surplus, while demand in southern Europe is collapsing and the US is running a deficit that is close to $500 billion.	中国经常项目盈余已有所下降，但如今北欧国家盈余达到了5000亿美元，而南欧的需求在崩溃，美国也维持着近5000亿美元的赤字。


The longer-term challenge of climate change and extreme weather patterns also requires global cooperation and a post-election shift toward much stronger US engagement, which could unleash a multifaceted clean-energy revolution, fueling large job-creating investments and a new cycle of growth.	气候变化的和极端天气模式长期挑战也要求全球合作和大选后美国向全面参与的转变，只有美国的参与才能开启多层次清洁能源革命，刺激大规模就业创造型投资和新的增长周期。


After America’s long, hard-fought election campaign, it is time for comprehensive policy reforms.	在美国长时间艰苦的选战之后，是时候进行全面政策改革了。


One hopes that the US Congress will recognize this as well, leading to support for measures that could help hundreds of millions of people in the US and around the world.	我们希望美国国会也认识到这一点，领导人们支持能够帮助上亿美国和世界人民的政策。


The Secret of Harvard’s Success	哈佛成功的秘密


AHMEDABAD, INDIA – No country dominates any industry as much as the United States dominates higher education.	艾哈迈达巴德，印度—没有哪个国家的哪个行业可以像美国的高等教育那样主导全球。


According to Shanghai Jiao-Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, for example, 17 of the world’s 20 best universities are American, with Harvard topping the list by a substantial margin.	比如，在上海交通大学的世界大学学术排名榜上，前20名中有17所来自美国，其中哈佛大学以绝对优势雄踞榜首。


The traditional explanation for this phenomenon – America’s wealth, large population, generous research funding, widespread private philanthropy, and ability to attract scholars from around the world – is incomplete.	对于这一现象，传统解释——美国的财富、庞大的人口、充足的研究资金、广泛的私人慈善、吸引全世界学者的能力——是不够的。


Although the US boasts the world’s largest economy, it comprises only one-quarter of global GDP, and possesses roughly one-twentieth of the world’s population.	尽管美国拥有全世界第一大经济，但其GDP只占全球总量的四分之一，人口更是只占全世界的二十分之一。


And its support for research is not unique.	对研究的支持也不是只此一家。


Moreover, according to the accepted explanation, large countries such as France, Germany, Japan, and even China and India should also be represented at the top of global university rankings.	此外，根据可接受的解释，像法国、德国、日本甚至中国和印度这样的大国也应该出现在全球大学排行榜的前列。


But they appear only sparsely anywhere in such rankings, if even at all.	然而这些国家充其量只是个别大学能够勉强上榜。


In fact, these countries lack a crucial piece of the puzzle: America’s innovative governance model for higher education.	事实上，这些国家缺乏拼图的关键一块：美国对高等教育的创新治理机制。


Harvard was established as a public institution in 1636 by the authorities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.	哈佛大学是1636年由马萨诸塞湾殖民地（Massachusetts Bay Colony）当局建立的公共机构。


Its value to Massachusetts is exemplified in the Commonwealth’s post-independence state constitution, ratified in 1780, which includes a section about the university’s function and boundaries.	它对马萨诸塞州的价值可以从美国独立后1780年起草的州宪法中一窥端倪。 这部宪法有专门的条款规定哈佛大学的功能和边界。


When Harvard alumni dominated the Massachusetts legislature, the university was given support and consideration.	当校友主宰马萨诸塞州立法机构时，哈佛收获了支持和照顾。


But, in the 1840’s, mass immigration, fueled by the Irish potato famine, altered the state’s demographic balance, enabling populists to gain control of the legislature.	但是，在19世纪40年代，由爱尔兰土豆饥荒导致的大量移民改变了马萨诸塞州的人口结构，民粹主义者控制了立法机构。


Almost immediately, Harvard came under attack for being too elitist, too exclusive, and too expensive.	哈佛几乎是立刻受到了口诛笔伐，人们认为它太过精英主义、太排外、太昂贵。


Even its curriculum was challenged.	甚至哈佛大学的课程也受到了挑战。


Over the next two decades, the state increasingly impeded Harvard’s functioning by, for example, refusing to release funds and obstructing the appointment of professors.	在此后20年中，马萨诸塞州通过拒绝出资和阻挠教授任命等方式越来越多地影响哈佛大学的运转。


This behavior culminated in 1862, when the legislature blocked a university president’s appointment.	这类行为的高峰在1862年，立法机构驳回了哈佛的校长任命议案。


In response, Harvard requested that it be placed “out of the reach of ordinary political strife and change” and into the “hands of alumni who have the interests of education most at heart.”	哈佛大学对此的反应是要求被置于“常规政治冲突和变化之外”，交给“真心实意心系教育的校友手中”。


On April 29, 1865, this radical proposal scraped through the Massachusetts General Court (the state’s bi-cameral legislature), owing to intense lobbying and the goodwill generated by Harvard alumni’s distinguished service for the Union during the Civil War.	1865年4月29日，这一激进方案勉强获得了马萨诸塞州法院（Massachusetts General Court，该州两大立法机构之一）的批准，其中不懈的游说活动以及哈佛校友在内战中为南方邦联做出的杰出贡献所赢得的声望居功至伟。


Since then, Harvard’s Board of Overseers, has been controlled exclusively by alumni.	至此以后，哈佛董事会就一直由校友控制。


Inspired by Harvard’s success, other universities – starting with Yale University and the College of William and Mary – took similar action.	受哈佛成功的启发，其他大学——从耶鲁大学和威廉玛丽学院开始——也采取了类似行动。


This “genuine American method,” as Charles William Eliot, Harvard’s longest-serving president, called it, became the norm not only for private universities, but also for public institutions, such as the University of Michigan and Purdue University, and even religious institutions like the University of Notre Dame and Duke University.	这一长期担任哈佛校长的查尔斯·威廉·艾略特（Charles William Eliot）口中的“正宗美国做法”不但成为私立大学的标准模式，也为密歇根大学、普渡大学等院校所效仿，甚至圣母大学（University of Notre Dame）和杜克大学也采取了这一做法。


Today, 19 of the top 20 American universities in US News and World Report’s much-watched rankings are controlled by alumni (defined as 50% or more representation on the Board of Trustees).	如今，在位居广受关注的《美国新闻和世界报道》（US News and World Report）大学排名20强的大学中，有19所是由校友控制的（以校董事会人数超过半数为标准）。


The only exception, the California Institute of Technology, has a board with 40% alumni representation.	唯一例外的是加州理工学院，其校友占董事会的40%。


Of the top five, three (Harvard, Yale, and Columbia) are managed entirely by alumni, and two (Princeton and Stanford) are under 90% alumni control.	在前五名大学中，三所（哈佛、耶鲁和哥伦比亚）完全由校友管理，其余两所（普林斯顿和斯坦福）校友掌握着90%的控制权。


Alumni run the show even at public institutions such as Purdue (90%) and Michigan (63%).	即使是在普渡（90%）和密歇根（63%）这样的公立大学，也是校友占主导地位。


On average, alumni make up 63% of the boards of the top 100 US universities, both public and private.	平均而言，美国前100名大学（包括公立和私立）校董事会的校友代表比例为63%。


In general, a higher percentage of alumni on the board is associated with a higher ranking, increased selectivity, and a larger endowment.	总体而言，校友在校董事会优势越大，学校排名越靠前，区分度越高，捐赠基金规模也越大。


After all, no group cares more about a university’s prestige than its alumni, who gain or lose esteem as their alma mater’s ranking rises or falls.	毕竟，没有哪个群体能够像校友那样关心学校的地位，母校排名的起落决定了校友社会地位的沉浮。


Indeed, alumni have the most incentive to donate generously, and to manage the university effectively.	事实上，校友最有动力慷慨解囊资助母校，也最有动力更好地管理母校。


Given their intimate knowledge of the university, alumni are also the most effective leaders.	他们熟悉母校，因此也最适合担任母校领导人。


Through alumni networks, board members can acquire information quickly and act upon it without delay.	通过校友网络，董事会成员能够迅速收集信息，及时作出反应。


All great universities are nonprofit organizations, created to administer higher education, which benefits society as a whole.	所有伟大的大学都是非营利组织，以提供高等教育为创建目的，能使全社会都受益。


But US universities found a way to integrate competition’s benefits into the European concept of nonprofit, or so-called eleemosynary, corporations.	但美国大学创造了一条新路，在欧洲大学的非盈利公司（或所谓的慈善组织）精神中融入了竞争的益处。


The lack of profit does not diminish an alumni-dominated board’s incentive to compete for prestige by, for example, hiring distinguished faculty, accepting meritorious students, and striving for athletic or artistic achievement.	缺少利润并不会削弱校友主导的董事会通过聘任杰出教员、录取杰出学生、争夺体育和艺术荣誉等方式竞争社会地位的动力。


Using alumni to infuse the benefits of competition into nonprofit institutions exemplifies the genius of American adaptation.	通过校友向非盈利机构注入竞争的好处是正宗美国做派的显例。


Countries that aspire to compete with US universities should take note.	希望与美国大学一争高下的国家应该借鉴一下。


The Secret Policeman’s Fall	秘密警察的倒台


As Hungary’s Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany found out when a recorded admission that his government was lying incited riots, openness in government doesn’t come easily in Eastern Europe’s new democracies.	匈牙利总理久尔恰尼因为在一次录音谈话中承认他的政府撒谎而引发暴乱，使他认识到要到东欧新兴民主国家的政府里实行公开并不是件容易事。


Like Hungary, post-communist Romania has struggled to increase transparency and honesty in what was once one of the world’s most closed societies.	像匈牙利一样，后共产主义时期的罗马尼亚也曾努力地要在这个曾是世界上最为封闭的国家增加透明度和诚信。


As we struggled, continued secrecy allowed an explosion of corruption and abuse of office.	因为持久的秘密带来了官员大面积的腐败和滥用职权。


But there has, at last, been real movement towards openness – progress recognized by the European Union when it gave Romania the green light to join the European Union at the beginning of 2007.	但是最终我们已经向公开化迈出了实质性的步伐，并且已经获得了欧盟的认可从而使它同意在2007年初接收罗马尼亚加入欧盟。


Aside from achieving what the EU now deems a “functioning market economy,” key political and legal changes, which I have overseen as Minister of Justice, range from increased transparency and control in the funding of political parties to a shakeup of the judiciary.	除实现了被欧盟认为是“运转的市场经济”外，在我担任司法部长期间还见证了重大的政治和法律变化，包括提高透明度，控制政治团体的资金募集以及对司法系统的大改组。


Judicial reforms are, in turn, helping to root out corruption.	司法改革反过来又帮助铲除了腐败。


Indictments have been issued against former and current cabinet ministers, members of parliament, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police and customs officers, and other public officials, as well as directors of private companies.	有许多前任和现任内阁部长、议员、法官、检察官、律师、警察和海关官员以及其他公务员，还有私人公司的领导受到了指控。


In addition, new standardized forms have been introduced for declarations of assets and financial interests by anyone who holds an official position in government, parliament, public and local administration, and the judicial system.	此外，任何在政府部门、议会、公共行政和地方行政部门以及司法系统担任公职的人都必须以新的标准格式申报他们的个人资产和金融产权。


The new declarations are the most detailed in Europe, and, more importantly, they are published.	这种新的申报方式在欧洲是最详细的，并且，最重要的是，它们将被公布于众。


Romania’s progress is confirmed in a report released earlier this month showing that citizens’ access to government information in Eastern Europe is now equal to that in established democracies.	该报告显示东欧的公民现在已经可以像在成熟的民主国家里一样获取政府信息了。 事实上，这份由开放社会司法创制组织编写的报告《透明度与沉默》（见 www.


Indeed, the report, Transparency and Silence, conducted by the Open Society Justice Initiative (available at www.justiceinitiative.org), indicates that in some ways the new democracies have something to teach the old: certain government agencies in Romania were more responsive to citizen requests for information than comparable agencies in France and Spain.	justiceinitiative. org ）指出，新兴民主国家在许多方面有值得老民主国家学习的地方：罗马尼亚的某些政府部门要比它们在法国和西班牙的对应部门对公众的要求 更 负责。


Specifically, 60% of the requests filed in Romania met, compared to 31% in France and 24% in Spain.	具体地说，在罗马尼亚60%有记录的请求得到了满足，而法国和西班牙相应的数字是31%和24%。


Other countries that performed well include Peru and Mexico, both of which adopted freedom of information laws in 2002, shortly after Romania.	其他表现出色的国家包括秘鲁和墨西哥，它们都在罗马尼亚通过了信息自由法案后不久也与2002年通过了该法案。


But getting access to sensitive information in transitional democracies is not always easier, as I know from my previous work as a human rights lawyer with the Romanian Helsinki Committee.	但是根据我以前作为罗马尼亚赫尔辛基委员会的人权律师时的工作经历，要在处于转型期的民主国家获取敏感的信息并非易事。


Often we had to go to court to force disclosure of information, using Romania’s 2001 Freedom of Information Act.	我们经常必须运用罗马尼亚的2001年信息自由法案通过法院来强制公开信息。


For example, even when we won a case regarding access to the records of wiretaps authorized by the general prosecutor, the prosecutor simply ignored the court order.	比如，即便我们赢得了要求获得由总检察长授权的窃听记录的诉讼，检察长还是对法院的命令置若罔闻。


We filed a civil action against the prosecutor, and the judge imposed a fine for every day the information was withheld.	我们对检察长提出了民事诉讼，法官对其扣留信息的行为按天加以罚款。


But it was only when we caught the media’s attention that the data – detailing the number of wiretaps authorized over the previous 10 years, against whom, and for how long – were released.	但是直到我们把这件事捅到媒体后这些详细描述了过去十年间授权进行的窃听的数量、针对的人员以及进行时间的材料才被公布出来。


With its publication, Romania began to move away from its Securitate-dominated past.	随着它的被公布，罗马尼亚开始从它由秘密部门所把持的过去中脱离了开来。


Now, inside government, I realize that sharing information with the public is sometimes hard.	我知道要让政府与公众分享信息有时是很困难的。


But when painful reforms are necessary, there is no alternative.	但是如果痛苦的改革是必需的话，我们就别无选择。


We could not have achieved the economic and political reforms that qualified us for EU membership if we had not subjected policymaking to public scrutiny and accepted the increased public participation in decision-making that inevitably accompanies such openness.	如果我们没有让决策接受公众的监督以及接受由这种公开化所不可避免地带来的公众对于决策更多的参与，那么我们就无法进行让我们有资格成为欧盟成员国的经济和政治上的改革。


Indeed, this has become a sine qua non of democratic government throughout the world.	事实上，这是世界上要成为民主政府的必要条件。


When the United States adopted its Freedom of Information Act in 1966, it joined the exclusive company of Sweden and Finland.	当美国在1966年通过了信息自由法案时，在它前面只有瑞典和芬兰通过了这一法案。


Today, roughly 65 countries have such laws.	今天，大约有65个国家通过了该法案。


In Romania, those who fought for a freedom of information law have made full use of it.	罗马尼亚为自由信息法案奋斗的人们充分运用了这一法案。


As part of the Justice Initiative study, those who request information from Romania’s government were willingly supplied with the kind of information that would have been unthinkable to release just a few short years ago.	根据司法创制权组织的研究调查表明，那些要求从罗马尼亚政府获取信息的人被很爽快地提供了那些即便在几年还不可想象可以获取的信息。


The Romanian Defense Ministry, for example, disclosed the number of armed forces personnel who died in 2003, as well as the causes of death (including 13 suicides, two shootings, and two combat deaths in Afghanistan).	比如说，罗马尼亚国防部就公布了2003年死亡的军人的数目以及死亡的原因（其中有13起自杀、2起枪击案、以及2起在阿富汗的战斗死亡）。


Likewise, the Bucharest court was asked for the number of judges disciplined since the beginning of 2000, including grounds for any sanctions applied.	同样地，布加勒斯特法庭被要求提供自2000年以来受到处分的法官数目，包括处分的原因。


The Court transferred the request to the Superior Council of Magistrates, which provided a full response: a four-page list of all sanctioned judges, with details of the reasons and penalties.	法庭把该请求呈报给了最高法院，最高法院给予了全面回答，那就是长达四页的关于被处分法官的名单，包括他们的受罚原因及具体的处罚。


Such information is both a product and a motor of continuing reform.	这种信息是不断改革的产品同时也将推动改革不断向前推进。


It has not always been comfortable for those in government, and there is still a tug-of-war over sensitive documents.	这对于政府官员来说并不总是一件也让人舒服的事情，并且在公开敏感材料的问题上还存在着激烈的斗争。


But, in the former communist bloc, the benefits brought by transparency have been undeniable.	但是，在前共产党集团国度里，由透明度所带来的益处是无可置疑的。


At the same time, Romania’s experience demonstrates that official secrecy remains a threat to the core values of democratic governance, and that only constant vigilance, in both established and young democracies, can prevent its encroachment.	与此同时，罗马尼亚的经验表明，政府官员的保密对于民主治国的核心价值而言依然是一个威胁，成熟的和年轻的民主国家都同样地需要不断地保持警惕才能阻止它被侵犯。


The Seven-Year Ditch	欧洲债务危机无法借鉴拉美方案


PRINCETON – There are historical precedents for sovereign-debt defaults by the countries of Europe’s southern periphery, but they are not instantly attractive ones.	普林斯顿——面临主权债务违约的欧洲南部边缘国家可以在历史上找到前车之鉴，但乍一看都让人皱眉头。


Dealing with seemingly intractable problems often takes time. And it is difficult – especially in a democracy – to be patient.	处理棘手的问题通常需要时间，而耐心往往是稀缺品——尤其在民主国家。


The most obvious parallel to Europe’s current woes is the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980’s.	欧洲目前的苦恼，最显眼的先例是20世纪80年代的拉美债务危机。


In August 1982, Mexico threatened to default, and was quickly followed by other large borrowers, notably Argentina and Brazil.	1982年8月，墨西哥扬言要违约，很快就有其他债务国跟风，特别是阿根廷和巴西。


A default contagion would have brought down the banking systems of all the major industrial countries, and caused the world to relive something like the financial crisis of the Great Depression.	一旦爆发违约风潮，各大工业化国家的银行体系就会被拖垮，从而引发类似大萧条的金融危机。


What followed was a seven-year play for extra time.	接下来是拖时间，一拖七年。


The initial approach was to link policy improvements in the borrowing countries not only with help from international institutions, but also with additional lending from the banks – which seemed to defy the most elementary canons of sensible bank behavior.	最初的对策是在各债务国改进政策的条件下，由国际机构提供帮助，并由有关银行追加贷款——看起来违背了银行理性行为的基本信条。


Three years after the outbreak of the Latin American crisis, United States Treasury Secretary James Baker announced a systematization of the initial response.	拉美债务危机爆发三年后，时任美国财长贝克（James Baker）宣布了一个将初步对策系统化的方案。


It was not very imaginative: Banks and multilateral development institutions should all lend more, and the debtors should continue their efforts to improve their macroeconomic policies.	该方案缺乏新意：银行和多边开发机构都要增加放贷，而债务人要继续努力改善宏观经济政策。


The Baker Plan was a universal disappointment.	贝克计划令各方失望。


Growth faltered again, and the International Monetary Fund actually reduced its lending.	经济增长再度滑落，而国际货币基金实际上减少了放贷量。


More than three years passed before new US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady set out a more satisfactory program, in which banks would be given a menu of options that included lower interest rates on the debt and a hefty discount on the principal.	又过了三年多，新一任美国财长布雷迪（Nicholas Brady）制定了一个更令人满意的计划：让持有债权的银行选择，要么收取更低的利息，要么给本金打个大折扣。


If creditor banks were unwilling to accept some form of restructuring, they would have to put in new money.	如果债权银行不愿接受任何形式的债务重组，就得追加放贷。


The lending of the international institutions might also be used for buying back discounted debt.	允许将国际机构的贷款用于赎回折后债权。


Brady’s plan looked like a great success.	布雷迪计划大获成功。


Confidence returned, capital flight from Latin America was reversed, and capital markets became willing to provide financing again.	信心恢复了，资本从拉美外逃的形势逆转了，资本市场又愿意向拉美提供融资了。


Inevitably, the Brady Plan looks like a good model for southern Europe.	看起来，布雷迪计划肯定是帮助南欧脱困的一个好范例。


Why not avoid seven years of misery, and begin some similar rescue operation now that could lead to a return to economic vigor and dynamism?	为什么不避免七年的苦熬，现在就进行类似操作，恢复南欧的经济活力呢？


The most obvious answer is that at an earlier stage in the Latin American saga, the banks simply could not have afforded to take such losses on their capital.	最明显的原因是，在拉美危机爆发的头几年，各银行根本无法承受如此高昂的资本亏损。


They needed to fake it for seven years in order to build up adequate reserves against losses.	它们必须撑门面撑七年时间，才能积累起足够的储备来承受亏损。


The initiative for the Brady Plan did not come from the official sector at all.	发起布雷迪计划的其实根本不是官僚部门。


It was the willingness of some large financial institutions to trade in discounted debt that established a market that could clear out the legacy of past mistakes.	要不是一些大型金融机构愿意交易打折债权，从而构成了一个市场，那些昔日失误所遗留下来的负担是无法得到清理的。


Two institutions, in particular, took the lead: Citicorp in the US and Deutsche Bank in Europe.	特别要提一提领头儿的两个大机构：美国的花旗公司（Citicorp）和欧洲的德意志银行。


Their CEOs at the time presented their actions as being motivated by far-sighted benevolence and a concern for the well-being of the world as a whole.	当时的CEO把它们的行动演绎得仿佛是远见卓识加慈悲心肠的产物，是为了全世界的利益而力挽狂澜。


That may have been plausible, but the two banks also wanted to demonstrate publicly that they had better balance sheets than their weaker rivals.	这个动机也许成立，但两家银行也想向公众表明，它们的资产负债表状况好过实力较弱的竞争对手。


In Germany, the Dresdner Bank and the Landesbanken could not afford to take such a hit.	在德国，德累斯顿银行和各州立银行就受不了这种冲击。


Moreover, despite the obvious “reform fatigue” of Latin American electorates, the debtor countries had engaged in a substantial measure of reform.	此外，尽管拉美选民表现出明显的“改革疲劳”，各债务国还是承诺进行实质性的改革。


Before the Brady Plan was announced, Mexico had accepted a wide-ranging Pact of Economic Solidarity and Growth, which immediately improve investor confidence and reduced sky-high domestic interest rates.	在布雷迪计划公布前，墨西哥政府同工会、农会等各利益集团达成妥协，出台了影响广泛的《经济巩固与增长协议》（Pact of Economic Solidarity and Growth），这一举措立即提升了投资者信心，使国内高企的利率有所下降。


The final move to solve the debt problem came in the aftermath of international currency adjustment.	国际货币调整走出了解决拉美债务问题的最后一步。


One of the problems that had made the crisis more difficult after 1982 was the US dollar’s appreciation.	1982年后，增加危机解决难度的因素之一就是美元升值。


Likewise, today’s euro crisis is harder to resolve because of the euro’s strength in currency markets.	与之类似，欧元在货币市场上表现坚挺，也令今日的欧元危机更难解决。


The dollar’s slide after 1985 made the real burden of Latin America’s dollar debt much lighter.	自1985年起，美元贬值，舒缓了拉美的美元债务负担。


Calling for a European Brady plan today does not guarantee the necessary conditions for such a plan to succeed.	尽管如今有人呼吁出台欧洲布雷迪计划，但此类计划取得成功的必要条件却未必具备。


On all fronts, there has not been much progress.	在各条战线上都没有什么进展。


There is certainly plenty of frustration about the implementation of austerity, and no real indication of the long-term sustainability of reform efforts in southern Europe.	财政瘦身的贯彻前景着实令人沮丧，也没有真正的迹象表明，南欧国家能够持续地力行改革。


The problems of Europe’s banks are also far from being resolved.	欧洲银行的问题也远未得到解决。


A truly competitive European banking system would provide incentives for the larger and stronger banks to take more risks in the hope of growing even larger and stronger.	如果欧洲银行体系内部存在真正的竞争，就能激励大而有力的银行冒着风险进一步做大做强。


But, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, policymakers are too pre-occupied by the real problems posed by too-big-to-fail banks, and too terrified by the potential collapse of weaker banks, to allow such a solution.	但在金融危机的阴影下，政策制定者过于关切大到不能倒的银行所构成的现实问题，也过于害怕小银行崩溃的潜在风险，以至于不会允许银行业出现大量兼并。


Recapitalization has not yet reached the point where there are enough strong banks.	在没有足够强大的银行之前，资本重组无从实施。


Finally, global uncertainty about currencies stands in the way of a solution.	最后，全球货币不确定性也妨碍欧洲问题得到解决。


The euro’s strength, despite the magnitude of the eurozone’s difficulties, makes an export-led recovery strategy harder to realize.	尽管欧元区麻烦多多，欧元却依然坚挺，使出口拉动型复苏战略难以实施。


The common currency’s strength reflects problems elsewhere in the world, but a euro exchange rate that would enable the return of confidence and growth is no less elusive for that.	欧洲共同货币之坚挺，反映了世界其他地方也是问题缠身，也使有利于信心恢复与经济复苏的欧元汇率难以出现。


Without the preconditions that made the Brady Plan work, simply transplanting a debt write-off would only augment uncertainty and fuel the political revulsion that already threatens to undermine European integration.	由于布雷迪计划产生效果的先决条件都不存在，简单移植债务减记的做法，只会增加不确定性，甚至对已经威胁到欧洲一体化进程的政治反感情绪火上浇油。


And it may be that Europe – because of its relative prosperity – is less in a mood for the biblical seven lean years than was a much poorer Latin America in the 1980’s.	更何况，欧洲相对富裕，未必会如20世纪80年代的拉美那样，陷入像《圣经》说的“七个荒年”。


The Shadow of Depression	经济萧条的阴影


BERKELEY – Four times in the past century, a large chunk of the industrial world has fallen into deep and long depressions characterized by persistent high unemployment: the United States in the 1930’s, industrialized Western Europe in the 1930’s, Western Europe again in the 1980’s, and Japan in the 1990’s.	发自伯克利——上个世纪，世界上大多数发达国家都曾先后4次陷入以长期失业率为特征的经济萧条之中：这些萧条分别爆发在1930年代的美国，1930年代实现工业化后的西欧，1980年代再次在西欧爆发，最后则是1990年代的日本。


Two of these downturns – Western Europe in the 1980’s and Japan in the 1990’s – cast a long and dark shadow on future economic performance.	而其中较近的两次经济萧条都对此后的经济产生了漫长且深远的影响。


In both cases, if either Europe or Japan returned – or, indeed, ever returns – to something like the pre-downturn trend of economic growth, it took (or will take) decades.	在这两次萧条中，欧洲或日本想要重新恢复到——或者事实上恢复到——衰退前的经济增长趋势的话，就得（或者说可能）花费数十年时间才能重回到这一水平。


In a third case, Europe at the end of the 1930’s, we do not know what would have happened had Europe not become a battlefield following Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland.	而要不是纳粹德国入侵波兰令欧洲沦为（二战）战场的话，我们也无法设想1930年末在欧洲爆发的那场萧条会引发何种后果。


In only one instance was the long-run growth trend left undisturbed: US production and employment after World War II were not significantly affected by the macroeconomic impact of the Great Depression.	而经济增长的长期趋势未被打断的例子只有一个：在二战后，美国的生产率和就业受到经济大萧条的明显影响。


Of course, in the absence of mobilization for WWII, it is possible and even likely that the Great Depression would have cast a shadow on post-1940 US economic growth.	当然，如果不是投入人力参加二战，美国1940年后的经济增长很可能受到大萧条的严重冲击。


That is certainly how things looked, with high levels of structural unemployment and a below-trend capital stock, at the end of the 1930’s, before mobilization and the European and Pacific wars began in earnest.	结构性失业高企，资本储备低于常量，这就是1930年末美国动员参战和亚欧战事大规模爆发之前的真实情况，


In the US, we can already see signs that the downturn that started in 2008 is casting its shadow on the future.	在美国，我们现在已经可以清晰地看到始于2008年的经济衰退正深刻地影响着世界的未来。


Reputable forecasters – both private and public – have been revising down their estimates of America’s potential long-run GDP.	那些著名预测家们——无论是来自公共部门和私人部门——都在不断调低对美国长期潜在GDP的预测数据。


For example, labor-force participation, which usually stops falling and starts rising after the business-cycle trough, has been steadily declining over the past two and a half years.	比如说，就业人数一般会在商业周期的谷底止跌回升，但在过去两年半里，这一指标却持续下滑。


At least some monetary policymakers believe that recent reductions in the US unemployment rate, which have largely resulted from falling labor-force participation, are just as valid a reason for shifting to more austere policies as reductions in unemployment that reflect increases in employment.	至少，部分货币政策制定者据此认定把美国近期失业率的下降简单解读为失业率下降就是就是就业人口增加——其实这在很大程度上是因为劳动人口退出就业市场——并以此作为更严厉紧缩政策的依据。


And much the same processes and responses are at work – with even greater strength – in Europe.	而与此同时，同样的过程和反应也在欧洲上演——甚至程度更为剧烈。


Most important, however, has been what looks, from today’s perspective, like a permanent collapse in the risk-bearing capacity of the private marketplace, and a permanent and large increase in the perceived riskiness of financial assets worldwide – and of the businesses whose cash flows underpin them.	更重要的是，从目前情况看来，私人市场的风险承受力似乎出现了大规模崩溃，而对于全球金融资产以及那些需要现金流支撑的商业来说，其风险将永久并无限增大。


Given aging populations in industrial countries, large commitments from governments to social-insurance systems, and no clear plans for balancing government budgets in the long run, we would expect to see inflation and risk premiums – perhaps not substantial, but clearly visible – priced into even the largest and richest economies’ treasury debt.	考虑到发达国家人口老龄化加速，政府所承担的大量社会保障，以及政府长期清晰预算平衡计划的缺失，我们可以预见通胀和风险溢价——可能数量不多，但却清晰可见——会被包含到最大最富裕的经济体的国债中去。


Sometime over the next generation, the price levels of the US, Japan, and Germany might rise substantially after some government short-sightedly attempts to finance some of its social-welfare spending by printing money.	在政府目光短浅地尝试通过印钱来支付社会福利支出后，美国、日本和德国的价格水平在下一代的某个时候将大幅飙升。


The price levels are unlikely to go down. Yet the desire to hold assets that avoid the medium-term risks associated with the business cycle has overwhelmed this long-run fundamental risk factor.	价格水平不太可能下降，然而，为规避商业周期导致的中期风险，人们持有资产的渴望完全掩盖了上述远期基础风险因素。


But the risk that the world’s investors currently are trying to avoid by rushing into US, Japanese, and German sovereign debt is not a “fundamental” risk.	不过，当前全球投资者希望通过购买美国，日本和德国主权债务来规避的并不是“基础”风险。


There are no psychological preferences, natural-resource constraints, or technological factors that make investing in private enterprises riskier than it was five years ago.	与5年前相比，投资者的心理偏好，自然资源的约束或技术因素都没有发生根本性变化，也因此使得当前对私人企业的投资风险更高。


Rather, the risk stems from governments’ refusal, when push comes to shove, to match aggregate demand to aggregate supply in order to prevent mass unemployment.	确切地说，主要的风险来自于政府在紧急关头时为避免大规模失业而拒绝调控总需求以适应总供给。


Managing aggregate demand is governments’ job.	调控总需求是政府的职责。


While Say’s law – the view that supply creates its own demand – is false in theory, it is true enough in practice that entrepreneurs and enterprises can and do depend on it.	尽管萨伊定律——供给创造需求——在理论上被证明是错误的，但毫无疑问，企业家和创业者在实际中却仍然遵循��这一准则。


If the government falls down on the job, John Maynard Keynes wrote 76 years ago, and “demand is deficient…the individual enterpriser...is operating with the odds loaded against him.	76年前，约翰·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）写到，如果政府无法履行这一职责，同时“需求不足……每个企业主……都在相当不利的情况下经营。


The game of hazard which he plays is furnished with many zeros,” which represent “the increment [by which] the world’s wealth has fallen short of...savings,” owing to “the losses of those whose courage and initiative have not been supplemented by exceptional skill or unusual good fortune.	因此“企业主们这场冒险游戏所面临的风险极为巨大”，这意味着“世界财富因为缺乏储蓄而无法增长”，而归根结底都是因为“那些拥有勇气和创业精神的人不断减少，同时又未能发明某些高新技术或者探明巨额财富资源来作为补充”所导致的。


But if effective demand is adequate, average skill and average good fortune will be enough.”	而如果有效需求充分的话，只要拥有平均水平的技术和财富就足够了。


For 62 years, from 1945-2007, with some sharp but temporary and regionalized interruptions, entrepreneurs and enterprisers could bet that the demand would be there if they created the supply.	在1945年到2007年这62年里，尽管受到了一些强烈（但是短期且且仅限于某些区域）的冲击，企业家和创业者依然相信只要他们能创造出供给，需求就会出现。


This played a significant role in setting the stage for the two fastest generations of global economic growth the world has ever seen.	这点在奠定全球有史以来经济增长最快的两个时代时都扮演着重要的角色。


Now the stage has been emptied.	而如今，这一基础却被抽空了。


The Shadow of the Crescent	新月的阴影


NEW YORK — As Pakistan atrophies in its existential crisis, a fundamental question about the nature of the country is coming to the fore: Are the country’s citizens Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, or are they Muslims who happen to be Pakistanis?	纽约-当巴基斯坦在国家存在的危机中萎缩的时候，一个关于该国家性质的基本问题浮上了水面：这个国家的公民是恰巧为穆斯林的巴基斯坦公民呢，还是恰巧为巴基斯坦人的穆斯林呢？


Which comes first, flag or faith?	国家和信仰，哪个放在第一位？


It is not a question that many Pakistanis can readily answer.	这个问题不是所有巴基斯坦人都能坦然回答的。


The vast majority of the country’s so-called “educated elite” seem to have no qualms about identifying themselves as Muslims first and Pakistanis second.	这个国家的所谓的“受过高等教育的精英们”中的绝大多数人毫不犹豫地把自己的身份首先定义为穆斯林，然后才是巴基斯坦人。


Some feel that their religion is the most important thing to them, and that that’s where their first loyalty will always lie.	一些人觉得他们的宗教信仰对他们来说是最重要的，那才是他们最首要的效忠目标。


Others admit to having scant regard for religion, but say that Pakistan has come to mean so little to them that their religion supersedes their loyalty to the country.	另一些人承认他们的宗教信仰不够坚定，但他们认为巴基斯坦对他们来说已经变得那么次要，以至于他们的宗教信仰超过了他们对国家的忠诚。


This willingness to subordinate state to God, even among the highly educated, lies at the heart of Pakistan’s crisis.	甚至在受过高等教育的人群中，人们也愿意把国家的地位放在宗教之下，而这个现象才是巴基斯坦危机的症结所在。


How can a country be expected to prosper if the majority of its citizens harbor only a secondary allegiance to the state?	如果一个国家的大部分公民都把对祖国的忠诚放在第二位，那你怎么能指望它繁荣昌盛呢？ 如果“巴基斯坦国的理念还不如巴基斯坦人的理念强烈”，正如著名作家阿克巴尔（M.


How can it progress if, as the noted author M.J. Akbar wrote, “the idea of Pakistan is weaker than the Pakistani.”	J. Akba）写道，这个国家怎么能够进步呢？


But what is the idea of Pakistan?	但是，巴基斯坦到底是一个什么样的理念呢？


Back in the heady days of the 1940’s, Mohammed Ali Jinnah rallied a people to nationhood.	回顾在1940年代那些激动人心的日子里，莫哈默德•阿里•真纳把一群人召集在一起形成了一个国家。


Despite his Anglophone status and Victorian manners, he carved out a separate homeland for India’s Muslims.	尽管他母语是英语，且举止老派，但他为印度的穆斯林人划出了一片独立的国土。


But, today, an erudite, westernized lawyer like Jinnah who isn’t a wadhera or a jagirdar would find it impossible to win a popular election in Pakistan.	但是，如今，如果有象真纳那样的一位博学多才的西化律师，而又不是瓦德拉人或是领主，那他是不可能赢得巴基斯坦大选的。


For the real Jinnah is now irrelevant in the country that reveres him as “Quaid-e-Azam,” or founder of the nation.	因为，在这个把真纳尊崇为国父的国家里，真正的真纳精神已经无关紧要了。


Few Pakistanis have the time or inclination to think about their founder’s ideas.	很少巴基斯坦人有时间或意愿去思考这个国家缔造者的意图。


Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan – South Asian Muslim nationalism – has been overrun by the dogma of Islamic universalism.	真纳的巴基斯坦的理念，也就是“南亚穆斯林民主主义”已经被“伊斯兰宇宙神教”的信条替代了。


The modern Pakistani identity is shaped largely by the negation of an Indian-Hindu identity and the adoption of a global pan-Islamic charter. Economic advancement is taken to mean Westernization or worse, Indianization.	现代巴基斯坦身份意识在大部分方面是受到了对印度的印度教身份的否认以及对全球泛伊斯兰宪章的认同的影响，经济上的进步被认为是西方化，甚至更糟的是，被认为是印度化。


At every turn, Pakistanis seem more likely to unite as brothers in Islam than as sons of the same soil.	在每一个转折点上，巴基斯坦人似乎更愿意作为伊斯兰兄弟，而不是以同一个国家的儿子联合起来。


Moreover, Pakistan’s fear of vilification and failure has given birth to an increasingly paranoid brand of Islam that seeks to impose stricter controls – on education, women’s rights, dancing, beardlessness, and sex – and close society to all forms of modernity.	更重要的是，对堕落和失败的恐惧催生了日益壮大的患了妄想恐惧症的穆斯林一派，他们竭力要对诸如教育、妇女权利、舞蹈、不留胡子和性加以更严格的控制，并把现代化的一切形式都拒于国门之外。


This paranoid Islam, represented by hard-line outfits like the Tablighi Jamaat, is Pakistan’s fastest-growing brand of faith.	这派患上妄想恐惧症的伊斯兰人，如披着强硬派的外衣的伊斯兰传道会为代表，是巴基斯坦发展最快的宗教派别。


Pakistan is now at a crossroads, facing an uneasy moment of truth.	巴基斯坦眼前正处于十字路口，此刻面对着真理，却让人心烦不安。


To survive, its citizens must act in unison or risk seeing every moderate tendency in the country purged by a clamor of illiberal, religious voices.	若要生存，巴基斯坦人民只有团结起来，否则就会眼睁睁看着每一个即使是温和的变化也会在一片保守的宗教叫嚷声中被断送。


Today’s crisis calls for every thinking Pakistani to ask serious questions of themselves: What should be the idea of Pakistan?	如今的危机需要每一个有头脑的巴基斯坦人认真地扪心自问：什么才应是巴基斯坦的理念？


Are you Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, Christians, or Hindus? Or are you members of a global Islamic ummah who just happen to live in Karachi or Lahore?	你是一个恰巧是穆斯林、基督徒或是印度教徒的巴基斯坦人呢，还是恰巧生活在卡拉奇或拉合尔的全球伊斯兰民族的一个成员?


The real challenge, and the ultimate solution, is to get people to think and talk about these questions.	真正的挑战，也是最终的解决办法，是让民众思考并讨论这些问题。


But this must be a debate between people, and within people.	但是，这种讨论必须在人民之间而且只有在人民内部进行。


Nothing will be solved by searching for the “true Islam” or by quoting the Koran.	探索“真正的伊斯兰”或是引用古兰经是不能解决任何问题的。


The point is that eventually, despite strong regional loyalties and various cultural and religious differences, the majority can identify as being simply “Pakistani” – even though they may harbor radical differences about what this might mean.	重要的是，尽管存在很强���地区性的忠诚度和各种文化和宗教差异，但大多数人最终能把自己认同为只是巴基斯坦人， 即使他们对什么叫巴基斯坦人可以有非常不同的解释。


The real idea of Pakistan, ultimately, must be multiplicity.	巴基斯坦最终真正的理念就是多元化。


Today, we have come to understand ourselves as composites; often contradictory and internally incompatible.	如今，我们已把自我理解为复杂混合体； 经常是矛盾的而且内在是不协调的。


In the Babarnama , for example, we see the internal contradictions in the personality of the founder of the Mughal Empire.	例如，在巴布尔传记中，我们看到了蒙兀儿帝国的缔造者人格的内在矛盾性。


When describing his conquest of Chanderi in 1528, Babar offers gruesome details of the gory slaughter of many “infidels” but just a few sentences later he talks at length about Chanderi’s lakes, flowing streams, and sweet water.	当巴布尔在描述对1528年征服昌德瑞的时候，他展现了骇人听闻的对“异教徒”的血腥大屠杀的细节，而几句话之后，他又滔滔地赞美昌德瑞的湖泊、流淌的溪流和甘美的水源。 那么巴布尔到底是个什么样的人呢？


So who was Babar, bloodthirsty tyrant, humanist poet, or both – and not necessarily at odds with each other?	他是个吸血成性的暴君，还是个富有人性的诗人呢？ 或两者都是，而这两者可能还不一定互相冲突？


Pakistan’s selfhood must be expanded ad maximum and made so capacious that it accommodates its Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, and Balochis, and their religions – Sunni, Shia, Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Qadhianis – until it is possible to call them all equally “Pakistani.”	巴基斯坦的自我意识必须最大限度地扩展，来包容其旁遮普人、信德人、帕坦人、俾路支人，还有他们的宗教信仰如逊尼派、什叶派、印度教、基督教、帕西、Qadhianis等等，直到可以把他们都称之为平等的巴基斯坦人。


That must be the ultimate goal, and step one in the long, winding battle to save Pakistan.	那才是最终的目标，这是漫长而曲折的挽救巴基斯坦的战斗中迈出的第一步。


That is a national idea worth striving for – and Pakistan’s intellectuals, its elite, and its youth must be at the forefront of the battle.	那是一个值得为之奋斗的民族理想，巴基斯坦的知识分子、精英和青年们应该站在战斗的第一线。


The Crescent has cast a seemingly interminable shadow across the length of Pakistan.	新月似乎在巴基斯坦全国投下了一道永远抹之不去的阴影。


Its tragedies and failings are a result of what is happening in God’s name, not Jinnah’s.	其悲剧和失败是那些以上帝的名义而不是以真纳的名义发生的事情的结局。


To save Pakistan, Jinnah’s spirit, his moth-eaten ideals, must be renewed, and Pakistanis must ask themselves what Pakistan really means.	为了挽救巴基斯坦，真纳的精神和他那被遗弃了的理想，必须重新被发扬光大，而巴基斯坦人必须扪心自问，巴基斯坦到底意味着什么。


The Silver Lining in High Commodity Prices	基本商品高价中的一线希望


Cambridge – Today’s soaring commodity prices scream a fundamental truth of modern life that many politicians, particularly in the West, don’t want us to hear: the world’s natural resources are finite, and, as billions of people in Asia and elsewhere escape poverty, Western consumers will have to share them.	剑桥--当今基本商品价格猛涨道出了特别是西方政治人物不愿让我们知道的现代生活中的一个基本事实，那就是世界自然资源是有限的，而且，随着亚洲和其他地方几十亿人口脱贫，西方消费者就得分享这些资源。


Here is another truth: the price mechanism is a much better way to allocate natural resources than fighting wars, as the Western powers did in the last century.	还有一个真相就是，价格机制在分配自然资源上要比打仗好得多，而西方列强在上个世纪就为了争夺自然资源而开战。


The United States’ ill-considered bio-fuels subsidy program demonstrates how not to react.	美国生物燃料补贴项目不得其法，正好表明了错误的应对办法。


Rather than acknowledge that high fuel prices are the best way to inspire energy conservation and innovation, the Bush administration has instituted huge subsidies to American farmers to grow grains for bio-fuel production.	布什政府不仅不承认高昂的燃料价格是促进节能和能源创新的最佳途径，反倒为美国的农民提供巨额补贴用于种植生物燃料生产的作物。


Never mind that this is hugely inefficient in terms of water and land usage.	他们从来都不考虑这在用水和用地上都是极为没有效率的。


Moreover, even under the most optimistic scenario, the US and the world will still be relying mainly on conventional fossil fuels until the hydrocarbon era comes to an end (which few of us will live to see).	而且，在碳氢化合物时代结束以前(我们没人会活到那一天)，即使在最为乐观的情形下，美国和全世界还是主要依赖常规矿物燃料。


Last but not least, diverting vast tracts of agricultural land into fuel production has contributed to a doubling of prices for wheat and other grains.	最后还有重要一点，把大量农田分离用于燃料生产已经造成小麦和其他作物价格翻倍。


With food riots in dozens of countries, isn’t it time to admit that the whole idea was a giant, if well-intentioned, mistake?	好几个国家已经爆发了食品骚乱，现在是不是时候承认这一整个想法是一个用心良苦巨大错误呢？


Another wrong turn is the proposal recently embraced by two American presidential candidates to temporarily scrap taxes on gasoline.	两位美国总统侯选人最近提议暂时取消汽油税，这也是一个错误之举。


As laudable as it may be to help low-income drivers deal with soaring fuel costs, this is not the way to do it.	尽管这一提议意在帮助低收入人应付高涨的燃料价格，值得赞许，但是这并非明智之举。


The gas tax should be raised , not lowered.	汽油税应该提高，而不是下降。


The sad fact is that by keeping oil prices high, OPEC is doing far more for environmental conservation than Western politicians who seek to prolong the era of ecologically unsustainable Western consumerism.	让人难过的事实是，通过维持高油价，石油输出国组织在环境保护上要比那些想要延长在生态上难以维计的西方消费主义的西方政治人物做的要多得多。


Of course, it is not just oil prices that are high, but all commodity prices, from metals to food to lumber.	当然，不仅是石油价格高，金属、食物以及软木等所有基本食品价格都很高。


Prices for many commodities have doubled over the past couple of years.  Oil prices have risen almost 400% in the last five years.	在过去几年时间里，许多基本商品的价格都已经翻番。 过去五年中石油价格上涨几乎400%。


The proximate cause is a global economic boom that has been stronger, longer, and more broad-based than any in modern history.	最为主要的原因就是全球经济繁荣要比现代历史上的任何一次都要强劲、长远以及更为广泛。


Asia has led the way, but the past five years have been the best Latin American and Africa have enjoyed in decades.	亚洲首当其冲，但是过去五年拉丁美洲以及非洲取得了几十年来最佳的经济发展。


Broad-based commodity shortages often begin to emerge at the end of long global expansions, and in this respect, the present boom is no different.	范围广泛的基本商品短缺经常开始在长久的全球经济扩张结尾显现出来。 在这一方面，本次繁荣也不例外。


Some politicians also complain about speculators who, more and more, are trading commodities on complex and growing markets that allow them to bet on whether, say, future demand from emerging markets is likely to outstrip growth in future supply.	某些政治人物还抱怨说投机者越发在复杂而又不断增长的市场中进行商品交易。 这些市场可以让他们对未来新型市场的需求是否可能超过未来供应的增长进行投注。


But why is this a bad thing?	但是这为何不是好事呢？


If “speculators” are bidding up today’s commodity prices because they realize that future generations are going to want commodities, too, isn’t that a healthy development?	如果“投机者”由于认识到后人也将会需要基本商品就投注抬高今天的商品价格，这难道不是好事吗？


High prices for commodities today mean more supply for future generations, while at the same time creating an incentive to develop new ways to conserve on consumption.	今天的基本商品价格居高不下就意味着后人有更多的供应，与此同时创立激励让人们找到新的途径节制消费。


Again, high prices are helping in ways that Western politicians seem afraid to contemplate.	价格高昂再一次帮助人类，这一途径西方政治人物连想都不敢想。


Admittedly, the global commodity price boom has had profound, albeit enormously complex and uncertain, effects on poverty.	当然，全球商品价格高涨对贫困问题产生了深远而又复杂、难以预料的影响。


While surging commodity prices are helping poor farmers and poor resource-rich countries, they are a catastrophe for the urban poor, some of whom spend 50% or more of their income on food.	高涨的商品价格帮助了贫困农民以及贫困的资源丰富的国家，它们对城市贫民却是灾难。 他们有些人要花一半或者更多的收入来糊口。


One element of the solution is to compensate the very poor for the higher cost of survival.   Over the longer term, more money for fertilizer, and other aid to promote self-sufficiency, is also essential.	解决办法其中之一就是对那些贫民的更高的生存代价予以补偿。 长远而言，对化肥增加投入以及为促进自给自足的其他援助也是非常重要的。


The World Bank, the United Nations, and even the Bush administration have moved to help, albeit in small measure relative to the scale of the problem.	世界银行、联合国甚至是布什政府都已经采取行动进行帮助，尽管与问题的严重性相比步骤不够大。


Of course, it should be noted that if economic reform in resource-rich Africa had been proceeding at the same pace as in Asia, the era of soaring commodity prices might have been postponed for another century.	当然，   人们应当注意到，如果资源丰富的非洲经济改革进展得如同亚洲那样，那么，高涨的基本商品价格时代就将会推迟一个世纪。


For now, though, instead of whining about high commodity prices, governments should be shielding only their very poorest citizens, and letting the price spikes serve as a wake-up call for the rest of us.	但是目前，各国政府不仅不应该抱怨高昂的商品价格，而是应该保护最为贫困的人民，并且让价格飞涨敲响我们的警钟。


The end to Western consumerism is not yet at hand, but high commodity prices are a clear warning that big adjustments will be needed as Asia and other emerging nations begin to consume a larger share of the global pie.	西方消费主义还没有终结，但是高昂的商品价格明确地警告，当亚洲和其他新兴市场国家开始消费全球更大份额资源的时候，人们需要做出巨大的调整。


True, when today’s global economic boom ends, as it inevitably will, commodity prices will plummet, easily 25%, quite possibly 50% or more.	确实，当今天的全球经济繁荣不可避免地结束的时候，基本商品价格会轻而易举地下降25%，很有可能50%或者更多。


Western politicians will cheer, and many pundits will express relief that less money will be flowing to undemocratic countries in the developing world.	西方政坛人物将会庆贺，而许多专家权威将会大松一口气，因为流向没有民主的发展中国家的钱将会减少。


But today’s era of high commodity prices is not just a bad dream that should be forgotten when it ends.	但是今天的商品高价时代不仅仅是一个应该在结束的时候忘记的恶梦。


High prices send a real message about scarcity in a globalizing world.	高价表明了全球化世界的资源短缺。


Those who ignore it, especially by blocking market forces, are making a tragic mistake.	那些熟视无睹、特别是通过阻碍市场力量的人正在犯下一个悲剧性的错误。


The Sinai Powder Keg	西奈炸药桶


TEL AVIV– The crisis in the Sinai Peninsula seems to have been dwarfed by Sunday’s drama in Cairo.	特拉维夫—西奈半岛危机似乎因周日开罗发生的事情而相形见绌。


But Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s civilian coup, in which he dismissed General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the leader of the army’s supreme command, has not diminished the importance of the trouble there.	但埃及总统穆尔西的文官逆袭——他将军方最高指挥官领袖坦塔维将军解职——并没有降低西奈半岛麻烦的重要性。


Earlier this month, jihadi terrorists ambushed an Egyptian military base in Sinai, killing 16 Egyptian soldiers.	本月早些时候，圣战恐怖主义者伏击了埃及驻西奈半岛军事基地，杀死16名埃及士兵。


They then hijacked two armored personnel carriers and sped toward the frontier with Israel.	接着，他们劫持了两部武装运兵车，加速向以色列边境驶去。


One vehicle failed to break through the border crossing; the other penetrated Israeli territory, before being stopped by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).	其中一辆没能突破边境； 另一辆进入了以色列领土，被以色列国防军（IDF）阻击停下。


In response, Egypt’s military and security forces launched an offensive against Bedouin militants in Sinai, while Morsi forced the General Intelligence Service’s director to retire and dismissed the governor of Northern Sinai.	作为回应，埃及军方和安全部队谴责了西奈的贝多因武装分子，穆尔西还因此勒令情报总署署长退休，并将北西奈地方长官解职。


These episodes highlight the complexity of the Middle East’s changing geopolitical landscape, the fragility of Egypt’s post-Mubarak political order, and the explosive potential of Sinai, which, though sparsely populated, includes Egypt’s borders with Israel and the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.	这些事件凸显了中东变化中的地缘政治局势的复杂性、埃及后穆巴拉克时代政治秩序的脆弱性、以及西奈半岛——尽管人口稀少，却是埃及与以色列和巴勒斯坦飞地加沙的接壤地带——的潜在火药桶性质。


Indeed, since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster last year, security in Sinai has deteriorated, and the region has become fertile ground for Islamic extremism.	事实上，自从穆巴拉克去年下台以来，西奈半岛的安全局势就一直在恶化，该地区已成为伊斯兰极端主义者的温床。


The 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty mandated that Sinai be largely demilitarized in order to serve as a buffer zone between the two former enemies.	1979年埃及-以色列和平条约规定西奈半岛必须去武装化，以形成两大敌对势力之间的缓冲区。


Tourism and natural-gas pipelines linking the two countries provided economic resources for the local Bedouin.	旅游业和连接埃以两国的天燃气管道为当地的贝多因人带来了经济资源。


But, as Mubarak’s regime declined, so did the government’s control over the Bedouin.	但是，随着穆巴拉克政权的倒台，埃及政府也失去了对贝多因人的控制。


Palestinian militants from Gaza – an active arena of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation since Hamas gained control in 2007 – and jihadi terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda and the larger “global jihad” network penetrated Sinai, exploiting the government’s neglect of the region and inflaming the local population’s feelings of disenfranchisement.	来自加沙的巴勒斯坦武装分子——自2007年控制加沙以来，该地区便一直是以巴冲突的交火区——和受基地组织资助的圣战恐怖主义者以及更大的“全球圣战”网络便渗透进了西奈半岛，大钻政府无暇旁顾该地区的空子，煽动当地居民被剥夺公民选举权的感觉。


Israelis complained about Mubarak’s “cold peace,” but they appreciated that he adhered to the treaty’s fundamental provisions.	以色列人谴责穆巴拉克的“冷和平”，但对他坚持遵守条约基本原则表示欣赏。


Now the behavior of his successors from the military and the Muslim Brotherhood has revived security challenges and raised difficult questions about the region’s future.	如今，穆巴拉克的军方和穆斯林兄弟会继任者重新开启了安全挑战，也令该地区的未来陷入了重重疑问。


For example, in August 2011, a jihadi group from Gaza seized control of an Egyptian outpost on Israel’s border and killed eight Israeli civilians.	比如，2011年8月，来自加沙的一个圣战团体夺取了埃及在埃以边境上的一个哨所，杀死了八名以色列公民。


Their objective was to damage further the Israeli-Egyptian relationship, which is already more fragile than ever, and they succeeded: the IDF accidentally killed several Egyptian soldiers during the incident.	他们的目的是进一步破坏已处于史上最脆弱状态的埃以关系，并获得了成功：在该事件中，IDF无意中杀死了几名埃及士兵。


The Egyptian security forces’ subsequent failure to prevent demonstrators from storming Israel’s embassy in Cairo brought matters to the brink of calamity.	接着，埃及安全部队没能阻止示威者扫荡埃及驻开罗大使馆，事态遂走向千钧一发。


The uncertainty and disorder that have plagued Egypt for the last 18 months are fueling increasing lawlessness in Sinai.	在过去18个月中折磨着埃及的不确定性和无序性正在加速西奈半岛的逍遥法外之势。


Last month, a pipeline carrying Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan was bombed – the 15th such attack since Mubarak’s regime was toppled – and remains out of commission.	上个月，一条从埃及向以色列和约旦输送天然气的管道发生爆炸——这是穆巴拉克政权倒台以来的第15起类似事件——至今没有修复使用。


There are four principal actors in this arena: Israel, Egypt, Hamas, and the Sinai jihadis.	该地区共用四个主要行动方：以色列、埃及、哈马斯和西奈圣战者。


Israel wants, first and foremost, peace and stability.	以色列最大的愿望是和平和稳定。


To this end, Israeli leaders expect Egypt’s government to reestablish its authority in Sinai, and, despite the peace treaty’s provisions, have agreed to Egyptian requests to increase its military presence in the region.	在这方面，以色列领导人希望埃及政府重掌对西奈半岛的控制权，并在和平条约之外允许埃及方面要求向西奈地区增兵的要求。


Moreover, Israel has practically abandoned any hope of receiving agreed gas supplies from Egypt, and has not pressed its demand that Egypt block the passage of sophisticated weapons to Gaza.	此外，以色列实际上已经抛弃了从埃及获得协议供气的希望，也没有强烈要求埃及阻止向加沙输送高级武器的行动。


Israel is determined not to act against terrorist groups and infrastructure on Egypt’s territory.	以色列决定不对埃及领土上的恐怖主义集团和基础设施发动袭击。


And, in view of Hamas’s close links with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, whose political party backed Morsi’s successful presidential run, Israel has restrained its response to terrorist and rocket attacks from Gaza.	此外，在哈马斯与埃及穆斯林兄���会关系密切的问题上（隶属于后者的政党将穆尔西推上了总统宝座），以色列也保持了克制，没有对来自加沙的恐怖主义和火箭袭击反应过激。


But Egypt’s divided government has not established a correspondingly coherent policy.	但埃及陷入分裂的政府没有相应地采取一贯政策。


Relations with Israel are managed by the defense minister, now Lieutenant General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, and the military security establishment, whose leaders are determined to maintain a peaceful relationship with Israel and to secure Egyptian sovereignty in the Sinai.	对以关系的主管者是国防部长（现为赛斯（Abdul Fattah al-Sisi）中将）和军事安全部门（其领导人决定保持与以色列的和平关系并确保埃及对西奈半岛的主权）。


For them, the lawless Bedouin, the Sinai jihadis, and Hamas and other groups in Gaza threaten Egypt’s national security.	对他们来说，无法无天的贝多因人、西奈圣战者和哈马斯以及其他加沙集团威胁着埃及的国家安全。


But their will and ability to translate this view into policy are limited.	但他们将这一观点转变为政策的意愿和能力均有限。


Meanwhile, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are playing a double game.	与此同时，穆尔西和穆斯林兄弟会则在唱双簧。


While Morsi denounced the recent violence (particularly the deliberate killing of Egyptian policemen) and issued an implicit threat against Hamas, the Brotherhood published a statement accusing Israel’s Mossad of perpetrating the attack – a claim that Hamas’s Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismael Haniyeh, has repeated.	穆尔西谴责最近的暴力行为（特别是故意杀害埃及警察的行为）并暗示将威胁哈马斯，而穆斯林兄弟会则发表声明谴责以色列摩萨德操作了这起袭击，哈马斯加沙总理哈尼亚（Ismael Haniyeh）重申了这一点。


In fact, Hamas, too, is playing a double game.	事实上，哈马斯也在唱双簧。


Having lost Syrian backing, it is hoping that the Egyptian Brothers will provide its kindred movement with political and logistical support.	在失去了叙利亚的支持后，哈马斯希望埃及穆斯林兄弟会能向志同道合的自己提供政治和物流支持。


Yet it allows radical Palestinians and jihadi groups in Gaza to conduct operations in Sinai.	但同时它又放任加沙的激进巴勒斯坦和圣战集团在西奈半岛多行不义。


The fourth actor, the Sinai jihadis, comprises primarily Bedouins, whose distinct origins and long-time marginalization have led some to identify with radical Islamist groups (often while working in the Arabian Peninsula).	第四大行动方，即西奈圣战者，主要由贝多因人组成，他们的血统与埃及人大相径庭，且长期遭遇边缘化待遇，这使得他们当中一些人加入了激进伊斯兰主义集团（同时在阿拉伯半岛活动）。


While this group’s primary goal is to undermine Israel-Egypt relations, they do not shy away from operating directly against the Egyptian state.	这类人的主要目标是破坏埃以关系，但也不放过直接侵扰埃及的机会。


Given their strategic location, Sinai jihadis could easily be used by larger terrorist networks to target strategically vital locations, such as the Suez Canal.	由于他们活动与战略性要地，因此西奈圣战者很容易被更大的恐怖主义网络利用来针对具有战略重要性的设施，比如苏伊士运河。


Egypt’s government was humiliated and incensed by the recent terrorist provocation.	最近的恐怖主义挑衅活动让埃及政府恼羞成怒。


But it is too early to tell whether its security crackdown in Sinai is a one-time operation, intended to placate angry citizens, or the beginning of a serious effort to address the interconnected problems in Sinai and Gaza.	但现在就断言其在西奈半岛的安全打击行动是否一时之计，只是为了安抚公民的愤怒，还是作为纠正西奈半岛和加沙地区错综复杂问题的严肃举措还为时过早。


It is also too early to tell whether Morsi’s shakeup in Cairo was related to, or expedited by, the Sinai events.	同样，现在就断言穆尔西在开罗的敲山震虎是否与西奈半岛诸事件有关（或因这些事件而加速）也还为时过早。


But Sinai’s explosive potential clearly has been increased by the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover.	但西奈半岛的火药桶潜质显然因为穆斯林兄弟会的掌权而变大了。


Israel’s longstanding channel of communication with Egypt through the military has disappeared, and may or may not be replaced by a similar channel.	以色列与埃及通过军事的长期交流渠道已经消失了，会不会有类似的渠道取而代之，答案是两可的。


Hamas and the Bedouins in Sinai have most likely been emboldened by the latest developments in Cairo.	西奈半岛的贝多因人很可能因开罗局势的最新动态而蠢蠢欲动。


But, as Egypt’s domestic politics take their course, Israel, which has had to tread softly in its relationship with Egypt and in Sinai since January 2011, will have to behave with even greater sensitivity in the days ahead.	但是，随着埃及国内政坛渐稳，自2011年1月以来一直不得不对对埃及关系以及西奈半岛问题实行软处理的以色列在未来将不得不更加小心翼翼地采取行动。


The Single Mother Makeover	单身母亲大变身


NEW YORK – In the 1992 United States presidential election, George H. W. Bush’s campaign made a political splash by going after the television show Murphy Brown – one of the first times, but far from the last, that a fictitious character was introduced to score political points in America.	纽约——1992年总统选举中，乔治·H·W·布什在竞选活动中对电视剧墨菲·布朗的批判引发了一场政治轰动，这种借助虚拟人物在美国攫取政治积分的做法算得上是史无前例，但却绝对不是后无来者。


Murphy Brown, played by actress Candice Bergen, was a TV anomaly at that time: a sympathetically portrayed single mother.	该剧以同情的笔触描绘了一位单身母亲墨菲·布朗（由女演员坎迪丝·伯根扮演），诸如此类的角色算得上当时电视中的异类。


So Bush’s vice president, Dan Quayle, attacked the show for normalizing rather than stigmatizing single motherhood.	布什也因此指责这部电视剧将单身母亲表现得司空见惯，而没有对这种现象加以指责。


Much hand-wringing followed, with single mothers (never, at that time, single fathers) cast as harbingers of doom for core American values.	在一阵手足无措后，单身母亲被当作美国核心价值观的末日先兆扔进了垃圾桶（当时的单身父亲却没有经历同样的厄运）。


The implication was that selfish me-first feminists (if they were affluent white women) or feckless social parasites (if they were low-income women of color) were putting their own interests above their children’s.	其中暗藏的潜台词是惟我独尊的自私的女权主义者（如果她们是富裕的白人女性）或无能的社会寄生虫（如果她们是低收入的有色族裔妇女）将自己的利益凌驾于孩子的利益之上。


Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s widely reprinted study The Negro Family: The Case for National Action painted a picture of single motherhood as the primary instigator of inner-city and especially African-American criminality, illiteracy, and drug use.	丹尼尔·帕特里克·莫尼汉的论文黑人家庭：国家行动案例被媒体疯狂转载，他在这篇文章中把单身母亲描绘成导致中心城区、特别是非洲裔美国人犯罪、目不识丁和吸毒的主要因素。


How times have changed.	时代发生了多么大的变化。


Just as single mothers were irrationally castigated then, so today an equally irrational hagiography has risen around them.	正如单身母亲当时被无理申斥一样，今天她们又受到同样无理的追捧。


(Europe has more single mothers than the US, but, characteristically, has less need to moralize about them one way or the other).	（欧洲单身母亲的数量超过美国，但却不需要以这样或那样的方式在单身母亲的问题上进行说教。


In US pop culture, the single mother has evolved from selfish yuppie or drug-dazed slut into a woman who is more fun, slightly more heroic, and certainly less frumpy than her married counterpart.	）而在美国的流行文化中，单身母亲已经从自私的雅皮士或沉迷于毒品的贱人逐渐演变为更加有趣、更富英雄色彩、而且肯定不像已婚女性那样不修边幅的女性形象。


Indeed, single mothers are the new maternal ideal – women whose maternal drive is so selfless and intense that they choose to raise children even under the burden of their solitary status.	事实上，单身母亲成就了新的母性理想——她们的母性冲动是如此无私和热烈，以至于她们能够在孤立的重压下独自承担起抚养子女的义务。


Angelina Jolie’s photo spread with her toddler son, adopted from Cambodia, in Vanity Fair heralded this shift: the sexy young woman and her son in a luxurious hotel bedroom made single motherhood look fun and glamorous.	变化的始作俑者是《名利场》杂志刊登安吉丽娜·朱莉与她蹒跚学步儿子的合影，这个孩子是她从柬埔寨领养的：性感的年轻女人与她的儿子一起待在豪华的酒店卧室，这让单身母亲看上去既有趣又光彩夺目。


Suddenly Hollywood stars and starlets who were otherwise unattached began to sprout little offspring: Calista Flockhart, who played TV’s ultimate desperate childless single woman, adopted a son – and, like a fairy tale, later met and married Harrison Ford.	一时间单身的好莱坞明星和刚崭露头角的年轻女星身边开始出现各式各样的小孩：在电视上扮演最绝望的无子单身女性的卡莉斯塔·弗洛克哈特领养了一个儿子，而后发生的事情像童话故事一样，她邂逅哈里森·福特并与之结合。


Kourtney Kardashian of the reality show The Kardashians had a baby as an “unwed mother” – a stigmatizing term that has gone out of fashion – and is depicted as bravely holding down the fort and staying up all night with feedings as the child’s irresponsible father parties.	写实节目卡尔达石一家中的科特尼·卡尔达石是一位“未婚妈妈”，这是一个已经过时的污辱性字眼，节目中的她勇敢承担了别人犯下的错误，在孩子不负责任的父亲在外面花天酒地时整夜不睡给孩子无微不至的照顾。


The tale of Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, has also been spun as a tale of an admirable single mother and a loser father.	萨拉·佩林的女儿布里斯托尔的故事被当作令人敬佩的单身母亲和失败父亲的范例被人们广为传诵。


When they split up, the story line cast the heroic young mother against what was often depicted as the beer-drinking, immature dad.	他们分手时，故事中的年轻母亲与满身酒气的幼稚父亲形成了鲜明的对照。


Even Jennifer Aniston, whom Brad Pitt left because she did not want kids, now sighs in interviews, as she nears 42, that she has stopped waiting for Prince Charming, and that she, too, could be ready to adopt and go it alone.	就连因为不想要孩子而遭布拉德·皮特离弃的珍妮弗·安妮斯顿现在也在采访中连声叹息，42岁的她已经不再等待自己的梦中情人，她准备领养一个孩子，并独自承担起抚养的义务。


Likewise, advertisements for convenience food and insurance – which used to feature only intact nuclear families – have begun to showcase single mothers lovingly spooning out meatballs, or protectively buying a life-insurance policy.	同样，过去只以完整核心家庭形象示人的方便食品和保险广告也开始改变，开始展现单身母亲慈爱地用汤匙舀起鲜美的肉丸，或者为保护子女而购买一份人寿保单的场景。


The glorification of single mothers represents a collective exasperation on the part of women in America – and women who make decisions in the mainstream media.	美化单身母亲的潮流反映出美国女性——特别是主流媒体决策层女性的一种集体愤怒。


The 1990’s produced a demeaning narrative of women waiting in frustration as their “biological clocks” ticked, cursing themselves for putting career first at the expense of finding Mr. Right and having children.	20世纪90年代出品了很多贬低女性的影片，片中的女性在“生物钟”的滴答声中绝望地等待，咒骂自己年轻时把事业放在第一位，而错过了找到合适伴侣结婚生子的机会。


In a post-sexual revolution world of marriage-shy men, women would supposedly do anything to secure the blessings of a wedded father for their children.	在男性羞于谈婚论嫁的后性革命时代，人们普遍认为女人应该不惜一切代价让她们的孩子能得到合法父亲的关爱。


The message from the media was one of constant nagging and blame, such as the famous Newsweek cover that asserted (wrongly) that an older single woman had more likelihood of being in a terrorist attack than of finding a husband.	媒体上永远充斥着唠叨和埋怨，比如著名的新闻周刊封面，竟然荒谬地声称单身老女人遇到恐怖袭击的概率大于找到丈夫的概率。


The whole narrative, as the writer Susan Faludi correctly perceived, was not about marriage at all; it reflected a backlash against feminism.	按照作家苏珊·法吕迪德理解，整篇文章根本与婚姻无关，它所体现的是对女权主义的敌意和仇视。


At some point, women became powerful enough that they collectively rejected the high social value this narrative placed on a male offer of a ring and flipped the stereotype on its head.	有些时候，女人们会变得异常强悍，她们会集体拒绝这篇报导中所珍视的男性为女性奉上结婚戒指的传统价值观。


It started to occur to women that they could be employed and have a family – and that it could even be pretty nice.	女人们开始意识到她们可以工作家庭两不误——这甚至可以成为她们追求的理想状态。


Glamorizing single motherhood is not realistic, but it allows female pop culture to express a revenge fantasy at all the potential husbands and fathers who walked away, or who were not the dream husband and father after all, or who wanted the sex but not the kids and the tuition bills.	赞美单身母亲的生活并不现实，但它却使女性流行文化能够对所有逃避责任的丈���和父亲、不符合女性梦想的丈夫和父亲、只要性爱不要孩子和学费帐单的丈夫和父亲表达复仇的愿望。


When Bill O’Reilly of Fox News recently accused Aniston of making a movie about single motherhood – The Switch – that seems to say “to a twelve or thirteen year old girl, ‘You don’t need a man,’” he is right.	当福克斯新闻的比尔·奥雷利最近指责安妮斯顿拍摄的一部描绘单身母亲的影片——播种爱情——似乎在对十二三岁的女孩子们说，‘你们不需要男人’时，他其实是对的。


These images do appeal to overworked, exasperated, baby-hungry women who may have spent years waiting for “the offer,” telling them that, in fact, you don’t need a man.	这样的形象的确能够吸引那些过度操劳、长时间等待有人求婚、急着想要孩子的恼怒女人，告诉她们实际上你们不需要男人。


This trend hardly signifies the end of civilization as we know it; all things being equal, most women would still prefer the simple fantasy of a supportive partner in childrearing.	这种潮流并非我们所熟知的文明的末日，在同等条件下，多数女人仍然愿意沉醉于分娩时身边有伴侣支持的简单梦想。


But the new image of single mothers – and of single motherhood – does show that it is getting harder – if not almost impossible – to coerce women by trying to fix upon them the scarlet letter.	但单身母亲的新形象的确显示，即使不是完全不可能，强迫女人背负红字的难度也越来越大。


Nationalism, Madness, and Terrorism	民族主义、疯狂行为和恐怖主义


BOSTON – If we want to understand what drove the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to terrorism, the answer almost certainly does not lie in Dagestan, where the brothers lived before moving to the United States, or in the two wars fought in Chechnya in the last 20 years.	波士顿——如果想了解波士顿马拉松赛爆炸案嫌疑人塔梅兰和焦哈尔·察尔纳耶夫的恐怖动机，肯定不能从两兄弟移民美国前居住的达吉斯坦、以及过去20年车臣爆发的那两场战争中寻找原因。


Instead, a key to the Tsarnaevs’ behavior may perhaps be found in developments in England 500 years ago.	相反，500年前英国的发展或许可以提供察尔纳耶夫所作所为的关键解释。


Several new phenomena appeared in sixteenth-century England that revolutionized human experience.	十六世纪英格兰的新气象彻底改变了人类体验。


English society was redefined as a “nation” – that is, a sovereign community of equal members.	英国社会被重新定义为“国家”——也就是由平等成员构成的主权社会。


With that, the era of nationalism began, and social mobility became legitimate.	这标志着国家主义时代的开始，社会地位的变动也变得合理合法。


At the same time, a special variety of mental illness was first observed, which we would later call schizophrenia and depressive disorders – different from a multitude of mental illnesses already known.	在此时期首次发现了不同于已知精神病患的特殊精神病，也就是我们后来常说的精神分裂症和抑郁症。


It called into being a new term, “madness,” the first medical specialization (eventually named “psychiatry”), and special legislation regarding the “mad.”	最终被命名为“精神病学”的首个医疗专业和“精神失常”等新名词应运而生，此外还有关于“精神失常”的特殊立法。


Madness expressed itself in degrees of mental impairment, the common symptoms of which were chronic discomfort in one’s environment (social maladjustment), uncertainty about oneself, oscillation between self-loathing and megalomania, and sometimes a complete loss of identity.	精神失常表现为某种程度的精神障碍，常见症状包括对环境长期不适应（社会适应不良）、对自身不确定、在自我厌弃和妄自尊大间摇摆不定及某些情况下自我认知的彻底丧失。


Suicide became common, and the nature of violent crime changed, with a new type – irrational and unconnected to self-interest – becoming increasingly prevalent.	自杀现象屡见不鲜，暴力犯罪的性质也在悄然发生变化，新型非理性和无关自身利益的暴力行为变得越来越普遍。


These phenomena were connected.	这些现象是有联系的。 国家主义允许社会地位变动；


It was nationalism that legitimated mobility; the two of them together that produced madness; and the new mental disease that expressed itself in suicide and irrational violence.	两者的共同作用造就了精神失常； 而自杀和非理性暴力则是新精神疾病的表现形式。


Nationalism implied a specific image of society and reality in general – a consciousness that was to become the cultural framework of modernity.	国家主义代表着社会及现实普遍的具体形象——一种即将成为现代文化架构的意识。


In its original, English, form it was essentially democratic.	其原有的英式风格本质上符合民主特征。


As it spread, it carried the seeds of democracy everywhere.	它的传播把民主的种子撒向世界各地。


By considering a living community sovereign, nationalism implicitly but drastically reduced the relevance of God; even when combined with religion and presented in a religious idiom, it was essentially secular.	崇尚鲜活社会主权的国家主义含蓄而又彻底地削弱了上帝的地位； 即便与宗教融合并以宗教用语的形式出现，也无法改变其根本的世俗性质。


National consciousness, dramatically different from the fundamentally religious, hierarchical consciousness that it replaced, shapes how we live today.	国家意识从根本上有别于它所取代的宗教等级意识，决定了今天的生活方式。


Nationalist principles emphasize the self-governing individual, including the right to choose one’s social position and identity.	国家主义原则强调个人自治，包括自主选择社会地位及身份的权利。


But this liberty, empowering and encouraging the individual to choose what to be, complicates identity formation.	但这种授权并鼓励个人选择定位的自由使得身份的形成变得愈加复杂化。


A member of a nation cannot learn who or what s/he is from the environment, as would an individual in a religious and rigidly stratified social order, in which everyone’s position and behavior is defined by birth and divine providence.	与出身和天意决定地���和举止的僵化宗教社会秩序不同，公民成员无法借助所处的环境明确界定自我身份信息。


Modern culture cannot provide us with the consistent guidance that other cultures give to their members.	现代文化对民众提供的一贯指引与其他文化根本无法相比。


By providing inconsistent guidance (for we are inevitably guided by our cultural environment), nationalism actively disorients us – a cultural insufficiency called anomie.	因为不能提供一贯的指导原则（因为不可避免地要按照文化环境的指引行事），国家主义实际让我们迷失方向，形容这种文化缺陷的就是俗称失范的名词。


Because a clear sense of identity is a necessary condition for adequate mental functioning, malformation of identity leads to discomfort with one’s self and social maladjustment, reaching clinical proportions among the more fragile of us.	明确的认同感是心理正常活动的必要条件，因此身份定位畸形会导致社会适应不良和内心不安，并有可能在脆弱人群中诱发精神疾患。


That is why the addition of madness to the roster of familiar mental illnesses coincided with the emergence of nationalism.	这就解释了为什么精神失常会和已有精神疾患一起随民族主义的诞生而出现。


The more choices for the definition of one’s identity that a society offers – and the more insistent it is on equality – the more problematic the formation of identity in it becomes.	一个社会赋予的身份选择机会越多，对平等的坚持越迫切，身份的形成过程就会愈加困难。


That is why the most open and freest society today, the Unites States, leads the world in rates of severe mental disease – supplanting England, yesterday’s freest and most open society.	这也说明为什么今天最开放自由的美国社会取代了昨天最开放自由的英国社会，登上了严重精神病患者比例世界第一的宝座。


Indeed, foreigners at one time considered madness “the English malady.”	事实上，外国人曾一度把精神失常视为“英国病”。


Most examples of violent crime by mentally ill people were committed first in England, and then in the US, often seeming politically motivated, even when mediated by religion.	精神病患者暴力犯罪的多数实例相继发生在英国和美国，即便有宗教因素裹挟其中，往往也看似出于政治动机。


The first such case was likely that of Peter Berchet, a young Protestant, who felt that he had to kill the royal councilor Christopher Hatton, also a Protestant, whom Berchet believed to be a Catholic sympathizer.	始作俑者或许是年轻新教徒彼得·博切特，他感到自己必须杀死同为新教徒、但却同情天主教的皇家委员克里斯托弗·哈顿。


Attempting to answer this calling, Berchet murdered another Protestant whom he mistook for Hatton.	为了响应自己内心的呼唤，博切特杀害了另一位被误以为哈顿的新教徒。


To all appearances the act of a Puritan fanatic, the authorities suspected Berchet of being a part of an organized Puritan conspiracy.	因为表面看去像极了清教徒的狂热行为，当局怀疑博切特参与了一场有组织的清教徒阴谋。


He was to be questioned to divulge the names of his co-conspirators and then executed.	他在审讯中被要求提供同谋者的名字，随后被执行死刑。


But it was quickly revealed, instead, that he was suffering from a “nawghtye mallenchollye.”	但后来很快发现他是一名严重精神病（nawghtye mallenchollye）患者。


It was as natural for an Elizabethan Protestant to see the cause of his mental discomfort in a government overrun by Catholic sympathizers as it is for someone with a Muslim connection in the US today to see this cause in America as the embodiment of Western offenses against the faith.	今天美国有穆斯林背景的人把自己精神不健康的原因归咎于西方世界对伊斯兰教的不敬就像伊丽莎白时代的新教徒把自己的精神问题归咎于政府中充斥着天主教同情者一样的顺理成章。


Blaming one’s existential discomfort on external factors is a kind of self-therapy.	将个人的生存不适归咎于外部原因是一种自我疗法。


A story is constructed, which rationalizes one’s discomfort as reflecting an awareness of some general evil.	患者编造一个故事，将自身的不适应归结为由某种普遍的邪恶现象。


One may then join an organization committed to fighting that evil or be impelled to act on one’s own – to the point of committing murder.	患者之后就可以加入某个与邪恶斗争的组织，也可能听从内心的召唤单独采取行动——甚至不惜进行谋杀。


The thinking behind such acts bears the most distinctive mark of delusion: the loss of the understanding of the symbolic nature of human reality, confusing symbols and their referents, and seeing people in terms of what they represent.	此类行为背后的思想具有最鲜明的妄想标志：无法理解人类现实的象征性质、混淆符号及其指代对象、把人看作为某种势力的代表。


It is precisely this modern irrationality – a product of modernity itself – that the terrorist attack launched by the Tsarnaev brothers reflected.	察尔纳耶夫兄弟发动恐怖袭击恰恰反映了这样的现代非理性，这也是现代化本身的产物。


The Slave Ethos and the African Economy	奴隶特质和非洲经济


DAKAR – The slump in prices for Africa’s natural resources, which led to chronic deficits in the past, has been reversed.	发自达喀尔——由于自然资源价格低迷，非洲国家长期遭受财政赤字之苦，但如今这种局面已经被彻底扭转了。


Consumption, fueled by huge Asian demand for African commodities, is on the rise across the continent.	由亚洲对非洲商品的庞大需求所推动的消费正不断激增。


For much of Africa, this turn of events should mark a decisive break with endemic poverty.	对大多数非洲国家来说，这意味着一个解决典型非洲式贫困问题的决定性契机已经到来。


But, unless African leaders change their ways, it will not.	但如果各国领导人还是依照自己的老一套行事的话，这个机会就会被挥霍掉。


Africa is estimated to hold more than 10% of global oil reserves and one-third of reserves of cobalt and base metals.	非洲的原油储量约为全世界的10%，钴以及贱金属的储量则占世界的1/3。


South Africa alone possesses 40% of the world’s gold, which has been skyrocketing in value since the onset of the global financial crisis.	仅南非一国就坐拥全世界80%的黄金储量，而金价自全球金融危机爆发之后就居高不下。


Africa’s agricultural potential has barely been touched.	此外，非洲的农业潜力也是不可估量的。


Long-term global demand for Africa’s commodities, land, and manpower is unlikely to diminish.	全球对非洲商品，土地和人力资源的需求在一个长时期内都不会减少。


China, which has increased trade with Africa five-fold since 2003, has played a leading role in this turnaround, which has encouraged investors from elsewhere, including Europe and the United States, to rethink their approach to investing in Africa.	而作为这一新形势的领导者，中国在过去7年内将中非贸易额提升了5倍，并促使包括欧美在内的世界各国重新思考自身对非洲的投资手段，最终为非洲地区带来了高达数十亿美元的持续投资。


This has translated into a steady flow of multibillion-dollar investments in the region.	世界货币基金组织因此预计撒哈拉以南非洲本年度GDP增长率将达到4.


As a result, the IMF forecasts 4.7% GDP growth in sub-Saharan Africa this year, rising to nearly 6% in 2011.	7%，而明年则继续上升到约6%。


Unfortunately, however, while the direction of Africa’s trade may be changing, its composition – raw-material exports and manufactured imports – is not.	然而不幸的是，虽然非洲贸易的整体风向已经转变，但其内部构成——原材料出口和制成品进口——却没有改变。


In the half-century since colonialism ended (for the most part), sub-Saharan Africa has experienced many false dawns.	自殖民时代在非洲大陆结束近半个世纪以来，撒哈拉以南非洲总是在希望与失望之间徘徊。


One remembers the 1960’s, when the global economy’s “long boom”gave Africa a chance to save its surpluses, invest in value-added industries, and increase productivity. Instead, Africa squandered the opportunity on consumption of foreign goods.	1960年代的全球经济腾飞曾为非洲提供了一个积累财政盈余，投资高附加值工业以及提高生产力的机会，但非洲却沉溺于对外国商品的消费中，白白浪费了这个机会。


This pattern of behavior conforms to some of the worst undertakings of Africa’s elite.	而这种行为模式恰恰源自于非洲统治精英的某些最恶劣的作为。


Hundreds of years ago, many African kings effectively engaged with the West’s rising imperial powers to halt the growth of indigenous industry in pre-colonial Africa.	数百年前，许多非洲封建君主不遗余力地充当西方帝国的帮凶，拼命扼杀殖民时代之前的非洲本土工业。


Instead of having their peoples begin to manufacture their own goods, these rulers chose to import them from Europe in exchange for their own subjects – or the subjects of neighboring rulers – whom they exported as slaves.	这些统治者不让人民生产自己的商品，反而从欧洲进口商品，用来交换的则是他们自己的占有物——或是邻国统治者的占有物——黑奴。


Back then, imported goods consisted mainly of beads, alcohol, and, most importantly, weapons, which enabled these rulers to exercise extreme violence over their people.	在那时候，进口的货物主要是玻璃粉，酒，其中最重要的要数武器，因为统治者需要用它来对民众实施极端暴力统治。


It was a system that no doubt worked to the benefit of Africa’s partners. But it would not have existed without the active and willing participation of African elites.	虽然整个贸易系统无疑都是为西方列强的利益服务的，但没有了非洲统治精英的大力配合，这个系统是不可能存在的。


When slavery was abolished in the mid-nineteenth century, the terms of these rulers’ partnership with Western colonizers changed from trade in slaves to trade in commodities.	在奴隶制在19世纪中期被废除之后，这些统治者与西方合作的形式就从奴隶贸易转变成商品贸易。


After independence in the early 1960’s, during the Cold War, many African rulers played the West against the Soviet bloc to retain their predatory economies.	在1960年代早期冷战期间的独立运动中，许多非洲统治者为了维护其掠夺性统治而加入对抗苏联的美国阵营。


Today, they pursue the same goal with the help mainly of China, but also of Iran, Venezuela, and occasionally India and Brazil.	时至今日，在中国，伊朗，委内瑞拉，甚至有时是印度和巴西的帮助下，他们的统治依然在继续。


Elite networks continue to conspire with foreign interests to cannibalize their economies and retain the perquisites of power: fleets of luxury cars, private jets, bank accounts in tax havens, overseas properties, consumer goods, weaponry, etc.	非洲的精英网络继续与外国利益同流合污，一面挖空本国经济，一面享受特权：豪华汽车，私人飞机，在逃税天堂的巨额存款，海外资产，高档消费品和武器等。


Their contempt for local products extends to health and education: rather than invest in these vital sectors, Africa’s rulers use private overseas healthcare and schools for themselves and their children.	他们对本地产品的轻视蔓延到了卫生和教育方面，他们不在本国对这些部门追加投资，而是设法让自己和子女们在国外享受私人医疗和教育。


This culture of exploiting Africa’s human and natural resources at will – not through entrepreneurial endeavor and wealth creation, but by means of predatory politics – is deeply entrenched.	这种肆意开发人力和自然资源——不是通过商业行动和财富创造，而是利用掠夺性统治——的做法在非洲根深蒂固。


Indeed, the few trade unionists, intellectuals, and others who challenge these regimes usually do not seek to change how the state functions, but rather to ensure that, as they put it, they get their “turn to eat.”	事实上，极少数敢于挑战这类统治的工人运动成员和知识分子也不是想改变整个系统，而只是想从中分一杯羹而已。


One might expect that national and international non-governmental organizations would fill the gap. Not so.	对此有人寄望于各国国内或国际的非政府组织能填补这一空白，但事实并非如此。


If a few NGOs have achieved great results fighting the ills of Africa’s poor, the vast majority are perceived as either a “fifth column” of the West or a refuge for fringe members of the elite who use widespread poverty as another source of lucre.	倘若某个非政府组织在贫困人口医疗问题上取得了较大的成绩，那么大多数人就会视之为西方阴谋破坏的“第五纵队”，或者是某个利用大规模贫困做为生财之道的精英的遮羞布。


According to estimates published in the Financial Times on June 1st, at least $854 billion (€702.6 billion) have been siphoned from Africa since 1970 in cumulative capital flight.	据今年7月1日英国《金融时报》的报道，自1970年以来非洲资本外逃总额至少达8540亿美元（折合7026亿欧元）。


However, this cost is nothing compared to the scars associated with Africans being seen around the world as the “wretched of the earth.”	但相比于那些令非洲被全世界公认为“地球之耻”的苦难来说，这些金钱还是微不足道的。


Apart from war-ravaged regions, only Africa has so many young people – some 60% of the population – who are prepared to brave any danger to flee their land.	因为除了那些战乱地区之外，只有非洲有如此庞大的青年人群体——占总人口的60%——随时准备冒一切危险逃离家园。


However sad and painful it is to admit, a fleet of slave ships docking on Africa’s shores today would be overrun by willing would-be deportees.	我也不得不沉痛的地承认，如果当今还有一支数量庞大的运奴船队停泊在非洲海岸的话，那么船上肯定会满载着偷渡者。


At the turn of the millennium, a meeting of African church leaders convened on the Senegalese island of Gorée to urge Africans to assess their share of responsibility for the slave trade.	在千年之交，一场在塞内加尔戈雷岛（著名奴隶贸易遗址）召开的非洲宗教领袖会议就呼吁非洲人认清自身对那段奴隶贸易史所负有的责任。


The call went unheeded, in keeping with the general atmosphere of self-denial surrounding the issue.	但这个呼吁却遭到了忽视，因为与那种强调那种黑人自我牺牲的总体氛围背道而驰。


Historians and others who venture to break the silence are lambasted as traitors to the black cause.	而那些试图打破沉默的历史学家和个人则被视为黑人种族的叛徒。


Yet the truth cannot be denied.	但真相是无法被掩盖的。


Africa faces a crisis of leadership and governance, owing to a dysfunctional ethos.	非洲正面临着领导和治理方面的危机，而这种危机则来自于一种导致政府机能失调的精神特质。


If Africans want to change this, they cannot spare themselves a collective debate about their elites’ complicity in widespread impoverishment.	如果非洲人试图改变这一点的话，他们就必须展开集体反思：在这场大规模贫困中，那些本土精英们究竟负有何种程度的合谋责任。


The Sleeping Volcano of Global Finance	全球财政的沉睡火山


The rejection of the European Union’s Constitutional Treaty by French and Dutch voters was, according to all evidence, more a rejection of unregulated globalization than it was a rejection of Europe.	从各种迹象来看，欧盟宪法条约在法国和荷兰遭遇否决一事与其说是对欧洲的拒绝还不如说是对缺乏管理的全球化的不满。


The general instability of social relations – most importantly, but not only, of employment – is slowly becoming intolerable for a growing part of the population in many developed countries, not just in Europe.	在包括欧洲的许多发达国家中，以“就业”为首的一系列社会关系的动荡对于越来越多的人来说正慢慢变得不可忍受。


And there cannot be a stable economic order – at least not in democratic countries – if electorates reject its underpinnings.	如果选民反对某种经济体系的基础，那么就不可能出现一个稳定的经济秩序——至少在民主国家不会。