Health-care costs in the US are exorbitant, with low value for money. One can only hope that “Obamacare,” together with the models being implemented by the US’s future competitors, will nudge the US to adopt a long overdue universal, publicly financed health-care system.	美国医疗保健费用非常昂贵，效益低下，所以人们只能寄希望于“奥巴马医改”模型及美国未来的竞争对手实施的改革方案，希望这些方案会推动美国建立长期逾期而未曾兑现的政府资助的普遍卫生保健系统。


Don’t Follow The Fed	莫学美联储


The US Federal Reserve faces a dilemma, for it needs to continue raising interest rates in the face of a hurricane-devastated economy.	美联储面临着两难的困境，因为它需要在美国经济遭到飓风摧残的时候继续提高利率。


The Fed’s failure to raise rates earlier thus holds a powerful lesson for the European Central Bank: after a prolonged period of monetary stability at unusually low interest rates, waiting too long to raise rates to more normal and appropriate levels holds dangerous consequences.	欧洲央行也需要借鉴美联储未能尽早提息的教训：在漫长的低利率货币稳定期过后，迟迟不把利率提高到更为正常和恰当的水平很可能带来危险的后果。


The Fed was late in beginning the interest-rate normalization process, and it is now paying a price.	美联储迟迟不肯开始利率正常化的过程，现在它要为此付出代价。


The ECB must not make the same mistake, even bearing in mind that the two central banks operate in different milieus and under different constraints.	即便与美联储有着不同的经营环境和限制条件，欧洲央行也绝不能犯同样的错误。


Warning signs of impending inflation abound across the euro zone.	欧元区内，到处可以看到通货膨胀即将开始的警示迹象。


Money-supply growth has been well above target levels for some time now, indicating excess liquidity.	一段时间以来，货币供应的增长远远超过了目标水准，这是流动能力过强的信号。


September headline inflation, at 2.6%, is above the ECB’s 2% target – as is the latest forecast for 2006 inflation (updated forecasts will be released at the beginning of December).	9月份的通胀指数超过了欧洲央行2%的目标，达到了2. 6%¾对2006年通胀的最新预测也是如此（12月初将公布最新的预测结果）。


“The period of wage moderation may be coming to an end,” warns Otmar Issing, the ECB’s chief economist, implying that soaring energy prices may now be feeding through into the overall price level (so-called “second-round effects”).	“薪金稳定期可能正在接近尾声，”欧洲央行首席经济学家易辛发出警告，暗示着飞速上涨的能源价格可能正在向整个价格体系内部渗透（这就是所谓的“次轮效应”）。


In these circumstances, there is no good reason to wait to raise interest rates.	在上述情况下，当然找不到延迟提高利率的理由。


The longer energy prices remain at their current lofty levels, the greater the probability that inflationary expectations will increase and that second-round effects will materialize.	能源价格居高不下的时间越长，就越有可能引发通货膨胀，次轮效应就越有可能成为现实。


Further procrastination on interest-rate normalization by the ECB could well lead to a nasty bout of inflation. This would be disastrous for Europe’s economic recovery, as the ECB would have no choice but to slam down hard on the monetary brakes.	欧洲央行进一步拖延利率正常化很可能引发激烈的通货膨胀，给欧洲经济复苏带来灾难性的后果，因为欧洲央行没有其它选择，只能猛踩货币政策的刹车。


No one wants this.	没有人愿意看到这样的状况。


Better a 50-basis-point increase now – thereby allowing the economic recovery to continue by keeping inflation in check – than triple or quadruple that figure down the road.	最好现在就提高50个基准点¾这样就能在控制通胀的同时允许经济继续恢复下去，也比今后让通货膨胀翻三番或四番强。


The old adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies with particular force to monetary policy.	古语说得好，“防患于未然”，这在货币政策领域的确是再贴切不过的。


Judging from the outcome of last month’s meeting of the ECB’s Governing Council, that “ounce of prevention” appears to be right around the corner for the euro-zone economy.	从上月举行的欧洲央行管理委员会讨论结果看，“预防措施”似乎马上就会在欧元区域内付诸实施。


Indeed, the pace of ECB warnings about the risks of inflation has quickened in recent months – the earlier “We are vigilant” became “We are particularly vigilant” in September, which became “Strong vigilance with regard to upside risks to price stability is warranted” in October.	实际上，欧洲央行近几个月已经加快了警告通胀危险的步伐¾早前的“我们要警惕”变成了9月份的“我们特别要警惕”，此后又变成了10月份的“要确保对价格稳定中上涨因素的强烈警惕”。


The Governing Council is in danger of running out of adjectives – as well as credibility – if it does not act soon.	如果仍然不采取行动，管理委员会就会冒着用尽形容词和丧失信誉的危险。


The tone of ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet’s comments in the Q & A section of the press conference following the October meeting was unusually hawkish.	欧洲央行行长让·克洛德·特里谢在10月会议后的新闻发布会上回答问题时态度少有的强硬。


Trichet appeared to be calling for a pre-emptive approach when he said, “We must not allow second-round effects to materialize.”	当说到“我们必须阻止次轮效果变为现实”时，特里谢似乎在呼吁人们采取未雨绸缪的措施。


For the first time, the ECB president was willing to admit publicly that the Governing Council had discussed the pros and cons of a rate hike at the meeting.	欧洲央行行长首次愿意当众承认管理委员会在会上讨论了提高利率带来的正面和负面影响。


Nonetheless, current interest rates were described as “still appropriate” in October, signaling that the ECB has not yet reached a decision to bite the bullet.	尽管如此，10月份的当前利率仍然被形容为“尚属合适”，这表明欧洲央行还没有下定忍辱负重的决心。


To be sure, an unexpected slowdown in economic activity or a strong rise in the value of the euro could postpone the inevitable rate hike.	可以肯定的是，出乎意料的经济增长放缓或欧元价值的大幅提升会推迟不可避免的利率飙升。


But what seems clear is that the ECB used the October press conference to warn politicians, trade unions, and the markets that its long period of monetary-policy inactivity is coming to an end.	但可以确定的是欧洲央行利用10月的新闻发布会来警告政治家、工会还有市场，宣布长期以来的消极货币政策已经走到了尽头。


The exit process has begun.	退出过程开始了。


Not everyone is happy with this news.	不是所有人都为此感到高兴。


Politicians – like Jacques Chirac in France, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, and ECOFIN (the finance ministers of the European Union’s member states) – continue to press for fixed, even lower, interest rates.	像法国的希拉克、意大利的贝卢斯科尼和欧盟成员国财政部长这样的政客就继续要求保持固定、甚至是更低的利率水平。


But it’s easy for politicians to be irresponsible about monetary policy.	但政治家很容易采用不负责任的货币政策。


They are not the ones who will be blamed for soaring prices, nor are they the ones who will have to force the inflation genie back into the bottle.	没有人会因为价格疯涨而责怪他们，他们也大可不必为把通胀魔鬼赶回到瓶子里去而煞费苦心。


By constantly pushing for lower interest rates than the ECB can deliver, politicians set the central bank up as a scapegoat for Europe’s poor economic performance.	通过逼迫央行出台低于实际状况的利率政策，政治家们把欧洲央行当成了经济不景气的替罪羊。


Europe is doing badly, they argue, not because of their own failure to lead the structural reform process, but because interest rates are too high.	他们争辩说，欧洲经济发展缓慢不是由于他们领导结构改革的失败，而是由于利率总是居高不下。


At the same time, the ECB does not need to go nearly as far as the Fed, which has raised interest rates in increments of 25 basis points at 12 consecutive meetings, with still more to come.	与此同时，欧洲央行用不着像美联储那样，连续12次开会把利率提高25个基本点，而且还要继续提高。


For the ECB, an increase of 50 basis points could do the job at this point – after which rates could probably be put on hold for some time.	对于欧洲央行来讲，一次提高50个基本点足可以应付目前的状况¾此后利率可以在相当一段时间内保持稳定。


The Fed waited too long to start the normalization process, and, because it was more aggressive in lowering rates in the downward phase of the interest-rate cycle, it has had to be more aggressive in raising them in the upward phase.	美联储等得实在太久，才启动了利率正常化的进程。 不仅如此，因为它在利率周期的下降阶段拼命地降低利率，所以在目前的上升阶段就必须花费更大的力气，才能把利率提高到恰当的水平。


This is not the type of volatile monetary policy that Europe wants or needs.	这与欧洲向往或需要的那种灵活的货币政策相去甚远。


Don’t Forget Wim Duisenberg’s Legacy	铭记Duisenberg的遗策


The most surprising and controversial thing about last December’s rate hike by the European Central Bank was that, after two and a half years of keeping interest rates at exceptionally low levels, the bank ventured an increase of only 25 basis points with no promise of more to come.	去年12月欧洲中央银行的利率提升中最让人意外也最具争议的一点就是：该行把利率从两年半以来的超低水平上，提高了仅25个基点，并没有承诺会进一步升息。


Political pressure on Europe’s central bank may be the reason for that timid move.	欧洲央行所承受的政治压力可能是造成这一怯懦举动的原因。


Jean-Claude Trichet, the current ECB president, may be in the same job but not the same environment as his predecessor Wim Duisenberg, who famously remarked, “I hear the politicians, but I don’t listen.”	欧洲央行的现任行长Jean-Claude Trichet与其前任Wim Duisenberg所处的环境达不相同。 这位前任曾说出“我听到政客们的言论，但却并不听从”这句名言。


Political pressure on the ECB today is much greater than in Duisenberg’s time.	而欧洲央行现在所承受的压力要比在Duisenberg的时代大得多。


The political environment is much more hostile.	政治环境也更为严酷。


Some of this pressure may be seeping through and affecting ECB policy decisions.	有些压力可能对欧洲央行的政策决策产生潜移默化的影响。


This is an extremely negative development – and one of the central bank’s biggest challenges for 2006.	这是一种极为负面的情况—也是欧洲央行2006年的最大挑战。 政客们的影响不仅可能造成货币过剩，而这对于一家以价格稳定为第一要务的中央银行而言是非常严重的。


Not only will politicians’ influence be towards monetary excess, which of course is a serious enough matter for a bank whose primary mandate is price stability, but also the excess will constitute a serious barrier to structural reform, which is essential for European prosperity in a competitive global economy.	这种过剩还会严重阻碍结构性改革。 而这一改革对于欧洲在充满竞争的全球经济中的繁荣至关重要。


Increasingly, Europe’s politicians regard excess liquidity and economic reform as substitutes for one another.	欧洲的政客们愈渐认为额外流动资金和经济改革可以相互替代。


The more the bank gives on liquidity, the less the politicians will do on reform.	央行越是提高货币流动性，政客们就越不肯在改革上花力气。


Duisenberg recognized this linkage and held firm.	Duisenberg认清了这种联系并坚持立场。


The ECB’s paltry rate hike in December, together with the supine promise of no plans for further monetary tightening, demonstrates that Trichet is no Duisenberg.	欧洲央行在12月份的微弱升息，加上没有进一步货币紧缩计划的乏力承诺，都表明Trichet不是Duisenberg。


Europe’s finance ministers have played a clever game with the ECB.	欧洲的财政部长们和欧洲央行进行了一场煞费苦心的搏弈。


Even though they were already resigned to a 25-basis-point rate increase, the politicians made a big show of being opposed to it, aiming to prevent what they really feared and what was certainly more warranted: a 50-basis-point hike and a warning of more on the way.	即便他们已经屈从了25基点的利率上升，但这些政客们仍然大张旗鼓地唱反调，其目的在于防止他们真正害怕而却更顺理成章的事发生：一次50基点的利率提升和未来进一步升息的警告。


Their strategy worked.	他们的战略奏效了。


Luxembourg’s finance minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, diplomatically declared after the December meeting that, “The result could have been worse.”	卢森堡的财政部长在12月会议之后以外交辞令宣称：“结果本来会更糟。 ”


Indeed, even the markets were fooled, giving the ECB a good grade for its unremarkable rate hike.	的确，就连市场也被愚弄了，它因为这一次毫不起眼的升息给了欧洲央行一个好分数。


Inflationary expectations, as measured by the rates on certain market instruments, actually fell after the hike, indicating increased confidence that the ECB will keep a lid on price pressures.	以某些市场工具指标来衡量的通胀预期在升息之后实际有所下降，表明市场对欧洲央行限制价格压力的信心增强。


Although the meager rate hike was presented as a consensus of the ECB’s Governing Council, it soon became apparent that the decision had been controversial.	虽然这次微不足道的升息以欧洲央行监管理事会的共识的形式出现，但事实很快表明这一决定是有争议的。


Some Council members, unhappy with Trichet’s dovish stance at the December press conference, made their displeasure known via the press soon after.	有些理事会成员对Trichet在12月新闻发布会上的鸽派立场感到不快，并在稍后通过媒体表达了他们的不满。


In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, for example, Bundesbank president Axel Weber made it clear that future rate hikes were very much on the table.	德国联邦银行行长Axel Weber在接受《法兰克福汇报》采访时明确地说未来的利率提升已经摆上了台面。


Others spoke out as well, and the futures markets quickly predicted another 25-basis-point rate hike in March.	其他成员也表明了观点，于是期货市场迅速做出反应，将三月份的期货价格提高了25个基点。


The consensus alleged at the December press conference simply did not exist.	Trichet在12月的新闻发布会上所声称的共识根本不存在。


With political pressures encroaching on the bank’s policy decisions and a faux consensus, it is not surprising that there is now nostalgia in Frankfurt for earlier times and for Wim Duisenberg, even among his former critics.	随着政治压力对欧洲央行政策决策的干预日益明显以及一个虚假的共识，现在的法兰克福弥漫着对过去的好日子和对Wim Duisenberg的怀念也不足为奇，就连他的那些前批评者们也有同感。


Duisenberg’s great skills – under-appreciated by the press and public alike – were genuine consensus-building in a potentially divisive body and, in Trichet’s own words, “an exceptional ability to keep his nerve in some highly demanding and extremely hostile environments.”	Duisenberg的高超能力—没有得到报界与公众足够的欣赏—致力于共治，在一个容易意见不和的机构中真正地建立共识，以及用Trichet自己的话讲，“在高度苛刻和极端敌对的情况下保持魄力的非凡能力。 ”


In particular, the stubborn Dutchman understood the extreme danger if Europe’s top monetary authority became too cozy with Europe’s politicians, especially at a time when many EU finance ministers view economic reform and excess liquidity as being essentially the same thing.	特别是，这位固执的荷兰人明白在其最高货币管理机构与政客们的关系过于温情的情况下，欧洲所面临的极度危险。 这在欧洲的财政部长们将经济改革和额外流动资金在本质上看成是一回事时更是如此。


Wim Duisenberg died last year, but his values, philosophy, and wisdom must not be allowed to die with him.	Wim Duisenberg于去年逝世，但他的价值观、哲学和智慧必须被继承下来。


The New Year provides a perfect opportunity for Jean-Claude Trichet to resolve that, despite the more trying circumstances in which he must operate, his own policies and procedures will more faithfully reflect Duisenberg and his legacy.	新的一年为Jean-Claude Trichet提供了一次绝好的机会来下定决心：尽管形势更为严峻，他也要在自己的政策和程序中更忠实地反映Duisenberg及其遗策。


Europe deserves no less.	他只有这么做才对得起欧洲。


Don’t Shut the Door on Africa	不要对非洲关上大门


VIENNA – These days, a dollar won’t get you very far in a rich economy.	维也纳——如今，一美元在富裕国家干不了多少事。


But in a poor country like the one I come from, Sierra-Leone, even half a dollar can save a life or feed an entire family.	但是在我出生的塞拉利昂这样的穷国，即使半美元也可以挽救一条性命或者让一家人吃上饱饭。


Every penny invested in Africa counts today and to secure Africa’s future.	投在非洲的每分钱都能起作用，能让非洲拥有更美好的未来。


Experts are unanimous: the financial, food and energy crisis will hammer the “bottom billion” – the poorest in some 60 countries that survive on around a dollar a day – the hardest.	专家在这个问题上出奇的一致：金融、食品和能源危机对“生活在底层的十亿人口”（60个国家中仅靠1天约1美元糊口的最贫困的民众）打击最严重。


Because of the crisis, many African countries are likely to miss the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goal of poverty reduction.	由于这场危机，许多非洲国家可能无法在2015年的最后期限前实现减轻贫困的千年发展目标。


The continent has made some significant socio-economic gains over the last decade.	非洲大陆过去10年间取得了显著的社会经济成就。


I’ve seen this for myself during recent travels to Benin, Ghana, Ethiopia, Egypt, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa.	这些是我在不久前访问贝宁、加纳、埃塞俄比亚、埃及、纳米比亚、尼日利亚、塞内加尔和南非等国家时亲眼所见。


These gains include, to name a few: free-market reforms, liberalization of economies, the steady introduction of pro-business environments, empowerment of women, education.	这些国家的成就包括：自由市场改革、经济自由化、持续改善商业环境、妇女赋权和教育。


But most of these gains are now seriously threatened.	但今天这些成就大都遭到了严重的挑战。


The financial crisis has dealt a blow to remittances.	金融危机打击了汇款。


Migrants are losing their jobs or struggling to set aside cash for their relatives back home.	移民大批失业，或者挣扎着给国内的亲属留出活命钱。


The World Bank's latest global economic outlook suggests remittances will fall by 5% to 8% this year.	世行最新一次全球经济前景预测表明今年汇款额将下降5%到8%。


But this is just the tip of the iceberg of the tens of millions that can be tracked.	但这不过是数千万笔可追踪汇款的冰山一角。


Foreign companies are pulling back capital, drying import and export financing.	外国企业正在撤资，进出口融资也因此而枯竭。


Trade is declining.	贸易额大幅下降。


The unemployment rate, especially among disadvantaged groups – young people and women – is staggering.	失业率，尤其是青年和妇女等弱势群体的失业率非常惊人。


In Sierra-Leone alone, over 60% of the country’s youth are jobless.	只在塞拉利昂一个国家，60%以上的年轻人都处于无业状态。


A failure to help the "bottom billion" could fuel mass migration and global insecurity.	未能帮助“生活在底层的十亿人口”可能引发大范围移民和全球动荡。


Ignoring the poorest nations means postponing a much larger crisis which will lead to famine, unrest, and massive migration.	对最穷的国家视而不见意味着让一场引发饥荒、动荡和大范围移民的大规模危机推迟爆发。


Poverty is also an incubator for diseases, and the flow of legal and illegal migrants will carry them to rich nations.	贫穷同样能滋生疾病，而合法及非法的移民流动会把这些疾病带到富裕国家。


Poverty is not just ‘their’ problem. It is ‘our’ problem too.	贫穷绝不只是‘他们的’问题，同样必须引起‘我们的’关注。


If developing countries collapse, there will be millions knocking on our front doors, and the first port of call will be Europe.	如果发展中国家垮掉的话，就会有数百万人来敲我们的门，而他们的首选避难所就是欧洲。


Such mass migration will severely hurt already strained social relations in some countries and lead to unpredictable consequences.	如此大规模的移民迁徙会严重损害某些国家本已紧张的社会关系，引发不可预知的后果。


Only a coordinated global response can guarantee that in the long run people from the poorest billion will visit Europe as tourists and business partners, not as asylum seekers.	只有协调一致的全球对策才能确保从长远来看最贫困的十亿人会来欧洲旅游和做生意，而不是寻求避难。


Africa needs to do its share.	非洲也必须尽自己的力量。


It needs investments to shift away from a dependence on a donor-driven agenda and peasant-driven agriculture, and learn to compete on a global level.	这块大陆需要投资学习参与全球竞争，摆脱对捐助计划和小农经济的过度依赖。


It can generate sustainable growth through industrialization, and by creating a single market.	它可以通过工业化和建立统一市场实现可持续发展。


It needs to promote production and trade, expand agribusiness and agro-industries, and create wealth and new jobs.	它需要推动生产和贸易，拓展农工业和农业综合企业，创造财富和新的就业机会。


Agribusiness development can stimulate broader economic growth, boost regional trade, and at the same time enhance food security, and reduce poverty.	发展农业综合企业可以刺激经济增长、推动地区贸易、并同时减轻贫困和改善食品安全。


Globalization has been good to many in the developing world.	发展中国家的许多人可以受益于全球化。


At this critical moment, we can’t allow this to fade away.	在如此关键时刻，我们不能让成果付之东流。


We need to make this a more inclusive process, and make sure that:	我们要让全球化惠及更多民众，确保实现下列目标：


·        financial resources keep flowing to Africa and the developing world so they continue integrating into the global economy;	·        金融资源不断流向非洲和发展中世界，不断推进它们与全球经济的融合；


·        protectionism is avoided and markets stay open;	·        防止保护主义，开放市场；


·        the poorest nations can grow out of poverty through trade;	·        最贫困国家可以通过贸易摆脱贫困；


·        there is good governance of natural resources to fuel broader and inclusive development	·        妥善管理自然资源，推动范围更广，受惠人数更多的经济发展


The abundance of relevant experiences from the newly industrialized countries in Asia and elsewhere can show African countries how to galvanize their economies, accelerating the process of wealth creation and poverty reduction on the continent.	亚洲和其���地区新兴工业化国家的丰富经验可以教授非洲国家如何刺激经济发展，加速创造财富并缓解这块大陆的贫困状况。


And last but not least.	还有最后一个要点。


Development without access to energy won’t happen.	没有能源，就不可能实现发展。


This crisis could help formulate a new approach: increase access to reliable, affordable and renewable energy services for sustainable development, promote energy efficiency to make sure economic growth does not raise energy demand and environmental degradation, including climate change.	这次危机有助于制定新的策略：更多利用可靠、廉价、可再生能源，实现可持续发展，提高能源利用效率，确保经济发展不会消耗更多能源，导致环境恶化，包括引发气候变化。


Africa has great hydropower potential but only 7% has been exploited so far.	非洲有丰富的水电开发潜力，但迄今为止只有7%得到了开发。


Africa’s natural gas reserves amount to about 8% of global reserves.	非洲的天然气占全球总储量的8%。


It has 10% of global oil reserves.	石油占全球总储量的十分之一。


But it requires major investments to develop both traditional energy means and renewable ones.	但发展传统和可再生能源都需要进行巨大的投入。


It is still unclear exactly how much of the $1 trillion pledged at the London G20 summit will find its way to Africa.	伦敦二十国峰会上承诺的一万亿美元究竟如何投向非洲仍不明朗。


That’s why we need to keep an eye on the figures and keep reminding world leaders of the needs of those in the developing world that live in their shadow.	因此我们必须记住这个数字，不停地提醒世界领袖生活在他们阴影之下的发展中世界民众的需求。


This will set policy priorities straight, put strategies in place to avert a human catastrophe, and help Africa secure its rightful place at the global economic table.	这样可以确定优先政策，把避免人类灾难的对策落到实处，并协助非洲在全球经济谈判中占据一席之地。


The Year of Betting Conservatively	谨慎之年


NEW YORK – The upswing in global equity markets that started in July is now running out of steam, which comes as no surprise: with no significant improvement in growth prospects in either the advanced or major emerging economies, the rally always seemed to lack legs.	纽约—7月份开始的全球股市反弹正在失去动力，这并不令人奇怪：发达国家和主要新兴市场国家都没有发生增长前景的重大改善，因此反弹总是无根之木。


If anything, the correction might have come sooner, given disappointing macroeconomic data in recent months.	如果要预测什么的话，修正走势可能马上就会到来，因为最近几个月的宏观经济数据令人失望。


Starting with the advanced countries, the eurozone recession has spread from the periphery to the core, with France entering recession and Germany facing a double whammy of slowing growth in one major export market (China/Asia) and outright contraction in others (southern Europe).	从发达国家开始。 欧元区衰退从外围国蔓延到了核心国，法国步入了算退，德国也陷入了双重夹击——主要出口市场（中国/亚洲）增速减缓，其他市场（南欧）全面萎缩。


Economic growth in the United States has remained anemic, at 1.5-2% for most of the year, and Japan is lapsing into a new recession.	美国经济增长继续萎靡，今年大部分时间都只有1. 5—2%；


The United Kingdom, like the eurozone, has already endured a double-dip recession, and now even strong commodity exporters – Canada, the Nordic countries, and Australia – are slowing in the face of headwinds from the US, Europe, and China.	而日本正在进入新的衰退。 英国与欧元区一样，已经开始了双底衰退，而即使是强劲的商品出口国——加拿大、北欧和澳大利亚——也因为美国、欧洲和中国的不振而面临着减速。


Meanwhile, emerging-market economies – including all of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and other major players like Argentina, Turkey, and South Africa – also slowed in 2012.	与此同时，新兴市场经济体——包括所有金砖国家（巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国）和阿根廷、土耳其和南非等其他大国——在2012年也出现了减速。


China’s slowdown may be stabilized for a few quarters, given the government’s latest fiscal, monetary, and credit injection; but this stimulus will only perpetuate the country’s unsustainable growth model, one based on too much fixed investment and savings and too little private consumption.	在政府最新的财政、货币和信用注入下，中国的减速在近几个季度中已有所缓解； 但这样的刺激只能维持中国不可持续的增长模式——太过依赖于固定资产投资和储蓄，太少私人消费支持。


In 2013, downside risks to global growth will be exacerbated by the spread of fiscal austerity to most advanced economies.	2013年，全球增长下行风险将因财政紧缩扩大到大部分发达国家而被放大。


Until now, the recessionary fiscal drag has been concentrated in the eurozone periphery and the UK.	到目前为止，衰退性财政拖累集中在欧元区外围国和英国。


But now it is permeating the eurozone’s core.	但现在正在向欧元区核心国蔓延。


And in the US, even if President Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress agree on a budget plan that avoids the looming “fiscal cliff,” spending cuts and tax increases will invariably lead to some drag on growth in 2013 – at least 1% of GDP.	而在美国，即使总统奥巴马和国会共和党在预算计划问题上达成一致，避免跌入“财政悬崖”，支出削减和税收增加也必将拖累2013年的增长至少1%的GDP。


In Japan, the fiscal stimulus from post-earthquake reconstruction will be phased out, while a new consumption tax will be phased in by 2014.	在日本，地震后重建财政刺激将退出，2014年将启动新的消费税。


The International Monetary Fund is thus absolutely right in arguing that excessively front-loaded and synchronized fiscal austerity in most advanced economies will dim global growth prospects in 2013.	因此，IMF认为大部分发达国家步调一致地采取过度前瞻的财政紧缩将恶化2013年的全球增长前景是完全正确的。


So, what explains the recent rally in US and global asset markets?	那么，又是什么让最近的美国和全球资产市场发生了反弹。


The answer is simple: Central banks have turned on their liquidity hoses again, providing a boost to risky assets.	答案很简单：中央银行再一次祭出了流动性大杀器，这给了风险资产一剂强心剂。


The US Federal Reserve has embraced aggressive, open-ended quantitative easing (QE).	美联储采取了激进的无期限量化宽松（QE）。


The European Central Bank’s announcement of its “outright market transactions” program has reduced the risk of a sovereign-debt crisis in the eurozone periphery and a breakup of the monetary union.	欧洲央行所宣布的“直接货币交易”计划降低了欧元区外围国主权债务危机和货币联盟崩溃的风险。


The Bank of England has moved from QE to CE (credit easing), and the Bank of Japan has repeatedly increased the size of its QE operations.	英格兰银行从QE转向了CE（信用宽松），日本银行则再度增加了QE操作规模。


Monetary authorities in many other advanced and emerging-market economies have cut their policy rates as well.	许多其他发达国家和新兴国家的货币当局也削减了政策利率。


And, with slow growth, subdued inflation, near-zero short-term interest rates, and more QE, longer-term interest rates in most advanced economies remain low (with the exception of the eurozone periphery, where sovereign risk remains relatively high).	而在低增长、低通胀、近零短期利率和更多QE的环境下，大部分发达国家的长期利率维持在低水平（欧元区外围国是例外，它们的主权风险仍然相对较高）。


It is small wonder, then, that investors desperately searching for yield have rushed into equities, commodities, credit instruments, and emerging-market currencies.	因此，毫不奇怪，渴望收益率的投资者纷纷涌入股市、商品、信用工具和新兴市场货币。


But now a global market correction seems underway, owing, first and foremost, to the poor growth outlook.	但如今，全球市场修正或许已经开始。 主要原因是增长前景黯淡。


At the same time, the eurozone crisis remains unresolved, despite the ECB’s bold actions and talk of a banking, fiscal, economic, and political union.	与此同时，尽管欧洲央行果断行动，成立银行、财政、经济和政治联盟的谈判也在进行中，但欧元区危机仍未解决。


Specifically, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy are still at risk, while bailout fatigue pervades the eurozone core.	特别地，希腊、葡萄牙、西班牙和意大利仍然岌岌可危，而欧元区核心国已经产生了援助疲劳。


Moreover, political and policy uncertainties – on the fiscal, debt, taxation, and regulatory fronts – abound.	此外，在财政、债务、税收和监管诸领域充满了政治和政策不确定性。


In the US, the fiscal worries are threefold: the risk of a “cliff” in 2013, as tax increases and massive spending cuts kick in automatically if no political agreement is reached; renewed partisan combat over the debt ceiling; and a new fight over medium-term fiscal austerity.	在美国，财政担忧是三重的：若不能达成政治协议，则2013年将自动发生税收增加和大规模支出削减的“悬崖”风险； 债务上限问题上党派斗争死灰复燃；


In many other countries or regions – for example, China, Korea, Japan, Israel, Germany, Italy, and Catalonia – upcoming elections or political transitions have similarly increased policy uncertainty.	以及中期财政紧缩的新斗争。 在许多其他国家和地区——比如中国、韩国、日本、以色列、德国、意大利和加泰罗尼亚——即将到来的选举和政治过渡也会产生增加政策不确定性的效果。


Yet another reason for the correction is that valuations in stock markets are stretched: price/earnings ratios are now high, while growth in earnings per share is slackening, and will be subject to further negative surprises as growth and inflation remain low.	发生修正走势还有另一个原因：股市估值正在提高：市盈率正处在高位，而每股收益增长缓慢，由于增长和通胀都很低，未来很可能发生出人意料的每股收益下降。


With uncertainty, volatility, and tail risks on the rise again, the correction could accelerate quickly.	在不确定性、波动性和尾部风险再度上升的环境下，修正走势可能会快速加速。


Indeed, there are now greater geopolitical uncertainties as well: the risk of an Iran-Israel military confrontation remains high as negotiations and sanctions may not deter Iran from developing nuclear-weapons capacity; a new war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is likely; the Arab Spring is turning into a grim winter of economic, social, and political instability; and territorial disputes in Asia between China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam are inflaming nationalist forces.	事实上，如今地缘政治不确定性也在增加：由于谈判和制裁可能都无法阻止伊朗开发核武器实力的动作，伊朗-以色列军事冲突风险仍然很高； 以色列和加沙哈马斯可能爆发新战争；


As consumers, firms, and investors become more cautious and risk-averse, the equity-market rally of the second half of 2012 has crested.	随着消费者、企业和投资者变得更加谨慎和风险厌恶，2012年下半年的股市反弹已经见顶。


And, given the seriousness of the downside risks to growth in advanced and emerging economies alike, the correction could be a bellwether of worse to come for the global economy and financial markets in 2013.	而由于发达国家和新兴市场都面临着严重的下行风险，修正走势可能只是2013年全球经济和金融市场糟糕表现的开端。


Down with Debt Weight	打倒债务重压


LONDON – Nearly four years after the start of the global financial crisis, many are wondering why economic recovery is taking so long.	伦敦—全球金融危机爆发已近四年，许多人感到奇怪，为何经济复苏需要如此之长的时间。 事实上，甚至连专家都对此不得其解。


Indeed, its sluggishness has confounded even the experts.	按IMF的预计，世界经济应该在2011年增长4. 4%，在2012年增长4.


According to the International Monetary Fund, the world economy should have grown by 4.4% in 2011, and should grow by 4.5% in 2012.	5%。 而事实上，世界银行的最新数据表明，2011年的增长率只有2.


In fact, the latest figures from the World Bank indicate that growth reached just 2.7% in 2011, and will slow this year to 2.5% – a figure that may well need to be revised downwards.	7%，今年则将减缓至2. 5%——就是这个数字也可能被向下修正。


There are two possible reasons for the discrepancy between forecast and outcome.	预测和实际结果不符，可能的原因有二。


Either the damage caused by the financial crisis was more serious than people realized, or the economic medicine prescribed was less efficacious than policymakers believed.	要么是金融危机所造成的损害比人们意识到的更严重，要么经济药方的疗效比政客所认为的更低。


In fact, the gravity of the banking crisis was quickly grasped.	事实上，人们很快就抓住了银行危机的重心。


Huge stimulus packages were implemented in 2008-9, led by the United States and China, coordinated by Britain, and with the reluctant support of Germany.	2008—2009年期间，在美国和中国的领导、英国的协作以及德国不太情愿的支持下，巨量刺激得以实施。


Interest rates were slashed, insolvent banks were bailed out, the printing presses were turned on, taxes were cut, and public spending was boosted.	利率大幅下降，资不抵债的银行得到了援助，印钞机开足马力，税收被削减，公共支出则大增。


Some countries devalued their currencies.	一些国家还贬值了本国货币。


As a result, the slide was halted, and the rebound was faster than forecasters expected.	结果，形势得到了控制，并出现了比预期更猛的反弹。


But the stimulus measures transformed a banking crisis into a fiscal and sovereign-debt crisis.	但刺激措施将银行危机转换为了财政和主权债务危机。


From 2010 onwards, governments started to raise taxes and cut spending in response to growing fears of sovereign default.	2010年以降，为了应对人们对主权违约的担心，各国政府开始增税减支。


At that point, the recovery went into reverse.	从那时开始，复苏之势被逆转了。


As Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff tell it in their masterly book This Time is Different, there is no secure way of short-circuiting a deep banking crisis.	正如莱因哈特（Carmen Reinhart）和罗格夫（Kenneth Rogoff）在他们的《这次不同了》（This Time is Different）中所言，对付深度银行危机，没有包管用的灵药。


The crisis originates with “excessive debt accumulation,” which makes economies “vulnerable to crises of confidence.”	危机起源于“债务的过度积累”，债务过度积累导致经济“易受信心危机打击”。


Commercial banks have to be bailed out by governments; then governments have to be bailed out by commercial banks.	政府不得不出售援助商业银行； 接着，又不得不等着商业银行来救。


In the end, both have to be bailed out by central banks.	最后，政府和商业银行都不得不靠中央银行施以援手。


All of this, according to Reinhart and Rogoff, involves a “protracted and pronounced contraction in economic activity.”	在莱因哈特和罗格夫看来，所有这些都包括在“漫长而严重的经济活动收缩”中。


They reckon that the average length of post-war crises has been 4.4 years – the time it takes for the necessary “de-leveraging” to occur – after which the crisis of confidence is over and economic growth revives.	他们指出，二战以来，如若危机爆发，则在信心危机结束、经济恢复增长后还将平均持续4. 4年——这是必须的“去杠杆化”所需要的时间。


However, there is something missing in the story.	但是，这并不是故事的全部。


Recovery from the Great Depression took about 10 years, more than twice the post-war average.	大萧条之后的复苏持续了10年，比二战后的平均复苏长度长一倍有余。


Reinhart and Rogoff offer a couple of reasons for the difference in recovery rates: the slow policy response to the Great Depression and the gold standard, which meant that individual countries could not export their way out of depression.	莱因哈特和罗格夫给出了一些大萧条后复苏增长缓慢的原因：一是政策反应速度太慢，而是金本位（金本位意味着各国无法通过出口走出萧条）。


In other words, fiscal policy and the monetary-policy regime have a decisive influence both on the depth of the collapse and how long before the economy recovers.	换句话说，财政政策和货币政策机制在崩溃的深度和经济复苏所经历的时间长度上均具有决定性的影响。


It is also significant that big financial collapses occurred again in the 1970’s, after being virtually absent in the 1950’s and 1960’s, when the Keynesian system of managed economies and the Bretton Woods system of managed exchange rates was in place.	同样显著的是，20世纪五六十年代期间，凯恩斯主义主宰着经济治理，同时布雷顿森林体系管理着汇率，在此期间基本没有发生危机，而在20世纪70年代，金融崩溃卷土重来。


The major post-war crises that Reinhart and Rogoff consider run from 1977 to 2001.	莱因哈特和罗格夫所考察的战后危机均发生在1977—2001年间。


They occurred because regulation of banks and controls on capital movements were lifted; they were shorter than in the 1930’s because the policy responses were not idiotic.	这些危机之所以发生，是因为银行监管和资本管制被取消； 而它们的持续时间之所以短于20世纪30年代，是因为政策反应不再那么呆板。


Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono emphasized that point earlier this month, boasting to British Prime Minister David Cameron that Indonesia’s successful recovery plan after the 1998 collapse was inspired by John Maynard Keynes.	印尼总统苏西洛在本月早些时候强调也强调了这一点，他不无得意地对英国首相卡梅伦说，印尼在1998年危机后的成功复苏是受了凯恩斯的启发。


“We must ensure that the people can buy; we must ensure that industries can produce…”	“我们必须保证人们能够买东西； 我们必须保证工业能够生产东西……”


Today, many governments, especially in the eurozone, seem to have run out of policy options.	如今，不少国家，特别是欧元区国家，似乎已无多少政策选择。


With fiscal austerity all the rage, they have given up ensuring that “people can buy” and “industries can produce.”	在财政紧缩成为时尚的当下，它们实际上放弃了“人们能够买东西”和“工业能够生产东西”的策略。


Central banks have been handed the job of keeping economies afloat, but most of the money that they print remains stuck in the banking system, unable to arrest stagnating consumption and falling investment.	各中央银行已经接过了维持经济增长的重任，但它们印出来的钞票大部分被截留在了银行体系中，无法刺激停滞的消费和萎靡的投资。


Moreover, the eurozone itself is a mini-gold standard, with heavily indebted members unable to devalue their currencies, because they have no currencies to devalue.	此外，欧元区本身是一个迷你金本位区，重债成员国无法贬值货币，因为没有货币可贬。


So, given that Chinese growth, too, is slowing, the world economy seems destined to crawl along the bottom for some time yet, with unemployment rising in some countries to 20% or more.	因此，在中国增长也开始放缓的情况下，世界经济似乎注定要走一段时间触底之路，一些国家的失业率正在攀向或超过了20%。


With fiscal, monetary, and exchange-rate policies blocked, is there a way out of prolonged recession?	财政、货币和汇率方面皆已无计可施，还有什么办法走出漫长的衰退？


John Geanakoplos of Yale University has been arguing for big debt write-offs.	耶鲁大学的吉安纳科普洛斯（John Geanakoplos）提出了大规模债务减记的办法。


Rather than waiting to get rid of debt through bankruptcies, governments should “mandate debt forgiveness.”	政府不应该坐等破产来摆脱债务，而应该“强行免除债务”。


They could buy bad loans from lenders and forgive part of the principal payable by borrowers, simultaneously reducing lenders’ collateral requirements and borrowers’ debt overhang.	它们可以从贷款人手中购买不良贷款，并免除部分可偿还本金，同时降低贷款人的抵押品要求和借款人的债务积压。


In the US, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) program and the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) were in effect debt-forgiveness schemes aimed at sub-prime mortgage holders, but on too small a scale.	在美国，定期资产抵押政权贷款便利（Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility，TALF）和公私投资计划（Public-Private Investment Program，PPIP）便是事实上的以次级按揭贷款持有者为目标的债务免除机制，但规模实在太小。


But the principle of debt forgiveness clearly has applications for public debt as well, especially in the eurozone.	但债务豁免的原则显然同样适用于公债，特别是欧元区公债。


Those who fear excessive public debt are the banks that hold it.	担心公债过剩的是持有公债的银行。


Junk public bonds are no safer for them than junk private bonds.	对它们来说，垃圾公债并不比垃圾私债更安全。


Both lenders and borrowers would be better off from a comprehensive debt cancelation.	贷款人和借款人都能从全面的债务豁免中获益。


So would citizens whose livelihoods are being destroyed by governments’ desperate attempts to de-leverage.	生活因政府急不可耐地实行去杠杆化而大受困扰的公民的境况也可以得到改善。


Philosophically, the debt-forgiveness approach rests on the belief that creditors share culpability for defaults with debtors, since they made the bad loans in the first place.	从原理上说，债务豁免方法的基础是人们相信债权人将和债务人分担违约责任，因为当初给出不良贷款的乃是债权人。


As long as the borrower has not misled the lender at the time of taking the loan, the lender bears at least some responsibility for the transaction.	只要借款人在获得贷款时没有糊弄贷款人，那么贷款人就至少要为贷款交易负一定的责任。


In 1918, Keynes urged the cancelation of inter-Allied debts arising from World War I.	1918年时，凯恩斯敦促豁免协约国内部因一战而产生的债务。


“We shall never be able to move again, unless we can free our limbs from these paper shackles,” he wrote.	“我们根本无法前进，除非我们的四肢可以从纸镣铐中解放出来，”凯恩斯写道。


And, in 1923, his call became a warning that today’s policymakers would do well to heed: “The absolutists of contract…are the real parents of revolution.”	1923年，他的呼吁变成了警告，当下的决策者们想必会认真留心到：“契约绝对论者……才是真正的革命孕育者。 ”


Down With Human Rights	打倒人权


The relationship between the United Nations and the human-rights movement has always been ambiguous.	联合国与人权运动之间的关系一直含混不清。


On the one hand, human-rights ideology – and it is an ideology, every bit as much as Communism was or neo-liberalism is today – is profoundly legalist, claiming legitimacy from treaties and other international and national instruments.	一方面，人权这种意识形态¾就像过去的共产主义和现在的新自由主义一样，人权的确是一种意识形态¾从本质上来讲墨守陈规，依靠各项条约和其它国际国内协定确保其合法性。


These include, as “first among equals,” the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.	这里面首当其冲的是《联合国1948年世界人权宣言》。


The modern human-rights movement was born out of the UN, and in many ways it has never entirely left home.	联合国是现代人权运动的发祥地，从很多方面来讲，人权运动从发端后从未真正离开过这里。


On the other hand, the UN is more a bully pulpit for the promulgation of the high ideals of human rights, equality, and personal and economic freedom than it is a way station on the road to world government (no matter what some conservative extremists in the United States imagine).	从另一个方面，与其说联合国是通往世界政府之路的中转站，还不如说它是颁布人权、平等、以及个人和经济自由领域崇高理想的头号讲坛（不管美国的某些保守极端分子做何感想）。


Indeed, at its institutional core, the UN is an inter-governmental body whose officials, from the most junior staffer to the Secretary General, serve at the pleasure of its member states – above all, its powerful member states.	实际上，作为一个政府间机构，联合国制度的核心是所有官员，下至最低级的雇员，上至联合国秘书长，都必须为成员国，特别是强国的利益服务。


As a result of this profound contradiction between ambition and mandate, the UN often seems to impede the advance of human-rights goals as much as it realizes them.	这种理想与现实间不可调和的矛盾造成了联合国一方面能实现某些人权目标，而另一方面却又阻碍着某些目标的实现。


Doubters need only recall the unwillingness of Secretary General after Secretary General, from U Thant to Kofi Annan, to meet with – or, in some cases, even to permit on the UN’s premises – victims of human rights violations who had the misfortune of being born in powerful countries.	质疑者只要想想从吴丹到科菲·安南的历任联合国秘书长都不愿会见，甚至在某些情况下不愿在联合国办公地接待那些不幸出生在强大国家的破坏人权行为的受害者就非常清楚了。


For all the UN’s intellectual commitment to the furtherance of human rights, it knows better than to incite the displeasure of the Chinese or the Russians by receiving activists from Tibet or Chechnya.	尽管联合国在理智上致力于推进人权运动的发展，但它却没有傻到为了接待来自西藏或车臣的活动人士而激起中国或俄国人的不满。


In fairness, no UN Secretary General has paid greater homage to the ideals of the human-rights movement, or attempted, at least rhetorically, to associate the UN with those ideals, than Kofi Annan.	公平地讲，没有任何一位联合国秘书长对人权运动理想的尊重超过了科菲·安南，也没有任何人比安南更愿意把人权理想与联合国运作结合在一起，哪怕这种结合仅仅停留在口头上。


Rhetoric is not reality, of course, and the UN’s declarations have often seemed far removed from its daily practice.	当然，只是口头上说说并不等于现实，联合国的宣言常常与日常运作相去甚远。


But words are not without consequences, and there is little question that human rights has occupied a higher place in international deliberations during Annan’s tenure than ever before.	但语言也并非毫无作用，的确很少有人质疑在安南任职期间，人权问题在国际权衡中所占的分量超过了以往任何时候。


Moreover, Annan’s appointee as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Irish President Mary Robinson, was instrumental in many developing countries’ adoption of a human-rights agenda, which previously was often viewed as a flag of convenience for Western meddling.	不仅如此，被安南任命为联合国人权事务高级专员的前爱尔兰总统玛丽·罗滨逊对很多发展中国家采纳人权议程起到了至关重要的作用，这种人权日程以前常常被看作西方国家干涉别国内政十分现成的借口。


People close to Annan say that he hoped to build on these successes during the UN’s recently concluded summit.	据安南身边的人透露，秘书长希望在联合国最近结束的会议上进一步扩大胜利的成果。


In March, he wrote that “the Organization [must] take the cause of human rights as seriously as those of security and development.”	他在三月份写道“（联合国）机构[必须]像重视安全发展一样重视人权事业。


Among his key proposals was the replacement of the largely discredited UN Commission on Human Rights – a body that has no mechanism for excluding even notorious human-rights violators like Libya, Cuba, or Zimbabwe – with a new Human Rights Council, where such embarrassments would in theory not be tolerated.	”他重要的提案之一就是用新的人权理事会取代已经失去人们信任的联合国人权委员会，该委员会甚至没有将利比亚、古巴或津巴布韦等臭名昭著的人权侵害国排除在外的起码机制，而新的机构至少在理论上将不再容忍这种令人尴尬的局面继续存在。


It is generally agreed that the summit was largely a failure.	人们普遍认为，这次会议在很大程度上是一次失败。


Annan himself conceded as much in the speech he gave at the opening of the 60th UN General Assembly.	安南本人也在第60届联合国大会的开幕讲话中明确承认了这种观点。


There are many reasons for this.	导致失败的原因一言难尽。


There was the US government’s eleventh-hour decision to table hundreds of objections to the final Summit Declaration, effectively reducing it to a series of lowest-common-denominator platitudes.	其中既有美国政府在最后时刻将反对会议声明的几百项不同意见置之不理，从而把这份声明缩减为没有任何实质意义的陈词滥调；


There was also skepticism among developing countries about whether a stronger UN commitment to human rights was what Annan claimed it to be or, instead, merely a moral flag of convenience – or worse, a legal warrant for Western military intervention.	也有发展中国家对联合国的更多努力是否诚如安南所言尚存疑虑，他们害怕所谓的人权运动不过又是一个现成的借口¾甚至更糟，沦为西方军事干涉的法律依据。


A great deal of attention has been paid to the stratagems of John Bolton, the fiercely anti-UN diplomat whom President Bush recently appointed US ambassador to the UN, and rightly so.	布什总统不久前任命的美国驻联合国大使，激进的反联合国外交家约翰·博尔顿所提出的战略引起了人们的广泛关注，这种关注也确实恰如其分。


But what has tended to get lost in these discussions are the malign synergies between a Third World suspicious that so-called humanitarian interventions are only colonialism redux and a unilateralist US administration wedded to the concept of pre-emptive war against enemies that it equates with states that violate human rights.	但这样的讨论忽略了第三世界怀疑论有害的协同作用：即所谓的人道主义干涉不过是殖民主义的又一次回潮，或者是奉行单边主义的美国政府对被其视作人权破坏国的敌人发起的又一次先发制人的战争。


Because the Bush administration, as its officials repeatedly insist, placed the installation of democratic, human-rights-oriented regimes, by force if necessary, at the core of US foreign policy, those who see only aggressive imperialism in America’s interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq view human rights in a more skeptical light.	由于布什政府的官员一再强调建立民主、以人权为导向的政治制度是美国外交政策的核心，并且为确保上述核心在必要时甚至不惜使用武力，更使得那些只在美国入侵阿富汗和伊拉克的行动中看到了侵略性帝国主义的人们对所谓的人权事业疑心重重。


In a sense, the UN, Annan, and the human-rights activists who have been perhaps his biggest backers, are caught in the crossfire.	从某种意义上讲，曾是布什最有力支持者的联合国、安南和人权活动人士都因此陷入了困境。


All of this brings to mind one of the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel’s late films.	所有这一切都让我想起了伟大的西班牙导演路易斯·布努艾尔的最新力作。


The pre-credit sequence shows a group of Spanish guerrillas during the insurgency against Napoleon being led to a wall where they are to be executed by firing squad.	这部还未上映就获得好评的影片表现了���群反对拿破仑统治的西班牙游击队员被带到一堵墙边等待执行死刑。


At the head of the firing party, a French soldier carries the Tricolor forward. On it are the great words, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”	执行开始时，一名法国士兵扛着三色旗走上前去，上面写着那几个伟大的字眼，“自由、平等、友爱。


The guerrillas are led to the wall, and, just as the soldiers are raising their guns to their shoulders, one insurgent shouts, “Down with liberty!”	”游记队员们被带到墙边，正当士兵们把枪举过肩膀时，一名起义者高喊，“打倒自由！


We have not progressed very far, it seems.	”看起来我们现在也没走多远。


Down with the Eurozone	欧元区的末日


NEW YORK – The eurozone crisis seems to be reaching its climax, with Greece on the verge of default and an inglorious exit from the monetary union, and now Italy on the verge of losing market access.	纽约——欧元区危机似乎正在达到高潮，希腊在违约边缘苦苦徘徊，几乎要可耻地退出货币联盟了； 如今意大利也即将失去市场信任。


But the eurozone's problems are much deeper.	但欧元区的问题远不止这些。


They are structural, and they severely affect at least four other economies: Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain.	欧元区的问题是结构性的，而且严重影响着至少四个国家：爱尔兰、葡萄牙、塞浦路斯和西班牙。


For the last decade, the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) were the eurozone's consumers of first and last resort, spending more than their income and running ever-larger current-account deficits.	在过去十年中，五猪国（PIIGS，葡萄牙、爱尔兰、意大利、希腊和西班牙）是欧元区最初和最后消费者，支出比收入更多，并存在前所未有的经常项目赤字。


Meanwhile, the eurozone core (Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and France) comprised the producers of first and last resort, spending below their incomes and running ever-larger current-account surpluses.	与此同时，欧元区核心国（德国、荷兰、奥地利和法国）则组成了最初和最后生产者阵营，支出比收入更少，并存在前所未有的经常项目盈余。


These external imbalances were also driven by the euro’s strength since 2002, and by the divergence in real exchange rates and competitiveness within the eurozone.	这些外部失衡被2002年以来欧元的强势以及欧元区内部真实汇率和竞争力的两极分化所强化了。


Unit labor costs fell in Germany and other parts of the core (as wage growth lagged that of productivity), leading to a real depreciation and rising current-account surpluses, while the reverse occurred in the PIIGS (and Cyprus), leading to real appreciation and widening current-account deficits.	德国和其他核心国家的单位劳动成本有所下降（因为工资增长赶不上生产率），导致了真实汇率的贬值和经常项目盈余的增加，而五猪国（以及塞浦路斯）的情况正好相反，它们出现了真实汇率的升值和经常项目赤字的恶化。


In Ireland and Spain, private savings collapsed, and a housing bubble fueled excessive consumption, while in Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Italy, it was excessive fiscal deficits that exacerbated external imbalances.	在爱尔兰和西班牙，私人储蓄急剧下降，同时房地产泡沫助长了过度消费之风； 而希腊、葡萄牙、塞浦路斯和意大利的问题则是过度财政负债恶化了外部失衡问题。


The resulting build-up of private and public debt in over-spending countries became unmanageable when housing bubbles burst (Ireland and Spain) and current-account deficits, fiscal gaps, or both became unsustainable throughout the eurozone's periphery.	由此产生的过度消费国的私人公共部门债务积累随着房地产泡沫破裂（爱尔兰和西班牙）以及经常项目赤字或财政缺口（或两者兼而有之）在整个欧元区外围变得不可持续而变得难以收场。


Moreover, the peripheral countries’ large current-account deficits, fueled as they were by excessive consumption, were accompanied by economic stagnation and loss of competitiveness.	此外，外围国家的巨额经常项目赤字——受过度消费推动——伴随着经济停滞和竞争力的丧失。


So, now what?	如之奈何？


Symmetrical reflation is the best option for restoring growth and competitiveness on the eurozone's periphery while undertaking necessary austerity measures and structural reforms.	系统性再通胀是重塑欧元区外围国增长和竞争力的最佳选择，但须辅之以必要的紧缩措施和结构性改革。 这意味着欧洲央行大举放松货币政策；


This implies significant easing of monetary policy by the European Central Bank; provision of unlimited lender-of-last-resort support to illiquid but potentially solvent economies; a sharp depreciation of the euro, which would turn current-account deficits into surpluses; and fiscal stimulus in the core if the periphery is forced into austerity.	向流动性不足但仍未破产的经济体提供无限量最后贷款支持； 欧元急剧贬值从而将经常项目赤字扭转为盈余；


Unfortunately, Germany and the ECB oppose this option, owing to the prospect of a temporary dose of modestly higher inflation in the core relative to the periphery.	不幸的是，德国和欧洲央行反对这一选择，因为这会使核心国的通胀暂时略高于外围国。


The bitter medicine that Germany and the ECB want to impose on the periphery – the second option – is recessionary deflation: fiscal austerity, structural reforms to boost productivity growth and reduce unit labor costs, and real depreciation via price adjustment, as opposed to nominal exchange-rate adjustment.	德国和欧洲央行计划对外围国实施第二选择，这个药方更为痛苦，是衰退性紧缩：财政紧缩、结构性改革以提振生产率并降低单位劳动成本，以及通过价格调整实现的真是贬值（而不是名义汇率调整）。


The problems with this option are many.	这一选择会带来诸多问题。


Fiscal austerity, while necessary, means a deeper recession in the short term.	首先，财政紧缩虽然必不可少，但会在短期加深衰退。


Even structural reform reduces output in the short run, because it requires firing workers, shutting down money-losing firms, and gradually reallocating labor and capital to emerging new industries.	即使是结构性改革，也会在短期降低产出水平，因为这要求解雇员工、关闭亏钱企业，并逐渐将劳动和资本重新配置给新兴产业。


So, to prevent a spiral of ever-deepening recession, the periphery needs real depreciation to improve its external deficit.	因此，为了防止产生前所未有的衰退螺旋，外围国需要真实贬值以改善外部赤字。


But even if prices and wages were to fall by 30% over the next few years (which would most likely be socially and politically unsustainable), the real value of debt would increase sharply, worsening the insolvency of governments and private debtors.	但即使价格和工资在未来数年内下降30%（这很有可能引发社会和政治的不可持续性），债务的真实价值仍将显著上升，让政府和���人债务人深陷资不抵债泥潭。


In short, the eurozone's periphery is now subject to the paradox of thrift: increasing savings too much, too fast leads to renewed recession and makes debts even more unsustainable.	简言之，欧元区外围国已难逃节约悖论（paradox of thrift）：太快太大地增加储蓄导致新一轮衰退，让债务愈加不可持续。


And that paradox is now affecting even the core.	而如今，甚至连核心国也受到了节约悖论的影响。


If the peripheral countries remain mired in a deflationary trap of high debt, falling output, weak competitiveness, and structural external deficits, eventually they will be tempted by a third option: default and exit from the eurozone.	如果外围国陷入债务高企、产出下降、竞争力疲软和结构性外部赤字的通缩性陷阱无法自拔，那么它们最终将面临第三选择：违约并退出欧元区。


This would enable them to revive economic growth and competitiveness through a depreciation of new national currencies.	这样做能让它们通过让新的本国货币贬值重塑经济增长和竞争力。


Of course, such a disorderly eurozone break-up would be as severe a shock as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, if not worse.	当然，这样一种欧元区无序崩溃将产生不亚于2008年雷曼兄弟倒闭的冲击波。


Avoiding it would compel the eurozone's core economies to embrace the fourth and final option: bribing the periphery to remain in a low-growth uncompetitive state.	为了避免这一幕发生，欧元区核心国将被迫采取第四和第五选择：给外围国好处，让它们维持低增长、低竞争力现状。


This would require accepting massive losses on public and private debt, as well as enormous transfer payments that boost the periphery’s income while its output stagnates.	这要求接受在私人和公共部门债务上的巨大损失，并支付巨大的转移成本以提振产出停滞不前的外围国的收入水平。


Italy has done something similar for decades, with its northern regions subsidizing the poorer Mezzogiorno.	意大利在几十年来都在做类似的事情：北方补贴南方。


But such permanent fiscal transfers are politically impossible in the eurozone, where Germans are Germans and Greeks are Greeks.	但类似的持久性财政转移在欧元区是不可能发生的，因为德国人是德国人，希腊人是希腊人。


That also means that Germany and the ECB have less power than they seem to believe.	这也意味着德国和欧洲央行的权力要比人们认为的要小。


Unless they abandon asymmetric adjustment (recessionary deflation), which concentrates all of the pain in the periphery, in favor of a more symmetrical approach (austerity and structural reforms on the periphery, combined with eurozone-wide reflation), the monetary union's slow-developing train wreck will accelerate as peripheral countries default and exit.	除非它们放弃让外围国承受所有痛苦的不对称调整（衰退性通缩），采取更加对称的办法（外围国实施紧缩和结构性改革，同时在整个欧元区实施再通胀政策），否则货币联盟的缓慢出轨过程将随着外围国的违约和退出而加速。


The recent chaos in Greece and Italy may be the first step in this process.	希腊和意大利的近期乱象可能是这一过程的发端。


Clearly, the eurozone’s muddle-through approach no longer works.	显然，欧元区的得过且过政策已经走入了死胡同。


Unless the eurozone moves toward greater economic, fiscal, and political integration (on a path consistent with short-term restoration of growth, competitiveness, and debt sustainability, which are needed to resolve unsustainable debt and reduce chronic fiscal and external deficits), recessionary deflation will certainly lead to a disorderly break-up.	除非欧元区迈向更深层次的经济、财政和政治一体化（走与短期提振增长、竞争力和债务可持续性目标相一致的路线，这三者是解决不可持续的债务并减少慢性财政和外部赤字问题的必须办法），否则衰退性通缩将必然导致欧元区陷入混乱的崩溃。


With Italy too big to fail, too big to save, and now at the point of no return, the endgame for the eurozone has begun.	意大利太大，因此不能倒； 同样，因为它太大，因此救不起。


Sequential, coercive restructurings of debt will come first, and then exits from the monetary union that will eventually lead to the eurozone’s disintegration.	如今，意大利正处于走向不归路的边缘，欧元区终结的大幕正在拉开。 有序、强制的债务重组将是第一步，接下来则是一些国家退出货币联盟，最终，欧元区将分崩离析。


Dreaming of a New Edo Era	新江户时代之梦


SEOUL – In mid-November, all eyes will shift to Seoul, when G-20 leaders convene for the first time in the South Korean capital.	首尔——11月中旬，所有的目光将会汇聚首尔，这座韩国首都将要召开20国集团领导人的首次峰会。


The choice is long overdue, as South Korea is a remarkable success story: in one generation, the South Koreans, formerly pummeled by civil war, under constant threat from their Northern communist brethren, long mired in poverty, and ruled by military dictators for 40 years, have built the world’s 13th largest economy and Asia’s most vibrant democracy.	这项决策早就应该做出，因为韩国已经成为一个引人注目的成功案例： 在短短一代人的时间里，韩国人从内战的重创、北方共产主义兄弟的威胁、长期的贫困和40年的军事独裁统治中解放出来，已经成为世界第13大经济体和亚洲最具活力的民主制度。


Historically squeezed between its two giant neighbors, China and Japan, South Korea had long been perceived as an underdog with a fuzzy cultural identity.	历史上一直处于中国和日本这两大邻国的夹缝之中，韩国长期以来被外界视为文化特征模糊的弱国。


In Asia, however, Japan’s leaders are not waiting for the Seoul summit to take a closer look at South Korea.	不过在亚洲，日本领导人不等首尔峰会就已经开始密切关注韩国。


South Korea was formerly a Japanese colony (1910-1945), and the natives were treated like an inferior race.	韩国曾经是日本的殖民地（1910－1945），那里的本土居民曾被视为劣等民族。


Today, South Korean’s economy has been growing annually by 5% on average for ten years, whereas Japan grew by 0.42% per year during the same period.	而今天，韩国经济10年来的年均增长率为5%，而日本同期的年均增长率只有0. 42%。


One could argue that South Korea is not yet a mature economy and is only catching up with a more advanced Japan.	你可以说韩国尚不属于成熟的经济体，现在不过是在追赶更发达的日本。


This was the case in the 1970’s, but no more.	20世纪70年代情况的确如此，但现在已经发生了很大变化。


Whereas China’s growth is fueled by low-cost labor as millions of peasants enter the industrial economy, this is not the South Korean recipe for success, which has been driven by private entrepreneurship, innovation, and quality products: Samsung and Hyundai, not cheap wages, are South Korea’s growth engines.	与中国得益于因成百上千万农民工融入工业经济而带来的低价劳动力不同，韩国的成功秘诀是私有企业、创新和高质量的产品： 三星和现代，而不是低廉的工资，是推动韩国经济成长的发动机。


Another key to South Korea’s success story is the well-balanced relationship between stable governments and the private sector.	韩国成功的另一个关键是稳定的政府和私有部门之间形成了良好的平衡关系。


This was clearly demonstrated late last year when a South Korean consortium won a contract to build four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates late last year, beating out the French.	去年底韩国财团击败法国中标阿联酋四座核反应堆修建工程显而易见地证明了这一点。


The Japanese knew how to coordinate state and private-sector goals in the 1970’s, but then lost their way.	20世纪70年代日本人也曾掌握协调国家和私有部门目标的方法，但后来渐渐迷失了方向。


“We should now emulate the South Koreans,” says Eisuke Sakakibara, a leading Japanese economist, who was one of the architects of the Japanese “miracle” of the 1980’s.	20世纪80年代日本“奇迹”的缔造者之一、日本著名经济学家神原英资说，“我们现在应当仿效韩国。


Japanese in search of a miracle now travel to Seoul.	”日本人现在开始来到首尔寻找奇迹。


“In Japan, 1990 to 2000 was called the ‘lost decade,’” says the free-market economist Fumio Hayashi.	“在日本，我们把1990到2000年称为‘迷失的十年’，自由市场经济学家林文夫说。


Now Japan is completing its second lost decade.	现在日本正在经历又一个迷失的十年。


Hayashi and Sakakibara – indeed, most Japanese economists – more or less agree on the fundamental reason for such spectacular stagnation: the Japanese have stopped working hard.	林文夫和神原英资——实际上几乎所有的日本经济学家——已经或多或少地就如此壮观停滞的根本原因达成了共识： 日本人已经不再奋力工作。


Fewer hours worked, longer vacations, and a declining population (since 2005) have, predictably, undermined Japanese growth.	工作时间减少、假期增多和人口的减少（自2005年以后）已经不出所料地破坏了日本的经济发展。


To turn this situation around, says Sakakibara, “the Japanese should work more, have more children, and allow immigration.”	要想扭转这种局面，神原英资说，“日本人应当努力工作，多生孩子，并开放移民。


But the incentives to make any of this happen are just not there.	” 但日本社会根本不存在实现这些目标的动力。


The Japanese still live comfortably, better by one-third than the South Koreans, thanks to their past investments.	日本人仰仗他们过去的投资仍然过着舒适的生活，生活水平比韩国人高三分之一。


Japanese companies abroad remain profitable and Japan is still the global leader in high-tech niches like electronics or carbon fibers.	日本的海外企业仍然有利可图，而且日本仍是电子或碳纤维等高科技细分市场的全球领导者。


For example, Apple’s iPhone and Boeing’s latest airplane rely heavily on Japanese-patented innovations.	比方说，苹果的iPhone和波音最新款飞机都高度依赖于由日本掌握专利的创新技术。


These comparative advantages may keep Japan above water for a while, but only until China or South Korea catch up.	这样的比较优势可能在一段时间内让日本避免麻烦，但中国或韩国早晚会赶上日本。


One would thus expect Japan to be anxiety-ridden, but it is not.	你可能因此认为日本人应该忧心忡忡，但实际情况并非如此。


True, new forms of poverty and unemployment are rising, but they remain well hidden behind family solidarity or corporate customs.	没错，新形式的贫困和失业正在抬头，但它们仍然被家庭团结或企业惯例所掩盖。


Companies reduce their superfluous employees’ annual bonuses, but do not get rid of them.	企业削减过多的年终奖金，但并没有将其彻底取消。


Young Japanese tend not to work before their 30’s, and married women stay at home.	年轻的日本人在30岁之前一般不找工作，妇女婚后则大多待在家里。


Political parties that rely on an aging constituency are not tempted to call for change.  The sort of shaky short-term political coalitions that rule Japan nowadays prefer to buy time through so-called public stimulus, or to preserve inefficient companies with subsidies.	以老年选民为基础的政党并不热衷于任何变化。   目前统治日本的摇摇欲坠的短期政治联盟更愿意通过所谓公共刺激来赢得时间，或者用补贴养活那些效率低下的公司。


Twenty years of such shortsighted policies, whatever the party in power, have fueled government debt, hindering private investment.	近20年来执政党派诸如此类的短视政策令政府债务激增，严重妨碍了相关的私人投资。


More strikingly, stagnation has found its promoters in Japan itself.	更令人惊讶的是，日本国内居然出现了一批停滞的鼓吹份子。


A leading public intellectual Naoki Inose, who is also Tokyo’s vice governor, has declared that “the era of growth is over.”	著名知识份子兼东京副市长的猪濑直树已经断言“增长的时代已经过去。


When Japan was threatened by Western imperialism, he says, the country had to open up (in 1868) and modernize.	” 当日本遭受西方帝国主义威胁的时候，他曾说，日本必需走开放（1868年）和现代化的道路。


This process has been completed.	这一进程现在已进行完毕。


Japan is now ready to reconnect with its own tradition of social harmony and zero growth.	日本现在正在与其自身的社会和谐及零增长的传统重新接轨。


Referring to the 1600-1868 period, Inose calls this future the New Edo era: “a smaller population will enjoy the sufficient wealth that has been accumulated, and, from now on, it will invest its creativity in refining the culture.”	谈及1600－1868这段时期，猪濑直树把这叫做新江户时代。 “相对较少的人口将享受积累起来的充足财富，而且从现在起，日本将把创造力用于完善自己的文化。


The first Edo collapsed when the United States Navy opened up the Japanese market with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s “black ships” in 1853.	” 1853年，美国海军准将佩里驾驶“黑船”打开了日本的市场，第一个江户时代就此结束。


Will the second Edo be able to resist Chinese ambitions?	第二个江户时代究竟能否抵挡中国的远大抱负？


“The New Edo era needs a strong Japanese army,” admits Inose.	“新江户时代需要一支强大的日本军队，”猪濑直树承认。


This second Edo era may sound like a poetic utopia, but it has some influence: Sakakibara observes that Japanese students do not study abroad anymore, and that “nobody learns English.”	所谓第二次江户时代可能听上去像诗意的乌托邦，但却产生了切实的影响力： 神原英资观察到日本学生不再到国外留学，同时也“没有人再学习英语。


At a time when South Koreans are becoming more globalized, learning English, and welcoming a growing number of immigrants, Japan is entering a “de-globalization process.”	” 在韩国日益全球化、学习英语、欢迎越来越多移民的同时，日本却正在步入一个“去全球化进程”。


That is a worrying trend, and not only for Japan: South Korea can hardly stand alone as the lone Asian democracy.	这一趋势令人忧虑，而且不仅对日本如此： 韩国作为亚洲唯一的民主国家恐怕独木难支。


If the Japanese do not wake up from their Edo dream, Asia might very well become a Chinese empire.	如果日本人不赶快从江户之梦中醒来，亚洲很可能最终成为中国的领地。


Will this be debated at the G-20?	20国集团峰会会讨论这个议题吗？


Not openly, but certainly in the corridors.	不会公开讨论，但在走道里私下讨论丝毫不足为奇。


Drifting Towards the Rapids	滑向激流


LONDON – We are told that we live in anxious times, with lots to worry about and no more comforting certainty.	伦敦——我们被告知自己生活在一个充满焦虑的年代，需要操心的地方很多，令人安心的确定性却少之又少。


But just how comfortable were all those past certainties, anyway?	但过去几个世纪究竟又有多么舒适呢？


I grew up in a world in which peace and stability were assured by the threat of global nuclear annihilation.	我在一个由全球核毁灭威胁保证和平稳定的世界中长大。


My first term at university coincided with the Cuban missile crisis.  The Communist East glowered over the Berlin Wall at the democratic and capitalist West.	我大学的第一个学期恰逢古巴导弹危机。   共产主义东方隔着柏林墙怒视着民主资本主义的西方。


The two sides fought proxy wars in Africa and Asia.	这两大阵营各自的代理在亚非两大洲进行着较量。


Tens of thousands died to hold democracy’s frontline in Vietnam, where foreigners now rush to invest their money.	成千上万人为捍卫民主阵线在越南献出生命，而现在这个国家已成为外国人蜂拥而入的投资对象。


Hundreds of millions were shut out of global prosperity in China and India by the madness of Mao Zedong and the misguided socialism of the Congress Party.	毛泽东的疯狂和国大党误入歧途的社会主义致使中国和印度的亿万人无法享受全球繁荣。


Were those really better times?	这难道真的是美好时光？


And what are the big problems today that should cause us to lose sleep?	今天能让我们辗转反侧的大问题是什么？


Well, first and foremost, today’s problems are the result of past success.	首先，今天的问题是过往成功的结果。


There are four times more people in the world than there were a hundred years ago, producing 40 times as much output and spewing 17 times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.	世界人口比一百年前增加了四倍，产值达到过去的40倍，二氧化碳的排放量则是过去的17倍还多。


That is the existential issue confronting the world, to which our response remains hopelessly inadequate.	这就是世界面临的现实问题，我们所采取的对策还远远不够。


Second, we find ourselves in the unusual position of having a global leader – the United States – that is also the world’s biggest debtor.	其次，我们发现自己的处境非同寻常，因为我们的全球领袖美国也是全世界最大的债务国。


If America had not in the past borrowed so much, the world would not have grown so fast.	如果美国过去没有借那么多债，世界也不会有这么快的发展速度。


The US was more the world’s emporium than its imperium.	美国更像是座世界大商场，而不像是世界的领导者。


But just think how different everything would look if America had a trade surplus and a more manageable level of domestic borrowing than the $14 trillion run-up in debt by credit-card holders before 2007.	但想想如果2007年前美国有的是贸易顺差和比14万亿更为合理的国内信用卡持卡人负债，那世界与今天相比将会有多么大的不同。


Third, as has always happened in the past, the world is trying with some difficulty to adjust to the arrival of a new and very big kid on the block.	第三，像以往一样，面对街道上新来的大孩子，世界正在艰难而努力的适应过程中。


China has been the world’s largest country for millennia, and until the mid-nineteenth century it was the largest economy, too – mainly because it had so many consumers and producers.	中国千年以来一直是世界最大的国家，19世纪中叶以前也一直是最大的经济体，主要原因是有众多的生产者和客户。


That will soon be the case again, even though in terms of per capita wealth China ranks roughly 100th in the world, trailing Albania.	情况很快又会和当时一样，即使按人均财富算中国也紧随阿尔巴尼亚，大致排在全世界百位左右。


But China has re-emerged a big hitter, along with India – whose population will soon be bigger and younger than China’s – and Brazil.	但重新崛起的大国并非只有中国一个，此外还有印度和巴西——其中印度人口的总数和年轻人数量将很快超过中国。


How do we cope with this growth of economic and political clout?	面对这些不断成长的经济和政治势力我们又有何对策？


While China may have started to throw a bit of its weight around – for example, in its own neighbourhood in pursuit of maritime reach and undersea oil – the main threat that it poses is that the country falls apart, not that it continues to thrive.	在中国开始耀武扬威——比方说，追求对周边海域和海底石油控制的同时——这个国家所能带来的最大危害是四分五裂，而不是继续繁荣。


Fourth, while all this has been happening, the institutions set up after World War II to create global rules and to preside over their implementation have lost much of their political and economic sway and legitimacy.	其四，随着情势的变化，二战后制定全球规则及确保其实施的制度已经失去了大部分政治经济影响力和合法性。


The United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions no longer reflect the world’s power balance, and, even as the scale of problems common to all countries has increased, their willingness to share sovereignty to tackle them has diminished.	联合国和布雷顿森林机构再也不能反映世界的权力平衡，而即使各国不得不面对的共同问题越来越多，它们进行主权交流解决问题的意愿却越来越弱。


In these circumstances, we badly need strong and wise leadership.	在这种情况下，我们迫切需要坚强智慧的领导人物。


Absent America, it is difficult to see where this is likely to come from.	除了美国，很难找出谁还能扮演这一角色。


An intelligent president in Washington is hobbled by a political system that makes it all but impossible to build a consensus for reform at home or decisive action abroad.	华盛顿一位英明总统被政治制度捆住了手脚，使得就国内改革或国外行动达成共识几乎成为不可能完成的任务。


Many of President Barack Obama’s political opponents regard the notion of American leadership of international institutions and a commitment to engagement and multilateralism as a form of un-American treachery.	巴拉克·奥巴马总统的很多政治对手将美国对国际机构的领导以及有关参与和多边主义的承诺视为对美国的背叛态度。


For their part, America’s post-war partners in Europe, while still representing more than one-fifth of the world’s output, are obsessed with their own inadequate efforts to improve their international competitiveness and save the currency that many of them share.	美国战后在欧洲的伙伴虽然仍占据世界总产值的五分之一，但却因提升国际竞争力和挽救共同货币所付出的努力不够而陷入困境无法自拔。


It is not much good looking to the European Union for self-confident and concerted political initiative on the international stage.	期待欧盟在国际舞台上采取自信和统一一致的政治行动没有多大希望。


And what of the emerging powers?	而新崛起的大国呢？


China has taken huge advantage of the global marketplace created above all by the US.	中国从由美国一手制造的全球市场中获得了巨大的好处。


But it now challenges the principles on which America’s successful policy of a democratic and prosperous peace was based, and it has no alternative model to put in its place.	但它却对造就美国民主繁荣和平的成功政策提出挑战，同时又拿不出取代这种模式的好的办法。


Attempting to retain advantages for your exporters and to buy up commodities regardless of the political and economic price is a tactic for China, not a strategy for the world.	力求保住出口企业的优势和不顾政治和经济代价购买大宗商品是中国，而不是世界各国的政策。


Nor is there any plan on offer from other emerging powers, though in time India may show growing alarm about China’s muscle-flexing, and Brazil may question whether it has really been wise to cosset Venezuela and Cuba.	其他新兴国家同样没有任何计划，虽然印度迟早会对中国炫耀武力越来越警惕，而巴西则可能最终质疑是否真有必要纵容委内瑞拉和古巴。


So who will contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions?	那么谁能遏制伊朗的核抱负？


Who will broker a Middle East peace?	谁能调停中东和平？


Who will prevent a global drift into currency wars and trade protectionism?	谁能阻止全球陷入货币战争和贸易保护主义的漩涡？


Who will ensure that the Cancứn climate-change conference this December does not meet the same fate as last year’s Copenhagen summit?	谁能保证今年12月坎昆的气候变化会议不会与去年的哥本哈根会议遭遇同样的命运？


Who will add strength and moral authority to the task of rebuilding the failed and failing states that incubate so many of our problems, from terrorism to illicit drugs?	谁能为造成从恐怖主义到非法贩毒等多种问题的失败和滑向失败国家的重建任务出力并树立道德典范？


Yesterday was not as good as we remember it.	昨天并不像我们记忆中那般美好。


But today lacks leadership, and tomorrow could be far more dangerous as a result.	但如果今天失去领导，明天的危险性将会大大增加。


Meanwhile, we drift downstream seemingly oblivious to the looming peril of the rapids ahead.	与此同时，我们正不知不觉地向着前方激流中越来越近的危险滑去。


Drones for Development	为了发展的无人机


LAUSANNE – Unmanned aerial vehicles have populated both the imagination and nightmares of people around the world in recent years.	日内瓦—近几年来，无人航空器给全世界人们带来了无数想象和噩梦。


In April, the United States Navy announced an experimental program called LOCUST (Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology), which officials promise will “autonomously overwhelm an adversary” and thus “provide Sailors and Marines a decisive tactical advantage.”	4月，美国海军宣布了一项称为LOCUST（低成本无人航空器分蜂技术）的试验计划，官员承诺，该计划将“自主克敌”，从而“为水兵和海军陆战队员带来决定性战术优势”。


With a name and a mission like that – and given the spotty ethical track record of drone warfare – it is little wonder that many are queasy about the continued proliferation of flying robots.	从该计划的命名和任务看——以及从无人机武器褒贬不一的到的记录看——毫不奇怪许多人质疑飞行机器人的继续大量增加。


But the industrial use of the lower sky is here to stay.	但低空工业应用仍将继续发展。


More than three million humans are in the air daily.	每天有三百多万人在天上飞。


Every large human settlement on our planet is connected to another by air transport.	每个大型人类定居点都通过航空交通与另一个人类定居点相连。


DJI, a Chinese UAV manufacturer, is seeking a $10 billion valuation.	中国无人飞行器制造商DJI正在迈向100亿美元估值。


Cargo drones will grow into an even larger industry in the coming years, simply because, unencumbered by the weight of humans and their life-support systems, they will fly more cheaply but be just as fast and safe.	货运无人机将在未来几年成为规模更大的产业，原因很简单——摆脱了人类重量和生命支持系统，无人机可以以更低的成本实现同样程度快捷和安全的飞行。


In rich countries, early interest in cargo drones has focused on the so-called last mile – a tub of sorbet onto a suburban lawn.	在发达国家，货运无人机的早期关注点集中在所谓的最后一英里——将一桶冰淇淋送往郊区的草坪。


But the bigger opportunities are in flying the middle mile in poorer countries.	但更大的机会在于贫穷国家的中程飞行。


Some 800 million people around the world have limited access to emergency services, and that will not change in the foreseeable future, because there will not be enough money to build roads to connect them.	全球大约8亿人难以获得紧急服务，并且这一状况在可预见的未来难以改变，因为没有足够的钱修��连同他们。


By flying medium-size loads middling distances to many of these isolated communities, cargo drones can save lives and create jobs.	接驳这些孤立社区的中等规模、中等航程飞行的无人机能够拯救生命、创造就业。


Cargo drones embody what Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, calls the “science of delivery.”	货运无人机包含了世界银行行长金墉所谓的“实现的科学”（science of delivery）。


We know what we need to deliver: the solutions to many of our most pressing problems already exist.	我们知道我们需要实现什么：大部分紧迫问题已经有了解决方案。


The question is how.	问题是如何实施。


Answering that question is why humanitarians, roboticists, architects, logisticians, and others have joined together in a new initiative called Red Line, a Swiss-based consortium to accelerate development of emergency cargo drones and build the world’s first droneports – in Africa.	为了回答这些问题，人道主义者、机器人专家、建筑师、物流师和其他人团结在一项叫做红线（Red Line）的新计划背后。 红线是一家位于瑞士的联盟，旨在加速紧急货运无人机的开发和建设世界上首个无人机机场——位于非洲。


It sounds techno-utopian – or at least like a huge waste of resources.	这听起来像是技术乌托邦——或至少是对资源的巨大浪费。


After all, the experience of the most successful development organizations suggests that we should be skeptical about advanced technology’s power to bring about meaningful change for the poor.	毕竟，最成功的发展组织的经验表明我们应该对先进技术给穷人带来有意义的变化的力量保持怀疑。


Yes, the falling cost of processing power creates new efficiencies, particularly in smartphones and related sky-fi connectivity.	诚然，处理能力成本的下降带来了新效率，特别是智能手机和相关空际无线连接。


But gadgets are mostly blinking bling.	但装置往往只是耀眼的点缀。


It is boring stuff like low-cost teacher training, community health care, and apprenticeships that produces results for the poor.	低成本教师培训、社区医疗、学徒制，这些看起来没有什么新意的东西才能为穷人带来成果。


That is why many development experts favor “frugal innovation” over technology.	因此，许多发展专家更青睐“节约型创新”而非技术。


The Bangladesh-based BRAC, the world’s largest development NGO, has 1.3 million children enrolled in one-room schools – and hardly a laptop in sight.	位于孟加拉国的世界第三大非政府发展组织BRAC有130万注册于仅有一间校舍的学校的学生——并且几乎没有 笔记本电脑。


So why be optimistic about cargo drones?	因此，为何要对货运无人机保持乐观？


Silicon Valley speaks the bulldozer language of “disruption,” but one reason to favor cargo drones is precisely that they are not disruptive at all.	硅谷言必称“破坏”，但一个看好货运无人机的理由正是它们根本不具有破坏性。


Instead, they can augment existing distribution networks in remote regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America where poverty and disease are pervasive, distances are great, and roads will never be built.	相反，它们能扩大非洲、亚洲和拉美边远地区的分销网络，那里贫穷和疾病横行，距离遥远，根本无路可走。


Cargo drones are particularly well suited to the so-called local-agent delivery model.	货运无人机特别适合所谓的地方代理人实现模式（local-agent delivery model）。


Companies and organizations have shown that in hard-to-reach places in Africa and South Asia, women trained as micro-entrepreneurs are often best positioned to deliver essential goods and services to their villages, even if they have limited literacy and formal education.	公司和组织已经表明，在非洲和南亚的难以到达的地区，经过训练成为微型创业家的女性常常最适合实现对其村庄最重要的商品和服务，那么她们只有非常有限的识字能力，接受过非常有限的正式教育。


BRAC’s community health workers, for example, work entirely on a micro-franchising basis, making their money from margins on sales of basic commodities like de-worming medication, anti-malarial drugs, and contraceptives.	比如，BRAC的社区卫生工作者完全在微连锁（micro-franchising）的基础上工作，从销售基本商品（如打虫药、抗疟疾药和避孕药）的利润中赚钱。


Though cargo drones will never replace ground transport, they can ensure that vital goods and services get to where they are needed.	尽管货运无人机永远无法取代地面交通，但它们可以确保关键商品和服务抵达需要的人手中。


Mobile phones took off in Africa because the technology was so much cheaper than investment in landline infrastructure.	移动电话在非洲能够取得飞越式发展，原因就在于这项技术比投资通讯线路基础设施便宜得多。


The same can be said today about Africa’s roads.	如今，非洲的道路也是如此。


Like the mobile phone, the cargo drone can prove to be the rarest of creatures: a gadget that works for those who need it most.	和移动电话一样，货运无人机可以成为最珍贵的创造：为最需要的人工作的装置。


Life-Saving Drugs for All	所有人的救命药


PRINCETON – The deadly outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea that began last year highlighted a problem in the production of pharmaceuticals.	普林斯顿—始于去年的利比里亚、塞拉利昂和几内亚的埃博拉致命大爆发凸显出制药生产的一个问题。


Once it became clear that the epidemic would not be rapidly contained, several firms quickly arranged for clinical trials of potential treatments and vaccines, indicating that they already had the ability to produce plausible candidates.	一旦情况清楚地表明传染病无法得到迅速遏制，一些企业就会迅速安排潜在治疗和疫苗的临床试验，这表明它们已经具备了生产可靠潜在产品的能力。


Ebola is not a new disease: it was first identified in 1976.	埃博拉不是新疾病：它在1976年就已经得到了识别。


Prior to 2014, however, the largest outbreak was in Uganda, in 2000, when 425 people were infected and 224 died.	但是，在2014年前，最大的爆发发生在2000年的乌干达，425人被感染，224人死亡。


Though Ebola was known to be both contagious and often fatal, it was thought that only Africa’s impoverished rural population was at risk.	尽管我们已知埃博拉具有传染性和高致死率，但我们认为只有非洲贫困的农村人口属于高危人群。


For pharmaceutical firms, the development of a vaccine or treatment was not commercially attractive, and so it did not warrant investment.	对制药企业来说，开发埃博拉疫苗和治疗手段不具商业吸引力，因此没有进行多少投资。


All that changed with the latest outbreak.	所有这些都随着最近的大爆发而改变。


In September 2014, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that, in the worst case, 1.4 million people could be infected within four months.	2014年9月，美国疾病控制和预防中心（Centers for Disease Control and Prevention）预测，在最糟糕的情形中，不出4个月将由140万人被传染。


Media-fed fears that the disease could spread to affluent countries led to extraordinary precautions.	媒体散布恐慌，说埃博拉可能传播到丰裕国家，这催生了不同寻常的预防措施。


In the United States, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $6.2 billion, including $2.4 billion to reduce the risk of the disease becoming established in America and set up 50 US Ebola treatment centers.	在美国，总统奥巴马要求国会拨款62亿美元，其中24亿美元用于降低埃博拉进入美国的风险和建立50座美国埃博拉治疗中心。


The worst-case scenario did not materialize.	最糟糕情形没有成为现实。


As of April 2015, the best estimate is that about 25,000 people have been infected, with approximately 10,000 deaths.	2015年4月，最接近的估计是大约25,000人被传染，近10,000人死亡。


Outside West Africa, there have been fewer than 30 cases, and only five deaths.	西非以外地区只有不到30例病例和五人死亡。


Nevertheless, the fears, and especially the prospect of a new and lucrative market, set pharmaceutical firms scrambling to develop Ebola-related products, while health officials lamented that nothing had been done beforehand.	尽管如此，恐慌，特别是看到了新的有利可图的市场，让制药企业争相研发埃博拉相关产品，而卫生官员则哀叹为何不早点这样做。


I am not criticizing pharmaceutical companies for not producing an Ebola vaccine when there was no market for it.	我不是在批评制药公司因为没有市场而不去生产埃博拉疫苗。


They are not charities.	它们不是慈善机构。


If we want them to make products that will help the poor in developing countries, we need to find ways of giving them – and their shareholders – a return on their investment.	如果我们希望它们生产帮助发达国家穷人的产品，就需要找到办法让它们的投资——以及它们的股东——获得回报。


Whereas pharmaceutical companies lack incentives to aid the poor in developing countries, they have strong incentives to develop products for people in affluent countries.	制药公司没有激励帮助发展中国家的穷人，但它们很有激励为丰裕国家的人民开发产品。


One drug, Soliris, costs $440,000 per patient per year.	一种叫做Soliris的药，每年每位病人要耗费440,000美元。


In contrast, GiveWell estimates that the cost of saving a life by distributing bed nets in regions where malaria is a major killer is $3,400.	相反，葛伍维尔（GiveWell）估算，在疟疾为主要致死原因的地区分发蚊帐，只要3,400美元就可以拯救一条人命。


Given that most of the lives saved are those of children, who even in developing countries have a life expectancy of at least 50 years, this equates to a cost of $68 per year of life saved.	并且被拯救的大多是儿童，而即使在发展中国家，他们的预期寿命也至少有50岁，换算下来拯救一年性命的成本只有68美元。


Should we really be valuing the life of a person in an affluent country at more than 6,000 times the value of the life of an impoverished child in a developing country?	我们真的应该给予丰裕国家的人相当于发展中国家贫困儿童6,000多倍的生命价值吗？


Because the overwhelming majority of medical and pharmaceutical research is directed toward products that affect people in affluent countries, it targets only part of the global burden of disease.	由于绝大多数医疗和制药研究以影响丰裕国家人民的产品为目标，因此���们只能解决全球疾病负担的一部分。


Some government- and foundation-funded research addresses diseases that primarily affect poor people, but these efforts are not systematic and do not use the incentives that work well to drive pharmaceutical innovation elsewhere.	一些政府和基金会出资的研究以主要影响穷人的疾病为目标，但这些研究不系统，也缺少其他情况下效果显著的制药创新激励。


One promising attempt to correct this imbalance is the proposal for a Health Impact Fund that Thomas Pogge, director of the Global Justice Program at Yale, and Aidan Hollis, an economist at the University of Calgary, launched seven years ago.	纠正这一失衡的一个很有希望的尝试是耶鲁全球正义计划（Global Justice Program）主管托马斯·波奇（Thomas Pogge）和卡尔加里大学经济学家艾丹·霍利斯（Aidan Hollis）七年前发起的健康影响基金（Health Impact Fund）项目。


If the Health Impact Fund could be adequately financed, it would provide incentives to develop products in proportion to their impact in reducing the global burden of disease.	如果健康影响基金能获得足够的融资，它可以提供与降低全球疾病负担效果相匹配的产品开发激励。


It is not certain that the existence of such a fund prior to the recent Ebola outbreak would have led to the development of vaccines or treatments for the disease.	在最近的埃博拉爆发前存在这样一个基金是否能推动埃博拉疫苗和治手段的开发，我们无法确定。


But pharmaceutical companies would have been considering such products – as well as other treatments to save lives or improve health anywhere in the world, regardless of people’s ability to pay.	但制药公司将对这类产品有所考虑——其他在地球某处拯救生命、改善健康的治疗手段亦然，不管人们是否有支付能力。


Pogge and Hollis have now refined their proposal to the point that it is ready for a real-world trial.	如今，波奇和霍利斯对他们的方案进行了微调，使其做好了进行真实世界实验的准备。


A company that develops a product would earn a share of reward money based on its share of the health improvements achieved by all the products competing for the available funds.	开发某产品的某公司将获得一定比例的奖励金，金额基础为它在竞争可得资金的产品所取得的总健康改善成果中的所占比例。


What is still needed, however, is sufficient reward money – perhaps $100 million from governments, NGOs, foundations and the pharmaceutical industry – to stimulate serious investment.	但是，仍然需要足够的奖励金——也许需要政府、非政府组织、基金会和制药业资助1亿美元——以刺激认真的投资。


Such a pilot program would benefit poor patients and would test scientists’ ability to measure health impact fairly and accurately.	这一试点计划将有助于贫穷患者，也将考验科学家公正准确地测量健康影响的能力。


It would also provide the evidence needed to go to governments, foundations, and global institutions for the much larger sums required to expand the present system of incentives that guide pharmaceutical companies’ decisions.	该计划啊还将提供需要的证据促使政府、基金会和全球机构大幅增加支持，以满足扩大当前影响制药公司决策的激励体系的需要。


If the pilot is successful, we will have found a way to support the development of drugs and vaccines that gives equal weight to protecting the lives and improving the health of all human beings, irrespective of their nationality or wealth.	如果试点成功，我们将找到办法支持不论国籍和财富、平等保护一切生命和改善全人类健康的药物和疫苗的开发。


Drugs, Sport, and Ethics	药品、体育运动和道德规范


When the Olympic Games return to Greece this summer, the results at the drug testing laboratory may get as much attention as what happens at the Olympic stadium.	当奥林匹克运动会场地今年夏天重新回到它的发源地希腊，药品检测实验室可能会和奥运会竞赛场地一样备受人们的关注。


The history of drugs, and drug control, at the Olympics is discouraging - a farrago of ill-informed rules, outright state-sponsored cheating, and half-hearted and erratic attempts at enforcement.	兴奋剂的使用历史和兴奋剂的控制情况，在奥林匹克运动会上的表现是令人泄气的--一个漏洞百出的大杂烩条例、毫无疑义的国家支持的欺骗、和半心半意不规则的执行情况。


A new model has recently revived hope for effective drug control by moving testing and enforcement from the direct control of the International Olympic Committee and the national governing bodies to the World Anti-Doping Agency and similar organizations at the national level.	最近，一个新的有效控制兴奋剂的操作模型又燃起了人们的希望。 它将兴奋剂的检测和执行工作，从原来直接由国际奥林匹克委员会和国家政府机构管理改为世界反运动禁药组织以及类似国家级组织管理。


The US Anti-Doping Agency, for example, played a central role in uncovering a new synthetic steroid known as THG linked to a California firm catering to Olympic and professional athletes.	世界反运动禁药组织，举例来说，在发现一种新的名叫THG的合成类固醇药品中就发挥了重要作用。 从加利弗尼亚承办机构到奥林匹克和职业运动员都与这种兴奋剂有染。


But the renewed hope will be frustrated unless we can respond effectively to the ethical challenge.	但是新燃起的希望也可能走向沮丧，除非我们能够积极地回应道德挑战。


No amount of interdiction will suffice if we do not explain clearly what, precisely, is wrong with using performance enhancing drugs in sport.	如果我们不能解释清楚为什么在体育运动中服用兴奋剂是错误的这个问题，那么再多的禁令也无济于事。


There are three compelling reasons to ban such drugs: assuring all athletes that the competition is fair; preserving the integrity of the athlete; and safeguarding what gives sport its meaning and value.	有三个正当的理由来禁止这些药品：确保体育比赛公平； 保护运动员诚实正直的品行；


Young Olympians devote their lives to their sport for the opportunity to match themselves against the world's most gifted and dedicated athletes.	年轻的奥林匹克选手将他们的生命奉献给了他们的运动项目，一心希望有机会赶超那些世界最顶尖的优秀运动员。


The difference between gold medalist and also-ran may be measured in fractions of seconds or inches.	金牌获得者和其它选手之间的区别可能只差那么一两秒或几英寸。


A tiny advantage can make all the difference.	一点小小的帮助就可以改变这一切。


What if that advantage comes from using a performance enhancing drug?	那么如果这个小小的帮助就是服用兴奋剂，又会怎样呢？


For athletes who want to compete clean, the threat that they may be beaten by a competitor who is not faster, stronger, or more dedicated, but who takes a drug to gain the edge, is profoundly personal.	对那些想凭实力参加比赛的运动员来说，他们便面临着被不比他们更快、更强或更努力，但因服用兴奋剂而赢得体能的选手打败的可能，这对于运动员个人来说有着深刻的影响。


When drugs are prohibited but some athletes use them anyway the playing field tilts in favor of the cheater.	当药品被禁止，但一些运动员照吃不误的时候，运动场地的天平其实已经向那些欺骗者倾斜。


If we prohibit drugs in the Olympic Games, we owe it to the athletes to deter, detect, and punish those who cheat.	如果我们禁止在奥林匹克运动会上服用兴奋剂，那么我们就应该负起责任，奉劝运动员不要做这种傻事、对运动员进行严格检测、并惩罚那些服用了兴奋剂的运动员。


Integrity seems like an old-fashioned idea, but it is at the heart of who we are and how we live.	诚实正直现在似乎已经过时了，但它却是我们做人做事的基本准则。


Performance enhancing drugs affect the individual athlete's integrity in two ways.	服用兴奋剂会从两个方面影响到运动员正直的品行。


First, if drugs are banned, then choosing not to use them is a test of one's character. A person of integrity does not behave dishonestly.	第一，如果药品被禁止，那么选择不使用它们就是对人格的考验。


A person of integrity does not seek to prevail over his competitors by methods that give him an illegitimate advantage.	正直的人不会不诚实，正直的人不会追求用一种非法获得的优势来击败他的竞争对手。


Second, the concept of integrity implies wholeness, being unbroken, moral soundness and freedom from corruption.	第二，正直意味着人格的完整、不受阻碍、道德健全和远离腐败。


When an athlete wins by using a performance enhancing drug, what does that mean for the athlete's own understanding of what happened?	当一个运动员通过服用兴奋剂而赢得比赛，他自己会怎么想？


Am I the world's best?	我是世界最好选手吗？


Or was my supposed victory hopelessly tainted by the drug's effects?	或我的胜利只能依赖于兴奋剂了吗？


The meaning of a drug-aided victory is ambiguous and elusive even for the athlete.	通过使用兴奋剂而赢得的胜利对运动员来说，其含义是模糊的，隐晦的。


It is the result of corruption and brokenness, the very opposite of authentic victory.	它是堕落和病态的结果，与真正的胜利正好相反。


What makes a victory authentic?	什么才能造就真正的胜利？


What gives sport its meaning and value?	什么才是体育运动的意义和价值所在？


We expect the winning athlete to combine extraordinary natural talents with exemplary effort, training and technique.	我们希望冠军选手具备超凡的身体素质，以及堪称模范的刻苦训练和技艺。


These are all forms of human excellence.	这些才是人类的精华所在。


Some we are born with - or not.	有一些是我们生来就有的，有一些则不是。


As much as I loved playing basketball, I was destined never quite to reach six feet in height.	就象我热爱篮球运动，但我注定永远不会长到6英尺高。


An accurate jump shot and the willingness to take punishment never made up for my size and mediocre leaping ability.	一个精确的起跳和自愿接受惩罚的心永远也无法弥补我个子的矮小和平庸的跳跃能力。


Whatever natural abilities we have must be perfected.	不管我们有哪些天生的能力，它们都是完美的。


We achieve this - or not - through a combination of virtues such as fortitude in the face of relentless training, physical courage as we persevere through pain, and cleverness when we outsmart our opponents, along with other factors such as helpful coaching, optimized equipment, and sound nutrition.	我们获得成功--也可能不会--是通过人类的美德，如我们在面对严格训练时的意志力，在伤痛中仍然坚持不懈的决心，和我们在与对手抗争时的聪明才智，以及其它一些因素如富有经验的教练、优良的设备和营养调理等。


Natural talents should be respected for what they are: the occasionally awesome luck of the biological draw. Courage, fortitude, competitive savvy, and other virtues rightfully command our moral admiration.	天才应该受到尊重：他们幸运地具备了常人所敬畏的身体素质、勇气、坚韧、竞争意识、和其它受到我们推崇的人类美德。


The other factors - equipment, coaching, and nutrition - contribute to an athlete's success but don't evoke the same awe or esteem.	其它因素，如仪器设备、教练、营养，虽然也为运动员走向成功起到了重要作用，但不会引起同样的敬畏和尊重。


When we watch a sprinter set a new Olympic record in the hundred meter dash, it's not the shoes he or she wears that command our admiration. Nor is it the coaching received or the energy bar consumed just before the event.	当我们看到一个短跑选手创造了100米跑的世界纪录，我们尊重的不是他或她穿的鞋，也不是他或她在赛前接受了什么样的教导或在能量吧得到了哪些享受。


All of these contribute to the record, just like a good camera was necessary for Ansel Adam's unforgettable photos of the American West, or good marble and sharp chisels for Michelangelo's sculpture of David.	所有这些，对于一个世界纪录来说，就象是一架好的照相机对拍出令人难忘的美国西部照片的当代摄影怪杰安塞尔·亚当斯那样必需，或象优质大理石和凿子对米开朗基罗创造大卫雕塑那样必不可少。


But what we care about most, what gives that achievement its meaning and value, is the ineffable combination of remarkable natural talents and extraordinary dedication.	但我们最关心的、赋予这项成就意义和价值的，是运动员无法言喻的天才素质和超凡的奉献精神。


Performance enhancing drugs disguise natural abilities and substitute for the dedication and focus that we admire.	服用兴奋剂掩盖了自然能力，也破坏了奉献精神和我们推崇的美德。


Performance enhancing drugs cheapen sport, making winners out of also-rans, and depriving virtuous and superior athletes of the victories that should be theirs.	服用兴奋剂使体育运动变得廉价，使胜利者被排除在其它人之外，并剥夺了那些品德高尚的优秀运动员赢得本应属于他们的夺冠机会。


Getting performance enhancing drugs out of sport will not be easy, and success is not assured.	让兴奋剂远离体育运动不是一件容易的事，也不能确保成功。


But the effort is worthwhile as long as we care enough about fairness, integrity, and the meaning and value of sport.	但既然我们追求公平、公正、公开的体育竞赛原则，追求体育比赛的意义和价值，那么一切努力都是有意义的。


Drugstore Geneticist	药物遗传学家


LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA – Back in June 2000, when the draft human-genome sequence was announced, US President Bill Clinton proclaimed, “It will revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases.”	加利福尼亚拉霍拉——2000年6月人类基因序列草图刚刚公布时，美国总统比尔·克林顿曾踌躇满志地宣告，“即便不能治愈所有人类疾病，这项发现也将为绝大多数人类疾病的诊断、预防和治疗工作带来革命性的变化。


A decade later, hope has given way to disappointment, reflected in headlines like “Gene Map Yields Few New Cures.”	” 十年后，满腔希望变成了失望，报纸的头版头条写道“基因图谱并未带来几种新的治疗方式”。


But pessimism about the potential of human-genome research to yield medical breakthroughs has arisen from unrealistic expectations.	但是对人类基因研究所能带来潜在医学突破的悲观情绪是不切实际的期望造成的。


Indeed, while “silver bullets” that can cure our most feared diseases have not been found, progress in the area of gene-drug interactions, known as pharmacogenomics, has been extraordinary.	事实上，尽管人类并没有找到治愈最凶险疾病的“银弹”，但在基因药物作用（也叫基因药理学）领域却已经取得了引人瞩目的进步。


The ability to determine the principal genes that account for our variable response to prescription drugs has been advanced by a technique known as a genome-wide association study (GWAS).	人体对处方药的反应变数由某些主要基因确定，而一项名叫全基因组关联研究（GWAS）的技术已经使确定这种基因的能力有了很大的提高。


The whole human genome has approximately six billion bases, but a window into its composition can be probed using approximately one million bases (0.01% of the genome) via a gene chip.	人类总基因数约为60亿，但只要研究基因芯片中的约100万个基因（占基因总数的0. 01%）就可以窥见人类基因的大部分奥妙。


The bases on the chip are selected because they are informative, tagging bins of the genome, like a post-code directory.	芯片上的基因就好比邮编索引，是特别选定的信息丰富且有代表性的基因储藏库。


Using GWAS methodology, we have learned the biological basis for responses to many drugs – both their effectiveness and important side-effects.	利用全基因组关联研究法，我们已经掌握了很多药物反应的生物学基础——其中既包括药物疗效，也包括主要副作用。


Examples of this progress in the past couple of years are plentiful, and include the statins, Plavix, interferon, warfarin, and the antibiotic flucloxacillin.	几年来此类进展的实例不胜枚举，包括他汀类药物、波立维、干扰素、华法令和抗生素氟氯西林。


The main side-effect of statins, which lower cholesterol in the blood, is severe muscle inflammation, and it can now be predicted with a simple genotype test, as can the response to Plavix, the second most commonly prescribed drug after statins.	降血液胆固醇含量的他汀类药物其主要副作用是严重的肌肉发炎，现在只需进行简单的基因类型测试即可预知是否会产生这样的负面后果。 对波立维的反应也可以通过这种方法提前测知，波立维是仅次于他汀类药物的应用最广泛的处方药。


Those individuals who carry at least one copy of the gene variant that does not allow the body to metabolize Plavix have a 300% higher risk of clotting a stent.	携带至少一种基因变异，致使机体无法代谢波立维的患者其支架堵塞的风险比常人高300%之多。


This variation of the genome is exceptionally common, present in 30% of individuals of European ancestry and more than 50% of those of Asian ancestry.	这类基因变异非常普遍，30%欧洲血统和50%亚洲血统的患者是这类变异基因的携带者。


In many such patients, doubling the dose of Plavix, and checking the platelet function with a point-of-care test to assure suppression, can override the lack of response.	针对此类患者把波立维的给药剂量翻倍，并随时进行现场测试掌握血小板数量就能解决对药物不敏感的问题。


There are alternative drugs, such as prasugrel or ticagrelor, which can be used instead of Plavix to bypass the problem.	此外还有普拉格雷或替卡格雷等其他替代用药，这些药可以替代波立维防止支架堵塞。


The story of interferon, given for one year to patients with hepatitis C virus, is particularly striking.	一年前刚刚用于治疗丙肝患者的干扰素，在现阶段的确非常引人注目。


This treatment is very costly (about $50,000) and makes all patients feel quite ill with flu-like symptoms and general malaise.	这种治疗价格非常昂贵（约合50,000美元），并且使所有患者产生类似流感症状和浑身不适等副作用。


But the drug works in only half of the people treated.	但药物仅对半数患者有效。


We now know that a simple genotype sorts out who will or will not benefit from interferon, and there are many new drugs in development for those who will not.	我们现在知道只需一次简单的基因类型测定即可了解干扰素对特定患者的疗效，而那些疗效不佳的患者可以服用很多正在研制的新药。


The list goes on.	通过基因类型测定预知疗效的例子还有很多。


For warfarin, a widely prescribed drug used to prevent blood clots, genotyping can guide the right dose and hasten the time it takes to get to steady state.	对广泛用于抗血液凝结的处方药华法令，基因类型测定可以引导患者服用正确的剂量，并缩短进入稳定期所需的时间。


Genotyping can also predict severe liver toxicity for drugs such as flucloxacillin or lumiricoxib.	基因类型测定也可以提前预知氟氯西林或罗美昔布等药物是否会产生严重的肝脏毒性。


To be sure, our predictive ability is far from complete.	有一点毋庸置疑，那就是我们的预测能力还很不完善。


We know only common gene variants from the GWAS approach.	我们只能通过全基因组关联研究法了解最为普遍的基因变异现象。


Furthermore, most drugs have not even been studied yet, so there is a long way to go fill in the holes.	此外，多数药物都还没有进行过研究，因此要填补这些空白还需要做很多工作。


Nevertheless, substantive and remarkable progress has been made, all in the last few years.	尽管如此，短短几年来已经取得了实质性的显著进步。


Moreover, someday we will know – via sequencing of the whole genome – about rarer genomic variations that are correlated with treatment response or side-effects.	此外，终有一天我们会通过全基因测序方式了解与罕见基因变异相关的治疗反应或副作用。


This has paved the way for next-generation pharmacies.	这为新一代药理学奠定了基础。


Genotyping can now be accomplished in 20 minutes, and over time will get even faster.	现在可以在20分钟内完成基因类型测定，而且随着时间的推移速度还会进一步提高。


To fill a prescription for a drug with a known pharmacogenomic profile, a customer can get rapid genotyping to determine appropriate dose, drug, or predilection for serious side-effects.	在开具药理基因学特性已知的处方药物时，可以让客户接受快速的基因类型测定，以确定合适的药物种类、药物剂量或可能造成的严重副作用。


Or even better, many people will submit a saliva sample to a consumer genomics company, which will analyze all of their pharmacogenomic data and perform an extensive panel of genotypes, updated every month, and store the data on their smart phones.	在理想状况下，很多人都会向消费基因公司递交唾液样本，后者将分析他们的基因药理数据并成立基因类型专家组负责每月更新数据，并将其存储在智能手机上。


For mail-order prescriptions, such genomic data would be a routine part of the customer database.	涉及处方药邮购业务的情况下，上述基因数据将会成为客户资料库中一种常规资料。


In the United States, pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) handle prescriptions for almost all large employers and account for more than 200 million individuals.	美国由处方药集采企业（PBM）负责集中处理所有大规模企业（拥有超过2亿员工）的药物处方。


Two of the largest PBMs, Medco and CVS/Caremark, have announced plans to conduct large-scale genotyping for many drugs.	两家最大的处方药集采企业（Medco和CVS/Caremark）已经宣布了针对多种药物的大规模基因类型测定计划。


Their motives include more efficient use of prescription drugs, along with getting an edge on other PBM competitors.	他们的目的在于更有效地运用处方药，同时相对于其他处方药集采企业占据竞争优势。


With annual expenditures for prescription drugs in the US totaling $300 billion, there is certainly room to cut costs.	由于美国的处方药开支高达每年3000亿美元，因此削减开支的余地肯定很大。


Unfortunately, the medical community is resisting the use of pharmacogenomic data in clinical practice, despite regulatory authorities’ recommendations for many drugs.	令人遗憾的是，尽管监管部门竭力推荐多种药物，但医学界目前仍拒绝将药物基因数据应用于临床实践当中。


PBMs and consumer genomic companies can be a positive force by facilitating or advancing the use of such data.	处方药集采企业和消费基因公司可以在推动数据的应用方面发挥积极的作用。


The ultimate goal of pharmacogenomics is to provide the right drug, at the right dose, for the right individual, without any significant side-effects.	基因药理学的最终目的是以恰当的剂量为恰当的患者提供不产生严重副作用的恰当的药品。


Despite widespread misperceptions about the practical impact of genomic research, the science has hit its stride, and we need to capitalize on this momentum if we are to realize the opportunity of individualized medicine.	尽管对基因组研究的实际影响普遍存在误解，但这门学科已经开始渐入佳境，如果我们想要抓住实现个性化医疗的难得机遇，我们就必须很好地利用这样的势头。


Next-generation pharmacies represent a promising step toward that goal.	新一代药理学向实现这一目标迈出了充满希望的一步。


The Drug War on Women	针对女性的禁毒战争


NEW YORK – When I was growing up in communist Poland, International Women’s Day was viewed as an opportunity to celebrate women’s contributions and accomplishments.	纽约——我在社会主义的波兰长大时，国际妇女节被用来庆祝妇女的贡献和成就。


But it was a hollow token.	但其实这只是个空洞的记号。


The following day, women went back to their lives of limited opportunity.	翌日，妇女们依然要继续面对机会有限的生活。


No one-day holiday can do much to redress generations of discrimination.	几代人的歧视不是一天的节日可以矫正的。


The impact of the international drug-policy regime reflects this reality.	国际禁毒政策制度的影响同样反映了这样的现实。


In the drug supply chain, women are most commonly found at the bottom, often acting as “mules.”	妇女最常出现在供应链的底部，往往扮演“毒品贩运者”。


When a woman is caught, although she is often a non-violent first time offender, she faces a harsh mandatory minimum sentence.	如果被捕，尽管往往是非暴力初犯，但依然面临着严酷的最低强制刑期的处罚。


To the traffickers, these women are expendable.	对毒贩子而言，这些女性是可以牺牲的。


Bail is rarely put up for them, or a lawyer hired, because they hold no value to the trafficking structures.	她们很少会得到保释、或者聘请律师，因为她们对整个贩毒机制没有任何价值。


And, left on their own, these women lack the knowledge and resources to navigate the criminal justice system.	而且，单凭自身力量，这些女性缺乏知识和资源，无法真正理解司法系统。


Nor are they likely to have the right kind of information to trade with authorities in exchange for a lighter sentence.	她们也不太可能掌握有价值的信息，很难换取当局的从轻发落。


More women are sent to jail for drug offences than for any other crime.	因涉毒而被判入狱的妇女数量远比其他任何罪行要多。


In Latin America alone, they account for 70% of women in prison.	仅在拉美，在押女犯的70%都因为涉毒。


The impact on the drug trade of incarcerating a drug mule for a decade is minuscule; but the effect on the women and their families is devastating and irreversible.	对贩运者监禁数十年的刑罚对贩毒贸易的影响微不足道； 但对妇女及其家庭的伤害却是灾难性和不可逆转的。


I first noticed the effects of drug policy on women when I traveled to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.	苏联解体后的塔吉克斯坦和吉尔吉斯斯坦之行令我最早注意到禁毒政策对女性的影响。


In the Kyrgyz mountains, there were entire villages with not a man in sight; they had become migrant workers in Russia.	在吉尔吉斯山区，有不少村子整村都没有一个男人； 他们都到俄罗斯去打工了。


Within two years of Kyrgyzstan’s independence, prisons filled with women held on drug-trafficking charges.	吉尔吉斯斯坦独立短短两年，监狱中就关满了被判贩毒罪名的女性。


These were ordinary women, some of them “babushkas” wearing headscarves.	这些人都是普普通通的妇女，其中有些甚至是戴着头巾的“老妇”。


When speaking to senior law enforcement officials, I was told that the women were smuggling drugs from Afghanistan to pay for shoes and schoolbooks.	在与高级执法官员交谈的过程中，我被告知这些女性都曾从阿富汗贩运毒品，以支付购买鞋子和课本的开销。


To the Tajik and Kyrgyz criminal justice system, they were the lowest-hanging fruit in the newly launched war on drugs.	对塔吉克和吉尔吉斯刑事体系而言，她们是新发动的禁毒战争最容易实现的成果。


Women in such circumstances face a double punishment: loss of liberty and family.	这种状况下的女性面临同时失去自由和家庭的双重惩罚。


To be convicted of a drug-related crime often means losing custody of one’s children.	被判毒品相关罪名往往意味着失去孩子的监护权。


If the woman sent to jail is the head of a single-parent household and her children are placed in foster care, or if she is pregnant when entering prison, it is likely that she will never see them again.	如果入狱的女性是单亲家庭的支撑者并且其子女被送入抚养系统，或者如果她入狱时就已经怀孕，那么她很可能永远也无法再见到自己的孩子。


Women can be victims of laws designed to combat trafficking organizations.	妇女可以成为旨在打击贩毒集团的法律的牺牲者。


Many have been charged with conspiracy simply for living with a man involved in drug sales.	很多人仅仅因为和参与贩毒的男性一起生活就被控为同谋。


In some US states, applicants for public assistance, who are usually women, have to undergo drug testing.	在美国某些州，公共援助的申请者（往往是女性）必须接受毒品测试。


In many countries, drug-treatment protocols effectively ensure that women with children will be unable to receive services.	在很多国家，毒品治疗程序实际确保了有孩子的女性不可能接受服务。


In much of Central Asia, a drug-dependent person has to register with authorities to receive treatment, which automatically puts women at risk of losing their children.	在中亚很多地区，毒品依赖者必须在当局登记才能接受治疗，这将自动导致女性有可能失去孩子的抚养权。


In Eastern Europe, most available drug treatment takes place in long-term programs located at centers far from urban centers and without child-care services.	在东欧，多数治疗毒品的长期项目都远离市区，并且没有托儿服务。


Few women are able to take six months or more from caring for children or parents to enter such a facility.	很少有女性能抽出6个月或以上的时间，抛开子女或父母进入这样的机构戒毒。


The criminalization and stigmatization of women who use illicit drugs means that they are less likely than men to self-identify as needing assistance for drug dependence.	伴随着吸毒女性的刑罚和屈辱意味着她们不太可能像男性那样主动承认因吸毒行为而需要帮助。


This helps explain the low numbers of women who use services.	这部分解释了为什么登记接受戒毒的女性数量很少。


In the same way that in some cultures a woman eats only when men and children have finished, she injects with syringes that her partner has already used, putting them at higher risk of contracting HIV or Hepatitis C. The significant overlap between sex work and drug use also places women at higher risk.	就像在某些文化中女性要等男性和儿童吃过之后才能吃饭一样，她往往会用丈夫用过的针管注射，从而导致感染艾滋病毒或丙肝的风险升高。 性交易和吸毒人群高度重合同样导致女性的感染风险更大。


National drug regimes, moreover, prey on the vulnerabilities of women worldwide.	此外，世界各国女性的弱点也往往被国内贩毒体系所利用。


I sat once with an official at a London airport who picked up a Kenyan woman bringing cocaine into the United Kingdom.	曾经有一名肯尼亚女性将可卡因带入英国，而我曾与逮捕她的伦敦机场官员对坐谈话。


The woman had been told by a person who recruited her that if she was stopped, she would simply be sent home without repercussions because she was a woman and a mother.	他透露招募者曾经告诉这位女性，即使她被拦住，其后果也仅仅是遣返，因为她既是一位女性也是一位母亲。


In reality, the half-kilo of cocaine brought a ten-year mandatory sentence.	事实是半公斤可卡因就会带来10年的强制刑罚。


Once imprisoned abroad, such mothers, with no legal support or economic resources, often have no contact with their children back home.	一旦被囚禁在国外，这些母亲既没有法律支援也没有经济资源，往往会失去与家中子女的任何联络。


Part of the effort to reform drug policy must address the systemic faults in criminal justice, health care, and welfare that exacerbate the plight of women caught in the crossfire of the war of drugs.	必须���禁毒政策进行改革以期纠正刑事司法、医疗卫生和福利制度方面的系统性错误，避免让陷入毒品战交叉火力的女性困境进一步恶化。


The kind of policy that provides childcare for women seeking drug treatment might be anathema to the righteous occupiers of the world’s moral high ground.	为戒毒女性提供托儿服务的政策可能会招致全世界道德制高点占领者的强烈谴责。


But until we start to look at drug policy through a gender-sensitive lens and focus on harm reduction, we will continue to wage a losing war on drugs, in which generations of our most vulnerable women and girls are casualties.	但只有以对性别敏感的眼光来审视禁毒政策并致力于减少伤害，我们才能扭转禁毒战争的不利局面，阻止世世代代最为脆弱的妇女和女童继续成为这场战争的牺牲者。


Dry China	干涸的中国


ANSHUN, GUIZHOU PROVINCE, CHINA -- The Huangguoshu Waterfall in China’s southwestern Guizhou Province is a magnificent sight, when there is water. The largest waterfall in Asia, it plunges over a sheer cliff more than 200 feet high in a thundering display of foam, mist, and rainbows.	发自中国贵州安顺——位于中国贵州省西南部的黄果树瀑布是一处无比壮观的景点，作为亚洲最大的瀑布，激流从200英尺高的峭壁上一泻而下，发出惊雷般的声响，白浪纷飞，彩虹隐现——但这一切都得在瀑布有水的时候。


Unfortunately, this wonder of nature has recently suffered an indignity.	不幸的是，这处自然奇观最近却正饱受煎熬。


Each evening, it gets turned off as if it were a garden fountain.	每天晚上，瀑布就像某座被拧紧了水龙头的花园喷泉那样——断水了。


This part of China’s southwest, known for its abundant rainfall, mountains, underground rivers and caves, and tropical flora, has recently been gripped by a drought that many say is the worst since the Ming Dynasty.	以其充沛的降雨，山川，地下河，溶洞以及热带植物闻名于世的中国西南部地区，如今却正在遭遇一场据说是自明代以来最严重的干旱。


So, after all the tourists that irrigate this poor region with precious income leave the viewing platforms below the falls, authorities close the sluice gates that dam the White Water River on the dangerously low upstream reservoir, and the falls cease.	因此当给这个贫困地区带来宝贵收入的游客陆续离开了瀑布的观景台之后，当地政府就会关闭控制白水河（该河上游水库的蓄水量已经低于警戒线了）的水闸，然后瀑布的水就停了。


Then, each morning, before the tourists reappear, they unceremoniously open the gates again, so that the eerily silent falls suddenly revive in a simulacrum of normalcy.	赶在第二天早上游客到来之前，他们又开闸放水，于是这个死一般寂静的瀑布突然又像安装了某种虚拟视觉装置那样转眼间变得生机勃勃了。