2010年7月30日

Waltzing with death

The XVIII International AIDS Society meeting
第18届世界艾滋病大会

Waltzing with death
与死神共舞

AIDS still kills 2m people a year. But the rate of new infections is falling and it is possible to imagine bringing the disease under control
艾滋病每年仍导致200万人死亡。但新染此病的人数正在下降，控制艾滋病已成可能

Jul 22nd 2010 | vienna
2010年7月22日| 维也纳




TEN years ago, when the International AIDS Society (IAS) met in Durban, there was a lot of fractious debate between those who wanted to spend money on treating the sick and those who thought that stopping the epidemic was more important. It took another six years to realise that you might be able to do both. Suppressing the virus in someone’s body clearly saves his life, but it ought also to make him less likely to pass on infection. The latest evidence that this might be true was released at this year’s IAS meeting, held in Vienna on July 18th-23rd.

十年前，当国际艾滋病协会（IAS）在德班举行会议时，在以治病为主还是以防病为主的两派之间爆发了一场激烈的争论。六年后才认识到，两者也许可以并行不悖。抑制某位病人体内病毒的繁殖显然可以挽救他的生命，但同时也应该降低他的传染性。7月18日至23日在维也纳召开了本年度的世界艾滋病大会，会上公布的最新证据表明，现在确实可以抑制艾滋病人的传染性了。

The meeting brought news of another long-sought breakthrough: a vaginal microbicide that will allow women to protect themselves from men who do not wear condoms. There was also much hand-wringing about money, as governments and taxpayers in rich countries feel the pinch. But even here there was a refreshing honesty, as the international agencies charged with combating the disease queued up to suggest ways of doing more with less. That businesslike approach was apparent, too, in discussions over focusing treatment on those who are most at risk.

会上还传出了另一则消息，人们长期以来所希盼的阴道内杀菌剂研究取得了突破性的进展，这样，即使男人不戴避孕套的话，女人也能有办法使自己免遭爱滋病毒感染。由于各富国政府和纳税人普遍感到手头拮据，会上对目前艾滋病防治领域资金短缺的严重状况反响强烈。大会期间，负责防治艾滋病的各国际组织真心实意地排着队争相提出少花钱多办事的妙方，这真是一个令人耳目一新的景象。将防治艾滋病的重点放在染病风险最高的人群上的讨论也表现出了这种务实的做法。

As the meeting opened, it was announced that a study by Julio Montaner, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, had shown that ramping up treatment in that Canadian province halved the rate of new infections. Dr Montaner’s study, published in the Lancet, was the strongest confirmation yet that treatment and prevention are two sides of the same coin. The study showed that the annual rate of infection in 1996—the year when the modern regime of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced—had, by 2009, fallen by 52%. During that period the number of people on treatment rose by 547%.

会议开幕后宣读的第一份研究报告是由加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚大学的研究人员胡里奥•蒙泰纳（Julio Montaner）撰写的，该报告指出，不列颠哥伦比亚省加大了对艾滋病的防治力度，使新感染者的人数下降了一半。蒙泰纳博士的研究报告发表在《柳叶刀》杂志上，该报告肯定了治疗与预防是一枚硬币的两面，因而不可分割的观点，是对这一观点迄今为止最有力的支持。这项研究表明，自从1996年推出了高效抗逆转录病毒疗法（highly active antiretroviral therapy，HAART）这一最新治疗方法后，截至到2009年， 艾滋病的年感染率下降了52％。在此期间，进行治疗的人数上升了547％。

Taking heart
鼓起勇气

Of course correlation is not causation. But the rates of other sexually transmitted diseases did not fall, suggesting that British Columbians are just as promiscuous now as they were then. Nor did the rate of hepatitis C alter, suggesting that people there are injecting just as many drugs with just as many dirty needles. And a detailed look at the numbers shows that the biggest falls in infection rates were during periods when the rise in HAART was fastest. The study, together with previous work showing that HAART reduces the rate of transmission between discordant couples (in which only one partner is infected) by more than 90%, points to the conclusion that widespread use of antiretroviral drugs helps to explain the 17% fall in the rate of new HIV infections seen around the world between 2001 and 2008.

当然相互有关连并不等同于有因果关系。但其它类型性病的感染率并没有下降，这说明在不列颠哥伦比亚省性乱的人数并没有减少。丙肝的感染率同样没有下降，这说明那里使用肮脏的针头注射毒品的人数也没有减少。仔细研究一下这些数字就可明了，艾滋病感染率下降最快的时期正是HAART疗法普及最快的时期。此项研究连同以前的研究成果一道表明，在单感染夫妇（夫妻中只有一方染病）中采用HAART疗法进行治疗后，夫妻间的交叉感染率下降了90％以上，这证实了在2001年至2008年间全球范围内广泛使用抗逆转录病毒药物导致新的艾滋病毒感染者减少了17％的结论。

The new microbicide, too, depends on an antiretroviral drug—tenofovir. Previous attempts to make vaginal microbicide gels that block the passage of HIV have involved long-chain molecules called carrageenans, thickening agents found in seaweed. It was hoped these would tangle the virus particles up.

上面提到的杀菌剂也依赖于一种抗逆转录病毒药物——泰诺福韦（tenofovir）。人们以前曾试图使用凝胶型阴道杀菌剂封堵艾滋病毒的传播，这种药物含有一种叫做卡拉胶（carrageenans）的长链分子，它是在海藻中发现的一种增稠剂。人们希望用卡拉胶吸附住病毒颗粒。

That strategy failed. Instead, Quarraisha Abdool Karim and her colleagues at the Durban-based Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa tested a gel that contains tenofovir. Their study, published in Science on the second day of the meeting, looked at rates of infection with HIV over three years in two groups of women. Those in one group were given the microbicidal gel. Those in the other were given a placebo. The rate of infection in the first group was almost 40% less than in the second; the gel’s most diligent users saw a reduction of over 50%. And no adverse side-effects were observed.

这种做法失败了。作为替代方案,卡拉伊莎•阿卜杜勒•卡里姆（Quarraisha Abdool Karim）和她的同事在南非德班的艾滋病研究中心测试了一种含有泰诺福韦的凝胶。他们对两组妇女的艾滋病感染情况进行了三年多的观察，根据观察得出的研究报告在会议的第二天就刊登在《科学》杂志上了。他们给一组妇女使用的是杀菌凝胶。给另一组妇女使用的则是安慰剂。头一组妇女的艾滋病感染率比第二组几乎低40％，经常使用凝胶的妇女的感染率降低了50％以上。而且没有观察到不良的副作用。

Nor was another fear realised. Tenofovir is widely used, and people are understandably concerned about the emergence of resistant strains of HIV. Some opposed tenofovir’s use in a microbicide because they worried that it would encourage the emergence of such resistance. Dr Karim and her colleagues have, so far, seen no sign of this in women who were infected.

在这项试验中也没有出现另一个令人担心的现象。泰诺福韦正在被广泛使用，可以理解人们非常关注艾滋病毒是否会出现耐药性。一些人反对在杀菌剂中使用泰诺福韦，因为他们担心这会使艾滋病毒形成抗药性。但到目前为止，卡里姆博士和她的研究团队在被感染的妇女身上还没有发现形成了抗药性的迹象。


On the question of who pays for all these drugs, the feeling at the meeting was glum but not despondent. Global health budgets have done well in the past decade, in particular those dedicated to AIDS. Such rapidly rising expenditure would surely have come under sharper scrutiny even without the prompting of an economic crisis. With it, the increases have come to a sudden halt (see chart).

谈到谁来为这些药物买单的问题时，会议的气氛阴沉，但还谈不上沮丧。过去10年里全世界在医疗保健方面的支出巨大，特别是艾滋病防治项目的支出更是增长迅猛。即使没有出现经济危机，支出如此高速的增长也必然会导致严格的审查。而出现了经济危机，艾滋病防治方面支出增长的势头就一下来了个急刹车（见下图）。



No one likes to have their cash cut off but it does concentrate the mind wonderfully on doing more with less—especially with regards to the additional costs that come with treating patients. As is well known, drug costs have already declined dramatically. Treatment that in 1995 cost $10,000 a year is now less than $100. But the other annual costs of delivery—staff, infrastructure and so on—are about three times this amount.

没有人希望自己负责的项目预算资金被削减，但本次会议确实做到了集思广益，着力探讨如何少花钱多办事，尤其是有限的资金还要考虑到治疗艾滋病人的额外费用。众所周知，药物成本已经大幅下降了。1995年每个患者一年的的药物费用需1万美元，而现在只要不到100美元。但每年需要支出的其它费用（人力、基础设施等）是药物费用的3倍左右。

The consensus at the conference seemed to be to take things out of the hands of expensive doctors and give them to nurses or, better still, paramedics. In part that means more training; it also means simpler treatment regimes (fewer pills per day); and it means changing expectations about who will do what. Christoph Benn of the Global Fund, an international body formed to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, reckons that this could bring the additional, non-drug costs down to $100 per course of treatment per year. That would please donors.

会议上的一致意见是在艾滋病的防治工作少用高薪水的医生，而用护士，最好是护理人员来进行这类工作。在某种程度上这意味着需要做更多的培训工作；意味着简化治疗方案（减少每天的服药量）；意味着期待凡事都有人专职负责的想法要改变了。全球基金是一个防治艾滋病、肺结核和疟疾的国际机构，该机构的克里斯托夫•本（Christoph Benn）估计，采取这些措施会使每年每个疗程的非药物成本再额外降低100美元。这将使捐助者感到宽心。

Another change, proposed by Michel Sidibé, head of UNAIDS, the United Nations body charged with combating the epidemic, is to be more honest about who is at risk. The history of the disease has created a numbing political rhetoric around it. AIDS was first recognised in homosexuals, is spread by prostitutes and drug addicts, and is found above all in poor, African countries. When people with AIDS were demonised in the early days of the disease, the strategy was to repeat the mantra that almost anyone could get infected. Technically, this is true. In practice, however, some people are at much greater risk, and they may be ill-served by such political correctness.

联合国艾滋病规划署（UNAIDS）是联合国负责艾滋病防治工作的机构，该机构的负责人米歇尔•西迪贝（Michel Sidibé）建议，要开诚布公地告知哪些人属于染病高危人群。艾滋病的历史就是一个制造使人感到麻木的政治辞令的过程。艾滋病首先被发现存在于同性恋者身上，卖淫和吸毒导致了病毒的扩散，而且主要是在贫困的非洲国家传播。在艾滋病出现的早期，人们将该病的患病妖魔化了，谈之色变。而应对策略则是重复这句“几乎任何人都可能感染”的陈词滥调。从技术层面上讲，这没错。然而在实际生活中，某些人染病的风险要大得多，那种政治上貌似正确的言论可能欺骗了这部分人。

Although the roll-out of drugs to the infected has been a great success, with 5.2m people of the poor being treated, Dr Sidibé fears things are slowing down. His solution is to seek out those at greatest risk of infection, such as the growing numbers of Russian drug users, and offer prompt treatment rather than waiting for them at clinics. He wants the number of people starting treatment each year to exceed the number that are newly infected. At the moment the ratio is 2:5. He will not say when that will happen, but he believes that universal treatment is possible.

虽然新推出的药物在治疗520万已被感染的穷人身上取得了巨大的成功，但西迪贝博士担心成果难于进一步扩大。他提出的解决方案是找出艾滋病感染的高危人群，如俄罗斯越来越多的吸毒者，对他们提供及时的治疗，而不是坐等他们到诊所来。他希望每年开始进行治疗的人数要超过新感染者的数量。在目前这一比例是2:5。虽然无法预测这种期盼何时能够实现，但他认为实施普遍的治疗是有可能的
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Expensive Iteration昂贵的循环

Expensive Iteration


昂贵的循环

A huge international fusion-reactor project faces funding difficulties

工程浩大的国际核聚变反应堆正面临资金困难

Jul 22nd 2010

VIABLE nuclear fusion has been only 30 years away since the idea was first mooted in the 1950s. Its latest three-decade incarnation is ITER, a joint effort by the European Union (EU), America, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea to construct a prototype reactor on a site in Cadarache, France, by 2018. If all goes to plan, in about 30 years it will be reliably producing more energy than is put in.

自从核聚变的概念在上世纪50年代提出以来，切实可行的核聚变技术才仅30年历史。这三十载努力的化身就是最近的国际热核聚变实验反应堆（ITER），它是由欧盟、美国、中国、印度、日本、俄罗斯和韩国合作计划在2018年前在法国Cadarache建造一座核聚变反应堆原型。如果一切按照计划运行，在未来三十年时间里它将稳定可靠地提供比输入更多的能量。

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor became plain ITER following public anxiety about anything that has "thermonuclear" next to "experimental" in its name. ITER aims to produce energy by fusing together the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, confined in a magnetic field at high temperatures―a process akin to that which powers the sun.

因为公众对在"热核聚变"旁边带有"实验"字眼的任何东西都感到恐慌，这座"国际热核聚变实验反应堆"后来被缩写为其貌不扬的ITER。ITER的目标是通过使约束在强磁场内部的高温氢原子核发生聚变而产生能量――这个过程跟太阳的供能方式很相似。

For all its cosmic ambition, ITER has run into the earthiest of difficulties: spiralling costs. The project was never going to be cheap. Initial projections in 2006 put its price at �0 billion ($13 billion): � billion to build and another � billion to run and decommission the thing. Since then construction costs alone have tripled.

尽管有着不同凡响的目标，ITER却面临着尘世间最世俗的困难：不断上升的花销。这项工程本来就造价不菲，2006年的初期估价为100亿欧元（折合美元130亿）：50亿欧元用于建造，另外50亿欧元用于日常运营以及最终退役。但自此光建造费用就已是预期的三倍。

As the host, the EU is committed to covering some 45% of these, with the other partners contributing about 9% each. In May the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, asked member states to stump up an additional �.4 billion to tide the project over to 2013. They rejected the request and suggested instead tapping the EU's existing research budget.

作为东道主的欧盟承诺担当大约45%的花销，其他参加合作的国家则每国承担大约9%。今年五月，欧盟的行政机构欧盟委员会要求其成员国为额外的14亿欧元掏腰包以帮助该计划顺利渡过2013年前的困难期。其成员国不但拒绝了这个不情之请，反而建议欧盟削减既有的研究经费。

On July 20th the commission offered a compromise: one-third of the shortfall would come from cash earmarked for other research, the rest from unspent agricultural funds.

7月20日，欧盟委员会提出了一个折中方案：缺口的三分之一将来自为其他研究领域专拨的现金，其余部分来自尚未花完的农业资金。

Such a proposal may yet be scuppered by EU governments. Nor has it entirely mollified European scientists who rightly fear that ITER will eat indiscriminately into other programmes. This comes at a time when most European governments are slashing spending on science as part of larger efforts to plug budget deficits.

即使是这样一个折中方案也有可能因被欧盟各国政府否决而泡汤。这个方案也没有宽慰那些合理担忧ITER工程会不分青红皂白蚕食其他研究项目经费的欧洲科学家。尤其是这个方案正赶上欧盟各国为了响应更大范围的封堵财政漏洞的努力而削减科研经费支出的时候。

The proposal also needs approval from the European Parliament. Some Green MEPs have called for ITER to be ditched altogether, and its finances diverted to less grandiose ventures. A decision is unlikely in time for a meeting of ITER's governing body on July 27th and 28th, when the project's scope and cost are to be discussed.

这个方案同样需要来自欧盟议会的审批同意。一些绿党议员甚至已经开始要求将ITER项目连窝端掉，并将其资金投入到更切合实际的项目上。旨在讨论ITER项目广度和花费的项目主管部门会议即将于7月27日和28日召开，要赶在此时做出最终决定的可能性并不高。

Unfazed by budgetary wobbles, Fusion for Energy, ITER's European arm, has begun in earnest to divvy out construction work. On July 19th a consortium led by Iberdrola, a Spanish engineering giant, signed a �56m contract to build "winding packs"―massive reactor components that each weigh about 110 tonnes, as much as a jumbo jet.

不过ITER的欧洲分部核聚变能源并没有受到摇摆不定的财政预算的影响，并已郑重其事地开始分配建造任务。7月19日由西班牙工程设计领域的一家大型公司伊维尔德罗拉（Iberdrola）率领的财团签署了一份价值1.56亿欧元的合同，将承包建造每个都有大型喷气式飞机般重量的重达110吨的大型反应堆部件"绕线组"。

This testifies to the project's technical daring. But the commissioning of these parts also illustrates one of its biggest flaws. The European consortium will build only ten of the planned 19 winding packs; the remaining nine will be forged independently by a Japanese contractor.

这就足以证明该项工程在技术设计上之大胆。但是这些部件的测试也显露出了其最严重的缺陷。这家欧洲财团仅将建造计划中19座绕线组中的10座，其余的9座将由一家日本承包商独立锻造。

Unlike the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), another huge international physics experiment near Geneva, ITER does not pool its funds. Instead, each partner orders bits and bobs, typically from compatriots, hoping that everything will dovetail nicely in Cadarache. Moreover, some parties have not got what they had hoped for out of the project, notably Japan, which had wanted to host the reactor. So it has been promised a sweetener in the form of a smaller reactor and a supercomputer. All this is a recipe for duplication.

跟热内瓦附近的另一项大型国际实验物理工程大型强子对撞机（LHC）不同，ITER并不由参与国共同集资。与之相反，每个合作方独自定购相应的部件，而且基本都是从其母国定购，然后指望着在Cadarache所有的部件都能够完美地契合起来。此外，有些参与方并没有从这个项目中得到所期望得到的东西，尤其是日本，其本希望成为该反应堆的东道主的。现在作为聊以安慰的甜头，日本被许诺负责建造一座更小型的反应堆以及一台超级计算机。所有这些也都发生在其他国家身上。

Cost overruns are common in projects as complex as ITER or the LHC. Loosening the purse-strings for energy research and development surely makes sense: government spending on energy research has been falling since the early 1980s, both as a share of GDP and as a proportion of total research budgets, according to the International Energy Agency.

对于像ITER和LHC这样复杂的工程项目来说预算超支是很普遍的，为能源技术研发而掏腰包当然也是可以理解的。根据国际能源署，自从上世纪80年代以来政府在能源研究上的经费一直在减少，不管是从占GDP比例还是从占总研究经费的百分比来看。

That said, it is far from clear whether the best way of countering this trend in energy funding is to plough yet more money into the fusion project, with its vested political interests, at the expense of less prominent scientific endeavours.

总之，应付能源研究经费下降趋势的现状的最好措施是否是在其目前所拥有的各种政治优惠下以牺牲一部分杰出的科学研究成果为代价，仍不断地往核聚变项目耙更多的资金，我们还远远不能下确定的结论
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The chic learn to click时尚达人也兴网购

Selling luxury goods online网上销售奢侈品

The chic learn to click时尚达人也兴网购

Luxury firms are digital laggards, but some are catching up
与数字化绝缘的奢侈品公司正在迎头追赶
Jul 22nd 2010 | berlin and paris



WHEN Oscar de la Renta, an American fashion house, launched a transactional website some years ago, it expected people to buy mostly smaller items such as belts and perfume. The firm was stunned when it received an online order last spring for an $80,000 sable coat from a new customer in New Hampshire. He couldn't get to New York, apparently. Online customers have been snapping up the firm's core product: $4,000 cocktail dresses. "We could not have been more wrong in our expectations of the internet," says Alex Bolen, the firm's chief executive. Online purchases are still a small proportion of total sales, but growing rapidly.
当几年前美国的时装公司奥斯卡-德拉伦塔开辟了网上业务之后，原本设想的是能够吸引顾客购买一些小件商品如皮带和香水。去年春季，让这家公司大吃一惊的是一位新罕布什尔州的新顾客向他们购买一件价值8万美元的黑貂皮大衣。显然那位顾客无法亲自到纽约来。网络顾客一直以来都在等待时机购以最便宜的价格购买到该公司的支柱商品：4千美元的晚礼服。公司首席执行官阿历克斯-博伦曾经表示说"我们对于网络销售的预想真是大错特错"。网购虽然只占到公司总销售的一小部分，但是增长速度很快。

Most luxury-goods firms are less open-minded. Many scorn the internet as a plaything for plebs. A product sold online, wrote Jean-Noël Kapferer, a French branding guru, in "The Luxury Strategy", published last year, ceases to be a luxury item. In early 2008, of 178 luxury firms around the world surveyed by Forrester Research, only a third sold their products on the internet. That figure has risen, but still about half of firms don't sell online at all, estimates Federico Marchetti, the founder of Yoox Group, owner of Yoox.com, a luxury-goods website.
大部分的奢侈品公司都比较保守。很多公司对网络嗤之以鼻，认为那是普通大众的消遣。法国品牌领袖让-诺埃尔-卡普费雷在他去年出版的"奢侈品战略"一书中写到"一件产品一旦置于网络，便奢华不在了"。弗雷斯特调研机构2008年初针对全球178家奢侈品公司的调查显示，只有三分之一的公司在网络上出售商品。Yoox集团的创建者、奢侈品网站Yoox.com的所有人费德里科-马切蒂估计该数字会增长，但是仍然有一半奢侈品公司不会做网络销售。

Prada, an Italian design house, had no website until 2007. It did not start selling products online until last year. Several American companies, such as Tiffany & Co, have thriving web businesses, but European firms, especially the old French houses, such as Chanel and Hermès, are still afraid of mice.
意大利设计公司普拉达直到2007年才拥有自己的网站，去年，开始在网上销售产品。蒂凡尼等几家美国公司的网络生意都进行的如火如荼，但是欧洲的公司尤其是老牌法国商店，比如香奈儿和爱马仕都惧怕网络。

Luxury executives explain that the internet is too impersonal for their products, which need the human touch. Allowing anyone to buy online can mean a loss of cachet. Luxury firms like to dazzle customers with plush stores and sleek ads, so that they think only about beauty and not at all about price. The web, by contrast, shines a clear light on price. "That's the last thing I want people to think about," wails an executive from the watch industry.
奢侈品公司主管解释说，他们的商品需要顾客们触摸和感受，网络销售太没有质感了。奢侈品在网络上对所有人开放购买会显得掉价。奢侈品公司喜欢用豪华舒适的商店和时髦阔气的的广告让顾客为之倾倒，以至于顾客唯一能感受到的是商品的美，而不是价格。相比之下，网络则将商品的价格凸现了出来。一位手表工业的主管有些哀怨"我们最不想让人们去思考的就是商品的价格。"。

It is largely the industry's own fault that the internet is associated with lower prices for its products. For years, firms discreetly disposed of end-of-season stock at deep discounts via websites such as Yoox.com. Some fashion houses make clothing exclusively for Yoox.com as a way to use up left-over fabric. Also, by shunning the internet in its early days, legitimate firms helped to create a vacuum that counterfeiters were happy to fill, says Uché Okonkwo, the author of "Luxury Online".
互联网总是被人们联想到廉价的商品，这很大程度上是奢侈品工业自己的错。多年来，这些公司通过Yoox.com之类的网站大打折扣地进行季末清仓。一些时装商店为了充分利用残留的衣服料子，还在Yoox.com网站销售独家自己的产品。而且，"网络奢侈品"一书的作家乌切-奥孔库沃说，奢侈品公司早期的刻意回避网络使得造假者有机可乘。

There is every sign, however, that buyers of full-price luxury goods crave the convenience of online shopping, so companies are being forced to adapt. In April Richemont, a Swiss luxury-goods giant, bought Net-a-Porter, a specialist fashion online retailer founded in 2000, in a deal valuing it at £350m ($535m).
但是，种种迹象表明全价购买奢侈品的顾客十分渴望网上购物的便利，因此，奢侈品公司不得不适应顾客的新需求。今年4月，瑞士奢侈品巨头历峰集团以估价3亿5千英镑（5亿3千5百万美元）买下了Net-a-Porter，这家网络公司成立于2000年，是一家专业的网络时尚零售商。

Net-a-Porter's appeal is not price, says Danny Rimer of Index Ventures, a venture-capital fund which backed the firm, but the convenience of getting items delivered to your door before they sell out. Executives are now watching to see whether Richemont will allow Net-a-Porter to sell its many other brands, including Cartier watches. Most luxury-watch firms, such as Hublot, do not sell online. This seems perverse: watches fit easily and buyers are usually collectors who know the models well. The main problem, explains Jean-Claude Biver, chief executive of Hublot, is that watch firms have long-standing agreements with independent retailers, and selling online would disrupt the system.
支持该网站的风险投资商丹尼-莱莫说，Net-a-Porter的吸引力并不是因为便宜的价格，而是在商品卖完之前把它送到顾客的手里。管理者们正在观望历峰集团是否允许Net-a-Porter销售其公司旗下的其他品牌，如卡地亚手表。大多数奢侈表公司比如宇舶表都没有网络业务。这种情况似乎不通情理：手表容易佩戴，并且购买奢侈表的人大多都是手表收藏者，他们对表十分地了解。宇舶表主管让-克劳德-比弗解释，现在主要的问题是奢侈表工业和独立的零售商有着长期合约，网络销售会扰乱原有的销售模式。

Another sign of change is a new venture by a former Richemont executive, Mark Dunhill, to revive Fabergé, a jewellery-maker (one of whose baubles is pictured above), using the internet as its chief global distribution channel. Fabergé, owned by Pallinghurst Resources, a mining firm, launched last September with a single shop in Geneva and a sophisticated, interactive website. The industry is watching the experiment closely. If a luxury brand can thrive without a vast investment in retail space, says Luca Solca of Bernstein Research, barriers to entry will fall.
历峰集团的前任主管马克-登喜路的大胆投资拯救了珠宝制造商法贝格（见上图的小件饰品），他们利用因特网作为全球主要的经销渠道。法贝格是矿业投资公司旗下的公司，去年九月在日内瓦开张了一家简单的商店，而在网络上发起了一个完善的互动网站。整个行业都密切关注着这一新的尝试。伯恩斯坦研究所分析师卢卡-索尔卡表示，如果一个奢侈品品牌能够通过网络大力发展，那么进入网络市场的阻碍就不攻自破了。

A person close to Fabergé says it has reached its nine-month target of hooking 50 new clients, each spending on average $100,000. Even Prada now says that within five years, some 40% of its revenues in America will come from the internet. Observers, however, doubt that such an aggressive target is realistic, noting that Prada currently sells only bags, wallets and other accessories online, not its main clothing and footwear collections.
据知情人士透露，法贝格已经完成了九个月吸引50位新顾客的目标，每个人的平均消费达10万美元。现在甚至连普拉达都估计，未来五年之内他们在美国的财政收入的40%要来自网络销售。但是一些观察家对这个颇具野心的目标表示怀疑，因为想在普拉达在网上销售的只有一些皮包、钱包之类的装饰品，而不是他们的主流产品服装和鞋类。

Luxury firms may at last be waking up to the internet, but they have a long way to catch up. Carmakers have been innovating online for nearly a decade, observes Ms Okonkwo. With exceptions, luxury websites tend to be showy but unoriginal, since firms often use the same web designers. Few are properly interactive: customers usually cannot view products from different angles, or try on clothes virtually.
奢侈品也许最终会意识到网上销售的重要性，但是他们需要很长一顿时间去开辟自己的网络市场。奧孔沃女士评论，汽车制造商在网络销售方面的创新已经进行了大约十年之久。而大多数的奢侈品网站都是千篇一律的豪华浮夸，因为他们往往出自相同的网页设计者。具有互动功能的网站更是少之又少：顾客无法从不同的角度观察商品，也不能虚拟试穿衣服。

The most innovative online luxury firms are typically small start-ups, such as Net-a-Porter, Yoox (which went public late last year) or Gilt Groupe, a website which runs exclusive sales for members. All these companies have built successful new business models. The industry's ageing giants have been caught with their elegant trousers down.
最具创新的网络奢侈品公司是一些刚刚起步的小公司，比如Net-a-Porter, Yoox (去年年底上市)或者是Gilt集团，它的网站仅为会员提供商品。这些公司都成功的建立了新的商业模式。奢侈品工业的资深巨头们对此措手不及。


Louis Vuitton, a maker of leather goods and clothes, is one of the few luxury brands to have prospered online. Unlike many of its peers, it offers nearly all its products on the web. The internet brings in as much money as one of its biggest bricks-and-mortar shops, says Antoine Arnault, the firm's communications director. But Louis Vuitton's parent, LVMH, was last year forced to shut down eLuxury, a website founded in 2000 which sold a wide variety of luxury brands, because it lost money by the suitcasefull. According to insiders, it failed mainly because it lacked focus: it sold expensive products alongside relatively cheap ones. It is odd that an industry that would not be seen dead in last season's colour is wedded to the last century's technology. Divorce beckons.
皮革商品和服装制造商路易-威登是少数在网络大展拳脚的奢侈品牌之一。与竞争者们不同的是，他在网络上几乎提供所有的商品。路易-威登的传讯总监安托万-阿尔诺表示网络的销售额和他们最大的实体店的销售额一样多。但是路易-威登的总部酩悦•轩尼诗－路易•威登集团去年却被迫关闭了一个2000年建立的奢侈品网店，这家商店经营许多奢侈品品牌，可是他们在网络上赔了不少钱。据内部人士透露，网店的失败主要是因为没有焦点：即卖价格不菲的商品也卖便宜货。一个对上季度流行过的颜色都不屑一顾的工业与上个世纪的技术联手的确不常见。分道扬镳是迟早的事。
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2010年7月26日

More Heat on First Solar

 

More Heat on First Solar

By BILL ALPERT | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

A new study questions the safety of the solar company's panels. But pricing of silicon may be a bigger problem.

FIRST SOLAR HAS WORKED MIGHTILY in the last year to reassure investors that its "thin-film" solar-energy panels will continue to enjoy a cost advantage over rivals' increasingly cheap silicon-based wares. Shares of Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar (ticker: FSLR) have yo-yoed from 170 to 100 and then back to about 140 recently, as the company's gross margins veered from 56% to 42% and then back up to 50% for the March 2010 quarter—reflecting the competitive pressures that we predicted when the price of raw silicon began to drop ("Nightfall Comes to Solar Land," March 30, 2009).

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Gescher, Germany (1.4 MWp); COLEXON Energy/AG

First Solar panels at work in Germany. Competitors now are challenging its prices and the safety of its products.

But another front is heating up in First Solar's fight with competitors like Suntech (STP), Trina Solar (TSL) and Yingli Green Energy (YGE)—a debate over the long-term safety of First Solar products. First Solar's panels use cadmium-tellurium technology while the others use silicon wafers. The company has presented tests to show that the highly toxic cadmium is safely sealed in glass, and First Solar runs a voluntary program that will reclaim the panels at the end of their 30-year lives. Yet some silicon-panel rivals have argued for the treatment of First Solar products as hazardous waste.

On July 28, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control will hold a workshop in Sacramento to discuss how solar panels should be exempt from the state's hazardous-waste category. A non-profit group concerned about cadmium toxicity released a lab study last Thursday that asserts that cadmium-tellurium panels crushed in a landfill would leak the toxic substance at levels exceeding California's allowed levels.

The report was commissioned by The Non-Toxic Solar Alliance, a group organized by a University of Stuttgart professor named Jürgen Werner. The analysis (which is available at www.ntsa.eu/Downloads_Links.html) was conducted by an outfit called Sierra Analytical Labs in Laguna Hills, Calif. It crushed the product samples and immersed them in a mildly acidic solution (with a pH level of 5) meant to replicate the liquid runoff in a landfill. The resulting cadmium levels, said the lab, were almost three times the threshold considered hazardous.

Other lab studies had concluded that, under realistic conditions, the cadmium-based panels did not release the toxic substance at dangerous levels, including studies sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

First Solar's vice president of sustainable development, Lisa Krueger, says the company welcomes attention to the end-of-life handling of solar cells and notes that First Solar has established a trust to prefund the recycling of its products. The regulation of First Solar panels when they eventually become waste does not affect the company's production and sale of the products.

That solar panels make questionable landfill is nothing new, says Vasilis M. Fthenakis, a scientist at Brookhaven National Lab and an engineering professor at Columbia University who has studied the life cycle of solar panels. "All types of modules will fail those tests," he says of the recently-released study. "We don't advocate for any photovoltaics to be thrown into landfills. We advocate for all photovoltaic panels to be recycled."

So it's very possible that cadmium turns out to be less of a problem for First Solar than the still-falling prices of silicon used by its rivals 
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Martin Sass, founder of M.D. Sass, uses his many years of market experience to fuel his bottom-up, forensically researched stock-picking.

Sass personally runs the $1.2 billion-in-assets M.D. Sass Relative Value Equities, a long-only large-cap value strategy. His contrarian bent helped him grow assets of Relative Value Equities throughout the financial crisis (they are up from $1.1 billion on April 30, 2007) despite big drops in the broader market. The fund charges a management fee of 1% per annum on the first $10 million, and a sliding scale thereafter.

He is primarily a bottom-up stockpicker who uses intensive forensic research to identify trends—a method honed as director of Argus Research's Special Situations group in the mid-1960s.

There Sass is credited with calling the top of the boom in color-TV sets. On a cab ride from Chicago's O'Hare airport to visit Motorola, his driver told him he had been laid off from the electronics giant because there was a glut of color-TV tubes. A follow-up visit to a Motorola supplier confirmed there was a problem. Sass wrote a sell recommendation on the entire color-TV group, just before the bottom fell out.

Such gumshoe research has helped him gain an edge by unearthing catalysts for change, identifying and quantifying the difference between market perceptions and reality and discovering new drivers of earnings. For Sass, a Brooklyn College grad with a degree in accounting, the most important financial metric is free cash flow, because accounting gimmickry can obfuscate real earnings. Free cash flow gives a more accurate view of corporate health, he says.

Sass likes Chicago Bridge & Iron (ticker: CBI) because the Street doesn't seem to understand that 50% of its earnings come from businesses that are a lot less volatile than traditional engineering and construction. "They are focused on energy, and we think we are entering a boom in new capital spending on energy to meet this need for increasing energy supply," he says. The stock, meanwhile, is selling at a low multiple, has a rising backlog, plenty of new contract awards, and is trading at a big discount to its peers.

"WE THINK THE STOCK WILL TRADE at 12.7 times our estimate for 2011 earnings…that's a 66% increase from where we are today," he says. Chicago Bridge & Iron was recently trading at 20.33, up from his average cost of about 14.40. He sees '10 earnings coming in at $1.88 and '11 earnings at $2.36.

Just recently he bought the out-of-favor slot-machine maker WMS Industries (WMS), which has been under pressure because casinos have been slow to buy new machines. Gamblers, it seems, are feeling the pinch of recession and unemployment. But slot machines don't last forever, and Sass believes the current replacement rate of 40,000 to 45,000 units a year is unsustainable.

"The replacement market should move to a normalized 10-year rate of about 80,000 units a year, which should begin to show acceleration sometime next year," he says. WMS has been taking market share. It was recently trading at 38.92 He sees earnings for fiscal '11 at $2.46 and $3.35 in '12.

In general, Sass' picks need to have the potential to achieve a 25%-plus total return (including dividends) over 12 months or to double in five years. He gets out of a position if its price approaches his target, the position becomes more than 5% of his portfolio or the fundamentals deteriorate.

Relative Value Equities has no desire to mimic benchmarks. It's a focused portfolio made up of out of 25 to 40 high quality out-of-favor stocks that provide greater upside, with less risk, than owning a large basket of stocks. The average market cap is $35 billion. Relative Value's audited and GIPS compliant performance shows a net cumulative return of 75.7% since the beginning of 1999, through June 30th of this year. That compares with a 2.7% cumulative return for the Standard & Poor's 500 in that time. On an annualized basis, Relative Value is up 5% per year in that time, versus the S&P's 0.2%.

Sass likes companies that are good to shareholders: "We look for companies with high free cash flow yields that are most likely to return cash to shareholders via dividends, share repurchases or to pursue cash acquisitions," he says.

A good example is a brand new holding, Yahoo! (YHOO), which he calls the least expensive Internet firm. It has $4.5 billion in cash and no debt, and is planning to buy back billions of dollars of stock over the next few years. Last week Yahoo! reported it had repurchased 63 million shares for $973 million at an average price of 15.40 year-to-date, including July. Plus, the display-ad business on the Internet has significant growth potential, with a 19% increase estimated for 2010 followed by 12% in 2011.

YAHOO!'S SEARCH DEAL with Microsoft is still in its early stages and by 2011 margins should expand as the company offloads major parts of search to the software giant. He expects earnings to be 93 cents in '10 and $1.15 in '11. The stock was recently trading at 14, which gives the shares a price/earnings ratio of 15 times 2011 earnings. But that isn't why Sass thinks it's undervalued: "Yahoo! has no debt and about $10 a share in cash and other semi-liquid assets."

He also recently picked up Tyco Electronics, (TEL), which was spun off from Tyco International four years ago and has transformed itself by consolidating plants and selling noncore businesses. Plus, it's made some shrewd acquisitions. The maker of electronic components recently unveiled a deal to buy ADC (ADCT) for $12.75 per share in cash, or an enterprise value of about $1.25 billion. ADC makes fiber connectors for data switching and other applications. The two can offer solutions for high-speed Internet data, video and voice communications.

"The deal will add 14 cents per share in first full year after closure and 30 cents in the second year. [It has a] free-cash flow yield of more than 10%, dividend yield of 2.5% and P/E below 10 times earnings," he says. He expects earnings for the fiscal year '10 ending in September to be $2.55 and $2.88 in '11. The stock recently was trading at 25.76.

Sass is fairly sanguine about the future. He thinks the S&P 500 will climb to 1243 in the next 12 months, up from the current 1094. Despite the slowing recovery, he thinks a five-year recovery that rewards stocks and leaves Treasury bonds with losses is under way. But the veteran investor isn't about to chase a rally: His license plate reads "MDS 1000." That was where the Dow stood when he opened shop in 1972, just before it plummeted to 573 in October of 1974—not too long before Sass got his first chance to invest with Bernie Madoff.

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人民币当然要择善而从

 
 

Sent to you by John via Google Reader:

 
 

via 牛博国际 by 周其仁 on 7/25/10

　　人民币当然要择善而从

　　——汇率与货币系列评论之十四

　　周其仁
　　经济观察报 2010年7月26日星期一

　　人民币从来就没有以黄金为锚。早在人民币诞生前的13年，明清以来行之多年的银两加铜钱的传统货币，就被国民党政府的法币所取代。法币者，法定由政府发行的纸币也。随着国民党政府的垮台，人民政府接管了全国政权，也接管了中国大陆的货币发行权。回到金本位是不可能的了：早在解放前夜，蒋委员长就把他治下的国家黄金储备悉数运往台湾。没有黄金储备，无论古典的金本位还是政府承诺兑换黄金的货币制度，都是搞不起来的。

　　况且当时 "老大哥"实行的也是法定纸币制度。新中国一边倒学苏联，货币制度不会例外。倒也不需要与卢布挂钩，因为各革命根据地早就积累了发行和管理货币的经验。新中国要做的，就是把各根据地发行的票子统一起来，完成从支持全国解放战争到为重建国民经济服务的转变。我读过中华人民共和国首任央行行长南汉宸的传记，他有一句话令人印象深刻：我们总不能拿着花花绿绿的票子进城，像八国联军进北京那个样子。新的人民币诞生了。因为还没有正式被选为人民共和国的主席，毛泽东在审查人民币时，就不同意把自己的头像印在票面上。直到1976年，人民币的图案就是 "工农兵大团结"，含义应该是人民的货币为人民提供交易媒介。

　　但毕竟还是法定纸币。所以，人民币从诞生的第一天起，就面临选锚问题。发行货币当然是国家的权力，但是，有权发钞的国家，究竟根据什么来决定发行多少货币呢？从经济性质看，黄金白银除了充当货币之外，还有别的实际用处。纸币则纯粹就是交易媒介，发少了窒息交易、打击生产；发多了拉高物价、引起通胀。因此，究竟以什么来约束国家发行货币的权力——为法定货币选锚——其影响就不限于 "上层建筑"，而是事关普天下苍生的日常生活和经济利益。

　　从逻辑看，战争、革命、特别是国家政权的更迭，通常与货币币值的极度不稳定互为因果。背后的道理是，如果天下是谁的都未定， "死后哪管它洪水滔天"的国家机会主义思维就容易占上风，因为还不知道究竟会滔了谁的天哩。历史的记载是，在政权大厦将倾的危亡关头，执政者常常不惜开足货币机器，以高通胀争取延长权力的寿命。还有就是新政权诞生之际，脚跟尚未站稳、百废待举又缺乏税基的支持，超发票子往往成为权宜之计。法国革命、美国革命、布尔什维克的俄国革命，新政权登上历史舞台的时候，一般伴有严重的通胀。这似乎说明，在冲决一切罗网的革命与天性保守的货币之间，存在着与生俱来互不匹配的紧张。

　　人民币是例外。没有黄金储备做后盾、纯粹的纸币、新生革命政权的国家信用——但是人民币从开始之日起，就选择走稳健货币的路线。人民币以什么为锚？想来想去，它的第一个 "锚"就是历史教训。远的以后再论，前朝国民党政府留下的货币教训，足以让新中国的货币掌门人铭记在心。看看吧，从法币到金圆券不过十几年时间，头戴 "国家元首"与 "抗战领袖"两大桂冠的蒋委员长，就把他的国民党政权带向了毁灭。军事方面的无能与失利是一小部分原因，社会经济政策的失败才是根本。其中，超级恶性的通胀——每月50％以上的物价指数——终于把全体国民推向了国民政府的对立面。

　　恶性通胀的一个派生物就是广大民众持续保持超高的通胀预期。有一年春节，我随毅夫一起去看季羡林老先生，那时他住在离朗润园不远的公寓里。讲起上世纪40年代末的民生，季老说那时领到薪水后的第一件事情就是跑步去买米， "跑快跑慢的米价不同！"我也问过生活在1948－1949年上海的老人怎样对付生活，回答是胆大的拿到钞票就换银元 （非法的），胆小的若买了生活必需品还有余钱，就囤商品——大米、纸张、毛巾、肥皂、烟酒，无论多少，反正绝不能持币就是了。民不聊生的经济溃不成军，因为人人囤东西，市场上什么也抢不到，大家越发轻钱重物，货币追商品，物价越追越高。

　　当时没有什么人相信共产党管得了通胀。但是陈云带薛慕桥到上海，只用两招就把问题解决了。这也是对付通胀和通胀预期最基本的功夫：一是严控货币投放，二是加大商品供应。反正看到街上的东西越来越多，囤积保值的心理倾向就会逆转。等到了囤物者熬不住也向市场抛卖商品，通胀连同通胀预期就被杀下马来。从此，"货币不能超经济发行"就成为管理人民币的第一准则。剩下的问题，是摸索究竟是发行多少票子才算合适的经验参数。

　　后来的历史也说明，只要抗得住"超经济发行"，人民币的币值就能够保持稳定。什么时候这个准则被破坏——譬如超越实际可能的 "大跃进" （无论土的，还是洋的）——货币币值就失稳，物价总水平就上涨，老百姓说的"票子毛了"就卷土重来。这也说明，以历史教训和货币掌门人为锚的货币，还不足以提供制度性的保障。岁月消磨记忆，再沉重的历史教训也会随风而去。从来没有跑步买米经验的下一代或下下一代，不是很容易发表 "有点通胀没什么了不起"之类的宏论吗？至于坚持稳健货币准则的货币掌门人，可遇而不可求。就是遇上了，不让人家管事，不也是白搭？美国是号称央行有独立性的地方，但保罗·沃克尔也不能保证他的继任者与他信奉同样的货币准则。中国也有这个问题。

　　因此，倘若能与一个客观的、"非人格化"之物挂起钩来，人民币的币值稳定才能有不受人事变化影响的制度保障。在这个意义上，选物为锚不失为一个可靠的办法。选什么呢？石头太重，虽然弗里德曼给我们讲过石币之岛的精彩故事。黄金白银不够，这是本专栏讲过的，历史并没给人民币留下贵金属储备。

　　当然也可以选一个外国货币或一组外国货币来挂钩。不过论及以外币为锚，不免让人唏嘘，因为要赶上一个好时机也殊为不易。以美元为例，人家响当当就是黄金的时候，人民币还没有问世。1944年布雷顿森林签订协议的地方，倒是有中国代表到场，但没有签字。不知道如果当时签字入约，国民党政府的法币以固定汇率挂美元，以后还能不能锁住老蒋滥发票子打内战的 "雄心"？不过这与人民币也没有什么关系，因为人民币还没有诞生。中华人民共和国的前几十年，人民币就是要选外币为锚也轮不到美元，因为中美之间根本没有多少往来。直到1990年代中后期，人民币挂美元才有可能变成现实。但此时还作为世界第一强币的美元，却开始走下坡路了。

　　下周我们继续讨论人民币选锚的经验。这里先写下作者的观点：选锚之举为的是维系人民币的币值稳定，无论怎样打算盘，人民币应该择善而从。


 
 

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2010年7月23日

China's financial markets: Premium puzzle

 
 

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China's financial markets

Premium puzzle

Enthusiasm for Chinese companies abroad but not at home

Jul 22nd 2010 | Hong Kong

OF THE many oddities surrounding Chinese stockmarkets, the most glaring has long been the premium mainland investors pay for shares listed domestically over what those same shares trade for in Hong Kong. Now the puzzle is why the premium has disappeared (see chart).

The usual explanation for the existence of the premium ran as follows. A closed capital account and a tightly run financial system left Chinese investors with only three places to put their money: property, with its high transaction costs and manic price moves; bank deposits, offering diminutive interest; or shares, with price moves as big as property but lower dealing costs. That paucity of choices drove shares higher than in places with more options.

What, then, has changed? The last time the price of shares simultaneously trading in the mainland and Hong Kong came close to converging was in 2006 when foreign fund managers were flooding into Hong Kong, intoxicated by potential gains from underpriced bank offerings. This time is different. Prices in Shanghai and Shenzhen have fallen by 22% and 15% respectively this year, making the mainland one of the world's worst-performing markets. In Hong Kong prices of shares in the same companies have fallen far less. Outsiders appear more willing to believe China's growth story than the Chinese.

The decline on mainland markets may be because investors are tapped out. Of the $19 billion raised recently by Agricultural Bank of China, more than 60% came from other Chinese state-owned entities. Every big bank is lining up for large capital injections and there have been many other share issues as well. Chinese companies raised $54 billion in equity in the first half of this year (before the AgBank listing) and another $80 billion in debt, according to Dealogic. That's a lot, even for China.

Another possibility regards moves to liberalise the yuan. In a series of decisions—including an announcement on July 19th on various yuan-denominated products banks will be able to trade in Hong Kong—small holes are being punched in the wall separating China's currency and the outside world. Perhaps the gap between shares in Hong Kong and those in the mainland is shrinking because the barriers between the two are falling.

These are just theories, however. Investment bankers are scrambling to work out what is happening to China's markets even as they prepare more companies for flotation. Despite falling prices, the appetite to list remains keen. The pipeline of prospective deals at most of the big banks consists overwhelmingly of Chinese companies, hoping to place their shares at home or in the hands of China-obsessed foreign buyers. Non-Chinese companies are also clamouring to list in Shanghai, a process that could begin early next year. Perhaps the premium has disappeared because foreigners now have fewer appealing choices, too.

Finance and Economics

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2010年7月20日

[2010.07.15]Budding greens朝气蓬勃的环保人士

 Budding greens
朝气蓬勃的环保人士

A new generation of climate-change activists
新一代气候变化活动人士。
Jul 15th 2010 | BEIJING

CHINA'S environment, most obviously the air in its cities, has been deteriorating roughly at the same dizzy pace that its industry has been expanding. Now some young activists, notably in university environmental clubs, are campaigning to raise awareness of pollution. In the process, they are among the first of their generation to dabble with political participation.
中国环境恶化的速度几乎与其工业令人炫目的扩张速度旗鼓相当，城市中的空气状况尤为明显。眼下，部分青年活动家以大学环保俱乐部为阵地，正在努力提高人们的环保意识。在这个过程中，他们是这代人中首批涉足政治活动的人。

The China Youth Climate Action Network, formed in Beijing in August 2007, began as a group of seven organisations which shared a desire to tackle global warming. This week it co-hosted a big summit on youth, energy and climate change at the United Nations pavilion in the Shanghai World Expo. "China has 400m young people and they need to make their voices heard, to express their views on climate change," says Zhao Xiangyu, a board member.
2007年8月，中国青年应对气候变化网络在北京成立，起初是由都旨在解决全球变暖问题的七个组织组成的一个团体。本周，它在上海世博会的联合国馆共同主持了一次有关青春、能源和气候变化的大型峰会。该团体的成员赵祥宇说："中国拥有4亿年轻人，他们需要让人们听到他们的声音，发表他们在气候变化问题上的看法。"

The group's main project is to encourage energy efficiency at 52 Chinese universities. It does so through surveys, on-campus training and producing a guide book on responding to climate change. Its goal, since inception, has been to get a 20% cut in greenhouse-gas emissions at the universities by 2012. Evidence of progress, so far, has been mixed.
该团体的主要工程是在中国的52所大学鼓励有效利用能源。它通过对应对气候变化的调查、在校培训和制作指导书来完成任务。一开始，它就致力于实现到2012年大学的温室气体排放减少20%的目标。迄今为止，进步的证据喜忧参半。

This is not for want of enthusiasm. Students at Peking University have set up a Clean Development Mechanism club, named after a part of the Kyoto protocol. With some funding from the World Wide Fund for Nature, it recently ran a project to interview and train "low-carbon leaders" around the country. "Our parents, their generation, are not aware of these issues," says Fan Jie, a member of the club. "So it is our generation who should take action."
并不是缺乏热情。北大的学生用京都协议的一部分来命名，成立了清洁发展机制俱乐部。最近，它利用从世界自然生态基金会获得的一些资助，实施了一项在全国采访和培训"低碳带头人"的项目。该俱乐部成员方杰（音）说："我们的父母亲那一代并没有意识到这些问题。因此，我们这一代应该采取行动。"

Yet it is an awkward time for NGOs in China. Since March officials have required small non-profit organisations to get restrictive notarised agreements before they can accept foreign funding. This gives the government still more control in a field already dominated by groups that are closely guided by officialdom.
然而，对中国的非政府组织来说，这是一段令人尴尬的时期。3月后，官方要求小型非盈利组织获得公证人签字的限制性协议才能接受国外资助。这又为政府在业已由官方密切指导的团体主导的领域提供了更多的控制权。

Such control may be one reason why even the greenest activists do not contradict the government's stance on tackling climate change. But Mr Fan, and most of his peers, also agree that economic growth and the environment are both pressing concerns, especially with countless Chinese still living in poverty.
这种控制或许是为何最具环保意识的活动人士在解决气候变化问题方面不与政府立场冲突的一个原因。但是方杰以及大多数他的同龄人还赞同，经济增长和环境问题都是当务之急，尤其是在还有无数中国人还生活在贫困中的情况下。

The activists are also sensitive about foreign criticism of China's foot-dragging on greenery. At talks over a new climate treaty in Copenhagen, in December, young Chinese delegates were not alone in doubting that a meaningful agreement would be struck. But they were fearful of being dragged into Western criticism of their government, and so pulled out of a planned joint declaration by young Chinese and American delegates. That would have called on governments of both countries to step up environmental efforts. But the statement, they felt, might have been used to put undue pressure on China. This new breed of environmentalist is Chinese first, global citizen second.
这些活动人士对国外对中国在环保方面拉后腿的批评也很敏感。在有关12月份哥本哈根一项新的气候条约的交谈中，并非只有年轻的中国代表对将敲定一项有意义的协议表示怀疑。但是他们担心卷入西方对其政府的批评中，因此退出了一份原计划由中美年轻代表发表的联合宣言。这份宣言本是呼吁两国政府加大环境保护的力度。但是他们认为，这项声明可能会被用于给中国施加过多的压力。这新一代环保人士首先考虑的是中国，其次才是是全球公民。
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2010年7月19日

以央行行长为锚的货币制度

 
 

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via 牛博国际 by 周其仁 on 7/18/10

　　以央行行长为锚的货币制度

　　周其仁
　　经济观察报 2010年7月19日星期一

　　周其仁个人网站：http://zhouqiren.org/

　　文提到的保罗·沃尔克先生（Paul Volcker），是1979-1987年间的美联储主席。此公被看作货币史上的一位英雄，以强势扭转了美国被通胀吞噬的命运。我们到今天还在讨论人民币要不要以美元为锚，很大程度上也是因为脱离了金本位后的美元遇上了这么一位人物。我喜欢他的故事，正是那略带个人英雄主义的传奇，让我明白货币选锚问题的困难所在。

　　1971年8月15日，尼克松总统宣布关闭"黄金窗口"，终结了布雷顿森林体系。一时间，各国央行持有的数百亿欧洲美元，再也无处按美国政府当年承诺的平价兑换黄金。此前几年，美国国会也大大咧咧地解除了美联储发行美元非要有一定比例黄金储备的法定要求。这就是说，无论对外还是对内，美元都获得了"解放"——它既不受黄金储备的束缚，也不受履行平价兑金承诺的压力。但是，美国因此就真的白白占到了便宜吗？

　　至少沃尔克不这样看。说来不是巧合，这位对美元地位忧心忡忡的人士，当时还是"尼克松冲击"的最重要谋划人之一。作为时任美国财政部主管货币事务的副部长，他认定欧洲美元危机是美国超出黄金储备发行货币的结果。因此，他不同意其他总统的智囊之见，以为威逼利诱欧洲国家货币对美元升值，就可以一劳永逸地解除美元危机。他主张公开摊牌，结束根本就不可能守得住的布雷顿森林体系。

　　沃尔克认为还要下大决心治理美国国内的通胀。祸害的源头还是美元超量供给，但治理国内通胀却比对付那些暴跳如雷的外国政府代表更为困难。毕竟，治理国内通胀的代价要由本国同胞、产业企业界以及政治家来承受。没有一定的共识，缺乏必要的政治容忍、许可和支持，治理已经恶化的通胀根本无从谈起。实际上，到1979年沃尔克得到卡特总统的提名而当上美联储主席时，美国CPI已高达13%，累积多年而加速的通胀早就是美国头号国内经济问题。

　　这位身高两米以上的新主席上任伊始就下痛手。那时美联储的政策工具与后来格林斯潘时代的一样，主要是提升联储基金利率 （FedFundRate）。他上任第八天就宣布，把联储基金利率提高50个基点到11%，再过两天又宣布把贴现率提高5个基点到10.5%。但是，当这位美联储新掌门人要求再次提高贴现率时，他遇到了麻烦：美联储有投票权的7位委员中，3位反对。虽然沃尔克还拥有多数，但舆论和市场却判断进一步的加息是不可能的了。

　　在美联储投票决定基准利率的制度下，沃尔克遭遇了两难困境。如果他坚持"利息至少为正"的立场，要求进一步加息，那么他很可能成为上任不久就变成少数派的美联储主席，并因为成为少数而无法贯彻自己的政策主张。如果他像他的前任一样圆滑地妥协，那么反通胀使命就前功尽弃。这里的关键是，通胀不单是货币现象，而且还是公众的心理现象。人们预期未来还是高通胀，就会不断地以购买行为来保卫自己的财富。人们越是不停地买、买、买，货币比商品和服务增长更快的超发行本性就越发暴露无遗，并使物价的持续上涨刺激更多的购买行为和更高的物价上涨。要打破高通胀自我强化的逻辑，有效办法就是升息，因为利息的提高等于增加了消费行为的机会成本。经济学说，只要代价足够高，总可以约束得住行为。

　　问题是，有没有允许经济规则发挥作用的政治条件？美联储内部的反对意见其实有更广泛的代表性，因为大幅度升息必然带来"治疗过程"的痛苦。从生产者的角度看，消费者一起减少购物意愿不啻是一场灾难，因为库存会增加、周转会减慢、破产要上升、失业会严重。原来，经济不但也怕痛，痛者还会大喊大叫。像正常情况下那样一道道"微调式"的升息，事还没办成，叫痛的政治力量就集结完毕。

　　沃尔克理解自己的困境，但绝不放弃为脱离金本位的美元重新建锚的使命。他坚持经济逻辑的原则，又凭借多年"周旋"在美国行政与政治迷宫里练就的本领，终于找到了破解困境的实际路径——美联储不再投票决定基准利率，转而直接制定美国货币供应量目标，然后经由市场过程，由货币供应量的变化决定利率的变化。这真是神来之笔：货币供应量当然决定着利率，但美联储却再也不需要为提升利率而直接面对政治紧张。当时有一位批评者点评道，"这是一个政治行动而非经济行动"，因为"随着利率不断升高，联储可以说，'嘿，这与我们有什么关系，我们又没有加息，我们只是在实现货币供应量目标'"。

　　有关此次美国货币调控转型的细节，读者可以在《纽约时报》记者那本出色的传记里读到 （见JosephB·Treaster,Paul Volcker：TheMakingofAFinancialLegend.李莉 译，《保罗·沃克尔——金融传奇人生》，中国金融出版社2006年版）。这里记下的是结果。1979年10月6日美联储一致通过了货币供应量目标的新体制，接着在开门的市场上，联邦基金利率从12%攀升到18%，然后落在13%-15%。商业银行的优惠利率因此被推高。然后，利率在平静的氛围里持续上升，在1981年夏秋之际攀上了连沃尔克本人也没有想到过的顶峰：联邦基金利率19.1%，商业银行优惠利率21.5%！狂奔的通胀野马终于被勒住了：美国通胀率在1981年降为6.5%，再过2年又降到4%以下。代价当然也不菲：美国经济在衰退里挣扎，破产企业翻倍，失业率创1940年以来最高。提名沃尔克任联储主席的卡特，因为保增长不力而无缘连任总统。对于沃尔克本人来说，虽然货币供应量的调控模式确保了他得以在美联储完成自己的使命，但排山倒海的讥讽和谴责、受损利益集团的高调辱骂，还有时隐时现来自白宫和国会山的政治压力，终究还要压在这位大个子的身上。沃尔克的品格不允许他做无原则退让，而正是这一点帮他守到了云开日出——从被污蔑为经济衰退杀手，到成为公认的美国英雄。

　　从货币制度着眼，沃尔克为美元重新建起的"央行行长之锚"，是不是过于诉诸个人因素而缺乏持久的可靠性？有这个问题。君不见，美联储在沃尔克的继任者格林斯潘主席领导下的作为，不正因为金融危机而经受着重新审查吗？不过，我从沃尔克的故事里也读到另外的意味。所有那些弥漫在央行这样一个人造机构周围的要求宽松货币、不惜以通胀应付短期经济压力的社会力量，同样也包围并改变着古典金本位制。讲到底，黄金的物理属性不能抵抗晃动货币之锚的社会力量。在由人组成的经济里，"非人格化（impersonalized）的制度安排"，终究会受制于在传统、历史教训、现实的经济政治力量等约束下的人的行为。结论是，"以央行行长为锚"——或以任何其他人为机制为锚——的货币制度，不但不是偏离理想货币体制的例外，反而集中而醒目地反映了人类寻找可靠货币之锚的全部困难。  


 
 

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先有鸡还是先有蛋？ 先有蛋白后有蛋

 
 

Sent to you by John via Google Reader:

 
 

via 科学松鼠会 by 资讯小分队 on 7/18/10

chicken egg  

先有鸡还是先有蛋？日前有英国科学家发现，要想形成蛋壳，必须要有一种蛋白质ovocleidin-17（OC-17），而这种蛋白质只专属于鸡。然而，先有的鸡，还是先有的蛋白？这依然是个难题。

研究报告指出，这种蛋白质加速了硬壳的生长，当小鸡在蛋中生长时，硬壳在保护脆弱的蛋黄和蛋液上起着关键作用。

英国谢菲尔德大学工程材料系的Colin Freeman在邮件中表示"长期以来人们怀疑先有蛋，但现在我们有了科学证据，表明实际上是先有的鸡"。（这句话小编感觉不靠谱）

他说"这种蛋白质以前就被人们发现与蛋的形成有关，但通过更仔细地研究，我们现在可以知道它究竟如何控制这一过程"。

同样来自谢菲尔德大学工程材料系的John Harding教授说，这个发现还可以有其它用途。"理解鸡蛋壳怎么形成很有意思，不过其实这还能为设计新无机材料和新工艺提供线索。自然界已经发现了有创新性的解决方案，适用于材料科学和技术领域各种各样的问题，我们可以从中学到很多东西"。

相关论文发表于德国《应用化学》（Angewandte Chemie International Edition）。

这个蛋白其实很早就做过了。大家已经知道这个蛋白对蛋壳碳酸钙的形成有帮助。这几个人做的，是用计算机模拟molecular dynamics，这个蛋白怎么作为一个催化剂，使得无定形的碳酸钙的纳米颗粒形成晶核，成长为晶体。

这个研究属于生物矿化（biomineralization），这其实是个很火的领域，《自然》（nature）或《自然—材料科学》（nature material）上永远一堆这种仿生的灌水文。这个文的题目挺好，却没能送到至少nat mat那里发个letter，感觉是因为这个文章纯是一个计算机模拟结果，没有提供更多的实验对照，挺典型的材料工程师的思路。但生物界太复杂，并不如人工材料那般简单模拟便了事。

消息来源：微软全国广播公司（MSNBC）网站 7月14日报道、《应用化学》6月10日论文摘要

图片来自 corbis

renard 、Fujia 审稿

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2010年7月18日

Talking down 越说越通俗的英语

The evolution of English
英语的进化
Talking down
越说越通俗的英语

Jan 29th 2004
From The Economist print edition

IN 1896, William Jennings Bryan, a three-time candidate for the American presidency, gave a speech on a relatively dry financial topic, criticising the gold standard. But his rhetoric was for the ages: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"
     1896年，参选三次的美国总统候选人威廉•詹宁斯•布莱恩就某个相对枯燥的财政话题发表演讲，其间抨击了金本位货币制度。而他的浮夸之词是那个年代特有的："你们不该把带刺的王冠压在劳动人民的额头上，你们也不该将人类钉死在金本位的十字架上！"

Just over a hundred years later Sam Brownback, arguing for war against Iraq in a speech to the American Senate, said, "We go at Iraq and it says to countries that support terrorists, there remain six in the world that are as our definition state sponsors of terrorists, you say to those countries: 'We are serious about terrorism, we're serious about you not supporting terrorism on your own soil'."
     仅仅一百多年之后，萨姆•布朗贝克在对美国参议院发表演说为伊拉克战争辩护时说："我们进军伊拉克，这件事告诉那些支持恐怖分子的国家一个道理，按照我们的定义，全球还有六个国家属于恐怖分子的援助国。我们告诉这些国家的道理就是："对于恐怖主义，我们是要动真格的；对你们不在自己的国土上为恐怖主义提供支持这件事，我们的态度是认真的。"
What happened over the 20th century? Americans (and, to a lesser extent, Britons) no longer expect public figures, whether in oratory or in writing, to command the English language with skill and flair. Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. John McWhorter, a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, sees the triumph of 1960s counterculture as responsible for the decline of formal English.
     20世纪发生了什么？美国人（包括英国人，只是程度稍轻）不再期待公众人物能娴熟地运用技巧和文采在演讲或写作中驾驭英语，而公众人物也不这么要求自己。约翰•麦克怀特是一位好辩论的语言学家，他的观点混杂着保守派和自由派的看法。他认为20世纪60年代的反传统文化是正式英语衰退的原因。

Blaming the permissive 1960s is nothing new, but this is not yet another screed against the decline in education. Mr McWhorter's academic speciality is language history and change, and he sees the gradual disappearance of "whom", for example, to be natural and no more lamentable than the loss of the case-endings of Beowulf-era English.
      怪罪放纵的60年代并不新鲜，而这并不是另一本批评教育滑坡的长篇大论。麦克怀特先生的学术专长是语言史与语言变化，他认为像'whom'这样的词逐渐消失是正常的，这并不会比贝奥武甫时代英语中的词格尾缀消失更令人惋惜。

But the cult of the authentic and the personal, "doing our own thing", has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to paper before the 1960s, even the most well regarded writing since then has sought to capture spoken English on the page. Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real vibrancy. In both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft.
      然而，"做我们自己的事"这一对事物真实性和个人化的狂热信仰，已经为正式的演讲、写作、诗歌和音乐画上了句号。在60年代以前，哪怕仅受过一般教育的人在下笔时都要寻求一种高雅的腔调。但在那之后，即使是最文雅的文章在落笔时也要口语化。同样，在诗歌领域，只有高度个人化和富有表现力的文学形式才是真正具有活力的。无论在口语还是书面语中，谈天说地胜过了正式演说，即兴发挥比精心准备更受欢迎。

Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr McWhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle, why we should, like, care. As a linguist, he acknowledges that all varieties of human language, including non-standard ones like Black English, can be powerfully expressive—there exists no language or dialect in the world that cannot convey complex ideas. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper.
麦克怀特先生从上层和下层文化中分别列举了一系列有趣的例子。从中我们可以看出，他所记录的这种趋势是十分明确的。而至于其副标题所提的问题：为什么我们应该、喜欢或在意？答案还不够明确。作为一位语言学家，他承认所有人类语言，包括那些非标准的语言如黑人英语，都具有极强的表达能力：世上不存在无法传达复杂思想的语言或方言。与大多数人不同的是，麦克怀特先生并不认为说话方式不规范就会使我们不能正确地思考。

Russians have a deep love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorised poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate oratory that would seem anachronistic to most English-speakers. Mr McWhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical education reforms—he is really bemoaning the loss of something beautiful more than useful. We now take our English "on paper plates instead of china". A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one.
俄国人深爱自己的语言，他们脑中都存着大量诗歌；意大利政治家倾向于精心推敲自己的演讲，而这在多数说英语的人看来是落伍的行为。麦克怀特先生承认正式语言不是完全必需的，他也并没有提出激进的教育改革：他其实是在为那些美丽而不那么实用的东西的丧失而惋惜。我们正"用纸盘子而不是瓷盘子"享用我们的英语。这也许让人惭愧，但很可能已不可避免
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[2010.04.22] Vampire squished? 压扁吸血鬼？

Vampire squished?
压扁吸血鬼？

What is bad for Goldman is bad for Wall Street, but good for regulatory reformers
凡对高盛不利的事，同样不利于华尔街，但却有利于监管改革者。

Apr 22nd 2010 | NEW YORK | From The Economist print edition

 

WHEN he was a child, Warren Buffett had an awe-inspiring encounter with Sidney Weinberg, Goldman Sachs's legendary leader, sparking a lifelong affection for the bank. These days the super-investor's admiration for Wall Street's most powerful firm, cemented by an investment during the recent crisis, puts him in a minority—and one that shrank further when, on April 16th, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Goldman and one of its employees of fraudulently misrepresenting structured instruments tied to subprime mortgages. The civil charges have dented the firm's aura of invincibility, sent shivers across Wall Street and possibly (and perhaps not coincidentally) changed the calculus of regulatory reform.

在沃伦•巴菲特还是个孩子的时候，他便与西德尼•温伯格有了一次令他心生敬畏的相遇（温伯格是高盛历史上的传奇领袖），这一相遇激起了巴菲特对高盛一生的钟爱。现在，这位超级投资客在本次经济危机中对高盛的一项投资更充分表明了他对高盛的喜爱，而这也使得他成了少数仍支持高盛的投资者之一。在证券交易委员会于4月16日指控高盛及其一名雇员在与次贷有关的结构性金融工具问题上向投资者提供欺诈性的虚假陈述以后，这样的少数派投资者更是进一步减少了。这场民事诉讼削弱了笼罩在高盛头上的无敌的光环，令整个华尔街也跟着颤抖，并可能（也许并不是巧合）改变本轮规制改革的考量标准。

The case centres on a synthetic collateralised debt obligation that Goldman structured and marketed. It told investors that the securities bundled together to form the CDO, known as ABACUS, had been selected by an independent "collateral manager", ACA. The SEC alleges that Goldman failed to disclose that Paulson & Co, a hedge fund that also had a hand in choosing what went in, had bet that the CDO would perform poorly. This gave it an incentive to select securities that would bomb—and bomb they did, costing investors, including IKB, a German bank , and ACA itself, $1 billion. The employee, Fabrice Tourre, is alleged to have misled ACA into believing the hedge fund was a long investor.

这一诉讼围绕着高盛构建和营销的一种合成担保债务凭证（CDO）而展开。高盛告诉投资者组成这一名为阿巴卡斯（译注：ABACUS，也有媒体称其为算盘）的CDO的证券是由独立的"抵押品管理人"ACA公司挑选的。证交会指控高盛未能揭露一个事实，那就是，对冲基金鲍尔森公司也参与了证券的选择，并押注这一CDO证券会表现不佳，这就激励了鲍尔森公司选择会崩跌的证券——结果也真的崩跌，使得投资者（包括德国工业银行IKB和ACA）损失了10亿美元。而高盛的雇员法布里斯•图尔（Fabrice Tourre）则被指控误导了ACA相信鲍尔森基金做多该CDO证券。

Such charges are usually announced along with a settlement. But Goldman's determination to fight—with help from a former White House counsel—is not surprising, given what is at stake. The charges are sharply at odds with the firm's jealously guarded self-image as a paragon of integrity. Goldman sees itself as "long-term greedy", preferring to forgo profit today rather than to alienate a client.

这样的指控通常是同和解的结果一起公示的。然而考虑到这一事件的利害关系，高盛此番表现出的坚决应战到底的决心（还有一位前白宫法律顾问的帮助）也就不足为奇了：这一指控将严重地损害到高盛一直小心维护的诚实楷模的自我形象。高盛将自己定义为渴望长期利益者，宁肯放弃一时利益，也不愿疏远一个客户。

Many outsiders think the crisis exposed this characterisation as bogus. The popular narrative is that Goldman uses its privileged trading position in capital markets to double-deal, favouring some clients more than others, but above all favouring itself; that it sneakily sought to profit from the crash; that its alumni in high places helped it manipulate the bail-out; that it contributed to the global fiscal crisis by helping Greece and other countries mask their debt; and so on. The media have heaped on the pressure, comparing Goldman to a vampire squid and mocking its boss, Lloyd Blankfein, for suggesting, albeit tongue-in-cheek, that it was doing "God's work". An insider admits that the fraud charges will "fan the flames".

很多局外人认为这次危机将高盛这一自我标榜的形象之虚假暴露无遗。普遍的说法是高盛利用自己在资本市场上的特权交易地位搞两面派，帮助一些客户受益更多，但首要的是帮助自己；它曾秘密地从大崩盘中获益；它的身居高位的幕僚帮助它成功地操纵了救助资金；他帮助了希腊和其他一些国家掩饰他们的债务，促成了全球性的债务危机•••媒体也在一旁煽风点火，将高盛比作吸血鬼乌贼；高盛的老板劳埃德•布兰克费恩也因曾半开玩笑地说高盛做的是"上帝的工作"而受到媒体的嘲笑。一位局内人事坦陈，这一欺诈指控将无异于火上浇油。

Still, the SEC must prove its case. The regulator has helped itself by boiling it down to a fairly straightforward failure of disclosure. But lawyers say it is a gamble, reflected in the commission's three-to-two split on whether to proceed. The investors were sophisticated (on paper, at least) and the securities unregistered, reducing underwriter liability. Much of structured finance is uncharted territory for litigation. Only months ago, America's Department of Justice lost a high-profile legal battle against two hedge-fund managers from Bear Stearns (although criminal cases have to clear a higher bar than civil cases).

不过，证交会仍须在法庭上证明其控诉。该监管机构将这一事件归结为非常简单明了的"未尽告知义务"对其胜算确实有利，但律师们称从证交会在诉讼开始前决定是否将采取诉讼程序的内部投票仅以3:2险胜的分歧中可以反映出，这其实是一场赌博。投资者是老练的（至少名义上是这样）与证券不属于监管范围，都减轻了承销商的责任。很多结构性融资都位于诉讼的盲区。仅数月前，美国司法部还在一场高调的官司中败给了贝尔斯登的两名对冲基金经理（尽管刑事案件比民事案件有着更高的要求杠杆）。

Whether or not Goldman settles—if it doesn't, the case could drag on for years—the monetary damage will be manageable. With $73 billion in shareholder equity, it could survive penalties of several times investors' losses. More worrying is the possibility that its deep base of clients will begin to lose faith. So far they have remained loyal. Goldman posted stellar first-quarter net profits of $3.5 billion this week, driven by strong trading income. It even announced a share buy-back.

无论高盛是否和解——如果不和解，这案子可能会拖很多年——金钱上的损失都是可以弥补的。有着730亿美元股东权益的高盛，即使被罚几倍于投资者的损失，仍然可以存活下来。高盛更担心的是庞大的客户群会对它失去信心，虽然迄今为止他们仍保持着忠诚。高盛本周公布了亮丽的一季度财报，在强劲的经营所得的驱动下，公司当季净利润为35亿美元。它甚至还宣布了一笔股权回购。

At a minimum, though, Goldman faces "headline risk", likely further probes and distractions from running the business, says Mike Mayo, an analyst with CLSA. The board is firmly behind Mr Blankfein, but a top-level sacrifice may eventually be needed, especially if the firm's legal troubles escalate. Britain's Financial Services Authority has launched an investigation. Frank Partnoy of the University of San Diego's law school expects class-action and other private suits over, among other things, Goldman's failure to inform markets last year that it had received notification of a probe. IKB is considering its options, as is AIG, which lost a fortune selling Goldman credit protection on duff CDOs.

里昂证券（CLSA）的一位分析师称，高盛至少面临着"头条风险"，可能受到进一步调查并影响到其业务运营。尽管董事会坚决地支持布兰克费恩，但是最终可能还是需要一个高层的牺牲，尤其是如若公司遭遇的法律问题进一步升级。英国金融服务管理局也展开了一项调查。圣地亚哥大学法学院的弗兰克•帕特洛伊认为高盛会因为去年收到证交会的调查通知后一直没有告知市场，以及别的原因，遭受集体诉讼和其他的私人诉讼。IKB在思忖着它的选择；而因卖给高盛关于垃圾证券的信用担保而损失严重的AIG，也同样如此。
 

Goldman is not alone. It was far from the biggest CDO underwriter in the go-go years (see chart). A number of banks worked with hedge funds that wanted to short housing. The newly muscular SEC is scrutinising other deals. The rating agencies that gave CDOs such absurdly high ratings, though not named in the ABACUS case, should also worry.

这样做的并不仅仅是高盛一家。在这沸腾的岁月里，高盛离最大的CDO承销商还有很长一段距离。很多银行都在与做空房市的对冲基金合作。新近发力的证交会也有仔细检视其他交易。那些给CDO的评级高得如此荒谬的信誉评级机构，尽管不在阿巴卡斯诉案里同列为被告，也应当坐立不安了。

Some question the SEC's timing. The decision to attack Wall Street's bogeyman-in-chief just as the White House makes a big push to get its financial-reform bill through the Senate is certainly striking. It raises "serious questions about the commission's independence and impartiality," said Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee.

一些人质疑证交会的时机选择。证交会打击华尔街的妖魔总司令的决定恰好发生在白宫作出大力推进，希望金融改革议案能在参议院通过的时候，如此巧合，自然就吸引了众多的眼球。众议院监管委员会的共和党头目达雷尔•伊萨说，这一事件加重了人们对证交会的独立性与公平性的严重质疑。

Whatever the motive, the charges will increase pressure on Republican senators, already wary of being cast as Wall Street's buddies, to compromise, reckons Douglas Elliott of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. For many Americans, clamping down on banks is almost as big a concern as jobs, says Ted Kaufman, a Democratic senator. As The Economist went to press, Democratic leaders were hoping to bring the bill to the Senate floor within days.

来自智库布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）的道格拉斯•埃利奥特认为，无论这一指控的动机是什么，它都将增加原本就已在谨慎地避开华尔街密友形象的共和党议员妥协的压力。民主党议员特德•考夫曼说，在很多美国人看来，对银行的加强监管同解决就业问题一样重要。本期经济学人付印的时候，民主党领导人正期望着几天内将这一议案提交到参议院。

The Goldman case could make it harder to see off draconian legislative proposals, such as a plan to force banks to divest their swaps-trading units. Combined with higher capital charges for trading and with the Volcker rule, which would ban banks from proprietary trading and investing in hedge funds and private equity, these would hit capital-markets businesses hard. Goldman is arguably the most exposed: 80% of its first-quarter net revenue came from trading and principal investments.

高盛的案子使得阻挠严厉的立法提案变得更为困难，例如一个强迫银行成立独立的部门将其掉期交易业务分离出去的提案。这些严厉的立法提案同更高的交易资本金要求和沃尔克法则——该法则禁止银行进行自营交易和投资对冲基金、私募股权基金——结合起来，将给资本市场造成严重的冲击。高盛是受到这些政策和法规冲击最大的一个：它的一季度净利润中80%的利润来自交易和委托投资业务。

Writing the firm off would be foolhardy. It has recovered from adversity many times. Its risk management is top-notch, its people super-smart (and don't they know it). For all its ham-fisted PR, it has, so far, been able to ride out its image problems. But now it must defend itself, both in the court of public opinion and also, quite possibly, in courts of law. And where Goldman goes, much of Wall Street could be dragged.

现在就认定高盛无可救药是过度鲁莽。高盛曾多次绝处逢生；它的风险管理顶尖，它的人员异常聪明（他们自己当然知道）。尽管它的公关很拙劣，但到目前为止，高盛算是安然的挺过了一波波关乎其形象的考验。然而现在，它必须既在舆论庭上为自己辩护，且很可能也必须在法律庭上为自己辩护。如果高盛倒了霉，华尔街也将难逃厄运。
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2010年7月16日

应对“新常态”

  • 应对"新常态"
  • 2010-7-10    文章来源于《证券市场周刊》证券市场周刊订阅
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  • 【《证券市场周刊》特约作者 比尔・格罗斯】全球金融市场的回报率正经历一个平淡的时期。债券市场又岂止是萧条，简直是处于危机边缘。全球大部分的主要债券指数的收益率都低于3%，投资收益当然也会如此。而股票，一直以来作为投资者乐观主义的舞台，仍没有适应因去杠杆化、再监管以及去全球化导致的经济增幅减半的"新常态"，因此只有极低的个位数回报率。

    然而，多年来我们在太平洋投资管理公司（PIMCO）都曾习以为常的做法现在已经不再是机构投资经理们的例牌。当"新常态"已经成为记者和评论家的口头禅时，投资者还并没有意愿接受这个事实，他们困惑并耳语着，或许还轻吹着口哨，就像是在经过一块墓地。

    对于我们所说的"新常态"这个合成词，更多的经济学家们更注重"常态"，而不是"新"，而这些经济学家都不是"R"字辈的（Roubini, Reinhart, Rogoff, 或Rosenberg），（注：这几位R字辈的经济学家都是悲观主义经济学者，都看空全球投资市场，格罗斯认为只有这几位少数的经济学家明白了新常态的真正含义）好像在金融字典里，字母"R"被删除了，而在全球投资者的字典里，"新"被删除了。

    也许正是人们世世代代对债务的简单理解导致了目前的境况，随时借债，随时放贷，轻松地提高生活品质――直到债务达到如此巨大的程度，以至于利息负担和偿付能力使借贷双方都无法再互相信任对方。要想搞清楚为什么举债成为了生活负担而不是生活的享受，有必要看看（菲利普・科根）在《经济学人》杂志中所指出的，去问问为什么人们，包括公司，甚至整个国家，把借债奉为第一信条。

    他在文中不无智慧地说道，他们之所以举债，就是为了提高生活品质，带动消费，而不是萧条地活在现状中。我们中的大多数人如果不去贷款，怎么可能买得起房子呢？而如果不贷款，当我们存够买房子的钱的时候，我们已经接近退休年龄，孩子们又要用钱，同样的窘境还是会发生。而神奇的贷款会让我们随时消费，到时候也会如数还款。重要的是，借贷就像握手，至少有借与贷两方参与，放贷人必须相信借款人有能力偿还贷款，这种信任，或叫做"信用"，是基于若干理性的预期，而这种理性的预期是从3万英尺高的宏观高度去观察得到的。

    首先，资本创新孕育了生产力以及通过科技创新而不断提高的生活品质。如果经济繁荣，那么债务可以通过获利以及薪酬来偿还。其次，20世纪（虽有时不时的战争和瘟疫）是世界人口增长的时期，而正是这一时期，债务超级链条形成了。前期的债务由不断增长的人口蔓延传播，债务负担得以减轻，从而使得更多的举债发生，进入到看似无限循环的债务链，而这种举债消费的方式能够推动消费――人们因此预期后代都能如法炮制。

    然而，当科技的创新――颇似摩尔定律――看似有着无限的前景时，人口的增长，在无数的发达国家当中已经接近停滞。因此，不但将债务分担到更多的未来人口变得更加困难，而且那些老龄化的全球主流消费人口对未来商品和服务的需求也会减少，从而自身的偿还能力也相应减弱。由于已经开始意识到了这种困境，正如最近希腊以及南欧诸国，或者美国本身的状况一样，债权人会收紧放贷，比如债权人会要求贷款人在买房子或其他借贷时提高首付比例

  • 人口老龄化及结构变迁当然只是上天惩罚的其中一部分。我们本可以像松鼠为了过冬而储藏食物那样渡过难关，但人性被贪婪与违背常理的做法所侵蚀。我们弄巧成拙，现在收债人拿着镰刀就在你家门口等着收租，一手拿着未付的账单，另一只手挨家挨户地敲门，将那些之前从未怀疑过举债带来高品质生活的人们判为死刑。

    如果从人口统计学、心理学以及社会学的角度来解释这场危机的话，那么最难理解的部分就是为什么它会转化成全球现象。全球有65亿人口，而很快又会增加10亿，这其中大多数是无债族，而且从未使用过信用卡，也没有贷款买房的预期。那么为什么债权人――譬如太平洋投资管理公司――不去借贷给他们，从而促使发展中国家推动消费？为什么不让发达国家提供物资与服务，使整个世界又回归到"旧常态"通道，朝着未来收益、未来繁荣以及不断提高的生活品质的方向发展呢？从某种意义上来讲，这应该是渐进地发生的，促使更快的增长发生在新兴经济体以及其表面屈服于G-7之下的实体国家。

    但是，那些发展中国家发展的并不迅速，因此不能够使全球经济回归到"旧常态"，至少从内需来看是这样。他们的金融体系不够完善，就像一个四肢纤细的幼年长颈鹿――虽有巨大的向上的潜力――但由于一系列的错误决策，如最近的一次是10年前的亚洲金融危机，目前还只能尽力保持平衡。

    因此他们生产的目的主要是为了出口，而不是内需，这就造成了与全球总需求之间的差距。

    发达国家的消费者由于债务缠身已经达到了消费顶峰，而发展中国家的"幼年长颈鹿"不够自信，不敢伸出脖子舔舐头顶"内需"那片美味的叶子。

    正是由于这种全球总内需的不均衡――某些地区由于债务过重，而另一些地区消费不足――才是问题的关键，但好像只有少数"R"字辈的经济学家才能领悟。（太平洋投资管理公司里没有"R"字开头的经济学家，无论我怎样想用比喻的手法找到一个姓氏里有"R"字的，哦，是的，有一个，Paul-Rugman,也算勉强通过） （注：其实是Paul-Krugman,作者为了强调Paul也是少数理解新常态的经济学家之一，故意称他为Rugman）

    如果决策者们能够统一地顺利将那些深度负债消费者变为未来的生产者，而同时将那些消费不充分的发展中国家人口变为消费人口，那么我们的困境就会变得可控。先不说多伦多20国峰会，全世界总是处于一种各自为政的思维状态，中国总是审慎的消费，而美国也不愿意承认投资出口产品的必要性。

    即便你不是"R"字辈的，前面的解释也足够你去理解最近几年全球市场，全球经济，甚至于你目前的疲软的生活质量到底是怎么一回事。

    消费必须有金融的支持，而金融是借贷双方的双向博弈。当负债程度过高，债权方就会停止放贷，甚至终极的债权方――国家、中央银行、超越国家界限的金融机构，都会逼近他们的极限，而一旦超越此极限，私人企业的生产力就会受到威胁。我们已经进入了"新常态"时代，尽管在过去的几十年中，中国和印度以及其他新兴经济体中涌现出了30亿的消费者，但是由于能力欠缺，亦或是不乐意去支持消费而造成的全球总需求的差距仍然存在。

    发达国家的缓慢增长，新兴经济体的消费乏力，以及看似无法参透的低迷的投资组合回报率――债券或股票――都摆在我们面前。不要再喃喃自语（大声喊出来）"新常态"，或开始称自己为"RRRRRRRRR"字辈！我们需要改变的是我们的经济，我们的债务使用方式，以及我们的金融市场――而不是改变我的字母或字典。

    张俊豪／译

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    2010年7月15日

    The emerging online giants 若隐若现的网络巨擘

    Internet investment's new champions

    互联网投资界新贵

    The emerging online giants

    若隐若现的网络巨擘

    DST, Naspers and Tencent have made promising internet investments in many emerging markets. Now even Western internet financiers are emulating them

    DST，Naspers和腾讯已经在诸多新兴市场做出了卓有成效的网络投资，现在甚至连西方的网络投资界也开始效仿他们

    Jul 8th 2010

     

    THEY may not have the name recognition of a Google or a Yahoo!, but they can claim to belong in the same league. The websites of Digital Sky Technologies (DST) account for more than 70% of page-views on the Russian-language internet. Naspers is Africa’s biggest media group, both offline and online. And Tencent is China’s largest internet company by market capitalisation—and the third-largest in the world.

    它们也许没有Google或者Yahoo那么高的知名度，但是他们可以宣称属于同一个阵营。DST的网站占据了俄语互联网70%以上的浏览量，Naspers是非洲最大的网络和传统媒体集团，而腾讯则是按市值计算中国最大，世界第三的互联网公司。

    Now these firms are increasingly making their presence felt beyond their home markets. Between them they have invested in dozens of internet firms around the globe. The most adventurous of the three, DST, has already moved west—and paid top dollar for stakes in fast-growing American companies, notably Facebook, the world’s biggest social network.

    现在，这些公司的身影越来越多地在其母国以外出现。他们之间已经在全球范围投资了好几十家互联网公司。其中最具冒险精神的DST已经挥师西方国家，并花费大把钞票购买具有高成长性的美国公司的股分，其中最惹人注目的就是入股世界最大的社交网站Facebook。

    At first glance the three firms could not look more different. DST was created in 2005 when two Russian internet investors, Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, pooled their interests in mail.ru, a Russian web portal. Today the firm controls many of the country’s leading websites and boasts an interesting mix of owners, including Goldman Sachs and Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire, who holds 27%.

    一眼看上去这三家公司八竿子打不着。DST于2005年由两位俄罗斯互联网投资者Yuri Milner和Gregory Finger将其所拥有的门户网站mail.ru的股份合并而成。如今这家公司控制了俄罗斯许多主要的网站，并以其有趣的多方所有制而自夸。其所有方包括了高盛和拥有27%股份的俄罗斯亿万富翁Alisher Usmanov。

    Based in Cape Town, Naspers is nearly 100 years old and is the publisher of the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest newspaper. But it is one of the most ambitious old-media companies anywhere in its move online. It still makes most of its sales—28 billion rand ($3.6 billion) in the year to March—from print and pay-television, but it uses the cash to buy online firms.

    Naspers立足于开普敦已有将近百年历史，是南非最大的报纸Daily Sun的发行商。但是在网络化方面，它是所有传统媒体中最具抱负的公司之一。目前这家公司仍以纸质报纸和付费电视为主营业务，并在第一季度创下销售额280亿南非兰特（折合成美元36亿），但是它也花大钱收购网络公司。

    Tencent hails from Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. Founded in 1998, it had revenues of $1.8 billion in 2009. Although best known for QQ, a popular instant-messaging service with 567m users, much of its profits come from online games and a virtual currency, called Q coins. Users purchase this with real money and use it to buy digital wares, such as virtual weapons to increase the powers of their avatars.

    腾讯来自深圳，离香港不远。成立于1998年的腾讯在2009年营收达18亿美元。虽然其最出名的产品是QQ，在中国是最受欢迎的即时通信软件并拥有5.67亿用户，其大部分利润来自在线游戏和一种被称为Q币的虚拟货币。用户用真实的钱币兑换Q币并用它来购买诸如提升游戏角色能力的虚拟道具。

    Despite their differences, the three firms can be seen as a block. For one thing, they are financially intertwined. Naspers owns part of mail.ru and was an early investor in Tencent, of which it now holds 35%. In April Tencent invested $300m in DST, giving it a stake of more than 10% and DST a valuation of about $3 billion. Tencent also has an interest in the Indian arm of MIH, Naspers’s internet division.

    尽管互相有如此大的差别，这三家公司其实是一伙的。首先，它们在股份上互相关联。Naspers拥有mail.ru的部分股份，也是腾讯的早期投资者并拥有其35%的股份。今年四月份，腾讯给DST注资3亿美元从而获得其超过10%的股份，并使DST市值达到30亿美元左右。腾讯同时还在Naspers旗下的网络公司MIH的印度分公司拥有股份。

    What is more, the firms are on the same mission: finding promising internet companies in countries where Western investors rarely dare to go. DST’s territories are Russia and its neighbours, most of which are home to one of its collection of companies; these include social networks such as VKontakte.ru and Nasza-Klasa.pl. Naspers has the largest portfolio of internet firms in developing countries, for instance in Brazil (BuscaPé, a comparison-shopping site), India (ibibo, a social network) and at home in South Africa (24.com, a portal). Tencent has so far been the most cautious of the three. Besides its recent investment in DST it has some minority stakes in games companies, such as VinaGame in Vietnam.

    更重要的是，这些公司都有同样的使命：在西方投资者极少敢于尝试的国家寻找有发展前途的互联网公司。DST的业务范围涵盖俄罗斯及其邻国，其旗下的诸多子公司在这些地区占有主要市场，包括社交网站VKontakte.ru和Nasza-Klasa.pl。Naspers拥有发展中国家互联网公司领域最大的投资组合，比如巴西的购物网站BuscaPé，印度的社交网站ibibo以及母国南非的门户网站24.com。腾讯目前是三家公司中最审慎的一家，除了最近对DST的投资以外它在一些游戏公司也有少量股份，像越南的VinaGame。

    This international presence allows the firms to apply lessons they have learned in one country to another. “We spend an enormous amount of time on sharing knowledge,” says Antoine Roux, the boss of MIH. For its part, DST knows which web businesses work and how much room for growth they still have, given a country’s GDP and internet penetration. Alexander Tamas, a partner at DST, calls this “geographical arbitrage”.

    这样的国际经历使得他们可以将在一个国家学到的经验应用到其他国家。MIH的老板Antoine Roux说道，我们花费大量的时间互享知识经验。就DST而言，他们可以学到在给定一个国家的GDP和网络普及程度的条件下，哪些网络业务有利可图并且还有多大的增长空间。DST的股东Alexander Tamas将此称为“地域性套利”。

    In Russia DST has seen how quickly social networks can grow: latecomers to the internet, many Russians skipped e-mail and went right to social networks to communicate online. With advertising roubles in short supply, DST’s companies also experimented early with other ways of making money from social networks and online games, such as charging for services and selling virtual goods. In December it merged mail.ru with Astrum Online, a gaming firm—in effect forming a Russian Tencent. Free communication tools such as instant messaging create the audience that then pays for other services and virtual goods, Mr Tamas explains.

    DST见证了社交网站在俄罗斯增长之快：由于互联网在俄罗斯普及较晚，很多俄罗斯人跳过电子邮件直接使用社交网站来进行网上交流。由于广告收入不多，DST的网络公司一早就开始尝试社交网站和网络游戏的其他赚钱之道，比如付费服务和兜售虚拟商品。十二月份，DST将mail.ru和游戏公司Astrum Online合并，而后者其实就是腾讯的俄罗斯翻版。Tamas先生解释说，免费的即时通信软件带来了大量的用户，这些用户同时为其他付费服务和虚拟商品买单。

    Tomorrow, the world

    明天的目标是全世界

    It was only a question of time before one of the three firms tried to apply these emerging-market lessons in the West. DST has been the pioneer, for several reasons. Its partners learned their trade in America. It intends to go public one day. And it saw an opportunity: after the financial crisis, conventional investors were cautious and did not fully realise how fast social networks, for instance, would grow.

    这三家公司中有人开始尝试将其在新兴市场学到的经验应用到西方世界仅仅是个时间问题。由于诸多因素DST成为了先行者。首先它的股东有在美国市场打拼的经历，其次它准备将来上市，并且他们看到了一次绝好的机会：在金融危机之后传统投资者变得比较谨慎，比如，他们没有充分意识到社交网站发展速度之快。

    One further factor was essential in helping DST to gatecrash the party of the handful of private-equity funds, such as Elevation Partners, TCV and Silver Lake Partners, which typically provide successful American internet firms with additional cash. DST’s corporate structure allows it to act quickly, and to make offers that are hard to refuse. In the case of Facebook, it agreed to what at the time seemed a high valuation, waived any right to special treatment should things go wrong and was willing to buy stock from employees. That is especially popular with young internet firms. It allows founders and key employees to make money without having to sell the company or go public prematurely. “This is an IPO substitute,” explains Mr Milner, adding that DST’s investments give firms more time to focus on their product rather than thinking about a flotation.

    还有一个更重要也更基本的因素帮助DST成功加入由Elevation Partners、TCV和Silver Lake Partners等一小撮互联网公司投资家组成的私募股权基金俱乐部。DST的公司结构使得它能够决策迅速并提出让客户难以拒绝的报价。以Facebook为例，DST同意了当时看来比较高的估价，放弃了在万一企业经营不善的情况下的所有特殊权利，并且答应从职工手中收购股票。这些条件对新成立的互联网公司尤其具有吸引力。这使得公司创始人和重要员工不需要通过转售公司也不必在尚未成熟的条件下匆忙上市来赚钱。Milner先生解释说，这是公开上市的一个替代办法，DST的投资给予企业家更多的时间来提高自己的产品质量而非成天想着怎样上市。

    Will DST’s strategy work? Buying into Facebook certainly looks like a smart move. DST has spent an estimated $800m for a stake of about 10%. When Elevation Partners recently invested $120m in Facebook, that deal put the company’s value at $23 billion, implying that DST’s investment has almost trebled.

    DST的投资策略行得通吗？购入Facebook看起来显然是项很划算的买卖。DST花费约8亿美元购入Facebook10%的股权，当Elevation Partners最近为Facebook注资1.2亿美元的时候，其市值已经增长到230亿美元，表明DST的投资已经增长到将近原来的三倍。

    In contrast, analysts say, DST may have overpaid for Zynga, the world’s largest online-gaming service, and for Groupon, a website that aggregates buyers and gets them special deals. Yet sceptics may again underestimate how quickly both can grow and what Zynga, for instance, is worth in combination with Facebook: taken together they look much like Tencent. In May, after lengthy negotiations, both firms agreed that Facebook Credits, the social network’s currency, would be accepted in Zynga’s games.

    与之相反，分析师则认为DST也有些投资不甚划算，比如DST为入股世界最大的网游公司Zynga和以组织团购并提供购物折扣为业务的网站Groupon出价太高。当然这些持异议的分析师可能再次低估了这两家公司的增长速度以及Zynga和Facebook联合起来所能创造的价值：将这两家公司联合起来就跟腾讯很相似了。经过漫长的谈判，两家公司于今年五月达成共识同意Facebook上流通的虚拟货币也可以被Zynga的游戏接受。

    A bigger problem for DST may be that some see it as Russian—and thus “murky”. To counter this the firm has gone to great lengths to be open, inviting executives from firms in which it wanted to invest to Moscow to look at its books. The success of this strategy is demonstrated by the quality of its recent deals and its co-investors, which include such noted venture-capital firms as Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. Even so, DST’s national origin could still matter as the firm makes further investments. Authorities in Washington, dc, are reportedly worried about DST’s latest acquisition: ICQ, an instant-messaging service previously owned by AOL.

    DST的一个更大的问题是有人觉得它是俄罗斯的公司，从而具有“重重内幕”。为了打消这种疑虑DST已经做出巨大努力提高透明度，比如邀请其有投资意向的公司的高官到莫斯科访问并检查账簿。从他们最近的投资案例的质量以及其与知名的风险投资公司Accel Partners和Andreessen Horowitz的合作来看，他们的策略已经取得了成功。尽管如此随着DST投资范围的扩大，其母国背景仍然引起人们注意。根据报道，华盛顿当局对DST最近一次收购AOL的及时通信服务ICQ而深感担忧。

    However DST fares, it seems to attract copycats. Before Elevation Partners invested in Facebook, it had already cut what is now called a “DST deal” with Yelp, a fast-growing user-review site for local businesses. And although Naspers does not intend to make any investments in Western countries, Tencent may follow DST in doing so. Martin Lau, Tencent’s president, recently said it would step up its forays abroad—which has led to talk that it may be interested in buying Yahoo!.

    不管DST成功与否，它总不乏粉丝效仿。在Elevation Partners入资Facebook之前，它就已经跟一家快速增长的地区性商家用户评论网站Yelp达成了一次”DST式的交易“。而且尽管Naspers无意投资西方国家的公司，腾讯却很可能追随DST。腾讯总裁刘炽平（Martin Lau）新近放话说腾讯会加速海外投资的步伐，从而引起了其有意入股雅虎的传言。

    Conversely, the apparent success of the three emerging-market internet pioneers may prompt Western venture firms to take more interest in developing countries. Tiger Global Management, a New York hedge fund that is also a shareholder in DST, has already specialised in investing in start-ups beyond the West’s well-known technology clusters. Clearly, internet investing is going global and the West is losing its monopoly, not just in thinking up clever ideas for web businesses but in financing them.

    反过来，新兴市场这三位网络投资先驱的成功故事也会促使西方国家的风险投资公司更加关注于发展中国家。纽约的对冲基金Tiger Global Management，同时也是DST的股东之一，已经在投资非西方国家高技术集团的成长型公司方面有所专攻。显然，互联网投资正变得越来越国际化，西方国家也已开始在不仅仅是网络商务的创新方面同时也在企业融资方面失去其垄断地位。
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