automation
自动化
After more than two decades of healthy annual advances,American nonfarm productivity growth declined and sometimes reversed after 1973.
在超过20年健康的年增长率之后,美国的非农业生产力自1973年后下滑,但偶有反弹。
Last year it grew nearly 3%,much of it due to blood-curdling corporate restructuring that was marked by increased automation,layoffs and lower wages.
去年增长几乎达3%,但主要是因为企业采取更高度自动化、裁员、减薪等令人胆寒的整顿措施。
Customers balked,Wang abandoned the office-equipment business and filed fr bankruptcy last year.
顾客迟疑不前,王安放弃办公设备部门,而在去年申请破产。
BM also tried and failed,
BM尝试过也失败,
as did oil giant Exxon,which ended up selling off its office-automation division in 1984 after investing more that $2 billion in it.
而石油巨人Exxon在投资超过20亿美元的情况下,仍在1984年卖掉了它的办公室自动化部门。
basket case
无用之物,无望之土
Africa has become the basket case of the planet,
非洲已成了地球上最没有希望的土地,
he "Third World of the Third World,"a vast continent in free fall.
是“第三世界中的第三世界”,一个跌入深渊的辽阔大陆。
Sometimes called the world's richest basket case
缅甸有时被称为全世界最富有的无望之土,
because of its wealth of such natural resources as teak and minerals.
因为它蕴含丰富的自然资源如柚木与矿产。
Burma needs foreign aid and investment to modernize.
缅甸需要国际的援助与投资以期现代化。
cellular phone
移动电话
With AT&T,Craig McCaw moves one step closer to realizing his biggest dream:
有了AT&T的支援,Craig McCaw离他的大梦又更近了一步:
building the first nation-wide cellular telephone network.
建立第一套全国性的移动电话网络。
Since the storm had knocked out telephone lines.
因为暴风吹垮了电话系统,
Allstate rushed to set up its own communication system,
Allstate赶忙自行建立通讯系统,
consisting of 80 shortwave radio units,850 pagers,173 cellular phones and a toll-free number.
包括80台短波收音机、850个B.B.call、173个移动电话以及一根免费电话线。
By staking a position in the cellular phone market,MCI takes its battle against AT&T to new heights.
MCI在移动电话市场取得一席之地,将它与AT&T的战争拉到新高点。
Channel Tunnel
英吉利海峡海底隧道
Last week,when the news of the Chunnel breakthrough was announced,
上周当海峡隧道贯通消息公布时,
the Sun,Britain's leading tabloid,cautioned its readers.
英国小报领袖《太阳报》警告读者:
"It won't be long before the garlic-breathed bastilles will be here in droves once the Channel Tunnel is open."
“一旦海峡隧道贯通,不久以后,满嘴大蒜味的巴士底人就会大批涌来。”
Deep in the British psyche there is a reservation about ending the island-nation status.
在英国人内心深处,对结束岛国式的生活还是有所保留。
Chapter 11 bankruptcy
破产
Just a week earlier the airline had veered away from a return trip to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection,from which it had emerged four years ago.
就在上周航空公司才刚刚避过再度落入破产保护的命运。四年前大陆航空才刚结束上一次的破产保护期。
Ames Department Stores(fiscal 1989 sales;$ 3.4 billion)declared bankruptcy under Chapter 11
Ames百货公司(1989会计年度营业额;34亿美元)宣告破产,
as the result of lingering complications from its 1988 acquistion of the Zayre chain.
因为它在1988年收购Zayre连锁店后的问题一直无法解决。
derivatives
衍生性金融商品
Procter $ Gamble announced that it was taking a $102 million after-tax charge on its third-quarter earnings
宝洁公司宣布要自第三季的利润中扣除已税的1.02亿美元,
because it was "badly burned" by two derivatives contracts.
因为该公司被两宗衍生性金融商品的契约害惨了。
Derivatives-abstractions of stocks,bonds and futures-are a huge business($4.5 trillion in contraxts),
把股票、债券和期货抽象化的衍生性金融商品,是笔大生意(契约价值高达4.5兆美元),
but pose a danger to world financial markets because of lack of regulation.
但是因为缺乏管制,对世界的金融市场造成危机。
As such,they are often called the junk bonds of the '90s.
因为它们经常被称作90年代的垃圾债券。
embezzlement
盗用公款
They had charged that Papandreou ordered state companies to deposit funds in the private bank at a time when its owner was suspected of embezzlement.
他们指挥帕潘德里欧在一家私人银行的所有人处在盗用公款的嫌疑之时,仍执意命令国营企业将钱存入此银行。
Papandreou was also accused of taking bribes from the bank owner.
帕潘德里欧同时被控自银行所有人处收取贿赂。
futures
期货
Among other things,the Finance Ministry gave investors easier access to borrowed money and curbed the hours of futures trading.
许多措施中,包括大藏省让投资者更畅通的贷款渠道,并且缩短了期货的交易时间。
industrial park
工业园区
"He was proud of his expertise.He was very much in love with himself."
“他对自己的专家手法很自豪,很欣赏自己。”
Last year the feds and local police busted Wills' six-man,14,000-sq.-ft."chop shop" set in an industrial park in Bensalem,Pennsylvania.
去年调查局和当地警察在宾州Bensalem附近一个工业园区内破获了Wills和五个同伙的“解体工厂”,面积达1.4万平方英尺。
The first bombs accomplished little,
第一次轰炸成果不大,
so U.S. warships on Sunday fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at an Iraqi industrial park near Baghdad
于是美国战舰在周日对巴格达城附近的一个工业园区发动战斧巡航导弹攻击。
that Washington said housed a nuclear facility.
华盛顿方面宣称此处藏有核武器制造设施。
liquidity
流动性、变现性
In 1990 News faced a liquidity crisis caused by the recession,a huge drop in advertising revenues,
1990年,News Corp。面临资产变现性危机,因为经济不景气,广告费收大降,
and Murdoch's reliance on short-term loans at a time when interest rates were rising rapidly.
而利率急速上升,危及默多克对短期融资的倚赖。
P.R.
公关
It might also avoid the kind of public relations debacle Detroit's fat cats endured last week.
也可以避免像底特律那些脑满肠肥的主管一样,在上周忍受完全失败的公关所带来的苦果。
premium
保险费
And though all are supposed to hold down the zooming increase in medical costs,
虽然每种方法的目的都是为了降低医疗成本,
the competing plans would rely on market mechanisms while Clinton would try tight,mandatory limits on increases in insurance premiums.
但是其他人的计划都得依靠市场机能,只有克林顿想用紧密、强制性的限制来抑制保险费的上升。
Options include a short-term freeze on prices charged by doctors,hospitals,laboratories and nursing homes,and a cap on insurance premium increases.
政府的选择包括短期冻结医师、医院、实验室与私人疗养院的收费,并且对保险费上涨设定上限。
Rupert Murdoch
默多克:媒体大亨
Delphi,which was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.in September,
Delphi在9月被默多克的News Corp.买下。
began providing its customers full Internet access last summer.
Delphi在今年夏天起即已提供客户全盘的国际互联网服务。
Silicon Valley
硅谷
In all,thieves last year ripped off up to $40 million worth of chips from California's Silicon Valley,according to the FBI.
联邦调查局透露:整体而言,加州的硅谷在去年一年被偷走了价值近4000万美元的电脑芯片。
When Apple Computer co-founder Steven Jobs burned out 10 years ago,the Silicon Valley company brought in marketing maven John Sculley.
苹果电脑的共同创办人Steven Jobs 10年前精疲力竭地离开公司,这家硅谷公司找来营销专家John Sculley。
Now it is Sculley who has apparently flamed out.
现在换成Sculley明显要挂免战牌了。
He has stepped down as CEO,but will stay on as chairman to focus on new business opportunities.
他已辞去了总裁的职位,但仍保持董事长的身份,并将专注在寻找新商机上。
technology transfer
技术转让
Republican fund raisers such as Floyd Brown see a bait-and-switch tactic
共和党募款人如Floyd Brown等人想到“放长线钓大鱼”的计谋。
that they hope to capitalize on by portaying her as massively influencing everything from the appointment of the deputy assistant undersecretary for technology transfer to a decision on whether the U.S. should bomb Serbian artillery lines.
他们想把她描写成无事不管的第一夫人,从管技术转让的副助理次长的任命到美国是否应该轰炸塞尔维亚的炮兵阵地。
The U.S. joined the other 16 members of the Coordiating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls,
美国与其他16个“出口管制协调委员会”的成员达成了共识。
which monitors the transfer of technology to communist countries,
本来委员会是监控对共产国家的科技转让,
in approving the sale of sophisticated machine tools,telecommunications equipment and computers to those nations if they put in place safeguards to protect the Western technology.
但大家现在均同意出售精密的工具机、通讯设备和电脑给这些国家,条件是它们承诺立法保护西方科技。
vertical integration
纵向一体化
"The U.S.claims that our keiretsu-ka of banks and other financial institutions is outrageous.
“美国人说我们在银行与其他金融机构的纵向一体化是无法无天。
I don't agree.It's an idiosyncrasy of the Japanese economy."
我不同意。这是日本经济的特色。”
The strategy is vertical integration,a coordinated system to offer patients whatever they need,
策略是纵向一体化,利用上下协调的体制,让患者得到任何需要的项目,
from X rays to transplants,in the setting that makes the most sense.
在同一地点即可提供应具备的服务,例如从照X光片到器官移植。
The Devil's in the Derivatives
衍生性金融商品的鬼魂
1.Even Marcia Stasch got caught.
连Marcia Stasch也上了当。
She had sold securities for a living and so,naturally,she read the prospectus and the brochures from the local brokerage of Piper Jaffray that came on heavy-card stock paper.
靠卖证券吃饭的她,很自然地看到了当地经纪行Piper Jaffray以印股票用的厚卡纸印制的计划书与简介手册。
They offered a government bond fund that seemed the perfect place to invest the $50,000 Stasch's 86-year-old widowed mother had made after selling her home in Minneapolis,Minnesota.
他们提供一种公债基金。Stasch86岁的寡母卖掉明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市的房子,得款5万元,似乎拿来投资这基金非常恰当。
Not only did Piper tout the triple-A-rated fund as a low-risk investment,but also said it would produce enough income-$318 a month-to pay her mother's rent.
Piper不但自夸这个AAA级的基金风险极低,同时说每个月318美元的收入足够她母亲付房租。
"I told Mom,‘This is your decision,but I'm comfortable with it,’"Stasch recalls.
Stasch回忆说:“我跟妈说,‘这是你的决定,但是我觉得不错’”。
2.When the first dividend check arrived for her mother is February,however,the investment was already worth several thousand dollars less.
但当2月第一张股利支票寄来时,她母亲发觉这笔投资金额已经少了几千元。
It shrunk even further in March.
到了3月,少得更多。
But it was not until the Mother's Day weekend in May that Stasch learned from a newspaper article what her mother had really bought:
但一直到5月母亲节那个周末,Stasch才从报纸上得知她母亲到底买了什么东西:
far from being a safe investment,the fund was loaded with volatile securities called derivatives
这个基金绝不是安全的投资,却充斥着叫作衍生性金融商品,充满变数的证券。
that had gone into a free-fall when interest rates shot up.
在利率窜升后,此种商品的价值就像自由落体般往下坠落。
"I told my family not to panic,but I was thinking,‘My God,what did I get into?’"Stasch says.
Stasch说:“我叫家人别慌,但自己却在想:‘老天!我到底碰上了什么?’”
Fearing that her mother would lose all her money,Stasch dumped the fund-at $14,000 loss.
在害怕母亲输光积蓄的情况下,Stasch认赔杀出,亏损1.4万美元。
"I'd never heard of derivatives,"she says "I cried and she cried."
“我从来也没有听说过衍生性金融商品。我和妈都哭了。”
3.In recent months a humiliating lesson has come to households,boardrooms and town halls across the country:
过去几个月来,全国各地的家庭,公司董事长和市政厅都分享同样羞辱的教训:
derivatives can turn around and bite even those who think they know something about prudent investing.
衍生性金融商品会回过头来,反咬一口那些自认为对谨慎投资很了解的人。
And this drubbing from derivatives is sure to continue."The gunslingers may be lying low,but they haven't hung up their guns,"declares Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
得自衍生性金融商品的痛苦经验还没有结束的迹象,马萨诸塞州众议员Ed Markey说:“这些杀手也许目前蛰伏一时,但是他们还没有高挂枪枝,洗手不干。”
As chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees financial institutions,Markey has put forward a bill that would increase federal supervision of the largely unregulated derivatives dealers.
身为众议院监督金融机构小组委员会的主席,Markey已经提出法案,要求联邦政府加强对几乎不受管束的衍生性金融商品交易商的监督。
James Midanek,a financial expert whose firm Solon Asset Management helps victims of derivatives to minimize their losses,also sees more trouble ahead.
Solon Asset Management公司帮助受害者缩小损失,该公司的财务专家James Midanek预测会有更多问题出现。
"It's going to hit home a little more,"he says.
他说:“更多打击将接踵而至。
"We are going to hear more from local municipalities and colleges,and other less sophisticated investors who remain unaware of their exposure."
地方政府、学院和其他对自己身处险地而不知的单纯投资人,会继续传出坏消息。”
4.Here is the astonishing range of investors who find themselves in that category:
以下是发现自己身处洪流的投资人一些例子,范围惊人:
-Huge companies have taken big beatings.
——大企业输大钱。
Procter & Gamble lost $157 million playing the derivatives market this year
宝洁公司今年输了1.57亿美元,
and ousted its corporate treasurer.
并开除了它的财务长。
British pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Holdings lost $115 million.
英国制药巨人葛兰素输掉1.15亿美元。
Gibson Greetings in Cincinnati,Ohio,lost more than $20 million
俄亥俄州辛辛那提市的Gibson卡片公司输掉超过2000万美元,
and last month sued Bankers Trust,which had sold the derivatives to the card company.
并在上个月控告卖商品给它的Bankers Trust。
5.-Municipalities,colleges and even and Indian tribe suffered.
——地方市镇当局、大学甚至一个印第安部落也都吃到苦头。
Maple Grove,a Minneapolis suburb,
位于明尼阿波利斯市郊,人口有4万的Maple Grove,
has seen its $5 million investment in the Piper Jaffray fund shrink to about $3.6 million this year.
今年投资在Piper Jaffray基金的500万元已经缩水到剩360万元左右。
"A number of people had had terrific experience with it,"says Jon Elam,the city administrator of Maple Grove.
Maple Grove的市Jon Elam说:“不少人曾在其中尝到甜头。
"It was unbelievable to me when I found out what the fund was made up of.
当我发现真相时,简直无法相信这个基金的组合。
It was then that I realized it was basically a hedge fund,betting on the decline of interest rates.
那时我才了解它基本上是一个避险基金,赌利率会下降。
That's the reason it did so marvelously in the early '90s."
这就是为什么它在90年代初能表现那么好的原因。”
6.-In Texas the former vice president for finance of tiny Odessa College poured virtually all the school's funds into derivatives.
——在得克萨斯州一家迷你学院Odessa College的前任财务副总几乎把全校的资金都投入购买衍生性金融商品。
The staff and faculty of the two-year college watched in horror as the $22 million in investments lost nearly half their value,
这所二年制专科学校的教职员惊恐地发现2200万美元的投资几乎损失一半,
forcing the public school to borrow $10.5 million in emergency funds,raise tuition and jack up local property taxes.
迫使这所公立学校借贷1050万紧急贷款、提高学费与地方财产税。
Meanwhile,the Shoshone Indians,a tribe of 3,000 in western Wyoming with a 70% rate of unemployment,
同时,西怀俄明州的Shoshone印第安人,3000人口中有70%失业,
purchased nearly $5 million of derivatives last year from a traveling financial salesman;
也在去年向一个四处旅行的推销员买下将近500万美元的衍生性金融商品,
the value of the purchases has since shriveled to about $3.5 million.
其价值现已跌落至350万美元左右。
7.-Mutual funds have been a particularly fertile ground for unexpected casualties because investors often don't know the full content of the portfolios into which they are buying.
——在共同基金的领域中特别容易出现意外的“伤亡”,因为投资人常常无从完全了解他们所购买的投资组合。
Funds run by such firms as Paine Webber,Kidder Peabody and Bank American
像Paine Webber,Kidder Peabody与Bank American这些机构所经营的基金,
have put up more than $500 million this year to bail out investments in derivatives.
在今年都拨超过5亿美元的款项来救回在衍生性金融商品上的投资。
Just last week Arthur Levitt,chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,told Congress
就在上周,证券与交易委员会主管Arthur Levitt才告诉国会说丹佛市的Community Asset Management Inc.
that an $83 million fund run by Community Asset Management Inc. of Denver had become the first money-market fund to shut down because of derivatives losses.
所经营的一个价值8300万美元的基金,已成为首宗因衍生性金融商品损失而倒闭的货币市场基金。
The fund's 113 customers,
该基金的113位投资人,
consisting of banks and other institutions,will collect 94 cents for every dollar they invested.
包括银行与其他机构,只能拿回原投资额的94%。
8.-Even the Wall Street firms that concoct these securities have taken a whipping.
——即使连创造出这些商品的华尔街经纪行也吃了大亏。
Bankers Trust,which relies heavily on derivatives for its profits,
极倚赖衍生性金融商品利润的Bankers Trust,
saw its earnings drop 28% to $181 million in the second quarter as clients stopped buying the risky instruments.
其第二季的收只有1.81亿美元,跌落了28%,因为顾客不再购买这种高风险投资工具。
The decline was particularly sharp in the division of the bank that uses computerized programs run by math whizzes-who are known as "quants"-to create the derviatives.
在这家银行中,由所谓“数字专家”的数学高手操作电脑程序而制造出衍生商品的部门,尤其损失惨重。
Its earnings have fallen more than 50% since this year's first quarter.
它自今年第一季起收入下降50%以上。
9.Derivatives are causing all this havoc because they have swiftly become a linchpin of global commerce and the world's financial system.
正因为衍生性金融商品已很快成为全球商业与金融系统的交接点,它们才能造成如此严重的伤害。
Companies regularly use a form of derivatives called swaps to protect against the risk of sudden changes in exchange rates,commodities prices or other costs when they trade overseas or build plants abroad.
企业会固定利用一种叫“交换”的衍生性金融商品来避免汇率、商品价格及其他成本突然变动的风险,以安心从事海外贸易或在海外设厂。
Like all derivatives,they function,essentially,as bets on the direction of particular markets.
“交换”与所有衍生性金融商品一样,基本上是对某特定市场的走向来下赌大小,这样的保障何其诱人,
So coveted is such insurance that the total face amount-or "notional value"-
以致于交换与类似契约的财面价值,或“概念价值”,
of swaps and similar contracts has soared to an astronomical $11 trillion,up from $5.1 trillion since 1990.
已从1990年的5.1兆美元遽升至天文数字的11兆美元。
10.While derivatives can take on many forms,they all share certain similarities.
虽然衍生性金融商品有很多面貌,但仍有共通点。
No matter how complex a derivative may be,
无论这种商品有多复杂,
it is at bottom a security that takes-or derives-its value from underlying things that can range from the familiar(stocks or bonds or interest rates)to the exotic(gold in Ghana or copper in Mexico).
它仍是一种证券形式,而它的价值则来自基本的商品,范围从熟悉(股票、债券或利率)的到充满异国情调的(加纳的黄金或墨西哥的铜)。
Moreover,those underlying things can be sliced and diced in all kinds of ways.
这些基本商品可以用各种花样来分割,然后放在赌桌。
Among the most popular derivatives in mutual-fund portfolios are the so-called interest-only strips,
在基金组合中最受欢迎的一种叫做“利息附加”,
which pay interest that comes from pools of government-backed mortgages.
支付的是一组一组政府背书抵押品的利息。
These strips became hot when interest rates fell below the level they were paying.
当一般利率低于这商品付出的利息时,投资人趋之若鹜。
But is interest rates rose higher,these securities became less attractive and plunged in value.
但当利率上升后,这些证券就不再诱人,价值也跌入谷底。