从危机到转机 - 金融英语速读训练

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每天一篇《金融时报》

在全球化日益激烈的金融行业中，能迅速地阅读英文的专业文献，把握全球金融趋势，和海外的金融业者交流，已经成为每个金融业者必备的技能。如果你能坚持每天阅读一篇《金融时报》精选的文章，并不断提高阅读速读和理解准确率，你的专业水平和英文水平，必将令人刮目相看。

准备好了吗？开始吧。

为什么要每天阅读《金融时报》？
- 对于全球的金融业从业人员来说，阅读《金融时报》是每天必须进行的修炼。要想把握金融业的趋势，提高自己的“金融智慧”，和全球的金融业者站在同一高度，《金融时报》是你的首选。
为什么要训练阅读速度？
- 在信息爆炸的今天，能够迅速地阅读和理解大量资料，已成为金融业者必不可少的技能。著名的投资家股神巴菲特曾表示，他每天都会阅读大量报刊和年报，这也是他多年来始终能做出正确的投资决策的基础。
训练阅读速度的小工具
- 自动滚屏助你提高速度。点击该按钮后，屏幕就开始滚动，迫使你改掉向回看的习惯，加快速度。默认为每分钟140字（朗读速度）。随着你的技能提升，你可以挑战更高的速度，直到达到1000。

速度：+ -

阅读以下文章

<b>The pendulum swings towards regulation</b>

By Lawrence Summers

Published: October 26 2008 18:56 | Last updated: October 26 2008 18:56

<img src=http://media.ft.com/cms/bf077dba-68fc-11db-b4c2-0000779e2340.gif border=0 style="float:left;margin-right:5px;">Events as well as ideas shape policy choices in democracies. Who would have predicted a year ago that a Republican ad-ministration would demand that Congress make the largest set of investments in public companies in US peacetime history? Would anyone have supposed that President George W. Bush would convene a global effort to renew Bretton Woods through strengthened international financial regulation? It reminds us that in the economic sphere, as in the national security sphere, dramatic events can make the inconceivable become inevitable.

Discussions of the policy implications of the crisis have primarily focused on the immediate economic demands. The need to ensure the capital adequacy of financial institutions, maintain important credit flows, support the housing sector and the real economy, contain international spill-overs and reform regulation to prevent any recurrence of the crisis have rightly been the priority. In all these areas there will be many crucial policy choices to make in the months ahead.

However, policies that contain the crisis, support the economy and generate recovery are not sufficient to meet the historic challenge of this moment. Even with the best conceivable fiscal, monetary, financial and regulatory policies, economic performance depends on deeper and more structural policy choices. Nations cannot fine tune their way to delivering a prosperity that is more broadly based. In important ways, then, the crisis creates space to address longer standing problems. Just as patients hear advice regarding diet and exercise differently after a heart attack, so recent events should make it possible for the next US administration to accomplish more than might previously have been thought possible.

These broader goals depend on achieving the rapid and sustained growth that restores business confidence and generates the resources for investment. Economists do not understand what drives productivity growth very well. However, we know these facts: productivity grew rapidly after the second world war and then sometime between the late 1960s and mid-1970s it slowed dramatically only to re-accelerate to record levels in the mid-1990s. Unfortunately, even before the downturn, underlying productivity growth appeared to be slowing.

The most plausible explanation is that an array of transforming investments and technologies – the interstate highway system, widespread air travel and the expansion of electronics – were spurs to growth during the postwar period. Eventually their impact dissipated and, as energy costs rose, growth slowed until the information technology revolution kicked in during the 1990s. Unfortunately, the IT supply shock that powered the economy in the 1990s and early part of this decade appears to be diminishing.

So there is a need to ensure that the pressure to increase spending is directed at areas where it will have the most transformational impact. We need to identify those investments that stimulate demand in the short run and have a positive impact on productivity. These include renewable energy technologies and the infrastructure to support them, the broader application of biotechnologies and expanding broadband connectivity, an area where the US has fallen behind.

The crisis has also reminded us of the lessons of the technology bubble, Japan’s experience in the 1990s and of the US Great Depression – that finance-led growth is problematic. The wealth and income gains from the easy availability of credit were highly concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few. The benefits also proved temporary. In retrospect, the fact that 40 per cent of American corporate profits in 2006 went to the financial sector, and the closely related outcome – a doubling of the share of income going to the top 1 per cent of the population – should have been signs something was amiss.

Therefore we need to reform tax incentives that encourage financial risk taking, regulate leverage and prevent government policies that give rise to a toxic combination of privatised gains and socialised losses. This offers the prospect of a prosperity that is more firmly grounded and more inclusive. More fundamentally, short and longer-term imperatives come together with respect to policies that seek to ensure that any future prosperity is inclusive. The policies that are most effective in helping to support demand are those that help households struggling either because of low incomes or because they have recently lost part of their income. Recent events also remind us that individuals can become impoverished or lose health insurance through no fault of their own. This reinforces the need for people to have basic health and re- tirement security protection regardless of what happens to their employers.

All of these considerations suggest that the pendulum will swing – and should swing – towards an enhanced role for government in saving the market system from its excesses and inadequacies. Policymakers need to be attentive to potential government flaws as well. For example, they need to recognise that, even as events compel larger deficits in the short run, they reinforce the need for longer-term measures to keep government finances on a sound footing. They must also be wary of measures that have a short-term superficial appeal, yet have adverse long-term consequences.

It is said in all presidential election years that the choices made by the next president are uniquely important. This time the cliche is true. The gravity of our situation is matched only by the opportunity it presents.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard. He is the 1993 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal for his work in macroeconomics, was Secretary of the Treasury for the last year and a half of the Bill Clinton administration, and served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.

选择正确答案

Which of the following best descripts the author's purpose in writing this article?

Chech the full article, especially the title and last paragraph.

Critizing the U.S. government's policy in handling the financial crisis.
Analyzing why and how to improve regulation and policy making during and after the financial crisis.
Suggesting that the financial crisis is actually an opportunity.
Reviewing the source of the financial crisis.

选择正确答案

Which of the following is the biggest force behind the prosperity for the last 15 years, according to the author?

Check this out: "Unfortunately, the IT supply shock that powered the economy in the 1990s and early part of this decade appears to be diminishing."

Investments
Information technology
The emerging markets
Sound policy

选择正确答案

Why does the author think the financial crisis presents an opportunity?

Check out: "In important ways, then, the crisis creates space to address longer standing problems. Just as patients hear advice regarding diet and exercise differently after a heart attack, so recent events should make it possible for the next US administration to accomplish more than might previously have been thought possible.".

Because all past crisis are followed by high growth.
Because it hit bankers harder than poorer people.
Because it exposed deep-rooted problems that otherwise won't be addressed.
Because it offers investors a good opportunity to buy good assets at very low cost.

选择正确答案

The author did NOT propose which of the following for future policies?

Check this out: "Therefore we need to reform tax incentives that encourage financial risk taking, regulate leverage and prevent government policies that give rise to a toxic combination of privatised gains and socialised losses..."

Tax reform to ensure sound risk management.
Protecting poor people.
The benefit of economic growth should be shared by a broader base.
Nationalizing the finance industry

放松与总结

今天的训练暂告一段落，FT中文网还将陆续推出更多的训练项目，欢迎您来信建议。(电子邮件：customer.service@ftchinese.com)

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您的正确率太低，在目前这个阶段，对你来说最重要的是提高英文水平和金融专业水平，而不是速度。请您点击后退仔细查看您答错的题目，并和原文对照。对原文中所有不懂的句子和知识点，也请一一查明。建议您：
1. 在进行下一次训练的时候，将滚屏速度保持在100以下。
2. 您可以找一些有声读物，如《经济学人》的audio edition，帮助你提高英文水平。

看得出你是非常认真来进行这次训练的，如果你坚持的话，你会获得非常大的提高。目前你的阅读速度偏低，可能是因为英文不是你的母语。不过，请不要放慢阅读速度。研究表明，阅读速度越快的人，其理解的正确率反而越高。因此，您可以同时提高您的阅读速度和理解能力。给你一点建议：
1. 一定要改掉默念的习惯
2. 不要一个词一个词的看，要学会把一个语义群当作一个整体来看。比如“an emergency $180bn injection of dollar”这个语义群，你要学会把他当作一个整体来看。
3. 看DVD的时候，切换到英文字幕。

用正常语速来朗读一篇文章，平均速度是每分钟140词。这说明你的阅读速度比朗读还要慢。建议您：1. 每一段的第一句话往往是最重要的。
2. “速读”最忌讳的就是“读”，不要一边看一边默念。
3. 在下一个训练中将滚屏速度设为140，迫使自己不能回头去看已经读过的部分。

您的阅读速度已经超过了正常语速，说明你已经开始有些速读的感觉了。美国大学生的最低阅读速度为每分钟250词，加把劲你就可以赶上了。建议您：
1. 养成习惯，读过的部分不要回头去看，这样会影响速读。
2. 加强“扫描”的训练，让自己的眼睛能“一目一行”。

您的阅读速度已经达到了美国大学生的水平，可喜可贺。不过作为金融从业人员，每天需要阅读数不清的中英文研究报告、公司年报、报刊杂志等，您还需要向每分钟350字进军。建议您：
1. 加强“扫描”的训练，让自己的眼睛能“一目两行”。
2. 对中英文的数字，尤其是大数字(million, billion)的转换进行总结和练习。

厉害，您的阅读速度已经超过了美国大学生的水平。不过，要成为巴菲特那样的金融专家，您需要锻炼出“一目十行”的火眼金睛。建议您在每次的训练中注意三个要点：
1. 您已经学会了将文章分成语义群，而非词来阅读，现在，你需要扩大每一个语义群中的词数。
2. 加快阅读每个语义群的速度。
3. 看过的内容尽量不要回看。

这就是传说中的“一目十行”吗？难以置信！

世界纪录才每分钟416,250字，居然被你破了！无语...