Chinese manufacturing activity slows

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

中国制造业活力减弱

Chinese manufacturing activity contracted for the first time in almost three years in November, adding to fears about the health of the global economy. 11月，中国制造业三年来首次出现收缩现象，更增加了人们对全球经济状况的担忧。

News of the decline came a day after the US Federal Reserve led a co-ordinated move to ease global liquidity concerns and the Chinese central bank loosened monetary policy. 就在美联储领导协作行动缓解全球流动资产问题，中国中央银行放宽货币政策的前一天，传来了中国制造业下滑的消息。

Chinese government data released on Thursday showed the official purchasing managers’ index fell to 49 in November from 50.4 in October, with a reading below 50 indicating a fall-off in manufacturing. November’s contraction was the first since February 2009. 中国政府周四发布的数据显示采购经理指数（PMI）从10月份的50.4下降至11月的49。而50以下的读数表示制造业下滑。这是自2009年2月以来制造业第一次出现萎缩。

In a surprise move timed to offset the negative impact of the PMI number, on Wednesday China’s central bank announced a cut in the required reserve ratio – reducing the amount of funds banks must hold back – for the first time in three years. The reading will add to concerns among policymakers and investors that China is heading for a downturn just as the rest of the world is looking to it as the brightest spot in an otherwise gloomy global landscape. 周三，为了抵消PMI造成的消极影响，中国中央银行突然宣布降低法定准备金比率（RRR），减少银行暂扣的资金量，三年来这还是头一次。 这一PMI数据会增加政策制定者和投资者的担忧，即在全球经济暗淡的背景下，正当全世界都把中国视作最有前途的经济体时，中国将面临经济衰退的局面。

“The markets have been handed a powerful one-two combo, in the form of a shocking PMI print and an aggressive RRR cut,” said Alistair Thornton, China analyst at IHS Global Insight. “The message is clear: the economy is slowing much faster than expected and the government has stepped into the ring.”

“市场连吃两记重拳，先是惊人的PMI，接着是急剧的RRR裁减，”IHS全球公司中国分析师称，“显然，经济减缓的步伐比预期的还要快，而中国政府已经跳上了擂台。”

By reducing the amount of deposits banks must hold on reserve by 0.5 percentage points, the central bank effectively injected about Rmb400bn ($63bn) into the banking system. 通过对法定准备金比率降低0.5个百分点，中央银行对银行体系有效注入了4000亿3人民币（630亿美元）。

The growth in China’s trade with the EU and US have slowed in recent months, with exports to crisis-hit Europe most affected. Real estate sales volumes have also dropped sharply, with prices starting to decline. Most property developers appear to be delaying new projects – potentially devestating in a country where real estate construction accounts for about one-quarter of investment and about 13 per cent of GDP. 最近几个月，中国与欧盟及美国的贸易增长速度放缓，其中对经历金融危机的欧洲的进口影响最为严重。房产销售额急剧萎缩，房价开始降低。大部分房地产开发商都在拖延新的项目，这对一个房产建设占投资总额四分之一，占GDP份额13%的国家来说具有潜在破坏力。

Most analysts believe more monetary loosening measures will be announced in the coming months, reversing two years of gradual tightening. 大多数分析师认为在未来几个月将宣布放宽货币政策，改变两年来的紧缩政策。

Analysts expect figures to show that consumer inflation fell to about 4.3 per cent in November, down from 5.5 per cent in October and a peak of 6.5 per cent in July. But restraining inflation has come at the cost of a steeper than expected drop in economic growth. 分析师预计消费通胀率将从7月的峰值6.5%和10月的5.5%降至11月的4.3%。然而约束通胀是以经济增长速度的大幅衰退为代价的。

The PMI sub-indices for new orders and new export orders fell to their lowest levels in nearly three years, to 47.8 and 45.6 respectively, indicating a sharper contraction as factories cut production and fire workers. 新产品计及新出口订单的PMI指数跌至近三年来的最低水平，分别为47.8和45.6，这预示着制造业的更严峻紧缩，此时各大工厂正在降低生产并进行裁员。

今天是11月的第四个星期四，美国的传统节日——感恩节。早就听说感恩节之后的那天被称作“黑色星期五”，那一天商家会有疯狂打折活动。但至于为什么要叫“黑色星期五”，我却一直没闹明白。

自“黑色星期五”这天起，圣诞购物节正式拉开序幕。这一天，家家户户倾巢而动，汹涌人潮直涌向各大购物中心。马路上堵着车，人行道上挤满了人，几近瘫痪的交通让警察叔叔们大伤脑筋，于是把这天戏称做“黑色星期五”。这一说法源自费城，但到后来，“黑色星期五”却被指代商家从这一天起，生意开始扭亏为盈，因为在记账簿上，红色的字体表示赤字，而黑色的字体则代表盈余。所以账本上的这一天就成了红与黑的分水岭了，标志着商家从这天起就开始“in black”了。

Behind Black Friday
“黑色星期五背后”

In recent years, shoppers have shifted to retailers whose products offer quality, reliability and durability.
近年来，买家们越来越多的青睐那些产品质量好、持久耐用的零售商。

Los Angeles Times  November 26, 2010| By Michael D’Antonio and John Gerzema

In days of yore — think pre-2005 — retailers fired a salvo of price cuts on the Friday after Thanksgiving and shoppers raced to spend billions on holiday gifts. The day was originally nicknamed Black Friday by police officers who dreaded the traffic jams, bumper thumping and misdemeanors that arise when so many people converge on shopping districts and malls.

回顾往昔，想想05年以前的日子，那时零售商们在感恩节后的那个星期五展开价格大战，消费者一掷千金，争相购买节日礼品。这天常被警员们戏称为“黑色星期五”，当天购物区和商场聚集了大量人群，由此造成的交通堵塞，小车祸和其他犯罪现象让他们头痛不已。

Eventually the term came to describe the start of the period when retailers see profits for the year and a kind of retail gluttony so divorced from the true spirit of the season that it made all but the most benumbed consumers feel conflicted, if not ashamed, of the excess.
最终人们用“黑色星期五”表示一个新的开始，从这天起，商家们一年的生意开始好转，但当天的疯狂促销已与这个节日真正的精神相去甚远，以至于除了最麻木的消费者外，所有人，就算不感到惭愧，也对过度购物产生了抵触。

Then came the Great Recession. In 2008, we saw the weakest holiday sales since 1973. Gift buying was more like a marathon than a sprint, as people shopped the sales that began in October, applying a sober sense of how, when and why to buy.
接着发生了经济大萧条。2008年感恩节的销售量达到了1973年以来最低的水平。购买礼品更像是一场马拉松，而不是百米冲刺，因为那年的促销是从十月开始，而人们对购物的方式、时间和原因都抱着十分清醒的态度。

The change actually began before the housing bubble burst, Wall Street collapsed and unemployment soared. Beginning in 2005, the quarterly surveys we conduct showed a shift in attitudes.
实际上，就在房产泡沫破裂、华尔街崩溃、失业率猛增之前，情况开始改变。我们的季度调查显示，自2005年起，人们的态度发生了转变。

Like rabbits that run before humans feel an earthquake, consumers sensed the approach of the economic crisis and began to prepare by saving more and spending less. More important, they began to express different kinds of values as they shopped. Brands regarded as exclusive,? arrogant, daring or trendy began to suffer severe declines in popularity, while those associated with quality, reliability and durability rose.
正如人类感觉到地震前，兔子就开始逃跑一样，消费者们感觉到金融危机的逼近，并开始节俭开支。更重要的是，当他们购物时，开始表现出不同的价值观。那些昂贵、奢华、大胆、前卫的品牌流行度大减，而以质量上乘、持久耐用著称的品牌开始受到青睐。

Experts have long understood that as we head to the marketplace to satisfy our wants and needs, we also pursue some unstated and often subconscious agendas. On a narcissistic level, we want to show the world we are smart, beautiful, powerful, wealthy, you name it.
一直以来，专家们都了解，我们购物不仅是为了满足自己的需求，同时也为了某些不明确的、常常是下意识的目的。孤芳自赏的我们想要向世人显示我们的智慧、美貌、权利、财富，或是任何你认为值得炫耀的事物。
However, we also vote with our dollars for certain social and political ideals. In this way we reward producers, retailers and service providers who meet our definition of “good.” Lately this aspect of shopping has come to the fore, as people look for ways to exert their influence on the social landscape and ease their frustrations about problems that seem gridlocked by politics.
然而，我们也是在用我们的消费给某些社会和政治典范投票。我们以这种方式回馈那些符合我们对“优质”定义的生产商、零售商和服务提供商。最近消费的这层特质已经崭露头角，因为此时人们正在寻求影响社会局势、并缓解政治僵局带来的挫败感的方法。

The biggest swing, when it comes to the issues we confront with our dollars, is related to civility. Starting in the middle of this decade, respondents began to tell us that they wanted to feel respected and appreciated by the people they do business with. Between 2005 and 2009, the value placed on the “kindness and empathy” expressed by vendors shot up a whopping 391%. The importance of “friendliness” went up by 124%, and the value placed on “social responsibility,” which can be translated as “being a good neighbor and citizen,” rose by 63%.
说到我们在消费上遇到的问题，最大的改变与礼仪有关。五年前，人们开始告诉我们，他们在交易时，想要受到对方的尊重和赞赏。2005年到2009年间，人们对商品体现的“友好与共鸣”的重视程度增加了3.91倍；对“亲和力”的关注增加了1.24倍；而对“社会责任”，或者说“做一个好邻居、好市民”的重视程度上升了63%。

In commercial terms, all of this is good news for manufacturers that stress service and for proprietors who see every sale as a chance to build a long-term relationship with a customer. This is why Zappos’ shoppers remained loyal even when it shifted away from heavy discounts. They are so happy with the attention they get when they contact the company’s call center in Las Vegas that they are fine with paying full price for shoes.
从商业角度看，对重视服务的生产商和把每笔交易都看做一个建立长期客户关系的机会的业主来说，所有这些都是好消息。正因如此，即使Zappo的商品不再有很大打折，其消费者仍忠于这一品牌。他们如此满意在给该公司位于拉斯维加斯的呼叫中心打电话时受到的重视，以至付全价买鞋也没意见。

听着风，吹开落叶一丛 低着头，思念轻轻经过 尘埃堆积了多年的梦 锁在古老的笙乐中 推开了心中的门 寻不到你的影踪 手紧握，守不住细水流 愁意浓，惊觉泪眼迷朦 老情人对望情深意重 时空变换散了你我 形影单只的笑容 却乐意送我情种 天微风，吹开你不见天空 贴旧梦，放纵你甜美笑容 我静静听你年华似水忘了我在模糊尘中，又没有听懂 锁寒冬，春天已开满枝头 放晴空，有没有看见彩虹 我守着花儿盼你回首来时路的风华已旧 比翼双飞梦早已守在风中

Obituary

Steve Jobs
史蒂夫 乔布斯

Oct 6th, 2011 <economist>

2011年10月6日 “经济学人”

NOBODY else in the computer industry, or any other industry for that matter, could put on a show like Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and conjure up a “magical” or “incredible” new electronic gadget in front of an awed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and shuffle numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. He spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy to use products.
在计算机产业中，甚至在其他任何产业中，都没有任何人能像史蒂夫 乔布斯那样上演一出精彩的秀。他独自一人站在黑暗的舞台上，像变戏法似的，把新的电子产品呈现在目瞪口呆的观众面前，这是大师的境界。他曾解释说，每台电脑都要对数据进行处理，但如果处理的足够迅速，“结果就会像变魔术一样”。他毕生都用在变魔术，变出设计优雅，便于使用的产品。

He had been among the first, back in the 1970s, to see the potential that lay in the idea of selling computers to ordinary people. In those days of green-on-black displays, when floppy discs were still floppy, the notion that computers might soon become ubiquitous seemed fanciful. But Mr Jobs was one of a handful of pioneers who saw what was coming. Crucially, he also had an unusual knack for looking at computers from the outside, as a user, not just from the inside, as an engineer—something he attributed to the experiences of his wayward youth.
在20世纪70年代，他是最早看到个人电脑市场前景的人之一。在单色显示器的年代，软盘都很罕见，普及计算机的想法就像是天方夜谭。但乔布斯是一批先驱者之一，他们看清了未来发展的趋势。重要的是，他还会站在一个局外人——用户的角度看待计算机产业，而不仅仅是作为一个局内人——工程师。他把这点归功于自己任性的童年经历。

Mr Jobs caught the computing bug while growing up in Silicon Valley. As a teenager in the late 1960s he cold-called his idol, Bill Hewlett, and talked his way into a summer job at Hewlett-Packard. But it was only after dropping out of college, travelling to India, becoming a Buddhist and experimenting with psychedelic drugs that Mr Jobs returned to California to co-found Apple, in his parents’ garage, on April Fools’ Day 1976. “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences,” he once said. “So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions.” Bill Gates, he suggested, would be “a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”.
在硅谷成长时，乔布斯找到了计算的bug。六十年代,他十几岁的时候，主动给自己的偶像比尔。休利特打电话，谋得了一份暑期工。但其实乔布斯是在退学去了印度，信了佛教，吃过迷幻药以后才回到加州，并于1976年愚人节那天，在父母的车库里，与人合伙成立了苹果公司。“在我们这行，很多人都有过各种各样的经历。”他曾这样说过，“所以他们生活中没有足够的点能连成一幅图画，他们只能用非常线性的方式解决问题。”他说“比尔盖茨如果能早点戒掉迷幻药，或者早点去修行，那他会更视野开阔。”

Dropping out of his college course and attending calligraphy classes instead had, for example, given Mr Jobs an apparently useless love of typography. But support for a variety of fonts was to prove a key feature of the Macintosh, the pioneering mouse-driven, graphical computer that Apple launched in 1984. With its windows, icons and menus, it was sold as “the computer for the rest of us”. Having made a fortune from Apple’s initial success, Mr Jobs expected to sell “zillions” of his new machines. But the Mac was not the mass-market success Mr Jobs had hoped for, and he was ousted from Apple by its board.
例如，乔布斯在大学里退掉必修课，转而选修书法课，从而对印刷产生了热爱，这种热爱在当时意义不大。但是苹果电脑支持多种字体的功能后来成为鼠标操作，图形界面的先驱，也就是1984年推出的苹果电脑的重要特征。由于苹果最初的成功，乔布斯大赚了一笔，他期待能卖出“千千万”台苹果机。然而，苹果那时候没能实现乔布斯预想的巨大的市场成功，他也被苹果董事会赶出了公司。

Yet this apparently disastrous turn of events turned out to be a blessing: “the best thing that could have ever happened to me”, Mr Jobs later called it. He co-founded a new firm, Pixar, which specialised in computer graphics, and NeXT, another computer-maker. His remarkable second act began in 1996 when Apple, having lost its way, acquired NeXT, and Mr Jobs returned to put its technology at the heart of a new range of Apple products. And the rest is history: Apple launched the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and (briefly) became the world’s most valuable listed company. “I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple,” Mr Jobs said in 2005. When his failing health forced him to step down as Apple’s boss in 2011, he was hailed as the greatest chief executive in history. Oh, and Pixar, his side project, produced a string of hugely successful animated movies.
然而，这场看似灾难的变故实则是一种幸运：“这是发生在我身上的最好的事情”乔布斯后来这么说。他与人合伙开了新公司Pixar，专营电脑图像，和NeXT，另一家电脑公司。1996年，他的第二次伟大行动开始了，并购了NeXT后，乔布斯重新把技术作为苹果新产品系列的核心。剩下的事情历史可以见证：苹果推出了iMac，iPod,iPhone以及iPad，苹果成了世界上最值钱的公司。“我敢肯定如果我当初没被苹果炒鱿鱼，今天的这一切都不会发生。”乔布斯2005年说。2011年，当他的健康问题迫使他从总裁的位置退下来时，人们称赞他是历史上最棒的CEO。还有Pixar，他的第二产业，拍出了一连串成功的动画电影。

In retrospect, Mr Jobs was a man ahead of his time during his first stint at Apple. Computing’s early years were dominated by technical types. But his emphasis on design and ease of use gave him the edge later on. Elegance, simplicity and an understanding of other fields came to matter in a world in which computers are fashion items, carried by everyone, that can do almost anything. “Technology alone is not enough,” said Mr Jobs at the end of his speech introducing the iPad, in January 2010. “It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.” It was an unusual statement for the head of a technology firm, but it was vintage Steve Jobs.
回顾过去，乔布斯先生第一次为苹果工作时，就已经走在时代的前端了。计算机行业最初是以技术为主导的。但乔布斯强调的是设计新颖、使用方便，这后来成了他的优势所在。而今，计算机已成了时尚标签，人人都有电脑，因为电脑无所不能。所以，优雅、简洁的设计和对其他领域的理解就变得尤为重要。2011年1月，在iPad产品发布会上，乔布斯在演讲最后说“光有技术不够。”“iPad是技术与艺术的结合，技术与人性的结合，它让我们的心灵歌唱。”这样的话很少出自一个技术公司总裁的口中，但这就是乔布斯。

His interdisciplinary approach was backed up by an obsessive attention to detail. A carpenter making a fine chest of drawers will not use plywood on the back, even though nobody will see it, he said, and he applied the same approach to his products. “For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” He insisted that the first Macintosh should have no internal cooling fan, so that it would be silent—putting user needs above engineering convenience. He called an Apple engineer one weekend with an urgent request: the colour of one letter of an on-screen logo on the iPhone was not quite the right shade of yellow. He often wrote or rewrote the text of Apple’s advertisements himself.
他这种跨领域的方法得到了。。。的支持。木匠做精巧的抽屉时，不会在背后使用夹板，即使没人看得到，他说。他把这一概念运用到自己的产品中。“为了让您夜晚睡个好觉，我们在整个过程中都要考虑美感和质量。”他坚持第一台苹果机不装内置风扇，这样才能做到绝对的安静——他把用户需求放在制造方便之上。一个周末，他打电话像苹果的一位工程师提出紧急要求：iPhone屏幕上商标中一个字母的颜色不是准确的黄色。他常常自己一遍又一遍的写广告语。

His on-stage persona as a Zen-like mystic notwithstanding, Mr Jobs was an autocratic manager with a fierce temper. But his egomania was largely justified. He eschewed market researchers and focus groups, preferring to trust his own instincts when evaluating potential new products. “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” he said. His judgment proved uncannily accurate: by the end of his career the hits far outweighed the misses. Mr Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he changed reality, channelling the magic of computing into products that reshaped music, telecoms and media. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that.
尽管他在舞台上有着谜一样的禅宗的人格，他其实是一个坏脾气的、独断专行的管理人员。但他的自负是有道理的。他抵制市场调查员，更愿意相信自己的本能对即将上市的新产品进行评估。“很多时候，人们不知道他们想要什么，直到你把这件东西给他看。”他说。神奇的是，他的判断总是正确的。在他整个职业生涯，预测正确的几率远远高于没有猜中的几率。苹果早年的一位工程师说乔布斯制造了一个“偏离事实的领域”，这就是他雄辩的才能。但最终，他改变了事实，把计算机技术融合到他的产品中，重塑了音乐、电信和媒体。乔布斯年轻时曾说想要“改变宇宙”，他做到了。

问尔所之，是否如适。 are you going to scarborough fair?
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.
彼方淑女，凭君寄辞。 remember me to one who lives there.

伊人曾在，与我相知。 she once was a true love of mine.

嘱彼佳人，备我衣缁。 tell her to make me a cambric shirt.
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.

勿用针砧，无隙无疵。 without no seams nor needle work.
伊人何在，慰我相思。 then she will be a true love of mine.

彼山之阴，深林荒址。 问尔所之，是否如适。 are you going to scarborough fair?
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.
彼方淑女，凭君寄辞。 remember me to one who lives there.
伊人曾在，与我相知。 she once was a true love of mine.

.

彼山之阴，深林荒址。 on the side of hill in the deep forest green,

冬寻毡毯，老雀燕子。 tracing of sparrow on snow crested brown.
雪覆四野，高山迟滞。 blankets and bed clothers the child of mountain ;
眠而不觉，寒笳清嘶。 sleeps unawafe of the clarion call.
嘱彼佳人，营我家室。 tell her to find me an acre of land.
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.
良田所修，大海之坻。 between the salt water and the sea strand,
伊人应在，任我相视。 then she will be a true love of mine.

彼山之阴，叶疏苔蚀。 on the side of hill a sprinkling of leaves:
涤我孤冢，珠泪渐渍。 washes the grave with slivery tears.
惜我长剑，日日拂拭。 a soldier cleans and polishes a gun.
寂而不觉，寒笳长嘶。 sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

嘱彼佳人，收我秋实。 tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather.
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.
敛之集之，楠花系之。 and gather it all in a bunch of heather.
伊人犹在，唯我相誓。 then she will be a ture love of mine.

冬寻毡毯，老雀燕子。 tracing of sparrow on snow crested brown.
雪覆四野，高山迟滞。 blankets and bed clothers the child of maintain ;
眠而不觉，寒笳清嘶。 sleeps unawafe of the clarion call.
嘱彼佳人，营我家室。 tell her to find me an acre of land.
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.
良田所修，大海之坻。 between the salt water and the sea strand,
伊人应在，任我相视。 then she will be a true love of mine.

彼山之阴，叶疏苔蚀。 on the side of hill a sprinkling of leaves:
涤我孤冢，珠泪渐渍。 washes the grave with slivery tears.
惜我长剑，日日拂拭。 a soldier cleans and polishes a gun.
寂而不觉，寒笳长嘶。 sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

嘱彼佳人，收我秋实。 tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather.
蕙兰芫荽，郁郁香芷。 parsely sage rosemary and thyme.
敛之集之，楠花系之。 and gather it all in a bunch of heather.
伊人犹在，唯我相誓。 then she will be a ture love of mine.

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