【中英双语阅读】【经济学人】

新浪一米一线

新浪 一米一线
Business: China's motor trade Driven to thebrink
商业：中国汽车贸易，逼入绝境
Slowing car sales are a threat to shaky dealerships.
汽车经销商如履薄冰，销售放缓雪上加霜。
China's car market used to run like a high-revvingengine.
中国的汽车市场发展速度曾如同飞速转动的引擎。
But after double-digit growth in much of the past decade, sales volumes have sloweddramatically.
中国的汽车销量在过去10年的大部分时间都保持着两位数增幅，而今却急剧放缓。
Barclays, a bank, recently revised its growth forecast for 2015 down from 8.5% to just 1.7%.
近期，巴克莱银行对2015年中国汽车市场的增长预期由8.5%下调为仅1.7%。
Others think sales may even shrink.
更有他人认为预期汽车市场甚至会萎缩。
China's car dealers, mostly newcomers to the business and over-reliant on selling new cars fortheir livelihoods, are struggling to cope.
中国的汽车经销商正应付着艰难的处境，他们中的大多数都刚刚进入这一领域，并过度依赖新车销售为业。
Carmakers frantically expanded their networks when sales were booming, and now China has asurfeit of dealers.
当业绩斐然时，汽车制造商近乎疯狂地拓展销售网络，这使得如今中国的汽车经销商已过饱和。
By the end of 2014 some 26,400 had set up, according to Sanford C.Bernstein, a research firm, 60% more than in America, even though China's new-car sales are just 40% higher.
据调研公司桑福德伯恩斯坦称，到2014年底，约26400家汽车销售网点在中国建立，比美国多出60%，尽管中国的新车销量仅仅比美国高出40%。
Often, carmakers handed out franchises with little regard for the suitability of either the locationor the dealers themselves.
汽车经销商往往在发放特许经营权时忽视了市场定位或经销商是否合适。
The German premium marques have done best at building an efficient network.
德国的优质汽车品牌最擅长建立高效的营销网络。
But even their dealers are having to scrap among themselves for custom.
但尽管如此，它们的经销商还是不得不为争抢顾客自相残杀。
There has not yet been much consolidation of car retailing into larger chains of dealers.
汽车零售业向大型销售链的整合尚未普及。
The 100 biggest dealership firms have just a fifth of total outlets; almost three-fifths are single-site operations, often run by a local entrepreneur with limited capital and even less idea howto flog motors.
中国最大的100家经销公司只占据了汽车销路的五分之一，接近五分之三的销量都被独立业务网点瓜分，而这些网点往往由当地企业家经营——他们资金有限，对汽车营销也知之甚少。
Most are powerless to resist carmakers stuffing their showrooms with surplus stock thatrequires heavy discounting.
汽车制造商用因库存过多而不得不大打折扣的产品填满了销售点的展示区，对此大多数独立销售网点却无能为力。
Chinese consumers' enthusiasm for haggling is only being reinforced as a result.
这一切都只是进一步激发了中国顾客对讨价还价的热情。
Chinese dealers have neglected the ancillary businesses, from insurance and loans to servicingand spares, that contribute much of their Western counterparts' profits, notes Jochen Siebertof JSC Automotive, a consulting firm.
正如JSC汽车行业顾问公司的约亨·希伯特指出的那样，中国的汽车经销商忽视了从保险、贷款到服务、配件的配套业务，而这些业务正是西方汽车同行重要的利润来源。
Dealers lack the experience to trade the second-hand cars that are now flooding on to themarket.
二手车不断地涌向市场，然而经销商却缺乏销售二手车的经验。
Used vehicles account for 14% of profits at American dealerships but just 2% in Chinese ones.
二手车占据了美国汽车经销商利润的14%，在中国，这一数字仅为2%。
Car dealerships' failure to grasp these opportunities has left them open for others to exploit.
汽车经销商错失的市场机会留有他人开发。
Independent service garages, not linked to a car dealer, are thriving.
与经销商脱节的独立汽车维修服务站正蓬勃发展。
Motorists put off by the high prices that dealers try to charge for official replacement parts areflocking to stores that sell cheap copies.
被经销商原装配件的高价吓跑的车主涌向了销售便宜仿造品的商店。
Websites for trading used cars are sprouting.
二手车交易网站方兴未艾。
The low prices dealers are getting for new cars, and their failure to profit from sidelines, areforcing carmakers to bail them out.
低价出售汽车、错失配套市场——面对经销商的困境，汽车制造商不得不出手相救。
BMW, Audi, Volkswagen and Toyota have all given cash to their dealers this year to help coverlosses.
今年，宝马、奥迪、大众和丰田均向经销商提供资金以弥补损失。
Carmakers are also belatedly helping them to develop after-sales services and used-carbusinesses.
制造商对经销商售后服务及二手车交易业务的扶持也姗姗来迟。
China's badly-assembled motor trade needs a complete overhaul.
中国东拼西凑的汽车贸易迫切需要一次大改造。
1.car dealers 汽车经销商
例句:Chinese car dealers have also demanded greater financial support from their suppliers.
中国汽车经销商也要求供应商给予更多财务上的支持。
2.bail out 保释，帮助摆脱
例句:Reid was forced to bail out of the crippled aircraft.
里德被迫从严重受损的飞机中跳伞逃生。
3.put off 推迟；阻止
例句:Women who put off having a baby often make the best mothers
晚育的女性经常会成为最优秀的母亲。
4.second-hand cars 二手汽车
例句:He's a dealer in second-hand cars.
他经销二手汽车。

新浪一米一线

新浪 一米一线
Business: Board games Not twilight, but sunrise

商业：棋盘游戏，不是衰败而是兴盛
Table-top games are booming in the video-game age.
视频游戏年代，桌游盛行。
ESSEN is not one of Germany's better-known cities.
艾森不是德国任何一个比较出名的城市。
But for the world's growing band of board-game devotees, it is paradise.
但它却是全球不断增长的棋盘游戏爱好者的天堂。
棋盘游戏不是衰败而是兴盛.jpg

Each October it plays host to Internationale Spieltage, or Spiel, a board-game convention that is half fan-club gathering, half trade show—and, alongside America's Gen Con, one of the biggest gaming festivals in the world.

每年十月这里都会举办“埃森国际游戏节”——半是爱好者聚会，一半是贸易展的棋牌游戏大会——与全球最大的游戏节之一的美国“创展”齐名。
This year the organisers expect more than 160,000 visits over the festival's four days.
主办方预计，今年为期四天的游戏节里，会有超过16万人出席。
Attenders will be able to watch and play more than 850 board, card and role-playing games, including a much-anticipated board-game version of “Magic: The Gathering”, a highly popular card game launched in 1993 in which players take on the role of duelling wizards.
出席者将观看和参与超过850种棋盘、卡牌和角色扮演类游戏，其中包括一款万众瞩目的棋牌游戏——“万智牌”。在这款1993年推出的火爆的纸牌游戏中，玩家扮演决斗巫师的角色。
The whole thing will be capped off with the largest contest yet seen of “The Settlers of Catan”, in which 1,000 people will compete to colonise a fictional wilderness.
整个游戏节将以迄今为止最大的比赛“卡坦岛”作为结束，到时将有1000人角逐殖民虚构荒野。
The market for such “hobby games” is booming.
这种“爱好游戏”的市场正在蓬勃发展。
ICv2, a consulting firm, reckons it is worth $880m a year in America and Canada alone.
咨询公司ICv2评估，仅在美国和加拿大，这一市场价值就已达每年8.80亿美元。
“We've seen double-digit annual growth for the past half-decade,” says Milton Griepp, ICv2's boss.
“我们已经见证过去五年里其两位数的年增长率，”ICv2的老板米尔顿·格里普说。
Some of the games at Spiel will be aimed at children, but grown-ups are doing most of the buying.
埃森国际游戏节上的部分游戏是针对儿童的，但成年人才是最多的购买者。
There is something for every taste, from “Fluxx”, a lighthearted card game whose rules change with every card played, to “Power Grid”, a fiendishly tricky business game featuring aspiring electricity tycoons, to all-day chin-scratchers such as “Twilight Imperium”, a game of galactic civilisation-building.
也有一些小众游戏，从“无常牌”（一个轻松愉快的卡牌游戏，其规则随着每一个出战卡牌变化）到“电力公司”（一个非常棘手的商业游戏，有抱负的电力巨头们整天为之抓耳挠腮，如“暮光帝国“——一款庞大的文明建设游戏。）
Steve Buckmaster of Esdevium Games, a British distributor, says that far from diverting people, video games—especially ones on smartphones—have brought gaming to a larger audience.
一位英国经销商——Esdevium游戏的史提夫马斯特说，视频游戏，特别是智能手机上的游戏，不会远离人们，相反他们受到更多用户的喜爱。
App versions of popular games often boost sales of their physical counterparts.
流行游戏的手机应用版本常常提升其实物版本的销量。
The internet has helped fans organise get-togethers, tournaments and the like, while crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter have made life easier for aspiring designers.
互联网促进游戏迷聚会，比赛等，而类似于Kickstarter的众筹网站使有抱负的设计师生活得更容易。
They, in turn, are integrating computers into their games.
反过来，他们将计算机融入到游戏中。
“X-COM”, a board-game tie-in to a popular video-game series, uses a smartphone app that takes the role of the incoming aliens which players must battle on the table top.
“未知敌人”是一个与流行视频游戏系列相关的智能手机应用版棋牌类游戏，玩家必须在桌子上玩，扮演即将到来的外星人角色。
Meanwhile bricks-and-mortar game stores have adapted, running tournaments and providing the face-to-face sociability that online gaming lacks.
举办游戏比赛并提供网络游戏缺乏的面对面社交功能，其间实体游戏店已经适应新的情况。
And with “Game of Thrones” on TVs everywhere and cinemas packed with superhero films, the general triumph of what used to be mocked as “nerd culture” has made the fantasy and sci-fi themes featured in many games less of a turn-off.
随着《权力的游戏》遍布电视荧屏和超级英雄题材的电影充斥影院，曾被嘲笑为“呆子文化”的全面胜利已经成为幻想和科幻主题，几乎无法避免地出现在许多游戏中。
Not every analogue pastime is suffering in the digital age.
并不是每一个相似的娱乐方式都在数字化时代遭受挫折。
1.But for 要不是；如果没有

例句:But for you, they might have given us the slip.
要不是你，我们可能已经被他们甩掉了。



2.turn-off 岔路；断开

例句:This is the turn-off for Bath.
这是通往巴斯市的岔道。

3.in turn 反过来；转而

例句:The girls took it in turn to wipe down the tables after meals
女孩子们饭后轮流擦桌子。

4.get together 聚会；收集

例句:This is the only forum where East and West can get together.
这是东西方可以聚首的唯一论坛。

新浪一米一线

新浪 一米一线
Economics brief: six big ideas.

经济概要：六大经济思想。
Game theory: Prison breakthrough
博弈论：越狱
The fifth of our series on seminal economic ideas looks at the Nash equilibrium.
六大经济思想之五——纳什均衡。
JOHN NASH arrived at Princeton University in 1948 to start his PhD with a one-sentence recommendation: “He is a mathematical genius”.
1948年，约翰·纳什带着一句话的推荐信——他是一个数学天才——来到普林斯顿大学开始读博。
He did not disappoint.
他没有令人失望。
纳什均衡1.jpg

Aged 19 and with just one undergraduate economics course to his name, in his first 14 months as a graduate he produced the work that would end up, in 1994, winning him a Nobel prize in economics for his contribution to game theory.

年仅19岁且名下只有一个经济学课程的他，在读博的头14月中就交出了最终会在1994年因为对博弈论的贡献而为他赢得了诺贝尔经济学奖的研究。
On November 16th 1949, Nash sent a note barely longer than a page to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which he laid out the concept that has since become known as the “Nash equilibrium”.
1949年11月16日，纳什给《美国国家科学院院刊》寄去了一份刚够一页纸长的笔记，在这份笔记中，他提出了自此闻名遐迩的“纳什均衡”概念。
This concept describes a stable outcome that results from people or institutions making rational choices based on what they think others will do.
这个概念描述了一种源自个人或机构基于自身之于别人将做什么的认识而做出理性选择的稳定结果。
In a Nash equilibrium, no one is able to improve their own situation by changing strategy: each person is doing as well as they possibly can, even if that does not mean the optimal outcome for society.
在纳什均衡中，无人能够通过改变策略而改善自身境况：每一个人都在尽其所能地做事，虽然这不意味着社会的最佳结果。
With a flourish of elegant mathematics, Nash showed that every “game” with a finite number of players, each with a finite number of options to choose from, would have at least one such equilibrium.
借助于优雅数学的表述，纳什告诉人们：每一场参与者数量有限每一位参与者可供选择的选项数量也是有限的“博弈”都至少会有一个这样的均衡。
His insights expanded the scope of economics.
他的高见扩展了经济学的范围。
In perfectly competitive markets, where there are no barriers to entry and everyone's products are identical, no individual buyer or seller can influence the market: none need pay close attention to what the others are up to.
在完全竞争市场中，没有进入门槛且所有人的产品都完全相同，没有单独的买方或卖方能够影响市场：谁也不需要密切关注别人正在忙什么。
But most markets are not like this: the decisions of rivals and customers matter.
但是，大多数市场不是如此：对手和客户的决定至关重要。
From auctions to labour markets, the Nash equilibrium gave the dismal science a way to make real-world predictions based on information about each person's incentives.
从拍卖到劳动力市场，纳什均衡给这门沉闷科学提供了一种基于每一个人的动机信息做出现实生活预测的方法。
One example in particular has come to symbolise the equilibrium: the prisoner's dilemma.
一个例子尤其代表了这种均衡：囚徒困境。
Nash used algebra and numbers to set out this situation in an expanded paper published in 1951, but the version familiar to economics students is altogether more gripping.
纳什曾在1951年发表的一篇延伸论文中运用代数和数字论述了这种情景。但是，经济学学生熟悉的版本更为吸引人。
(Nash's thesis adviser, Albert Tucker, came up with it for a talk he gave to a group of psychologists. )
(纳什的论文导师阿尔伯特·塔克尔曾在对一群心理学家的谈话中提到过它。)
It involves two mobsters sweating in separate prison cells, each contemplating the same deal offered by the district attorney.
它说的是两名正在单独牢房中如坐针毡的犯罪分子，每个人都在考虑由地区检察官提出的同样交易。
If they both confess to a bloody murder, they each face ten years in jail.
如果他们双双承认身犯命案，每人都面临十年牢狱。
If one stays quiet while the other snitches, then the snitch will get a reward, while the other will face a lifetime in jail.
如果一个人坚持不说，另一个人告密揭发，告密之人将得到奖赏，而另外那个人将面临终身监禁；
And if both hold their tongue, then they each face a minor charge, and only a year in the clink.
如果两人都闭口不言，那么，每个人都面临较小的指控，而且只有一年刑期。
There is only one Nash-equilibrium solution to the prisoner's dilemma: both confess.
对这种囚徒困境，只存在一种纳什均衡的解决方案：两人双双坦白。
Each is a best response to the other's strategy; since the other might have spilled the beans, snitching avoids a lifetime in jail.
每一方的坦白都是对对方策略的最佳应对；因为另一个人可能说漏嘴，告密揭发避免了终身监禁。
The tragedy is that if only they could work out some way of co-ordinating, they could both make themselves better off.
悲剧就在于，如果他们能够找到合作之法，两人都可能让自己的处境好起来。
The example illustrates that crowds can be foolish as well as wise; what is best for the individual can be disastrous for the group.
这个例子表明，除了明智之外，众人也可能是愚蠢的；个体的最佳可能是集体的灾难。
This tragic outcome is all too common in the real world.
在现实世界中，这种悲剧性结果太常见了。
Left freely to plunder the sea, individuals will fish more than is best for the group, depleting fish stocks.
耗尽渔业资源的涸泽而渔，利在个人，弊在集体；
Employees competing to impress their boss by staying longest in the office will encourage workforce exhaustion.
通过最长时间地待在办公室中的办法而博得老板印象的雇员将鼓励员工耗尽精力；
Banks have an incentive to lend more rather than sit things out when house prices shoot up.
房价大涨的时候，银行有动力放出更多贷款，而不是袖手旁观。
The Nash equilibrium helped economists to understand how self-improving individuals could lead to self-harming crowds.
纳什均衡曾给经济学家理解自我完善的个人如何能够成为自暴伤害的大众提供了帮助。
Better still, it helped them to tackle the problem: they just had to make sure that every individual faced the best incentives possible.
更重要的是，它还曾帮助他们去解决这个问题：他们只需确认，每一个单独的个人都面对最佳激励可能。
If things still went wrong—parents failing to vaccinate their children against measles, say—then it must be because people were not acting in their own self-interest.
如果仍然出现问题——例如父母没能让孩子接种麻疹疫苗——那么，这必然是因为当时人们没有以符合自身利益的方式行事。
In such cases, the public-policy challenge would be one of information.
在这种情况下，公共政策的挑战会是信息的挑战。
Nash's idea had antecedents.
纳什的思想有先例。
In 1838 August Cournot, a French economist, theorised that in a market with only two competing companies, each would see the disadvantages of pursuing market share by boosting output, in the form of lower prices and thinner profit margins.
1838年，法国经济学家奥古斯丁·古诺提出了下面这种理论：在只有两家竞争公司的市场中，每一家公司都会看到通过提高产出，以更低的价格和更微薄的利润形式，来追求市场份额的弊端。
Unwittingly, Cournot had stumbled across an example of a Nash equilibrium.
有意无意之间，古诺发现了一个纳什均衡的例子。
It made sense for each firm to set production levels based on the strategy of its competitor; consumers, however, would end up with less stuff and higher prices than if full-blooded competition had prevailed.
对于每一家来说，根据竞争对手的策略决定生产水平是有意义的；然而，在激烈竞争占上风的前提下，消费者最终面对越来越少的商品和越来越高的价格。
Another pioneer was John von Neumann, a Hungarian mathematician.
另一位先驱是匈牙利数学家约翰·冯·诺依曼。
In 1928, the year Nash was born, von Neumann outlined a first formal theory of games, showing that in two-person, zero-sum games, there would always be an equilibrium.
1928年，即纳什出生的那一年，冯·诺依曼概述了最早的正式博弈论，表明，在两人的零和博弈中，向来存在一种均衡。
When Nash shared his finding with von Neumann, by then an intellectual demigod, the latter dismissed the result as “trivial”, seeing it as little more than an extension of his own, earlier proof.
当纳什把自己的发现与当时已是知识分子偶像的冯·诺依曼分享时，后者斥之为 “无关紧要” 的结果，认为它不过是他自己早期证明的一种延伸而已。
In fact, von Neumann's focus on two-person, zero-sum games left only a very narrow set of applications for his theory.
实际上，冯·诺依曼之于两人零和博弈的强调只给他的理论留下了非常狭窄的应用。
Most of these settings were military in nature.
这些前提大都是军事性的。
One such was the idea of mutually assured destruction, in which equilibrium is reached by arming adversaries with nuclear weapons (some have suggested that the film character of Dr Strangelove was based on von Neumann) .
其中之一就是其中的均衡是由于装备了核武器的的对手才达到的相互确保毁灭的思想。(有人认为，奇爱博士这位电影人物就是以冯·诺依曼为原型的) .
None of this was particularly useful for thinking about situations—including most types of market—in which one party's victory does not automatically imply the other's defeat.
在这些前提中，没有一种对考虑一方的胜利并非自动地意味着另一方的失败的情形——包括大多数类型的市场——特别有用。
Even so, the economics profession initially shared von Neumann's assessment, and largely overlooked Nash's discovery.
即便如此，经济学界一开始还是认可了冯·诺依曼的评估，并在很大程度上忽视了纳什的发现。
He threw himself into other mathematical pursuits, but his huge promise was undermined when in 1959 he started suffering from delusions and paranoia.
纳什一头扎进了自己在数学方面的其他追求，但是，当他在1959年开始遭受幻觉和强迫症折磨时他的远大前程遭遇了灭顶之灾。
His wife had him hospitalised; upon his release, he became a familiar figure around the Princeton campus, talking to himself and scribbling on blackboards.
他的妻子把他送进了医院；出院后，他成了普林斯顿校园中的一个熟悉的身影，不是自言自语，就是在黑板上涂涂写写。
1.end up 结束

例句:The result was that the engine ended up at the bottom of the canal.
结果引擎最终沉到了运河底。



2.nuclear weapons 核武器

例句:The declaration deals with disarmament and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
该声明涉及裁军和防止核武器扩散问题。



3.self-interest 利己主义

例句:Their current protests are motivated purely by self-interest.
他们当前的抗议完全是受一己之利驱使的。


4.focus on 专注于

例句:The talks will focus on economic development of the region.
会谈将着重讨论该地区的经济发展。