【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障1系列】【1-11】经管

Rena张

【速度】
Carlyle's IPO
From pariah to public

【计时1】
AFTER spending years touting the virtues of taking companies private, the Carlyle Group, a large private-equity firm, has plunged into the public market with a $671m initial public offering (IPO). Everyone had been anticipating the leap. Its rivals, Blackstone and KKR, are already public. Over the last few years Carlyle has been furiously bulking up and adding new businesses, in what looked like ambitious preparation for an initial public offering. Its assets under management stood at $147 billion last December, up from around $107 billion a year earlier.
Predicted or not, Carlyle’s move does not look entirely artful. Its peers’ shares have languished over the years. Why choose to join them by going public? Indeed the timing is perplexing, and some question why the firm’s three co-founders would not simply prefer to wait for better market conditions. The firm’s shares priced at $22, below the original range, which had been described to prospective investors as conservative. Carlyle’s bosses may bet that by selling shares cheaply, and in a bear market, they will be able to ride the wave when the market rises. Carlyle plans to use the money it raises for paying down debt and acquisitions, as alternative asset managers compete to manage even more money and rake in more fees.
【211 words】

【计时2】
Carlyle’s IPO is the largest in the US so far this year, and many will watch to see how it does. The stock’s performance can be taken as a pulse-taking of investors’ bullishness on private equity as an asset class. Carlyle is likely to be the last big private-equity firm to go public, so its IPO is the end of an era, in many ways. Blackstone was the first private-equity firm to go public in 2007—at the peak of the market, when private-equity titans were the new kings of capitalism. After the last few years of financial turmoil, they appear more serf-like. Blackstone’s shares are down around 62% since its market debut.
But what may be most noteworthy about Carlyle’s IPO is what it shows about the company’s transformation. A decade ago Carlyle was perceived as a sinister financial firm with too many ties to politicians. Michael Moore, the incendiary documentary filmmaker, lambasted the firm in his documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” for taking money from the bin Laden family. Carlyle undertook a radical overhaul of its image, replacing the politicians who had sat on its boards with corporate executives and offering more transparency about its businesses. The company has managed to go from pariah to public.
【206 words】


Paying what you want
Conscience v commerce

【计时3】
What happens when people can pick their own price for a product
EARLY in the study of economics, students are introduced to Homo economicus, a rough caricature of a human being with an eye to extracting the maximum personal advantage from any given situation. In the real world, of course, human behaviour is much more complicated than that. One example is a pricing strategy called “pay what you want”, in which customers are allowed to choose any price—even zero—for a good. Despite the obvious benefit of getting something for nothing, many people nevertheless choose to pay. The model hit the news in 2007 when Radiohead, a British band, released their album “In Rainbows” on the internet with just such a pricing arrangement.
A team of researchers led by Ayelet Gneezy at the University of California’s Rady School of Management has now published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that makes some suggestions about the psychological underpinnings of this generosity. They finger the ego—in particular, a desire to think of yourself as a good person. And they find that allowing people to name their own price may result in fewer sales than the old-fashioned approach of simply setting a single price for everybody.
【210 words】

【计时4】
The researchers ran three experiments. The first involved more than 53,000 customers of a theme park, who were photographed while riding a rollercoaster. In one iteration of the experiment, customers were offered the chance to buy the photo for a price of their own choosing. In the second run, they were offered the same deal, except that half their suggested price would be donated to a children’s charity.
The researchers noted two big effects. The average price suggested by those in the group benefiting the charity was over five times as high as that suggested by the first group. At the same time, only half as many people in the second group wanted to buy a photo. The researchers argue that the two results are linked: because the “right” price for the charity-and-photo combination was felt to be so much higher, a significant number of people preferred not to buy at all than to damage their self-image by offering a miserly price, and, by extension, a tight-fisted donation to a deserving cause.
【172 words】

【计时5】
The second experiment confirmed the first. Passengers on a boat trip were photographed and then offered the chance to buy the photos. This time Dr Gneezy and his colleagues controlled their subjects’ expectations more directly. For one group, the price was set at $15, for another it was $5, and the third were allowed to name their own price. All three groups were told that the normal price was $15. As expected, demand for photos rose when the price dropped from $15 to $5. But it fell again when people could pick their price. Again the researchers suggest that an overly low price can feel unpleasantly parsimonious. In contrast, “when the company sets the price at $5, there is no ambiguity about fairness, self-image concerns disappear and people are happy to pay.”
To determine whether it is your conscience that prods you to be generous, as opposed to pressure from your peers, the third experiment took place in a restaurant in which customers chose the price paid for a meal. One group was allowed to pay secretly; another paid in public. The people allowed to pay their bills anonymously chose to pay more, on average, than those who paid in public. Radiohead, for their part, seem to have anticipated Dr Gneezy’s conclusions. Their latest album, “The King of Limbs”, was again released online—but only for a fixed price, of $9.
【231 words】


【越障】
The world economy
Weather report
The euro crisis casts a chill over a sunnier economic picture

UNTIL recently, the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, due to be held this weekend in Washington, DC, looked set to coincide with blossoming optimism about the world economy. But the euro crisis is again casting an unseasonal chill.
Things look brighter than they did even a few months ago. America’s fragile recovery continues. After a disastrous 2011, Japan is on track for 2% growth in 2012, thanks in part to a boost from reconstruction spending. And the European Central Bank’s interventions in the banking system in December and February have pulled the euro area back from the brink. The IMF’s newest World Economic Outlook nudges up expected global growth in 2012 to 3.5%, from 3.3% in January. In September last year, the IMF reckoned there was a 10% chance of global growth dipping below 2% in 2012. Now the chance is just 1%, it says.

Inflationary pressures that buffeted emerging economies have been dampened by the global slowdown from 2011, allowing more room for monetary easing. The Reserve Bank of India surprised markets on April 17th by cutting its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points, despite an IMF inflation forecast of 8.2% in 2012. And a well-managed slowdown appears to be in progress in China. The fund has raised its forecast of Chinese output growth to 8.2% in 2012.
How China does is of critical importance to emerging markets. A recent paper by the Inter-American Development Bank, for instance, estimated that the impact of Chinese output variations on Latin American economies has tripled since the mid-1990s, while the effect of American economic wobbles has halved. America nonetheless remains crucial: it is still Latin America’s largest trading partner, and the fund reckons a strengthening US recovery will help growth in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean to outstrip that in Brazil this year.
But the sky is anything but clear. Although the IMF reckons the prospects for a broad and destabilising commodity-price spike are falling because a decade of rising food and metals prices has bolstered production, oil remains a dangerous exception. Although oil prices eased this week after talks about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a supply shock which caused oil prices to spike to 50% above the baseline forecast (of about $115 a barrel) could reduce global output over the next two years by 1.25%.

Inevitably, Europe is the biggest cloud on the horizon. The hopes generated when the ECB provided over ? trillion ($1.3 trillion) in three-year liquidity to banks have faded. The yield on ten-year Spanish debt is flirting with unsustainable levels once again. Just as the IMF’s wintry January forecasts came too late to take the ECB’s actions into account, the fund’s new numbers may reflect the optimism of March and be too sunny as a result.
Much depends, of course, on how bad things get. That, in turn, depends on how well Europe uses the time bought by the ECB. The IMF sketches out three possibilities. On current policy, euro-area credit is expected to fall by 1.7% by the end of 2013, producing a shallow recession this year and a return to growth in 2013. Given better-than-anticipated progress on strengthening the euro zone’s rescue fund and governance, credit would shrink by just 0.6% in 2012 and the euro area could grow this year. Alternatively, if recent fiscal agreements unravel, credit could tumble by 4% or more, touching off a deeper euro-zone recession. Recent Spanish difficulties, including slower growth and disappointing progress on fiscal goals, suggest that this ugly scenario is becoming more likely.
The fund reckons that growth in America, Japan and emerging Asia could be reduced by more than a percentage point in 2012 and 2013 if the ugly scenario did indeed occur. If the euro zone implodes, the fallout will settle most heavily on its own backyard. Central and eastern Europe are most exposed to euro-zone bank deleveraging, and the huge importance of the euro area in the region’s trade will deal it a further blow (see right-hand chart). Some of the additional money that the IMF is seeking to raise could well end up being directed here. Financial linkages are less important in CIS countries and in the Middle East and north Africa, but a deeper euro-area recession will batter export industries there, too.
The conventional wisdom, nonetheless, is that the world economy could just about cope with stagnation or a shallow recession in Europe. But there is another, stormier possibility: that of renewed market turmoil caused by the risk of sovereign default or a euro-zone break-up. The ECB’s efforts have greatly reduced the possibility of a Lehman-like shock, but policymakers elsewhere still fret about the ability of the Europeans to fend off the direst outcomes, not least because they seem unable to come up with any remedies besides fiscal austerity. The global economy is in bud, but it is far too soon to plan for summer.

【836 words】

CCcarol

占！！！！

CHRISTINE2010

板凳

harryhenry

地板----
速度
1‘37
1’03
1‘05
0’50
1‘07


越障6’15
主要是说世界经济形势的，IMF认为世界经济会在下一个时段内好转，但是欧洲经济可能暂时难以恢复（大致是这样的意思）然后举了几个数据的例子。然后就说美国经济好转，以及好转的一些迹象。然后说到中国，中国在这次的经济复苏中扮演的角色很重要，中国是拉丁美洲国家最大的交易伙伴，中国在国际市场上的支出会明显带动拉丁美洲国家的经济，还有美洲中部的国家像墨西哥和巴西。。。所以美国也要怎样怎样。。。然后说是这边经济天气万里无云，情况良好。
然后说到欧洲市场，说是欧洲经济天气阴霾，不容小觑。欧洲的还没有怎么好转的经济危机 现在又迎来了信用评级的下降。欧洲是否能够走出这次危机就看他什么时候买入ECB（MS是这么写的）了，然后说了一堆例子来证明观点（哎 每次看例子都记不住 好像提到了欧洲的央行的）
然后作者另起一段写欧洲市场总体来看会更加stomier,ECB可能造成欧洲主权债务违约。。。影响很坏，虽然世界经济都在恢复，但是离经济的夏天还很远。。


最近读完全不在状态 每次看完都迷迷糊糊的。。

双色鹿

速度
1. 1min27s
2. 1min16s
3. 1min13s
4. 1min13s
5. 1min20s
越障：7min23s
退步感觉明显。。。。

pigwang1127

速度
1:00
0:45
0:51
0:37
0:50
越障8:00
晚點補架構

上邪

1:42
C公司是否上市
1P：对比其他公司资产吧
2P:评价上市行为 中立评价 不明白not artful应该算是非负评价吧 认为上市可以敛财
1:38
1P:C曾为私有上市大企业 后落寞
2P:落寞后企业一直名声不好
1:29
人性自私 自我中心 能不付钱 就不付钱
做了实验 发现署名钱财>旧钱财 人本性希望自己是个好人，应该是钱要花在正道上的意思。吧。。。
1:18
做对比实验：买过山车的抓拍照片 一组单买 一组告知买的钱捐给孤儿院
发现告知捐赠的一组买的多 印证结论;钱往好的地方花
1:34
=，= 还是实验：15￥，5￥，自定￥ 发现1<2>3
但结论不定
私下付钱付的比public下的多

Rena张

地下室！
今天开始回归小分队~~~rena~~~么么么么么么么！！！

-- by 会员 双色鹿 (2012/5/11 20:44:30)

小鹿！么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shirley55555

1'32'' 211w C上市了 发行价低于设定的range 这样上升潜力大 IPO筹来的钱可以还债。 不明白：Its peers’ shares have languished over the years.
1‘22’' 206w C的IPO是今年最大的IPO，之前是blackstone 100多billion 在上市之前 C与政治界的tie too much
1‘25’‘ 210w 现实中人们的支付比经济学中的原理复杂，l如果人们能自由定价想买的东西，甚至免费去买。某乐队曾经出唱片时也采用了类似的方法。
1’23‘’ 172w researcher 针对一个主题公园里的53000人做了试验 第一组按照自己的定价买照片 第二组会把卖照片所得捐给慈善机构 结果是第二组的照片卖的比第一组高5倍。人们为了自己的照片不会被草率处理而买。不明白“a tight-fisted donation to a deserving cause”
1‘41’‘ 231w 他们又做了个更直接的实验 给玩船的人们拍照 第一组15元 第二组5元 第三组自己定价 结果第二组卖的非常好 第三组反而不行 如何知道你到底是不是出于慈善付账呢？又做了个吃饭买单的试验 一组按照bill来付 一组自己定价付 结果第二组比第一组付的多 （如此可以推断为了慈善人们会付的更多）于是某东东的定价就为9元
不明白这三组实验和结论的逻辑关系
越障：6’04‘’ 836w 美国经济复苏预期升高 但是欧元区的预期不好 带了一丝chill 中国等新兴市场表现良好 中国今年预期增长8.2% 其他指数也是不错 但是欧元区噩耗不断 不过世界总体水平还ok 属于复苏阶段 只不过离summer还很远  文章太长了 各种记不住

spencerX

速度
0:00:55
0:00:48
0:00:53
0:00:39
0:00:57
越障
0:05:45
1. 引入：由于IMF和世界银行的春季会议的召开，世界经济前景乐观。但是欧元区的问题仍然让人感到寒意。
2. 乐观：
1）美国从衰退、低迷的经济环境中走出，开始复苏；日本由于灾后的重建而拉动了经济的发展；在欧洲中央银行的拉动下，欧元区从崩溃的边缘被拉了回来。IMF估计未来的世界经济形势大好。
2）通货膨胀由于增长速度的减缓而得以缓和，两个不同的做法：
  A.印度降低了基准利率（与IMF相反）
  B.中国的发展速度降低（有效的控制）
3）中国对世界经济的影响巨大。尤其是对拉丁美洲，中国和拉丁美洲之间的贸易往来翻了三倍。相比之下，美国和拉丁美洲的贸易往来减少了一半。不过美国仍然是拉丁美洲重要的合作伙伴。
3.悲观：
1）虽然IMF预估商品价格会降低，但是石油问题仍然严峻。不过由于最近伊朗事件，是有问题得到了一定的缓解。
2）欧元区依旧是最大的问题。欧洲国家如何利用欧洲央行给出的时间将会起到决定性的作用。
  从货币政策来讲，欧洲的信贷规模缩水。
  从财政角度来讲，欧洲政府的力度不够。
4. 总结：虽然世界经济形势看好，但是欧洲债务还是一个大问题。虽说欧洲不会给人们造成雷曼兄弟倒闭一样的震惊，但是欧洲政府是不是能够从紧缩的财政政策之后恢复他们的经济仍然不胜明朗。想要预测未来还是有困难。