【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障11系列】【11-17】经管

angela不怕孤单

周六滴作业，周末也要坚持阅读哦~
这次速度的文章比较简单，真的是四六级难度！
不知道大家对这次整体难度是否喜欢？

【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障11系列】【11-17】经管
【speed】

【time 1】
News / USA
Obama, US House Leader Meet Again on 'Fiscal Cliff'
House Speaker John Boehner Dec. 12, 2012

WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Barack Obama and the top House Republican have met again to discuss a looming fiscal crisis. Thursday’s visit to the White House by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, was the second this week.

President Obama and Speaker Boehner met for 50 minutes, with the so-called “fiscal cliff” less than three weeks away.

Afterward, both the White House and Boehner’s office described the meeting as “frank.” An administration official said lines of communication between the two sides remain open.

An estimated $600 billion in tax increases and drastic government spending cuts will take effect on January 1, unless legislation is passed and signed to prevent that from happening.

Neither the Democratic Obama administration nor top Republicans in Congress has given any indication of progress in the talks in recent days.

The White House is insisting on raising taxes on the richest Americans to help reduce the nation’s debt. Press secretary Jay Carney said the administration is hoping Republicans will give in on the issue.

“We still believe that a big deal is possible. We believe the parameters are there, and we remain confident that if Republicans agree with the basic idea that rates have to go up for the wealthiest while we extend tax cuts for everyone else, that we can reach a deal fairly quickly,” Carney said.

Before the meeting, Obama told a Minnesota television station he was hoping for a “change in attitude” by Republicans on the tax issue.

Earlier Thursday, Boehner said the president was delaying the talks, and was not concerned enough about cutting government spending.

“But here we are, at the 11th hour, and the president still is not serious about dealing with this issue right here. It is this issue - spending,” Boehner said.

Boehner has been planning to leave Washington to spend several days at his home in Ohio.
【315】

【time 2】
Why Students Shouldn't Take Unpaid Internships

Colleges often require students to work unpaid internships—and pay for the credits themselves. How to stop the insanity.

The cost of college is going up—again—but not in the way you think. Sure, tuition at both public and private colleges and universities is hitting record levels across the country. But then there’s the matter of paid internships. Not the ones that pay you—the ones that, one way or another, you end up paying for yourself.

Here’s the deal. Employers like to see internships on the résumé. Three quarters of those surveyed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities said they want students to obtain real-world know-how “through internships and other hands-on experiences.” Colleges and universities are listening. According to research firm InternBridge.com, 60 percent of students say internships are now mandatory for graduation at their schools. The result: more than half the class of 2011 had at least one internship, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

The high demand for internships in this gloomy economy ends up translating into lots of free labor for companies. Nearly half the 2011 grads were not paid for their work. At not-for-profits, that’s OK (at least in the eyes of the law). But when it comes to for-profit companies, it’s an issue. The Department of Labor has six conditions that must be met for unpaid internships at for-profit companies to be legal. The internship has to benefit the intern (not the company), for one thing. The intern can’t displace a regular employee, for another. The biggie, however, is that the internship must be “similar to training ... given in an educational environment.” That’s been interpreted to mean unpaid internships at for-profit companies are legit as long as students receive academic credit.
【275】

【time 3】
But to get those credits, in more than 70 percent of cases, according to Intern Bridge, you’ll generally have to pay your university for them—often substantially. At Georgetown University, the cost per credit hour is $1,705. At William & Mary, it’s $286 for in-state students, $985 for out-of-staters. Considering that a single course is usually three or four credit hours, that’s a hefty chunk of change to work for free. And that doesn’t count the cost of finding housing and transportation in the city where your internship is based. “If you have to contribute to your family’s income, it’s just not economical,” says Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation. “That’s going to make it tougher to break into certain fields unless you get really lucky.”

And if you can swing it financially, is it worth it? Not always. Unpaid internships don’t do as much for you in the job market as paid ones do. According to the 2011 Student Survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, paid interns spent more of their time on professional duties, while unpaid interns were given clerical ones. Sixty-one percent of paid interns working at for-profit companies received a job offer; only 38 percent of unpaid interns working at for-profit companies did. And paid interns netted higher starting salaries. “The unpaid internship offers no advantage to the job-seeking student,” NACE concludes.
【228】

【time 4】
Of course, that’s when you look at the aggregate. If you’ve landed an unpaid internship you’re convinced is worth it, there are ways to maneuver the system to bring down the cost. First, try to get out of paying for credit at all, says Lauren Berger, creator of InternQueen.com. “Speak to your school’s career counselor, because sometimes the career center can write a letter saying the student is [eligible for] credit, and that will satisfy the formal HR policy,” Berger says. Second, ask if there are stipends available to cover unpaid internships. This has become such an issue that a number of schools are raising funds specifically for this purpose. If both of those are a no-go, then seek credit from a cheaper school. Employers won’t care. And at your local community college, credit hours may be as little as $101 an hour. The Credit to Careers Program at UMass Amherst offers credit hours for $190 each—a steal, says program director Jeff Silver. Students from any four-year college can apply to the program and receive the $190 rate. Finally, don’t work full time. Whether you work three days a week or five, you can still put it on your résumé, and in the meantime you can pick up a second job that does pay.

University of Pittsburgh grad Jillian Skrocki had her doubts. “I’ll never forget my grandfather telling me to never take any job or internship that was unpaid. He said, ‘You’re worth more than that.’” Nonetheless, she took several unpaid internships before graduating last May. And, now employed full time with an insurance company, she isn’t sorry. “Internships are indispensable,” she says. “If you don’t have lots of things on your résumé, then it will be trashed.”
【290】

【time 5】
News / Africa
iTunes Africa Launch Promises Change in Music Market

JOHANNESBURG — This month, Apple announced the launch of their iTunes music store in 56 countries, including 14 on the African continent. The launch means easier purchases for consumers, and a whole new brand of competition for existing music stores.

iTunes is an online store that allows computer users to purchase and download music and videos online. While it offers a new option for consumers in the music marketplace, iTunes is likely going to turn down the volume at Africa's brick-and-mortar music retail stores.

On a typical weekday morning, shoppers flipped through the CD section at the Musica Megastore in Sandton City, an upscale mall north in Johannesburg.

A mother and her daughter left the store after buying a few DVDs. But 17-year-old Sarah said she was an immediate fan of the iTunes launch.

"I started buying music on iTunes now that it opened. I've already bought like five songs. I think I'll start buying most of my music on iTunes, but I think I will still come to stores like this every once in a while if I want the actual CD, like hardcopy," she said.

Her mother, Vivian, was a tougher sell.

"I'm old school, I don't buy anything online. I'm definitely still a hard-copy person," she said.

Such holdouts are one aspect of keeping the brick-and-mortar stores going. But another aspect is diversifying products. While two of the largest music retailers in southern Africa, Look and Listen and Musica, declined to grant interviews, Musica did issue a welcoming statement to the new online retailer. It reads as follows:

"The official launch in South Africa sits comfortably with our expansion into entertainment-related products such as headphones, portable speakers, docking stations, etc."

The statement gives an optimistic view of how iTunes will affect music sales. The statement continues:

"In addition, CD sales will increase as they will benefit from additional exposure through iTunes, combined with the continuing demand for the physical format that still exists in this country."
【328】

【剩余】
Apple declined to be interviewed, but its entrance into the African marketplace isn't a huge surprise, as other online retailers already have started chipping into the music market here.

"I don't think the effect will be felt immediately, but it will be felt fairly soon," said Arthur Goldstuck, an author specializing in technology, and managing director of World Wide Worx.

"It's not really only iTunes itself that will make that effect felt, but the ongoing barrage of digital weapons, or you could say digital attacks, that are emerging," he said.

While consumers will have more options, there are a few factors that may help brick-and-mortar retailers here. Internet here is generally bought by the megabyte, rather than as an unlimited monthly service. Also, as of 2011, Internet access was below 20 percent in South Africa, and nearly 29 percent in both Nigeria and Kenya, so many customers won't have access to purchase music online.

"That's certainly what's keeping stores going for now," said Goldstuck. "Keeping them alive is the fact that most people don't have that kind of access online. Particularly it you are going to find that's going to change as more and more people realize they can access the music cheaper as well as more easily through these services. That's going to change."

Goldstuck said Apple's move into Nigeria could provide a new outlet for music downloading.

"The music industry hasn't really figured out how to solve the piracy issue in Nigeria. when it gets to Nigeria, I think that could help to change that particular industry," he said. "In most of the African countries it's really just going to bring all this music to the masses for the first time, people who would've never had access to anything like as wide a range of music as they do through the iStore."

In the end, customers like Darryl Bome, of Johannesburg say they're more likely to head online than to the mall.

"What I think a lot of people would do, or what I actually do, is go into a store have a look at a couple of music tracks, a couple of tracks that I want to think about and download, definitely get onto iTunes, purchase those as single tracks without purchasing the entire album and create my own list. So, I think its a great thing, I think its a great, great thing," said Bome.
【399】

【obstacle】
Breakup of Countries: No Economic Disaster- Becker

The largest and some smaller political parties in Catalonia, one of the richest parts of Spain, want to have a referendum in that region on whether they should secede from the rest of Spain. This is despite the fact that during past several decades the central government of Spain has ceded considerable fiscal and other independence to Catalonia and other regional governments. Those supporting a breakup argue, among other things, that Catalonia is being heavily taxed to help support poorer and less hardworking regions of Spain. The opposition to a breakup both within and outside of Catalonia claims that secession would be illegal under the Spanish constitution, and that it would destroy Spain’s culture.

Spain is not the only country that is experiencing pressure either to breakup, or to become much more decentralized politically. Major parties in Scotland want independence from the rest of the United Kingdom. As a result of this pressure, Scotland and other regions of the UK have received much more autonomy than they had in the past. The independence movement has quieted down in Quebec, but only after Canada established French on an equal footing with English, and after the province of Quebec received other special treatment from the rest of Canada.

The Western and Russian-influenced part of the small country of Georgia is essentially independent in most respects from the rest of Georgia, while Georgia only became independent after the breakup of the Soviet Union into many independent countries. At the close of the nineteenth Taiwan, which had long been part of China, became a colony of Japan until World War II ended. Taiwan was returned to China at that time, but became an independent republic in 1949. China is pressing hard for Taiwan to once again become a province of China, probably with a large degree of autonomy. However, the great majority of Taiwanese prefer the status quo, in part because per capita incomes are so much higher in Taiwan than in Mainland China.

Although emotions usually overflow on the subject of secession and forcible integration, I will not try to evaluate the significance of nationalistic feelings in a region or country. I will instead focus on the economic consequences of a country’s breakup into smaller and largely independent countries. Often stressed is that since larger countries have bigger domestic markets, companies in larger countries can utilize economies of scale in production.

The movement toward free trade agreements and globalization during the past 60 years has enormously reduced the economic advantages of having a larger domestic market to sell goods and services. Small countries can sell their goods to other countries, both large and small, almost as easily as large countries can sell in their own domestic markets. For example, during the past 30 years the small country of Chile has had the fastest growing economy of Latin America, larger than Brazil and Mexico, the two largest nations of this region. This would not have been possible without the access of Chilean companies to markets in other countries, both in South America and elsewhere. As a result, Chile now exports around 40% of its GDP, compared to a ratio of exports to GDP in the United States of about 13%.

To many in Czechoslovakia, the economic future seemed dim when Czechoslovakia voluntarily split in 1993 into the Czech Republic and the Republic of Slovakia. Similarly, emotions were strong after a destructive war forced Yugoslavia to split into six separate countries. Yet these separate nations are generally doing at least as well economically as did Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Small countries can do well with small domestic markets by taking advantage of a globalized economy by selling large fractions of its production to consumers and companies in other countries. That is why smaller countries usually export a considerably larger fraction of its production, and import a much bigger share of its consumption, than do larger countries. Size of country was much more important in the past when many countries had high tariffs, and transportation costs were much more important.

Political interest groups tend to be less able in smaller countries in distorting political decision in their favor. This is partly because smaller countries are more homogeneous, so it is harder for one group to exploit another group since the groups are similar. In addition, since smaller nations have less monopoly power in world markets, it is less efficent for them to subsidize domestic companies in order to give these companies an advantage over imports. The greater profits to domestic companies from these subsidies come at the expense of much larger declines in consumer well being.

The growth in the competitiveness of small countries on the global market is in good part responsible at a deeper level for the remarkable growth in the number of countries since 1950 from a little over 100 to almost 200 countries now. And the number of independent countries is still growing.
【820】

yangreat

叮！ 谢谢Angela~

速度
2:04, 315
2:09, 275
2:10, 228
2:12, 290
2:54, 399

zxppx

感觉还是头一次障碍看得比较明白

枣糕兔

占！！

———————————————————————作业的分割线——————————————————————————

Speed
01'40
01'51
01'17
01'32
01'54
剩余02'04
Obstacle
05'14
Main Idea: Countries breaking: No economical tradegy
Attitude: Positive(+)
Structure:
>>>Author's view: Small countries behave better instead of worse on international trade than big countries with centralized control.
>>>Reasoning: Since small countries can develop a impressive work on international trade with the huge access to other countries' company, small countries improve its welfare and GDP, even better than developed countries.
                            The importance of being unimportant is what works here.
                            Several convincing case stated to provide the strongest ground for the author's view.
>>>Conclusion: Small countries can survive and even live better outside the big-country-control.

annysweety

02'10''
02'17''
01'35''
01'43''
02'06''
02'25''
obscale 12'08''
main idea:small countries have ecomonic advantage
p1] C breakup. agree: heavily taxed. disagree: illegal and destroy S's culture.
p2] example: scotland vs UK   Q vs Canada
p3]example: VR-influenced paret of georgia VS georgia. Taiwan VS china per capita income
p4] I focus on ecomonic consequence. larger vs bigger
p5]small countries sell to other countires. example: chile
p6] exapmle: C vS C&R. Y vs 6s
p7]globalized economy, samll countries export larger & import bigger than large countries.
p8]political interest group. homogeneous. less monopoly power vs subsidize
p9]number is growing

miffyhui

占占
1'52"
1'45"
1'32"
1'56"
2'02"
5'05"
main idea: economic consequences of the breakup of country
several examples about the breakup country,such as Catalonia,Scotland, Georgia,Taiwan and so on
Though they only has small domestic demand, small countries increase their exports.
Small countries are more homogeneous, so political interest group less able to distort the political decision
Small countries has less power of monopoly

文章难度适中，谢谢angela！！

spencerX

谢谢angela的分享。速度文章确实不太难。越障已经读过了?Posner新的那篇关于法律和医生是profesional还是business model的文章真心好，推荐大家去他的博客看看?

1'16
1'29
1'11
1'16
1'29

涂涂Claire

占个座先……好困

————————————交作业——————————————————
一次补太多，看的好困呀……


Time 1: 1'51"
Time 2: 2'02"
Time 3: 1'30"
Time 4: 1'48"
Time 5: 1'51"
Obstacle:  5'51"

alun1987

1'27
1'36（看什么呢……）
1'10
1'30
1'37

越障：4'44
Issue:A rich region in Spain want to secede from the rest of the country
Background Information: 西班牙不是一个人。There are other countries under the pressure of breakup. The splits are normal, but in different cases. eg. Quebec, Scotland, Taiwan, Georgia...

Main idea:analysis about the economic consequences of independent region

Opinion 1: Large countries can experience better development since they have larger domistic market

Attitudeispute. Small countries can be better-off in curretn global market

Evidence/advantage:
>>Domestic market is not as determinent as it was because of the free market and globalization, thus small regions can also enjoy great profit from big market——sometimes, they even have better performances than big countries. eg. Chile...
>>Their governments are homogeneous and usually cannot distort the economy using strong policies
>>Less monopolistic because it would be costly and hurt the customers for small regions to favor domestic industries. Therefore they are more open to world market

Conclusion: the number of small coutries↑, the competitiveness↑. the number of independent coutries is still growing...

191128

a region in Spain want to independ form Spain because this country has too much problems,
other countries are expecting the same similar situations, Scotland wants to independ form UK, Quebec has been connived by the government because Quebec gain more autonomy. a small country (may be not a country) wants to independent for G, when SU was falling apart. TW, a colony during WW2, governed by the other party after 1949.

emotion is an issue, larger countries have bigger domestic market and larger companies. they both benefit the economy.

But, in last 60 years, globalization and free trade give opportunity to small counties. both small and big countries came sell their products to other countries easier. Eg, Chile is faster growth country in LA because they sell oversea. export is 13% of GDP.

two countries were spited to small countries are doing well.

small countries can do a good job in local market then go out to compete others, they import then export. big countries had advantages by tax and shipping fee.

small countries have small politic issues because they are same race. less subsidy?
more and more small countries.