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[阅读小分队] 【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障14系列】【14-09】经管

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发表于 2013-2-7 18:22:04 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
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Overhaul of rating agencies bogs down four years after financial crisis
By Jia Lynn Yang and Dina ElBoghdady

[attachimg=606,419]114059[/attachimg]

The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Standard & Poor’s this week has revived focus on the role of the rating agencies in causing the financial crisis. Yet four years after shoddy mortgage investments bearing top grades nearly took down the country’s economy, government attempts to revamp the rating-agency industry have stalled.

Nearly everyone agrees there needs to be an overhaul of the way complex financial products get rated for their riskiness. But attempts to change the system keep running into the same roadblock: The rating agencies, however flawed, have become so crucial to the workings of Wall Street that no one can live without them.

Experts say that the Justice Department lawsuit is not enough — and that the longer the government delays broad solutions, the more vulnerable the economy is to the risks that took it down in 2008.

The lawsuit “may help the government appear to be dealing with the problem and holding the S& to account, but that isn’t dealing with the core problems,” said Jeffrey Manns, associate professor of law at George Washington University.

The key issue, identified by two major government reports on the crisis, is that rating agencies are paid by the very companies whose products they are grading. Watchdogs argue that the agencies’ dependence on Wall Street means they tend to award better grades to products even if they have reason to doubt their safety.

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The Justice Department’s lawsuit centers on this point: Government attorneys allege that S& deliberately misled investors by giving higher grades to products that it knew had serious problems — out of fear of losing business from banks.

S&, which has called the lawsuit baseless, said in a statement this week that it has invested about $400 million to improve how it rates securities. This includes rotating analysts assigned to particular banks in order to reduce possible bias. The company argues that it has “long had policies in place to manage potential conflicts of interest.”

The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law tries to address problems with the rating-agency system in a few ways, though two of the statutes have been stymied.

The most ambitious is an amendment from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) that seeks to resolve the conflict-of-interest problem. The amendment asks the Securities and Exchange Commission to consider creating an independent board that would assign rating agencies to structured financial products. Currently banks can pick and choose which agency they want to use.

The SEC released a report on the amendment last year, as mandated by the law, and is organizing a roundtable to discuss it further. The agency has the authority to implement the law but has not done so yet.

“Continued consideration of this issue is one of several steps we are taking to increase transparency, reduce conflicts and promote ratings with integrity,” said John Nester, an SEC spokesman.

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Another section of Dodd-Frank would have given investors more power to sue rating agencies if the companies’ assessments turned out to be wrong. Under the law, rating agencies would become liable for any misleading rating included in an SEC filing — much the way lawyers and accountants can be sued if the information they provide is wrong.

But this, too, has not worked as expected.

The rating agencies balked, saying they would no longer rate the securities.

“There was a real threat the markets would grind to a halt,” said Scott Kimpel, a partner at Hunton & Williams and former counsel to SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes.

Companies have been required by law since 2004 to disclose credit ratings of certain complex securities. But in November 2010, the SEC said they would not go after any company that did not disclose ratings of these complex securities. This, in effect, has allowed the rating agencies to skirt the potential for lawsuits from the Dodd-Frank rule.

Dodd-Frank also mandated that rating agencies provide more information in their analysis so investors can have more information to make better decisions. This part has been largely implemented.

Manns, the law professor, said this step was probably the easiest to put in place. “That’s a step for progress,” he said.

The trouble in dealing with the rating firms is that while there is broad consensus about the problems, there is little agreement on how to address them.

“It’s not like there’s a silver bullet sitting out there that we can go and use and solve the problem,” Manns said.

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Weaker Yen Promises Small Importers Relief
Purveyors of Japanese Comics, Foods See Room for Price Cuts, Buying Excursions
By NICOLE HONG

[attachimg=553,369]114060[/attachimg]

A New York bookstore selling the One Piece manga series and other Japanese comics is holding its biggest sale in at least five years, with price cuts of 15%.

The proprietors of a California specialty grocery that carries 40 different miso pastes are considering reducing prices this spring after raising them on a near-weekly basis last year.

The owner of a New York toy store says he is thinking of buying Megatron Transformers alien action figures directly from Japan for the first time in three years.

Call it the Shinzo Abe effect.

The yen has depreciated sharply in the past four months, as the new Japanese government headed by Mr. Abe, who became prime minister in December, has embarked on a campaign to weaken the currency as a way to make Japanese exports more competitive abroad.

His plans are creating new opportunities for U.S. importers of Japanese goods, especially mom-and-pop shops that sell specialty goods like kimonos, collectible Japanese erasers and ginger dressing, who have been hammered over the past decade by the yen's relentless rise. The strong yen made Japanese goods more expensive to buy in U.S. dollars, forcing many U.S. importers to raise prices or abandon importing from Japan altogether.

Israel "Lev" Levarek, owner of a 13-year-old toy store with three employees, is considering making his first trip to Japan in three years, so he can buy Transformers action figures from wholesalers and shopping malls in Tokyo. He plans to sell those toys at his New York store for around $125 to $250 apiece, expanding his merchandise line.

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Although the store is named Toy Tokyo, Mr. Levarek says he has been buying toys from U.S. and Chinese suppliers in recent years because importing from Japan has been too expensive.

"We look for anything that we can buy domestically, and we all forgot about Japan unfortunately," Mr. Levarek says, adding that the weaker yen will make doing business with Japan attractive again. He expects customers will be excited to see the new merchandise from Japan, since Transformers are among the store's best sellers.

At Suruki Supermarket, a family-owned grocery store in San Mateo, Calif., a cup of imported miso paste, a fermented soybean product used to make soups and sauces, sells for as much as $12. The store owners had to raise prices almost every week last year, as shipments from Japan became increasingly costly, leading to a drop in sales.

Ryuko Suruki, the store's vice president and treasurer, says she hopes the weaker yen will translate soon into lower prices from her Japanese suppliers. "When we start to see a decrease in shipment prices, we'll put that directly to our customers," she says, describing the plan as a potential opportunity to attract more customers to the store.

Kinokuniya America, a bookstore chain whose stores gets weekly shipments from Japan, last month announced a 15% discount on all Japanese books sold in its seven U.S. locations, in cities including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Shige Ono, Kinokuniya America's New York-based vice president and treasurer, says the sale represents "a radical, big change" in pricing strategy.

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The yen's historic strength had forced Argo Century Inc., based in Jacksonville, Fla., to stop buying soy sauce from Japan, settling instead for U.S.-made alternatives.

Mayumi Burnham, vice president of marketing at the company—which makes Japanese-style dressings and sauces under the TonTon brand—says the weaker yen has prompted her to consider buying more ingredients directly from Japan and attending more Japanese trade shows. "We're starting to see some price relief, and we're hoping this continues," Ms. Burnham says. "Three years, we've been waiting for this. Finally we're seeing some difference."

In sharp contrast, the euro has been turning in the opposite direction—up. Since late July it has risen 12% against the dollar, as the government debt crisis in the euro zone has eased. The stronger euro is a headache for Samm White, who imports cheese, pasta and olive oil from Spain, Italy and France.

Mr. White, co-owner of Cheese Importers in Longmont, Colo., says he has raised prices by as much as 20% for customers at his La Fromagerie retail store. Now, he is considering cutting back on his monthly imports and buying more locally produced food products. "We've had to raise prices where we can, and that's causing us to not be as profitable as we should be," he says.

Don Oman, who manages wine importer Casa Bruno in Portland, Ore., says he will likely have to raise prices by 50 cents on the cheaper $7.99-a-bottle French, Italian and Spanish wines he sells to restaurants and local retail stores, as the wines become more expensive for him to import. On Tuesday, a container of Italian wines arrived at his office from Verona, Italy, for which he paid from $3 to $30 per bottle wholesale.

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Poll: Americans expect economic pain to continue
By Michael A. Fletcher and Peyton M. Craighill

[attachimg=606,425]114058[/attachimg]

The Washington Post Americans remain deeply pessimistic about the nation’s economic future nearly four years into the recovery, and the vast majority think it will take “many years” for things to return to the way they were before the downturn, according to a poll released Thursday.

The survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University paints a picture of a nation wounded by the recession in ways that have diminished future expectations.

Nearly one in four respondents said they were laid off at some point during the past four years, and even larger numbers said they had immediate family members or close friends who were thrown out of work.

Many of those who found new jobs were forced to settle for less. Nearly half said they took a step down in status from their previous jobs, while 54 percent said they have had to accept lower pay. Often, the pay cuts were severe. On-third of re-employed workers said they swallowed salary cuts of more than 30 percent, while another third said their pay went down between 11 percent and 20 percent.

Even though the economy has recovered more than half the 9 million jobs lost during the Great Recession, the survey found that Americans perceive that the economy has descended to a new normal.

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Fewer than one in five agree that jobs, careers and employment opportunities will be better for the next generation. Nearly three in five said the ability of young people to afford college — a crucial, if ever more uncertain, factor in upward mobility — is permanently damaged. More than two in five believed workers will never feel as secure in their jobs as they did before the recession. Nearly half said the elderly will have to find part-time work after retiring. And 86 percent of Americans said the availability of good jobs at good pay will never return or will not return for many years.

“We have had many months straight of private-sector job growth. Yet people are stuck with this attitude and perception,” said Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center. “It speaks to how powerful, widespread and enduring this Great Recession is.”

The survey’s findings in many ways match other measures of the nation’s economic struggles after the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The downturn destroyed nearly 40 percent of Americans’ wealth, according to the Federal Reserve, and pushed the unemployment rate to 10 percent.

Private employers have added new jobs for three years straight, and the unemployment rate is now 7.9 percent. The stock market is back to pre-recession levels, and housing values are beginning to rebound across the country.

Still, significant damage remains — 4.7 million workers have been out of work longer than six months. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau has reported that wages are down, and other researchers have found that a disproportionate number of jobs created in the recovery are at the low end of the wage scale.

The survey found that most Americans are not expecting sharp improvement. More than 61 percent expect their family finances to remain at their current diminished levels, nearly three times the number who think their finances will get back to pre-recession levels.

The survey found that Americans blame factors other than the recession for their economic plight. Seven in 10 said the high jobless rate is partly the result of foreign competition and “cheap labor” abroad. Four in 10 suspected that illegal immigrants have taken jobs away from Americans. Another four in 10 said unemployment remains high because Americans “lack the skills” for jobs that might be available.

The survey found strong support for three policy proposals aimed at improving the nation’s labor market. Eight in 10 wanted the government to award tax credits to employers that hire new workers. Three out of four supported stronger education and job training programs. And three out of five said the government should fund direct job creation programs.

At the same time, however, there was deep skepticism about Washington’s ability to do anything to significantly improve the economy, the survey found.

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【越障】

Rural China Offers Big Opportunities, Too
by Michael J. Silverstein

Departing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently urged his China leadership not to pursue an urbanization policy that neglects the needs and wants of China's significant rural population. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Wen underscored how important it would be for China "to consistently apply scientific principles, to steadily push forward targeted policies, and to coordinate with rural modernization and the establishment of a new countryside." Wen also remarked that China, "cannot sacrifice rural industry and the interests of rural residents." Wen has been widely credited with helping lift many rural Chinese citizens out of poverty through a number of targeted policies, including removing agricultural income taxes previously imposed on farmers.

To be sure, rural China still has large pockets of poverty and deprivation. Still, many of China's agrarian communities have undergone an undeniably radical transformation over the past 20 years. In the 1980s, and even the early 1990s, rural life focused on farming, and it was a hard existence: most people were grindingly poor and lacked basic amenities, including decent schools and health care, paved roads, and a reliable power supply.

Fast-forward two decades and life is much better. Nearly everyone has access to electricity, about 95 percent of towns and 80 percent of villages have paved roads, and some 96 percent have access to basic health care. Incomes remain low, relative to those in the city: average disposable income per person amounts to RMB 5,000 ($760), which is about one-fifth of the income in tier 1 cities. On the other hand, incomes are on the rise. In 2005, average income was $407. Four years later, it was $845 — a 20 percent compound annual growth rate. And while only 34 percent of the rural population earned more than $882 per year in 2009, this proportion is expected to reach 54 percent in 2015.

A major contributor to this increase in living standards is the diversification of employment. Farming practices in rural China have improved marginally over this period. And farmer incomes have only inched up slightly. But rural China is now about forestry, fishing, construction, and the production of bricks and cement. This is expected to continue as the Chinese government, even as it promotes urbanization, also undertakes a substantial and sustained effort to reinvest in the rural communities — to promote growth and social harmony.

For example, in our book we tell the story of Farmer Liu. She is a 58 year-0ld farmer who has seen a dramatic increase in household income as a result of the factory job her son has and the retail earnings of her daughter in law.

Our analysis shows that by the year 2020, the combined consumer markets of China and India will amount to some $10 trillion annually. Approximately $6.2 trillion of that spending will occur in China — $1 trillion of which will occur in rural towns and villages (with the other $5.2 trillion in China's numerous booming cities).

Although China's major current focus is urbanization, there is a significant effort on the part of the Chinese government to reinvest in the country's rural communities, too. On the face of it, the rural population seems to offer limited interest to companies, as people increasingly migrate to cities. In China, we calculate that the rural population will fall from 53 percent of the total in 2010 to 45 percent in 2020, with rural households' share of the country's disposable income falling to about 15 percent, down from 25 percent today.

But the rural markets have pockets of rising wealth. Underpinning the transformation of both the urban and rural communities are two revolutions in China: one relating to infrastructure, the other to agriculture. With respect to the latter, there is no doubt that major changes are required in the years ahead, especially those that can help China meet rising urban food demand while also improving the incomes of farmers and rural residents. Specifically, China will hopefully continue to pursue:

? Enhanced education and technical training;
? Improved investment in rural infrastructure, farm mechanization, and irrigation;
? Improved R&D in advanced crop science and new farming techniques;
? Continued land reform to enable formation of more productively sized farms;
? Rural job creation in nonfarm sectors to diversify the income stream; and
? Greater use of information technology and mobile communications to empower farmers.

The good news is that many of these changes are already afoot, and Mr. Wen's legacy will likely include an historic surge in newly affluent citizens across China's full landscape both rural and urban.

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发表于 2013-2-7 22:38:21 | 显示全部楼层
wakakaaaaaaaaa
sofa!!

2'40
the lawsuit against the S& has been revived, since this kind of rating agency were considered as the one causing the financial crisis.
However, the rating agency nowadays is so crucial that on one can live without them
the core problem is that Wall Street paied this kind of company, and then tend to address them with good proformence.

2'26
the Yan depriced, promoting the Japanese good sale situation in USA.  a cosmic owner want to go to Japan and purchase goods directly from the wholeseller.
1'43
the store owners plan to buy products directly from Japan, since the  decrease of the Yan. which may attract more customers.
1'30
although four year has went by, Americans still hold pessiphic attitude towords the future.
7'42
偷个小懒, 不写了。
发表于 2013-2-8 01:40:42 | 显示全部楼层
1:14
2:29
1:15
2:32
3:23
3:59
总理解决三农问题,农民收入增加了,之后讲了中国农村市场面临的机遇和挑战。
发表于 2013-2-8 22:41:21 | 显示全部楼层
1'59
1'47
1'53
1'34
1'51 嗷今儿的都好短好幸福>v<

5'58
Chinese Premier WJ recently urged his China leadership not to pursue an urbanization policy that neglects the needs and wants of China's significant rural population.

Fast-forward two decades and life is much better.

major contributor --->diversification of employment-->example: the story of Farmer Liu

there is a significant effort on the part of the Chinese government to reinvest in the country's rural communities
发表于 2013-2-8 23:52:43 | 显示全部楼层
【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障14系列】【14-09】经管
2'04
2'33
2'10
1'59
1'42
5'42 只看了框架,没有仔细看
Wenjiabao helped lift many rural Chinese citizen out of poverty by many targeted policies.
 China surely has large amounts of poverty and deprivation,but the life is getting better and better these decades.
 The major contributor to the increase in living standard is the diversity of employment.
 The goals and policies that Chinese gorvernment will continue to implement.
发表于 2013-2-9 00:14:25 | 显示全部楼层
1.(01'42'')focus on the role of the rating agencies in causing the financial crisis;Experts say that the Justice Department lawsuit is not enough.The key issue is that rating agencies are paid by the very companies whose products they are grading.
2.(01'36'')the lawsuit centers on ...the most ambitious is ...continued consideration of this issue is one os the steps...
3.(02'04'')the Shinzo Abe effect;weaken Japan's currency to make Janpanese exports more competitive abroad;it forces many US importers to raise prices or abandon importing from Japan
4.(01'55'')some examples of the stores that affected by the weaker yen
5.(01'14'')a recent survey indicates that americans were wounded by the recession and had little future expectation.
obstacle(03'17'')
WEN remarked that china cannot sacrifice rural industry and the interests of rural residents
reviewing the development of rural china over the past decades;an example
analysis shows that the future development of china...
emphasize that:although China's major current focus is urbanization, there is a significant effort on the part of the Chinese government to reinvest in the country's rural communities too
list: several goals that china hopefully continue to pursue...
发表于 2013-2-9 03:30:23 | 显示全部楼层
44 m

time 1 (248) 2:13
time 2 (239) 2:14
           (261) 2:11
time 3 (281) 1:57
time 4 (259) 1:41
           (288) 2:11
time 5 (240) 1:51
           (460) 3:41
Obstacle (763) 6:38
The income of rural area rise in China recently, but the rural population seems show limited interest to company in urbanization, as people increasingly migrate to cities.
Many changes are already afoot to meet the urban demand.
发表于 2013-2-9 03:46:43 | 显示全部楼层
(1)1:22,The primary purpose of the passage is to discuss the stature of rating agents. Rating agents play a very important role in financial market, because everyone wants to know the risk of a financial institution.
(2)1:18,The primary purpose of the passage is to report the lawsuit which accused S& of bestowing high grade to products with obvious problems. A rating agent with integrity is urgent in demand.
(3)1:48,The primary purpose of the passage is to present the effects that related to the strengthen of Japanese Yen and reactions that business owners bestow on the strengthen.
(4)1:22,The primary purpose of the passage is to discuss the export disadvantages that the strengthen of Japanese Yen has on business: bookstores and toy stores purchase less Japanese products.
(5)1:08,The primary purpose of the passage is to discuss the future expectation of the economy of USA. Many business owners express pessimistic opinion on it.
(6)4:23,The primary purpose of the passage is to present the policy of government to improve farmers' life quality in China. Under Wen's lead, tax was removed from the industry. Also, electricity has larger coverage. Although the urbanization is important, it is also important to focus on the agriculture.
发表于 2013-2-9 13:44:18 | 显示全部楼层
1.1‘28 Law department start to doubt the rating agency. They may accout for the financial crisis.They get paid from whom they are rating for.
2.1'26 S& is blamed for recommending problematic financial products to customer just because it is afraid of loosing business. Some people suggest that a department board should be set up to assigne the rating agency to banks,ranther than allow banks to choose their own rating agency.
2.5[extra]1'20 Experts urge rating agency to provide more detailed info regarding their research. The issue about rating agency is complicated. There is no final conclusion yet.
3.1'57 the exchange rate of Japanese Yen has been decreased since last Dec, when the new governer of Japan decided to boost exportion. As a result, more and more business owners selling Japanese staffs are going directly to Japan to purchase goose and sell in US.
4. 1'00 Last year, the stores selling Japanese staffs regularly increased their price because shipment from Japan always became more expensive. But this year, they have started big discount because everything from Japan have become cheaper than before.
4.5[extra]1'19 The cheaper Yen make business own consider to inport more Janpanese goose than before. On the contrary, the exchange rate of Euro has increased recently. This make peple who are selling goose from Euro increase the prices.
5.1'01 In the past four years, a lot of people lost their jobs or forced to accept lower salaries. They consider the economy has decreased to a new low point.
5.5[extra]People hold very 悲观attitude to the US economy. They are not expecting a sharp improvement in economy. They consider the reasons of this Great Depression may include: foreigner labor competation, lack of job skills, cheaper labor abroad and so on. They are expecting more training program on job skills but they suspect the government can turn the current economy situation.
obstacle:4'04
Wen Jiabao emphasis the importance of rural economy, saying that we cannot sacrifice rural economy to improve urban development. During the past 20 years, the average income and living standart in rural China have been imrpoved significantly. Rural economy plays a very important role in China's economy as a whole. China are expecting more improvement in rural economy, including improvement on agriculture techniques, enhanced education and health care, rural job creation and so on.
发表于 2013-2-10 21:38:16 | 显示全部楼层
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