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今天这日子不错,帮我解决了个选材的问题,巴士底狱被攻克的纪念日..以史为鉴,习大大为了说明学习历史的重要性还特么专门开了个会...我们的觉悟也要跟上...咳咳..
顺带提一下今天银色情人节....谁要是忘了送礼物赶紧补救还来得及...
Speed
[Time1]
WithFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaling again this week that interestrates are likely to stay at rock-bottom for the foreseeable future, where canyou turn for even a trickle of investment income?
Just asthe removal of oxygen from a room can make you lightheaded, artificially lowinterest rates could make some income-oriented investors lose their ability tothink clearly. Those who want ample income must either wait patiently untilrates finally rise—or must violate the rule of thumb that says you never shouldfund income needs by dipping into capital. Above all, you must be skeptical ofanything that purports to offer high current yields.
I wasrecently contacted by a reader whose father’s proposed strategy has himconcerned. The father, in his early 80s, is a semiretired science professor ata leading university on the East Coast. He owns the family’s 200-year-oldancestral home, which he wants to maintain for posterity. But the property isexpensive to maintain, requiring perhaps $50,000 in annual upkeep.
So theprofessor, taking advantage of low interest rates, has borrowed several hundredthousand dollars on the property at roughly 4%. He figures he need only find afew investments with high yields to come out ahead, reports his son.
But howeasy is that?
214
[Time2]
Theprofessor has found three funds from Nuveen Investments that he thinks mightfill the bill: the Dow 30 Enhanced Premium & Income Fund, the Nuveen EquityPremium & Growth Fund JPG -0.42%and the Nuveen EquityPremium Opportunity Fund JSN -0.48%.
Theseare closed-end funds—mutual-fund-like portfolios that trade on an exchange asif they were individual stocks. According to Morningstar, 31 such funds, withsome $19 billion in assets, follow a strategy of writing “covered call options”on their stock holdings — essentially selling to other investors the right tobuy those stocks at a certain price.
Butthose fat yields aren’t a free lunch. These three funds charge 0.91% to 0.98%in annual expenses, or up to $98 on a $10,000 investment, roughly 10 times thecost of an index fund. At two of the three, yields have fallen by aboutone-third since 2007. Forecasting future yields on such portfolios is “an art,not a science,” says fund analyst Mariana Bush of Wells Fargo Advisors.
“We tryto provide a predictable cash flow to our shareholders,” says Dave Lamb, asenior vice president at Nuveen, which sponsors the three funds, “but there aretimes when we’ll have to change.”
Becauseclosed-end funds trade on an exchange, their share prices are set by the whimsof the market as well as the value of their underlying assets. Closed-ends cantrade for more than their assets are worth (a premium) or less (a discount).These three funds traded this past week at discounts of 4% to 7%, but in late2008 they sank 13% to 20% below what their portfolios were worth, Morningstarsays.
274
[Time3]
Coveredcalls are “not a protection strategy,” says Robert Gordon, president ofTwenty-First Securities, a brokerage firm in New York. “You earn extra income,but you still have the downside of a stock, and you’ve limited your upside.”
Reframingthe income problem could help. Almost universally, investors think of theirmoney in two buckets: income, or the cash thrown off by a portfolio, andprincipal, or the underlying portfolio itself.
Mostinvestors regard dipping into principal as almost a crime. They fear that ifthey tap into principal even once, they will end up completely draining it.
Segregatingincome and principal into different buckets also enables investors to put agloss on their own performance: In a bull market, they savor the income fromdividends as a discrete gain; when stocks fall, the dividend income feels likea separate consolation.
Butthere is no logical reason why you can’t manufacture your own dividends, andthat is probably what the professor and many other investors should consider.Rather than taking income only from dividends or interest, you couldselectively harvest gains from your stock portfolio.
Trimyour winners or the stocks you think are fully valued, consulting youraccountant to ensure those withdrawals will be taxed as long-term capitalgains. If you withdraw 1% or less per quarter, a diversified stock portfolioshould come within spitting distance of maintaining its value, after inflation,in the long run.
Such aplan has the added benefit of automatically reducing your exposure to stocks,which should provide conservative investors some comfort as the stock marketteeters at all-time highs. When the markets won’t yield, your best option mightbe to generate the yield yourself.
280
[Time4]
Fifty years into the sexual revolution, why isit that female politicians don't get embroiled in tawdry scandals nearly asmuch as their male peers do?
As morewomen rise to high office, like Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in 'Veep,'we're likely to find that they behave like powerful men.
Women make up 16% of the current Congressbut account for nowhere close to 16% of its illicit behavior. There have been afew scattered scandals in recent decades: Helen Chenoweth, an Idahocongresswoman, admitted to an affair with a married rancher but had alreadydeclared her retirement from office. Sue Myrick, running for re-election asmayor of Charlotte, N.C., confessed to a relationship with her husband while hewas married to another woman (and managed to win anyway). State Rep. KatherineBryson of Utah was caught with a lover on a surveillance camera and opted notto seek re-election.
But the whole crew of female miscreants fromthe past 30 years barely keeps pace with the male politicians dominating justthe latest news cycle: the one who texted a racy picture of himself to a youngadmirer ( AnthonyWeiner), the one who wrote love notes to a mistress in Argentinawhile pretending to hike the Appalachian Trail ( Mark Sanford)and the one who had a taste for high-end call girls ( Eliot Spitzer)—allof whom recently decided that they have been punished enough and the worldneeds them in office again.
Ah, the hubris of men! Their insatiableappetites and biological drives! The natural tendency in such matters is toattribute the differences between men and women to our varying animal natures.Evolutionary psychology tells us that men, especially powerful men, feelinvincible and entitled to spread their seed, and that women can't resist thescent of masculine power. Women, by contrast, are said to be more altruisticand collaborative, seeking power so that they can share it with others. Plusmen find women with power threatening, which leaves them with fewer options.
337
[Time5]
Fromleft, former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, New York City mayoral candidateAnthony Weiner and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
There might be some truth to all this, butit isn't enough to explain something so complex as transgression and desire,especially when gender roles are changing so rapidly. I imagine that the reasonpowerful women have fewer affairs is because they don't dare to, not yet.
Women in high positions are a relatively newphenomenon. They face the same pressures as a path-breaker such as JackieRobinson, who was warned by his coach that he was being watched and had to seta good example. Every congresswoman surely endures the same strains that drivesome of her male colleagues to have affairs: lots of travel, families far away,heady work that makes a domestic routine seem distant and boring. But thestakes are much higher for women, because they are still judged by a differentstandard.
Today it is still hard to imagine amiddle-aged married woman bouncing back from a full-fledged scandal, though mendo it all the time. When Nikki Haley, now governor of South Carolina, ran foroffice in 2010, two men swore publicly they'd had affairs with her. But enoughvoters decided not to believe them, which was the only way Gov. Haley could winthe race.
223
[Bonus Reading]
Will it always be so? Not if we read thelatest signs. According to the General Social Survey, younger women arecheating on their spouses almost as much as men: About 20% of men and 15% ofwomen under 35 say they have ever been unfaithful. Women, like men, now spendlate hours at the office and travel for business; they can text or emailthemselves into an intimate corner just as easily as men can.
And though "sexy" and"powerful" used to exist in opposite realms for women, that's nolonger necessarily the case. Economist Catherine Hakim sees sexiness andcharisma as "erotic capital" for successful women and argues that itgives them an advantage in the marketplace. In the TV show "Veep,"the female vice president, who is far from altruistic or collaborative, has abag man who worships her and an ex-husband she still lusts after. As we getused to women in power, we are likely to discover that they behave much likepowerful men—vain, entitled, always looking for more.
When the young Krystal Ball ran for Congressin Virginia in 2010, risqué photos appeared showing her dressed as"naughty Santa" at a Halloween party with her husband. Ms. Ball losther race but left behind a manifesto for the next generation. Society, shewrote, "has to accept that women of my generation have sexual lives thatare going to leak into the public sphere."
One day we may find ourselves ready to lookpast their indiscretions too.
OBSTACLE
TheFrench Revolution (French: Révolution française; 1789–1799) was a period ofradical social and political upheaval in France that had a lasting impact onFrench history and more broadly throughout Europe. The absolute monarchy thathad ruled France for centuries collapsed within three years. French societyunderwent an epic transformation, as feudal, aristocratic and religiousprivileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical left-wingpolitical groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside.[1]Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy regarding monarchs, aristocrats, andthe Catholic Church were abruptly overthrown by new principles of Liberté,égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality and fraternity). The royal houses acrossEurope were horrified and led a countercrusade that by 1814 had restored theold monarchy, but many major reforms became permanent. So too did antagonismsbetween the supporters and enemies of the Revolution, who fought politicallyover the next two centuries.
Amidst afiscal crisis, the common people of France were increasingly angered by theincompetency of King Louis XVI and the continued indifference and decadence ofthe aristocracy. This resentment, coupled with burgeoning Enlightenment ideals,fueled radical sentiments, and the French Revolution began in 1789 with theconvocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution sawmembers of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, theassault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rightsof Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles thatforced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years weredominated by struggles between various liberal assemblies and a right wing ofsupporters of the monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms.
Arepublic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed thenext year. External threats shaped the course of the Revolution. The FrenchRevolutionary Wars began in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular Frenchvictories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the LowCountries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had eludedprevious French governments for centuries.
Internally,popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in therise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by theCommittee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed.[2] After the fall ofthe Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre, the Directory assumed control ofthe French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by theConsulate under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799.
Themodern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth ofrepublics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development ofmodern ideologies, and the invention of total war[3] all mark their birthduring the Revolution. Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolutioninclude the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of monarchy (BourbonRestoration and July Monarchy), and two additional revolutions (1830 and 1848)as modern France took shape.
Causes:
TheFrench government faced a fiscal crisis in the 1780s, and King Louis XVI wascriticized for his handling of these affairs.
Adherentsof most historical models identify many of the same features of the AncienRégime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Historians at one timeemphasized class conflicts from a Marxist perspective; that interpretation fellout of favour in the late 19th century. The economy was not healthy; poorharvests, rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system made foodeven more expensive. The sequence of events leading to the revolution involvedthe national government's virtual bankruptcy due to its poor tax system and themounting debts caused by numerous large wars. The attempt to challenge Britishnaval and commercial power in the Seven Years' War was a costly disaster, withthe loss of France's colonial possessions in continental North America and thedestruction of the French Navy. French forces were rebuilt and performed moresuccessfully in the American Revolutionary War, but only at massive additionalcost, and with no real gains for France except the knowledge that Britain hadbeen humbled. France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unableto finance this debt. Faced with a financial crisis, the king called anAssembly of Notables in 1787 for the first time in over a century.
Meanwhile,the royal court at Versailles was isolated from, and indifferent to theescalating crisis. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, inpractice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strongopposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in theparlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms.Those who were opposed to Louis' policies further undermined royal authority bydistributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) thatcriticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion againstthe monarchy.[4]
Manyother factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise ofEnlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentmentby peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurialprivileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Catholic Church'sinfluence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom ofreligion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy;aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as theRevolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who wasfalsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger towardthe King for firing finance minister Jacques Necker, among others, who werepopularly seen as representatives of the people.[5]
Symbolismin the French Revolution
In orderto effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the oldregime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebratedinstead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbolswere borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the oldregime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. Theserevised symbols were used to instill in the public a new sense of tradition andreverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.[104]
Fasces
Fasces,likes many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fascesare a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fascessymbolized the power of magistrates who could order the beating of a criminal,representing union and accord with the Roman Republic.[104] The French Republiccontinued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity.[104]
Duringthe Revolution, the fasces image was often used in conjunction with many othersymbols. Though seen throughout the French Revolution, perhaps the most wellknown French reincarnation of the fasces is the Fasces surmounted by a Phrygiancap. This image has no display of an axe or a strong central state; rather, itsymbolizes the power of the liberated people by placing the Liberty Cap on topof the classical symbol of power.[104]
Libertycap
TheLiberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt capthat is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. The cap was originallyworn by ancient Romans and Greeks.[105] The cap implies ennobling effects, asseen in its association with Homer’s Ulysses and the mythical twins, Castor andPollux. The emblem’s popularity during the French Revolution is due in part toits importance in ancient Rome: its use alludes to the Roman ritual ofmanumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbolof his newfound liberty. The Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus incitedthe slaves to insurrection by displaying a pileus as if it were astandard.[106]
Thepileus cap is often red in color. This type of cap was worn by revolutionariesat the fall of the Bastille. According to the Revolutions de Paris, it became"the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign forunification of all the enemies of despotism."[104] The pileus competed withthe Phrygian cap, a similar cap that covered the ears and the nape of the neck,for popularity. The Phrygian cap eventually supplanted the pileus and usurpedits symbolism, becoming synonymous with republican liberty.[104]
LibertyTree
TheLiberty Tree, officially adopted in 1792, is a symbol of the everlastingRepublic, national freedom, and political revolution.[104] It has historicroots in revolutionary France as well as America, as a symbol that was sharedby the two nascent republics.[107] The tree was chosen as a symbol of theFrench Revolution because it is a symbol of fertility in French folklore,[108]which provided a simple transition from revering it for one reason to another.The American colonies also used the idea of a Liberty Tree to celebrate theirown acts of insurrection against the British, starting with the Stamp Act riotin 1765.[109]
The riotculminated in the hanging in effigy of two Stamp Act politicians on a large elmtree. The elm tree began to be celebrated as a symbol of Liberty in theAmerican colonies.[109] It was adopted as a symbol that needed to be living andgrowing, along with the Republic. To that end, the tree is portrayed as asapling, usually of an oak tree in French interpretation.[110] The Liberty Treeserves as a constant celebration of the spirit of political freedom.
Hercules
Thesymbol of Hercules was first adopted by the Old Regime to represent themonarchy.[111] Hercules was an ancient Greek hero who symbolized strength andpower. The symbol was used to represent the sovereign authority of the Kingover France during the reign of the Bourbon monarchs.[112] However, themonarchy was not the only ruling power in French history to use the symbol ofHercules to declare its power.
Duringthe Revolution, the symbol of Hercules was revived to represent nascentrevolutionary ideals. The first use of Hercules as a revolutionary symbol wasduring a festival celebrating the National Assembly’s victory over federalismon 10 August 1793.[113] This Festival of Unity consisted of four stationsaround Paris which featured symbols representing major events of the Revolutionwhich embodied revolutionary ideals of liberty, unity, and power.[114]
Thestatue of Hercules, placed at the station commemorating the fall of Louis XVI,symbolized the power of the French people over their former oppressors. Thestatue’s foot was placed on the throat of the Hydra, which represented thetyranny of federalism which the new Republic had vanquished.[113] In one hand,the statue grasped a club, a symbol of power, while in the other grasping thefasces which symbolized the unity of the French people.[115] The image ofHercules assisted the new Republic in establishing its new Republican moralsystem.[114] Hercules thus evolved from a symbol of the sovereignty of themonarch into a symbol of the new sovereign authority in France: the Frenchpeople.[116]
Thistransition was made easily for two reasons. First, because Hercules was afamous mythological figure, and had previously been used by the monarchy, hewas easily recognized by educated French observers.[112] It was not necessaryfor the revolutionary government to educate the French people on the backgroundof the symbol. Additionally, Hercules recalled the classical age of the Greeksand the Romans, a period which the revolutionaries identified with republicanand democratic ideals. These connotations made Hercules an easy choice torepresent the powerful new sovereign people of France.
Duringthe more radical phase of the Revolution from 1793 to 1794, the usage anddepiction of Hercules changed. These changes to the symbol were due torevolutionary leaders believing the symbol was inciting violence among thecommon citizens.[117] The triumphant battles of Hercules and the overcoming ofenemies of the Republic became less prominent. In discussions over what symbolto use for the Seal of the Republic, the image of Hercules was considered buteventually ruled out in favor of Marianne.[117]
Herculeswas on the coin of the Republic.[117] However, this Hercules was not the sameimage as that of the pre-Terror phases of the Revolution. The new image ofHercules was more domesticated. He appeared more paternal, older, and wiser,rather than the warrior-like images in the early stages of the French Revolution.[117]Unlike his 24 foot statue in the Festival of the Supreme Being, he was now thesame size as Liberty and Equality.[117]
Also thelanguage on the coin with Hercules was far different than the rhetoric ofpre-revolutionary depictions. On the coins the words, "uniting Liberty andEquality" were used.[117] This is opposed to the forceful language ofearly Revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of the Bourbon monarchy. By 1798, theCouncil of Ancients had discussed the "inevitable" change from theproblematic image of Hercules, and Hercules was eventually phased out in favorof an even more docile image.[117]
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