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九月份每周五的经管由Kim替yingjie姐发作业，希望大家喜欢。在这也祝yingjie姐复习顺利~
这次的作业是Syria的专题。大家加油哦，占座的记得按时补作业~
Part I: Speaker
Article 1:
Proposed Strikes Against Syria May Have Too Narrow A Purpose
[Rephrase 1]
[Dialog, 4 min 48 sec]
Source: NPR
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/216355776/u-s-strike-against-syria-may-have-to-narrow-a-purpose
Part II: Speed Article 2:
Iran supreme leader warns U.S. against military strike on Syria
[Time 2]
Tehran, Iran (4E) – Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned the U.S. on Wednesday it will suffer damage if it intervenes in the Syrian civil war.
In a meeting with the cabinet of President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, Khamenei also said interference by the U.S. and its allies in Syria will spell disaster in the Middle East increase hatred against Americans.
Khamenei made the statement in reaction to U.S. accusations that forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against rebels and civilians last week. Syrian rebels claimed 1,300 were killed in the gas attack.
The U.S. military on Tuesday claimed it has evidence that Assad’s regime was responsible for the attack and is preparing its response. U.S. allies Britain and France are also preparing military intervention in Syria. Syria’s foreign ministry denied the accusations.
Iranian lawmakers and commanders on Tuesday also warned that military intervention in Syria will lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel.
“In case of a U.S. military strike against Syria, the flames of outrage of the region’s revolutionaries will point toward the Zionist regime,” the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Member of Parliament Mansur Haqiqatpur as saying on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. 【208 words】
http://www.wall-street.com/iran-supreme-leader-warns-u-s-against-military-strike-on-syria/
Article 3:
Syria’s war economy
Bullets and bank accounts
[Time 3]
AS SYRIA’S 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad turned into a civil war, business in Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two biggest cities, plunged and inflation soared. Early this year, when rebels took over the northern city of Raqqa—and with it a good chunk of Syria’s oil and agricultural land, two main sources of government revenue fell into rebel hands. On the battlefield the regime has held its own; when it comes to financing the fighting the situation is less clear.
Unemployment has balooned to 60% and government coffers are empty; oil production is down to 20,000 barrels per day, from 380,000. Oil sanctions and sabotage have cost the government at least $13 billion by its own reckoning. Farming, trade and manufacturing are running at less than a third of pre-war levels. The Syrian pound has tumbled from 47 to the dollar when fighting broke out to around 250 today. In Beirut UN experts reckon that 19% of Syrians now live below the poverty line, compared with less than 1% before the war.
So far the government has managed to muddle through. In some areas the war has actually eased financial pressures. Jihad Yazigi, the author of a Beirut-based economic newsletter called Syria Report, says that although greater poverty means Syrians need more government services, closures of schools and hospitals, owing to fighting, have cut the demand for funding.
By freezing investment including in new roads, which accounted for almost half the pre-war budget—one of the highest ratios in the world—the government freed up money to pay the salaries of 2m government employees and prop up consumer spending. On June 22nd the regime attempted to raise morale by increasing pay for civil servants. But coming two days after a rise in fuel prices, few were celebrating. 【299 words】
[Time 4]Things are steadily getting worse. On August 4th Mr Assad banned the use of foreign currency. Soldiers sometimes demand to see electricity bills from the state-owned utility company at checkpoints in the capital, Damascus, to check they are paid. Mobile-phone companies have increased the cost of international calls to raise money.
Both sides are wielding economic weapons. By burning crop fields and shelling areas not under its control, the regime tries to stop economic activity in rebel-held areas. The rebels have attacked power grids and tankers bringing in fuel from Lebanon, hoping to starve the regime of supplies.
Might the pinch end the war? A former member of the government hopes that economic warfare could force the regime to the negotiating table. As agricultural and oil output have stalled since the rebel takeover of the east, Syria, once self-sufficient, has had to tender for imports—and find currency to pay for them. As winter approaches, demand for fuel and food will rise. “It will be a crucial test,” says Mr Yazigi.
Yet most analysts reckon the regime cannot be toppled by economic hardship alone.The declining value of Syria’s currency has been painful for the government but not fatal. Foreign reserves of $18 billion before the war are mostly gone, but enough for three months’ imports remains, says a former economic insider. Crucially, the regime is able to count on its allies, chiefly Iran and Russia, to help finance imports and fighting. Iran recently agreed to provide $3.6 billion in credit lines, oil and medicine. Even without such help, the regimes in Zimbabwe and Iraq survived squeezes as their citizens struggled to make ends meet.
In the meantime, Syrians are getting used to their war economy. Glassmakers do a roaring trade in mending blown-out windows. Mr Assad has licensed private security firms.
A new economic order, says Yezid Sayigh, of the Carnegie Middle East Centre, a Beirut think-tank, could entrench the misery. He expects to see “a return to localised and subsistence economies as well as new ways of making money”. The regime has started to deconstruct its assets, letting loyalists dominate industries and gangs loot. Some rebel warlords, especially those keener to earn cash than fight, are following a similar strategy.
Source: Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21583290-regime-fighting-financial-battle-bullets-and-bank-accounts
Asian shares rise, Syria worries cap gains, oil off highs
[Time 5]
(Reuters) - Asian shares recouped some of the two previous sessions' steep losses on Thursday as fears abated that U.S.-led forces would soon launch a military strike on Syria, and oil prices retreated from a six-month peak.
Emerging market currencies stabilized after their recent battering, with the Indian rupee coming off a record low after the central bank moved to provide dollars directly to oil companies, offering the currency some relief.
Indonesia's rupiah steadied near a four-year low with the board of Bank Indonesia expected to announce an increase in its policy rates after a hastily-called meeting to defend the plunging currency.
The bounce in stocks and emerging market currencies could be short-lived, however, with investors remaining on edge as the United States sketched out plans for multinational air strikes on Syria that could last for days.
"We assume that NATO military action is still the likely scenario even if relatively limited in scope. Until there is more clarity, our bias is to keep positioning low at the moment," strategists at BNP Paribas said in a note.
European shares were expected to open slightly weaker, with Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE seen down around 0.1 percent and Germany's DAX .GDAXI down around 0.2 percent ahead of consumer price data, according to financial spreadbetters.
Brent crude prices fell 0.7 percent below $116 a barrel after climbing 2.6 percent to a six-month high on Wednesday on concerns that any Western military strike could prompt retaliation and disrupt crude supply in the Middle East region, which pumps a third of the world's oil.
Gold eased 0.5 percent to around $1,410 an ounce after gaining 1.2 percent to a 3-1/2 month high in the previous session's flight to safety.
[Time 6]
CALMER TONE
U.S. stocks rose overnight as energy shares rallied on the back of higher oil prices. .N
"Wall Street's rebound will provide enough push for the market to regain some of the previous sessions' losses," said Dongbu Securities analyst Lee Eun-taek.
This helped soothe nerves in Asia, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS up 1 percent after falling 2.2 percent in the previous two sessions.
But in a negative sign, companies' earnings momentum on the MSCI Asian gauge deteriorated further to minus 8.7 percent from minus 7.1 percent in July, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Japan's Nikkei share average .N225 advanced 0.8 percent in light trade, helped by the safe-haven yen giving up some of the recent gains that had taken it to a three-week high against the dollar.
The paring of yen positions also helped the euro edge off a 1-1/2 week low. The dollar last bought 97.70 yen, having risen from 96.81, while the euro traded at 130.105 yen, up from 129.66.
BREATHING SPACE
Emerging markets, which have been battered by the rising geopolitical tensions as well as an expected reduction in stimulus measures by the U.S. Federal Reserve, possibly as soon next month, stabilized somewhat on Thursday.
The Indian rupee firmed 1.7 percent from a record low. But analysts said central bank measures alone would not lead to a sustained rupee recovery unless the government can pass measures that convince markets of its willingness to tackle India's fiscal and current account deficits and slowing growth.
"The measure is unlikely to arrest the decline in the rupee with the authorities increasingly trying to find new means to stem the rout in the currency," Mitul Kotecha, head of global markets research for Asia at Credit Agricole in Hong Kong, wrote in an email to clients.
Overnight, Brazil raised its benchmark interest rate to a 16-month high of 9 percent in part to help shore up its currency.
The Indonesian rupiah edged up 0.1 percent on Thursday, though not too far from its lowest since April 2009, while Jakarta shares .JKSE added 0.4 percent and Indonesia's five-year credit default swaps, insurance-like contracts to hedge against debt default, tightened by about 10 basis points to 272/290 basis points.
Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-markets-global-idUSBRE96S00E20130829
Part III: Obstacle
Article 5: Analysis: Syria, debt ceiling worry has markets questioning Fed taper
[Time 7]
(Reuters) - Until a few days ago, it looked like a sure bet that the U.S. Federal Reserve would announce the beginning of the end of its massive bond buying program in September. Now, investors are less certain.
The prospect of Western military action against Syria has sent stock markets worldwide reeling. Emerging markets have sold off and oil prices soared to six-month highs. And another potential showdown over the federal debt ceiling limit is looming this fall.
Taken together, the developments have eroded the conviction of most Fed watchers that the U.S. central bank would start backing off its $85-billion-a-month bond buying program, known as quantitative easing, or QE, at its September 17-18 meeting.
"It's a really big decision to start tapering because it's really like an exit strategy from QE and that's very hard for the Fed to do as long as there is a lot of uncertainty in the market like we're seeing right now," said Douglas Borthwick, managing director at Chapdelaine Foreign Exchange in New York.
"I certainly think the market is moving toward a delay into December."
U.S. officials have described plans for multinational strikes on Syria that could last for days. Concerns over the security of oil supplies across the Middle East, which pumps a third of the world's oil, drove Brent crude oil to a six-month high of $117.34 a barrel.
French bank Societe Generale said Brent crude could spike to $150 if the conflict in Syria spreads and disrupts supply. Higher prices would increase gasoline costs and slow other spending, which could affect the Fed's thinking.
"I think the probability has fallen that they do something in September," said Stephen Jen, managing partner of SLJ Macro Partners, a hedge fund based in London. "There could be a war in a part of the world that would drive oil prices substantially higher. And they're not low now.
"Sure the Fed could still do it. But if oil rises another $20 a barrel from here, I don't know why they would feel they had to do it now," he said.
Some analysts said the impact from Syria on financial markets or the Fed might be contained if the attack is limited to air strikes or missiles launched from Navy destroyers. Analysts at Citigroup said on Wednesday that the likelihood of "meaningful supply disruptions" is low in the case of a strike.
The expectation has been that the process will start in September, according to a Reuters poll of economists earlier this month.
A delayed Fed move could temporarily boost emerging markets, traders said. But it may only just add a dose of volatility, because the reduction in purchases is seen as inevitable.
"Delaying tapering may get a short-term positive risk response, but would ultimately play out as even more risk negative," said Alan Ruskin, global head of foreign exchange strategy at Deutsche Bank in New York.
"Under these circumstances it is going to be hard for the Fed to indirectly support emerging market currencies, short of making it clear that tapering will be delayed for an extended period - which is not going to happen."
In such a scenario, a brief rally in emerging markets, should it happen, would likely be viewed as a chance for investors to sell more. Nations with big current account deficits - that is, those in need of external capital to support spending - are in a particularly precarious position.
One of those is India, where the rupee touched a record low against the dollar and the Bombay Sensex Index .BSESN has declined by 11 percent since July 23.
Syria's neighbor Turkey, already pummeled by an expected reduction in U.S. stimulus measures, has also been hit, with the lira hitting a record low against the dollar.
AUGUST PAYROLLS
Despite the rising tensions in Syria, some strategists said budget battles in Washington may be the more worrisome issue. The U.S. is expected to bump up against its federal debt limit in mid-October.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said the Obama Administration will not negotiate spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, while congressional Republicans hope to cut spending on social programs.
A bitter fight over the debt limit in 2011 led to the first-ever downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, and the prospect of a self-inflicted wound like a debt default could easily rattle markets.
"If the debt ceiling debate heats up to the point that it is seen by the Fed as creating the kind of uncertainty that dampens consumer confidence, and you see the price of oil escalate, further eroding confidence and consumer spending power, the Fed could announce a considerably smaller scaling back than initially planned," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
Congress will first need to pass legislation to continue funding the government or risk a shutdown in September, but market strategists are less concerned about this prospect.
A reduction of Fed support at the same time of political wrangling over budget issues could give investors pause about U.S. assets.
Some economists said next week's August U.S. unemployment report is the deciding factor. The Fed has said a reduction in stimulus is contingent on improvement in the U.S. economy and labor market. Recent housing and durable goods data have been disappointing.
"The most serious obstacle to a tapering of QE is the fact that the U.S. economy seems reluctant to show the sustained improvements the Fed is looking for," economists at Cornerstone Macro wrote in a research note on Wednesday.
"To deal with all the risks, the first step down is likely to be small of the order of $15 billion or so." 【947 words】
Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/28/us-usa-markets-tapering-analysis-idUSBRE97R16L20130828/
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发表于 2013-8-30 19:00:38
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