【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障25系列】【25-12】经管

杀G给猴看

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大家好，周四经管~~抱歉最近发帖时间比较BUG，让大家久等了……TT

PART I: SPEAKER

Listen to a TED talk on Beware Online Filter Bubbles




【REPHRASE 1】

【SPEECH: 09:05】


Source: TED
http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

PART II: SPEED

Article 2: Is the American Dream Withering or Just Changing?
Opportunity, homeownership and retirement security are down. Now we hear that most believe the next generation will be worse off than the last. Well, OK, but the kids don't believe it.
By Dan Kadlec Sept. 26, 2013

【TIME 2】
The American dream has taken hit after hit the past half decade. It just suffered another blow, based on a new poll. Yet young people seem determined to turn things around, giving us all cautious cause for optimism.

When writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase in 1931 he called the American dream “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” So it was all about opportunity, which largely has disappeared amid a poor jobs market, heavy debts, and wages that have stalled for 25 years.

In more recent times, the American dream became closely identified with home ownership. But that idea suffered a blow in the housing bust. Just 65% of Americans own their home, down from 69% pre-bust, and four out of five Americans are rethinking the reasons they’d want to buy a house.

Perhaps the newest definition of the American dream comes from the National Endowment for Financial Education, which found that nearly half of adults define the dream as a comfortable retirement. Most just want to quit work at 65 or 67 and not worry. That’s their dream, which far outpaces the 17% who cling to homeownership as the embodiment of Adams’ vision.

Now we see yet another blow to yet another version of the American dream, which at times has been described as each generation doing better than the last. Seven in 10 Americans say that when today’s children are adults, they’ll have less financial security than adults today, according to an Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll.

Adults overwhelmingly believe childhood and parenthood were better for earlier generations; 79% say it was better to have been a child when they were young. Most believe today’s kids will have a poorer chance of holding a steady job and owning a home without too much debt, and that their children will have less opportunity to achieve a comfortable retirement.

The downbeat view doesn’t stop there. Adults also believe that today’s children will display less patriotism, a poorer work ethic, and less civic responsibility when they come of age.
【TIME 2 ENDS – 359 WORDS】

【TIME 3】
All this pessimism would be deadly troublesome if not for one thing: young people aren’t buying it. More than half of teens in the Heartland Monitor poll say it’s better to be a kid today, and nearly half say that when they are their parents’ age they will have more opportunity—not less.

Maybe that’s because young people learned a lot during the Great Recession. They saw their parents get socked. But with no real assets at risk themselves they came through it unscathed, financially speaking, and yet took the lessons to heart and are more conscious about spending and debt than Mom and Dad have been.

Maybe that’s because they’ve seen stocks come roaring back and the housing market begin to recover. Mom and Dad may not be whole yet, and still stinging. But those who began their careers in the past five years and were smart enough to sign up for a 401(k) have been building wealth steadily.

Maybe that’s because, stereotypes be damned, they know something about their work ethic that boomers and other elders do not: Millennials are pretty darned committed to their careers—they just see it in different terms.

Or maybe it’s just because young people can’t imagine life without the Internet or smartphones or, well, reality TV. Toddlers today play on iPads. With mobile technology, young professionals can get their jobs done at the beach. By comparison, older generations grew up in the dinosaur age. We had outrageous long-distance bills, three channels and a TV with rabbit ears. Dude, what’s so great about that?
【TIME 3 ENDS – 261 WORDS】
Source: TIME
http://business.time.com/2013/09/26/is-the-american-dream-withering-or-just-changing/#ixzz2g1Ut7NDb



Article 3: How Washington Caved to Wall Street
By Joseph Stiglitz  Sept. 23, 2013

【TIME 4】
In TIME’s recent cover story “How Wall Street Won,” Rana Foroohar gave an excellent appraisal of the last five years since Lehman collapsed. While her analysis hit at five of the major shortfalls in our “reformed” financial sector, there was even more she could have pointed to: Five years after the crisis, why have we not even begun putting the mortgage market on a sound footing? Why has so little been done about banks’ market manipulation? The LIBOR scandal is a major example. Nothing has been done to replace this manipulable (and manipulated) figure, a fictional number that remains the basis of a more than $300 trillion market.  And every day we are exposed to new stories of banks manipulating one market or another—most recently, energy and ethanol credits. The list of issues goes on. While we recognize that predatory lending was part and parcel of the failure of the subprime mortgage failure, we continue to allow payday loans. The only successful actions against the credit rating agencies since the crisis have been private suits (both in the US and Australia).

The causes of much of this neglect are all too obvious: congressional lobbying combined with a revolving door, with too many people in the administration too closely tied to the financial sector. The Treasury Department’s strong reaction to TIME’s article only convinced me more of how important and accurate your report is.  You pointed out that only 40 percent of the regulations required by Dodd-Frank have been written. Treasury seemingly prides itself that, three years after Dodd-Frank, they have completed, or are in the process of completing three fourths of the deadlines set by Congress.  In other words, they are tardy on more than a quarter.  And many of the obligations are far softer than they should have been—partly because the administration failed to support those who wanted deeper reforms, for example in transparency of the derivatives market.  Nothing was done in curbing the anti-competitive practices of the credit card industry (only debit cards were affected by the Durbin amendment, and even the courts noted that the interchange fee set for debit cards was unconscionably high, well above costs).
【TIME 4 ENDS – 362 WORDS】

【TIME 5】
Treasury argues that we have a banking system that is “safer, stronger and more resilient than it was five years ago.”  While that is probably true—putting aside the increased danger from too-big-to-fail, too-connected-to-fail financial institutions—that’s hardly an achievement, given how bad things were then. The issue is that the crisis’s one silver lining was an enormous opportunity to make reforms, and yet there are major, multiple problems we left completely unresolved. The sad fact is that we largely let this crisis’s sole upside go to waste.

We can’t put aside the problems of too-big-to fail—our mega banks are not only too big to fail, but also too big to manage, and too big to be held accountable. Banks were engaged in massive violations of the law—the foreclosure abuses, the LIBOR manipulations,  money laundering—but there have been few prosecutions.

Treasury rightly points out that there are improvements—for instance increased capital requirements, reduced leverage. But have we done enough?  Most serious economists who have studied the matter who are not in the employ of the banking sector would say no, absolutely not.  We also have not ensured that the banks return to their core mission—lending, especially to small and medium sized enterprises. Too much of banks’ attention is focused on making profits from trading and speculation.

The banking industry has a well-oiled propaganda machine, trying to convince everyone that all is well, if only we could dial the clock back.  The administration too has a well-oiled propaganda machine, trying to convince everyone that, having pulled the economy back from the brink, they are well on the road to creating a financial sector that will support sustainable and shared prosperity.  But Americans know otherwise.
【TIME 5 ENDS – 288 WORDS】
Source: TIME
http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/23/how-washington-caved-to-wall-street/#ixzz2g1ZxIDjf

Article 4: A case of note
A Manhattan trial should shine needed light on the pre-crisis mortgage market
Sep 28th 2013 | New York |From the print edition

【WARM UP】
IT IS hardly controversial to say that Countrywide Financial, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the very centre of the financial crisis—Countrywide because it was a leading originator of subprime-mortgage loans, and the two government-sponsored housing-finance giants because they bought vast amounts of these mortgages. All three imploded.

That always made it likely that one or more of the troika would end up as targets for prosecutors. The case that finally kicked off in a lower Manhattan federal court on September 24th had all the elements you would have expected: accusations of greed, fraud and an obsession with extracting profits and sticking others with losses. But in one big respect, the identity of the defendants, it delivered a plot twist.
【122 words】

【TIME 6】
The company on trial is Bank of America, which purchased a failing Countrywide for $4 billion in 2008. Never mind that BofA took control after the events at issue in the case had occurred, and that it discontinued the underlying practices. It has nonetheless found itself the proud owner of a giant legal cesspool.

Even weirder, BofA’s co-defendant is Rebecca Mairone, a mid-tier executive who worked at Countrywide for only two-and-a-half years. The bank’s rise and fall came under the leadership of Angelo Mozilo, whose managerial style included running a “friends of Angelo” list that handed loans at favourable rates to politicians. But he and two other Countrywide executives settled legal claims back in 2010 without admitting or denying guilt. Ms Mairone’s attorney said his client was personally sued only because she “was an easy target, the new girl on the block.”

The prosecution’s case centres on a loan-processing system that automated Countrywide’s approval process for what appeared to be particularly creditworthy borrowers. The system was called the “high-speed swim lane” and was known by the acronym “HSSL”, pronounced “hustle”. A big issue in the case is whether this term referred merely to the speed and efficiency with which loans were processed or indicated a scam that enabled Countrywide to pick up origination fees while dumping credit risks on Fannie and Freddie. The government contends that Countrywide’s lending emphasised speed, volume and profit over quality, that it knew this created problems, and that it never relayed this to Fannie and Freddie.

The defence case is that there was no fraud; that Fannie and Freddie were experts in the mortgage market; and that they were never deceived in what they were purchasing. There will be upwards of 70 witnesses and four to five weeks of testimony; Ms Mairone will be among those taking the stand. The extended length of the trial underscores the fact that this case goes well beyond the actions of a single person or bank. No courtroom has yet heard a case against a big bank on the way the American mortgage market was operating before the crash. And although Fannie and Freddie are not on trial, the case may at last do what the government has not: subject the two politically connected mortgage giants to public scrutiny for their role in the crisis.
【TIME 6 ENDS – 386 WORDS】
Source: The Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21586836-manhattan-trial-should-shine-needed-light-pre-crisis-mortgage-market

PART III: OBSTACLE

Article 5: The future of the Firm
McKinsey looks set to stay top of the heap in management consulting
Sep 21st 2013 |From the print edition

【PARAPHRASE 7】
IT IS one of the engines of global capitalism. Not only does McKinsey provide advice to most of the world’s leading companies (and governments). It also pioneered the idea that business is a profession rather than a mere trade—and a profession that thrives on raw brainpower more than specialist industry knowledge or plain old common sense.

Yet McKinsey’s name has suffered a succession of blows in the past 15 years. The Firm, as it calls itself, was deeply involved in the Enron debacle: the energy company’s boss, Jeff Skilling, was a McKinsey veteran who praised the consultancy for doing “God’s work”, and the McKinsey Quarterly published articles on Enron as enthusiastically as Hello! runs pieces about the Beckhams. In 2010 Anil Kumar, a McKinsey consultant, admitted passing inside information to Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon, a hedge fund. Last year Rajat Gupta, a former McKinsey managing partner, was also convicted of passing inside information to Mr Rajaratnam.

Life is getting tougher for professional-services firms. Midsized consultancies are already suffering: Monitor Group went bankrupt last year—Deloitte later bought it for $120m—and Booz & Co and Roland Berger are agonising about their futures. If the legal profession is anything to go by, worse is to come: Dewey & LeBoeuf collapsed last year after borrowing heavily in a dash for growth, and other elite law firms are struggling to win business.

So, are McKinsey’s best days behind it? Two new publications offer some interesting answers. “The Firm”, by Duff McDonald, is a generally admiring book that nevertheless asks hard questions about the organisation’s future. “Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption”, by Clayton Christensen and two colleagues, is a penetrating article in the October Harvard Business Review, arguing that the comfortable world of the strategy consultancies is about to be turned upside down.

McKinsey’s success depends above all on an unimpeachable reputation for integrity. It cannot continue to serve most of the world’s leading companies (including working simultaneously for competitors) if its consultants are willing to spill secrets. Mr McDonald argues that the firm’s size makes it impossible to avoid repeats of the Kumar problem. It is now a giant factory with 1,200 consultants rather than the cosy club of old. The firm has to keep growing, not least to provide its partners with the $1.5m or so a year that they earn. But every time it grows it puts its most important asset at risk.

McKinsey’s success also depends on its ability to remain at the cutting edge of business. But in recent years it has seemed to be on the wrong cutting edge. Mr McDonald points out that whereas McKinsey has led the “financialisation” of basic industries such as oil and gas, it has had little if any role in shaping the giants of the internet economy, such as Apple and Google. The new lords of business are engineers in hoodies, not MBAs in pinstripes.

Mr Christensen focuses on a bigger subject: how the forces that have disrupted so many other businesses, from steel to publishing, are disrupting consulting. The big three strategy consultants—the other two are the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Bain—are masters of opacity. But Mr Christensen argues that light is being let in on the magic. Companies are getting better at measuring results and demanding value for money. They also have access to more business expertise than ever before: the big three have more than 50,000 living alumni.

The big three have been masters at bundling lots of different services into a single, high-priced package. But clients no longer want to pay fat fees for a bit of strategic advice from a senior partner and a lot of humdrum work from neophytes. Mr Christensen says low-priced competitors are beginning to dismember the consultants’ business. Eden McCallum cuts costs by deploying freelancers, most of whom once worked for the big three. BeyondCore replaces overpriced junior analysts with Big Data, crunching vast amounts of information to identify trends.

McKinsey clearly faces a more difficult market than it is used to. But it has overcome serious challenges before—such as in the 1980s, when it lost the intellectual high ground to BCG and then Bain before regaining it. The firm is fixing some of the problems from the Gupta era. It has elected two successive managing directors, Ian Davis and Dominic Barton, who have worked hard to restore its professional ethos. Mr Barton urges companies to embrace “long-term capitalism” rather than “quarterly capitalism” and corporate responsibility rather than financial engineering: the very opposite of the Enron-era McKinsey’s gospel.

Old boys (and girls) everywhere

McKinsey also has two huge assets: talent and knowledge. It retains an unrivalled ability to recruit hundreds of clever young people and turn them into an army of problem-solving worker ants. It also has an enviable network of alumni, many of whom are happy to hire their old employer: in 2011 more than 150 ex-McKinseyites were running companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales. The firm has also invested heavily in knowledge for decades: perhaps no other organisation has as much interesting data on global capitalism.

Though lesser firms may be facing disruption, McKinsey dispenses a special sort of consultorial fairy-dust that is hard to replicate, and as much in demand as ever. The global ruling class is seized with a toxic combination of status-obsession and status-insecurity. Decision-makers also fear being swept away by one of Mr Christensen’s disruptive forces. They seek constant reassurance and reaffirmation from prestigious institutions. McKinsey knows better than almost anyone how to exploit this peculiar mindset. That will guarantee the Firm a solid future, even if no one can prove that its advice actually does any good.
【OBSTACLE ENDS – 950 WORDS】
Source: The Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21586524-mckinsey-looks-set-stay-top-heap-management-consulting-future-firm

小鱼上树

谢谢小杀妹。这个发帖时间正好，稳稳的板凳～

25-12

1 algorithms 算法

Great talk! Being out of comfort zone is challenge, but itis the only way to learn new things and grow to be a better man.

2 359 2min

American dream which is all about equal opportunities hastaken hit after hit for the past half decade. Nowadays, fewer people own ahouse and more people have heavy debts. The job market is low. It will be worsewhen our children grow up.

3 261 1min27

Young kids are really positive about their future probablybecause they have seen their parents get through the financial crisis and theylearn more financial knowledge.

4 362 2min22

5 288 1min39

It has been 5 years since the financial crisis, but nothingbig have been done to change the regulations. It seems the congress and the governmentare doing a sloppy job. The treasury department haven’t done good enough butthey are really proud of themselves.

6 386 2min28

7 950 5min37

M is famous but can’t get away from all these informationleaking problem- the whole environment gets harder for companies to survive-are M’s best days behind it- it did something wrong and facing more challengesbut it is still special and has advantages.

kimwang53

前面这两个人。。。。
2.23
1.37
2.26
1.39

sherlock1992

T2-1′49″<359>
T3-1′15″<261>
T4-1′48″<362>
T5-1′28″<288>
T6-2′11″<386>

张茹ava

04.32 the conception about American dream and the better performance of the earlier generations

03.04 the difference between the earlier generations and young generation

05.06 successful examples suffering from crisis on the Wall Street

04.44 how those companies put through

05.17 two politically connected mortgage giants should be on trail

  09.44 referring to the background ,the current risks, some merits ,how can the consultancy company McKinsey succeed in the future

olivia瓜瓜

前面的都不睡觉的？
Time1： 2m26s
  The American dream is defined variely from different stage , and the next generation is predicted to be have poorer opportunity than their parents.
Time2:  1m38s
The worse thing is that young don’t blieve their future, and many possible causes are given.
Time3:  2m26s  
The finacial market constantly replace another kind of market, for the congressional parts too many administration tied to the financial sector.
Time4:  1m53s
The tresurey want to convince people that the banking system are doing well, but some problem exited have never been resolved.
Warm up +Time5: 3m24s
The case B of A are prosecuted for fraud in the process of loaning and lending part.


Obstacle:6m07s

Main idea： Why mckinsey can keep it’d head status in consulting management.

Situation :  more and more consult management firms are going to bankrupt.
The essential factors: Mckinsey is not in a good condition.

               The secret leverage is threaten it’s reputation.
               It is not at the cutting edge company.
               The firms will own more private business consultant.
               It faces more diffcult problems than it used to do.   

  However :  The factors leading to it’s succcess:
Mckinsey have large young elites, and take charge of amouts of knowledge and intelligency.  
Conclusion:  Keeping a pelicuar mindset wil solid its status in consultant management.

JennyF

2‘57 the definition of "American Dearm" is changing from house owner to a comfort retirement. the new generation envolves a poorer situation
2'11 young are optimistic, learned from the recession, get to know about debts& save.or may be the recovering house and stock market.  the high-technology makes life better and more comfort.
3'04 Along the past five years, the Wall Street won. The manipulated figure is remained. － because the administration are too related ..
2'40 the finance situation looks fine at the first glance,too big to fail, and bank system and government both convince that the economy has back from the brink. However, people don't agree with it.
3'40
8'31 What makes McKinsey successful in the future?
     - McKinsey is a great company
     - Consult industry is suffer, what about McKinsey?
     - the success of McKinsey depends on the unimpeachable reputation for integrity& its ability to remain at the cutting edge of business. however, in recent years the two parts get in problem.
     - the situation is difficult
     - the two huge assets- talent & knowledge, McKinsey knows better than anyone to understand the risks

ttlovej

嘿嘿 终于等到啦

TIME 2   2'20

American dream has suffer a blow in the housing bust.And new researches show that the definition of the dream has changed from home ownership to a comfortable retirement.

TIME 3  1'55

Teenagers in today buy stocks,reject stereotypes and show their knowledge and originality to create opportunities.

TIME 4  2'40

The financial reform didn't get any achievement because congressional lobbying combined withe a revolving door.

TIME 5  1'31

The reform of financial system get a little improvement ,which is too tiny to see.

TIME 6  2'40

竹迹

占座啊占座，可惜还是没有首页

Time 2      1:12.10
The American dream has taken hit after hit the past half decade. And it seems that the American dream is different.
Time 3      0:58.03
Since young people learned a lot during the Great Recession, they are more optimistic.
Time 4      1:21.45
After the crisis, we still see manipulated market and things chenged a little. And the reason is that too many people in the administration too closely tied to the financial sector.
Time 5      1:05.55
Though some changes have been done and have effect, there are major, multiple problems we left completely unresolved.
Warm up and Time 6      2:51.56
A bank is on trial. And something about the trial is provided. The defence case is that there was no fraud. And the trial may do something the government has not done.
Time 7      4:58.36
After the crises the comfortable world of the strategy consultancies is about to be turned upside down. McKinsey’s success depends on an unimpeachable reputation for integrity and its ability to remain at the cutting edge of business. But now McKinsey clearly faces a more difficult market than it is used to.McKinsey has two huge assets and knows better than almost anyone how to exploit this peculiar mindset.

cherry6891

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TIME2 2:35

--The different definition of American dream

--people hold pessimistic attitude to children’s American dream (less working opportunity, more burden , not easy retirement life)

TIME3 1:48

The young generation think they will have bright future and the reason why they think so

TIME3 2:46

There is little change after leman collapse and the reason is the close relationship of congress and financial sector

TIME56  3:42

--countrywide is a leading originator of subprime-mortgage loans

--bank of American is on trial because purchasing a failing countrywide

TIME7 obstacle

Why McKinsey is so successful ?

--interity , cutting edge of business, focuses,

Difficult market than before,however the company has successfully overcome the challenge in 1980

The two main asset of Mckinsey--talent technology