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小蘑菇开始打怪

内容：小蘑菇开始打怪 编辑：小蘑菇开始打怪

公益申请名额，每月一名
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写在前面：
蘑菇终于结束期末考试，现在是准大四狗了汪...两周没做小分队和稿件，蘑菇被烤柿粥折磨得快死了，所以就不出专题了抱歉。
Speaker是我之前听过的，内容是极好的！可是那口音就有点儿对不起各位了...不过我看了两遍多，每次都觉得 哇好神奇
Enjoy reading~

Part I: Speaker

As work gets more complex, 6 rules to simplify

[Paraphrase 1]



[Speech, 12:23]

Source: TED
http://www.ted.com/talks/yves_mo ... 6_rules_to_simplify

小蘑菇开始打怪

Part II: Speed

Scrap them

Jun 14th 2014 | From the print edition

[Time 2]
FOR decades, governments from Egypt to Indonesia have subsidised the price of basic fuels. Such programmes often start with noble intentions—to keep down the cost of living for the poor or, in the case of oil-producing countries, to provide a visible example of the benefits of carbon wealth—but they have disastrous consequences, wrecking budgets, distorting economies, harming the environment and, on balance, hurting rather than helping the poor.

Emerging markets are not the only places that distort energy markets. America, for instance, suppresses prices by restricting exports. But subsidies are more significant in poorer countries. Of the $500 billion a year the IMF reckons they cost—the equivalent of four times all official foreign aid—half is spent by governments in the Middle East and north Africa, where, on average, it is worth about 20% of government revenues. The proceeds flow overwhelmingly to the car-driving urban elite. In the typical emerging economy the richest fifth of households hoover up 40% of the benefits of fuel subsidies; the poorest fifth get only 7%. But the poorest suffer disproportionately from the distortions that such intervention creates. Egypt spends seven times more on fuel subsidies than on health. Cheap fuel encourages the development of heavy industry rather than the job-rich light manufacturing that offers far more people a route out of poverty.

For all these reasons the benefits of scrapping subsidies are immense. Emerging economies could easily compensate every poor person with a handout that was bigger than the benefits they got from cheap fuel and still save money. In the process, they would help the planet. According to the International Energy Agency, eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies would reduce global carbon emissions by 6% by 2020.
[284 words]

[Time 3]
How to save $500 billion and the planet
Some emerging-market governments are persuaded by these arguments, and are getting serious about reform (see article). Indonesia raised petrol prices by more than 40% last year, and the front-runner in the upcoming presidential election says he will consider a more comprehensive fuel-subsidy revamp. Iran has just begun the second phase of a big subsidy overhaul, raising the price of petrol, gas and electricity. Egypt’s new president is being pushed towards tackling energy subsidies by a gaping budget deficit. Morocco and Jordan have cut subsidies in the past couple of years. Even Kuwait announced this week that it plans to scrap diesel subsidies.

Yet the politics of reform are exceedingly difficult. Politicians are loth to antagonise the urban elite; insiders benefit (often corruptly) from cheap fuel; ordinary citizens do not believe they will be compensated. Many previous attempts to cut subsidies have been abandoned in the face of popular protests or rising global oil prices. Experience suggests that any attempt to cut subsidies needs to be accompanied by a public-education campaign to explain the costs and inequities of subsidies, to have a clear timetable for gradual price increases and to be supported by targeted transfers to counter the effect of higher fuel prices on poorer people.

Even with better politics and the best-laid plans, it would be a mistake to expect too much too fast. Entrenched subsidies anywhere are devilishly difficult to get rid of. If the oil price rises, so too will the pressure on emerging economies to “protect” their citizens from dearer fuel. But, for the moment, there seems to be a chance to accelerate reform. It is an opportunity not to be missed.
[283 words]

Source: Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21604170-there-are-moves-around-world-get-rid-energy-subsidies-heres-best-way-going


How to measure inflation

Jun 25th 2014, 23:50 by R.A.

[Time 4]
FEW pieces of economic data matter more at the moment than inflation. Markets follow the statistics obsessively, looking for clues to how economies are doing and how central banks will respond. Rich-world inflation figures are diverging. In May the euro-zone inflation rate sank to just 0.5%, leading to speculation that the European Central Bank might begin printing money to buy up government bonds, lest prices begin falling. In Britain, inflation tumbled to 1.5% in May, down from 1.8% in April, even as house prices soared to new heights. In America, by contrast, inflation jumped to 2.1% in May by one measure, leading to fears that the Federal Reserve was waiting too long to raise its interest rates (though by another measure it held lower, at just 1.6%). What exactly is inflation and how is it measured?

The notion of inflation is clear enough: it is the rate of change in the level of prices in an economy. More specifically, it is a change in the value of money. When there is more money about—more of it coursing through an economy as giddy consumers hit the shops—bulging supply pushes down the value of each unit of money (each dollar or pound) and more of them are needed to buy things. When consumers hold their money more tightly, however, each unit of money is more valuable and prices fall, a phenomenon called deflation. This relationship between the flow of money and changes in prices is why central banks focus so intently on inflation. Reliable inflation figures are critical for other reasons as well: to compare American incomes in 1970 with those in 2010, for example, one must know how the value of a dollar changed over that time. And contracts or pensions often need to be adjusted to take account of inflation, to ensure that the sums involved do not shrink over time in real terms.
[316 words]

[Time 5]
Most inflation data are gathered from surveys. In America, the Bureau of Labour Statistics records the prices of tens of thousands of goods each month. Prices are aggregated into sub-indices such as food, energy, apparel and health care, then averaged together, with the categories weighted according to their share of spending. Some indices focus on the prices of firms' inputs rather than the cost of consumer goods. Statistical agencies usually produce “headline” inflation indices, which include all sub-sectors, as well as “core” indices that omit things like food and energy, whose prices are volatile. Central banks focus on core inflation, which they reckon is the better predictor of future trends. Not all data gathering is done by governments. Many banks and research organisations also track price changes, and experiments like the Billion Price Project glean data from online retailers, allowing for real-time inflation updates.

Though rates differ from index to index, central banks can have reasonable confidence in the accuracy of the statistics when similar trends show up across the various measures. Still, the data-gatherers often face criticism. When prices of some goods rise, consumers may switch to others—from beef to chicken, for instance, if beef prices soar. If statisticians maintain the same weightings when such shifts occur, they overstate the amount that household budgets are being squeezed by rising prices. Yet simply weighting chicken more heavily fails to capture the fact that it is (to many households at least) an inferior product to beef. Such questions of quality often trouble the number-crunchers. The prices of some electronic goods, such as computers, have changed little in decades, yet the products are vastly better. Attempts to make “hedonic” adjustments to account for this are tricky. But with ever more data being collected and published, economists are getting better at capturing movements in prices. Where inflation indices are concerned, at least, the public can count on getting its money’s worth.
[319 words]

Source: Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/06/economist-explains-12


How McDonald's Plans to Profit From Its $9.99 Dinner Box

By Allan Smith

[Time 6]
McDonald's Dinner Box promotion offers two Big Macs, two regular cheeseburgers, 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, and four small fries for $9.99.

Ordering the dinner box is $8 cheaper than purchasing the items individually. You can add drinks for just $1 each. McDonald's also has two other boxes circulating around the US. One is the Ole Box, which is a World Cup promotion that features two Big Macs, a 20-piece Chicken McNuggets, two medium fries, and four medium drinks for $14.99. The other, the Mickey D's Value Pack, contains four McChicken sandwiches, four cheeseburgers, a 20-piece McNuggets, and four medium drinks for $14.99.

A McDonald's spokesman said 6,500 US stores are offering some variation of bundle boxes.

How can McDonald's turn a profit on these outrageous deals?

The short answer: they probably aren't, at least not yet.

McDonald's is probably losing money in the short-term in order to gain customers over time, Sean O'Keefe, a professor in the Food Science department at Virginia Tech, told Business Insider.  "I expect this is a loss leader to get people into the store," O'Keefe said.

The fact that drinks aren't included in the deal will also help McDonald's make money, O'Keefe said. Soft drinks cost typically cost just a few cents to make, but sell for about $2. "I expect they break even with this or have a small profit, but the promotion gets McDonald's on people's radar and in the door," he said. "There appears to be a lot of buzz for this promotion...so it certainly is advertising to boot."

McDonald's profits slipped during the first-quarter of this calendar year, as sales declined by 1.7 percent in the US.
[275 words]

Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/06/25/mcdonald_s_9_99_dinner_box_will_help_get_people_in_the_door.html

小蘑菇开始打怪

Part III: Obstacle

No Sex, Please, We’re French

By Zachary Karabell

[Time 7]
The government of France has just made what on the face of it appears to be a nonannouncement announcement: It will not include illegal drugs and prostitution in its official calculation of the country’s gross domestic product.


What made the announcement odd was that it never has included such activities, nor have most countries. Nor do most governments announce what they do not plan to do. (“The U.S. government has no intention of sending a man to Venus.”) Yet the French decision comes in the wake of significant pressure from neighboring countries and from the European Union to integrate these activities into national accounts and economic output. That raises a host of questions: Should these activities be included, and if those are, why not others? And what exactly are we measuring—and why?


Few numbers shape our world today more than GDP. It has become the alpha and omega of national success, used by politicians and pundits as the primary gauge of national strength and treated as a numerical proxy for greatness or the lack thereof.


Yet GDP is only a statistic, replete with the limitations of all statistics. Created as an outgrowth of national accounts that were themselves only devised in the 1930s, GDP was never an all-inclusive measure, even as it is treated as such. Multiple areas of economic life were left out, including volunteer work and domestic work.


Now Eurostat, the official statistical agency of the European Union, is leading the drive to include a host of illegal activities in national calculations of GDP, most notably prostitution and illicit drugs. The argument, as a United Nations commission laid out in 2008, is fairly simple: Prostitution and illicit drugs are significant economic activities, and if they’re not factored into economic statistics, then we’re looking at an incomplete picture—which in turn will make it that much harder to craft smart policy. Additionally, different countries have different laws: In the Netherlands, for instance, prostitution is legal, as is marijuana. Those commercial transactions (or at least those that are recorded and taxed) are already part of Dutch GDP. Not including them in Italy’s or Spain’s GDPs can thus make it challenging to compare national numbers.


That is why Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the U.K. have in recent months moved to include illegal drugs and nonlicensed sex trade in their national accounts. The U.K. Office for National Statistics in particular approached its mandate with wonkish seriousness, publishing a 20-page précis of its methodology that explained how it would, say, calculate the dollar amount of prostitution (police records help) or deal with domestically produced drugs versus imported drugs. The result, which will be formally announced in September, will be an additional 10 billion pounds added to Great Britain’s GDP.


With all of GDP’s limitations, adding a new moral dimension would only make the number that much less useful.
France, however, has demurred. A nation with a clichéd reputation for a certain savoir faire when it comes to sex and other nocturnal activities has decided (or at least its bureaucrats have) that in spite of an EU directive, it will not calculate the effects of illegal activities that are often nonconsensual or nonvoluntary. That is clearly the case for some prostitution—one French minister stated that “street prostitution” is largely controlled by the Mafia—and the same could be reasonably said of the use of some hard drugs, given their addictive nature.


There is undeniably a strong moralistic component in the French decision. By averring that because they are not voluntary or consensual these exchanges should not be included in GDP, the French government is placing a moral vision of what society should be ahead of an economic vision of what society is. That in turn makes an already messy statistic far messier, and that serves no one’s national interests.


GDP is messy in part because, though it’s quite good at capturing industrial nation-states, it falls short of measuring our economies amid a global flow of goods and services and free technologies such as Google. Statistics bureaus around the world are actively attempting to remedy these shortcomings, but none are highly funded and none move as quickly as the global economy and technology are evolving.


One thing that GDP does not suffer from, however, is an overly moral cast. The decision not to include domestic work in the mid-20th century was not based on a moral ranking of food preparation and cleaning as lesser activities. It was based simply on the difficulty of assigning a market price to these actions. GDP is at best amoral. If I buy an LED light bulb and thereby reduce my spending on electricity, that makes GDP go down, but it is undoubtedly good for our collective economic future and my personal discretionary income. If a factory pollutes a river, the cleanup, the health care costs, and the spending required to upgrade the factory all add to GDP, but they are hardly a moral positive. In both examples, GDP as a calculation is neutral about morality.


With all of GDP’s limitations, adding a new moral dimension would only make the number that much less useful. After all, why stop at not including prostitution because it degrades women? Why not refuse to measure coal production because it degrades the environment? Why not leave out cigarette usage because it causes cancer? The list of possible exclusions on this basis is endless.


If GDP is our current best metric for national output, then at the very least it should attempt to include all measurable output. The usually moralistic United States has actually been including legal prostitution in Nevada and now marijuana sales and consumption in Colorado, California, and Washington without any strong objections based solely on the argument that these are commercial exchanges that constitute this fuzzy entity we call “the economy.”


If anything, we need to keep broadening how we measure economic activity, including not just illegal and cash transactions but also the hard-to-measure world of new technologies that undoubtedly shape our material lives but do not have an easily identifiable market price (Google searches, WhatsApp messages, Slate articles). At the same time, the elevation of GDP as one simple proxy for how we are doing needs to be challenged, at least insofar as increasing national output does not necessarily lead to a good life, a sustainable economy, or a stable society.


In the meantime, however, the French decision not to include activities that are morally objectionable is a wistful exercise. Not measuring drugs and sex won’t make them go away, but it will hobble efforts to understand the messy latticework of our economic lives, all in a futile attempt to excise what we do not like.
[1161 words]


Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_edgy_optimist/2014/06/france_gdp_the_nation_won_t_include_drugs_and_prostitution_in_its_calculations.html

wnj2611339

这几天比较忙碌，会尽快做的！！！谢谢蘑菇~~

---

---Speaker
6 rules to simplify your work:
1. Understand what others do.
2. Reinforce integrators.
3. Increase the quantity of power
4. Create feedback loops that expose people to the consequences of their actions.
5. Increase reciprocity
6. Reward those who cooperate and blame those who don't cooperate

----Speed
[Time 2] 1'49''
Emerging markets' action of subsiding the basic price of fuel may distort the economy, and may not be really helpful to the poor. Therefore, abandoning such subsides may be helpful.
[Time 3]1'15''
After hearing such argument of subsides, some governments of those emerging markets are taking actions to increase the fuel prices, but politics of the reform are very difficult, thus the reform may not success immediately.
[Time 4]1'11''
Inflation is a more important data than any other economic data, and inflation in developed countries are diverging.
The concept of inflation: it is a change of time value of money.
[Time 5] 1'15''
More inflation data are collected from surveys.
Central banks can be more confident in the data when various measures give similar trends.
[Time 6] 1'03''
Purchasing McDonald's Dinner Box is $8 cheaper than purchasing each item in the box individually. Even though McDonald may not get any profit from such promotion right now, but the promotion may help McDonald gain more customers over time.

----Obstacles 6'10''
Main idea: the author thought that France's action of not including illegal drugs and prostitution in calculating a country's just for moral purpose might not make actual sense, and was a wistful exercise.
Details:
In face of the EU's decision of including illegal drugs and prostitution in calculating a country's GDP, France announced that it will do so, considering moral aspects.
The announcement is odd, because France have never included those activities into calculating its GDP.
As a part of all numbers, GDP is only a statistic, thus it has its limitation.
We may see the increases of GDP in other members of EU, such as UK and Spain, who will include those activities in calculating the GDP.
Acknowledging the limitation of GDP, just adding a new moral dimension is futile.
GDP is messy, but it is straightforward without taking into account of moral factors. If we stop including illegal drugs and prostitution in GDP just because those are immoral, many other immoral activities should have also not been included, and all these moral considerations just make less sense of GDP, which should include all measurable output to reflect the real economy.

hawk！！！

谢谢蘑菇君~~  明天上午考完试来做~~
Speaker:
fantastic speech!
problems trouble modern company -> traditional approaches (hard & soft) -> they are obsolete. used two examples to explain why ->authors advice: 6 measures ,understanding, tradeoff, praise those cooperate and blame those don't
Time2: 1'40" 170 word/min
in developing markets, fuel subsides is hurting rather than helping the poor and is contrary to its initial purpose. describe a phenomenon  -> more details and examples. the logic why it is hurt ->conclusion, consequences
Time3:1'29" 190 word/min
governments are taking measures to solve the problem -> difficulties in solving it -> don't wish too fast
Time4: 1'23" 228 word/min
different countries' inflation rate -> what is inflation and why is matter
Time5: 1'22" 233 word/min
how inflation rate is calculated -> controversial with the rate: replace and share change
Time6: 1'14" 222 word/min
MCD's new product doesn't make a profit but attract consumers.
Obstacle: 6'10" 191 word/min
France made a weird announcement: no illegal activities will make up GDP -> why's that: some European countries did so -> analyze the reasons: accurate policy -> French made a wise decision : GDP is inaccurate in the first hand and moral issues involved

疏离无罪

板凳~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaker: There are two pillar in old management:hard and soft.But both of them are obsolete.They will complex the structure the organization.The new way should encourage the cooperation by connection,interaction and synapses.6 ways:1 understand what others do and their real content of work. 2 reinforce integrations by decreasing rules.3 increase total quantity of power 4 extend the shadow of future,let employees see the consequence.5 increase reciprocity,remove buffers 6 reward those who cooperate.Blame is not for failure but for not asking for help.

01:35
For decades,many emerging countries subsidised for the fuel price,which distorted the energy market.The aim of this action is to help poors and theeconomy.But the consequence is reversed.

01:30
Many governments have planned to reform and cut the subsidies.But these plans may not be easy to be done.Time and efforts are needed.The rising oil price may be a good chance.

01:21
Inflation is an important economic figure.Inflation is the rate of change in the level of prices in an economy.

01:27
Most inflation data are gathered from surveys and many institutions have their own inflation result.The inflation rates differ from index to index.And they all have some flaws.

01:19
The Dinner Box of McDnonal won't make profit for the company,but can attracting more people.

07:27
The French government just made an announcement that it will not include illegal drugs and prostitution in its official calculation of the GDP.The reason of this announcement is that many EU countires recently included these illegal activities in GDP.But this action may make the GDP less useful.And in moral vision,this is a true action.But GPD is neutral about morality.
GDP is our current best metric for national output,but it is never the best thing to calculate whole things about life.

小蘑菇开始打怪

快作死了。。
----------------
太久没做小分队，现在整个人状态都很不好。。

speaker:

all the old model for solving problems are out of date

simple rules for smart simplicity:

1. understand what your people do

2.reenforce integrators

3.increase total quantity of power

4.extend the shadow of the future

5.increase reciprocity

6.reward those who corporate

time2:

many countries choose to use subsidize to support some oil consumption industry, the money they spent is more than enough

eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies would reduce global carbon emission

time3:

because of the arguments, some emerging-market governments try to lift the price of fuel

however the reform is difficult unless the government can educate the citizens about the costs and inequities of subsidies

for this moment, it is a chance for the reform

time4:

the inflation happened around the world in the past few months

inflation is the rate of change in the level of prices in an economy

the importance of knowing inflation

time5:

different organizations see the inflation data in different ways

some problems in collecting data and doing analyzing

time6:

M is probably losing money in the short-term in order to gain customers over time

the drink many help M profit

time7:

France announced that it will not count illegal drug and prostitution in its official calculation of the country’s gross domestic product, the announcement is odd

what activity should we count

prostitution and illicit drugs are significant economic activities

however, different countries have different laws: in some countries, this kind of activities have already in the consideration of economy

statistics bureaus around the world are actively attempting to remedy these shortcomings

GDP as a calculation is neutral about morality

a good GDP does not mean that we live a sustainable life or have a stable society

the French decision is a wistful exercise

二岔口

[speaker]
真心没听懂

[time 2]
Subsidy aims to help the poor, but actually distort them.
Scrapping subsidy will benefit the poor.

[time 3]
Leaders seem to reconsider the subsidy.
Scrapping subsidy is difficult. It could be accompanied with a public-education.
Still, the reform could not be carried out too fast. But there is a chance to accelerate the reform.

[time 4]
Inflation in rich-world is diverging.
What is inflation and how it is measured. The relationship between the capital flow and the price of money. Inflation figure is critical and illustrate the reasons.

[time 5]
Inflation data are collected from survey. Two sources: consumer goods and producer cost. Who collect the data and reach an inflation index: government, bank, research institutions and etc.
Inflation index by the central bank is usually accurate and could be used to foresee the trend.
But the index calculation invites criticism: people intend to choose cheaper goods as alternative; the goods are better while the price has little fluctuation.
But they are getting better at capturing the movement.

[time 6]
Mc Donald sells dinner box at $9.99, which cost them to lose.
But they expect the promotion can gain customers. And the soft drinks are profitable.
The profit of this company is sliding.

[time 7]
French government will not include the product of drugs and prostitution in GDP. Should or should not?
What is GDP? GDP shape the world.
Why should be included: they are a part of economic activities; different countries have different standard to categorize illegal drugs.
Several countries have include drugs and whore. Take UK as an example, these two activities increase the GDP by 10 billion pounds.
Adding moral dimension makes GDP more useless. Why.
GDP should take account all measurable output.
Increasing GDP doesn’t inevitably lead us to a better life.

Talitha

2:2'45
fuel subsidies to help poor is wrong idea. disadvantage outweighs the benefits. The reasons why. fuel subsidies also increase carbon emission.

3:3
several emerging market governments start to take action on scraping the fuel subsidies. any increase in the fuel should accompanied by a educational campaign to explain the pros and cons. do not expect too much and too fast on the increase in the fuel price.

4:2'50
author gives example of countries experience inflation. author explains what the inflation is it is the rate of change in the level of prices in an economy.

5:2'53
besides central bank, other organizations also collect data on the products price to measure the rate of inflation. It is quick accurate, but it also face criticize. author lists the example of beef and chicken.

6:1'47
M offers great deal on the meal box. It does not generate profit. Professor said M try to get customer into the door. Loose money is only for short term. M may also earn money through soft drink or at least make even.

ffffionabear

谢谢蘑菇妹纸~~~考试周辛苦了好么壮士~！！！
————嘿~你的作业~不，是你的作业~(￣_,￣ ) ~~~#作业天天见~~#~~~进击的阅读小分队~~~\(^o^)/~——————————————————
[speaker]听得好痛苦~~果然有够练耳朵~~(已尽力，一看原文哭成狗···)ps：speaker实在是非常棒~~感谢~！！！
It's a chicken and egg question about engagement and productiveness.
To company,the most important thing is qulity,adaptiveness and intelligence. Employee lack of corporation.（我也不造这是神马(#‵′)）
rule to simplify:
1.understand the real content
2. reinforce manager to integrator.
3.create feedback rules
4.increase the shadow of the future
5.remove the second TV
6.don't ask for failure
[speed]
2'20
Egypt have accepted fuel subsides for decades for the so-called noblr reasons,such as helping the poor,revitalize the economy and so on.Bu t un fortunately,those aids are not only hurting the poor by encouraging government focus more on heavy industry,but also ruin the market.
2'27
These counties set up to reform by overhauling the fuel subsidy,but it meets lots of obstacles cause so much stakeholders' benefits.What's more,the reform shouldn't be too much or too fast.
2'31
The notion of inflation is a change in the value of money.When the money is surplus,more of them are needed to be used,then each unit of money is less valuable and the price rise,and vice versa.
2'24
Most inflation data are depend on surveys that collecting different price of necessaries,and then transform it into sub-indices.However,the data-gatherers are doubted by critics for its narrow varity of data collecting.
1'22
Mcdonald's bundle boxes(for example,$9.99 dinner box) do not bring profit to it,at least not yet.
[obstacle]
9'55
facts:Franch informally announced an odd announcement that drugs and illegal prostitution won't be included in GDP,which make GDP less useful.On the contrary,counties like American and Britain collect the data how those grey industry contribute to the economy.
for:
1.GDP is amoral,it good at measuring industrial output but weak at measuring what do related to our daily live,such as moral incentives or happiness,which will make the data less useful.
against:   
1.GDP is messy in part.It doesn't take technology and evolution sides into consideration.
2.GDP is lack of moral factor,it takes social problems such as pollution gender and discrimination for granted---maybe just a necessary sacrifice in economical development.
3.GDP is getting less useful in today's phenomenon.