【每日阅读训练——速度4系列】【速度4-20】&【越障4-20】

superbat28

我是个从下午就没有学习的坏孩纸。。哎~啥也不说了，都是泪。。。发文章。。

速度
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This week in our series, we continue the story of America's thirty-third president, Harry Truman.
Truman was sometimes called an "accidental" president. He only became president because he was vice president when Franklin Roosevelt died in nineteen forty-five.
In the election of nineteen forty-eight, Truman ran for a full term. As we told you last week, many experts predicted he would lose. But voters chose him over the Republican Party candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York. Americans also elected a Congress with a majority from Truman's Democratic Party.
The president might have expected a Congress led by his own party to support his policies. But that did not always happen. Time after time, Democrats from southern states joined in voting with conservative Republicans. Together, these lawmakers defeated some of Truman's most important proposals. One of the defeated bills was a proposal for health care insurance for every American.
One of the major issues during Truman's second term was fear of communism. After World War Two, Americans watched as one eastern European nation after another became an ally of the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Josef Stalin wanted to see communism spread around the world. And Americans watched as China became communist in nineteen forty-nine, as forces led by Mao Zedong defeated the Chinese Nationalists after a civil war that had lasted more than ten years.
During this tense period, there were charges that communists held important jobs in the United States government. These fears, real or imagined, became known as the "Red Scare."  
(Words: 225)

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SENATOR JOSEPH McCARTHY: "Even if there were only one communist in the State Department –- (repeats) Even if there were only one Communist in the State Department, that would still be one communist too many."
A Republican senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, led the search for communists in America. In speeches and congressional hearings, he accused hundreds of people of being communists or communist supporters. His targets included the State Department, the Army and the entertainment industry.
Senator McCarthy often had little evidence to support his accusations. Many of his charges would not have been accepted in a court of law. But the rules governing congressional hearings were different. So he was able to make his accusations freely.
Many people lost their jobs after they were denounced as communists. Some had to use false names to get work. A few went to jail briefly for refusing to cooperate with McCarthy.
The senator continued his anti-communist investigations for several years. By the early nineteen fifties, however, more people began to question his methods. Critics said he violated democratic traditions.
In nineteen fifty-four, the Senate finally voted to condemn his actions. McCarthy died three years later.
There were problems caused by the fear of communists at home. But President Truman also had to deal with the threat of communism in other countries.
He agreed to send American aid to Greece and Turkey. He also supported continuing the Marshall Plan. That was the huge economic aid program that helped rebuild western Europe after World War Two. Many historians say the Marshall Plan prevented western Europe from becoming communist.   (Words: 265)

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The defense of western Europe against Soviet communism led Truman to support the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO began in nineteen forty-nine with the United States, Britain, Canada, France and eight other nations.
The treaty that created NATO stated that a military attack on any member would be considered an attack on all of them.
Truman named General Dwight Eisenhower to command the new organization. General Eisenhower had been supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe in World War Two.
In his swearing-in speech in nineteen forty-nine, Truman urged the United States to lend money to other countries to aid their development. He also wanted to share American science and technology.
In nineteen fifty-one, the president asked Congress to establish a new foreign aid program. The aid would go to countries threatened by communist forces in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, South Asia and Latin America. Truman believed the United States would be stronger if its allies were stronger.
President Truman believed that many of the world's problems could be settled by other means besides military force. But he supported and used military power throughout his presidency.
On June twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty, forces from North Korea invaded South Korea. Two days later, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution urging UN members to help South Korea resist the invasion. At first President Truman agreed to send American planes and ships. Later he agreed to send American ground forces.
The president knew his decision could start World War Three if the Soviet Union entered the war on the side of communist North Korea. Yet he felt the United States had to act. Later, he said it was the most difficult decision he made as president.   (Words: 291)
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Truman named Army General Douglas MacArthur to command all United Nations forces in South Korea.
Most of the fighting in the Korean War took place along the geographic line known as the thirty-eighth parallel. This line formed the border between North and South Korea.
Many victories on the battlefield were only temporary. One side would capture a hill; then the other side would recapture it.
In September of nineteen fifty, Mac Arthur led the UN land and sea attack at Inchon, pushing the North Koreans back across the border. There was hope that the war could end by Christmas, December twenty-fifth.
In late November, however, troops from China joined the North Koreans. Thousands of Chinese soldiers helped push the UN troops south. General MacArthur wanted to attack Chinese bases in Manchuria. President Truman said no. He did not want the fighting to spread beyond the Korean peninsula. Again, he feared that such a decision could start another world war.
MacArthur strongly believed he could end the war quickly by extending it to the Chinese mainland. He publicly denounced Truman's policy, saying "There is no substitute for victory."
Truman felt that the general left him no choice. In April of nineteen fifty-one, he dismissed MacArthur.
HARRY TRUMAN: "It was with the deepest personal regret that I found myself compelled to take this action. General MacArthur is one of our greatest military commanders. But the cause of world peace is much more important than any individual."
In the United States, military leaders are expected to obey their commander in chief -- the president. While some Americans approved of the general's dismissal, many others supported MacArthur. Millions greeted him when he returned to the United States. There were huge parades in his honor in San Francisco and New York.   (Words: 296)

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In fact, few leaders in the twentieth century could boast the support MacArthur had. Almost seven million people attended the ticker tape parade given to him by New York City. And that almost doubled the size of the one given to another returning World War Two hero, General Dwight Eisenhower.
MacArthur gave his farewell speech to a joint session of Congress on April nineteenth nineteen fifty-one.
MACARTHUR: "I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good Bye." [Applause]
On the Korean Peninsula, the war continued. Ceasefire talks began in July of nineteen fifty-one. But the conflict would last for another two years until a truce was declared. The Korean War Armistice Agreement was signed on July twenty-seventh nineteen fifty-three.
Nineteen fifty-two was a presidential election year in the United States. Harry Truman was losing popularity because of the continuing war in Korea and economic problems at home. At the same time, Dwight Eisenhower, a military hero from World War Two, was thinking of running for president as the Republican candidate.  (Words: 289)
自由阅读
Harry Truman had made many difficult decisions as president. In March of nineteen fifty-two, he made one more. He announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election.
The nineteen fifty-two presidential election will be our story next week.



越障
Chest pains
Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis is constricting the flow of money to its banks
“I’VE never seen risk aversion this intense,” says the chief executive of a large European bank. “It is unsustainable.” His anxiety is understandable given the wild gyrations that rocked bond and commodity markets in early August and continued through the slow trading days of mid-August, when gold hit new highs and the yields on government bonds touched new lows in Britain and America.
ReprintsSteep falls in stock prices this month have erased all the gains made over the past year. The hardest hit have been banks, with those in Europe getting the biggest clobbering. European bank shares have fallen by 25% this year, and have underperformed the wider markets and American bank stocks over the past two years (see chart 1). Banks in France are down by 33% since the start of 2011, those in Italy by 37%. Many banks now trade at a deep discount to the value of their assets. Barclays, for instance, has a market value that is less than half the worth of its assets. European banks are not unique in this regard. Bank of America, whose share price has slumped by almost half this year, is now valued at about one-third of its assets.
Such deep discounts present something of a mystery. They suggest that investors are either worried about the sustainability of banks’ earnings as economies slow or that they do not trust the value that banks ascribe to their assets. A sign of investor scepticism is that the cost of insuring against banks defaulting on their debt has surged (see chart 2).
Worries about earnings are part of the explanation. Investment-banking revenues collapsed in the second quarter as trading activity slowed down. Ahead lie new rules forcing banks to set aside more capital against losses in their trading businesses. The economic outlook is also darkening. This week a flurry of downbeat indicators suggested that Europe’s economy is continuing to slow. Bad loans in big European countries have been remarkably low over the past two years, yet many investors fret that they will rise in a downturn.
Concern over banks’ profits, however, is not the full story. A more compelling reason for the slump in bank shares can be found by peering into the markets that banks use to fund themselves. For it is in these markets that the life is being squeezed out of Europe’s banks. As a whole, the region’s banks are not in crisis. Yet pockets of deep stress have emerged in funding markets. If these are not eased, bank earnings and capital as well as the prospects for a wider economic recovery may be at risk.
A closely watched indicator of the health of interbank markets is the spread that banks pay over a risk-free one (the interbank-OIS spread). This is now at its widest for more than two years. Another sign of mounting fear is that banks are hoarding again. The cash they have on deposit at the European Central Bank (ECB) has shot up to ?26 billion ($182 billion), about three times as high as its average so far this year.
A further warning is the extent to which some banks now rely on the ECB for their funding. Until recently the main “addicts” have been banks from small countries on Europe’s troubled periphery. These were shunned by investors no matter how prudent they might have been because of the risk that their governments might default. But, worryingly, banks from bigger economies are now also turning to the ECB for help. In July Italian banks doubled their withdrawals (though these are worth only about 2% of Italian banks’ total liabilities), while Spanish and French banks also borrowed more. One reason is that American money-market funds are warily shifting their money out of Europe. Fitch, a ratings agency, reckons that they cut their lending to European banks by almost 10% in July. Since May their exposure has dropped by one-fifth.
Halting the slow-motion run in the funding markets will prove difficult. “Money-market funds say it’s easier just to say to clients that ‘we haven’t any exposure to Europe’ than to try to explain the differences,” says a central banker. Indeed banks themselves are having to respond to similar concerns. Two big British banks, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, recently put Italy on a list of countries (others include Greece, Portugal and Spain) for which they give a detailed breakdown about how much they are owed. “If they were doing it now France would be on that list,” says a fund manager. “They wouldn’t be doing it if investors weren’t worried about it.”
Despite the stresses in funding markets, Europe’s main banks are in no immediate danger. Temporary shortages of cash in short-term money markets can be readily filled by the ECB. And most banks are in a relatively healthy position as far as their longer-term (typically a year or more) funding is concerned, for this year at any rate: many sold enough bonds in the first quarter of 2011 to see them through the rest of it. Analysts at Morgan Stanley reckon that as a whole European banks have sold 90% of this year’s required funding.
Rolled over
Two worries remain, however. The first is that in short-term funding markets banks are having to borrow for ever shorter periods. Fitch says that whereas in June more than half of French banks’ borrowings from money-market funds was for periods of 61 days or longer, by the end of July only one-third was, while 20% had to be rolled over within seven days or fewer. “What has disappeared is funding from three to 12 months,” says a central banker. “It is the oil that keeps the engine going.”
As funding terms become shorter, banks are forced to roll over greater amounts of debt each day, making the entire financial system riskier. Higher funding costs are also squeezing banks’ profit margins in the more vulnerable economies. European banks are responding by reducing costs—Bloomberg reckons that they are cutting over 40,000 jobs—as well as by trying to increase deposits. One way out of the mess may be to exploit low share prices to buy deposit-rich retail banks.
But the likeliest response of stressed banks will be to reduce lending. “Funding is as big a constraint on lending as capital is,” notes Huw van Steenis, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. “Unchecked, this could lead to a grinding credit crunch in the southern euro zone.” Just as with chest pains, the malaise afflicting Europe’s banks should not be left untreated.

jxgzcly

1.  1:27
2. 1.:18
3. 1:15
4. 1:16
5. 1.29

抓抓sandra

心态心态,bat调整好心态哦~~一个下午休息下算神马,有实力咱不怕~!

superbat28

心态心态,bat调整好心态哦~~一个下午休息下算神马,有实力咱不怕~!

-- by 会员 抓抓sandra (2011/9/2 23:51:48)

收到老大~
我是学多了= =，昨天往外反，我就去歇着了- -
回归啦！！

落落0213

1‘44
1’37
1‘42
2’02
1‘46


什么时候能看文章不到处发散呀呀呀呀呀~~~~~

superbat28

各种稳定……
76s
75s
82s
83s
83s

大爱这个题材，也不难~还长知识~good~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

superbat28

囧了。。。6分17。。。彻底混乱。。一共就记住几个点。。
1. The crisis is very intense, with gold value reaching the peak and bond value reaching the bottom.
1.5 Banks are all valued lower than its true assets. Many examples.....
2. People do not trust banks, partly because they have doubt on bank's revenue, partly because they do not think banks can deal efficiently with all the debts.
3. Bad debt has been low in the previous two years, but people fear that the ratio will rise in such a downturn..

后面各种没读懂。。。。Orz

fox0923

各种稳定……
76s
75s
82s
83s
83s

大爱这个题材，也不难~还长知识~good~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- by 会员 superbat28 (2011/9/3 18:28:02)

同感！这么清晰的战争题材还是比较少见的！
76s
76s
90s
97s
70s

Crystaljoy

今天第一次下载计时器做练习，竟然读出一身汗来。。。

1. 1‘07
2. 1'00
3. 1'06
4. 1'18
5. 1'02

读着读着发现自己爱默念，赶快狂眨眼跳着看。结果就是像超级玛丽样跳到终点了，对主角还有点面熟内容完全没理解。

我要再去找一次练习，深呼吸，放慢点速度试一试。

fox0923

6'37"
The bond price is decreased to half of its asset price in Europe, Barclay discounts its value down to 1/3 of its asset price.
The investors do care about the banks, but they also don't trust the banks, they worry if they would rise in the downturn..
ECB has more and more deposits from the banks, it's a free-risk plan....
blah, blah, blah...