【2020-07-22】 贡布里希的这段话（《艺术的故事》第8章）让我想了很多： 现代艺术家那么追求创新，是被市场逼的，和如今的创业公司挖空心思力求成为独角兽，原理是一样的，因为规模经济和网络效应造成了一种只有独角兽才能生存的局面，对艺术来说，背后起作用的是传播和消费方式：并不是消费者真的需要那么多完全不同的新作品，而是因为只有全然不同的新作品才能让新进的艺术家有饭吃。 以音乐为例，且让我从一个极端的假设讲起，即便我们假设，消费者对是否有新作品丝毫不介意，而完全满足于数十年如一日翻来覆去听（比如10首）老曲子，同时他们也不介意时不时可能有一首新曲子，只要它好听就行，我想说的是，即便这种看起来最不鼓励创新的条件下，现代艺术市场也会远比古代市场更鼓励创新。 在古代，哪怕一千年没有新曲子，要满足100万人每人每年听几次的需求，也需要大批音乐家，因为每次表演只能同时服务于几十最多上百人，于是，一个完全没有创新的音乐产业，也可以让众多音乐家生存，具体养活多少，取决于表演次/欣赏次之间的比例关系。 可是技术进步会改变这一比例，考虑另一个极端：假如所有人都在spotify上听歌，而且全都满足于相同的10首歌来回放，那么，等这些歌的作者死光之后，音乐市场就再也不需要新的音乐家了，可是有志于靠音乐吃饭的人不甘心啊，所以他们必须写新曲子，努力说服至少一部分听众把他们的新歌加入播放列表。 这两个极端之间，一些早先的技术进步也可能改变上述比例关系，比如：扩音器，具有专业音响效果的音乐厅，精确的乐谱记录和复现手段（包括指挥），铁路飞机扩大了音乐家服务半径，等等。 除了音乐，类似的机制或许在其他艺术形式中也存在，不过我还没想清楚。  

【2018-05-16】 决定某一时代某社会之学术活动整体面貌的首要因素是，最具天赋的万分之一人口，都被吸引到哪些学科去了，更一般而言，决定某一社会之文化面貌的首要因素是，最具天赋的万分之一人口，都被吸引到哪些领域的智力活动中去了。 【2020-06-14】 隐约感觉，各学科之间的发展可能存在某些联动关系，比如：1）一些对智力要求极高的学科，比如理论物理，若遭遇平台期，看不到取得卓著成就的前景，就会提升其他学科产生巨匠的机会，2）某些产业的一时兴旺，会将大批高人吸引到该产业和相关学科，比如金融证券业，所以当这些产业出现一段较长的萧条期时，可能也会产生类似效果。总之，虽然全球人口已70多亿，可是像冯诺伊曼这样的高人，每代也不会有多少，所以这些人的流向就是个很重要的因素。不知道有没有相关研究。

【2020-04-20】 无论塔喷原本是什么意思（我特别没耐心去弄清楚一个喷子的想法究竟是什么），赌棍确实面临一种陷阱，好像我以前也说过，假如一个赌棍执行这样一种策略：只要兜里还有钱，就每天去赌若干次，那么，即便博弈是完全零和（而不是负和）的，而且每次赌博都是独立随机事件，只要他资本有限，就总会有一定概率在某天被清零离场，从此无缘赌场，因为在这种事件序列中，他的资本存量值处于随机游走状态，一旦在某一步走到零值，就被抛出赛场了，这也是大数概率的应用之一，没什么新鲜的。 这一原理在个体层次上的含义很平凡，没啥可多说的，但它在系统层次上会引出一些有意思的结果，因为是零和博弈，总得失恒定，所以每个离场者实际上为资金池贡献了一份净输入（等于他的初始入场资本），它构成了留在场内者的得益，只要不离场，他们便可继续保有这份收益。 设想一个封闭系统，起初1亿赌客，每人起始资本1万筹码，随着时间推移，必定不断有人被清零离场，最终（比如一万亿轮后，具体可以算）系统内将只剩下一位赌客，他拥有整个资金池 现在去掉起始资本相同这个设定，在某个轮数之后离场的概率，与起始资本高度相关，所以，只要你资本足够雄厚，就会持续盈利，由此可见，赌场即便将所有赌法都设为零和博弈，它也能赚钱 再去掉封闭性这个设定，允许流进流出，那么净输入将取决于主动赢钱离场者、主动输钱离场者和被动离场者的相对比例，可是按经验，很少有人会在累计净赢钱的情况下戒赌，所以净输入总是正的  

【2020-04-17】 我发现，我去各家超市的频率分别由一种关键商品决定，aldi是一种酒，woolworths是一种香肠，coles是香烟，虽然提高单次购买量可降低频率，但有限度，酒太重，一般一次只买两瓶，香肠有保质期，香烟太贵，而且是理想偷抢对象，若一次买10条囤家里，感觉不安全，所以每次只买一条。 我觉得，类似情况许多单身者可能都有（大家庭不大会，他们的频率更可能由购物车容量决定），我的疑问是，不知道超市是否会考虑这种情况，因而专门安排一些容易成为某个客户群之关键商品的东西，因为依我体会，这确实对其他购买有带动效果，比如我在aldi买三文鱼的频率，会被那种酒带高。  

【2019-07-05】 最近了解到一门很特别的生意，是这样，我一位本地朋友，拥有两个小农场，一个40英亩，也是他的居家所在，另一个18英亩，上面养着一小群大羊驼，我知道他的职业是木匠兼锁匠，所以就好奇的问他有没有养过别的牲口，他说牛羊猪都养过，但不多，我又问，是自己杀了吃还是卖掉，他说自己吃，但不是自己杀，需要吃的时候会请人来杀，这里有一种专业服务，叫mobile butchery，专门上门替农场主屠宰牲口，特别是那些自家没有屠宰设施的小农场（我猜其中可能也涉及到管制）。 有意思的是宰杀方式，屠夫会在开阔空间（而不是栏圈中）用步枪射杀正在漫游的牲口，一般枪法很好，务求一枪放倒，据说这样肉质会更好，因为没有恐慌和挣扎所造成的肌肉紧张，杀死后，屠夫会将尸体剥皮去内脏后挂在车里带走，然后在冷库里冻上，若干天后分部位切好包好送回来，另一个有趣之处是，游动屠夫不仅可以帮你宰杀你养的牲口，如果你农场上有野兽（比如鹿、袋鼠或野骆驼）的话，他也可以替你杀，只是收费会更高。 刚刚我搜了一番，发现这生意好像还挺兴隆的，这里是新南威尔士的一家（图中是他家的价目表）：  

【2019-06-06】 John Hancock公司的这个寿险产品是我见过最好的健康生活方式督促器，可是有人就不高兴了，说嘎呋闷特该管管了，同是这批人，若是换作没啥鸟用的可乐税或餐桌盐瓶禁止令，大概会拍手叫好，好笑的是，这个博客的名字叫ProMarket，Pro你个头

On September 19, 2018, John Hancock, one of the oldest life insurance companies in the US, made a radical change: it stopped offering life insurance priced by traditional demographics like age, health history, gender, and employment history.

Instead, John Hancock began offering coverage priced according to interactions with policyholders through wearable health devices, smartphone apps, and websites. According to the company, these interactive policies track activity levels, diet, and behaviors like smoking and excessive drinking. Policyholders that engage in healthy behaviors like exercise or prove that they have purchased healthy food receive discounts on their life insurance premiums, gift cards to major retailers, and other perks; those who do not presumably get higher rates and no rewards. According to John Hancock these incentives, along with daily tracking, will encourage policyholders to live longer and have lower hospitalization-related costs.

保险商信息获取和风险甄别的革命性提升，无疑会深刻改变保险业态，但说那会摧毁保险业的存在基础，就有点杞人忧天了，常见的一种担忧是，假如保险商都抢着刮蛋糕上的奶油，剩下的劣质客户的保费就会高到没销路的程度，可问题是，要刮掉多少奶油才会出现这种局面？保险商若是全知上帝，保险业就不复存在，这大概没错，但他们远非全知，他们采集信息的能力确实在迅速提高，但消费者的一种可能反应是提前买，在风险相关信息变得可采集之前就买，有何理由认为这种需求不会有供应商来满足呢？ 还有一种可能性，被刮剩下的蛋糕渣或许单独无法成为有价值的保险开发对象，但仍可能和其他产品组合起来而变得市场可行，比如抽烟喝酒胡吃海喝的没人愿意保，可是早死也有早死的好处啊，和年金结合起来就是个办法，若是再放弃几种续命治疗，好像还挺有吸引力的吧。

【2019-04-09】 @whigzhou: 读完byvoid这个帖子，想了想信用卡的盈利模式，好像就是靠吃那些不会精打细算（因而总是让自己一不小心就付了大笔利息）的人赚钱的，而且这样的人往往还是穷人居多，因为不会精打细算，显然也很少享受到信用卡所附带的种种诱人优惠，同时，对于那些从不拖欠并用尽一切优惠的精明客户，发卡商似乎是倒贴的，那么他们为何愿意倒贴呢？答案大概是，这些精明客户往往收入也较高，是消费主力，有了他们才能迫使商家愿意支付刷卡费，看来还是一种挺精巧的组合策略 @whigzhou: 这模式跟以广告为生的互联网公司有点类似，为他们带来收入的是少数会点广告的人，其他人都是帮他们创造流量的。 @whigzhou: 很多人确实不会算钱，我在澳洲观察到的一个最明确例证是香烟，澳洲香烟包装大小五花八门，有每包20支、25支，30支，40支，50支，都有，如果大家都会算，那么同种香烟的每支定价应该很接近，事实上差别挺大，起初我还有点吃惊，这么简单的算术也有那么多人懒得算？ @五花王: 养额度主要是维护临时信用池，但国内信用卡目前越来越转向权益服务高净值端，消费诱导低净值端，越来越像服务业了 @whigzhou: 中国的情况肯定很不一样（所以发卡商的策略也会不同），穷人里还有大量会算的，而在英美这样的社会，经过几百年流动和筛选，不会算的都沉淀在底层了，而在当今美国，你要想做穷人，必须有某种缺陷，要么智力低，要么尽责性差，要么反社会，要么容易上瘾，而这些特性都和精打细算负相关  

【2018-09-05】 看眼下大公司政治站队这么积极的势头，突然冒出一个念头：未来各类消费品市场会不会出现几大品牌分别对应不同党派的局面？雇佣市场的党派分化或许来的更快？ ​​​​ 从左派对待NRA合作商的劲头看，他们总有一天也会发动对FoxNews广告客户的抵制行动，然后许多公司被迫站队……若这种情况升级到某个程度，就会引发连锁反应，因为被腾出的市场空间总会吸引其他厂商来占领，沃尔玛和麦当劳估计会选择右边……  

（上周英语课上老师布置了个作业：自己选择一个议题，先给两小时做研究，然后写一篇议论文章，这是我做过的最长的英语写作题，之前的都不超过300 words，很吃力不过挺有收获。） Why Plumbing Is So Expensive in Australia? by Egbert Tzoe 8 Feb 2018 Plumbing is extremely expensive in Australia. According to 9news, it costs $78.40 an hour on average, the highest among all kinds of trades, while a lawyer service costs only $37 an hour.[1] By contrast, an average American plumber charges $31.61(usd$24.74) an hour.[2] The direct cause of this situation is quite straightforward: there are too few plumbers in this country. Year by year, fewer and fewer young people are willing to become a plumber. Perhaps the most revealing fact is that the average age of Australian plumbers is 55, while the overall workforce average is 38. As Mr Paddy McCrudden, an officer of Plumbing Trades Employees Union, says, “plumbers are fast becoming the dad's army.”[3] But why? What prevents such a high wage from attracting more young (or not so young) people into this business? There are no obvious answers, but we have some clues. Higher education was (and is) booming in recent decades. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics, proportion of people aged 25-34 with a bachelor or higher degree increased from 27% in 2004 to 37.3% in 2015.[4] As we can imagine, university graduates tend to have a white-collar or managerial or creative job. They would find a hard, dirty and muscular plumbing job unattractive. It’s simply incompatible with their self-identity. In addition, as more girls go to university, plumbers, as well as other heavy manual labor workers, are becoming less popular in the marriage market, because people consistently choose their partners who have an educational background similar to that of themselves. Like other heavy trades, plumbing is highly masculine. An evidence for this is that more than 99% plumbers are male.[5] But, sadly (or nicely, depends on your taste), masculinity has been declining rapidly for half a century in the Western World, especially in its developed part. Among other evidence are two facts: First, average sperm count in men has dropped 50% between 1974 and 2011.[6] Second, maybe not coincidentally, all the tough guy actors have disappeared from the movie or TV screens since mid-1990s.[7] Well then, how can we fix this? Less uni education? Many people would surely be unhappy or even riot I guess. More visas for plumbers? It doesn’t work. In fact, there is a large and sufficient visa quota for plumbers already, 5507 in 2018 alone, but only 4 or 0.07% of them are filled to date. By contrast, 51 of 2675 (1.9%) visa vacancies for chefs, 2955 of 6202 (47%) for programmers, 2633 of 4785 (55%) for accountants, are filled during the same period.[8] Obviously there are not so many foreign plumbers who are interested in and qualified for migrating to Australia. I think English is the main barrier, because as other tradies, plumbers tend to receive less education than other skilled visa applicants. So maybe lowering the English requirement can be a cure, but I suspect it would help a lot. Maybe there is no solution, or maybe high cost of plumbing is not a problem at all. After all, tough men is an endangered species nowadays, but meanwhile, despite the great advance in automatic technologies in recent years, there is still much work needed for them to do, hence it seems not so unfair to pay a high price for these tough guy survivors. Even better, this high price forces us aussies to do many jobs by ourselves, and get a lot of joys. So let it be.   References: [1] http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/plumbers-electricians-australias-richest-tradies-charging-more-than-the-average-lawyer/news-story/4fee7c5920ff4624e53c5ca20f99e3cb [2] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472152.htm [3] http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/australias-most-wanted-jobs-tech-heads-health-staff-and-plumbers/news-story/5aed73cf949f668df49be25d5f8b67fe [4] https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/australias-universities/key-facts-and-data#.Wn_ZEiVub4Z [5] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/4ce9a706f8b1bba7ca2570ec000e3635!OpenDocument [6] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/ [7] http://www.weirdrepublic.com/episode159.htm [8] http://deltaimmigration.com.au/Plumber-General/334111.htm  

Entrepreneurship and American education 创业活动与美国教育 作者:Michael Q. McShane @ 2016-05-10 译者:Tankman 校对:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值) 来源:AEI,http://www.aei.org/publication/entrepreneurship-and-american-education/ Key Points 要点

• While educational entrepreneurship’s influence has been muted by policy and circumstance, this has nevertheless been a time of great growth for the field.
• 尽管政策和政治氛围已经压制了教育业中创业活动的影响，这个领域还是有了一段时间的显著增长。
• Over the next two decades, educational entrepreneurs will encounter a funding community, policy environment, and changing educational landscape that will profoundly affect the types of ventures and the ability of those ventures to scale, grow, and meet children’s needs.
• 在接下来二十年里，教育业的创业者会受到融资界，政策环境，教育业整体面貌变化等因素的冲击。这些因素会深刻影响风险投资的类型以及这些风险投资发起，壮大和满足孩子需求的能力。
• Entrepreneurship does not guarantee success. If anything, it ensures that there will be failure. For all its imperfections though, it offers a degree of imagination and natural winnowing well-suited to our sprawling, diverse, and pluralistic nation, and it creates an opportunity for truly world-changing products to emerge.
• 创业并不一定会成功。如果要说什么是确定的话，那就是一定会有失败产生。虽然有各种不完美，它提供了一定程度的想象空间和自然筛选，很好的适应了我们这个参差多元，分权共治的国家，而且创造机会让真正改变世界的成果得以涌现。

I have two adorable dogs who I love like children. Georgie is a precocious, 10-pound fur ball Bichon Frise I bought from an Amish man in rural Maryland. Beau is a seven-pound Maltese and silky terrier mix who spent the first five years of his life in a meth den in Missouri before my wife and I rescued him. When we travel, we have to find a place to board them. For years, we used kennels or “open-play” dog boarding facilities. By and large, we were pleased with the care that the dogs received, but boy, was it expensive. 我有两条可爱的狗，我像爱孩子那样爱他们。Georgie是只早熟的，10磅重的圆滚滚毛茸茸的比熊犬。我把它从马里兰州农村的一位阿米绪人那里买来。Beau有七磅，是一只的玛尔济斯犬和澳洲丝毛梗的后代。它生命的前五年在密苏里州的一个毒窝里度过，直到被我和我太太救了出来。当我们旅行时，我们必须为它们找个寄宿的地方。许多年以来，我们使用狗窝或者是“敞开”式宠物狗寄存设施。总体来说，我们对狗狗们受到的照顾感到满意。但这种服务很贵。 That is why it was great when my wife discovered the app Rover. Rover is kind of like Airbnb for dog sitters. Prospective sitters (or walkers or groomers) create profiles, post their rates, and have a space for customers to review them. People can find options that are convenient, in their price range, and the kind of environment they want for their dogs. We use the app whenever we travel and get what I think is far superior care for substantially less than we paid a kennel. It has been a big win for us and our dogs. 因此当我太太发现手机应用Rover时，一切实在太棒了。Rover像是宠物狗看护领域的Airbnb。潜在的看护们（或是遛狗者，或狗美容师）创建了个人简介，贴上他们的要价，留下一个给客户写评论的地方。人们能够在自己满意的价格区间，选择合适的选项，给宠物狗他们觉得合宜的环境。我们每次旅行都要使用这个应用，用明显比狗窝更低的价钱，换来一个更好的服务。这对狗狗和人都大有好处。 Rover illustrates disruptive innovation at work. Its founders identified a practical problem, leveraged knowledge and technology to devise a better solution, and then provided that solution in a way that upends old routines and assumptions. Rover体现了破坏性创新是如何工作的。它的创始人确定了一个实际问题，利用知识和技术来提供一个更好的解决方案，而后那个方案在某种意义上颠覆了旧的常规和假设。 I am of the opinion that it would be good for K–12 schooling if more teachers, school leaders, and entrepreneurs took a Rover-like approach to challenges that plague education. How can we better use school facilities? How can we help children find schools that are a good match for them? How can we help teachers identify the best strategies to address specific learning challenges? The list of vexing problems goes on and on. But what does it take for entrepreneurial problem solving to actually help students, and how do we think about the obstacles it faces and the problems it may create? 我有一种看法：如果更多教师、学校领导和企业家提供一个Rover式的解决方案来挑战如今重疾缠身的教育业，对基础教育将会产生积极影响。如何能更好的使用学校设施？如何能帮助孩子发现适合他们的学校？如何能帮助教师发现应对特定教学挑战的最优策略？令人头痛的问题的清单越拉越长。但是需要什么条件，才能用企业家解决问题的思维来帮助学生？这一途径面临的障碍是什么呢？这种方法又会带来什么问题呢？ Look, Rover is no panacea, but it is a great improvement. I would be the first to admit that in some cities it is probably impractical. There might not be enough supply for great potential dog sitters to want to get involved, or there might not be enough demand to keep prices attractive to sitters. For many dog owners, it is still too expensive. That said, Rover does help solve a particular problem for a lot of people, while opening the door to newer and better solutions. This is what entrepreneurial activity can do. 看，Rover不是一个万灵药，但却是一个巨大的改进。我可以爽快地承认，在某些城市，它很可能不现实。那里可能没有足够多的潜在宠物狗看护者想加入该平台，或是需求量不够大，价格也就无法吸引看护者加入。对很多狗主人来说，价格仍然太高。尽管如此，Rover的确帮很多人解决了一个特殊的问题，也给更新更好的方案留出了机会。这正是创活动所能作的。 In May 2016, Harvard Education Press is releasing a volume called Educational Entrepreneurship Today, which Frederick Hess and I edited.[1] Its content arose during a conference we hosted at AEI during the summer of 2015, where we brought together leading educational entrepreneurs, researchers in the field, and people with experience funding entrepreneurial ventures. What follows are a couple of big ideas that are circulating in the educational entrepreneurship world today and some of the tensions that will define educational entrepreneurship in the future. Will education be a place where Rover- (or Uber- or Airbnb-) like innovation takes place? Do we want it to be? 在2016年五月，哈佛教育出版社发布了一卷Frederick Hess和我编辑的文集，题为《今日教育行业创投》。[1]文集的内容形成于2015年夏季我们在美国企业研究所主持的一个讨论会。在这个会议上，我们把一流的教育业创业者，该领域的研究者和有创投经验的人士召集在了一起。随之而来的则是一些在今日教育业创业界流行的非凡创意，同时还有一些争论将在未来定义教育行业的创投活动。教育业会是一个产生类似Rover（或优步，或Airbnb）那样的创新的领域吗？我们希望如此吗？ Trends in Educational Entrepreneurship 教育业创业的趋势 The first and most important idea that those observing educational entrepreneurship should know is that while its influence over the past decade or so has been muted by policy and circumstance, this has nevertheless been a time of great growth for the field. Sure, it is true that school procurement systems (how schools and teachers shop for and purchase new materials) are stifling and outdated. Teachers and principals have limited flexibility to redesign schools or put new tools to work in ambitious ways. 教育行业创投的观察人士应该知道的第一个也是最重要的一个概念就是：教育行业创投在过去十多年一直在发挥作用，尽管目前已被政策和环境压制，该领域仍然有过一段显著增长期。当然，学校采购平台系统（学校和教师采购新材料的方式）是压抑创新且过时的。老师和校长们重新设计学校，或积极使用新的工作工具的灵活性是有限的。 But there have been many bright spots. Enrollment in charter schools doubled, and then doubled again. Venture capital investments grew from almost nothing to hundreds of millions’ worth. Companies such as Wireless Generation and SchoolNet thrived and then were sold at a handsome rate of return, emboldening more entrepreneurs and investors who seek to emulate those efforts. 但这一行业已然有很多闪光点。特许学校的录取数翻倍，又再翻倍。风险投资额从接近于零，变成几亿美元。如无线世代（Wireless Generation)或学校网（SchoolNet）这样的公司茁壮成长然后再以可观的回报率被收购，这鼓励了更多企业家和投资者去尝试复制上述成果。 The second thing worth noting is that what gets measured gets valued. The No Child Left Behind era heavily emphasized how students perform on state tests in reading and math. In the modern era, there has also been far less appetite or room for entrepreneurs who are not focused on closing reading and math “gaps” for low-income, African American, or Latino youth. Teachers are increasingly evaluated based on these metrics, district schools are at risk of being sanctioned if their students do not perform adequately, and charter schools know their existence depends largely on their test scores. 第二个值得注意的事情是，能被衡量比较的方面才是被认为有价值的。这个“不让一个孩子落后”的时代特别重视学生在州统考中的阅读和数学成绩。在如今这个时代，那些不重视为低收入群体、非裔和拉丁裔青少年缩小阅读和数学成绩差距的企业家很少受到青睐或者得到发展空间。教师评估越来越基于这些指标，如果学生表现不够好，学区的学校可能面临被制裁的风险。而特许学校也知道其生存很大程度上依赖于测试分数。 Test scores tend to define the ways in which schools are judged and compared, and they also mean that new providers can really only demonstrate their mettle in terms of reading and math. When policy and philanthropy treat reading and math tests as the coin of the realm, it creates problems for entrepreneurs who are not offering “whole school” models, focusing on tested grades or subjects, or tackling English Language Arts and math in ways that do not map onto tests. The metrics used to measure success shape the types of solutions that will be offered. 州统考测试分数倾向于被拿来作为评判和比较学校的标准。这也意味着新的教育供应者只能通过阅读和数学成绩来彰显他们的能力。政策和慈善业把分数当作教育业的法定货币，这给一些企业家带来了麻烦。比如有些企业家不提供“完整学校”的模式，他们只关注学校课堂成绩或科目而非州统考成绩或科目；还有些企业家用来促进英语文学和数学教育的方法，无法反映在考试分数上。衡量成功的指标影响了哪些类型的解决方案将被提供。 Finally, the field of educational entrepreneurship needs to take a hard look in the mirror and realize it has suffered from its insularity. As New Schools Venture Fund President Stacey Childress points out in her chapter in Educational Entrepreneurship Today, Teach For America (TFA) alumni were key founders of nearly one in five education ventures launched in the past 20 years.[2] That data point reflects the larger reality that educational entrepreneurs are likely to share common formative experiences and worldviews. This has produced a community that has tended to share certain assumptions (such as the importance of reading and math tests) and embrace a certain set of policies (such as test-based teacher evaluation and charter schooling). 最后，教育行业创投这一领域自身需要被仔细审视，并意识到该领域已经被其孤立性深深伤害。教育行业创投会议上，新学校风险基金的主席Stacey Childress在其专题演讲中指出，过去20年发起的教育业风险投资中，五分之一的创业公司由“为美国而教书”(TFA)组织的前成员作为关键创始人。[2]这数据反映出一个更广泛的现实：教育业创业者很可能有着共同的成长经历或世界观。这就创造了一个倾向于分享特定假设的共同体（例如阅读和数学的重要性），并且支持某特定的政策集（如基于统考测试的教师评估和特许学校教学）。 This insularity has contributed to a simmering tension in several cities with an abundance of entrepreneurial activity and new school formation, such as Detroit, Newark, and New Orleans. Activists, politicians, and community members charge that these ventures are being done to marginalized communities, not with them. Part of this tension is stoked by conflating entrepreneurship and “education reform” more generally (a phenomenon that we will tackle momentarily), but another comes from a genuine fear of snake-oil salesmen and carpetbaggers with agendas of their own. 这种偏狭性在几个创业活动和新式学校丰富的城市导致了沸腾的矛盾，如底特律，纽瓦克和新奥尔良。活动家、政客和社区成员指责这些创业公司让社区边缘化，而不是和社区相伴。更广泛的来说，把创业和“教育改革”结合起来的尝试，激化了部分矛盾（这现象我们很快会谈到）。而另外的激化则来自于对于兜售冒牌货的奸商和有着自己小盘算、想趁机渔利的外来政客的真实恐惧。 Two Dynamics That Will Shape the Next Two Decades of Educational Entrepreneurship 未来20年塑造教育行业创投的两个机制 The “what” of educational entrepreneurship is exciting. The “how” is a lot tougher. Over the next two decades, educational entrepreneurs will encounter a funding community, a policy environment, and a changing educational landscape that will profoundly affect the types of ventures they are able to create and the ability of those ventures to scale, grow, and meet children’s needs. How these dynamics will play out remains to be seen. In fact, there are several key dynamics in educational entrepreneurship that are worth exploring. 教育行业创投的概念是令人激动的。而其实现途径则要困难多了。在接下来二十年，教育业的创业者会受到融资界、政策环境、变化的教育界等因素的冲击。这些因素会深刻影响风险投资以及这些风险投资发起、壮大和满足孩子需求的能力。这些机制如何运作还有待观察。事实上，教育创业有几个关键机制值得探索。 The first dynamic is the tension between big bets and small bets. Because the outcomes of new ventures are uncertain, it makes sense to make a large number of small bets and winnow them over time. This reduces risk for everyone involved and accelerates the rate at which new models can be tried. But this approach flies in the face of much of the thinking that has characterized educational innovation and entrepreneurship during the past decade. Philanthropists and investors have been eager to find “what works” and invest in scaling it up. Proponents of the scale-up approach point to the need nationwide, the slow pace of change, and the messiness of a small-bet strategy. 第一个机制是大额投资和小额投资之间的张力。因为新的风险投资的结果不确定，下很多的小赌注然后再不断筛选它们是有道理的。这减少了每个人涉及的风险，加速了尝试新模式的速率。但是过去十年，教育行业创新、创业的特色思维很大程度上与这一思路相悖。慈善家和投资者渴望发现可行的方案，并加大投资。加大投资这一做法的支持者，提到了全国性的需求、变革的慢节奏以及小赌注方案无序混乱等理由。 Fundamentally, this tension highlights the competing visions of educational improvement in America today. Some see experimentation as eventually converging on a single or small number of “best” models, practices, or programs that should ultimately be adopted everywhere. Others see a far more fluid world, with “best” answers being highly contingent and context dependent. This is not a simple story of entrepreneurs versus bureaucrats, but of good-faith disagreements on the approaches most likely to serve the needs of schools and schooling. 基本上，这种张力突显了在今日的美国教育改进中的竞争理念。有些人把实验看作是最终会收敛的过程。他们认为最后发现的一个或少数几个最优模式、做法或项目应当被用于全国。另一些人则看到一个更加多变的世界，最优答案是高度机缘性且情境依赖的。这不是一个企业家和官僚相争的简单故事，而是一个关于最大可能有助于学校和教学的需要的方法上的善意争执。 The second dynamic—a tension that actually poses a serious risk to current and future entrepreneurial ventures—is the simultaneous desire for experimentation and uniformly positive results. In the world of educational entrepreneurship, there are calls for experimentation, the need to “think outside the box,” and a need to “fundamentally change” American schools. However, in the next breath, the same leaders and advocates who have preached the Innovation Gospel insist on “no excuses” accountability systems aiming for 100 percent proficiency and charter-authorizing systems that require all schools and offerings to prioritize performance on state tests. While it is hypothetically possible to square this circle, the reality is that educational entrepreneurs are whipsawed between an appetite for risk-taking and a strong aversion to it. 第二种机制——实际上给现在和未来的创业风投带来了严重风险——即同时渴望实验和始终如一的正面结果。在教育业创投的世界，有对实验的呼唤，有“跳出盒子思考”的需求，也有对美国学校进行“根本变革”的需求。但同时，同样这些鼓吹创新思维福音的领袖和支持者坚持毫不妥协的系统可靠性，一定要向100%的师资能力水平看齐，而特许学校系统的学校和方案都必须优先考虑州统考的表现。两者兼顾在假想中是可能的，但现实中，教育业创投者则卡在冒险冲动和强烈的风险厌恶之间左右为难。 The casual observer can easily imagine that all the expertise and money involved in venture capital and startups must deliver a high rate of success. The truth is quite different. Ninety percent of all new enterprises fail. Failure is most of what new ventures actually do. That Darwinian process of figuring things out or learning from others’ mistakes is essential to entrepreneurial success. 漫不经心的观察者很容易觉得：风险资本和创业公司配置了所有这些专家技能和资金，回报率一定很高。真相则十分不同。90%的创业公司会失败。失败是大多数新的创投公司实际所做的事。以达尔文过程找到解决方案，或是从别人的错误中学习，对创业公司的成功至关重要。 While the idea of “failure” is disquieting when it comes to children and schools, the value of failure has an important place in classrooms and learning. Students have to feel free to try something new and learn from the experience, whether or not it works out. In American education today, however, there is little tolerance for failure—in classrooms, schools, or the larger landscape. 也许一旦涉及到孩子或者学校，“失败”这个词就让人心神不宁。学生必须有尝试新东西和从经验中学习的自由，无论最后结果成功与否。然而在今日的美国教育领域，失败一点都不被容忍——在教室，学校，或者更大的范围。 This tension is particularly evident in the inclination to support large, established “entrepreneurial” ventures such as TFA or the KIPP Academies. These ventures show track records of success, have proven leaders, and constitute a well-known quantity. At the same time, these are the very things that tend to produce rigidity and routine in any organization. 这种矛盾在支持大型的、发展完备的所谓“创业”风投企业的倾向中显得特别明显，如对TFA或KIPP学院。这些企业有一系列成功的记录，有资质的领袖，规模也广为人知。与此同时，任何这样的组织都倾向产生僵化和陈规。 Organizations such as TFA and KIPP, with more than two decades of experience, records of accomplishment, alumni networks, and stakeholders, are no longer positioned to pioneer wholly new approaches. Rather, they become attractive to funders, policymakers, and education officials as they become less and less the entrepreneurial upstart and more and more a familiar piece of the new education establishment. Rather than think about new ways of preparing teachers, people keep supporting TFA. The consequence is that these organizations are asked to do more and more, stretching their ability to excel while potentially crowding out interest in unproven ventures. TFA和KIPP这样的组织拥有20多年经验、一系列的成就、会友网络和利益相关者，它们不再站在新方法的先驱位置。因为当它们变得越来越不像创业新星而越来越像人们熟悉的新的教育既得利益集团时，它们对投资人、政策制定者和教育官员都变得具有吸引力。人们一直支持TFA，而不是思考培训教师的新方法。后果就是，这些机构被要求做得更多，拓展了其卓越能力的同时也潜在地挤出了那些尚未被认可的创业公司的利益。 Questions about the importance of entrepreneurship and our tolerance for uncertainty are also central to policy debates over entrepreneur-friendly reforms such as education savings accounts, online learning, and expanded school choice programs. After all, such programs are, by their very nature, unproven. 在就对创投友好的各种改革进行政策辩论，如教育储蓄账户、线上课程和范围更宽的择校程序时，创投的重要性和我们对不确定性的容忍度等问题也居于中心。无论如何，这些项目在其最根本性质上尚未证明自己。 So What Can We Do? 那么我们能做什么呢？ If you, like me, appreciate the entrepreneurial impulse and think that it has something to offer the nation’s education system, then there are steps that can be taken to try and advance the cause. 如果你像我一样欣赏创业精神的脉动并认为这可以给这个国家的教育系统带来些什么，那么有以下策略可以尝试和推进这项事业。 Funders can make small bets, as well as large ones. This can help address both the fear of “failing big” and the sense that so much of education reform today is imposed by outsiders on local communities. Insofar as the groups receiving the majority of funding are outsiders that come to town with their already-baked models, well-intentioned philanthropy can unwittingly exacerbate this divide. 投资者可以进行小额投资，就像大投资一样。这可以帮助处理对“大失败”的恐惧，也缓和了如下事实所带来的隔阂感：今日如此之多的教育改革是本地社区的外来者强制推行的。目前的情况是，当拿到大笔投资的团体是来到镇上的外来人，并带着他们已备好的模式时，好心的慈善可以无意中加剧这一隔阂。 An easy rule of thumb here is for funders to be sure they are devoting some modest percentage of their investment giving—whether that is 5 percent or 20 percent—to new ventures. Fortunately, the resources to support the developing, prototyping, and testing process tend to be only a fraction of what it costs to contribute meaningfully to an established operation. 在这里，对投资人来说一个易于施行的拇指规则是，保证他们把投资的一些小额部分，不管是5%还是20%，捐给新的创新公司。幸运的是，用来支持开发，原型制作，和测试过程的资源往往只是有效地捐助一个已建成项目的所需的一小部分。 Entrepreneurs can start with “tiny schools.” Given varying tolerance for risk and limited resources for experimentation, prospective entrepreneurs should take a good look at New Orleans’ 4.0 Schools and their idea of “tiny schools” (described by 4.0 CEO Matt Candler in his chapter).[3] Creating a new charter school typically entails a dozen or more employees, scores or even hundreds of students, and a budget north of $1 million—meaning that failure is slow, expensive, and enormously disruptive. 创业者可以从“小微学校”开始。给定不同的风险容忍度和有限的实验资源，潜在的企业家可以好好审视一下新奥尔良的4.0学校和他们的“小微学校”理念（引自4.0的首席执行官Matt Candler的专题讲座）[3]。创建一所新的特许学校通常需要十几个或者更多雇员，几十甚至几百个学生，一个一百万美元以上的预算——这意味着失败是缓慢、昂贵和极其麻烦的。 Tiny schools mean that educators with a promising idea can start with 5 to 10 kids on Saturday mornings in a public library or school cafeteria. Such a model allows entrepreneurs to experiment, fail, improve, and iterate over the course of several sessions at very low cost and next to zero risk to students. Just as evolutionary change accelerates when new generations are born more often, so entrepreneurial invention benefits from shortened time horizons and more rapid iteration. 小微学校意味着带着有潜质创意的教育者可以从周六上午在公共图书馆或学校食堂以五到十个孩子的规模开始。这种模式允许创业者以一个很低的费用和对学生来说几乎为零的风险，来对课程环节进行实验、失败、改进和试错。就如同新世代出生得更频繁时进化会加速一样。这样，创业型发明就从更短的周期和更快的试错中获益。 Tiny schools accomplish two central tasks. First, they lower the risk of starting a new school. If the idea bears fruit, it can be ramped up. If the teaching methods do not connect with students, at worst, students have lost a couple of Saturdays. Even if the transition cannot be made to a whole-year model, only a few students are affected. 小微学校完成了两个核心任务。第一，他们降低了创立一个新学校的风险。如果创业有成果，它就可以壮大。如果教学方法对学生不起作用，最差也不过就是学生损失几个星期六。即使这一过渡模式无法变为一个全年模式，也只有几个学生会受影响。 Second, they lower the cost of experimentation. In starting an entire charter school, substantial philanthropic and then public dollars are spent on an experiment. It might work out; it might not. While over time there is reason to believe that this will lead to better schools, it is an expensive way to get there. By bridging the gap between nothing and a whole school, tiny schools create space for rapid iteration and improvement. 第二，它们降低了实验成本。为了启动一个完备的特许学校，大笔慈善和财政资金会被用于一次实验。也许有好结果，也许不成功。虽然一直以来这方法被认为会产生好学校，这仍是一个昂贵的手段。通过跨越从一无所有到完备学校的鸿沟，小微学校为快速试错和改进提供了一个空间。 State leaders can complete a comprehensive regulatory review. Although mundane, rules regarding subjects such as procurement, teacher preparation, new school creation, reporting, facilities, special education, online provision, staff development, and charter school authorization can create huge, counterproductive hurdles to new providers and new models of provision. Although these regulations may have made sense at one time, many no longer do. 州政府的领袖可以完成一个综合性规制评议。虽然平凡庸常，但在采购、教师培训、新学校创设、报告、设施、特殊教育、在线授课、雇员培训和特许学校授权机构等诸方面，各种规制能够产生巨大的消极作用，阻碍新的提供者和新的模式投入使用。虽然这些规制过去可能有意义，但也许现在很多已并非如此了。 State leaders would do well to put together a blue-ribbon panel of experts to scour the state education code for outdated and ill-suited statutes and regulations that may be stymieing entrepreneurial solutions. They can also encourage districts, charter authorizers, and schools of education to conduct similar surveys of their own operations and publicly report on where and what they are streamlining. 州政府的领导们能做得更好的方面，也许是推动组成专家委员会来革新州的教育法规并去除那些过时和适应性差并可能阻碍创投方案的法律和规章。他们也可以鼓励学区、特许学校授权机构和学校对其自身的运作进行类似的调查，并公布它们在何处采取了何种加强效率的措施。 Don’t Go Gaga for Entrepreneurs; Foster Entrepreneurship 不要迷信企业家；要鼓励创业精神 The exciting source of dynamism that created everything from Rover to the next cool app to teach students to read is entrepreneurialism, not any particular entrepreneur or entrepreneurial venture. Exciting new entrants age, grow, and evolve. Some succeed and some fail. Those that succeed, with time and success, tend to become members in good standing of the stodgy old establishment. That is the cycle of entrepreneurial life. 企业家精神而不是某个企业家或者创投企业才是令人振奋的动力源。这动力可以创造从Rover到下一个很酷的手机应用，也可以教学生阅读。令人振奋的参与者变得成熟，成长，并且进化。一些成功了，一些失败了。那些成功者，随着它们的年岁和成功，变成了乏味沉闷的老既得利益集团的一部分。这就是创业生命体的周期。 Entrepreneurship does not guarantee success. If anything, it ensures that there will be failure. Of course, if a half century of school reform has taught us anything, it is that system reform is also sure to produce failure—except on a much larger scale and without the dynamism, inventiveness, and self-correction that characterizes vibrant entrepreneurial sectors. 创业不能保证成功。如果说能保证什么的话，它保证这里将会有失败。当然，如果半个世纪的学校改革教会了我们什么的话，那就是系统改革也当然会产生失败--只不过这失败的规模更大，而且没有活力、激励、自我修正等这些有生命力的创业部门所拥有的特征。 For all its imperfections though, educational entrepreneurship offers a degree of imagination and natural winnowing that seems especially well-suited to the sprawling, diverse, and pluralistic nation that we live in, and it creates an opportunity for truly world-changing products to emerge. Those who believe in the power of the entrepreneurial impulse would do well never to cling to any particular venture. The social good is best served by creating the conditions in which entrepreneurs can thrive if—and only if—they are serving the best interests of students. 虽然有种种不完美，教育行业创投活动提供着某种程度的想象力和自然筛选，这些看来对于我们所生活的这个分散，多元和分权共治的国家特别合适。并且创投创造了机会，使得真正改变世界的产品可能涌现。那些相信创业冲劲的人应该避免一成不变地支持某个特定的创投公司。创造条件，让并且只让那些最能为学生利益服务的企业茁壮成长，才是服务社会的最好途径。 Notes 注记

1. Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane, Educational Entrepreneurship Today (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press, 2016).
2. Stacy Childress, “From Generation to Generation: Fifteen Years of Education Entrepreneurship,” in Educational Entrepreneurship Today, ed. Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press, 2016).
3. Matt Candler, “Go Small or Go Home: Innovation in Schooling,” in Educational Entrepreneurship Today, ed. Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press, 2016).

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——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

【2016-09-06】 @whigzhou: Airbnb的模式不知会不会复制到餐饮业，自己做菜的，忙乎两小时十分钟就吃完了感觉很亏，多做一人份的边际成本很小，还可以顺便聊聊天，甚至交些朋友，不过有个问题，其中相当大一部分可能很快会凝固成固定饭搭子，如果比例太高，那在商业上就难以成立了。 ​​​​ @whigzhou: 当然，在缺乏人际信任的某国，怎么都不成立，即便有也会最终蜕变为共雇阿姨，而且据说这条路也堵死了，外卖网都禁止无门店商家入驻。 @MrsRobinson:伦敦颇有一些这样经营的“餐厅”，在自己家做饭，邮件通知、定位，再口碑传。我去过的人多的20多个客人，少的六七个，一人付四五十镑  

沙特阿拉伯可能会在美国石油行业崩溃之前倒下 Saudi Arabia may go broke before the US oil industry buckles 作者：Ambrose Evans-Pritchard @ 2015-8-5 译者：Veidt（@Veidt) 校对：Tankman 来源：每日电讯报，http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/oilprices/11768136/Saudi-Arabia-may-go-broke-before-the-US-oil-industry-buckles.html If the oil futures market is correct, Saudi Arabia will start running into trouble within two years. It will be in existential crisis by the end of the decade. 如果石油期货市场是对的，那么沙特阿拉伯将会在两年之内开始陷入麻烦。这个国家将会在这个十年的尾声时陷入一场生存危机。 The contract price of US crude oil for delivery in December 2020 is currently $62.05, implying a drastic change in the economic landscape for the Middle East and the petro-rentier states. 目前2020年12月交付的美国原油期货价格是每桶62.05美元，这个价格体现了中东地区和石油租利国家经济版图的一场剧变。 The Saudis took a huge gamble last November when they stopped supporting prices and opted instead to flood the market and drive out rivals, boosting their own output to 10.6m barrels a day (b/d) into the teeth of the downturn. 沙特人在去年11月【译注：本文作于2015年，此处指2014年11月】开始了一场豪赌，他们停止了对石油价格的支撑，转而选择在市场上倾销以挤出竞争对手，他们在市场急转直下的时候将自己的原油产量提升到了每日106万桶。 Bank of America says OPEC is now "effectively dissolved". The cartel might as well shut down its offices in Vienna to save money. 美国银行认为OPEC目前“实际上已经解体了”。这个垄断联盟也许会关闭它在维也纳的办公室以节省资金。 If the aim was to choke the US shale industry, the Saudis have misjudged badly, just as they misjudged the growing shale threat at every stage for eight years. "It is becoming apparent that non-OPEC producers are not as responsive to low oil prices as had been thought, at least in the short-run," said the Saudi central bank in its latest stability report. 如果这么做的目的是打击美国的页岩产业，那么沙特人就犯了个大错，就像他们在过去八年中的每个阶段都错判了成长中的页岩产业的威胁一样。“很显然那些非OPEC产油国对于低油价的反应并不像我们之前所设想的那样剧烈，至少在短期内是这样，”沙特央行在最近的稳定性报告中表示。 "The main impact has been to cut back on developmental drilling of new oil wells, rather than slowing the flow of oil from existing wells. This requires more patience," it said. 这份报告称：“（这项政策）的主要影响是减少了新油井的开发钻探量，而并非降低现有油井的生产速度。这需要更多的耐心。” One Saudi expert was blunter. "The policy hasn't worked and it will never work," he said. 一位沙特专家则更加直白。“这项政策显然没起作用，而且它也永远起不了作用，”他说。 By causing the oil price to crash, the Saudis and their Gulf allies have certainly killed off prospects for a raft of high-cost ventures in the Russian Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico, the deep waters of the mid-Atlantic, and the Canadian tar sands. 通过让油价崩溃，沙特人和他们的海湾盟友们显然杀死了那些试图在俄罗斯北极地区，墨西哥湾，大西洋中部深海和加拿大油砂中提炼原油的昂贵冒险活动。 Consultants Wood Mackenzie say the major oil and gas companies have shelved 46 large projects, deferring $200bn of investments. 咨询公司Wood Machenzie表示，大型油气公司们已经将46个大型项目束之高阁，这推迟了大约2000亿美元的投资支出。 The problem for the Saudis is that US shale frackers are not high-cost. They are mostly mid-cost, and as I reported from the CERAWeek energy forum in Houston, experts at IHS think shale companies may be able to shave those costs by 45pc this year - and not only by switching tactically to high-yielding wells. 沙特人所面临的问题是，美国的页岩油气生产商们的成本并不高。正如我在休斯顿举办的CERAWeek能源论坛上所报告的，这些公司中的大多数成本都处于适中的水平，IHS公司的专家们认为这些页岩油气公司也许能在今年将这些成本削减45个百分点——而这并不仅是靠战术性地转向那些高产的油井来做到的。 Advanced pad drilling techniques allow frackers to launch five or ten wells in different directions from the same site. Smart drill-bits with computer chips can seek out cracks in the rock. New dissolvable plugs promise to save $300,000 a well. "We've driven down drilling costs by 50pc, and we can see another 30pc ahead," said John Hess, head of the Hess Corporation. 先进的井台批量钻探技术让页岩油业者能在同一处钻探点打出5口或10口不同方向的油井。植入了计算机芯片的智能钻探装置能够自动发现岩层中的裂缝。最新的可溶解油栓技术有望为每口油井节省30万美元的成本。“我们已经将钻探成本降低了百分之五十，而且我们认为目前的成本还有百分之三十的下降空间，”Hess集团总裁John Hess表示。 It was the same story from Scott Sheffield, head of Pioneer Natural Resources. "We have just drilled an 18,000 ft well in 16 days in the Permian Basin. Last year it took 30 days," he said. 先锋自然资源公司总裁Scott Sheffield也持相同看法。“我们最近在16天内在二叠纪盆地钻出了一口深达一万八千英尺的油井。而在去年，这样的工程还需要花上30天，”他说。 The North American rig-count has dropped to 664 from 1,608 in October but output still rose to a 43-year high of 9.6m b/d June. It has only just begun to roll over. "The freight train of North American tight oil has kept on coming," said Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil. 北美工作中的钻机数量从去年十月的1608台下降到了目前的664台，但原油产量却在今年六月升至43年来的最高水平——每日960万桶。而这仅仅只是个开始。“运送北美页岩油的货运火车正源源不断地开来，”埃克森美孚公司总裁Rex Tillerson表示。 He said the resilience of the sister industry of shale gas should be a cautionary warning to those reading too much into the rig-count. Gas prices have collapsed from $8 to $2.78 since 2009, and the number of gas rigs has dropped 1,200 to 209. Yet output has risen by 30pc over that period. 他说，页岩气作为姊妹行业其适应能力应该引起那些过多关注钻机数量的人们的深切警醒。天然气价格已经从2009年的8美元暴跌至目前的2.78美元，而工作中的天然气钻机数量则从当时的1200台降至了目前的209台。但产量却在同一时期上升了超过三十个百分点。 Until now, shale drillers have been cushioned by hedging contracts. The stress test will come over coming months as these expire. But even if scores of over-leveraged wild-catters go bankrupt as funding dries up, it will not do OPEC any good. 直到目前，页岩钻探者们一直受到了对冲合约的保护。而未来的几个月中，随着这些合约到期，真正的压力测试将会到来。但即便这些过度使用杠杆的风险弄潮儿最终因为资金枯竭而破产，OPEC也无法从中得到任何好处。 The wells will still be there. The technology and infrastructure will still be there. Stronger companies will mop up on the cheap, taking over the operations. Once oil climbs back to $60 or even $55 - since the threshold keeps falling - they will crank up production almost instantly. 油井仍然在那里。技术和基础设施也仍然在那里。更加强大的公司将会廉价扫货，并接管他们的生意。一旦油价重新回到每桶60美元甚至55美元——这个阈值正在持续降低——他们将会立即重新启动钻机开始生产。 OPEC now faces a permanent headwind. Each rise in price will be capped by a surge in US output. The only constraint is the scale of US reserves that can be extracted at mid-cost, and these may be bigger than originally supposed, not to mention the parallel possibilities in Argentina and Australia, or the possibility for "clean fracking" in China as plasma pulse technology cuts water needs. OPEC目前面临着一个挥之不去的困境。每一波油价上涨就会被一波美国原油产量的激增抵消。对此的唯一限制是全美能够以适中成本开采的原油总储量，而这个数字则很可能比人们之前设想的要大，更不用提在阿根廷和澳大利亚的那些类似的可供开采储量，还有中国未来因等离子脉冲技术降低了对水量的需求，实现“清洁开采”的可能性。 Mr Sheffield said the Permian Basin in Texas could alone produce 5-6m b/d in the long-term, more than Saudi Arabia's giant Ghawar field, the biggest in the world. Sheffield先生表示，单单是德州的二叠纪盆地在长期内的日产出量就能达到500到600万桶，而这个数字比目前世界上最大的石油产区——沙特阿拉伯的大Ghawar油田的产出还要大。 Saudi Arabia is effectively beached. It relies on oil for 90pc of its budget revenues. There is no other industry to speak of, a full fifty years after the oil bonanza began. 沙特阿拉伯这艘大船实际上已经搁浅了。这个国家预算收入中的90%都依赖石油。而在经历了整整50年的石油大繁荣之后，它并没有发展出任何其它值得一提的产业。 Citizens pay no tax on income, interest, or stock dividends. Subsidized petrol costs twelve cents a litre at the pump. Electricity is given away for 1.3 cents a kilowatt-hour. Spending on patronage exploded after the Arab Spring as the kingdom sought to smother dissent. 该国的国民不需要为他们的收入，利息或者股利交税。在加油站可以用每升12美分的补贴价格购买汽油。每千瓦时的电价仅仅是1.3美分。在“阿拉伯之春”开始之后，由于王室试图平息民间的不满情绪，该国用于收买支持的开支也迅速地增长。 The International Monetary Fund estimates that the budget deficit will reach 20pc of GDP this year, or roughly $140bn. The 'fiscal break-even price' is $106. 据国际货币基金组织估计，沙特的财政赤字将在今年占到GDP的20%，也就是大约1400亿美元。而让该国的财政收支达到均衡的油价水平是每桶106美元。 Far from retrenching, King Salman is spraying money around, giving away $32bn in a coronation bonus for all workers and pensioners. 而当今沙特国王萨勒曼却完全没有想要缩减开支的意思，反而四处撒钱，单单是在一次加冕礼上，他就为全国的所有工人和退休者发放了320亿美元的奖金。 He has launched a costly war against the Houthis in Yemen and is engaged in a massive military build-up - entirely reliant on imported weapons - that will propel Saudi Arabia to fifth place in the world defence ranking. 此外，他还对也门的胡塞武装发动了一场代价高昂的战争，并且大肆扩张军备——沙特的军备完全依赖从外国进口武器——这会使沙特的军费开支排到全球第5位。 The Saudi royal family is leading the Sunni cause against a resurgent Iran, battling for dominance in a bitter struggle between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. "Right now, the Saudis have only one thing on their mind and that is the Iranians. They have a very serious problem. Iranian proxies are running Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon," said Jim Woolsey, the former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency. 沙特王室还需要肩负领导逊尼派对抗东山再起的伊朗的重任，为争夺霸权，整个中东地区的逊尼派和什叶派之间展开了艰苦的斗争。“现在沙特人满脑子都只想着一件事情，那就是来自伊朗人的威胁。他们面临着一个非常严峻的问题，伊朗的代理人目前正控制着也门，叙利亚，伊拉克和黎巴嫩，”美国中央情报局前任局长吉姆·伍尔西表示。 Money began to leak out of Saudi Arabia after the Arab Spring, with net capital outflows reaching 8pc of GDP annually even before the oil price crash. The country has since been burning through its foreign reserves at a vertiginous pace. 在“阿拉伯之春”发生后，资本开始流出沙特阿拉伯，即使在油价崩溃之前，每年资本净流出也占到了GDP的8%。从那时开始，该国的外汇储备就以惊人地速度直线下降。 The reserves peaked at $737bn in August of 2014. They dropped to $672 in May. At current prices they are falling by at least $12bn a month. 沙特的外汇储备在2014年8月达到峰值7370亿美元。而到今年5月，这个数字下降到了6720亿美元。以目前的汇率计算，沙特的外汇储备每月至少会下降120亿美元。【编注：2016年4月 已降至5720亿美元】 Khalid Alsweilem, a former official at the Saudi central bank and now at Harvard University, said the fiscal deficit must be covered almost dollar for dollar by drawing down reserves. 沙特央行的一位前任官员Khalid Alsweilem（目前在哈佛大学担任研究员）表示，沙特政府财政赤字中的几乎每一美元都需要以外汇储备的同等下降为代价来弥补。 The Saudi buffer is not particularly large given the country's fixed exchange system. Kuwait, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi all have three times greater reserves per capita. "We are much more vulnerable. That is why we are the fourth rated sovereign in the Gulf at AA-. We cannot afford to lose our cushion over the next two years," he said. 在该国的固定汇率体系之下，留给沙特人的缓冲余地并不是很大。科威特，卡塔尔和阿布扎比所拥有的人均外汇储备是沙特的三倍。“我们相对而言要脆弱得多。这就是为何我们的主权债评级在海湾地区只排第四，评级水平也仅是AA-。在未来两年中，我们承受不起失去外汇储备缓冲的后果，”他说。 Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook to "negative" in February. "We view Saudi Arabia's economy as undiversified and vulnerable to a steep and sustained decline in oil prices," it said. 标普在今年二月将沙特主权债务的评级展望降为“负面”。“我们认为在油价持续急剧下降的过程中，沙特阿拉伯的经济没有多元化，并且十分脆弱，”标普在他们的报告中表示。 Mr Alsweilem wrote in a Harvard report that Saudi Arabia would have an extra trillion of assets by now if it had adopted the Norwegian model of a sovereign wealth fund to recyle the money instead of treating it as a piggy bank for the finance ministry. The report has caused storm in Riyadh. Alsweilem先生在哈佛大学的一份报告中写道，如果沙特之前采用挪威的主权财富基金模式让外汇储备循环投资，而不是像他们所做的那样仅仅把它当作财政部的一头现金奶牛，目前沙特阿拉伯的资产也许会多出1万亿美元。这份报告在沙特首都利雅得引发了风暴。 "We were lucky before because the oil price recovered in time. But we can't count on that again," he said. “上一次我们很幸运，因为油价适时地恢复了。但是这次我们不能再次指望同样的事情会，”他说。 OPEC have left matters too late, though perhaps there is little they could have done to combat the advances of American technology. OPEC做出反应时已经太晚了，虽然即使早一些意识到问题，他们也做不了太多事情来对抗美国的技术进步。 In hindsight, it was a strategic error to hold prices so high, for so long, allowing shale frackers - and the solar industry - to come of age. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. 事后看来，让油价在如此长的时间维持在这么高的位置实际上是一个战略性错误，这样那些页岩油气的勘探者们——还有太阳能产业——就能够成长壮大。一旦被放出来，你就无法再将精灵放回瓶子里了。 The Saudis are now trapped. Even if they could do a deal with Russia and orchestrate a cut in output to boost prices - far from clear - they might merely gain a few more years of high income at the cost of bringing forward more shale production later on. 沙特人如今陷入了困境。即使他们能与俄罗斯达成一致共同减产以支撑油价——虽然这样的愿景目前看来一点也不清晰——这也仅仅能让他们享受多几年的高收入，而这样做的代价却是在未来面临更多的页岩油产出的竞争。 Yet on the current course their reserves may be down to $200bn by the end of 2018. The markets will react long before this, seeing the writing on the wall. Capital flight will accelerate. 而如果当前的趋势维持下去，沙特的外汇储备将在2018年底前降至2000亿美元以下。一旦前景明白无误了，市场会在它成为现实前就早早做出反应。资本外流将会加速。 The government can slash investment spending for a while - as it did in the mid-1980s - but in the end it must face draconian austerity. It cannot afford to prop up Egypt and maintain an exorbitant political patronage machine across the Sunni world. 沙特政府可以在一段时间内削减资本开支——就像它在1980年代中期所做的那样——但最终它将面临严峻的紧缩。沙特将无法负担起支撑埃及政权并在逊尼派穆斯林世界里维持一台昂贵的资助机器的开支。 Social spending is the glue that holds together a medieval Wahhabi regime at a time of fermenting unrest among the Shia minority of the Eastern Province, pin-prick terrorist attacks from ISIS, and blowback from the invasion of Yemen. 庞大的社会开支是将一个仍然处在中世纪状态的瓦哈比政权维系在一起的粘合剂，这个政权正面临着东部省份的什叶少数派中正在发酵的动荡，ISIS时而发动的针刺般的恐怖袭击，还有入侵也门所带来的反作用力。 Diplomatic spending is what underpins the Saudi sphere of influence in a Middle East suffering its own version of Europe's Thirty Year War, and still reeling from the after-shocks of a crushed democratic revolt. 庞大的外交开支则是维系沙特在中东地区影响力的基础，而目前中东地区正在经历着类似欧洲“三十年战争”般的苦难，同时还在蹒跚地试图爬出镇压民主反抗运动带来的余震。 We may yet find that the US oil industry has greater staying power than the rickety political edifice behind OPEC. 我们也许会发现，虽然同样处在低谷中，但相比OPEC身后的那座虚弱的政治大厦，美国的石油行业其实拥有着更强的生命力。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

I’m an Oregon rancher. Here’s what you don’t understand about the Bundy standoff. 俄勒冈农场主来信：谈谈“邦迪对峙”中你所不知道的一些事情 作者： Keith Nantz @ 2016-1-8 译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：Tankman 来源：The Washington Post， https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/08/im-an-oregon-rancher-heres-what-you-dont-understand-about-the-bundy-standoff/ The Obama administration has pushed our livelihood to the brink. 奥巴马政府把我们的生计推到了崩溃边缘。 This week, the Ammon Bundy-led seizure of a federal wildlife refuge thrust Oregon’s ranchers into the spotlight. While I don’t agree with the occupiers’ tactics, I sympathize with their position. Being a rancher was always challenging. And it has become increasingly difficult under the Obama administration. 本周，由阿蒙·邦迪领导的一场占领某联邦野生动物保护站的行动将俄勒冈的牧场主们推到了聚光灯下。尽管我并不赞同占领者的策略，但我同情他们的立场。牧场主历来难当，在奥巴马政府治下更是日益艰辛。 I grew up in a ranching community in northeast Oregon. Even as a kid, I knew I wanted to be a rancher. After eight years as a firefighter, I’d saved enough to start my own business. I wanted to work on the land, raising delicious, wholesome beef for our growing population. 我自幼在俄勒冈东北部的一个放牧社区长大。还在孩提时代，我就知道自己想要做个牧场主。当了八年消防员之后，我攒够了钱，启动了自己的生意。我渴望在土地上劳作，为我们日益增长的人口生产出美味可口的健康牛肉。 For almost a decade, I’ve done just that. Most days, I’m up before the sun rises. I spend my mornings tending to my horses, dogs and livestock. In the winter, when it’s bitter cold, I’m outside with my cattle, making sure their water isn’t frozen and that they’re properly fed. In the summer, I often work 15-hour days, cultivating my crops and tending to the animals. In the afternoons, I’m in my office, reaching out to customers and handling the ranch’s business side. Over the course of a given day, I act as a vet, a mechanic, an agronomist and accountant. 有大约整整十年，我就在做这个事情。大多数日子，我会在天亮之前起床。整个早上都要去照料我的马匹、狗和牲畜。冬天的严寒时节，我也需要和牛群呆在外边，确保它们的饮水不会结冰，进食不会出错。夏天，我通常每天工作15小时，种植庄稼、照料动物。下午则呆在办公室里联络顾客、处理农场的经营事务。每天的不同时候，我需要扮演兽医、技工、农艺师和会计等不同角色。 I love the work, but it’s grueling. As a rancher, I’m always one bad year away from financial disaster. Every purchase I make — from new cows ($2,000 each) to a new piece of equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — is a major investment. And my ranch operates on very slim margins, so I have to be savvy to make ends meet. 我热爱这份工作，但确实很累。作为一个牧场主，我离出现财务悲剧永远只有一个糟糕年份的距离。每购进一样东西——不管是新的奶牛（每头2000元）还是价值数十万的新设备——都是一次重要投资。我的农场盈利微薄，所以我必须精打细算、量入为出。 Money isn’t the only challenge. Raising cattle requires a lot of land, much more than most ranchers can afford to own outright. I lease about a third of the space I use from private owners. But most ranchers aren’t so lucky. The federal government controls a huge amount of land in the west (more than 50 percent in some states, like Oregon), and many ranchers must lease that space to create a sustainable operation. 钱并不是唯一的麻烦。养牛需要大片土地，多数牧场主做不到全部使用自有土地。我所用的土地中，约有三分之一是从其他私人业主手中租用的。但多数牧场主没有我这种好运。在西部，联邦政府控制着巨量土地（在一些州，如俄勒冈，联邦政府土地占有量超过50%），许多牧场主必须从其手中租用，以支撑牧场持续运转。 Utilizing federal land requires ranchers to follow an unfair, complicated and constantly evolving set of rules. For example, a federal government agency might decide that it wants to limit the number of days a rancher can graze their cattle to protect a certain endangered plant or animal species, or they might unilaterally decide that ranchers can’t use as much water as they need because of a fight over water rights. Or they might take over land that once belonged to the state or private individuals, imposing an entirely new set of restrictions. 使用联邦土地要求牧场主遵从一系列不甚公平、复杂且持续多变的规则。比如，某联邦机构可能会决定限制牧场主放牧牛群的时间，以保护某种濒危植物或动物；或者，他们也可能单方面要求牧场主不能足量地使用淡水，因为在水权问题上有争执。或者，他们也可能接管原属于州政府或私人的土地，强加一套全新的规制。 I saw this play out firsthand when the federal government considered listing the sage grouse, a chicken-like bird, as endangered. That regulation would have shrunk the amount of land where ranchers could graze cattle, putting many out of business and decimating the industry. 我曾亲眼目睹上述现象上演，起因是联邦政府考虑将艾草榛鸡——一种外形像鸡的鸟——列为濒危物种。一旦政府作出这一规定，牧场主用于放牧牛群的土地面积就将大为缩减，许多牧场会因此倒闭，整个行业也会大受伤害。 To avoid this, ranchers like myself and local officials spent months meeting with federal officials looking for compromise. We ultimately found middle ground. But we already have an enormous workload in our daily lives. The pressure of having to drop everything to lobby against a rule (which happens more often than you’d think) is a tremendous burden. 为避免发生这种事情，像我这样的牧场主及地方官员费时数月之久去和联邦官员会谈，寻找折中方案。最后，我们找到了中间立场。但我们的日常经营本来就有庞大的工作量，要我们放下手头一切事情去游说政府放弃某条规则（此类事情的发生频率比你想象的要高），这种压力对我们而言是极大的负担。 Most of the time, those regulations are written by people with no agriculture experience, and little understanding of what it takes to produce our nation’s food. The agencies that control these lands can add burdensome regulations at any time. Often, they will begin aggressively enforcing them before ranchers have a chance to adjust. 大多数时候，制定此类规定的人没有任何农业经验，也对生产全国食物需要付出什么缺乏任何了解。控制土地的各类机构任何时候都可以添加各种累赘麻烦的规定。通常，在牧场主们有机会为此做任何调整之前，他们就已经咄咄逼人地强制执行开了。 This forces us to either find new grazing land, reduce the size of our herd or sell out completely. In rural communities, this can have a catastrophic effect on the local economy and environment. Ranching is a billion-dollar industry in Oregon. 这就迫使我们要么找到新的放牧用地，要么削减牧群规模，要么彻底卖光牲畜。对于农村社群而言，这就有可能对地方经济和环境造成灾难性影响。在俄勒冈，放牧是一门价值十多亿的生意。 Overall, agriculture accounts for 15 percent of the state’s economic activity and 12 percent of the state’s employment. The income of a local farm generates double the money for the local economy as a supermarket’s income in the same area, according to the London-based New Economics Foundation. 总体而言，农业在全州经济活动中占到15%，在全州就业中占到12%。根据位于伦敦的“新经济学基金会”估计，就对俄勒冈地方经济的货币贡献而言，一个地方农场的收入是同一地区一个超市收入的两倍。 The siege on our industry has only increased under the Obama administration. Officials are effectively regulating us out of business by enforcing a string of unprecedented environmental restrictions. In Malhuer county (next to Harney county, where the current standoff is taking place), the Obama administration is considering a measure that will turn 2.5 million acres of federal land into a “national monument,” a move that would severely restrict grazing. These restrictions would cause a huge economic downturn for those communities. 对我们这一行业的围攻在奥巴马当政期间有增无减。官员们通过实施一系列前所未见的环境管制，事实上正把我们规制得走向歇业。在马卢尔郡（临近此次对峙所在地哈尼郡），奥巴马政府正考虑采取一项举措，将250万英亩联邦土地变成“国家保护区”。此举将会极大地限制放牧。这类管制将会使此类社群面临巨大的经济衰退。 These decisions are being made by people who are four to five generations removed from food production. The rule-makers don’t quite understand our industry, and are being spurred on by extreme environmentalist groups asking for unreasonable policy changes. 这类决策的制定者祖上四代或五代人之前就已经远离食物生产。规定制定者并不很了解我们这一行业，并且受到了要求进行不合理的政策变革的极端环保主义团体的鼓动唆使。 It’s not that I don’t care what the environmental community wants. In every part of my business, I try to find a balance between economics, mother nature and our culture. I know that if we don’t treat our land properly, we will go out of business by our own hands. It is of utmost importance for us to be true conservationists if we want to continue producing the most nutritious and safest protein in the world. 并不是说我不关心环保团体的要求。在我的生意的方方面面，我都努力寻求在经济、大自然母亲和我们的文化之间达成平衡。我知道，如果我们不善待自己的土地，我们就会在自己手上歇业完蛋。如果我们期望持续地生产出世界上最营养、最安全的蛋白质，那么最重要的一点就是要做一个真正的自然资源保护主义者。 But all too often, I’m not given the autonomy to do so. I’m given rules, not a conversation about how ranchers and government officials and environmentalists might be able to work together. That’s an approach that fails everyone. 但反复发生的事情是，我并没有得到自决权去这么做。他们给我定规则，而不是和我就农场主、政府官员和环保主义者如何可能共同合作进行对话。这种办法令所有人都失望透顶。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

The New York Times’ Nail Salons Series Was Filled with Misquotes and Factual Errors. Here’s Why That Matters. （Part 1） 《纽约时报》美甲沙龙系列文章充满征引错误和事实错误。我们来看看这事为什么要紧。（第一弹） 作者：Jim Epstein @ 2015-10-27 译者：沈沉（你在何地-sxy） 校对：Tankman 来源：Reason ，https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/27/new-york-times-nail-salon-unvarnished Reporter Sarah Maslin Nir's investigative series violated the standards of responsible journalism. 记者Sarah Maslin Nir的系列调查报道违反了负责任新闻报道的规范。 A two-part series in The New York Times on nail salons has brought sweeping changes to an industry dominated by Korean and Chinese immigrants. Written by reporter Sarah Maslin Nir, the series, which ran in print on May 10 and 11, focused on the plight of nail salon manicurists in New York City and Long Island. It depicted a community of immigrant workers paid shockingly low wages to beautify the fingers and toes of affluent New Yorkers while inhaling toxic fumes that cause miscarriages and cancer. 《纽约时报》关于美甲沙龙的前后两篇报道给这个由韩国移民和中国移民主导的产业带来了深远影响。这一系列报道由记者Sarah Maslin Nir撰写，发表于5月10日和11日，集中讲述了纽约市和长岛美甲沙龙里美甲师的窘困境况。在它所描绘的画面里，一群移民工人为了点极度微薄的工资，呼吸着能够导致流产和癌症的有毒气体，为纽约的富人们修饰手指和脚趾。 Nir, who spent 13 months on the project, said in an interview that she initially pitched the story as an "expose," adding that the "great lesson" readers should come away with is that there's "no such thing as a cheap luxury." The only way "you can have something decadent for a cheap price is by someone being exploited." (My Reason colleague, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, wrote a critique of Nir's series shortly after it was published.) Nir在这篇报道上耗费了13个月时间。在接受采访时她说，最初设计这个故事就是为了“曝光”。她还补充说，读者应从该报道中得到一个“重大教训”：世上并不存在“所谓的廉价奢华”。“廉价的放纵奢靡”只能用一个办法得到，那就是“某人遭到剥削”。（我在Reason的同事Elizabeth Nolan Brown在Nir的系列见报不久就写了一篇批评文章。） The "great lesson" here is actually something different. I've spent the last several weeks re-reporting aspects of Nir's story and interviewing her sources. Not only did Nir's coverage broadly mischaracterize the nail salon industry, several of the men and women she spoke with say she misquoted or misrepresented them. In some cases, she interviewed sources without translators despite their poor English skills. When her sources' testimonies ran counter to her narrative, she omitted them altogether. 但事实上，这里应被视为“重大教训”的，是另外一件事。过去几周，我都在重新报道Nir的故事的方方面面，并重新采访其信源。Nir的报道不仅明显扭曲了美甲沙龙产业，而且，曾与之交谈的几位男女还说她错误引用了他们的话或对他们描绘有误。有时候，尽管信源的英语水平很低，她在采访时也没有带翻译。如果信源的说法与她的故事有所抵触，她就会彻底无视这类说法。 The second article lent the Times' imprimatur to unproven theories, while committing science journalism's cardinal sin of highlighting alarmist anecdotes that aren't representative of systematic research. 系列文章中的第二篇则让《时报》为未经验证的理论提供了官方认可，该文犯下了科学新闻的核心重罪：突出强调危言耸听者所提供的那些不能代表系统研究的小道消息。 If it hadn't had real-world consequences, the series—and subsequent attempt by Nir and her editors to parry criticism—wouldn't be worth such intense scrutiny. But the day after the first article appeared in the print edition of the Times, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) announced a new multi-agency task force to inspect nail salons. In August, Cuomo issued an emergency order mandating that salons purchase a new form of insurance called a "wage bond" so that if owners are discovered paying their employees less than the legally required wage, the workers have recourse to collect. 两篇文章及随后Nir及其编辑为了回避批评所做出的种种努力本不值得用心细细考察，但是它们对真实世界的影响实在太大了。首篇文章在《时报》印刷版登出来的第二天，Andrew Guomo州长（民主党-纽约州）就宣布成立一个新的多部门联合特别小组，负责调查美甲沙龙。8月，Guomo签发了一条紧急命令，责令各沙龙购买一种叫做“工资保证金”的保险，一旦店主支付雇员的工资低于法定要求，工人们就有办法收账。 The rush to legislate based solely on the Times' shoddy reporting has hurt the industry. New nail salons, "which used to open every week in New York," have stopped appearing, according to Aiming Feng, an accountant and leading business advisor to nail shops. 这种仅仅基于《时报》劣质报道就做出的匆忙立法已经对这一行业造成伤害。据身为会计师和顶尖的美甲业商业顾问Aiming Feng所说，新的美甲沙龙已经停止开业，“此前纽约可是每周都会有新店开张”。 Salons once provided a steady source of jobs for undocumented immigrants; now many owners say they'll hire only legal workers who've completed an occupational licensing program because they're afraid of getting in trouble. 美甲沙龙曾为非法移民提供了一个稳定的工作来源。但是，许多店主说，他们以后只会雇佣完成了执业执照课程的合法工人，因为他们担心惹麻烦。 In September, two industry groups filed a discrimination lawsuit over the wage-bond mandate in New York State Supreme Court on the grounds that the state has unfairly singled out an Asian-dominated industry. 9月，有两个行业团体就工资保险令向纽约州最高法院提起歧视诉讼，理由是州政府此举单独针对由亚裔主导的行业，很不公平。 Another group has organized multiple protests, including a demonstration on October 6 in front of The New York Times Company's offices in midtown Manhattan. "Apology Now, Fire Nir!" was printed on one sign at the protest; "Shame On You New York Times, Your Lies Kill Our Shops," read another. Another protest is scheduled at 11a.m. today in front of the Times building. 另有一个团体则已经组织了多次抗议，包括10月6日在纽约时报公司位于曼哈顿中城的办公室外面所举行的示威。抗议活动中打出的一个标语上写着“立刻道歉、开除Nir”；另有一个标语则是“纽约时报你不知羞耻、你们的谎言害死我们的店”。按照计划，今天11点在时报大厦前面将举行另外一场抗议活动。 I'm not the first reporter to scrutinize Nir's reporting. In July, Richard Bernstein, a 24-year veteran of the Times who left the paper in 2006, published "What the Times Got Wrong About Nail Salons" in the online edition of The New York Review of Books. His knowledge of the industry comes through his wife, Zhongmei Li, who owns and manages two nail salons in Manhattan. 我并是不第一个仔细检讨Nir报道的记者。曾为《时报》工作24年并于2006年离职的老前辈Richard Bernstein已在《纽约书评》在线版上发表文章“时报在美甲沙龙问题上犯了什么错”。他对这一行业的了解来自他的妻子Zhongmei Li，Li在曼哈顿拥有并管理着两家美甲沙龙。 Bernstein charged that Nir's story focused on a small segment of the industry while ignoring the vast majority of nail salons, which pay above the minimum wage and hire only licensed manicurists. His piece specifically challenged the Times' claim that the Asian-language newspapers are "rife" with manicurist ads offering shockingly low wages. After Bernstein's story appeared, the Times' editors penned a public letter offering new evidence to support Nir's claim. Bernstein指责Nir在报道中只注意了该行业的一隅，忽视了大多数美甲沙龙，它们的薪酬高于最低工资，并且只录用拥持证美甲师。针对《时报》关于亚州语言报纸“充斥”着工资极低的美甲师招聘广告的说法，Bernstein在文章中还专门提出质疑。此文问世之后，《时报》编辑又撰写了一封公开信，提供新的证据支持Nir的说法。 As I'll explain, the Times editors mistranslated and misconstrued that new evidence, which actually validates Bernstein's argument. 下文我将解释，《时报》的编辑们对这一新证据的翻译和解释都有误，该证据实际上证实了Bernstein的论点。 Nir and her editors declined my interview requests. Instead, a Times spokesperson provided a prepared statement, asserting that the paper is "extremely proud" of the series and pointing to the high number of labor violations discovered by Cuomo's inspection task force since the series appeared. Nir及其编辑拒绝了我的采访请求。反倒是《时报》有个发言人提供了一份事先准备好的声明，坚持说该报为这两篇报道感到“非常骄傲”，并且援引了报道问世后由Cuomo的特别调查小组所发现的大量违法用工案例。 Those labor violations don't reveal what the Times claims they do. In its zeal to cite the government's ex post vindication of its own reporting, the paper further obfuscated what's really happening in the industry. 这些违法用工并不能展现《时报》认为它们所能展现的情况。通过热情征引政府在其报道之后所提供的事后证词，时报进一步模糊了这一行业中正在发生的实情。 My look at Nir's reporting and its shortcomings will appear in three installments. First, I'll revisit the Times' back-and-forth with Bernstein and explain why the paper's claim that manicurists are paid shockingly low wages is based on shoddy research and misconstrued evidence. 我对Nir报道及其缺陷的检查将分为三个部分呈现。首先，我要再次分析《时报》与Bernstein之间的交锋，并解释为什么说该报关于美甲师工资极低的断言只是基于劣质的调研和曲解的证据。 Next, I'll look at Cuomo's inspection task force, the fines and violations being handed out to salon owners, and how the governor's actions have had the unintended consequence of making it harder for undocumented immigrants to get jobs in nail salons. (That article is now online here.) 然后，我会考察Cuomo的特别调查小组、沙龙店主接到的罚款和违章，以及州长的行动如何产生了意料之外的后果，使得非法移民比之前更难在美甲沙龙找到工作。（第二弹在线阅读地址在这里。 ） The third installment will look at the Times' claim that chemicals present in nail salons are causing cancer and miscarriages, which is based on nonexistent evidence. (Click here to read part three.) 第三部分要考察的则是《时报》的一个说法：美甲沙龙中的化学物质正在导致癌症和流产。这一说法全无依据。（可通过以下链接阅读第三弹。） Job Ads "Paying So Little" They "Appear To Be a Typo" 招聘广告“工资极低”“还以为是印刷错误”。 In an early paragraph in the Times' first story in the nail salon series, we read: 在《时报》关于美甲沙龙的系列文章第一篇中，我们在前面几段中可以读到以下说法：

Asian-language newspapers are rife with classified ads listing manicurist jobs paying so little the daily wage can at first glance appear to be a typo. Ads in Chinese in both Sing Tao Daily and World Journal for NYC Nail Spa, a second-story salon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, advertised a starting wage of $10 a day. The rate was confirmed by several workers. “亚洲语言报纸充满了列有美甲师招聘的分类广告，日薪极低，初看起来还以为是印刷错误。“NYC美甲Spa”是曼哈顿上西区一家位于二楼的沙龙，在《星岛日报》和《世界日报》上的中文广告中给出的起薪是10美元一天。好几位工人证实确为这一价格。”

Richard Bernstein, who rightly called this paragraph a "linchpin" of Nir's first article, was incredulous that anyone would advertise a day wage of $10 given that his wife must guarantee wages of about ten times that to attract qualified applicants. So he went looking through the classifieds in back issues of the Chinese-language newspaper, The World Journal, and couldn't find a single ad that mentioned wages under $70 per day. He found one ad offering to pay between $110 and $130 per day. Richard Bernstein极为正确地把这一段叫做Nir首篇文章的“要害之处”。他不相信有任何人会在广告中登出日薪10美元的工资，因为他的妻子必须保证提供大约10倍左右的工资才能吸引到合格的应聘者。所以他就去翻阅《世界日报》这份中文报纸过刊中的分类广告，结果没能找到任何一个广告所提工资低于70美元一天。其中一份广告甚至愿意支付110到130美元的日薪。 Other than the $10 ad that Nir references—which I'll return to in a moment—Nir doesn't cite any other specific ads paying wages so low they "appear to be a typo." But after Bernstein highlighted this passage in The New York Review of Books, Times editors Dean Baquet, Wendell Jamieson, and Michael Luo co-signed a letter defending Nir's reporting. Nir除了提到这一10美元广告之外（下文会再来讨论这个问题），并没有引用过任何其他工资极低以至于让人“以为是印刷错误”的特定广告。但在Bernstein在《纽约书评》上突出强调了这一段之后，《时报》的编辑Dean Baquet, Wendell Jamieson和Michael Luo一起签署了一封公开信，捍卫Nir的报道。 Their letter cites three more ads to support Nir's claim: 这封信又提到另外三份广告，以支撑Nir的说法：

One [ad] from June 19, 2014, in the World Journal, for example, showed a starting wage of $40 a day for "small job"…Another ad from July 17, 2014 in The World Journal also showed a $40 a day wage. And another one from April 17, 2014 showed a pay range of $40 to $90 a day. These examples were taken from a random sampling of days. “比如，在《世界日报》2014年6月19日的一份广告里，一份‘小工作’的起薪是40美元每天……《世界日报》2014年7月17日的另外一份广告，也开出了40美元的日薪。另外一份2014年4月17日的，则提到日薪在40美元至90美元之间。这些例子只是我们从随机选择的日子里看到的。”

The Times editors also posted high-resolution copies of the three ads to the photo-sharing site Flickr, but, somewhat suspiciously, the Chinese characters are out of focus and my translator couldn't decipher them. So I went to The World Journal's headquarters in Queens and obtained new copies of the ads, which I've posted here. 《时报》编辑还把这三份广告的高清复印件放到了图片分享网站Flicker上面，但有些可疑的是，上面的中文却没有对好焦，我的翻译都看不清。所以我去了《世界日报》位于皇后区的总部，找到了这些广告的新拷贝，将它们贴在这里。 The ads don't say what the Times editors claim they do. Two of the ads they cite actually say that a mani/pedi costs $40 at the salon, not that a worker would be paid $40. Why include such a detail in a job ad? It implies big tips. 这些广告并没有表达《时报》编辑宣称它们所表达的那层意思。他们所提到的广告中，其中有两份实际说的是在沙龙中做一次指甲/趾甲全套需花费40美元，而不是说工人工资是40美元。为什么广告中要提到这种细节？因为它意味着小费很高。 The first one translates as: "UV gel, big jobs, experienced small jobs, and cosmeticians. Flushing pickup and drop-off. Mani/Pedi $40 with commission, good percentage tips, may file taxes." 第一份广告翻译如下：“UV胶、大工、熟手小工兼美容。法拉盛接送。手脚$40，多提成。好小费。可报税。” The second one reads: "Seeking UV gel experienced big jobs, small jobs, and cosmeticians. Pickup and drop-off at Flushing, Mani/Pedi $40 or more, expensive jobs." 第二份广告说的是：“请UV大工，经验小工，兼美容。开车，法拉盛接送。手脚$40，多大脚。” Both ads were posted by Michael Ling, the owner of a nail salon in Fairfield, Connecticut. (The World Journal is a regional paper). In an interview conducted through a translator, Ling confirmed that what the ad said is correct. He included the price of a mani/pedi to entice potential employees by indicating that the store serves a wealthy, and likely generous, clientele. 登广告的是Michael Ling，他是康涅狄格州费尔菲尔德一家美甲沙龙的店主（《世界日报》是一家区域性报纸）。在有翻译在场的采访中，Ling确认广告所言没错。他将做指甲/趾甲全套的价格写进去是为了表示店里服务的都是富裕且可能很慷慨的客户，以吸引潜在雇员。 The third ad the Times editors produced in response to Bernstein offers a wage of "$40-90." I interviewed the salon owner who posted that ad, David Lee. His shop went out of business in 2014, in part, he says, because he struggled to attract enough qualified manicurists. Lee says he was offering full-time workers a base salary of $90 per day and part-time workers $40 per day. 《时报》编辑为回应Bernstein而找出的第三份广告提供的工资是“40至90美元”。我采访了刊登这一广告的沙龙店主David Lee。他的沙龙已经于2014年停业，据他所说，部分的是因为他奋力想要吸引足够的合格美甲师。Lee说他给全职员工支付的底薪是每天90美元，而兼职工则是每天40美元。 The $10 Ad 日薪10美元的广告 The only remaining evidence that the Asian-language newspapers are "rife" with ads listing "jobs paying so little the daily wage can at first glance appear to be a typo" is the $10 ad Nir specifically referenced. 亚洲语言报纸“充斥”着“日薪极低，初看起来还以为是印刷错误”的广告，这种说法现在只剩下唯一的证据了，那就是Nir特别提到的日薪10美元的广告。 "[I]t’s not clear whether the reporter saw the ad at all," Richard Bernstein wrote in the New York Review of Books. “完全不知道记者有没有看到这份广告。”Richard Bernstein在《纽约书评》上如是说。 It turns out Nir did see the ad, but once again it doesn't say what the Times claimed it does. The day Bernstein's article appeared, Nir posted an image of the ad to Twitter: 结果是，Nir确实看过这份广告，但这里也一样，这份广告并没有表达《时报》宣称它所表达的意思。Bernstein的文章出来的当天，Nir就在Twitter上贴出了这份广告的图像：

The ad that "doesn't exist" according to @R_Bernstein & @nybooks who calls me a liar & didn't bother to interview me — Sarah Nir (@SarahMaslinNir) July 25, 2015 @R_Bernstein和@nybooks 宣称这份广告“并不存在”，说我是骗子，却不愿意费心采访一下我 —— Sarah Nir （@SaraMaslinNir）2015年7月25日

That ad (Nir later tweeted a magnified version) actually offers to pay manicurists $75 per day in base pay; under that, it notes that "apprentices," or "trainees," can earn $10 per day. What does it mean to be a "trainee?" Was Nir wrong to leave that detail out? 这份广告（Nir后来曾在Twitter上贴出其放大版）实际上给美甲师开出的底薪是每天75美元；后面则提到“学徒”或“实习工”每天可以赚到10美元。“实习工”是什么意思？Nir对这一细节的忽略有错吗？ "Lest there be confusion...these are not the equivalent of unpaid summer interns at a magazine," wrote the Times editors in their defense of Nir's reporting. "Interviews by Ms. Nir and her team with employees of the salon confirmed that these were essentially beginning workers, doing the same jobs as others in the salon," they wrote. “不要误解……他们跟没有薪酬的杂志暑期实习生并不一样”，《时报》编辑在他们为Nir报道的辩护中如此写道。他们还说，“Nir小姐及其团队经与沙龙雇员交谈证实，实习工本质上就是新手，在沙龙里做的事与其他人没有什么不同。” But the salon owner who posted the ad disputes the Times’ characterization—as does one former apprentice who answered that $10 ad back in 2014. 但是，刊登这一广告的沙龙店主可不同意《时报》的描述。同样，一位在2014年曾答复过这份日薪10美元广告的前学徒工也不同意。 "We would never let them touch customers," said Yun Jun Long, the former owner of NYC Nail Spa, in an interview conducted through a translator. "If the customer is spending money, you can't stick them with an inexperienced worker." (Long's salon went out of business a month after the Times' story appeared, which he attributes to the negative publicity. He's now helping to organize the recent protests.) “我们绝不会让他们接触顾客”，“NYC美甲Spa”的前店主Yun Jun Long在有翻译在场的一次采访中如是说。“如果顾客花了钱，你不能让一个没有经验的员工去应付他们。”Long的沙龙在《时报》报道出来一个月之后停业了，他认为原因就是负面名声。他现在正帮忙组织近期的抗议活动。 The $10, he says, was meant to cover subway fare and lunch, and those who signed on could come and go as they pleased. During slow periods they could practice on other employees or receive lessons from Long's wife and mother-in-law—partners in the business who also worked in the store. 他还说，广告里提到的10美元只是为了提供地铁票和午餐，并且受雇的人来去自如。如果店里不忙，他们就可以在其他员工身上做练习，或者跟着Long的妻子和岳母（都是Long的生意合伙人，同时也在店里工作）学习。 At my request, Long put me in touch with Jay, a 28-year old undocumented immigrant and former trainee at NYC Nail Spa who asked that I not include his full name. Through a translator, Jay confirmed that he never worked on a customer for the two weeks when he was making just $10 per day. 应我的请求，Long帮我联系上了Jay。Jay是个28岁的无证移民，曾在“NYC美甲Spa”当过实习工。他要求我不提及其全名。通过翻译，Jay向我证实，在每天只赚取10美元的两个星期中，他从没有给任何顾客做过美甲。 Nir has said on Twitter that she visited NYC Nail Spa six times. (Long recalls seeing her come into the store just once.) Even if that's true, it wouldn't be surprising if she misreported what was actually going on in the shop; at several points in her coverage, Nir muddled what apprenticeship programs of this sort are all about. Nir在Twitter上曾说，她到“NYC美甲Spa”访问过6次（而Long记得她只到过店里1次）。即便这是真的，她对店里的真实情况的报道会出错，也并不令人生奇；在报道中的数个地方，她都没有搞清这种学徒计划到底是什么意思。 The main character in the first installment of the series was a 20-year-old Chinese immigrant named Jing Ren, who also went through an apprenticeship program. Without any prior experience doing nails, she got a job working unpaid for her first three months. Ren was also initially asked to pay $100 to the owner of her salon for teaching her basic skills. 在这个系列报道的第一部分中，主要人物是一个20岁的中国移民，名叫任静。任静也参加过学徒计划。在此前没有任何美甲经验的情况下，她找到了一份工作，头三个月没有工资。一开始，她还被要求向她所在沙龙的店主支付100美元，因为后者要教她基本技能。 Times readers may find this practice reprehensible, but Nir left out background details that might lessen their outrage. These apprentice programs are an alternative to going through one of the New York State-certified nail training programs, where tuition is about $1,000 and students must complete 250 hours of formal training before getting licensed. 《时报》的读者可能觉得这种做法应该谴责。但是Nir在此略去了一些背景细节，而这些细节有可能能够缓解读者的愤慨。如果不参加这种学徒计划，你就得全程参加由纽约州批准的美甲培训计划之一，费用大约1000美元，而学员必须在完成250小时的正式培训之后，才能得到执照。 It was technically illegal to work as a manicurist without completing one of these training programs when Nir was doing her reporting. (In July, two months after the Times series appeared, the state passed a bill creating a legal pathway to learn on the job, which I'll discuss in the next installment in this series.) 在Nir进行报道的时候，如果没有完成任何一个此类培训计划就去做美甲师，严格来说是非法的。（7月份，也就是《时报》的系列报道面世两个月之后，纽约州通过了一项法律，为边做边学提供了合法通道。关于这一点，我将在第二弹中加以讨论。） This type of arrangement is by no means an industry norm, but some salon owners flouted the law because they had more customers than employees; generally, the demand for skilled labor outpaces the number of licensed manicurists the beauty schools can mint. They got away with it because enforcement was lax. 这种办法绝非行业通例，一些沙龙店主对这一法律并不以为然，因为他们的顾客比雇员要多。一般来说，对熟练劳工的需求会超过美容学校能够生产生的持证美甲师的数量。店主们之所以能够铤而走险，是因为执法并不严格。 Like Jay, Jing Ren had the option of spending about a month and a half studying at a state-certified school and paying $1,000 to learn her craft. Instead, she opted to pay $100 and work for no pay for three months. It’s not clear that Nir ever asked Ren why she made that choice. 任静跟Jay一样，本可以选择去一个由州政府批准的学校学习这门技术，所费时间大约是一个半月，而价格则是1000美元。不过，她选择的是花费100美元，不领工资上班3个月。我们不清楚Nir是否追问她做出这种选择的理由。 Jay, who was in debt when he started as a trainee at NYC Nail Spa, couldn't afford beauty school. The apprenticeship program worked out for him: Now he's employed as a manicurist at a salon in New Jersey, where his daily base pay is $90, not including tips. Jay刚开始在“NYC美甲Spa”做实习工时已经负债累累，无法支付美容学校的费用。学徒计划对他很有帮助。他如今在新泽西的一家美甲店里被聘为美甲师，每天的底薪是90美元，此外还有小费。 The apprenticeship program also worked out for Jing Ren, who by the end of the Times story was making $65 a day in base compensation. 学徒计划对任静也很有帮助，在《时报》报道的结尾，她的底薪已经是每天65美元了。 Are Apprenticeship Programs Prevalent in the Nail Industry? 美甲行业中学徒制很流行吗？ Nir declares that "[Jing Ren's] deal was the same as it is for beginning manicurists in almost any salon in the New York area." (Italics mine.) Nir宣称，“在纽约地区几乎所有沙龙中，刚刚入行的美甲师都需要经历类似任静的这种交易。”（斜体为本文所加。） Yet she provides no proof for this statement, and all the available evidence indicates that Ren's deal was unusual. There are 30,610 licensed manicurists in New York State, all of whom would have had no need for an apprenticeship program. According to the Korean-American Nail Salon Association, there are more than 7,000 shops. 但她没有为这一断言提供任何证据，而所有可以找到的证据都表明，任静所做的交易并不寻常。纽约州有30610位持证美甲师，他们就无需学徒计划。根据“韩裔美国人美甲沙龙协会”的信息，美甲店超过7000家。 Nir supports this claim with anecdotal examples, including a disputed paragraph about a shop called May's Nail Salon, located on 14^th Street: Nir为这一说法提供的支撑都是些道听途说的个例，其中有一段涉及位于十四街一家叫做“小梅美甲沙龙”的，就很有争议：

Step into the prim confines of almost any salon and workers paid astonishingly low wages can be readily found. At May's…new employees must pay $100, then work unpaid for several weeks, before they are started at $30 or $40 a day, according to a worker. A man who identified himself as the owner, but would give his name only as Greg, said the salon did not charge employees for their jobs, but would not say how much they are paid. 走进几乎任何一家沙龙的整洁隔间，很容易就能找到工资低得惊人的员工。在小梅美甲店，一个员工说，新员工要先交100美元，接下来需要免费工作几周，然后才开始日薪30-40美元的工作。一个自称店主的男人只愿意透露自己叫Greg，他说他们不要求员工交钱换工作，但拒绝透露员工工资。

The owner of May's Nail Salon is actually a woman named Bao Mei Fitzgibbons, who goes by "Mei." Greg, who Nir mistook as the owner, is an employee at the shop. Nir could easily have found Fitzgibbons' name by searching New York State's online corporation and business entity database. 小梅美甲店的店主实际上是个女的，叫做Bao Mei Fitzgibbons，大家管她叫“梅”。而被Nir误认为店主的Greg则是店里的一个雇员。如果Nir搜索一下纽约州的“公司与企业单位在线数据库”，她就能轻松找到Fitzgibbons的名字。 Fitzgibbons says she was never interviewed by Nir, and scoffed when I asked if she charges new employees $100. "Think about it," Fitzgibbons says, "you work for me and I charge you $100?" The framed licenses of Fitzgibbons' employees are prominently displayed on the wall of her shop, indicating that they went through the official, state-authorized training program. Fitzgibbons说Nir从来没有采访过她，当我问她是不是向新员工收取100美元时，她连连冷笑。“你想想嘛”，她说：“你为我工作，然后我收你100美元？”Fitzgibbons把雇员们的执照装裱好，显眼地挂在门店的墙上，以表明他们都完整接受过正式的、经州政府认可的培训计划。 Fitzgibbons says she observed Nir come into her store and engage one of her manicurists in conversation without a translator. According to Fitzgibbons, the woman, who barely speaks English, later said that she was misquoted in the Times. The manicurist says she told Nir—again according to Fitzgibbons—that there are salons out there that charge trainees $100; she didn't say that May's is one of them. Fitzgibbons说她注意到Nir进了她的店子，并与她的美甲师之一进行了交谈，当时没有翻译。Fitzgibbons还说，被采访的女性基本不会说英语，后来还表示《时报》错误引用了她的话。这位美甲师说（这里还是根据Fitzgibbons的说法），她告诉Nir的是，有些沙龙会向实习工收取100美元，她没说梅的店也是如此。 (On my behalf, Fitzgibbons reached out to the manicurist interviewed by Nir, who no longer works at the store. Fitzgibbons says the woman declined my interview request on the grounds that "she doesn't want publicity.") （Nir采访过的这位美甲师现已不再在Fitzgibbons的店里工作。应我的请求，Fitzgibbons联系了她。Fitzgibbons说她拒绝了我的采访请求，原因是“她不想曝光”。） In another case, Nir spent time reporting at a salon that hires only licensed manicurists trained at a beauty school but left it out of her coverage. 另外，Nir还曾花费时间在一家只雇佣受过美容学校培训的持证美甲师的沙龙里采访，但在文章中却没有提及。 ThinkPink is a small chain of nail salons in Manhattan run by Eun Hye Lee (she goes by "Grace"), who says she was interviewed by Nir. Lee, who is careful to maintain her books to the letter of the law, granted my request to inspect her payroll records. They showed that one experienced manicurist at ThinkPink's West Village branch had earned $680 in base pay, plus $216 in overtime, totaling $896 for a 48.5 hour week. A beginning manicurist in the same shop earned $493 for a 39-hour workweek, or $12.64 per hour. ThinkPink是曼哈顿一家小型美甲连锁店，经营者叫做Eun Hye Lee（人们叫她Grace）。她表示曾接受过Nir的采访。Lee恪守法律条文的规定，很仔细地记有账本，并惠允我查阅她的薪酬发放记录。记录表明，一个在ThinkPink西村分店工作的熟练美甲师，某星期工作48.5小时，赚到底薪680美元，另外还有216美元加班费，共896美元。在同一门店，某位刚入行的美甲师某周工作39小时，赚得493美元，每小时合12.64美元。 Lee says Nir first interviewed her at ThinkPink in 2014. Several months later, she returned unannounced and asked for a pedicure. She struck up a conversation with her manicurist, a Chinese immigrant named Xiao Su, who goes by Zoey. Lee说Nir第一次采访她是在2014年，在ThinkPink店里。几个月后，Nir没打招呼就来到店里，请人给她修脚。之后她就和美甲师谈了起来，她的美甲师是位来自中国的移民，叫做小苏，大家都叫她Zoey。 Lee put me in touch with Su, who no longer works at ThinkPink. She said in a phone interview that she told Nir that the pay at ThinkPink was "very good" and that Lee was a good boss who's always "very nice." She declined to tell Nir her salary, deeming it a rude question. Su, who emigrated from China in 1997, is a licensed technician who attended manicurists' school. Lee帮我联系上了小苏，她如今已不在ThinkPink工作。她在电话采访中说，她告诉过Nir，ThinkPink的薪酬“很可观”，而且Lee是个好老板，总是“特别友善”。她拒绝向Nir告知自己的薪水，认为这种追问是失礼。小苏1997年从中国移民到美，上过美甲师学校，是位持证技师。 Neither ThinkPink, nor Nir's interview with Lee, were mentioned in the Times' coverage. 关于ThinkPink以及Nir对Lee的采访，《时报》的报道均没有提及。 More Evidence of Low Wages? 更多低薪证据？ To gauge the average pay for manicurists, Nir might have turned first to the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The agency reported that in 2014, manicurists in New York's metropolitan area earned an average hourly wage of $9.19 per hour. It also reports an annual mean wage of $19,110. 要估计美甲师的平均薪酬，Nir本该首先求助联邦劳工统计局（BLS）。根据该局2014年报告，纽约大都市区范围内的美甲师赚取的平均时薪是9.19美元。报告里还提到，他们的平均年薪为19110美元。 BLS data, which is routinely cited in the Times, is subject to error and certainly overly precise. But in this case, these figures are the best information available. And the numbers indicate that the average manicurist earns above the minimum wage. BLS的数据经常被《时报》引用，当然包含有错漏之处，有时则显得过分精确。但就当前争论而言，这些数据是我们可以拿到的最可靠信息。数据表明，美甲师的工资平均而言高于最低工资。 Instead of citing the BLS' numbers, however, Nir relied on her own survey that included "more than 100 workers." In fact, other than the classified ads, this is her main piece of evidence that the "vast majority" of salon workers earn less than the minimum wage. 但是，Nir却没有引用BLS的数据，而是依靠自己针对“超过100位工人”的调查。事实上，“绝大部分”美甲店员工工资低于最低工资这一说法的主要证据，除了分类广告之外，就是她的这一调查了。 Nir collected the data on the streets of Queens early in the morning, where salon owners (mostly from Long Island) often pick up manicurists in vans and drive them to work, and in chats that she struck up with manicurists (many of whom aren't native English speakers) while having her nails done. Nir是在清晨的皇后区大街上收集到这些数据的，那正是沙龙店主（主要来自长岛）用面包车来接美甲师并把他们送到工作地点的时候，也有一些是在做指甲时通过和她的美甲师（其中大多数人母语非英语）交谈获得的。 In an interview with the Times about her series after it appeared, Nir says she kept "detailed spreadsheets" with this information. I asked for a copy of these spreadsheets. She declined my request. 在系列文章面世之后接受《时报》采访时，Nir说她保存有这些信息的“详细表格”。我曾问她索要一份，遭到了她的拒绝。 Gathering data of this sort is inherently difficult, even for professionals. Pollsters at organizations like Gallup, Pew, and BLS strive to reach population samples that mirror the broader communities they're studying. They carefully frame questions in an unbiased manner, and only impartial interviewers do the asking. Under the best of circumstances, figures derived with these methods are imprecise and reporters generally cite them along with a margin of error. 即便对于专家，此类数据收集工作也有着内在的困难。在盖洛普、皮尤和BLS等组织工作的民意测验专家都要辛苦奔忙，以使自己的人口样本能够反映他们所研究的更大群体。他们以一种无偏的方式小心设计问题，而且只找不带偏见的访谈者来提问。在最好的情况下，以这种方法得到的数据都并不精确，记者在引用它们的时候通常也会附带些许错误。 Economists are skeptical of the wage survey data collected by the BLS because it's based on trust and memory. (How many hours did you work last week?) The gold standard in wage data—reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis—is derived from documentation that companies are required to provide the government related to unemployment insurance. 经济学家并不太相信BLS收集的工资调查数据，因为这项调查基于信任和记忆。（比如，请问你上周工作了多长时间？）工资数据的优质标准是联邦经济分析局的报告，它来自于各公司按要求提供的与失业保险有关的文件。 The Times might have hired a polling firm to improve on the BLS' finding. Instead, it relied on Nir's survey, which was drawn from a non-representative sample and carried out by a reporter who won't share her methodology, question phrasing, or tabulated results. There’s simply no reason to believe that Nir’s data presents an accurate, representative picture of nail industry wages. 《时报》本来可以请一家调查公司来改进BLS的发现。不过，它选择依靠Nir的调查，而该调查的抽样并不具备代表性，而负责实施的记者又不愿意公开其方法、提问措辞或调查结果表格。我们没法相信Nir的数据呈现出了美甲行业工资的准确且有代表性的图景。 Also, Nir’s report doesn’t discuss gratuities. In fact, nowhere does the Times coverage attempt to gauge average daily tips in the industry or what workers actually take home in total compensation. 另外，Nir的报告还没有提及小费。事实上，《时报》的报道没有一处地方试图估计一下美甲行业的日均小费是多少，或者员工们拿到手的总报酬是多少。 This is like writing a 7,000-word piece on what waiters make for a living but focusing only on base compensation. "There should have been several paragraphs on the subject," says Aiming Feng, the accountant and business consultant who counts about 50 nail salons as clients. (Feng also volunteers once a week at once a week at the Lin Sing Association, a social service organization in Manhattan's Chinatown, where he helps manicurists with legal and tax issues.) 这就像是写篇7000字的文章描述餐厅服务员们以何为生，却只关注他们的底薪。“应该花几个段落讨论下这个问题”，Aiming Feng说，他是一位会计兼商业顾问，大概有50家美甲沙龙是他的客户。（Feng也是曼哈顿唐人街一家叫做“Lin Sing协会”的社会服务组织的志愿者，他每周服务一次，帮助美甲师们解决法律和税务问题。） Feng says that during "sandal season" at many shops tips equal or exceed base compensation. Feng说，一到“凉鞋季”，许多店里的小费能够追平甚至超过底薪。 Another "Damning" Piece of Evidence? 另一条“确凿” 罪证？ Nir offers more proof that the "vast majority" of manicurists earn less than the minimum wage: a two-sentence summary quote derived from an interview with Sangho Lee, the president of the Korean-American Nail Salon Association. 关于“绝大多数”美甲师工资低于最低工资，Nir有更多证据：一条两句话的总结，引用来自她对Sangho Lee的采访。Lee是“韩裔美国人美甲沙龙协会”的主席。 Nir writes: Nir写道：

[Lee] declined a request to address issues of underpayment. So many owners do not pay minimum wage, he said, that he believed answering any questions would hurt the industry. “Lee拒绝回应我关于报酬过低问题的提问。他说，许多店主支付不到最低工资，所以他觉得回答此类问题会伤害到整个行业。”

In their letter defending Nir's reporting, the Times editors highlighted Lee's testimony as among "the most damning findings." 在为Nir的报道辩护的公开信中，《时报》的编辑们强调，Lee的证词是“罪证确凿的发现”之一。 These two sentences came from the roughly two-and-a-half hours Nir spent interviewing Lee on two occasions. First, she met with him in person at the Association's office in Flushing, Queens with a Korean translator named Jiha Ham present. She later did a follow-up interview over the phone without a translator. According to Lee, Nir's paraphrase of his statement comes from the second interview. 这两句话来自于Nir对Lee的采访，两次采访总长大概有两个半小时。第一次，她亲自去皇后区法拉盛该协会的办公室拜访Lee，当时有一位韩国翻译Jiha Ham在场。后来，她又在电话里做了一次跟踪访谈，这次没带翻译。根据Lee的说法，Nir转述的他的言论发生于第二次访谈。 Lee says that he was misquoted. "I told her that like any industry, there are nail salons that pay less and have worse conditions," he said. "Then I told her that even though 80 to 90 percent of the industry pays much more than the minimum wage, it would inappropriate for me to say anything negative about the industry as the president of the leading industry association." Lee说他遭到了错误引用。“我告诉她的是，跟许多行业一样，也有些美甲沙龙存在薪酬较低、条件恶劣的情况”，他说，“然而，我还告诉她，尽管行业中有80%到90%的薪酬水平远高于最低工资，让我发表关于这一行业的负面看法也是不恰当的，因为我是一个十分重要的行业协会的主席。” Is Lee telling the truth that Nir distorted his comments? Since there were no third-party witnesses to the conversation, there's no way to know. But it's hard to believe that Lee would disparage the nail salon industry. Lee有关Nir曲解了他的言论的说法是否真实？由于谈话时并没有第三方见证人在场，我们不得而知。但我们很难相信Lee会诋毁整个美甲行业。 Founded 28 years ago, the Korean-American Nail Salon Association's mission is to promote best practices in the industry. It has 1,200 dues-paying member stores. A thick glossy magazine published annually by the Association includes letters from elected officials lauding nail salons for their contribution to the local economy. The group also awards an annual $1,000 scholarship to six college students whose parents work as manicurists in its members' shops. 成立于28年之前的韩裔美国人美甲沙龙协会致力于在整个行业中推广最好的做法。它拥有1200家缴纳会费的成员店。协会每年出版一份厚厚的有光纸杂志，上面还刊登有经选举上任的官员因美甲沙龙对地方经济作出贡献而撰写的表扬信。该团体每年还给父母为成员门店美甲师的6位大学生提供各1000美元的奖学金。 So why would the president of an industry organization undo decades of hard public relations work by making a "damning" statement to a Times reporter? Maybe Nir misconstrued his remarks: Lee barely speaks English, and yet Nir interviewed him over the phone without a translator on the line. 因此，为什么一位行业组织主席会破坏几十年来的公共关系辛苦成果，向《时报》记者提供这种“罪证确凿”的陈述呢？也许Nir误会了他的说法。Lee的英语非常不好，而Nir却不请翻译就通过电话采访了他。 How the Times Responded to a Salon Owner's Attempt to Correct the Record 当沙龙店主试图更正记载时，《时报》是如何回应的呢 Nir writes that at Iris Nails on Manhattan's Upper East Side "longtime workers described starting out at wages of $30 and $40 a day." Nir写道，在位于曼哈顿上东区的“艾丽斯美甲”店，“长期工人说他们的起步工资是每天30或40美元。” It's hard to believe that even beginning manicurists at Iris Nails would earn such meager pay. Located in one of New York City's wealthiest neighborhoods, Iris is the type of shop manicurists aspire to work at for the generous tips. 即便是艾丽斯美甲店里的美甲师新手拿到这么低的工资，那也很难令人置信。艾丽斯开在纽约市最富有的街区之一，是所有美甲师都渴望去工作的地方，因为小费很慷慨。 When reporting the story, Nir left a message for Iris Nails' owner, a Korean immigrant named Alex Park. He says he didn't return her message because he didn't understand the nature of the request. 在报道这一故事的时候，Nir给艾丽斯美甲的店主留了一则消息。这位名叫Alex Park的韩国移民说，他并没有回复，因为他没搞明白Nir的请求是什么意思。 When Park attempted to defend his reputation after the article appeared, the Times thwarted his efforts. The whole episode highlights the power imbalance between the Times and an immigrant community lacking in media savvy. 文章出来以后，Park试图捍卫自己的名声，而《时报》挫败了这一企图。整个剧情凸显了《时报》与缺乏媒体经验的移民群体之间的权力不平衡。 Park emphatically denies that his workers earn so little in base pay. He estimates that his lowest-level employees earn about $180 a day, including tips, and his most experienced employees can earn as much as $400 per day including tips and commission. (Park declined to allow me to examine his wage statements.) Park断然否认他的员工所赚取的底薪如此之低。据他估计，最底层的雇员每天大约能挣到180美元，其中包含小费，而最熟练的雇员最多时每天能挣到400美元，其中包括小费和提成。（Park拒绝让我查看他的工资详单。） After the article appeared, Park hired attorney Daniel Kim to contact the Times and demand a correction. Kim had a back and forth with the company's assistant general counsel, David McCraw. (Through a spokesperson, McGraw declined my request for an interview.) The paper refused to alter the online version of the article, and it didn't investigate the truthfulness of Park's claim. Instead, Kim says, McCraw agreed that the Times would print a letter to the editor written by Park. 文章见报后，Park就聘请律师Daniel Kim联系纽约时报，要求进行更正。Kim和时报公司的助理法律总顾问David McCraw来来回回接触了多次。（McCraw通过发言人拒绝了我的采访请求）。时报拒绝更改文章的在线版本，也没有调查Park说法的真实性。作为替代，Kim说，McCraw同意在《时报》上刊登Park写给编辑的一封信。 Kim shared with me the letter Park submitted to Sue Mermelstein, an editor in the paper's letters department: Kim向我展示了Park写给时报读者来信部编辑Sue Mermelstein的信件：

To the Editor: 致编辑： Your recent article "The High Price of Pretty Nails" will damage my business, Iris Nails. It seems that you needed a nail salon in a well-heeled neighborhood and targeted my business. 你们最近刊发的“漂亮指尖的高昂代价”一文将会伤害我的企业，即艾丽斯美甲。你们似乎就是想找到这么一家位于富裕街区的美甲沙龙，然后瞄准了我的企业。 I am preparing to retire after having worked for more than 22 years without any incident. Many of the employees in this type of services business have learned, earned and moved on to open their own shops. I have always treated all of my employees fairly and never took advantage of them. 我工作22年了，从未发生任何事故，现在正准备退休。在这类服务性企业工作过的许多雇员都已经学到东西、赚到钱并且更进一步经营起他们自己的门店。在对待自己的员工方面，我从来都很公平，从未占过他们便宜。 There is no employee who receives $30 to $40 a day on a full-time basis. There is no employee who receives below the minimum wages required by the State of New York. In fact, most of our employees make double of minimum wages including tips. 根本就没有全职员工每天只能获得30到40美元的事。也没有任何员工拿到的工资低于纽约州规定的最低工资水平。事实上，把小费包含在内，我的大多数员工能赚到最低工资的两倍。 Korean-American business owners in New York are very hard-working people. We have dedicated our lives to whichever field afforded us an opportunity to prosper and live out the American dream. I write this letter with great sorrow and anger. 生活于纽约的韩裔美国人店主都很吃苦耐劳。只要某个领域能够给我们提供机会，让我们走向成功并实现美国梦，我们都会全身心地投入进去。写这封信的时候，我心中充满悲伤和愤怒。

The Times did print a version of the letter on May 17—but with notable changes. 《时报》5月17日确实刊登了此信件的一个版本，但改动颇大。 First, it cut out Park's assertion that the paper had erred in its reporting. These three sentences were dropped: 首先，它删除了Park认为该报之前报道出错的观点。删去的是以下三句话：

There is no employee who receives $30 to $40 a day on a full-time basis. There is no employee who receives below the minimum wages required by the State of New York. In fact, most of our employees make double of minimum wages including tips. 根本就没有全职员工每天只能获得30到40美元的事。也没有任何员工拿到的工资低于纽约州规定的最低工资水平。事实上，把小费包含在内，我的大多数员工能赚到最低工资的两倍。

In their place, the Times added a new sentence that reads, "I am committed to abiding by the law in paying my employees." In other words, the rewrite makes it sound as if Park was conceding that the Times' reporting on his store was not only correct, but that it inspired him to reform his illegal practices. 在这个地方，《时报》插入了一个新句子，内容是：“在支付员工工资方面，我决心遵从法律规定。”换句话说，这一改写让Park听起来像是在承认《时报》关于他的美甲店的报道很正确，不仅如此，他似乎还受此激励，准备改变之前的非法做法。 Times editor Sue Mermelstein said in a phone interview that there was an extensive back-and-forth with attorney McGraw over the wording of the letter. "We don't have the resources to go out and check the facts," she says, "and we didn't want to let him make a statement that we felt was inaccurate." 《时报》编辑Sue Mermelstein在接受电话采访时说，在该信件的措辞方面，曾与律师McGraw进行过大量的意见交换。“我们没有办法去检验事实”，她说，“而且我们也不想让他发表一个我们觉得并不准确的声明。” So they decided to cut out Park's contention that the coverage was inaccurate and replaced it with a line that McGraw "felt comfortable with because it's not a factual statement." 所以他们决定删除Park关于报道不真实的观点，并用McGraw“觉得舒坦”的一句话取而代之，因为“这句话不是在陈述事实。” The Times ran the new wording by Kim and Park, and they signed off on it. Attorney Kim doesn't recall the specific details, but says his client decided not to pursue the matter any further because he's "afraid of The New York Times." 《时报》把新的措辞发回Kim和Park征求意见，他们在上面签字了。律师Kim不再记得具体细节，但是他说，他的客户决定不再继续追究这一事件，因为他“害怕《纽约时报》”。 Did the Times Get the Story Right Anyway? 《时报》的故事究竟是对是错？ Nir's claim that manicurists earn shockingly low wages was based on mistranslated and misconstrued classified ads, anecdotes and interviews contested by her sources, and an anecdotal survey that she used in place of official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nir关于美甲师工资极低的说法，依据只有翻译错误和理解错误的分类广告、道听途说和遭到其信源反驳的采访，另外还有她弃劳工统计局官方数据不用而进行的一次业余调查。 Yet did she still get the story right? In response to Nir's critics, the Times has pointed to the high number of minimum wage violations reported by the state Department of Labor since the article appeared. 但是，她的故事仍然还是对的吗？在回应对Nir的批评时，《时报》又指出该文发表以后由州劳工部提供的违反最低工资法的超高案例数。 In the next piece in this series, I'll scrutinize those violations and explain why, in fact, they don't show what the Times claims. (That article is now online here.) 在本系列的下一篇中，我将仔细考察这些违法案例，并解释为什么它们事实上并没能证明《时报》的说法。（此文已经上线。） （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

The US Has The Best Rail System in the World, and Matt Yglesias Actually Pointed Out the Reason 美国拥有世界上最好的铁路系统，Matt Yglesias其实已经点出了背后的原因 作者:Warren Meyer @ 2016-5-2 翻译:Drunkplane(@Drunkplane-zny) 校对:babyface_claire(@许你疯不许你傻) 来源:www.coyoteblog.com，http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/05/the-us-has-the-best-rail-system-in-the-world-and-matt-yglesias-actually-pointed-out-the-reason.html Yglesias has a very good article on why passenger rail is not a bigger deal in the US. In it, he says this (emphasis added): 关于为何客运铁路在美国并未大行其道，Yglesias写了篇很好的文章。在那篇文章中，他说道：

Instead the issue is that the dismal failure of US passenger rail is in large part the flip side of the success of US freight rail. America's railroads ship a dramatically larger share of total goods than their European peers. And this is no coincidence. Outside of the Northeast Corridor, the railroad infrastructure is generally owned by freight companies — Amtrak is just piggybacking on the spare capacity. 相反，美国客运铁路的萧索其实很大程度上可视为其货运铁路兴盛的另一面。比起欧洲的铁路，美国的铁路承担全国货物运输的比重要大得多。而这并不是巧合。除了东北走廊线，美国的铁路设施基本由货运公司拥有——Amtrak【译注：美国国家铁路公司，其全部优先权股份都由美国联邦政府所有，并接受政府投资以维持公司运转。公司的运作模式为准政府机构，董事会成员皆由总统提名经参议院同意而任命】）仅仅肩负了剩余的运输能力。

It is a short article, so it does not go into more depth than this, but I have actually gone further than this and argued that the US freight-dominated rail system is actually far greener and more sensible than the European passenger system.  As I wrote years ago at Forbes: 这是篇短文章，所以只是点到为止，但我其实做过更深的研究，并提出货运占主导的美国铁路系统其实远比欧洲的客运系统更环保和更合理。正如多年前我在《福布斯》上发表的文章所说：

The US rail system, unlike nearly every other system in the world, was built (mostly) by private individuals with private capital.  It is operated privately, and runs without taxpayer subsidies.    And, it is by far the greatest rail system in the world.  It has by far the cheapest rates in the world (1/2 of China’s, 1/8 of Germany’s).  But here is the real key:  it is almost all freight. 与世界上几乎所有其他铁路系统都不一样，美国的铁路系统基本全部由私人出资，并由私人建设。它由私人运营，不需要拿纳税人的钱进行补贴。而且，目前为止它是世界上最大的铁路系统，也是目前为止最便宜的系统（成本为中国铁路系统的二分之一，德国的八分之一）。但真正的关键在这：它基本上完全为货运服务。 As a percentage, far more freight moves in the US by rail (vs. truck) than almost any other country in the world.  Europe and Japan are not even close.  Specifically, about 40% of US freight moves by rail, vs. just 10% or so in Europe and less than 5% in Japan.   As a result, far more of European and Japanese freight jams up the highways in trucks than in the United States.  For example, the percentage of freight that hits the roads in Japan is nearly double that of the US. 若以百分比计，在美国，铁路承担的货运量（同汽车运输相比）比世界上几乎其他任何国家都大得多。欧洲和日本完全不在同一档次上。具体来说，美国40%的货运由铁路承担，而欧洲为10%左右，日本则不到5%。结果便是，比起美国，在欧洲和日本，多得多的货物在卡车里堵在了高速公路上。例如，在日本由公路运输的货物的百分比几乎是美国的两倍。 You see, passenger rail is sexy and pretty and visible.  You can build grand stations and entertain visiting dignitaries on your high-speed trains.  This is why statist governments have invested so much in passenger rail — not to be more efficient, but to awe their citizens and foreign observers. 如你所见，客运铁路性感、招人喜欢，更容易被人看见。你可以修建雄伟的车站并以此取悦前来参观高速铁路的政要。这便是为何国家主义的政府已在客运铁路上投入了如此多的资金——并不是为了更高效，而是为了让他们的市民和外国参观者感到敬畏。 But there is little efficiency improvement in moving passengers by rail vs. other modes.   Most of the energy consumed goes into hauling not the passengers themselves, but the weight of increasingly plush rail cars.  Trains have to be really, really full all the time to make for a net energy savings for high-speed rail vs. cars or even planes, and they seldom are full.  I had a lovely trip on the high speed rail last summer between London and Paris and back through the Chunnel — especially nice because my son and I had the rail car entirely to ourselves both ways. 但是同其他方式相比，用铁路运输旅客并没有什么效率上的提高。大部分的能源被用在制动和运送日益豪华的车厢，而不是运送旅客上。同汽车（甚至飞机）相比，火车必须始终装得非常非常满才能更节省能源，而它们很少是满载的。去年夏天，在往返伦敦和巴黎时，我选择了乘坐穿梭英吉利海峡隧道的火车。那趟旅程可谓惬意——尤其考虑到往返旅程中车厢里都只有我和我儿子时。 The real rail efficiency comes from moving freight.  As compared to passenger rail, more of the total energy budget is used moving the actual freight rather than the cars themselves.  Freight is far more efficient to move by rail than by road, but only the US moves a substantial amount of its freight by rail.    One reason for this is that freight and high-speed passenger traffic have a variety of problems sharing the same rails, so systems that are optimized for one tend to struggle serving the other. 火车的真正效率来自货运。同客运铁路比起来，总能量开销更多被用来运输货物而不是车厢本身。用铁路运输货物要比用公路有效率得多，但只有美国用铁路运输大量货物。原因之一是客货共线存在许多问题，这样，被优化用于一种运输方式的系统会很难为另一种提供服务。 Freight is boring and un-sexy.  Its not a government function in the US.  So intellectuals tend to ignore it, even though it is the far more important, from and energy and environmental standpoint, portion of transport to put on the rails. .... 货运既无聊又不性感。在美国这不是政府职能之一。所以知识分子倾向于忽视它，尽管从能源和环境角度，货运都是交通极为重要的组成部分。 I would argue that the US has the world’s largest commitment to rail where it really matters.  But that is what private actors do, make investments that actually make sense rather than just gain one prestige (anyone know the most recent company Warren Buffet has bought?) 要我说，在它真正能够施展身手的地方，美国才是全世界向铁路交托了最大重任的国家。但那是私人部门所为，他们做有实际意义的投资而不是仅仅买得一个虚名（有谁知道沃伦·巴菲特新近买下的公司吗？） The greens should be demanding that the world emulate us, rather than the other way around.  But the lure of shiny bullet trains and grand passenger concourses will always cause some intellectuals to swoon. 绿党分子们应该要求全世界模仿我们，而不是反过来。但是闪亮的子弹头列车和雄伟的乘客广场总是太诱人，引得一些知识分子意乱情迷。

Which would you rather pounding down the highway, more people on vacation or more big trucks moving freight?  Without having made an explicit top-down choice at all, the US has taken the better approach. 在高速公路上，你乐意看到更多出门度假的人还是更多载货的大卡车？全然没有一个清晰的至上而下的选择，美国已然采用了更好的方式。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——