【CNN】Thailand's economy races ahead

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/18/news/economy/thailand-gdp/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2

• eye-popping
• pop : (Vi.) to go somewhere quickly, suddenly, or in a way that you did not expect
• crippling : (adj.) causing so much damage or harm that something no longer works or is no longer effective
  - the crippling effects of war on the economy
  - as Thailand experienced crippling floods in late 2011 that depressed production and consumption
• consensus : (U. singular) an opinion that everyone in a group agrees with or accepts
  - a lack of consensus about the aims of the project
  - a consensus that now appears conservative
• advocate : (Vt.) to publicly say that something should be done
  - Extremists were openly advocated violence.
  - a strategy that some government officials have advocated in a bid to boost the economy

==
點評：不容小覷的泰國

【CNN】Buffett slakes deal appetite with Heinz

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/14/business/buffett-brazil-heinz-takeover/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2

• takeover : (C.) when one company takes control of another by buying more than half its shares
  - He prevented a hostile takeover (=when the takeover is not wanted by the company being bought) of the company.
  - Warren Buffett has teamed up with one of Brazil's richest men to serve up the biggest takeover of the year.
• beverage : (C. formal) a hot or cold drink
  - the Food and Beverage Manager
  - The deal, which is the fourth-largest food and beverage acquisition of all time, underscores the rising tide of dealmaking around the world and has raised the hopes of bankers that merger and acquisition activity will accelerate.
• acquisition : (U.) the act of getting land, power, money etc
  - the acquisition of new sites for development
• underscore : (Vt.) to emphasize the fact that something is important or true = underline
• conglomerate : (C.) a large business organization consisting of several different companies that have joined together
  - Berkshire, a conglomerate with more than 70 businesses amassed over four decades by Mr Buffett
• amass : (Vt.) if you amass money, knowledge, information etc, you gradually collect a large amount of it
  - For 25 years, Darwin amassed evidence to support his theories.
• transaction : (U. formal) a business deal or action, such as buying or selling something
  - The bank charges a fixed rate for each transaction.
  - Berkshire will buy another $8bn to $9bn of preferred stock paying a 9 per cent coupon, according to people familiar with the transaction.
• moat : (C.) a deep wide hole, usually filled with water, dug around a castle as a defence
  - Mr Buffett has historically left existing management in place, preferring good businesses with what he calls a "moat", a persistent competitive advantage, to prospects for a turnround.
• turnround = turnaround : (singular) a complete change from a bad situation to a good one
  - the remarkable turnaround in our economy
• prominence : (U.) the fact of being important and well-known
  - the prominence of pressure groups as political forces
  - In a sign of the rising prominence of 3G and Brazilian dealmakers, Mr Lemann suggested buying Heinz
  
• amid : (prep.) while noisy, busy, or confused events are happening - used in writing or news reports
  - The dollars fallen in value amid the rumors of weakness in the US economy
  - Shares of other food companies in the sector also rose amid speculation that the Heinz deal could trigger a wave of mergers.
• regulatory : (adj.) a regulatory authority has the official power to control an activity and to make sure that it is done in a satisfactory way
  - New drugs have been approved by the regulatory authority.
  - The bid values Heinz at $28bn, including $5.1bn of net debt, and is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.
• heir : (C.) the person who has the legal right to receive the property or title of another person when they die
  - He is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, heir to her late husband H. John Heinz III.
  - John was the sole heir to a vast estate.
• trump : (plural) chosen to have a higher value than the other suits in a particular card game
  - Hearts are trumps.
  - The proposed deal is the latest in a series of recent takeovers and trumps the $24bn leveraged buyout offer by Michael Dell.
• slump : (Vi.) to suddenly go down in price, value, or number <-> soar
  - Sales slumped by 20% last year.
  - The currency slumped to a record low.
  - Last year the value of global M&A deals fell, and investment banking fees slumped.
• synergy : (U.) the additional effectiveness when two or more companies or people combine and work together
  - Heinz's purchase price appeared relatively high and financial buyers would generally have more limited synergy opportunities.

==
點評：Someday, I will be another xxx.

【CNN】G7 fails to defuse currency tensions

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/12/business/g7-failure-defuse-currency-war-fears/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2

• defuse : (Vt.) to improve a difficult or dangerous situation, for example by making people less angry or by dealing with the causes of a problem
  - G7 fails to defuse currency tensions.
  - The agreement was regarded as a means of defusing ethnic tensions.
• soothe : (Vt.) to make someone feel calmer and less anxious, upset, or angry
  - An attempt to soothe global currency tensions backfired on Tuesday as a joint statement by the world's richest nations roiled the markets.
  - Lucy soothed the baby by rocking it in her arms.
• backfire : (Vi.) if a plan or action backfires, it has the opposite effect to the one you intended
  - The company's new policy backfired when a number of employees threatened to quit.
• roil = rile : (Vt. informal) to make someone extremely angry
  - He is the calmest guy I ever knew. Nothing ever riled/roiled him. 
• reinvigorate : (Vt.) give new energy or strength to
  - The yen initially fell, as the statement appeared to support Japan's efforts to reinvigorate growth.
• broker : (Vt.) to arrange the details of a deal etc so that everyone can agree to it
  - a ceasefire agreement brokered by the UN
• monetary : (adj. only before noun) relating to money, especially all the money in a particular country
  - Japan's monetary policy has become the focus of the global currency tensions ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers later this week in Moscow.
  - the government's tight monetary policy
• reaffirm : (Vt.) to formally state an opinion, belief, or intention again, especially when someone has questioned you or expressed a doubt = reiterate- We reaffirm that our fiscal and monetary policies have been and will remain oriented towards meeting our respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments.
  - The government reaffirmed that education is a top priority.
• fiscal : (adj.) relating to money, taxes, debts etc that are owned and managed by the government
• volatile : (adj.) a volatile situation is likely to change suddenly and without warning
  - an increasingly volatile political situation
• volatility : (N.)
• adverse : (adj.) not good or favourable
  - We are agreed that excessive volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates can have adverse implications for economic and financial stability.
  - They fear it could have an adverse effect on global financial market.
• refrain : (Vt. formal) to not to do something that you want to do = abstain
  - In private, the US has been pressuring Japan's new government to refrain from mentioning the yen as it attempts to revive growth and end deflation.
  - Please refrain from smoking in this area.
• crumble : (Vt. & Vi.) to break apart into lots of little pieces, or make something do this
  - As G7 unity crumbled, the Bank of Canada's governor said the world's richest economies should not use monetary policy to target exchange rates.
  - The fall leaves crumbled in my fingers.
• outbreak : (C.) if there is an outbreak of fighting or disease in an area, it suddenly starts to happen
  - Leading emerging economies, such as Brazil, have complained about loose monetary policy in G7 countries, leading to warnings about an outbreak of low-level "currency wars"
  - the outbreak of World War II

==
點評：貨幣戰爭蓄勢待發？

【The Economist】Free exchange - Nomencracy

 http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21571399-surnames-offer-depressing-clues-extent-social-mobility-over

• inequality : (C. & U.) an unfair situation, in which some groups in society have more money, opportunities, power etc than others
  - THE 「Great Gatsby curve」 is the name Alan Krueger, an economic adviser to Barack Obama, gave to the relationship between income inequality and social mobility across the generations.
• reckon : (Vt.) to guess a number or amount, without calculating it exactly
  - Mr Corak reckons that in some places, like America and Britain, around 50% of income differences in one generation are attributable to differences in the previous generation (in more egalitarian Scandinavia, the number is less than 30%).
• rosy : (adj.) seeming to offer hope of success or happines
  - Even that may paint too rosy a picture
• scarce : (adj.) if something is scarce, there is not very much of it available
  - Good data covering three or more generations are scarce.
• be bound to : to be very likely to do or feel a particular thing
  - Gregory Clark, an economist at the University of California, Davis, notes that across a single generation some children of rich parents are bound to suffer random episodes of bad luck.
• idiosyncrasy : (C.) an unusual or unexpected feature that something has
• idiosyncratic
  - Others will choose low-pay jobs for idiosyncratic reasons, like a wish to do charitable work.
• extrapolate : (Vt. & Vi.) to use facts about the present or about one thing or group to make a guess about the future or about other things or groups
  - Extrapolating the resulting mobility rates across many generations gives a misleadingly sunny view of long-term equality of opportunity.
• descendant : (C.) someone who is related to a person who lived a long time ago, or to a family, group of people etc that existed in the past <-> ancestor
  - Indeed, it may take as long as 300-500 years for high- and low-status families to produce descendants with equal chances of being in various parts of the income spectrum.
• glean : (Vt.) to find out information slowly and with difficulty
  - Mr Clark confronts the lack of good data by gleaning information from rare surnames.
• aristocrats : (C.)  someone who belongs to the highest social class
  -  The unusual surnames of 17th-century aristocrats and the Latinised surnames (such as Linnaeus) adopted by highly educated 18th-century Swedes are both rare in the Swedish population as a whole.
• elite : (C.) a group of people who have a lot of power and influence because they have money, knowledge, or special skills
  : (adj.) an elite group contains the best, most skilled or most experienced people or members of a larger group
  - By tracking the overrepresentation of those names in elite positions, he is able to work out long-run mobility rates.
• disproportionate : (adj.) too much or too little in relation to something else
  - If very few Britons are called Micklethwait, for example, and people with that name were disproportionately wealthy in 1800, then you can gauge long-run mobility by studying how long it takes the Micklethwait name to lose its wealth-predicting power.
• gauge : (Vt.) to measure or calculate something by using a particular instrument or method
• probate : (U.) the legal process of deciding that someone's    will    has been properly made
  - In a paper written by Mr Clark and Neil Cummins of Queens College, City University of New York, the authors use data from probate records of 19th-century estates to classify rare surnames into different wealth categories.
• underlying : (adj.) the cause, idea etc that is the most important, although it is not easily noticed
  - Mr Clark's conclusion is that the underlying rate of social mobility is both low and surprisingly constant across countries and eras
• competence : (U.) the ability to do something well
  - Such competence is potentially heritable and is reinforced by the human tendency to mate with partners of similar traits and ability.
• trait : (C.) a particular quality in someone's character
• fatalistic : (adj.) believing that there is nothing you can do to prevent events from happening
  - This is a distressingly fatalistic view of opportunity.
• Painstaking : (adj.) very careful and thorough
  - Painstaking work by Jason Long of Wheaton College and Joseph Ferrie of Northwestern University provides another perspective.
• pore over sth : to read or look at something very carefully for a long time
  - They have spent the past decade poring over census returns from America and Britain, identifying families with children in one count, tracking down the same children as adults in another, and thereby building up a multigenerational dataset.
• census : (C.) an official process of counting a country's population and finding out about the people
• have/keep a grip on : (singular) power and control over someone or something
  - The past has a tight grip on the present.

==

點評：為什麼我爸不是李嘉誠？

【CNN】Asia mixes making money with ancient beliefs

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/11/business/china-business-fung-shui/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2

• embody : (Vt.) to be a very good example of an idea or quality = represent
  - She embodies everything I admire in a teacher.
• crop up : (Vi.) if a problem crops up, it happens or appears suddenly and in an unexpected way
• crop : (Vt.) to cut someone's hair short
  - Stella had her hire closely cropped.
  : (Vt.) to cut a part off a photograph or picture so that it is a particular size or shape
• bid : (C.) an offer to pay a particular price for something, especially at an auction
  bid for
  - They put in a bid for the house.
• bid : (C.) an attempt to achieve or obtain something
  bid to do something
  - a desperate bid to free herself from a loveless marriage
• entitle : (Vt. often passive) to give someone the official right to do or have something
  - Full-time employees are entitled to receive health insurance.
• behest -> at the behest of sb. : (formal) because someone has asked for something or ordered something to happen
  - The committee was set up at the behest of the president.
• run-up -> the run-up to sth. : the period of time just before an important event
  - in the run-up to the election
• audit : (C.) an official examination of a company's financial records in order to check that they are correct
  - an annual audit
• vet : (Vt.) to check a report, speech etc carefully to make sure it is acceptable
  - The author vets every script for the new TV series.
• down-to-earth : (adj.) practical and direct in a sensible honest way
  - Fran's a friendly, down-to-earth person.
• pepper : (Vt. usually passive) if something is peppered with things, it has a lot of those things in it or on it
  --> be peppered with sth
  - a speech peppered with amusing stories
• sideline : (C.) an activity that you do as well as your main job or business, in order to earn more money
  --> as a sideline
  - Zoe does a bit of photography as a sideline.
• auspicious : (adj. formal) showing that something is like to be successful
  --> auspicious start/beginning
  - Saccani's excellent recording is an auspicious start to what promises to be a distinguished musical career.
• adhere : (Vi.) to stick firmly to something
  --> adhere to
  - The eggs to these fish adhere to plant leaves.
• atrium : (C.) a large high open space in a tall building
• manifest : (Vt.) to show a feeling, attitude etc
  - A dog's protective instincts are manifested in increased alertness.
• skeptic : (C.) a person who disagrees with particular claims and statements, especially those are generally thought to be true
  - Skeptics argued that the rise in prices was temporary.
• cosmic : (adj.) relating to space or the universe
• unscrupulous : (adj.) behaving in an unfair or dishonest way
  - unscrupulous employers
• practitioner : (C.) someone who works as a doctor or a lawyer
  - a practitioner of alternative medicine
• pedal : ??
• put somebody off : to make you dislike something or not want to do something
  - Don't let the restaurant's decor put you off - the food is really good.

==

點評：風水正夯，那台灣總統府的位置可以橋一下嗎？

2013/2/11 - Paul Krugman

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/still-says-law-after-all-these-years/

• proposition : (C.) a statement that consists of a carefully considered opinion or judgment
  - Most people accept the proposition that we have a duty to protect endangered animals.
• deficiency : (U.) a lack of something that is necessary
  - a deficiency of safe play areas for children
• historians : (C.) someone who studies history, or the history of a particular thing 
• at any rate  = anyway
  : used when you are stating one definite fact in a situation that is uncertain or unsatisfactor
  : used to introduce a statement that is more important than what was said before
• venture : (Vt.) to say or do something in an uncertain way because you are afraid it is wrong or will seem stupid
  - "You are on a holiday here?" he ventured.
• corporate : (adj. before noun) belonging or relating to a corporation
  - The company is moving its corporate headquarters (=main offices)    from New York to Houston.
• hoard : (Vt.) to collect and save large amounts of food, money etc, especially when it is not necessary to do so
  - families who hoarded food during the strike
• concedes : (Vt. & Vi.) to admit that something is true or correct, although you wish it were not true
  - I conceded that I had made a number of errors.
• pile up : to increase in quantity or amount, in a way that is difficult to manage
  - The word has a tendency to pile up if I am not careful.
• mattress : (C.) the soft part of a bed that you lie on
• aggregate : (adj.) being the total amount of something after all the figures or points have been added together
• straw man : (American English) a weak opponent or imaginary argument that can easily be defeated
• refute : (Vt. formal) to prove that a statement or idea is not correct = rebut
  - an attempt to refute Darwin's theory
  - (U.) refutation
  : to say that a statement is wrong or unfair = deny
  - She refutes any allegations of malpractice.
• cripple : (Vt.) to damage something badly so that it no longer works or is no longer effective

==

Say's Law, the proposition that income must be spent and hence that there can never be an overall deficiency of demand.