2016年08月

2016年08月25日

トランプの経済アドバイザーの新たな仲間はなぜトランプの政策を改善しようとしないのか?

Why Trump’s new club of economic advisers won’t improve his policies
Aug 7th 2016, 20:44 BY H.C. | WASHINGTON, DC 

トランプの経済アドバイザーの新たな仲間はなぜトランプの政策を改善しようとしないのか?

ECONOMISTS love to debunk the analogy that is often drawn between the government’s budget and that of a household. (Much of the government’s debt is held by its own taxpayers; households borrow exclusively from outside sources.) But there is another, equally flawed analogy, to which Donald Trump subscribes: that writing economic policy is comparable to making business decisions. Mr Trump’s thirteen-strong team of economic advisers, announced on Friday, is packed full of rich businessmen (and only men). Just three have relevant backgrounds in economics. 

debunk:の誤りを指摘する
analogy:類似点・類推
flawed:欠陥のある
comparable:似通っている
relevant:適切な



Does high-quality economic advice matter? Mr Trump’s ludicrous tax plan—which is likely to be revised on August 8th—suggests it does. The plan achieved the unlikely feat of being both hugely expensive and yet startlingly inefficient. Instead of combining tax-cuts with measures to broaden the tax base—a combination tax-reformers have long called for—it shrinks the tax base slightly. And Mr Trump omitted the growth-boosting reforms to the corporation tax that conservative economists favour. The Tax Foundation, a think-tank, found that Mr Trump’s cuts, which cost $12 trillion over a decade before accounting for economic growth, would give only slightly more juice to the economy than Paul Ryan’s plan, which comes at one-fifth of the up-front cost. 

ludicrous:馬鹿げた
feat:功績・離れ技
startlingly:びっくりするほどの
tax base:課税標準
up-front:先行投資の・直接的な
Mr Trump omitted the growth-boosting reforms:所得税率を当初の提案よりも上げているので。詳しくは
http://www.mizuho-ri.co.jp/publication/research/pdf/insight/us160810.pdf#search='トランプの税制対策'

Who knows whether the likes of Harold Hamm, an oil magnate on Mr Trump’s team, or Dan DiMicco, a steelmaker, could have written a better plan. But almost any economist could have done. Unfortunately Mr Trump’s whole campaign is based on the notion that financial success begets policymaking success, regardless of expertise. (Ironically, though, one member of his team is a one-hit-wonder: John Paulson, a hedge-fund manager, made a killing betting against subprime mortgages in the crisis but has performed disappointingly since.) 

likes:みたいな人
magnate:大物
begets:を生む
expertise:専門知識
one-hit-wonder:一発屋
killing betting:体を張った賭け
disappointingly:がっかりさせるほど

There are numerous areas in which businessmen may have flawed intuition about what is desirable for the economy. An obvious example is anti-trust policy. Many businesses—especially successful ones—will find competition policy burdensome. It imposes onerous regulatory tests on big companies who want to merge. Yet it is crucial for the economy as a whole that companies do not gain too much market power, as Jason Furman, Barack Obama’s top economist, has recently emphasised. Similarly, a business will do better if it is protected from overseas competition but consumers at large will suffer. Economists are by no means omniscient about economic policy—and frequently prove as much. But they are at least trained to think scientifically about what is in the public interest. That is very different to thinking about what will boost companies’ profits. 

intuition:直感
burdensome:重荷となる
onerous:うんざりする
merge:合併する
at large:全体の
omniscient:通暁した
prove as much:理解できない

The result of Mr Trump’s choice of advisors is that his economic policy remains unpredictable, because his promises are detached from economic reality. His desired trade barriers will reduce wages rather than raise them. He cannot cut taxes, leave Social Security spending untouched, and reduce the national debt all at once. Nobody knows which of these goals he will prioritise. Erratic policymaking is a particular risk when it comes to monetary policy. Mr Trump has hinted that he favours a gold standard. David Malpass, one of the few trained economists on Mr Trump’s new team, has long called for much tighter monetary policy, in spite of tepid growth and below-target inflation. Were a President Trump to appoint a hawkish or eccentric replacement for Janet Yellen at the Federal Reserve, the consequences for the economy could be grave indeed. 

detached:切り離す
Erratic:突飛な
tepid:生ぬるい
eccentric :一風変わった
grave :重々しい

One aspect of President Trump’s economic policy is easy to foresee. Businessmen and conservative economists agree that America is over-regulated. They detest the Dodd-Frank Act, which regulates banks, and lament the rulemaking of the Department of Labour and the Environmental Protection Agency. This is such an obvious point of consensus that congressional Republicans have made it the new centrepiece of their economic policy, replacing deficit-reduction (see article). Expect a bonfire of regulations if the Republicans win in November. Everything else will be a confused mess. 

detest:をひどく嫌う
lament:に失望する
congressional:議会の
centrepiece:最も重要なもの
bonfire:焚き火

木曜日。今日はこれまで。トランプの政策はDodd-Frank法案のような規制過多に対する批判以外は全くダメだというような意見だ。彼の選んだ顧問団はビジネスマンばかりで、国家の経済政策のことはわからない。ビジネスマンでは国家運営はできないと言った内容に記事だ。2004年にイラクで自動車爆弾攻撃のため戦死した陸軍大尉の両親、キズルさんとガザーラさんは7月28日に民主党大会で、繰り返しイスラム教徒を侮辱するトランプ氏は今までアメリカのために何一つ犠牲を払ってこなかったと非難した。これに対してトランプ氏は、自分は「いろいろな犠牲を払ってきた」と主張し、逆になぜ母親のガザーラさんが何も発言しなかったのかと問いただした。それが彼の支持率の急落を招いた。それに対して、彼は起死解消の策を講じようとしているが、さしたる効果は出ていない。

昨日は海野塾があった。懇親会もあった。楽しいひと時だった。今日に昼は三菱化学の近藤さんとの会食がある。夜は石油会だ。それと今日は今の事務所の家具を引き取ってもらう日だ。全部きれいになる。新しいところはまだ整理していないので、荷物の山だ。ただこうして、環境を変えることは気分一新で、大事なことだ。しかし、ここのところオーバーワークだが、荷物の搬送のお陰で、体調がいい。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 08:21コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2016年08月24日

対潜水艦戦 探しているが、見つけ出せるだろうか。 より静かな潜水艦の急増がそれらを追跡するための良い方法を作ることを海軍に強く求めている。(3)

But naval drones will still be useful before then. With greater manoeuvrability, endurance and speed than manned diesel-electric submarines, they will find employment in many sorts of mission besides tracking the boats of potential enemies. This autumn, for example, Norway begins sea trials of ODIN, an 11-metre-long surface drone. ODIN will first sweep for underwater mines, since these are static and cannot take evasive action. Eventually, though, upgrades should give its software the wit to follow manned submarines. 

before then:それ以前は・その時以前は
manoeuvrability:操縦性
employment:仕事・努め
evasive : take evasive action (飛行機の衝突人に会うことなどを避けるため)回避行動をとる. 
wit:聡明さ

Some navies hope to make the drones themselves submerge. America’s putative SHARK class (an acronym contrived from “submarine, hold at risk”) is the furthest advanced in this area, says Andrew Krepinevich, a former adviser to three American defence secretaries—but China and Japan are not far behind. Underwater drones are harder to detect, and thus counter, than surface drones are because sound radiates from them through the water as a sphere, rather than the hemisphere occupied by the waterborne sonic emissions of a drone at the surface. Filling a larger volume at any given distance from its source, the sound of a submarine drone therefore dissipates faster than that from a surface drone. 

submerge:潜水する
putative:噂の
contrived:企む・考案する
defence secretary:国防長官
counter:反撃する
radiates:発する
sphere:範囲
hemisphere:範囲
dissipates:逃す・消える

Some needle, some haystack
All this technological change is ushering in a new era for anti-submarine warfare, according to Gunnar Wieslander, a former commander of Sweden’s submarine flotilla who now runs Saab Kockums, an exporter of diesel-electric manned submarines. Saab Kockums’s new 62-metre A26 model will sport a tube from which an underwater drone could slip out to attack surface drones. This, Mr Wieslander says, is the first time that such a feature has been fitted to a production submarine. Mr Krepinevich, however, counsels caution regarding underwater drones. They are fine for attacking other drones, but without huge advances in battery technology (see article), no such machine could keep up for long with a big submarine that charges its batteries from a diesel engine and can travel at up to 20 knots—much less with a faster nuclear-powered one. 

haystack:干草の山
ushering:到来を告げる
flotilla:小艦隊
sport a tube:管をつけている

What, though, of the crucial task of detecting the submarines to be trailed in the first place? The phrase “surfaced within torpedo range” may bring to mind an image of a boat popping up a few hundred metres from its target—as, perhaps, in a film about the second world war. In the Okinawa incident, though, the distance was probably about five nautical miles (the details remain classified). Sound, whether of engines turning or sonar pulses returning, obeys the inverse-square law. Its strength changes in inverse proportion to the square of the distance it has travelled. That means it falls off fast. Ideally, therefore, detectors need to be close to their targets. 

popping up:出現する
inverse-square law:逆二乗の法則 物理量の大きさがその発生源からの距離の 2 乗に反比例する
falls off:低下する

One way to do this, at least for home waters, is to have a dense grid of fixed detectors. One of the more advanced of these is Singapore’s. It consists of underwaterbuoys called acoustic nodes that are tethered to the sea bed two or three kilometres apart. These nodes can talk to each other. They communicate by broadcasting precisely calibrated vibrations through the water. At the moment they are sending test messages, but eventually they will be equipped with their own submarine-detecting sensors. 

dense grid:高密度の電子網
detector:探知機
acoustic:音響の
tethered:つなぐ
calibrated:目盛りを測定する・調整する

More sophisticated systems than this are in the works—including anti-drone countermeasures. According to Torstein Olsmo Sabo, a scientist at FFI, Norway’s defence-research establishment, drone-towed acoustic arrays can now mimic the signature of a big submarine, luring a drone off in the wrong direction. (Just because Norway’s nascent flotilla of underwater drones could be programmed to do this, he adds, does not mean that it has been.) DARPA, meanwhile, is planning sea-floor pods which pop open to release drones that swim closer to an enemy submarine, or, after rising to the surface, fly off to deliver or collect more intelligence. 

array:多様な
mimic:よく似ている
signature:特徴
nascent:芽生えつつある
pod:小型船
sea-floor:海底
pop open:ポンと開ける

The arms race between surface vessels and submarines has been going on for almost exactly a century—since Germany’s demonstration to its enemies in the first world war of the threat from its U-boats. By the end of the second world war, the Allies had become so good at finding U-boats that German crews taking to the sea had a life expectancy of about a week. As the examples of the Kitty Hawk and the Theodore Roosevelt show, the balance at the moment has tipped back in favour of the submariner. The great question is how long it will stay that way. 

balance:軍事の勢力均衡
tipped back:後ろに傾ける 潜水艦の方に有利になってきているという意味
submariner:潜水艦乗組員

水曜日。今日はこれまで。潜水艦の追跡の話だが、ドローン同士の探索研究も行われている。こうした探索は今では数百メーターではなく5海里まで敵の潜水艦を捕捉できる。一方ではそのドローンをかわすための施策も研究されている。開発自体は鼬ごっこに近いが、そうした幾つかの例をここでは紹介している。

昨日の昼はアグニコンサルの高橋晋さんと会食。引っ越しと今日の資料の作成をした。今日も同じだ。今日は海野塾の日だ。楽しい1日だ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 06:32コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2016年08月23日

対潜水艦戦 探しているが、見つけ出せるだろうか。 より静かな潜水艦の急増がそれらを追跡するための良い方法を作ることを海軍に強く求めている。(2)

Automating the hunt for Red October Perhaps belatedly, but certainly determinedly, a new approach to the submarine threat is now being developed. It is based on a simple principle: since submarines are hard to detect, when you do find one you should never let go. 

belatedly:遅ればせながら
determinedly:断固として

Shadowing threatening submersibles is nothing new. Trailing something is a much easier sensory task than discovering it in the first place, when you have an entire ocean to search. But at the moment this job is done by destroyers and (for those that have them) nuclear submarines. These cost billions of dollars to build and tens of millions a year more to run. Instead, the idea is to use smallish unmanned ships—marine drones, in effect—to do the job. These will be packed with enough sensors and artificial intelligence to follow adversaries’ submarines automatically. 

submersibles:潜水艦
threatening:脅すような・怪しい
Shadowing :尾行する
Trailing:の後を追う
destroyers:駆逐艦
for those that have them:保有しているのであれば

Half a dozen Western naval powers are conducting the R&D needed to build these, according to Eric Wertheim, author of the US Naval Institute’s reference doorstop “Combat Fleets of the World”. America is furthest along. In June its Office of Naval Research and its Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, began tests in the Pacific of the Sea Hunter, an unmanned (and, for now, unarmed) 40-metre trimaran, pictured. It is designed to follow an enemy submarine from the surface relentlessly for months, even in high seas. While the crew of the boat being tailed will probably be able to hear their pursuer’s diesel engine, that is not really a problem. Short of a torpedo launch, which would be an act of war, “there’s nothing you can do about it”, says Nevin Carr, a retired rear admiral in the American navy who now works at Leidos, the firm which designed Sea Hunter. 

doorstop:ドア止め・無用の長物
furthest along:開発が最も進んでいる
trimaran:トリマラン 3船体を平行に連結した高速ヨット
relentlessly:絶え間なく
high seas:公海
Short of:以外は・なしでは
rear admiral lower half 《米海軍》准将◆少将(rear admiral upper half)の下で、大佐(captain)より上の階級。◆【参考】commodore 単語帳 rear admiral upper half 《米海軍》少将◆中将(vice admiral)の下で、准将(rear admiral lower half)の上の階級。



Sea Hunters will cost just $20m each, according to Leidos. America will be able to let lots of them loose, says Scott Littlefield, head of the Sea Hunter programme at DARPA—or, rather, the “anti-submarine-warfare continuous trail unmanned vessel” (ACTUV) programme, as the agency prefers to call it. Mr Littlefield thinks of these robots as pawns to be put in harm’s way without risking loss of life or great treasure. Likening them to the chessboard’s lowliest piece, however, is slightly misleading. They will eventually need enough artificial intelligence not to be outfoxed by the manoeuvrings of the world’s best submarine commanders. 

loose:解き放たれて
pawns:チェス ポーン将棋の歩(ふ)に当たるチェスの駒
in harm’s way:危険な場所に
great treasure:最高の宝物
Likening:例える
lowliest:地位の低い
outfoxed:抜け目なくやっつける
manoeuvrings:作戦行動
commander:指揮官

Designing the software to do this has been hard, Mr Littlefield says. DARPA therefore asked video gamers for help. In 2011 the agency released “ACTUV Tactics Simulator”, a modified version of a game called “Dangerous Waters”, in which players chose the sensors for a Sea Hunter-like craft that they piloted to follow an enemy submarine. Having played, they repaid DARPA by uploading relevant data from their game sessions. These were analysed by the agency’s naval-warfare experts and tactics judged useful then programmed into the Sea Hunter’s software or passed on to contractors to improve the design of the ship. Even so, more advances are needed before the system can match an enemy submarine’s crew, according to Mr Carr. 

repaid:返す

火曜日。今日はこれまで。敵の潜水艦を見つけたら決して逃してはいけないというルールがある。探すよりも追跡した方が効率がいい。最近はこうした敵の潜水艦に対して、そうした行動をするドローンが開発されている。DARPAによって開発されていて、現在テストの段階のようだ。対潜水艦攻撃までそうなってきた。

今朝は4時前に起きてしまった。昨日は台風が来ていたが、愚息と一緒に向かいの新しい事務所に荷物を移動した。あと1日あれば、完了できる。事務所のコストは変わらないが、広さが3分の1なので、無駄なものを捨てることができる。今日の昼はアグニコンサルの高橋晋さんとの会食だ。あとは晴れていれば、引っ越し作業がある。それ以外は明日の研修の準備だ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 04:43コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2016年08月22日

対潜水艦戦 探しているが、見つけ出せるだろうか。 より静かな潜水艦の急増がそれらを追跡するための良い方法を作ることを海軍に強く求めている。

Anti-submarine warfare
Seek, but shall ye find?
A proliferation of quieter submarines is pushing navies to concoct better ways to track them
Aug 6th 2016 | From the print edition

proliferation:急増
concoct:作り上げる
track:追跡する

対潜水艦戦
探しているが、見つけ出せるだろうか。
より静かな潜水艦の急増がそれらを追跡するための良い方法を作ることを海軍に強く求めている。

DURING war games played off the coast of Florida last year, a nuclear-powered French attack submarine, Saphir, eluded America’s sub-hunting aircraft and vessels with enough stealth to sink (fictitiously) a newly overhauled American aircraft-carrier, Theodore Roosevelt, and most of her escort. An account of the drill on a French defence-ministry website was promptly deleted, but too late for it to go unnoticed. 

war game:作戦演習
played off:同点決勝戦をする
eluded:追跡者をうまくかわす
fictitiously:嘘のように
escort:護衛艦



Nor was this French victory a fluke. In 2006, in what was very far from being a war game, a Chinese diesel-electric submarine surfaced near Okinawa within torpedo range of another American carrier, Kitty Hawk, without having been detected by that carrier’s escort of more than a dozen vessels and anti-submarine aircraft. And, from the point of view of carrier-deploying navies, things are threatening to get worse. Saphir, launched in 1981, hardly represents the state of the art in underwater undetectability; in the decade since the Okinawa incident diesel-electrics have become even quieter. For an inkling of the silence of the new generation of such subs when they are running on battery power alone, without their engines turning, Jerry Hendrix, a former anti-submarine operations officer on the Theodore Roosevelt, asks: “How loud is your flashlight?” 

fluke:まぐれ
within torpedo range:魚雷射程距離内
undetectability:検知不可能
Saphir:サフィール級潜水艦 (さふぃーるきゅうせんすいかん、Saphir Class Submarines ) とは、フランス海軍が建造・保有した機雷敷設任務のための潜水艦のこと。6隻が竣工し、第二次世界大戦で活躍した。
inkling:薄々知っていること

Moreover, submarines are spreading. Since the cold war ended, the number of countries deploying them has risen from a dozen or so to about 40. Many of the newcomers are not part of the Western system of alliances. Some are actively hostile to it. And more may join them. A secondhand diesel-electric boat—not state of the art, admittedly, but effective nevertheless—can be had for as little as $350m. 

spreading:蔓延する
risen: [riz-uh n]
admittedly:確かに
as little as:わずか・たった

Worse, for those trying to defend ships from submarine attack, Western powers have routinely cut anti-submarine spending since the end of the cold war. American carriers retired the S-3 Viking submarine-hunting warplane in 2009, leaving shorter-range helicopters to compensate. Since the Soviet Union’s demise the average surface escort of an American carrier has shrunk from six vessels to four. 

compensate:埋めあわせる
demise:終結

Modern submarines are not merely quieter than their predecessors, they are also better armed. Many carry anti-ship guided missiles as well as torpedoes. One such, the CM-708 UNB, was shown off by China in April. It packs a 155kg warhead and, after popping out of the water, flies at near the speed of sound for about 290km. An export version is available but, if you prefer, Russia’s submarine-launched Kalibr-PL missile offers a bigger warhead and a terminal sprint at Mach three. In December a submerged Russian submarine hit Islamic State targets in Syria with four similar missiles. 

submerged:水面下の
terminal sprint:最終的な全速力

Potential adversaries operate or have ordered more submarines than Western powers could feasibly find and track with their existing defences. Even Iran has more than a dozen well-armed “midget” subs that hide in the shallows of the Persian Gulf, as well as three big Russian-made Kilo class diesel-electrics. Israel’s navy trains as if this trio carry the Kalibr-PL’s export variant, according to an Israeli expert. Countries which plan to arm submarines with that missile include China, India and Vietnam. The upshot is that many warships are in jeopardy and may only learn just how great that jeopardy is, says Alain Coldefy, a former vice-chief of France’s defence staff, once a missile is closing fast. 

midget:超小型
variant:変形
upshot:結果
jeopardy:危機

月曜日。今日はこれまで。最近の潜水艦は静かになるだけでなく、武器も魚雷だけでなく、ミサイルも搭載するようになってきている。2006年に沖縄で中国の潜水艦がアメリカの艦隊に発見されなかったという事実がある。近年、そうした技術が相当進歩してきている。冷戦後、40もの潜水艦が建造されたがその多くは西側諸国のものではない。冷戦後は対潜水艦防御の投資も西側諸国は削減してきている。なので、対潜水艦防御は脆弱だ。

昨日は城南島でスケートのBBQパーティが盛大にあった。日射病と飲み過ぎで、午後の研修資料のレビューはきつかった。夜は池袋まで行って、新しい事務所の契約をしてきた。今日は引っ越しの準備だが、台風が来ているので、物の移動はできそうにない。水曜日まで雨のようだ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 06:07コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2016年08月21日

なぜ遺伝子治療薬はあんなに高いのか。(2) 英国銀行 後遺症の扱い 7年間での初めての金利の動きはBrexitによって引き起こされた金利低減である。

Pharma supporters will also point out that the price of Strimvelis is significantly lower than that of another therapy, Glybera, which was the first to be sold in Europe (for a genetic condition that causes a dangerously high amount of fat to build up in the blood system). At $1m, it was bought only once since it was introduced in 2012 and has been a commercial failure. The lesson from this, and one that loomed large in the pricing of Strimvelis, was that it is possible to charge too much—even for a cure. Drug companies are also trying to argue that the cost of cures for diseases need to be set against the overall benefit to the health-care system. The cost of treating ADA-SCID with an enzyme-replacement therapy can run into many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Nonetheless, with growing numbers of costly therapies of different kinds expected to arrive in the near future, there are worries about how health-care systems will afford them all. It isn’t all doom and gloom, however. Over time the cost of making these therapies will decline: patents will run out and labour-intensive parts of the process will be automated. It may also become possible to develop off-the shelf treatments one day. The process of industrialising gene therapies is only just beginning. 

loom large: 〔危険・心配などが〕大きく迫る[立ちはだかる]
enzyme:酵素
doom and gloom:散々な目・将来に希望が持てない
run out:我慢が限界を超える

もっと高い治療方法を必要とする別の病気の治療方法もあったが、高すぎてうまくいかなかった。今後こうした高額な治療はだんだん改善されていくだろうという記事だ。もっともな話だ。この記事を読んで、こうした医療は政府とか公的な機関が支援するべきだろう。そう思った。

The Bank of England
Treating the hangover
The first interest-rate move in seven years is a Brexit-induced cut
Aug 6th 2016 | From the print edition

英国銀行
後遺症の扱い
7年間での初めての金利の動きはBrexitによって引き起こされた金利低減である。

THE Bank of England had not changed base rates in seven years, but when it finally moved, it did so. In response to the low growth it expects in the wake of Brexit, it cut rates by a quarter point, to 0.25%, expanded its quantitative easing scheme and introduced a new funding scheme for banks. The move came on August 4th—three prime ministers, two disappointing European football championships and one referendum since the last wiggle in the rate. 

with a bang:華々しく・大きな音を立てて
wiggle:、小刻みな動き



The cut, when it finally came, was fully expected by markets and indeed looked overdue. In the days immediately after the Brexit vote, Mark Carney, the governor of the bank, hinted that the MPC would be ready to respond aggressively to the presumed economic blowback. Yet at its July meeting the MPC held fast while awaiting more data. The news since has been almost uniformly bad. Manufacturing, service-sector and construction activity all shrank sharply in July, the latter two at the fastest pace since 2009. Measures of economic confidence have also taken a tumble, and surveys of business reveal a broad pessimism across firms as orders from abroad dry up. The British economy seems destined to suffer through at least a mild recession. 

overdue:もっと早くするべきで
hinted:ほのめかす
blowback:〔否定的な〕反応 〔外交の〕ブローバック◆アメリカのCIAの用語で、外交政策が原因となって自国にもたらされる予期できない負の結末。支持していた政権が自国に敵対的になってテロを仕掛けることなどを指す。
MPC:Monetary Policy Committee 金融政策委員会◆国営銀行であるイングランド銀行に属する。
held fast :固執する
uniformly:一様に
confidence:信頼
taken a tumble:下降線をたどる・転倒

In responding to the danger, the bank opted to do more than cut rates. It will also restart quantitative easing (printing money to buy bonds). The MPC pledged to buy £60 billion ($80 billion) in government bonds and up to £10 billion in corporate bonds over the next 18 months. That is on top of the £375 billion of assets already purchased. Both measures are meant to keep credit taps open and provide a lifeline to firms; analysts expect bank lending to companies to contract in coming months. The new funding scheme is designed to help banks and building societies which might otherwise struggle to cut their lending rates in line with base rates. 

credit taps:与信枠の蛇口

Yet having warned before the referendum that monetary policy could only do so much to limit the damage from Brexit, Mr Carney will be hoping for co-operation from the government. Interest rates are already very low: a small business can borrow for 3.5% a year, for instance, down from 7% when the financial crisis hit. A bold new programme of public investment spending might do more to shore up both business confidence and demand than central-bank bond-buying. Unfortunately, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, seems to be in no rush: the government’s spending plans are not expected to change until October. A recession might be under way before fiscal stimulus begins working its way through the economy. 

shore up:補強する

Were this a typical recession, Britain’s best hope might be a rise in exports to the continent. The interest-rate cut should keep the downward pressure on sterling, and the European recovery continues to plod along. Yet European firms will be reluctant to spend more money in Britain until the future of its relationship with the EU is clearer. For now, Britons must sleep in the bed Leave voters have made—and hope the Remain campaign’s economic warnings prove excessively pessimistic. 

plod :ゆっくり進む




日曜日。今日はこれまで。Brexitの影響で英国銀行は金利を下げ、量的緩和政策をとることにした。景気が悪くなってきていて、さらに企業への貸し出し支援政策も検討しているが、景気悪化の状況は芳しくない。ヨーロッパも英国への投資を控えている。今後このBrexitによるどうなっていくのだろうか。

昨日は海野塾があった。懇親会もあった。今日は朝から城南島のスケーターのBBQ大会に行く。Hypnoのウィールがもらえるので、その準備をしなければならない。2時からは英語の研修資料作成がある。5時半からは池袋で新しい事務所の契約がある。忙しい1日になりそうだ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 08:58コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2016年08月20日

ドナルドトランプの損害の大きな2週間(3) なぜ遺伝子治療薬はあんなに高いのか。

Rarely in recent times have America’s fact-based media, on the left and right, its politicians, its armed forces and citizens’ groups seemed so united, in a face-off between decency and rancour, as they do now. The accompanying baying of some of Mr Trump’s supporters reinforces the impression: at a rally in Nevada the mother of an air-force officer was jeered after asking his running-mate, Mike Pence, to speak up for the Khans. So, too, for the small but growing majority of Americans who like his record, did an intervention by Barack Obama on August 2nd. Calling Mr Trump “unfit to serve” as president, he urged Republicans to disown him. “There has to come a point”, he said, “at which you say somebody who makes those kinds of statements doesn’t have the judgment, the temperament, the understanding, to occupy the most powerful position in the world.” 

face-off :対決
decency:良識
rancour:憤慨
 baying:騒ぎ立て強く要求する
jeered:やじる
disown:勘当する
temperament:気質

The same day, Richard Hanna, a Republican congressman from New York, said he would vote for Mrs Clinton. “I think Trump is a national embarrassment,” he said. Hours later, a billionaire Republican donor, Meg Whitman, said she would vote for and donate heavily to Mrs Clinton and urge her network to do likewise. Though she disagreed with the Democratic nominee on some issues, she said, it was time “to put country first before party”. 

embarrassment:厄介な出来事

There is little to suggest that trickle will become a flood. The partisan division is too deep and the contest still too tight. Mr Trump looks able to rally his embittered, defiant supporters for a huge turnout; none of those in Mechanicsburg, it was depressing to note, admitted to giving a stuff about Mr Trump’s remarks to the Khans. To defeat him, Mrs Clinton would have to rally her supporters similarly. And it is unclear, not least given the low esteem in which many hold her, whether she will be able to do that. But this is a bad moment for Mr Trump, so a good one for America. 

embittered:苦しんでいる
defiant:挑戦的な
rally:回復する
turnout:投票者総数
giving a stuff:not give a stuff (英国用法, Australia) to care less about something, to not give a damn
esteem:尊敬・敬意
not least:とりわけ

ドナルドトランプはもう目がないと言っている。オバマも彼の能力を否定している。実際そうだろう。彼が降りるのは時間の問題のようだ。共和党の人たちも離れ始めている。結局、口が悪いだけの問題ではないようだ。頭がおかしいのかもしれない。

Why gene-therapy drugs are so expensive
Aug 3rd 2016, 23:46 BY N.L.

なぜ遺伝子治療薬はあんなに高いのか。

ON AUGUST 3rd the British pharmaceutical company GSK said that it would charge €594,000 ($665,000) for a gene-therapy cure for ADA-SCID—a severe immune disorder that is usually fatal in the first few years of life. A child born with ADA-SCID is unable to fight off everyday infections; Strimvelis has cured this in each of the 18 children it has been tested on over 15 years. Gene therapies work by delivering correct versions of DNA, usually using a virus as a vector. Once DNA is inside the cell, it produces the protein that was missing and the fault is fixed. Scientists have been trying to develop gene therapies for decades. Early work hit the buffers due to a series of unexpected cancers, the death of a young man during a trial, and some disappointing results. 

immune disorder:免疫異常障害
infections:感染症・感染
Strimvelis:(ADA遺伝子を形質導入した自己由来のCD34陽性細胞)は、世界で初めて承認を受けた小児患者用の遺伝子治療です。この治療は、ヒト白血球抗原(HLA)の一致した適切な近親者による幹細胞ドナーがいないADA-SCID患者の治療を適応としています。
vector:ベクター〘細胞への遺伝子運搬因子〙
virus:病原体
buffers:和らげるもの



Much progress has been made since then and according to analysts at Datamonitor Healthcare the number of gene therapies in development has doubled since 2012. Last week, America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) handed out “breakthrough” designations—intended to hasten the approval of important new treatments—to two gene therapies. One, made by Pfizer, a giant drugmaker, and Spark Therapeutics, a biotech company, is for haemophilia B, a rare bleeding disorder. The new drug to cure ADA-SCID was developed by scientists at the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy, in Milan, with support from a charitable foundation. Given that the costs of developing Strimvelis were not paid by GSK, the pharmaceutical company that has bought the licence to sell this treatment, one might ask why its price is so high. 

designations:指定
haemophilia:血友病

One reason is that the process of making the drug is particularly labour-intensive because it is tailored to each patient (rather than being made once and pulled off the shelf). Stem cells are extracted from a patient’s bone marrow and over five days are painstakingly mingled with the virus that will introduce the correct version of the gene they need. After this, corrected stem cells are infused back into the patient. Another reason the therapy is costly is that it has been difficult to take a complex and experimental therapy and turn it into a reliable product of guaranteed quality that drug regulators will allow to be sold. GSK will also incur ongoing costs, as it must follow up with patients on this novel therapy for years. On top of all this, GSK will be selling into a tiny market. Annually, just 15 patients are diagnosed with the disorder across Europe. 

marrow:骨髄
painstakingly:細心の注意を払って
mingled:混ざる
 infused:植え付ける・点滴する
 incur:負う
ongoing:継続中の
novel:革新的な

土曜日。今日はこれまで。ADA遺伝子を形質導入した自己由来のCD34陽性細胞であるStrimvelisの話。一人当たりの費用が$665,000もするので、なぜそうなのかということを説明している。この病気の対象となる患者も少ない。治療そのものも金がかかるし、その開発した研究を維持しなければならない。世の中にこうした金のかかる治療がたくさなるのだろう。

昨日は引越しの片付けをしていた。捨てたらいいのかどうか判断に困るものがたくさんあったが、すべて捨てた。スーツも一年来ていないが、それはまだ残した。新しい事務所に持って行って判断することにした。倉庫に持って行ったら、もうほとんど出さない。昨晩は本を書くことができた。5時間は書けた。今日は海野塾がある。楽しい1日だ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 08:16コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 
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海野 恵一
1948年1月14日生

学歴:東京大学経済学部卒業

スウィングバイ株式会社
代表取締役社長

アクセンチュア株式会社代表取締役(2001-2002)
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