2016年09月

2016年09月12日

新たな路と偽物の壁が再び中国におけるサミットにとって大事である。(2) キリスト教とかユダヤ教、イスラム教にとっては衣服は取るに足らないことだが、極めて重要でもある。

So the government is leaving nothing to chance. The city has plastered signs on lampposts and buses welcoming the G20 and exhorting residents to be on their best behaviour. Petrol stations alongside major arteries have been hidden behind new walls. Public offices will close for a special seven-day holiday. Private businesses have been urged to do the same, even though the summit itself only runs for two days. Hangzhou residents will receive 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in tourism vouchers to visit other cities in Zhejiang province (of which Hangzhou is the capital) during the G20. 

leave nothing to chance: 何事も運任せにしない、抜かりがない
plastered:一面に貼っている
lampposts:街灯の柱
exhorting:勧告する
arteries:幹線

The city has also mobilised its masses. The mayor boasts that a 760,000-strong volunteer force stands ready to serve the G20. That number seems implausibly high for the summit alone, equating to a ratio of roughly 100 volunteers for every attendee. But it might just be true, if it includes all the students and retirees who will help patrol city streets during the meetings, whether to stop people from littering and jaywalking or simply to give visitors a smiling welcome. 

mobilise:動員する
masses:一般大衆
implausibly:信じがたいほどに
retirees:定年退職者
jaywalking:交通規則を無視して道路を渡る

For much of the past year Hangzhou has been a construction site, eliciting more scowls than smiles. Work crews have paved new roads, renovated hotels and completed a gleaming expo complex where the meetings will be held. With days to go, polluting factories around Hangzhou have already been ordered to halt production. Just as Beijing’s smog cleared up when it hosted APEC, another major economic forum, in 2014, so the skies over Hangzhou have turned unusually pristine in recent days. 

eliciting:得る・引き出す
scowls:顔をしかめる
gleaming:ぴかぴかに光る
pristine:全く汚れていない

Officials are sensitive to complaints about the cost of all this. One persistent rumour is that the city is spending 160 billion yuan ($24 billion) on the G20. If true, this would be remarkable, eclipsing Rio’s $5 billion expenditure on the Olympics. But Hangzhou says it is a lie: its entire municipal budget this year is only 120 billion yuan. Moreover, the local government has been adamant that it is not building new facilities for the G20. It notes that it broke ground several years ago on its new conference centre and that other infrastructure investments were previously planned, even if the schedule for their completion was accelerated. 

persistent:繰り返して起こる
eclipsing:影を薄くする
adamant:断固主張する 
broke ground:着工する

Not all believe the official version. One man, identified only as Mr Guo, wrote an online post in July, titled “Hangzhou, I’m ashamed of you”. It criticised the government for wasting money and disrupting ordinary people’s lives. State media said Mr Guo deleted the post after it started to go viral, but the police detained him for ten days for “disrupting public order”. According to the government, only the tiniest minority would have agreed with him. An official poll found that 96.8% of Hangzhou residents were happy to host the G20. That is a level of support that few Olympic cities—Beijing in 2008 was a notable exception—have ever claimed. 

disrupting:混乱させる
viral:ウィルスによって

杭州のG20の開催に関しての記事だが、散々の批判だ。そこまで金をかけ、さらにそこに住んでいる住民をないがしろにしてまでG20を開催する必要があるのかといった内容だ。まあ、そうは言っても中国なのでさもありなんというところだろう。習近平の面子が立てば安いものだということかもしれない。

For the Abrahamic religions, clothing is both trivial and vital
Aug 28th 2016, 12:15 BY ERASMUS

Abrahamic:〘聖書〙アブラハム〘Isaacの父; ユダヤ人の始祖と考えられている〙 

キリスト教とかユダヤ教、イスラム教にとっては衣服は取るに足らないことだが、極めて重要でもある。

WHY do the religious authorities feel strongly about what we wear when we go about our daily lives, when we worship....or indeed when we swim? That is not a silly question. After all, sacred literature contains many statements that seem to make the opposite point: that clothing doesn’t matter, or that it matters less than we think. Whatever impression we try to make with our apparel, God will see through it. A sonorous verse in the Hebrew scriptures declares that “the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart.” In Islam there is a hadith (or traditional saying) that God “does not look at your figures, not at your attire, but He looks at your hearts...” And Jesus of Nazareth tells his followers to be more like naked lilies growing in a field, free from worries about clothing and sustenance. 

worship:礼拝をする
literature:文献
sonorous :堂々とした・朗々とした
verse:詩
hadith:《回教》ハディース、預言者言行録◆イスラム教の創始者マホメットの言行をまとめた書物。イスラムの第二の法。第1はコーラン。
attire:服装
sustenance:生計・生活の手段



月曜日。今日はこれまで。イスラム教徒の水着論争に関しての記事だ。どの宗教も着るものよりもその心が大事だと言っているとここでは述べている。確かに、イスラム教徒の水着に目くじらをたてることもないだろう。時間が経てばなんでも、形にこだわるようになってしまうものだ。宗教も同じだ。

昨日の午前は研修資料のレビューがあった。午後はウォーキングをした。帰ってからは研修資料の作成を10時半まで行った。今朝は2時に起きて、このブログを書いている。ここのところ夜中に目が覚めてしまうが、2度寝している。今日は1日研修資料と本書きだ。あとは引っ越しの事務作業と明日の粗大ごみ搬出の準備がある。まだまだ、引っ越しが片付いていない。ではまた明日。

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2016年09月11日

マフィアの経営 ナポリの犯罪家族は実によくビジネスを行っている。(2) 中国がG20を主催する準備をしている。 新たな路と偽物の壁が再び中国におけるサミットにとって大事である。

True, this is CSR that comes soaked in blood rather than the usual syrup. Mr Saviano calculates that the gangs were responsible for 3,600 deaths between 1979 (when he was born) and 2006 (when he published his book). They are also responsible for a widening circle of economic devastation. The trade in drugs that swells their coffers also ruins lives. Naples, one of Italy’s most enjoyable cities, would be a bigger tourist attraction if it weren’t for its reputation for violent crime. 

soaked:ずぶ濡れで
syrup:砂糖水
devastation:破壊
coffers:資金

They’re bigger than US Steel
The Camorra themselves pay a high price, too. The street soldiers live miserable lives, typically ending up dead, injured or in prison before they reach middle age. Those at the top are constantly on their guard against being rubbed out by rivals or arrested by the police. Many of them live in permanent hiding, either in attics or underground complexes. Mr Di Lauro’s business produced turnover of €200m ($250m) a year, but he didn’t exactly live large: he was a recluse, protected by steel shutters and bolted gates, and also had to spend years on the run. 

rubbed:殺す・消す
turnover:総売上
attics:屋根裏部屋
recluse:隠者
on the run:逃げ回って

Nonetheless, the syndicate thrives, in part because the rewards are so huge and in part because the alternatives are so sparse. Italy’s economy has been stagnant for well over a decade. The country ranks number 45 in the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business table, with southern Italy being a particularly hostile place for legitimate enterprise. On August 22nd the heads of the euro zone’s three biggest economies—Angela Merkel of Germany, Francois Hollande of France and Matteo Renzi of Italy—met on an island off the coast of Naples to talk about relaunching the European project. To be successful, any such plan must make it easier to create legal businesses—and thus likelier that the management genius displayed by the likes of the Camorra is directed towards the creative side of creative destruction. 

sparse:少ない
hostile :適さない
likelier:よりありそうな
likes:のようなやつ

2006年までの20数年間で3,600人も死んでいる。彼らの規模はUS Steelよりも大きく、彼らの売り上げは2億5千万ドルもある。ただ売人は中年いなる前に殺されるか監獄に入れられてしまい、その組織のトップの商売敵と警察から隠れていなければならない。イタリアの経済はもう10年以上も停滞しているが、この組織は反映している。我々は彼らのビジネスのやり方を学ぶべきだろうと言っている。

China prepares to host the G20
New roads and fake walls mean it’s summit time in China again
Aug 29th 2016 | HANGZHOU | China 

中国がG20を主催する準備をしている。
新たな路と偽物の壁が再び中国におけるサミットにとって大事である。

IF A Martian were to land on earth and be asked, based on effort put into spiffing itself up, which city was the Olympic host this year, there is a good chance it would guess Hangzhou. Rio de Janeiro struggled mightily with its preparations for the summer games, with mixed results. Hangzhou, by contrast, has left no stone unturned, no wall unpainted and no sewer unsealed in getting ready for the G20 Summit, an annual gathering of the leaders of the world’s 20 leading economies. Most hosts treat the G20 as a worthy, if rather dull, conference. But China has approached it with gusto, as is its wont with international events that let it showcase its modernity to the world. 

Martian:火星人
spiffing:小綺麗にする
mightily:大いに
sewer:下水溝
dull:退屈な
gusto:心からの喜び
wont:いつものように



Even if left in its original state, Hangzhou would surely have impressed visiting dignitaries and journalists. Just 40 minutes west of Shanghai by bullet train, it is one of China’s wealthiest cities. The misty waters of West Lake at its heart, fringed by rolling tea fields, have inspired poets for centuries. In recent years, it has become an entrepreneurial hub, most famously as the hometown of Alibaba, an e-commerce company. 

dignitaries:高官・VIP
misty:霧のかかった
at its heart:本来
fringed:縁どる
rolling:緩やかに起伏している

But the G20 summit, to be held on September 4th and 5th, will be the first in China in the eight-year history of such meetings and a hugely important diplomatic occasion for President Xi Jinping. He clearly hopes that the event will highlight how central China has become to solving the world’s problems. (It will also involve what is likely to be his last meeting with Barack Obama before next year’s change of presidency in America, and may provide yet another opportunity to cosy up to Vladimir Putin of Russia.) 

cosy:取り入る

日曜日。今日はこれまで。杭州でのG20についての記事だ。習近平のこの会議における力の入れようを皮肉っぽく解説している。杭州そのものはそこまで綺麗にしなくても、十分に魅了する都市だ。アリババの拠点でもある。

昨日は海野塾があって、午前は木元のジオポリティクス、午後はEdのFinanceがあった。双方とも集中した講義だったので、だいぶ疲れた。今日は朝から研修資料のレビューがある。今朝は1時半に起きたので、1日は持たない。もう一度、寝ないとダメだな。今日は研修資料の作成だ。ではまた明日。

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2016年09月10日

マフィアの経営 ナポリの犯罪家族は実によくビジネスを行っている。

Mafia management
The crime families of Naples are remarkably good at business
Aug 27th 2016 | From the print edition

マフィアの経営
ナポリの犯罪家族は実によくビジネスを行っている。

AN EASY way to revive a flagging dinner party is to ask people to name their choice of the greatest crime show. Is it “The Wire”, with its intricate portrait of Baltimore’s underworld? Or “The Sopranos”? Or perhaps “Breaking Bad”? Now there is a new contender for the prize—“Gomorrah”, a drama about a collection of Italian gangs known as the Camorra that run a criminal empire from their base in Naples. 

revive:現気づかせる
flagging:旗で飾る
name:名前を挙げる
intricate:込み入った
portrait:描写
THE WIRE:ザ・ワイヤーは、アメリカの放送局HBOにて2002年から2008年にかけて放送されたテレビドラマ。メリーランド州ボルチモアを舞台に、警察と麻薬取引、港湾管理、教育、政治、犯罪など、アメリカの都市が抱える諸問題を描いたドラマである。
Breaking Bad:『ブレイキング・バッド』は、ヴィンス・ギリガンによって制作されたアメリカのテレビドラマシリーズである。このテレビドラマはソニー・ピクチャーズテレビによって製作され、ケーブルチャンネルAMCによって米国とカナダで2008年1月20日から2013年9月29日まで放送された。to break bad」=したいことをする(よくないことに使う)という言葉から来たスラング 。「規則や法を破る、道を踏み外す、悪事に手を染める」と いった意味。
contender:競争相手



“Gomorrah” has been Italy’s most talked-about television series since its release two years ago. It has been sold in 50 countries and the first episode premiered on America’s Sundance TV this week. The series is far darker than the other three. The gangsters aren’t lovable monsters like Tony Soprano, just monsters. It is more realistic. The author of the book behind the series, Roberto Saviano, has been in hiding since the Camorra issued a death warrant against him in 2006. Filming of the series in gritty Neapolitan neighbourhoods was interrupted by local violence. 

premiered:放送開始になる
death warrant:死刑執行令状
gritty:現実的な・勇気のある

One of the most striking things about the Camorra is how good they are at business. They have taken over from the Sicilian Mafia as Italy’s foremost crime syndicate, partly owing to the Italian state’s move to clamp down on the Cosa Nostra from the mid-1990s. The Camorra’s strategy of focusing on drugs, particularly cocaine, has also paid off. The group runs much of Europe’s drug trade, including the continent’s largest open-air narcotics market in Secondigliano, in the north-east of Naples. 

Sicilian Mafia:the Cosa Nostra
paid off:利益を生む
open-air:野外の
narcotics:麻薬

The syndicate appears to be organised like a typical corporation, with descending levels of power. There is a top tier of senior managers who determine strategy and allocate resources; a second tier of middle managers who purchase and process the product; a third level of sales chiefs who co-ordinate distribution; and a fourth grade of street salesmen who deliver the product directly to customers. The group employs all the usual supply-chain-management methods. Its leaders source drugs from around the world (cocaine from Latin America, heroin from Afghanistan and hashish from north Africa) and make sure that alternatives are in place in case of disruption. 

disruption:混乱・中断

They do some things outstandingly well. Operating outside Italy’s growth-killing labour rules, the Camorra can be fleet-footed. A loose alliance of about 115 gangs, with around 500 members each and numerous associates, they can swiftly assemble a workforce of whatever size is needed, or shift from one line of business to another in a flash. They are best-in-class when it comes to renewing talent and ideas. Whenever entrenched managers balk at moving into new markets, as the older Camorra bosses did when drugs came along in the 1980s, they are replaced by a younger generation. 

fleet-footed:俊足の
best-in-class:クラス最高の
entrenched:強固な
balk:尻込みする

Paolo Di Lauro, the former head of one of the most powerful clans, and the model for Don Pietro in “Gomorrah”, is arguably one of the most innovative businesspeople Italy has produced in recent years (since 2005 he has been held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison). As well as co-ordinating the drug trade with Colombia, he designed the group’s successful franchise system, in which it treats distributors like franchisees who are responsible for their own turf rather than as mere employees. That gives them an incentive to recruit more people as well as to shift more product. 

clan:一味・仲間
arguably:まず間違いなく・おそらく
solitary:独房監禁
shift:動かす

The Camorra put their own unique spin on standard management techniques. They are experts in team-building. New recruits are initiated with quasi-religious ceremonies. Rising stars are given endearing nicknames such as Carlucciello ‘o mangiavatt (“little Charles the cat-eater”) or Urpacchiello (a riding crop made from dried donkey’s penis). They take care of the relatives of workers who die on the job. Gang members known in their role as the “submarine” deliver money and groceries to the bereaved families on Fridays. The group’s efforts at corporate social responsibility (CSR) pay off. Local people invariably take the gangsters’ side during police raids, forming human barricades, pelting law enforcers with rubbish and setting fire to their cars. 

spin:回転させる
quasi:半・凖
endearing :人に好意を抱かせる
riding crop:乗馬鞭
groceries:日用雑貨
bereaved:最近家族を亡くした
invariably:変わることなく
pelting:投げつける

土曜日。今日はこれまで。イタリアマフィアの話。ドラマでの話だが、彼らのビジネスの仕方が極めて上手くやっているようだ。物流、組織、人事、対外政策、仕入れ、販売構造について説明している。

今朝は2時に目が覚めたので、このブログを書いている。愚妻は起きていた。昨日は朝、眼科に行った。
1年ぶりだったが、視力は落ちていなかった。夜は元住友化学の高尾さんとの会食があった。楽しいひと時だった。今日は海野塾がある。今日も楽しい。ではまた明日。

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2016年09月09日

2%が十分でないなら豊かな世界の中央銀行は新たなターゲットが必要だ。(2) コロンビアとコロンビア革命軍 国民は新たなコロンビアの平和協定を承認するべきだ。

Who ate all the pi?
A more radical option is to move away from targeting inflation altogether. Many economists (and this newspaper) see advantages in targeting the level of nominal GDP, the total amount of spending in the economy before adjusting for inflation. A nominal-GDP target would allow for temporary variations in inflation. Downturns would be tempered by an expectation of protracted stimulus later on to make up lost ground. In better times, a rise in real GDP would provide the lion’s share of the required nominal-GDP growth and inflation could drift lower. 

tempered:強さを緩和する
protracted:長引く
lost ground:失地・巻き返し
lion’s share:一番美味しい取り分

Changing targets is not something policymakers should do lightly; their credibility depends on stability. And, like every regime, a nominal-GDP target has its drawbacks, not least that few non-economists have ever heard of the concept. It will not be easy to build a consensus for it. But it is right to start doing so. A 2% inflation target is ill-suited to the rich world today. Doubling it would be an improvement, but targeting nominal GDP would be better still. Time for a new era. 

lightly:気軽に
credibility:信頼性
not least:とりわけ
ill-suited:不適切な

インフレ率を2%にしてきたが、2倍にしてもいいのではなかという議論だ。名目GDPを伸ばして、インフレを押させるのが一番いいいのだが、今の目標値では経済がいざという時に対応が取れない。

Colombia and the FARC
Ending a half-century of war
After 220,000 deaths, voters should endorse the new Colombian peace accord
Aug 27th 2016 | From the print edition

コロンビアとコロンビア革命軍
半世紀にわたる戦争の終わり
二十二万人の死者をだし、国民は新たなコロンビアの平和協定を承認するべきだ。

A DECADE or so has passed since a ferocious war between the state and the FARC, an army of leftist narco-guerrillas, dominated life in Colombia. An offensive launched by government forces in 2002 pushed the FARC into remote mountain and jungle areas. A unilateral ceasefire declared by the FARC last year virtually ended hostilities. Nowadays the war’s terror no longer troubles city-dwelling Colombians. 

ferocious:猛烈な
narco:麻薬の
offensive:攻撃



Nevertheless, the final peace accord announced on August 24th, after four years of talks in Havana, is historic. It ends a war that began 52 years ago and has killed perhaps 220,000 people and displaced 7m more. Under the agreement, the FARC is to turn itself into a normal political party. After its fighters finally remove their uniforms, vestigial insurgencies will continue in South America. A drug-running rump of the Shining Path fights feebly on in Peru and the ELN remains more than a nuisance in Colombia. But the FARC’s recognition of Colombia’s constitutional order represents the death of a strain of Stalinist violence that has plagued Latin America for decades. When Colombia’s citizens vote on the settlement on October 2nd it deserves their endorsement. 

vestigial:退化した
insurgencies:反乱
rump:残党
feebly:弱々しく
nuisance:厄介なもの
plagued:苦しむ
endorsement:承認

The deal arrived at by Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, and the FARC’s leader, Rodrigo Londono-Echeverry, known as “Timochenko”, provides for the disarmament of the FARC’s remaining 6,800 troops and 8,500 militia and their concentration in 23 “normalisation zones”. That process is to be overseen by the UN. The guerrillas will eradicate coca fields and clear landmines, which have killed 11,000 people since 1990. The government is to spend billions of dollars on development in areas that the FARC once controlled. 

concentration:集結
landmines:地雷

It is not a perfect agreement. The most contentious part is the provisions for bringing to justice those who committed horrific crimes against non-combatant Colombians. The FARC, the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitary groups all murdered civilians. The FARC’s crimes extended to extortion, kidnapping and pressing children into military service. Perpetrators of such crimes belong in prison. Under the peace accord, though, they will serve no jail time if they confess. Instead, guerrillas and soldiers will appear before a special tribunal; if convicted their liberty will be “restricted” and they will perform community service for up to eight years. 

contentious:議論を呼ぶ
provisions:条項
paramilitary:非合理的な軍事組織の
extortion:恐喝
Perpetrators:犯人
tribunal:裁判所
convicted:有罪を宣告する

A somewhat just peace
Many Colombians understandably find such leniency hard to stomach. Their outrage has been seized upon by Alvaro Uribe, Mr Santos’s predecessor. The unremitting offensive against the FARC during his time in office made peace possible (and led to some of the atrocities committed by pro-government forces). Now a senator, Mr Uribe denounces the peace agreement as a surrender to “Castro-chavismo” (which it is not) and is leading a campaign against it. Opinion polls suggest that the vote in the plebiscite will be close (see article). 

leniency:寛大さ
outrage:激怒
unremitting:絶え間ない
atrocities:残虐
denounces:非難する
plebiscite:国民投票

Mr Uribe’s fight is wrongheaded. Though flawed, the “transitional justice” that the peace accord will bring about will be more rigorous than that achieved in other countries, such as South Africa and El Salvador, which have ended bitter conflicts. The peacemakers asked the pope and the UN secretary-general to help pick the committee that will appoint judges to the tribunal. That will bolster its credibility. 

wrongheaded:間違った
rigorous:厳格な

A vote to reject the agreement would be a tragedy. The FARC cannot return to its former deadly potency, but even as late as 2013 some 2,000 armed clashes took place. Rural regions that bore the brunt of the war are desperate for peace. Colombians have a chance to end one of the world’s longest-running conflicts. They should seize it. 

potency:勢力
brunt:の矢面に立つ
seize:掴み取る

金曜日。今日はこれまで。コロンビアの内戦の終結についての記事で、最大の長きにわたる内戦が今終結しようとしている。まだいろいろ問題があるが、この機会を見逃してはならないという内容だ。今までのお互いの反目が当然あるが、それをうまくまとめる必要があると言っている。

昨日は昔の仲間である加藤さんと会食。夜は引っ越しのための家具の移動をした。染谷さん、孫さんありがとう。そのあとの会食には大橋さんもきてくれた。仲間はいつも困った時にありがたい。孫君は私よりも40若い。いつも気にしていなかったけど。今日は朝、眼科の検診。夜は元住友化学の高尾さんとの会食。今日は1日本書きだ。昨日は雑務が多すぎて書けなかった。ではまた明日。

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2016年09月08日

金融政策 2%が十分でないなら豊かな世界の中央銀行は新たなターゲットが必要だ。

Monetary policy
When 2% is not enough
The rich world’s central banks need a new target
Aug 27th 2016 | From the print edition

金融政策
2%が十分でないなら豊かな世界の中央銀行は新たなターゲットが必要だ。

LIKE other areas of public policy, central banking is prone to fads and fashions. From limits on money-supply growth to pegging exchange rates, orthodoxies wax and wane. Yet the practice of inflation-targeting has proved remarkably long-lived. For almost three decades, central bankers have agreed that their best route to stabilising an economy is to aim for a specific target for inflation, usually 2% in advanced economies and a little higher in emerging ones. 

prone:する傾向がある
fads:一時的な流行
orthodoxies:伝統的な考え
wax and wane:盛衰する



This orthodoxy is still intact in many emerging economies where inflation is yet to be tamed (see article). But in the rich world the consensus is beginning to fracture. As central bankers gather this weekend for their annual shindig in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, John Williams, head of the San Francisco Fed, has caused a stir by suggesting it is time for a rethink on what central banks should aim for. He is right. 

intact:損なわないで
tamed:管理された
fracture:に亀裂を生じる
shindig:盛大なパーティ

The reason is that the rich world’s central banks are working in a different context from the 1990s, when today’s inflation-targeting doctrine was formed. Then, it seemed that inflation would spend as much time above target as below it. And the “natural real rate of interest”—the inflation-adjusted price that balances the supply of, and demand for, savings in a full-strength economy—was as high as 3.5%. But inflation has been below the central bankers’ target for years. And the underlying real natural rate of interest has fallen to 1% or lower, probably because population ageing has boosted saving even as lower expectations of growth have cut investment (see article). 

This matters because low inflation and a low natural interest rate limit the effectiveness of central bankers’ traditional policy lever: setting short-term interest rates. Since nominal interest rates are the sum of real rates and inflation, the rich-world central banks cannot, under today’s regime, expect their policy rates to rise much higher than 3% (the 2% inflation target plus a 1% real rate). That leaves very little room to cut when the next recession strikes. In the three most recent recessions the Fed slashed rates by 675 basis points (hundredths of a percentage point), 550 basis points, and 512 basis points. 

Fear of future impotence is the main cause of today’s misgivings over a low inflation target. But there are other drawbacks with the current regime. First, a target for annual inflation gives the central bank no leeway to make up for periods during which inflation has been too high or too low. If central bankers could credibly promise that they would allow a burst of catch-up inflation, they might be more successful at boosting too-low inflation today. Second, when supply shocks such as a sudden rise or fall in the oil price send inflation and economic growth in opposing directions, central bankers face a tricky choice of which to respond to. 

impotence:無力
misgivings:疑念・不安
drawbacks:欠点・障害
leeway:ゆとり
credibly:確実に

How might these problems be fixed? One possibility is simply to raise the inflation target to, say, 4%. Credibly enacted, that ought to alleviate the risk of impotence. If investors and consumers believe inflation will reach 4%, nominal interest rates should eventually rise to 5% or so even if real rates stay low. But rich-world central banks have undershot their targets for so long they may struggle to persuade the public to expect higher inflation. And a higher target would still leave central banks with a dilemma when economic growth and inflation diverge. Neither would it make up for big misses. 

enacted:繰り返して起こる
alleviate:緩和する
diverge:分岐する

木曜日。今日はこれまで。インフレがちっとも起こらない。2%が今までの目標だが、もっと上げてもいいといっている。今のままだと、経済が変化した時に金利を操作する幅がない。インフレと名目金利を合わせたものが実質金利だ。今の状態では経済が変化した時にインフレがないので実質金利を操作する幅がないので、その対応が取れない。

昨日は海野塾と懇親会があった。今日の昼は昔の仲間の加藤さんとの会食がある。今日は来週のテーマの内容の整理と本を書くことができる。最近は本を書くのが楽しくなってきているのでいいことだ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 09:55コメント(0)トラックバック(0) 

2016年09月07日

科学者たちが近くの星を周回する地球のような衛星を見つけた。 他のどこかに生命を求めた新たな段階が始まろうとしている。(3)

That there is intelligent life in the nearest planetary system to Earth’s is surely the longest of shots. And despite its nice-sounding location in the “habitable zone”, the existence of life itself on Proxima Centauri b is far from a foregone conclusion. For one thing, there are doubts about how easy it is for planets around red dwarfs to develop and retain atmospheres. Though such stars are cool for most of their lives, in their earliest stages they burn bright. A planet close enough to one to stay warm in later life might have seen its atmosphere burned off in the star’s brief blazing youth. Even if it avoids this problem, it will still be whipped persistently by the star’s magnetic field and lashed by its flares. Though they are dim, red dwarfs are given to all sorts of eruptive activity and pump out X-rays at a prodigious rate. These are both things which might make an atmosphere hard to hold on to and life itself a bit tricky. 

shots:試み・企て
foregone:〜̀ conclusion 〖a 〜〗初めからわかっている結論; 必然的結果.
cool:かすかな
in later life:それ以降の生命において
whipped :激しく打つ
lashed:激しく打つ
eruptive :噴火による
prodigious:並外れた
tricky:微妙な

Journey’s beginning
Such doubts will not stop people looking. Indeed, the discovery of Proxima Centauri b may accelerate plans to construct space telescopes designed especially to look directly at exoplanets by employing what is known as a starshade, instead of a coronograph, to block the light from parent stars. A starshade is a second spacecraft, flown in formation with the telescope, that eclipses the parent while leaving the planet visible. Sara Seager, a planet hunter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a fan. She wants all future space telescopes to be designed with the use of starshades in mind. 

exoplanets:太陽系外惑星
starshade: (複数形 starshades) (astronomy) A form of coronagraph disk designed to prevent starlight from interfering with the observation of exoplanets
starshade20140320-640.jpg
spacecraft:宇宙船
flown:飛ぶ
eclipses:覆い隠す

The most radical form of follow-up, though, is an idea for interstellar flight that Mr Milner is working on in parallel with his SETI project. Light beams exert pressure. A powerful laser focused on a low-mass spacecraft could in principle accelerate it to a significant fraction of the speed of light. This would be awesomely difficult in practice. It would require hundreds of thousand of lasers yoked together to make a single coherent beam of 100 gigawatts or so. That is about the maximum electrical-power consumption of France. It would also require a spacecraft weighing just a few grams that could sit at the beam’s pinnacle without getting fried; a way of coping with high-speed collisions with dust particles that the craft would inevitably encounter en route; and a method of getting data back to Earth once the probe reached its destination. But it might not be impossible. Over the next six years Mr Milner’s “Starshot” programme plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to test the idea. If encouraged by the results, he may try to build a test rig in which a laser zaps a tiny object to the highest speed ever achieved outside a particle accelerator. 

exert:用いる
low-mass :質量の小さい
in principle:理論的には
fraction:部分・断片
yoked:結合する
coherent:凝集した・首尾一貫した
pinnacle :尖頭・頂点
fried:焼けこげる
zaps:素早く送る

Meanwhile, Dr Kasper will get on with his camera for the E-ELT. Others will look for evidence of other nearby planets—including around Proxima’s bigger, more sunlike companions, Alpha Centauri A and B. The discovery of Proxima Centauri b is a huge step forward in the search for life elsewhere. But the journey is nowhere near over yet. 

nowhere near over yet:まだ近くまで行ってはいない

水曜日。今日はこれまで。Proxima Centauri bの生命の存在を検証するための努力について書いている。写真のようなstarshadeまで打ち上げて、星の光を遮断して恒星の観察をしている。まだまだ時間がかかりそうだが、夢のある仕事だ。

昨日はいつもの仲間との会食があった。京橋の東京スクウェアガーデンに行った。いつもそばを通るのだが、中に入ったのは初めてだった。今日は海野塾がある。今日1日はその準備だ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 06:12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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海野塾のイベントはFacebookのTeamSwingbyを参照ください。 またスウィングバイは以下のところに引っ越しました。 スウィングバイ株式会社 〒108-0023 東京都港区芝浦4丁目2−22東京ベイビュウ803号 Tel: 080-9558-4352 Fax: 03-3452-6690 E-mail: clyde.unno@swingby.jp Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clyde.unno 海野塾: https://www.facebook.com TeamSwingby
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