2017年07月

2017年07月25日

幻滅の度合い 韓国はエリート主義の教育システムに信頼を失いつつある。 裁判所と大統領が同情している。

Degrees of disenchantment
South Koreans are losing faith in an elitist education system
The courts and the president sympathise
Jul 19th 2017 | SEOUL

幻滅の度合い
韓国はエリート主義の教育システムに信頼を失いつつある。
裁判所と大統領が同情している。

disenchantment:幻滅
elitist:エリート主義の



“IF YOU don’t have the ability then blame your parents,” wrote Jung Yoo-ra on social media in 2014, after being accepted into a prestigious university. Her mother, it turns out, had gone to great lengths to secure a spot for her, inducing Ehwa Women’s University to alter its admissions policy in a manner tailor-made for Ms Jung. Last month a court ruled that the nine people involved in this subterfuge had fundamentally shaken the “values of fairness that prop up our society”. Above all, the “feelings of emptiness and betrayal they caused in hardworking students” could not be excused. 

ability:能力
prestigious:一流の
turns:結局は
gone to great lengths:なんとしても〜するつもりだ
secure a spot:のための場所を確保する
subterfuge:不正行為
prop:ささえる
emptiness:むなしさ

University was once seen as a source of social mobility in South Korea. But so important is the right degree to a student’s prospects in life that rich families began spending heavily on coaching to improve their children’s chances, leaving poorer families behind. By 2007 over three-quarters of students were receiving some form of private tuition, spawning a maxim about the three necessities to win a place at a good university: “father’s wealth, mother’s information, child’s stamina”. A report by the ministry of education found that in 2016 households with monthly incomes of 7m won ($6230) or more were spending 443,000 won a month on private education, nine times as much as families bringing in 1m won or less. 

mobility:社会的流動性
coaching:指導
maxim:格言

Many South Koreans believe that the rich and influential do not just spend more on education, they also manipulate the system, as Ms Jung’s mother, a close friend of the previous president, did so spectacularly. According to the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, only a fifth of those aged 18-33 believe working hard brings success. An ever-growing dictionary of slang attests to the perception: people speak of using “back” (backing, or connections) to get jobs; when Ms Jung refused to return to South Korea to face charges related to her university admission, the local press dubbed it a “gold-spoon escape”. And 34% of young people say they feel “isolation due to academic cliques” at work. 

manipulate:操作する
spectacularly:目をみはるほどに
face charge:嫌疑を受ける
cliques:派閥

The unfairness is all the more galling because of the fierce competition for jobs. This year there were 36 applicants for every job, up from 32 two years ago. Youth unemployment reached a record 12% earlier this year. 

galling:いらだたしい

Frustrated young people are starting to speak out. The activists of a group called Hidden Bag run a small yearly campaign to “reject university entrance”, trying to persuade people to eschew the whole process. At a recent film festival in Seoul, Hidden Bag provided “healing kits” for young people wishing to challenge “never-ending competition” and “education-based limits”. Colourful sweets, packaged to look like medicine, were handed out to students to encourage them to take a stand. Some were labelled “courage”, others “strength”. By spurning the rat race, they hope to raise “fundamental questions” about prevailing values. Fewer than 70% of school leavers went on to university last year, the lowest level in almost 20 years. 

eschew:意識して避ける
take a stand:態度を明確にする
spurning:拒否する
school leaver:卒業者

Moon Jae-in, the president since May, has pledged that under his administration “the thickness of a parent’s purse” will not determine their children’s prospects. This week an MP from his party introduced legislation to extend the “blind hiring” process used in the civil service, whereby applicants are judged only on standardised exams, not on their academic record, to state-owned firms as well. The bill’s author is also proposing an amendment in response to one of the other oddities of Ms Jung’s admission: she scored badly in her written exam, but was given full marks for the interview. The amendment would require all university interviews to be recorded or minuted for transparency. Blame Ms Jung’s parents. 

oddities:特異性
full marks:満点
amendment :改良

韓国は大学入試の不正があるが、そうした風潮は変えなければならない。学歴が偏重しすぎている。また、金持ちの子供がいい大学に行けるというのもおかしい。入試の内容も公開するべきだ。どうもこうしたことは中国も一緒で、治らない。学歴社会が良いとは思わないが、頭のいい子がいい大学に入るのは間違いないので、こうした不正があったにしても、それはマイナーかも知れない。

水曜日。今日は海野塾の日だ。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 22:24コメント(0) 

2017年07月24日

喧嘩腰だが、理性的な意思決定をしている アメリカと北朝鮮との戦争は避けられなくはない。がしかし、そうなりそうな気配がある。

On a Warpath Paved With Rational Decisions
A war between the United States and North Korea is not inevitable, but it is growing increasingly likely — and not because their leaders are crazy.(CHUNG SUNG-JUN/Getty Images)
July 17, 2017 Stratfor

喧嘩腰だが、理性的な意思決定をしている
アメリカと北朝鮮との戦争は避けられなくはない。がしかし、そうなりそうな気配がある。ーそしてそれはその指導者たちの頭がおかしいからではない。

A war between the United States and North Korea is not inevitable, but it is growing increasingly likely — and not because their leaders are crazy.

Editor's Note:
North Korea demonstrated at least a rudimentary capability to launch a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile with its latest test of the Hwasong-14. At the extreme estimates of its range, the missile has the ability to strike parts of the western United States. More tests and developments will be necessary to increase the Hwasong-14's range, payload and re-entry system, and questions remain about North Korea's ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon and make it rugged enough to mount on the missile. Even so, Pyongyang is clearly well on its way to realizing its goal of a long-range nuclear weapons capability. This is the first installment in a three-part series examining the implications of this development for the United States' relationship with North Korea.

rudimentary:初歩的な
payload:ミサイルの弾頭
rugged:壊れにくい

War is rarely the first option for countries trying to preserve or enhance their strategic positions. The United States and North Korea alike would rather avoid a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, which would be complicated and costly for all parties involved. Neither wants war; each side strongly prefers an alternative path to resolve the core issues underlying the crisis. Yet their differing strategic imperatives and desired end states leave little room for compromise. 

differing:異なる
mperatives:責務・急務

As North Korea draws closer to achieving long-range missile capabilities, something it sees as a security guarantee, the United States faces mounting pressure to act. But as Washington tries to coerce North Korea to end its quest for more sophisticated arms, Pyongyang feels compelled to accelerate its nuclear weapons and missile development. Each country is merely acting to preserve its interests. But their interests are driving them closer to a physical confrontation. 

The Rational Assumption
Geopolitics teaches us to assume rationality on the part of actors on the international stage. The assumption doesn't suppose that individual leaders are somehow beyond the influence of emotion, misinformation or miscalculation. Rather it acknowledges the deeper forces at work, from the interactions of place and people that shape national characteristics and strategic culture to the systems and structures that develop in countries over time. No leader operates free of these constraints and compulsions. 

compulsions:衝動

Though they still have leeway to shape their policies and actions, leaders, as individuals and as a collective group, do so within limits defined in large part by the environments in which they emerged. The rationality we assume from leaders is not universal; it is the product of their place and time under the influence of factors such as history, geography and economics. 

The key, then, is to understand what guides the rationality of a country's leadership, on an individual level and in the government as a whole. After all, no one individual rules a country, since no single person could extend power over an entire population without the help of intermediaries. And each layer of leadership adds another set of constraints to the exercise of power. Disagreements arise in governments and in the populations they preside over. But the forces that influence the options available to leaders are far larger than the concerns of the individual. It is an analyst's job to understand and explain these factors, and a policymaker's job to take them into account when considering how to achieve a desired outcome. 

Even so, it is sometimes simpler in international relations to assume one's adversaries are crazy. They don't follow the desired path or react in the anticipated way, so they must be acting irrationally. If one makes the wrong assumptions of an adversary (or even of an ally), however, the response to a given action may be far from what was intended. 

irrationally :理性を欠いて

Of course, understanding the other side doesn't guarantee the desired outcome, either. Irreconcilable differences in interests and perceptions of risk can get in the way of compromise. The most viable solution often is to constantly adjust one's actions to manage these contradictions, even if they prove insurmountable. At times, though, the differences can be so intractable as to drive nations into conflict if each side's pursuit of contrary interests leads to fear and insecurity for the other. 

Irreconcilable :折り合いの付かない
viable:実現可能な
insurmountable:克服できない
intractable:手に負えない
contrary:反対の

Moves by one nation to constrain the threatening behavior it perceives from another then perpetuate the cycle of action and reaction. In the case of North Korea and the United States, the contradiction in their interests is growing ever starker as Pyongyang accelerates its nuclear weapons program and nears its goal of developing a missile capable of striking the continental United States. 

perpetuate:永続させる
starker:さけられない

As Pyongyang draws closer to the deliverable long-range nuclear weapon it has long pursued, Washington will be forced to decide whether to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and live with that reality or to take the necessary steps to disarm it. 

A Mutual Misunderstanding
Misunderstandings, misapplied assumptions and mismatched goals have characterized relations between the United States and North Korea for decades. Washington expected — or at least hoped — that North Korea would collapse on its own under the force of economic and social pressures. The evaluation misjudged the country as the Asian equivalent of an Eastern Bloc state waiting for the Soviet Union's demise to break free from the shackles of a foreign-imposed power structure. 

demise:終了
shackles:束縛

North Korea hasn't collapsed. In fact, in times of trouble, its neighbors (and even the United States) have helped stabilize the government in Pyongyang for fear that the consequences of the country's failure would be more dangerous than the risks entailed in its survival. North Korea, meanwhile, considered itself a fixture on the United States' target list, a remnant of the Cold War that Washington was trying to toss on the ash heap of history.

entailed:を伴う
fixture:定番
remnant:名残
ash heap:灰だまり

The two have had many opportunities for some form of reconciliation over the years. Time and again, though, progress has run afoul of perceived threats, diverging commitments, changing priorities, domestic politics and even extraregional events. As Pyongyang draws closer to the deliverable long-range nuclear weapon it has long pursued, Washington will be forced to decide whether to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and live with that reality or to take the necessary steps to disarm it. The cost of action is high, but so is the perceived threat of inaction. 

afoul:衝突する
diverging:分裂する
extraregional:域外の

北朝鮮に対して彼らの核保有を認めるのか、それともその核を排除するのか見極めなければならないときがきている。理性的に判断しなければならないのだが、核をやめさせるには相当の被害を覚悟しなければならない。いっぽうで、それを避けるために核を放置しておくことは出来ない。中国もロシアも北朝鮮の制裁に協力していないので、その選択肢は狭められてしまうだろう。

火曜日。今日は昼から健康診断がある。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 21:16コメント(0) 

2017年07月23日

電子機器組立業 Foxxconは巨大ブランドの野望を抱く。 台湾の最大企業がバリューチェーンの地位を引き上げようとしている。うまくいくのだろうか。(2)

Core processor chips and panels are the two most expensive components in a smartphone, while memory-chips are another source of profits. That is why Gou now wants to gain control of Toshiba's memory chip business, although Japanese officials are trying to block the bid, fearing sensitive technology could be leaked to China. 


A crowd lines up outside a Foxconn recruitment center in Shenzhen in early March. (photo by Debby Wu) 

Gou realizes that continuing to rely on the assembly business will keep Foxconn's profit margins slim, as global smartphone sales are slowing. Foxconn wants to develop its own branded products. 

Among the several brands it now controls, Sharp is probably the most important to Foxconn, said Vincent Chen, president of Yuanta. But he added that if it tries to grow Sharp, it could represent "a conflict of interest for Foxconn since it also makes gadgets for others. Currently, Sharp is limited to selling TVs and home appliances, two markets where most Foxconn customers do not operate," Chen said. 

In addition, the TV business is tough. "It's a bit challenging for Foxconn to make profits from selling televisions only, especially when its current strategy is to offer discounts to boost shipments," said Eric Chiou, an analyst at WitsView, although TV sales could increase Foxconn's revenues. Sharp is planning to ship some 8.5 million TVs in 2017, nearly doubling last year's 4.7 million units, mainly due to strong demand in China, he added. 

TRUMP FRIENDLY
While relatively low labor costs in China have made the iPhone affordable for middle-class consumers worldwide and contributed to its immense success, Gou is considering establishing two panel production facilities in the U.S. The plans are related to U.S. President Donald Trump's call for major exporters to the U.S. to set up factories in America to create jobs and avoid possible protectionist measures. In late April, Gou met Trump at the White House to discuss investment plans, possibly in Republican strongholds and swing states. 

"We will provide tens of thousands of jobs," Gou told reporters in June. "It is possible [Foxconn and Sharp together] will invest more than $10 billion, not all at once, but probably over a five-year span." The 66-year-old Gou, who is referred to within the company as "BB" for Big Boss, is still working hard to lead Foxconn's key initiatives, particularly its U.S. expansion. 

He rarely stays in the same place for more than three days, traveling constantly and conducting hourslong meetings. Yet he never shows any sign of fatigue. He is also known for his keen memory and eye for detail. And that's the problem: Gou rules Foxconn like a strongman. No one in the company is as visionary and few can operate at his pace and energy level. 

strongman:独裁者

BIG SHOES TO FILL 
His 40-year-old son, Jeffrey, works for the group, but is overshadowed by his father's extraordinary achievements. His daughter, Shirley, does not appear to be interested in the family business. Gou has another three children by his second wife, but the oldest is only 8 years old. Gou has no heir apparent and has never spoken publicly about a succession plan. 

BIG SHOES TO FILL :重荷を担う
overshadowed:影を薄くする

Equally unclear is Foxconn's ownership structure. Gou and his longtime aide, Huang Chiu-lian, who is his first wife's aunt and Foxconn's de facto chief financial officer, have created numerous holding companies for investment and ownership purposes, like many other Asian companies. Gou controls the Hon Hai board, even though the latest annual report shows he only owns a 12.25% stake in the company. It is unclear whether Gou holds additional shares via personal investment vehicles. 



capitalization:資本総額

The business model that Gou has created may be a challenge for his successor to manage. Foxconn's gross profit margin is only 7%, while major electronics players like Sony and Nintendo have margins of around 40%. On the other hand, Foxconn had a net profit of close to $5 billion last year, which is about five to seven times larger than those of Sony or Nintendo. 

Moreover, Gou's plans to rely less on low-margin contract manufacturing and develop its own more lucrative brand face challenges. The company's dependence on Apple for revenue has steadily increased since 2013. Last year, Apple accounted for 54% of Foxconn's revenue of NT$4.35 trillion ($142 billion), which was down 2% from 2015 due to lukewarm sales of the iPhone 7, according the company's annual report. "Foxconn still cannot do without Apple in the future. Apple orders have become too big to lose for Foxconn," Yuanta's Chen said. 

lukewarm:力の入らない

フォックスコンの郭台銘は17兆円のビジネスを行っていて、ソニーや任天堂の営業利益40%に対して7%しかないが、50億ドルの利益を出している。薄利であり、アップルとの関係は切れないが、シャープの買収、東芝のチップへの関心に見られるように、利益率の高い商品を開発しようとしている。彼は息子がいるが、影が薄い。共同経営者は以前の妻の叔父だが、後継者がまだ見えない。66歳だが精力的に動いていて、同じところに3日もいない。

月曜日。今日は朝会があって、夜はNECの木戸脇さんとの会食がある。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 20:43コメント(0) 

2017年07月22日

電子機器組立業 Foxxconは巨大ブランドの野望を抱く。 台湾の最大企業がバリューチェーンの地位を引き上げようとしている。うまくいくのだろうか。

July 13, 2017 10:00 am JST
Gadget assembler Foxconn harbors big-brand ambitions
Taiwan's largest company aims to move up the value chain; will it succeed?
DEBBY WU and CHENG TING-FANG, Nikkei staff writers

電子機器組立業 Foxxconは巨大ブランドの野望を抱く。
台湾の最大企業がバリューチェーンの地位を引き上げようとしている。うまくいくのだろうか。

harbors:心に抱く



Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou speaks at a press conference after the company's annual shareholders meeting in New Taipei City, Taiwan on June 22. (Photo by Nozomu Ogawa) TAIPEI Terry Gou, founder and chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry, seemed caught off guard and unprepared to talk outside his hotel in Osaka in early June when approached by a Nikkei Asian Review reporter. 

caught off guard:不意をつく

But Gou soon loosened up, taking the opportunity over a 30-minute stroll to elaborate on the ambition of his company, better known as Foxconn Technology Group, to acquire the memory-chip unit of embattled Japanese industrial conglomerate Toshiba. 

loosened:口を割る
stroll:ブラブラ歩くこと
elaborate:詳しく述べる
embattled :多くの問題を抱えた



"Apple and Amazon will be injecting funds into the deal," he said. The episode highlights how Gou's ability to think on his feet and make snap decisions in response to an ever-changing business environment has made Foxconn what it is today. It also points to his deep ties with Apple, which treats the company as a near equal despite Foxconn's role as a contract assembler for the American consumer electronics trendsetter. 

episode:話・出来事
despite:にもかかわらず
snap:即座の
trendsetter:流行を作り出す人

Apple's iconic handset was first introduced on June 29, 2007. Since then, Foxconn has become a household name for tech industry watchers. But Foxconn is no longer content merely to assemble products for others. It now wants to manufacture its own high-margin components to compensate for slim profits in its core assembly business. 

iconic:象徴的な
handset:総受話器
household:よく知られた
compensate:埋めあわせる



That desire led Foxconn last year to acquire Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp, which makes display panels for iPads and iPhones. Now it is bidding for Toshiba's lucrative memory-chip business. Gou is also seeking to expand his empire by developing brand-name products through acquisitions and internal projects. Sharp is helping Foxconn to achieve that goal, thanks to its popular home appliances and TVs. Nokia of Finland, which once dominated the global mobile phone market, now has an indirect licensing deal with Foxconn via a third party. 

Andy Rubin, creator of Google's Android operating system for smartphones, has publicized the financial and production support Foxconn is providing for his upcoming Essential Phone. The Taiwanese company has also created a new brand for TVs and smartphones, known as InFocus, although it has gained little recognition outside its home market. 



一台湾ドル=3.7円 大体17兆円の売上

Foxconn said in a statement that it has identified several key areas for growth, including mobile devices, the internet of things, big data, cloud computing, "smart lives," industry 4.0 automation, robotics and advanced TV display technologies. WE BUILT THIS CITY Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker by revenue, employs about 700,000 people in China, down from a peak of 1 million, as it automates in response to rising wages. 

smart lives:オール電化による生活

The gadget assembler makes most of the iPhones at Zhengzhou, in Henan Province, which has been dubbed "iPhone City." The Zhengzhou plant, with its 90 production lines and 350,000 workers, can churn out 500,000 iPhones a day, according to Macquarie, an Australian investment bank. Foxconn assembles about 70% of the 210 million iPhones sold each year, according to Yuanta Investment Consulting in Taipei. Its smaller Taiwanese rivals, Pegatron and Wistron, put together the rest. 



Foxconn has gradually shifted iPhone production from southeastern China north to Zhengzhou following a string of worker suicides at its Shenzhen plant in 2010. Labor rights groups accused Foxconn of running production lines in a harsh, military style and forcing employees to work unreasonably long hours. Since then, the company has raised wages and offered counseling to employees. Apple has also capped the number of hours Foxconn assembly-line workers can put in each week. 

Foxconn's presence in Shenzhen has boosted the local economy and young Chinese do not appear to be deterred from joining the company, judging from the long lines recently seen at a Foxconn recruiting center. Since the beginning of the year, Foxconn shares have risen more than 40% to close at 118.5 New Taiwan dollars on July 11. The company's market value of about NT$2 trillion is larger than that of Sony or Nintendo. 

deterred:思いとどまらせる
judging:推定する

The surge in the share price reflects anticipation about the upcoming premium iPhone handset, which will have an organic light-emitting diode display. Foxconn is expected to dominate assembly orders for the OLED iPhones. In addition to iPhones, Foxconn makes iPads, Kindle e-readers for Amazon.com, game consoles for Sony and Nintendo, the humanoid robot Pepper for SoftBank Group, and servers for HP. 

ACQUISITION DRIVE 
But while Foxconn has become Apple's main partner, it is grappling with razor-thin margins. To boost its bottom line, Foxconn is working to acquire technologies for key components. One of the reasons it bought Sharp last year was that the Japanese company supplies liquid-crystal displays for the iPhone. Foxconn believes Sharp can produce OLED panels for smartphones, although it is unclear when the Japanese company will be able to do that. 

grappling:取り組む

フォックスコンの郭台銘は台湾の英雄です。中国での雇用は中途半端ではない。今度はアメリカにも工場を作る。その経営センスと思い切った行動力は誰にも真似ができない。企業価値が2兆台湾ドルだから、7兆円だ。株価の上昇もこの一年で、4割も上がっている。日本企業の経営者には出来ないことだ。

日曜日。今日は谷口さんの本の出版記念パーティがある。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 21:34コメント(0) 

2017年07月21日

よりたくさんのお金とより少ない自由 東南アジアの将来は繁栄するが自由が少ないようだ。この地域がより豊かになっても、民主主義は後退している。

 More money, less freedom
South-East Asia’s future looks prosperous but illiberal
Democracy is losing ground even as the region grows richer
Jul 18th 2017 | MAE SOT

よりたくさんのお金とより少ない自由
東南アジアの将来は繁栄するが自由が少ないようだ。
この地域がより豊かになっても、民主主義は後退している。

THE young woman with the microphone cajoles, hectors and wheedles customers with the breathless enthusiasm of a livestock auctioneer at a county fair. She is standing behind a table stacked high with blue jeans; most of the milling crowd is dressed in lungyis, Myanmar’s skirt-like national dress. The fancy mall around them is anchored by a huge department store, dotted with banks and mobile-phone stalls and topped by a cinema and video arcade.

cajoles:おだてる
hectors:怒鳴り散らす
wheedles:甘い言葉でそそのかす
livestock:家畜
stacked:山積みになった
milling:ひしめき合った
lungyis:


anchored:支える
dotted:点在する
topped:最上階に

Myanmar has been growing so fast—by an average of 7.5% a year for the past five years—that the boom is reverberating in Mae Sot, just across the border in Thailand. Two years ago, says a longtime resident, the site of the mall was a swamp, and Mae Sot was a poky little border town with two small grocery stores. Today huge supermarkets, car dealers, electronics outlets and farm-equipment showrooms line the wide new road from the border into town, patronised by a steady stream of Burmese shoppers. Skeletons of future apartment blocks loom; the Thai government is building a new international airport. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasts that Myanmar’s growth will hit 8% next year. 

reverberating:影響を及ぼす
Mae Sot:a district in western Thailand that shares a border with Burma to the west.
swamp:沼地
poky:みずぼらしい
Skeletons:骨格
loom:ぼうっと見えてくる

The region is full of such stories. Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam have been growing only slightly more slowly. Overall, the ten countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) grew at an annual rate of 5% over the past five years: not quite as fast as China or India, but much faster than Europe, Japan or America. The region’s 625m-odd people are growing richer and better educated; they will live longer, healthier and more prosperous lives than their parents. Of course, plenty of poverty remains—most people in Myanmar are still subsistence farmers—but the region’s economic trends are promising. 

subsistence:必要最低限の生活 自給農家

It was not always obvious that the South-East Asian economies would do so well. Only a generation ago Myanmar had been cut off from the world by despotic generals; Cambodia’s 25-year-old civil war was still sputtering; and Vietnam was only just beginning to experiment with some timid market reforms. The wealthier countries in the region, meanwhile, had seen their economies, and the underlying models of growth, shattered by the Asian financial crisis. 

despotic:独裁的な
sputtering:ぱちぱちと音を立てている
timid:自信なさそうな
shattered:打ちのめされて

The crisis proved salutary. Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand all adopted sounder macroeconomic policies and made some effort to curb the cronyism that had accompanied earlier growth. Nominally communist Laos and Vietnam and autarkic Myanmar all embraced free markets, up to a point. The days of nationalisation and central planning seem to be over. In much of the region inefficient and coddled state-owned businesses endure, and rent-seeking, corruption and protectionism are all more common than they should be. But across South-East Asia, liberal economics has won the argument. 

salutary:教訓与えてくれる
cronyism:身びいき
autarkic:経済的自給自足の
up to a point:完全ではないがあるところまでは
nationalisation:国有化
coddled:甘やかす
rent-seeking:民間企業などが政府や官僚組織へ働きかけを行い、法制度や政治政策の変更を行なうことで、自らに都合よく規制を設定したり、または都合よく規制の緩和をさせるなどして、超過利潤(レント)を得るための活動を指す。

Politically, however, the region is moving in the opposite direction. The Asian crisis may have brought huge economic hardship, but it did at least unseat Suharto, Indonesia’s strongman of 20 years, and instigate political reforms elsewhere. In the years that followed, imperfect democracies in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand appeared to be gaining strength. And Myanmar, after years of isolation and repression, embarked on an unexpected transition to democracy. 

instigate :着手する
repression:抑圧
embarked:始める

But hoped-for openings never came in Laos and Vietnam, where the Communist Party has always been nakedly repressive. Singapore remains an illiberal, albeit effective, technocracy. The leaders of Malaysia and Cambodia, Najib Razak and Hun Sen, have proved depressingly adept at locking up critics and persecuting opponents. Cambodia’s most prominent opposition politician, Sam Rainsy, lives in exile to avoid imprisonment for a spurious conviction for defamation. Opposition figures in Malaysia find themselves in court on charges as varied as corruption and sodomy. 

nakedly :あからさまに
illiberal:反自由主義の
technocracy:技術家集団
depressingly:気が滅入るほど
adept:熟達して 
spurious:間違った
defamation:誹謗中傷

The junta that seized power in Thailand three years ago promises an election next year. Even in the unlikely event that it is free and fair, the constitution—which the army wrote and the new king signed in May—creates a junta-led Senate, imposes the generals’ 20-year plan on the country and provides ample grounds to remove any elected leader whom the army finds lacking. All this is designed to prevent voters from electing the “wrong” leaders, in the army’s view, as they have done at every opportunity over the past 15 years. 

ample :十分すぎるほどの
find lacking:よくないとみなされている

Democratic institutions are not yet quite that weak in the region’s two biggest countries, Indonesia and the Philippines, but in both liberals have more cause for fear than hope. Filipino voters, justifiably frustrated by the way that a few prominent families dominate politics, and by how recent economic growth has failed to reduce the high poverty rate, elected Rodrigo Duterte president last year. Alone among the five candidates, he seemed to care about ordinary people; his brutal anti-drug campaign has appalled foreigners but is popular at home. 

appalled:ショックを受ける

Mr Duterte reminisces fondly about the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and seems to crave dictatorial power himself. He has declared martial law on the southern island of Mindanao, and often muses about doing the same nationally. He veers between indifference and hostility to troublesome principles such as due process, the separation of powers and the rule of law—all of which need shoring up, not weakening. 

reminisces:思い出にふける
fondly:浅はかにも
crave:切望する
muses:考え込む
veers:急に方向を変える
due process:正当な法の手続き
shoring:補強する

An election for governor of Jakarta in April, meanwhile, has left many Indonesians fearful for their country’s tradition of religious tolerance. Islamist agitators campaigned against the Christian incumbent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, falsely claiming that he had insulted the Koran. Anies Baswedan, one of his rivals, embraced their shameless attempt to stir up sectarian tension, and won. Prabowo Subianto, a tub-thumping nationalist who lost the presidential election in 2014, backed Mr Baswedan. The fear is that Mr Prabowo, inspired by Mr Baswedan’s success, will try to foster similar divisions at the national level. 

falsely:誤って
embraced:熱心に考えを採用する
stir:引き起こす
tub-thumping:熱弁を振るう
foster:心に抱く

But it is Myanmar that most encapsulates the region’s democratic reversal. When the army ceded power last year to Aung San Suu Kyi, its Nobel-prize-winning opponent of 30 years, expectations were astronomically high, even though the constitution the generals had written severely limited her powers. That has made her government’s craven and repressive acts all the more bewildering. It has charged more reporters with defamation than did her military-backed predecessor. She has been shamefully silent about the continuing persecution of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, not even admitting, let alone trying to stop, the army’s well-documented campaign of rape, murder and destruction against Rohingya villages. It does not help that since Donald Trump became president, America, long the loudest champion of liberal values in the region, has more or less let the subject drop. 

encapsulates:包む・要約する
reversal:反転
ceded:譲渡する
craven:ひどく臆病な
repressive:弾圧的な
bewildering:戸惑わせる
let drop:止めにする

東南アジアの経済は急激に活発になって来ているが、何処の国もそれぞれ特有の政治的な課題を持っていて、なかなか民主主義が定着しそうにない。ミャンマーの経済が飛躍しているが、Aung San Suu Kyiの動きはロヒンヤへの対応に見られるようにおぼつかない。シンガポールは反自由主義だ。フィリピンはミンダナオに厳戒令が敷かれていて、彼はマルコスの憧れている。ベトナムやラオスは社会主義国で、あからさまに抑圧的だ。マレーシアはラザクが反対派を不法に押さえ込んでいる。

土曜日。今日は海野塾と出版記念パーティがある。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 22:03コメント(0) 

2017年07月20日

上院の健康法案 トランプケア 第三版 上院の改定した健康法案の提案は良い提案なのか。そしてそれは通るのか。

The Senate’s health bill
Trumpcare, version three
Is the Senate’s revised health-care proposal a good bill? And will it pass?
Democracy in America
Jul 14th 2017by J.P.P.

上院の健康法案
トランプケア 第三版
上院の改定した健康法案の提案は良い提案なのか。そしてそれは通るのか。



IS THE Senate’s revised health-care proposal a good bill? And will it pass? Ideally these two questions would be related. But this is sausage-making, so they are not. Let’s take the first one first. 

If you want something approaching universal health-care coverage, there are three ways to do it. One is for the government to tax citizens and then use revenue to fund their care (the single-payer model). The second is to subsidise people to buy coverage. This only works if the subsidies are generous enough for the decision to buy insurance to be a no-brainer. The third is to compel people to buy insurance, by law or by a fine. 

no-brainer:直ぐにできること

At the moment America does all three. Veterans, the elderly, the poor and inhabitants of reservations for native Americans all have versions of the single-payer system, via the Veterans Health Administration, Medicare, Medicaid and the Indian Health Service. The care people receive from these programmes is often poor, but that’s another story. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, the federal government has also subsised people to buy insurance and introduced fines for those who do not. The result of this mixed system has been a decline in the number of people who have no health insurance, from a high of 18% in 2013 to 12% now, according to Gallup. That still leaves a lot of people with no coverage. This could be fixed by expanding the share covered by the single-payer system, by increasing the subsidies for buying insurance or by increasing the fines for not doing so. Or you could do all three. 

reservations:アメリカ先住民の特別保留地
passage:可決
aka:also known as

Of course, this logic only applies if you start from the assumption that laws should be written with the aim of covering as many people as possible. Most Republicans in Congress do not share this assumption. They would, of course, like it if everyone had insurance. But they do not think it is the government’s role to make it happen (there are, of course, some people who take a different view within the Republican Party). 

Shorn of that aim, the need to balance single-payer coverage, subsidies and fines no longer applies. The Senate’s bill duly gets rid of the fines for not buying insurance. It reduces the value of subsidies and it also reduces spending on Medicaid, the programme for the poorest, compared with current plans. The bill’s supporters point out that Medicaid spending still rises under the revised bill, just not as fast. That is true, but the Congressional Budget Office thinks that under the first version of the Senate bill, 10m fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid than under the current law. 

Shorn :剥ぎ取る
duly:要求どおりに
Medicaid:低所得者・身障者向け保険 

The Senate bill also allows plans to be sold that do not cover the “essential benefits” laid out by the Affordable Care Act. These include things like paediatrics, mental-health treatment and childbirth. Removing them means insurers will be able to sell cheaper plans, which could mean more people buy them. But customers might find they are not covered for treatment that they end up needing. And the insurance they buy could prove useless in a different way, too. 

paediatrics:小児科

Obamacare limited the cost of deductibles (for those who haven’t navigated the system, this is the amount of money a person pays for care before their insurance kicks in, a system designed to prevent frivolous trips to the doctor). A plan with a $10,000 deductible and a skimpy set of benefits would be much cheaper than anything currently on sale. The downside is that for a family with a low income, who cannot afford a $10,000 deductible, such a plan would be useless. 

deductibles:自己負担額
frivolous :つまらない
skimpy:不十分な

1万ドル以上でないと保険の給付がないという意味

Two other quick things to note that have not received the attention they might: first, there is a lot of language in the bill that seeks to reduce funding for abortions. Second, there are provisions aimed at preserving the number of beds in psychiatric wards. In the mental-health world there is a long-running argument between those who think patients who are mentally ill should be compelled to receive treatment, even against their will, and those who do not. The Republican position on this leans towards compulsion, hence the language about not cutting the number of beds on psychiatric wards. 

language:言い回し
psychiatric:精神科の
compelled:強制する

An ideal health-care law would not only increase the number of people covered. It would do more to bring down the cost of care while increasing the quality. This is hard, because cost and quality push in opposite directions. After having parts of my internal organs removed in a single-payer system (Britain’s NHS) and in the American system (using employer-provided insurance), I can attest that for those fortunate enough to be able to pay, the American system is miles better. 

attest:証言する

That is a direct function of its high cost. The Senate bill sets up funds for innovation, as Obamacare did, but the trade-off between cost and quality will not be innovated away any time soon. To recap: the revised proposal would probably leave more Americans without usable health care and it does not do much to reduce the cost or to increase the quality of care. It is not a good bill. 

Will it pass? Unlike the first version of the Senate bill, this one does not give a very large tax-cut to those who have the most expensive insurance plans. That softens one line of criticism, that the original bill was a tax cut disguised as a health reform. It also gives the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, money to bring over wavering senators with funding for things they are particularly concerned about (for example, the bill contains money for treating the opioid epidemic, which is killing an American every 15 minutes). Three “no” votes would stop it in its tracks. There are two already, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine. But senators who have campaigned for years to repeal Obamacare are now being given the chance to vote for something that would mean less regulation of the insurance market and allow states more leeway to do as they please. I think it’s 50:50 whether the bill, or something like it, becomes law. 

disguised:事実を隠す
wavering:浮足立つ
opioid epidemic:麻薬利用の爆発的拡大
leeway:自由裁量

トランプケアは加入義務はない。小児科や、心療内科は含まれるがオバマケアのようには完備されてはない。一万ドル以上でないと医療補助が得られない。低所得者向けの保険の費用負担を減額していく。などであるが、健康な若い人は良いのだが、低所得で高齢者には不利な法案だ。結局反対者が共和党から3人出たので、今回もこの法案は通過しなかった。

金曜日。今朝はEarly Birdsの会。午後は大角さんと欒さんとの面談。ではまた明日。

swingby_blog at 21:51コメント(0) 
プロフィール

swingby_blog

プロフィール

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)
Swingby 最新イベント情報
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
講演・メディア出演

最新記事
月別アーカイブ
Recent Comments
記事検索
ご訪問者数
  • 今日:
  • 累計:

   ご訪問ありがとうございます。


社長ブログ ブログランキングへ
メールマガジン登録
最新のセミナー情報を配信します。
登録はこちらのフォームから↓