主题：【编辑】美国经济周报十一月（一） -- 南方有嘉木

最新一期时代杂志的主题之一：

Five Things the U.S. Can Learn from China

1. Be Ambitious

There's no direct translation into Chinese of the phrase can-do spirit. But yong wang zhi qian（勇往直前） probably suffices. Literally, it means "march forward courageously." China has — and has had for years now — a can-do spirit that's unmistakable.

"One key thing we can learn from China is setting goals, making plans and focusing on moving the country ahead as a nation,"

2. Education Matters

After decades of investment in an educational system that reaches the remotest peasant villages, the literacy rate in China is now over 90%. (The U.S.'s is 86%.) And in urban China, in particular, students don't just learn to read. They learn math. They learn science. As William McCahill, a former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, says, "Fundamentally, they are getting the basics right, particularly in math and science. We need to do the same. Their kids are often ahead of ours."

In the U.S., according to a 2007 survey by the Department of Education, 37% of 10th-graders in 2002 spent more than 10 hours on homework each week. That's not bad; in fact, it's much better than it used to be (in 1980 a mere 7% of kids did that much work at home each week). But Chinese students, according to a 2006 report by the Asia Society, spend twice as many hours doing homework as do their U.S. peers.

Yes, big corporate employers in China will tell you the best students coming out of U.S. universities are just as bright as and, generally speaking, far more creative than their counterparts from China's élite universities. But the big hump in the bell curve— the majority of the school-age population — matters a lot for the economic health of countries . Simply put, the more smart, well-educated people there are — of the sort that hard work creates — the more economies (and companies) benefit.

China, critics will point out, doesn't produce (at least not yet) many Nobel Prize winners. But don't think the basic educational competence of the workforce isn't a key factor in its having become the manufacturing workshop of the world. It isn't just about cheap labor; it's about smart labor.

3. Look After the Elderly

The number of elderly Americans will soar from 38.6 million in 2007 to 71.5 million in 2030. But, "There won't be enough spots for them" in the country's overwhelmed nursing-home system. Appreciating the magnitude of the coming crisis, the U.S. government has begun to respond..... "The whole trend will be into home care, because nursing homes are too expensive," Eppel says, noting that nursing-home care in the U.S. costs about $85,000 annually per resident.

In China, senior-care costs are, for the most part, borne by families. For millions of poor Chinese, that's a burden as well as a responsibility.......Still, there are benefits that balance the financial hardship: grandparents tutor young children while Mom and Dad work; they acculturate the youngest generation to the values of family and nation; they provide a sense of cultural continuity that helps bind a society. China needs to make obvious changes to its elder-care system as it becomes a wealthier society, but as millions of U.S. families make the brutal decision about whether to send aging parents into nursing homes, a bigger dose of the Chinese ethos may well be returning to America.

4. Save More

High savings lead, over time, to increased investment, which in turn generates productivity gains, innovation and job growth. In short, savings are the seed corn of a good economic harvest.

5. Look over the Horizon

"China is striving to become what it has not yet become. It is upwardly mobile, consciously, avowedly and — as its track record continues to strengthen — proudly so."

[URL=]http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671-4,00.html#ixzz0WtU6CGRc

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我看完这篇文章后想的两件事情：

第一，这五点基本全是精神和价值层面的东西。教育、敬老、节约毫无疑问本就是传统的价值观念，而勇往直前、追求更远，也难说是建国后确立的新价值，勿如说是一种信心或目标。更重要的是，没有制度层面的东西。自己觉得是个值得深思的问题，这或许这从另一方面体现出我们现在发展的真正基石，也暴露了我们的缺点。

第二，我们可以从美国习得的五件事是什么呢？结果第一个跳进我脑子的就是：司法独立。民主另说，但觉得司法作为社会正义的最后救济，必须最大限度地免受行政和资本力量的干扰，美国的司法当然并不能完全地不偏不倚，整个司法体系的运作成本也非常高，但是就其精神和基本制度设计，我觉得还是值得学习。

大家会提交什么答案？