主题：美国精英对美国选票制度的批判。 -- dolong
http://www.economist.com/node/14842711/comments?sort=recommend#sort-comments
看看下面西方人的评论。。中国做的好那是因为专制威慑小偷们怕被斩首斩脚。。如果
中国排名靠前了刚好又符合他们的白种人至上的逻辑了。。这些西方蛮夷总有天要和他
们打一仗的杀他们个几万几十万的。。他们对中国的偏见不是意识形态的问题。。他们
就是打着反共的旗子发表种族歧视言论。。
In China, part of the low shoplifting rate is because there are salespersons everywhere. I have never been in any store that wasn't swarming with "associates". America's cost cutting and labor efficiency model may have the consequence of such a high rate of shoplifting.
BrightBNA wrote:
Nov 12th 2009 2:15 GMT
Most interesting to note that Chinese countries like China & Taiwan are low in theft rate, even compare to USA, a wealthy country with high percentage of Christian. It looks like Confucius culture uphold the principle of ‘thou shalt not steal’(Exodus 20) better than the Christian or Muslim.
Recommend (19)
Speaking Chinese without an American accent
By Reynolds Staff on Oct 20, 2010 in Academic Programs, Trip to China blog
The following MarketWatch commentary by Andrew Leckey was translated into Chinese in The Asian Wall Street Journal and Oriental Outlook magazine, the national news magazine of China.
Speaking Chinese without an American accent
Commentary: To know China, see the world through its eyes
By Andrew Leckey
Strolling along Shiji Avenue in Pudong financial district in Shanghai. Photo by Flickr user Bernt Rostad
Will the heavy national debt load of the U.S. turn it into another Greece? Could the U.S. cope if it was surpassed by China as the world’s largest economy? Is the U.S. increasingly becoming a protectionist country?
China street scene. This street scene in China was caught by Flickr user ernop.
Those sound like loaded questions, yet they’re fair game for an American interviewed on Chinese television, as I have been more than a dozen times in the past couple of years. You are responding on Chinese soil, after all, where the U.S. is a subject of intense analysis and criticism – just as China is in the U.S.
Topics such as the value of the yuan and trade relations ignite intense feelings because economic growth, investment potential and national pride are at stake. Such issues are more politically demanding than when a question is asked about something less China-U.S.-centric, such as Russia’s economy or BP’s management.
It seems strange to label as emerging a nation with so many centuries of dynasties behind it, but global economic power is relatively new in this nation where ancient structures coexist with skyscrapers. As China chooses its own course, developed nations are suspected of conspiring to hold it back, whether through organizations such as the G20 or the policies of individual nations.
Volatility of Chinese markets is sure to continue, impacting the world just as it is affected by other markets. China’s hot economy and real estate market have likely come too far, too fast, and cycles are unavoidable.
Nonetheless, the transition of China from a low-cost assembler of exports to the West to a major consumer of products and services and a seller of products to the rising middle class throughout Asia is ahead.
This likely will depend less on developed markets and more on emerging economies that need consumer staples, information technology and automobiles. There will be dramatic growth, despite the ongoing ideological, trade, currency, political and environmental differences between China and the U.S.
WHAT CHINA WANTS
Whether it involves investing, business dealings or debate, dealing with China requires mutual respect:
* Many Chinese take personally the criticism of government policy. While we are often loudly critical of our government, they consider China one entity that includes them. Outsiders criticizing it are, in effect, disrespecting the Chinese people and heritage. Harmony is important. Stick to facts when discussing issues of conflict and make sure your points stand on their own merit, which is not a bad idea no matter what the country.
* They know more about us than we know about them. Our clothes and technology were made in China, but our information is limited to news reports. They see our movies, follow the NBA, dine at KFC and Starbucks, buy Buicks and display posters of American actors and athletes in stores. They celebrate Christmas big-time, though not the religious part. Yet that’s hardly a clear picture of America or Americans.
* Negative quotes about China from U.S. politicians are taken seriously by the Chinese, much as U.S. sports coaches tack negative quotes from rivals on locker room bulletin boards. The fact that many in Congress intentionally make statements to appeal to constituents is not always evident to the Chinese.
* When significant issues are brought up, Chinese of all ages point out that we should realize they’ve come a long way in a short period of time, even if where they’re headed isn’t totally mapped out. Bridging the gap between wealthiest and poorest will be one of the biggest economic tasks.
* Young Chinese are under pressure from country and parents to succeed, far more than U.S. young people. Chinese parents who grew up under a different economic system tell children to study and work harder. The one-child rule put added pressure on the young to succeed. Shopping malls throughout China are crowded primarily with those under age 30, indication of the younger generation’s financial empowerment.
* And yes, the Chinese generally do prefer to deal with people they’ve gotten to know well. This isn’t such a rare concept in any country, but friendships definitely build bonds that turn to business and shared information in China. Drive-by meetings won’t accomplish much, while repeat visits are valued.
Americans these days study China much as they studied Japan 20 years ago – with fear and a sense of urgency that we are about to be overtaken economically. I leave you with one last non-economic question posed to me by the Chinese host on a special talk show honoring legendary television news anchor Walter Cronkite:
Why was there no journalist of Walter Cronkite’s stature in the U.S. who was able to draw to an end the war in Iraq as Cronkite did in Vietnam?
Sounds like a loaded question. But for an American interviewed in China, turnabout is fair play. After all, I always have my own set of loaded questions to ask the Chinese.
Andrew Leckey is president of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism in Phoenix, and has been a frequent guest on China Central Television (CCTV) interview programs in Beijing.
假如中国大学如此用功，这帮人一定会说中国大学死读书，压抑人性。估计在他们眼里，哈佛大学的学生们在抽大麻的时候也是“边抽边看书或是边做笔记”的。（其实假如Harvard凌晨4点图书馆里果真座无虚席，那不是考前临时抱佛脚，就是一帮人抽大麻抽high了。否则虽然Harvard的学生平均素质比较高，但毕竟也是肉身凡胎，经常不睡觉这样的生理极限是无法突破的。另一点是学习好的都知道，靠疲劳战是搞不好学习的。）反正一样的事情在美国就是对的，在中国就要打个问号。
这些人的逻辑是：
中国有个疯子杀了好多人--------社会逼得他走投无路，才会去杀人。
西方国家有个疯子杀了好多人----杀人者丧心病狂反社会。
中国没抓到贪官--------官官相护，烂透了。
西方国家没抓到贪官----民主政府确实清廉。
中国抓到一个贪官--------独裁政府就是腐败。
西方国家抓到一个贪官----民主监督机制就是好。
中国没有人游行示威--------政府压制人民发声。
西方国家没有人游行示威----民主社会人民幸福。
中国有人游行示威--------人民对政府忍无可忍。
西方国家有人游行示威----看，自由世界多宽容，言论自由真伟大。
中国有人打砸抢烧被镇压--------人民反抗政府，政府对人民使用暴力。
西方国家有人打砸抢烧被镇压----法制社会，对违法行为当然应该依法镇压。
中国救灾时领导人迅速赶往灾区--------作秀。
西方国家救灾时领导人迅速赶往灾区----民选领导人多关心民众啊。
中国救灾时某些领导没有迅速赶往灾区--------渎职，不顾人民死活。
西方国家救灾时某些领导没有迅速赶往灾区----民主制度，联邦和州各级政府部门各行其是，不去是对的，去了反而添乱。
中国网民支持政府某项举措--------中宣部对媒体控制严密，人民被洗脑。
西方国家网民支持政府某项举措----民主善政当然得人心。
中国网民反对政府某项举措--------政府人心丧尽，人民都反政府。
西方国家网民反对政府某项举措----西方制度好，言论自由有保障。
中国老头娶少妻--------世风日下，人心不古。拜金主义盛行，社会道德沦丧。
西方国家老头娶少妻----自由世界，个人私生活有充分的自由，隐私受到最好的保护。
送花赞扬 关闭
送花成功，可取消。有效送花赞扬。感谢：作者获得通宝一枚。
参数变化，作者，声望:1；铢钱:16。你，乐善:1；铢钱:-1。本帖花:1
其他国家地区看着似乎和经济规模成正比。
中国这么大，损失只有那么一点点。比波兰还低。。。
我没有仔细看原文,可能只是统计沃尔马等大商场吧，中国的小商店多，没法统计，所以货物总价不高。图中显示的是比例，这个比较说明问题。
在中国盗窃是个很具专业性的职业。 在北美好像很多人都爱顺， 一个朋友以前做CO-OP在个连锁店卖衣服， 无时无刻得盯着那些顺手牵羊的人。
看表格中国人损失比例确实小，但从这个百分比
算出总额，中国的零售总额也太小了。。。按说
该跟经济总量成正比啊，怎么总额比许多比中国
经济总量小的多的国家还小。
按这个比例中国零售总额比印度还要少。
中国难统计，那印度不是更难统计。
不知道这些数据从哪得来的。
这可不是素质教育该有的啊！
网上发帖就算了。但要命的是，他们还在各个大学里面任教，误人子弟啊！
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/opinion/26herbert.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
“等我有时间的时候再翻译一下，先凑活看英文吧。”
The Corrosion of America
By BOB HERBERT
Published: October 26, 2010
If you had a leak in your roof or in the kitchen or basement, you’d probably think it a good idea to have it taken care of before matters got worse, and more expensive.
Aging and corroded pipes are bursting somewhere every couple of minutes. Dilapidated sewer systems are contaminating waterways and drinking water. Many local systems are so old and inadequate — in some cases, so utterly rotten — that they are overwhelmed by heavy rain.
As Charles Duhigg reported in The Times last March: “For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.”
There is, of course, no reason for this to be the case. If this were a first-class society we would rebuild our water systems to the point where they would be the envy of the world, and that would bolster the economy in the bargain. But that would take maturity and vision and effort and sacrifice, all of which are in dismayingly short supply right now.
We can’t even build a railroad tunnel beneath the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York.
Improving water systems — and infrastructure generally, if properly done — would go a long way toward improving the nation’s dismal economic outlook. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, every dollar invested in water and sewer improvements has the potential to increase the long-term gross domestic product by more than six dollars. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created if the nation were serious about repairing and upgrading water mains, crumbling pipes, water treatment plants, dams, levees and so on.
Millions of jobs would be created if we could bring ourselves to stop fighting mindless wars and use some of those squandered billions to bring the nation’s infrastructure in the broadest sense up to 21st-century standards.
The need is tremendous. The nation’s network of water systems was right at the bottom of the latest infrastructure grades handed out by the American Society of Civil Engineers, receiving a D-minus. Jeffrey Griffiths, a member of the federal government’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council, told The Times: “We’re relying on water systems built by our great-grandparents, and no one wants to pay for the decades we’ve spent ignoring them. There’s a lot of evidence that people are getting sick. But because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad things have become.”
What has always struck me about this issue is that there is a desperate need to improve the nation’s infrastructure and a desperate need for the jobs and enhanced economic activity that would come from sustained, long-term infrastructure investment. But somehow the leadership and the will to move forward on the scale that is needed are missing.
A survey to be released this week by the ITT Corporation, which makes and sells water infrastructure equipment, shows that nearly 70 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “I generally take my access to clean water for granted.” But a similar percentage said they would be willing to pay a modest additional amount every month to upgrade their water system and ensure their long-term access to clean water.
If public officials would provide honest leadership on this and other infrastructure issues, making a sound case for the investments that are needed and the benefits that would accrue from rebuilding America’s infrastructure, the public would be likely to sign on.
We can start getting our act together now, or we can pay dearly later. The Obama administration has provided federal support for some water and other infrastructure improvements but nothing close to the kind of effort needed to bring America’s infrastructure into even reasonable shape.
The horror stories abound: the drowning of New Orleans when the levees failed in 2005, the 2007 explosion of an ancient steam pipe in Manhattan that killed one person and injured more than 30, the gas pipeline explosion and fire last month in San Bruno, Calif., that killed seven and injured more than 50. There are endless other examples, tragic, costly and unnecessary.
The sorry state of America’s infrastructure is a hard-core reflection of what is really going on in this increasingly hapless society, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.
Posted by Michael Cohen
A friend was commenting to me this morning that it's become nearly impossible to understand what's happening in Afghanistan today . . . because every news story seems to reflect an agenda-driven leak.
And right on cue we have these two headlines from the Washington Post . . appearing in the same paper on back-to-back days.
U.S. operations in Kandahar push out Taliban - October 26, 2010
U.S. military campaign to topple resilient Taliban hasn't succeeded - October 27, 2010
美国在阿富汗坎大哈的行动驱逐了塔利班 - 2010年10月27日
美国针对坚强的塔利班的军事行动没有成功 - 2010年10月26日
How does one understand what's happening in Afghanistan when the same major American newspaper has two articles making diametrically opposite arguments about the status of the war?
如果美国的一个主要媒体上的文章都有完全相反的观点，一般老百姓怎么理解阿富汗到底发生了什么？
Well, here's a helpful hint - try to figure out who is leaking the information. Here's what the more pessimistic story has to say:
An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.
The blunt intelligence assessments are consistent across the main spy agencies responsible for analyzing the conflict, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Here's the source of the information from the more optimistic story about US military progress:
With 2,000-pound bombs, 12,000 troops, and one illiterate but charismatic Afghan border police commander, the American military has forced insurgents to retreat from key parts of this strategically vital region, according to U.S. and Afghan commanders.
US military commanders on the ground are more optimistic about the situation on the ground than intelligence analysts across the US government. Imagine that! Seriously, who could have seen that one coming?
But if you're still not sure who to trust, consider the other Washington Post article on Afghanistan today:
U.S. and other international development programs in a key Afghan province are "incoherent" and lack mechanisms to avoid wasteful overlap or to monitor their success, according to a new report by government auditors.
This is happening in Nangahar province, which is considered relatively stable (ish), compared to the situation in Kandahar. So one might be able to draw the conclusion that even if the US is making progress in pushing out the Taliban it's going to have a very difficult time maintaining those gains. Ultimately, that should be the corrective to any of these "we're making progress" or "we're killing lots of Taliban" stories - can we hold what we've gained.
So far the evidence on that count is a bit more conclusive.
from democracyarsenal.org by Michael Cohen
Paula Broadwell today over at Tom Ricks blog:
"We would be the first to caution that victory is not just around the corner," said a senior official in Kabul this week. He also noted that while some members of the media may have rushed to change the narrative from one of 'all is lost' to 'winning is inevitable,' but quickly clarified that "Neither is true."
Huh, I wonder where the media might have gotten the idea that we're winning in Afghanistan?
David Petraeus:
"I think it is arguable, at least, that we are winning.”
Admiral James Stavridis:
After 15 months as the NATO commander for operations globally, with a focus on Afghanistan, I’d say we have a good chance at success in the country.
Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the British commander of the NATO coalition forces in southern Afghanistan
"We now have the initiative. We have created momentum,” said Carter, who has overseen the Kandahar operation for the last year. “It is everything put together in terms of the effort that has gone in over the last 18 months and it is undoubtedly having an impact.”
Colonel John Ferrari, deputy commander of the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan:
Ferrari spoke of an “inevitability factor,” in which local security forces, in theory and if trained properly, rise in quantity, skill and state of equipment, sharply tilting the war in the government’s favor.
The Times of London:
"The Taliban are getting an absolute arse-kicking," said one top-level Westerner deeply involved with Operation Ham Kari, the latest big push by US and British forces in Kandahar. "It's been their worst year since 2001-02. We're taking them off the battlefield in industrial numbers. We're convinced that the initiative has really shifted."
The Washington Post:
"There are tectonic shifts going on. There really are," an aide to Petraeus said of the network, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization. However, the aide added: "Are we at that culminating point where we start to see disintegration? Not yet."
I can only imagine where reporters got the crazy idea that things are turning around in Afghanistan . . .