Методическая разработка по дисциплине «Профессионально-ориентированный перевод»

Apr 3rd 2012 | Tom Nuttall 

Charles de Gaulle opened his war memoirs with the declaration that he had always had "a certain idea of France". This was the idea of France as a great power, and the country certainly maintains many of its trappings. It is the fifth-largest economy in the world. It has a strong tradition of independence and influence in foreign policy, with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a powerful military. It combines assertiveness and efficiency in parts of the public sphere with dynamism in parts of the private: there are more Fortune 500 companies from France than from any other European country.

Moreover, for decades France has managed to combine these grand achievements with more prosaic successes. In les trente glorieuses, the three decades after the war, France's economy grew quickly under the watchful eye and guiding hand of its leaders. It was able to expand the welfare state while ensuring rising living standards across the board, even as the population grew at a steady clip. For many, the sight of affluent French men and women in Paris or Lyon drinking expensive coffee and discussing the latest literary sensation was enough to confirm that France had unlocked the secrets of the good life.

To listen to the two front-running candidates for the French presidency, you might think that all remains well. Neither Nicolas Sarkozy nor François Hollande spends much time discussing the size of the French public sector, the sustainability of the welfare state or the prospects for growth.

Mr Sarkozy, after an early bout of Germanophilia in which he told his fellow citizens that they must learn from their more successful neighbours across the Rhine, has retreated into his tough-guy comfort zone: red-meat talk on law and order, scepticism on immigration and murmurings of protectionism. For his part, Mr Hollande speaks of jacking up taxes and the minimum wage, creating 60,000 teaching jobs (fully funded, he promises) and partially reversing an increase in the retirement age pushed through, to much opposition, by Mr Sarkozy in 2010.

Can France afford such talk? Many economic alarm signals are flashing red. The last time the French state spent less than it took in was in 1974, the year Valéry Giscard d'Estaing took over the presidency from Georges Pompidou. After what Europe has been through in the past couple of years, living on perpetual credit no longer looks like a viable strategy. (Indeed, one ratings agency stripped France of its AAA credit rating in January.) The public debt is at 90% of GDP and growing. Unemployment has been above 7% for 30 years; the effect of this chronic joblessness is miserably visible in the banlieues that ring its elegant cities. Some even speak of France as the next weak link in the euro crisis. You would never guess it to listen to the politicians.

Does that mean the French system is broken? By no means, say some. France fared no worse than many other countries in the 2008-09 crisis, and should certainly take no lessons from the proponents of the financial free-for-all that got us into the mess in the first place. It may not be growing rapidly—who is?—but it looks likely to avoid the recession that many of its fellow European countries are slipping into. Its workers are among the most productive in the world. Next to Britain, its public finances look positively Teutonic.

Philippe Manière is defending our motion. He draws attention to the mismatch between economic reality—declining French competitiveness and a growing current-account deficit—and the stories politicians tell voters about the need to protect the French model from the ill winds of globalisation. He also laments the lack of opportunities available to those outside a narrow elite in a country where politicians of every stripe pay lip-service to equality.

Opposing him is Thomas Klau, who acknowledges that French leaders have failed to adjust the country to the realities of globalisation, but says that on the "big issues"—the euro crisis, the management of financial capitalism and the Iraq war—they have acquitted themselves well. This is in part due to their "sound training"; indeed, Mr Klau has more time for the French policymaking elite than many outsiders do.

In this debate, I urge you to vote early and, if you are so minded, to vote often, as you may change your choice as many times as you like while the discussion continues. One early prompt: think about the political class mentioned in the motion rather than the French people as a whole. Polls show that the French dislike markets and free trade. No French politician seeking office can afford to ignore that fact. But are their positions best understood as democratic expressions of the popular will or weak pandering to public prejudice? Your answer to that question may inform your vote.

 

Текст 4.

Apr 3rd 2012 | Philippe Manière  

These days politicians in all countries find it hard to keep up with the pace of change demanded by globalisation. And in democratic countries, approaching elections make it difficult for them to tell the truth—especially when the truth is mainly bad news. Yet French politicians are demonstrating a sense of denial rarely seen elsewhere. Leaders from both the left and the right, and in particular both main candidates in the next presidential election, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy (the incumbent), have artfully avoided raising what should be the main concern in this campaign: the end of the so-called "French model". Both pretend they will do anything needed to protect it. Neither considers it at all diminished, nor dares to ask if it should be laid to rest or reinvented.

For two decades French politicians have successfully sold the idea that France is under siege and that their task, first and foremost, was to "protect" the country against cold winds from abroad. French voters have accepted this interpretation of events. France was happy (they understand) before the evils of globalisation caused its current malaise. But the truth is quite different, and those who hide it from voters are surely failing their country. The hardest problems facing France today are of France's own making. They can be summarised in two words: competitiveness and inequality.

First, competitiveness. Since 2005 France has run a current-account deficit. Its share of global trade has decreased by about 25% in 15 years. The widening gap between France and Germany in labour cost per unit has been such that French goods and services are now much more expensive than those of its main neighbour, trade partner and competitor (and it has never been able to compete on other, non-price-related terms). Deindustrialisation and high unemployment are certainly serious problems. But it is dishonest for French politicians to blame globalisation for these issues, as they do every day. Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands (among others) are all much more exposed to globalisation (when measured as import plus export as a proportion of GDP), but unemployment in those countries is one-third to one-half lower than in France. The sad truth is that for the past two decades France's productivity has not kept pace with its spending. Consequently, of course, it has become uncompetitive, and its workers (especially less skilled ones) are way overpriced.

Second, inequality. France is obsessed with equality—all its politicians swear it to be their primary objective. In fact there are few countries where the phrase "equal opportunities" stands for less. The French schooling system is complicated and elitist. It favours those families who know best how to profit from it (most often those families that already have successful parents). It is difficult to bounce back from failure: educational achievements in early life determine the path of a person's career much more than in other countries. Well-trained white males often benefit most. They inherit all the advantages that globalisation grants to the elite: better jobs, better salaries, more opportunities. But this elite is narrow and homogeneous. Those who don't belong to it are saddled with the worst consequences of globalisation: lay-offs, factory closures, temporary jobs.

Women, the young and minorities suffer most. Such groups have few role models in the upper ranks of French society. More than 99% of members of parliament are white. The average MP in France is ten years older than his or her counterpart in Britain or Germany, and 17 years older than the average French citizen. Not one of France's top 120 listed companies has a female CEO. Watch young professionals going to work in London's Canary Wharf and you might expect to see at least a fifth of African, Middle Eastern, Indo-Pakistani or West Indian descent. In La Défense, the huge business district on the outskirts of Paris, the percentage you would spot is probably between 1% and 2%. (Plenty of people from minority groups work in La Défense, of course—but they often leave work a few hours before others arrive, having finished shifts as office cleaners.)

By attributing all France's problems, both social and economic, to globalisation, and by never calling into question the true effectiveness of the "French model"—which, by the way, no nation has ever regarded as an attractive model to emulate—the French political class is making it impossible for the electorate to face up to how inefficiently their country operates and how urgently reform is required. In so doing, they betray the country's best interest—if anything, they serve the interest of foreigners who currently derive competitive advantage from France's refusal both to face up to reality and to change for the best.

Apr 3rd 2012 | Thomas Klau  

Few elites in a Western democratic country are as routinely criticised as France's. An excessive penchant for étatist interventionism; unhelpful hostility to trade; a tendency to freeze out self-made newcomers—those are the charges frequently levelled. The glee with which they are made in the Anglo-American debate echoes with centuries of Franco-British struggle for political and normative supremacy—fascinatingly, this tradition migrated with British settlers across the Atlantic to take on a life of its own. Forget Lafayette; as Hollywood villains, Russians and Germans have gone out of fashion. The evil one now speaks English with an upper-class British accent—or a mincing French one. 

Those take centre stage in French politics or roam France's corridors of power are largely the product of the country's grandes écoles; and Anglo-American authors are not alone in bashing them. Few other countries submit their own elite to such criticism as France, as dozens of books, essays and articles published every year demonstrate. So what are the facts? It is true that by the standards of a democracy, political power in France is unusually concentrated at the top and pervasive in its economic and cultural reach. It is also obvious that all is not well in the French economic realm. Too little has been done to control public expenditure, industry as a whole faces a serious competitiveness issue, and stubbornly high unemployment is a major factor in turning large urban areas into zones of endemic deprivation.

But the coin does have another side. When virtually all the West ignored the basic tenets of capitalism and human behaviour, blithely celebrating regulatory laisser-faire as the ultimate recipe for miraculous growth and profits, France's political class resisted the folly of neoliberal fundamentalism better than others. Thanks to the French elite's sound training in political and economic history, French leaders of the centre-right and centre-left and their key advisers never subscribed to the tomfoolery that in matters of government, less is always more. The same capacity for level-headed strategic analysis gave France's political leadership and political class the insight and confidence to reject the American plan to depose Saddam Hussein without due provisions for the consequences. The ability of France's mainstream politicians and of its political elite to look intelligently at the broader picture became apparent again during the recent crisis of Western financial capitalism and the subsequent destabilisation of the euro zone. When Germany's political establishment appeared at times intellectually overwhelmed by the crisis and paralysed by Germany's decentralised democracy, it was France which consistently pushed for stronger and sensible European action.

So France's political class may have failed so far to make the country's economic framework fit enough for a global environment marked by harsh competition on price and quality. And yes, there is insufficient realisation amongst French politicians and business leaders that in a high-cost country, industry must compete on punctual deliveries and good after-sales services as on well-designed and well-made products. Clearly, France's political establishment has homework to do, and winning the support of the people for it is part of the task that lies ahead. But on big issues of our times—how to manage financial capitalism in the age of globalisation and the IT revolution, how to build an economic governance that allows European integration to survive, when to make war and when to refrain from it—the fact is that France's political class and the technocratic elite that forms its core often got it right when many others did get it terribly wrong

CONCERN about last-minute hitches to the Greek debt restructuring took the wind out of financial markets on Tuesday. Traders will remain nervy until the deal is concluded late on March 8th. Despite the jitters, the general expectation is that enough investors will sign up for the Greek government to impose the deal on the rest by invoking the collective-action clauses (CACs) imposed by legislation passed last month. That in turn is likely to trigger a credit event as early as March 9th, which will lead to payouts on credit-default swaps. That will come as a blow to European leaders who loathe the sovereign CDS market, but they are hoping that a successful debt deal together with the second bail-out, of €130 billion ($170 billion), will dampen down the Greek fire.

That hope may itself be swiftly extinguished. With an economy in freefall and an election looming in late April or early May, trouble could flare up again in Greece soon. And attempts by European leaders to portray the Greek “private-sector involvement” (PSI) as a special case with no implications for debt held in other shaky euro-area economies may also prove overoptimistic. High Portuguese bond yields indicate investor suspicion that Portugal, forced into a bail-out about a year after Greece, will again follow the Greeks’ lead.

The Greek deal sets another troubling precedent. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) insistence that it be spared any losses on the Greek bonds it purchased from May 2010—supposedly for monetary-policy purposes, but actually to fight the debt crisis—has imposed a bigger write-down on privately held debt than would otherwise be the case. The exchange of new bonds for old will lower their face value by 53.5%, whereas their net present value will decline by around 75%, owing to lower interest rates and longer maturities. The ECB’s recalcitrant stance has in effect subordinated private investors and is a particular worry for those with holdings in the other countries (Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) where the central bank has intervened to calm fearful markets by purchasing bonds.

But the Greek restructuring may also set a more hopeful precedent, argue Mitu Gulati of Duke University and Jeromin Zettelmeyer of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The authors, both experts in sovereign debt, point out that the new bonds, while worth so much less, will be better protected because they will be governed by English law with full creditor rights.

The advantage of foreign-law status has been demonstrated in the Greek deal. The exchange that concludes tomorrow is for the 90% of the debt written under Greek law, which made them vulnerable to the retrospective amendment of terms. Bondholders holding the remaining 10% written mainly under English law will vote separately later this month on the proposed exchange. Crucially, their votes will be for each specific bond in issue and cannot be aggregated across all the bonds, as is the case with the Greek-law debt. As a result, it is likely that fewer will be dragooned into the write-off. Tellingly, foreign-law Greek bonds were trading on average at almost twice the price of Greek-law bonds in late February.

This may hold a lesson for other countries, such as Portugal, which are struggling with oppressive debt burdens. The authors argue that beleaguered euro-zone governments could exploit the value investors place on the legal status of bonds by offering genuinely voluntary debt exchanges. By agreeing to switch existing bonds, which as in Greece are predominantly written under local law, into new bonds under English law, this could bring about a worthwhile debt relief. Although this would not be as large as the Greek reduction—investors whose bonds are close to maturity could not be forced into participation—it would not be a default and might allow countries to regain market access in the near future.

While the Greek deal hangs in the balance, this intriguing proposition will not be uppermost in investors’ minds. But it may grab attention in coming months as a possible alternative way out of the debt maze elsewhere in the euro zone.

Mar 7th 2012, 16:21 by R.A. | WASHINGTON

IT ISN'T too difficult to find praise for Mario Draghi these days, and, indeed, those economies whose primary exposure to Europe's troubles is via financial market jitters are quite happy that he seems (for the moment anyway) to have done a very nice job propping up European banks. Britain and central Europe may be still be sweating, but other big economies are doing much better than they were in December, thank you.

Which is a shame, in a way, because more dissatisfaction with Mr Draghi might return a focus to how miserably the European Central Bank is handling the European economy as a whole. Paul Krugman provides one view of its troubles, which amount to much more of a near-Depression than America experienced:

In real terms, the euro-zone economy shrank in the fourth quarter of last year and will probably shrink again in the first quarter of this year, placing the euro-zone back in technical recession. One can blame the crisis for this rotten performance, but the crisis has been made much worse by the euro-zone economy's wretched growth since 2007. Not just bad in general, but bad compared with almost every other advanced economy (with the sad and unsurprising exception of Japan).

Lisa Pollack tells us that Deutsche Bank analysts are looking at nominal GDP growth, so let's do that, too. From 2007 to 2010, NGDP grew 6.2% in Canada, 3.6% in Britain, 3.5% in America, 2.3% in France, 2.0% in Germany, and 0.2% in Italy. That's not per year, mind you, but for the period as a whole. Nominal GDP growth in Italy is virtually unchanged from 2007. I just grabbed IMF data going back to 1980, and those figures are easily the worst over that period (with the exception of Canada, for which the 2006-2009 stretch was a tiny bit worse). No central bank has covered itself in glory over this period. But the ECB's economy is facing a serious debt crisis and, unlike the Fed and the Bank of England, the ECB has been mostly quiescent on the monetary policy front. In late 2011, it reversed the devastating rate increases it took earlier in the year. Its main policy rate remains at 1%, however, it is reluctant to pursue QE (as this would involve the purchase of sovereign debt, presumably), and the balance-sheet expansion of its lending to banks seems calculated to limit its beneficial impact on the broader economy (apart from the prevention of immediate financial-system failure, which, while welcome, is not going to get growth going).

Higher nominal output growth would raise inflation in the euro zone. Price increases are running above the ECB's target over the past 12-months, but are virtually nil in recent months. Above-target inflation might also be a worthwhile price to pay to prevent an economic catastrophe. Higher nominal output growth might also reduce the pressure on the periphery to reform its institutions. One might argue that engineering a near-collapse to induce reform is as far outside the ECB's mandate as efforts to boost employment.

Someone in Europe needs to be buying a lot more stuff. If that doesn't occur, then the periphery has to reduce the amount of stuff it buys faster than the core is reducing the amount of stuff it buys in order to have any hope of escaping from crisis. Why the ECB thinks the latter is easier to manage than the former is beyond me, but that's where we are, and Mr Draghi ought to face withering criticism until the situation changes.
Текст 8.

Samba management

Jan 3rd 2011, 11:02 by M.S.

WILL Brazil become a new source of inspiration for Western business schools? For the past fifteen years, they have mainly looked east. New business schools grew up in such fast-growing countries as China and Singapore, leading to a stream of student and faculty exchanges between Western and Eastern campuses.

But a growing number of business schools are now looking south, with Brazil attracting most interest. The University of Virginia's Darden School of Business recently introduced a Brazilian residency as part of its Global Executive MBA (GEMBA). Students will go to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where they will spend two weeks attending classes, visiting local firms and learning about the region's business environment. And Canada's Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University has joined forces with São Paulo's FIA Business School, Mexico City's ITAM and Nashville's Vanderbilt University to develop what officials call an "Executive MBA programme for the Americas".

The flurry of activity may not come as a surprise. Last year Brazil overtook Britain to become the world's sixth-biggest economy, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Yet despite the country's recent success and its wealth of natural resources, the story of the Brazilian economy in the second half of the twentieth century was one of underachievement. The longstanding joke is that Brazil is a country of the future—and always will be. Beyond political instability, observers point to decades of corporate mismanagement and a lack of strategies to maintain growth.

But the country is the destination of choice for multinationals looking for a foothold in Latin America. It also boasts a sophisticated technology sector, enough oil, crops and breweries to be self-sufficient. And it has been chosen to host the world's two biggest sporting events in the next four years: the World Cup and the Olympic games. Add to that a growing middle class, and the economy should have a promising future.

Will foreign business schools be able to influence the country's executives, given Brazil's historic tendency to be inward-looking and resistant to outside ideas? For it to keep growing, managers need to change their mindset, says Peter Rodriguez, senior associate dean at the Darden School of Business. And this is happening, he explains, as Brazil's economy is moving away from family-based firms towards more professionally managed companies. Increasingly, it is no longer lineage, social connections and good fortune that will get you ahead.

Local firms are also keen to use business education to learn from recent failures in rich countries, notes Cesar Beltran, IESE Business School's Brazil director. "In this time of rapid growth they don't want to lose sight of the long-term picture for the sake of short term gain," he says. Mr Beltra also argues that more and more Brazilian companies want their managers to think globally.

Marina Heck, of the OneMBA program at Brazil's FGV Business School, sees this as part of a wider trend of companies investing more in their management talent. In Brazil the war for talent is still raging. As a result, almost 90% of the students enrolled in the OneMBA programme are funded by their companies (in America and Europe the share is about a third). And whereas in rich countries the number of those who want to get an MBA has fallen in the past two years, applications to the OneMBA programme at FGV have doubled over the same period.

For students coming from outside the country, Brazil offers lessons that stand apart from those that can be learned in other BRIC nations, such as India and China. Darden GEMBA students, for example, get the opportunity to study Rio's Carnival—and understand how such a major international event can rise out of the poverty-stricken favelas.

Though the world's biggest popular gathering may look like a spontaneous street party, it is also the result of months of intense practice, meticulous choreography and people management on a massive scale. Such "Samba management", a combination of the fun and formal, may be a model for the world.