这是一篇英语阅读文章

本来要续着昨天的文章思路写下去的，可是只打下第一句话，然后就和一个人QQ上聊到半夜——其实晚上还和一位师姐聊了一两个小时，然后就完全没思路了，不想再熬夜花时间花精力去写了，因为即使写出来可能也不是特别好——说得我以前写的文章就很好似的。

因此这里就放上我对经济学人精读的笔记，其实也就是画画线，因为单词几乎都认识，不熟悉的你查查词典不就得了么，然后发现好用的短语，那就标注一下么，口语和写作中可以直接用，可是你积累后才能用用武之地啊。所以就大量阅读就好了，别太多废话。

站在岸上学不会游泳。

Letters

Letters to the editor

On Carillion, donkeys, teenagers, Qatar, courts, advertising, thebrain, universities

Feb 1st 2018

More public scrutiny, please

The collapse of Carillion raisesquestions about how Britain can get better at contracting public services to theprivate sector. The scramble across government to understand its exposure tothe company shows that Britain needs much better data that is open to thepublic on the full procurement process, from the planning of contracts to their fulfilment.

The existing data are surprisingly poor. An analysis of publiclyavailable information by my organisation and by Open Opps, an open-datastartup, found deals with 208 buyers across the public sector since 2011. Butwe could only confirm the details of less than half of the 450contracts reported by the government. Compare that with other countries, wherea single register of contracts exists and the exposure and diversity of publicmarkets can be monitored in realtime. There is strong evidence that open data and contract registers are greatfor encouraging smaller firms to put in bids.

GAVINHAYMAN
Executive director
Open Contracting Partnership
London

The donkey market

China’s ejiao industry,which uses a gelatine taken from donkey skins in traditional medicines, is putting the donkey populations of other countries at risk, too. Demand for their skin has led to adramatic fall inthe number of donkeys in India, Kyrgyzstan, Botswana and Mongolia. The ejiao industry is putting substantial financial resources into the development of donkey-breeding farms inChina so that it doesn’t have to rely on middlemen scouring the earth for raw materials.However, donkeys breed at a pace not conducive to neither speed (12-monthgestation) nor efficiency (high levels of miscarriages when bred intensively).

Until these hurdles areovercome, if they ever can be, then the vast majority of the 4.8m donkeys slaughtered each year for the production of ejiao will continue to be sourced fromcountries where they provide a sustainable living for millions of vulnerablecommunities and families. As the initial supply of readilyavailable or “spare” donkeys diminishes, so too the instances and threat of donkeytheft increase.

Prices for donkeys have rocketed, up by 300% in Kenya alone lastyear, reflecting an unrelenting demand. China is in effect aiding an overseasindustry that is already making extraordinary profits by cutting the importduty on donkey skin. This helping hand fromChina will result in evenmore poaching and slaughter of ananimal that supports and sustains some of the world’spoorest people.

MIKEBAKER
Chief executive officer
Donkey Sanctuary
Sidmouth, Devon

A smart phone policy

You are far too blasé about the benefitsof restricting teenagers’ use of mobile phones. I teachat a one-year boarding school for 10th-graders. The students are by definition “outof the house”, away from their parents. They are withother children all the time since they share bedrooms. This year we brought in a policy that bans mobile phones before 6pm and severely restricts them thereafter. It wasintroduced after last year’s cohort were askedwhat could have improved their stay at the school, and has proved to be verypopular. This year’s students say they arehappier and less stressed because of it, and have rejected calls to have iteased. In a nutshell, restriction works.

That still leaves computer screens and what to do about them. But,hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

WALTERBLOTSCHER
Haarby, Denmark

The World Cup: 2022

* Qatar is the sole host country of the FIFA World Cup in 2022 and will host the 64 matches of the tournament across eight planned venues, from the groupstages right through to the final on December 18th 2022. We have alwaysmaintained that this will be a tournament for the region, with every Arab andMiddle Eastern country benefiting via an increase in tourism by helping buildthe infrastructure required to host the tournament. Contrary to your piece, our preparations are progressing on budget and toschedule.

We have already launched the Khalifa International Stadium, the Al Bayt and Al Wakrah stadiums will be ready in the next 12 months, and all of ourstadiums will be open by 2020. It was a bidding requirement to submit a minimumof 12 proposed stadiums. As with previous FIFA World Cups, the hosting nationworks with FIFA to decide on a final number that best fits the event andpost-event legacy use. 

We are well ahead on our bid promises regarding accommodation for travellingfans, teams and officials, with current forecasts showing we will exceed100,000 rooms. As of January 2018, 60,000 rooms have been built or are underconstruction and will have a diverse range of accommodation options availablecome 2022. Fans will not be housed in migrant labour camps, as the articleclaims. The project is very much on schedule and FIFA is happy with ourprogress.

HASSAN AL THAWADI
Secretary-general
Supreme Committee for Legacy and Development
Doha, Qatar

Not-so-strictconstructionists

The assessment in “Full-courtpress”(January 13th) that Republicans favour originalist and textualist judges—asopposed to the activist kind—is largelycorrect, but that hasnot always been the case. An activist constitutionalist philosophyis not necessarily married toa particular political ideology. In a series of cases typified by Lochner v NewYork in 1905, whichheld that limits on working hours were unconstitutional, a constitutionallyactivist, but politically conservative, Supreme Court abandoned textual andoriginal meaning in order to strike down progressive economic regulations. Thiswas based on an unwritten principle of “freedom ofcontract”. Activist rulings resulting in liberalpolitical outcomes, and, conversely, deferential rulings favouring conservativepolicies, are based on recent political alignments. The opposite formula hasheld in the past.

ULYSSESPAMEL
Montreal

Creative ad destruction

A central assumption in Schumpeter’s back-of-the-envelopecalculation in order for American advertising revenues to reach 1.8% of GDP(January 20th) is that all advertising firms will achievethe growth rates implicitin their valuations. This is unlikely, as Schumpeterian forces have provenagain and again. Surely many firms will not succeed in the long run and only a select few will live up to their promise. But then, isn’t sellingplausible, rather than probable, promises what advertising is all about?

MANUELNAVAS
Bogotá