23 min read

Planet Money 学习笔记

本文于2020-10-10更新。 如发现问题或者有建议,欢迎提交 Issue

点击到官网可以下载录音、查看transcript。

目标先刷满10篇。

1 The Economics of Vaccines

关于埃博拉病毒疫苗

  • vaccine 这个词的读音会非常熟练,vak-cin
  • Ebola - E-bola,只有穷人国家遭受。
  • epidemics - epi-de-mics,
  • deadliest - adj,可以直接这样搭配
  • outbreak - 用的很常见,t 不发音,outbreak of the Ebola virus

Often you can’t have trials with people because you can’t give someone an Ebola vaccine and then knowingly expose them to Ebola.

这里一般不用suffer from 而是expose,形容一种被动状态1

疫苗的研发费时费力,

  • 一种疫苗的研发需要至少8年的时间 (S. V. Smith and Plotkin 2018)
  • 成功率在80% (S. V. Smith and Plotkin 2018)
  • 需要比较多动物和人体进行测试

并且要求比一般药物严格。 因为疫苗是用于健康体质,一般药物是作用于患病体质。 (S. V. Smith and Plotkin 2018)

疫苗的研发滞后于疾病的爆发,是因为医药公司盈利为主。

  • HPV, human papillomavirus, 人乳头状瘤病毒
  • meningitis, 脑膜炎

这些疫苗医药公司一直在做是因为他们的市场很清晰了。

because there is a clear market for these vaccines (S. V. Smith and Plotkin 2018)

Ebola 已经有超过40年的历史,但是近几十年,不存在大的爆发,因此没有政府和科研机构介入,进而公司不会进入。 并且爆发的国家都是穷国,因此没有多余的资金进行研究。

there had not been a big outbreak in more than a decade and never anything on the scale of 2014. (S. V. Smith and Plotkin 2018)

Ebola outbreaks were mostly happening in countries that did not have much money like Congo, Uganda and Sudan. (S. V. Smith and Plotkin 2018)

GlaxoSmithKline invested in a different vaccine and governments started to kick in money.

  • kick in money

they do have stock owners and so forth.

  • and so forth, 类似于 or sth.

2 When China’s Ships Come In (S. V. Smith, Garcia, and Cordero 2018)

关于中美贸易战

加州港口是美国最大港口,和中国贸易巨大,\(7\frac{1}{2}\) million TEU2s。 但是加州港口主要进口的是家具和鞋子,因此这两项并不在川普政府的关税清单中。

The state-of-the-art terminal over here where you see those cranes moving…

  • state-of-the-art 描述牛逼的,艺术级的,adj
  • cranes,类似于ship,常出现在阅读

Oh, my gosh.

很常见。

And then there are just, like, stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of shipping containers - all different colors - over there.

  • stacks 作名词,但是这里读起来更有动词的感觉,there are … stacks \(\times n\),可以学习这种用法。

And most of these containers are coming from and going to China.

  • coming from and going to …

Supposed to do anymore when we became adults? I didn’t know that.

  • 反语,前面这姑娘在按喇叭
  • became adult: 连读,becamea - dults

The port makes more money when more ships come in and out. And for the last decade, business has been on a tear.

on a tear: 发展壮大的大好时机。

And the Port of Long Beach has been investing billions of dollars to accommodate that growth.

  • accmmodate that growth: 比match,keep up with 好

Here at the Port of Long Beach, our largest commodity that is imported is in fact furniture. You know, and that’s at the tune of 25 percent.

3 Dollars for Data (S. V. Smith, Garcia, and Weyl 2018)

关于个人数据的价值

免费的服务是通过数据交换的,数据有自己的价值。 因此科技会改变人们的工作方式,让人们转变为干 most valuable3 的事情。 数据变成一种资源禀赋,和劳动力相当。 比如,人们通过玩游戏、看视频、发照片,这些积累的数据,产生的价格,被数据驱动的公司购买,进而作为一种谋生方式。 更可能的是,一家四口,并非父母、或者父亲,都可以一起工作。

It would’ve been hard to have a more productive weekend than I did.

现在和过去的“I”进行比较。

On Saturday, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about how to unclog a sink. Then I unclogged my sink.

  • unclogged my sink, 连用,疏通水槽

VANEK SMITH: Yes. Don’t pretend like you don’t candy crush. You know you do, right?

GARCIA: Not commenting, moving on quickly.

VANEK SMITH: Oh, yeah, there we go. There we go.

  • Not commenting, moving on quickly. 作为一种回答,表达不接。
  • there we go = move on

I mean, if Google Maps paid me, I might alert them to that and Google’s service would be better.

  • alert 好于 tell
  • would be better 虚拟语气

4 The 28-Hour Work Week (S. V. Smith and Garcia 2018b)

关于工作时间

美国人平均工作时间少于北欧人。 因为新一代的人的偏好中,灵活的工作时间强于职业的提升。并且在德国,由于钢铁行业的一直扩展,公司无法有足够的人力需求,因此工人有更强的议价能力。

So those countries are working 400 hours a year less than the average American, and, you know, that’s close to eight hours - seven to eight hours a week. So, you know, that is a real difference in your experience of life. You know, imagine leaving work an hour and a half earlier every day. That’s what the Scandinavian worker is doing compared to the American worker.

  • Scandinavian, 北欧人

Well, Simon thinks all of us might someday have the option of getting those hours back in the form of a shorter workweek. And today, he tells us why.

  • workweek, 类似于workday,更常见一些。

workers won the option of working just 28 hours a week for up to two years without losing any ground in their companies and without falling off their career tracks.

  • lose ground, 失去地位
  • fell off career tracks

And at their jobs, they see flexibility as even more important than how quickly they advance in their careers.

  • advance in their careers: advance in = vt.

For example, typically a woman in a job like law or accountancy who said, well, I’m having trouble, you know, managing both my children and my job, typically she would be pushed onto the mommy track.

  • pushed onto the mommy track: 当妈妈的路线

5 An Insider Trader Tells All (Kestenbaum and Goldstein 2018)

关于内幕交易

Scott London 帮助自己的朋友进行内幕交易。他作为KPMG的一个CPA,年薪为50万美金,但是因此只获得了7万美金的利得,但是他的朋友却因此获得了100万美金的利得,整个过程感觉像是被骗了。

Insider trading - where one person tips a friend off about some upcoming merger or leaks some confidential information.

学习表达方式。

  • tip off: give insider information or advise to
  • leaks some confidential information

They were conducting audits of hundreds of publicly traded companies, making sure those companies weren’t cooking their books or making something up.

  • cook books
  • make up

And then that information would be released to the world. Everyone would get it at the same time - a level playing field.

  • a level playing field: 公平-竞争-环境

Scott says they were pals. It was one of those nice relationships, you know, that exists kind of outside of the family part of your life.

  • pals: good friends

    They become golfing friends and buddies…

  • outside of the family part of your life.

It felt like a victimless crime.

  • victimless crime: 无受害者犯罪

GOLDSTEIN: Do you still belong to that country club?

LONDON: No. They kicked me out.

  • kick out

6 I Can’t Believe It’s Not Budget (S. V. Smith and Garcia 2018a)

关于美国联邦政府临时关门

美国联邦政府的财年从10月1日开始。 美国联邦政府需要在每年的2月第一个星期一提交下一年的预算给国会国会会在四月中旬给予答复。

  • 但是最近几年一直是miss deadline的,
  • 并且对于其中的项目预算分配也不是非常明智的,因此找到国会的反对。
  • 并且在每年的10月1日前用完了预算,也用完了continuing resolutions

这三条因素导致了美国联邦政府在近五年经历了两次临时关门。

On this vote, the yeas are 81. The nays are 18. Three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.

  • the yeas are 81. The nays are 18. 赞成、反对票。

And Congress keeps doing this. It keeps failing to pass a proper budget.

  • fail 不一定每次都是贬义词

That is four, five, six months into the fiscal year, in which case the next year’s budget will be delayed.

  • delay vt. 可以直接用 + budget

In Congress’s case, it could take a year or more to catch up.

  • catch up > keep up with,详见 2

7 Bitcoin, Unemployment, and Mythical Beasts (Garcia and Smith 2017)

关于事物的高估和低估

采访对象是Geroge Mason U的一位经济学教授,基于了几个热门概念的估计情况,高估或是低估,给出一些有意思的理由。

Do you think the suburbs are underrated?

  • suburbs, 第二个 b 失去爆破

In 2017, it’s underrated because people don’t want to admit Trump has not been a disaster yet. Usually, it’s overrated, but right now, it’s way underrated, and that’s just for partisan reasons.

  • 人们的预期Trump时期的经济不会好,因此对比正常水平,Trump时期的股票市场是被低估的。
  • partisan reasons: 引申party,党争原因。

And everyone wants to look at the economy and blame or credit some human being out there. But for the most part, the ability of presidents to control economies is far, far less than people think.

  • credit some human being out there: credit 可以学习一下,这里不用 trust (+ sb.)
  • far + less/more than people think: far,更口语化

But most scientific proclamations from we economists, you really need to take with a grain of salt.

  • take with a grain of salt: 保留一部分,不可全信

In terms of human misery, not having a job is worse than many employed people realize. So I think as a kind of misery index, the unemployment rate is still somewhat underrated. Sounds weird, but that’s my view.

  • that’s my view: 在更口语化的场景,view 音短,比opinion好用。

We have so many dystopian4 novels now, probably they’ve become overrated just because there are so many of them. There was this earlier era in science fiction - Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke - where the future, at least, maybe, was this bright and shiny place where incredible things were done, albeit with problems. Those are now the underrated novels. The dystopians have become a dime a dozen.

  • The dystopians have become a dime a dozen: cheap 的另外一种说法,强度更高

(unicorn) Yeah. They’re beautiful. What’s more beautiful than the imaginary?

  • 这里教授评价了独角兽
  • What’s more beautiful than the imaginary?: 一语双关了。

8 How To Make It In The Music Business (Goldstein 2017c)

关于电子音乐的经济发生

ILLMIND是一个音乐人和制作人,主要制作一些旋律,然后贩卖给其他制作人和音乐人,从中获取利得,为此一度沉寂了5-6年。 2013年,他的旋律被 J. Cole 用到了那首《Love Yourz》上,因此成名。 他在制作音乐的同时,更多地注重人际关系的培养,因此成为一个well-known的人,高产和人脉对他都很重要。

I have a little bit of a following, right?

  • 这里following应该用复数,但是口语比较随便,
  • 用a little bit 形容,也不错

Before Illmind was Illmind, he was Ramon Ibanga, a kid from New Jersey who loved to play Super Nintendo. One game in particular.

  • Super Nintendo 任天堂

And then, like, as a side feature, you can create this kind of cheesy music.

  • cheesy 【俚】漂亮的

Today on the show, we go into this universe of music producers buying and selling musical snippets, texting each other half-finished beats, angling for back-end royalties to hit songs, even selling the sound of a single tap of a snare drum recorded just right. This is the world Illmind helped create.

  • selling musical snippets 贩卖音乐小片段
  • half-finished beats 半成品的节拍
  • angling for back-end royalties, 前者是钓鱼,后者是版税
  • Illmind 就是靠这种方式赚钱的。

Was it tense?

ILLMIND: Definitely tense. I mean, the first five, six years…

  • tense 表示经济紧张

He gets a call from a guy at a record label, who had found some of the music Illmind had posted on MySpace.

  • record label 唱片公司

ILLMIND: He’s like, hey, LL Cool J wants to use one of your tracks, right? So I ended up doing a record for LL Cool J called “Queens,” and 50 Cent was on the record.

  • 50 Cent, 这里省略了per,是50%

And so they paid me $6,000 to do that track - a shit load of money.

  • shit, adj
  • load, n.

Other producers could buy the pack and use it to make their music.

  • pack,这里比folder 好

I’m afraid that people might end up sounding like me, right? And that was the whole fear behind that old-school mentality of not sharing your sounds.

确实,如果自己的片段分享出去后,别人会模仿,自己就不是unique的风格了,也许就会被埋没失去关注。

  • old-school mentality 老牌心态

I discovered that, you know, a lot of these producers that are using my sounds don’t sound like me. They’re taking my sounds, and they’re kind of putting their own unique twist to them. You know, discovering that was a big revelation for me. Like, I can put all these sounds out, and people out there won’t necessarily, you know, take my spot or steal my sound.

但是实际上人们只会再创作,因此老哥就不担心被模仿了。

  • revelation: an enlightening or astonishing disclosure,disclosure 常出现在财报,表示披露,这里就是震惊的披露,也就是说知道事实后的老哥,惊呆了。

But he is also still releasing those basic Blap Kits that people can buy for 20 or 30 bucks and use however they want.

  • bucks = dollar

I mean, it’s definitely six-figure revenue.

  • 六位数收入
  • 这里的rev就是收入的意思,利得。

SPICE PRODUCTIONS: Yeah. I sent you a long-winded email a while ago.

ILLMIND: OK.

SPICE PRODUCTIONS: And you replied. You know what I’m saying? And that was big for me.

ILLMIND: I try. I try, man.

  • long-winded 啰嗦的
  • 哈哈,粉丝见面会,“I try” \(\times 2\) 笑死。

9 The Business Genius Behind Get Out (Stacey Vanek Smith 2017)

关于小成本电影的制作

Jason Blum 是一个小成本电影很出名的制作人,主要是伪纪录片(Paranormal Activity)5,关于恐怖片,一个电影的成本控制在1万5千美金。 Jason Blum 队友小成本电影有自己的独到见解,分散投资、分散风险,电影拍砸的概率有40%,但是成功的电影收益都是100倍这个量级(按照这个风险,收益率制药超过1倍多就可以 cover 投资了)。 对此项目化的拍电影,他总结了四点:

  • 第一和第二是减少配音和场景,因为配音都是要多加费用多。
  • 给演员最低工资,让他们成为合伙人,一起分红,分担风险。
  • 最后不超预算,超预算的电影直接close,避免了沉没成本驱使拍出超预算的电影。

And I am a huge horror film junkie.

  • junkie > fan

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Cops are all over it. Man, we’re good to roll. I repeat, good to roll.

  • 警察来啦,good to roll 类似于 let’s go + hurry up.

It lost close to $100 million by some estimates.

  • by some estimates: 比 the loss esitmates about … 好。

Everybody was like I had leprosy. And the very same people that were so nice were suddenly, like, not - you know, I’d come into a restaurant. And instead of them popping up and saying come on, sit down, join us, they were, like, pretending they didn’t see me. And it was that extreme. Here, failure is considered a terminal disease that’s communicable.

  • 感觉抱怨了好莱坞的现实,但是 Rob Cohen 现在功成名就,也释怀了。
  • communicable: infectious 传染的。以前亲近的人都不再理他。

For two years, Rob Cohen didn’t work. Then he got a couple jobs but nothing close to before.

  • but nothing close to before: 讲的是,以前 Rob Cohen拍大电影,这个才是那个before。

Blum has developed a whole philosophy about how to make money in show business.

  • show business: 娱乐行业
  • 这里的 philosophy 可以用 business model 替换

Blum basically looks at films the way a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley looks at start-ups.

  • the way 作为比喻的句式

The most economical way to shoot a movie location-wise it to have it take place all inside a house.

  • economical: /ˌikə’nɑmɪkl/ 前面是短音i,因此发音更像是/ei/, /e/,因此听起来像是/e/conomical

It’s definitely a gamble because it was like, tighten the belt for the better part of a year because the cash upfront was idiotic.

  • cash upfront: 预付的现金
  • idiotic: /’ɪdɪ’ɑtɪk/ /ɑ/ 重读

And I felt that in several areas of the movie, we pulled the punches.

  • pulled the punches: 挥出拳头,引申为出击。

Blum set up a production company, Blumhouse, and they started to churn out movies, horror movies and thrillers.

  • churn out: produce something at a fast rate, 快速赶工,不是work hard,中文解释有误。

The script is called “The Boy Next Door.” It’s, you know, your classic boy-meets-girl, girl falls in lust kind of, boy turns out to be a homicidal maniac.

  • classic boy-meets-girl: 玛丽苏的桥段,老套的。
  • 但是桥段不应该是 Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with the girl, boy asks girl to marry him, girl accepts.
  • 这里的翻译是女生欲望下降,男的变成杀人狂。

But he was adamant, and that’s the fiendish deal.

  • adamant /’ædəmənt/ 固执的

Blum actually has a fourth rule for cheap moviemaking, and it’s ironclad - never, ever break your budget. Never try to spend your way out of a problem. Economists actually write about this idea. It’s called the sunk cost fallacy. Often, companies and people who have spent a lot of money or a lot of time on something, they’re more likely to continue plowing resources into that project, even when it’s a complete disaster. The sunk cost fallacy, it drives big-budget movies in Hollywood.

  • Blum 认为,好莱坞的大电影的制作,都是因为沉没成本驱动的,因此他的小成本电影应该是不能超预算的。

So I asked Rob Cohen about the reviews, and he basically started swearing. But really, he didn’t give a damn because, in the end, this movie was another Jason Blum financial success.

  • swearing 咒骂
  • he didn’t give a damn,偏口语,类似于 I don’t care

10 Professor Blackjack (Goldstein 2017a)

关于数据进行金融投资

本期介绍的是大佬 Edward Thorp,他在60年代开始进行先后进行赌博(21点)、股票、期权投资。他是MIT毕业的数学PhD,完全用纯数学进行概率估计,靠21点赚了几百万,发了顶级期刊,然后投资股票,开放了美国历史上收益率最高的两个对冲基金,历史上只有3年出现了收益率为负,并且不超过1%6。由于他的经历,华尔街的投资公司考试招收数学和物理PhD,觉得她们的数学厉害,可能带来新的视角,嗯,他也是历史上可知的第一个quant。可能有点无聊哈哈。 最后一篇,close。

Ed Thorp was 28 years old. He was an academic, a scholar. He’d just started teaching math at MIT. And on a grey February afternoon, a blue Cadillac7 pulled up outside his apartment.

  • 比如被警察抓是pull over,这里直接用pull up

GOLDSTEIN: They knocked on the door. Thorp them in. The man introduced the young women as his nieces.

THORP: I was naive, and I believed it, but my wife angrily disagreed (laughter). These are not nieces.

  • naive 被玩坏了,但是就是那么粗暴的用
  • I’m naive-andI-believe it,这里是连读

So Thorp drew up a little card - like, this little cheat sheet with instructions based on their system - and he went to Vegas to try it out.

  • cheat sheet 很常用的词,类似于七喜的发音,两个t都可以失去爆破

THORP: About halfway through, people were ridiculing me. They - I was playing slowly. And the dealer was saying, you know, I’d - you know, what farm did I come from?

  • what farm I come from? 委婉地形容人土

They were initially ridiculing me and thinking - another fool of the system, as I looked at my little card. And then when I got the seven-card 21, they seemed quite in awe of what was going on.

  • 常用的是 laugh at,这里是 ridiculous 的v.形式 ridiculing

Well, you know, I grew up in the Depression, and that mentality sticks.

  • mentality sticks: 表示一种心里根深蒂固。8也出现了。

For the first time, we didn’t have to live hand-to-mouth for a little while.

  • hand-to-mouth 仅能糊口

Suddenly, Thorp is once again just one more sucker doing what everybody else is trying to do - in this case, figure out which stock is going to go up. He needs to figure out how to do what he did in blackjack, how to zoom out - you know, not just do a better job of what everybody else is doing, but look at the market in a whole new way.

  • how to zoom out: 比喻的方法,类似于用放大镜看东西的意思

And again, as with blackjack, he sort of zooms out - you know, thinks bigger, uses math, does a lot of calculations - and tries to find an edge.

  • sort out 直接做插入语,放在动词zooms out 之前
  • find an edge 常见,类似于找到窍门、捷径的意思。

When you find something, you stick to it.

  • sticktoi-t k失去爆破 oi连读

11 The Bank War (Goldstein 2017b)

关于美国银行和总统的党争

1837年,美国历史上爆发了最大的一次金融危机,金融危机的导火索是总统 Andrew Jackson 和 大银行家 Nicholas Biddle 的党争,最后 Nicholas Biddle 失败,但是 Andrew Jackson 也导致了美国进入了金融危机。

Andrew Jackson 出身寒门,幼年丧父,一路做到总统。 Nicholas Biddle 相反,出身宾州贵族,就读 Princeton,创立 Bank of US.,与政界交好,马萨诸塞州议员是他的喉舌。

Bank of US. 与众不同之处,

  • 当时其他银行都是local的,它是全国的
  • 当时联邦政府和美联储是金银流通,它负责印刷纸币,进行信用担保
  • 同时展开公开市场操作,执行Fed的角色

在负责印刷纸币,进行信用担保方面,Bank of US.一直比州立银行做得好,但是因为 Andrew Jackson 的阻挠, Bank of US. 业务缩减,变成了 Bank of US. of Pennsylvania,一家州立银行,相关业务被其他州立银行转接。这些州立银行疯狂印刷纸币、房贷、做土地担保,结果无法兑现对勾的金银,导致了金融危机。

It cushioned economic booms and busts.

  • cushioned 这里地方没有连读

But this bank of the United States was not answerable to the government.

  • answerable: morally or legally responsible to a higher authority
  • 也可以是说 lead by …

SMITH: He says - and I do quote here - in the absence of a Bank of the United States, the state banks become effectively the regulators of the public currency. Their numbers, their capital and the interest connected with them give them a power which nothing is competent to control.

GOLDSTEIN: In other words, Webster is saying if you think the Bank of the United States is shady and out of control, you should see the state banks.

  • 那时候的论断是州立银行反而运营上更具备道德风险。

I mean, it really is a very sad end because here’s this man who felt that he’d devoted his life to his country and he’s sent packing. It’s terrible.

  • sent packing adj 突然解雇

12 The Invention Of ‘The Economy’ (Goldstein et al. 2017)

关于GDP的启用和缺陷的发现

GDP发生于大萧条,用于描述经济的好坏。 GDP的计量作为美国参与二战的决定因素、后期国际组织赞助落后国家的标准。 但是GDP后期被政客滥用,导致了一些其他效用不被重视的问题,比如健康、环境等。

It (Economy) was invented because of the Great Depression.

Goldstein et al. (2017) 佐证,实际上经济这个词在美国是1900年开始产生的,那时正好是大萧条时期,急需一个指标来描述经济,也就是GDP。

it starts to occur to people, maybe we can change it. Maybe we can control it.

  • occur to: 被意识到,是被动句式,注意r是小舌音。

You’ve got a lot of people who really start believing that there’s this thing called the economy that’s a mechanical system that obeys laws just like physics. And that if you can get the - if you can describe the system and the variables correctly, it’s very mechanistic. Like, input in, output out. And so part of the reason for measuring is the belief that all this fuzziness that had attended human history around waves of, you know, bursts of growth and then collapse and money going up and money going down, that we could capture it and control it the same way scientists were capturing and controlling physical reality.

人们开始意识到经济和物理一样是有规律的,给定输入,反馈特定的输出,因此人们开始尝试用控制物理实验的方式,控制经济。

It was the generals versus the economists, and the economists won. That’s who Roosevelt listened to.

  • That’s who Roosevelt listened to. listen to 可以学习

There are many people who have said - and I would agree with them - that the invention of GDP was one of the prime factors in winning the war. The ability to with some confidence be able to dedicate all these resources - because a lot of the reasons why America won the war wasn’t because we fought particularly better than anyone else. It’s because we had such a massive industrial machine that dwarfed the capacity of anybody else. And it was because we were able to use that with confidence that we weren’t going to create huge domestic destruction.

美国后续参与二战的决定因素是因为测量结果预测,参与二战不大会带来经济大的影响。

GOLDSTEIN: The war ends, and after the war, GDP really sweeps the world. There are all these new international organizations - the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank. And the people running these new global groups - they love GDP.

KARABELL: First thing you do in the 1950s and ’60s if you’re a new nation is you open a national airline. You create a national army, and you start measuring GDP. And you start measuring GDP because if you want to go to the World Bank or you want to go to the U.N. and you want some sort of economic aid, the sole criteria for those is if we give you money, you have to show that it helped your GDP.

二战结束后,产生了很多国际组织,广泛使用GDP,并且国际组织对其他国家的赞助,考核标准之一就是有利于促进GDP的提升。

ROBERT KENNEDY: Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of marriages, the intelligence…

KARABELL: Just like Robert Oppenheimer who helped create the nuclear bomb later kind of recoiled at the proliferation of nuclear weapons and strength being defined by that, Kuznets himself said, look; the fetishization of numbers and the use of this number as a proxy for everything is what politicians do. It’s what people do. I would never have recommended that. I would - and it’s the easy way out, avoiding hard discussions, and it can be easily abused.

当然GDP也得到了肯尼迪总统等人的反对,GDP对于人们的其他效用没有计量,因此让GDP政治化,代表唯一标准时,势必导致其他效用欠发展。

13 Bad Form, Wells Fargo (Smith et al. 2016)

关于富国银行cross-selling行为

富国银行2017年被调查,主要是它的雇员在没有经过客户同意的前提下,给客户私开多个理财产品(信用卡等),因此提高收入,美化财报。 但是在这个大背景下,雇员行为的动机是因为受到了富国银行使用U5作为威胁。U5类似于行业协会的对雇员的一个评价,各大银行CEO作为委员会成员,他们通过使用U5记录各大银行雇员的评价,使得雇员跳槽时,下家能够得到雇员在上家公司的评价。但是这种评价是公司单方面给予的,并非在法庭、仲裁上进行双方举证进行磋商,因此雇员会遭到诋毁、威胁。

he just wanted to move on with his life.

  • move on with his life: 可以学习的一个短语。

You’ve got the drive. You’ve got the motivation.

  • drive, motivation: 对人的评价词语。

After about a week, finally gave the HR lady a call and said, hey, just wanted to follow up, see what’s going on in the process.

  • gave the HR lady a call
    • give sb. a call
    • HR lady
  • follow up

She said, I’m sorry, we went with another candidate.

  • go with: 伴随, 与…相配, 和(异性)交朋友

I just sat there, hung up the phone. I thought to myself, I thought I had this job. What happened?

  • what happened?

It’s called the U5. We’ll tell you where it came from, how Wells Fargo branded their workers with it and how hard it’s been for people like Jeremy to fight back.

  • It is hard to fight back.

These are the people responsible for keeping an eye on all the stockbrokers and the investment folks in Alabama.

  • keeping an eye on: supuervise

It made sure the con man couldn’t just hop from company to company or bank to bank.

  • con man: confidence man, 这里的con是简称。

这里使用了一个叫做U5的系统,用于给那些有欺诈行为的雇员进行标签,以至于他们不会去祸害下一个雇主。

So this is the way it was supposed to work - a simple reporting tool for good banks to stop bad employees. But what happens when the bank itself becomes the problem, when there are bad managers? This is what we’re hearing happened at Wells Fargo. The U5 became a weapon, a way to threaten and punish employees.

但是当雇主、经理也是con man时,U5就成为威胁好的前员工的武器。

ASHLEY: If you don’t meet your solutions, you will be fired, and it’s going to be on your permanent record. I mean, it was real. Like, you were stuck and it was the feeling that no other employer is going to want you because we will ruin you.

这就是雇主、经理的威胁。

Ashley didn’t know if they were exaggerating at the time, but later, she found out that they weren’t joking around. She was fired, and we helped her track down her U5, and right there on her U5 it says, quote, “failed to perform job duties.” She says that makes it sound like she just didn’t do any work. And she hasn’t been able to get a job at a bank since. She’s working for 12 bucks an hour.

这就是赤裸裸的侮辱了。

SMITH: But, Chris, this right here is the point of this whole story. We don’t know what really happened because the U5 is not set up like a court of law where both sides tell their story and a judge decides. On the U5, the banks have almost all the power. They don’t have to show any evidence. It’s just their word.

这是这个U5的效率和公平的缺陷。

ARNOLD: We talked to a recruiter who works for banks, and we showed her Jeremy’s case, and she said basically he’s out of luck. If he really thought that he had a case, he should pay whatever it takes for a lawyer because no one was going to hire him with this mark on his record.

看起来非常严重。

I try not to think about it.

  • try + 动词不定式: 也可以认为try not 是一个组合

13.0.1 Wells Fargo 背景补充

13.0.1.1 Background

Wells Fargo Issues Statement on Agreements Related to Sales Practices.

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), reached agreements with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney, regarding allegations that some of its retail customers received products and services they did not request. The amount of the settlements, which Wells Fargo had fully accrued for at June 30, 2016, totaled $185 million, plus $5 million in customer remediation8.

The company issued the following statement related to today’s news: "Wells Fargo reached these agreements consistent with our commitment to customers and in the interest of putting this matter behind us. Wells Fargo is committed to putting our customers’ interests first 100 percent of the time, and we regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request.

13.0.1.2 Wells Fargo and Executive Compensation

The cause of this misbehavior is partly dependent on the CEO having the incentive to do it. Because the more products provided to the target customers does Wells Fargo offer, the more compensation does the CEO achieve, even though Wells Fargo announced claw-backs of executive pay after this event. Republicans are also likely to ask Ms. Yellen why the Fed and other regulators didn’t do more to stem misconduct at Wells Fargo (Hayashi 2016). Also, Democrats will push for Ms. Yellen to commit to finishing the incentive pay rules soon-a promise Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry made last week.

13.0.1.3 Too big to fail

Similarly, like the 2008 financial crisis, Wells Fargo scandal is again an indication that big banks are too big to manage. And several Democrats suggest they are supposed to be broken up (Tracy 2016). Aside from the executive compensation, the employees also have the incentive to open fake accounts and Wells Fargo fails to discover and shift the system when problems happen. The big banks fail to manage the large size of employees.

13.0.1.4 Weak enterprise risk management

Wells Fargo has built its brand around cross-selling more than its peers because the customers trust its risk management. However, after this event, the customers hardly believe in it. The $35 million civil money penalty reflects a number of factors, including the bank’s failing to develop and implement an effective enterprise risk management program to detect and prevent the unsafe or unsound sales practices, and the scope and duration of the practices(Hubbard 2016).

13.0.1.5 Cross-Selling Strategy

It is time to finish the cross-selling rules. Since Wells Fargo opens around 565,000 credit-card accounts, which its customers may not have wanted , including the authorized accounts(Back 2016). Customers that use more products from same bank are more unlikely to shop elsewhere. From a customer’s perspective, buying several products from one bank often means they are not acting in their own best interest by shopping around for the best offers.

14 其他

14.1 摘录作者的方式

  • 将transcript建立一个文档
  • read_table进行阅读
  • 使用stringr函数进行选取

具体操作如下:

read_table("../planet.rmd",col_names = "value") %>% 
  filter(
    value %in% 
      str_subset(value,
                "^[:upper:]{1,}[:space:][:upper:]{1,}"))
"JACOB GOLDSTEIN and DAVID KESTENBAUM and ZACHARY KARABELL and GLEN WEYL and FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT and ROBERT KENNEDY and DIANE COYLE" %>% 
  str_to_title() %>% 
  str_replace_all("And","and")

参考

Back, Aaron. 2016. “Wells Fargo’s Questionable Cross-Selling Strategy.” The Wall Street Jounral. 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/wells-fargos-questionable-cross-selling-strategy-1473444334.

Garcia, Cardiff, and Stacey Vanek Smith. 2017. Bitcoin, Unemployment, and Mythical Beasts. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/12/11/569972090/bitcoin-unemployment-and-mythical-beasts.

Goldstein, Jacob. 2017a. Professor Blackjack. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/20/510810752/episode-749-professor-blackjack.

———. 2017b. The Bank War. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/24/521436839/episode-761-the-bank-war.

———. 2017c. How to Make It in the Music Business. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/15/551236508/episode-794-how-to-make-it-in-the-music-business.

Goldstein, Jacob, David Kestenbaum, Zachary Karabell, Glen Weyl, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, and Diane Coyle. 2017. The Invention of ’the Economy’. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/15/520294083/episode-522-the-invention-of-the-economy.

Hayashi, Yuka. 2016. “Regulators Take Heat over Wells Fargo.” The Wall Street Journal. 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/regulators-take-heat-over-wells-fargo-1474413453.

Hubbard, Bryan. 2016. “OCC Assesses Penalty Against Wells Fargo, Orders Restitution for Unsafe or Unsound Sales Practices.” Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. 2016. http://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2016/nr-occ-2016-106.html.

Kestenbaum, David, and Jacob Goldstein. 2018. An Insider Trader Tells All. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=596532106.

Smith, Robert, Chris Arnold, Tom Krebs, and Jonathan Delshad. 2016. Bad Form, Wells Fargo. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=499805238.

Smith, Stacey Vanek, and Cardiff Garcia. 2018a. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Budget. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/01/22/579784318/i-can-t-believe-it-s-not-budget.

———. 2018b. The 28-Hour Work Week. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/22/588060693/the-28-hour-work-week.

Smith, Stacey Vanek, Cardiff Garcia, and Mario Cordero. 2018. When China’s Ships Come in. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/04/24/605396270/when-china-s-ships-come-in.

Smith, Stacey Vanek, Cardiff Garcia, and Glen Weyl. 2018. Dollars for Data. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=597014137.

Smith, Stacey Vanek, and Stanley Plotkin. 2018. The Economics of Vaccines. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=616926505.

Stacey Vanek Smith, Steve Henn aand. 2017. The Business Genius Behind Get Out. Planet Money. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/29/521950337/episode-650-the-genius-behind-get-out.

Tracy, Ryan. 2016. “Yellen Pressed to Scrutinize Big Banks in Wake of Wells Fargo Scandal.” The Wall Street Journal. 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/yellen-calls-for-regulatory-relief-for-small-banks-1475071213.

魏剑峰. 2018. “我们的母语如何影响英语学习?.” 2018. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/qr4Bi-LRKnMEcD-ZXPCcPA.


    • Children should be exposed to more classical music.
    • ~~Children should get in touch with more classical music. ~~
    • get in touch with的意思是“通过电话或信件与某人取得联系”(communicate with someone by letter or telephone),不能用来指“与某事物接触”。 (魏剑峰 2018)
  1. total equivalent unit, 20-foot long equivalent unit.

  2. 这里的valuable并非是引申词义,就是highest price

    The key aspect is whether the economy is actually being productive by encouraging people to do the most valuable things.

  3. 反乌托邦(英语:Dystopia、Cacotopia、kakotopia或anti-utopia,中文又称反面乌托邦、敌托邦、恶托邦、绝望乡或废托邦)是乌托邦(utopia)的反义语,希腊语字面意思是「不好的地方」(not-good place),它是一种不得人心、令人恐惧的假想社区或社会,是与理想社会相反的,一种极端恶劣的社会最终形态。反乌托邦常常表征为反人性(dehumanization)、 极权政府、生态灾难或其他社会性的灾难性衰败。这种社会出现在许多艺术作品中,特别是设置在未来的故事。反乌托邦出现在许多虚构作品的亚流派中,常被用于提醒人们注意现实世界中的有关环境、政治、经济、宗教、心理学、道德伦理、科学技术方面的问题,这些问题如果被人们忽略,有可能导致出现反乌托邦似的状况。

  4. 之前看过钮承泽的《情非得已之生存之道》,主演是张钧甯,描写台湾艺人生活,又借伪纪录片的性质,没得罪业界大佬。

  5. 这个就不知道是否有insider info

    1. 卡迪拉克(北美洲法国总督,底特律的创立者);卡迪拉克(高级轿车名)
  6. remedy