本期原文選自The Economist 2017-01-28的文章In retreat,釋義來自牛津高階七版颈将、靈格斯詞典梢夯、有道詞典、元照英美法詞典晴圾、維科英漢詞典等資源颂砸。詞匯大串燒見文末小結。如果您也在學習The Economist,歡迎訂閱我的文集The Economist人乓,一起學習交流梗醇。
In retreat?
Global companies are heading home. And it's not only because of the threat of protectionism
AMONG the many things that Donald Trump dislikes are big global firms. Faceless and rootless, they stand accused of unleashing “carnage” on ordinary Americans by shipping jobs and factories abroad. His answer is to domesticate【1】 these marauding【2】 multinationals. Lower taxes will draw their cash home, border charges will hobble【3】 their cross-border supply chains and the trade deals that help them do business will be rewritten. To avoid punitive treatment, “all you have to do is stay,” he told American bosses this week.
【1】domesticate 使喜家具,使精于家務撒蟀,馴養(yǎng)叙谨,馴化;domesticated( adj.); domestication
【2】marauding劫掠保屯,打劫手负,獵食;marauder (n.)
【3】hobble阻止姑尺,妨礙竟终,跛行
Mr Trump is unusual in his aggressively protectionist tone. But in many ways he is behind the times. Multinational companies, the agents behind global integration, were already in retreat well before the populist revolts of 2016. Their financial performance has slipped so that they are no longer outstripping【4】 local firms. Many seem to have exhausted their ability to cut costs and taxes and to out-think【5】 their local competitors. Mr Trump’s broadsides【6】 are aimed at companies that are surprisingly vulnerable and, in many cases, are already heading home. The impact on global commerce will be profound.
【4】outstrip超過,勝過
【5】out-think以智取勝切蟋,比…更善于思考统捶,思考得比…正確(或深刻、迅速等)
【6】broadside猛烈抨擊
The end of the arbitrage【7】
Multinational firms (those that do a large chunk of their business outside their home region) employ only one in 50 of the world’s workers. But they matter. A few thousand firms influence what billions of people watch, wear and eat. The likes of IBM, McDonald’s, Ford, H&M, Infosys, Lenovo and Honda have been the benchmark【8】 for managers. They co-ordinate the supply chains that account for over 50% of all trade. They account for a third of the value of the world’s stockmarkets and they own the lion’s share【9】 of its intellectual property—from lingerie【10】 designs to virtual-reality software and diabetes drugs.
【7】arbitrage套利柄粹,套匯喘鸟,套購
【8】benchmark基準
【9】the lion’s share (of sth) 最大或最好的一份
【10】lingerie女士內衣
They boomed in the early 1990s, as China and the former Soviet bloc opened and Europe integrated. Investors liked global firms’ economies of scale and efficiency. Rather than running themselves as national fiefs【11】, firms unbundled【12】 their functions. A Chinese factory might use tools from Germany, have owners in the United States, pay taxes in Luxembourg and sell to Japan. Governments in the rich world dreamed of their national champions becoming world-beaters. Governments in the emerging world welcomed the jobs, exports and technology that global firms brought. It was a golden age.
【11】fief封地,勢力范圍
【12】unbundle 分門別類驻右,分類
Central to the rise of the global firm was its claim to be a superior moneymaking machine. That claim lies in tatters【13】 (see Briefing). In the past five years the profits of multinationals have dropped by 25%. Returns on capital have slipped to their lowest in two decades. A strong dollar and a low oil price explain part of the decline. Technology superstars and consumer firms with strong brands are still thriving. But the pain is too widespread and prolonged to be dismissed as a blip【14】. About 40% of all multinationals make a return on equity【15】 of less than 10%, a yardstick【16】 for underperformance. In a majority of industries they are growing more slowly and are less profitable than local firms that stayed in their backyard. The share of global profits accounted for by multinationals has fallen from 35% a decade ago to 30% now. For many industrial, manufacturing, financial, natural-resources, media and telecoms companies, global reach has become a burden, not an advantage.
【13】in tatters破爛不堪什黑,破敗的,坍塌的
【14】blip暫時性的問題堪夭,變故愕把,(儀表屏幕上的)光點
【15】return on equity股權收益率,股本盈利
【16】yardstick碼尺森爽,準繩恨豁,衡量標準
That is because a 30-year window of arbitrage is closing. Firms’ tax bills have been massaged down as low as they can go; in China factory workers’ wages are rising. Local firms have become more sophisticated. They can steal, copy or displace global firms’ innovations without building costly offices and factories abroad. From America’s shale industry to Brazilian banking, from Chinese e-commerce to Indian telecoms, the companies at the cutting edge【17】 are local, not global.
【17】cutting edge尖端,最前沿爬迟,優(yōu)勢
The changing political landscape is making things even harder for the giants. Mr Trump is the latest and most strident【18】 manifestation of a worldwide shift to grab more of the value that multinationals capture. China wants global firms to place not just their supply chains there, but also their brainiest activities such as research and development. Last year Europe and America battled over who gets the $13bn of tax that Apple and Pfizer pay annually. From Germany to Indonesia rules on takeovers, antitrust and data are tightening.
【18】strident強硬的橘蜜,咄咄逼人的,刺耳的
Mr Trump’s arrival will only accelerate a gory【19】 process of restructuring. Many firms are simply too big: they will have to shrink their empires. Others are putting down deeper roots in the markets where they operate. General Electric and Siemens are “l(fā)ocalising” supply chains, production, jobs and tax into regional or national units. Another strategy is to become “intangible”. Silicon Valley’s stars, from Uber to Google, are still expanding abroad. Fast-food firms and hotel chains are shifting from flipping burgers and making beds to selling branding rights. But such virtual multinationals are also vulnerable to populism because they create few direct jobs, pay little tax and are not protected by trade rules designed for physical goods.
【19】gory血腥的雕旨,殘暴的
Taking back control
The retreat of global firms will give politicians a feeling of greater control as companies promise to do their bidding【20】. But not every country can get a bigger share of the same firms’ production, jobs and tax. And a rapid unwinding of the dominant form of business of the past 20 years could be chaotic. Many countries with trade deficits (including “global Britain”) rely on the flow of capital that multinationals bring. If firms’ profits drop further, the value of stockmarkets will probably fall.
【20】to do sb's bidding服從某人扮匠;bidding命令,吩咐凡涩,請求
What of consumers and voters? They touch screens, wear clothes and are kept healthy by the products of firms that they dislike as immoral, exploitative and
aloof【21】
. The golden age of global firms has also been a golden age for consumer choice and efficiency. Its
demise【22】
may make the world seem fairer. But the retreat of the multinational cannot bring back all the jobs that the likes of Mr Trump promise. And it will mean rising prices, diminishing competition and slowing innovation. In time, millions of small firms trading across borders could replace big firms as transmitters of ideas and capital. But their weight is tiny. People may yet look back on the era when global firms ruled the business world, and regret its passing.
【21】aloof冷漠棒搜,冷淡;keep/hold oneself aloof, remain/stand aloof不參與活箕,漠不關心力麸,無動于衷
【22】demise終止,倒閉,死亡
【小結】
跨國公司正在撤回本國(heading home),原因不只是保護主義的威脅克蚂。特朗普討厭很多事情闺鲸,大型跨國公司就是其中之一。人們譴責跨國公司將就業(yè)機會輸出到國外埃叭、將工廠建在他國而對美國民眾進行了一場“大屠殺(carnage)”摸恍。對此,特朗普的回答是馴服(domesticate)這些四處劫掠(marauding)的跨國公司赤屋。較低的稅率會把現(xiàn)金引入國內立镶,邊境收費會對跨境供應鏈構成阻礙(hobble)。特朗普的保護主義論調非常強硬类早,但從很多角度來看他的思想已經(jīng)落伍(behind the times)媚媒。跨國公司在2016年民粹主義反抗之前就已經(jīng)節(jié)節(jié)敗退(in retreat)涩僻,其財務狀況下滑而無法勝過(outstripping)本土公司缭召,為了消減成本和智勝(out-think)本土競爭者也已精疲力盡。特朗普猛烈抨擊(broadsides)的對象正是那些非常脆弱(vulnerable)逆日、已經(jīng)在撤回本國的公司嵌巷。跨國公司所雇員工僅占全球的1/50屏富,但這些公司非常重要晴竞。幾千個公司影響著幾十億人的生活。像IBM狠半、麥當勞、福特汽車颤难、H&M神年、Infosys、聯(lián)想行嗤、本田這樣的公司已日,對于經(jīng)營管理者來說都是行業(yè)的標桿(benchmark)。這些公司擁有絕大部分(the lion’s share)知識產權栅屏,從女士內衣(lingerie)設計到虛擬現(xiàn)實軟件和糖尿病藥物飘千,不一而足≌祸ǎ跨國公司在90年代早期蓬勃發(fā)展(boomed)护奈。它們沒有固守本國“封地(fiefs)”,而是對職能部門進行分類細化(unbundled their functions)哥纫。富裕國家的政府希望自己國家的一流企業(yè)成為舉世無比的強者(becoming world-beaters)霉旗。新興市場國家的政府歡迎跨國公司帶來就業(yè)機會、出口和技術。那是個黃金時代厌秒《敛穑跨國公司的崛起,關鍵在于自詡為賺錢機器鸵闪,然而這種說法已被擊碎(lies in tatters)檐晕。在過去五年里,跨國公司的利潤下降了25%蚌讼,資本回報率跌至20年來的最低水平(slipped to their lowest in two decades)辟灰。這種痛苦,范圍廣泛啦逆,影響深遠伞矩,絕不能視為暫時性問題(blip)而輕視。約40%的跨國公司的股權收益率(return on equity)不足10%夏志,這個數(shù)字正是股票弱勢(underperformance)的衡量標準(yardstick)乃坤。這是因為30年的套利窗口期(window of arbitrage)走向終結。公司稅單已經(jīng)不能再低沟蔑。中國工廠的工人工資正在上漲湿诊。本土公司變得更加精明老練(sophisticated)。各行各業(yè)最前沿的(at the cutting edge)企業(yè)已經(jīng)不是跨國公司瘦材,而是本土企業(yè)厅须。風云突變的政治前景讓巨型公司更難生存。世界各國開始充分利用跨國公司的價值食棕,特朗普的強硬(strident)手段體現(xiàn)了這種轉變朗和。中國不僅希望跨國公司將供應鏈設在中國,還希望其在中國開展研發(fā)等智力活動簿晓。特朗普執(zhí)政只會加快血腥的(gory)重組進程眶拉。很多公司規(guī)模太大了,需要將其宏偉帝國縮小憔儿。還有些公司在各自市場扎根越來越深忆植。另一個策略是“無形化”。但這種虛擬跨國公司在民粹主義面前還是很脆弱谒臼〕跨國公司對政客的命令言聽計從(promise to do their bidding),其撤退會讓政客有一種更強烈的控制感蜈缤。但并不是每個國家都能在同一公司的生產拾氓、就業(yè)和納稅環(huán)節(jié)占有更多的份額。過去20年來主導的商業(yè)形式快速撤退劫樟,會帶來混亂的局面痪枫。那么消費者和選民又會受到哪些影響呢织堂?他們認為跨國公司道德缺失、唯利是圖奶陈、冷漠無情(aloof)易阳,而他們使用的電子產品、衣物和保健用品正是來自其憎恨的這些企業(yè)吃粒×拾常跨國公司的消亡(demise)可能讓世界更公平。但其撤退并不能將特朗普之輩許諾的就業(yè)機會全部帶回本國徐勃。其結果是事示,物價上漲,競爭減弱僻肖,創(chuàng)新減慢肖爵。人們回想起跨國公司統(tǒng)治世界的年代,只能扼腕嘆息臀脏。
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