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There are spectacular differences between financial markets on the Continent of Europe on the one hand, and in Britain on the other hand. In Britain, the market is really the City of London. It is a free market, and it controls most of the flow of savings to investment. On the Continent, either a few banks or government officials direct the flow of funds to suit their economic plans. In Germany the flow is directed by all-powerful banks. In Britain there is more free interplay of market forces and far fewer regulations, rules and "red tape". A French banker summed it up this way: "On the Continent you can’t do anything unless you’re been told you can; in England on the other hand you can do everything as long as you haven’t been told not to."There are many basic reasons for these differences. One is that Continental savers tend to prefer gold, cash or short-term assets. They invest only 10% of their savings in institutions like pension funds or insurance companies. But in Britain 50% of savings goes to them, and they, in turn, invest directly in equity market. A far lower proportion of savings is put in the banks in the form of liquid assets than on the Continent. Continental governments intervene directly or through the banks to collect savings together and transform them into medium or long-term loans for investment. The equity market is largely bypassed. On the Continent economic planning tends to be far more centralized than in Britain. In Britain it is possible to influence decisions affecting the country’s economy from within the City. It attracts a skilled and highly qualified work force. In France, on the other hand, an intelligent young man who wants a career in finance would probably find the civil service more attractive.In Britain the market, or more accurately, money tends to be regarded as an end in itself. On the Continent it is regarded as a means to an end: investment in the economy. To British eyes continental systems with possible exception of the Dutch seem slow and inefficient. But there is one outstanding fact the City should not overlook. Britain’s growth rates and levels of investment over the last ten years have been much lower than on the Continent. There are many reasons for this, but the City must take part of the blame. If it is accepted that the basic function of a financial market is to supply industry and commerce with finance in order to achieve desired rates of growth, it can be said that by concentrating on the market for its own sake the City has tended to forget that basic function. In what way does the continental system seem better().
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Scattered through the seas of the world are billions of tons of small plants and animals called plankton. Most of these plants and animals are too small for the human eye to see. They drift about lazily with the currents, providing a basic food for many larger animals. Plankton has been described as the equivalent of the grasses that grow on the dry land continents, and the comparison is an appropriate one. In potential food value however, plankton far outweighs that of the land grasses. One scientist has estimated that while grasses of the world produce about 49 billion tons of valuable carbohydrates each year. The sea’s plankton generates more than twice as much.Despite its enormous food potential, little effort was made until recently to farm plankton as we farm grasses on land. Now marine scientists have at last begun to study this possibility, especially as the sea’s resources loom even more important as a means of feeding an expanding world population.No one yet has seriously suggested that "planktonburgers" may soon become popular around the world. As a possible farmed supplementary food source, however, plankton is gaining considerable interest among marine scientists.One type of plankton that seems to have great harvest possibilities is a tiny shrimp like creature called krill. Growing to two or three inches long, krill provide the major food for the giant blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit the Earth. Realizing that this whale may grow 100 feet and weigh 150 tons at maturity, it is not surprising that each one devours more than one ton of krill daily.Krill swim about just below the surface in huge schools sometimes miles wide, mainly in the cold Antarctic. Because of their pink color, they often appear as a solid reddish mass when viewed from a ship or from the air. Krill are very high in food value. A pound of these crustaceans contains about 460 calories—about the same as shrimp or lobster, to which they are related.If the krill can feed such huge creatures as whales, many scientists reason, they must certainly be contenders as new food source for humans. What is mentioned as one conspicuous feature of krill().
In the last 12 years total employment in the United States grew faster than at any time in the peacetime history of any country—from 82 to 110 million between 1973 and 1985— that is, by a full one third. The entire growth, however, was in manufacturing and especially in no-blue-collar jobs...This trend is the same in all developed countries, and is, indeed, even more pronounced in Japan. It is therefore highly probable that in 25 years developed countries such as the United States and Japan will employ no larger a proportion of the labor force In manufacturing than developed countries now employ in farming—at most, 10 percent. Today the United States employs around 18 million people in blue-collar jobs in manufacturing industries. By 2010, the number is likely to be no more than 12 million. In some major industries the drop will be even sharper. It is quite unrealistic, for instance, to expect that the American automobile industry will employ more than one-third of its present blue-collar force 25 years hence, even though production might be 50 percent higher.If a company, an industry or a country does not in the next quarter century sharply increase manufacturing production and at the same time sharply reduce the blue-collar work force, it cannot hope to remain competitive—or even to remain "developed." The attempt to preserve such blue-collar jobs is actually a prescription for unemployment...This is not a conclusion that American politicians, labor leaders or indeed the general public can easily understand or accept. What confuses the issue even more is that the United States is experiencing several separate and different shifts in the manufacturing economy. One is the acceleration of the substitution of knowledge and capital for manual labor. Where we spoke of mechanization a few decades ago, we now speak of "robotization" or "automation". This is actually more a change in terminology than a change in reality. When Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in 1909, he cut the number of man-hours required to produce a motor car by some 80 percent in two or three years—far more than anyone expects to result from even the most complete robotization. But there is no doubt that we are facing a new, sharp acceleration in the replacement of manual workers by machines—that is, by the products of knowledge. American politicians and labor leaders tend to dislike ().
The gift of being able to describe a face accurately is a rare one, as every experienced police officer knows to his cost. As the Lancet put it recently: " When we try to describe faces precisely words fail us and we resort to identikit(拼脸型图)procedures."Yet, according to one authority on the subject, we can each probably recognize more than 1,000 faces, the majority of which differ in fine details. This, when one comes to think of it, is a tremendous feat, though, curiously enough, relatively little attention has been devoted to the fundamental problems of how and why we acquire this gift for recognizing and remembering faces. Is it an inborn property of our brains, or an acquired one As so often happens, the experts tend to differ.Thus, some argue that it is inborn, and that there are "special characteristics about the brain’s ability to distinguish faces". In support of this they note how much better we are at recognizing a face after a single encounter than we are, for example, in recognizing an individual horse. On the other hand, there are those, and they are probably in the majority, who claim that the gift is an acquired one.The arguments in favor of this latter view, it must be confessed, are impressive. It is a habit that is acquired soon after birth. Watch, for instance, how a quite young baby recognizes his mother by sight. Granted that his other senses help—the sound, his sense of smell, the distinctive way she handles him. But of all these, sight is predominant. Formed at the very beginning of life, the ability to recognize faces quickly becomes an established habit, and one that is, essential for daily living, if not necessarily for survival. How essential and valuable it is we probably do not appreciate until we encounter people who have been deprived of the faculty.This unfortunate inability to recognize familiar faces is known to all, but such people can often recognize individuals by their voices, their walking manners or their spectacles. With typical human ingenuity many of these unfortunate people overcome their handicap by recognizing other characteristic features. According to the passage, how important is the ability to recognize faces().
In the last 12 years total employment in the United States grew faster than at any time in the peacetime history of any country—from 82 to 110 million between 1973 and 1985— that is, by a full one third. The entire growth, however, was in manufacturing and especially in no-blue-collar jobs...This trend is the same in all developed countries, and is, indeed, even more pronounced in Japan. It is therefore highly probable that in 25 years developed countries such as the United States and Japan will employ no larger a proportion of the labor force In manufacturing than developed countries now employ in farming—at most, 10 percent. Today the United States employs around 18 million people in blue-collar jobs in manufacturing industries. By 2010, the number is likely to be no more than 12 million. In some major industries the drop will be even sharper. It is quite unrealistic, for instance, to expect that the American automobile industry will employ more than one-third of its present blue-collar force 25 years hence, even though production might be 50 percent higher.If a company, an industry or a country does not in the next quarter century sharply increase manufacturing production and at the same time sharply reduce the blue-collar work force, it cannot hope to remain competitive—or even to remain "developed." The attempt to preserve such blue-collar jobs is actually a prescription for unemployment...This is not a conclusion that American politicians, labor leaders or indeed the general public can easily understand or accept. What confuses the issue even more is that the United States is experiencing several separate and different shifts in the manufacturing economy. One is the acceleration of the substitution of knowledge and capital for manual labor. Where we spoke of mechanization a few decades ago, we now speak of "robotization" or "automation". This is actually more a change in terminology than a change in reality. When Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in 1909, he cut the number of man-hours required to produce a motor car by some 80 percent in two or three years—far more than anyone expects to result from even the most complete robotization. But there is no doubt that we are facing a new, sharp acceleration in the replacement of manual workers by machines—that is, by the products of knowledge. The word "prescription" in "a prescription for unemployment" may be the equivalent to ().
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