CATTI二級口譯精講第30講講義

篇章練習（二）

Globalization has had a major influence on government behavior. The extent to which government in different political systems accepted the rules of globalization is quite remarkable. It has carried with it great benefits for China and for Asia, but, at the same time, has involved serious risks and costs.1

Globalization involves both the organization of industry and the structure of the financial markets.2 //

We have had global corporations for decades. Once, a global corporation with subsidiaries in a number of countries would have those subsidiaries organized as a mirror image of itself.3 While many international companies are still organized in this traditional manner, change is under way and corporations who move too slowly will be left behind. //

Now a globalized company will have quite a different structure. The products or services may be the same. But instead of separating national units in different countries, there will be only one selling unit---the world. Some aspects of corporate activity will obviously be organized locally but the main frame of the corporation will be organized on a global basis, sourcing different production components from the best current source. //

The new global organization of industry has consequences for social policy.4 Many governments would have conducted policies designed to see that workers gained a fair share of the returns of an enterprise. With the globalization of industry, such policies are much more difficult to sustain. Governments now tend to arguer for lower wages, for smaller workforces, to maximize the competitiveness of their particular country as a home for global investment.5 //

Accompanying these changes we find a growing disparity in wealth between rich and poor in may countries. This may not matter so much if the poor were also becoming better off compared to their own earlier standards but in many cases this is not so. Even in wealthy countries, some workers are paid a wage which could not support even the smallest of families. In this day, if that is what the market determines, then that is what must happen. //

It has long been recognized that6 a fair and competitive market place is a rare thing---an equal number of suppliers, an equal number of buyers, all of the same financial strength. Such situations do not exist. That is why anti-trust legislation was born. It is why fair trading practices were put in place. With the internationalization of trade and commerce, with the globalization of corporations, such national rules to preserve fair trading are no longer effective. //

For the most part there are no international rules. Where there has been an attempt to establish such rules, they often have a rather different purpose. For example the European Union sought to promote a multilateral agreement on investment. If it had been accepted, it probably would have reduced the authority of nationalgovernments even further and given global corporations and even more influential position. //

In today's world, governments must fashion their policies7 to meet the wishes of the international market-place.

There are fundamental differences from earlier times.

The global organization of industry in which national boundaries become irrelevant is certainly new.8 Information technology can operate much faster and with more devastating effect than the old cable system of the last hundred years. This has led to an explosive growth in financial markets. //

The volume of money traded each day is huge. It dwarfs the funds needed to finance trade and normal commerce between nations.9 It is far more important in determining the value of a currency than is the impact of finance for trade or for investment. In one day, trade in financial instruments of one kind or another can be sufficient to finance world trade and investment for an entire year. //

Through modern communications, this finance has great mobility. And as Peter Drucker put it in an article in Foreign Affairs: "It serves no economic function and finances nothing. This money also does not follow economic logic or rationality. It is volatile and easily panicked by rumor or unexpected events."10//

Peter Drucher also pointed out that in 1995 when the United States senate failed to pass a balanced budget amendment, that the world's currency traders panicked and started a run on the US dollar which they believed was already undervalued at least 10% against the Japanese yen. At that time, the dollar fell from 106 yen to less than 80 yen in two weeks. //

The central banks of the United States, England, Germany, Japan,Switzerland and France, tried to reverse the trend but failed, losing billions in the attempt. It took the dollar more than a year to climb back to its original undervalued rate. //

(Excerpts from the speech delivered by The Right Hon. John Malcolm Fraser, former prime minister of Australia at CPPCC's "21st Century Forum") 來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/kouyi/201408/318099.shtml