外刊翻译：如何学习经济学人文章（5）

战争迷雾

通用电气的高管和董事会若想拯救这家公司，需要大大提高信息的质量

IN THEIR documentary“The Vietnam War”, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, the directors,dwell on theflawed informationthat American politicians got from Indo-China. The generals on the groundfocused onthe“kill ratio”, or the number of enemies killed per American or South Vietnamese soldiers killed. That bore no relationship to victory—North Vietnam quickly replaced its dead soldiers. And it corrupted behaviour, leading American troops to embellish numbers and count dead civilians as “wins”.

肯·伯恩斯（Ken Burns）和林恩·诺维克（Lynn Novick）在他们执导的纪录片《越南战争》（The Vietnam War）中详述了美国政客从印度支那获取的情报有多不可靠。前线的美军将领一味强调“杀敌比率”，即每个美国士兵的杀敌数量，或南越士兵的杀敌数量。这与胜利并无关联——北越很快就补充了士兵。这也将人们引入歧途，美军开始美化数字，将死亡的平民也算作“胜利”。

Dwell on

1.动词

If you dwell on something,[especially]something[unpleasant], you[think], speak, or write about it a[lot]or for[quite]a long time.

Flawed information情报有多不可靠，采用了将形+名结构转换成小短句的处理方法。

Focus on一味强调，注意语气色彩

The curse of rotten information canstrike（打击） companies, too. That seems to be the case with General Electric (GE), which has had a vertiginous fall. Its shares, cashflow and forecast profits have dropped by about 50% since 2015. On January 16th it disclosed a huge, $15bn capital shortfall at its financial arm due to a revision in insurance reserves. And on January 24th it revealed a $10bn loss for the fourth quarter. In its core industrial arm, returns on capital have sunk from 20% in 2007 to apuny5% in 2017.

糟糕的情报这一祸根也会在企业中埋下。（业绩）惨遭重大滑坡的通用电气（GE）似乎便属于这种情况。自2015年以来，其股价、现金流和利润预期已下跌了约50%。上月16日，GE透露（披露）其金融部门因保险业务储备金方面的调整而出现150亿美元的巨大资本缺口。24日，公司公布第四季度亏损100亿美元。其核心工业部门的资本回报率从2007年的20%缩水至2017年惨淡的5%。

Rotten

1.形容词

If food, wood, or another substance is rotten, it has decayed and can no longer be used.腐烂

Vertiginious

A vertiginous[cliff]or mountain is very high and[steep].陡峭且高的（悬崖/山峰）

Puny

形容词

Someone or something that is puny is very small or[weak].

GE’s boss, John Flannery, an**insider（与空降相对）**who took office in August, must clear up the mess made by his predecessor, Jeff Immelt. He seems to recognise the gravity of the situation. In November he gave a frank presentation to investors. Last month he suggested that GE might be broken up. Yet an unnerving sense lingersthat no one fully understands what has gone wrong.

GE的老板约翰·弗兰纳里（John Flannery）从公司内部一路成长起来，于去年8月走马上任。他必须清理前任掌门人杰夫·伊梅尔特（Jeff Immelt）留下的烂摊子。他似乎也认识到了局势的严峻。11月，他向投资者做了坦诚的报告。上月，他暗示GE也许会分拆。不过，一种让人不踏实的感觉仍挥之不去：恐怕没人完全明白GE到底是哪里出了问题。

Linger

1.动词

When something such as an idea, feeling, or[illness]lingers, it continues to exist for a long time, often much longer than[expected].

Is the conglomerate formerly known as the world’s best-run firm a victim of weak demand for gas turbines, a low oil price, lavish digital initiatives, timing lags in client payments,morbidityrates, bad deals, cost overruns or a 20-year squeeze in industrial-equipment margins because of Chinese competition? You can imagine GE’s 12-man board blinking at this list, like Pentagon generals huddled around maps of the Gulf of Tonkin which they are too embarrassed to admitthey do not understand.

这家曾列全球运营最佳的企业集团何以落入困境？是因为燃气轮机需求疲软吗？油价低？数字项目烧钱？客户延迟付款？患病率影响？糟糕的并购交易？成本超支？还是因为来自中国的竞争在过去20年里持续挤压工业设备利润？想象得出GE的12人董事会正盯着这些选项茫然地眨着眼睛，就像五角大楼里的将军们聚集在北部湾地图的周围，人人都不好意思承认自己其实一头雾水。

Is the conglomerate formerly known as the world’s best-run firm a victim of weak demand for gas turbines, a low oil price, lavish digital initiatives, timing lags in client payments, morbidity rates, bad deals, cost overruns or a 20-year squeeze in industrial-equipment margins because of Chinese competition?

这段拆分为多个问句处理得很好。

但是“这家曾列全球运营最佳的企业集团何以落入困境？”这句话翻得不通顺，建议改成：

这家曾经享有全球最佳运营公司美誉的企业巨头何以落入困境？

“是因为燃气轮机需求疲软吗？油价低？数字项目烧钱？客户延迟付款？患病率影响？糟糕的并购交易？成本超支？”

并列问句处理上，有的是名+动，有些是形+名结构，不太对称。

Morbidity有两个含义

state, quality, or instance of being morbid

the rate of disease or[proportion]of[diseased]persons in a given locality,[nation], etc.

我认为原文翻译成患病率不容易理解，最好改成员工患病率。

Schumpeter’s theory is that GE’s flow of financial information has become fantastically muddled. There is lots of it about (some 200 pages are released each quarter) and it is audited by KPMG. But it offersvolume and ambiguityinstead of brevity and clarity. It is impossible—certainly for outsiders, probably for the board, and possibly for Mr Flannery—to answer central questions. How much cashflow does GE sustainably make and where? How much capital does itemploy and where? What liabilities must be serviced before shareholders get their profits?

本专栏认为，GE的财务信息已变得极其混乱。GE披露了大量财务信息（每个季度公布的信息多达二百来页），又有毕马威来做审计，但这些信息庞杂而含混，欠缺简洁和明晰。靠这些信息无法回答那些关键问题：GE持续获得的自由现金流有多少，来自哪里？它动用了多少资本，资本流向了哪里？在股东们获得收益之前，GE须先偿还哪些债务？公司**以外的（外部）**人士肯定无法回答，董事会很可能也一样，弗兰纳里说不定也是如此。

Perhaps GE has a better, parallel accounting system that itkeeps under wraps. But the public one reveals eight problems. First, it has no consistent measure of performance. This year it has used 18 definitions of group profits and cashflow. As of September 2017, the highest number was double the average one. There is a large gap between most measures of profits and free cashflow.

也许GE有一个更好的、未公之于众的平行会计系统，但其公开的系统**（已经）**暴露出八个问题。首先，GE缺少衡量绩效的一致标准。今年，它采用了18个定义来衡量集团的利润和现金流。截至2017年9月，最高数字比平均数字高出一倍。大部分利润及自由现金流衡量结果之间都存在巨大差异。

This year it has used 18 definitions of group profits and cashflow.

原译：今年，它采用了18个定义来衡量集团的利润和现金流。

缺乏情感色彩，建议改为，今年以来，它用来衡量集团利润和现金流的定义已有18个之多。

英文单词/词组释义均来自柯林斯词典。柯林斯英英词典的释义说明基本采用了十分浅显、简单的英语，对初学者十分友好。