天上掉餡餅

1、A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight times larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world's best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.　

一段長(zhǎng)時(shí)間并且不費(fèi)力而成功的歷史可能成為一種可怕的不利因素，但若處理得當(dāng)，這種不利因素也有可能轉(zhuǎn)化為一種積極的推動(dòng)力。二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束后，美國(guó)恰好進(jìn)入了這樣的一個(gè)輝煌時(shí)期，當(dāng)時(shí)，它擁有比任何競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者大8倍的市場(chǎng)，這使其工業(yè)經(jīng)濟(jì)具有前所未有的規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)。美國(guó)的科學(xué)家是世上最優(yōu)秀的，它的工人是最富于技術(shù)的。美國(guó)的國(guó)富民強(qiáng)是那些經(jīng)濟(jì)遭到戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)破壞的歐亞諸國(guó)做夢(mèng)也無(wú)法達(dá)不到的。

2、It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith. (Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea's LG Electronics in July.) Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America's machine-tool industry was on the ropes. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.

隨著其他國(guó)家日益強(qiáng)盛，美國(guó)的這一優(yōu)勢(shì)地位逐漸下降是不可避免的。從優(yōu)勢(shì)地位上退出的痛苦也同樣是不可避免的。到了80年代中期，面對(duì)其日益衰退的工業(yè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力，美國(guó)人感到不知所措。面對(duì)國(guó)外競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，一些大型的美國(guó)工業(yè)，如消費(fèi)電子產(chǎn)業(yè)，已經(jīng)萎縮或漸漸消失。到1987年，美國(guó)只剩下Zenith這一家電視生產(chǎn)商。（現(xiàn)在一家也沒(méi)有了：Zenith于當(dāng)年7月被韓國(guó)LG電器公司收購(gòu)。）外國(guó)制造的汽車(chē)和紡織品正在大舉進(jìn)入國(guó)內(nèi)市場(chǎng)。美國(guó)的機(jī)床工業(yè)也即將滅亡。人們?cè)�一度感覺(jué)下一個(gè)在海外品牌面前全軍覆沒(méi)的似乎該輪到美國(guó)的半導(dǎo)體制造業(yè)了，而在新計(jì)算機(jī)時(shí)代有著核心作用的半導(dǎo)體正是美國(guó)人發(fā)明的。

3、All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America's industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.

所有這一切導(dǎo)致了信任危機(jī)。美國(guó)不再視繁榮為理所當(dāng)然之事。他們開(kāi)始相信自己的商業(yè)經(jīng)營(yíng)方式不靈了，也相信不久他們的收入也會(huì)因此而下降。80年代中期，人們對(duì)美國(guó)工業(yè)衰退的成因作了一次又一次的探尋。在美國(guó)人那些有時(shí)聳人聽(tīng)聞的發(fā)現(xiàn)中充滿著對(duì)其他國(guó)家日益增長(zhǎng)的經(jīng)濟(jì)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的警告之詞。

4、How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self-doubt has yielded to blind pride. "American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted," according to Richard Cavanaugh, executive dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity," says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as "a golden age of business management in the United States."

情況的變化真快！1995年，當(dāng)日本還在奮力拼搏的時(shí)候，美國(guó)卻可以對(duì)5年的穩(wěn)固發(fā)展作一回顧了。沒(méi)幾個(gè)美國(guó)人將這一巨變單純歸因于美元貶值或商業(yè)周期循環(huán)這些顯而易見(jiàn)的原因。到如今，對(duì)自身的懷疑已被盲目樂(lè)觀所取代。“美國(guó)的工業(yè)已經(jīng)改變了結(jié)構(gòu)，消除了滯脹，學(xué)會(huì)了明智”，這是哈佛大學(xué)肯尼迪管理學(xué)院行政院長(zhǎng)理查德•卡佛納的看法。華盛頓特區(qū)的智囊團(tuán)——卡托研究院的史蒂芬•莫爾說(shuō)：“看到我們的企業(yè)正在提高自身的生產(chǎn)率，作為一個(gè)美國(guó)人，我感到自豪�！惫�佛商學(xué)院的威廉•薩爾曼相信人們將會(huì)把這一時(shí)期視為“美國(guó)企業(yè)管理的黃金時(shí)代”。

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