2012雅思阅读推荐：the Innovation of Ameirica

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2012雅思阅读推荐：the Innovation of Ameirica
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这篇雅思阅读材料的主要内容是虽然美国的经济正在复苏，但是，美国人的信心仍然深陷在经济危机当中没有回复。在2月份的一次对于世界经济的领导力量的调查中，大多数人选择了中国。所以美国的经济复苏虽然充满了想法，但是还需付出实践。
　　Still full of ideas, but not making jobs
  ^+ d" Q% G' O1 k: l- u　　America needs to share the benefits of innovation more widely
　　THE economy is recovering, yet American confidence remains mired at levels more commonly seen in recessions. For that blame unemployment, petrol prices and a deeper, nagging feeling that America is in decline. A Gallup poll in February asked Americans to name the world’s leading economic power. By a significant margin, they said China.
- X3 P5 F+ q- S3 b) t& m　　Barack Obama has exploited this anxiety. America, he has said, faces a new “Sputnik moment” and must “compete for the jobs and industries of our time” by spending more on research, education and infrastructure. But the notion that America is on the verge of being vanquished by cleverer, more innovative competitors is flawed. First, competitiveness is a woolly concept that wrongly supposes countries, like football teams, win only when another team loses. But one country’s economic growth does not subtract from another’s. Second, America’s ability to innovate and raise productivity remains reasonably healthy. The problem is that the benefits of that innovation and productivity have become so narrowly concentrated that workers’ median wages have stagnated.1 2尾页

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　　Adam Segal, author of “Advantage: How American Innovation can Overcome the Asian Challenge”, says Asia’s threat to American technological leadership is overstated. China’s research output is soaring, but much of it is poor-quality or based on plagiarism. Chinese companies are seizing market share in solar panels and wind turbines largely because of low manufacturing wages, says Mr Segal: “They have made no major breakthroughs in any of the underlying technologies.” R&D spending in India is minuscule.
4 p0 p- J' P& G8 D1 q　　The real problem for America is not its innovative capacity, but the fact that its benefits go to relatively few. This is illustrated by a recent paper by Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo, both of New York University. They divided jobs among tradable and non-tradable sectors. Tradable sectors include manufacturing, commodities and services such as finance and engineering that compete globally. Value-added per person, a proxy for productivity, rose sharply in this sector, but the number of jobs actually declined between 2000 and 2008. The opposite was true in the non-tradable services such as government and health care. There real value-added rose only sluggishly, but employment expanded significantly. Behind this, says Mr Spence, is the trend of American multinationals to keep the highest value-added activities at home while shifting lower value-added activities, such as manufacturing, abroad.
* W( j+ X( O+ l8 `! w: \5 {, X　　Qualcomm, a developer of mobile-phone chips and technology based in San Diego, earns roughly 40% of its revenue from licensing and royalty fees for technology developed primarily in America, where three-quarters of its employees work. Last year it spent $2.5 billion, or roughly 20% of revenue, on R&D for such projects as developing Mirasol, an easy-to-read, energy-efficient phone display. Paul Jacobs, the company’s boss, complains about high corporate-tax rates and the difficulty of getting immigrant visas for foreign-born engineers and scientists, but maintains that America is not about to be superseded as a centre for innovation. In California Qualcomm has access to the best college graduates and a pool of ideas and recruits generated by a nexus of established and start-up companies.1  2 尾页