1. The American economic system is, organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most.
美国的经济基本是以私有企业和市场导向经济为架构的，在这种经济下，消费者在市场上为那些他们想要的货品和服务付费，在很大程度上决定了什么应该被制造出来。
2. Thus, in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.
因此，在美国的经济体系中，个体消费者的需求、商人试图化其利润的欲望、个人想化其收入效用，这三种欲望相结合，决定了什么应该被制造出来，也决定了如何用资源来制造它们。
3. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product.
另一方面，如果大量制造某种商品导致其成本下降，那么这就有可能增加卖方和制造商能的供给，这样反过来又降低了价格，让更多的消费者购买产品。
4. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.
在美国经济中，私有财产的概念不仅包含对生产资源的所有权，也指其他一些特定的权利，如制定一个产品价格的权利、与另一个私人个体(经济单位) 自由签定合同的权利。
5. At the same time these computers record which hours are busiest and which employers are the most efficient, allowing personnel and staffing assignments to be made accordingly. And they also identify preferred customers for promotional campaigns.
同时这些计算机记录下哪些时段是忙的，哪些员工工作效率，这样就能相应地做出人员人事安排。而且计算机也能找到促销活动的对象顾客。
6. Numerous other commercial enterprises, from theaters to magazine publishers, from gas and electric utilities to milk processors, bring better and more efficient services to consumers through the use of computers.
从剧院到杂志出版商，从公用燃气电力设施到牛奶处理厂，不计其数的其他商业企业，都通过使用计算机给消费者带来更好、更高效的服务。
7. Exceptional children are different in some significant way from others of the same age. For these children to develop to their full adult potential, their education must be adapted to those differences.
残疾儿童在许多方面都与其同龄人十分不同。为了让这些孩子在成长过程中充分发展潜能，他们的教育必须适应这些不同。
8. The great interest in exceptional children shown in public education over the past three decades indicates the strong feeling in our society that all citizens, whatever their special conditions, deserve the opportunity to fully develop their capabilities.
在过去的30年中，公共教育中显示的对残疾儿童的巨大关注表明了我们社会中的一种中强烈的情绪，那就是所有的公民，不管其情况有多特殊，都应享有充分发展其能力的机会。
9. It serves directly to assist a rapid distribution of goods at reasonable price, thereby establishing a firm home market and so making it possible to provide for export at competitive prices.
它(广告)能够直接帮助货物以比较合理的价格迅速分销出去，这样(公司)可以建立稳固的国内市场，同时也使提供更具有竞争力出口价格变成可能。
10. Apart from the fact that twenty-seven acts of Parliament govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dare promote a product that fails to live up to the promise of his advertisements.
即使议会没有27条规范广告的法案，任何一个正式的广告商也都不敢推销一种无法兑现其在广告中承诺的商品。
11. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back.
一些机构终于松了一口气，但是其他一些机构——包括教堂，倡导生命权利的团体和澳大利亚医学协会——都尖锐地抨击这个法案，指责法案的通过过于匆忙。但是似乎大势已定，不可逆转了。
12. In Australia - where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their part - other states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia.
在澳大利亚，人口老龄化、延长寿命的技术、变化着的社会态度都在发挥作用。其他的州也会考虑制定类似的有关安乐死的法律。
13. There are, of course, exceptions. Small--minded officials, rude waiters, and ill mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment.
当然，例外是存在的。在美国，心胸狭窄的官员、粗鲁的餐厅服务员、没有礼貌的出租车司机也并不少见。然而这样的情况太多了，值得人们探讨这些问题。
14. We live in a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances (drugs) is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves.
我们生活在一种药品(药物)的医学用途和社会用途都很广泛的社会里： 用一片阿司匹林止头痛，用葡萄酒来社交，早上喝咖啡提神，抽一支烟来定神。
15. Dependence is marked first by an increased tolerance, with more and more of the substance required to produce the desired effect, and then by the appearance of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the substance is discontinued.
对药品的依赖性首先表现为不断增长的耐药量，要想得到同样的效果所需要的药品剂量越来越大，然后表现为停止用药后，出现令人不适的停药症状。
16. "Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers?" Senator Robert Dole asked Time Warner executives last week. "You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well?"
上星期参议员罗博特多尔质问时代华纳公司的高级管理人员们："难道这就是你们想要成就的事业?你们已经出卖了自己的灵魂，但是难道你们还非要腐化我们的国家，威胁到我们的孩子们吗?"
17. "The test of any democratic society," he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column, "lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be..."
"对任何一个民主社会的考验，"他在《华尔街杂志》的一个专栏文章中写到，"不在于它能够多有效地控制各种意见的表达，而在于这个社会是否能给予尽可能广泛的思想自由和表达自由，无论有时这种结果是多么容易引起争议，多么令人不快…"
18. During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month’s stockholders’ meeting, Levin asserted that "music is not the cause of society’s ills" and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students.
在上个月的股东大会上关于摇滚歌词的讨论中，莱文宣称说："音乐不是社会问题的根源"，他甚至还用他的儿子作为例子。他的儿子是纽约州布朗克斯的教师，用说唱音乐与学生们进行沟通。
19. Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as "steering the economy to a soft landing" of "a touch on the brakes" , makes it sound like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
有很多用于描述货币政策的词汇，例如"触动经济刹车"以"操纵经济软着陆"，这样货币政策听起来像是一门的科学。没有什么比这样描述货币政策更远离事实的了。
20. They have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since, conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America’s, have little productive slack.
他们对英美两国良好的通货膨胀数据尤其感到惊讶，因为传统的计算方法显示两国的经济，特别是美国的经济，几乎没有生产淡季。
