In the past several days, I took hold of basic steps to economist reading, from which I benefit a lot. I used to focus too much on language itself, and often found myself lost in a pyramid, and got too much information to bear in mind. It's just beyond my capability. The same is also true with my listening. When I listened to materials relevant to economy, politics and military events, it felt like I couldn't even catch the words, let alone the meaning of it. When I finally caught something in the beginning, I would lose the rest of it. It's not balanced. SO, take a small step back to see its landscape is probably a good choice for me. It does work in reading. Hope I can make it in listening.
The very thing that I learnt from the reading Amazon's Empire is to read with a purpose and be ready for access to more details online for further reference in order to have a better understanding of author's purpose and the structure of forming his idea.
For instance, when I read about Amazon's "bloated" stock price, the curiosity of how to see through it stirred my action of searching online for ways of evaluating the extent of market capitalization.
The most striking thing lies in the difficulty in clearing up what the writer is trying to express. Positive or negative? My thought went to the latter when I first finished reading it. But, the deeper I got into the details, the more I began to figure out its real purpose. It's not an easy process. And I do believe I need more practice to train my critical thinking with support of specific details along with transitive words.
Wish I can make it.
As for Amazon, what I used to know is its business in selling books (both online and paper books) and other services (Prime). In my own life, its business leaves me an impression of great convenience. Whenever I want to buy paper books, the first website that comes to my mind is Amazon. Moreover, I do have a favor in its Kindle thing. It is not till the moment I read this article that I began to make a clear map of what Amazon really is. Its bloated market capitalization, its sheer breadth of activities, its long-term goals, all those unusual things indicate its potential in cranking out money and luring customers. The transition from a nearly bankrupt company to the fifth most valuable firm in the world shows its clout to make a difference, which makes up the source of sustained faith from investors.
Today, I piled up all the documents and materials about Economist. During the process of integrating seperated pieces, I found a very interesting question.
How to transfer understading of an article with eyes into that with ear?
Read aloud more so as to transfer phrases (chunking, not single words) familiar to my eyes into those familiar to my ears. This is a good way to accumulate vocabs so that less time will be spent thinking about their meanings.
Another way is to analyze components of a sentence. Even a sentence with 20 words may be divided into just 3-4 components. It saves storage of memorizing other key info.
Draw a tree in the brain to put each part of the article in certain position rather in a straight line which poses hard to recall them.
Listen very often.
As for the article itself, I do believe competition is great way to shake off an industry and to keep an open door for more fresh blood. However, the competition needs regulation in case it transfers into vicious circle. European regulators may not own those retailing banks. So they can keep a balance between entrants. In China, when it comes to state-owned enterprises, the nation wants to kick-start competition while makes sure the survival of state-owned enterprises. Take Didi, Uber and state-owned taxis companies as an example. Government welcome Didi and Uber to join this market to shake off traditional Taxi market. However, when its companies are threatened by those new-comers, they stood to interfere. Therefore, it's lean times for Uber drivers now.
The same is also true with the competition between national banks and WeChat and AliPay payment, who charge extra fee for withdrawing money out of it. This is partly due to pressure from government to keep its own banks.
Another kind of competition is just like what the article mentioned between Meituan and Eleme, between Mobike and Ofo. Competition enables customers to benefit from better service with discounts for a certain time. But, under predatory pricing, some brand may evolve to take up the major part of market, leading to rise of price.
