2005年毕业后，我在一家美国著名的投资银行工作了三年。那段时间，是我迄今为止人生经历中最辛苦的日子，也是最开心的一段日子

　　我做梦都没想到，我的第一份工作会干得那么辛苦。2005年毕业后，我在一家美国著名的投资银行工作了三年。那段时间，是我迄今为止人生经历中最辛苦的日子，也是最开心的一段日子，同时为我未来的职业发展打下坚实的基础。

　　我还清楚地记得，我第一天上班时，董事总经理代表公司欢迎我们120位新的分析员时说：“我们很荣幸聘请到你们这批优秀人才。你们看看身边的同事，他们很有可能30年后是全球大企业的CEO，或者是政府高官，甚至美国总统。”他是指我们这120位二十多岁的大学毕业生，能成功通过艰难的投行招聘历程，表明我们拥有美国大学中优秀人才所需具备的素质，并且暗示我们的前途无量。

　　那位董事总经理又说：“再好好看一看你们身边的同事吧。在未来的几年中，他们会是你最好的朋友。”他指的是，进入了这个行业，生活节奏就会发生巨大的改变。投行的分析员每周工作时间常常高于80小时，最忙碌时甚至达到110小时，朝夕相处的就是身边的同事。因此，跟同事保持良好关系极其重要。

　　虽然我对投行的工作时间长有心理准备，但真正体验这种生活时，我感到辛苦两个字是远远不够的。公司特别为分析员设立了休息房间，已说明了这一点。

　　有时候，我们要同时准备几份财务分析和会议讨论材料，整整一个星期，每天只能睡一、两个小时。同事们开玩笑地说：“我们哪里是人在工作，而是肾上腺素在工作。”等到任务完成的时候，身体真的像被榨干了一样。

　　一般来讲，不吃午饭，不去洗手间，是常有的事。拼命干活时，肚子饿得咕咕叫，而工作完成后，肚子已经失去了饥饿的感觉。

　　最难堪的一次是我熬了两晚没睡觉准备讨论资料，然后参加客户会议。因为分析员通常不在会议中参与讨论，我支撑不住睡着了。旁边的经理在桌子下踢醒我，可是已经太迟了，最终还是被客户发现。会议后，我被总经理骂得面红耳赤。同时，他还不无关切地说：“知道你很辛苦，需要的话，你应该说腰疼站起来，这样就不会睡着了。”这更让我感到无地自容。

　　除了工作时的辛苦，个人的生活也会受到影响。因为分析员对于自己的休闲时间不能掌握，包括周末。我记得刚工作的时侯，有几次约好朋友周六吃晚饭，聊聊天。往往客户一个电话就把计划完全打乱。经历过几次，朋友的电话少了，约会也少了。

　　不可否认，虽然作为投行的分析员是一份异常辛苦的工作，但对于期望在商业或金融领域发展的毕业生来说，这确实是个非常好的训练基地。

　　作为投行分析师，我也常常受到企业的聘请，帮助他们分析应该通过哪种方式融资或进行企业并购。分析项目时，需要研究行业的增长趋势、竞争局面、公司成本结构等等。因此这让我对所分析的行业有了深刻的了解，增长了知识。将来，无论是为大企业打工，或者自己创办或投资企业，这些辛苦的锻炼都是非常重要的本钱。

　　对我来讲，最具有吸引力的是，这份工作能让自己有机会跟各国大企业的高级管理层进行直接接触。在投行第一年中，最爽的一刻莫过于，我帮一家美国大企业做融资项目的路演时，坐着私人飞机，摇着酒杯，和公司高管在几千米的高空“聊天”。

　　工作三年，辛苦三年，也是开心的三年。为什么开心？三更半夜，还有一大班同事在一起忙碌，偶尔，休息一会儿，叫点儿外卖，八卦一下。同事都变成了兄弟姐妹，应了刚来时董事长的一番话。

　　我是幸运的，在投行工作期间，正值行业的高峰期。现在投行的境况一落千丈。从各个方面来看，都不像我工作时的那样了。年薪没有那么高，待遇不会那么好，竞争激烈了，分析员之间的关系可能也没有那么融洽了。然而，我仍觉得，对于一个刚刚走出大学的学子来说，投行还是一份很理想的工作。

Will the Chinese Communist Party Survive the Crisis?

----How Beijing's Shrinking Economy May Threaten One-Party Rule

Until recently, most leading China watchers thought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had become remarkably resilient. Through learning and adaptation, it seemed, the world's largest and most powerful one-party regime had become politically nimble and skillful enough to overcome difficulties that would have overwhelmed lesser autocratic rulers. For two decades, the party has compiled an impressive list of achievements: at home it has kept the economy growing at a gravity-defying double-digit rate, while abroad it has pursued a pragmatic foreign policy, avoiding confrontation with the United States and methodically gaining prestige and influence.

Because of the global economic crisis, however, Beijing is in trouble. The problems are numerous: China's exports are plummeting, tens of millions of migrant laborers have lost their jobs, millions of college graduates cannot find employment, industrial overcapacity is threatening deflation, and the once red-hot real estate sector has nose-dived. The country's faltering growth is posing the hardest test yet to the CCP's resilience.

To be sure, the Chinese economy has fared less badly than many others. The country's insulated banking sector remains largely unscathed. Indeed, the government's fiscal balance sheet is strong enough to fund a $580 billion stimulus package (although only about a quarter represents genuinely new fiscal spending). China's colossal $1.9 trillion in foreign exchange reserves provide a comfortable insurance policy against global financial turmoil, and the country should be able to avoid an outright recession. 

But a reduced annual growth rate -- now down to about seven percent from over 11 percent a couple of years ago -- will bring enough trouble. Every year, the Chinese labor market grows by more than ten million workers, the bulk of whom are leaving the countryside for urban areas in search of employment. Each percentage point of GDP growth translates into roughly one million new jobs a year, which means that China needs GDP to rise at least ten percent every year in order to absorb the influx of laborers.

The real glue that has held the CCP together is a vast patronage system that has been underwritten by a long period of economic growth.

With no end to the global crisis in sight, many are wondering how long China's economic doldrums will last and what the political impact of stagnation will be. The conventional wisdom is that low growth will erode the party's political legitimacy and fuel social unrest as jobless migrants and college graduates vent their frustrations through riots and protests. Although this forecast is not necessarily wrong, it is incomplete.

Strong economic performance has been the single most important source of legitimacy for the CCP, so prolonged economic stagnation carries the danger of disenchanting a growing middle class that was lulled into political apathy by the prosperity of the post-Tiananmen years. And economic policies that favor the rich have already alienated industrial workers and rural peasants, formerly the social base of the party. Even in recent boom years, grass-roots unrest has been high, with close to 90,000 riots, strikes, demonstrations, and collective protests reported annually. Such frustrations will only intensify in hard times.

It might seem reasonable to expect that challenges from the disaffected urban middle class, frustrated college graduates, and unemployed migrants will constitute the principal threat to the party's rule. If those groups were in fact to band together in a powerful coalition, then the world's longest-ruling party would indeed be in deep trouble. But that is not going to happen. Such a revolutionary scenario overlooks two critical forces blocking political change in China and similar authoritarian political systems: the regime's capacity for repression and the unity among the elite.  

Economic crisis and social unrest may make it tougher for the CCP to govern, but they will not loosen the party's hold on power. A glance at countries such as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba, and Burma shows that a relatively unified elite in control of the military and police can cling to power through brutal force, even in the face of abysmal economic failure. Disunity within the ruling elite, on the other hand, weakens the regime's repressive capacity and usually spells the rulers' doom.

The CCP has already demonstrated its remarkable ability to contain and suppress chronic social protest and small-scale dissident movements. The regime maintains the People's Armed Police, a well-trained and well-equipped anti-riot force of 250,000. In addition, China's secret police are among the most capable in the world and are augmented by a vast network of informers. And although the Internet may have made control of information more difficult, Chinese censors can still react quickly and thoroughly to end the dissemination of dangerous news.  

Since the Tiananmen crackdown, the Chinese government has greatly refined its repressive capabilities. Responding to tens of thousands of riots each year has made Chinese law enforcement the most experienced in the world at crowd control and dispersion. Chinese state security services have applied the tactic of "political decapitation" to great effect, quickly arresting protest leaders and leaving their followers disorganized, demoralized, and impotent. If worsening economic conditions lead to a potentially explosive political situation, the party will stick to these tried-and-true practices to ward off any organized movement against the regime.

If popular unrest is not a true threat to the party's continued rule, then what is? The answer could likely be disunity among the country's elite. Those who talk of China's "authoritarian resilience" consider elite unity to be one of the CCP's most significant achievements in recent decades, citing as evidence technocratic dominance, a lack of ideological disputes, the creation of standardized procedures for the promotion and retirement of high officials, and the relatively smooth leadership succession from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao.

But there are reasons to remain skeptical of such apparent harmony -- arrangements of power that are struck in times of economic prosperity often come undone when crisis hits.

The current Chinese leadership is a delicately balanced coalition of regional, factional, and institutional interests, which makes it vulnerable to dissension. To most Western eyes, China is blessed with strong, capable, and decisive leaders. But to the Chinese leaders themselves, the situation looks somewhat different. Their resumés are remarkably similar, as are their records as administrators. No single individual towers above the others in terms of demonstrated leadership, vision, or performance -- which means that no one is beyond challenge, and the stage is set for jockeying for preeminence.

So far, the real glue that has held the CCP together is a vast patronage system that has been underwritten by a long period of economic growth. The regime has used its financial resources to balance domestic interests, satisfy different constituencies, and purchase the contingent support of China's social elites. But this patronage system is extremely expensive -- administrative expenses alone consume more than 20 percent of China's government budget, and over 40 percent of China's GDP comes from fixed-asset investments such as factories and warehouses -- a sector that is state-dominated and stuffed with pork. In other words, China's nonideological ruling elites have stuck with the party because it has been paying them off. But when economic hardship ends the easy handouts, the elites' support and loyalty to the system can no longer be taken for granted.

Rising social discontent may not be enough to force the party out of power, but it might be sufficient to tempt some members of the elite to exploit the situation to their own political advantage. Such political entrepreneurs could use populist appeals to weaken their rivals and, in the process, open up divisions within the party's seemingly unified upper ranks.

Any of these sources of elite dissension could lead to confusion and turmoil within the Chinese state's repressive apparatus, rendering it less capable of containing social instability and thus creating a vicious cycle of events that could result in progressive destabilization.

Does this mean the CCP's rule is doomed? Not yet. The government has weathered the early stages of the crisis successfully, and even tensions within its upper ranks might yield something less than regime change. But as the economic slowdown continues, some political impact in China is likely -- and any change is apt to come from the top rather than the bottom.

大国崛起的物质主义陷阱