阅读理解It’s hard to remember that in the 1980s Japan had the world’s most admired economy. It would, people widely believed, achieve the highest living standards and pioneer the niftiest technologies. Nowadays, all we hear are warnings not to repeat the mistakes that resulted in Japan’s “lost decade” of economic growth. Japan’s cardinal sins, we’re told, were skimping on economic “stimulus” and permitting paralyzing “deflation”. People postponed buying, because they expected prices to go lower. That’s the conventional wisdom—and it’s wrong.Japans economic eclipse shows the limits of economic stimulus and, at least in modest doses, the exaggerated threat of deflation. There is no substitute for vigorous private-sector job creation and investment, and that’s missing in Japan. This is a lesson we should heed.Japan’s economic problems, like ours, originated in huge asset “bubbles.” From 1985 to 1989, Japan’s stock market tripled. Land prices in major cities also tripled by 1991. The crash was brutal. By year-end 1992, stocks had dropped 57 percent from 1989. Land prices fell in 1992 and are now at early-1980s levels. Wealth declined. Banks—having lent on the collateral of inflated land values— weakened. Some became insolvent. The economy sputtered. It grew about 1 percent annually in the 1990s, down from more than 4 percent in the 1980s.Despite massive stimulus, rapid growth hasn’t resumed two decades later. Although the Japanese reacted slowly, they adopted the advice of economics textbooks. They raised spending, cut taxes, and let budget deficits balloon. Gross government debt soared from 63 percent of the economy’s gross domestic product in 1991 to 101 percent of GDP by 1997. It’s now about 200 percent. The Bank of Japan (its Federal Reserve) cut interest rates, going to zero in 1999—a policy that, with some interruptions, endures.Japan’s lackluster performance has two main causes. One is the “dual economy”: a highly efficient export sector (the Toyotas and Toshibas) offset by a less dynamic domestic sector. Until the 1980s, Japan depended on export-led growth that created jobs and investment. An undervalued yen helped. You had 20 percent of the economy carrying the other 80 percent/’ says Richard Katz of The Oriental Economist.But the yen’s appreciation in the mid-1980s—making Japan’s exports more expensive—doomed this economic strategy. Ever since, Japan has searched in vain for a substitute. Cheap credit (which fueled the original “bubbles”) and many “reforms” haven’t sufficed. Japan’s domestic sector remains arthritic. Japan has the lowest rates of business creation among major industrial countries. Indeed, its best recent years of economic growth, from 2003 to 2007, occurred when a weaker yen revived exports.The second problem is an aging, declining population, which dampens domestic spending. For decades, Japan’s traditional family—a workaholic husband, a stay-at-home wife, and two children— has been besieged, as anthropologist Merry White of Boston University shows in her book Perfectly Japanese. Even in 1989, the fertility rate (children per adult woman) of 1.57 was below the replacement rate of about two. The poor economy further discourages family formation. For men, the age of first marriage is 35, up from 27 in 1990, says White. The fertility rate is about 1.3.So Japan’s economy is trapped: a high yen penalizes exports; low births and sclerotic firms hurt domestic growth. The lesson for us is that massive budget deficits and cheap credit are, at best, necessary stopgaps. They can’t correct underlying economic deficiencies. “Stimulus” policies are now the main focus of U.S. economic debate—but shouldn’t be. Success or failure ultimately depends on private firms. We ought to encourage their expansion by reducing regulatory burdens and policy uncertainty. If we don’t, our mediocre recovery could mimic Japan’s.

阅读理解In January 1995, the world witnessed the emergence of a new international economic order with the launching of the World Trade Organization. The WTO, which succeeds the GATT, is expected to strengthen the world trading system and to be more effective than the GATT in governing international trade in goods and services in many aspects.First trade liberalization all over the world is expected to increase via the dramatic reductions in trade barriers to which the members of the WTO are committed. Under the WTO, members are required to reduce their tariff and non-tariffs on manufacturing goods. In addition, protecting domestic agricultural sectors from foreign competition will become awfully difficult in the new WTO system.Second, rules and regulation governing international trade will be more strongly enforced. Under the old system of the GATT, there were many cases where trade measures, such as antidumping and countervailing duties, were intentionally used solely for protectionist reasons. The WTO’s strengthened rules and regulations will significantly reduce the abusing of such trade measures by its member countries. The WTO is also equipped with an improved dispute settlement mechanism. Accordingly, we expect to see a more effective resolution of trade disputes among the member countries in this new trade environment.Third, new multilateral rules have been established to cover areas which the GATT did not address, such as international trade in services and the protection of intellectual property rights. There still remain a number of problems that need to be resolved before international trade in services can be completely liberalized, and newly- developed ideas or technologies are fairly compensated. However, just the establishment of multilateral rules in these new areas is a distinguished contribution to the progress toward a global free trade system.Along with the launching of the WTO, this new era in world trade is characterized by a change in the structure of the world economy. Today, a world-wide market for goods and services is rapidly replacing a world economy composed of relatively isolated national markets. Domestic financial markets have been integrated into a truly global system, and the multinational corporation is becoming a principle mechanism for allocating investment capital and determining the location of production sites throughout much of the world.

阅读理解This historic landing of a spacecraft on a comet turned out to be not one but three landings as the craft hopped across the surface. Because of the failure of a thruster that was to press it against the comet’s surface after touching down, the European Space Agency’s Philae lander, part of the $1.75 billion Rosetta mission, bounded up more than half a mile before falling to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko again nearly two hours later, more than half a mile away. That is a considerable distance across a comet that is only 2.5 miles wide.Philae then bounced again, less high, and ended up with only two of its three legs on the surface, tipped against a boulder, a wall of rock or perhaps the side of a hole. “We are almost vertical, one foot probably in the open air — open space. I’m sorry, there is no air around,” Jean-Pierre Bibring, the lead lander scientist, said at a news conference on Thursday.In the skewed position, Philae’s solar panels are generating much less power than had been planned, and when its batteries drain in a couple of days, it may not be able to recharge. As the comet rotates once every 12 hours, the lander is receiving only about 1.5 hours of sunlight instead of the expected six to seven hours.Despite the bumpy landing, Philae remained in contact with the Rosetta orbiter and performed its initial set of observations, including photographs of a cliff above the spacecraft. Stephan Ulamec, the lander’s manager, said he was reluctant to do anything requiring mechanical movement that might tip Philae onto its back. “We need to be very careful about deploying instruments,” he said.Later in the day, however, scientists announced via Twitter that they would proceed with plans to use Philae’s Mupus instrument (short for Multipurpose Sensors for Surface and Subsurface Science), which is to hammer a 14-inch-long hollow rod into the comet to measure properties including temperature, density and hardness. “We will deploy the Mupus penetrator for 2/3 of the max. length and then insert it,” the post said. “Should happen before midnight. Keep fingers crossed.”Philae is the first spacecraft to land on a comet, a remarkable feat that will allow scientists to investigate one of the frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system. When the touchdown signal arrived at the spacecraft operations center in Darmstadt, Germany, the celebrations started.The lander had hit its landing target almost exactly, Dr. Bibring said. Dr. Ulamec reported that its speed at landing was about one meter per second, or 2.2 miles per hour, a leisurely walking pace.But two harpoons that were to have secured Philae to the surface never fired. And so, with radio signals taking 28 minutes to travel the 316 million miles from Rosetta, as mission scientists were celebrating its landing, Philae was back in space; it had recoiled upward at a speed of 38 centimeters a second, or less than a mile per hour. With the weak gravitational pull of the comet, Philae traveled high and far before touching down gain.The second bounce was smaller, with the lander leaving the surface at less than one-tenth the speed of the first bounce. “We have a better understanding now how we got there,” Dr. Ulamec said. “We still do not really know where.” Joel W. Parker, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., who has worked on the Rosetta project, said scientists had much to learn from the lander’s signals. “They may have enough data to sift through from the various instruments to do a ‘C.S.I. Philae’ and piece it all together,” Dr. Parker said by email.Dr. Bibring took some umbrage at suggestions that the landing was a failure, pointing to the wealth of scientific data that has already been collected and how much had gone right.It’s gorgeous where we are,” he said.

阅读理解Americans are proud of their variety and individuality, yet they love and respect few things more than a uniform, whether it is the uniform of an elevator operator or the uniform of a five-star general. Why are uniforms so popular in the United States? Among the arguments for uniforms, one of the first is that in the eyes of most people they look more professional than civilian clothes. People have become conditioned to expect superior quality from a man who wears a uniform. The television repairman who wears a uniform tends to inspire more trust than one who appears in civilian clothes. Faith in the skill of a garage mechanic is increased by a uniform. What easier way is there for a nurse, a policeman, a barber, or a waiter to lose professional identity than to step out of uniform? Uniforms also have many practical benefits. They save on other clothes. They save on laundry bills. They are tax-deductible. They are often more comfortable and more durable than civilian clothes. Primary among the arguments against uniforms is their lack of variety and the consequent loss of individuality experienced by people who must wear them.Though there are many types of uniforms, the wearer of any particular type is generally stuck with it, without change, until retirement. When people look alike, they tend to think, speak, and act similarly, on the job at least. Uniforms also give rise to some practical problems. Though they are long-lasting, often their initial expense is greater than the cost of civilian clothes. Some uniforms are also expensive to maintain, requiring professional dry cleaning rather than the home laundering possible with many types of civilian clothes.

阅读理解On the 36th day after they had voted, Americans finally learned Wednesday who would be their next president: Governor George W. Bush of Texas.Vice President Al Gore, his last realistic avenue for legal challenge closed by a U. S. Supreme Court decision late Tuesday, planned to end the contest formally in a televised evening speech of perhaps 10 minutes, advisers said.They said that Senator Joseph Lieberman, his vice presidential running mate, would first make brief comments. The men would speak from a ceremonial chamber of the Old Executive office Building, to the west of the White House.The dozens of political workers and lawyers who had helped lead Mr. Gore’s unprecedented fight to claw a come- from-behind electoral victory in the pivotal state of Florida were thanked Wednesday and asked to stand down.“The vice president has directed the recount committee to suspend activities,” William Daley, the Gore campaign chairman, said in a written statement.Mr. Gore authorized that statement after meeting with his wife, Tipper, and with top advisers including Mr. Daley.He was expected to telephone Mr. Bush during the day. The Bush campaign kept a low profile and moved carefully, as if to leave space for Mr. Gore to contemplate his next steps.Yet, at the end of a trying and tumultuous process that had focused world attention on sleepless vote counters across Florida, and on courtrooms from Miami to Tallahassee to Atlanta to Washington the Texas governor was set to become the 43d U. S. president.The news of Mr. Gore’s plans followed the longest and most rancorous dispute over a U. S. presidential election in more than a century, one certain to leave scars in a badly divided country.It was a bitter ending for Mr. Gore, who had outpolled Mr. Bush nationwide by some 300000 votes, but, without Florida, fell short in the Electoral College by 371 votes to 367—the narrowest Electoral College victory since “the turbulent election” of 1876.Mr. Gore was said to be distressed by what he and many Democratic activists felt was a partisan decision from the nation’s highest court.The 5-to-4 decision of the Supreme Court held, in essence, that while a vote recount in Florida could be conducted in legal and constitutional fashion, as Mr. Gore had sought, this could not be done by the Dec. 13 deadline for states to select their presidential electors.James Baker 3rd, the former secretary of state who represented Mr. Bush in the Florida dispute, issued a short statement after the U. S. high court ruling, saying that the governor was “very pleased and gratified.Mr. Bush was planning a nationwide speech aimed at trying to begin to heal the country’s deep, aching and varied divisions. He then was expected to meet with congressional leaders, including Democrats. Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush’s ruing mate, was meeting with congressmen Wednesday in Washington.When Mr. Bush, who is 54, is sworn into office on Jan.30, he will be only the second son of a president to follow his father to the White House, after John Adams and John Quincy Adams in the early 19th century.Mr. Gore, in his speech, was expected to thank his supporters, defend his hive-week battle as an effort to ensure, as a matter of principle, that every vote be counted, and call for the nation to join behind the new president. He was described by an aide as “resolved and resigned.While some constitutional experts had said they believed states could present electors as late as Dec. 18, the U. S. high court made clear that it saw no such leeway.The U.S. high court sent back “for revision” to the Florida court its order allowing recounts but made clear that for all practical purposes the election was over.In its unsigned main opinion, the court declared, “The recount process, in its features here described, is inconsistent with the minimum procedures necessary to protect the fundamental right of each voter.That decision, by a court fractured along philosophical lines, left one liberal justice charging that the high court’s proceedings bore a political taint.Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in an angry dissent: “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law.”But at the end of five seemingly endless weeks, during which the physical, legal and constitutional machines of the U. S. election were pressed and sorely tested in ways unseen in more than a century, the system finally produced a result, and one most Americans appeared to be willing at lease provisionally to support.The Bush team welcomed the news with an outward show of restraint and aplomb. The governor’s hopes had risen and fallen so many times since Election night, and the legal warriors of each side suffered through so many dramatic reversals, that there was little energy left for celebration.

单选题These were the people who _____ using force to stop violence.

单选题As a boy Mark Twain used to play practical jokes _____ all friends and neighbors.

单选题The tenant left nothing behind except some _____ of paper, cloth, etc.

单选题I hope my teacher will take my recent illness into _____ when judging my examination.

单选题Instead of trying to imitate reality in their works, many artists of the early twentieth century _____ their feelings and ideas in abstract art.

单选题Jean Wagner’s most enduring contribution to the study of Afro American poetry is his insistence that it _____ in a religious, as well as worldly, frame of reference.

单选题Shares on the stock market have _____ as a result of a worldwide economic downturn.

单选题It took him several months to _____ the wild horse.

单选题Whenever possible, Ian _____ how well he speaks Japanese.

单选题This organization brought Western artists together in the hope of making more of an impact on the art community _____ any of them could individually and to promote Western art by women.

单选题By cutting down trees we _____ the natural home of birds and animals.

单选题We went on a(n) _____ to the mountain yesterday.

单选题The fire was started when a passing motorist carelessly _____ a cigarette out of his car.

单选题Their insecurities too often _____ the managers of invaluable support, just when they needed it most.

单选题During the summer holiday season there are no _____ rooms in this seaside hotel.