Many United States companies have, unfortunately, made the search for legal protection from import competition into a major line of work. Since 1980 the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has received about 280 complaints alleging damage from imports that benefit from subsides by foreign governments. Another 340 charge that foreign companies "dumped" their products in the United States at "less than fair value". Even when no unfair practices are all alleged, the simple claim that an industry has been injured by imports is sufficient ground to seek relief.Contrary to the general impression, this quest for import relief has hurt more companies than it has helped. As corporations begin to function globally, they develop an intricate Web of marketing, production, and research relationships. The complexity of these relationships makes it unlikely that a system of import relief laws will meet the strategic needs of all the units under the same parent company.Internationalization increases the danger that foreign companies will use import relief laws against the very companies the laws were designed to protect. Suppose a United States-owned company establishes an overseas plant to manufacture a product while its competitor makes the same product in the United States. If the competitor can prove injury from the imports-and that the United States company received a subsidy from a foreign government to build its plant abroad-the United States company’s products will be uncompetitive in the United States, since they would be subject to duties.Perhaps the most brazen case occurred when the ITC investigated allegations that Canadian companies were injuring the United States salt industry by dumping rock salt, used to deice roads. The bizarre aspect of the complaint was that a foreign conglomerate with United States operations was crying for help against a United States company with foreign operations. The "United States" company claiming injury was a subsidiary of a Dutch conglomerate, while the "Canadian" companies included a subsidary of a Chicago firm that was the second largest domestic producer of rock salt. The main idea of the passage can best be described as ().
A. arguing against the increased interationalization of United States corporations
B. warning that the application of laws affecting trade frequently has unintended consequences
C. demonstrating that foreign based firms receive more subsidies from their governments than United States firms receive from the United States government
D. advocating the use of trade restrictions for "dumped" products but not for other imports
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在报关注册登记后,进出口货物收发货人取得报关权,可以接受他人委托,代其办理报关纳税手续。()
A. 对
B. 错
The first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in the spring of 1981 was a revolutionary development in space exploration. Unlike the rockets of the previous twenty years, Columbia has the enormous advantages of being specially designed to return to earth and make further flights. Among a large number of projects scientists are investigating its future use. The most exciting, perhaps, is that the first steps can now be taken towards establishing human colonies in space. The present Space Shuttle can only stay in space for about a week, but it could take people out to build "islands" where they stay for longer periods. By the year 2050 scientists estimate that man will be able to construct permanent settlements.The first "islands" would be energy stations. There would be no hope of establishing colonies in space unless people could obtain energy there, instead of getting it from the earth. However, if the original could convert solar energy into electricity, it would be possible to provide the equivalent of a filling station for cars on earth, allowing the Space Shuttle to refuel and stay in orbit for longer periods of time.If this initial project were successful, much larger solar energy stations would be constructed later with materials brought out by the Shuttle.Eventually, man would be able to construct an "inhabitable planet" in space. Why is the Space Shuttle Columbia special()
A. Because it is not similar to the spaceships of the previous twenty years.
Because it has different designs and is able to return to earth and make further flights.
C. Because it can be used in a variety of ways now.
D. Because it can be used to establish colonies on eart
After millennia of growth which was so slow that each generation hardly noticed it, the cities are suddenly racing off in every direction. The world population goes up by two percent a year, city population goes up by four percent a year, but in big cities the rate may be as much as five and six percent a year. (61) To give only one example of almost visible acceleration. Athens today grows by three dwellings and 100 square meters of road every hour. There is no reason to believe that this pace will slacken. (62) As technology gradually swallows up all forms of work, industrial and agricultural, the rural areas are going to shrink, just as they have shrunk in Britain, and the vast majority of their people will move into the city. In fact, in Britain now only about four or five percent of people live in rural areas and depend upon them; all through the developing world the vanguard of the rural exodus has reached the urban fringes already, and there they huddle in shanty towns. We are heading towards an urban world.(63) This enormous increase will go ahead whatever we do, and we have to remember that the new cities devour space. People now acquire far more goods and things. (64) There is a greater density of household goods, they demand more services such as sewage and drainage. Above all, the car changes everything: rising incomes and rising populations can make urban car density increase by something like four and five percent in a decade; traffic flows rise to fill whatever scale of highways are provided for them. The car also has a curious ambivalence: it creates and then it destroys mobility. The car tempts people further out and then gives them the appalling problem of getting back. It makes them believe they can spend Sunday in Brighton, but makes it impossible for them to return before, say, two in the morning. (65) People go further and further away to reach open air and countryside which continuously recedes from them, and just as their working weeks decline and they begin to have more time for leisure, they find they cannot get to the open spaces or the recreation or the beaches which they now have the time to enjoy. To give only one example of almost visible acceleration. Athens today grows by three dwellings and 100 square meters of road every hour.