题目内容
Ever since Milton Friedman"s address to the American Economic Association in 1968 and the ensuing theoretical work by Robert Lucas and others in the 1970s, the rising long-term inflation expectations have inexorably led to higher inflation. 【K1】______This summer the European Central Bank followed through with a rate hike. In the US, the Federal Reserve is nervously eyeing the latest jumps in producer and consumer prices. Evidence of long-term inflation expectations can be gleaned from breakeven inflation rates on index-linked bonds. Surveys of consumers suggest their expectations for inflation have risen as well. For example, the University of Michigan asks Americans where they think inflation will be over the next 5-10 years. Two years ago they said it would be 2. 9 per cent. Earlier this summer the tally spiked to a more worrisome 3. 4 per cent. Soaring prices for energy and food are mostly to blame. However, as Friedman pointed out, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. The central question is not about inflation expectations. Nor is it about commodity prices, however quickly they may be rising. 【K2】______That is where the story gets more complicated. Are monetary conditions easy Is there spare capacity In the US, slack is appearing in the economy, as seen in rising unemployment, now up to 5. 7 per cent. Negative real interest rates suggest monetary conditions are easy. But the Fed"s own surveys suggest that bankers are less willing to lend; consumers less willing to borrow. Low real interest rates are a manifestation of economic and financial malaise, not excessive monetary accommodation. 【K3】______. So, what are we to make of higher inflation expectations in the US and western Europe Investors and households seem to believe energy and food prices will continue to rise. But will other prices and wages automatically follow suit 【K4】______Perhaps that is why consumer confidence has plummeted on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, households may say they expect higher inflation, but there is little they can do about it. The reality is they are experiencing falling real incomes and pinched balance sheets. That is hardly the stuff of overheating. The Friedman-Lucas emphasis on inflation expectations was a model suited to different times. Central bankers no longer try to ramp growth by springing inflation surprises on unwitting workers. Unionization has declined, automatic cost-of-living adjustments are rare, globalization has reduced pricing power for most companies and bargaining power for most workers. Today, advanced economies are confronted with stagnating growth, collapsing housing markets, slowing world trade, stressed financial systems, and weak household balance sheets. This is not the 1970s. 【K5】______We should therefore be skeptical of the case for tighter monetary policies based on models developed in, and better suited for, a bygone era. Choose the following sentences marked A to E to complete the above article. Write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET. A. Altogether, the case for accelerating US inflation looks weak in the face of below-trend growth and stuttering credit conditions B. Broad-based price and wage inflation is unlikely today C. And so, dutifully, central bankers in the US, UK, euro-zone and even in some emerging economies have spoken reproachfully in recent months about signs that inflation expectations are moving up D. Rather, inflation is determined by the interplay between monetary conditions and capacity in the economy to grow without pushing most prices higher E. Stagnating growth and tighter credit conditions suggest the opposite 【K2】
查看答案
搜索结果不匹配？点我反馈
更多问题
Ever since Milton Friedman"s address to the American Economic Association in 1968 and the ensuing theoretical work by Robert Lucas and others in the 1970s, the rising long-term inflation expectations have inexorably led to higher inflation. 【K1】______This summer the European Central Bank followed through with a rate hike. In the US, the Federal Reserve is nervously eyeing the latest jumps in producer and consumer prices. Evidence of long-term inflation expectations can be gleaned from breakeven inflation rates on index-linked bonds. Surveys of consumers suggest their expectations for inflation have risen as well. For example, the University of Michigan asks Americans where they think inflation will be over the next 5-10 years. Two years ago they said it would be 2. 9 per cent. Earlier this summer the tally spiked to a more worrisome 3. 4 per cent. Soaring prices for energy and food are mostly to blame. However, as Friedman pointed out, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. The central question is not about inflation expectations. Nor is it about commodity prices, however quickly they may be rising. 【K2】______That is where the story gets more complicated. Are monetary conditions easy Is there spare capacity In the US, slack is appearing in the economy, as seen in rising unemployment, now up to 5. 7 per cent. Negative real interest rates suggest monetary conditions are easy. But the Fed"s own surveys suggest that bankers are less willing to lend; consumers less willing to borrow. Low real interest rates are a manifestation of economic and financial malaise, not excessive monetary accommodation. 【K3】______. So, what are we to make of higher inflation expectations in the US and western Europe Investors and households seem to believe energy and food prices will continue to rise. But will other prices and wages automatically follow suit 【K4】______Perhaps that is why consumer confidence has plummeted on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, households may say they expect higher inflation, but there is little they can do about it. The reality is they are experiencing falling real incomes and pinched balance sheets. That is hardly the stuff of overheating. The Friedman-Lucas emphasis on inflation expectations was a model suited to different times. Central bankers no longer try to ramp growth by springing inflation surprises on unwitting workers. Unionization has declined, automatic cost-of-living adjustments are rare, globalization has reduced pricing power for most companies and bargaining power for most workers. Today, advanced economies are confronted with stagnating growth, collapsing housing markets, slowing world trade, stressed financial systems, and weak household balance sheets. This is not the 1970s. 【K5】______We should therefore be skeptical of the case for tighter monetary policies based on models developed in, and better suited for, a bygone era. Choose the following sentences marked A to E to complete the above article. Write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET. A. Altogether, the case for accelerating US inflation looks weak in the face of below-trend growth and stuttering credit conditions B. Broad-based price and wage inflation is unlikely today C. And so, dutifully, central bankers in the US, UK, euro-zone and even in some emerging economies have spoken reproachfully in recent months about signs that inflation expectations are moving up D. Rather, inflation is determined by the interplay between monetary conditions and capacity in the economy to grow without pushing most prices higher E. Stagnating growth and tighter credit conditions suggest the opposite 【K3】
The weather was now so severe, and the hardships of traveling so great, that he resolved to halt for the winter, at the first______place.
We would all like to think that humankind is getting smarter and wiser and that our past blunders won"t be repeated. Bookshelves are filled with such reassuring pronouncements. Encouraging forecasts rest in part on the belief that we can learn the right lessons from the past and cast discredited ideas onto the ash heap of history, where they belong. Those who think that humanity is making steady if fitful progress might point to the gradual spread of more representative forms of government, the largely successful campaign to eradicate slavery, the dramatic improvements in public health over the past two centuries, the broad consensus that market systems outperform centrally planned economies, or the growing recognition that action must be taken to address humanity"s impact on the environment. An optimist might also point to the gradual decline in global violence since the Cold War. In each case, one can plausibly argue that human welfare improved as new knowledge challenged and eventually overthrew popular dogmas, including cherished but wrongheaded ideas, from aristocracy to mercantilism that had been around for centuries. Yet this sadly turns out to be no universal law; There is no inexorable evolutionary march that replaces our bad, old ideas with smart, new ones. If anything, the story of the last few decades of international relations can just as easily be read as the maddening persistence of dubious thinking. Misguided notions are frustratingly resilient, hard to stamp out, no matter how much trouble they have caused in the past and no matter how many scholarly studies have undermined their basic claims. Consider, for example, the infamous " domino theory, " kicking around in one form or another since President Dwight D. Eisenhower"s 1954 "falling dominoes" speech. During the Vietnam War, plenty of serious people argued that a U. S. withdrawal from Vietnam would undermine America"s credibility around the world and trigger a wave of pro-Soviet realignments. No significant dominoes fell after US troops withdrew in 1975, however, and it was the Berlin Wall that eventually toppled instead. Various scholars examined the domino theory in detail and found little historical or contemporary evidence to support it. Although the domino theory seemed to have been dealt a fatal blow in the wake of the Vietnam War, it has re-emerged, phoenix-like, in the current debate over Afghanistan. We are once again being told that if the United States withdraws from Afghanistan before achieving a clear victory, its credibility will be called into question, al Qaeda and Iran will be emboldened, Pakistan could be imperiled, and NATO"s unity and resolve might be fatally compromised. Back in 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Afghanistan an " important test of the credibility of NATO, " and President Barack Obama made the same claim in late 2009 when he announced his decision to send 30, 000 more troops there. Obama also justified his decision by claiming that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would spread instability to Pakistan. Despite a dearth of evidence to support these alarmist predictions, it"s almost impossible to quash the fear that a single change in their strategy will unleash a cascade of falling dominoes. There are other cases in which the lessons of the past—sadly unlearned—should have been even more obvious because they came in the form of truly devastating catastrophes. Germany"s defeat in World War I, for example, should seemingly have seared into Germans" collective consciousness the lesson that trying to establish hegemony in Europe was almost certain to lead to disaster. Yet a mere 20 years later, Adolf Hitler led Germany into another world war to achieve that goal, only to suffer an even more devastating defeat. Why is it so hard for states to learn from history and, especially, from their own mistakes And when they do learn, why are some of those lessons so easily forgotten Moreover, why do discredited ideas come back into fashion when there is no good reason to resurrect them Clearly, learning the right lessons—and remembering them over time—is a lot harder than it seems. But why The US government claims the withdrawal from Afghanistan will not benefit America and______.
Even if the US"s massive financial rescue operation succeeds, it should be followed by something even more far-reaching—the establishment of a Global Monetary Authority to oversee markets that have become borderless. Washington recognizes that the crisis has become global. Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, has said that foreign banks operating in the US will be eligible for federal assistance and he is urging other nations to fashion their own bail-out programs. Central banks have also been synchronizing injections of funds into markets. These should be steps to a more comprehensive international response designed not just to extinguish the current fires, but to rebuild and maintain the capital markets for the longer term. The current global institutional apparatus is woefully incapable of overseeing the financial system that is evolving. The International Monetary Fund is irrelevant to this crisis, the Group of Seven leading industrial countries lacks legitimacy in a world where China, Brazil and others are big players, and the Bank for International Settlement has no operational role. The US Federal Reserve is too besieged to act as a global central bank. That vacuum at the centre is dangerous for everyone. The US"s dependence on massive inflows of foreign capital, roughly $3bn(2bn, ￡1.6bn)a day, will surely increase now as Uncle Sam acquires $1 , 000bn in new obligations from current bail-outs. For years to come, Wall Street and Washington will be unable to manage without strong co-operation from other markets. Beyond that, the international dimensions of finance are mind-boggling. Global assets have increased from $12, 000bn in 1980 to nearly $200, 000bn in 2007, far outstripping the growth of gross domestic product or the expansion of trade. An increasing amount of this capital now resides in Asia and the Gulf, not the US or Europe. A US company such as AIG sold more of its credit default swaps and insurance policies outside the US than within it. UBS employs 30, 000 Americans, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and owns Paine Webber. The capital markets will evolve in the context in which emerging market economies will be growing twice as fast as the rich nations and will, by mid-century, probably account for almost two-thirds of global GDP. Globalization will now also create a clash of philosophies. Most governments and investors outside the US never shared the American system of cowboy capitalism. Now they have good reason to demand that some fundamental changes be made in the way the US manages its financial institutions. This can happen with a conscious, negotiated modification in the US financial model, or it could result from foreign investors shifting their funds elsewhere. All of these considerations point to the eventual need for a new Global Monetary Authority. It would set the tone for capital markets in a way that would not be viscerally opposed to a strong public oversight function with rules for intervention, and would return to capital formation the goal of economic growth and development rather than trading for its own sake. In terms of US and international politics, a Global Monetary Authority is probably an idea whose time has not yet come. That may change as today"s crisis evolves. Which of the following will NOT happen due to the clashes between philosophies
微信支付 
支付宝支付