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The housing market has been for two years propping up consumers’ spirits while the rest of the economy lies exhausted on the floor, still trying to struggle to its feet. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median existing-home price ended the year at $ 164, 000, up 7.1 percent from 2001. That’s the strongest annual increase since 1980.Although residential real estate activity makes up less than 8% of total U. S. GDP, a housing market like this one can make the difference between positive and negative growth. Most significantly, consumer spending is 66% of GDP, and the purchase of a new home tends to have an "umbrella effect" on the homeowner’s spending as he has to stock it with a washer/dryer, a new big-screen TV, and maybe a swing set for the yard.The main factor in housing’s continued strength is a classic economic example of zero-sum boom: the persistent weakness everywhere else. As the 2003 recovery continues to be more forecast than reality. Falling stock prices raised investor appeal for U. S. Treasury Bonds, which in turn, allowed most interest rates to drift even lower. But there are not many signs that there’s a bubble ready to burst.December’s new record in housing starts, for example, was nicely matched by the new record in new home sales. If you build it, they will buy and even if an economic pickup starts to reduce housing’s relative attractiveness, there’s no reason why modest economic growth and improved consumer mood can’t help sustaining housing’s strength. "The momentum gained from low mortgage interest rates will carry strong home sales into 2003, with an improving economy offsetting modestly higher mortgage interest rates as the year progresses," said David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.Just as housing has taken up much of the economic slack for the past two years, both as a comforting investment for fretting consumers and a driver of consumer spending itself, a big bump elsewhere in the economy in 2003 could be housing’s downfall. If stocks roar back this spring, capital inflows could steal from the bond market, pushing up long-term interest rates. or Alan Greenspan and the Fed could do the same to short-term rates, as a way to hit the brakes on a recovery that is heating up too fast. In other words, if everything possible goes wrong for housing, homeowners should have plenty to compensate them in terms of job security and income hikes. By the expression "zero-sum boom" (Paragraph 3), the writer means（）
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Biologically, there is only one quality which distinguishes us from animals: the ability to laugh. In a universe which appears to be utterly devoid of humor, we enjoy this supreme luxury. And it is a luxury, for unlike any other bodily process, laughter does not seem serve a biologically useful purpose. In a divided world, a laughter is a unifying force. Human begins oppose each other on a great many issues. Nations may disagree about systems of government and human relations may be plagued by ideological factions and political camps, but we all share the ability to laugh. And laughter, in turn, depends on the most complex and subtle of all-human qualities: a sense of humor. Certain comic stereotypes have a universal appeal. This can best be seen from the world-wide popularity of Charlie Chaplain’s early films. The little man at odds with society never fails to amuse no matter which country we come from. As that great commentator on human affairs, Dr. Samuel Johnson, once remarked, "Men have been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed in the same way."A sense of humor may take various forms and laughter may he anything from refined tinkle to an earthquaking roar, but the effect is always the same. Humor helps us to maintain a correct sense of values. It is the one quality which political fanatics appear to lack. If we can see the funny side, we never make the mistake of taking ourselves too seriously. We are always reminded that tragedy is not really far removed from comedy, so we never get a lop-sided view of things.This is one of the chief functions of satire and irony. Human pain and suffering are so grim; we hover so often on the brink of war, political realities are usually enough to plunge us into total despair. In such circumstances, cartoons and satirical accounts of somber political events redress the balance. They take the wind out of pompous and arrogant politicians who have lost their sense of proportion. They enable us to see that many of our most profound actions are merely comic or absurd. We laugh when a great satirist like Swift writes about wars in Gulliver’s Travels. The Lilliputians and their neighbors attack each other because they can’t agree which end to break an egg. We laugh because we are meant to laugh; but we are meant to weep too. It is no wonder that in totalitarian regimes any satire against the Establishment is wholly banned. It is too powerful weapon to be allowed to flourish.The sense of humor must be singled out as man’s most important quality because it is associated with laughter. And laughter, in turn, is associated with happiness. Courage, determination, initiative--these are qualities we share with other forms of life. But the sense of humor is uniquely human. If happiness is one of the great goals of life, then it is the sense of humor that provides the key. If one gets a lop-sided view of things, he is likely to（）
Whoever said that victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan, surely had never heard of the World Trade organization (WTO). In the case of the hapless multilateral trade body and its long suffering representatives, the total failure of the opening meeting of the so-called Millennium trade round has lots of people boasting of their role in the violent physical struggle. Well. That’s just brilliant. They are proud of being part of a movement that wants to wreck the most important engine of economic growth, prosperity and overall global rising living standards we have--the freedom of trade and movement of people and goods between nations.The 135-members WTO is composed of sovereign governments wishing to further this goal and ease the settlement of international trade disputes. From the sounds emanating from Seattle, though, it would now seem the WTO has now replaced the Trilateral Commission and the Freemasons as candidate No. 1 to take over the world.Everybody has his favorite Seattle story. The city’s police chief will have plenty of time to think about his, having now resigned in disgrace over the loss of control of downtown Seattle. The Seattle business community may be more inclined to brood over theirs; the poor fools invested $ 9 million to attract the meeting to their fine city. What stands out more I would nominate the union of steel workers who were marching in protest. It’s an image that will boggle the mind for years to come.The debate now is over just how effective this anti-globalist coalition will turn out to be. In the heat of the moment, it always looks as though the world as we know it is coming to an end. But the overwhelming likelihood is that we have not actually seen a replay of the anti-Vietnam War movement, which had much clearer focus, obviously, though its consequences were far-reaching. How long, after all, can you protest against cheap imports when those same imports are all over your houseNo, the real reason for the disaster in Seattle is political, and reports coming out of the meeting point to President Clinton as a major culprit. Which may be both good and bad. Taking the long view, other trade rounds have had difficult beginnings, too. It took years to get the Uruguay Round under way, which finally happened in 1986. Thankfully, we will soon be electing another president, and it should be someone whose actions match his rhetoric.Still, it is a disgrace that the world’s greatest trading nation, i. e. the United States, is currently led by a man whose motivations are so narrowly political and egocentric that he has now wrecked any chance of entering the history books as a champion of free trade. According to the passage, the failure of the Seattle meeting is chiefly caused by（）
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