______ I've read this book, you can have t.
A. Though
B. Until
C. Since
President Bush has proposed adding optional personal accounts as one of the central elements of a major Social Security reform. proposal. Although many details remain to be worked out, the proposal would allow individuals who choose to do so to divert part of the money they currently pay in Social Security taxes into individual investment accounts. Individuals would have a choice of fund managers, and the return that they earn from those accounts would then partially determine the Social Security benefit they receive when they retire.
Individual accounts pose a number of important and complex design and implementation issues, including how to lower the cost of administering accounts so that they do not erode the value of pensions that individuals receive when they retire, how many and what kinds of fund choices should be offered, and how to engage workers in choosing funds.
In the late 1990s, Sweden added a mandatory individual accounts tier to its public pension system. This policy brief examines the Swedish experience and lessons it suggests for the United States about the design and implementation challenges of individual accounts.
Sweden has one of the oldest and most comprehensive public pension systems in the world. But by the 1980s, several problems with the system were becoming evident, including current funding deficits and a very large projected funding shortfall as Sweden's population, which is among the oldest in the world, continued to age.
Between 1991 and 1998, Sweden adopted a new pension system built on three fundamental elements. A new "income pension" is intended to tie pension benefits more closely to contributions made over the entire course of an individual's working life, while lowering the overall cost of the system; it is financed entirely by a 16 percent payroll tax. A "guarantee pension" provides minimum income support for workers with low lifetime earnings, It is financed entirely by general government revenues and is income-tested against other public pension income.
The third element is a "premium pension" financed by a 2.5 percent payroll tax. These funds are placed in an individual investment account. Individuals have a wide variety of fund choices. To lower administrative costs, and the administrative burden on employers, collection of premium pension contributions and fund choices are centrally administered by a new government agency, the Premium Pension Authority. Deposits into pension funds are made only once a year, after complete wage records for a calendar year are available from the state tax authorities. Employees choose up to five funds from a list of funds approved by the PPA. Swedes can change their fund allocations as often as they want without charge, but the system is not designed to facilitate "day trading"—switching funds often takes several days.
The new pension system's planners recognized that many workers might not make an active pension fund choice. They created a Seventh Swedish National Pension Fund to offer a default fund, called the Premium Savings Fund, for those who do not choose a fund or simply prefer to have the government invest for them.
What can you learn about Bush's proposal of adding optional personal accounts?
A. People can transfer some money from their investment accounts to the Social Security taxes.
B. The return people earn from their accounts can decide their social benefit decisively.
C. People can spent more on investment and meanwhile receive more benefit in the future.
D. These accounts will determine how much people can receive in their lives.
As they grow older, many children turn aside from books without pictures, and it is a situation made more serious as our culture becomes more visual. It is hard to wean children off picture books when pictures have played a major part throughout their formative reading experiences, and when there is competition for their attention from so many other sources of entertainment. The least intelligent are most vulnerable, but tests show that even intelligent children are being affected. The response of educators has been to extend the use of pictures in books and to simplify the language, even at senior levels. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates. Pictures are also used to help motivate children to read because they are beautiful and eye catching. But motivation to read should be provided by listening to stories well read, where children imagine in response to the story. Then, as they start to read, they have this experience to help them understand the language. If we present pictures to save children the trouble of developing these creative skills, then I think we are making a great mistake.
Academic journals ranging from educational research, psychology, language learning, psycholinguistic, and so on cite experiments, which demonstrate how detrimental picture are
A. they read too loudly
B. there are too many repetitive words
C. they are discouraged from using their imagination
D. they have difficulty assessing its meaning
In place of the king, two chief executives were chosen annually by the whole body of citizens. These were known as praetors, or leaders, but later received the title of consuls. The participation of a colleague in the exercise of supreme power and the limitation of the tenure to one year prevented the chief magistrate from becoming autocratic. The character of the Senate was altered by the enrollment of plebeian members, known as conscripti, and hence the official designation of the senators thereafter was partes conscripti (conscript. fathers). As yet, only patricians were eligible for the magistracies, and the discontent of the plebs led to a violent struggle between the two orders and the gradual removal of the social and political disabilities under which the plebs had labored.
In 494 BC a secession of plebeian soldiers led to the institution of the tribuni plebis, who were elected annually as protectors of the plebs; they had the power to veto the acts of patrician magistrates, and thus served as the leaders of the plebs in the struggles with the patricians. The appointment of the decemvirate, a commission of ten men, in 451 BC resulted in the drawing up of a famous code of laws. In 445 BC, under the Canuleian law, marriages between patricians and members of the plebs were declared legally valid. By the Licinian-Sextian laws, passed in 367 BC, it was provided that one of the two consuls should thenceforth be plebeian. The other magistracies were gradually opened to the plebs: in 356 BC the dictatorship, an extraordinary magistracy, the incumbent of which was appointed in times of great danger; in 350 BC, the censorship; in 337 BC, the praetorship; and in 300 BC, the pontifical and augural colleges.
These political changes gave rise to a new aristocracy, composed of patrician and wealthy plebeian families, and admission to the Senate became almost the hereditary privilege of these families. The Senate, which had originally possessed little administrative power, became a powerful governing body, dealing with matters of war and peace, foreign alliances, the founding of colonies, and the handling of the state finances. The rise of this new nobilitas brought to an end the struggles between the two orders, but the position of the poorer plebeian families was not improved, and the marked contrast between the conditions of the rich and the poor led to struggles in the later Republic between the aristocratic party and the popular party.
The external history of Rome during this period was chiefly military. Rome had acquired the leadership of Latium before the close of the regal period. Assisted by their allies, the Romans fought wars against the Etruscans, the Volscians, and the Aequians. The military policy of Rome became more aggressive in the 60 years between 449 and 390 BC. The defeat of the Romans at Allia and the capture and burning of Rome by the Gauls under the leadership of the chieftain Brennus in 390 BC were great disasters, but their effect was temporary. The capture of the Etruscan city of Veil in 396 BC by the soldier and statesman Marcus Furius Camillus spelled the beginning of the end for Etruscan independence. Other Etruscan cities hastened to make peace, and by the middle of the 4th century BC all southern Etruria was kept in check by Roman garrisons and denationalized by an influx of Roman colonists. Victories over the Volscians, the Latins, and the Hernicans gave the Romans control of central Italy and brought them into conflict with the Samnites of southern Italy, who were defeated in a series of three wars, extending from 343 to 290 BC. A revolt of the Latins and Volscians was put down, and in 338 BC the Latin League, a long-established confederation of the cities of Latium, was dissolved. A powerful coalition was at this time formed against Rome, consisting of Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls in the north, and of Lucanians, Bruttians, and Smites in the south; this coalition endange
A. It was difficult for the chief magistrate to become a dictator.
B. Any Roman had the chance to become the magistrate.
C. The plebs couldn't hold the post of magistrate.
D. Magistrate's power was limited.