【F1】Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as steering the economy to a soft landing or a touch on the brakes, makes itself sound like a precise science.Nothing could be further from the truth. The link between interest rates and inflation is uncertain. And there are long, variable lags before policy changes have any effect on the economy.【F2】Hence there is an analogy that likens the conduct of monetary policy to driving a car with a blackened windscreen, a cracked rearview mirror and a faulty steering wheel.Given all these disadvantages, central bankers seem to have had much to boast about of late. Average inflation in the big seven industrial economies fell to a mere 2.3% last year, close to its lowest level in 30 years, before rising slightly to 2.5% this July. This is a long way below the double-digit rates which many countries experienced in the 1970s and early 1980s.It is also less than most forecasters had predicted. In late 1994 the panel of economists which The Economist polls each month said that America"s inflation rate would average 3.5% in 1995. In fact, it fell to 2.6% in August, and is expected to average only about 3% for the year as a whole.【F3】In Britain and Japan inflation is running half a percentage point below the rate predicted at the end of last year, this is no flash in the pan; over the past couple of years, inflation has been consistently lower than expected in Britain and America.【F4】Economists have been particularly surprised by favourable inflation figures in Britain and the linked States, since conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America"s, have little productive slack.America"s capacity utilisation, for example, hit historically high levels earlier this year, and its jobless rate(5.6% in August)has fallen below most estimates of the natural rate of unemployment—the rate below which inflation has taken off on the past.Why has inflation proved so mild The most thrilling explanation is, unfortunately, a little defective.【F5】Some economists argue that powerful structural changes in the world have upended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation. 【F5】
【F1】The value which society places on work has traditionally been closely associated with the value of individualism and as a result it has had negative effects on the development of social security.It has meant that in the first place the amount of benefits must be small lest people" s willingness to work and support themselves suffers. Even today with flat rate and earnings-related benefits, the total amount of the benefit must always be smaller than the person"s wages for fear of malingering."The purpose of social security," said Huntford referring to Sweden"s comparatively generous benefits, "is to dispel need without crossing the threshold of prosperity." Second, social security benefits are granted under conditions designed to reduce the likelihood of even the boldest of spirits attempting to live on the State rather than work. Many of the rules surrounding the payment of unemployment or supplementary benefit are for this purpose. Third, the value placed on work is manifested in a more positive way as in the case of disability.【F2】People suffering from accidents incurred at work or from occupational diseases receive preferential treatment by the social security service compared with those suffering from civil accidents and ordinary illnesses.Yet, the stranglehold which work has had on the social security service has been increasingly loosened over the years. The provision of family allowances, family income supplements, the slight liberalization of the wages stop are some of the manifestations of this trend.【F3】Similarly, the preferential treatment given to occupational disability by the social security service has been increasingly questioned with the demands for the upgrading of benefits for the other types of disability.It is felt that in contemporary industrial societies the distinction between occupational and non-occupational disability is artificial for many non-occupational forms of disability have an industrial origin even if they do not occur directly in the workplace.【F4】There is also the additional reason which we mentioned in the argument for one benefit for all one-parent families, that a modern social security service must concentrate on meeting needs irrespective of the cause behind such needs.The relationship between social security and work is not all a one-way affair.【F5】It is true that until very recently the general view was that social security "represented a type of luxury and was essentially anti-economic." It was seen as merely government expenditure for the needy.As we saw, however, redundancy payments and earnings-related unemployment benefits have been used with some success by employers and the government to reduce workers" opposition towards loss of their jobs. 【F5】
Gandhi"s pacifism can be separated to some extent from his other teachings.【F1】Its motive was religious, but he claimed also for it that it was a definitive technique, a method, capable of producing desired political results.【F2】Gandhi"s attitude was not that of most Western pacifists. Satyagraha, the method Gandhi proposed and practiced, first evolved in South Africa, was a sort of non-violent warfare, a way of defeating the enemy without hurting him and without feeling or arousing hatred.It entailed such things as civil disobedience, strikes, lying down in front of railway trains, enduring police charges without running away and without hitting back, and the like. Gandhi objected to "passive resistance" as a translation of Satyagraha: in Gujarati, it seems, the word means "firmness in the truth".【F3】In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer War, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914-1918, even after he had completely abjured violence he was honest enough to see that in war it is usually necessary to take sides.【F4】Since his whole political life centred round a struggle for national independence, he could not and, indeed, he did not take the sterile and dishonest line of pretending that in every war both sides are exactly the same and it makes no difference who wins.Nor did he, like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions.In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: "What about the Jews Are you prepared to see them exterminated If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war"【F5】I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the "you"re another" type.But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer" s Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi" s view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler"s violence." 【F5】
土地估价过程中需根据市场关系和估价需要进行一些基本条件设定,下列各项中,______属于对土地价格的定义。
A. 对估价结果和估价工作可能产生影响的变化事项
B. 估价日期
C. 估价机构对估价结果有解释权
D. 估价结果的法律责任