Questions 1~5 In early June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—the club of the world’s wealthy and almost wealthy nations released a 208-page document perversely titled "Pensions at a Glance". Inside is a rundown of how generous OECD members are to their burgeoning ranks of retirees. The US is near the bottom, with the average wage earner able to count on a government-mandated pension for just 52.4% of what he got (after taxes) in his working days—and higher-income workers even less. But the picture at the other end of the scale (dominated by Continental Europe) is misleading. Most of these governments haven’t put aside money for pensions. As the ranks of retirees grow and workforces do not, countries will have to either renege on commitments or tax the hides off future workers. What the OECD data seem to suggest is that you can run a retirement plan that’s fiscally sound but stingy, or you can make big promises that will eventually go sour. The US fits mostly in the former category—for all the gnashing of teeth about Social Security, its funding problems are modest by global standards. But is that really the choice Actually, no. At least one country appears to have found a better way. In the Netherlands—"the globe’s No.1 pensions country," says influential retirement-plan consultant Keith Ambachtsheer—the average retiree can count on a pension equal to 96.8% of his working income. Ample money is set aside to fund pensions, and it is invested prudently but not timidly. Companies contribute to employees’ accounts but aren’t stuck with profit-killing obligations if their business shrinks or the stock market tanks. The Dutch have steered a middle way between irresponsible Continental generosity and practical Anglo-American stinginess. They have also, to lapse into pension jargon, split the difference between DB and DC plans. In a defined-benefit (DB) plan, workers are promised a retirement income, and the sponsor—usually a corporation or government—is on the hook to provide it. In a defined-contribution (DC) plan, the worker and sometimes the employer set aside money and hope it will be enough. The big problem with DB is that sponsors are prone to lowball or ignore the true cost. In the U. S. , where corporate pensions provide a key supplement to Social Security, Congress has felt the need to pass multiple laws aimed at preventing companies from underfunding them. In response, some companies spent billions shoring up their funds; many others simply stopped offering pensions. Just since 2004, at least 66 big companies have frozen or terminated their DB plans, estimates Barclays Global Investors. Corporate DB has given way to individual DC plans like the 401(k) and IRA, but these put too much responsibility on the shoulders of individual workers. Many don’t save enough money, and those who do set aside enough earn returns that are on average much lower than those of pension funds. The Netherlands, like the US, has long relied on workplace pensions to supplement its government plan. The crucial difference is that these pensions were mandatory. Smaller employers had to band together to make a go of it, and industry-wide funds became standard. Run more as independent cooperatives than as captive corporate divisions, the Dutch funds were less prone to underfunding than their US counterparts. When they nonetheless ran into financial trouble in 2002 after the stock market crashed and interest rates sank, the country came up with a unique response. The Dutch funds are now no longer on the hook for providing a set income in retirement no matter what happens to financial markets that is, they’ve gone DC—but they didn’t shunt everything to individual workers. Risks are shared by all the members of a pension fund, and the money is managed by professionals. Pension consultant Ambachtsheer argues that this "collective DC" is just what the U. S. needs. Many companies here are improving 401(k)s to give employees more guidance, and there’s talk in Washington of supplementing (not supplanting) Social Security with near mandatory retirement accounts. But even those changes would fall well short of going Dutch. Countries don’t always set aside enough money to pay for the pensions they promise. The 2002 financial trouble of Netherlands is mentioned in the passage to show ______.
A. how the country came up with unique response in this financial crisis
B. how closely economy is related to social welfare
C. any country might run into financial trouble no matter how strong its pension system is
D. the country’s pension system is stronger in coping with shocks
Questions 4~6 Despite their reputation for incompetence, corruption and abuse, Mexico’s police and military are pretty good anti-drug cops. That is, when they want to be. In recent weeks there has been some impressive interdiction work south of the border, including last week’s seizure of 23. 5 tons of cocaine—with a street value of more than $ 400 million—at the Pacific coast port of Manzanillo. It was, in fact, the largest coke bust in Mexico’s history. But there is a strong incentive for the massive show of efficiency: the U.S. Congress is currently debating whether to approve President Bush’s two-year, $1.4 billion anti-drug aid proposal for Mexico. Veteran observers remark that every time Mexico wants to ensure U. S. State Department certification in the drug war, scores of Mexican drug traffickers get rounded up. Every time Mexico wants U.S. helicopters, mountains of methamphetamines suddenly get intercepted on their way across the border. The problem is, once Mexico wins the prize, a lot of its law enforcement usually repays the favor by joining up again with the country’s drug cartels. That was the case a decade ago when, after Washington agreed to begin sharing important anti-drug intelligence with Mexico City, no less than Mexico’s drug czar, Army Gen. Jesus Guterriez Rebollo, was discovered to be in the pocket of Mexico’s major drug lord. "We’ve seen this movie before," says drug expert Bruce Bagley, professor of international relations at the University of Miami. "It’s gotten to be almost a ritual. " It’s time for a fresh approach: The U. S. has to make sure the aid is accompanied by a genuine modernization of Mexico’s local, state and federal law enforcement, whose officers all too often become members rather than opponents of Mexico’s $ 25 billion-a-year drug trafficking industry. Bagley believes the U. S. must be strict and demanding in that sense this time, echoing a chorus of anti-drug analysts in both Mexico and the U. S. And if we make this aid an open spigot without transparent and measurable criteria for the professionalization of Mexico’s police forces, then it risks being money wasted. Experts like Bagley agree that reform at least seems more likely under new Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who during his first year has made a major military push against the nation’s increasingly bloodthirsty drug cartels. (One of Calderon’ s cabinet-level anti-drug advisers, Sigrid Arzt, is one of Bagley’s doctoral students.) Mexico’s Public Security Minister, Genaro Garcia Luna, has begun a serious purge of the federal police as well as a training program for federal and state cops under U. S. , Canadian and European tutors. None of that will mean much, of course, if Mexico doesn’t start paying its cops salaries decent enough to make them less vulnerable to drug cartel recruitment—and many feel a good chunk of the new aid package should be used for just that purpose. But either way, Garcia declared that last week’s Manzanillo seizure "reaffirms the reach of-Calderon’s strategy.., to break the operational networks of organized crime groups" in Mexico. Still, the stakes are higher this time because the U. S. is giving more money and more valuable equipment to Mexico than usual. Although the aid package doesn’t reach the annual $1 billion-plus that Washington shells out to Bogota under Plan Colombia, it contains a cache of high-tech law enforcement toys the U. S. has been wary to share in the past, due to the risk of having them fall into Mexican traffickers’ hands. (The leaders of Mexico’s most vicious drug gang, a group of exarmy special forces soldiers known as the Zetas, are experts at high-tech communications. ) Among them: sophisticated telephone eavesdropping; systems to track cell phones; lie detector machines and, perhaps most important, criminal data bases. U.S. and Mexican officials also say heavyweight interdiction tools like Blackhawk helicopters are being discussed. As a result, many analysts believe the higher value of the aid package and its offerings could serve as more effective leverage to persuade Mexican law enforcement to finally get its act together—especially if it makes different police and military branches compete for the booty. But the aides real value is probably political, at least in the eyes of the Bush Administration. The conservative Calderon is a rare U.S. ally in a Latin America that is increasingly steering leftward. Because he won last year’s presidential election by a less than 1% margin, the White House sees the aid as a solid means of shoring up his stature at home and abroad. It also allows Bush to look as if he’s fulfilling his own 2000 campaign pledge to make Mexico a foreign policy priority—after the country was anything but the past seven years. The U.S. is in no position to cut off funding, given the unprecedented cross-border drug flow and drug-related bloodletting Mexico is suffering today. It’s the kind of south-of-the-border instability Washington can never stomach for too long. But perhaps this time there will some incentive for Mexico’s cops to deploy their skills long after U. S. aid arrives.1.What does Prof. Bruce Bagley mean by saying "We’ve seen this movie before... It’s gotten to be almost a ritual. " (Para.2)