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Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil

admin2016-01-05  24
问题     Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time?
    The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term.
    Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past.
    Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP(in constant prices)rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, if oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25-0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies—to which heavy industry has shifted—have become more energy-intensive, and so could be more seriously squeezed.
    One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist’s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%.
We can draw a conclusion from the text that
选项 A、oil-price shocks are less shocking now.
B、inflation seems irrelevant to oil-price shocks.
C、energy conservation can keep down the oil prices.
D、the price rise of crude leads to the shrinking of heavy industry.
答案A
解析 推断题。本题的答题依据是全文的最后一段，强调这次油价上涨与20世纪70年代的上涨不同，也就是没有70年代的那一次那么可怕。因此A项“石油价格产生的动荡已经不那么明显了”正确。B项“通货膨胀看起来对与石油价格动荡不相关”。这个与原文本意相反，原文提到了石油价格变化引起了通货膨胀。C项“能源保护能降低油价”。原文未提及。D项“原油价格上升导致重工业萎缩”。原文只是说重工业降低了对能源的需求，而不是萎缩。因此排除该选项。
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