首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The patient, E. Z. , is in failing health, and the European surgeons are arguing bitterly at the operating table. The Greek doct
The patient, E. Z. , is in failing health, and the European surgeons are arguing bitterly at the operating table. The Greek doct
admin
2014-09-09
75
问题
The patient, E. Z. , is in failing health, and the European surgeons are arguing bitterly at the operating table. The Greek doctors call for a feeding tube, oxygen, antibiotics, the works. Nonsense, say the Germans. Get the patient up on his feet and slap him around a little. What he really needs is to lose some weight. Never mind that each is acting in accordance with his own self-interest. It’ s the profligate Greeks, whose screw-ups helped drag Europe into its deepest crisis since World War II, who are mostly right in this argument—and the disciplined, hard-working Germans who are mostly wrong. Europe’s economy is already so weak that Teutonic belt-tightening, however meritorious in ordinary times, threatens to push the Continent into a deep and long-lasting recession.
The European stimulus-vs. -austerity debate that raged throughout 2011 is a replay of the one from the Great Depression. Then it was a Briton, John Maynard Keynes, arguing the case for boosting demand and an Austrian, Friedrich Hayek, wanting to purge the rottenness from the system. It’s a measure of the discipline’s meager progress that economists and policymakers haven’ t managed to settle this dispute in the intervening 80 years. The very human tendency to mix up economics and morality is what makes the Keynesian case for expansionary government policy hard for politicians to defend. From the standpoint of righteousness and clean living, the Germans are way ahead of the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the Italians. Saving and investing are virtuous for families; it’s hard for people to imagine that on the scale of nations, too much frugality can cause problems.
Frugality can backfire, however—and in 2011, it did. Keynes had put his finger on the problem, calling it the "paradox of thrift." One person’s spending is another’s income, he observed. So when everyone spends less in a recession, incomes fall. The more people try to save, the more the economy slows, and the harder it gets to put money aside.
There’s even a related "paradox of toil. " It says that when an economy is stuck in a rut, with interest rates at or near zero, cutting wages can backfire. Wage cuts lead to expectations of deflation and cause employment to fall rather than rise, says the person who coined the new paradox, Gauti Eggertsson, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s a scary thought for the Greeks, who are hoping they can keep the euro but effect an internal devaluation based on lower wages, and in the process make their economy competitive again.
Austerity got a fair shot in Europe in 2011, and it’s failing. Countries on the periphery are attempting to close budget deficits through a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts. The hope is that evidence of financial probity will impress the financial markets, lower interest rates, and give the private sector the confidence to spend and invest, revving up growth. Instead, nearly the complete opposite is taking place. Government retrenchment sucked demand out of the economy, depressing tax revenue and making balance even harder to achieve. Private forecasts of European growth sank throughout the past year as this dynamic played out. A 2012 recession is highly possible, although as of late November the European Central Bank staff economists were still predicting growth of 0. 4 percent to 1 percent in the coming year.
There’s no doubt that Southern Europe needs to earn its way out of debt by running trade surpluses instead of chronic deficits. In other words, it needs to act more Germanic. But it’s impossible for every country to run a trade surplus, just as it’s impossible for every person to be a better-than-average driver. Italy and the others can manage to run trade surpluses only if Germany agrees to do the opposite, importing more than it exports. If we’re going to expect the Greeks to act like Germans, the reverse needs to happen as well. Germany needs to live a little, spend more, relax in Mykonos—in other words, be more Mediterranean. That’s a lot to expect, since the German people have been convinced by the current crisis that laxity is the road to ruin.
As 2012 beckons, it seems increasingly likely that the euro zone is headed for a crackup. Stephen A. King, the chief global economist of HSBC, believes that the only solution for Europe is for creditors and debtors to focus on their mutual interest in healthy economic growth. A pro-growth consensus would break down the inhibitions against aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus. Yet nothing of the sort will happen, King says, until it’s blatantly obvious that only dramatic action will prevent a breakup of the common currency. "The world has to go crazy before you can do crazy things," he concludes. "That’s what the Fed waited for, and that’s what the ECB will have to wait for. " Stand back from the operating table—here comes the defibrillator.
What is the European stimulus-vs. -austerity debate?
选项
答案
facing the deepest economic crisis since World War II/European countries are arguing over how to deal with it/as each eountry is acting in accordence with the self-interest/different strategies are proposed/showing a tendency "to mix up economics and morality"/a dispute not settled in the past 80 years/the focus: whether to stimulate demand or to advocate thrift to get over the current economic crisis
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/BXSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
MostpeoplewouldbeimpressedbythehighqualityofmedicineavailabletomostAmericans.Thereisalotofspecialization,a
MostpeoplewouldbeimpressedbythehighqualityofmedicineavailabletomostAmericans.Thereisalotofspecialization,a
Since2008,therehavebeenmoreandmorefamouspeopleintheactingprofessionwhosenamebecomes"smelly",andwhoselifeand
Modernindustrialsocietygrantslittlestatustooldpeople.Infact,suchasocietyhasasystemofbuilt-inobsolescence.The
Modernindustrialsocietygrantslittlestatustooldpeople.Infact,suchasocietyhasasystemofbuilt-inobsolescence.The
Fornearlyacentury,twoUnitedStatesgovernmentalagencies,theUnitedStatesArmyCorpsofEngineersandtheBureauofRecla
Fornearlyacentury,twoUnitedStatesgovernmentalagencies,theUnitedStatesArmyCorpsofEngineersandtheBureauofRecla
Fornearlyacentury,twoUnitedStatesgovernmentalagencies,theUnitedStatesArmyCorpsofEngineersandtheBureauofRecla
Fornearlyacentury,twoUnitedStatesgovernmentalagencies,theUnitedStatesArmyCorpsofEngineersandtheBureauofRecla
随机试题
行政执法体制改革中提出的“推进执法重心下移”,在我区来讲,是指往自治区、盟市、旗县级的盟市、旗县。()
下列肿瘤不首选手术治疗的是
下列除哪项外,均是采录既往史所要求的内容()
患者男,27岁。肛瘘切除术后。护士的健康教育不正确的是()
持续胃肠减压时间较长时,应加强的护理项目有
宋朝画家文与可住宅周围有很多竹子。他一年四季注意观察竹子的变化,对竹子的形状、姿态有透彻的了解,因而画出的竹子生动逼真。有诗云:“与可画竹时,胸中有成竹。”这一事实体现的哲学道理是()。
在德育中,要注意“一把钥匙开一把锁”是贯彻了哪条原则?()
最近十几年,北亚的气候普遍比较凉。但是,在北亚的日平均气温和湿度比正常水平稍高的前年,那儿生长的庄稼的年产量却显著增加。在下个世纪,像前年那样增高的日平均气温和湿度将有望成为北亚的正常状态。然而科学家预测,在下个世纪北亚大多数地区的庄稼的年产量会下降。
为治理风景区发生的不文明行为,某省一设区的市的人大常委会制定了《风景区保护条例》。该条例规定对乱扔垃圾不听劝阻的游客处以50元罚款,情节严重的处以5日以下行政拘留。结合上述材料,运用宪法学相关知识,回答以下问题:如该条例施行后,被认为与宪法、
IfyouaretheownerofanMBAthatwassuspiciouslyeasytoearn,steerclearofOregon.ItisoneofthefewstatesinAmerica
最新回复
(
0
)