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  3. The United States in the 1990s has had seven years of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government def

The United States in the 1990s has had seven years of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government def

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问题     The United States in the 1990s has had seven years of economic boom with low unemployment, low inflation, and low government deficit. Amid all of this good news, inequality has increased and wages have barely risen. Common sense knowledge seems to be right in this instance, that is, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is shrinking. Though President Clinton boasts that the number of people on welfare has decreased significantly under his regime to 8 million, a 44% decline from 1994, he forgets that there are still 36.5 million poor people in the United States, which is only a 2% decline in the same amount of time. How is it possible that we have increasing inequality during economic prosperity?
    This contradiction is not easily explained by the dominant neoclassical economic discourse of our time. Nor is it resolved by neoconservative social policy. More helpful is the one book under review: James K. Galbraith’s Created Unequal, a Keynesian analysis of increasing wage inequality.
    James K. Galbraith provides a multicausal analysis that blames the current free market monetary policy for the increasing wage inequality. He calls for a rebellion in economic analysis and policy and for a reapplication of Keynesian macroeconomics to solve the problem. In Created Unequal, Galbraith successfully debunks the conservative contention that wage inequality is necessary because the new skill-based technological innovation requires educated workers who are in short supply. For Galbraith, this is a fantasy. He also critiques their two other assertions: first, that global competition requires an increase in inequality and that the maintenance of inequality is necessary to fight inflation. He points to transfer payments that are mediated by the state: payment to the poor in the form of welfare is minor relative to payment to the elderly in the form of social security or to the rich in the form of interest on public and private debt.
    Galbraith minimizes the social indicators of race, gender, and class and tells us that these are not important in understanding wage inequality. What is important is Keynesian macroeconomics. To make this point, he introduces a sectoral analysis of the economy. Here knowledge is dominant(the K-sector)and the producers of consumption goods(the C-sector)are in decline. The third sector is large and low paid(the S-sector). The K-sector controls the new technologies and wields monopoly power. Both wages and profit decline in the other two sectors. As a result of monopoly, power inequality increases.
The author accuses President Clinton of_____.
选项 A、being too optimistic about the economic prosperity
B、lying about the economic situation to the public
C、increasing the number of people on welfare
D、being reluctant to raise the salary of the average people
答案A
解析 这是一道细节题。题干中的信号词为President Clinton，出自第一段第三句话。文章第一段指出：20世纪90年代，美国经济经历了持续7年的繁荣，这期间，失业率低，通货膨胀低，政府的赤字也低：但是，在所有这些好消息背后，不平等现象在增加，工资几乎没有增长；虽然克林顿总统鼓吹说，在他执政期间，靠福利生活的人数已经大幅度减少到800万，但是，他忘了，美国还有3650万穷人。这说明，克林顿总统对经济的形势比较乐观。A说“对经济繁荣太乐观了”，这与作者的观点符合。克林顿总统并没有撒谎，所以B不对；C与文章的意思相反：文中没有提到D。
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