2. 外语
  3. (1)The Norwegian government just gave Lars Selhheim more than $5,000. Why did the 32-year-old dairy farmer need such a handout?

(1)The Norwegian government just gave Lars Selhheim more than $5,000. Why did the 32-year-old dairy farmer need such a handout?

admin2021-08-05  61
问题     (1)The Norwegian government just gave Lars Selhheim more than $5,000. Why did the 32-year-old dairy farmer need such a handout? To take his family camping, of course.
    (2)That may sound crazy, but here in Norway it makes sense. Since everyone deserves an annual vacation, the government reasons, it should pay for temporary workers to milk the cows so that farmers can get away. Welfare is not bashed here but celebrated by politicians of all stripes. When a center-tight coalition took power last year from a left-leaning government, it didn’t rein in social spending. Rather, it raised pensions and advocated cash payments to parents caring for infants.
    (3)Norway serves up an amazing menu of entitlements. Health care is guaranteed to everyone, and it’s free after the first $172 in personal medical costs each year. Disabled people receiving specially equipped cars and wheelchairs to get around. University education is free. Maternity leave stretches for 42 weeks at full pay. Many arthritis sufferers get an all-expense-paid trip to a spa in the Canary Islands. Sick leave can last a year at full salary. Stay-at-home parents earn a public pension. Norwegians who live above Arctic Circle get tax breaks; poets and painters get subsidies.
    (4)What makes such generosity possible is North Sea petroleum. Norway is the World’s No.2 exporter of crude oil and No. 3 exporter of natural gas. Last year, those industries netted the state $12.3 billion, or about $2,800 for every citizen. Still, the welfare system is costly—anyone earning more than $36,000 a year pays the top income tax rate of 49.5 percent. Sin taxes are high too, driving up the price of a beer at an ordinary bar to $6 and the price of a pack of cigarettes to $7. Norwegians complain about waiting lists for some medical procedures, and many of the wealthy opt for private health care. Yet opinion polls show most people to be content. "There’s a general consensus that you should take care of the poorest," says Tor Hersoug of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry. "We have so much money. We can afford it."
    (5)The inclination to share the wealth is deeply rooted in hardscrabble farms and fishing hamlets. This is a small country(4.4 million people)more accustomed to poverty than privilege. Flaunting one’s money—the "conspicuous consumption" that the late Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen condemned—is more than vulgar; it’s, well, un-Norwegian. The closest thing to a national creed is something called Jantelaw, a village maxim that warns people not to act as though they are better than anyone else. Americans familiar with the denizens of Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon would recognize the mentality. Here, it’s a national policy: "The philosophy is to keep the traditional equality we’ve had," says Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa, minister for social affairs.
    (6)Still, there are worries in the welfare state. Some fret that Norwegians, whose idea of vacation is to rough it in unheated mountain cabins, are going soft. Single parenthood is on the rise, and conservauveness(capped by a funeral grant)erodes initiative. As a result, the Prime Minister, an ordained Lutheran Pastor who scandalized some constituents by puffing on a cigar in public, has launched a "values commission" to foster traditional mores.
    (7)Then there is the fear of "oil addiction". A fall in crude prices sent Norway’s economy tumbling in the mid-80s, and the current drop in oil prices is lowering government revenues. Interest rates are up and inflation may not be far behind. So the risk-averse Norwegians are socking away most of the petroleum profits in a national rainy-day fund. Just eight years from now, Norway expects to earn more from its investments than from its oldfangled magnanimity, indefinitely. "We’re lucky in Norway." says a smiling farmer Selheim. Lucky indeed but certainly no better than anyone else.
The Norwegians enjoy the following welfare EXCEPT _____.
选项 A、their free health care is offered after paying initial medical costs each year
B、disabled persons received specially-used cars and wheelchairs to go around
C、Maternity leave lasts a year at full salary
D、the Norwegians living above the Arctic Circle got tax reduction
答案C
解析 第3段讲述挪威高福利体现在哪些方面。其中产假是全薪42周长假，而病假可长达一年。选项C把这两个事实混在一起了。所以是本题正确答案。
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