Now we seem to be starting to rediscover thrift.Debt levels are falling.Consumer spending is down.The savings rate is on the ris

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问题     Now we seem to be starting to rediscover thrift.Debt levels are falling.Consumer spending is down.The savings rate is on the rise.Great,right? Not exactly.The sudden sobering up of the American consumer happens to be the No.1 force driving the U.S.and global economies downward.We’re saving more,yet we’re all getting poorer.
    This is what some economists call the paradox of thrift.Paul McCulley,an economist and portfolio manager at bond giant Pimco,defines it like this:“If we all individually cut our spending in an attempt to increase individual savings,then our collective savings will paradoxically fall because one person’s spending is another’s income——the fountain from which savings flow.”
    At present,while retailers and a few economists still make the case that more consumer spending would be a really great thing,our nation’s political leaders have concluded that it’s too soon to issue calls for more shopping.New York Times columnist David Leonhardt makes a clever pitch for spending now on things that will save your money later.
    Still,the approach remains paradoxical.Our profligacy has gotten us into trouble,and so the response is more profligacy?There is no shortage of critics who contend that today’s massive government spending is simply laying the foundation of another financial crisis,this one centering on a loss of confidence in Treasuries and the dollar.
    For now,we’re betting that it won’t——and investors from around the world are letting us get away with it by continuing to buy U.S.-government debt.We will,however,eventually have to shape up.Consumers must pay down their credit cards,and the country must pay down at least part of its debt.“Some of the painful adjustments that are taking place are not avoidable,”says David Blankenhom,founder and president of the Institute for American Values.“Wringing debt out of our economy at every level is a painful and inevitable process.and it isn’t going to be solved by charging more things at the supermarket.”
    Blankenhorn isn’t opposed to using government stimulus to ease the transition.but he’s worried that it could obscure the need for big changes in behavior.“If the moral of today’s crisis is ‘Let’s stimulate this and empty that,and as soon as things get back to normal,we can go back to a debt culture,’that’s just not a sustainable idea,”he says.
  He’s right.Virtually all economists agree that there is no paradox of thrift in the long run.Saving stimulates investment.Careful management of resources brings prosperity.Thrift is its own reward.Just not right this second.
The last paragraph shows that the paradox of thrift is__________.

选项 A、permanent
B、inevitable
C、temporary
D、avoidable

答案C

解析 细节题。由第七段可知,节约悖论不会长期存在,节约总是有其好处的,只是这些好处的呈现不会立竿见影,故C项正确。A项误区在于对原文in the long run(从长久来看)断章取义,但是原文该词词组前面有一个否定词no,故A项错误。B、D两项误区在于这两个形容词来自原文,但它们修饰的主体不是节约悖论。B项inevitable指代的主体为some of the painful adjustments(我们最终需要做出的一些痛苦的调整)。故本题选C。
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