2. 外语
  3. It’s easy to imagine the scenario. After spending most of our adult life in paid employment, the golden day arrives. Suddenly we

It’s easy to imagine the scenario. After spending most of our adult life in paid employment, the golden day arrives. Suddenly we

admin2019-10-13  31
问题    It’s easy to imagine the scenario. After spending most of our adult life in paid employment, the golden day arrives. Suddenly we’re relieved of office email and that long commute. Finally we can enjoy our remaining time pursuing those interests we never had time for. Above all, time to relax.
   Sadly, this probably won’t be your future unless you’re independently wealthy.
   The real question is no longer when we will retire but whether we will retire, with the prospect of working until you drop likely to become the norm. Due to an ageing population, longer life expectancy and a state pension scheme that can’t keep up, retirement might soon be a thing of the past. Now we have entered an endless age of austerity or tightened economy. There’ll be no government help in your old age. Nor will your employer’s pension plan provide enough to make ends meet. You are on your own.
   The important thing is that none of this is as "inevitable" as the politicians would have us think. Many societies have an ageing population, but not all of them are willing to force a weak 75-year-old back into a cut-throat service economy. That’s an utterly mad behavior in the UK.
   We can trace the untimely death of retirement to a number of assumptions about how society ought to be organized. At no other time has the welfare state been so hated by the governing elite. Social care. Unemployment assistance. Health. Libraries. Municipal parks. Anything relating to what used to be called "the public good" is attacked at the roots. Austerity redefines these things as financial liabilities or deficits rather than shared investments in common decency. It is only a matter of time before pensions are put on the chopping block.
   It’s not that there isn’t enough money to fund proper healthcare or pensions. It’s just that the cash is being directed elsewhere, most notably to the private sector in the form of massive corporate subsidies, while public utilities are getting close to collapse.
   And let’s not forget the tax revenues that aren’t being collected when economic policy is geared towards socialism for the rich and the strictest market discipline for everyone else. In 2015 Google paid 47m euro tax in Ireland on 22bn euro sales revenue. That’s a 0.21% tax rate. It means the average wage — earner unfairly bears the burden of society. No wonder a happy retirement is starting to look like an impossible indulgence.
The main idea of Paragraph Three is that_____.
选项 A、retirement will be abolished sooner or later
B、people enjoy working until the end of life
C、few people can enjoy retirement pensions
D、many people really can’t afford to retire
答案D
解析 第三段的大意是：由于人口老龄化、寿命的延长和国家福利体系的滞后，退休可能成为历史。进入老年后，政府不管你，你的退休金难以维持你的生活，所以你自己照顾自己吧。这意味着退休的日子不好过，还是别退休了。
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