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

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

admin2021-09-17  5
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 Blankenhorn, 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 paradox of thrift indicates the conflict between______.
选项 A、individual and collective
B、thrift and waste
C、spending and saving
D、rich and poor
答案A
解析 推断题。第一段最后两句指出，美国人重拾节俭造成了总体经济的下滑，个人储蓄的增多导致整体经济的衰落。第二段末句进而明确指出，节约悖论表明个人存款的增加会使整体存款出现矛盾性的下降。由此可见，节约悖论主要涉及个体与整体之问的矛盾，故A项正确。
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