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  3. The core of Greece’s troubles is too much spending, too little tax-collecting and book-cooking. Spain and Ireland are in trouble

The core of Greece’s troubles is too much spending, too little tax-collecting and book-cooking. Spain and Ireland are in trouble

admin2022-05-20  18
问题     The core of Greece’s troubles is too much spending, too little tax-collecting and book-cooking. Spain and Ireland are in trouble even if the percentage of their public debt in gross domestic product is much smaller than that of Germany. Italy, also in the financial markets’ crosshairs, has high public debt but a lower deficit than the eurozone’s average.
    The root of these countries’ problems is that their prices and wages have risen much faster than those of other eurozone members.
    There are two ways to mitigate the pain. First, to adopt temporarily more expansionary fiscal policies for a while. Or, more powerfully, the wider euro area could adopt more expansionary monetary policies for several years. As to the second option, the "inflation fundamentalists" will have none of it. This elite consisting of central bankers, top economic officials, politicians, academics and journalists insists that it is unacceptable to allow inflation to climb above two percent.
    Hyper-inflation in Germany in the 1930s and stagflation in industrial countries in the 1970s and 1980s support their view. It’s true that moderate inflation can creep up to become high inflation. But inflation fundamentalism can also hurt. There is little if any empirical evidence that moderate inflation hurts growth. In most countries, cutting actual wages is politically difficult if not impossible. But, to regain competitiveness and balance the books, real wage adjustments are sometimes inevitable. A slightly higher level of inflation allows for this painful adjustment with a lower level of political conflict.
    On the other hand, ultra-low inflation, in a recession, can easily become deflation. Falling prices encourage people to defer spending, which makes things worse and erodes tax payments, impairing a government’s ability to pay debt.  That in turn increases the debt’s sizes and costs.
    In addition, a single-minded focus on inflation makes it easy for policymakers to lose sight of the broader picture-asset prices, growth and employment. Policy can become too tight or too loose—as in the run-up to the crisis in the U. S. when low inflation was seen as a comforting sign that things were in order.
    In a recession, ultra-low inflation also reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy since interest rates cannot go below zero. The crisis in the euro area highlights the need for a more open-minded discussion of the merits and costs of ultra-low inflation.
In the author’s opinion, the second way to mitigate the pain is_________.
选项 A、cutting the spending                                          
B、controlling inflation within two percent
C、ultra-low inflation                                               
D、moderate inflation
答案D
解析 作者并没有直接指出第二种方法，所以这道题要求在通读全文的基础上进行判断。A项在文中没有提到。B项和C项是通胀原教旨主义的观点，由第五段可知，作者并不认同这种观点。由第四段最后一句话“A slightly higher level of inflation allows for this painful adjustment with a lower level of political conflict．(通胀水平略有上升，有助于减轻这一痛苦调整所带来的政治冲突。)”可知，作者认同温和的通胀，故选D。
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