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  3. Inflation isn’t new, but price rises can still shock. I recently holidayed in the Hamptons, a tony beach area outside New York,

Inflation isn’t new, but price rises can still shock. I recently holidayed in the Hamptons, a tony beach area outside New York,

admin2022-12-09  131
问题     Inflation isn’t new, but price rises can still shock. I recently holidayed in the Hamptons, a tony beach area outside New York, where I was stunned to pay $800 for a single shopping cart of groceries. Wealthy locals and vacation shoppers notice, but seem not to curb their spending. Everyone else is travelling an hour or more to get groceries outside the resort areas, ordering dry goods from Costco and growing their own produce.
    This story is extreme, but by no means a one-off. To the extent that the wealthy in the US are not yet cutting back on spending, they may be an important and under-explored factor driving the inflation felt by all.
    The top two-fifths of income distribution in the US accounts for 60 per cent of consumer spending, while the bottom two-fifths accounts for a mere 22 per cent, according to 2020 BLS statistics.
    Amazon’s Jeff Bezos can build a half-billion-dollar yacht, and it doesn’t change life for anyone but him. But when the top quintile of Americans as a whole enjoy 80 per cent of the wealth effect from rising stock and home values, I suspect it starts to have a real impact on inflation, and on the overall structure of our economy, which over the course of the past 30 years of real falling interest rates has become highly financialised.
    The US housing market is the best example of the economic and social downsides of extremely financialized growth. Historically, high home prices—which are in part a result of more cash buyers and investors in the market, as well as zoning restrictions and financing trends that favor the rich—mean more people are renting. Rents today are across most of the country.
    The people who tend to rent are those least likely to be able to pay the higher prices. According to 2021 Pew Data, 60 per cent of renters are in the lower quartile of American income. Meanwhile, the Biden White House is doing what it can to buffer inflationary pain for working people. It has been releasing strategic petroleum reserves in a partly successful effort to lower prices at the pump, extending pandemic-era caps on some student loan payments and pushing for antitrust action in areas where corporate concentration may be responsible for some inflationary pressure.
    But more changes are needed. The success of corporate lobbyists in overturning efforts to roll back carried interest loopholes are shameful. Student debt forgiveness—no matter how generous it is—will not change the fact that the cost of four years of private university in the US is nearly double the median family income. Housing markets continue to cry out for major reform.
The Biden White House strives to________.
选项 A、raise the average level of American income
B、relieve pressure caused by overall inflation
C、move towards greater energy independence
D、broaden the scope of federal antitrust laws
答案B
解析 细节题。根据题干中的Biden White House可定位至第六段。B项对应第三句Meanwhile, the Biden White House is doing what it can to buffer inflationary pain for working people (与此同时，拜登政府正在尽可能为工薪阶层缓解通胀带来的痛苦)，该项属于同义改写，故正确。A项属于无中生有，文中并未提及拜登政府力争提高美国人的平均收入水平，故排除。C项属于无中生有，故排除。D项与第四句pushing for antitrust action in areas where corporate concentration may be responsible for some inflationary pressure(并推动在企业集中的领域采取反垄断行动，而企业集中可能造成通胀压力)相悖，原文未提及“扩大反垄断法的范围”，该项属于主观臆断，故排除。故本题答案为B项。
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