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

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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 size 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.
We can learn from the fourth paragraph that______.
选项 A、moderate inflation hurts growth
B、it is unnecessary to cut actual wages
C、the author opposes moderate inflation
D、the author opposes inflation fundamentalism
答案D
解析 由第四段第四句“There is little if any empirical evidence that moderate inflation hurts growth．(几乎没有任何经验证据表明，温和的通胀会损害增长。)”可知选项A不正确。由第六句“But，to regain competitiveness and balance the books，real wage adjustments are sometimes inevitable．(然而有些时候，要重新获得竞争力并实现收支平衡，调整实际工资是势在必行的。)”可知，选项B不正确。由第四句可知，作者并不反对温和的通胀，所以选项C不正确。由第三句“But inflation fundamentalism can also hurt．(但是，通胀原教旨主义也可能带来危害。)”可知，作者反对通胀原教旨主义者的观点。所以，本题选择D。
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