题目内容
Instead of encouraging the industry to restructure, the long-term protection has sustained inefficient companies and cost U.S. consumers dearly. As Anne O. Krueger, now deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in a report on Big Steel: "The American Big Steel industry has been the champion lobbyist and seeker of protection....It provides a key and disillusioning example of the ability special interests to lobby in Washington for measures which hurt the general public and help a very small group."
Since 1950s, Big Steel has been reluctant to make the investments needed to match the new technologies introduced elsewhere. It agreed to high wages for its unionized labor force. Hence, the companies have difficulty in competing not only with more efficient producers in Asia and Europe but also with technologically advanced U.S. mini-mills, which rely on scrap metal as an input. Led by Nucor Cor., these mills now capture about half of overall U.S. sales.
The profitability of U.S. steel companies depends also on steel prices, which, despite attempts at protection by the U.S. and other governments, are determined primarily in world markets. These prices are relatively high as recently as early 2000 but have since declined with the world recession to reach the lowest dollar values of the last 20 years. Although these low prices are unfortunate for U.S. producers, they are beneficial for the overall U.S. economy. The low prices are also signal that the inefficient Big Steel companies should go out of business even faster than they have been.
Instead of leaving or modernizing, the dying Big Steel industry complains that foreigners dump steels by selling at low prices. However, it is hard to see why it is bad for the overall U.S. economy if foreign producers wish to sell us their goods at low prices. After all, the extreme case of dumping is one where foreigners give us their steel for free and why would that be a bad thing？
According to Anne Krueger, long-term government protection given to steel companies
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Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
Europe is desperate to succeed in business. Two years ago, the European Union's Lisbon summit set a goal of becoming the world's leading economy by 2010. But success, as any new-age executive coach might tell you, requires confronting the fear of failure. That is why Europe's approach to bankruptcy urgently needs reform.
In Europe, as in the United States, many heavily indebted companies are shutting up shop just as the economy begins to recover. Ironically, the upturn is often the moment when weak firms finally fail. But America's failures have a big advantage over Europe's weaklings: their country's more relaxed approach to bankruptcy.
In the United States the Chapter 11 law makes going bust an orderly and even routine process. Firms in trouble simply apply for breathing space from creditors. Managers submit a plan of reorganization to a judge, and creditors decide whether to give it a go or to come up with one of their own. Creditors have a say in whether to keep the firm running, or to liquidate it. If they keep it running, they often end up with a big chunk of equity, if not outright control.
But shutting a bust European company is harder in two other ways. First, with no equivalent of Chapter 11, bankruptcy forces companies to stop trading abruptly. That damages the value of the creditors' potential assets, and may also cause havoc for customers. Second, a company that trades across the European Union will find that it has to abide by different bankruptcy laws in the 15 member states, whose courts and administrators may make conflicting and sometimes incompatible stipulations.
The absence of provision for negotiations between companies and creditors increases the temptation for government to step in. When governments do not come to the rescue, the lack of clear rules can lead to chaos. As a result of all this, Europe's teetering firms miss the chance to become more competitive by selling assets to others who might manage them more efficiently. Their sickly American rivals survive, transformed, to sweep the field.
An opportunity now exists to think again about Europe's approach to bankruptcy. The European Union is expected to issue a new directive on the subject in May. Germany has begun to update its insolvency law. And last year Britain produced a white paper saying that a rigid approach to bankruptcy could stifle the growth needed to meet Lisbon's goals.
One of goals set by the European Union's Lisbon summit is
A．soak offB．soak throughC．soak upD．soak out
戏称自己为“新诗老祖宗”的是 ()
集现代著名诗人、剧作家、历史学家、古文字学家多种称号于一身的是()
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