快速查题-中学教师资格证试题

        What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there’re no quick or any answers. There’s work to be done, but workers aren’t ready to do it. They’re in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problem are

“structural,” and will take many years to solve.

       But don’t bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There isn’t any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest

that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand. Saying that there’re no easy answers sounds wise,

but it’s actually foolish: our unemployment crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and political will

to act. In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real

solutions. The fact is job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time

employment in almost all industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational category. Only three

states, with a combined population not much larger than that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5%. So the

evidence contradicts the claim that we’re mainly suffering from structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?

       Part of the answer is that this is what always happens during periods of high unemployment-in part because experts and analysts believe that declaring the problem the problem deeply rooted, with no easy answers, makes them sound serious. I’ve been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost

identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935

analysis, because the workforce is “unadaptable and untrained”. I cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may

offer. A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs and

suddenly industry was eager to employ those “unadaptable and untrained” workers. But now, as then, powerful forces are

ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that,

fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been multiplying: they offer a reason to do nothing

about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.

      So what you need to know is that there's no evidence whatsoever to back these claims. We aren't suffering from a

shortage of needed skills; we’re suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn’t real problem,

it's an excuse-a reason not to act on America’s problems at a time when action is desperately needed.

       When the right person is holding the right job at the right moment, that person’s influence is greatly expanded. That is the position in which Janet Yellen, who is expected to be confirmed as the next chair of the Federal Reserve Bank (FeD. in

January, now finds herself. If you believe, as many do, that unemployment is the major economic and social concern of our

day, then it is no stretch to think Yellen is the most powerful person in the world right now. Throughout the 2008 financial

crisis and the recession and recovery that followed, central banks have taken on the role of stimulators of last resort, holding

up the global economy with vast amounts of money in the form of asset buying. Yellen, previously a Fed vice chair, was one of the principal architects of the Fed's $ 3.8 trillion money dump. A star economist known for her groundbreaking work on labor

markets, Yellen was a kind of prophetess early on in the crisis for her warnings about the subprime (次级债) meltdown. Now it will be her job to get the Fed and the markets out of the biggest and most unconventional monetary program in history without derailing the fragile recovery. The good news is that Yellen, 67, is particularly well suited to meet these challenges. She has a keen understanding of financial markets, an appreciation for their imperfections and a strong belief that human suffering was more related to unemployment than anything else.

      Some experts worry that Yellen will be inclined to chase unemployment to the neglect of inflation.

      But with wages still relatively flat and the economy increasingly divided between the well-off and the long-term

unemployed, more people worry about the opposite, deflation (通货紧缩) that would aggravate the economy’s problems.

     Either way, the incoming Fed chief will have to walk a fine line in slowly ending the stimulus. It must be steady enough to

deflate bubbles and bring markets back down to earth but not so quick that it creates another credit crisis.

     Unlike many past Fed leaders, Yellen is not one to buy into the finance industry's argument that it should be left alone to

regulate itself. She knows all along the Fed has been too slack on regulation of finance. Yellen is likely to address the issue

right after she pushes unemployment below 6%, stabilizes markets and makes sure that the recovery is more inclusive and

robust. As Princeton Professor Alan Blinder says, “She’s smart as a whip, deeply logical, willing to argue but also a good

listener. She can persuade without creating hostility.” All those traits will be useful as the global economy’s new power player

takes on its most annoying problems.

       Everybody sleeps, but what people stay up late to catch—or wake up early in order not to miss—varies by culture. From

data collected, it seems the things that cause us to lose the most sleep, on average, are sporting events, time changes, and

holidays. Around the world, people changed sleep patterns thanks to the start or end of daylight savings time. Russians, for

example, began to wake up about a half hour later each day after President Vladimir Putin shifted the country permanently to “winter time” starting on October 26.

      Russia’s other late nights and early mornings generally correspond to public holidays. On New Year’s Eve, Russians have the world’s latest bedtime, hitting the hay at around 3:30 am. Russians also get up an hour later on International Women’s

Day, the day for treating and celebrating female relatives.

      Similarly, Americans’ late nights late mornings, and longest sleeps fall on three-day weekends. Canada got the least sleep of the year the night it beat Sweden in the Olympic hockey final.

      The World Cup is also chiefly responsible for sleep deprivation, the worst night for sleep in the U.K. was the night of the

England-Italy match on June 14. Brits stayed up a half-hour later to watch it, and then they woke up earlier than usual the next morning thanks to summer nights, the phenomenon in which the sun barely sets in northern countries in the summertime. That was nothing, though, compared to Germans, Italians, and the French, who stayed up around an hour and a half later on

various days throughout the summer to watch the Cup.

      It should be made clear that not everyone has a device to record their sleep patterns, in some of these nations, it’s likely

that only the richest people do. And people who elect to track their sleep may try to get more sleep than the average person.

Even if that’s the case, though, the above findings are still striking, if the most health-conscious among us have such deep

swings in our shut-eye levels throughout the year, how much sleep are the rest of us losing?