By extension, even if the United States is efficient both at inventing advanced biotechnologies and at the routine manufacture of medicines, it makes sense for the United States to let the production work migrate to countries that can make the stuff more cheaply. Americans get the benefit of the cheaper products and get to spend their resources on even more valuable pursuits, That, anyway, has always been the premise. But here Samuelson dissents. What if the lowerwage country also captures the advanced industry?
If enough higher-paying jobs are lost by American workers to outsourcing, he calculates, then the gain from the cheaper prices may not compensate for the loss in U.S. purchasing power.
“Free trade is not always a win-win situation,” Samuelson concludes. It is particularly a problem, he says, in a world where large countries with far lower wages, like India and China, are increasingly able to make almost any product or offer almost any service performed in the United States.
If America trades freely with them, then the powerful drag of their far lower will begin dragging down U.S. average wages. The U.S. economy may still grow, he calculates, but at a lower rate than it otherwise would have.
Topic 2 (选题二)
Uganda’s eagerness for genuine development is reflected in its schoolchildren’s smiles and in the fact that so many children are now going to school. Since 1997, when the government began to provide universal primary education, total primary enrollment had risen from 3 million to 7.6 million in 2004. Schools have opened where none existed before, although there is some way to go in reaching the poorest areas of the country.
Uganda has also made strides in secondary and higher education, to the point that it is attracting many students from other countries. At the secondary level, enrollment is above 700,000, with the private sector providing the majority if schools. For those who want to take their education further, there are 12 private universities in addition to the four publicly funded institutions, together providing 75,000 places.
Education is seen as a vital component in the fight against poverty. The battle for better health is another, although it is one that will take longer to win in a country that carries a high burden of disease, including malaria and AIDS. Here, the solutions can only arise from a combination of international support and government determination to continue spending public money on preventive care and better public health information.
Current government plants include recruiting thousands of nurses, increasing the availability of drugs and building 200 new maternity units.
Uganda’s high rate of population growth, at 3.6 percent per annum, poses a special challenge in the fight against poverty, says Finance Minister Gerald Ssendaula, who points out that the fertility rate, at 6.9 children per female, is the highest in Africa.
The government’s newly revised Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) puts the “restoration of security” at the top of the current government agenda. This is because it estimates that Uganda has lost 3 percent of its gross domestic product each year that the conflict has persisted. Displaced people are not only a financial burden, they are unable to the economy.
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