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  3. While there is no blueprint for transforming a largely government-controlled

While there is no blueprint for transforming a largely government-controlled

游客2024-01-13  49
问题     While there is no blueprint for transforming a largely government-controlled economy into a free one, the experience of the United Kingdom since 1979 clearly shows one approach that works: privatization, in which state-owned industries are sold to private companies. By 1979, the total borrowings and losses of state-owned industries were running at about ￡ 3 billion a year. By selling many of these industries, the government has decreased these borrowings and losses, gained over ￡ 34 billion from the sales, and now re- ceives tax revenues from the newly privatized companies. Along with a dramatically improved overall economy, the government has been able to repay 12. 5 percent of the net national debt over a two-year period.
    In fact, privatization has not only rescued individual industries and a whole economy headed for disaster, but has also raised the level of performance in ev- ery area. At British Airways and British Gas, for example, productivity per employee has risen by 20 percent. At associated British Ports, labor disruptions common in the 1970’ s and early 1980’ s have now virtually disappeared. At British Telecom, there is no longer a waiting list — as there always was before privatization — to have a telephone installed.  Part of this improved productivity has come about because the employees of privatized industries were given the opportunity to buy shares in their own companies. They responded enthusiast i- cally to the offer of shares; at British Aerospace, 89 percent of the eligible work force bought shares; at Associated British Ports, 90 percent; and at British Telecom, 92 percent. When people have a personal stake in something, they think about it, care about it, work to make it prosper. At the National Freight Consortium, the new employee-owners grew so concerned about their company’s profits that during wage negotiations they actually pressed their union to lower its wage demands.
    Some economists have suggested that giving away free shares would pro- vide a needed acceleration of the privatization process. Yet they miss Thomas Paine’s point that "what we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. " In order for the far-ranging benefits of individual ownership to be achieved by owners, companies, and countries, employees and other individuals must make their own decisions to buy, and they must commit some of their own resources to the choice. [br] According to the passage, all of the following were benefits of privatizing state-owned industries in the United Kingdom EXCEPT:
选项 A、Privatized industries paid taxes to the government.
B、The government gained revenue from selling state-owned industries.
C、The government repaid some of its national debt.
D、Profits from industries that were still state-owned increased.
E、Total borrowings and losses of state-owned industries decreased.
答案 D
解析 以下哪一个不是将国有企业私有化的好处?原文在L8—20列举了作者提出的私有化好处。∴D正确。仍为国有的企业利润增加。未曾提到。A．私有化企业交税。B．卖企业可赚钱。C．偿清债务。E．贷款、亏损都减少了。这四点都在L8—20提到。
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