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  3. Economist John Maynard Keynes once suggested that when the International Mone

Economist John Maynard Keynes once suggested that when the International Mone

游客2025-03-30  15
问题    Economist John Maynard Keynes once suggested that when the International Monetary Fund imposed strict conditions on a nation seeking help for its ailing economy, the fund was merely "being grandmotherly". But Thais and other Asians who had to turn to the Fund for help after the 1997 financial crisis complain that grandmother was never like this. Some of the structural changes the IMF demanded not only inflicted unnecessary pain on these countries’ populations but failed to achieve the intended effect. Recovery everywhere has been slow and uneven. The IMF, critics also charge, has attempted to reform the economies of developing countries into the image and likeness of Western industrial nations—a new kind of imperialism.
   A well-researched report issued this month by Morris Goldstein, a former IMF staffer, argues that some of these complaints have merits. The Fund bungled bank closures in Indonesia and caused a harmful credit crunch in South Korea and Thailand by demanding increases in bank capitalization. But Goldstein also contends that some of the IMF’s actions worldwide, while unpalatable, were effective and necessary. Had the Fund not administered its painful medicine, many of the economies would have collapsed. In some cases, the governments involved were unwilling to impose difficult reforms themselves because they feared the political consequences. Blaming foreign pressure and the IMF for the hardship is a convenient out.
   What Goldstein also finds, though, is that while the Fund has been setting out harsh conditions for its loans since its inception, in recent years — and during the 1997 crisis in particular — its experts have begun to micromanage the economies they have come to rescue. In Indonesia, the IMF demanded measures that phased out the local content programs of motor vehicles and eliminated the monopolistic Clove Marketing Board. In South Korea, the Fund insisted on trade liberalization programs that favored imports and battered small local industries that were already struggling from the effects of a faltering economy.
   Goldstein says that where the Fund went wrong was in becoming "excessive in both scope and detail." There was no need, he says, for the Fund to require Thailand to remove real-estate taxes on foreign purchases of condominiums or to insist on privatization of state enterprises as part of its conditions for getting its aid. The IMF justified this on the grounds that it increased competition and internationalized the economy. These were commendable goals, says Goldstein, but they created serious political problems and deflected the IMF’s attention away from its main task: rescuing and reforming the financial institutions of the crisis nations.
   Goldstein concedes that the task of setting reasonable guidelines for the IMF will be complicated. Horst Kohler, the Fund’s new head, says he wants to reform its procedures. But economists are far from unanimous on precisely which measures imposed during the crisis were helpful. [br] The word "unpalatable" in Paragraph 2 probably means______.
选项 A、unclear
B、undesirable
C、ineffective
D、harmful
答案 C
解析 本题为词义分析题。本题定位于第二段第三句“…some of the IMF’s actions worldwide，while unpalatable，were effective and necessary．”unpalatable意为“令人讨厌的，使人不快的”。这句话的意思是：……IMF在全球的一些行动虽然惹人厌烦，但却是有效且有必要的。A项unclear意为“不明白的，含糊不清的”；B项undesirable意为“不受欢迎的，令人讨厌的”；C项ineffective意为“无效的，低效的”；D项harmful意为“不利，有害的”。因此，C项正确。
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