（45) .

B．hound

C．reduced

D．exposed

A．similar.

B．dubious.

C．opposite.

D．identical.

Although residential real estate activity makes up less than 8% of total U.S. GDP, a housing market like this one can make the difference between positive and negative growth. Most significantly, consumer spending is 66% of GDP, and the purchase of a new home tends to have an "umbrella effect" on the homeowner's spending as he has to stock it with a washer/dryer, a new big-screen TV, and maybe a swing set for the yard.

The main factor in housing's continued strength is a classic economic example of zero-sum boom: the persistent weakness everywhere else. As the 2003 recovery continues to be more forecast than reality. Falling stock prices raised investor appeal for U.S. Treasury Bonds, which in turn, allowed most interest rates to drift even lower. But there are not many signs that there's a bubble ready to burst.

December's new record in housing starts, for example, was nicely matched by the new record in new home sales. If you build it, they will buy and even if an economic pickup starts to reduce housing's relative attractiveness, there's no reason why modest economic growth and improved consumer mood can't help sustaining housing's strength. "The momentum gained from low mortgage interest rates will carry strong home sales into 2003, with an improving economy offsetting modestly higher mortgage interest rates as the year progresses", said David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

Just as housing has taken up much of the economic slack for the past two years, both as a comforting investment for fretting consumers and a driver of consumer spending itself, a big bump elsewhere in the economy in 2003 could be housing's downfall. If stocks roar back this spring, capital inflows could steal from the bond market, pushing up long-term interest rates. Or Alan Greenspan and the Fed could do the same to short-term rates, as a way to hit the brakes on a recovery that is heating up too fast. In other words, if everything possible goes wrong for housing, homeowners should have plenty to compensate them in terms bf job security and income hikes.

The author draws a sharp contrast between the housing market and the rest of the economy so as to show ______.

A．the boom of real estate activity.

B．the statistics on home prices.

C．the role of housing market.

D．the degree of consumer spirits.

Should anyone much care whether an American boy living overseas gets six vicious thwacks on his backside？ So much has been argued, rejoined and rehashed about the case of Michael Fay, an 18-year-old convicted of vandalism and sentenced to a caning in Singapore, that an otherwise sorry little episode has shaded into a certified International Incident, complete with intercessions by the U.S. head of state. An affair has outraged American libertarians even as it has animated a general debate about morality East and West and the proper functioning of U.S. law and order.

Which, to all appearances, is what Singapore wanted. The question of whether anyone should care about Michael Fay is idle: though Singapore officials profess shock at the attention his case had drawn, they know Americans care deeply about the many sides of this issue. Does a teenager convicted of spraying cars with easily removable paint deserve half a dozen powerful strokes？ At what point does swift, sure punishment become torture？ By what moral authority can America, with its high rates of lawlessness and license, preach of a safe society about human rights？

The caning sentence has concentrated minds wondrously on an already lively domestic debate over what constitutes a due balance between individual and majority rights. Too bad Michael Fay has become a focus for this discussion. Not only does he seem destined to be pummeled and immobilized, but the use of Singapore as a standard for judging any other society, let alone the cacophonous U.S., is fairly worthless.

To begin with, Singapore is an offshore republic that tightly limits immigration. Imagine crime-ridden LOS Angeles, to which Singapore is sometimes contrasted, with hardly any inflow of the hard-luck, often desperate fortune seekers who flock to big cities. Even without its government's disciplinary measures, Singapore more than plausibly would be much the same as it is now. An academic commonplace today is that the major factor determining social peace and prosperity is culture—a sense of common identity, tradition and values.

Unlike Singapore, though, the U.S. today is a nation in search of a common culture, trying to be a universal society that assimilates the traditions of people from all over the world. Efforts to safeguard minority as well as individual rights have produced a gridlock in the justice system. Its troubles stem more from the decay of family life than from any government failures. Few societies can afford to look on complacently. As travel eases and cultures intermix, the American experience is becoming the world's.

The circumstances of this affair—evidently no Singaporean has ever been punished under the Vandalism Act for defacing private property—suggest that Singapore has used Fay as an unwilling point man in a growing quarrel between East and West about human rights.

What did the writer say happened to Michael Fay in Singapore？

A．His case captured worldwide attention.

B．He received severe punishment.

C．His experience was out of the ordinary.

D．He was likely to be disabled.