What does Mr. Onions hope to do?
A.Present alongside other professional authors
B.Take part in one of the free workshops
C.Attract the attention of book publishers
D.Book a time slot on the Open Stage
The Poverty Line
In the United States during 1992, any family of four with an annual cash income of less than $14,335(before taxes) was considered poor. The dollar amount was called the poverty line, an economic measuring rod devised in 1964. the line was set at three times the amount needed to provide the cheapest nutritionally balanced diet. The poverty line is adjusted annually for inflation.
While the poverty line in the United States was more than $14,000, the average annual per-person income in Bangladesh was $200, in Ethiopia average annual per-person income in Bangladesh was $200, in Ethiopia $130, in Haiti $340, and in Mall $265. Anyone in those nations with an income of $14,000 would be considered wealthy. During the Great Depression in the United States, when half the population was considered poor, a family with an income at the 1992 poverty line could afford to buy a house, a car, clothing, and food.
The reality of poverty varies with location and social and political conditions. Poverty basically means a lack of, or an insufficient amount of, the three primary physical needs—food, clothing, and shelter. But for poverty to be recognized, it must exist alongside prosperity. Before the discovery of the New World, the American Indians would not have considered themselves poor, though they lived with only the bare necessities and a few handmade artifacts(人工制品).
The severity of poverty varies, depending on the economic vitality of the nation in which it occurs. In the modern industrialized societies of the nation in which it occurs. In the modern industrialized societies of Western Europe, North America, and Japan, there are many government services provided to ease poverty—including free medical care and subsidized housing. The homeless of New York City and Los Angeles can usually find some shelter and a mission offering free meals.
You would be considered poor in America if ______.
A.you are out of a job
B.you earn less than three times the amount needed to provide the cheapest diet
C.you earn less than $14,335 (before taxes) per year
D.the amount of money you earn is below the current poverty line
Levi Strauss persuaded the court that, by selling its jeans cheaply alongside soap powder and bananas, Tesco was destroying the image and so the value of its brands—which could only lead to less innovation and, in the long run, would reduce consumer choice. Consumer groups and Tesco say that Levi's case is specious. The supermarket argues that it was just arbitraging the price differential between Levi's jeans sold in America and Europe—a service performed a million times a day in financial markets, and one that has led to real benefits for consumers. Tesco has been selling some 15,000 pairs of Levi's jeans a week, for about half the price they command in specialist stores approved by Levi Strauss. Christine Cross, Tesco's head of global non-food sourcing, says the ruling risks "creating a Fortress Europe with a vengeance".
The debate will rage on, and has implications well beyond casual clothes (Levi Strauss was joined in its lawsuit by Zino Davidoff, a perfume maker). The question at its heart is not whether brands need to control how they are sold to protect their image, but whether it is the job of the courts to help them do this. Gucci, an Italian clothes label whose image was being destroyed by loose licensing and over-exposure in discount stores, saved itself not by resorting to the courts but by ending contracts with third-party suppliers, controlling its distribution better and opening its own stores. It is now hard to find cut-price Gucci anywhere.
Brand experts argue that Levi Strauss, which has been losing market share to hipper rivals such as Diesel, is no longer strong enough to command premium prices. Left to market forces, so-so brands such as Levi's might well fade away and be replaced by fresher labels. With the courts protecting its prices, Levi Strauss may hang on for longer. But no court can help to make it a great brand again.
Which of the following is not true according to Paragraph 1?
A.Consumers and free traders were very angry.
B.Only the Levi's maker can decide the prices of the jeans.
C.The ruling has protected Levi's from price dumping.
D.Levi's jeans should be sold at a high price.
Typically, a local newspaper would expect to get some 80% of its revenue from advertising, of which around two-thirds would come from classifieds. But last year in the San Francisco Bay area, job ads worth some $60m were lost from newspapers to the web, reckons Classified Intelligence, a consultancy. Emap, a British publisher, recently gave warning of a 30% decline in recruitment ads in one of its titles, Nursing Times, following the launch of a free website for jobs in Britain's National Health Service.
The Internet has become the fastest-growing advertising medium. Online ad revenues reached $5.8 billion in the first six months of this year in America, up 26% on the same period last year, according to a joint study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. In Britain, online ad revenues surged by 62% in the same period to almost £500m ($870m).
Search advertising—the small text-ads that appear alongside Google and Yahoo! searches—ac count for 40% of the online ad market. Another 20% goes to display ads and 18% to classified advertising. But search advertising can also work like a small ad and will increasingly challenge print classifieds as websites develop localized and more elaborate services for online users.
Perhaps the most significant development came on November 16th, when Google started up a prototype service called Google Base. It offers a searchable database of free listings, including small ads which can be narrowed down to postal regions. Among its first Offerings were used cars. In no time, Google could challenge eBay, whose own auction listings now work much like a giant classified website—especially with its "buy-it-now" options. But eBay charges sellers. Even so, it sold more than 450m items in the three months to September 30th, for almost $11 billion.
In response, most print publishers are expanding online. Mr. Murdoch is buying websites including Propertyfinder and MySpace, a social-networking site. Newspaper groups have teamed up to jointly operate websites to compete with Monster for recruitment ads. But the online operators are expanding too. eBay, for instance, is building a global network of classified sites under the Kijiji brand. It also has a stake in the popular Craigs-list which, having soaked up so many listings around its San Francisco home, is now frightening other newspapers as it expands its mostly-free ads service to other cities around the world.
By saying "the golden rivers are being diverted", the author means
A.newspapers earn a lot from ads.
B.the money flow like rivers into websites.
C.newspapers began to share the ad revenues with websites.
D.websites took away many ad revenues from newspapers.
为了保护您的账号安全,请在“简答题”公众号进行验证,点击“官网服务”-“账号验证”后输入验证码“”完成验证,验证成功后方可继续查看答案!