The international software market represents a significant business opportunity for U.S. microcomputer software companies, but illegal copying of programs is limiting the growth of sales abroad. If not dealt with quickly, international piracy of software could become one of the most serious trade problems faced by the United States.
72.Software piracy is already the biggest barrier to U.S. software companies entering foreign markets. One reason is that software is extremely easy and inexpensive to duplicate compared to the cost of developing and marketing the software. The actual cost of duplicating a software program, which may have a retail value of $ 400 or more, can be as little as a dollar or two—the main component being the cost of the diskette. 73. The cost of counterfeiting software is substantially less than the cost of duplicating watches, books, or blue jeans. Given that the difference between the true value of the original and the cost of the counterfeit is so great for software,international piracy has become big business. Unfortunately, many foreign governments view software piracy as an industry in and of itself and look tile other way.
U.S. firms stand to lose million of dollars in new business, and diminished U.S. sales nut only harm individual firms but also adversely affect the entire U.S. economy.
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In the spring of 1720, when all of London was clamoring for shares in the South Sea company, Sir Isaac Newton was asked what he thought about the market. "I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the market," the scientist and master of the mint is reputed to have replied.
【B1】 Newton should have considered seriously his own wise words. Having sold his ￡7,000 of stock in the company, he later bought back in at the top of the boom and went down for ￡20,000. Like all the other mug punters in every bout of speculative fever, Newton was cleaned out when the crash came.
Little has changed in the intervening 280 years.
【B2】 Common to every bubble is the deeply-rooted belief that this time it will be different, that the rise in the price of an asset is rooted in the sound common sense rather than in recklessness, stupidity and greed.
Take the crash of 1929, for example. In his excellent book charting the sad history of bubbles, John Moody, the founder of the credit agency intoned in 1927 that "no one can examine the panorama (全貌) of business and finance in America during the past half-dozen years without realizing that we are living in a new era."
The Yale economist Irving Fisher declared a few weeks before the October crash that stock prices had reached a "permanently high plateau". Why was this？ Simple. The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 had abolished the business cycle, while technological breakthroughs had created a "new economy" that was much more profitable than the old.
【B3】 As share prices continued their heady rise, traditional methods of stock market valuations were abandoned. It did not matter that many of the start-up companies of the late 1920s were not making any money: what counted was that some day they surely would. So share prices were justified by discounted future earnings.
【B1】
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Directions: Read the following chart and write a composition of about 150 words. The main idea of each paragraph is given below in Chinese.
Various Energy Sources Transformed into Electricity in the U. S. A
1．分析图表所给信息；
2．评述目前美国环境污染与该图表的关系；
3．如何改善美国环境状况。
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To take advantage of the Internet, some impoverished (贫穷) countries will have to get their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty(主权) might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn't have the capital to do so. And that is why America's Second Wave infrastructure--including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on--were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain's former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now？ The Americans.
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伟大艺术的美学鉴赏和伟大的科学观念的理解都需要智慧。但是，随后的感受升华和情感又是分开的。没有情感的因素，我们的智慧很难开创新道路；没有智慧，情感也无法达到完美成果。艺术和科学事实上是一个硬币的两面。它们源于人类活动最高尚的部分，都追求着深刻性、普遍性、永恒性和富有意义。
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The influence of the moral standards of the home is evident. If there is no recognition of the difference【46】right and wrong, it is hard for the child to acquire the qualities which are necessary【47】good citizenship. Unwise discipline is, almost equally obvious,【48】factor often found in the background of the young offender.
But important【49】these two factors are, they do not cover the whole field. The experience of those who work with juvenile delinquents has shown us【50】greatly behavior. is influenced by the emotional relationships within the family circle. The extent to which【51】is affection between the【52】and the child, and in the early stages especially between the mother and the child, is evidently of fundamental【53】to his development, lack of love is more【54】to produce delinquency【55】bad material conditions.
(46)