Despite the heavy rain, she ______ the airport just in time to catch her plane.A.made it a
Despite the heavy rain, she ______ the airport just in time to catch her plane.
A.made it at
B.made it to
C.arrived to
D.arrived
Despite the heavy rain, she ______ the airport just in time to catch her plane.
A.made it at
B.made it to
C.arrived to
D.arrived
Supporters of the new super systems argue that these mergers will allow for substantial cost reductions and better coordinated service. Any threat of monopoly, they argue, is removed by fierce competition from trucks. But many shippers complain that for heavy bulk commodities traveling long distances, such as coal, chemicals, and grain, trucking is too costly and the railroads therefore have them by the throat.
The vast consolidation within the rail industry means that most shippers are served by only one rail company. Railroads typically charge such "captive" shippers 20 to 30 percent more than they do when another railroad is competing for the business. Shippers who fed they are being overcharged have the right to appeal to the federal government's Surface Transportation Board for rate relief, but the process is expensive, time consuming, and will work only in truly extreme eases.
Railroads justify rate discrimination against captive shippers on the grounds that in the long run it reduces everyone's cost. If railroads charged all customers the same average rate, they argue, shippers who have the option of switching to trucks or other forms of transportation would do so, leaving remaining customers to shoulder the cost of keeping up the line. It's theory to which many economists subscribe, but in practice it often leaves railroads in the position of determining which companies will flourish and which will fail. "Do we really want railroads to be the arbiters of who wins and who loses in the marketplace"? Asks Martin Bercovici, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents shipper.
Many captive shippers also worry they will soon be tilt with a round of huge rate increases. The railroad industry as a whole, despite its brightening fortunes. Still does not earn enough to cover the cost of the capital it must invest to keep up with its surging traffic. Yet railroads continue to borrow billions to acquire one another, with Wall Street cheering them on. Consider the $10.2 billion bid by Norfolk Southern and CSX to acquire Conrail this year. Conrail's net railway operating income in 1996 was just $427 million, less than half of the carrying costs of the transaction. Who's going to pay for the rest of the bill? Many captive shippers fear that they will, as Norfolk Southern and CSX increase their grip on the market.
According to those who support mergers railway monopoly is unlikely because ______.
A.cost reduction is based on competition
B.services call for cross-trade coordination
C.outside competitors will continue to exist
D.shippers will have the railway by the throat
Supporters of the new super systems argue that these mergers will allow for substantial cost reductions and better coordinated service. Any threat of monopoly, they argue, is removed by fierce competition from trucks. But many shippers complain that for heavy bulk commodities traveling long distances, such as coal, chemicals, and grain, trucking is too costly and the railroads therefore have them by the throat.
The vast consolidation within the rail industry means that most shippers are served by only one Rail Company/Railroads typically charge such "captive" shippers 20% to 30% more than they do when another railroad is competing for the business. Shippers who feel they are being overcharged have the right to appeal to the federal government's Surface Transportation Board for rate relief, but the process is expensive, time-consuming, and will work only in truly extreme cases.
Railroads justify rate discrimination against "captive" shippers on the grounds that in the long run it reduces everyone's cost. If railroads charged all customers the same average rate, they argue, shippers who have the option of switching to trucks or other forms of transportation would do so, leaving remaining customers to shoulder the cost of keeping up the line. It's a theory to which many economists subscribe, but in practice it often leaves railroads in the position of determining which companies will flourish and which will fail." Do we really want railroads to be the arbiters of who wins and who loses in the marketplace?" asks Martin Bercovici, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents shippers.
Many "captive" shippers also worry they will soon be hit with a round of huge rate increases. The railroad industry as a whole, despite its brightening fortunes, still does not earn enough to cover the cost of the capital it must invest to keep up with its surging traffic. Yet railroads continue to borrow billions to acquire one another, with Wall Street cheering them on. Consider the $10.2 billion hid by Norfolk Southern and CSX to acquire Conrail this year. Conrail's net railway operating income in 1996 was just $427 million, less than half of the carrying costs of the transaction. Who's going to pay for the rest of the bill? Many "captive" shippers fear that they will, as Norfolk Southern and CSX increase their grip on the market.
According to those who support mergers, railway monopoly is unlikely because______.
A.cost reduction is based on competition
B.services call for cross-trade coordination
C.outside competitors will continue to exist
D.shippers will have the railway by the throat
Despite his ______ planning, the exposition turned out to be a failure.
A.exquisite
B.exhausted
C.elaborate
D.insufficient
In the past decade the market for student loans has doubled to around $85 billion a year. Student numbers have swelled while incomes have failed to keep pace with the soaring cost of college education. Sallie Mae has over a quarter of the entire business in America. And though margins are wafer-thin the firm made a profit of $1.2 billion last year.
This profitability has attracted the interest of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, seeking ways to save money while making education more affordable. Particularly vulnerable is the proportion doled out to big and profitable private companies like Sallie Mae to subsidise affordable government-backed loans. These now account for around 85% of its lending.
Sallie Mae's profits and healthy cash-flow are a draw for private equity. And the involvement of the two banks could prove useful for plugging any gap in financing, if the firm's credit rating slips following the assumption of so much debt. It helps that Sallie Mae is also making money beyond its core business. The market for private loans, without government subsidies or guarantees, is growing fast as the cost of education grows while the size of federal loans that students can take out has remained flat. This sort of loan is nicely profitable because lenders can levy high interest rates. New graduates are also targets: Sallie Mae has built a big debt-collection arm for reluctant repayers and a college-fund business for fast breeders.
Even the renewed interest from politicians could play into Sallie Mae's hands. The lure of profits over the past decade has drawn more lenders into the business. Any future regulations or legislation that might shave profit margins further could deter new entrants or force smaller lenders out of the business, and Sallie Mae may get more opportunities to offset the reduction. But despite all the safeguards, students are high risk borrowers who quickly amass big debts. Sallie Mae, like many of the students it serves, could wake up one day with a nasty hangover(拖欠) and little recollection about how it came about.
The example of Sallie Mae Company is used by the author to ______
A.express the current situation of student-loan.
B.describe the banking industry of the U.S.
C.show problems in politics.
D.talk about the environment of education in the U.S.
A.Regardless
B.Despite
C.In spite
D.Nevertheless
The Russian occupation placed a heavy linguistic burden on the Aleuts. Not only were they compelled to learn Russian to converse with their overseers and governors, but they had to learn Old Slavonic to take an active part in church services as well as to master the skill of reading and writing their own tongue. In 1867, when the United States purchased Alaska, the Aleuts were unable to break sharply with their immediate past and substitute English for any one of their three languages.
To communicants of the Russian Orthodox Church a knowledge of Slavonic remained vital, as did Russian, the language in which one conversed with the clergy. The Aleuts came to regard English education as a device to wean them from their religious faith. The introduction of compulsory English schooling caused a minor renascence of Russian culture as the Aleut parents sought to counteract the influence of the schoolroom. The harsh life of the Russian colonial rule began to appear more happy and beautiful in retrospect.
Regulations forbidding instruction in any language other than English increased its unpopularity, The superficial alphabetical resemblance of Russian and Aleut linked the two tongues so closely that every restriction against teaching Russian was interpreted as an attempt to eradicate the Aleut tongue. From the wording of many regulations, it appears that American administrators often had not the slightest idea that the Aleuts were clandestinely reading and writhing their own tongue or even had a written language of their own. To too many officials, anything in Cyrillic letters was Russian and something to be stamped out. Bitterness bred by abuses and the exploitations the Aleuts suffered from predatory American traders and adventurers kept alive the Aleut resentment against the language spoken by Americans.
Gradually, despite the failure to emancipate the Aleuts from a sterile past by relating the Aleut and English languages more closely, the passage of years has assuaged the bitter misunderstandings and caused an orientation away from Russian toward English as their second language, but Aleut continues to be the language that molds their thought and expression.
The author is primarily concerned with describing ______.
A.the Aleuts' loyalty to their language and American failure to understand it
B.Russian and United States treatment of Alaskan inhabitants both before and after 1867
C.how the Czarist Russian occupation of Alaska created a written language for the Aleuts
D.United States government attempts to persuade the Aleuts to use English as a second language