After
reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and
grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank
with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that
best fits each blank.
Today, home-ownership has reached extremely high levels.
Modern generations tend to believe there is something wrong with them {#blank#}1{#/blank#} they rent. However, is high home-ownership really as people
imagine？{#blank#}2{#/blank#} (stare) at data first, we
realize that the most successful, stable, attractive country in the Western
world is Switzerland. It has tiny unemployment; wealth; high happiness and
mental-health scores. Does it have high home-ownership rates? Absolutely not. In
Switzerland, about seven in ten of the population are renters. Yet, with Europe's
{#blank#}3{#/blank#} (low) home-ownership rate,
the nation thrives. Now go to the other end of the misery distribution. Spain
has approximately the highest home-ownership rate in Europe (at more than 80%). But one-quarter of its
population are unemployed.
A likely reason is that high levels of home-ownership mess
up the labour market. In a sensibly functioning economy it is easy for people
to move around to drop into the vibrant job slots {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (throw) up by technological change. With a high degree of
owner-occupation, everything slows. Folk get stuck. Renters can go to new jobs.
In that way they do the economy a favours. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Friedman said, the rate of unemployment depends on the flexibility
of the housing market.
Next we come to economic breakdown. Most analysts accept that at heart it was the housing market-obsessive pursuit of homes, the engendered mortgage（房贷） lending and an unavoidable house-price crash— {#blank#}6{#/blank#} sank the Western world. Germany, say, with its more efficient rental market, had a far smoother ride through trouble.
As for the monetary system, in the past few decades, in the
hope of getting untaxed capital gains way above their true labour earnings,
many people threw their spare cash into buying larger houses or building extra
bedrooms. TV programmes about how to make easy money, beautiful rising house
prices, and most importantly, our faulty tax system encouraged that. When {#blank#}7{#/blank#} some point market broke down, everyone suffered. Our countries
ought, instead, to design tax systems that encourage people to invest in
productive real activities and in innovation. Renting leaves money free for
better purposes. That also points to the role of sensible budgeting over a
person's lifetime. Why should we think that when we die it is necessary {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (pay) off an entire house？
Our children do not deserve it. Let them pay for
themselves. We {#blank#}9{#/blank#} rent-and enjoy our lives
with the money saved.
Finally, moderation usually pays off. Our scientific
understanding of how economies function is horribly limited. This suggests that
the golden rule should be to avoid extremes. A50-50mix of home-ownership and renting,
not the 70-30split that is now observed in so many Western nations, {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (make) sense.
