In November the European Parliament’s culture and education committee is due to move forward on its proposed "audiovisual media services" directive, before sending it to the full parliament in December. The new rules update and relax the "Television Without Frontiers" directive of 1989, which opened Europe’s national markets. But critics complain that they also seek to extend fusty regulations from the era of broadcast television to today’s very different technologies. Rules on advertising, the protection of children and so on could potentially also apply to all kinds of video streams, including video blogs, online games and mobile-video services.
This could have a chilling effect on innovation and risks stifling emerging technologies with rules designed for another age, says Chris Marsden of RAND Europe, a think-tank that has analysed the potential impact of the proposed rules for Ofcom, Britain’s media and telecoms regulator. "Regulators have to be thoughtful. They cannot predict the future of television "or the internet—no one can," says Niklas Zennstr. m, a co-founder of Skype, who is now setting up an internet television firm.
The proposed rules may be unrealistic as well as onerous. The idea that websites can be regulated like broadcasters, which are required to keep strict records of what they show in order to help watchdogs investigate complaints, is untenable. Firms could simply relocate outside the European Union to escape the new rules. Last week Ruth Hieronymi, a member of parliament, said she would introduce wording that might help to overcome some of the objections.
Behind the debate is the question of how best to balance competition and protection. Traditional broadcasters worry that they will be shackled by regulations while brisk start-ups can do as they please—so they like the idea of extending regulation to their new rivals. But even if the rules are approved as they stand, they will not come into force until 2010. Such a long, slow process seems incongruous given the pace of technological change.
Why Traditional broadcasters want to extend regulations to the new broadcasters

A:Because they are chained by regulations while the new rivals are free from them B:Because it is hard to balance competition and protection. C:Because the new broadcasters are more adapted to the regulations. D:Because the rules come into force in a slow and long process.

Most towns up to Elizabethan times were smaller than a modern village and each of them was built around its weekly market where local produce was brought for sale and the town folks sold their work to the people from the countryside and provided them with refreshment for the day. Trade was virtually confined to that one day even in a town of a thousand or so people. On market days craftsmen put up their stalls in the open air whilst on one or two other days during the week the townsman would pack up his loaves, or nails, or cloth, and set out early to do a day’s trade in the market of an adjoining town where, however, he would be charged a heavy toll for the privilege and get a less favourable spot for his stand than the local craftsmen. Another chance for him to make a sale was to the congregation gathered for Sunday morning worship. Although no trade was allowed anywhere during the hours of the service (except at annual fair times), after church there would be some trade at the church door with departing country folk.
The trade of markets was almost wholly concerned with exchanging the products of the nearby countryside and the goods sold in the market but particularly in food retail dealing was distrusted as a kind of profiteering. Even when there was enough trade being done to afford a livelihood to an enterprising man ready to buy wholesale and sell retail, town authorities were reluctant to allow it.
Yet there were plainly people who were tempted to “forestall the market” by buying goods outside it, and to “regrate” them, that is to resell them, at a higher price. The constantly repeated rules against these practices and the endlessly recurring prosecutions mentioned in the records of all the larger towns prove that some well-informed and sharp-witted people did these things.
Every town made its own laws and if it was big enough to have craft guilds, these associations would regulate the business of their members and tried to enforce a strict monopoly of their own trades. Yet while the guild leaders, as craftsmen, followed fiercely protectionist policies, at the same time, as leading townsmen, they wanted to see a big, busy market yielding a handsome revenue in various dues and tolls. Conflicts of interest led to endless, minute regulations, changeable, often inconsistent, frequently absurd. There was a time in the fourteenth century, for example, when London fishmongers were not allowed to handle any fish that had not already been exposed for sale for three days by the men who caught it.
It is suggested in the last paragraph that craft guilds

A:enforced regulations that were unfair and unreasonable. B:enforced regulations in the interest of the customers. C:regulated the business of their town to profit the craftsmen. D:were developed to forbid the monopoly.

Any day now, the federal Department of Education will formally propose new regulations that would cut off federal aid to for-profit colleges whose graduates cannot earn enough to repay their student loans.
The regulations, known as the "gainful employment" rules, are an effort to rein in the high debt loads students take on when they enroll in for-profit colleges that offer certificates or degrees in fields like nursing or culinary arts. Students at for-profit colleges are much more likely than others to default on their loans. Under the regulations, a draft of which came out in February, for-profit colleges would not be eligible to receive federal student aid if their graduates’ debt load was too high to be repaid, over 10 years, with 8 percent of their starting salary.
The Career College Association, which represents 1,450 for-profit colleges, is lobbying fiercely against the regulations, which it argues are wrong-headed, unnecessary and likely to restrict needy students’ access to vocational training and higher education. With so many community colleges overcrowded, the for-profit colleges say, their programs represent the nation’s best hope for training much-needed health care workers and technicians.
Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, has avoided demonizing the for-profit schools. In a May speech, he said that despite a "few bad apples," for-profit colleges play a vital role in helping the nation reach the Obama administration’s goal of having the world’s best-educated work force by 2020.
Advocacy groups representing students and consumers are less diplomatic. "These programs over-promise, underdeliver and load vulnerable students up with way too much debt," said Chris Lindstrom, higher education program director at the U. S. Public Interest Research Group, part of a coalition of education, consumer, student and public interest groups supporting the regulations. In 2007, coalition members said, students at for-profit colleges made up only 7 percent of those in higher education hut 44 percent of those defaulting on federal student loans.
Adding new fuel to the fire was a recent presentation at a New York conference for investors by Steven Eisman, a hedge-fund manager known for having anticipated the housing market crash. Mr. Eisman, whose early awareness of structural problems in the housing market is described in Michael Lewis’s bestseller The Big Short, said the for-profit education industry, like the subprime mortgage industry, has rested on the proliferation of loans to low-income people who would not be able to repay them.
Federal law has long said that federal student aid can go only to for-profit colleges that "prepare student for gainful employment in a recognized occupation. " But this is the government’s first effort to define "gainful employment" in relation to graduates’ debt-to-income loads. "With a record number of students attending programs that are subject to this requirement, and a record amount of taxpayer money being used to enable them to attend, it’s more important than ever to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth," said Pauline Abernathy, vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success.
What Pauline Abernathy said in the last paragraph

A:contradicts Eisman’s conclusion about the students. B:lends active support to the new regulations. C:disclaims the liability of for-profit colleges. D:redefines the concept of "gainful employment. "

Most towns up to Elizabethan times were smaller than a modern village and each of them was built around its weekly market where local produce was brought for sale and the town folks sold their work to the people from the countryside and provided them with refreshment for the day. Trade was virtually confined to that one day even in a town of a thousand or so people. On market days craftsmen put up their stalls in the open air whilst on one or two other days during the week the townsman would pack up his loaves, or nails, or cloth, and set out early to do a day’s trade in the market of an adjoining town where, however, he would be charged a heavy toll for the privilege and get a less favourable spot for his stand than the local craftsmen. Another chance for him to make a sale was to the congregation gathered for Sunday morning worship. Although no trade was allowed anywhere during the hours of the service (except at annual fair times), after church there would be some trade at the church door with departing country folk.
The trade of markets was almost wholly concerned with exchanging the products of the nearby countryside and the goods sold in the market but particularly in food retail dealing was distrusted as a kind of profiteering. Even when there was enough trade being done to afford a livelihood to an enterprising man ready to buy wholesale and sell retail, town authorities were reluctant to allow it.
Yet there were plainly people who were tempted to “forestall the market” by buying goods outside it, and to “regrate” them, that is to resell them, at a higher price. The constantly repeated rules against these practices and the endlessly recurring prosecutions mentioned in the records of all the larger towns prove that some well-informed and sharp-witted people did these things.
Every town made its own laws and if it was big enough to have craft guilds, these associations would regulate the business of their members and tried to enforce a strict monopoly of their own trades. Yet while the guild leaders, as craftsmen, followed fiercely protectionist policies, at the same time, as leading townsmen, they wanted to see a big, busy market yielding a handsome revenue in various dues and tolls. Conflicts of interest led to endless, minute regulations, changeable, often inconsistent, frequently absurd. There was a time in the fourteenth century, for example, when London fishmongers were not allowed to handle any fish that had not already been exposed for sale for three days by the men who caught it

A:enforced regulations that were unfair and unreasonable. B:enforced regulations in the interest of the customers. C:regulated the business of their town to profit the craftsmen. D:were developed to forbid the monopoly.

In November the European Parliament’s culture and education committee is due to move forward on its proposed "audiovisual media services" directive, before sending it to the full parliament in December. The new rules update and relax the "Television Without Frontiers" directive of 1989, which opened Europe’s national markets. But critics complain that they also seek to extend fusty regulations from the era of broadcast television to today’s very different technologies. Rules on advertising, the protection of children and so on could potentially also apply to all kinds of video streams, including video blogs, online games and mobile-video services.
This could have a chilling effect on innovation and risks stifling emerging technologies with rules designed for another age, says Chris Marsden of RAND Europe, a think-tank that has analysed the potential impact of the proposed rules for Ofcom, Britain’s media and telecoms regulator. "Regulators have to be thoughtful. They cannot predict the future of television "or the internet—no one can," says Niklas Zennstr. m, a co-founder of Skype, who is now setting up an internet television firm.
The proposed rules may be unrealistic as well as onerous. The idea that websites can be regulated like broadcasters, which are required to keep strict records of what they show in order to help watchdogs investigate complaints, is untenable. Firms could simply relocate outside the European Union to escape the new rules. Last week Ruth Hieronymi, a member of parliament, said she would introduce wording that might help to overcome some of the objections.
Behind the debate is the question of how best to balance competition and protection. Traditional broadcasters worry that they will be shackled by regulations while brisk start-ups can do as they please—so they like the idea of extending regulation to their new rivals. But even if the rules are approved as they stand, they will not come into force until 2010. Such a long, slow process seems incongruous given the pace of technological change.

A:Because they are chained by regulations while the new rivals are free from them B:Because it is hard to balance competition and protection C:Because the new broadcasters are more adapted to the regulations D:Because the rules come into force in a slow and long process

Not long ago, the American government began a" plain language" program, requiring all government agencies to write their new regulations in understandable language. It also encouraged them to rewrite old rules. A website was created to help government employees write everything from regulations to letters in easier- to- understand English.
A website was set up to

A:write regulations in plain English for government agencies. B:rewrite old rules in plain English for government agencies. C:help government employees write in plain English. D:write regulations and letters for government employees.

Governments regulate economic behavior, and the regulations _________.

A:apply to all businesses. B:raise the GDP. C:state and city government D:reduce spending E:modify fluctuations in the business cycle F:produce and sell goods