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原文:
①It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer.
②Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful.
③By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness.
④Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition.
⑤By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith.(Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea’s LG Electronics in July.)
⑥Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market.
⑦America’s machine-tool industry was on the ropes.
⑧For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.
翻译:
随着其他国家日益强盛,美国的这一领先优势逐渐缩小,这是不可避免的。领先优势的后撤同样不可避免地令人感到痛苦。到了20世纪80年代中期,面对其日益衰退的产业竞争力,美国人感到不知所措。面对国外竞争,某些大型美国产业,如消费电子业,已经萎缩甚至倒闭。到1987年,美国只剩下Zenith这一家电视生产商(现在一家也没有了:Zenith已于7月被韩国LG电器公司收购)。外国制造的汽车和纷织品正在大举进入美国国内市场。美国的机床产业也发发可危。半导体是美国人发明的,并在计算机新时代处于核心地位,《但)有那么一段时间,半导体制造业似乎要成为下一个“受害者”。.