Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
Kidnapping is the cruelest crime of the 20th century. There is not the political passion behind most hijacking; the motive is greed for money. The victims, provided their families are rich enough, are chosen at random. With the constant exposure by the media of personal fame and fortune, most people are vulnerable than ever.
The most notorious kidnapping began on the evening of March 1, 1932, when someone placed a home-made ladder against the New Jersey home of Colonel Charles Lindbergh and stole his blond, blue-eyed baby son. A ransom (赎金) note was left from the kidnapper. Lindbergh, the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic, was the most popular man in America.
When the boy was found a few miles away with his head crushed in, the whole nation was shocked and Congress passed the "Lindbergh Kidnap Law", with the death penalty for transporting a kidnap victim across a state line. The kidnapper, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was caught two-and-a-half years later, when he exchanged some of the ransom money. He was executed in 1936.
Kidnapping is an example of inflation: Hauptmann demanded $50,000; in 1973 the Getty family had to pay 1,300,000 pounds and the ransom delivery in two billion Italian lire weighed a ton. In this kidnapping, things went dreadfully wrong. When the kidnappers cut off Getty’s right ear and sent it to a newspaper, they forgot the postal strike which delayed this proof by three weeks. In the case of Muriel McKay, the kidnappers picked the wrong woman. The Hosein brothers had developed their plan when they saw Rupert Murdoch on a TV show in 1969 and heard him described as a millionaire, a word which stimulated their action. Yet, in tracing Murdoch’s Rolls-Royce, they failed to realize that he had left for Australia with his wife and had loaned the car to Douglas McKay, a chairman of one of his enterprises. Attacking the wrong home, the Hoseins kidnapped Mrs. McKay by mistake, but still demanded their million pounds.
The end result of kidnapping is never clean: Lindbergh never psychologically recovered. Young Paul Getty jokes: "It was a high-priced ear!" But the scars must be internal, too. The saddest comment came from Douglas McKay after the trial of the Hoseins: "They have got a life sentence. I, too, have a life sentence wondering just what has happened to my dear wife.\
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passageWhat does the writer mean by saying "Kidnapping is an example of inflation" (Line 1, Para. 4)