单项选择题

 
    The economic crisis spread as currencies in other Southeast Asian nations began to drop. The Indonesian rupiah began to fall in December, and eventually would lose more than 80 percent of its dollar value. Meanwhile, about $50 million dollars per day were transferred out of Indonesia to the relative safety of Singapore’s banks.
    The French fry is but one indicator of economic prosperity. The more a county develops economically, the more French fries people consume. The reverse is also true. When economies falter, French fries and fast-foods become a luxury that fewer can afford. In Indonesia, the currency crisis saw the price of a Big Mac triple. Because restaurants paid for imported wholesale fries in dollars, their costs soared. Customers could not meet price increases, and began to consume rice and egg dishes that McDonald’s added to their Indonesia menus. But McDonald’s sales plunged. Theirs and other US stores became targets for critics of globalization. One third of the restaurants that purchased French fries from Simplot were burned, including about 10 McDonald’s. Anti-foreign and anti-Chinese riots to follow took 500 lives.
    In view of the Indonesian crisis, the Hutterites’ potatoes were diverted to Singapore’s more stable economy. On an early evening there Ernest Enver—a descendant of Russian Jews—met his wife Becky and three children in one of Singapore’s McDonald’s. Becky is of Chinese heritage, and the family is Roman Catholic. They ordered up servings of fries that took only seven minutes to reach crispy brown perfection.   The word "falter" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______.