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  3. In the grip of a bubble mentality, we—as investors, consumers and businesses—blithely assumed risk and convinced ourselves it wa

In the grip of a bubble mentality, we—as investors, consumers and businesses—blithely assumed risk and convinced ourselves it wa

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问题     In the grip of a bubble mentality, we—as investors, consumers and businesses—blithely assumed risk and convinced ourselves it was perfectly safe to do so. We bought houses with no money down, took on huge amounts of debt and let the booming stock and housing markets perform the heavy lifting of saving. After all, new technologies, securitization and derivatives permitted financial wizards to slice, dice, sell—and, ultimately, banish—any type of risk. But the intellectual scaffolding surrounding that culture of debt and risk has fallen along with the stocks of Citigroup and AIG. And now the Zeitgeist has spun 180 degrees. Squeeze your nickels, slash debt, stop gambling.
    【R6】______Those are the $4 trillion questions. Earlier this decade, we transitioned effortlessly from the dotcom bubble to a housing and credit bubble, which suggests a powerful resiliency. But financial trauma can leave deep scar tissue, as it did after the Great Depression.
    It’s tempting in this period of contraction to mimic Thoreau, to live simply and deliberately. But if we lose our penchant for gain and risk, we’ll lose some of the essence of what makes us American. Economists warn that if we don’t manage to jolt the economy back to life soon, we run
the risk of repeating Japan’s "lost decade" of the 1990s. Would that be so bad?【R7】______ But America is different. Thanks to our continually rising population, we need significant growth just to maintain our standards of living—and the health of our democracy.
    Saving cash and building up reserves is a necessary first step to recovery. But eventually the mountain of cash has to be put to work. Last week’s sharp market rally was certainly a sign—however fleeting it may turn out to be—that investors are putting money to work again.【R8】______
    Between 1996 and 2007, according to the Kauffman Foundation, about 0. 3 percent of the adult population started a new business each month, or about 495 ,000 per month.【R9】______In recent years, many new businesses have been financed through retirement savings, second mortgages and credit-card debt. None of those three sources of funding is particularly deep now. Even so, layoffs can prove a powerful spur to entrepreneurship.
    The new ethos of thrift, which is as much about efficiency and sustainability as it is about penny-pinching, may have significant commercial applications—beyond green roofs. Startups in wind power and smart-grid technology are still finding sources of funding. Small enterprises that install solar panels and conduct energy audits are expanding.【R10】______
    The markets, and the economy as a whole, are continually buffeted by the twin forces of fear and greed. For the past year, fear has clearly had the upper hand. But over time, as fear subsides, our inborn instincts to improve our lot—Adam Smith would call it self-interest—will make a comeback.
A. They, and other businesses, will benefit from measures in the recently passed stimulus package to weatherize homes, and make government buildings more energy-efficient.
B. After all, while Japan endured a prolonged period of slow growth, nobody starved, there was no social unrest in the aging country, and its biggest companies continued to innovate.
C. Until America emerges from its bunker, the global economy—facing its first year of contraction since World War II—is likely to remain moribund.
D. Is this era of thrift a temporary phenomenon? Will we revert to our risk-taking selves as soon as we latch on to the next New, New Thing?
E. But investing during slack times requires a leap of faith. It’s possible that all we need is another bout of enthusiasm to jolt the nation out of its torpor.
F. There’s no reason to think such entrepreneurial activity will decline in this recession, although there are some barriers.
G. Even so, layoffs can prove a powerful spur to entrepreneurship. Last October, Susan Durrett was laid off from her job at a San Francisco-based architecture firm.
【R6】
选项
答案D
解析 后文提到“Those are the $4 trillion questions．”证明前面的空中应涉及到当今存在的一些问题，而D选项提出“经济衰退只是短暂的现象吗?”等问题，刚好与下文呼应，故选D。
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