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  3. Hurling brickbats at bankers is a popular pastime. The "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its various branches complain that a vi

Hurling brickbats at bankers is a popular pastime. The "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its various branches complain that a vi

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问题     Hurling brickbats at bankers is a popular pastime. The "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its various branches complain that a vicious 1%, many of them bankers, are ripping off the virtuous 99%. Hollywood has vilified financiers in "Wall Street" and "Wall Street 2". Mountains of books make the same point without using Michael Douglas.
    Anger is understandable. The financial crisis of 2007 — 08 has produced the deepest recession since the 1930s. Most of the financiers at the heart of it have got off unharmed. The biggest banks are bigger than ever. Bonuses are flowing once again. The old saw about bankers—that they believe in capitalism when it comes to pocketing the profits and socialism when it comes to paying for the losses—is too true for comfort.
    But is the fierce reaction in danger of going too far? A glance at history suggests that we should be nervous. For centuries the hatred of moneylending went hand in hand with a hatred of rootlessness. Cosmopolitan moneylenders were harder to tax than immobile landowners, governments muttered. In a denouncement of the Rothschilds, Heinrich Heine, a German poet, fumed that money "is more fluid than water and less steady than air. " This prejudice has proven dangerous. Without money to grease them, the wheels of commerce turn slowly or not at all. Civilisations that have eased the ban on moneylending have grown rich. Those that have retained it have stagnated. Northern Italy boomed in the 15th century when the Medicis and other banking families found ways to bend the rules. Economic leadership passed to Protestant Europe when Luther and Calvin made moneylending acceptable. As Europe pulled ahead, the usury-banning Islamic world remained trapped in poverty.
    The rise of banking has often been accompanied by a flowering of civilisation. Great financial centres have often been great artistic centres—from Florence in the Renaissance to Amsterdam in the 17th century to London and New York today. Countries that have chased away the moneylenders have been artistic-deserts. Where would New York’s SoHo be without Wall Street?
    Prejudice against financiers can cause non-economic damage, too. Throughout history, moneylenders have been persecuted. Ethnic minorities—most obviously the Jews in Europe and America—have clustered in the financial sector first because they were barred from more "respectable" pursuits and later because success generates success. At times, anti-banking prejudice has acquired a strong color of ethnic hatred. A survey in the Boston Review in 2009 found that 25% of non-Jewish Americans blamed Jews for the financial crisis. Today, the combination of hard times and harsh rhetoric could also produce something nasty.
    The crisis of 2008 showed that global finance requires tough medicine. Banks must be forced to hold bigger reserves. "Weapons of mass destruction" must be removed. The culture of short-term incentives needs to be revised. But demonising bankers will not solve these problems—and may well, if unchecked, bring a lot of ancient ugliness back to life.
Paragraph 4 mainly illustrates that banking industry often______.
选项 A、thrives in great artistic centers
B、develops with civilization
C、accelerates cultural prosperity
D、produces financial centers
答案C
解析 第四段指出，银行业的兴起常常伴随着文明的繁盛，伟大的金融中心往往也是艺术中心，而驱逐放债人的国家则成了艺术荒漠，并通过举例等方式予以说明。可见本段意在说明银行业对文化繁荣的促进作用。[C]选项正确。
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