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  3. NATIONS, like people, occasionally get the blues; and right now the United States, normally the world’s most self-confident plac

NATIONS, like people, occasionally get the blues; and right now the United States, normally the world’s most self-confident plac

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问题    NATIONS, like people, occasionally get the blues; and right now the United States, normally the world’s most self-confident place, is glum. Eight out of ten Americans think their country is heading in the wrong direction. The hapless George Bush is partly to blame for this: his approval ratings are now sub-Nixonian. But many are concerned not so much about a failed president as about a failing nation.
   One source of angst is the sorry state of American capitalism ( see article). The" Washington consensus" told the world that open markets and deregulation would solve its problems. Yet American house prices are falling faster than during the Depression, petrol is more expensive than in the 1970s, banks are collapsing, the euro is kicking sand in the dollar’s face, credit is scarce, recession and inflation both threaten the economy, consumer confidence is an oxymoron and Belgians have just bought Budweiser, "America’s beer".
   And it’s not just the downturn that has caused this discontent. Many Americans feel as if they missed the boom. Between 2002 and 2006 the incomes of 99% rose by an average of 1% a year in real terms, while those of the top 1% rose by 11% a year; three-quarters of the economic gains during Mr Bush’s presidency went to that top 1%. Economic envy, once seen as a European vice, is now rife. The rich appear in Barack Obama’s speeches not as entrepreneurial role models but as modern versions of the "malefactors of great wealth" denounced by Teddy Roosevelt a century ago: this lot, rather than building trusts, avoid taxes and ship jobs to Mexico. Globalisation is under fire: free trade is less popular in the United States than in any other developed country, and a nation built on immigrants is building a fence to keep them out. People mutter about nation-building beginning at home: why, many wonder, should American children do worse at reading than Polish ones and at maths than Lithuanians?
   Abroad, America has spent vast amounts of blood and treasure, to little purpose. In Iraq, finding an acceptable exit will look like success; Afghanistan is slipping. America’s claim to be a beacon of freedom in a dark world has been dimmed by Guant Namo, Abu Ghraib and the flouting of the Geneva Conventions amid the panicky "unipolar" posturing in the aftermath of September 11th.
   Now the world seems very multipolar. Europeans no longer worry about American ascendancy. The French, some say, understood the Arab world rather better than the neoconservatives did. Russia, the Gulf Arabs and the rising powers of Asia scoff openly at the Washington consensus. China in particular spooks America and may do so even more over the next few weeks of Olympic medal-gathering. Americans are discussing the rise of China and their consequent relative decline; measuring when China’s economy will be bigger and counting its missiles and submarines has become a popular pastime in Washington. A few years ago, no politician would have been seen with a book called "The Post-American World". Mr Obama has been conspicuously reading Fareed Zakaria’s recent volume.
   America has got into funks before now. In the 1950s it went into a Sputnik-driven spin about Soviet power; in the 1970s there was Watergate, Vietnam and the oil shocks; in the late 1980s Japan seemed to be buying up America. Each time, the United States rebounded, because the country is good at fixing itself. Just as American capitalism allows companies to die, and to be created quickly, so its political system reacts fast. In Europe, political leaders emerge slowly, through party hierarchies; in America, the primaries permit inspirational unknowns to burst into the public consciousness from nowhere.
   Still, countries, like people, behave dangerously when their mood turns dark. If America fails to distinguish between what it needs to change and what it needs to accept, it risks hurting not just allies and trading partners, but also itself:
How to interpret the return of the modern version of "malefactors of great wealth" (paragraph 3)?
选项
答案In paragraph two, the author demonstrated that the rich people got much more salary rise than the not rich ones, which means they are becoming richer and richer. It is likely they are gathering wealth while the poor get poorer. so they are called “malefactors of great wealth”. This phenomenon used to happen in Europe in ancient times, as the landlord exploited people and get money, but in modern times, it comes to America, that’s why it is called the return of the modern version of “malefactors of great wealth”.
解析 (参考第三段最后一句和第四段的内容，解释的重点在于“return”、“modern version”和“malefactors of great wealth”。the return of the modern version of“malefactors of great wealth”现代版“敛财恶人”的回归。)
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