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  3. More than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility

More than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility

admin2012-03-23  63
问题     More than any other country, America defines itself by a collective dream: the dream of economic opportunity and upward mobility. Its proudest boast is that it offers a chance of the good life to everybody who is willing to work hard and play by the rules. This ideal has made the United States the world’s strongest magnet for immigrants; it has also reconciled ordinary Americans to the rough side of a dynamic economy, with all its inequalities and insecurities. Who cares if the boss earns 300 times more than the average working staff, if the staff knows be can become the boss?
    Look around the world and the supremacy of "the American model" might seem assured. No other rich country has so successfully harnessed the modern juggernauts of technology and globalization The hallmarks of American capitalism—a willingness to take risks, a light regulatory touch and sharp competition—have spawned enormous wealth. "This economy is powerful,  productive and prosperous," George Bush once boasted, and by many yardsticks he was right. Growth was fast, unemployment was low and profits were fat. It was hardly surprising that so many other governments were trying to "Americanize" their economies—whether through the European Union’s Lisbon Agenda or Japan’s reforms.
    Yet many people feel unhappy about the American model—not least in the United States. Only one in four Americans believes the economy is in good shape. While firms’ profits have soared, wages for the typical worker have barely budged. The middle class—admittedly a vague term in America—feels squeezed. A college degree is no longer a passport to ever-higher pay. Now politicians are playing on these fears. Populists complain about Mr. Osama’s plutocratic friends exporting jobs abroad; nativists howl about immigrants wrecking the system.
    The debate about the American model echoes far beyond the nation’s shores. Europeans have long held that America does not look after its poor—a prejudice reinforced by the ghastly scenes after Hurricane Katrina. The sharp decline in America’s image abroad has much to do with foreign policy, but Americanization has also become synonymous with globalization, Across the rich world, global competition is forcing economies to become more flexible, often increasing inequality; Japan is one example. The logic of many non-Americans is that if globalization makes their economy more like America’s, and the American model is defective, then free trade and open markets must be bad.
    This debate mixes up three arguments—about inequality, meritocracy and immigration. The word that America should worry about most is the one you hear least—meritocracy.
    Begin with inequality. The flip-side of America’s economic dynamism is that it has become more unequal—but in a more complex way than first appears. America’s rich have been pulling away from the rest of the population, as the returns for talent and capital in a global market have increased. Even if American business stopped at the water’s edge, Bill Gates and the partners of Goldman Sachs would still be wealthy people; but since software and investment banking are global industries, Mr. Gates is worth $ 50 billion and the average pay-and-benefits package for Goldman’s 22,400 employees is above $ 500,000.
    On the other hand, the current wave of globalization may not be widening the gap between the poor and the rest. Indeed, the headwinds of the global economy are being felt less by Americans at the bottom than by those in the middle. The jobs threatened by outsourcing—data-processing, accounting and so on—are white-collar jobs; the jobs done by the poor—cleaning and table-waiting, for example—could never be done from Bangalore.
    Those at the bottom have different fears, immigration high among them. Their jobs cannot be exported to rival countries perhaps, but rival workers can and are being imported to America. Yet there is surprisingly little evidence that the arrival of low-skilled workers has pulled poor Americans’ wages down. And it has certainly provided a far better life for new arrivals than the one they left behind.
The word "yardsticks" in the second paragraph probably means
选项 A、standards.
B、means.
C、people.
D、chance.
答案A
解析 语义题。由题干定位至第二段。第四句指出“‘This economy is powerful，productive and prosperous，’George Bush once boasted，and by many yardsticks he was right．”，之后对该句进行补充说明“Growth was fast，unemployment was low and profits were fat．”，显然后面的内容是对The economy is powerful的最好说明，也是布什做出判断的依据，即标准，[A]符合此处语境，故为答案。其他三项分别表示方法、人和机会，这与该处上下文没有语义上的关联，排除。
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