It used to be that people were proud to work for the same company for the whole of their working lives. They’d get a gold watch at the end of their productive years and a dinner featuring speeches by their bosses praising their loyalty. But today’s rich capitalists have regressed (倒退) to the “survival of the fittest” ideas and their loyalty extends not to their workers or even to their stockholders but only to themselves. Instead of giving out gold watches worth a hundred or so dollars for forty or so years of word, they grab tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars as they sell for their own profit the company they may have been with for only a few years.
　　The new rich selfishly act on their own to unfairly grab the wealth that the country as a whole has produced. The top 1 percent of the population now has wealth equal to the whole bottom 95 percent and they want more. Their selfishness is most shamelessly expressed in downsizing and outsourcing (將產(chǎn)品包給分公司做) because these business maneuvers don’t act to created new jobs as the founder of new industries used to do, but only out jobs while keeping the money value of what those jobs produced for themselves.
　　To keep the money machine working smoothly the rich have bought all the politicians from the top down. The president himself is constantly leaving Washington and the business at the nation because he is summoned to “fundraising dinners” where fat cats pay a thousand or so dollars a plate to worm their way into government not through service but through donations of vast amounts of money. Once on the inside they have both political parties busily tearing up all the regulations that protect the rest of us from the greed of the rich.
　　The middle class used to be loyal to the free enterprise system. In the past, the people of the middle class mostly thought they’d be rich themselves someday or have a good shot at becoming rich. But nowadays income is being distributed more and more unevenly and corporate loyalty is a thing of the past. The middle class may also wake up to forget its loyalty to the so-called free enterprise system altogether and the government which governs only the rest of us while letting the corporations do what they please with our jobs. As things stand, if somebody doesn’t wake up, the middle class is on a path to being downsized all the way to the bottom of society.
　　1. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that people used to place a high value on ________.
　　A) job security
　　B) bosses’ praise
　　C) corporate loyalty
　　D) retirement benefits
　　2. The author is strongly critical of today’s rich capitalists for ________.
　　A) not giving necessary assistance to laid-off workers
　　B) maximizing their profits at the expense of workers
　　C) not setting up long-term goals for their companies
　　D) rewarding only those who are considered the fittest
　　3. The immediate consequence of the new capitalists’ practice is ________.
　　A) loss of corporate reputation
　　B) lower pay for the employees
　　C) a higher rate of unemployment
　　D) a decline in business transactions
　　4. The rich try to sway the policy of the government by ________.
　　A) occupying important positions in both political parties
　　B) making monetary contributions to decision-makers
　　C) pleasing the public with generous donations
　　D) constantly hosting fundraising dinners
　　5. What is the author’s purpose in writing this passage?
　　A) to call on the middle class to remain loyal to the free enterprise system
　　B) to warn the government of the shrinking of the American middle class
　　C) to persuade the government to change its current economic policies
　　D) to urge the middle class to wake up and protect their own interests
　　參考答案：CBCBD

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