Hi, I'm John, and I want to help you learn English. 這裡有純正又充滿磁性的美音，這裡有多樣化的學習素材（目前已推送 800 多篇不同類型的英文材料），這裡已經有超過 11 萬充滿激情的英語學習者，這裡更是共同進步、實現夢想的出發點和加油站！關注清晨朗讀會，閱讀、轉發，讓優美的晨讀開啟你充滿希望的每一天！Good morning!
今天的練習內容來自《紐約時報》，標題為 In 2008, America Stopped Believing in the American Dream。
作者 Frank Rich 不是我最喜歡的，我覺得他的觀點有時候太極端，他的文章有時候寫得太散，但是他也經常能抓住和描述一些重要的現象。當然，美國人並沒有自從 2008 年就不相信美國夢，但 2008 年的確能代表某種意義上的轉折點。這個轉折點涉及到美國的經濟體系，也涉及到國際環境與美國的國際地位，也涉及到美國人口的變化等等。這個轉折點到底會轉到哪裡，我不知道。
What do you think？
Have fun!
John
p.s. 點這裡了解我的激活英語課程。記得每天都來 清晨朗讀會 打卡哦～
朗讀內容
In 2008, America Stopped Believing in the American Dream
By Frank Rich
If you were standing in the smoldering ashes of 9/11 trying to peer into the future, you might have been overjoyed to discover this happy snapshot of 2018: There has been no subsequent major terrorist attack on America from Al Qaeda or its heirs. American troops are not committed en masse to any ground war. American workers are enjoying a blissful 4 percent unemployment rate. The investment class and humble 401(k) holders alike are beneficiaries of a rising GDP and booming stock market that, as measured by the Dow, is up some 250 percent since its September 10, 2001, close. The most admired person in America, according to Gallup, is the nation’s first African-American president, a man no one had heard of and a phenomenon no one could have imagined at the century’s dawn. Comedy, the one art whose currency is laughter, is the culture’s greatest growth industry. What’s not to like?
Plenty, as it turns out. The mood in America is arguably as dark as it has ever been in the modern era. The birthrate is at a record low, and the suicide rate is at a 30-year high; mass shootings and opioid overdoses are ubiquitous. In the aftermath of 9/11, the initial shock and horror soon gave way to a semblance of national unity in support of a president whose electoral legitimacy had been bitterly contested only a year earlier. Today’s America is instead marked by fear and despair more akin to what followed the crash of 1929, when unprecedented millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes after the implosion of businesses ranging in scale from big banks to family farms.
It’s not hard to pinpoint the dawn of this deep gloom: It arrived in September 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers kicked off the Great Recession that proved to be a more lasting existential threat to America than the terrorist attack of seven Septembers earlier. The shadow it would cast is so dark that a decade later, even our current run of ostensible prosperity and peace does not mitigate the one conviction that still unites all Americans: Everything in the country is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education, institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the bedrock virtues of civility and community. Nearly everything has turned to crap, it seems, except Peak TV (for those who can afford it).
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/frank-rich-2008-financial-crisis-end-of-american-dream.html
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朗讀語音也可以去喜馬拉雅聽（搜索：王淵源John）
無論你選擇讚賞還是打卡、轉發，對我都是莫大的鼓勵和支持！
足跡
New York, Aug 2018