1.Прочитайте текст, расположите ниже приведённые утверждения в соответствии с развитием темы текста.

1. Business people found the corporation to have an irresistible advantage over sole proprietorship and partnership.

2. The first American business organizations appeared in the 18^th century.

3. The rise of the corporation proved unstoppable.

New forms of business organization - notably the bank and the corporation - facilitated the growth of industry. The first American commercial banks appeared in the 1780s and more banks soon followed. For many years, the only paper money consisted of bank notes "that represented a particular bank's promise to pay”. Banking policy was roughly controversial and early attempts to establish a national or central bank were short-lived. Not until 1863 did the United States create a truly national banking system with a standard paper currency.

In the early years of the United States, banks were one of the few businesses organized in the form of corporations. The creation of each corporation required a special law. Business people found the corporation to have irresistible advantage over the sole proprietorship and the partnership because it could draw on many investors. As a result it was a much more efficient tool for raising the large amounts of capital needed by expanding businesses. And, as a finally evolved, it enjoyed limited liability, so investors picked only amount of their investment and not their entire assets.

Many people objected to the very idea of the corporation. It had, as one critic said, "no body to be kicked and no soul to be damned". But the rise of the corporation proved unstoppable. Connecticut, in 1837, became the first state to pass a general act of incorporation, making it relatively simple for any group to get a corporate charter by complying with a set of standard rules. As late as 1860, however, most manufacturing enterprises were still organized as sole proprietorships or partnerships.

2. Пользуясь словарем уточните значение и произношение слов:

То facilitate, particular, sole, advantage, to object to, charter, set.

Найдите в тексте предложения с данными, словами, переведите их.

3.Найдите и выпишите эквиваленты слов и словосочетаний в тексте:

А именно; с течением (времени); однако; в течение многих лет.

4. Прочитайте текст, ответьте на вопросы:

1. Which forms of business organization facilitated the growth of Industry?

2. What was a banknote?

3. Why was corporation more efficient than sole proprietorship?

4. Why did many people object to the idea of corporation?

5. Разделите текст на логические части, выделите в каждой из них ключевые предложения (содержащие основную информацию). Напишите краткое содержание текста.

6. Прочитайте текст. Расcкажите о зарождении банковского дела. Озаглавьте текст.

Demand deposits and other checkable deposits account for the largest share of the nation’s supply, and most originate from financial institutions known as banks. While there are different kinds of banks such as commercial banks, savings and loans, credit unions, and savings banks, they all collect funds from people who have no immediate need for them, pay interest on those funds, and funnel them to borrowers.

The development of the banking system began in the Middle Ages. The major forms of money in those days, gold and silver coins, were inconvenient to carry and likely to be stolen. To make business transactions safer and more convenient, people began depositing their coins with local goldsmiths, who gave them written receipts in exchange. People accepted the receipts because they knew that they could present them at any time and redeem their deposit. They also discovered that merchants often accepted the goldsmiths’ receipts in payment for goods and services. As the use of receipts spread, the earliest form of paper money in Western Europe came into being.

TEXT 8. REFORM