3Адание 1. Answer the questions:

1. What is business?

2. What is an entrepreneur?

3. What are the forms of small business?

4. What are the advantages and drawbacks of small business?

5. What is a partnership?

6. What are the main differences between public and private companies?

7. What are the types of companies?

8. What is a corporation?

9. What is franchising and what are its advantages?

2. Decide which of the advantages and disadvantages below you would associate with the following forms of business. In some cases there may be more than one correct answer.

1. a sole trader

2. a partnership

3. a private limited company

4. franchising

Advantages

1. You have total control of your business.

2. This is a good way of sharing the pressure and work of starting a business.

3. The financial risks that you are taking are restricted.

4. You can increase your capital by selling shares.

5. You can go into business with limited risk and outlay.

Disadvantages

1. There is a danger that conflicts of personality could ruin your business.

2. It may be difficult to expand.

3. You may have to sell your possessions if the company goes into debt.

Задание 3 . Prepare a short checklist of the questions that you would need to ask yourselves before starting a business.

Examples: How much money will I need?

What starting investments are necessary?

Where to place the enterprise? What are the prospects of the business? etc.

Задание 4. What position would you like to have:

A. to manage people — manager

B. to work for someone else — an employee

C. to be your own boss — self-employed, businessman

D. be responsible for everything — top manager, director

E. to work for the state — state employee

Задание 5. How do you see your future profession? Please answer the following questions:

What kind of work are you interested in:

1. well paid work

2. interesting work

3. work in a large and famous company

4. quiet work

5. work in an industry which has future prospects

6. prestigious work

7. a kind of work such as not to sit the whole day in the office

8. to travel a lot

Задание 6. Please, discuss advantages and disadvantages of your future profession.

1. Do you think that your future profession is prestigious?

Тема 8 Money and banking Money and its Functions

The main feature of money is its acceptance as the means of payment or medium of exchange. Nevertheless, money has other functions. It is a standard of value, a unit of account, a store of value and a standard of deferred payment.

The Medium of Exchange

Money, the medium of exchange, is used in one-half of almost all exchange. Workers work for money. People buy and sell goods in exchange for money. We accept money not to consume it, directly but because it can subsequently be used to buy things we do wish to consume. Money is the medium through which people exchange goods and services.

In barter economy there is no medium of exchange.

Goods are traded directly or swapped for other goods.

In a barter economy, the seller and the buyer each must want something the other has to offer. Each person is simultaneously a seller and a buyer. There is a double coincidence of wants.

Trading is very expensive in a barter economy. Peo­ple must spend a lot of time and effort finding others with whom they can make mutually satisfactory swaps. Since time and effort are scarce resources, a barter economу is wastefill.

Money is generally accepted in payment for goods, services, and debts and makes the trading process sim­pler and more efficient.

Other Functions of Money

Money can also serve as a standard of value. Society considers it convenient to use a monetary unit to determine relative costs of different goods and services. In this function money appears as the unit of account, is the unit in which prices are quoted and accounts are kept.

To be accepted in exchange, money has to be a store of value. Money is a store of value because it can be used to make purchases in the future.

Houses, stamp collections, and interest-bearing bank accounts all serve as stores of value. Since money pays no interest and its real purchasing power is eroded by inflation, there are almost certainly better ways to store value.

Finally, money serves as a standard of deferred payment or a unit of account over time. When you borrow, the amount to be repaid next year is measured in money value.