Английский язык в сфере экономической безопасности. Учебное пособие

college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.

By the last third of the 20th century, the citizenry of the United States was among the best educated in the world. In 2010, America was “ranked 12th in the number of 24to 35-year-olds with college degrees . . . among 36 developed nations.”3 Discussing this issue before Congress last year, Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, stated, “The growing educational deficit is no less a threat to our nation’s long-term well being than the current fiscal crisis. . . . To improve our college completion rates, we must think ‘P–16’ and improve education from preschool through higher education.”

The College Board advocates achieving a 55 percent graduation rate by 2025 if America is to remain competitive with the rest of the world. This goal is in contrast to the 2008 graduation rate of just under 42 percent. To achieve the 55 percent goal, the United States must find a solution that supports college educations for low-income and minority populations within the country. Achieving this goal also assumes that progress can and will be made in getting children enrolled in preschool and elementary school and that they will stay in school through at least an associate’s degree:

According to OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] in 2007 our nation ranked sixth in post-secondary educational attainment in the world among 25to 60-year-olds. The United States ranked fourth for post secondary attainment for citizens age 55–64. The United States trails the Russian Federation, Israel, and Canada in this age group. As America’s aging and highly educated workforce moves into retirement, the nation will rely on young Americans to increase our standing in the world. However . . . among citizens between 25–34 in developed countries, the United States ranks 12th. In recognition of the inextricable link between national security and economic security, the National Defense University’s August 2010 symposium entitled Economic Security: Neglected Dimension of National Security? examined various aspects of economic security, including the need for a well-educated workforce to drive the engines

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of creativity and economic growth. The human capital discussion panel took its text from President Obama’s National Security Strategy:

In a global economy of vastly increased mobility and interdependence, our own prosperity and leadership depends increasingly on our ability to provide our citizens with the education that they need to succeed, while attracting the premier human capital for our workforce. We must ensure that the most innovative ideas take root in America, while providing our people with the skills that they need to compete.

The panel provided a variety of perspectives—from the importance of understanding the contribution of strategy, to an examination of the challenges currently facing the “P–16” educational system, to graduate education, and finally to the role and relationship between colleges and universities and the national security world of work and economic growth.

3.17 Render the text: Why Economic Security is Critical to Victim Safety and How Law Enforcement, the Courts, Prosecutors and Victim Services Can Help?

Economic security has long been equated with safety and survival. Those who are economically secure are better able to insulate themselves from harm. The safety of survivors is inextricably linked to their economic security. However, while this link is understood, it has not always been incorporated into the practices of the criminal justice system. Historically, the criminal justice system has focused on perpetrator accountability and victim safety, with the focus on victim safety usually meaning the immediate protection of that victim and her children from further physical violence. The economic security of the survivor has often been seen as separate from immediate safety needs. Economic issues, for instance, were seen as keeping a victim in a violent relationship or perhaps as a long-term goal for the survivor to work on with the help of an advocate from the local victim services program. This interpretation of the impact of economic factors for survivors ignores the reality that a victim’s economic security is vitally linked to her immediate physical safety needs.

Economic insecurity makes a victim more vulnerable to physical harm and so the criminal justice system—which aims to preempt or avoid future incidents of violence –

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must look at these economic realities as direct threats to a victim’s safety. Law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts as well as victim services, must put the same emphasis on a survivor’s economic well-being as they do on the physical safety of a woman and her dependents because these two realities are inextricably bound for that victim. What players in the system do to assist a victim or what the system does when it prosecutes a perpetrator has a range of benefits and consequences. Ultimately, the benefits inure to both the system and to the survivor. For instance, prosecutors report that a survivor who is economically secure is a better witness, contributing to a higher success rate in court cases. In these same instances, the domestic violence victim is able to see beyond her life of economic dependence solely on an abuser. Similarly, a rape survivor may heal more quickly if she is able to keep her job, housing, personal property or educational scholarship.

The WOW Economic Security and Safety Guide for the STOP Grant Program offers concrete, practical ideas and suggestions for how economic security can become a part of the work that state and territories do as part of the STOP Grant Program. This guide provides a menu of options concerning both programs and processes that STOP administrators may use to integrate economic security into their work as well as resources STOP administrators may share with subgrantees. Incorporating economic security into the STOP Grant Program will vary and may include training and programming for all STOP-funded sectors: law enforcement, prosecution, courts, victim services and any others receiving funds under STOP. Recognizing the challenges that may come with incorporating economic security into the work of the STOP Grant program, the STOP Guide provides STOP administrators and subgrantees with information demonstrating the importance of this work and suggestions on implementing economic security and safety strategies in a manner that is mindful of the limitations in both time and funding of service providers, law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and STOP program staff.

3.18 Read and discuss the text. Single out the main facts and present them in a short review.

Civil War Pensions: America's First “Social Security” Program

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Although Social Security did not really arrive in America until 1935, there was one important precursor that offered something we could recognize as a social security program, to one special segment of the American population. Following the Civil War, there were hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans, and hundreds of thousands of disabled veterans. In fact, immediately following the Civil War a much higher proportion of the population was disabled or survivors of deceased breadwinners than at any time in America's history.

This led to the development of a generous pension program, with interesting similarities to later developments in Social Security. The first national pension program for soldiers was actually passed in early 1776, prior even to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Throughout America's ante-bellum period pensions of limited types were paid to veterans of America's various wars. But it was with the creation of Civil War pensions that a full-fledged pension system developed in America for the first time.)

The Civil War Pension program began shortly after the start of the War, with the first legislation in 1862 providing for benefits linked to disabilities “incurred as a direct consequence of military duty”. Widows and orphans could receive pensions equal in amount to that which would have been payable to their deceased solider if he had been disabled. In 1890 the link with service-connected disability was broken, and any disabled Civil War veteran qualified for benefits. In 1906, old-age was made a sufficient qualification for benefits. So that by 1910, Civil War veterans and their survivors enjoyed a program of disability, survivors and old-age benefits similar in some ways to the later Social Security programs. By 1910, over 90 % of the remaining Civil War veterans were receiving benefits under this program, although they constituted barely .6 % of the total U.S. population of that era. Civil War pensions were also an asset that attracted young wives to elderly veterans whose pensions they could inherit as the widow of a war veteran. Indeed, there were still surviving widows of Civil War veterans receiving Civil War pensions as late as 1999!

In the aggregate, military pensions were an important source of economic security in the early years of the nation. In 1893, for example, the 165 million dollars USA spent on military pensions was the largest single expenditure ever made by the federal government.

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In 1894 military pensions accounted for 37 % of the entire federal budget. (The Civil War pension system was not without its critics.)

But these figures based on the federal budget exaggerate the role of military pensions in providing overall economic security since the federal government's share of the economy was much smaller in earlier times. Also, there were features of the system which meant that many veterans did not receive any benefits. For example, former Confederate soldiers and their families were barred from receiving Civil War pensions. So in 1910 the per capita average military pension expenditure for residents of Ohio was 3,36 dollars USA and for Indiana it was 3,90 dollars USA. By contrast, the per capita average for the Southern states was less than 50 cents (it was 17 cents in South Carolina).

Despite the fact that America had a “social security” program in the form of Civil War pensions since 1862, this precedent did not extend itself to the general society. The expansion of these types of benefit programs to the general population, under Social Security, would have to await additional social and historical developments.

3.19 Read the text and translate it using the dictionary. Explain the meaning of the words printed in bold in English.

The Company Pension

Prior to the rise of company pension plans, paternalistic companies sometimes

“graduated” older workers to take jobs at reduced pay. A few paid some form of retirement stipend—but only if the company was so inclined, since there were no rights to any kind of retirement benefit. Most of the older workers were simply dismissed when their productive years were behind them.

One of the first formal company pension plans for industrial workers was introduced in 1882 by the Alfred Dolge Company, a builder of pianos and organs. Dolge withheld 1 % of each workers’ pay and placed it into a pension fund, to which the company added 6 % interest each year. Dolge viewed providing for older workers as being a business cost like any other, arguing that just as his company had to provide for the depreciation of its machinery, he should also “provide for the depreciation of his employees”. Despite Mr. Dolge’s progressive ideas and his best intentions, the plan proved largely unsuccessful

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since it required a worker to spend many years in continuous employment with the company, and labor mobility, then as now, meant that relatively few workers spend their whole working career with one company. Not only was the Dolge Plan one of the first formal company pension systems in industrial America, it was also one of the first to disappear when the company went out of business a few years later.

The biggest problem with company-provided pensions was that the percentage of workers anticipating an employment-related pension from their company or their union was tiny. Indeed, in 1900 there were a total of five companies in the United States (including Dolge) offering their industrial workers company-sponsored pensions. As late as 1932, only about 15 % of the labor force had any kind of potential employment-related pension. And because the pensions were often granted or withheld at the option of the employer, most of these workers would never see a retirement pension. Indeed, only about 5 % of the elderly were in fact receiving retirement pensions in 1932.

So the company pension was an option not available to most Americans during the time prior to the advent of Social Security.

3.19.1 Say whether the following statements are true or false:

1 Less of the older workers were simply dismissed when their productive years were behind them.

2 One of the first formal company pension plans for industrial workers was introduced in 1982.

3 In 1900 there were a total of seven companies in the United States (including Dolge) offering their industrial workers company-sponsored pensions.

4 The company pension was an option not available to most Americans.

3.20 Translate the following text into Russian in written form (time limit – 45 min.) State Old-Age Pensions

Following the outbreak of the Great Depression, poverty among the elderly grew dramatically. The best estimates are that in 1934 over half of the elderly in America lacked sufficient income to be self-supporting. Despite this, state welfare pensions for the elderly were practically non-existent before 1930. A spurt of pension legislation was passed in the

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years immediately prior to passage of the Social Security Act, so that 30 states had some form of old-age pension program by 1935. However, these programs were generally inadequate and ineffective. Only about 3 % of the elderly were actually receiving benefits under these states plans, and the average benefit amount was about 65 cents a day.

There were many reasons for the low participation in state-run pension systems. Many elderly were reluctant to “go on welfare”. Restrictive eligibility criteria kept many poor seniors from qualifying. Some jurisdictions, while having state programs on the books, failed to actually implement them. Many of the state-passed pension laws provided for counties within the state to opt to participate in the pension program. As a result, in 1929 of the six states with operating pension laws on the books only 53 of the 264 counties eligible to adopt a pension plan actually did so. After 1929, the States began enacting laws without county options. By 1932 seventeen states had old age pension laws, although none were in the south, and 87 % of the money available under these laws were expended in only three states (California, Massachusetts and New York).

4 Unit 4 Contract law

4.1 Before reading the text learn the following words and phrases which are essential to the topic:

1) acceptance – принятие (запроса); акцептование (стадия торгового договора:

ответ лица, которому адресована оферта о ее принятии; согласие принять предлагаемые условия);

2)breach of contract – нарушение договора, невыполнение условий контракта;

3)capacity of the parties – правоспособность сторон договора;

4)consideration – встречное удовлетворение, компенсация, вознаграждение,

возмещение, оплата (нечто ценное, предлагаемое одной стороной в обмен на

определенное обещание или действие другой стороны);

5)contracting party – договаривающаяся сторона, контрагент, участник

договора;

6)contractual relationship – договорные отношения, контрактные отношения;

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7)counteroffer – встречное предложение, контроферта;

8)express agreement – точно сформулированное соглашение, положительно выраженное соглашение;

9)implied agreement – подразумеваемое соглашение; соглашение, выводимое из направленных на заключение договора действий; квазидоговор;

10)legally enforceable agreement – соглашение, имеющее исковую силу;

договор, могущий быть принудительно осуществленным в судебном порядке;

соглашение, обеспеченное правовой санкцией;

11)mutual promises – взаимные обязательства, обоюдные обещания;

12)offer – оферта (предложение одного лица другому, сообщающее о желании заключить с ним договор);

13)party to contract – договаривающаяся сторона, контрагент;

14)specific performance – реальное исполнение;

15)subject matter – содержание, предмет, существо, предмет договора;

16)terms of contract – условия контракта, договорные условия, срок исполнения договора;

17)valid contract – юридически действительный, имеющий силу; правомерный контракт; договор, достаточный с правовой точки зрения; неоспоримый контракт;

надлежаще оформленный, надлежаще совершённый контракт;

18)void – ничтожный; не имеющий юридической силы;

19)voidable – оспоримый; могущий быть аннулированным, не обязательный к исполнению.

4.2 Read the text. Nature of Contracts

Contract law is a foundation upon which many other areas of business law are built, such as activity of corporations and partnerships, employment, agency, commercial papers, and secured transactions. The law of contracts is a framework to ensure that lawful expectations are met or that remedies are provided.

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A contract is a legally enforceable agreement, express or implied, which gives rise to certain rights and obligations. Thus in case of a breach of contract the injured party may go to court to sue for money damages, or for rescission, or for specific performance if money damages would not compensate for the breach. But these rights and obligations cannot arise except between the parties to the contract.

Most people make a number of contracts during each day. Every cab ride, purchase of a grocery item, use of a soft drink machine, or appointment with a doctor involves a contractual relationship. It does not matter that these contracts are oral, or are based on gestures or even on a course of conduct. Mere informality does not render a contract less binding. Though certain contracts shall not be enforceable unless they are in writing and are signed by the party to be charged; for example, contracts concerning real property.

There are four essential elements of a valid contract:

1)capacity of the parties;

2)legality of subject matter;

3)consideration (something of value given in exchange for a promise);

4)mutual agreement (assent), meeting of the minds (a valid offer and acceptance) and intention of the parties to create legal relations.

Each of the four essential requirements must be met in the formation of a valid contract.

Capacity of the Parties

Under the law, only a person who is legally competent has the power to make a binding contract and can be held to any promises contained therein. Persons who may be considered to be legally incompetent include minors, insane persons, and, sometimes under specified circumstances, intoxicated persons.

Legality of Subject Matter

If the subject matter of an agreement is not legal, the agreement is not enforceable in a court of law. In this respect, we do not use the expression “void” or “voidable”; the illegal agreement simply has no existence in contemplation of law. Generally, neither party has access to a court for the assistance of law with respect to any aspect of the agreement.

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There are two reasons why the subject matter of a contract may be illegal: statute and public policy. Statutes are legislative acts; public policy is a judicial determination of prevailing morality.

Consideration

Consideration is something of value that is given in exchange for a promise. It is based on the idea of quid pro quo (“something for something”). In almost all contracts, consideration is required for enforceability.

Mutual agreement

Contracts usually consist of mutual promises given by parties with intent to bind themselves. A promise creates for the promisor (the person making the promise) a future obligation. For the promisee (the person to whom the promise is made) it creates an expectation that the promise will be fulfilled. Furthermore, the promisee will often rely on the promise.

It is not necessary that the thing promised be affirmative; it may be refraining from acting or promising not to act. A promise made to give 1,000 dollars USA to a friend if she does not smoke (a negative unilateral contract) is mutual and binding.

4.3 Agree or disagree with the following statements:

1 A contract is legally enforceable only if it is based on an express agreement of the parties.

2 For a contract to be enforceable it is not necessary to be in writing.

3 A contract is treated as valid even in the absence of any one of its four essential elements.

4 Intoxicated persons by no means are considered legally incompetent.

5 If the subject matter of a contract is against law they say that it is a negative contract.

6 In contractual relations consideration is an equivalent to promise. 4.4 Match the words with definitions: