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Файл:Economics in Construction. Учебное пособие
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2. What kind of applications of information theory do you know?
1. filing
a. the main airline of a country
2. slump
b. suffered sudden financial difficulties
3. scotched
c. a period of falling profits
4. national carrier
d. officially announcing
5. cost-cutting
e. competition between companies as to which one
can offer the lowest price for an item or a service
6. hit hard times
f. official record
7. price battle
g. keeping costs and prices low
8. downward trend
h. a sudden large fall in numbers or in value
9. posting
i. stopped a piece of information before it could
develop any further
3. What kind of applied disciplines is information theory associated
with?
4. What role does uncertainty play in information theory?
6. Discuss the following:
1. Advantages and disadvantages of the goods (such as mobile phones,
CDs) that appeared due to the achievements in the sphere of information theory.
7. Match the words or phrases with their definitions and translate
them:
8. Complete the sentences:
1. Coding theory is concerned with ...
2. Source coding theorem establishes, that...
3. The transmission of information over a noisy channel is ...
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4. This book is devoted to ...
5. This theory can be applied in ...
6. Many researchers face ...
7. To achieve the aim one must ...
8. Explicit methods are needed to... .
9. Translate the text in a written form:
Canada's once-proud national carrier has hit hard times. Only late last
year, Air Canada seemed to be contradicting the downward trend affecting USbased airlines by posting profits. But a combination of the effects of the war in
Iraq, a vicious price battle with small cost-cutting competitors and the recent
outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Canada and south-east Asia
has led to a slump in passengers and profits. In its court filing, Air Canada
revealed it had secured over seven hundred thousand US dollars in financing
from G.E Capital, one of the world's largest industrial lenders, to keep the airline
operating. Air Canada officials are reassuring passengers that it will be what
they call 'business as usual' and that it will operate normally. The country's
transport minister scotched rumours of government involvement, saying the
carrier's restructuring is a private matter. The airline's debt is estimated at nearly
nine billion US dollars.
10. Put questions to the words in bold and answer them.
11. Make up your own sentences using the words in bold.
12. Discuss the following:
1. Should government support national airlines?
2. What kind of transport do you find most reliable and why? Share
your ideas about negative and positive aspects of flying on a plane.
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U N I T 9
WEALTH CONDENSATION
Wealth condensation is a theoretical
process by which, in certain conditions,
newly-created wealth tends to become
concentrated in the possession of alreadywealthy individuals or entities. According
to this theory, those who already hold wealth have the means to invest in new
sources of creating wealth or to otherwise leverage the accumulation of wealth,
thus are the beneficiaries of the new wealth.
Two processes that some critics claim are driving wealth condensation
are:
1. The process by which corporate officers are paid large salaries and
bonuses, the total compensation sometimes being as much as thirty thousand
times as much as that of their lower-paid employees. Critics of the corporate
system have often charged that there is a substantial disconnect between a)
officer performance and compensation, and b) officer compensation and worker
compensation, and that officers are compensated at levels disproportionate to
either performance or payroll because they are already part of the elite, and that
this is a self- perpetuating methodology to maintain an elite class.
2. If the economy of any country is organized in the interests of the
super-rich, or is a plutocracy in which only the wealthy can hold government
office, it should be expected that wealth condensation will follow. Some critics
say a modern example of this is the current executive of the U.S. In the view of
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some critics (e.g. Paul Krugman) the tax policies of the Bush administration
vastly favour the wealthy over the poor and the middle class. The argument
underlying this is that progressive tax systems are being scrapped in favour of
regressive tax systems, driving wealth condensation (by allowing the wealthy to
retain more of their wealth as disposable and investible income.)
Some advocates believe wealth condensation is common throughout
democratic countries with free market economies, which they claim exemplify
the old phrase "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" (Although most
would concede that the extent to which this is true varies from regime to regime,
particularly in regard to "unearned income tax" policies). For instance, the "law
of the centralization of capital" was posited by Marx as applying to all capitalist
societies.
Few people have actually argued that raising wealth differentials is a good
thing in itself, but whether it is inherently harmful or unjust has been questioned.
For defences of economic inequality see that article or: Equality of outcome.
Proponents of free market economics argue that this "leveraging of
wealth" can be explained either by the legitimate creation of wealth by its
owners or by specific instances of malfeasance. Therefore, by this line of
argument, the results do not constitute a "process" or "effect", and to describe it
as such could even be misleading because it would conflate two distinct sorts of
behaviour: one legitimate and positive, the other dishonest and harmful.
The thrust of these arguments in support of free markets and the wealth
disparity they create is that even if the gap between rich and poor widens, the
poor themselves are actually better off than they would have been in the more
equal state without free enterprise. This is a central element of the theory called
the "trickle down effect".
Free market democrats also generally claim that wealth condensation
theory does not apply to democratic countries. They point to the United States as
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an alleged counter-example of the theory, on the grounds that its middle class is
supposedly the most prosperous in recorded human history. Some go further,
claiming that even America's "poor people" are envied by the "middle class" of
other, less industrialized countries.
Critics of this position also point out that the total wealth of the United
States is vastly higher than most other nations, and that the relatively superior
standard of living of the American poor is solely due to this single disparity.
This criticism further states that the wealth disparity must be measured by the
wealthy versus the poor of the United States, not the American poor versus the
poor of the rest of the world.
If returns to scale are positive, or if superstars are exponentially more
valuable than the average, some argue that it is natural and efficient to reward
some vastly more than others. Again; it is argued that this will lead to benefits
for all, even though it will hurt the second-best in the short term.
Some advocates of globalization believe that its advantages may go hand-
in-hand with dramatic income inequalities leading to wealth condensation, but
that this is an inevitable and small price to pay.
The first condition is an unequal distribution in the first place. Without
this there is nothing for the new wealth to 'condense' onto. This condition is
surely satisfied in developed nations in 2005. In their wealth condensation
model Bouchard & Mezard estimate that 90% of "total wealth" is owned by 5%
of the population in many rich countries. They say that the distribution of wealth
throughout the population is closely described by a Pareto-tails function, which
decay as a power-law in wealth.
A team from Jagellonian University produced statistical model economies
showing that wealth condensation can occur whether or not total wealth is
A common econometric phenomenon throughout developed nations since
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the beginning of the 1990s (and earlier) is that assets (such as housing, stocks,
and bonds) are inflating faster than the CPI or the commodity price index.
For instance, the money price level of bread and milk has risen by 15%
annually in most G7 countries since the mid 1980s, but real estate prices in those
same countries have inflated at least twice as fast in money terms. At the same
time, business assets are becoming more expensive (as measured through
decaying PE ratios in the same time frame).
If this trend continues those with "little or no net worth" will find it harder
and harder to join the "ownership society" as the proportion of average salary
required to buy any sort of limited asset (especially housing) increases.
Source: John F. Nash Jr. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2008
VOCABULARY
beneficiary ,
corporate officer
thrust
favour
exemplify
to vary
business assets – бизнес актив
churning out – вбивание
growing rate – растущий темп
roaring growth – бурный рост
regime
by specific instances
trickle down effect (a marketing phenomenon
that affects many consumer goods, including but not limited to new technology
and fashion)
malfeasance .
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1. Give Russian equivalents to the following word combinations:
Tax policy; to invest in new sources; trickle down effect; free markets;
capitalist society; self-perpetuating methodology; lower-paid employees; large
salaries and bonuses; economic inequality; wealth disparity; equality of income;
advocates of globalization; developed nations; to go hand-in- hand with; wealthy
versus poor; commodity price index; ownership society; real estate; natural and
efficient; wealth condensation; to be envied by; distinct sorts of behaviour; the
most prosperous; progressive tax; already- wealthy entities; regressive tax; to
maintain an elite class; free enterprise.
2. Find in the text and give English equivalents to the following word
combinations:
3. Translate words and word combinations in bold and the whole
sentences:
1. Цены на частную собственность have risen recently.
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2. China is becoming an attractive place для новых инвестиций.
3. In плутократии only wealthy can hold government office.
4. Защитники регрессивной системы налогов claim that this is a
small price to pay.
5. Practically in any country rich people относятся с большей
благосклонностью, than poor.
6. Some scientists defend экономическое неравенство, others are
proponents of свободной рыночной экономики.
7. Income inequalities неизбежно ведет к wealth condensation.
8. You can easily find индекс цен на эти товары in this economic
magazine or in Internet.
9. Everyone wants иметь рычаги управления над wealth.
10. The notion «свободное предпринимательство» belongs to the
sphere of economics.
11. There are a lot of examples of должностного преступления among
all kinds of civil employees and government officials.
4. Translate into English:
5.
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-
9.
5. Complete the sentences:
1. The gap between rich and poor widens because ...
2. There are two sorts of behaviour, ....
3. A person is envied by others if...
4. The law of the centralization of capital was applied to ...
5. There is a substantial disconnect between ...
6. To go hand-in-hand means ...
7. If you are a part of the elite, you ...
8. This claim can be totally misleading, for ...
6. Answer the questions to the text:
1. What is wealth condensation?
2. What are the main reasons leading to wealth condensation?
3. What is economic inequality?
4. Can we exactly measure the wealth disparity of two completely dif-
ferent countries?
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them:
1. a life of rural poverty
a. producing quickly and in large quantity
2. churning out
b. if something is the envy of someone, they really
want it
3. absorb laid off state
sector workers
c. very large manufacturing industry
4. at a phenomenally
growing rate
d. uncertainty about what is likely to happen in the
economy
5. vast industrial
machine
e. if something looms, it seems to be about to
happen
6. to plung into gloom
f. extremely fast increase in industrial production
7. roaring growth in
industrial output
g. more and more quickly
8. looms
h. from the countryside where they are poor and
have little opportunity for wealth
9. the envy of
i. enter an extremely bad period
10. the uncertain
economic outlook
j. find employment for people who have lost jobs
in the state industries
7. Discuss the following:
8. Match the words or phrases with their definitions and translate
9. Translate the text in a written form:
China's vast industrial machine is churning out mobile phones,
television sets, computers and cars at a phenomenally growing rate. And
whatever doubts there may be about the quality of economic data, the figures
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