- •Unit 1 free enterprise system
- •Active Vocabulary
- •1 Translate the following combinations into Russian.
- •2 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous task.
- •3 Study the new words and make your own sentences with them.
- •4Translate into English using the expressions from the previous tasks.
- •5 How would you serve your customer?
- •Social and business skills Breaking the ice
- •3 Write the letters of the phrases in the appropriate place.
- •Introductory questions Being more specific Asking for an opinion
- •4 Match the conversational exchanges.
- •Reading
- •I The Pillars of Free Enterprise
- •1 What are the “pillars” of American economic system?
- •2 What does the right to private property give the owners of natural resources and capital? Why?
- •Free Enterprise: the Theory and the Reality
- •1What is the essence of the term “laissez faire”?
- •2 What are the three levels of American government?
- •3 In what cases does the government show its power?
- •1 What is the role of prices in American economic system?
- •2 Why is American economic system called price-directed system?
- •3 What are the fundamental questions that price system provides the answers to?
- •1 What does competition refer to?
- •Active vocabulary
- •1 Translate the following combinations into Russian.
- •2 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous task.
- •3 Study the new words and make your own sentences with them.
- •4 Fill in each blank with a suitable word.
- •5 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous tasks.
- •6 Answer the questions.
- •Social and business skills Arrangements
- •1 Read the extract and answer these questions.
- •3 You will hear an imaginary alternative version of the conversation in the book. Listen and compare your choices.
- •5 Match the sentences with the headings.
- •6 Food and drink. Match the two parts of the conversational exchange.
- •Reading
- •I Forms of business organization
- •Unit 3 how to start your own business
- •Active Vocabulary
- •1 Translate the following combinations into Russian.
- •2 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous task.
- •3 Study the new words and make your own sentences with them.
- •4 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous tasks.
- •5 Answer the questions.
- •Social and business skills Making a proposal
- •1 Make a summary of the script.
- •2 Look at the script again and notice how the meeting is structured. In which order do these stages occur?
- •3 Here us some of the language you can use for each of those four stages.
- •Refusing and accepting
- •2 Underline the phrases that he uses to refuse the offer.
- •II Becoming an entrepreneur
- •III Risks and benefits of starting a new business
- •Unit 4 financial institutions
- •Active Vocabulary
- •1 Translate the following combinations into Russian.
- •2 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous task.
- •3 Study the new words and make your own sentences with them.
- •4 Translate into English using the expressions from the previous tasks.
- •5 Match the notion and its definition.
- •6 Define the meaning of the words highlighted in the text.
- •1 Discuss these points.
- •2 Look at the three solutions offered by Patrick Ellis and underline the eight conditional sentences that are used. Which of these sentences describe hypothetical situations?
- •3 Listen and fill in the blank spaces with the correct forms of the verbs.
- •Reading
- •I Functions of a Central Bank
- •II Other Bank Services
- •III Consumer credit
Reading
I The Pillars of Free Enterprise
In the United States, out economic system capitalism or free enterprise, and our social and political institutions answer those questions. They have enabled our country to produce more goods and services than any other nation in history.
The free enterprise system rests on certain traditions, beliefs and practices that set it apart from other economic systems. These “pillars” of our economic system are private property, the price system and competition.
Private property. Unlike people in many other parts of the world, Americans are able to own property for business purposes and use it to produce income. Nearly 90% of the goods and services produced in this country each year come from privately earned firms.
The right to private property gives the owners of natural resources and capital the incentive to use their assets as efficiently as they can. Why? Because property owners know they will make profit if they can produce goods and services that buyers want, at a price they are willing to pay. The advantages of private property and its incentives were summarized by “the father of modern economics”, Adam Smith, in his famous book The Wealth of Nations.
1 What are the “pillars” of American economic system?
2 What does the right to private property give the owners of natural resources and capital? Why?
3 What book summarizes the advantages of private property and its incentives?
Free Enterprise: the Theory and the Reality
Adam Smith, the father of economics described a world in which the economy ran itself. Government played only the smallest role. Smith described this point of view by relating the story of a French official who asked a manufacturer what the government could do to help him. “Laissez-nous faire” (“leave us alone”) was his reply. To this day, the term “laissez faire” refers to a policy of limiting government’s ability to regulate business.
Government in America functions at three levels: federal, state and local. Despite the fact that ours is a free enterprise system, buyers and sellers must share economic power with government. This sharing of power places limits on the freedom we associate with private property, the price system, and competition. For example, governments:
compel people to sell their property for public use through the power of eminent domain;
decide who may sell electric power in a geographic region;
control which machines may be sold commercially;
license certain businesses (such as banks, barber shops, taxi cabs and restaurants);
pay dairy farmers for not producing as much milk as they can;
forbid export of certain machinery to specific foreign countries;
establish the minimum wages employers must pay;
issue permits for and inspect construction of homes and buildings.
1What is the essence of the term “laissez faire”?
2 What are the three levels of American government?
3 In what cases does the government show its power?
II
The Price System. One of the remarkable things about the American economic system is that it seems to run by itself. No central economic agency dictates responses to What, How and Who questions. Yet the questions are answered.
Prices determine what we are willing and able to buy. They influence us to continue in school or to accept a job. Prices help to determine what and where factories will be built, which businesses will succeed, which will fail, and even the color and style of the clothing that will be manufactured.
Prices, the money value of goods and services, carry so much information and so affect the behavior of buyers and sellers that economists often describe our economy as a price-directed system.
The price system provides the answers to the fundamental questions of What goods and services will be produces, How they will be produced, and Who will receive them.