Unit 18

Before you read

Discuss these questions with your partner

-What do you think it means to be wealthy?

-Why are some people wealthier than others?

A Vocabulary

Match the words and phrases with the definitions.

1. valuable.

2. invest

3. pension scheme

4. static

5. belongings

6. flow

7. distribution

8. interest

9. savings

10. inequality

11. extent

12. stocks and shares

13. store

1. To lend money to a company or bank in order to earn more money.

2. How large or important something is.

3. The way in which a supply of something, like money, is shared among people.

4. Money put somewhere for later use, for example in the bank.

5. Immobile, not moving.

6. Unfairness.

7. A way of having money for when you get old and stop working.

8. Things someone owns, but usually things that can be moved.

9. If you save money in a bank, you get this extra money for keeping it there.

10. Movement like a river.

11. Important or worth money.

12. A collection or supply of things kept for later use.

13. Part of the value of a company – people buy and sell these.

Reading 1

Wealth, income and inequality

What does it mean to be wealthy? The answer to this question varies from culture to culture. In the modernized, industrial world that we live in, wealth generally means all the collected store of valuable things that belong to a person (or family, company or country). Wealth can include money saved in bank accounts, or invested in pension schemes. It can include land, houses or other property and valuable belongings such as works of art or precious jewels. Many people also own stocks and shares in companies. The various things that make up a person's wealth are often called assets.

So wealth is a static thing. The term income, on the other hand, suggests a flow of money. Income is the amount of money that a person (or family or company) receives over a period of time. For most people, this means the salary they get for the work they do. However, there are other sources of income. One source is government benefits, such as unemployment benefit or family support. Another source is rent from property and another is interest from savings.

Huge inequalities on wealth owned by individuals exist in many countries. Take the United Kingdom for example. A fifth of all the marketable wealth is owned by just one per cent of the UK's population. That one per cent own over $355 billion of assets. As you can see, the richest 50 per cent of the population own over 93 per cent of the wealth. In other words, half the population own nearly all the wealth and the other half own only a tiny percentage. The chart also shows that the richest one per cent of the population own over a fifth of all the country's wealth.

Large inequalities also exist in the distribution of income. The extent of these inequalities can be shown with something called the Lorens curce. For example, the bottom 20 per cent earn 20 per cent of the total income. The bottom 40 per cent earn 40 per cent and so on. This is the ideal situation. The red curve, however, shows the real situation for the United Kingdom. You can see immediately how far from perfect the distribution is. Half of the population, for example, earn just under a third of the total income. Move horizontally along the population line and you can see that 90 per cent of the population take only 70 per cent of the total income. This means that the top ten per cent of the population earn nearly 30 per cent of the country's total income.

B Comprehension

Now read the text again and match each paragraph with the correct heading. There are two extra headings that you don’t need.

PARAGRAPH 1 …………………….

PARAGRAPH 2 …………………….

PARAGRAPH 3 …………………….

PARAGRAPH 4 …………………….

1. How governments can create more equality.

2. Inequalities in income.

3. Inequalities in wealth.

4. What income is.

5. What wealth is.

6. Why there are inequalities in wealth and income.

Before you listen

Discuss the following with your partner.

Economic inequality also exists on a global scale. Below are some facts about global economic inequality. See if you can guess which figures from the box complete the notes.

2/3 1 3 57 50

The lowest earning Americans have higher incomes then (1) …. of the world's population.

The world's richest (2) … per cent earn more than the combined income of the world's poorest (3) …. per cent.

The (4) ….. richest people in the world have incomes that are more than the combined incomes of the poorest (5) …. countries in the world.

C Listening

Now listen and check your answers.

Exercises

Rewrite these sentences. Instead of using 'somebody' or 'they', write a passive sentence.

1. Somebody has cleaned the room. ...The room has been cleaned...

2. They have postponed the concert. The................................................................

3. Somebody is using the computer at the moment. The computer................................

4. I didn't realise that somebody was recording our conversation.

5. I didn't realise that.......................................................................................

6. When we got to the stadium we found that they had cancelled the game.

7. When we got to the stadium, we found that.........................................................

8. They are building a new ring road round the city.

9. They have built a new hospital near the airport.

Make sentences from the words in brackets. Sometimes the verb is active, sometimes passive. (This exercise also includes the past simple - see Unit 41C.)

1. There's somebody behind us. (I think / we / follow) ...I think we were being followed...

2. This room looks different, (you / paint?) ...Have you painted it?..

3. My car has disappeared, (it / steal!) It........................................................

4. My umbrella has disappeared, (somebody / take) Somebody................................

5. Tom gets a higher salary now. (he / promote) ..................................................

6. Ann can't use her office at the moment, (it / redecorate) .......................................

7. The photocopier broke down yesterday, but now it's OK. (it / work / again; it / repair)

8. The police have found the people they were looking for. (two people / arrest / last night)

9. A tree was lying across the road, (it / blow down / in the storm)

10. The man next door disappeared six months ago. (nobody / see / since then)

11. I was mugged on my way home a few nights ago. (you/ever/mug?)

When were they born? Choose five of these people and write a sentence for each. (Two of them were horn in the same year.)

Beethoven Galileo Elvis Presley 1452 1869 1929

Agatha Christie Mahatma Gandhi Leonardo da Vinci 1564 1891 1935

Walt Disney Martin Luther King William Shakespeare 1770 1901

1 ...Walt Disney was born in 1901...

2 ...........................................................................

3. ...........................................................................

4. ……………………………………………………..

5. ...........................................................................

6 ...........................................................................

7 And you? I..........................................................