Миловидов В.А. Английский разговорный язык. Практическое пособие по развитию устной речи
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ISBN: 78-5-271-21874-3, 978-5-226-01559-5
: 2010
: 288
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The Financial Times Limited[2]
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1.
(The World Ec
onomic Systems)
Study The World Economic Systems and say what you would do if you had two cows…
Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Pure socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with
everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as
much milk as you need.
Bureaucratic socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a
barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take
care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you
as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.
Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and
sells you the milk.
Pure communism: You have two cows. Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you
all share the milk.
Russian communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government
takes all the milk.
Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Singapore democracy: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two
unlicensed animals in an apartment.
Militarism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
Pure democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.
Representative democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you
who gets the milk.
American democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After
the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair
«Cowgate».
British democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The
government doesn't do anything.
Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them
and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots
one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms
accounting for the missing cows.
Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbours kill you
and take the cows.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Hong kong capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed
company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax
deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian
intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who
sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that
the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows
because the Feng Shui is bad.
Environmentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
Feminism: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever
existed. Milk is banned.
Political correctness: You are associated with (the concept of «ownership» is a symbol of the
phallocentric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to
society) bovines of non-specified gender.
Counter culture: Wow, dude, there's like… these two cows, man. You got to have some of this
milk. Far out! Awesome!
Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
Japanese democracy: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask
any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.
European federalism: You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because
everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east-European country and would never
pay the fortune you'd have to ask for your cows' milk. So you apply for financial aid from the
European Union to subsidise your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your
milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor which then dumps your
milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the
money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels
complaining that the European farm-policy is going to drive you out of your job.
Eastern european democracy: You have two cows. You sell the milk (diluted with some water)
at a high price to the neighbours or to anyone at the open-air market. If somebody asks for
receipt, you charge for a two times higher price, so nobody will request an invoice. For
concerned families with small babies you claim that the milk is «bio», though you collect the
grass for feeding at the side of the highway and you keep the milk in plastic barrels used
previously as containers of dangerous chemicals. Later, your neighbour or anybody from town
will steal the cows and you will buy their meat for a high price, and if you ask for a receipt, you
will be charged for a two times higher price.
Finnish socialism: You have two cows. Soon you have to kill one of them because in the
Netherlands there is an overproduction of milk and the European Union rules say so. When you
do so, you realize that it was not necessary, only the system was too slow in getting you the up-
to-date news. From the stress, you get an ulcer in your stomach so you go to a doctor. The
doctor realizes that this ulcer is a serious one, so you need an urgent treatment. Therefore, you
soon get a call to the local hospital. The call's date is for 3 months later, because there is a
queue with more urgent cases. Then your ulcer becomes even more serious because you
remember that 40 percent of your income is taken for social tax.
:
"bio" – «» ()
adopt– : ,
affair – ,
anarchy –
animal –
annual –
apartment –
associated – ,
awkward –
ban (from) –
barn –
barrel –
bovine – ; (.):
brain – ,
brother-in-law – ()
bull –
bureaucracy –
bureaucratic –
chemical –
claim – , ,
collect –
competitive – –
complain –
concept – , ,
container –
correctness –
cow –
debt – , ,
democracy –
deny – ,
dictatorship –
dilute – ,
distributor – ,
draft – :
drain – ,
dub – ,
dude – , (: )
dump –
election –
elevated – ,
environmentalism – ,
equity – , ,
ex-chicken – :
execute – , (, )
exist –
fascism –
federalism –
feed – ,
feminism –
feudalism –
fine – ;
form – ()
former –
fortune – , ,
gangster –
gender – , ()
giraffe –
grant – ; , ,
harmonica –
highway –
impeach –
intermediary –
intolerant –
invoice –
lord – ,
mad –
majority – ()
meanwhile –
militarism –
milk – ; ()
miss – , , , ()
overproduction –
ownership – ,
pick – , , ,
plastic –
pour – ,
press –
previously – ,
pure – ,
queue –
realize – ,
receipt –
regulations – , ,
representative – ;
request –
require –
rules –
share – ; , ()
shareholder –
sheep – ,
shoot – ,
speculate –
steal –
stomach –
subsidise –
subsidy –
surrealism –
swap –
symbol –
totalitarianism –
transfer – ; ,
treatment – (),
ulcer –
unlicensed –
urgent – , ,
veal calf –
via – ,
vote – (); ()
take care of – ()
cow futures – «»
"Cowgate" – «» ( Watergate – «», ,
)
go mad –
fill out – (, )
account for – , ()
fair price –
publicly listed company – ,
,
letters of credit –
debt/equity swap –
general offer –
tax deduction –
keep milk rights –
majority shareholder –
with an option – ()
the Feng Shui –
get married –
phallo-centric –
war-mongering – , ,
differently-aged –
no less valuable –
non-specified gender –
counter culture –
Wow – .! !
Far out! – ! !
Awesome! – ! !
pay the fortune –
apply for financial aid –
farm-policy –
drive out – , ,
open-air market –
charge for – ()
up-to-date – ()
Singapore –
Hong Kong –
Panama –
Cayman Islands –
European Union –
Brussels –
Finnish –
the Netherlands –
Exercise 1
Answer the questions:
1. Who consumes milk within the feudalism economic system?
2. How much milk would you get under pure socialism?
3. What would happen to your cows if they were cared for by ex-chicken farmers?
4. What happens to cow-owners under dictatorship?
5. Who tells you who you should give the milk to within representative democracy?
6. What is «Cowgate»?
7. What happens to cows if they are fed by sheep's brain?
8. How much is the fair price under anarchy?
9. What will happen to your cow after you have bought a bull?
10. What does Feng Shui have to do with breeding of cows?
11. What might happen to a cow in case you do not milk it?
12. Which of the two feminist cows is going to be the calf's Dad?
13. Where would the European Union get the money to subsidise European cows?
14. What is the difference between Eastern and Western European democracies, from the
cow's point of view?
15. Which one of all the cows spoken here of might be the happiest?
Capitalism
Capitalism is a term to define the system of economic individualism, based on the assumption
that people's pursuit of self-interest and the right to own private property are legally legitimate
and morally defensible. In this case the state exists to protect individual rights. Restricted by law
and custom to a certain extend, people as individuals are free to decide where to invest, what to
produce or sell, and what prices to charge. Their efforts in terms of assets, sales and profits, or
the number of customers, employees, and investors, or whether they operate in local, regional,
national, or international markets, are not limited in any natural way.
In the nineteenth century even capitalism's defenders did not understand its nature. It was
believed that the perfect economic system was that of «pure» competition, where all firms are
small scale, products in each industry are homogeneous, buyers are perfectly informed about
what is for sale and at what price, and all sellers have to «take» the market price, being unable
to charge a higher one for their goods.
In practice, though, there is no such thing as pure competition. Under real competition within
capitalism companies are rivals for sales and profits. This leads them to introduce cost-cutting
technologies, to innovate in product design and performance, and to use packaging to make
products more attractive for customers. Companies also offer assurances of security to
imperfectly informed consumers, such as money-back guarantees or product warranties. They
also build customer loyalty through investing in their brand names and reputations.
If a company is successful in adopting these techniques of rivalry, it is growing, and eventually
may come to dominate its industry, though usually only for a few years until other firms find
better ways of satisfying consumer demands. Neither rivalry nor product differentiation occurs
under perfect competition, but they happen constantly under real flesh-and-blood capitalism.
These rivalry and product differentiation account for the major benefits of capitalism, where
luxuries are quickly transformed into necessities. Quite recently, microwave ovens,
videocassette recorders, answering machines, personal computers, sophisticated cameras, and
compact disc players were available to only a few. Now lots of people can afford those.
Giant corporations are the main feature of modern capitalism. They attract capital from
thousands and even millions of investors who may not know each other, but who entrust their
money to managers in exchange for a share of the resulting profits. So, investment and
management have become two distinct elements of modern capitalism, and giant corporations
have become a good proof of the ability of individuals to engage in large-scale, long-range
cooperation for their mutual benefit and enrichment.
A fully free economy, though, never has existed, as governmental authorities have always been
playing a more or less active, interventionist role in regulating national economies.
:
adopt –
afford – ()
assumption –
assurance – ,
available –
benefit –