The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was one of the most effective of the New Deal measures, probably because it was based on the belief, originating with the Puritans and almost universally accepted among later Americans that working for one’s livelihood is honorable and dignified, but receiving help which one doesn’t earn - “charity” - is demeaning and rob s people of their independence and their sense of self worth. Financed by taxes collected by the federal government the WPA created millions of jobs by undertaking the construction of roads, bridges, airports, hospitals, parks and public buildings.
Although the WPA was probably more expensive than a system of handouts, it kept workers on the job, thus preserving their skills and their self-respect. In a series of friendly radio broadcasts “fireside chats” - the president explained his policies to the public.
Roosevelt’s New Deal programs did not end the Depression. Although the economy improved as a result of this program of government intervention full recovery was finally brought about by the defense buildup prior to America’s entering the Second World War. This buildup, undertaken to aid the allies of the United States in their battle against aggression, absorbed surplus manpower into war industries and the armed forces. But many Americans, young and old, still feel great affection for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president who remembered “the forgotten men at the bottom of the economic pyramid”.
1. Answer the following questions:
1)What happened on October 24, 1929?
2)How many banks and businesses had failed by 1932?
3)Who was President of the USA at that time?
4)What did Roosevelt promise?
5)What was one of the most effective measures of the New Deal?
6)What are the “Hundred Days” noted for?
7)What do CCC, AAA, WPA and other abbreviations in this text stand for?
8)Did Roosevelt’s New Deal programs end the Depression?
9)What improved the American economy?
10)Why do many Americans still feel great affection for Franklin D. Roosevelt?
Text 13
INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND COOPERATION
The importance of international organizations for the development of modem society is hard to overestimate. It can be traced in many spheres of our life: politics, business, science, arts, sport, environment protection, social welfare, human rights, etc. The Russian Federation is a member of a number of international associations. Russian officials attend various meetings on the international level.
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The United Nations (UN) is one of the most influential organizations. It was established in 1945 with the intention to preserve the wartime alliance of the USA, USSR, and Britain. A lot of countries joined the UN for international peace, security and cooperation. The headquarters of the UN are in New York City. The UN General Assembly has one member from each member state who meet annually for a session. Decisions on many important issues are taken by voting. The UN Security Council is the most powerful body of the UN, because it can undertake investigations into international disputes. Member states contribute financially to the funds of the UN. These funds respectively finance the programs of assistance carried out by the UN intergovernmental agencies, for example the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
In the sphere of finance, Russia cooperates with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, known as the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Russia also cooperates with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), especially in the programs of the World Heritage Fund, which protect world heritage sites. This fund finances projects that help to restore and preserve man-made and natural sites in Russia.
There is an organization that plays an important part in the lives of all Europeans. It's the European Union (EU). The EU is a political and economic alliance. The aims of the EU include expansion of trade, free movement of capital and labour within the community. It establishes a closer union among European nations, that's why the relations of Russia with the EU are so important. Russia's export of natural resources to different EU countries is increasing rapidly. It is regularly reported that more and more joint ventures (JVs) are being launched in Russia. The 3 billion dollar Blue Stream pipeline project with Turkey was implemented by gas giant Gazprom and Italian energy company Eni. They are expected to deliver natural gas from Russia to Turkey via the Black Sea.
In order to develop economically, Russia has to join the World Trade Organization and other political and trade alliances. This is the only way to abolish restrictive practices administered to our country and ensure low tariffs, loans, and export of our products. On the whole, Russia has become more open to international cooperation.
A number of humanitarian organizations always help those in need. The representatives of Medicines Sans Frontier and the Red Cross can be found in Russia, as well as in any part of the world. They assist people suffering from the horrors of war, floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and accidents.
The acronym, WWF and the black and white logo of a giant panda are well known in our country. WWF stands for the World Wide Fund for Nature that was established in 1961 to raise funds for conservation of particular species, e.g. the tiger and the giant panda.
Greenpeace is an international pressure group founded in 1971, with the policy of non-violent direct actions backed by scientific research. Sometimes these actions are risk-taking: during a protest against French atmospheric nuclear testing in
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the South Pacific in 1985, the ship of Greenpeace was sunk by French intelligence agents. Russian Greenpeace is affiliated with Greenpeace groups in other countries.
(From “ENGLISH”, “The Moscow Times”)
1. Answer the questions:
1)What do abbreviations IMF, WWF, EU, UNISEF mean?
2)What other international organizations do you know?
3)Where are the headquarters of the UN?
4)What are the aims of the European Union?
5)Have you seen the logos of the international organisations mentioned above?
6)What are advantages and disadvantages of Russia’as joining WTO?
2. Can you complete this sentence?
The Russian Federation is a member of a number of international associations
Text 14
USA BUSINESS
The Business of America. “The business of America is business”, U.S. president Calvin Coolidge once said. When you visit one of the country’s large cities, you can see what he meant. In the centre of the city, there are many large office buildings, banks, corporation headquarters, and government agencies. Every weekday morning thousands of office workers enter these buildings and leave for their homes every evening. Many of these people seem to be travelling all the time in buses and taxicabs between one building and another, or in airplanes between one city and another.
The men and women who do all the office work are called white-collar workers. Secretaries and typists, accountants and computer operators work for many different kinds of companies. There are big banks that do business all over the world and little banks that serve a small town. The big insurance and industrial companies employ thousands of people who work in very tall buildings, while around the corner an employment agency or another office of the same kind may have only five or six typists and clerks.
Blue-collar workers. Millions of blue-collar workers are employed in factories in the United States. Some of the factories are large; an automobile plant, for example, may cover several square kilometres and employ thousands of people. Others are very small; some garment industry workshops have only twenty or thirty workers. Many factory workers in the United States belong to labour unions. The unions have helped them to obtain wages as high as, or higher
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than, the salaries of white-collar workers. Labour unions have also obtained health care and vacation benefits for their members.
Banking institutions. There are two kinds of banking institutions in the United States. One is called a savings bank; the other is called a commercial bank. Savings banks primarily serve the consumer; commercial banks primarily serve businesses. One of the main differences between them is in the kind of loan they can grant. Savings banks can lend money to homebuyers and homebuilders. Commercial banks can lend money for any purpose, such as buying a new car or starting a business.
Buy now and pay later. Credit operates everywhere nowadays. Americans can buy now and pay later if they carry around credit cards that will be accepted at stores, hotels, and restaurants. With a credit card, you only have to sign your name to make a purchase or get a meal. Of course, the bill for the purchase comes at the end of the month, and that is the time when it is finally necessary to pay for all those purchases.
1. Answer the questions:
1)What kind of workers are white-collar workers?
2)Where do big banks do business?
3)What areas do little banks serve?
4)Where are millions of blue-collar workers employed?
5)What have the unions helped them to obtain?
6)How many kinds of banking institutions are there in the United States?
7)What kind of loan can a savings bank grant?
8)What kind of loan can a commercial bank grant?
9)How do you make a purchase with a credit card?
10)When do you get the bills for your purchases?
Text 15
ADVERTISING AND SERVICE INDUSTRY
Advertising and advertisements. Advertising plays a very important part in modern merchandising. The manufacturers tell the public about their new products and the stores tell the public about what products they have at what prices.
Advertisements can be seen in newspapers, magazines, and on television every day of the week. Many more advertisements are sent to customers’ homes. This great business merchandising employs millions of white-collar workers, from clerks in the stores to top executives in the big department stores and the
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advertising agencies. For most clerks the salaries are low, but they are among the highest in the United States for top executives.
A service industry. Modern means of transportation communication, advertising, and credit have all combined to create a giant new industry called tourism. It is a service industry. The customer receives such things as a seat on an airplane, a room in a hotel, and a chance to sit on a beach in the sunshine. The customer may be travelling for pleasure, for business, or for many other reasons. Whatever the reason, the traveller needs a means of transportation and places to sleep and eat. To take care of these needs, tourism has created millions of jobs in hotels, restaurants, and transportation companies.
Advertising has played a major role in the growth of tourism. When hotels and governments began to advertise the attractions of different tourist areas, the airlines and other transportation companies advertised low fares to travel there.
Modern means of communication were put to work so that travellers could make reservations right away, from a long distance, for a plane seat or a hotel room. And they could travel now and pay later by using their credit cards. All these different elements have combined to create the constant movement that has become one of the features of modern life.
1. Answer the questions:
1)Where can advertisements be placed?
2)How does advertising help the public?
3)What do the manufacturers and the stores tell the public?
4)How do other advertisements reach the public?
5)What does the customer receive when he is travelling for business or for pleasure?
6)How did advertising help the growth of tourism industry?
7)How can people travel now and pay later?
Text 16
NEW YORK
New York is difficult to describe. You can say anything you like about it and always be right. If you listen to different people talking about it, they can each describe a different town. For some, it’s a centre for art, music and theatre, for others, a city of finance and politics. For manufacturers, it’s a bottomless market, for safecrackers, Ali Baba’s cave.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Manhattan was mostly swamp, people lived in houses which were nothing more than rows of dark cages: no
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lighting, running water or windows. According to police reports of the time, children died simply from lack of fresh air.
In 1875 the population of New York was one million: twenty-five years later it was over three and a half million. The first skyscraper was put up in 1888. It had only thirteen stories, but the next had twenty-two, the Empire State Building 102, and now the World Trade Centre has reached 110. But although the population of New York has stabilized, the city continues to construct and distruct itself. New York is never finished.
If you stop a passing New Yorker and ask where he or she comes from, the chances are that they’ll answer, “I’m Irish” - or “ German.” In New York, five people out of every eight are foreigners or children of foreigners. New York has more Jews than Israel, more Italians than the rest of the world - except Italy. Every day sixty-seven foreign-language newspapers are published here.
The statistics are impressive. The population of New York now is 8 million people - sixteen million if you include the suburbs, and another four million come to the city to work here but live elsewhere. The subway uses 7000 cars to transport five million people each day.
New York is not just one city, but many cities, which crowd together in one place. There are the business cities which die each day at five o’clock, neon pleasure cities whose bars and cinemas are full with noisy crowds, middle-class cities with elegant street lighting and sad cities where no trees grow. New York is all of these and more.
(From “Current”)
II
The city of 7 million is creating jobs at nowhere near the 1980s’ rate. New York has just 3% of the country’s population but it accounted for 40% of the country’s net job losses during the recession. The current unemployment rate is 8.5%, well above the national average.
A good many of the financial positions are gone forever. Technology is partly to blame. With the invention of the computer modem, Wall Street no longer needs back offices in Manhattan. The headquarters will remain on the island, but the employees who process trades can be in a different time zone for all it matters.
Unlike most US cities, it has a local income tax on top of the state and federal taxes.
New York has had its ups and downs before, so it knows how to re-invent itself. Very few investors will make a buck from property development in the 1990s.
But other industries are growing. Communications is one. Multimedia giants such as AT&T, Viacom and Time Warner are all based in New York, which has become the starting point for the information superhighway. The industry will
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create thousands of jobs. Health-care services, entertainment and retailing are also growth areas. New York, without a doubt, is the shop-till-you-drop capital of the world.
Wall Street is not the firebrand it used to be, but it’s unlikely New York will lose its status as the world’s leading financial centre anytime soon.
But what will keep New York alive and thriving into the next crisis is itself. The city will always attract the brightest professionals, the most talented artists, the savviest entrepreneurs, and the most optimistic immigrants because it offers the biggest challenges and the biggest rewards. And, win or lose, you can
have a ton of fun along the way.
(From “The Financial Post Magazine”)
1.Find the sentences proving the following statements.
1) New York is never finished.
2) In New York, five people out of every eight are foreigners or children of foreigners.
3) New York is not just one city.
4) A good many of the financial positions are gone forever. 5) New York knows how to re-invent itself.
2.Answer the questions:
1)How can different people describe New York?
2)How did people live in Manhattan at the beginning of the nineteenth century?
3)Does New York belong to the biggest cities of the world? Why are the figures of the population so different?
4)How is the employment in business connected with technology?
5)What industries are growth areas in New York?
6)Why will the city always attract the brightest people?
Text 17
NORTH AMERICANS
In some ways people all over the world are alike. They eat, they sleep, they work, they play, they laugh, and they cry. But in other ways they are different. The way they look at the world is different. Their points of view differ.
Let’s take time, for example. If a North American makes an appointment with someone in an office for 11.00 a.m., she will probably come to the office early - maybe about five minutes before eleven. She will tell the secretary that she has an appointment for 11.00, and she will wait. But after ten minutes she will become uncomfortable. In many other countries it is different. If a person makes
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an appointment with someone for 11.00 a.m., then he may not come to the office until 11.15 or 11.30. He will not be surprised if he has to wait until 11.45. The idea of what is early and what is late differs from country to country.
We also have different ideas about space. North Americans like to stand about eighteen to twenty inches from each other when they talk. People from many other countries like to stand twelve to fourteen inches from each other when they talk. When a North American talks to someone from one of these countries, everyone feels uncomfortable. The North American thinks that the person is trying to be too close. The other person thinks that the North American is too unfriendly, too far away. The North American carries his “space” with him. When he stands in a line, he will stay about eighteen inches away from the next person, if it is possible. When he is on a bus, he will try to find a seat far from everyone. In many other countries people do not make lines when they wait for a bus. They stand in a group. When they sit on a bus, they sit close to each other.
In some countries the dinner table is the place where the father and mother talk while the children listen. In other countries the children talk and the mother and the father listen.
1. List the following items in the order in which they come in the text:
1)A North American who has an appointment usually comes five minutes earlier.
2)In many countries people don’t make lines when they wait for a bus.
3)People have different ideas about space.
4)In some ways people all over the world are alike.
5)The idea of what is early and what is late differs from country to country.
2. Say which of the following statements are true:
1)A North American will become uncomfortable if the person she has an appointment with is:
a)five minutes late.
b)ten minutes late.
c)fifteen minutes late.
2)North Americans like to stand from each other:
a)about thirteen to fifteen inches.
b)about eighteen to twenty inches.
c)about thirty to forty inches.
3)When he is on a bus, a North American will try to find a seat:
a)close to the window.
b)far from everyone.
c)far from the door.
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Text 18
OPTIONS ARE NOW THE BANE OF MY LIFE
Cover story
LEON DAVEY. I have a girlfriend, but I don’t have a house. We watch DIY programmes on TV together. Sometimes she sulks and I pretend not to notice. I go to weddings about every six months. When my girlfriend asks about them I start to feel uncomfortable and try to change the subject.
I don’t see my friends much any more. We have to plan our meetings by e- mail, weeks in advance. When we meet we talk about how long it is since we left university. Sometimes we have e-mail arguments, but most of the time we just send each other jokes. When I meet people from my old school they look kind of tired. They probably all earn more money than me. Maybe I should become an accountant or a lawyer or something. Maybe it’s too late.
Sometimes I get the urge to buy videos of all the cartoons I used to love as a child. I feel unbearably sad when I watch Tom Hanks in “Big” on sunless Sunday afternoons. I don’t really know what I want. I just have a vision of myself on a boat on a calm, blue sea, quietly fishing and drinking beer.
SARAH DRINKWATER. It’s 1 a.m. at a bus station in Oxfordshire. It’s freezing cold and the ultra-cheap bus I booked on the Internet left a quarter of an hour ago. My dad pulls up and, at the age of 24, I load my rucksack into the back and get in. Again. In the car on the way home, he interrogates me. I used to have a “real” job, one that made me miserable and was an attempt to have a conventional career after years of studying. I jacked it in to run off to the Edinburgh Festival this year and put on a play. I got rid of my house in London at the same time, and due to Edinburgh’s effects on my finances, I am reduced to kipping at my increasingly reluctant friends’ houses and going back to my parents’ so that I can eat properly.
This isn’t unusual: half my friends seem to be locked into endless work experience or working long hours for peanuts in jobs they love. Of course my parents don’t understand: at my age, my father was married and two years into a stable career at this age. I still can’t believe I’m meant to be an adult.
THOMAS ROBINSON. Being 20 years old means sitting in a cold office watching rain gathering in great pools on the bowling green whose upkeep is your responsibility. It means reading the newspapers over and over in an attempt to pass the time as the rain continues to fall from the sky and nobody even comes to play tennis. It means looking through the Jobs sections of every newspaper and internet site you can find and learning to scan not for the salary or even the type of job, but whether experience is essential or merely highly desired.
It means wishing every day that you had been more sensible at university, and hating yourself for stacking up the debt that now prevents you from leaving home properly. It means being stranded in rural Northern Ireland when all that you want to do is go to a pub with all of your newly old university acquaintances.
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It means withering as your driving instructor upbraids you once again for making a total mess of a gear change. It means that you wonder if you’ll ever speak to an interesting woman again, let alone anything more. It means feeling sorry for yourself. It means turning 21 tomorrow.
IAN LOMAS. I grew up with Oasis, the YBAs, decent footballers, sushi and all my friends being allowed to go to university. I don’t remember much about recessions, Conservatives, perms, strikes and bad music. Being twentysomething in England is just better now. People of my generation have a lower fear of failure; society has become more tolerant of their dreaming. Men and women seem to talk to each other more than they used to. We are getting better at platonic relationships. It doesn’t even rain as often these days. The weather is warmer.
Twenty-somethings don’t have to rush out and get high-powered careers anymore. Everyone is in less of a rush. Travelling is actively encouraged while unusual occupations (tortoise walkers, stunt man, that kind of thing) are coveted, cool and endorsed.
Most twenties practice a unique contemporary nostalgia where we watch Button Moon DVDs on plasma televisions (boys) and pay couture prices for secondhand clothes in trendy boutiques (girls).
We are mostly cynical in public but secretly romantic at heart. We have no money, but loads of stuff. My peers live perpetually in the present without apology, savings or a pension plan. We may be the first generation to be ruined by consumerism.
There is one drawback to being this age now, though. Despite earning more than both our parents put together, none of us can afford to buy the houses we live in.
(From “Time”)
1. Answer the questions:
1)Does twentiys mean options?
2)Whom do these phrases belong to?
∙“We may be the first generation to be ruined by con sumerism”
∙“It means feeling sorry for yourself”
∙“When I meet people from my old school they look ki nd of tired”
∙“I still can’t believe I’m meant to be an adult”
3) What does being twenty years old mean for Leon Davey, Sarah Drinkwater, Thomas Robinson, and Ian Lomas? Describe their lives.
4)Do these people speak about generations’ differences?
5)How did the young people tell their stories?
6)What can you say about the authors of these passages according to their manner of writing?
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