Вопрос № 1058592 - Английский язык

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Who Are Currency Speculators?
1. They are financial swashbucklers, ready to throw down fortunes betting that a certain currency may rise or fall. Among the most successful swashbucklers are George Soros and Julian Robertson, who each control multibillion- dollar portfolios. Soros is known in London as “the man who broke the Bank of England”, for on September 16, 1992, Black Wednesday, Soros bet that Britain would give up trying to maintain the value of the pound against the D-mark. Soros kept his bet on a cheaper pound even after the chancellor of exchequer promised that Britain would not flee, and even after the Bank of England sharply boosted interest rates and spent $30 billion to defend the pound. Soros's fund apparently earned a billion dollars from the British bet.
2. Not all risky bets turn out so well. In early 1994, Soros admitted that his fund lost about $600 million by betting incorrectly that the dollar would strengthen against the yen, along with watching some other investments turn sour. After all, Soros made his billion dollars off of Britain because the politicians were trying to maintain a currency arrangement that imperiled the feeble British economy by propping rates up too high.
3. For all the glamour, players in the currency markets get by on hard work and tough analysis. Before speculators place their bets, they try to figure out the answers to key questions like, Is the central bank acting responsibly on monetary policy? Is the government allowing social spending to spin out of control beyond the means of the taxpayers? Are the politicians honestly portraying the country's ability to meet its debts? If the answer to any of these questions is no, the currency traders will swoop down and dump the nation's currency until leaders deliver honest answers.
4. Ultimately, the currency is a symbol of country's credibility and integrity. The international financial markets stand ready to discipline and expose fraudulent governments.
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Who Are Currency Speculators?
1. They are financial swashbucklers, ready to throw down fortunes betting that a certain currency may rise or fall. Among the most successful swashbucklers are George Soros and Julian Robertson, who each control multibillion- dollar portfolios. Soros is known in London as “the man who broke the Bank of England”, for on September 16, 1992, Black Wednesday, Soros bet that Britain would give up trying to maintain the value of the pound against the D-mark. Soros kept his bet on a cheaper pound even after the chancellor of exchequer promised that Britain would not flee, and even after the Bank of England sharply boosted interest rates and spent $30 billion to defend the pound. Soros's fund apparently earned a billion dollars from the British bet.
2. Not all risky bets turn out so well. In early 1994, Soros admitted that his fund lost about $600 million by betting incorrectly that the dollar would strengthen against the yen, along with watching some other investments turn sour. After all, Soros made his billion dollars off of Britain because the politicians were trying to maintain a currency arrangement that imperiled the feeble British economy by propping rates up too high.
3. For all the glamour, players in the currency markets get by on hard work and tough analysis. Before speculators place their bets, they try to figure out the answers to key questions like, Is the central bank acting responsibly on monetary policy? Is the government allowing social spending to spin out of control beyond the means of the taxpayers? Are the politicians honestly portraying the country's ability to meet its debts? If the answer to any of these questions is no, the currency traders will swoop down and dump the nation's currency until leaders deliver honest answers.
4. Ultimately, the currency is a symbol of country's credibility and integrity. The international financial markets stand ready to discipline and expose fraudulent governments.
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To play in the currency market one should …

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Prosperity Decade
1. The 1920s were a period of great change in American life that lasted nearly ten years. The First World War had just ended, and a time of gay abandon, economic prosperity, and social change had set in. An unpopular prohibition law made it seem that breaking the law could be acceptable and even commonplace. The tone of the times was one of excitement, of excesses, of new freedom.
2. During the 1920s many people made money by buying shares, or stocks, in different companies. The price of a company's stock depends on business condition. If many buyers want to buy stock in a company, the price of the stock will rise. If many stock owners want to sell their stock, the price will go down. In the 1920s stock prices seemed to go in only one direction: up. There were stories of shoeshine boys and office workers who made fortunes in the stock market in one day.
3. People were making more money than ever before. Companies used advertising to encourage people to buy their products. Advertising became important to business during the 1920s. Another way of encouraging people to buy more goods was called instalment buying. When people bought a thing on the instalment plan, they had to pay only a small part of the total price for the thing. Each month they paid another small some, called an instalment. People paid instalments until they had paid the whole price of the thing they had bought.
4. People were earning a lot of money, and the system of instalment buying seemed a good idea. But some experts warned that too many Americans owed too much money. If people suddenly lost their jobs, they would not be able to pay their debts. Then business would suffer. But few people listened to these warnings. Business was expanding. People kept buying on the instalment plan. The golden years were up to 1929 - and then came Black Tuesday, the day of October 1929 of the inevitable stock market crash, that spanned ten years.
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What encouraged people to buy more goods?

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Henry Ford
1. Modern production methods took a giant leap forward in 1913 when Henry Ford introduced the use of the assembly line in the production of automobiles. In those days, workers simply picked a spot on the factory floor, and assembled the car from the bottom up. As business grew, Ford began manufacturing many of the component parts formerly purchased from suppliers. Typically, the components were put together by one worker who performed all the operations necessary to assemble them. The method was quite costly, and so only the wealthy could afford to buy automobiles in those days.
2. This did not please Henry Ford who wanted to bring the price of automobiles down to the point where most families could afford them. The key to achieving this goal, in Ford's view, was through the improvement of labour productivity. He needed to find a way to 1) limit the number of operations performed by each worker, 2) bring the work to the worker rather than the other way around, and 3) perform each operation in the most efficient sequence he could find. He found what he was seeking in his new creation: the assembly line.
3. Ford's first line, introduced in April 1913, was used to assemble generators. Working in the old way, one worker had been able to put together 25 to 30 generators in a 9-hour day. This translated to something around 20 minutes per assembly. The new line broke the operation into 29 steps performed by individual workers on parts that were brought to them by the steadily moving assembly line. The new process reduced assembly time to an average of 13 minutes per generator.
4. One year later, additional experimentation divided production into 84 operations and reduced assembly time to 5 minutes per generator. Assembly line methods brought the price of automobiles within the reach of millions of American families. Henry Ford was not an economist, but his assembly lines had changed dramatically both American households and its factories.
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How did the assembly line work?

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Prosperity Decade
1. The 1920s were a period of great change in American life that lasted nearly ten years. The First World War had just ended, and a time of gay abandon, economic prosperity, and social change had set in. An unpopular prohibition law made it seem that breaking the law could be acceptable and even commonplace. The tone of the times was one of excitement, of excesses, of new freedom.
2. During the 1920s many people made money by buying shares, or stocks, in different companies. The price of a company's stock depends on business condition. If many buyers want to buy stock in a company, the price of the stock will rise. If many stock owners want to sell their stock, the price will go down. In the 1920s stock prices seemed to go in only one direction: up. There were stories of shoeshine boys and office workers who made fortunes in the stock market in one day.
3. People were making more money than ever before. Companies used advertising to encourage people to buy their products. Advertising became important to business during the 1920s. Another way of encouraging people to buy more goods was called instalment buying. When people bought a thing on the instalment plan, they had to pay only a small part of the total price for the thing. Each month they paid another small some, called an instalment. People paid instalments until they had paid the whole price of the thing they had bought.
4. People were earning a lot of money, and the system of instalment buying seemed a good idea. But some experts warned that too many Americans owed too much money. If people suddenly lost their jobs, they would not be able to pay their debts. Then business would suffer. But few people listened to these warnings. Business was expanding. People kept buying on the instalment plan. The golden years were up to 1929 - and then came Black Tuesday, the day of October 1929 of the inevitable stock market crash, that spanned ten years.
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Japanese architecture
1. Japanese architecture has a long history similar to that of other aspects of Japanese culture, characterized by periods of interaction with foreign influences interspersed with long periods of isolation during which unique traits developed. Buildings of the Yayoi periods were mostly agricultural residences, with larger buildings and tombs appearing as an aristocracy developed. Wooden buildings from the Asuka period, preserved in Horyuji Temple, were built in the style of Chinese worship halls. Japanese buildings continued to follow the Chinese style of horizontal buildings with heavy tile roofs supported by timber frames, but developed unique characteristics reflecting Buddhist values.
2. During the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, the samurai expanded the compounds of the aristocracy to include living quarters for military personnel. Eventually, (daimyo) warlords built castles from which to defend their domains. During the Tokugawa era, when there were no military conflicts, many daimyo built large residences and parks in the city of Edo for their families.
3. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan began to build European-style buildings. The widespread destruction of Japanese cities during World War II cleared the way for the construction of large numbers of steel-framed, box-shaped utilitarian buildings, which provoked an adverse reaction during the 1970s, leading to a variety of new styles and architectural treatments incorporating traditional elements into modern designs. Japan’s best-known modern architects include Kenzo Tange, Maekawa Kunio, Fumihiko Maki, Isozaki Arata, and Tadao Ando. 4. Japanese architecture has influenced Western architecture with its emphasis on simplicity, horizontal lines, and flexible spaces. Frank Lloyd Wright was strongly influenced by Japanese spatial arrangements and the concept of interpenetrating exterior and interior space, long achieved in Japan by using walls made of sliding doors that opened onto covered verandas and gardens.
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