Britain lives by manufactureand trade. For every person employed in agriculture eleven people are employed in mining, manufacturing and building. The United Kingdom is one of the world’s largest

TEXT A: BRITISH ECONOMY

Britain lives by manufacture and trade. For every person employed in agriculture eleven people are employed in mining, manufacturing and building. The United Kingdom is one of the world’s largest exporters of manufactured goods per head of population. Apart from coal and iron ore Britain has very few natural resources and mostly depends on imports. Its agriculture provides only half the food it needs. The other half and most of the raw materials for its industries such as oil and various metals (copper, zinc, uranium ore and others) have to be imported. Britain also has to import timber, cotton, fruit and farm products. Britain used to be richly forested, but most of the forests were cut down to make more room for cultivation. The greater part of land is used for cattle and sheep breeding, and pig raising. Among the crops grown on the farms are wheat, barley and oats. The fields are mainly in the eastern part of the country. Most of the farms are small (one third of them is less than one hundred acres). Farms tend to be bigger where the soil is less fertile. In the past century Britain secured a leading position in the world as manufacturer, merchant and banker. After World War I the world demand for the products of Britain’s traditional industries – textiles, coal and machinery – fell off, and Britain began expandingtrade in new engineering products and electrical goods. The crisis of 1929 – 1933 brought about mass unemployment, which reached its peak in 1932. Britain’s share in the world industrial output decreased. After the crisis production and employment increased following some revival in world trade and as a result of the extensive armament program. During World War II Britain’s economy was fully employed in the war effort. Massed raids of German planes on British industrial centres caused considerable damage to Britain’s industry. World War II brought about a further weakening of Britain’s might. Great Britain is no longer the leading imperial power it used to be. It has lost its colonies which used to supply it with cheap raw materials. Britain produces high quality expensive goods, which has always been characteristic of its industry. A shortage of raw materials, as well as the high cost of production makes it unprofitable for British industry to produce semi-finished goods or cheap articles. Britain mostly produces articles requiring skilled labour, such as precision instruments, electronic equipment, chemicals and high quality consumer goods. Britain produces and exports cotton and woollen goods, leather goods, and articles made of various kinds of synthetic (man-made) materials. The original basis of British industry was coal mining, and the early factories grew up not far from the main mining areas. Glasgow and Newcastle became great centres of engineering and shipbuilding. Lancashire produced cotton goods and Yorkshire woollens, with Sheffield concentrating on iron and steel. Birmingham developed light engineering. There appeared a tendency for industry and population to move to the south, particularly to the London area. (Britain’s industry is now widely dispersed.) Great progress was made in the development of new industries, such as the aircraft, automobile, electronic industries and others. A number of atomic power reactors were made. Great emphasis was made on the development of the war industry.

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TEXT B: US ECONOMY

The United States is rich in natural resources, the main being iron ore, coal and oil. The nation produces more than 100 million tons of iron a year. Four fifth of the ore mined in the USA comes from the Great Lakes region. Though a great deal of the ore has been used up, its resources have not been exhausted. Most of the coal mined in the USA is used by power plants to produce electricity. Coal is also used in the chemical industries for the manufacture of plastics and other synthetics. The production, processing and marketing of such oil products as petrol (called “gasoline” or “gas” in the USA) make up one of America’s largest industries. The basic metals and minerals mined in the United States are zinc, copper and silver. Some of the main crops grown in the USA are wheat, maize, cotton, tobacco and fruit. Cattle breeding and pig raising make up an important branch of America’s agriculture. To make the farmer’s work more productive scientific methods of farming are employed and modern technique of freezing, canning and packaging farm products is used. The United States is a highly industrialised country with various branches of heavy industry prevailing, namely, the mining, metallurgical, automobile and chemical industries as well as engineering. Many branches of light industry are also developed, among them are the textile, food and wood-working industries. A great deal of attention in American industry is devoted to research and emphasis is made on the use of labour-saving machines. In the past few years the number of workers has increased only a few per cent, while the number of scientists and engineers in the plants has almost doubled. Mechanisation and automation do away with thousands of office jobs, intensify production and increase labour productivity. But they also bring about a further growth of unemployment. New industries are created as new discoveries are made in physics, chemistry and other sciences. Atomic energy, for example, has created a wide range of new industries. Electronics has become a major industry. Throughout American industry great emphasis is being made on management training. A great number of schools are training young people to become industrial leaders. American industry is distributedunevenly. Most of the industrial enterprises are located in the eastern part of the country. But industry is spreading out as there is a tendency to build factories far removed from the home plant and closer to natural resources and markets. Good transportation facilities and rapid communications systems make it possible for the main plants to keep in touch with branch factories. The leading US exports are industrial machinery, electronic equipment, textiles, grain, iron, coal, oil products and chemicals.

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Mixed Economy There are three types of management in economies. An economy may be almost totally planned, as it was in the Soviet Union. An economy may be almost totally unplanned, as it is in the USA. Or an economy may be a combination of planning and freedom of operation. Examples of the latter are Japan and South Korea. In a planned economy the governmentdecides what goods are to be produced and how they are to be marketed. Governments set all the priorities, and the producers are to follow the directions given to them. In a partially planned economy such as Japan’s, the government often encourages industry and helps it with subsidies. Government also makes investments and regulates trade. The United States is an example of an unplanned economy. But it has a lot of government intervention in economic activity. As the economy of the United States grew, and as government and its importance increased, the government policy at every level acquired greater importance for the economy. But the economy of the United States may be called unplanned because the government does not regulate what will be produced and how it will be marketed. These decisions are left to the producers. Even the great amount of government regulation that has emerged since the Great Depression has not turned the economy of the United States into a planned economy. The name of the American economic system is capitalism. Another name for it is the free market economy.

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Money and Its Functions All values in the economic system are measured in terms of money. Our goods and services are sold for money, and that money is in turn exchanged for other goods and services. Coins are adequate for small transactions, while paper notes are used for general business. There is additionally a wider sense of the world “money”, covering anything which is used as a means of exchange, whatever form it may take. Originally, a valuable metal (gold, silver or copper) served as a constant store of value, and even today the American dollar is technically “ backed ” by the store of gold which the US government maintains. Because gold has been universally regarded as a very valuable metal, national currencies were for many years judged in terms of the so-called “gold standard”. Nowadays however valuable metal has generally been replaced by paper notes. National currencies are considered to be as strong as the national economies which support them. Paper notes are issued by governments and authorized banks, and are known as “ legal tender ”. Other arrangements such as cheques and money orders are not legal tender. They perform the function of substitute money and are known as “ instruments of credit ”. Credit is offered only when creditors believe that they have a good chance of obtaining legal tender when they present such instruments at a bank or other authorized institution. If a man’s assets are in doubt, then it may be difficult for him to obtain large sums of credit or even to pay for goods with a cheque. The value of money is basically its value as a medium of exchange, or, as economists put it, its “ purchasing power ”. This purchasing power is dependent on supply and demand. The demand for money is reckonable as the quantity needed to effect business transactions. An increase in business requires an increase in the amount of money coming into general circulation. But the demand for money is related not only to the quantity of business but also to the rapidity with which the business is done. The supply of money, on the other hand, is the actual amount in notes and coins available for business purposes. If too much money is available, its value decreases, and it does not buy as much as it did, say, five years earlier. This condition is known as “inflation”.

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The Euro At the moment the European Community has 27 member countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Spain and United Kingdom. Despite the regional differences, Europe is growing ever closer together and its economic and political collaboration is improving continually. The introduction of the single European currency in 1999 represented the beginning of a new era in the European Union’s history. Today the euro is a model for other regions in the world. From January 2002 the countries of the European community are also joined together by a single currency, the Euro. This has a lot of advantages: Economies are strengthened because losses through currency fluctuations can be avoided. And, what is more, economically speaking the United Europe speaks now with one voice. Travel in Europe also became easier. You don’t worry about changing enough money and you don’t worry about the mathematics (“one mark equals 100 lira, so 5670 lira equals…?”) Introducing a new currency called for a lot of problems to be overcome: First of all, enough coins and bills had to be produced and delivered to the banks in time. Banks, of course, were working overtime to be prepared for the great change. Owners, operators and manufacturers of machines that take or dispense coins or banknotes (gambling machines, ticket machines, public telephones, cash dispensers) had to get their machinery ready to recognise and accept the new money. It has taken some time until the new currency was accepted by everybody. People needed to get a feeling for the new money first. Special calculators were available for this. There were a lot of customers in shops making use of them. One Euro is made up of 100 Cents: There are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 Cent coins as well as 1 and 2 Euro coins. All coins have national motives on one side with the other side being the same in all countries. Banknotes come in 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 Euro denominations. In contrast to the coins, the banknotes have no national differences. The success of the single European currency is having an attractive effect. One after the other, Greece, then Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus and lastly Slovakia have decided in favour of the euro. As a result, the eurozone has now grown to include 16 countries and 320 million people, making it larger than the United States. Other countries in the European community want to introduce the euro, including, for example, Romania, Estonia, Poland and Bulgaria. Even the British, declared eurosceptics, are considering whether they should come under the euro umbrella in the face of the current crisis. 10 Good Reasons for the Euro The euro is a success story. There are good reasons for that – ranging from stability to its effect on integration: 1 Stable Currency Before the introduction of the euro, inflation in EU member countries was higher on average than it is today. 2 No Currency Exchange The single currency prevents currency fluctuations and simplifies travel in the eurozone. 3 Price Transparency in the Eurozone The single currency facilitates comparability of prices in European trade. 4 Cheaper Loans for ­Private Households Since the ECB (the European Central Bank) wants to keep inflation low, interest rates for loans also remain low. 5 International Role Within only 10 years the euro has become the second most important currency in the world economy after the dollar. 6 Advantages for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Without transaction costs, protection against currency fluctuation becomes superfluous. 7 Increasing Trade Trade within the eurozone has increased by 10% since 1999. 8 Savings Opportunities for Euro Countries Low and stable inflation means euro countries can obtain loans at favourable rates. 9 Integration of Markets The single currency makes it possible to move investment capital to where it is used effectively within the eurozone. 10 Integration of European Citizens A common currency is a strong symbol of a European identity.

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