3
A businessman was leaving his office building and saw a little boy sitting on the curb with a dog. The boy yelled at the businessman, «Hey, how would you like to buy a dog?»
The man was intrigued by this sales approach and asked the boy, «How much do you want for your dog?»
The boy told him, «Fifty thousand dollars.»
«Fifty thousand dollars!» the man repeated in astonishment. «What special tricks does this dog do that he can earn enough money to be worth fifty thousand dollars?» the man asked the boy.
The boy replied, «Mister, this dog never made a nickel in his life. Matter of fact, count what he eats I guess you could say you lose money on him every year.»
The businessman felt this was a good time to explain economics to the young man and expounded on how an item had to produce more income than it consumed to equal a purchase price. And he ended saying that the boy might get five dollars from someone who just wanted a companion. Feeling he had imparted a very valuable lesson to the young man, the businessman went on his way.
A few weeks later, the businessman came out of his office building and the small boy was again sitting on the curb minus the dog. The man said to him, «I see you took my advise and sold the dog for five dollars.»
The boy said, «No, I got fifty thousand dollars for him.»
The businessman was completely flabbergasted. «How did you ever get fifty thousand dollars for that dog?» he asked.
«It was easy,» said the boy. «I traded him for two twenty five thousand dollar cats.»
accumulate – собирать, накапливать
astonishment – удивление
be worth – стоить, равняться в цене
count – считать
curb – кромка тротуара
depth – глубина, нижняя точка
empire – империя
entire – полный, целый
equal – равный, эквивалентный; уравнивать
expound – разъяснять, изъяснять
finger – палец; трогать, перебирать пальцами
flabbergast – поражать, изумлять, смущать
fortune – состояние
guy – парень
impart – делиться (с кем-либо чем-либо)
intrigue – интриговать, заинтересовывать
item – единица продукции
mister – разг. господин
nickel – никель, никелевая монета в 5 центов
polish – полировать
purchase – покупка
reply – ответ; отвечать
shoestring – шнурок для ботинок
trade – торговля; торговать, продавать
triple – утраивать
vest – жилет
wool – шерсть; шерстяной
yell – орать, вопить
the Great Depression – Великая депрессия
down to the last nickel – промотаться до последней монеты
Heavens! – Господи!
on a shoestring – сленг «на медные деньги», задешево, без особых затрат
sales approach – подход к торговле
matter of fact (от as a matter of fact) – фактически, по сути
Exercise 3
Answer the questions:
1. When was the depth of the Great Depression?
2. How could the guy sell a five cent apple for ten cents?
3. How many apples did he have to sell to accumulate $1.37?
4. How much did the boy want for the dog?
5. What basic principle of economics did the businessman explain to the boy?
6. In the businessman's opinion, who might the boy get five dollars from?
7. How did the boy get the dog's worth?
Socialism
Socialism is defined as a system of centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production. It was meant to be a remedy for economic and moral defects of capitalism, but it seems to have surpassed capitalism in economic malfunction and moral cruelty.
Karl Marx is thought to be the architect of socialism, but in reality he wrote only a few pages about this system of economic life. It was Lenin, who was the first to put it in practice by trying to substitute the profit drive and the market mechanism with a pyramid of command as a cornerstone of the economy.
After Soviet production had fallen to 14 percent of its prerevolutionary level, Lenin in 1921 was forced to institute the New Economic Policy (NEP), a partial return to the market incentives of capitalism, which was eventually aborted by Stalin who started the process of forced collectivization that was to mobilize Russian industrial resources.
At the apex of the socialist pyramid of command was Gosplan, which defined the target rate of growth of the economy, the ratio between military and civilian outputs, between heavy and light industry, or among various regions. Gosplan's directives were transmitted to ministries of industrial and regional planning, and then to particular factories, power centres, and collective farms. A completed plan was negotiated, and passed into law.
The plan defined all units of national output, as well as the order and technologies by which those were to be produced. In theory such a plan could provide a good basis for a working economy. But in reality there was a vast and widening gap between theory and practice.
The number one problem was that the plan specified outputs in physical terms, and managers maximized tonnages of output, not its quality. So, low-quality Soviet products lost competition to better products from abroad which the «black market» offered, while the home warehouses and stores were stuffed with homemade goods. Secondly, the economic flow became increasingly clogged and clotted due to the fact that planners in Moscow could not efficiently for see all the situations of the on-site production in the provinces or elsewhere. But the real danger of socialism