Ex.17. With your partners do the following

DISCUSSION POINTS

Ex.15. Write a brief summary of the text (25-30 sentences).

Ex.14. Make a plan for a summary of Text A.

WRITING

Ex.11. Ask questions to which the following sentences may be answers.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

1. As a mechanism for survival.

2. It is possible to group these different economic structures into four broad categories.

3. The oldest and the most common way of solving economic problems was that of tradition.

4. Strictly speaking, the pure market of laissez-faire system has never existed.

5. Supporters of planned economies cast them as a practical measure to ensure the production of necessary goods.

6. Efficiency is best achieved through a market economy where individual producers each make their own production decisions based on their own profit motive.

7. All countries today have mixed economic systems or mixed economies, with some free enterprise and some government ownership.

8. Economies in states ranging from the United States to Cuba have been termed mixed economies.

9. If the government owns and operates almost all of the nation's means of production, then that nation's economic system is called communism.

10. The U.S. has a free enterprise, or capitalist, economic system.

Ex.12. Answer the questions:

1. How does every economic society present itself for an economist?

2. What are the basic types of economic systems?

3. What kind of questions may help to solve economic problems satisfactorily?

4. Why does every society face the problem of resource allocation?

5. What methods of production and distribution are used in a traditional economic system?

6. Describe advantages and disadvantages of traditional economies.

7. Who makes economic decisions in a market economic system?

8. List six essential features of a market economy.

9. Describe the role of government in a planned economy.

10. What are disadvantages of planned economies?

11. Define a mixed economic system.

12. What is the fourth basic question that should be asked by every society?

13. Who owns the means of production in the discussed economic system?

Ex.13. Make a presentation of the topic “Types of Economic systems”.

Ex.16. Write an essay (100-150 words) about:.

a) Pros and cons of command economies.

b) The role of government in a free-enterprise system.

Explain the basis on which economists in classifying economic systems distinguish between ‘market’ and ‘command’ economies. On what basis, if any, is it possible to say which type of economy is superior?

· Establish criteria such as resource ownership, for comparing market and command economies.

· Explain how welfare criteria can be used to judge the success of an individual economic system.

· One economic system is superior to another only if it is better able to satisfy welfare criteria. Discuss the evidence.

· Avoid making subjective, political statements of opinion.

Ex.18. Can you explain the following sayings in your own words? What other sayings about different kinds of economic systems do you know?

1. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Ronald Reagan (American 40th US President (1981- 1989, 1911-2004)

2. The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. Thomas Sowell (American writer and Economist) (1924 – 2006)

3. I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it. Bob Thaves, the creator of the comic strip Frank and Ernest (1924-2006)

4. We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. Erwin N. Griswold, Solicitor General of the United States,(1904 - 1994)

5. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak. Jay Leno, an American stand-up comedian and television host, (b. 1950)

TEXT B:COMMAND ECONOMY

Дата добавления: 2014-11-29