The Economy of the United States of America

Контрольная работа №1

Семестр

Дмитров2012г.

Иностранный язык

Тематика контрольных работ по дисциплине

Дмитровский филиал

Кафедра гуманитарных дисциплин

Вариант №1. (А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е)

ЗАДАНИЕ № 1.

Переведите текст на русский язык:

The United States of America is among the leading industrial and agricultural nations of the Globe. It is the world’s greatest economic power in the terms of gross national product (GNP) and is among the greatest power in terms of GNP per capita. The nation’s wealth is partly a reflection of its rich natural resources and advanced agriculture, but the main factor, nevertheless, is its highly developed industry. International trade plays an important part in the U.S. economy, too.

The U.S. government plays only a small direct part in economic activity, being restricted to few agencies. Enterprises that are often in public hands in other countries, such as airlines and telephone systems, are run privately in the United States.

The principal effort of the government traditionally has been the fostering of competition through enforcement of antitrust laws. There are designed to combat collusion among companies with respect to prices, output levels, or market shares and, where feasible, to prevent mergers that significantly reduce competition.

The major area of government regulation of economic activity is though fiscal and monetary policy. The government also influences on certain sectors of the economy as a purchaser of goods, notably in the aircraft and aerospace industries. Proposals for governmental controls of prices and incomes have been a frequent source of much controversy.

Farming is a field in which the government strongly regulates private economic activity. It endeavours to support farm incomes through payments to farmers, controls on output, price supports, and the provision of storage and marketing facilities. One disadvantage of the system is that payments are related to farm output, so that the benefit often goes to the larger commercial farms rather than to the so-called family farms that were originally that main object of governmental concern.

Nearly all of the federal government’s revenues come from taxes. By far the most important source of tax revenue is the personal income tax. Excise duties yield another small percentage of total federal revenue, individual states levying their own excise and sale taxes. Federal excises rest heavily on alcohol, gasoline and tobacco. Another major source of revenue is social insurance taxes and contributions.

The labour force in the United States is not highly organized. About three-fourths of those belonging to unions are affiliated with the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the nationwide federation of unions. Most unions in manufacturing bargain on a plant- or companywide scale.

The U.S. economy benefits from rich natural resources. With only 5 percent of the world’s output of coal, copper, and crude petroleum. The United States is the world’s second largest petroleum-producing nation. The major producing fields are in Alaska, California, The Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Important reserves of natural gas are found in most of these same areas.

Coal deposits are concentrated largely in the Appalachians and in Wyoming. Pensilvania produces the country’s only anthracite. Iron ore is mined in Minnesota and Michigan. Copper production is concentrated in the mountainous state of the West – in Arizona, Utah, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico. Zinc is mined in Tennessee, Missouri, Idaho, and New York. Lead mining is concentrated in Missouri. Important nonmetallic minerals are phosphates, potash, sulfur, stone, and clays.

Regional climatic differences enable agricultural diversity, the agricultural sector of the USA produces nearly one-half of the world’s corn (maize) and more than one-tenth of its wheat. Soybeans, cotton, barley, grain sorghum, rice, and tobacco are between the main crops as well. Fishing, forestry, and livestock are also substantial, nearly one0fifth of the world’s beef, pork, mutton, and lamb are produces in the USA. Despite the enormous output of U.S. agriculture, the sector of agriculture, forestry and fishing altogether produce less than 3 percent of the GNP. Farm productivity has grown at a rapid rate, enabling a smaller labour force to produce more than ever before. Farm manpower has fallen, while mechanization and concentration of farm holdings has increased.

Less than 2 percent of the GNP comes from mining and quarrying, despite the fact than the United States is a major world producer of a number of metals and of coal and petroleum.

Manufacturing output has grown at approximately the same rate as the economy as a whole. The increase in productivity over the years has been in part a function of the increased level of capital investment. Manufacturing accounts for about a fifth of the GNP.

One of the most important sectors in terms of value added is the manufacture of transportation equipment, including motor vehicles, aircraft, and space equipment. Other important sectors include machinery, food products, and chemicals.

Chief manufactured products are crude steel, paper, wood pulp, pig iron, sulfuric and phosphoric acid, coke, cheese, newsprint, aerospace vehicles, machine tools, cotton fabric, carpets and rugs, footwear, motor-vehicle tires, household appliances, television and radio receivers, passenger cars, trucks and buses.

In the second half of 20^th century, services has grown faster than any other sector of the U.S. economy. Services are now second only to manufacturing in contribution to the GNP. The most important components are health and business services.

Exports, at only 7.6 percent of gross domestic product in 1994, show the economy of the USA to be relatively self-sufficient and comparatively unaffected by global economic trends. Despite this. The United States is the most important single factor in world trade by virtue of the sheer size of its economy. Its exports present more than 10 percent of the world total. Major exports and imports include machinery and transportation equipment (electrical goods, motor vehicles and parts), chemicals, mineral fuel, beverages. Chief exports are also aircraft, computers, tobacco, wheat, and corn. The USA receives in turn paper, clothing, footwear, and wood (meat, fish, coffee, tea, and bananas).

A free-trade treaty was signed with Canada in 1989, and in 1993 the North American Free Trade Agreement created a free-trade region comprising the USA, Canada, and Mexico. The leading trading partners are also Japan, Saudi Arabia, China, Great Britain, and Germany.

A surge in imports in the 1980s, particularly from Japan, and the uncompetitiveness of exports have caused a trade deficit. A negative trade balance took place since 1976 until 1984. this, together with the large federal budget deficit, has aroused world-wide concern. In 1985, for the first time since 1914, U.S. debts owed to foreign creditors exceeded foreign debts owed to U.S. creditors.

The United States takes part in the economy of the rest of the world not only as a trading power but also as a source of investment capital. The USA has penetrated deeply into the Canadian economy where American multinational corporations have large investments. Mining and smelting, petroleum and natural gas, and much of the manufacturing enterprise is dominated by American firms. Direct investment abroad by U.S. firms is a dominant factor in the economies of many Latin-American countries and is also important in Europe and in Asia.

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