step-by-step-3000第一册Unit-8-录音文本

Unit 8 Trends in EconomicsPart I Warming upSection ATapescript:1. British Aerospace plans to buy the part of General Electric Company of Britain that makes defense electronics. The deal is worth $25,000,000,000.2. Canada will hold a meeting of American leaders in April to discuss trade and economic issues. Canada now has a trade surplus of $161,000,000 a year with Central America.3. Owners of MCI Communications have agreed to sell the company to the American communications company WorldCom. The price is $37,000,000,000 in stock. WorldCom defeated a 28,000,000,000-dollar offer by GGE. MCI also refused the British company Telecoms offer to unite the two companies by an agreement worth about $24,000,000,000.4. President Clinton will release 30,000,000 barrels of oil from the United States emergency supply. The move is designed to ease heating oil shortage expected this year.5. RANGOON The United Nations and the World Bank have offered Burma $1,000,000,000 in aid. A UN special diplomat made the offer to Burmese leaders last month.6. Representatives of the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council have agreed to common import taxes. Officials at the meeting in Riyad said representatives agreed to set the common tax on some goods at 5.5%. The tax on other goods will be 7.5%.7. The New York Stock Exchange halted trading early after suffering one of the worst market drops in history. Stock prices fell more than 550 points. That is a loss of more than 7%.8. United States Central Bank officials are reducing interest rates for the third time this year. The bank officials cut by 0.25% the rate that banks charge each other for short-term loans. That rate now will be 4.75%. The Central Bank made the same reduction in the rate it charges member banks for overnight loans. The rate now will be 4.5%.Section BTapescript:1. Angry demonstrators are increasing their protests against rising fuel prices. World oil prices have reached a ten-year high of about S35 a barrel.2. China has opened a meeting of African nations. Representatives of more than 40 African nations are attending the three-day meeting in Beijing.3. Dutch Prime Minister says the Czech Republic could become a member of the European Union by early 2003. The Prime Minister told reporters that the final date would be decided by a conference of EU members.4. Finance ministers and Central Bank governors of seven leading industrial nations are meeting in Washington. Officials from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United States are attending the meeting.5. Iran and Saudi Arabia say they will try to reduce the amount of oil now on the world market in an attempt to increase the low prices that are harming their economies.6. Leaders of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have urged rich countries to lower oil prices by cutting taxes on oil products.7. Leaders of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations have promised to speed efforts to increase trade and to bring peace and security to the area. They made the statement at the end of their yearly meeting in Manila.8. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board has told a senate committee that he will support policies that keep inflation low.9. The United States and Japan have signed an agreement that will open Japanese ports to foreign companies.10. And in Singapore, Prime Minister says his countrys economy has increased almost 4 percent for the first half of 1999. Experts say the country has become a leading manufacturing and financial center. Section C1. A record number of shares, almost 93,000,000 were traded Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.2. Trading was heavy again Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. About 97,000,000 shares were traded, a number second only to the record 133,000,000 shares traded Wednesday.3. Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company of New York and the First National Bank of Chicago both reduced their prime rate 1.5% to 16%.4. The World Bank has approved a 100,000,000 dollar loan to the Ivory Coast.5. Japans cabinet has approved a proposed budget plan for next year. The 210,000,000,000 dollar budget will reduce total spending. Military spending will be increased 5.1%.6. Oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have agreed to continue limiting production to 17,500,000 barrels of oil a day.7. The Commerce Department said its index of leading economic indicators rose 1.3% in July, the fourth month it has increased.8. Unemployment in the United States rose last month to 9.5% of the American work force, the highest rate since World War II. The Labor Department said that unemployment rose in May by 0.1%. It said 10,500,000 Americans were out of work.9. Poland owes foreign countries about 27,000,000,000 dollars.10. The Labor Department reports that wholesale prices increased by only 0.6% in August.Part II Nobel Prize Winner for EconomicsA1. Edmund Phelps studied large forces that affect economies at the national or international level.2. Mr Phelps correctly identified the relationship between unemployment and inflation. He discovered that, over the long term, inflation hurt job creation.3. Mr Phelps showed that national savings rates can be too high. The best savings rate is not so high that it limits demands in the present, and it is not so low that it limits growth and investment in the future.B1. Since the 1930s, policymakers in many nations dealt with unemployment by letting inflation increase to create jobs. They accepted that reducing unemployment required higher inflation.2. Common sense suggests that a very high savings rate is best.Tapescript:Edmund Phelps has been awarded this years Nobel Prize for Economics. Mr Phelps is a professor of economics at Columbia University in New York City. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Mr Phelps for his work in macroeconomics. That is the study of large forces that affect economics at the national or international level.Mr Phelps correctly identified the relationship between unemployment and inflation. Since the 1930s, policymakers in many nations dealt with unemployment in the same way. They would let inflation increase to create jobs.For example, they would make credit easier to get. As a result, people would buy more goods. Businesses would hire workers to meet growing demand, forcing prices up. For many years, policymakers accepted that reducing unemployment required higher inflation.Mr Phelps found that inflation did temporarily increase employment. But he discovered that, over the long term, inflation hurt job creation. His ideas were proved by economic conditions in America in the 1970s. That period was known for “stagflation having high unemployment and high inflation at the same time.”Edmund Phelps also found that if employers expect low inflation in the future, they arc more likely to hire workers.Today, economic policy experts believe the best way to create jobs is to fight inflation.Mr Phelps also studied national savings over long periods of time. Common sense suggests that a very high savings rate is best. But, Mr Phelps showed that national savings rates can be too high. He argued that saving too much limited demand in the present, which could slow growth.The best savings rate is not so high that it limits demand in the present. And it is not so low that it limits growth and investment in the future. Still, he argued that governments should take action to raise national savings.Edmund Phelps did much of his research in macroeconomics during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His work continues to influence economists. And it has helped change policy at central banks, which now consider fighting inflation a main goal.Part III “Bulls” and “Bears”1. a stock exchange: noisy place/ bell/ lighted messages / computers7 talk on the telephone/ shout/ run around2. brokers: experts/ salespeople/ buy & sell shares of companies3. stocks: shares4. the big board; a list of stocks sold on the New York Stock Exchange5. a bear market: prices/ go down6. a bull market: prices/ go up7. a company that goes belly up: a company that does not earn enough profit8. a windfall: a sharp increase in the value of a stock/ something wonderful that happens unexpectedlyB. Now listen to the passage again. Then briefly/ answer the questions.1. When and where did the word “board” with the meaning mentioned in the passage appear in written form? in 1837 in a newspaper in Illinois2. What is the origin of “a bear market”?old story/ sold the skin of a bear/ before caught it3. What is the origin of “a bull market”?a long connection/ bulls and bears/ in sports/ popular years ago/ England4. What is the phrase “go belly up” originally used to describe?fish / turn over on their backs/ die5. What is the story about the origin of the word “windfall”?England / centuries ago / poor people / banned / cutting trees/ the wind blew down the tree / take for fuelTapescripts: Today we tell about some American expressions that are commonly used in business.Bell sound, lighted messages appear, men and women work at computers, they talk on the telephone, at times they shout and run around. This noisy place is a stock exchange. Here experts, salespeople called brokers, buy and sell shares of companies. The shares are known as stocks. People who own stock in a company own part of that company. People pay brokers to buy and sell stocks for them. If a company earns money, its stock increases in value. If the company does not earn money, the stock decreases in value. Brokers and investors carefully watch for any changes on the big board. That is the name given to a list of stocks sold on the New York Stock Exchange. The first written use of the word with that meaning was in a newspaper in Illinois in 1837. It said, “The sales on the board were $1,700 in American gold.” Investors and brokers watch the big board to see if the stock market is a bull market or a bear market. In a bear market, prices go down. In a bull market, prices go up. Investors in a bear market promise to sell a stock in the future at a set price, but the investor does not own the stock yet. He or she waits to buy it when the price ducks. The meaning of a bear market is thought to come from an old story about a man who sold the skin of a bear before he caught the bear. An English dictionary of the 1600s said, “To sell a bear is to sell what one has not.” Word experts dispute the beginning of the word “bull” in the stock market. But some say it came from a long connection of the two animals bulls and bears in sports that were popular years ago in England. Investors are always concerned about the possibility of a company failing. In the modern world, a company that does not earn enough profit is said to go belly up. A company that goes belly up dies like a fish. Fish turn over on their backs when they die. So theyre stomach or belly up. Stock market investors do not want that to happen to a company. They want a company whose stock they own to earn more profit than expected. This would sharply increase the value of the stock. Investors are hoping for a windfall. The word “windfall” comes from England of centuries ago. There poor people were banned from cutting trees in forests owned by rich landowners. But if the wind blew down a tree, the poor person could take the wood for fuel. So a windfall is something wonderful that happens unexpectedly.Part IV Short Talks on Listening SkillsThinking Ahead of the SpeakerAnticipation HelpsListening is an extremely complex communicative activity. In his book Principles and Implications of Cognitive Psychology, Neisser defines listening as a “temporally extended activity” in which the listener “continuously develops more or less specific readiness for what will come next.” In other words, an effective listener is constantly setting up hypothesis in his mind, and also, he is constantly testing his hypothesis by matching it with what he has heard in reality. If he hears what he has expected, he receives the in