Английский язык. Практический курс для решения бизнес-задач

Картина может оказаться и не столь радужной – если подведут чиновники. Уэстин поясняет, что в основе всех прогнозов лежит допущение, что правительство будет проводить умеренно реформистскую политику, а не примется тратить деньги направо и налево.

При нефти в $100/барр. сценарий быстрого роста экономики вполне правдоподобен, говорит чиновник Минэкономразвития. Прогнозировать, как страна распорядится свалившимся на нее с неба богатством, невозможно, возражает старший экономист «Уралсиба» Владимир Тихомиров: «Возможно, дорогая нефть приведет только к усилению неравенства, а большинство населения так и не отведает плодов изобилия».

Если нефть будет слишком дорогой, есть опасность, что реформы будут остановлены, предостерегает чиновник Минэкономразвития. К тому же есть риск, что государство не совладает со свалившимся на него богатством и начнет транжирить сверхдоходы. А это подстегнет инфляцию и приведет к всплеску импорта, добавляет экономист «Альфа-банка» Наталия Орлова. По расчетам Уэстина, при цене нефти в $100/барр. в стабфонде к 2016 г. скопится $1,5 трлн, а при $50/барр. – $557 млрд (на 1 августа – $25,3 млрд).

«Уже сейчас объем стабфонда достиг критического уровня, и его дальнейшего безнаказанного роста никто не допустит», – разрушает эти предположения председатель думского комитета по социальной политике «единоросс» Андрей Исаев. «Уже в 2006 г. намечается серьезный поворот к росту расходов бюджета на социальную поддержку населения и инвестиции, а в 2007 г. можно ожидать качественного рывка», – предупреждает он.

Источник: Ведомости, 06.10.05

Lesson 24 Globalization

Read and translate the text and learn terms from the Essential Vocabulary

Globalization

Globalization is the worldwide technological, economic and cultural change brought about by expanding facilities for communications and interdependency between isolate cultures. Dramatically increased international trade and finance have established a medium wherin deeper cultural exchanges have taken place, greatly increasing the impact of global issues at the local scale.

In economic context, the term refers to the effects of trade, particularly trade liberalization (or the «free trade»). More broadly, the term refers to the overall integration, and resulting increase in interdependence among global actors.

It is useful to distinguish economic, political, and cultural aspects of globalization, although all three aspects are closely intertwined. The other key aspect of globalization is changes in technology, particularly in transport and communications, which are creating a global village.

«Globalization» can mean:

Globalism that contrasts with economic nationalism and protectionism.

Complex connectivity, where more and more places are being connected in new ways. Arjun Appadurai identified five types of global connectivity:

– Ethnoscapes: movements of people (tourists, immigrants, refugees, and businessmen).

– Financescapes: global flows of money, often driven by interconnected currency markets, stock exchanges, and commodity markets.

– Ideoscapes: the global spread of ideas and political ideologies.

– Mediascapes: the global distribution of media images.

– Technoscapes: the movement of technologies around the globe.

Cultural globalization means attempts to erode the national cultures of Europe, and subsume them into a global culture whose members will be much easier to manipulate through mass media and controlled governments.

Economic globalization refers to four different flows across boundaries: flows of goods/services, people, capital, and technology. The IMF defines globalization as «the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, freer international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology».

In the field of management, globalization is a marketing or strategy term that refers to the emergence of international markets for consumer goods characterized by similar customer needs and tastes enabling, for example, selling the same cars or soaps or foods with similar ad campaigns to people in different cultures. This usage is contrasted with internationalization which describes the activities of multinational companies dealing across borders in either financial instruments, commodities, or products that are extensively tailored to local markets.

Many use the term «corporate globalization» or «global corporatization» to highlight the impact of MNCs and the use of legal and financial means to circumvent local laws and standards, in order to leverage the labor and services of unequally-developed regions against each other.

The spread of capitalism from developed to developing nations.

Globalization History

It is a history of increasing trade between nations based on stable institutions that allow firms in different nations to exchange goods with minimal friction.

The term «liberalization» means the combination of laissez-faire economic theory with the removal of barriers to the movement of goods. This led to specialization of nations in exports, and the pressure to end protective tariffs and other barriers to trade. The period of the gold standard and liberalization of the 19th century is often called «The First Era of Globalization». Based on the Pax Britannica and the exchange of goods in currencies pegged to specie, this era grew along with industrialization.

The «First Era of Globalization» has broken down in stages beginning with the World War I, and then collapsed with the crisis of the gold standard in the late 1920s and early 1930s’s. Countries that engaged in that era of globalization prospered and goods, capital and labour flowed remarkably freely between nations.

Globalization in the era since World War II has been driven by Trade Negotiation Rounds, originally under the auspices of GATT, which led to a series of agreements to remove restrictions on «free trade». The Uruguay Round led to a treaty to create the World Trade Organization to mediate trade disputes. Other bilateral trade agreements, including Europe’s Maastricht Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement, have also been signed aimed at reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.