Английский язык для экономистов - Малюга Е.Н.
ISBN 5-469-00341-8
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1 SAT — Sholastic Aptitude Test. 100
Английский ЯЗЫК ДЛЯ экономистов
does not get into the "best" school. Life is about doing your best, not just about winning.
There are also important things our leaders in government, business, and the media can do to help fight cheating in American life.
The first is to put tougher national laws and regulations in place that deal with all forms of cheating. We also need the commitment to enforce those laws and to impose tough sanctions. This is a job of Congress, regulators, and the courts.
Second, each of our institutions — businesses, schools, athletic teams, and voluntary associations — need their own tough rules against cheating. UniversityofVirginiaofficialsand its student leaders have apparently pursued the dozens of cheating cases uncovered recently, strengthening their own honor code in the process. But Bausch and Lomb board members weakened the company's ethical culture, in mv view, when they did not remove Ron Zarella as their CEO after it was revealed he had claimed a degree he did not have. Even sports-frenzied Notre Dame knew it had to get rid of a coach that lied on his resume.
Third, leaders in government and the private sector are going to have to invest in new systems to enforce standards against cheating, at least for a time. Government regulators and tax officials will have to do more audits. Employers will have to check the accuracy of all resumes. College teachers will have to use new on-line systems to check for plagiarism in papers.
Finally, I believe all our leaders — particularly those in the media — must contribute to building a Iiewr American culture in which wealth and celebrity are not: the defining marks of success, but instead old-fashioned values such as integrity, faithfulness, and service to those in need. As long as Americans are chasing a dream defined by winning above all, they will continue to find new ways to cheat their way to the finish line.
J. Speak up
J.l. Work in groups and discuss the questions.
1. Is cheating a usual thing in Russia? Give your reasons.
2. If you know that cheating is wrong, will you do it? If you do it, will you feel bad?
3. Do you agree with the author's opinion that "people cheat to get ahead ..."?
4. What measures can you propose to stop cheating in all the spheres of our Russian life including business? Compare your ideas with the author's ones about American life. Unit 5. Business Ethics
101
J.2. Sum up the main arguments of the article and add your own ideas on the problem.
J.3. Prepare a five-minute presentation on the problem of corporate business ethics and cheating.
J.4. Interview.
Use these questions as a guide to interview your partner. Add questions of your own.
1. Are the Russians overall ethical or not?
2. What should the Russian companies do in order to establish strong business ethics?
3. Ethical principles and values are keys to ethical decision-making, but how should they be applied to actual business situations? Give your reasons.
4. What do you think the ethical clients are? What questions are clients likely to ask? Are they being treated the way they want to be treated? Unit 6
Accounting
A. Preliminary discussion
1. What is the basic rule for accounting?
2. What particular skills should different kinds of accountants have?
B* Pre-reading exercises
B.l. Skim the text and give its key idea.
B.2. Scan the text for the following information.
1. What has the fist priority been for those who set accounting rules?
2. What five main areas are the efforts of regulators and standard-setters focused on?
3. When did clamour for reform begin?
C Reading
C.l. Read the text and answer the questions.
1. What can the crisis in accounting be used for?
2. Why have companies been compelled to show how they reconcile their pro-forma figures with the numbers produced according to GAAP rules?
3. What is the reason for a fight that the standard-setters may have on their hands?
4. What would make balance sheets larger and debt ratios higher?
5. What will the largest impact of 'fair-value accounting' be?
6. Why will people who are not trained in how to read accounts have to rely more than ever on experts? Unit 6. Accounting
103
True and Fair Is not Hard and Fast
tiThe Economist"
For accounts to reflect reality, they need to be more volatile and less precise. The procession of companies admitting to having lied in their reported accounts has undermined faith in corporate numbers and put the accounting profession under pressure to change its ways. In the 1990s, accountants clearly failed to keep up with the tricks that were devised to help companies inflate their profits. The first priority for those who set accounting rules has been to try to choke off the most obvious loopholes.
Looking further into the future, however, some see the crisis in accounting as an opportunity to change the shape and content of accounts more fundamentally. The growing use of market values for assets and liabilities (instead of the accidental "historic cost" at which they were obtained) is going to make shareholders' equity and profits swing around far more than in the past. Under such circumstances, profits may come to be stated as a range of figures, each of them arrived at by using different accounting assumptions.
