Business and the Economy

Magda, the novelist, went to a party to celebrate the publication of a calendar featuring NewA fork City firefighters. Mr. September, thirty-three, picked her up, and they've been inseparable ever since.

Packard and Amanda Deale had another child, a girl. They're raising their children to be geniuses. The last time Carrie had din— ner at their house, Packard said to Chester, "Do you realize that honey— roasted peanuts are a phenomenon of our lifetime?" Chester nodded.

Brigid Chalmers left her husband. She was last seen at the Tunnel at four A.M., dancing wildly with Barkley.

All of the perennial bachelors are still available.

Belle and Newbert went to a coed baby shower on Fifth Avenue. Newbert insisted on wearing a funny, striped Cat-in-the-Hat chapeau; then he made everyone drink shots of tequila while he danced on a credenza. The stereo blew out just as Newbert fell out the fifth-story window—luckily, he landed on the awning. During the two months Newbert was in traction, Belle became a president at her bank. She is still not pregnant.

After spending the night with Ray, Skipper Johnson came back to New %rk and disappeared. He resurfaced after two months, telling everyone that he was "totally in love."

Mr. Marvelous was named as the father of a child out of wedlock. He made the mother take a DNA test, and it turned out the kid wasn't his.

Mr. Big is happily married. Carrie is happily single.

Business and the Economy

Patterns of change

A nation's industries can be divided into three sectors of activity. The primary sector is concerned with raw materials such as cereals and minerals. Processing these materials is the field of the manufacturing sector. The service sector provides services of various kinds such as transport nr distribution, hut dues not manufacture goods. The construction industry can be thought of either as part of the manufacturing sector, or as a separate fourth sector.

Earlier in its history: Britain had a very large manufacturing sector. Food, fuel and raw materials such as cotton were imported in large quantities and paid for with finished goods manufactured in Britain: it was known as 'the workshop of the world'. Today, the manufacturing sector and the small primary sector are employing even fewer people. For example, during the first half of the 1980s the mining and energy industries lost 20 per cent of their jobs. This was mainly through increases in productivity, so that fewer workers were producing the same output more efficiently. Productivity rose by 14 per cent in the same period in British industry as a whole, although it had previously been low by comparison with other advanced industrial nations. Meanwhile service industries like banking and catering were expanding their workforce.

Britain has a mixed economy, based partly on state ownership but mainly on private enterprise. In the mid eighties the private sector accounted for 72 per cent of total employment and 74 per cent of the goods and services produced in Britain. Government policy throughout, the 1980s was to sell state- owned industries such as British Telecom and British Airways to private investors, thereby, further increasing the size of the private sector.

Shipbuildiny in Sttnderlarnt Marcet-makers in City of London

People working in different sectors of industry:
changes between the early 1970s and the late 1980s
Early Seventies Percentages: 1971 and 1988 Late Eighties

Comprehension

Use the information on these two pages to answer the questions.

1. What are the three main sectors of industry in any economy?

2. Which sectors of British industry are increasing in size, and which are decreasing?

3. What proportion of the British workforce are involved in manufacturing?

4. Define the following words. Use a dictionary if. Necessary.

privatise state-owned distribution catering

Discussion

Work in pairs.

1 What contribution does each sector of the economy make to the production of a sweater, a hamburger, this book, a telephone call?

2 If British industry continued to change at its present rate, what would the sectors look like in the year 2000?

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1244