A. Read and translate the text

1 Like everything else under capitalism, the crediting and credit card system is simple. A store, a filling station or just a credit company allow you credit, its limit depending on your solvency which they calculate somehow (incidentally, on the basis of the information you give them). Having opened a credit account, they send you a plastic card bearing your name, account number and a blank for your signature. Wherever credit cards are accepted, the cost of your purchases and of the services rendered are put on the account indicated on it.

2 Every month the company which has issued you the credit card sends you a report on your expenses. The report tells you how much of the credit you have used up, and recommends the minimum of your expenses to be defrayed[8] before the end of the month. You may pay out the lump sum, which is a clever thing to do because payments by installments will include a certain interest agreed upon in advance and recorded in your application for credit. This interest usually exceeds the bank credit rate.

3 After you have exhausted the credit, your card will no longer buy you anything. In that case you can use it as soon as you have paid for everything.

This system is not only simple but convenient as well. You don't have to carry cash, even a checkbook. Theoretically, your credit cards pay all your expenses: food, gas, clothes, car rentals, hotel bills, airlines and health resort bills.

4 Another convenience of this arrangement consists in that you can start paying for your purchases within a month of making it. The latent psychological trick is, however, that one is more likely[9] to go on a spending spree if all one[10] has to do by way of paying is to show his credit card instead of shelling out cash. Credit card holders buy more, as a rule.

5 Credit cards are just a means by which a mighty Western credit system has penetrated into everyday life and into the budget of the average American family. Being a fragment of that system, credit cards are its graphic illustration. There is hardly a sphere of the capitalist economy which credits haven't found their way into. Homes, consumer goods, planes, college instruction, industrial equipment, farm machines, fertilizers, land, factory and office blocks - all these are purchased on credit. Without credits, modern capitalism will not last a day. Without them, the Western economy would not have been as dynamic as it is now: by governing its material and financial resources, credits stimulate their turnover. It is[11] due to such system that the Western economy has achieved the results which we admire today. The credit system plus enterprise is the core of American capitalism.

B. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases:

the bank credit rate, certain interest, cost of your purchases, to pay your expenses, a bill, an account, average family, turnover, payment by installments, credit card bearing your name, convenience, to purchase on credit, to spend, to expend, to exceed the bank rate, to exhaust credit, to be indicated, to be recorded in application form, to put on the account, to carry cash, to use up credit, to penetrate into (to find its way into), to admire, as soon as, in advance, depending on your solvency, under capitalism, within a month, no longer, due to, there is hardly, which is a clever thing to do, such system will not last a day.

C. Find in the text English equivalents to the following phrases:

предоставлять кому-либо кредит, попросить кредит, покупать в кредит, кредитная ставка, оговоренный процент (т.е. о размере которого заранее договорились), заявление о предоставлении кредита, выдавать кому-либо кредитные карты, принимать кредитные карты (в качестве оплаты услуг), оказанные услуги, владельцы кредитных карт, оплачивать расходы, отчёт о расходах, номер счёта, открывать счёт, выплачивать всю сумму сразу, обучение в колледже, потребительские товары, заводские и офисные здания, как и всё в этой стране, больше не купит, это просто средство, вряд ли существует такая сфера, благодаря такой системе.

D. Find in the text 14 noun chains, that is combinations of 2, 3 or more nouns not connected by prepositions. Mind that the end of a noun chain is indicated by a determiner of another part of speech, for example:

The gas pipe system has several control points.

The gas pipe system in the second zone functions in a proper way.

Translate the noun chains you found into Russian. Make use of both variants of translating nouns used as attributes:

a) by an adjective (without changing the word order in the chain)

e.g. factory equipment – заводское оборудование

b) by a noun in possessive case but beginning the translation of the chain with the last noun in it

e.g. growth rates – темпы роста

high-quality steel production – производство стали высокого качества

Also, mind that attributes may sometimes be connected by “and”

e.g. labour and material resourses – трудовые и материальные ресурсы

light and food industry products – продукция лёгкой и пищевой промышленности