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Text 1.
Money (part 1)
Before money, people could not buy and sell. There was trade; but it had to be two-way trade: people exchanged goods. For example, they exchanged food for clothes. With money, buying and selling became two things that could happen at different times and with different people. A person could sell food to somebody on one day and get money for it; a week later, he or she could use the money to buy clothes from a third person.
There have been metal coins for thousands of years. Some of the earlier coins were used in Turkey, and they were made of gold and silver. But this caused problems. People used to take very small bits of metal from each coin. Each coin was then a bit smaller, so people wanted more coins for their goods, and prices went up.
Metal coins were used by the Greeks thousands of years ago. The Greek drachma was made of silver. For hundreds of years, it was the most common kind of money for trade in Europe and parts of Asia. The Greeks even put drachma into the mouths of dead people: they believed the money would pay for their journey to the next world.
The Romans also used silver and gold coins. But the emperor Nero decided to put less gold and silver into the coins in order to make money for himself. After that, nobody wanted to use the coins, and this had a very bad effect on the Roman economy. The world had learned a lesson: money only works if people believe in its value.
Coins can be heavy. (For example, the people of Yap, an island in the Pacific, use stone coins; the biggest were about four meters across!) In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, people did not want to carry large bags of coins with them, so they left the coins with traders. The traders gave them “notes”: theses were just pieces of paper with a promise in writing to pay back the gold and silver coins. Soon, people started to use the notes themselves as money. Later, governments began to control money. They made their own notes for people to use.
Text 2.
Money (part 2)
In 1950, the first credit card was made. It was the Diners Club card, and it could only be used in 200 restaurants in New York. Today, almost all shops, hotels and restaurants in the world take credit cards, so people do not have to carry a lot of coins and notes with them when they travel.
As with anything there are advantages and disadvantages to using credit cards. Advantages:
Immediate Access: Need a new set of tires? Credit can help with an expensive, unexpected emergency and give you the flexibility to pay it over time.
Security: Lose cash, and it's gone. Lose a credit card, and it can be cancelled. Also, if you report a lost or stolen card promptly, you're protected against its unauthorized use.
Record Keeping: Your credit card statement is an itemized list of your monthly expenditures, which can be helpful when it comes to budgeting.
Convenience: Credit cards are accepted at more places than checks, and they're generally faster to use.
Rewards: Using a credit card with a rewards program may earn you benefits like free travel.
Disadvantages:
The main disadvantage to credit card usage is its cost to you in interest and fees. Wise use of credit means understanding those costs and acting accordingly. Keep track of your spending to ensure that you can repay your credit card bill in full when it comes due each month.
Text 3.
Teleworking (part 1)
Would you like to be a teleworker? The terms "telecommuting" and "telework" were coined by Jack Nilles in 1973. Teleworkers are people who work for companies, but not in companies. They do company work at home, usually on computers. Many teleworkers or telecommuters work from home, while others, sometimes called "nomad workers" or "web commuters," use mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or other locations. According to a Reuter’s poll, approximately "one in five workers around the globe, particularly employees in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, telecommute frequently and nearly 10 percent work from home every day”.
Teleworkers usually communicate with their supervisors by telephone or fax. They transfer information from their own computer to the office computer by electronic means. They can also communicate with their employers and supervisors by Skype.
Teleworking is becoming more and more popular in Britain and in the USA. Estimates suggest that over fifty million U.S. workers (about 40% of the working population) could work from home at least part of the time, but in 2008 only 2.5 million employees (not including the self-employed) considered their home their primary place of business.
Very few companies employ large numbers of home-based full-time staff. The call center industry is one notable exception: several U.S. call centers employ thousands of home-based workers. For many employees the option to work from home is available as an employee benefit but most participants only do so part of the time.
In 2009 the United States Office of Personnel Management reported that approximately 103,000 Federal employees telework. However, less than 14,000 were teleworking three or more days per week. In January 2012, Reuters predicted that telecommuting "is a trend that has grown and one which looks like it will continue with 34 percent of connected workers saying they would be very likely to telecommute on a full-time basis if they could."
On December 9, 2010, the U.S. Federal Government passed the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 in order to promote management effectiveness when telework is used to achieve reductions in organizational and transit costs and environmental impacts; and to enhance the work-life balance of workers. For example, telework allows employees to better manage their work and family obligations and thus helps retain a more resilient Federal workforce that is better able to meet agency goals.
Text 4.
Teleworking (part 2)
But before you apply for a job as a teleworker, you should ask yourself if it is really the best solution for you. Bill Farrar, who works for a big recycling company, hasn’t enjoyed his last three months at home. “I often fall asleep at the computer because I don’t have anybody to talk to,” he says. “So, at lunchtimes, I often go to the nearest bar – which is just at the end of my road – and then the afternoon is gone!” Next week he is starting a new job in a company where there are five people in one small office. “I can’t wait!” he says.
Paul Reynolds, on the other hand, is an absolutely happy person. He is one of the three partners in “March”, a marketing consultancy. Most of their clients are in information technology, and the client list includes some foreign companies. The company has a staff of 15 at its head office in Kingston-upon-Thames, and has an annual turnover of nearly £2 million.
The company produces annual reports, brochures, newsletters, and point-of-sale material for their clients. The deadlines are very often tight. Paul works from his home. He wastes less time travelling than most people, and he spends more time working. “My job is not 9 to 5,” says Paul. At the end of the day there is no drive home, and he can continue to service his clients on the other side of the world throughout the night. He often puts his children to bed and then goes to work. Because of the time difference, his clients in the US and the Far East need to talk to him late at night. With all modern electronic technology, his home is better equipped than many people’s offices!
Text 5.
Kenshin Oshima: making money out of money
For seven years, Kenshin Oshima had a very good job at the firm Mitsui and Co. But, at the age of 29, he did something very rare for a Japanese manager in his position – he resigned.
Oshima earned a good salary at Mitsui, but he wanted to make a lot of money, and to be very rich he needed to have his own company. He couldn’t afford to start a company immediately, but during his years at Mitsui he spent very little money, and saved as much as he could. In 1978 he invested his money, $236,500 in total, in his new company, Shohkoh Fund and Co. Shohkoh Fund specialized in lending money to businesses, but in small sums. This decision was a risk, as money-lending by private companies was not a respectable job in Japan at that time. His first client was a firm in Tokyo, which paid back the money that it owed at an interest rate of 24%.
But his idea was good: his profits rose by 25% a year, and reached $38.5 million in 1992. At that time he owned 80% of Shohkoh, and his shares in the company were worth $997 million. His strategy for the company was still the same: he specialized in small loans (a typical client borrowed only $40,000) and he personally examined the references of every new client.
In 2002 the company changed its name to SFCG CO.LTD and it is still engaged in money-lending in Japan. Its main areas of business include loans to businesses and discounting bills. It is also noted for the fact that it has many foreign shareholders. In 2007Oshima was the 23 richest person in Japan and was worth $1.2 billion. Oshima has written the best-seller called "A Billionaire's Textbook".
Text 6.