US fat cats quizzed over high salaries
Three former _____ of U.S. banking giants are currently facing tough questions by American _____ over the size of their salaries. In particular, why their earnings, bonuses and _____ _____ were so high when the companies they _____ were doing so poorly. Ex-Merrill Lynch CEO E. Stanley O’Neal and Citigroup’s Charles O. Prince III _____ from their companies in late 2007 with _____-_____ golden goodbyes. This is despite the fact that the corporations they headed lost billions of dollars and low-income homeowners lost their homes in America’s _____ _____. Democrat Henry A. Waxman said America was an unequal society. “Most Americans live in a world where economic _____ is [uncertain] and there are real economic _____for failure. But our nation’s top _____ seem to live by a different set of rules, he said.
Many Democrat politicians focused on why top executives were paid so well when their decisions led to huge, billion-dollar _____. One concerned committee member asked: “When companies fail to _____, should they give millions of dollars to their senior executives?” Republicans _____ the executives and asked questions of their own. Darrel E Issa from California wondered why the CEOs were being targeted as “bad guys”. Mr Issa said the executives also _____ because the value of the hundreds of millions of dollars they received in _____ went down when share values _____. A majority of Americans believe that their business leaders are highly _____. CEOs earn about 600 times more than the average American worker. This figure has _____ from 1980 levels, when CEOs earned just 40 times more than Jo Public.
C. AFTER LISTENING
Answer the following questions.
1) What questions are three former CEOs of U.S. banking giants currently facing?
2) Who resigned from their companies in late 2007?
3) What did the corporations, that the top executives headed, lose?
4) What did Democrat Henry A. Waxman say about the American society?
5) What questions do many Democrat politicians ask top executives about?
6) Do Republican politicians defend or accuse American senior executives?
7) What did Mr Issa say about the top executives?
8) What do the majority of Americans think about their business leaders?
9) How much do CEOS earn as compared to an average American worker?
10) Has the salary of the CEOs plummet or rocket since the 1980s?
Match the following synonyms from the text.
| 1) former | a) led |
| 2) tough | b) resulted in |
| 3) headed | c) cave-in |
| 4) collapse | d) nosedived |
| 5) consequences | e) bulk |
| 6) led to | f) ex |
| 7) targeted | g) effects |
| 8) plummeted | h) tricky |
| 9) majority | i) gone through the roof |
| 10) rocketed | j) singled out |