Otázky a procvičení k 2. lekci

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Otázky a procvičení k 2. lekci

ACTIVE EXERCISE - ECONOMIC BRIGHT SPOTS

 NahoruEconomic bright spots

Since there's such a lot of depression in the media about economic bad times, I thought I would look on the positive side, and at some reasons why small, well run countries don't need to be desperately worried about the situation.

First of all I must say that there isn't much good news available. Good news usually means that we reach some new level, some positive new peak. In fact, there is no way to reach new peaks when major economies like the US, France, Germany Japan and the UK are experiencing massive falls in their stockmarkets, when many banks don't want to lend money, and multi-national companies based in the US or London are making cutbacks as they expect much lower profits or even losses.

One of the problems facing smaller countries is that a lot of their international companies have debt which they need to pay back. Past profit forecasts are not realistic in today's economy. That's why they have to cut costs. Cutting costs may mean stopping their workers from travelling, cutting their expenses or benefits (including language tuition!), forcing them to take unpaid holiday, asking them to take pay cuts, asking people to volunteer for early retirement, or even making people redundant. Some or all of such actions are being taken by multinational companies with branches in the Czech Republic.

Now for the good news. The reality is that the problems for many multinationals largely originated in…