Деньги - Money. Невежина С.Б - 44 стр.

         PAYING: CASH / CREDIT CARDS / EURO                                   happily walk away with your flowers. Pretty easy, huh? It wouldn't be
                                                                              that easy without cash.
      GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT                                                             Or suppose you're at an athletic event – a soccer match, a
                                                                              basketball game, or a volleyball tournament. Suddenly you realize
      Questions to consider:
                                                                              you're hungry. You walk out to the concession stand to buy a couple of
      1. Do you pay for most things with cash or with credit cards?
                                                                              hot dogs. How would that work in a cashless society? Can you imagine
      2. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of living in
                                                                              pulling out a credit or debit card to pay for a hot dog? So cash has its
a cashless society?
                                                                              advantages.
      T 15 Listen and read the article about money.                                  Of course, cash has a good many disadvantages as well. For one
                                                                              thing, it's easy to be robbed. For another, cash is heavy. Carrying a lot
                WHAT'S HAPPENING TO CASH?13                                   of coins can make holes in your pockets. It's inconvenient to take a
                                                                              great deal of money with you to pay for large purchases. Imagine trying
       A major event took place on January 1, 1999. The Euro made its         to carry enough cash to pay for a house, or a car – or even a sofa.
debut in most of the countries of the European Union. What is the                    Now there are also a number of advantages to electronic money.
Euro? It's a single currency that, by the year 2002, will replace most of     Think about it. You're traveling in Europe. Anyone who did this in the
the individual European currencies – like the German mark, the French         past knows that it was a bit of a pain to have to learn a new money
franc, and the Spanish peseta. The debut of the Euro seems destined to        system every time you crossed a border. Now, however, Euro prices
accelerate a trend that has been developing for many years now: the           are standardized, and you don't have to worry about whether a certain
movement toward the cashless society.                                         amount of your money will bring a different rate each time it's
       Not all of the countries of the European Union are using the           changed into a different local currency. What if things were that way
Euro. Britain, Sweden, and Denmark, for the time being at least, are          everywhere? Wouldn't it be simpler?
maintaining their own currencies. Even so, the Euro will have a great                Then there's the matter of bill paying. Traditionally, most people
many significant effects not only on European finance but also on that        in North America have paid their bills with checks. Recently, however,
of the world in general. There won't be any Euro coins and bills for a        a trend has developed to have bills paid automatically, Japanese people
while, but people will be able to use either checks or debit and credit       have been doing this for years. In Japan, payment for such things as
cards to make a lot of their purchases.                                       heat, electricity, and water is handled by automatic electronic deduction
       The European phenomenon will accelerate the trend worldwide            from a bank account. It's much easier than having to write several
to use less cash and more 'electronic' money. Is this positive or negative?   different checks to several different agencies. And since it's automatic,
Or is it just neutral, neither a good nor a bad thing?                        people don't have to worry about whether they've forgotten to pay their
       Are there any advantages to cash? Yes, of course. Suppose, for         bill.
example, that you are walking down a street and you remember that                    Of course, there are certain disadvantages to electronic money,
you need to buy some flowers. You see a flower vendor, and you                too. Some people have little use for plastic cards, saying that using
suddenly decide that this is the time to buy a dozen roses. So what do        them encourages us to live beyond our means. Others say that using
you do? Write a check, or pull out your debit or credit card? At this         electronic money places too much control of our personal finances in
writing, few flower vendors take checks, and even fewer take plastic.         the hands of strangers. Mistakes are easily made.
Most of them prefer cold, hard cash. If you've got a little money with               The jury is still out on whether the trend toward less and less use
you, you simply pull out a few bills, hand them to the vendor, and            of cash is good or bad. What seems dear is that it's definitely on its way.

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