Title:
Banks Recovered, but the Economy Struggled in 2009
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Two thousand nine may be remembered as the year the
world avoided an economic depression.
In the United States, stock prices sank to their
lowest levels in March. But stocks recovered
strongly for the year. The S & P Five Hundred index
gained over twenty percent — its largest increase in
six years.
As two thousand nine ended, the nations biggest
banks rushed to repay money from the Troubled Asset
Relief Program, or TARP.
In October of two thousand eight, Congress approved
up to seven hundred billion dollars to rescue the
financial industry.
In December, the United States Treasury announced
that Wells Fargo and Citibank had repaid forty-five
billion dollars. They joined Goldman Sachs, J.P.
Morgan,
Morgan Stanley and Bank of America in returning
government aid.
In June, the Treasury permitted the ten largest
banks to return their rescue money and withdraw from
TARP. This let banks escape government restrictions
on pay for top officials. Now, the government holds
a large ownership share in only one big bank,
Citigroup.
The Treasury says it expects banks to repay one
hundred seventy-five billion dollars of TARP money
this year.
The American car industry also had big problems in
two thousand nine. Chrysler and General Motors
sought bankruptcy protection from their creditors.
The restructured companies may still need government
aid, which has already reached over sixty billion
dollars.
But a government program that paid Americans to
trade in old vehicles for new, fuel-saving models
increased car sales in the summer.
The Ford Motor Company refused government aid and is
working to become profitable again by two thousand
eleven. And there are signs that the industry is
starting to recover.
However, the housing market continued to suffer its
worst downturn in generations.
Mortgage financer Fannie Mae reports that payments
on five percent of its single-family home loans are
late. The ten percent unemployment rate has meant
that many people are struggling with their house
payments.
Still, consumer confidence grew in December. Experts
say Americans were feeling better about the job
market and the economy. Growth in the United States
is expected to reach about two and a half percent in
two thousand ten.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report.
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personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
