Title:
Dictionary Says 'Austerity' Topped 2010 Words
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
At the end of December, publisher Merriam-Webster
released its list of top ten words of the year for
two thousand ten. "Austerity" was at the top. The
company made its list based on how often people
looked up definitions using its online dictionary.
Merriam-Webster defines "austerity" as "enforced or
extreme economy." Greece and Ireland face huge
budget deficits. This has forced severe spending
cuts for those governments. And they are not alone.
When nations get into financial trouble, they may
request loans from the International Monetary Fund
or other donors. Donors, however, demand austerity
measures such as sharp cuts in government spending
and tax increases. Michael Izza is chief executive
of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England
and Wales. He says the world financial crisis pushed
some governments to spend more. But not all debt
problems are the same. Economist Dev Kar says Greece
got into trouble by having too many government
employees, spending freely on retirement pay and
misleading investors. Last spring, Greece received
rescue loans of over one hundred billion dollars.
But Germany agreed to help only if Greece promised
tough austerity measures.Ireland's budget deficits
grew sharply after it guaranteed the bad loans of
the country's biggest banks. In November, European
officials agreed to a bailout nearly as large as the
one Greece received.But austerity measures are
unpopular. Large protests have taken place not only
in Greece and Ireland, but also in Britain, Portugal
and Romania.Other nations facing big deficits and
slow economic growth are also seeing their borrowing
costs rise. Credit rating agencies are warning about
the debts of Portugal and Spain and others may
follow.In May, European leaders agreed to set aside
nearly seven hundred billion dollars to help
troubled countries in the area. But the chief of the
International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn,
says a more organized approach is needed.He said:
"Europe has to provide a comprehensive solution to
this problem. The piecemeal approach, one country
after the other one, is not a good one."This could
mean "austerity" will remain a top word for two
thousand eleven. For VOA Special English I'm Alex
Villarreal. You can find more economics reports at
voaspecialenglish.com.
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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.
