Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
One year ago, the United States financial system was
in danger of collapse. One of Wall Street's oldest
investment houses had just sought protection from
its creditors. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on
September fifteenth was a shock to the system, but
not the only one.
A week earlier, the government had seized Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac. These companies help finance most
American housing loans. And one day after Lehman's
failure, the government decided that the huge
insurer A.I.G. was too big to fail. The Federal
Reserve rescued the American International Group
with an eighty-five billion dollar loan.
But soon, credit markets around the world slowed to
a halt on fears about the health of banks. By early
October, Congress passed the Troubled Asset Relief
Program, a rescue plan for the financial system.
Banks and other financial companies have received
more than two hundred billion dollars. But ten banks
agreed in June to repay almost seventy billion of
that. And so far, the government has earned about
four billion on its investments.
But taxpayers still own almost eighty percent of
A.I.G. They also hold big shares of Citigroup and a
number of other banks, as well as sixty percent of
General Motors.
On the anniversary of the Lehman collapse, President
Obama renewed his call for reform of financial
supervision. He said in a speech on Wall Street that
some of the "old ways" that led to the crisis have
already returned. Mister Obama said: "That's why we
need strong rules of the road to guard against the
kind of systemic risks we have seen. And we have a
responsibility to write and enforce these rules to
protect consumers of financial products, taxpayers,
and our economy as a whole."
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the recession
"is very likely over at this point." But he said the
labor market could remain weak through next year.
The United States and China face a growing trade
dispute. In September, the Obama administration
placed high import taxes on Chinese tires. The aim
is to stop what American officials call a "harmful"
increase in tire imports. China, in turn, said that
it will investigate imports of American chicken
products and auto parts. China also asked the World
Trade Organization to intervene, to avoid a trade
war.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report.
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Hi. I
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.
