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Вариант 8.
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Inflation
1. Prices of nearly all goods and services have changed in recent histo¬ry. During World War II, you could buy a loaf of bread for $0.15, a new car for less than $1,000 and an average house for around $5,000. In the twenty-first century, bread, cars, houses and just about everything else cost more, a lot more. Clearly, we have experienced a significant rise of inflation over the last 60 years. In the late 1970s, Americans declared inflation public enemy No.1. Since then, public anxiety about inflation has become less. Each of us is becoming adjusted to inflation, but people remain fearful of it, even at the minimal levels we have seen over the past few years.
2. Inflation is the process of rising prices for goods and services or, what is the same thing – a fall in the value of money. Measuring inflation is a difficult problem for gove
ment statisticians. To do this, a number of goods that are representative of the economy are put together into what is called as a "market basket." The cost of this basket is then compared over time. This results in a price index, which is the cost of the market basket today as a percentage of the cost of that identical basket in the starting year.
3. At the beginning a rising price level may not be considered dangerous. It improves the climate for investment, reduces payments of the National Debt. The problem, however, is that when the rise in prices starts, it is difficult to stop it. Gradually the rate of inflation increases, it may lead to hyperinflation. In extreme cases, this can lead to the breakdown of a nation's monetary system. One of the most notable examples of hyperinflation occurred in Germany in 1923, when prices rose 2,500% in one month!
4. The combination of high unemployment and economic stagnation with inflation is called stagflation. This happened in industrialized countries during the 1970s, when a bad economy was...