In recent years, many places in England have had no snow at all. But this year, the snow stretches from Lands End (in the far south west of England) to John O’Groats (in the far north east of Scotland).
This winter they could ski from Lands End to John O’Groats, but it is so cold that I strongly advise them to wear clothes this time.
Chúc các bạn học tiếng Anh tốt .
This page gives a simple explanation of common money words (financial terminology) and banking. After reading it, there’s a link to a quiz to check your understanding.
To compensate- to give something-- usually money-- in return for something else-- (most often work.) Common words for compensation for labor include salary (an agreed payment by the month or year-- not based on the number of hours worked-- for higher level-services), wages (usually paid by the hour), earnings, and pay.
They all mean basically the same thing, except that manual laborers (including factory workers, fast food workers, etc.) are paid wages, not a salary.
Types of money: Currency is the money currently in use in a country, including paper money (bills) and (metal) coins. Cash is money in one’s hand-- bills and coins, as compared to checks, money orders, or credit cards, which can be converted into money at a bank or often at an ATM (automatic teller machine.)
Fees are charges for services. For example, a bank may charge fees for checking accounts, loan processing, or to cover “bounced” checks (when the check writer had insufficient funds in his account to cover the check he wrote.) Sometimes banks will reduce or waive (eliminate) certain fees as an incentive (encouragement) for customers to open a high-value savings account.
When a company (or a person) does not have sufficient (enough) savings to meet their needs or goals (for example, a planned expansion of the business or the acquisition of another company that they can use to increase future profits), they may borrow the necessary money. A bank will lend (loan) money on credit.
The company will need to pay it back later with interest, which is an extra payment (usually a percentage of the amount they borrowed) in return for the opportunity to use the bank’s money for a certain period of time.
The money that is borrowed is called a loan. (However, money borrowed in order to buy a house is a mortgage. Mortgage rules and payments can be very complicated!) The lender (usually a bank or other financial institution) is also called the creditor. A person who borrows money from someone else is a debtor, since they owe them that money (the debt.)
Sometimes English learners aren’t sure how to use certain money words relating to lending and borrowing. Remember that to lend or to loan is to give money (or something else, like a tool or book) for a certain period of time and to borrow is to receive (get) it. Here are a few more hints:
You can ask someone “Can I borrow $5.00?” or “Could you please lend/loan me $5.00?” In English we don’t say “Please borrow me $5.00.” That leaves it unclear who would be the lender and who would be the borrower.
The person with the money may answer, “Sure! I’ll be glad to lend you $5.00,” or “No way! You didn’t repay me the last time you borrowed some money!”
To allocate is to decide where (note ‘locate’) to use or invest resources (money, time, etc.). The best allocation will depend on a company’s current circumstances-- how much money and staff is available, what the best opportunities are, etc. To avoid unintended consequences (unexpected results), managers will make such decisions in conformity with the best business practices. (To conform is to fit into or follow what others do.)
A company’s Board of Directors will establish policies they expect the CEO and department managers to implement (put into practice.) Smart policies with excellent implementation will result in generating maximum profits.
Luyện tập tiếng Anh bằng cách trả lời các câu đố vui …
Look at the sentences below and say whether they are true or false. Tip: back up your answers with evidence, for example, the average temperature in °F or °C for each world city:
2. In March it is normally hotter in Berlin than in Canberra.
3. In July it is normally colder in Buenos Aires than in London.
4. In May it is normally colder in Riyadh than in Bern.
5. In September it is normally hotter in Abu Dhabi than in Rome.
6. In July it is normally colder in Taipei than in Lima.
7. In January it is normally colder in Montreal than in Cape Town.
8. In May it is normally colder in Madrid than in Amsterdam.
9. In November it is normally hotter in Colombo than in Toronto.
10. In September it is normally colder in Beijing than in New Delhi.
11. In March it is normally colder in Paris than in Wellington.
12. In May it is normally hotter in Ottawa than in Kuwait City.
13. In July it is normally hotter in Cairo than in Mexico City.
14. In November it is normally colder in Brasilia than in Nairobi.
15. In March it is normally hotter in Lusaka than in Algiers.
16. In July it is normally hotter in Belgrade than in Karachi.
17. In November it is normally colder in Accra than in Miami.
18. In September it is normally colder in Tokyo than in Stockholm.
19. In May it is normally hotter in Edinburgh than in Athens.
20. In September it is normally hotter in Kuwait City than in Melbourne.
Good luck!
A man is driving through the countryside when he sees a sign that reads "Pigs for sale, next left". Curiosity got the better of him and he turned into the farm.
The farmer greets him at the gate and asks him which pig he wants. The man, having no experience of buying pigs simply points at one and asks "how much is that one?".
The farmer grabs the pig's tail between his teeth, lifts the pig off the floor and says "£200" Slightly confused, the man says :
"thats a bit expensive, how about that one" and points at another pig.
Again the father picks up the pig by the tail between his teeth and says "that ones heavier, so it'll be about £250".
"Heavier?" said the man, "am i supposed to believe you are weighing them"
"Yes said the farmer, that’s how you weigh pigs, everybody knows that, ask my daughter"
The man turns to his daughter and sure enough she says "that’s how you weigh pigs". By this point the man is sure he is being conned, and is about to leave when the farmer says,
"hang on, I'll prove that this is how you weigh pigs, ask my wife". To which his daughter added "Oh, you can't ask her, she's weighing the postman".
Guess post from Matthew J. Franck about Corporate Income Tax
While everyone is quite rightly outraged by the abuses of the IRS in singling out conservative group for audits, intrusive inquiries, and endless delays on approval of their tax-exempt status, it has occurred to me that there is one simple solution to the problem that would not require nearly as much reform of the politically corrupt agency.
Get rid of the corporate income tax.
As David Rivkin and Lee Casey explained at the Wall Street Journal the other day:
The IRS crackdown on tax-exemption approvals for conservative groups was directed at nonprofit social-welfare groups, often called 501(c)(4)s after the Internal Revenue Code section granting them tax-exempt status. Such groups do not have to disclose their donors and are exempt from most taxation, although donations to them generally aren’t tax deductible.
Social-welfare organizations are permitted to engage in a range of political activities promoting their causes or beliefs, so long as these activities aren’t their “primary purpose.” This has been generally understood to mean that they must spend less than 50% of their total resources on political activities.
The IRS had little interest in 501(c)(4) political activities until the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. That law barred dedicated political-advocacy groups from soliciting and spending soft money—funds that aren’t subject to tight federal campaign-contribution limits and are used for issue advocacy and party-building. . . .
Yet McCain-Feingold had the unintended effect of making 501(c)(4) political activities far more important than they had been, since the law’s ban on soft money doesn’t apply to such groups. . . .
So the entire hang-up in the IRS bureaucracy was whether groups claiming 501(c)(4) status could deservedly claim that designation. Did they devote the majority of their resources to non-political (educational or social) activities? How to determine which activities were political? And so on, and so on. The law is a veritable invitation to bureaucratic abuse, if one is inclined to succumb to such temptations.
But the point of claiming the status is so that your incorporated 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization” doesn’t have to pay corporate income taxes on the money it raises. If there were no corporate income tax in the first place, the issue simply wouldn’t arise.
It would, of course, be a nice bonus that eliminating the corporate income tax (which many economists believe is a deeply stupid form of taxation anyway) would give a nice boost to the economy. As one also learned in the Journal this week, America’s high corporate tax rate leads to all sorts of nonsense that intelligent lawyers and accountants have to cope with as creatively as they can. If we suddenly had the world’s lowest corporate rate–zero–in the world’s largest economy, imagine the effects.
So just get rid of it. No more corporate income tax, no more worries about which corporations have to pay it, and no more proctologic exams from the IRS about what degree of “politics” people are engaged in under the corporate form.
The only question that would remain is whose donors get the charitable tax deduction now allowed under section 501(c)(3). I would extend it to any nonprofit–even to the two great political parties–and eliminate the “Johnson amendment” barring 501(c)(3) entities from engaging in lobbying and electoral politics. That’s of dubious constitutionality anyway, especially as applied to the question of “pulpit politics” in churches.
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8:38 PM
Man on Net
