Обучение чтению экономической литературы на английском языке по специальности «Финансы и банковское дело»

Московский государственный технический университет  
имени Н.Э. Баумана 

Н.О. Труфанова, К.М. Иноземцева 
 
 
ОБУЧЕНИЕ ЧТЕНИЮ  
ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ  
НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ  
ПО СПЕЦИАЛЬНОСТИ  
«ФИНАНСЫ И БАНКОВСКОЕ ДЕЛО» 
 
 
Методические указания 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

М о с к в а  

Издательство МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана 

2 0 1 2  

УДК 802.0 
ББК 81.2 Англ-923 
Т80 
Рецензент С.Ю. Бабанова, И.Ф. Беликова  

 
Труфанова Н.О., Иноземцева К.М.   
   
 
       Обучение 
чтению 
экономической 
литературы 
на 
английском языке по специальности «Финансы и банковское дело» : метод. указания / Н.О. Труфанова, К.М. Иноземцева. — М.: Изд-во МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана, 2012. — 63, 
[1] с. : ил. 
  
Методические указания состоят из шести циклов — уроков. 
Каждый цикл объединен одной тематикой и содержит основной 
текст, назначением которого является обучение чтению литературы 
по специальности, и ряд упражнений на активизацию лексического 
материала. 
Для студентов старших курсов, обучающихся по специальности 
«Финансы и банковское дело». 
 
УДК 802.0 
ББК 81.2 Англ-923 
 
 

Учебное издание  

Труфанова Наталия Олеговна 
Иноземцева Кира Михайловна 

ОБУЧЕНИЕ ЧТЕНИЮ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЙ  
ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ  
ПО СПЕЦИАЛЬНОСТИ  
«ФИНАНСЫ И БАНКОВСКОЕ ДЕЛО» 
 
Корректор Е.К. Кошелева 
Компьютерная верстка С.А. Серебряковой 

Подписано в печать 29.01.2012. Формат 60×84/16. 
Усл. печ. л. 3,72. Тираж 300 экз. Изд. № 22. Заказ          . 

Издательство МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана. 
Типография МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана. 
105005, Москва, 2-я Бауманская ул., 5. 
 
 
 
 
© МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана, 2012 

Т80 

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ 

Настоящие методические указания, составленные на основе новейших материалов, взятых из оригинальной американской и британской экономической литературы, состоят из 
шести разделов. В каждый раздел входят основной текст, 
глоссарий, упражнения на понимание прочитанного и ряд 
лексических упражнений, нацеленных на закрепление и активизацию полученной финансово-экономической терминологии. 
Целью предтекстовых упражнений служит выявление базовых знаний студентов по рассматриваемой теме. В ряду 
упражнений, предложенных после текста, имеются сопоставительные упражнения, задания на подбор синонимов и запоминание новой лексики. Также присутствуют упражнения 
на перевод с русского языка на английский. 
Содержание текстов помогает студентам не только усваивать необходимый лексический материал, но и получать новые знания по своей специальности. На основе изучения 
предложенных текстов студенты ознакомятся с устройством 
крупнейшего банка США, получат информацию о фондовых 
рынках, о работе корпоративного и индивидуального банковских секторов и т. д. 
Методические указания рассчитаны на два семестра аудиторной и самостоятельной работы под руководством преподавателя студентов третьего курса, обучающихся по специальности «Финансы и банковское дело». 

Part 1  
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 

Reading tasks 

А Read the text and decide if each statement is correct or 
incorrect.  
1 The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system 
in Great Britain. 
2 The Fed’s main duty is to design and issue banknotes. 
3 The Federal Reserve has nothing in common with private 
banks. 
4 It is the Fed that the problem of bank panics is addressed to. 
5 The Federal Reserve System is externally funded. 
6 The Federal Reserve System has a great impact on 
wholesale and retail operations of the USA. 
7 The Fed’s wrong policy caused the housing bubble in late 
2000. 
 
B Answer the following questions. 
1 What is the primary goal of any central bank in the world? 
2 Is the Fed the government’s bank or the banker’s bank? 
3 Which financial institution is superior — the Federal 
Reserve or the Treasury? 
4 Which of them sets monetary policy of the country? 
5 What tools of monetary policy do you know? 
6 Who is guilty of housing bubble in late 2000s? 
7 Do you know any means of preventing asset bubble? 

Text 

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal 
Reserve, and informally as The Fed) is the central banking 
system of the United States. Its duties today, according to official 
Federal Reserve documentation, are to conduct the nation’s 
monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, 
maintain the stability of the financial system, provide financial 
services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and 
foreign official institutions, provide maximum employment and 
address the problem of bank panics. 
The Federal Reserve System’s structure is composed of the 
presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve 
Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) that is 
responsible for setting monetary policy, twelve regional Federal 
Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, 
numerous other private U.S. member banks and various advisory 
councils.  
The system was designed out of a compromise between the 
competing philosophies of privatization and government 
regulation. In the current system, private banks are for-profit 
businesses but government regulation places restrictions on what 
they can do.  

Central bank 

In its role as the central bank of the United States, the Fed 
serves as a banker’s bank and as the government’s bank. As the 
banker’s bank, it helps to assure the safety and efficiency of the 
payments system. As the government’s bank, or fiscal agent, the 
Fed processes a variety of financial transactions involving 
trillions of dollars. Just as an individual might keep an account at 
a bank, the U.S. Treasury keeps a checking account with the 
Federal Reserve, through which incoming federal tax deposits 
and outgoing government payments are handled. As part of this 
service relationship, the Fed sells and redeems U.S. government 

securities such as savings bonds and Treasury bills. It also issues 
the nation’s coin and paper currency.  
The U.S. Treasury, through its Bureau of the Mint and Bureau 
of Engraving and Printing, actually produces the nation’s cash 
supply and, in effect, sells the paper currency to the Federal 
Reserve Banks at manufacturing cost, and the coins at face value. 
The Federal Reserve Banks then distribute it to other financial 
institutions in various ways.  

National payments system 

The Federal Reserve plays an important role in the U.S. 
payments system. The twelve Federal Reserve Banks provide 
banking services to depository institutions and to the federal 
government. For depository institutions, they maintain accounts 
and provide various payment services, including collecting checks, 
electronically transferring funds, and distributing and receiving 
currency and coin. For the federal government, the Reserve Banks 
act as fiscal agents, paying Treasury checks; processing electronic 
payments; and issuing, transferring, and redeeming U.S. 
government securities. The Federal Reserve plays a vital role in 
both the nation’s retail and wholesale payments systems. 

Federal Reserve Banks 

All twelve Federal Reserve Banks have an intermediate legal 
status, with some features of private corporations and some 
features of public federal agencies. The United States has an 
interest in the Federal Reserve Banks as tax-exempt federallycreated instrumentalities whose profits belong to the federal 
government, but this interest is not proprietary. 

Monetary policy of the United States 

The term monetary policy refers to the actions undertaken by 
a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve, to influence the 

availability and cost of money and credit to help promote national 
economic goals.  
The Federal Reserve sets monetary policy by influencing the 
Federal funds rate, which is the rate of interbank lending of 
excess reserves. The rate that banks charge each other for these 
loans is determined in the interbank market but the Federal 
Reserve influences this rate and amount of reserves in private 
banks through the three tools of monetary policy: 
• open market operations (purchases and sales of U.S. 
Treasury federal agency and mortgage-backed securities);  
• discount rate (the interest rate charged to commercial banks 
and other depository institutions on loans they receive from their 
regional Federal Reserve Bank’s lending facility — the discount 
window);  
• reserve requirements (the amount of funds that a depository 
institution must hold in reserve against specified deposit 
liabilities). 

Budget 

The Federal Reserve is self-funded. The vast majority (over 
90 %) of Fed revenues come from open market operations, 
specifically the interest on the portfolio of Treasury securities as 
well as capital gains / losses that may arise from the 
buying/selling of the securities and their derivatives as part of 
open market operations. The balance of revenues come from sales 
of financial services (check and electronic payment processing) 
and discount window loans.  
The Board of Governors (Federal Reserve Board) creates a 
budget report once per year for Congress. There are two reports 
with budget information. The one that lists the complete balance 
statements with income and expenses as well as the net profit or 
loss is the large report simply titled, Annual Report. It also 
includes data about employment throughout the system. The 
other report, which explains in more detail the expenses of the 

different aspects of the whole system, is called Annual Report: 
Budget Review. These are comprehensive reports with many 
details and can be found at the Board of Governors’ website 
under the section Reports to Congress. 

Balance sheet 

One of the keys to understanding the Federal Reserve is the 
Federal Reserve balance sheet (or balance statement). In 
accordance with Section 11 of the Federal Reserve Act, the Board 
of Governors of the Federal Reserve System publishes once each 
week the ‘Consolidated Statement of Condition of All Federal 
Reserve Banks’ showing the condition of each Federal Reserve 
bank and a consolidated statement for all Federal Reserve banks. 
The Board of Governors requires that excess earnings of the 
Reserve Banks be transferred to the Treasury as interest on 
Federal Reserve notes. 

Preventing asset bubbles 

The board of directors of each Federal Reserve Bank District 
also has regulatory and supervisory responsibilities. For example, 
a member bank (private bank) is not permitted to give out too 
many loans to people who cannot pay them back. This is because 
too many defaults on loans will lead to a bank run. If the board of 
directors has judged that a member bank is performing or 
behaving poorly, it will report this to the Board of Governors. 
This policy is described in United States Code. 

Role of the Fed in business cycles and inflation 

There are two types of inflation that are closely tied to each 
other. Monetary inflation is an increase in the money supply. 
Price inflation is a sustained increase in the general level of 
prices, which is equivalent to a decline in the value or purchasing 
power of money. If supply of money and credit increases too 

rapidly over many months (monetary inflation), the result will 
usually be price inflation. Price inflation does not always increase 
in direct proportion to monetary inflation; it is also affected by 
the velocity of money and other factors. With price inflation, a 
dollar buys less and less over time. In his 1995 book ‘The Case 
against the Fed’, economist Murray N. Rothbard argues that price 
inflation is caused only by an increase in the money supply, and 
only banks increase the money supply. It means that banks, 
including the Federal Reserve, are the only source of inflation. 
Adherents of the Austrian School of economic theory blame 
the economic crisis in the late 2000 on the Federal Reserve’s 
policy, particularly under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, of 
credit expansion through historically low interest rates starting in 
2001, which they claim enabled the United States housing 
bubble. 

Vocabulary notes* 

depositary institutions 
— 
депозитное учреждение 
Board of Governors 
— 
совет управляющих 
(высший орган управления крупных объединений, международных банков, бирж и т. п.) 
Federal Open Market 
committee 
— 
Комитет по операциям на 
открытом рынке Федеральной резервной системы 
advisory council 
— 
консультативный совет 
for-profit business 
— 
коммерческая фирма, созданная с целью получения 
прибыли 
 

                                                           

* Здесь и далее в разделе “Vocabulary notes” слова и словосочетания 
даны в той последовательности, в какой они встречаются в тексте. 

fiscal agent 
— 
зд. учреждение, осуществляющее управление денежными фондами государства 
Treasury 
— 
казначейство, Министерство финансов (the US 
Department of Treasury) 
checking account 
— 
текущий (чековый) счет 
(предполагается определенный минимум 
вклада, оплата услуг 
банка по определенному 
тарифу; оформляется 
чековая книжка) 
redeem 
— 
выкупать, погашать 
federal tax deposits 
— 
правительственные депозиты (счета, на которых 
находятся средства  
от сбора федеральных 
налогов) 
collect checks 
— 
инкассировать чеки 
Savings bond 
— 
сберегательная облигация 
(государственная облигация, позволяющая физическим лицам инвестировать мелкие суммы) 
Treasury bill 
— 
казначейский вексель 
(краткосрочный вексель, 
выпускаемый государством для покрытия своих 
расходов; в США это бескупонная ценная бумага 
сроком обращения до одного года) 
Bureau of the Mint 
— 
Бюро Монетного двора