英美概况 UNIT4 - 图文

Unit4

I. the Articles of Confederation(联邦条款）

After the War of Independence was won, the new nation of the United States was organized under the agreement of the Articles of Confederation with a weak national government called the Congress. Each state had its own government, made its own laws and handled its internal affairs. The states did not cooperate with the Congress and with each other. The Congress had no power to force any state to contribute money to the national government and the Congress could not tax any citizen either. As a result, the Articles of Confederation failed. II. the making of the U.S Constitution

The Articles of Confederation failed. The Congress decided to hold a constitutional convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. The delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island refused to participated) gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 and end up in writing a new constitution and set a federal system with a strong central government. The Constitution provided that an election of the president would be called for, federal laws would be made only by a Congress made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate and a Supreme Court would be set up. This new Constitution was finally approved by the majority of the citizens in over 9 of the 13 states and was officially put into effect in 1787 )

* A federal system is one in which power is shared between a central authority and its constituent parts, with some rights reserved to each.

* to protect citizens from tyranny, a ―Bill of Rights‖ was added to the Constitution in 1791. III. the 3 branches of the U.S federal government

--- the legislative branch is made up of elected representatives from all of the states and is the only branch that can make federal laws, levy federal taxes and declare war or put foreign treaties into effect. It consists of a Congress that is divided into the House of Representative and the Senate. The House of Representatives has 435 members who serve two-year terms. The Senate comprises 100 lawmakers who serve six-year terms. Each state, regardless of population, has two senators. --- the executive branch is the president, who is elected to a four-year term. A president can be elected to only two terms according to an amendment passed in 1951. The president can appoint federal judges as vacancies occur. He is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The president has other broad authorities in running the government departments and handling foreign relations. --- the judicial branch is headed by the Supreme Court with a chief justice and 8 associate justices. The Federal courts have jurisdiction over cases arising out of the Constitution and other cases which do not arise out of individual states. The Supreme Court has the judicial review power,

the power determining whether congressional legislation or executive action violates the Constitution.

? System of ―checks and balances (制约与平衡的原则)‖ of the three-part national

government works to keep serious mistakes from being made by one branch or another.

Checks and balances: the idea of checks and balances as a way of restricting governmental power and preventing its abuse was first provided in the Federalist Papers co-authored by Alexander Hamilton of New York and James Madison of Virginia written between 1787 and 1788. As originally conceived, the popularly elected House of Representatives would be checked and balanced by a more conservative Senate chosen by state legislatures. Madison argued more generally that \to be checked by a democratic senate and both these by a democratic chief magistrate.\Thus, the central idea of checks and balances is to separate powers among the various branches of government to avoid the tyranny of concentrated power

IV. the Bill of Rights (another basic foundation in the U.S Constitution )

--- consists of the first 10 amendments which were added to the Constitution in 1791. The Bill of Rights was passed to guarantee freedom and individual rights such as freedom of speech, the right to assemble in public places, the right to own weapons and so on.

* There were 16 other amendments to the Constitution as of 1991. So, there are 26 amendments to the U.S Constitution. V. Two major Political Parties

--- the Democratic Party, which is thought to be more liberal and the symbol of which is the donkey (Under President Franklin Roosevelt’s ―New Deal‖, Democrats set up government programs that provided paid employment for people building dams and roads and public buildings and Social Security社会保障制度, which ensures that those who are retired or disabled receive monthly payments from the government )

-- the Republican Party, which is believed to be more conservative and the symbol of which is the elephant.（Republicans place more emphasis on private enterprise and often accuse the Democrats of making the government too expensive and of creating too many laws that harm individual initiative.） * Americans do not have to join a political party in order to vote or to be a candidate for public office. However, running for office without the money and campaign workers a party can provide is difficult (若没有钱和政党所能提供的选举活动者们，想要竞选职位是很难的)

Unit5

I. Industrial Revolution in America

Adam Smith: Scottish economist. His \classical economics. He condemned unwarranted state control and monopoly and upheld private enterprise, competition and free trade.

---Industrial Revolution: the mechanization of industry and the consequent changes

in social and economic organization, especially in Britain (late 18th and early 19th century). The change from domestic industry to the factory system began in the textile industry and spread to iron and steel production, road improvement, invention of locomotives and railways engineering.

Industrialization also brought about urbanization and transformation of economic thought . After 1830s similar industrial revolutions took place in France and Belgium, followed by Germany (after 1850), the USA (after 1850), Japan (after 1870) and Russia (after 1900). ---Industrial Revolution in America

After independence, America was principally an agricultural country, which remained for another century. But some early decisions by American social and political leaders planted the seeds of industrial growth.(*eg. the first Secretary of the Treasury,财政部长 Alexander Hamilton亚历山大·汉密尔顿, persuaded the Congress to establish a protective tariff, which and other Hamiltonian measures encouraged business in general. )

① Alexander Hamilton(1756-1804), American statesman. A staunch Federalist, he was

Washington's secretary and aid and secretary to the treasury (1789-1795). His financial proposals, the creation of a national debt and of a federal bank, were opposed by Jefferson

②The Industrial Revolution in England during the 18th century brought many changes to American industry between 1776 and 1860.

③One key development was the introduction of the factory system. A second development was the ―American systems‖ of mass production, which first was used in firearms(火器，轻武器) industry.. A third development was the application of new technologies to industrial tasks. A fourth development was

the emergence of new forms of business organization --- the bank and the

corporation（美：股份（有限）公司）.

---1. In 1793, Samuel Slater(塞缪尔·斯莱特) built the first factory in the U.S --- a cotton cloth factory in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He built the factory from memory, because it was a crime to carry factory plant out of England. The success of his factory started a process of change that turned the northeastern region of the United States into an important manufacturing center and helped the nation become a major cotton producer.

---2. Eli Whitney（埃尔·惠特尼） is an American inventor who invented the cotton gin(轧棉机), which made removing the seeds from the bolls（棉桃） of cotton much easier. He also began manufacturing rifles with machinery, using interchangeable（可互换的） part. This contributed to the American system of mass production ---3. Henry Ford (1863-1947), American engineer. He founded the Ford Motor Company at

Detroit in 1903, and was a pioneer of standardization, mass production and the assembly line. By adopting these techniques he was able to produce reliable, low-cost cars and other motor vehicle. ---4. the first American commercial bank appeared in the 1780s. Not until 1863 did the

US create a truly national banking system with a standard paper currency. ---5..corporation is a form of business organization. Compared with the sole proprietorship(个体经营) and the partnership（合伙经营）, the corporation may survive the death of its founder or founders（股份（有限）公司在其创业者去世后仍然可以继续下去）. Because it could draw on a pool of investor, it is a much more efficient tool for raising the large amounts of capital needed by expanding business.（由于它可以吸引众多投资者，可以很有效地在业务发展时筹到资金。） And it enjoys limited liability, so inventors only risk the amount of their investment and not their entire assets.（它具有债务有限的特点，这样投资者的风险仅限于其投资的数额，不涉及其全部财产）

---finally, the construction of railroads beginning in the 1830s, marked the start of a new era for the United States. ----Economy situation: II. service industries

--- industries that sell a service rather than make a product，which now dominate the economy. Service industries range from banking to telecommunications to he provision of meals in restaurants. As more and more people are employed in service industries in the US, it is sometimes said the US has moved into a ―post-industrial era‖(后工业时代)

III. free enterprise自由经济(lack of government oversight政府不干预)

--- The story of American economic growth is a story of people inventing new devices and process, starting new businesses and launching new ventures. When starting new businesses and launching new ventures money is needed. That money is known as capital(资本) --- people in the United States made money by lending it to those who wanted to start or expand a business, which led to the creation of an important part of the current economic scene（经济环境）: the selling of stock(买卖股票), or shares, in a business.

---stock --- When starting or expanding business, corporations need to borrow money. They may issue stocks for people to buy. When people buy stock, they become part owner of the company. If the company makes a profit, they receive a share of it,known as dividend(股息，红利).Likewise, if the company loses money, the stockholders will not make a profit or the value of their shares will drop—they lose money. Therefore buying stock is a risk.It is not easy for ordinary people to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills. The business is usually done by professional stock traders, known as brokers(经纪人) * The best-known stock exchange is the New York Stock Exchange(纽约证券交易所), located in the Wall Street area of New York City, the nation’s largest city and a major business center. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): the largest stock exchange in the US and in the world. It is one of the three major stock market in the United States, the other two being Chicago and San Francisco. NYSE is a mechanism by which brokers buy and sell for their clients. It has some 1,600 members, most of whom represent brokerage houses involved in buying and selling for the public. They are paid commissions by the buyers and sellers who execute their orders IV. the roots of America’s affluence

--- bountiful resources, the geographical size of the country and population trend (US is the 4th in the world in terms of land area and size of population )

--- religious, social and political traditions(eg. The Constitution of the US bars all kinds of internal tariffs, so manufactures do not have to worry about tariff barriers when shipping goods from one part of the country to another); the institutional structures of government and business; and the courage, hard work and determination of countless entrepreneurs and workers V. agribusiness 农业产业

Because American agriculture is big business, people coined the term

―agribusiness‖ to reflect the large-scale nature of agricultural enterprises in the modern US economy. The term covers the entire complex of farm-related business, from the individual farmer to the multinational maker of farm chemicals. It also includes farmer cooperatives, rural banks, shippers of farm products, commodity dealers, firms that manufacture farm equipment, food-processing industries, grocery chains and many other businesses. VI. migrant workers

Many big farms hire temporary workers only for a specific chore—such as picking crops. Many of these seasonal workers travel from farm to farm, staying only until the crops are picked. They are known as migrant workers.