British and Americanmass media (the press, tv and radio)
Newspapers
The communication media of Great Britain, press, broadcasting and TV, are among the most influential in the world. There is no censorship of press in Great Britain but the editors of newspapers are responsible for what they publish.
There are four “quality dailies“, The Times, The Guardian, The Financial Timesand The Daily Telegraphwhich contain a great variety of national and international news, reports from parliamentary debates, reviews of the arts, features about fashion and sport and business news. They present different political views and orientations but they are not organs of political parties.
The Times is the most famous of them all. It is an independent paper, which has got three weekly supplements: The Times Literary, Educational and Higher Education Supplement, which are published and sold separately. The Daily Telegraph is a right-wing paper and The Guardian is in general a paper of the left. The Financial Times publishes business news, stock exchange news, and also art reviews.
Then there are papers with a very high circulation such as theDaily Mirrorand the Sun which belong to “popular papers“. They hardly publish any serious material; their articles mostly deal with sex scandals and money.
The British Sunday newspapers, such as The Observer and the Sunday Times have enormous circulation. They contain more pages than daily papers and usually publish articles concerned with comment and general information rather than news. Several Sunday papers publish a magazine supplement in color.
The British weekly political and literary journals such as The Economist, The New Statesman and Spectators have large nationwide circulation.
The satirically weekly, Punch, is an old British paper. It is not as popular among the young people as its rival, Private Eye.
Besides these there are many specialist weekly and monthly magazines for women and teenage girls, for people interested in various kinds of sports and hobbies, such as yachting, tennis, model railways, gardening and cars.
The power of press in the U.S.A. is enormous. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of press and the press media act as a check on governmental action.
The largest daily newspapers published in the USA are The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and many others.All of these are serious “quality papers“.
The New York Times is ranked as “the world’s top daily“.
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The largest American newspapers also collect and sell news, news features and photographs to many other newspapers in the USA and abroad.
American newspapers get much of their news from large news agencies just like newspapers of other countries of the world. The two U.S. news agencies AP (Associated Press), UPI (United Press International), and the British Reuter are the largest international agencies of the English-speaking countries.
Reading the Sunday paper is an American tradition. There are 762 Sunday newspapers in USA.
There are over 11 000 magazines published in the United States. They cover all topics and interests and some have also international editions (e.g. National Geographic or Vogue).
Radio, Television and Video
In Britain radio and television broadcasting is provided by the state-owned BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), which has a high international reputation for impartiality and objectivity.
The BBC has five radio programmes and two television channels. Its radio and television broadcasts include news, sport, educational, cultural and entertainment programmes. The BBC´s five programmes for radio broadcasting have their specializations. As for TV programmes the BBC has two TV channels (BBC 1 and BBC 2) and two television channels (Channel 3 and Channel 4) are put out by independent commercial companies. The British are thus able to receive four TV channels. There are about a dozen regional TV companies which broadcast in their region some programmes of local interest.
Commercial satellite and cable TV was begun in 1990 by two companies which joined together and formed British Sky Broadcasting.
There is great number and variety of different types of radio and TV stations in the USA. All radio and television stations in the United States of America must be licensed to broadcast by the Federal Communication Commission, which is an independent federal agency. Each license is given for a few years only and can be taken away if a radio or TV station does not keep the regulation of the FCC.
Hundreds of radio stations of USA broadcast in other languages than English for minorities.
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Millions of American TV viewers watch television transmitted over cables. The cable TV is very popular as it increases the number of channels. Since the time the U.S. launched the world’s first communication space satellite in 1965, the satellite TV has become quite common in the U.S.A. and other countries of the world.
12. The U.S Economy and FinancialInstitutions .
The United States is the world's largest national economy in nominal terms and second largest according to purchasing power parity (PPP), representing 22% of nominal global GDP and 17% of gross world product (GWP).
The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and is the world's foremost reserve currency. Several countries use it as their official currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. The United States has a mixed economy and has maintained a stable overall GDP (Gross domestic product) growth rate, a moderate unemployment rate, and high levels of research and capital investment. Its seven largest trading partners are Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.
Economy of the USA
The United States of America is a highly developed industrialized country. Shipbuilding, electronics, automobile industry, aircraft industry, space research are highly developed in the States.
Each region of the United States has characteristics of its own due to the differences in climate, landscape and geographical position.
Great Lakes, Atlantic Coast, Pennsylvania, New Jersy are biggest industrial regions of the country.
The United States has a lot of mineral deposits or resources such as coal, gold, silver, copper, lead and zink. The south, especially Texas is rich in oil. The coalfields of Pennsylvania are rich in coal. There are plenty of coal mines.
Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska is the richest farming region of America and it is known as the Corn Belt. The land is fertile and well watered. They grow mostly corn and wheat there. Much livestock is also raised here.
There is a lot of fruit raising area. For example, California oranges, grapefruit, lemons, as well as other fruits, wines and vegetables are shipped all over the States and to other parts of the world. The most important crops grown in the States are also tobacco, soy-beans, peanuts, grapes and many others.
There are a lot of large and modern cities, but a great proportion of the country consists of open land dotted with farmhouses and small towns. The usual average town, in any part of the United States, has its Mam Street with the same types of stores selling the same products. Many American residential areas tend to have a similar look. As to big cities their centres or downtowns look very much alike. Downtown is the cluster of skyscrapers immitations of New York giants.
New York City is the first biggest city of the States. Its population is more than eight million people. It is a financial and advertising business centre. It is also a biggest seaport of the Hudson River .^Industry of consumer goods is also developed here.
Chicago with a population of more than three and a half million is the second largest city in the USA3t deals in wheat and other grains, cattle meat processing and manufacturing. Other big cities are Huston, an oil refining and NASA space research centre, New Orleans, a cotton industry centre, Los Angeles with Hollywood, Phyladelphia, a shipping commercial centre, Detroit, a world's leading motor car producer and many others.
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In finance and economics, a financial institution is an institution that provides financial services for its clients or members. One of the most important financial services provided by a financial institution is acting as a financial intermediary. Most financial institutions are regulated by the government.
Financial institutions provide services as intermediaries of financial markets. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial institutions:
1. Depository institutions – deposit-taking institutions that accept and manage deposits and make loans, including banks,building societies, credit unions, trust companies, and mortgage loan companies;
2. Contractual institutions – insurance companies and pension funds; and
3. Investment institutions – investment banks, underwriters, brokerage firms.
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Some experts see a trend toward homogenisation of financial institutions, meaning a tendency to invest in similar areas and have similar business strategies. A consequence of this might be fewer banks serving specific target groups, for example small-scale producers could be under served.
Bank of America is one of the major financial institutions of the United States of America. It is headquartered at Charlotte, North Carolina. The most important person of the Bank of America is Kenneth D. Lewis, who serves as the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President. In 2007 the Bank of America earned a revenue of 19.19 billion US dollars and the net income of the company was 14.98 billion dollars. The total assets held by the Bank of America amounted to 1.72 trillion dollars. As of 2006 there are 203,425 employees of the company.
Insurance Companies
Insurance companies pool risk by collecting premiums from a large group of people who want to protect themselves and/or their loved ones against a particular loss, such as a fire, car accident, illness, lawsuit, disability or death. Insurance helps individuals and companies manage risk and preserve wealth. By insuring a large number of people, insurance companies can operate profitably and at the same time pay for claims that may arise. Insurance companies use statistical analysis to project what their actual losses will be within a given class. They know that not all insured individuals will suffer losses at the same time or at all.
Brokerages
A brokerage acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers to facilitate securities transactions. Brokerage companies are compensated via commission after the transaction has been successfully completed. For example, when a trade order for a stock is carried out, an individual often pays a transaction fee for the brokerage company's efforts to execute the trade.
A brokerage can be either full service or discount. A full service brokerage provides investment advice, portfolio management and trade execution. In exchange for this high level of service, customers pay significant commissions on each trade. Discount brokers allow investors to perform their own investment research and make their own decisions. The brokerage still executes the investor's trades, but since it doesn't provide the other services of a full-service brokerage, its trade commissions are much smaller.
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