An international survey has found out that women are better at managing moneythan men. They work harder to become financially independent and they are not as likely to get into debt as men. The survey showed that both men and women think the same. Almost 5,000 men and women in 12 countries were asked. Although 40% of women said they used credit cards most of […]
For the first time in history more cars have been sold in China than in the United States. One of the reasons is that the economic crisis has not hit China as badly as the United States. Although sales are also down compared to the figures of last year there are still many customers in Chinese car showrooms. China has a lot to catch up on. Car analysts point out that […]
Nindoma Sherpa started going to school when she was five, but not to learn how to read and write. She lived in a small village in Nepal where everyone was hungry. When the United Nations started a food programme in her village children whoattended could get meals for free. At the beginning she just went there to […]
The banana war is the longest running trade dispute in the world. The conflict centres on bananas that are imported to the European Union. In the 1950s and 60s European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific region (known as ACP countries) became independent. In the 1970s the European Union started to let the Caribbean countries export bananas to European […]
When we think of oil, the part of the world that comes to our mind first may be the Middle East. But petroleum development takes place all over the world. Nigeria , for example, is the largest oil producer in Africa and the eleventh largest producer in the world. Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of […]
What does it mean that the U.S. dollar is “falling”? Falling from where? No, dollar bills aren’t dropping out of the sky — although that would be pretty cool. It means that any money you have is falling in value compared with the money used by other countries. A bit of math might help explain this. Let’s […]
Trade is the buying and selling of goods and services. The products that areexchanged are things that people grow or make, like food to eat, machines to work with or clothes to wear. Services are things that people do for others, like working in bank, caring for old people or teaching pupils. Why do we trade? Trade happens because people […]
Money is something that is very difficult to explain . People in various cultures think of money in different ways. A London banker and an African tribesman have different ideas of what money is. Many people think of money as a currency –metal coins and paper bills . We need it to buy the things in life that we need. We also get money for the work […]
Capitalism is an economic system in which private people, not the government, own and run companies. These companies compete with other companies forbusiness. They decide what products they want to produce, how much they should cost and where to sell them. Companies do all these things in order to make profitsfor their owners. People who use their money to start companies or run companies are called […]
Your shirt was made in Mexico and your shoes in China. Your CD player comes from Japan. You can travel to Moscow and eat a Big Mac there and you can watch an American film in Rome. Today goods are made and sold all over the world, thanks to globalization. Globalization lets countries move closer to each […]