Economic Report



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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Imagine that you want to buy a house, but are not sure you could meet the monthly payments. Your credit history is considered subprime, not good enough for the lowest interest rates available. But a broker who finds lenders for home buyers offers you a deal. A loan with payments low enough to fit your budget. After two or three years, however, your payments will go up, possibly 30% or more. Do you accept?

In the United States, an estimated two million subprime adjustable rate mortagages are expected to reset higher in the next two years. These loans make up about 7% of all mortagages. But now, many of the owners are in danger of losing their homes because of rising payments.

Last week, President Bush announced a plan to help some people with subprime loan troubles. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought together a new private alliance called" Hope Now". He and other government officials met with lenders, loan servicers, investors and others to work out terms of the plan. The goal is to help families keep their homes and help avoid further injury to the already weak housing market. Lenders generally do not want to be in the business of selling houses reclaimed through foreclosure.

The White House says as many as 1,200,000 homeowners could receive assistance under the plan. They could be helped in one of three ways depending on their situation. One is by refinancing an existing loan into a new private mortagage. Another is by moving their mortagage into a loan secured by the Federal Housing Administration. And the third way is by freezing their current interest rate/ for five years. The plan is only for loans that were started between January of 2005 and July of this year and that have not reset already.

Borrowers must be living in the home and facing a payment increase of 10% or more. Democrats in Congress say the plan does not do enough to protect homeowners. Yet some critics say it does too much helping people who borrowed more than they should have. Not only that, subprime loans were sold to investors worldwide as mortagage related securities. Some investors could go to court to try to stop the loans from being renegotiated. But with the current troubles in the housing and credit markets, they may have to settle for whatever they can get.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

[ 本帖最后由 vanbryan 于 2007-12-14  15:58 编辑 ]

哦也 还好今天没人抢沙发
我是来膜拜楼主的

我英语不好

AP NEWS 2007-12-15



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1. The Midwest and Northeast are getting another blast of winter. A winter storm expected in the Midwest may complicate efforts to restore power from an earlier ice storm and the East Coast may see a mix of sleet and rain with snow inland. This after a storm dumped a foot of snow in New England.

2. Two graduate students were found dead at Louisiana State University, shot in a home invasion at their apartment complex. The victims are PhD students from India. Police are searching for three suspects. The campus remains open.

3. Newly released e-mails offer hints of more than just a professional relationship between astronaut Lisa Nowak and space shuttle pilot William Oefelein. Nowak is accused of confronting the woman he was involved with at the Orlando Airport and attacking her with pepper spray.

4. In Lewiston, Idaho, a crime got solved on page one. A photo in the Lewiston Tribune shows a man suspected of stealing a woman's wallet near inches away another photo of the same man painting Christmas greetings on store front windows. None of these escaped shot by newspaper employees who called police. The man was arrested.

In the news Report



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This is In The News in VOA Special English.

More than ten thousand film and television writers in the United States have been on strike since November 5th. Work has stopped on many TV shows and movies. The international market for American entertainment means that Americans are not the only ones watching and waiting for a settlement.

This week, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced nominees for its Golden Globe Awards next month. This is supposed to be an exciting time in Hollywood, the award season leading up to the Academy Awards in February. But tensions are growing. The strike could continue into the New Year. Talks broke down a week ago between The Writers' Guild of Americanand the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers.

The writers now accused the producers of violating Federal Labor Law by breaking off the negotiations. The producers rejected the charges. The most recent negotiations ended last week when the producers refused to continue talks until the writers drop several demands. Among these is a proposal to include writers of reality shows and animated programs in their union. But the main issue is this, writers and producers have been unable to agree about payment for work that appears on the internet. The download market for TV shows and movies is still small, but expected to grow. No one knows exactly how much all the media will move into new media. Writers want a share of the profits, but producers say it is too early to know how much profit can be made on the web and how that money should be divided. Their proposals would need to be renegotiated in the future. TV shows are already competing for attention with websites and video games. Yet the strike could end up costing shows more fans. Without new material, programmers have to fill time with repeats and depend heavily on reality shows and game shows. The first programs affected were late night shows. Without writers to keep people laughing, the programs immediately went to repeats.

But now Daily Variety has reported that some late night shows may be returning by early January with or without their writers. After all, who wants all jokes from hosts like Jay. L, David L. and John Stewart during a presidential campaign?

The dispute may become even more complex once movie and TV directors begin their own negotiations with the Producers' Alliance. The current contrasts between The Directors' Guild of America and production companies ends in June. The directors decided this week to go forward with negotiations, but not until January. They say they want to give the writers and producers one last chance to return to talks.

A writers' strike in 1988 lasted 22 weeks. An entertainment industry strike affects a lot of people. Think of all the names in the closing credits of shows and movies. In Los Angeles alone, film and television production creates an estimated 30 billion dollars in economic activity each year.

And that's In The News in VOA Special English written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.


[ 本帖最后由 vanbryan 于 2007-12-15  21:20 编辑 ]

这几天恶补一下英语 等六级之前就能看懂了

VAN~~~

我六级的难关是作文和改错 阅读水平也一般般了

6级的语速貌似介于sp和st之间的。。。听听这个总有点好处