Carl Zeiss: A State Within a State

I'm going to tell you about report from Germany on its microeconomics I've listened to (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004v8xg). This podcast examines German partition and reunification as seen through the lens of one of the country’s most prestigious companies, Carl Zeiss.
The company was founded in 1846 and built a global reputation for producing high quality microscopes, scientific instruments, cameras and lenses. Originally based in Jena in eastern Germany, the company was split at the end of the Second World War. Like Germany itself, Carl Zeiss was divided after 1945 and the history of the two Zeiss factories, both specializing in optical technologies, mirrors post-war political, social and technological separation and subsequent re-unification. Both parts of the Carl Zeiss company initially struggled to maintain contact. But the bitterness and mistrust of the Cold War soon created deep political, economic and social divisions and the two parts of the company became bitter international rivals, arguing about who owned the Carl Zeiss trademark on the world market. But 20 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down and while Germany reunified, Carl Zeiss in Oberkocken was determined that it too, should be reunited with Carl Zeiss in the East.
Now over 100 years old, Zeiss continues to be associated with expensive and high-quality optical lenses. Zeiss lenses are generally thought to be elegant and well-constructed, yielding high-quality images. Even old lens designs demonstrate engineering elegance.
As for my self-judgement I want to say that in this podcast I found difficult the fact that the voice of Tim Whewell was unintelligible. So, I couldn’t understand thoroughly everything. However as the spirit of the speech remained clear for me I think that I managed the task.

Britain's Deficit

I still haven’t decided which country to choose. So let’s read about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its links with the rest world. This podcast was published by BBC World Service on the 28^th of April 2010.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00785tg/Business_Daily_Britains_Deficit/

So it is one of the recent podcasts and its title is “Britain's Deficit”. It tells us about such thing as interdependence. So fears have increased that the market panic induced by the plight of Greece will spread to other highly indebted European countries.

As the UK heads towards its general election on May 6^th, one prominent British businessman has told Business Daily that none of the political parties are confronting the great yawning reality of the UK's deficit.

Jon Moulton, who's a veteran player in the private equity industry and is the chairman of Better Capital, has told Lesley Curwen about real situation in the United Kingdom. Britain is in a worse position now. The only solutions are shrinking the state, taxing the population 'to death' or allowing the pound to collapse.

Plus, Rafael Saakov from the BBC's Russian Service has reported on the decline of Russian figure-skating in international competitions. And the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo has described the changing face of Tokyo's taxis.

What about my self-assessment? This podcast wasn’t complicated from the point of new lexicon but from the point of pronunciations it was very complex to hear it from the beginning to the end. However it is one of the most interesting podcasts. I recommend you to listen to it.

Crossing Continents - Greece & Ireland

Now I would like to tell you that I haven’t got any opportunity to listen to podcasts about Germany. Of course BBC World Service provides a large number of such podcasts, but unfortunately they are not connected with the economy at all. That’s why I decided to find podcasts concerning the latest economic facts and deeds. Here is the result of my search.

The title of this podcast is “Crossing Continents - Greece & Ireland”. We know that Greece and Ireland are very different countries, as they are not situated near each other and they are not the same in culture or economy. But how can we speak about them together? Let’s look.

Greece and Ireland were shining examples, it seemed, of what Europe could do for struggling economies.

From the moment the Greeks entered the eurozone in 2001 the economy appeared to take off. Growth was initially fuelled by low interest rates and a burst of foreign investment. The triumphant return of the Olympics to Athens in 2004 crowned a dizzying period of success. Behind the façade a bloated public sector, tax avoidance on a grand scale and dishonest bookkeeping that misled Europe about the true state of the Greek economy told a very different story. So Greece had to go to the European powerhouses to ask for a bailout.

In Ireland the road that was taken to economic ruin was a different one but the result was the same. An economy that seemed to be the pride of Europe - the so-called "Celtic Tiger" - was in reality a house of cards. It came tumbling down under the weight of unsustainable public debt and a wildly overheated property market.

Chris Bowlby met the ordinary people in these two countries. They were the middle-class. Many of them were facing a number of choices. Their governments were implementing tough austerity programmes and raising taxes. Jobless rates were soaring and disaffected youth.

Both Greece and Ireland were disadvantageous countries. But today we can say that they try to overcome these difficulties.

As a whole this report is not difficult for listening, but there are some economic terms, which I haven’t understood.

P.S.: this podcast was published by BBC World Service on the 23rd of April 2010.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0075s1s/Crossing_Continents_Greece_and_Ireland/

Is the Euro a Busted Flush?

I hadn’t found any podcast entirely connected with Germany. So I decided to listen about the Euro Zone. The title of this podcast is “Is the Euro a Busted Flush?”. It was broadcasted on 31 March 2010 at BBC World Service. Here is the link to the internet:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p006x9kf/Business_Daily_Is_the_Euro_a_Busted_Flush/
And now I want to tell about the content of this podcast. Because Euro is a perfect political and economic project there are difficult questions about its reliability in the present day situation. Is it time for Germany and France to cut weak economies loose from the Euro? Does the row over who pays for Greece's problems show that the Euro Zone is unsustainable? Or does it mean that there has to be more political unity, with centralized power? Two famous professors are arguing about these questions in order to find the right way of solving the problem connected Euro. Efficient and successful Bavaria directs investors towards Greece in order to find new markets for its products. So they try to create resources of demand in Greece. But at the same time it wouldn’t help to solve the trading problem at all. The experience of Euro has also shown a great importance of fiscal discipline. But some people still have a wrong model in their mind when they look at the Euro Zone. Finally the professors decide that such countries as Germany, Netherlands, Austria and probably France should launch diverse reforms to protect their economies.
The second part of the podcast was very difficult because people were speaking very fast using a lot of unfamiliar and new for me words. But I understood the main idea. Africa and Latin America have nowadays problems with their domestic markets especially with internet services. They haven’t money to provide internet. However, vast territories can be a very good chance to prosper in the future.
I also want to tell some words about kwedit cards. They are credit cards but only for kids. Today people can’t understand the idea of launching such credit cards.
To sum up it was very difficult podcast.

GE, Communism and the recession

I have decided to listen to the podcast connected with Germany and money. The title of this podcast is “GE, Communism and the recession”. It was broadcasted on 2nd August 2009 at BBC World Service. You can also listen to this podcast now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p003s71s/Business_Weekly_GE_Communism_and_the_recession/
Business Weekly talks to Jeff Immelt of GE on the challenge of leading one of the world's biggest firms during the recession. Plus how are the old communist countries faring during this meltdown?
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin got much wrong but one thing right. His advice: "descend, seek another path, longer, perhaps, but one that will enable them to reach the summit".
Clearly, the chief executive of GE had been reading Lenin. Jeff Immelt took the top job. And then came the great skid which affected GE in lots of ways. Jeff Immelt gave the BBC's Business Editor, Robert Peston, his broad impression of what had gone wrong.
Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall came down and soon after the German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany, was dead. Now its capitalist successor, the eastern part of the unified Germany, undergoes the ructions of recession.
In the long-standing capitalist countries, crises come and crises go. But what about the old Communist world where memories remain of communism, perhaps sepia tinged memories as time alters realities.
Finally, does micro lending really work? Every year billions of dollars are ploughed into this sort of lending, and part of that is supplied through aid money, from donor governments. But is it money well spent? Dean Karlan, professor of economics at Yale University, had studied this question - and made the study rigorous by comparing groups with a control group in the Philippines.
As for me, this podcast is a little bit difficult. It is very long and contains diverse new unfamiliar words. But it was very interesting and exciting. Now I know a lot about Germany, Communism and the recession.

East German echoes

I had listened one podcast:
“East German echoes” at BBC World Service, broadcast on 28 July2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p003r5zz/Business_Daily_East_German_echoes/
Now I can say that it was the most interesting podcast for me for this time. I had wasted a lot of time looking for it. But it wasn’t vainly. In addition, as I had an aim to self-assess it wasn’t difficult to understand the whole podcast. However, there were some difficulties. I couldn’t understand some words connecting the petroleum industry.
The theme of this podcast is about a small town in eastern Germany. Business Daily visited East Germany and an oil refinery which had seen extraordinary and sometimes painful change since Soviet days. Is capitalism still popular - even in a crushing recession? Now I can answer this question. And I want to say that twenty years ago there was a state controlled corporation but nowadays it had become an eastern profitable business. Capitalism isn’t any more popular here. People are very happy as they have really good and exciting jobs. But there are some problems, too. Let’s speak about them. Unemployment here is higher than it is in the west. The government has to close kindergartens and schools in order to build up houses for younger generation. More flexible people are leaving the town. Alongside with these problems we can speak about good business relationships with Berlin and fine opportunities for small business.

Germany's Economy

I had listened one podcast:
“Germany's Economy” at BBC World Service, broadcast on 26 Jun 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p003jb5l/Business_Daily_Germanys_Economy/
I had an aim to self-assess what skills do I have to listening tasks, especially how I can understand the authentic speech. 
Well, I have to admit that I find some difficulties in listening tasks. It was hard for me to listen to people’s accents and there were some words those I didn’t know. But it was suitable "to catch" the words. So it wasn’t very difficult to understand the whole conversation.
Now I want to say some words about the theme of this podcast. It’s about the consequences of the economic crisis too. Business Daily has come to the ancient port city of Hamburg in Germany to look at the effects of the global economic downturn on this trading nation. So there was a decline of about 20% but today they can see some positive signs. Germany is connected with the world trade and China is one of their biggest trading partners. That’s why Germany has problems while China has serious problems. But the plant producing chocolate and marzipan doesn’t think about recession. It extends the whole production. All in all the old dependence on exports should now be reduced.