TEXT XI ( To be read after Unit X To be read after Unit X ) Прочтите текст и выполните последующее задание. Risks of Business Employers obtain their net profits only after they have paid all
expenses arising out of their business activities: interest, payments
for machinery, wages and overheads generally. The surplus is not
usually available only for employers and their families. Part of it
goes to those who have provided the initial capital needed to start
a business.
There is always an element of risk in providing capital for new
business. Such business may fail. Both those who provide the capital
and those who run the business agree to bear the risk, the employers
of such businesses are not expected to bear any risk. If the business
is successful and the risk has been justified, the invested capital
earns part of the profits as a return on the investment at the period,
which the capital was at risk.
When capital, labor and enterprise combine to make business
successful, the business must still continue to compete on the market
with other companies producing the same type of commodity.
The term ‘market’, as used by economists, is a logical extension
from the idea of a place set for buying and selling. Formerly, part of
town was kept as a marketplace, and country people would come in
on market-days to buy and sell. Markets today need not however be
located in any fixed place: the sugar market and the cotton market
are not geographical locations, but simply a set of conditions which
permit buyers and sellers to work together.
In a free market, competition takes place among sellers in
order to sell their commodities at the best possible price, which
suits them. Such competition influences prices. Changes in supply
and demand have their effects, and can take place over periods of
weeks and months.