时间:2019-01-11 作者:英语课 分类:VOA慢速英语2008年(八)月


英语课

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.


Prices for many widely traded goods have fallen recently after big increases earlier in the year.


Oil, the world's most widely traded commodity by value, led the way. Oil prices fell in part because of a recently stronger dollar. Most oil is traded in dollars. When the dollar's exchange value increases, so do prices in foreign currencies.


Higher prices, in turn, reduce demand. For example, officials say Americans drove fifteen and a half billion fewer kilometers in May than a year before.
 
An oil drilling structure in Russia's Arctic area. Recent tensions between the United States and Russia, a big oil exporter, have influenced oil prices.


Lower prices are welcome news for buyers. But experts say the drop in demand for oil and other raw materials is also a sign of weakening economies in Europe and Japan. Recent economic reports suggest that they may be in a worse position than the United States.


The Economist 1 magazine's index of commodity prices excluding oil fell by more than twelve percent since early July.


But this week, commodities have been trading higher -- especially on Thursday as oil prices jumped. Market watchers blamed tensions between the United States and Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, as well as a weaker dollar.


Investors 2 sold dollars and moved back into gold and other precious metals along with energy and agriculture futures 3. A Reuters news agency index showed commodities moving toward their biggest weekly gain in thirty-three years.


Oil hit an all-time high of one hundred forty-seven dollars and twenty-seven cents a barrel on July eleventh. Before Thursday's rise it was trading below one hundred twenty dollars a barrel.


Which way oil prices will go now is anyone's guess, but the recent drop has helped ease inflation fears. Consumer prices in the United States rose in July at their fastest level in seventeen years. Producer prices rose at their fastest rate in twenty-seven years.


Along with oil, prices for agricultural commodities have fallen recently. The effects, though, may be slow to bring down food prices.


Prices for most grains have fallen by twenty to thirty percent or more since the end of June.


One reason was good news from the Midwest, the agricultural heartland in the United States. Heavy rains in May and June caused the worst flooding there in fifteen years. But this month, the Department of Agriculture added about five percent to its latest estimate for this year's corn crop. The crop is expected to be the second largest ever.


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


 



n.经济学家,经济专家,节俭的人
  • He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
  • He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家,自以为什么都懂。
n.投资者,出资者( investor的名词复数 )
  • a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
  • a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会
n.期货,期货交易
  • He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
  • Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。
学英语单词
A arrival factor
Adair, John
Amoeba tetragena
animes
anterior iliac artery
Anthony Powell
athabascaite
Austronesianist
band saw blade tensioner
bioreacter
bloater
botryogenite
bovine serum
bridgeplates
broodstocks
buy secondary hand
careless of
cheetahs
colubrinol
compass in binnacle
conditional information
conforaneous
county agents
crew stairs
Cumulative Return
deaerator adjustment test
decimetric feeder
deoxyribonucleic protein
dermochrome
diabetic neuropathy
dome kiln
education received
elevating gear
enthalpy flux
externally mounted mechanical seal
fade-out
field pick up
field replacement unit
Forlandsundet
get into a temper
goings-on
gyroes
h(a)ematology
hits on me
huytons
insculptor
interior fittings
iodoform albuminate
iron wire brush
iron-bound
jadder
khazei
land storage
layered network
line transect method
logarithmic temperature scale
low temperature dry cell
make an attack upon
markois
matching quadrupole
maximum traverse of boring spindle
Mesolithic Period
meteorological diversity scenery
microcivilizations
microetch
minuteman
mismeter
montpellier codex
multistage stratified random sampling
multitrack error
Neofiber alleni
new management
Nimrah
nonlinear damper
Old World jay
pack duck
peace-keeping force
phakotoxic
plitch
power range channel
precancerous leukokeratosis
put up the cards against someone
rack shaping machine
resoliving power test target
retrotrans-position
senior debt
shielded ball bearing
sliding wheel shaft
superpeople
Three Estates (of the Realm)
TKing
toit
tool sharpener
totalling meter
turning sander
unpopped
unsupported barrel
viuras
wakeboarder
water level fluctuations
WSHF
Zeiss orthometer lens