1. How does money work?

2. What money institutions can you mention?

3. Describe different kinds of securities and different kinds of markets.

4. What can you say about the attitude to money in our culture? Has it changed in recent years?

5. How have Wal-Mart and Target stores performed lately?

1. How does money work.

Money makes the world go round, they say. Perhaps it is even truer that the world makes money go round, especially in an era of globalization when capital can flow freely to and from almost everywhere. Money is always looking for places where it will be most profitable and earn the greatest return on investment.

As an individual, you can put your money on deposit in a bank, and as long as the bank doesn't fail and the economy keeps functioning, you will get interest. Your money is lent out to people, businesses and governments who need it to finance their own projects, and the bank will make its money on the difference between what it pays out in interest on deposits and what it gets in interest from its loans.

If you want to live more dangerously you could buy some bonds, and as long as the organization or country you've invested in by lending it money doesn't default, you will get your interest payments, and later your bonds will eventually be repaid. To live even more dangerously, buy some shares and share in the profitability of your chosen company. In good times, the dividends will be more than what you would get from bonds, and the shares themselves will increase in value, giving you a capital gain if you sell them. But if the company runs into trouble and goes bankrupt, you will be among the last to be paid back, and you may get only part of what you put in, or you may lose all your money.