End to Recession in Sight?

Where: New York, USA

March 25, 2009 : The New York Stock Exchange and European Stock markets showed high trading figures after the American government announced that it had planned another bailout package for banks. The United States Treasury is also expected to pump $1 trillion into the market for buying up ‘toxic assets’. This means government will put money into those ‘bad assets’ which have frozen trading and aggravated the recession.

Mr. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank in USA, said he expects that the recession in the country will end this year. The recession, or economic slump, began in 2007. Large numbers of businesses closed down and most others have cut down on jobs and pay packets. The number of unemployed people is still rising in the USA and in the United Kingdom.

Last week, there was a huge public protest against the American International Group (AIG). The company had received $180 billion of government money as bailout funds (money given to prevent the company from going bankrupt). AIG then gave out $165 million of these bailout funds to its top executives as bonus payments. The United States President Mr. Barack Obama condemned the action and called it unethical. The US House of Representatives drew up a bill to impose a 90 per cent tax on bonus payments. Later, 15 of the top 20 bonus-receiving executives said they would return the money.

238 words | 2 minutes
Readability: Grade 7 (12-13 year old children)
Based on Flesch–Kincaid readability scores

Filed under: world news
Tags: #money, #americans

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