full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Chrystia Freeland: The rise of the new global super-rich

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So what's not to like? Well, a few things. One of the things that worries me is how easily what you might call meritocratic plutocracy can become crony plutocracy. Imagine you're a brilliant entrepreneur who has slecslsucfuy sold that idea or that product to the global billions and become a brolaliinie in the process. It gets tempting at that point to use your economic nous to manipulate the rleus of the gbalol palociitl economy in your own fovar. And that's no mere hypothetical example. Think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks. These are among the world's most admired, most beloved, most innovative companies. They also happen to be particularly adept at working the innaioenttral tax system so as to lower their tax bill very, very significantly. And why stop at just playing the global political and economic seystm as it exists to your own maximum advantage? Once you have the tremendous economic power that we're seeing at the very, very top of the income distribution and the political power that inevitably ealitns, it becomes tempting as well to start trying to change the rules of the game in your own favor. Again, this is no mere hypothetical. It's what the Russian olarghcis did in creating the sale-of-the-century privatization of Russia's nrtaual resources. It's one way of describing what happened with ditureloaegn of the financial services in the U.S. and the U.K.

Open Cloze

So what's not to like? Well, a few things. One of the things that worries me is how easily what you might call meritocratic plutocracy can become crony plutocracy. Imagine you're a brilliant entrepreneur who has ____________ sold that idea or that product to the global billions and become a ___________ in the process. It gets tempting at that point to use your economic nous to manipulate the _____ of the ______ _________ economy in your own _____. And that's no mere hypothetical example. Think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks. These are among the world's most admired, most beloved, most innovative companies. They also happen to be particularly adept at working the _____________ tax system so as to lower their tax bill very, very significantly. And why stop at just playing the global political and economic ______ as it exists to your own maximum advantage? Once you have the tremendous economic power that we're seeing at the very, very top of the income distribution and the political power that inevitably _______, it becomes tempting as well to start trying to change the rules of the game in your own favor. Again, this is no mere hypothetical. It's what the Russian _________ did in creating the sale-of-the-century privatization of Russia's _______ resources. It's one way of describing what happened with ____________ of the financial services in the U.S. and the U.K.

Solution

  1. successfully
  2. political
  3. favor
  4. billionaire
  5. system
  6. natural
  7. international
  8. oligarchs
  9. rules
  10. entails
  11. global
  12. deregulation

Original Text

So what's not to like? Well, a few things. One of the things that worries me is how easily what you might call meritocratic plutocracy can become crony plutocracy. Imagine you're a brilliant entrepreneur who has successfully sold that idea or that product to the global billions and become a billionaire in the process. It gets tempting at that point to use your economic nous to manipulate the rules of the global political economy in your own favor. And that's no mere hypothetical example. Think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks. These are among the world's most admired, most beloved, most innovative companies. They also happen to be particularly adept at working the international tax system so as to lower their tax bill very, very significantly. And why stop at just playing the global political and economic system as it exists to your own maximum advantage? Once you have the tremendous economic power that we're seeing at the very, very top of the income distribution and the political power that inevitably entails, it becomes tempting as well to start trying to change the rules of the game in your own favor. Again, this is no mere hypothetical. It's what the Russian oligarchs did in creating the sale-of-the-century privatization of Russia's natural resources. It's one way of describing what happened with deregulation of the financial services in the U.S. and the U.K.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
crony capitalism 5
surging income 3
middle class 3
technology revolution 3
industrial revolution 3
created public 3
national income 2
income distribution 2
billion dollars 2
income inequality 2
superstar effect 2
meritocratic plutocracy 2
global political 2
mere hypothetical 2
tremendous social 2

Important Words

  1. adept
  2. admired
  3. advantage
  4. amazon
  5. apple
  6. beloved
  7. bill
  8. billionaire
  9. billions
  10. brilliant
  11. call
  12. change
  13. companies
  14. creating
  15. crony
  16. deregulation
  17. describing
  18. distribution
  19. easily
  20. economic
  21. economy
  22. entails
  23. entrepreneur
  24. exists
  25. favor
  26. financial
  27. game
  28. global
  29. google
  30. happen
  31. happened
  32. hypothetical
  33. idea
  34. imagine
  35. income
  36. inevitably
  37. innovative
  38. international
  39. manipulate
  40. maximum
  41. mere
  42. meritocratic
  43. natural
  44. nous
  45. oligarchs
  46. playing
  47. plutocracy
  48. point
  49. political
  50. power
  51. privatization
  52. process
  53. product
  54. resources
  55. rules
  56. russian
  57. services
  58. significantly
  59. sold
  60. starbucks
  61. start
  62. stop
  63. successfully
  64. system
  65. tax
  66. tempting
  67. top
  68. tremendous
  69. working
  70. worries