Graduate Trainee Verbal Ability Access Bank Job

Comprehension Passage 3

In any country, the wages commanded by the laborers who have comparable skills but who work in various industries are determined by the productivity of the least productive unit of labour, i.e. the unit of labour which works in the industry which has greatest economic disadvantages. We will represent the various opportunities of employment in a country like the United States by symbols — A standing for a group of industries in which we have exceptional economic advantage over foreign countries; B for a group in which our advantages are less; C, one in which they are still less; D, the group of industries in which they are the least of all.

When our population is so small that all our labour can be engaged in the group represented by A, productivity of labour and therefore wages will be at their maximum. When our population increases so that some of the labour will have to work in group B, the wages of all labour must decline to the level of productivity in that group. But no employer, without government aid, will yet be able to afford to hire labour to exploit the opportunities represented by C and D, unless there is a further increase in population.

But suppose that the political party in power holds the belief that we should produce everything that we consume, that the opportunities represented by C and D should also be exploited. The commodities that the industries composing C and D will produce have been hitherto obtained from abroad in exchange for commodities produced by A and B. The government now renders this difficult by imposing high duties upon the former class of commodities. This means that workers in A and B must pay higher prices for what they buy, but do not receive higher prices for what they sell.

After the duty has gone into effect and the prices of commodities that can be produced by C and D have risen sufficiently, enterprises will be able to hire labour at the wages prevailing in A and B and establish industries in C and D. So far as the remaining labourers in A and B buy the products of C and D, the difference between the price which they pay for these products and the price they would pay if they were permitted to import those products duty-free is a tax paid not to the government, but to the producers in C and D, to enable the latter to remain in business. It is an uncompensated deduction from the natural earnings of the labourers in A and B. Nor are the workers in C and D paid as much, estimated in purchasing power, as they would have received if they had been allowed to remain in A and B under the earlier conditions.

Comprehension Passage 4

Mark Hughes is a master of the fine art of survival. His Los Angeles-based Herbalife International Inc. is a pyramid outfit that peddles weight-loss and nutrition concoctions of dubious value. Bad publicity and regulatory crackdowns hurt his U.S. business in the late 1980s. But Hughes, 41, continues to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle in a $20 million Beverly Hills mansion. He has been sharing the pad and a yacht with his third wife, a former Miss Petite U.S.A. He can finance this lavish lifestyle just on his salary and bonus, which last year came to $7.3 million.

He survived his troubles in the U.S. by moving overseas, where regulators are less zealous and consumers even more naive, at least initially. Today 77% of Herbalife retail sales derive from overseas. Its new prowling grounds: Asia and Russia. Last year Herbalife's net earnings doubled, to $45 million, on net sales of $632 million. Based on Herbalife's Nasdaq-traded stock, the company has a market capitalization of $790 million, making Hughes’ 58% stake worth $454 million.

There's a worm, though, in Hughes’ apple. Foreigners aren't stupid. In the end they know when they've been had. In France, for instance, retail sales rose to $97 million by 1993 and then plunged to $12 million last year. In Germany, sales hit $159 million in 1994 and have since dropped to $54 million.

Perhaps aware that the world may not provide an infinite supply of suckers, Hughes wanted to unload some of his shares. But in March, after Herbalife's stock collapsed, he put off a plan to dump about a third of his holdings on the public.

Contributing to Hughes' woes, Herbalife's chief counsel and legal attack dog, David Addis, quit in January. Before packing up, he reportedly bellowed at Hughes, "I can't protect you anymore." Addis, who says he wants to spend more time with his family, chuckles and claims attorney-client privilege.

Trouble on the home front, too. On a recent conference call with distributors, Hughes revealed he's divorcing his wife, Suzan, whose beaming and perky image adorns much of Herbalife's literature. Meanwhile, in a lawsuit that's been quietly moving through Arizona's Superior Court, former Herbalife distributor Daniel Fallow of Sandpoint, Idaho charges that Herbalife arbitrarily withholds payment to distributors and marks up its products over seven times the cost of manufacturing. Fallow also claims Hughes wanted to use the Russian mafia to gain entry to that nation's market.

Fallow himself is no angel, but his lawsuit, which was posted on the Internet, brought out other complaints. Randy Cox of Lewiston, Idaho says Herbalife "destroyed my business" after he and his wife complained to the company that they were being cheated out of their money by higher-ups in the pyramid organization.

Will Hughes survive again? Don't count on it this time.