Word: april
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Facing volatile equity markets, investors often look to gold and silver. But an updated study of classical-instrument valuations by Brandeis economist Kathryn Graddy shows that violins may be among the most stable of investments. Graddy's data indicate that between 1850 and April of this year, the value of professional-quality instruments rose in real terms (i.e., after inflation) about 3% annually. High-end violins have appreciated at much higher rates - particularly rare instruments made by Italian masters like Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri...
...things are driving that figure down. First, people are paying off debt - which goes hand in hand with their not spending money on as many new things. In April, outstanding consumer credit - which includes credit cards, auto loans and tuition-financing but not mortgages - fell by $15.7 billion to $2.52 trillion, an annualized drop of 7.4% and the second largest dollar drop on record, after March's $16.6 billion decline. Numbers from April show that people are now saving 5.7% of their disposable income, the highest rate in 14 years. Second, people are shirking their obligations. According to the Mortgage...
...story that the U.S. economy has turned a corner and should be out of recession sooner rather than later. The latest strong signal came on Friday, when the Labor Department's May employment report showed a dramatic slowing in job losses, to 345,000, down from 504,000 in April and a peak of 741,000 in January. That many jobs lost in a month is still horrible, but the big change from the previous month and the fact that forecasters expected far worse are both indications that the economic tide has probably turned...
...there are tides, and there are currents. I keep thinking of something I heard Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of bond-investing giant Pimco, say at a conference in April: "We are so focused on whether recovery will be at the end of this year or the beginning of the next that we lose sight of the more important question. It's not whether the recession will be over; it's, What does the new normal look like?" (Watch TIME's video of Peter Schiff trash-talking the markets...
...shell-shocked organizations that went to Kaiser for advice was the Beck Center for the Arts, a theater and arts-education group near Cleveland. In January ticket sales and donor money "fell off a cliff," says Lucinda Einhouse, the Beck Center's president. In April she traveled to Washington to meet with Kaiser. She went home and instituted some, if not all, of his gospel. Marketing will be maintained. But the theater will mount fewer shows next year, and some will be chestnuts like Fiddler on the Roof and Peter...