Word: biggest
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There was blood at the wickets this pre-Halloween, as the corpses of every one of the weekend's new movies littered the lobbies of North American theaters. The Saw torture-porn franchise took the biggest hit, with its sixth installment getting chainsawed by the Paranormal Activity phenomenon. Another horror entry, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, was D.O.A. Astro Boy, the third autumn movie based on a kids, pop-culture touchstone, didn't fly; and neither did the aviation bio-pic Amelia, which took off at low altitude and instantly crashed. As for the weekend's goriest psychodrama...
...Unfamiliarity with Chinese cuisine will be the biggest challenge for P.F. Chang's, the largest Chinese restaurant chain in the U.S., as it heads south of the border. Up until the financial crisis, the $1.2 billion company had a fantastically successful run at convincing Americans to pay upmarket prices for a version of Chinese food designed for American taste buds. But with business slowing down in the U.S. due to the recession and pressure from investors to increase sales, the company is now embarking on an expansion plan to sell its flavor of Chinese fare in several emerging markets. Over...
...Mexico, where the bar for Chinese food is set low. In the handful of eateries that dot Mexico City's two-block Chinatown, it's common to start a meal with deep-fried wonton-dough sticks and a hefty bowl of neon-red sweet-and-sour sauce. "The biggest challenge will be performing as well as in the U.S.," says the new branch's manager, Iván Alvarado. "We have to explain a lot of things to customers at our tables because here in Mexico, we drink soda with Chinese food...
...banks an implicit guarantee that the government will cover outstanding debts. The downturn in exports mainly hurt small- and medium-sized firms in the south, which are usually private owned. The result is that while profits are climbing for large, state-owned firms, the private sector is lagging. "The biggest challenge for the authorities is that the private sector has yet to fully recover. This makes it difficult to tighten early," Ben Simpfendorfer, a Hong Kong-based China economist for RBS, wrote in a research note. "It also funnels money into equity and housing rather than the real economy...
...while sales have climbed, economists say the government has yet to push through the sort of reforms that would make consumer spending a solid economic pillar. Chinese are still among the world's biggest savers, in part because of the lack of good public systems for retirement pensions and health insurance. "Most economists think they've overdone investment and underdone consumption and spending for social welfare," says Stephen Green, the Shanghai-based head of research for Standard Chartered Bank. "There will be a price to pay. No one knows how big that will be. The bet is they'll grow...