Word: boom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...explosion of religious-oriented travel? Three factors, says Wright, who is the author of three travel guides for the faithful. The first, he says, is simple demographics: "In the last census, there were 8 million more people identified as Christians than a decade ago." Second, is the broader boom in international travel. According to Wright, 45% more Americans are traveling overseas today than 10 years ago. Third, says Wright, "people of faith increasingly want a personal experience of their faith...
Still, the slowdown seems certain to take a toll on the economy. Housing activity accounted for a full percentage point of last year's 3.5% GDP growth. Psychologically, rising home prices have made homeowners feel wealthier--just as stock prices did in the dotcom boom--boosting consumer confidence and spending on everything from cars to restaurant meals. Those rising prices, along with low borrowing costs, led homeowners to cash out a record $450 billion in home equity in 2005--money pumped into the economy. Rising interest rates have clogged that artery. And each month millions of homeowners have to write...
Demographically speaking, the future looks bright for the $3.5 billion casket industry. Over the next 20 years, the baby-boom generation, despite its considerable efforts to the contrary, will start to meet mortality, swelling the death rate in the U.S. from 2.4 million a year to 3.2 million. By 2040, annual deaths are forecast to hit 4.1 million. You'd think the big casketmakers--Batesville, York and Aurora, which together produce at least 70% of all caskets sold in the U.S.--would be resting easy...
...business interests keep him coming back. Yet for many Baghdad residents, the only hope for a decent life is to escape altogether. Since the school year ended in June, thousands of families have been heading to safer parts of the country, like the Kurdish north, where an economic boom carries the promise of jobs. Those who can afford it are going abroad, mainly to Syria and Jordan. "The middle class is evaporating," says Iyad Allawi, who served as Iraq's interim Prime Minister in 2004 and part of '05. "Every Middle Eastern country I go to, they tell me immigration...
...tough places to be for a while," warns Stuart Freeman, chief equity strategist at brokerage A.G. Edwards. He's leaning away from the stocks of small companies, which tend to do best early in a recovery and have had a long run of superior returns. He's also underplaying boom-bust industrial and commodity stocks in favor of blue-chip steady growers like health-care (Lilly) and consumer products (Pepsico, Procter & Gamble...