Word: busting
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...often load up on illegal copies of Hollywood blockbusters that are available for a tenth of what they cost in the West. Lucky and Flo, too, nosed their way to back-street shops that hawk bootleg films. But unlike the average Western tourist, this American duo was there to bust, not buy. The pair of black Labradors, who arrived in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in March, are the first dogs specifically trained to sniff out DVDs and, thus, lead investigators to any hidden caches of pirated material...
...biggest threat, though, is a crash in the property or stock market. When U.S. property and media tycoon Sam Zell visited India in April, he told local real estate executives that they were "on the brink of excess" and that the boom could end in a bust. Real estate stocks plunged as much as 50% in a general market sell-off last spring, while property prices have fallen 20% or so in some areas in the past six months. Both the government and the Reserve Bank of India are trying to cool the real estate sector without crashing...
There are four reasons why investors everywhere should fear the ongoing fallout from the bust in the U.S. housing market. First, U.S. housing-credit problems have spread to other sectors. Not only have several hedge funds suffered or failed as a result of their exposure to U.S. mortgage products, but some banks and insurance companies as far afield as Australia, Germany and Taiwan have also run up large losses. And they are likely just the beginning, with major firms like Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns announcing in recent days that some of their own investments have been badly hit. Second...
...plenty of bottom left to wait for. It's a far cry from the days of double-digit home-price gains and mass speculation in hot markets like Las Vegas--where 40% of the houses up for sale now sit vacant. What's astonishing about this particular real estate bust, though, is the way the damage has pinballed across the financial universe: mortgage companies in Los Angeles, banks in Seattle, hedge funds in Australia, the European Central Bank, Wall Street investment houses and Main Street stockholders have all had the American real estate market fall on them...
...housing-analytics firm the Genesis Group. That's about half the number of people who could be expected to put their homes up for sale in a normal market. The most distressed neighborhoods are seeing foreclosure rates rivaling those produced during the state's oil and gas bust of the 1980s--except these days, there aren't mass layoffs to blame. Just flat house prices and tighter credit standards, which make it harder for homeowners to sell or refinance their way out of trouble...