Word: cataclysmic
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...stopped, and going forward, a major priority for regulators will be averting such lending binges--as new, tougher mortgage rules from the Federal Reserve aim to do. But at the same time, many on Wall Street and in Washington fear that the correction could careen into an economic cataclysm. That's why the Fed has intervened at the top of the financial food chain by cutting interest rates and bankrolling a shotgun takeover of the investment bank Bear Stearns. And it's why there's been lots of talk in Washington about doing something--anything--to slow the tide...
...that is the existential challenge of 2008: whether we will have a big election or a small one. Will we have a serious conversation about the enormous problems confronting the country-the wars, the economic crisis, the looming environmental cataclysm-or will we allow the same old carnival of swift boats and sound bites? The answer depends on the candidates, of course, and on the media-where cynicism too often passes for insight. But most of all, it depends...
...British and French carted home priceless works from their conquests, and many museums have bought pieces stolen from archeological digs. But Nazi art plunder is an especially emotive issue because so many of the paintings were taken from Jews who later died in concentration camps amid the greatest cataclysm of the 20th century. Indeed, an exhibition like this might have been unthinkable a few decades ago, when the fate of lost treasures seemed inconsequential compared to the destruction of families and entire communities in the Holocaust. But as Snyder says, enough time has passed for visitors today to appreciate...
...economic cataclysm struck in 1997 and, in spite of all of Suharto's soldiers and all of his money, Indonesia was inundated by the Asian financial crisis. Currency speculation had led to the collapse of Thailand's currency, which started a chain of events that swamped Indonesia's rupiah. The devaluation sent company profits dramatically downward; Jakarta's stock market crashed. Food prices spiked upwards, leading to rioting in the streets and the death of perhaps hundreds of people clamoring for food in the capital. The country's divisions re-emerged: Muslims vs. non-Muslims; Malay-Indonesians vs. Chinese-Indonesians...
Given the ongoing cataclysm in Iraq and an economy poised on the brink of a meltdown - not to mention the tantalizingly tabloid possibility of a Giuliani-Clinton matchup - it's hard to see how climate change will really break into the national political conversation next fall. "I have no confidence whatsoever that this is going to be a key deciding issue in who Americans vote for this election," says Ted Nordhaus, a political consultant and co-author of the new environmental book Breakthrough. "You don't see politicians making their name around climate change in Ohio, or Michigan...