Word: cheaping
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...this year. Such differences create a dilemma for Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European central bank, the body that sets monetary policy for the entire euro zone. Economists say the bank's 2% benchmark interest rate is far too low for the strongest economies, providing them with plentiful cheap money and helping fuel both a credit boom and, especially in Spain, a potential housing bubble...
...should be easy enough for Cho to recognize the secret of Hyundai's success. The South Korean company is following much the same formula that Toyota used decades ago to overcome its "cheap Asian import" stigma and become one of the world's most respected brands. When Hyundai first entered the U.S. market in 1986, its Excel sedan--an econobox with a $4,995 price tag--was an instant hit with frugal buyers. But customers soon discovered they were getting what they paid for: Excels were prone to quality-control problems and frequently needed to have parts replaced. Sales tanked...
...Made in China" is synonymous with cheap products, but the country is exporting something far costlier: environmental degradation. Already, crops in Japan and South Korea are withering from Chinese acid rain, which poisons a quarter of the Chinese landmass. Toxic dust from Chinese sandstorms, the result of grassland erosion and logging that have helped turn 27% of the country into desert, travels as far as U.S. shores, obscuring visibility in national parks and raising mercury levels in fish. Although the U.S. still produces far more greenhouse gases, particularly in per capita terms, China is the world's second largest polluter...
...side, not the sell side that gets the headlines back home. Wal-Mart sources everything from T shirts to toys to lighting fixtures in China--which puts the company right in the firing line of those who think the U.S. manufacturing sector is being killed by too-cheap-to-beat Chinese imports. By itself, Wal-Mart is China's sixth largest export market-- just behind Germany--buying some $18 billion worth of goods last year...
Last summer Yu chartered a bus and drove peasants from a proposed dam area along the upper Salween to visit a 10-year-old dam a few hours away. The government had celebrated the Manwan Dam as a model of development for its cheap electricity and successful relocation of 3,500 people. The visitors saw something different: peasant women picking through the hydropower station's garbage dump for plastic bottles to recycle for pennies. Sobbing, the women explained that they had not found jobs after losing their land. The scene was captured in an underground documentary that environmentalists have passed...