Word: contractive
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...stimulus plans take hold across the world, policymakers would like to know precisely what such largesse can buy. Because of the slump in world trade, and hence in demand for its exports, Germany itself is facing a tremendous slowdown. The government now predicts that its economy will contract by 6% this year, much more than the economies of the U.S. or Britain, and on a par with the baleful prospect for that other exporting powerhouse, Japan. The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is pumping $108 billion into the economy, but after an intense debate it has resisted international pressure...
...History repeats itself. On April 22, 2004, an American football star named Pat Tillman was killed in action in Afghanistan. After September 11, Tillman had eschewed a $3.6 million sports contract to volunteer for the Army Rangers. Selfless and ruggedly handsome, he could have played himself in the Hollywood movie about his life—had he not been shot by his own troops. On April 28, Rene Gonzalez, a political science graduate student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, objected to calling Tillman a war hero, pointing out in an essay that this “anti-hero?...
...card issuers are already reeling in credit limits and accepting fewer new applications. "There are two ways of managing risk - for a particular borrower and across a portfolio," Ken Clayton of the American Bankers Association recently explained. "If risk-based pricing changes, lenders will have no choice but to contract credit...
...approach therefore is not to smack down credit-card companies for high interest rates but rather to hold everyone to the original agreement about how much credit will cost. "Virtually no other contract in this country allows a business to change the terms of an agreement once a purchase has been made," says Travis Plunkett of the Consumer Federation of America. "That's the main issue." (One Senator suggested an interest-rate cap, but that was shot down...
...Other provisions of the law are similarly set up. A card company can still change the terms of your contract. It will just have to give you 45 days' notice. It's still possible for an issuer to assess a fee when you go over your credit limit - but only if you indicate that you want to be able to go over your credit limit in the first place, instead of having your card denied at the point of purchase. Companies can still set minimum required payments however they see fit. But they'll be required to tell...