Word: demand
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...consumers are doing and it's a good indicator of actual spending," says Michael Englund, chief economist for Action Economics, a bond and currency market consulting firm. "The good news for households is that food and energy prices are falling, although some might see this as a weakness in demand and a sign the economy is slowing." Englund says the drop below August's sales levels are mostly due to extremely weak auto sales, as people have had difficulty getting loans due to tighter credit and higher rates. "Our view is that the current downturn will equal or surpass...
...course, especially in parts of the former East bloc. "Having been a country under dictatorship, we are characterized by a veneration for big, important and powerful countries," says Brunilda Kondi, a lecturer in American culture at Albania's University of Tirana. To help the university keep up with growing demand for courses, the American Embassy there organizes summer programs on U.S. culture. In other corners of Europe, even where opinions of America are low, a desire to learn English and engage with the West is strong enough to attract students. According to Pew, only 12% of Turks view America positively...
Still, the picture isn't one of unrelenting gloom. Interest rates are low, unlike in the early 1990s, and the price of oil has dropped from its peak earlier this summer as demand slows from the cooling global economy. That's good news for consumers everywhere. But the signs of economic woe still add up to a minefield that European governments, central banks and other policymakers will have to navigate carefully. Here are some of the mines that lie in wait for them...
...Europe's economic growth over the past few years came about because of a self-imposed fiscal discipline. But, as Patrice Poncet, a finance professor at ESSEC Business School in France, points out: "It's the tendency of politicians to turn temporary measures into permanent ones." Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. But for Europe's leaders, deciding to bail out the banks may turn out to have been the easy part...
...addition to the Nevada raid, voter registration drives in several other states have been scrutinized, while the group's campaigns to demand fair housing loan practices has opened it up to charges that it advocated risky subprime mortgages. On its website, ACORN has called the allegations of voter fraud "bogus" and "unfounded." The organization says it works with authorities and identifies all the fraudulent forms that it can, and that the campaign against its registration drives is a ploy to "disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate...