Word: dollarization
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...from renters, hot markets from cold. The median U.S. home price jumped in April to $206,000, up a stunning 15% over the past year and 55% over the past five years, according to the National Association of Realtors. The fact that houses are bought for pennies on the dollar magnifies the windfall. Say you put down 20% on a $150,000 house five years ago. At the average gain of 55%, that's an $82,500 gain on a $30,000 outlay, or a 275% return. In your face...
Others eyeball the neighbors more wistfully. Lottie Kovarek, 86, could sell her Chicago house for dozens of times the $10,500 she and her late husband paid in 1952. But as homes she has known for decades are being razed to build million-dollar-plus yuppie warrens, her street--once home to working-class Polish-American families--is losing its tight-knit character. But at least Kovarek owns her home. Writer Michael Glynn, 49, his wife and two kids rent an 850-sq.-ft. apartment in Santa Monica, Calif. There is barely enough space to shoehorn a tree...
...next General Electric. Rather, he says, it is based on fundamentals that include tight housing supply--especially in places where it is tough or expensive to build, like New York City and San Francisco--such population factors as immigration, foreign buyers (snapping up properties cheap because of a weak dollar) and baby boomers' demand for second homes. "It's the demographics, stupid," he says...
...lawsuit does not call for any specific damages, although it does state that Gould earned $300,000 a year from speaking engagements and that “a seven figure income was his norm.” The suit also states that Gould was negotiating a two million dollar book contract before his death...
...Bush Administrationsounded the alarm last week against what it says is a growing threat to the U.S. economy: the value of China's currency. For 10 years, Beijing has fixed the value of the yuan at 8.28 to the dollar. But as the value of the dollar has fallen, complaints from U.S. manufacturers have grown louder that if the yuan were allowed to rise to its true value, Chinese imports wouldn't be so cheap, compared with U.S.- made products. "The situation right now with China's currency," Treasury Secretary John Snow told TIME, "is risky and unsustainable...