Word: dollarize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...context of the past 30 years." In Brazil, Lula's election (and 2006 re-election) did not render the region's largest economy a leftist basket case. Instead, inflation has fallen from 12.5% in 2002 to less than 4% today. Brazil's real has climbed 56% against the U.S. dollar, and the São Paulo stock exchange, the Bovespa, is soaring. And since the U.S.-Chile free-trade agreement took effect in 2004, Chilean exports to the U.S.--including all that Cabernet--have risen...
Copeland wasn't Grassley's only pen pal. He also wrote to the Revs. Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula White, in total six televangelists who are part of an evangelical subculture known loosely as Prosperity gospel. "Recent news reports regarding the possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations" prompted the probe, Grassley wrote. The ministers' responses are technically voluntary, but the Senator has asked for them in a month and has mused that the replies could lead to testimony under oath. If so, Grassley could end up wiping out what some consider a kleptocracy...
Prosperity adherents believe the right thoughts and speech, along with giving to the church, will prompt divine repayment in this life, with a return as high as $100 on each dollar handed up. On a small scale, Prosperity's positive thinking has sometimes energized the march of the poor into the middle class, but many Christians find it theologically and ethically perverse. Prosperity dominates American religious TV, and millions of adherents send millions of dollars to preachers they have never met. For Grassley, this might be fine if the ministers put all the money back into their mission work...
Among Grassley's questions to Dollar was one about a gift of $500,000 to Copeland. Dollar told TIME that he made a gift but said the sum was not that high. He and the Copelands claim to be tax-compliant. Hinn and Long did not respond by press time. White's ministry says to the best of its knowledge it complies with all tax codes. Meyer posted a 2007 IRS letter confirming tax-exempt status...
...Senate Finance Committee has been looking too. Last week Senator Charles Grassley, the Committee's ranking Republican, announced a probe of the finances of six television preachers. He sent each a letter filled with extremely pointed questions about their multimillion-dollar finances. The longest questionnaire, with 42 specific queries, went out to Copeland and his wife Gloria. Copeland is the founder and head of the multimillion-dollar Kenneth Copeland ministries, and the host in its crown jewel, the daily Believers Voice of Victory broadcast...