Word: downwardly
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...Europe, where the European Central Bank was behind the curve in seeing the risks to growth that the credit crisis posed and kept interest rates too high for too long. Though Europe is not in outright deflation yet, the pressures across the continent are all trending downward. Even in China, the world's largest developing nation, officials acknowledge that the risk of inflation - their main concern at the time of the Beijing Olympics in August - is gone. At a high-powered international financial conference in Beijing over the weekend, a senior People's Bank of China official acknowledged to TIME...
...ferocity of the downturn under way, and the downward pressure it is putting on prices, cannot be underestimated, argues Shanghai-based independent economist Andy Xie. "The world doesn't need to just throw the kitchen sink at this to avoid a disastrous deflation, it needs to throw the bathroom sink, and the garage sink, and any other sink it can find." And it needs to hurry...
...factories temporarily shut down to work off an inventory glut, then jump almost as much when they reopened. Things don't really work that way anymore - the jobs disappearing now aren't temporary layoffs, and the increased reliance on debt in the U.S. economy may bring self-reinforcing downward pressures that weren't an issue back in the relatively frugal 1950s. (When you've got lots of debt, like General Motors or your neighbor with an adjustable-rate mortgage, you're in a far worse position to weather a sudden reduction in income...
Stores have to figure out how to tap into this recalibrated value system--one based on caution rather than the branded excess of Christmas past. "The American consumer is trading downward in the most dramatic fashion ever seen," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail-consulting firm. What's more, the thrift mind-set has seeped into all income levels. Saks Fifth Avenue, for instance, had a 16.6% drop in sales in October. "Saving is cool right now," says Candace Corlett, president of WSL. "Conspicuous consumption is out, and people have lost their passion to buy." (See pictures...
...costs down, and whether the proposed $25 billion in bridge loans wasn't simply a down payment. But several noted that Ford is at the head of the class. "My sense is that Ford has done a better job," said Senator Bob Corker, who added that "GM is spiraling downward and in serious trouble" and that Chrysler "barely has a heartbeat." He then called on Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, to rate the companies. "I'd rank 'em Ford, Chrysler and General Motors," the union man responded. That won't get Mulally any more money...