Word: dropping
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...three months through September, a couple of points higher than the 15-year average of 17.7 but significantly lower than where the ratio stood three years ago, 24.4. By doing some additional math (which we'll explain later), we can surmise that house prices still have to drop 4.6% over the next five years, assuming the price-rent ratio returns to normal over that period. Funny how that almost doesn't seem so bad at this point. And if we look at the entire U.S., which includes many rural areas unaffected by the house-price run-up, the picture...
...Postal Service had already been limping along, taking heat on several fronts. One of its biggest threats is e-mail, which has made the art of letter-writing seem downright quaint and last year contributed to a nearly 10% drop in first-class mail (that's individual letters to you and me), the worst loss in any mail category. Demand for deliveries has been further beaten down by environmentalists, who consider snail mail a waste of paper. Meanwhile, spikes in oil prices in 2008 drove operating costs for the Postal Service's fleet - which is 220,000 vehicles strong - through...
...more: Kinsley argues that last summer's high oil prices were essentially a tax on consumers; the money just went to oil companies instead of the government. But he forgets that oil companies do not have control over their prices. If they did, then why would oil prices ever drop? Kinsley's logic does not follow. Ryan Young and Drew Tidwell, Competitive Enterprise Institute, WASHINGTON...
...wood): Wall Street and Detroit, AIG and WaMu, Chrysler and Bernie Madoff. But the state has its problems, from layoffs by major employers to falling grain prices, bankrupt ethanol plants and state budget woes. And some of those recent scary national headlines - "U.S. Loses 533,000 Jobs in Biggest Drop Since 1974," "Recession Propels Skid in Housing Sales, Prices," "Retail Sales Are Weakest in 35 Years," "In Need of Cash, More Companies Cut 401(k) Match" - are translating into tangible, tell-tale signs on the street where I live. (See Obama's agenda for getting the U.S. back on track...
...Japan's exports declined 14.5% in November, the largest monthly drop since the country started compiling such data in 1975. Toyota recently warned that in its coming fiscal year it would suffer its first annual operating loss in the company's 70 years. The carmaker also plans to suspend production at all 12 of its Japanese factories for 11 days in February because consumers worldwide aren't buying. Masafumi Yamamoto, head of foreign-exchange strategy for Japan at Royal Bank of Scotland, says a 10% appreciation of the yen slashes the GDP growth rate by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points...