Word: duds
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Although flooding has recently become commonplace in India - in 2008, over 3 million people were displaced when the Kosi river in Bihar burst its banks - but this year's deluge came as a shock because if followed a protracted drought, and a monsoon season branded a dud by the authorities. To experts who've tracked the effects of climate change, however, the flooding came as no surprise. In its fourth assessment report in 2007, the Inter- Government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that more extreme droughts, floods, and storms, would become commonplace in the future, and that these intense...
Last Sept. 15, the venerable investment-banking firm of Lehman Brothers--saddled with a lot of dud real estate investments and unable to persuade its jittery creditors to keep lending it money--filed for bankruptcy protection. It was the largest bankruptcy ever in the U.S., but the really big news was what happened afterward. First came a financial panic that threatened to shatter the global capitalist order, followed by an unprecedented--and unprecedentedly expensive--effort by governments on both sides of the Atlantic to patch things...
...right with the markets again. But last week's Shanghai surprise is a foretaste of what can happen if China's vaunted economic recovery turns out to be a dud. The country's better-than-expected GDP performance is one reason for the current view that the global economy is poised to resume growth, an optimistic reading that in turn is helping fuel investment rallies around the world. But stock markets anticipate the state of the economy and corporate earnings months in advance, so today's euphoria can turn into ashes if the reality falls short of expectations...
...around the world still have on their books. In its latest estimate this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) calculated that losses on these now virtually worthless securities could amount to $1.4 trillion. So far, banks have written off less than half that. Concern about who is still holding dud paper has gummed up credit markets, with banks refusing to lend to one another for fear that the borrowers may default or may have themselves lent to other banks that could default. That in turn is causing solvency problems for some financial institutions that rely on short-term borrowing...
...forget the cutaways. When your opponent is answering, you tend to think you're off camera. But you're not. If you scowl or shake your head, viewers are going to see it." And bad body language can turn any debate performance - hot or cold - into a dud...