Word: factor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What might be the driving factor that lowers holiday retail sales and stalls a much-anticipated economic recovery? Stingy spouses with children. According to a new survey from America's Research Group, a retail-consulting firm, 50.1% of parents plan on cutting back on gifts to each other this year. That figure is up from 44.4% last year, a surprising jump considering that the U.S. was in the depths of the financial crisis during the previous holiday season. "Parents want to maintain gift-spending levels for their kids, so they are showing more willingness to trim on each other," says...
...were hoping to qualify everyone, but [some other teams] had great days,” Kuzmuk said. “We were still pretty excited. Everyone trying to qualify as a team was a good motivating factor, so everyone was running hard...
That's true. While the cost of housing can be an obsession in other cities, Berlin's plentiful supply of inexpensive pads is a key factor in its appeal. A big overhang of cheap apartments and abandoned factories and warehouses in the formerly communist eastern half has depressed prices throughout the city. Studio space is to be had for next to nothing. Even in Mitte, the center of Berlin's new Szene, newly renovated apartments rent for less than one quarter of what you'd pay in London. That's a big draw. But Berlin isn't just cheap. Some...
...Like Chang, Chanos claims a "wholesale fudge factor" in Chinese statistics, including unemployment numbers. "Economic activity isn't necessarily building wealth," Chanos argues. "If you have to keep putting up the same bridge every five years because it falls into the river, you're going to show a lot of GDP growth as you keep rebuilding the bridge [but] you're not generating any wealth for your countrymen...
ASEAN leaders - who represent Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines - cried foul. After all, the U.S. didn't boycott the United Nations just because countries like North Korea or Sudan were members. And, in truth, Burma wasn't the only factor. With more pressing foreign-policy priorities in the Middle East, Washington was naturally distracted from courting other parts of the globe. Nonetheless Southeast Asian ministers couldn't help but spot a deliberate snub when then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice skipped two ASEAN summits that historically had been attended...