Word: german
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...wheel stares back at them. That's because the venerated Stuttgart sports-car manufacturer on Monday inflicted losses estimated to be as high as $38 billion on hedge funds, banks and other investors who had been short-selling Volkswagen stock. It was more than just patriotic fervor that got Germans cheering this week when shares in VW shot up to more than $1,276, making it, for a few minutes on Tuesday, the most valuable company in the world. It was plenty of schadenfreude, too, directed at these big foreign investor firms whose acquisition of German companies in the past...
...Although none are openly licking their wounds, the losses are believed to have affected a number of stalwart hedge funds. Commentators across the board blamed Porsche for causing chaos on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange this week. The daily Die Welt called Porsche the biggest German hedge fund, and criticized Germany's lax disclosure laws. Porsche has been stealthily building a stake in VW and it only retained the element of surprise because German law did not require disclosure of the positions that account for more than 30% of its stake in VW. "Only when it is no longer possible...
...Haider was killed in a high-speed car accident on Oct. 11. Since then, Europe's newspapers, especially those in Germany, have published stories and photographs of the leader surrounded by young men in what the newspapers call gay bars. "Was Haider Living a Double Life?" the mass-market German daily Bild blared this week. A later story showed photographs of Haider's deputy, Stefan Petzner, in low-cut jeans, a dolphin tattooed...
...Several German and European commentators took Petzner's comments as confirmation of Haider's sexuality, though the party denied that his description should be taken in that way. Following the interviews, Petzner was passed over as parliamentary leader for the party. "Either he explains what was so special about his relationship with Haider, or he stops playing the role of successor and widow at the same time," blogged the editor of Austrian newspaper Die Presse, Michael Fleischhacker...
...fact, the current round of attention could work in the far right's favor, says Hofer. Haider was a divisive figure who once referred to the members of Nazi Germany's Waffen SS as deserving of as much honor as any German soldier, and who praised Hitler's employment policies. But the emotion and media frenzy around his death, which Hofer compares to England's trauma over the passing of Princess Diana, has distracted people from Haider's far-right legacy. Haider's party will contest elections in the province of Carinthia next spring. Few observers doubt that the party...