Word: grande
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...madness of the former real-estate bubble: "Can Flip's mortgage really be possible? Even if it is (and it can't be), I doubt it can be legal. A million dollars with no down payment, for two grand a month? It's an insult to money - an insult to the value of money. No wonder the L.A. real estate market has a problem with hyperinflation: the mortgage industry is printing its own banknotes...All I know is this: there is only one conservative, sensible, educated strategy when it comes to home ownership in L.A.. I must buy immediately...
...trust, entrust, believe,” credit depends on a threshold of trust to lubricate functioning capital markets. If financial institutions, as creditors, do not trust their debtors—be they individuals, investment funds, or other banks—these institutions will not lend. As the grand dame of economic historians, Anna Schwartz, said in October: “The basic problem for the markets is [uncertainty] that the balance sheets of financial firms are credible...
...right: it is interesting. It's one of the enduring paradoxes of the Grand Theft Auto games - or maybe the paradox lies in the culture around them? - that people who don't play them think of them as the epitome of mindless virtual violence, whereas in fact they are, with each installment, more and more radical and sophisticated experiments in storytelling. Depending on whether or not you're a gamer, this statement is either preposterous or so staggeringly obvious that it's almost not worth making. (See the top 10 video games...
...Grand Theft Auto IV tells the story of Niko, a haunted veteran of an unspecified, nameless East European conflict who washes up in Liberty City looking for a new life. (Liberty City is, like Gotham, a darker version of New York City, with satirical flourishes. The Statue of Liberty has been replaced by the Statue of Happiness, which holds aloft a coffee cup instead of a torch.) Over the course of the game, Niko slugs, shoots and carjacks his way up (or maybe down) the ladder of the criminal underworld. As he does so, he gradually realizes that...
...game's newest installment, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, which will be released on Feb. 17, Houser and his team have ratcheted up the complexity even further. Instead of extending Niko's story laterally by adding a straight-up sequel, they're drilling down into it vertically: they picked a minor character from Liberty City, a biker named Johnny, and created a story around him that takes place simultaneously with Niko's, weaving across and over and through...