Word: havoc
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...influenza virus has only eight genes--far fewer than the estimated 25,000 that human beings possess--but its simplicity hasn't stopped it from wreaking havoc on humanity for centuries. Even today, with vaccines and antivirals, normal seasonal influenza kills some 36,000 Americans each year. And every once in a while, it gets much worse. When new flu viruses arise and begin spreading easily, they can trigger global pandemics. Sometimes they're relatively mild, like the pandemics of 1957 and '68. But sometimes they can be as catastrophic as the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed as many...
...measure of the havoc wreaked on the world's banking system in recent months that the words chosen by bank bosses to convey the health of their business have lost all relative meaning. Victor Blank, chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, saw "exciting prospects for the group" in its first-half results unveiled Wednesday, Aug. 5. Northern Rock "is making progress," chief executive Gary Hoffman said of the British bank's half-year results announced a day earlier. "Our first-half performance," Barclays boss John Varley reckoned the day before that, was "a good start." At HSBC, chief exec Michael Geoghegan...
...predicting that a CIT failure would cause as much havoc in the financial market as the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers did last fall. CIT, which was founded 101 years ago, lends to hundreds of thousands of small businesses and also provides money to other firms, called factors, that help small businesses finance their day-to-day operations. In late 2008, the Treasury Department gave CIT $2.3 billion in federal assistance from TARP funds. But apparently, the Treasury Department's bar for bailouts has risen, and CIT isn't tall enough anymore. And while some bank stocks traded down on Thursday...
...that meteorological trickster with the deceptively innocent name, wreaks havoc on the world's weather. Caused by an unusual warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, El Niño can trigger storms, droughts and other weather disturbances around the planet, drying out normally wet areas and flooding dry parts. But there is a positive effect to El Niño: it tends to reduce the number of hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean. El Niños produce stronger vertical wind shear - the difference in wind speed and direction over a short distance - in the Atlantic, which inhibits the production...
...been living with a system of minority rule in which 34% of the legislature or a local community can stonewall the majority. Facing this post-Proposition 13 system, California's various interest groups have increasingly used the ballot box to protect themselves - but by so doing have mandated budgetary havoc...