Word: importance
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...many of Mexico's largest companies, some now in the vanguard of going global. They benefited from their proximity to the U.S. and from imitating its business culture. (The Dallas Cowboys count about 1,400 Monterrey fans as season-ticket holders.) They also bulked up on Mexico's earlier import-substitution policies, which positioned them well for the challenges and opportunities when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into force in January 1994. The lion's share of $200 billion of foreign investment that has rolled in since then--two-thirds from the U.S.--went to the north...
...overlap in Mexico's and China's exports. As a consequence, the maquila operations along the border have bled 800,000 jobs in recent years. Infrastructure investment has dropped off so much in Mexico that for relatively light goods, it is just as cheap for the U.S. to import from China as from southern Mexico. And although a Mexican wage earner is paid three times as much as his Chinese counterpart, high domestic prices undercut, and nearly level out, his purchasing power. (Conversely, high domestic prices also push up those wages, further undermining Mexican firms' competitiveness.) "For Latin America, China...
...pursuit, the perquisite of an ivory-tower class, an ecstatic act of mental masturbation? And if it is the last, who cares? Am I disturbed by possibly devoting my life to something so solipsistic? Or does the persistence of a literary public give the study of literature some genuine import...
...issues! The evil of partisanship is when a person says, “I support the (blank) Party because I am a (blank).” Using the means available to you to pr omote freedom, fiscal responsibility, stem cell research, civil rights, or other issues of import is a noble thing to do, though it should be done with propriety...
...Next Big Thing in the wine world, following in the footsteps of Japan and South Korea, which have both developed into substantial export markets. So far, it hasn't happened. "The feeding frenzy about China is not reflected in the size of the market," says Ian Ford, a wine importer in China. Wine sales in China are rising, but they are still tiny; Chinese consumption is a minute 0.3 L per head per year, one-tenth the Japanese level, and 90% is locally made. So far there is almost nothing in between those rough concoctions and the big-name wines...