Word: indexes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Meet the American consumer of late 2007. Sure, he's worried. Apart from a brief blip after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the University of Michigan's much watched Index of Consumer Sentiment hasn't been this low since 1992. But buying stuff is what we Americans do. The last outright decline in consumer spending came in 1991, and that was shallow and short-lived. Most indications are that this year's Christmas shopping season will be, if not exactly a blowout, better than the last...
...reduced from half the population at independence to just 5% today, as an affirmative-action policy created a prosperous Malay middle class that had never before existed. In Asia, only the nations of Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Brunei rank higher than Malaysia in the U.N.'s Human Development Index. Most impressively, while other multiethnic nations like Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka and Rwanda fractured into conflict, Malaysia has largely kept peace between groups that include Muslim Malays (about 50%); Buddhist and Christian Chinese (roughly 25%); Hindu, Sikh and Muslim Indians (less than 10%); and indigenous peoples, who abide by many faiths...
...media to maintain "peace and harmony" by blacking out debate over Islam's role in the state. The censorship disappoints journalists who were pleased when Abdullah initially allowed for more freedom of expression than predecessor Mahathir. In October, Malaysia received its worst-ever ranking in the worldwide press-freedom index compiled by watchdog Reporters Without Borders, falling by 32 places to No. 124. The drop was due, in part, to two separate cases in which a blogger and a publisher of an online newspaper were both pulled in for official questioning. "There's lots of intimidation toward people who speak...
...course, it's impossible to predict where China stocks are headed. The Shanghai index quickly rebounded from a scary one-day plunge of nearly 9% on Feb. 27. But recently, the warnings that shares are overvalued have become difficult even for inexperienced investors, accustomed to quick scores and relentlessly rising share prices, to ignore. Last month, a top official at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Tu Guangshao, said investors needed to "educate themselves" about market risks. "Some sort of correction was inevitable, and it's probably here," says economist Xie. Although many investors believed the government would do nothing...
...Falling, The Great Waste, The War of the Two Frances and The Middle Class Adrift. Talk-show guests and opinion columnists decry France's fading fortunes, and even the French rugby team's failure at the World Cup - held in France this year - was chewed over as an index of national decay. But most of those laments involve the economy, and Sarkozy's ascension was due largely to his promise to attend to them...