Word: investments
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Italian boot, is today considered the most powerful organized-crime syndicate in Italy, surpassing the legendary Sicilian Mafia after having taken over much of the trafficking of South American cocaine into Europe. With billions in narcodollars, 'Ndrangheta is constantly on the lookout for ways to invest its ill-gotten cash in legitimate enterprises, explains Alberto Cisterna, a Rome-based magistrate who has long followed the Calabrian Mob. He says that high-profile urban centers are actually considered the best places for crooks to simultaneously hide their illicit wealth and evade taxes. "These criminal organizations see Rome and Milan as bona...
...trade would improve the competitiveness of Chinese exporters by reducing transaction costs and currency risks. By internationalizing the yuan, says HSBC's Qu, China can also begin extricating itself from the "dollar trap," in which the country, through its trade, amasses giant surpluses of dollars, which forces it to invest in dollar assets. This is why China, which holds $805 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, is the U.S.'s largest creditor. But this dollar hoard makes China's national wealth vulnerable to the whims of Washington's economic management. One of the reasons Beijing has been urging a gradual reduction...
...there signs that China is ready to ditch the dollar. Derek Scissors, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, points out that Chinese official holdings of U.S. Treasury bills have increased by 50% in the past 12 months, as China continues to invest its ever increasing stash of dollars. "Cheap talk aside, China is actually the biggest supporter of the dollar," says Scissors. "It has no choice." Don't expect to change those greenbacks for redbacks anytime soon...
...cranking out wind-farm technicians and video-game designers - jobs that, despite ballooning unemployment overall, abound for adequately skilled workers. Community-college graduates earn up to 30% more than high school grads, a boon that helps state and local governments reap a 16% return on every dollar they invest in community colleges. But our failure to improve graduation rates at these schools is a big part of the achievement gap between the U.S. and other countries. As unfilled jobs continue to head overseas, Obama points to the "national-security implication" of the widening gap. Closing it, according to an April...
...some community colleges. And if there aren't enough seats in classrooms, students can't get certificates or degrees, and skilled jobs remain unfilled. In short, as the Center for American Progress concluded in a February report, "America's future economic success may well depend on how we invest in two-year institutions...