Word: last
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...when world markets collapsed last year, so did Dubai's real estate market, leaving developers like Nakheel struggling to finish projects and pay suppliers. Speculators fled, and thousands of expatriates and locals who had bought into the dream were left owning unfinished condos or houses they could not sell. Residential real estate prices have fallen by almost half in the past year, the deepest decline anywhere in the world. (Read: "How Wall Street's Bust Threatens Dubai's Boom...
...Since the global financial crisis hit, the more sober Gulf economies have fared relatively well. Not only is the Middle East less integrated into global financial market than other regions, but oil prices have risen again since their initial decline last year. Unlike Dubai, the oil economies of the Middle East have been more sober during the boom years, putting their money in massive infrastructure projects, building cultural institutions, and keeping big piles of cash on hand for a rainy day. Dubai may want to do the same...
...realize that part of what got us here was overspending, and that that overspending was fostered by a shopping culture that uses cheap goods to hook people on feeling like they're winning at something. As a country, we held nearly $1 trillion in credit-card debt this time last year-about the same as the value of all the goods and services produced in South Korea annually. We've bought so much stuff that we've struggled to find places to fit it all. The U.S. went from having 300 million square feet of self-storage space...
...long they expected any of their stuff to last. For that's the other big trade-off we make for low-priced goods-often cheap simply means cheap. Shell likes to tell the story of how she once bought three blenders in quick succession; the flimsy blades were no match for the ice that goes into smoothies. When "low cost" is the marketing trope we most respond to, quality easily falls by the wayside. And that state of affairs, Shell concludes based on the response to her book, bothers no one as much as the less affluent people who inexpensive...
Preliminary data indicates Black Friday sales got off to a roaring start this year, with consumers shopping earlier and online sales increasing significantly over last year...