Word: lower
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...lack a credit score because they may never have had a credit card or mortgage and don't have enough credit history to generate a rating. These days, more and more banks are using the supplemental information, even with customers who have a credit score, in an effort to lower loan defaults...
...Here's how it works: if the price of buying a house divided by the cost of renting an apartment is higher than usual, then houses are more expensive than they should be. A lower-than-normal ratio suggests good value. Changes in these data are of interest not just to potential buyers trying to figure out if it's time to finally jump off the sidelines but also to current homeowners wondering how much more pain they're due for, as well as to policymakers angling to prop up prices. At TIME's request, Moody's Economy.com ran numbers...
...first pass, the data suggest we've largely come back to earth. The average price-rent ratio for the 54 metro areas Economy.com broke out was 19.8 for the three months through September, a couple of points higher than the 15-year average of 17.7 but significantly lower than where the ratio stood three years ago, 24.4. By doing some additional math (which we'll explain later), we can surmise that house prices still have to drop 4.6% over the next five years, assuming the price-rent ratio returns to normal over that period. Funny how that almost doesn...
...producing nations that raked in billions over the past few years now face a reckoning. Governments that didn't set aside any of their windfall, or shortsightedly budgeted on sky-high prices - and more than a few fall into both categories - are grappling with tumbling revenues. The reality of lower oil prices for countries such as Iran, Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela in 2009 is likely to include political unrest, massive cuts in public spending, and rocketing inflation and unemployment. "The brutality and speed of the price decline is a huge shock economically and politically for some of these countries," says...
...difference between the U.S. and the rest of the rich world is that for the past 30 years or so, Americans consistently rejected "government solutions" to the problems of health, poverty, education and the environment. We've kept our taxes as a share of national income lower than Europe's by focusing on the private sector. But we're getting much less for our money. Markets are great at providing consumer goods and services. We don't want the government running our restaurants, movie houses, bookstores and manufacturers. Markets are not so good, though, at some very important things...