Word: marketized
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What should we make of the housing market now? The past few days have seen a cascade of new data about house prices, home sales and troubled loans. The broad takeaway is that the market continues to steady. But behind the headline numbers are plenty of signs that the sector is still fragile - and that our housing-related troubles are far from definitively over...
...monthly home-price declines started dropping (that is, the housing situation looked to be moving from really bad to less bad). That momentum didn't stick, though, owing to the broader economic downturn. This time around, a first-time homebuyer tax credit is giving a huge boost to the market - nearly a third of buyers now fall into that camp. If the feds don't extend that tax credit when it sunsets at the end of November, will the current housing-recovery momentum peter? It's a great question with an unknowable answer...
...Furthermore, just because house prices overall may be rebounding, that doesn't mean everyone benefits. Looking at the Case-Shiller data broken down by house price makes clear that the high end of the housing market is still in trouble. For low- and mid-tier houses - roughly, those costing less than $430,000 - prices in June rose between 2.3% and 2.6%. For more-expensive houses, prices nudged up just...
...mafias that are waging a bloody turf war in Mexico. More than 12,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in the past three years. The cartels make an estimated $30 billion smuggling narcotics north to American users and some $5 billion more selling to the Mexican market. "It is illogical to have a law that allows drug consumption but does not control where it is coming from," says Representative Enrique Cardenas, who voted against the bill. "It will only fuel corruption and dealing...
...Strident Hindu nationalism worked in the 1990s, channeling upper-caste Hindu resentment at the rising political power of the lower castes, and giving voice to urban middle-classes who backed pro-market, liberalizing reforms. Back then, the BJP successfully occupied a nationalist space ceded to it by a weakened Congress - staging events harking back to an idealized Hindu past, such as the theatrical "rath yatra" (literally, a chariot ride, but used here to allude to the mythical Lord Rama's quest to slay the evil Ravana) that motivated frenzied crowds of Hindus to demolish an ancient mosque in December...