Word: markets
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...state had usury laws in the 1920s, and they were circumvented one by one. Prohibitions against excessive interest started to disappear [South Dakota, for instance, loosened its laws in 1980], and once they did, the credit-card companies recognized a wonderful opportunity. They could charge as much as the market would bear, claiming that they had to charge more for bad credit risks. You can argue that's the democratization of credit, but it's in the interest of credit-card companies to keep people under the yoke. We've just swapped loan sharks for legitimate loan sharks. (See pictures...
...that one of the major myths about American society is that we used to be prudent with our money and only recently did we go astray. What's the real history? Americans are speculative people. During and after the Civil War, for instance, there was a lot of stock market and commodities speculation - people trying to make a quick buck. But it was only when financial institutions picked up on that and provided the methods whereby you could buy now and pay later - that very simple concept - that things started to change structurally. Now Americans are more highly leveraged than...
While toy company Mattel could barely keep up with demand for its Barbie dolls in the early 1960s, its competitor, Hasbro, realized the market had no analogue for boys. In 1963, Hasbro began development on a military-themed line of dolls that, like Barbie, could be accessorized with different outfits and equipment. The original strategy called for a different figure for each branch of the military, but seizing on a 1945 film called The Story of G.I. Joe, the toys were eventually genericized. (The term itself comes from World War II, where it was used as a shorthand symbol...
...probably too late for Germany to do anything about its black market in clunkers. The abuse could have been prevented if lawmakers had also created a control system to track each car from the point of hand over to the scrap heap. And the police could have prosecuted dealers who sell the cars instead of scrapping them if lawmakers had made it a crime. Instead, the hands of the police are tied, and as Germany's cash-for-clunkers program runs its course - it's limited to 2 million cars - public interest in cases of abuse will likely fade...
...have to move somewhere with the freedom of speech to share my feelings with others," says the producer. He says that operating as an artist in Iran has become almost impossible because of the heavy-handed Internet filters that block the social-networking sites he relies on to market his music. "When I get out of the country, I will show [the government...