Word: mart
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Varian, Google's chief economist, said that the current economic climate, rather than hurting Google, could well help it. "When there is a recessionary period, people are counting their pennies and looking for bargains," he said, noting that at Google, this is known as "the Wal-Mart Effect." He added: "We think this kind of effect could actually work to Google's benefit." Indeed, it could work better at Google, where everything is free, than at Wal-Mart...
...Rafael Martín, the mayor of the town of Alameda de la Sagra, says he's most concerned about the impact of the slump on his neighbors, some of whom are already in difficult circumstances because their mortgage payments have jumped while their shifts have been reduced. "It doesn't just affect the people who work in the brick factories," he notes. "It affects the truckers who transport the bricks, and the mechanics who take care of the trucks, and eventually even the bars where those workers go for a drink. It's like the fish that bites...
According to Rafael Martín, the mayor of Alameda de la Sagra, the town's coffers have seen a drastic reduction in income - from an average of $140,000 in recent years to $35,000 - as building license fees have dried up. Although he is determined not to cut social services, he predicts that some planned investments will be revisited in the coming year. "Instead of building a new traffic circle or installing new streetlamps all at once," he says, "we'll have to spread them out over two or three years." But he's most concerned about...
...export-driven economy will suffer in a global slowdown, but the country is in a better position than many to ride out the storm, argues Kroeber of Dragonomics. "Commodity price are falling, reducing the price of manufacturing. And in any case, China makes the things you buy in Wal-mart and people will keep shopping there. It's countries that produce more high-end goods that will be worse affected...
People like Maureen O'Hare, whom I found shopping for shoes in the Sedalia Wal-Mart with her daughter Ashley Smith and bright-eyed 2-year-old grandson Traven. Sedalia is an old railroad town of about 20,000 people - a population essentially unchanged in the past 90 years. George W. Bush won two-thirds of the vote in Sedalia and surrounding Pettis County in 2004, and one of those votes belonged to O'Hare. But after years of voting for Republicans, she told me, she feels compelled to change horses. Of Obama, she said simply, "I think he would...