Word: oiling
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...Like many facilities at Harvard, the House system was a gift. Unsurprisingly, it was a gift from a wealthy white man. Surprisingly, this particular man was a Yalie named Edward Stephen Harkness. With millions from his shares in the Rockefellers’ golden swan, Standard Oil, Harkness was a philanthropic plutocrat in the tradition of Carnegie, Mellon, and Rockefeller himself. After being rebuffed by Yale, Harkness came to University President A. Lawrence Lowell in the fall of 1928, offering over $3 million to build a residential college system that would “bring into each group men from different...
...Recent deals with Brazil and China highlight Beijing's ability to use loans a means of securing energy supplies. In mid-February, Beijing negotiated a $10-billion loan to Brazil's state-owned oil company Perobras, as well as a $25-billion loan to Russia's state-run oil company Rosneft. Both companies' revenues have plummeted in recent months as crude oil prices fell by more than two-thirds. China offered large cash amounts in a tight credit market, but rather than require that the loans be serviced and repaid in cash, Brazil and Russia will repay the loans...
...China's shopping spree has gone far beyond oil. The Australian government is examining a bid by the Aluminum Corp. of China or Chinalco to buy an 18% stake of the heavily indebted minerals giant Rio Tinto, for about $19.5 billion. It is also considering a bid by the Beijing trading company Minmetals to buy Australia's mining company Oz Minerals for about $1.7 billion - enough to wipe out that company's debt. Meanwhile, Chinese president Hu Jintao made a five-country swing around Africa in early February, signing deals in Tanzania and Madagascar on agriculture and telecommunications, and promising...
...around Europe. The delegates signed more than $10 billion worth of deals in Germany alone, and another $400,000 worth of deals on a brief stop in Switzerland. Next stop was Spain, where the Chinese party bought about $320 million worth of goods ranging from auto parts to olive oil. Finally, in Britain they signed deals worth about $2 billion, including ordering 13,000 Jaguar cars. And while thousands of German auto workers marched in protest at layoffs in the country's debt-ridden auto industry, the Chinese delegates signed a deal to buy $2.2. billion worth of BMWs...
...China's buying spree has, however, been selective. The United States was conspicuously absent from its global shopping itinerary. The last major Chinese bid to buy a U.S. company ended in diplomatic disaster, when the China National Offshore Oil Corp. or CNOOC offered to buy the California oil company Unocal in 2005, in a deal worth about $18.5 billion, and a backlash in Congress prompted the angry Chinese to withdraw the offer. Unocal was finally sold to Chevron. More recent Chinese investments in the U.S. have also fared badly: Beijing has lost billions in recent months from investments in Morgan...