Word: polle
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...future of Swiss banking secrecy, long a bone of contention among Switzerland, the U.S. and the European Union, also looks to come through this scandal unscathed. In a recent SBA poll, 91% of respondents favored the protection of their privacy in financial matters. "It's an expression of mutual trust between the Swiss state and its citizens," SBA's Nason says. "The government is able to secure its tax revenues without having to trample on privacy by demanding an automatic right of forced entry into bank accounts. The Swiss take great pride in this arrangement and reward it with...
...wealth and population density are different from those in the rest of Japan. But dissatisfaction with leadership is running high. Japan is reeling from a jobless rate that has reached a five-year high of 5.2%, and industrial output is down one-third from a year ago. A recent poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper showed that 41% of Japanese would vote for the DPJ in a general election, while just 24% would cast ballots for the LDP. "Ordinary people are seeking a change of government," says Takao Toshikawa, editor of political newsletter Tokyo Insideline. "I dare say that...
...Even where it did score well in the survey, Team France suffered stinging humiliation. Not only were the French denied the Best Dressed championship by the Italians, for example, but they lost second spot to the Brits - whose fashion sense is usually likened to that of the poll's slob champs, the Yanks. France's fourth-place finish for "Most Quiet" was tarnished by the Wagnerian-lunged Germans' walking off with the bronze. (See pictures of East Germany making light of its past...
...chagrined French reaction (and TIME.com's coverage of the 2008 poll) shows, the Expedia survey gets a lot of attention. This year's best-ranked tourists - the Japanese were followed by English, Canadian, German and Swiss travelers - are likely to point proudly to the outcome as a paragon of scientific accuracy. But this third annual bruising of French pride should be taken with a pinch of salt. There are several aspects of the survey that make its methodology suspect - and results significantly skewed. The poll ranks 27 nations' travelers over nine behavioral categories. But it questioned just 4,500 respondents...
...Moreover, because the lingua franca of international hotel staffs is English, notoriously monolingual Americans, Brits and Australians probably rank higher than they should. The French readily volunteer that their practice of foreign languages leaves much to be desired, but even the harshest Francophobe would mock the poll's finding that the average Yank tourist is the better polyglot. At least that's what French travelers might argue...