Word: poore
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...poor timing of a Texas drought: "The dry spell continues to grip much of the District. Wheat and oat crops are suffering from lack of moisture. Grazing conditions are poor as well...Hay stocks are low and feed costs remain high, forcing some ranchers to cull their herds. District dairy producers report weak conditions...
...have read news pieces about cutbacks at factories in some part of the country far from where you live. But, as dry as much of the Federal Reserve Beige Book can be, there's something calming about its comprehensiveness, a sense of solidarity in misery. Oil extraction is poor in Texas, restaurants in San Francisco are doing badly, and the peanut industry - let's not talk about the peanut industry. The Fed predicts things are going to get worse over the next year. Flip through this report, despair, then go watch a Pixar flick...
...rebates, much of which, as economist Nouriel Roubini argues, will most likely be saved, not spent. A big chunk of the rest of the package will go, via the states, toward social services: increased unemployment benefits, more money for food stamps and for health-care spending for the poor and the elderly...
...other words, Washington is providing lots of funding for "social safety net" programs - precisely the kind of programs that poor and unemployed Chinese really need and the government barely provides. Meanwhile, China is throwing money at infrastructure projects to a degree that the U.S. - with its creaky bridges, potholed roads, crumbling schools and obsolete airports - hasn't seen in decades. There is some infrastructure spending in the U.S. plan, to be sure, but not enough, many economists believe, to deliver a real jolt to a moribund economy...
...their back if they get sick or lose their job. Beijing spends only 5% of GDP on health care, pensions, unemployment benefits and other social services. (U.S. social-welfare spending as a percentage of GDP is about 20%.) That is a depressingly low figure, even for a relatively poor developing country. I recently interviewed a migrant worker from Sichuan province who several months ago broke his arm in an industrial accident. He's back home now, without a job, without unemployment benefits, and has no access to health care to treat his arm, which still pains him "to the point...