Word: reals
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...books look far healthier than they were. Investigators following the paper trail have discovered that embezzled funds were channeled into 1,065 properties valued at $74 million, including some 6,000 acres of land, 40,000 sq. yd. of housing plots, and 90,000 sq. ft. of other developed real estate. The properties, bought in the name of some 80 shell companies, included prime commercial plots in and around Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Nagpur. (See the worst business deals...
...rulers of the United Arab Emirates city-state of Dubai have for months breezily dismissed concerns about Dubai World, the government's main holding company for investments and real estate developments. "We are not worried," said Dubai's Emir, Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, at a press conference two months ago, despite the fact that Dubai has debts that are at least 100% of GDP - and may be closer to 125%. When critics later complained that Dubai had no realistic plans for paying off its debts, al-Maktoum told them to "shut up." But on Thursday, as Dubai...
...ambition. The Gulf emirate, which unlike the other emirates that join to form the U.A.E., has little oil or gas, and so has concentrated on building itself up as a vibrant business and transport hub and the home to some of the world's biggest, flashiest and most modern real estate. To lure in the masses, Dubai promoted itself as an income tax free resort for the world's rich and upper middle class. Dubai's master planners developed a signature over-the-top style geared to the tastes of newly minted wealth - an indoor ski slope, a luxury condominium...
...when world markets collapsed last year, so did Dubai's real estate market, leaving developers like Nakheel struggling to finish projects and pay suppliers. Speculators fled, and thousands of expatriates and locals who had bought into the dream were left owning unfinished condos or houses they could not sell. Residential real estate prices have fallen by almost half in the past year, the deepest decline anywhere in the world. (Read: "How Wall Street's Bust Threatens Dubai's Boom...
...where does all this leave the nation's reputation for machismo? "The real macho today pushes the limit," argues Caputo. "The real macho is transgression." In that view, from all sides of the political and sexual spectrum, Italy appears more macho than ever...