Word: sectoral
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Even Entertainment Properties Trust, a publicly traded REIT that owns movie theaters, recently ventured into the vineyard business, purchasing at least three vineyards, all focusing on upscale grapes. Chief executive David Brain believes demographics will drive that sector for the next 10 to 15 years, and he expects average annual returns of about 10%. The demand has pushed the price per acre in Napa Valley's premium vineyards to between $200,000 and $300,000, up from between $125,000 and $180,000 in 2002, according to Tony Correia, president of Correia-Xavier Inc., a property appraiser in Fresno, Calif...
...Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly used the politically provocative term "rupture" to characterize the sweeping reforms he hopes will force a break with France's socio-economic past. On Thursday, Sarkozy will be getting his first major taste of opposition to his quest to create such a breach: massive public sector strikes that will not only shape the future of Sarkozy's entire reformist drive - but perhaps his entire presidency as well...
...will also be backed by other public employees involved in a contested pension reform: limited disruption is expected in schools due to striking teachers, for example, while the Paris Opera and Comédie Français have already canceled their programs for Thursday with virtually all their public sector staff set to walk out. At issue: the government's plan to require most public sector employees currently covered by "special regime" retirement schemes to work as much as 2.5 years before they qualify for full pensions. Thursday's strikes opposing that reform are anticipated to be the largest since...
...Though Thursday's strikes and protests will be a massive show of force by unions, the real key to their success is whether those stoppages can be replicated and sustained over time with greater numbers of public sector workers joining the walkouts - and convince public opinion to back their efforts. That kind of strong opposition, some pundits predict, could cause Sarkozy to effectively pull the "special regime" revision off the table in order to avoid the same kind of long, bitter, and economically disastrous conflict of 1995. But such a stand-down would also badly damage Sarkozy's tireless self...
...Sarkozy and his government were elected to power only months ago, after a majority of voters back his clearly defined program of reform," Parodi comments. "It's therefore difficult for a relatively small sector of the population to legitimately contend that one of the pillars of those reforms is somehow outrageous...