Word: seriousness
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...They can still afford to pay but they decide not to," says Paola Sapienza, a finance professor at Northwestern University and one of the paper's authors. "It's very easy to do this in the U.S." Even though there are serious consequences to reneging on a home loan - including wrecked credit, not being able to buy another house for years to come, the cost of moving and the social stigma associated with being a person who does not honor one's commitments - lenders tend not to pursue former homeowners for the money they are owed because of the prohibitive...
...last serious disruption in global supplies came 30 years ago, during Iran's revolution, when oil-field workers joined a national strike, effectively taking Iran's 6 million bbl. a day off global oil markets. Back then, Iran's exports accounted for 10% of the world's oil supplies - compared with just 5% today. World oil prices tripled in nine months, from $12.80 a bbl. in September 1978 to $34.40 in June 1979, at the height of the Iran hostage crisis...
...Berlusconi is wrong. He is in serious trouble because of the current sex scandal, which now involves accusations that a big-time cocaine dealer was present at many of the Villa Certosa festivities. When he visited the site of the recent train accident, he was greeted by shouts of “Clown!” Berlusconi’s attempts to assert his power, his determined hubris, now seems not only pathetic, but also politically and literally dangerous...
...There were lower points because there were more dramatic events, like if you're building a camp for 1,100 people in the middle of the jungle and a border war breaks out and local people attack your camp and burn it to the ground. That's a serious sort of thing. Besides that, there were accusations that I was committing human rights abuses - which were all fabricated - and a tribunal was set up against me. These things are hard to handle, and of course I still feel the pain...
Canada geese are also prolific poopers, and with excretions adding up to as much as 1 lb. a day per bird, the health hazards are serious. The birds have been blamed for fecal contamination that has led to beach closings. "It's not just the geese, but what the geese leave behind," says John Moriarty, natural-resources specialist for Minnesota's Ramsey County parks...