Word: slacks
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...also fueled by increased business investment financed in large part by governmental stimulus plans introduced late last year: $37 billion for France and $67 billion for Germany. But the economic engines revved up by those funds could still stall anew if organic activity doesn't pick up the slack. And that's not guaranteed to happen. Consumer spending also contributed to growth in France and Germany, thanks to falling prices. Those prices, though, will soon stabilize and start rising, which may act as a brake on growth in the near future. So, too could the widespread layoff plans currently being...
...desperate to reverse their fortunes in a down economy. However, consumers shouldn't be as giddy as they were, say, six months ago, when stores were running 70% clearance sales to shed their excess holiday inventory. Stores have wised up a bit and cut inventory levels to match the slack in demand. So while retailers may offer lean discounts, we're beyond the slash-and-burn era. "Consumers are going to see moderately priced value offerings," says George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants. "The really, really deep mark-downs aren't going to happen this year...
...bring the country to near civil chaos, as it did in 2006-07. Iraqis are beginning to believe that the Islamist radicals of al-Qaeda are too weak to coordinate the massive attacks of the past, and certainly not in Baghdad. But others appear to be picking up the slack. The Sunni Ahdamiya neighborhood used to see Shi'ite reprisal attacks for al-Qaeda killings. Nowadays, violence is constant though relatively lulled - and most of it, say locals, is perpetrated by political parties that have militia forces and are not shy about using arms against their rivals. The parties...
...daily at my project leader, urging her to dispense with her preconceptions, Polman’s argument seems applicable. Do my educated Ugandan colleagues at the NGO refuse to commit themselves to a minimal standard of efficiency because they know their slack will be picked up by one of the American, Australian, or Canadian workers here, or compensated for by funding from an international donor? This could be the case, considering that I eventually scheduled the interview with the microfinance director myself, without my project leader’s help...
...future, then, the U.S. will have to start living within its means - or at least a lot closer to them than it currently does. To keep this new American frugality from battering the global economy even more than it's been battered, somebody has to pick up the resulting slack in demand. Europe and Japan have been hit harder by the downturn than the U.S. has, and they have aging, slow-growing populations unlikely to ignite consumer booms. That leaves the BICs as pretty much the only remaining candidates. These economies are still too small to take...