Word: slumps
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...Thursday brought dreaded confirmation that markets look set to remain in tank mode until they find reason for taking heart anew. In addition to the 11.4% slump of Nikkei - its biggest single-day drop since the October, 1987 crash - trading Thursday elsewhere in Asia pushed Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 4.8%, South Korea's down 9.44%, and Singapore Straights Times Index down 5.5%. Europe faired no better, with London's FTSE 100 and Paris' CAC 40 indices reflecting mid-morning declines of nearing 2.5%, and Frankfurt's Dax off 1.3%. Market commentators warned that trading could see-saw throughout...
...lengthy productivity slump beginning in the early 1970s that created concern among economists such as Krugman. Low productivity growth explained much of what had gone wrong with the U.S. economy: stagnant wages, high inflation, ground lost to Japan. But what caused it? The most convincing explanation came from Northwestern University's Robert J. Gordon. In the early and mid-20th century, he argued, the U.S. benefited from a spectacular confluence of technological innovation involving electricity, the internal combustion engine, petrochemicals and communications. By the 1970s the economic impact of innovation in these fields had waned, and nothing came along...
...dream locales, but two destinations trump all others: Bali and the southern Thai island of Phuket. It is on these two chunks of land, a mere 2,400 square miles (6,200 sq km) combined, that thousands of expatriates have bought tropical vacation homes. Indeed, a global real estate slump notwithstanding, Bali and Phuket's residential sectors are still booming, in part because most of the foreign-owned property on these two islands isn't bank-financed. In Bali, despite a pair of terrorist bombings in 2002 and '05, land prices have increased by at least 20% annually over...
This grim outlook presents some particularly tricky challenges to those in charge. In previous downturns, such as the early 1990s slump, governments typically ramped up state spending in order to offset the drop in business activity. But this time, the gigantic cost of bank bailouts will leave national treasuries with little room for maneuver. Indeed, the bailout plans - under which stricken banks will receive direct injections of taxpayer money to strengthen their capital base, while governments provide guarantees aimed at getting banks to lend to one another again - may well throw government finances seriously out of kilter...
...everyone is so lucky. Recent industry research shows that falling purchasing power and consumer fear of a looming downturn have caused spending in France's cafés and restaurants to slump around 20% this year. Nearly 3,000 of the nation's restaurants closed down or went bankrupt in the first half of 2008. That wave of failure may well rise as newcomers who relied on credit to get started find themselves stretched to make their payments as revenues slump. "If I were 30, starting out with loans to reimburse, I'd be in big trouble," says Bonduel, relieved...