Word: vilas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...recent Wednesday afternoon, Montserrat Vila sat in her Barcelona apartment, waiting for the bullfighters to appear. They were not coming to show off some cape work in her living room. In fact, they were not real bullfighters at all. Rather, the three men, dressed like matadors in garish tight pants and embroidered jackets, were coming to collect a debt...
...this country, they treat people who owe money worse than criminals," says Vila, 49, an employee of a health-insurance company. Earlier this year, she fell behind on her mortgage payments. On March 31, she received a call from an unidentified collection agency that said it worked with the bank who had issued her mortgage and informed her that the next day it would be sending three bullfighters to "take up a collection" on her behalf from her neighbors. "I'm a serious person. I've paid my bills my whole life," says Vila. "This is a really painful situation...
...Barcelona, Montserrat Vila is similarly unafraid to meet her costumed fate. The threatened toreros didn't appear that afternoon, but she is ready for them whenever they do - with a garden hose set to spray from her apartment balcony. "I owe money, that's all. I'm not ashamed of that," she says. "They're the ones who should be ashamed...
...Marc Martos-Vila, a professor of finance at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, says it might also be about the state of financial markets. Mergers and buyouts, he notes, often come in waves. "The first merger tells the market something, and then other companies, to be competitive, try to make a move," he says. First Lehman, then Merrill, then ... But does this mean the stand-alone investment bank is no longer viable? "In the short term, it doesn't seem like it is," Martos-Vila says. "But when confidence is restored in the market and they move to another...
...Clinton and Obama have both pledged to support self-determination for Puerto Rico, which appeals to both parties, although Obama has suggested that he supports a constitutional assembly to address the issue, a bit of a shout-out to commonwealthers. Obama has snagged the endorsement of Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila, who presides over the commonwealth party's machine, and is running for reelection even though he's under indictment for campaign finance violations, allegations which he denies. But commonwealthers like former Gov. Carlos Romero Barcelo support Clinton, as does Senate President and statehooder Kenneth McClintock, while the statehooder vying...