Word: visaed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...general store was seized by armed guards, Lage’s father boarded one of the “freedom flights” inaugurated by President Lyndon B. Johnson, taking him to the United States. When Lage’s grandfather tried to apply for a visa out of Cuba, he was thrown into a work camp for six years before finally receiving clearance to leave. Balmori’s grandfather had a similar experience in which he was forced to do manual labor before the communist regime would grant him a visa. At age 14, Balmori?...
What gives with Visa? One possibility is that the company and its investment bankers are deluded and the IPO will crash and burn--but the current thinking on the Street is that it won't have trouble finding buyers. Another is that the financial types who've been crying crisis have been crying wolf. But the housing market is in its worst slump since the Depression. Some debt markets have completely stopped functioning. The overindebted American consumer is showing signs of great stress...
...there must be other explanations for why the company that is perhaps the greatest enabler of American (and, increasingly, global) consumption, born in 1958 as BankAmericard and rechristened Visa in 1976, has chosen now of all times to go public. One is that Visa makes its money (a $424 million profit in the last quarter of 2007, up 70% from a year earlier) from transaction fees, not lending, so it doesn't have to worry nearly as much as banks do about people making their credit-card payments. Another is that the banks that own Visa stand to make more...
...main reason Visa can contemplate an IPO now is that, for all the troubles, large parts of the global financial system continue to function just fine. If you have bad credit and want a mortgage or you run a private-equity firm and want to finance a $15 billion takeover, forget it. But if your credit's O.K. and you want to charge a trip to Hawaii or you're the profitable, growing leader of the global electronic-payments business and you want to raise $15-plus billion...
...another, and this year with more rate cuts from the Fed. These policies can't cure longer-run problems like the low savings rate and stagnant wages, and they'll probably have all sorts of unpleasant side effects (inflation, for one). But you don't have to work at Visa to think they're preferable to reliving the 1930s...