Word: banking
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Like so many writers' lives, Lessing's has been an improbable one. Her parents were English, and her father sought his fortune as a bank clerk in Persia, then as a bush farmer in Rhodesia, with limited success. Lessing bridled at their strict Edwardian mores and left school at 13 - that was the end of her formal education, although she continued to read voraciously. She left home at 15, moved to England and became associated with the Communist movement. Her writing career began in earnest in 1950 with her first novel, The Grass Is Singing...
...during which low-cost Chinese production helped to maintain unusually stable prices for manufactured goods around the world is coming to an end. This view isn't held just by a few lonely bears in the wilderness. In his new book and in recent newspaper interviews, former U.S. central-bank chairman Alan Greenspan has been emphasizing that prices for Chinese exports have started to rise, which will contribute to a revival of global inflation. Ben Simpfendorfer, China strategist for the Royal Bank of Scotland, puts it succinctly: "Where China was a deflationary influence over the last 10 years, it will...
...wide range of other commodities for the past several years. But what's really worrying many economists is the sudden appearance of relatively high inflation within China and the ripples that might cause abroad. Despite five interest-rate increases this year by China's central bank, the country's consumer price index has been stubbornly on the rise. In August, inflation climbed to a 6.5% annual rate, the fastest clip in more than 10 years...
...pattern continues, things could get complicated for central bankers around the world, and for U.S. central-bank chairman Ben Bernanke in particular. Beset by a slowing economy amid the subprime loan meltdown, Bernanke is trying to ease interest rates without triggering higher inflation. Additional inflationary pressure from one of America's largest trading partners will undermine his ability to reduce rates further to prevent the U.S. economy from stalling. He's not likely to get much help from Beijing, which has its own priorities and a limited set of tools to rein in consumer prices. Efforts to cool economic growth...
...Part of the difficulty for China's central-bank chief, Zhou Xiaochuan, is that the country lacks reliable statistics on which to base economic projections and policies. "They're driving at night without good headlights," says Stephen Green, Shanghai-based economist with Standard Chartered. Another problem is that monetary and fiscal policies are intimately tied up with politics. For example, Chinese President Hu Jintao's centerpiece program of building a "harmonious society" by raising wages and improving state services such as health care for poorer workers plays well with the masses, but may undermine efforts to contain inflation...