Word: basic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That may be because Bush doesn't believe the market's gyrations have much to do with the basic vitality of the economy. For plenty of Americans, especially the 60% who own stocks, they're one and the same. But Bush's view is "more old-fashioned," as an adviser puts it. To him, corporations and businessmen who produce things are the backbone of the economy, while the markets and investors are a vaguely sinister sideshow. Bush's first reaction to revelations of corporate misconduct was to assume the best. Yes, corporate America tripped up here and there...
Bush may cling to his belief that the market's woes won't affect the basic soundness of the economy, but he knows from his father's experience that politicians who don't appear to take voters' pocketbook fears seriously pay for their callousness at the polls. "This President is acutely aware of the impact of the economy, both on regular Americans and on Presidents," says Mark McKinnon, a campaign 2000 veteran who still advises Bush. "Americans fundamentally understand a President can't move the markets, but they want to be assured that he cares about it and is doing...
...generation ago, vast swaths of the Arabian Peninsula lacked the basic infrastructure of a modern society--roads, running water, electricity. Today nearly half the country's 22 million people live in Riyadh or Jidda, and Saudis make up the biggest market for U.S. consumer products in the Middle East. When they're not fighting city traffic in Cadillac SUVs, middle-class Saudis frequent gleaming shopping malls lined with designer brand names from the U.S. In a country where women are required to wear full-length abayas in public, you can catch Sex and the City on satellite TV every Friday...
...documentary also portrayed the violent struggle that many blacks in the South faced to gain such basic democratic rights as voting—with the violence inflicted leading to greater attention by national media and politicians to the hypocritical practices taking place in many southern states...
...tough tactics to end Palestinian terror attacks. Sharon's hands are increasingly tied by the costs of occupation. This week's austerity budget, which slashed almost $2 billion in the largest public spending cut in Israel's history, has been greeted by Israelis as the tearing up of the basic social-welfare compact that has anchored their society since its inception - and as the most dramatic indicator of the depth of the economic crisis that has accompanied the Palestinian uprising. Sharp differences over the economy and relations with the Palestinians is raising pressure on Sharon's Labor Party coalition partners...