Word: debts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Imagine you're a huge American company that has built its reputation on durability, reliability and being the biggest damn dog on the street. Then let's say you get into horrible, disastrous debt and have to go begging to the government, like a sad little stray. And then you still end up in Chapter 11. Your customers are peeved because they have to bail you out. Your frailty makes them wary of buying anything from you. And every wrong thing you've ever done (like, say, making the Pontiac Aztek,) nags at them like a stain...
...itself in the midst of restructuring after being bailed out by the Icelandic government in March. In Spain, once mighty Valencia is effectively controlled these days by local lender Bancaja, its major creditor, after hapless management and a soured stadium-development plan left the club about $725 million in debt. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
Chances are, there is much more unraveling - deleveraging, to be technical about it - to come. Gluskin Sheff's Rosenberg looked at the ratio of household debt to total net worth and figured that for things to fall back in line with where they've been historically, Americans would have to get rid of some $3 trillion to $5 trillion in debt over the next few years. (Read "Lidia Bastianich Saves Our Dough.") Lansing and San Francisco Fed colleague Reuven Glick ran a simulation of what would happen if U.S. consumers followed a path similar to that of Japanese businesses...
...that raises an interesting question: Why would we think that a debt-to-income ratio of 100% is sustainable? Well, for one thing, the economy has ostensibly evolved since the 1950s, and even since the 1980s. Advancements like securitized lending seem to have created a system in which interest rates are lower and consumers are able to shoulder more debt than they once were. The percentage of income that goes toward paying interest on debt went from 11% at the beginning of 1980 to 14% at the beginning of 2008, a much smaller jump than the increase in gross amount...
...Bongo set the paradigm for Africa in other ways too. What money he did spend on Gabon went on white-elephant prestige construction projects - a raft of new government buildings and a $2 billion transnational railway - which, when oil prices dipped, were funded by debt that spiraled out of control and threatened to bankrupt the country. And in politics, Bongo fixed elections for himself and bought off political opposition with money or power - despite its small size, Gabon has more than 40 Cabinet Ministers - or worse. Several opposition members were killed in the 1970s. In 1990, the mysterious death...