Word: interestingly
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...mind an unhappy precedent. Back in 1930, the Senate passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised duties on some 20,000 imported goods. Historians define this as one of the critical steps that led to the Great Depression - a tipping point when the world realized that partisan self-interest had trumped global leadership on Capitol Hill...
...That realization is causing a rapid shift in economic policies by governments that are increasingly concerned about maintaining growth. A few months ago, the biggest threat appeared to be inflation - running at double-digit rates in countries including Indonesia, India and Vietnam - which led Asian central bankers to hike interest rates, hoping to cool off overheating economies and keep a lid on rising costs. But inflation worries have eased with recent sharp declines in the prices of oil and other commodities. Now policymakers are opening the money taps again. In September China's central bank lowered its key interest rate...
...Consumer confidence is also being dented by sliding property prices. India's property market, which has seen 30% to 50% annual price growth in recent years, is weakening. "The sustained climate of high interest rates, combined with an equity bear market, has been putting downward pressure on pricing across real estate asset classes," says Raj Inamdar, chief investment officer at SRM Realty Advisors in New Delhi. China, where construction of commercial and residential projects has been especially rampant, may be facing "an imminent bust of a real estate bubble," Merrill Lynch warned in a September report. A recent survey...
...wife are young, educated, well-off - and worried. A member of India's growing consumer culture, Rege, 30, took out an adjustable-rate loan two years ago to buy an investment property near Bangalore, but his monthly payments have jumped because of tighter credit and rising interest rates. He has abandoned plans to get an M.B.A. because student loans are now too costly. The couple's stock portfolio has lost more than half its value since markets began melting down. "I feel scared, actually," Rege says of his crumbling finances. "You're sure for right now. But if things...
...comes the hangover as the middle class gets squeezed by soaring living costs - India's annual inflation rate is running at about 13% - and more expensive debt. Navtej Singh, a 48-year-old property agent in the northern state of Haryana, was horrified last month when the interest rate he pays on a $15,000 adjustable-rate home loan jumped from 9% to 12%. "There's no way I can [pay] that," he says. "I'll probably have to borrow from friends or relatives and curtail household expenses." Srinivas says a lot of people are in similar straits...