Word: interestingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...never change. Unlike in the 1990s, a lack of proactive government policy threatens to make the situation worse for ordinary Japanese. Contrast the Japanese government's inaction in the face of recession with the steps the U.S. has taken in the past nine months, among them a series of interest-rate cuts and tax rebates. No wonder the Japanese public exhibits so little confidence in the administration of Yasuo Fukuda, whose approval ratings bottomed out at just above 20% in May before recovering marginally after he reshuffled his Cabinet...
...fair, the administration has some severe constraints on its ability to use fiscal and monetary tools to stimulate growth. Government debt stands at a whopping 160% of GDP, so the country can't readily spend its way back to prosperity. Cut interest rates? Not when the Bank of Japan's policy rate already stands at 0.5%. Still, Fukuda and his newly appointed Cabinet ministers have options...
...sense when revenues are falling due to a slumping economy. Cutting spending now to reduce the budget deficit will only make a recession worse. This does not mean Tokyo should return to its failed policies of the 1990s by spending freely on wasteful construction projects and subsidies to special-interest groups. It means only that the government should accept modest deterioration of its balance sheet during an economic downturn...
...Pepper also has old distribution deals with Coke and Pepsi bottlers, which Goldman Sachs analyst Judy Hong describes as a "potential Achilles' heel." According to Hong, "there is an inherent conflict of interest because Pepper's distribution platforms are also its largest competitors'," and as an example, she cites Pepsi's Sierra Mist displacing 7Up as the No. 2 lemon-lime brand, behind Sprite, in part because Pepsi Bottling stopped distributing...
...campaign was the most sarcastic in memory. He's right: sarcasm comes naturally to the fighter jock. He disdains all those - his colleagues in the Senate, his political opponents - who aren't as courageous as he thinks he is. But McCain has proved a selective maverick, surrounded by special-interest lobbyists who shape his foreign and fiscal policies. In fact, I suspect that this year's McCain is closer to the real thing than the noble 2000 version. This one is congenitally dark, the opposite of Reagan - not confident enough in the substance of his ideas, especially on domestic policy...