Word: wealth
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...biggest, flashiest and most modern real estate. To lure in the masses, Dubai promoted itself as an income tax free resort for the world's rich and upper middle class. Dubai's master planners developed a signature over-the-top style geared to the tastes of newly minted wealth - an indoor ski slope, a luxury condominium development with man-made islands arranged in the shape of a huge palm tree, and the tallest building anywhere...
...Philippines usually makes headlines for its long-running Muslim separatist rebellion. But the killings starkly exposed a nationwide malaise: the fierce competition for regional power among the country's small élite of a few hundred families and clans that control an inordinate amount of the national wealth - and the desperate lengths some will go to protect their hold on power...
...Murder has long been the ultimate political tool for eliminating rivals here. Those in the firing line are mainly at the level of local politics, such as governors, mayors and elected posts in community units called barangays. And, crucially, local government power can be a considerable source of wealth generation. "Many regard these posts as personal entitlements and their enemies are rival political families," says Benito Lim, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines. "If they cannot come to an arrangement, then eliminating a rival is an option." (Read a TIME cover story on boxer Manny Pacquiao...
...somewhere between 20% and 25%. The average European pays a much higher percentage in overall budget every time they buy something, but European governments give it back in the form of social benefits. American social benefits tend to be limited to the poor, so there's a much clearer [wealth] redistribution through the tax system than there is in Europe...
...Like Chang, Chanos claims a "wholesale fudge factor" in Chinese statistics, including unemployment numbers. "Economic activity isn't necessarily building wealth," Chanos argues. "If you have to keep putting up the same bridge every five years because it falls into the river, you're going to show a lot of GDP growth as you keep rebuilding the bridge [but] you're not generating any wealth for your countrymen...