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insolvency

(ECONOMICS) crisis created when a government or firm cannot pay its obligations in any reasonable time frame. Often confused with illiquidity, which is a when an entity suffers a temporary shortage of cash.

When a firm has assets that are greater than liabilities, it is solvent. In a lot of cases, the management of a firm runs out of ways to make money with the assets it has, so it "invests" in poor quality assets with high risk of default (for example, by lending money to borrowers using inflated housing prices as collateral).
Most of the time, insolvency is the result of corrupt or feckless management. In a few cases, however, it can be the result of a vicious cycle in which a well-managed company's customers all become insolvent first.
by Abu Yahya May 5, 2010
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Usonian

Of or related to the United States of America; term coined by Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to his new ideal for architecture. This word is preferable to "American" since there are dozens of countries in North and South America. In some Latin American countries, such as Brazil, the use of "American" to refer to US nationals is considered offensive and officially discouraged.
While Canadians and Usonians share a common heritage and close proximity, there are some subtle cultural differences.
by Abu Yahya October 16, 2008
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News Corp

(BUSINESS & MEDIA) 3rd largest media holding company in the world; US holdings include Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and Dow Jones; in the UK, News of the World, *The Sun*, *The Sunday Times*, & The Times (London); and a couple dozen papers in Australia, plus Sky Broadcasting. News Corp also owns HarperCollins & 20th Century Fox.

News Corp is fairly aggressive for a holding company in actually imposing a unified strategy and brand identity on its holdings. It was created by Rupert Murdoch from News, LTD. (a firm created by Murdoch's father, Sir Keith) in 1979, a few years after he went on a media buying spree in the USA. Murdoch became a US citizen so he could legally own US TV stations. The Murdoch family owns 29% of News Corp; Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal owns 7%.

News Corp launched Fox News in 1996 to compete with CNN; shortly before this, News Corp also launched the neoconservative magazine *The Weekly Standard* with William Kristol as its editor.
News Corp is not as large as Walt Disney or Time Warner, but it has been far more successful as a business model than its larger competitors. That's mainly because Murdoch focused on finances and political strategy, whereas the other media conglomerates remain unwieldy, random agglomerations. It's like a battle between a remorseless bulldozer and a large heap of sand.
by Abu Yahya September 1, 2010
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U-4

(ECONOMICS) Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly publishes six estimates of unemployment. The others are U-1, U-2, U-3, U-5, and U-6. Eurostat publishes one monthly estimate of unemployment for the European Union, which is approximately midway between U-3 and U-4.

The unemployment statistics for the USA are collected through a monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) (also known as the household survey) and an establishment survey.
U-4 includes all individuals that are unemployed as well as people known as discouraged workers. These people are then reported as a percentage of the combined civilian labor force and discouraged workers. Discouraged workers are defined as unemployed workers who have searched for employment within the last 12 months that have cited an economic reason for no longer looking for work. These reasons could range from “There just aren’t any job openings in my area.” to “I keep getting turned down for interviews, so why bother?”

{Nebraska Workforce Trends|October 2009}
by Abu Yahya July 15, 2010
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terms of trade

(ECONOMICS) the effective ratio whereby a country exchanges its goods with those of another country. Hence, a country that exports (say) mostly coffee and chocolate has to import almost everything else; if the price of chocolate and coffee declines, the country has no choice but to increase production of both, further reducing the price of both on world markets, and increasing the relative cost of everyhting it imports.

Terms of trade are determined notionally by the forex markets, but more fundamentally by (a) the markets for commodities, and (b) the ability of the country to finance transitions to other, higher-priced export goods.
Terms of trade typically lead to very high real exchange rates for currencies like the Indian rupee.
by Abu Yahya May 18, 2010
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U-1

(ECONOMICS) Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly publishes six estimates of unemployment. The others are U-2, U-3, U-4, U-5, and U-6. Eurostat publishes one monthly estimate of unemployment for the European Union, which is approximately midway between U-3 and U-4.

The unemployment statistics for the USA are collected through a monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) (also known as the household survey) and an establishment survey.
Analysts use U-1 as a measure of the proportion of people that can no longer replace employment earnings with unemployment insurance or savings.
by Abu Yahya July 17, 2010
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fiscal policy

*noun*, efforts by the government to intentionally run a deficit in order to stimulate the economy during a recession. Loosely associated with Keynesian economics.

According to basic economic theory, recessions occur because there is a basic mismatch between aggregate demand and potential output. One approach for solving this is for the government to buy more goods and services than it has revenues to cover, thereby creating conditions in which effective demand is greater than the stock of goods currently in business inventory (given recessionary prices).

Under a stimulus, the jolt of extra money in circulation creates inflation, which has the effect of lowering real prices. Customers then respond to the {de facto} price reduction by buying more, which leads to more hiring, thence to more effective demand, thence to economic recovery.

Another reason fiscal policy stimulates the economy is that the private sector is not investing or consuming its own output. Increased taxes would simply reduce private consumption, so those cannot be increased; but spending is increased to fill the breach.
I think it is possible that fiscal policy will have even more 'oomph' in this situation," Christina Romer, who heads the Council of Economic Advisers, told an economics conference.

"When households and businesses are liquidity-constrained by reduced lending, any money put in their pockets is more likely to be spent," she said.

--Reuters, "White House's Romer: Stimulus may pack more punch" (3 March 2009)
by Abu Yahya March 3, 2009
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