The World's Executives Are Getting Increasingly Optimistic About 2013

It's been a tough year in the business world. Growth worldwide has been sluggish, and Europe, though out of crisis mode for the moment, will struggle for years to come.

This chart from McKinsey from its periodic survey of top executives is a great account of the ups and downs of the economy. At the beginning of the year, hopes were high, only to plummet during a summer of weak U.S. growth and European woes. Now, execs are slowly, but surely getting more optimistic:

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Couple Arrested Following Physical Confrontation With Best Buy Receipt-Checker

No one really likes to have their receipt checked when they leave a store — and some people will outright refuse to show the receipt if their local laws say they don’t have to. But there’s really no need for receipt-checking incidents to get physical.

And yet, a couple of St. Louis-area Best Buy shoppers were arrested on Wednesday following … [More]

Source: http://consumerist.com/2012/12/21/couple-arrested-following-physical-confrontation-with-best-buy-receipt-checker/

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Benefits of Credit Card Debt Consolidation

Consolidation Loans with Bad Credit Is debt consolidation a good solution for my credit card debts? Debtors, upon realizing that in a few years their credit cards would have accumulated thousands of dollars through interests ask the same question. Credit card purchases, in many instances are actually more expensive because of high interest rates. Someone [...]

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Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2012/06/29/benefits-of-credit-card-debt-consolidation/

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China Is Building A Structure 20 Times Bigger Than The Sydney Opera House

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A thousand kilometres from the nearest coast a towering glass wave rolls over the plains of Sichuan, the roof of what Chinese officials say will be the world's largest standalone structure.

The 100-metre-high "New Century Global Centre" is a symbol of the spread of China's boom, 500 metres long and 400 metres wide, with 1.7 million square metres of floor space, big enough to hold 20 Sydney Opera Houses according to local authorities.

By comparison the Pentagon in Washington -- still one of the world's largest office buildings -- is barely a third of the size with a mere 600,000 square metres of floor space.

The Global Centre is just a few kilometres from the US consulate where the police chief of Chongqing fled to seek asylum, triggering the fall of his patron Bo Xilai and exposing the biggest scandal to rock China's Communist Party for years.

But it represents a different side of China, where lower costs and government subsidies are still fuelling double-digit growth in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

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The city of 14 million people plans to expand its subway from two lines to 10 by 2020, build a new airport and become a new Silicon Valley.

The Global Centre will house offices, conference rooms, a university complex, two commercial centres, two five star hotels, an IMAX cinema, a "Mediterranean village", a skating rink and a pirate ship, among other attractions.

About 400,000 square metres will be devoted to shopping, most of the outlets high-end luxury brands.

Despite Chengdu being around 1,000 kilometres from the sea the complex has a marine theme, with fountains, a huge water park and an artificial beach, accented by the undulating roof, meant to resemble a wave.

"This is an ocean city built by man," said guide Liu Xun. "There will be 1,000 rooms (in the hotel) and all will have seaside views."

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The thick smog that normally blankets Chengdu risks making it a sunless sea, but visitors will not need to worry about that, she said.

"We have borrowed a Japanese technique. There will be an artificial sun that will shine 24 hours a day and allow for a comfortable temperature," Liu said. The system uses specialised lighting technology that heats as well as illuminates.

The centrepiece will be a 5,000 square metre artificial beach, to include a rafting course and a "seafront" promenade, complete with parasols and seafood outlets that can accomodate 6,000 people.

A giant screen 150 metres long and 40 high will form the horizon and offer sunrises and sunsets, accompanied by nautical breezes.

The exterior facade is near completion and an army of workers are rushing to finish the Chinese-designed building in time for a June 2013 international forum hosted by US magazine Fortune.'

new century city centre china

China's incoming president Xi Jinping is expected to attend the event and meet the heads of some of the world's biggest multinationals.

Another enormous building is planned across the road. Award-winning British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid's Chengdu Contemporary Arts Centre is to include a theatre, an opera house and a museum.

In a video developers China Exhibition and Travel Group describe Chengdu as a "world class modern city of idyllic beauty", and say the Global Centre -- including restaurants serving "the rarest oceanic fish species" -- will bring to mind "the fabulous heavens".

It is, they say, "a landmark which commands the world and is looked upon by the world with respect".

SEE ALSO: Check Out The Lavish Government Buildings Cropping Up In Outer China

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Fighting Unsecured Debt * The Top Methods Of Take Away A Person?s Unsecured Debt

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Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2012/07/01/fighting-unsecured-debt-the-top-methods-of-take-away-a-persons-unsecured-debt/

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Loads Of Journalists, Few Believers In The Only Town Expected To Survive The Apocalypse

Bugarach, FranceThe Daily Telegraph's France correspondent Henry Samuel meets new agers and grumpy journalists in the one place predicted to survive the apocalypse

If the legend is true and the sleepy southern French town of Bugarach is the only place standing after the apocalypse, the Earth will be populated by 150 policemen, some on horseback, 250 frustrated journalists from around the world and 198 very bewildered villagers.

A huge, global internet conspiracy theory suggests this "doomsday village", with its curious "upside down" mountain offers protection against the end of the world supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar for approximately 11.21GMT Friday.

The theory goes that the mountain is in fact a vast underground car park for UFOs, and only those within spitting distance of the mount stand a chance of jumping on board.

By the afternoon, with only hours to go before the world's supposed final curtain, intergalactic hitch hikers were few and far between and tempers were fraying among reporters flown in from as far as China in the hunt for elusive esoterics.

"Beam me up froggy," sighed one British journalist.

 

Any true "believers" bold enough to try to tackle the 4,035ft climb to the peak of Pic de Bugarach in heavy drizzle first had to get past cohorts of police stationed in roadblocks around the village. Only visitors with press or village passes were allowed in.

Once inside, the route to the top remained equally daunting, with Le Pic protected by an elite gendarme mountain unit, while another team of police potholers scoured its myriad underground caverns to succour any hapless New Agers lost underground.

Some did make it however.

Frédéric, 28, an unemployed waiter from Marseille squinted determinedly at the cloud-shrouded peak with a tent and rucksack on his back.

"I must be up there between midday and two o'clock on Friday," he said earnestly, his brother Laurent, 35, by his side.

"A ray of sunlight will pass by all the planets aligned to the sun and into the rock. At that moment, a passage, a window will open up an inter-dimensional vortex," he insisted.

"There is a hole the other side of the summit, about knee height, and we will sit in it. If the passage opens we will pass into another dimension," he said.

He said he had initially expected 200,000 people to turn up today, but admitted that might be an exaggeration.

A little further down the main street, Sylvain Dufir, 44, or "Oriana", his cosmic name, was equally persuasive in revealing the "true meaning of the apocalypse".

"There will be no end of the world, no cataclysm, but a revelation," he said with a knowing smile. "On Friday, all humanity will go through a sort of internal alchemy, a revolution inside our cells so we can be at one with the golden light of divine love," he said.

"The feeling will be like 10,000 orgasms," he insisted. "Bring it on," said a passing French youth.

As for Bugarach, he added: "Flying saucers do enter the mountain but they are much too fast to be photographed." With trapped journalists in need of sustenance, Patrice Etienne, who runs an organic grocery, was doing a roaring trade serving food and drink, including a Bugarach "End of the World Vintage", said to "peak in December 2012".

He remained sceptical about the doomsday plot, but added: "There's no smoke without fire."

"They speak of the end of the world to put us off the scent. But the army, which is secretly sending spy planes up there at night, is getting ready for something equally serious," he claimed.

Sceptical journalists were the main obstacle to solving the riddle of the mount, he claimed. "We want help from Russians and Japanese scientists, experts with material open to such phenomena," he said.

Moving into the quiet backstreets, some villagers were scathing of the spectacle.

Muttering as he opened his front door, Alain Jany, 53, a retired soldier, grumbled: "I'm starting to wonder whether I'm the only sane person and everyone else is mad, or the reverse." "It reminds me of a disaster movie or some kind of conflict. All you see in our village are journalists and gendarmes. Usually they come when there's something to cover, like a war, a murder. But what are they all waiting for here? Nothing! I've been up that peak 50,0000 times and have never seen a thing. It's rubbish," he said.

Sitting calmly in her kitchen a dozen yards down the road, Valerie Austin, a retired music teacher from Northumberland, sighed: "The circus has come to town."

"On French local radio this morning, the joke was:"I feel sorry for the spaceship, they obviously have no idea what the price of petrol is around here."

"You've got to see the funny side, but it's been a roller coaster."

Further out of the village, Susie Harrison, 50, a New Ager who moved from Glastonbury to Bugarach 10 years ago, was putting the finishing touches to a mashed potato mountain reminiscent of the one from Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

While she said there was definitely "something special" about the mountain she doubted the world would end, but had a friend who did. He had a problem, however.

"Ian left the village to buy clean underpants for the occasion and now the police won't let him back in, so he's very annoyed. I might have to go and rescue him," she said.

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Verizon Wants To Wean Me Off My Discount And My Unlimited Data

Timothy is one of those lucky Verizon Wireless customers who still has an unlimited data plan. He also happens to get some pretty great discounts, and pays less for the four phones on his account with data plans than he would if he were to walk in off the street as a new customer today. If he wants to upgrade … [More]

Source: http://consumerist.com/2012/12/20/verizon-wants-to-wean-me-off-my-discount-and-my-unlimited-data/

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