Why are changes in prices hard to measure？

ers. They need reassurance that they are doing "the right thing". Shy people are very sensitive to criticism. They feel it confirms their inferiority. They also find it difficult to be pleased by praise because they believe they are unworthy of praise. It is clear that, while self-awareness is a healthy quality, over-doing it is harmful.

Can shyness be completely eliminated, or at least reduced? Fortunately, people can overcome shyness with determined and patient effort in building self-confidence. Since shyness goes hand in hand with lack of self-esteem, it is important for people to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Each one of us is a unique, worthwhile individual. We are interesting in our own personal ways. The better we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to live up to our fuI1 potential. Let's not allow shyness to block our chances for a rich and fulfilling life.

17 or under. It found that one in four Australian parents regularly "borrow" money from their children's piggy banks to pay for anything from bread to luxury holidays. But almost 9 out of 10 still believed they were setting a good example of financial management for their children. The survey follows Reserve Bank of Australia findings that many Australians spent more than they earned in the past three years. On average, Australians saved only 2.9% of their annual income.

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n countries, Shanghai began to switch its focus of absorbing foreign investment to European and American markets.

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ces are also now at play.

The first is the resurgence of rivals, which have caught up with Dell's low price model. By driving prices down, Dell has unintentionally cut costs for its rivals too. "The supply chain has become as standardized as the components—the money has been wrung out," explains an expert. Dell, by not working through retail outlets, is still more efficient, but the cost benefits that this once brought have been whittled away.

The second factor hurting Dell is that growth in the computer business is coming from the consumer market and emerging countries rather than the corporate market, in which Dell sells around 85% of its machines. Increasing sales to consumers is difficult for Dell because individuals tend to want to see and touch computers before buying them. They also like to be able to return the machine easily if it breaks. Dell's tack of retail presence, once ballyhooed as a benefit, has turned into grave disadvantage.

A third problem facing Dell is its exclusive use of Intel chips rather than lower-priced ones made by Intel's sworn rivals, AMD. This arrangement lets Dell buy chips inexpensively and benefit from Intel's generous co-marketing programmes. But it has started to harm Dell's sales for higher margin computer servers.

r cooperation.

Under the plan, Google would buy a 5% stake of AOL for one billion dollars. Google had been providing AOL with search technology already, revenues from that partnership account for some 10% of Google's business. With this deal, Google scores a victory against its rival Microsoft. Microsoft has also been trying to obtain a piece of America Online in the Internet search business. Right now, for online business, Microsoft is well lagging behind Google and Yahoo!, and analysts believe that competition in this field is bound to be more heated in the next five to ten years.

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r her daughters. Fireman Jay Fernandez misses the custom putting green he installed in his back yard. But ever since they quit paying their mortgages and walked away from their homes, they've discovered that giving up on the American dream has its benefits. Both now live on the 3,100 block of Club Rancho Drive in Palmdale, where a terrible housing market lets them rent luxurious homes—one with a pool for the kids, the other with a golf-course view—for a fraction of their former monthly payments. "It's just a better life. It really is," says Ms. Richey. Before defaulting on her mortgage, she owed about $ 230,000 more than the home was worth.

People's increasing willingness to abandon their own piece of America illustrates a paradoxical change wrought by the housing bust: Even as it tarnishes the near-sacred image of home ownership, it might be clearing the way for an economic recovery. Thanks to a rare confluence of factors—mortgages that far exceed home values and bargain-basement rents—a growing number of families are concluding that the new American dream home is a rental. Some are leaving behind their homes and mortgages right away, while others are simply halting payments until the bank kicks them out. That's freeing up cash to use in other ways.

Ms. Richey's family of five used some of the money to buy season tickets to Disneyland, and plans to take a Carnival cruise to Mexico in March. Mr. Fernandez takes his girlfriend out to dinner more frequently. "We're saving lots of money," Ms. Richey says.

The U. S. home-ownership rate has charted its biggest decline in more than two decades, falling to 67.6% as of September from a peak of 69.2% in 2004. And more renters are on the way: Credit firm Experian and consulting firm Oliver Wyman forecast that "strategic defaults" by homeowners who can afford to pay are likely to exceed one million in 2009, more than four times 2007's level. Stiffing the bank is bad for peoples' credit, and bad for banks. Swelling defaults could also mean more losses for taxpayers through bank bailouts.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities expect 21 million U. S. households to end up owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth by the end of 2010. If one in five of those households default, the losses to banks and investors could exceed $ 400 billion. As a proportion of the economy, that's roughly equivalent to the losses suffered in the savings-and-loan debacle of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The flip side of those losses, though, is massive debt relief that can help offset the pain of rising unemployment and put cash in consumers' pockets.

For the 4. 8 million U. S. households that data provider LPS Applied Analytics estimates haven't paid their mortgages in at least three months, the added cash flow could amount to about $ 5 billion a month—an injection that in the long term could be worth more than the tax breaks in the Obama administration's economic-stimulus package.

"It's a stealth stimulus," says Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics, a consulting firm specializing in real estate and the California economy. "The quicker these people shed their debts, the faster the economy is going to heal and move forward again. "

As the stigma of abandoning a mortgage wanes, the Obama administration could face an uphill battle in its effort to keep people in their homes by pressuring hanks to cut their mortgage payments. Some analysts argue that's not always the right approach, particularly if it prevents people from shedding onerous debts and starting a fresh. "The effect of these programs is often to lead homeowners to make decisions that are not in their economic best interests," says Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has studied mortgage defaults.

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