Anybody who's seen Chinatown can guess at the sordid history of the
real estate deals that helped transform Los Angeles from a dusty burgh to a
global capital of glamour, and for
Gross — who sold truckloads of his previous book, 740 Park, a history of New York's richest apartment building and its residents — the estates of Beverly Hills and Bel Air prove fertile ground.
With the
global economy «floating on an ocean of credit,» the current acceleration of credit via central bank policies will likely produce a positive rate of
real economic growth this year for most developed countries, PIMCO chief Bill
Gross writes in his latest monthly commentary, but «the structural distortions brought about by zero bound interest rates will limit that growth and induce serious risks in future years.»
Gasoline indirect cost calculated based on International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), The
Real Price of Gasoline, Report No. 3 (Washington, DC: 1998), p. 34, and updated using ICTA, Gasoline Cost Externalities Associated with
Global Climate Change: An Update to CTA's
Real Price of Gasoline Report (Washington, DC: September 2004), ICTA, Gasoline Cost Externalities: Security and Protection Services: An Update to CTA's
Real Price of Gasoline Report (Washington, DC: January 2005), Terry Tamminen, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006), p. 60, and Bureau for Economic Analysis, «Table 3 — Price Indices for
Gross Domestic Product and
Gross Domestic Purchases,» GDP and Other Major Series, 1929 — 2007 (Washington, DC: August 2007); U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Information Administration (EIA), This Week in Petroleum (Washington, DC: various issues).