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(Continued from page 32)
Their stalemate triggers sharp tax increases and spending cuts. Those measures shrink consumer spending, stifle job growth, topple stock prices and push the economy off a "fiscal cliff" and into recession.
• The reality may be a lot less bleak.
• Even if New Year's passed with no deal, few businesses or consumers would likely panic as long as an agreement seemed likely soon. The tax increases and spending cuts could be retroactively repealed after Jan. 1.
• And the impact of the tax increases would be felt only gradually. Most people would receive slightly less money in each paycheck.
• ___
From France to New Zealand, worries arise when Chinese invest in traditional industries
• GEVREY-CHAMBERTIN, France (AP) -- Life in this French village revolves around wine. The backyards of its tidy houses nurture the grapes that have made Burgundy famous the world over. At an auto repair shop, everyone seems to have an opinion about the recent sale of a local vineyard to a Macau casino magnate.
• "It's a piece of French heritage that's heading abroad," says mechanic Bertrand Babouhot. Across the road, rows of gnarled vines lead to the rundown chateau that was sold. "It's like selling the Eiffel Tower to the Americans."
• On the other side of the globe, farmer Margaret Peacock expresses similar outrage over the sale of 13 dairy farms in New Zealand's rural heartland to a wealthy property developer from Shanghai.
• ___
What would I do? NYPD officer's generous act inspires talk about a daily urban dilemma
• During her two decades living in Houston, Caroline Oliver, like any urban dweller, frequently encountered people in the streets asking for money. She struggled with how to respond. She wanted to help, but in a useful way.
• And so when Oliver, a consultant and mother of two who recently moved to Austin, read about the New York police officer who was photographed giving a new pair of all-weather boots to a barefoot man on a cold street, she was moved.
• "He saw a need and he provided for that need," she says. "He couldn't just walk away."
• And when the story, which went viral thanks to a photograph snapped by a tourist, turned out to be more complicated, as they often do, Oliver admired the officer's (Continued on page 34)
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