It's like tapered to the downside.

So, that's the upside. The circular mill is the downside.

It's the downside correlation of their fortunes that will become more and more possible.

Economic globalization, which has potential benefits as well as downside risks, including marginalization

And even a tiny probability of catastrophe is unacceptable when the downside could be of global consequence.

The job, though, came with one small downside. And that is they intended to publish my email address at the end of every column.

To the extent that this is true of other advanced economies, the global economy faces an extended multi year period of low growth, with residual downside risk coming from policy gridlock and mistakes in Europe, the US, and elsewhere. That scenario implies slower growth possibly 1 1.5 percentage points slower in developing countries, including China, again with a preponderance of downside risk.

So far, the downside and upside risks for the world economy are balanced. But if sound government policies in advanced and major emerging economies contain the downside risks that are more prevalent in the first half of this year which derive from political and policy uncertainty a more resilient global economic recovery could take hold in the second half of 2011 and into 2012.

It is therefore in our collective self interest to work with our African friends through NEPAD to balance both the upside and the downside of economic globalization.

Japanese like stagnation in the developed world is challenging externally dependent Asia to shift its focus to internal demand. Downside pressures currently squeezing China and India underscore that challenge.

But that approach, too, might have a downside. Consider Spain, where too much fiscal decentralization to regional governments contributed significantly to weakening otherwise strong public finances.

Private borrowers often have to offer collateral, such as their houses. The collateral limits the lenders downside risk, and the fear of losing the pledged assets encourages borrowers to act prudently.

The existing business model allows them to take the upside when they win, and hand over the downside to taxpayers when they lose. This encourages excessive risk and threatens repeated cycles of boom bust bailout.

It's absolutely phenomenal. The only downside is that it requires you to know how to text send a text message. Nobody over 40 knows how to do that.

The attenuation of downside risks and pleasant surprises in developed and emerging economies could lead to a further increase in demand for risky assets (equities and credit), which would reinforce economic recovery via wealth effects and lower borrowing costs.

It's a free program you download for your Mac or PC, and you make free phone calls anywhere in the world The downside is that you have to wear a headset like a nerd.

Yes, companies have more hedging tools at their disposal. But the ability to manage downside risk comprehensively is still limited by incomplete longer term markets and public private partnerships that cannot be sufficiently leveraged.

But the downside of this aspirational language and philosophy can be a perpetual, personal restlessness. Many men and women in the rest of the world especially in the developing world observe this in us and are ambivalent about it.

Warren Buffet showed another way, in providing equity to Goldman Sachs. By issuing preferred shares with warrants (options), one reduces the public s downside risk and ensures that they participate in some of the upside potential.

But the question is, are they so dangerous these risks of doing something about aging that they outweigh the downside of doing the opposite, namely, leaving aging as it is?

While the IMF s primary scenario is that Irish and Portuguese debt levels will soon stop rising, it comes with a chilling litany of downside risks. The likelihood that budget deficit and debt targets will be missed is rising.

New ways to borrow and to spread risk seemed to have little downside. More competition for investment banking oligarchs from commercial bankers and insurance companies with deep pockets seemed likely to reduce the investment banking industry s unconscionable profits.

And when the downside risks materialized, the losses were largely socialized the primary reason why US public debt has soared in recent years. Asking shareholders and management to pay a relatively small amount is entirely fair and appropriate under these circumstances.

But there's also a downside to this a kind of dark side, in fact and that is that the more tightly linked we've become to each other, the harder it is for each of us to remain independent.

NEW YORK The Ebola crisis reminds us, once again, of the downside of globalization. Not only good things like principles of social justice and gender equality cross borders more easily than ever before so do malign influences like environmental problems and disease.

It seems that there has been a downside to the success of campaigns against female genital mutilation in many so called countries of origin and host countries, thanks to criminal laws, education, information and public awareness campaigns targeting different actors, particularly girls.

The third group, led by Europe, will struggle, as continued economic stagnation fuels social and political disenchantment in some countries and complicates regional policy decisions. Anemic growth, deflationary forces, and pockets of excessive indebtedness will hamper investment, tilting the balance of risk to the downside.

In the jargon of economics, this is moral hazard. But no special training is needed to know that it is unwise and dangerous when bank executives get the upside (huge bonuses) when things go well and everyone else bears the downside risks (bailouts and recession).

Of course, numerous downside risks adverse weather shocks, military conflict, and political turmoil still can undermine the hard earned benefits of this social and economic record. But it is the dichotomized nature of their economies and finances that represents Africa s most intractable structural imbalance.

These investors do not view the 7 annual return on stocks as an average expectation, with downside risks counterbalanced by upside opportunities. Rather, they see a good scenario outcome that only the foolhardy would trust.

On the downside, confidence among consumers and investors alike has taken a hit, mainly owing to fears about radiation leakages and power shortages. According to the Japan Center for Economic Research, power supply disruptions could negatively affect the Japanese economy for the next three years.

Of course, we cannot simply wish away the process of globalization. It is a reality of a modern world. The process is irreversible. The individual countries and the international community can only take action to ensure that its benefits are maximized and its downside minimized.

As for the current financial situation in Hong Kong, Chen Delin said that the uncertainty of the economic and asset markets increased and downside risks increased, but the financial system Hong Kong was robust, so that good defence were made and the earthquake resistant capacity was abundant.

Asians need not be pessimistic the perfect storm of a hard landing in China, a double dip recession in the United States, and a collapse of the eurozone is unlikely. But they cannot rule out the downside risk of a synchronized global downturn.

Similarly, a potential downside to quantitative easing is that low interest rates send capital to higher growth, high interest rate countries. In theory, as capital floods in, these countries exchange rates will appreciate rapidly, making them look unattractive and automatically stemming the flow.

One downside of such a prospect that Iran would likely retaliate against US interests and personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, using Hamas and Hezbollah, against Israel and others. Iran could also interfere with oil traffic, leading to a spike in prices and delivering a further blow to American and global economic recovery.

SEOUL Emerging economies are facing significant uncertainty and serious downside risks. One major source of instability is the looming reversal of the US Federal Reserve s expansionary monetary policy the prospect of which is generating volatility in global financial markets and threatening to disrupt emerging economy growth.

Global warming is a case in point. When the downside risks associated with such limits and thresholds are brought into estimates of sustainable development, the growth in wealth among the world s wealthy nations will probably turn out to have been less than we now think.

But I am afraid that the risks are more on the downside. Indeed, 2012 could prove to be the year in which the experiment with the euro, the culmination of a 50 year process of economic and political integration in Europe, comes to an end.

The downside of the sanctions imposed against Russia for its behavior in eastern Ukraine is that they may produce a recession throughout Europe and beyond. That will leave the world with unhappy Russians, unhappy Ukrainians, and unhappy Europeans whose sense of confidence and support for peaceful democratic institutions will weaken.

Moreover, verbal intervention will be followed by policy action, because slower growth and low inflation partly triggered by a strong dollar will induce the Fed to exit zero policy rates later and more slowly than expected. That will reverse some of the dollar s recent gains and shield growth and inflation from downside risks.

BERKELEY The United States continues to recover from its deepest economic slump since the Great Depression, but the pace of recovery remains frustratingly slow. There are several reasons to anticipate modest improvement in 2013, although, as usual, there are downside risks.

More broadly, we have lost sight of what banking is supposed to do. Banks play an essential role in all modern economies, but that role is not to assume a huge amount of risk, with the downside losses covered by society.

As matters stand, bankers continue to benefit fully from the upside of their investments, while sharing the downside with creditors and taxpayers and sometimes with shareholders. Although some progress has been made in improving regulation and enforcement, industry lobbies have largely succeeded in delaying essential reforms needed to ensure global financial stability.

For the ECB and the Bank of Japan (BOJ), both of which are facing formidable downside risks to their economies and aggregate price levels, this is hardly an idle question. For the United States, where the ultimate consequences of QE remain to be seen, the answer is just as consequential.