Word: discounting
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...Rome to New York City costs $32.30; New York to Rome is only $8.91. Using a patented call-back-conferencing mechanism he describes as "telephone arbitrage," Howard Jonas can make the price spread between foreign utility monopolies and deregulated American phone companies work to your advantage. His company, International Discount Telecommunications, bills intercontinental calls originating abroad at cost: American rates, which are 38% to 82% below foreign charges. I.D.T. profits from a $250-a-month customer fee. In the year since Jonas, 35, started, he has signed up more than 150 international companies. Angry foreign phone monopolies are fighting back...
When George does try to save money, itinevitably backfires on him. Instead of laying outfor an expensive Armani tuxedo at a fancy clothingstore, he buys a discount tux from a fast-talkingsheister. No difference, right? Wrong. Bigdifference. George's tux isn't even black. Ofcourse, it looked black to George, and it surelooked black to me. But everybody else can tellthat stingy George is the only character in a navyblue tux. And they go out of their way to mentionit (four, count 'em, four blue tux jokes), much toGeorge's chagrin. He shoulda known better. Georgealso skimped on parking attendants...
Harvard hasn't done much to inspire its students in this year of dire economic news. For a depressing view of the world, just look at the recruiting schedule for speakers at the Kennedy School. It reads like the sale chart at Filene's Basement--discount professors 50 percent off, former world leaders, an additional $10 off the red line price. Former presidential candidates get a free pair of socks...
...that the auto's "sheltering presence loomed out of all proportion." There she was, approaching 50, a burned-out crusader for women's causes who had not had time in 20 years to unpack the boxes in her bare apartment. She was nearly eligible for a senior citizen's discount before she bought her first sofa. Despite her confident demeanor, she felt so plain she wondered who that attractive, articulate woman impersonating her on television was. Thin as a pinstripe, she nonetheless felt one Sara Lee cheesecake away from Weight Watchers. Once a lively writer who impersonated a Playboy Bunny...
...most responsible for fueling the rally was Alan Greenspan. The Federal Reserve chairman engineered a drastic drop in the discount rate, which is what the Fed charges banks for borrowing money, from 7% at the beginning of the year to 3.5% at the end. Besides giving the economy a nudge, the drop in rates triggered a wave of so-called asset shifting. Dismayed by low yields on CDs and Treasury securities, savers bet their money on the stock market. A record $31 billion flowed into stock mutual funds during the first 11 months of the year...