Word: fraction
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...take hours in clogged traffic, which barely eases up at night. That's because Iran's regime, keen to keep voters happy, heavily subsidizes gas. Iranians are entitled to 26 gal. (100 L) of fuel a month at 38 cents per gal. (about 10 cents per L) - a tiny fraction of what it costs in the U.S. or Europe. If the U.S. blocked imports of refined gas, Tehran could simply ease its subsidies while pointing to Washington as the cause of the pain. As Iranian ire and the price of a tank of gas rose, demand would...
...Detroit to any possible diversification of its industrial base. When the automakers' inattention to engineering, style and quality caused them to crash into a wall of consumer indifference, there was no other industry that could step forward and employ workers who would have been thrilled to make even a fraction of what they once earned. Now nearly 1 in 3 Detroit residents is out of work - and not many of the unemployed have a prayer of finding a job anytime soon...
...Brussels, says it will be difficult to implement efforts to regulate bonuses in the E.U., as rules on working conditions are decided at the national level by individual governments. He adds that although bonuses are a powerful rallying point for E.U. leaders, the payouts represent just a tiny fraction of the global banking losses over the past year and are not to blame for the crisis. "Bankers are exceedingly unpopular, and leaders feel they have to act," he says. "But bonuses are a symptom of the crisis, not a cause...
...Olympics, the difference between a gold medal and not placing can be a fraction of a second. The author, a media consultant, believes that the margin of error for business people is similarly thin in this turbulent economy. Those who would prefer to keep their job--and that would include most of us--can regard the book as a checklist of things you can do to protect your position or get a new one. You may already know many of them, but perhaps it's that one unfamiliar tip that will keep your ass in your Aeron...
...major change to the program came in 1977, when Congress stopped requiring payment for food stamps and distributed them to all recipients for free (the price had steadily decreased over time, until it represented just a fraction of the face value). The move dismayed a number of observers, who had supported the program as a means to help the poor help themselves, not as a direct government handout (the Agriculture Department had insisted on selling food stamps for fear of undermining the dignity of recipients). The policy created a backlash - some middle-class shoppers indignantly complained that food-stamp users...