Word: indexes
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...idea is that people pay it forward - with health. When one person (we'll call him the index case) quits smoking, his closest contacts, such as friends and family members, become 36% less likely to be smokers too. These folks then influence their social circles, and so forth, until people several degrees removed from the index case also become nonsmokers. In the study, even people who did not mutually identify themselves as friends, but were in the same social network, were affected by each other's behavior: people who labeled themselves as friends of the index case, for example...
...country's disposable income stood at 125% in 2006, compared to 103% in the U.S. and 71% in Germany. One reason is that British homeowners came to fervently believe that bricks and mortar almost inevitably reward investors with a juicy return. After all, the FTSE 100 share index of Britain's biggest firms rose just 2.7% in the 10 years to May, while the average house price shot up 178%, according to Nationwide. That increase produced "a massive reservoir of equity," says Lowe, making British homes "not just a shelter, but increasingly a bank that people could draw...
...defining question of the campaign - and of late 20th century American politics. It was also pretty easy to answer. The "misery index," a then popular measure that added the unemployment rate to the inflation rate, had skyrocketed during Carter's tenure. Taxes had risen sharply. There were other issues on voters' minds, like the Iranian hostage crisis and those dang cardigans Carter used to wear. But the economy was crucial to Reagan's victory. After taking office, he responded by ushering in a new era in economic policy - cutting tax rates, slashing regulation and tirelessly preaching the gospel that individual...
...This election year, the economy is again at the forefront of voters' minds. The misery index is no longer the problem; at 9% and change, it's miles below the 20% of late 1980. But Americans have a new menu of economic woes - among them a real estate crash, a credit crisis, a broken health-care system and nagging job insecurity. Poll after poll shows a vast majority convinced that the economy and the country are headed in the wrong direction...
...wisely lets Milton take the stand in his own defense. Ninety-nine extended quotations of Milton's poetry and prose account for 30% of the main body of the book. Many shorter passages are incorporated into paragraphs of Smith's own prose, so (if we don't count the index, bibliography and other scholarly packaging) maybe 40% of the words here are Milton's. Perusing these passages, it's easy to see why most of America's Founding Fathers "read Milton and revered him" - and even easier to understand why, for at least two centuries, Paradise Lost was widely considered...