Word: ineptness
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...Communist insurgents and ARENA, the paramilitary organization turned political party that has been closely linked to death squads responsible for thousands of political murders. But the well-intended Duarte failed either to negotiate a peace or restore his country's shattered economy; his government was widely despised as both inept and corrupt...
...made his family's building and loan association a pillar of the community. But in real life, the outcome has been much different. America's failed savings and loans have become the country's biggest, most scandalous financial mess. Devastated by a legacy of bad management, rampant fraud and inept Government supervision, more than 500 of the 3,150 federally insured thrifts had fallen into insolvency as of the beginning of last year. Because the U.S. failed to own up to the problem and launch a major rescue soon enough, the cost has now grown higher than almost anyone...
Devastated by bad management, rampant fraud and inept Government supervision, hundreds of thrifts are insolvent. The President's rescue plan calls for taxpayers and S & Ls to share the burden of a cleanup that could cost $200 billion over three decades...
...John Allen Paulos, professor of mathematics at Temple University, has written a book about mathematical illiteracy. Titled Innumeracy (Hill & Wang; $16.95), it seeks to explain why so many people are numerically inept and shows how they can learn to work and play with figures. Paulos, 43, has no patience with mathematical dumbos who almost boastfully claim, "I can't even balance my checkbook," or "I'm a people person, not a numbers person." "I'm pained," he says, "at the belief that mathematics is an esoteric discipline with little relation or connection to the 'real' world...
Another question: Why are so many people innumerate? Adults who fumble with numbers have been "intimidated by officious and sometimes sexist teachers," says Paulos, himself a victim of inept instruction. "They feel that there are mathematical minds and nonmathematical minds." The result of that misconception is a "gap that threatens eventually to lead either to unfounded and crippling anxieties or to impossible and economically paralyzing demands for risk-free guarantees...