Word: laggard
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...great equalizer between economic haves and have-nots foreseen by some would-be prophets? At best, there is a long way to go. Right now, says Varian, "educational institutions are moving in fits and starts" to integrate computers into classroom work. Romer asserts that education is "probably the worst laggard in coming up with better ways to do things," and it will have to change because the skills of the workforce can no longer be improved just by increasing "seat time," the number of years a person stays in school. "We can't ask people to train for the workforce...
...that's really been proved is cryptorchidism." In plain English, that means undescended testicles. In a male fetus, the testicles normally develop inside the abdomen and descend into the scrotal sac before birth. In some cases, though, one (and sometimes both) of the testicles stays inside the body. The laggard normally drops into place in the child's first year of life, though surgery is sometimes needed to help it along...
Toys "R" Us has also hurt itself over the past year, analysts say, with neck-snapping shifts in strategy and laggard execution of the blocking and tackling aspects of retailing, such as controlling inventory and providing polite and knowledgeable service. An assistant manager at a New Jersey Toys "R" Us outlet led a visitor through a cavernous storage room piled floor to ceiling with everything from Micro Machines to mattresses. The store's inventory, she said, often surpasses $1 million. Multiply that by the 1,462 Toys "R" Us stores, and you see the scope of the problem...
...that, many funds have paid a price. Weary of laggard returns, investors have been shifting billions of dollars to passive funds like the Vanguard Index 500, where they are assured of getting market-matching results (and lower fees). Now active managers are striking back, brandishing what I'll call the "big-bet" fund. By limiting the number of stocks in tow and generally holding on longer, these funds correct some of the faults that have driven money to the indexers...
...Jones' troubles surfaced bitterly and publicly earlier this year when dissident members of the normally docile family that controls 45% of the company and 70% of a special class of voting shares began carping about its lackluster returns. While the Dow Jones industrial average has soared, Dow Jones' laggard stock has made it the lowest ranked company in the S&P publishing index. That sent Elisabeth ("Lizzie") Goth, 34, and William ("Billy") Cox III, 42, heirs of Clarence Barron, the 300-lb. patriarch who purchased the company in 1902, looking for advice from investment heavyweights such as Warren Buffett. Their...