Word: linchpin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Derivatives are causing all this havoc because they have swiftly become a linchpin of global commerce and the world's financial system. Companies regularly use a form of derivatives called swaps to protect against the risk of sudden changes in exchange rates, commodities prices or other costs when they trade overseas or build plants abroad. Like all derivatives, they function, essentially, as bets on the direction of particular markets. So coveted is such insurance that the total face amount -- or "notional value" -- of swaps and similar contracts has soared to an astronomical $11 trillion, up from $5.1 trillion since...
...linchpin. The tutors went through her. The doctors went through her," Foster said...
Like Clinton, Moynihan wants a system that provides universal coverage, a scheme that will guarantee quality health care regardless of a person's income or employment status. The question is how to pay for it. "The linchpin is the employer mandate," says Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman. "Without it you can't have universal coverage." Put simply, the Administration would force most employers to pay 80% of the cost of health insurance premiums. Workers would cover the rest. But small companies, and an increasing number of medium and large ones, contend that such mandates could bankrupt them. In an attempt...
Such overtures may help ease tension between the two countries, but the linchpin to a lasting peace is the Golan Heights. Israel may be ready to negotiate handing back the strategic high ground to Syria, but the Israelis say, the final handover would have to be a prize at the end of cementing a peace treaty and normal relations between Jerusalem and Damascus. In return, what Syria wants has to come from the U.S.: American troops to guarantee demilitarization of the Golan, and acceptance by the Western community of nations...
When Germany declined to lower interest rates, it threw the European Monetary System, the linchpin of European economic and political union, into chaos. In wild trading, the franc plummeted and gold soared...