Word: needed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is nothing magical or unique about capital gains. A special break for this particular form of investment profit distorts the free market in two ways. First, it prejudices the economy in favor of certain kinds of investment. Those who say we need to encourage entrepreneurs or long-term investors with this break (which actually would reserve few of its benefits for those charmed circles) are saying the Government can outguess the market about which investments will pay off. If a risky or long-term investment makes more sense than keeping money in a savings account, the market will reward...
...otherwise trade in order to avoid paying the tax. That makes the economy less efficient. A tax break for capital gains would reduce this so-called lock-in effect. (Although, please note, this is exactly the opposite of one argument usually heard for a capital-gains break -- that we need to encourage long-term investment.) What would reduce the lock-in effect even more, however -- without adding to the favorable treatment capital gains already enjoy -- would be to tax capital gains at death. People would then know that their gains could not escape tax forever...
...seal on one of the plant's eleven-story-high reactors may have developed a leak, leading to the ignition of a stream of gas. But workers contended that the cloud was so dense that a valve must have been left open. In any case, the disaster dramatized the need for greater concern for safety by the chemical industry. Its lobbyists had persuaded the Bush Administration to remove tougher safety restrictions on such facilities from proposed legislation for renewing the Clean...
There should be plenty to talk about this week at the annual conference of the Society for Risk Analysis. (Yes, there really is one.) The 800 or so actuaries, social scientists, lawyers and psychologists who are expected to attend will gather in -- what better place? -- San Francisco. They need only step outside their hotels to see a city that has become one vast society for risk analysis. All around the Bay Area these days, amid the tumbled roadways and jolted buildings left by the earthquake, people are asking themselves: Is it crazy to live on a fault line...
...Francisco, parts of coastal communities such as Marina Del Rey, Venice and Long Beach are built on sandy soil and landfill that could liquefy during a temblor, amplifying its destructive impact. State transportation officials last week handed the city council a list of 48 highway bridges and overpasses that need reinforcement to withstand a powerful quake. Cost: $32 million. Los Angeles' city engineer Robert Horii informed the city council that $100 million worth of shoring up may be required on the city's bridges and viaducts. Said Horii: "I didn't believe the urgency was there until what happened last...