Word: productively
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...computer-equipped check-out line, all the clerk has to do is pass each item over a Cyclopean eye linked to a cash register and a scale. In a twinkling, the eye "reads" the striped UPC (Universal Product Code) symbol, by which the computer system identifies the product, brand name and other pertinent information about the item. (The store manager can program into the computer price changes for specials or daily fluctuations.) Then the computer prints out both the name of the item (say, one 4-oz. can of sliced French beans) and the price on the receipt list...
...greater danger to U.S. businessmen is that they may not be able to keep pace with the product innovations made possible by the miracle chips. For example, while the color-television industry was pioneered by a U.S. firm, RCA, American companies were slow to realize the revolutionary impact that transistors and semiconductors were destined to have. As a result, the market was opened to lower-priced foreign models that exploited the new technology. Given that first foothold, Japanese manufacturers have ever since been a growing threat to the U.S. color-TV industry...
...such product is the slide rule, made obsolete by the faster, more accurate and inexpensive pocket calculator. Keuffel & Esser Co., once the world's largest producer of slide rules, stopped manufacturing them...
...decision underscores complaints from manufacturers and insurers that rapidly inflating jury awards are getting out of hand. According to the Department of Commerce Interagency Task Force report issued last November, "The law of product liability has become filled with uncertainties, creating a lottery for both insurance rate makers and injured parties." Although the average cost of product liability insurance is now 1% of sales, the rate is more than ten times higher for some small manufacturers of high-risk products, such as trampolines, air rifles and football equipment. An increasing number of companies are "going bare," dropping coverage altogether...
...complaints are part of a chorus of protest against costly personal injury awards especially in product liability and medical malpractice. Jury Verdict Research Inc., an Ohio organization, says that the first such award for $1 million was recorded in 1962. Fifty-nine more were returned in the next ten years, and another 145 in the past five. Under economic pressure, several insurance firms began an aggressive public relations campaign, including up to $10 million worth of hard-hitting "advocacy advertisements" in publications such as TIME, Wall Street Journal and New Republic. The ads point to "windfall awards" and suggest that...