Word: prospect
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Main difficulty is that the new bill also relaxes or abolishes acreage controls, raises the prospect that farmers across the country could suddenly decide to put every available acre in, say, corn and sell to the Government at the announced price ($1.10 per bu. minimum). This danger is increased by the termination this year of the Soil Bank's expensive "acreage reserve" section, under which farmers were paid for keeping acres out of corn and other cash crops. Benson himself knows that the $6 billion annual cost of the farm program, big enough to bother Hubert Humphrey...
...racket begins, explained William Parker, a onetime "salesman" who spent 2½ years in prison, when a smooth-talking salesman finds a small property owner anxious to sell out. He ridicules his victim's low asking price, insists that his agency can get much more. After determining the prospect's wealth, he then asks an advance fee of about 1% of the newly inflated asking price, pressures the hopeful property owner into signing a contract on the spot...
...times, said Parker, the salesman cons the owner into believing his property is worth as much as $100,000, walks off with $1,000 as an advance fee. When the prospect calls in a lawyer, it just makes the game easier. "We would simply tell the lawyer he could get from 2 to 3% of the total sale price when the business was sold," explained Witness Parker. "So naturally he would approve the deal." The hooker, of course, is that the promised sale almost never comes off. The deceptively worded contract promises only that the firm will try to sell...
...Ministry of Public Works gave its approval and the Baptists started to build, the local mayor issued a firm no. Contrary to the standard plot rules of Italian church-state village dramas, Mayor Antonio Baldassarra was not a Communist, but a Christian Democrat who was outraged by the prospect of a Protestant church in Sant'Angelo in Villa...
...American Trucking Association believes that profits are also edging up, after plunging 98%, in the first quarter. Faced with the prospect of better business, the big companies are going ahead with capital expansion plans. Continental Transportation Lines expects to spend more than $400,000 on additions to garage and new equipment; Interstate Motor Freight plans to get three smaller shipping companies; Ryder System will spend $1,000,000 on new equipment...