Word: standardly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first stipulate some common truths. By any Western standard, Mozambique, Eritrea, Mali and Ghana are countries in awful straits. Their statistics still show an abysmal record of poverty, illiteracy, early mortality. While all four have achieved a dose of national economic success, with higher growth rates, lower inflation and more stable currencies that flow from obedience to stringent International Monetary Fund reform programs, they have yet to see their growing wealth trickle down very far. For ordinary citizens, daily hardships are intense: few jobs, few schools, few hospitals, poor diets, rising prices, no money. For the majorities of these populations...
Undeterred but under pressure, the ladies went to Price Waterhouse for an audit and discovered that their actual return was a sickly 9.1%--far less, according to Lipper Analytical Services, than the Standard & Poor's 500 average annual return of 14.9% or even the average general-stock-fund return of 12.6% during that same period. Updated through 1997, the audit shows that the ladies have picked up some slack, earning an average annual return of 15.3%. But that still lags the comparable S&P 500 figure of 17.2%, though it's better than the average stock-fund gain...
...Street's deal machine. To the contrary, I believe in the benefits of cost cutting, carving up and combining companies, and generally placing efficiency and profitability above all else. That's raw capitalism, which keeps U.S. companies fit to win against global competitors and ensures jobs and an improving standard of living for most people. It has its losers, though, and can seem unnecessary when the economy is humming as it is today. But at least now this meal, distasteful to many, is being served in the cook's kitchen...
...classical music dead?" is the standard rubric for critics' thumb suckers on the subject. Yo-Yo Ma, for his part, is trying to liven things up. Besides his numerous collaborations, he has been commissioning new works, experimenting with electronic instruments, exploring the links between the European tradition and other world music, and involving himself in music education on every level from Sesame Street to Tanglewood. "The whole idea of what music is and what culture and education are has changed so much," says Emanuel Ax, the pianist who is a longtime friend and performance partner...
Aside from sheer intellectual curiosity there is a practical reason for Ma's restlessness. "A pianist," says Ax, "could go on playing for 100 years and not begin to play the complete standard repertoire. For a cellist, if you are a talent like Yo-Yo, by the time you are 25 you have mastered all the cello concertos that are known." Through numerous commissions, Ma has done his best to expand the repertoire. Still, he's swimming his laps in a comparatively small pool...