Economists tend to look at statistical aggregates covering high and low end income, and in doing so, fail to study the career paths of individuals.

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"With the high resolution Mars Orbiter Camera images, things that look smooth at low resolution appear very rough from high resolution and vice versa, " said David Spencer, mission manager for the Mars 2001 mission.

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"We look for high cash, low debt, and screen for management quality and efficiency, " Callahan says, adding that he considers direct meetings with companies' executive spinmeisters a waste of time.

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Suddenly, the high cost and low yield of those markets may look like just the ticket, as they did two years ago when the commercial real estate market began to move toward recovery.

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But what we did was we tried to look at the scientific evidence and figure out where are areas where low risk environmentally and a high potential upside.

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To pull out the most important themes in the data, look for survey questions in which you are rated high across all sources, and questions where you are rated low across all sources.

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So long as global consumer-price inflation is low, estimates of spare capacity are high and central banks are willing to "look through" short-term inflation spikes, every country has access to the chief weapon needed to fight the war ultraloose domestic monetary policy.

WSJ: There's a Feeling of Instability Bubbling Up

The idea is that setting a structural budget target will make budget writers less short-sighted: During an economic boom when actual GDP might be running above the economy's long-run potential the government's budget position will look deceptively strong, reflecting the fact that tax revenue is high and government spending on things like unemployment insurance is low.

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