From a selfish point of view, the Assembly group will be fervently hoping that the voters take their pound of flesh (if the opinion polls continue as they are) at the General Election and then are able to approach them on their own merits a year later.

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The Treasury and the Fed extracted their pound of flesh of course, but at the time were justly criticized for being too generous to shareholders facing the deserved loss of their whole hide.

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So even if you are off the floor, CEA still gets its pound of flesh.

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The EU wants a bank contribution to bailout costs and it is focusing on the bank levy, which would set aside a pound of flesh to cover prior or future bank bailout costs.

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Visa is just the one who markets it and processes it and takes their pound of flesh.

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But such creditors are just as keen on extracting their pound of flesh (in terms of economic reform) as the private sector.

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Attempting to exact a pound of flesh from a company without evidence of consumer harm would delegitimize the FTC for decades to come.

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But if the funding or data scandals deepen, Mr Brown may yet be forced to offer up a pound of ministerial flesh.

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Are you going to recommend that seeking to extract their pound of flesh from these parties is a better approach to strengthening their mental health than doing the hard work of examining their own attitudes and behaviors and empowering themselves to make the needed changes?

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