As a callow bond-trader, fresh out of college, he participated in one of the greatest of them all, in Japan in 1986, when the yield on the ten-year benchmark Japanese government bond fell to 2.5%, the discountrate at the time.
Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) aims its bank- card pitch at employers who buy them in bulk as staff gifts. (BofA declined to comment on whether employers receive a discountrate for buying scads of cards at a time.) There's no dormancy fee with BofA's product, but after nine months the cards become worthless, whatever the remaining balance is.