This plan left the utilities vulnerable to extremely high prices in times of relative scarcity.

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In an oil-drenched region, all these countries are united by the relative scarcity of their energy reserves.

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The element of relative scarcity in the economy over the last four years has given rise to much more intense competition.

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Rather, the relative scarcity of supply has allowed January's flood of deals to be absorbed, halting a slide in bond prices.

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Already, the relative scarcity of Treasury paper has widened the yield spread between Treasurys and other debt instruments like agencies, mortgages and corporates.

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Other than a relative scarcity of big corporate headquarters beyond Qwest Communications, Liberty Media and MolsonCoors, the pieces of a powerhouse baseball market seemed to be in place.

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Analysts and money managers blame the relative scarcity of new bonds on a lack of clarity regarding proposed rules changes intended to shift the financial burden of future bank rescues from taxpayers to bondholders.

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The threads running through all of this are price and scarcity: a price to signal the relative scarcity of a good such as a rare-earth metal, and that relative scarcity in turn to stimulate innovation.

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The reason why the NFL is much more dramatic on a game-to-game basis is the scarcity of games relative to other sports.

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We already have a system to deal with resource scarcity, one that deals very effectively with changing relative prices, with the different ways that can be used to achieve the same goal which being best depending upon those relative prices.

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