This meant that equity, the balance-sheet shock-absorber, had to fall in value.

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Others are convinced that the Spanish public sector still has much fat, that unemployment statistics are inflated and that the shock-absorber of Spanish society, the family, remains strong.

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Successful Kairos companies include the Levant Power Corporation, a shock absorber developer co-founded by Forbes 30 under 30 members Zack Anderson and Shakeel Avadhany.

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Their rough-hewn prototype sits in a small room at Trust Automation's headquarters in San Luis Obispo, California, using a water-filled vitamin bottle as a shock absorber. ("It runs like a Corvette on a Pinto engine, " Safreno says, smiling.) The ratty demo reel first shows a 22-second clip of an actor walking on a grassy lawn, past a blurred van, squirting water with a hose, at 24 fps.

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For the ribs -- there's cartilage that is a natural shock absorber so I don't know how truly affective that piece might be.

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This time around, it seems that the more flexible and much weaker rouble will be used as a main shock absorber if the world crisis deepens, and should provide a mechanism for a rapid balance-of-payments adjustment.

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