Word: less
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...countries would seem less likely to succeed in the modern world of globalization, free trade and high-tech, speed-of-light capitalism than France. Widely caricatured as the home of the five-week vacation, the 35-hour workweek and the crippling public-sector strike, this overcentralized, overtaxed, state-heavy, tradition-bound, protectionist and perversely self-satisfied nation could not possibly survive in the competitive, market-driven international arena of today. Could...
...than the U.S. and some of its European neighbors, but the number of Internet connections has increased fivefold since 1997, and the financing of high-tech start-ups has tripled in the past year. Says Jacques Attali, a former economic adviser to President Mitterrand: "Two years ago, there was less than $100 million available for start-ups. Now it's nearly $2 billion." Among the new companies that are becoming household names in France: Fi System, a consulting firm that constructs websites and develops Internet strategies for traditional firms as well as start-ups; Tocamak, a so-called start...
...firms operate under federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act guidelines, which supersede varying and often baffling state insurance requirements. This lets national employers use one set of rules, simplifying the administration of health benefits. Moreover, ERISA guidelines in many cases are far less costly to implement than the state requirements, which may include coverage for such things as mental illness and alcoholism treatment, contraceptives, dentures and hair replacement...
...Nakamura profited hardly at all from his pioneering work. Nichia, which holds the rights to Nakamura's invention, upped his income to $140,000--much less than a top corporate scientist in the U.S. makes. A couple of years later, when the researcher had refined his blue beam, Nakamura was told that his initial raise more than covered any future innovations. Says the 45-year-old electrical engineer: "If I had made the same discovery in the U.S., I would have got a $1 million bonus." Disenchanted, Nakamura left Nichia last December for a professorship at the University of California...
...altogether--should be prescribed antibiotics before particularly bloody dental procedures so that bacteria in the mouth don't stray to the heart. Are doctors giving patients the proper pills? A study shows that while 90% of folks with artificial heart valves are prescribed antibiotics, only 60% of those with less extreme conditions are getting them. And unbelievably, 25% of people with a perfectly normal heart are given antibiotics. Advice: if an echocardiogram doesn't show a heart-valve problem, don't take antibiotics. If it does, demand them...