But the old balance scale still appears in art as a symbol of justice, weighing the claims of disputing parties.
Four years ago, when then presidential candidate Barack Obama picked Delaware senator Joe Biden as his running mate, it seemed to be a case of an intellectual, analytical senator, lawyer, and academician with lots of gravitas wanting a genial, unrehearsed, speak-your-mind kind of political partner to balance the scale.
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But there is no cosmic scale to balance.
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Credit Suisse has had its share of mishaps during the crisis but it was quick to scale down its balance-sheet, has plotted a credible strategy for its investment bank and pulled well ahead of UBS, its main rival in wealth management.
That then increases the size of the hole in their balance sheets, and therefore the scale of the official rescue from taxpayers they will eventually require.
Both men say the scale of cuts needed to balance the books is in fact somewhat less than what the Treasury and its watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), believe it to be.
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Over time, by providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this program will help improve asset values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets.
"Over time, by providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this programme will help improve assets values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets, " US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote in the Wall Street Journal before the programme was officially announced.
Frequent use was made of off-balance-sheet vehicles, on a greater scale even than Enron.
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This dirtying-up of corporate balance sheets is now taking place on a grand scale.
Second, women are more likely to start small scale, part-time businesses to balance work and family.
The answer depends on how easily banks are able to rebuild their capital, and how far they scale back lending in response to weaker balance sheets.
It is a gold producer, but it is producing in West Africa, so we give it a little bit of a discount on a geopolitical scale, but it has an enviable balance sheet.
For manufacturers struggling to find the right balance between supply and demand, business networks provide much needed visibility, scale and efficiency.
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On the first group, he writes that all could use their strong balance sheets and global cross-marketing ability to boost subscriber growth and scale up investment in content.
What is clear though is that the scale of the Russian effort so far is insufficient to change the balance of forces on the ground.
Since there seems to be little alternative other than full-scale disaster, the opposition has hinted that it may accept cutting transfers to the provinces, to help balance the budget.
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