"We would also exchange mobile numbers in code, " he wrote.

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That leaves one, rather distant, hope: that, in the lame-duck period between the election and the next Congress, prompted by the imminent expiry of George Bush's tax cuts at the beginning of 2013, America's politicians will sit down and finally hammer out the grand bargain the country so desperately needs, with the tax increases delayed in exchange for sensible reforms to spending and the tax code.

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Under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, which Wall Street and brokers abhor, the wise drafters of the law asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to study a uniform fiduciary code for brokers.

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The code of practice was drawn up by the London Internet Exchange (Linx), where most of the UK's net firms swap traffic between each other's networks.

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