Worse, banks have come to rely on issuing their own preference shares to raise capital, and will find that harder if holders of Fannie's and Freddie's paper suffer losses.

ECONOMIST: American banks

He was wary of a creeping relativism - the idea that all was a matter of opinion and preference and that Truth, with a capital "T" did not exist.

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But Congress has already raised rates on capital gains and dividends since the TPC estimate, reducing the value of the preference.

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Although qualifying ISO dispositions can be reported as long-term capital gains on the 1040, the bargain element at exercise is also a preference item for the Alternative Minimum Tax.

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According to Gerber, Gen Y Capital Partners plans to fund businesses from a broad variety of industries, with no specific preference given to tech start-ups, as is frequently the case for accelerators.

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He believes that worldwide structural changes (increased mobility of capital and labour, the greater credibility of central bankers as inflation-fighters, the preference of ageing baby-boomers for fixed-income securities) have altered the equation, and that top-quality bond yields are, if anything, headed down.

ECONOMIST: Buttonwood