The real problem is that no affordable sum spent trying to stop smuggling has any effect on supply.

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" Attending a workshop last weekend in Venice of the Council for the United States and Italy, I heard one of them sum up the problem as succinctly as a French aphorist: "The growth agenda is nice to say but difficult to fill up.

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One problem with SPIAs is that the lump sum given to an insurance company goes away permanently.

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"At this stage it is not a sum of individual problems, it is a systemic problem, " he said.

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"The problem we have had with this is we put in this very large sum of money and I think in the initial stages targets did help focus people's minds on outputs and better performances, " he said.

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Sizeable enough, but that sum palls in comparison with America's long-term fiscal problem.

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Now here's the real problem: To use averaging, you must take the entire balance in an account as a taxable lump sum.

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