Instead, central banks should permit some short-term cyclicality in order to purge the system of excesses.

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And it must run on diesel five minutes before shutting down to purge the system of grease, which can clog fuel lines, filters and injectors.

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Indeed, Mr. Osborne seems so confident that the slump is largely cyclical, the result of a euro crisis-induced slump in net trade, rather than structural that last month he flatly rejected a Bank of England recommendation to recapitalize the banks to purge the system of bad debts.

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If the catharsis theory were true, he said, football players should be less aggressive after a game, because they've been able to purge it from their system.

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