This helps ensure your position against loss, though at a cost - just like insurance.

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This home bias also helps explain why, though the stock of debt is huge, debt-servicing costs as a percentage of GDP have been relatively low compared with Japan's OECD peers (see chart).

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This year's victory by the NFC Tampa Bay Buccaneers should be good for stocks, though it helps to ignore the fact that the team played one season in the AFC in 1976.

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This helps to explain why, in the second quarter of this year, consumer spending rose even though incomes have been falling: for the first time in many months people are becoming willing to spend more and save less.

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