And so that you get into the problem that you don't have the resources to spend on things that we know have a deterrent effect, we know have an effect on crime, whether it's the cop on the beat or it's social service.
It remains likely that this area will see the biggest changes in the new treaty, but whether they will have much effect is less clear.
Many attempts to reshape organizations inevitably have a scattershot quality, and the teams leading the charge never really know whether the changes will have a real effect.
The judge said that contractors, staff and shoppers "have a right to be anxious as to whether they have breathed asbestos fibre and what effect that might have on their well-being and future".
Then, there is the further question of whether it will have the desired effect.
The real question is whether it will have a lasting effect at home.
However some analysts questioned whether the move will have the desired effect of boosting business confidence.
The question is whether they will have the same slimming effect on people as they have done on mice.
Members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will have to decide whether the dominant effect of the energy price rise is to reduce demand from the economy, so that the long term prospects for inflation returning to target are improved, or to dangerously increase underlying inflationary pressures.
When pressed to say whether more quantitative easing would have the desired effect, the incoming governor said, matter-of-factly, that Bank of Canada research had concluded the policy was having diminishing returns, especially in the US. He added this was "not surprising".
Still, it's not clear whether the mishap will have a long-term effect on the company.
But the key question is whether the committee's findings will have any effect on the student protesters.
"Using that little bit of formula earlier really seems to have had a big effect on whether babies are getting formula at one week, " she says.
He hopes to learn, among other things, whether older people are immune to that effect, or whether it manifests itself in different ways in people who have already been through the aging process.
Whether or not it's going to have an effect, we wait to see.
One has to wonder, though, whether the collected array of contentions might have the unintended effect of enticing some taxpayers to sample forbidden fruit.
Now one can argue about whether this should have been done or not but the effect was always understood, even if denied in some parts.
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No one really knows whether that's going to have a beneficial or adverse effect on our security.
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Co-author Professor Sheena Lewis stressed it was not possible to say whether the DNA damage caused by diabetes would have the same effect on fertility as DNA damage caused by other factors such as smoking.
Democratic congressional aides have also not yet seen the final details of the agreement, and say they remain "skeptical" about whether it's too watered down to have a real effect on the cost of drugs for Americans.
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So far, it is unclear whether they will fully back DaimlerChrysler: although they have in effect washed their hands of Mitsubishi, they might still block reforms such as aggressive job-cutting if they felt these might tarnish the group brand.
Time will tell whether his plan will succeed, and what effect it will have on obesity and mortality rates, if it does.
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The uncanny valley effect could have to do with uncertainty about whether a robotic character is truly alive or dead, and even play into our deep-seated fears of death.
And, by the way, whether the rules work or not, they'll have an effect on the price and availability of credit - probably raising the price and shrinking the availability, for the period of implementation (at least) and possibly for longer.
It would seem that the question whether the Basel III requirements are having their intended effect seems to have been answered by this potential delay.
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Do you think a cessation of American testing will have any effect on nuclear proliferation, which seems to march on whether the U.S. tests or not?
Analysts are anxious to discover whether this indicates that a recovery is already underway, or whether the US slowdown will be prolonged - which would have a knock-on effect on other economies around the world.
Researchers question how much effect new rehab treatments have, how long it will last and whether lab training translates to the real world, says Edward Taub, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who wasn't involved in Friday's work.
But safety investigators have not determined which event occurred first, or whether they were the cause or the effect of the incident.
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