Before August 1986, investors could structure a deal to show blood-curdling losses - on paper - by combining rapid depreciation, high interest costs and liberal accounting rules.

This is true even though rapid depreciation and obsolescence characterize information technology.

Some consumer electronics are dumped because of their rapid depreciation, obsolescence, cost to repair, or expense to upgrade.

However, even with this change, rapid depreciation often resulted in the home occupants paying far less in property taxes than had been anticipated and budgeted.

Due to the rapid depreciation of the Continental currency, the Continental Congress authorized soldiers to provide commissary notes as compensation for impressed supplies.

For example, they argued, taking on huge long-term debt burdens during the telecommunications industry build-out of the 1990's was out of sync with the rapid depreciation and obsolescence of computer-based equipment.

By 248 votes to 81, with 43 abstentions, the Reichstag on March 30 passed a resolution protesting the new regulations, which many believed would cause the rapid depreciation of German money.

N.T.T. takes a huge charge for depreciation, reflecting its large capital spending program and its relatively rapid depreciation of many assets, but the cash-flow calculation ignores depreciation, as well as capital spending.

In the 1980's, the prospect of higher prices worried the capital markets when the dollar experienced a rapid depreciation, said Kermit L. Schoenholtz, chief economist of Salomon Smith Barney.

But by and large, the rapid depreciation of the economy remained unchecked and the government showed little concern towards the plight of the poor peasant.