1.   Social Security Commissioner Kenneth S. Apfel acknowledges the difficulty in insulating investment decisions from politics, but he said he believes it can be done.

2.   That prompted complaints from Republicans and some commission members that the White House was meddling in a process set up to insulate decisions about base closings from political influence.

3.   The Asian model of state-directed industrial policy depended on insulating investment decisions from normal considerations of profit and loss.

4.   The prevailing attitude seems to be that it is a purely private matter, and that insulates the decision from any moral governance.