41.   A stronger stock market is good for banks and insurers who have to rely on stock sales for extra profits to write off the unrecoverable portion of problem loans.

42.   A. The market has written off this year.

43.   A year ago last September, the Yankees had been widely written off, the victim of old age and encroachment from the rising AL West.

44.   Accounting rules governing those transactions require that any amount paid in excess of the asset values be written off over time, causing a reduction in earnings.

45.   After uninspired early results, critics sniped that Witty was writing off races to prepare for the Games.

46.   All four wrote off hundreds of billions of yen in losses last year to help subsidiaries drowning in soured loans.

47.   All three will write off their accumulated bad loans to housing loan companies.

48.   Although Dole gained in the polls in the state as the election neared, he still all but wrote off Wisconsin after the Republican convention this summer.

49.   But he essentially wrote off Iowa, coming to the state in recent months only for nationally televised debates.

50.   But mileage may vary ... if you have a friend who is a computer whiz, you also have a chance to save money by writing off those factors.