However, small-business owners in Odenton, Md., suffered a lost four years.
"It was like a lost four years, because you can't just sort of selectively repress, you know?
For example, between 1990 and 2008, white women with college degrees picked up three and a half years of life expectancy, while those without a high-school diploma lost five years.
In a larger sense, Mr. McCain is an impatient man -- perhaps because he lost five years of his life as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam -- in an institution that worships delay and rewards endurance.
They, on average, lost five years of life, while white men lacking a diploma lost three years.
After that we have lost five years.
He rose through the ranks, holding jobs from deck hand to port captain, and was named director of ferry operations in 1995, a post he lost two years later after a city audit found overtime abuses and other violations.
Marc H. Simon, a lawyer who lost two years of bonuses, his job and months of unreimbursed expenses when Mr. Dreier's law firm collapsed, said he has thought a lot about what he could have done differently.
The yen, as reflected in how many it takes to get a dollar, has lost three years' ground.
