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The myth reflects the way we tend to think about vulnerability—as a fixed liability almost destined to play out badly in battle or under other kinds of stress.

Debtors have less cash to deal with a fixed liability.

"It's a fixed liability for the majority of folks, and it doesn't vary up or down like food or clothing costs can," he says.

Mr. Flack's appearance was not so much a property of his own as a prejudice or a fixed liability of those who looked at him: whoever they might be what they saw mainly in him was that they had seen him before.