For the last five years, profits at the public, $156 million company have grown at double-digit levels.

Such estimates are considerably above the 1.1 percent increase in the index for 1986 but well below the double-digit levels of the late 1970's.

Same-store sales, a more accurate gauge of a retailer's strength, increased at double-digit levels for those companies as well.

Inflation, meanwhile, which not so long ago afflicted the industrial world at double-digit levels, once seemed intractable.

Should annual returns decline from their double-digit levels, those expenses could be a big drag on performance.

For each of the past five years, the state has not raised taxes but has increased spending by double-digit levels.

Ever since 1999, when sales increases reached double-digit levels at most retailers, the industry has been forced to live with much more modest gains.

"I get this edgy feeling that the market wants to push yields to double-digit levels," he said.

Interest rates on home mortgages in Italy, which routinely reached double-digit levels in the past, are about 5 percent.

Union leaders, meanwhile, must remember that without addressing the deficits in welfare benefit funding, France's unemployment rate is likely to remain at double-digit levels.