Word: 1980s
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Last fall, Funny or Die came out with a series of literal videos - 1980s pop songs repurposed with new lyrics that gave a play-by-play narrative of their occasionally absurdist but mostly awful music videos - and I didn't laugh. (They weren't that funny.) But the literal video of Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," is another thing entirely. This video is so incredible it's hard to know where to begin. (Read "Tears for Fears: The Literal Remix...
...enough of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic missteps, bellicose rhetoric and beige windbreakers. But the man with the best shot at unseating the fiery incumbent in Iran's Presidential elections isn't the youthful or charismatic candidate one might expect. Though he served as Iran's Prime Minister during the 1980s, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the pragmatic reformist who has emerged as Ahmadinejad's most serious challenger, is stepping back into the political spotlight after what the Iranian media has dubbed "20 years of silence." Mousavi's low profile may work to his benefit. Iranians seeking an alternative to Ahmadinejad's truculence...
...look at the amount of debt the typical household carries as a percentage of its disposable income. The ratio of debt to income increased from about 35% in the early 1950s to about 65% by the mid-1960s, where it more or less stayed until the late 1980s. That's when debt started its epic rise, hitting 100% of income in 2001 and going all the way up to 133% in 2007. (Read "Five Reasons for Economic Optimism...
...that raises an interesting question: Why would we think that a debt-to-income ratio of 100% is sustainable? Well, for one thing, the economy has ostensibly evolved since the 1950s, and even since the 1980s. Advancements like securitized lending seem to have created a system in which interest rates are lower and consumers are able to shoulder more debt than they once were. The percentage of income that goes toward paying interest on debt went from 11% at the beginning of 1980 to 14% at the beginning of 2008, a much smaller jump than the increase in gross amount...
...Originally a small-scale guerrilla group in southern Lebanon formed to resist Israeli invasion in the 1980s, Hizballah built its reputation on a dogged ability to repeatedly hold its own against Israeli forces -an achievement nearly unprecedented in the Arab world. (See rare pictures of Hizballah's youth movement...