Word: 80s
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Files is the cultural touchstone of this millennial decade, as David Letterman was of the '80s. Letterman's withering facetiousness said that no institution was to be respected anymore--everything was up for laughs. The X-Files says there are things to believe in: the things the government suppresses and the traditional media don't dare reveal. The show is 60 Minutes for the reality-impaired; Mulder and Scully are the new Mike Wallace and Lesley Stahl...
...early 1970s, in the mutating world of computerization, the IRS had fallen behind. Instead of making incremental changes, the IRS spent six years formulating an overarching plan called the Tax Administration System that would cost $649 million and be in operation by the early '80s. The IRS presented the plan to Congress shortly after the final agonies of Watergate (which featured a paranoid President who used the IRS to harass his enemies). Congress was spooked by the idea of a more centralized, all-knowing, all-seeing IRS, and said no thanks. The IRS was told simply to replace worn...
...redevelopment plan for 42nd Street and Times Square, the driving force of which was to be four mammoth, nearly identical office towers designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee as a kind of chilly Rockefeller Center South. Fortunately for fans of Times Square's higgledy-piggledy aesthetic, the late-'80s economic downturn pulled the rug out from under that plan. And there was this added benefit: the developers were obligated to cough up $241 million to the city and state whether or not they ever built. That kitty allowed planners to start condemning properties and evicting what they...
...struck by the extraordinary parallels between private higher education today and the health-care sector of the '70s and early '80s. In both, costs rose much faster than inflation. There was price-based costing rather than cost-based pricing. In health care, the result was a market-driven revolution in the way medical services were financed and delivered, including rapid consolidation of providers to eliminate costly duplication of resources. There was fierce competition among the survivors to cut prices and document quality, and the "payers" became the dominant force in calling the shots. Could private higher education be the next...
...suds-and-mayonnaise color and scatty marking of his later work are in sharp contrast to the fierce, free concision of the earlier. Most problematic of all, naturally, are the paintings--currently on view at New York City's Museum of Modern Art--that were done in the '80s, after his mind was completely gone and he had to rely on assistants to do everything but move his arm across the canvas. These spectral, vacuous confections of ribbony paint are among the saddest things ever made by a once major artist...