Word: 90s
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...cold war, the absence of a sustained national emergency that required a strong Federal Government--the authority of the American political process has been in a long decline. At the same time, the reputation of U.S. business leaders has grown extraordinarily. In the 1980s and '90s, Lee Iaccoca, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Jack Welch and their ilk became our new heroes. Businessmen seemed to combine a buccaneer's spirit with a slide-rule mind. "Washington" (the word had to be said with a sneer) was, by comparison with the worlds of our titans, disorganized and inefficient, quite hopeless...
...innovative, daring--in the pantheon of American business. That such a judgment could be made by those not otherwise known for idiocy places our value system into question. The task of companies is to provide returns for investors and so create jobs and spread wealth. But by the '90s, top businessmen had become celebrities, writing books (or having them ghostwritten), gracing covers of magazines and preaching the wonders of American management and transparent accounting practices to companies in other countries. After Enron, the audiences overseas for heroes of glamour capitalism may diminish; meanwhile Americans have become appreciative of safety...
...Enron affair matured into a scandal just as it began to seem that the culture of celebrity was defunct; suddenly, we remembered that Barbra Streisand was not a political philosopher. Neither is Jack Welch or Bill Gates or, certainly, Ken Lay. In the '90s, we treated businessmen as if they were film stars (and we treated film stars like gods). But we lend stars our affections only; we lend businessmen our chance of future prosperity. A lesson from Enron: we would be wise to entrust that responsibility to those with their feet on the ground, not on a pedestal. Even...
Most states require large companies like K Mart to buy commercial surety bonds, which guarantee, among other things, worker's compensation payments to employees hurt on the job. During the roaring '90s, when risk wasn't a four-letter word, sureties were relatively inexpensive and were used for many purposes. But as the economy slowed, especially after Sept. 11, more and more companies defaulted, leaving insurers the bill...
...every $1 earned by a male manager; by 2000 female managers in that industry earned only 62[cents]. In communications, women in management went from 86[cents] to 73[cents]. ONE THEORY to explain the widening wage gulf is that in the booming labor market of the late '90s, job applicants could aggressively negotiate salaries. Research shows men tend to be better at it than women...