Word: absorbable
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Climaxing a decade of disillusionment, the year 1979 tested Americans' capacity to absorb economic shock. Consumer prices doubled during the sputtering '70s, but it was in the decade's final year that the previously unthinkable became commonplace reality. The year that brought 13% inflation, 14% mortgage rates and 15¼% prune rates also saw $225-a-day hospital rooms, $500 off-the-rack men's suits, the 25? Hershey bar and the $3.50 martini. Millions of Americans had to postpone their dreams for a home of their own; the average price of a few-frills...
...handful of stars at the top and scarcely anything to the rest. The American art education system, churning out as many graduate artists every five years as there were people in late 15th century Florence, has in effect created an unemployable art proletariat whose work society cannot "profitably" absorb. Generous tax laws, which enabled collectors to buy low, keep a picture for years and then reap a tax benefit by giving it to a museum at its enhanced value, fueled the art boom. The inequity of such laws has been that, if the artist gives his own work...
...electricity. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the architectural firm renowned for its skyscrapers, is constructing an energy-efficient cube-shaped building for Draper and Kramer in Chicago that features three sunlit atriums. Architect Gunnar Birkerts' 14-story IBM building in Detroit is black on its north and east sides, to absorb heat, and silver on its south and west sides, to reflect it. A combination of tilted windows and curved stainless steel windowsill reflectors bounce natural light into the interior. The building requires only a mod erate 50 footcandles of artificial lighting and uses a thrifty 42,000 B.T.U.s of heat...
Last year the Aeroquip Corp., a subsidiary of Toledo-based Libbey-Owens-Ford, announced that it was closing its hydraulic hose plant in Youngstown, Ohio. The city was already strug- gling to absorb the layoffs of more than 4,000 steelworkers, and new job prospects in the area seemed slim. So some of the 375 employees decided to buy the 48-acre facility and run it themselves...
...wine distributor for $18 a case. But this tax will force the Gallo Bros. to raise the price of their wine to $20, to cover the $2 they will have to pay the government. The wine distributor then sells the Pinot Chardonnay to liquor store owners for $30 to absorb a $1 VAT. He has added $10 to the price of the wine and is taxed 10 per cent of this value. Finally, the retailer must charge $50 per case, to prevent the government's $2 value added tax from cutting into his profit margin. At a rate...