Word: counterfeit
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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What distinguishes the authentic national confession from the counterfeit? For one thing, there is no confusion of we and they. We remain responsible, even if the crime was in fact committed by them. As when Japan's Foreign Minister apologized on behalf of the entire nation for the 1972 massacre carried out at Tel Aviv's Lod Airport by Japanese Red Army terrorists: fathers atoning for sons. And as when the U.S. makes affirmative action a national policy (at least in part) as reparation for past injustice: sons atoning for fathers...
...average of 80 erroneous distress signals. On weekends, say officials at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, which coordinates military and civilian rescue operations in the U.S., the number of bogus S O Ss rises to 100 or more. Deputy Assistant Air Force Secretary Lloyd Mosemann calls these counterfeit calls for help "a national disgrace" that "is strangling a very worthwhile program." Indeed, it is currently the only joint U.S.-Soviet space effort...
...onion caught on around the South, but did not move outside the region unless Southerners felt the pull of wanderlust, taking with them strong opinions on what constituted a good onion: the Vidalia. Now stores from Manhattan to Miami, Los Angeles to Seattle, sell Vidalias, real and counterfeit. The growers and the Chamber of Commerce here say the real Vidalia is raised within a 35-mile radius of Vidalia. Growers who belong to the Chamber's tag program produce onions that are graded and approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and bear a tag with the trademark Yumion...
Banks and retailers face hosts of problems that drive up rates: borrowers who welsh on their debts, thieves who steal cards and go on shopping sprees, and more sophisticated criminals who make counterfeit charge plates. One top executive at a New York City bank estimates that about one-fifth of the 19.8% interest his institution charges on credit cards goes to cover loan losses and the expense of collecting tardy payments...
Losses from counterfeit cards alone are running about $30 million annually, but that is only a fraction of the roughly $400 million that will be taken this year in spurious credit-card transactions. Thanks to a 1971 federal law, a consumer's liability in theft or fraud is limited to $50 per card; the cost is usually absorbed by either the bank or the company issuing the card. Eventually, however, the losses drive up the cost of goods and consumer credit...