Word: direness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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However, the policy is ultimately little more than a symbolic gesture and a Band-Aid fix to a problem that is in dire need of a suture. Simply cutting the pay of executives does little to address the systemic problems that helped give rise to the financial crisis. The Obama administration now has a unique opportunity to capitalize on populist discontent with policies that correct the lax regulatory regime that helped enable the financial meltdown. Real change to the current system, which incentivizes unnecessary risk-taking and corporate irresponsibility, cannot be replaced with simply cutting executive pay. The recent cuts...
...secret that Michigan is enduring the most extreme effects of the nation's economic crisis: its unemployment rate stands at 15.3%, and the state is functioning on a temporary budget as legislators rush to close a $2.8 billion deficit. In recent years, the financial situation here has been so dire that Michigan has closed several detention facilities, reducing its prison population by thousands. Now, however, the state appears to be viewing prisoners in a different economic light - as a potential revenue generator...
...United Nations Security Council has chosen its next five non-permanent members, to begin serving next January in the body charged with global security. What Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Gabon, Lebanon, and Nigeria will accomplish in their two-year terms remains to be seen, but already clear is the dire need for systemic reform in the structure of the Security Council...
Indeed, the political realities are sometimes dire. As American environmentalists discovered during former President George W. Bush's Administration, it was difficult enough to preserve existing levels of protection for wildlife, let alone push for tougher standards. Yet if Traill and his colleagues are right, the status quo is not enough to protect endangered species, and it's too weak to stop the sixth great extinction wave...
...Some people can be in dire situations...The recession has probably made people a lot more desperate...