Word: direness
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Congress overhauled the retirement program in 1983, after dire predictions that the Golden Age for the post-World War II generation would bring on the Dark Ages for Social Security. Before the reforms, the trust fund had worked more like a chain letter than a pension plan. Each current retiree's benefit check required payroll taxes from four current employees. But so many children were born right after the war and so few after 1964 that the pay-as-you-go system threatened to collapse when the boomers retired. In the first half of the next century there will...
Nancy's proscriptions have not always been obeyed. On April 7, 1986, Reagan went to the Baltimore Orioles' opening-day game at Memorial Stadium despite dire warnings from the Friend that he should not travel that day. Until Reagan's safe return, the White House communications network was ablaze with Nancy's efforts to abort the trip...
Fortunately, the Ivy League schools give a great deal of financial assistance to those students who are in dire economic straits. Sometimes, that aid is enough to match the scholarship offers coming from other institutions. But the assistance is frequently not enough for those who come from middle-income backgrounds...
...When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness--and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments...
...message to the faculty drew attention not only for its charges and recommendations, but also for its unconventionality. In the tape, a subdued Nesson--backed by the music of Dire Straits and Beethoven--gave a 30 minute monologue on why Bok's decision was unfair and why the faculty should meet to discuss the case...