Word: firming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...problem is compounded by the fact that the NEA is not a ministry of culture. It does not commission large works to reflect glory on the state, or set firm policy for other institutions. Its $169 million budget is tiny -- less than one-third the projected price of one Stealth bomber, or, to put it another way, only ten times the recent cost of a single painting by Jasper Johns. The French government spends three times the NEA's budget each year on music, theater and dance alone ($560 million in 1989). German government spending on culture runs at around...
...still far too early for the U.S. to draw firm conclusions about Rafsanjani. Virtually everything in the region is so riddled with confusion that no one last week could say for sure whether Higgins was executed on Monday, as his captors claimed, or months ago and the tape of his execution saved for use at a later, advantageous moment. It was not even certain that it was Higgins whose body was shown in the tape. Forensic experts at the FBI were carefully measuring and comparing the features of the man in the videotape with photographs of the captured Marine...
...psychological smog spread by England's economy. All the characters, whether they know it or not, are indirect victims of Thatcherism -- Robyn because of the cuts in public spending that have ravaged her university's budget; Vic because of Rummidge's desperate rust-belt competition, which causes his firm to be taken over and him to get the sack; even Robyn's lover Charles because of the post-Big Bang financial speculations that lure him from academe and leave him adrift. This theme weighs a bit heavily on the book and keeps it from having quite the buoyancy and sparkle...
...tariff, while toy soldiers are not. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has now upheld Customs, reasoning that, like other dolls, GI Joe is "a representation of a human being used as a child's plaything." But for little boys everywhere, said Donald Robbins, the firm's general counsel, "GI Joe is still one of the guys...
...more than doubled, from $1.1 trillion to $2.2 trillion. Investors in junk bonds, the high-yield securities that account for $225 billion in debt, could be among the first to feel the pinch. According to a study conducted for a group of junk-bond issuers by the economic consulting firm Data Resources, 1 out of every 8 will default if the economy falls into a soft landing. A major recession could produce a 1-in-5 default rate over five years. This year some $3 billion worth of junk bonds either have defaulted or were forced into a restructuring...