Word: indexes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Perhaps the most interesting example of Reagan's curious way with facts came when he was asked in Kansas whether he supported 100% parity, a formula that pegs the price of grain to an index of what various consumer goods cost in 1914. To oppose parity in Kansas is considered somewhere between blasphemy and heresy, but Reagan's answer was almost as bad: "I have to confess to you that I'm not as familiar with that as some things." Pressed the next day, he admitted: "I know more about it than I indicated there." The trouble...
...whatever reason, public interest in incest as a subject seems to have increased. Hollywood provides a good index; one survey shows there were six movies about incest in the 1920s, 79 in the '60s. The numbers are still growing. Recent films on the subject include Chinatown, Luna and the made-for-TV Flesh and Blood. But probing a sensitive subject for better understanding is one thing, and justifying incest is quite another...
This time around, nobody is in a panic, but the anxiety index is rising. Some economists are beginning to wonder whether Federal Reserve-imposed credit controls and prohibitive interest rates may lead to an economic freeze rather than simply the desired cooling shower for business. Almost as soon as interest rates hit the numbing 20%, several bankers were predicting that they would keep marching toward 22% or more and cause a serious economic decline. Yet the high cost of money seemed unavoidable, if inflation is to be controlled. Said Economist Alan Greenspan: "The only safe policy at this stage...
Thursday's market upheavals aside, investors, worried that inflation is jeopardizing all values, have bid down stock prices at a strenuous pace for the past two months. Despite a late rally that carried the average up 55 points from its Thursday low to its Friday high, the Dow index still lost 7 points for the week as a whole, closing at 778. That was down 14% from the Feb. 13 high of 904, one of the fastest drops in stock market history. The Dow average, composed of 30 blue-chip issues, understates the case; prices of less seasoned shares...
...identified by Okun's universally used definition: two consecutive quarters of negative G.N.P. growth. In the early 1960s he devised Okun's Law: for every 3% jump in economic growth, unemployment declines 1%; until the 1970s stagflation, the rule worked perfectly. Okun also invented the "discomfort index," the sum of the rates of unemployment and inflation. Okun's abiding concern was to control inflation without triggering recession and its grim results for the poor. Economic efficiency, he believed, must yield somewhat to social equality, or as he put it: "Society can transport money from rich to poor...