Word: rationalization
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...enormous toll on the economy. The most immediate concern is oil. This year the Soviet Union and its East-bloc satellites are expected to supply 490,000 tons, or 64% of the total need, compared with 95% in 1986. Oddly, the crisis has neither lowered the monthly gas ration of 20 gal. for each vehicle nor inspired the state to ease the controls that hold the official price of gas to just over 6 cents...
...still find almost anything they want, including imported luxury goods, but at sky-high prices. Because the salaries of lower-paid workers have increased little if at all since the revolution, many have taken additional, part-time jobs. To help them cope with inflation, the government has issued special ration books permitting them to buy food staples for roughly a tenth of the price the same items would cost on the open market...
...punishment cells, where conditions were even worse. "There is nothing in the cell except a toilet or a bucket. There is a plank for a bed, but no pad and no blanket, and it must be folded up against the wall in the daytime. There is a half-ration of food every other day." The cells were bitterly cold in winter. Begun estimated that he spent 200 days in punishment cells. "They punished politicals very severely. Wearing a yarmulke or an unbuttoned collar could get 15 days in punishment cells. They forbid everything because they fear everything...
...without a break, and continued for nine straight weeks. "They looked mean," Stone says, "and they stayed that way." Roaming the sets, Dye ensured the authenticity of every detail, from Barnes' wicked dagger ("Worn upside-down for quicker killing," Dye explains) to the proper use of white plastic C-ration spoons. No one said "Over and out" on the field radio, and no one wore camouflage fatigues, which came into use after the period depicted by the film...
...foreign debt of some $2 billion. The country achieved only about half of the growth called for in its last long-term economic plan (1978-84), and has yet to produce a new one. Both of the last two grain harvests have been substandard, and the daily grain ration in Pyongyang was recently reduced by 14%. Although the exact cause of last week's events remains murky, the forced cutback in such a staple certainly carried the potential for creating trouble...