Word: rigidness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Frustrated by repeated failures to forecast accurately and wearied by years of feuding, economists are moving toward a more eclectic yet pragmatic ^ philosophy. Going out the window are the overly rigid, dogmatic formulas for prosperity. Many academics are attacking their peers for getting so wrapped up in mathematical models that they cannot understand the unpredictable diversity of the real world. "We have learned that the various schools of thought all have important elements of truth in them," says Michael Boskin, designated chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. "But none of them is by itself a sufficient explanation...
...example is Britain, with its rigid class structure, its powerful unions, its state-owned industrial dinosaurs, its enormous governmental bureaucracy. Its precipitous postwar decline took place precisely as it was shedding its empire. Thatcher engineered Britain's dramatic renewal in the 1980s, when it had one of the fastest growth rates in Europe, by going after not defense spending but the sclerosis that had set into the system: authoritarian unions, failing state-owned industries, a paternalistic bureaucracy and, by example and rhetoric, the British class system itself...
Chastened by failures and feuds, struggling to fathom the boom-and-borrow Reagan years, economists jettison rigid formulas and move toward a more pragmatic philosophy...
Even with these restrictions, teams at Harvard are able to compete successfully with teams free of rigid academic requirements. Harvard's women's teams in particular are able to give teams outside the Ivy League a solid test, according to Delaney Smith...
...Researchers have developed a vacuum device that produces an erection. The penis is sheathed in an acrylic tube, and a hand pump is used to force out air from around the penis. The resulting vacuum draws blood into the penis until it becomes rigid. Rubber bands are then slipped onto the base of the penis to keep the blood from escaping; the bands can be left in place safely for half an hour. The vacuum machine costs about $450. Urologist Perry Nadig of San Antonio has followed 340 of his patients who have used the device, some for as long...