Word: shrank
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
American manufacturers eventually learned what the Japanese already knew: that new markets can be created by making things smaller and lighter. (The popular phrase in Japan is kei-haku-tan-sho -- light, thin, short and small.) Ten years ago, Black & Decker scored big when it shrank the household vacuum cleaner from a bulky 11.2 kg (30 lbs.) to a 0.75-kg (2-lb.) device dubbed the Dustbuster. Tandy and Apple Computers put the power of a room-size computer into something resembling a television-typewriter and created an industry worth $75 billion a year...
...Bush does find the money, critics in and outside of the Administration wonder whether the Andean initiative will accomplish much. Peru will find it difficult to wean or bully its farmers from the cocaine trade unless economic growth opens markets for alternative products. But Peru's gross domestic product shrank 28% in the first quarter of 1989, and inflation has been running at 25% a month. In Bolivia officials contend that they need & $300 million to $500 million a year to develop legitimate alternatives for coca-farming peasants. That is considerably more than Bennett proposes to spend on the whole...
...massacre, demonstrations and strikes did erupt in several key cities -- from Shenyang in Manchuria to central Wuhan to southern Guangzhou. Students and workers set up barricades in Shanghai, China's largest city and economic hub, and paralyzed the public transportation system. But the activism soon petered out. Protest rallies shrank from the ten thousands to the tens. On Shanghai campuses, student associations dissolved. With the crackdown officially under way, the vast majority of people -- even in the once radical Shanghai -- have been frightened into nervous silence...
...America become so timeless? Those who can remember washing diapers or dialing phones may recall the silvery vision of a postindustrial age. Computers, satellites, robotics and other wizardries promised to make the American worker so much more efficient that income and GNP would rise while the workweek shrank. In 1967 testimony before a Senate subcommittee indicated that by 1985 people could be working just 22 hours a week or 27 weeks a year or could retire at 38. That would leave only the great challenge of finding a way to enjoy all that leisure...
...Uncle Miltie, Maverick and Playhouse 90 -- may not be dying, but they are sick and fighting for survival. Eating away at their audience is a panoply of new video choices: cable channels, independent stations, videocassette recorders, even an upstart "fourth network." The three networks' combined share of the audience shrank to a low of 70% last season, and the decline shows no signs of leveling off. New technologies like home satellite dishes and fiber-optic cable could eventually pose even greater threats. "We've been outplayed, outsold, outmarketed, outhustled by younger entrepreneurs," says Howard Stringer, the former president...