Word: wealth
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...policy." Entrepreneurs and party officials profit from the economic reforms, but office workers and intellectuals do not. So while an individual's expectations are conditioned by the prosperity he sees around him, that newfound affluence is cruelly out of reach for many. TV, with its ubiquitous images of the wealth that many enjoy beyond China's borders, has deepened the dissatisfaction. The contrast is all the more painful because, amid it all, corruption flourishes. Says Rosen: "There's an ideological confusion. People feel leaders don't know how to solve problems...
...America's richest man? Forbes magazine says he is Sam Walton, 71, of Bentonville, Ark., the folksy, pickup-driving founder of Wal-Mart Stores (1988 sales: $20.8 billion). Last October the magazine estimated Walton's wealth at $6.7 billion. Forget about it, says Institutional Investor, noting that a portion of Walton's wealth is shared with four grown children. In its May issue the financial monthly says the richest man in the U.S. is Ronald Perelman, 46, of New York City, who has amassed a personal fortune of $5 billion in a mere ten years by assembling companies in businesses...
Paradoxically, mainline churches are being hurt by past success. Many are living off income earned from old wealth and feel no urgency to attract new supporters. They have also been lulled by their social status, which formerly made it possible to attract members without any effort. The Rev. Roger Zimmerman, who is industriously turning around a Disciples of Christ church near downtown Louisville, says that his socially prominent congregation long had a "white glove" mentality: "They didn't reach out and evangelize. They expected people to come of their own accord...
Alas, the go-for-it Texas system has in the 1980s become the American system. From former Attorney General Edwin Meese (not indicted) to imagemaker Michael Deaver (convicted), Ronald Reagan's closest advisers ran aground in part because they envied the easy California wealth of the President's kitchen Cabinet. From Abscam to Wedtech, East Coast Congressmen have found it hard to resist fast-money blandishments and outright bribery. Texas politicians like Jim Wright are far from unique in confusing doing well with doing good...
...resulting wealth, says Reynolds, ignited the flames of family ruin. Despite the author's wooden narration, he portrays a cast of heirs straight out of Dynasty: wastrels, alcoholics and eccentrics who became entangled in sordid divorces and murky crimes. Patrick's uncle Smith Reynolds, a daredevil pilot, died of a gunshot wound and was deemed a suicide. The author suggests that his uncle's second wife actually did the deed. Patrick Reynolds rarely saw his father, R.J. (Dick) Reynolds Jr., a chain smoker and heavy drinker who married four times and died at 58 of emphysema...