Word: hocking
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Everyone knows how bad the U.S. budget deficit is. How it rolls like a tidal wave of red ink over the Administration and Congress, undermining the dollar, pushing up interest rates, shaking the international monetary system and threatening to put future generations of Americans in hock to foreigners forever. How, whenever moneymen gather, finance ministers moan, central bankers chide, and all stare in horrified fascination. How could America get itself into such a mess...
When an ordinary company takes on a load of debt, the people who have the most to fear are employees and investors. But when an airline goes heavily into hock, the worriers are joined by another group: customers. If an airline is bogged down by debt, they wonder, would the carrier be tempted to save money by lowering its standards on maintenance and other safety measures? Everyone from passengers to politicians has begun to debate that question as billion-dollar takeover wars sweep the U.S. airline industry. Says Jerome Lederer, founder of the Virginia-based Flight Safety Foundation, an aviation...
...Never in my worst dreams did I think such a thing could happen," said Raymond Ng, 21, a movie-studio technician. "Blood has flowed like a river. A catastrophe has befallen my country." So Hock, 42, a textile-factory worker explained his shock and outrage: "They sent the troops out to kill these young people, people the army is supposed to protect. They are worse than beasts." At a rally last Sunday at the Happy Valley racetrack, Legislative Council member Martin Lee told a crowd, "I believe it ((the crackdown)) is the work of very old men who cling...
...adolescents find it hard to get off. "People say, 'I'll just take them for three months until I get the look I want, and then I'll quit,' " explains Adam Frattasio, 26, of Weymouth, Mass., a former user. "It doesn't work that way." Bulging biceps and ham-hock thighs do a fast fade when the chemicals are halted. So do the feelings of being powerful and manly. Almost every user winds up back on the drugs. A self-image that relies on a steroid-soaked body may be difficult to change. Chamberlain has a friend...
...trillion this year, a rise from 32% to 37% of U.S. gross national product. LBOs can be especially worrisome of borrowing, because they replace virtually all of a company's equity with IOUs that must be repaid. A sudden downturn can thus put a firm heavily in hock out of business. "High leverage is unsafe, not just for a company but for the entire economy," says M.I.T. economist Franco Modigliani, a Nobel laureate. Modigliani adds that while the debt mountain has not yet grown perilously high, "LBOs are reducing the safety. Management loses the power to do many things...