Word: class
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...than dinners, more wine than champagne. "It's chic to be prudent," says Michelle McQuaid of Ridgewell's Caterers. "Being rich in the '90s is not in style." Families are learning hard lessons in economics, and in discipline. One by one, items drop from the budget of a middle-class dream: cable TV, designer coffee, a winter vacation, credit cards. In the boom years of the decade, when no excess was too wretched, household debt grew about 50% faster than disposable income. "I really try to get us on a savings plan," says Sarah Frazier, who lives with her husband...
There is no denying that affirmative action has started some blacks on the ladder of advancement and thus helped create a black middle class. There is equally no denying that because it violates the rights of some people purely on the grounds of race, it has exacerbated racial resentments...
...that the Kuwaitis were ungenerous. The welfare-state umbrella covered non-Kuwaitis almost as well as it protected the natives. Expatriates could prosper, and many did. But everything about the rest of a foreigner's life in Kuwait was demonstrably second class. As naturalization was almost impossible, an expatriate's stay in the country depended on the whim of his employer. Noncitizens could be deported without recourse, and they frequently were when economic demand slackened or political crisis threatened. Foreigners could not own homes or land. Those who worked for the government were eligible for subsidized housing. Those employed...
Their efforts can be surprisingly effective. Barbara Lewis' sixth-grade class at Jackson Elementary School in Salt Lake City not only pressured the Environmental Protection Agency into clearing a 50,000-bbl. hazardous waste dump but helped push through a reluctant state legislature a bill to pay for such cleanups. "Parents believe you can't beat city hall, and find reasons not to get involved," says Andrew Altman, a spokesman for Greenpeace. "Kids don't have that kind of cynicism. They just get things done...
...Alaska's new Governor, he promised to shake things up. Hickel's done so by ordering a Lincoln Continental and a $2,600 office chair. He also prefers to fly first class where he can. Wife Ermalee has decided that henceforth Governor's House will be termed a Mansion...