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'83 Deficit May Prove Lower Than Forecast: Lehman Bros. Economist Disputes Treasury Study on | With spending for defense, farm price supports, unemployment benefits and Medicare running lower than expected, the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1983 could turn out to be $200 billion or less, some $10 billion below the Reagan administrationÛªs mid-July estimate.</br></br>Officials at the Congressional Budget Office and a number of private forecasters estimating the lower spending figures for the fiscal year ending next week say a variety of factors are responsible, including lower fuel costs at the Department of Defense and the summer-long drought that has induced many farmers to sell grain and pay off outstanding government loans.</br></br>Outlays probably will turn out to be $800 billion, compared with an administration estimate of $809.8 billion, the sources say. The recent sale by the government of Chrysler Corp. stock warrants netted $311 million, while the Export-Import Bank received an unexpected repayment of $400 million from the Iranian government. That $711 million is shown as receipts that lower outlays.</br></br>Meanwhile, the economic recovery has so far produced no surge in revenues, which are still pegged close to $600 billion.</br></br>At the level of $200 billion, the deficit will still be nearly twice the size of the $110.6 billion gap between spending and receipts in 1982. Forecasts for coming years indicate the red ink will remain in the $200 billion range or higher unless Congress and the president take new steps to cut spending or raise taxes. | no | 0 |
New Securities Issues | The following were among yesterday's offerings and pricings in U.S. and non-U.S. capital markets, with terms and syndicate manager, based on information provided by Dow Jones Newswires. (A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point; 100 basis points equals a percentage point.)</br></br>CORPORATE</br></br>American General Corp. -- $300 million of capital securities was priced through lead manager Salomon Smith Barney, according to people familiar with the deal. Terms: maturity: July 1, 2030; coupon: 8.5%; issue price: 99.471; yield: 8.549%; spread: 242 basis points above Treasurys; debt ratings: A2 (Moody's), single-A (S&P).</br></br>EQUITY</br></br>Cox Radio Inc. (CXR) -- 8.8 million common shares were priced at $29 apiece through lead underwriter Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. | no | 0 |
Have Financial Markets Broken From `Reality'? Many Economists Say Yes | With yesterday's mini-meltdown on Wall Street, the question looms larger than ever: Have the financial markets detached themselves from the "real" economy of jobs, incomes and gross domestic product?</br></br>For many economists, the answer is a fairly resounding yes. And they find it misguided to see the gyrations of the 1998 U.S. stock market as a reliable indicator of either a continued boom or an imminent bust.</br></br>The stock decline is "not telling us a thing about the U.S. economy," said James F. Smith Jr., professor of finance at the University of North Carolina. "There's hardly anything wrong with the U.S. economy today that you can't solve with lower interest rates."</br></br>It's tempting to believe otherwise, of course. It was less than eight weeks ago that the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a record 9337.97. Optimists saw it as proof of a new economic paradigm. Bolder types concluded, as they had in past years, that the business cycle had been repealed by tremendous strides in technology and productivity, justifying enormous leaps in stock prices.</br></br>Today, just a few weeks later, doomsayers point to the plunging financial markets and the global damage inflicted by the Asian crisis. | no | 0 |
World News: Japan Posts Trade Deficit as Its Exports to Asia Weaken | TOKYO -- Japan reported an unexpected trade deficit in October as its exports to Asia weakened for the first time in almost seven years, raising the odds of a deeper economic slump in the fourth quarter.</br></br>Exports to China showed their first drop in nearly three and a half years, according to data from the Finance Ministry. Shipments to the U.S. and Europe continued to decline as well.</br></br>Japan's merchandise trade deficit totaled 63.9 billion yen ($659.5 million) during the month, the ministry said. Overall exports fell 7.7% from October last year, their first decline in four months and their biggest drop since a 14.5% slump in December 2001.</br></br>The downturn in exports, coupled with an oil-driven 7.4% rise in the value of imports, pushed the trade balance into the red. It's a bad omen for Japan's export-dependent economy, which has been thrown into recessionby softening overseas demand.</br></br>"The downward momentum in exports is strengthening at an unexpectedly fast pace," said Taro Saito, senior economist at NLI Research Institute. | no | 0 |
Bond Prices Retreat Slightly as Some Investors Become Less Bullish on Latest Economic Signals | NEW YORK -- The bullish convictions of some bond investors slipped a bit yesterday and prices on most Treasury issues fell in light selling.</br></br>The benchmark 30-year Treasury issue fell nearly 1/4 point, or nearly $2.50 for each $1,000 face amount, taking the yield up to 8.06%.</br></br>Traders said more and more investors are weighing recent economic reports and are coming to the view that the Federal Reserve may not reduce interest rates anytime soon. However, bond investors are largely waiting for this Friday's August employment report before arriving at any conclusions about the current strength of the U.S. economy.</br></br>Most trading activity occurred in the morning. Dealers found few buyers to take bonds off the hands of profit-takers and nervous bulls, and so prices were marked down. By noon, trading slowed to a crawl as hundreds of traders and investors in the government bond market tuned into the live broadcast of Congressional hearings over the Salomon Treasury auction scandal.</br></br>No hearings are scheduled for today, however, and the market's attention is likely to swing back to economic fundamentals. One group of investors that has turned negative on the bond market recently are asset allocators, who juggle investments between stocks, bonds and cash in search of high returns with moderate risks. | no | 0 |
Bonds Slip in Light Session, but Analysts Expect Higher Prices in Coming Months | NEW YORK -- The bond market wound up the year on a quiet note as prices drifted lower in light trading.</br></br>Some 30-year Treasury bonds fell 1/2 point, or $5 for each $1,000 face amount. The U.S. government securities market closed at about 2 p.m. Wednesday and was closed yesterday for New Year's Day.</br></br>In the final three sessions of 1986, prices of some long-term Treasury bonds slumped nearly two points, or almost $20 for each $1,000 face amount. The setback came amid concern about a recent surge in oil prices and the dollar's continued slump in foreign-exchange markets. These developments, along with a sharp increase in the price of gold Wednesday, have intensified fears among some investors about the inflation outlook.</br></br>Most forecasters in recent surveys still expect higher bond prices in coming months because they say the Federal Reserve System probably will drive down interest rates in an effort to rejuvenate the economy. But some are having second thoughts, especially as several recent government reports have indicated the economy may be perking up somewhat.</br></br>"I'm continuing to predict that rates will decline for the next several quarters, but I'm much less confident about it than I was in a similar forecast at the end of the summer," said James L. Cochrane, senior vice president at Texas Commerce Bancshares Inc. He expects the economy to remain "weak" through the first half of 1987, paving the way for declines of about 1/2 percentage point on 30-year Treasury bond yields to about 7% by this summer. | yes | 1 |
Prices Rise as Technology Sector Soars In a Delayed Reaction to Fed's Move | NEW YORK -- Computer issues sprinted higher, igniting small-company stocks, which outperformed their larger cousins.</br></br>Observers said the technology group soared in a delayed reaction to</br></br>Tuesday's decision by the Federal Reserve to raise short-term interest</br></br>rates for the fifth time this year.</br></br>Techs rebounded after being dragged sharply lower in the correction that occurred earlier this year, analysts said. | no | 0 |
Despite Rally, Worries Over Inflation Remain --- Economists Search For Better Indicators Than the Jobs Report | NEW YORK -- It's time to call a halt to the bond market's infatuation with the monthly employment data and look further afield for new ways to detect wage inflation.</br></br>That's the argument advanced by growing numbers of economists and market participants, as Americans continue to find jobs at a steady clip and the unemployment rate drops sharply. Weary of the bond-market gyrations touched off by each monthly employment report, they have embarked on a quest for new clues about inflation. Some are even putting their faith in anecdotal evidence instead of the sometimes confounding signals from the statistical data.</br></br>"The employment numbers are becoming increasingly less relevant as the numbers of people finding jobs has grown," argues Nancy Kimelman, chief economist at Technical Data in Boston. "Frankly, there aren't that many people left to hire. . . . A gain of 300,000 in today's labor market is the equivalent of what would have been [a] massive gain of 700,000 jobs four years ago."</br></br>The reason, Ms. Kimelman says, is that as the rate at which Americans find new jobs has leveled off at around 230,000 a month, the unemployment rate continues to fall and average hourly earnings continue to climb. Indeed, Friday's report showed that average hourly earnings rose six cents in August to $11.87, the highest level seen since December 1990, and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.1%. Those factors helped cap the Treasury market's "relief" rally, touched off when traders saw that the overall job growth was within expected bounds.</br></br>"The fixation on the `big' overall number of new jobs isn't sane," says one trader, disgruntled after a day of fielding more calls than he says he gets in an average week, all from clients seeking insight into a single figure. | yes | 1 |
BEYOND THE BELTWAY 1997; And You Thought Things Were Strange Here . . . | You say you've got a handle on the Asian economic crisis and the 1998 congressional races but remain consumed by a feeling of emptiness? And you learned more than you wanted to this year about the Mir space station and Princess Diana but less than you need to about the rest of the world? Fear not. Here, boiled down from wire dispatches, was the real news of 1997.</br></br>OSLO -- A Norwegian court ruled that beer-spitting members of a faux-hillbilly band were engaging in legitimate artistic expression.</br></br>APPLETON, Wis. -- A woman sued her former psychiatrist for malpractice, claiming he convinced her she had 120 personalities -- and then charged her insurance company for group therapy.</br></br>HANOI -- A drop in the price of python meat caused economic difficulties in Vietnam's southern province of Ca Mau.</br></br>NICOSIA, Cyprus -- British Royal Marines were barred from training on Cyprus after police found three of them sitting naked outside a pub singing "God Save the Queen." | no | 0 |
Trade Deficit Soars; Export Sales Decline: Huge Drop In Exports Cause Deficit to Climb | The United StatesÛª merchandise trade deficit accelerated to $11.4 billion last month, its worst showing since September, as export sales showed their largest decline since 1978, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.</br></br>The steep 7.7 percent fall in American overseas sales overwhelmed a 1.3 percent dip in imports caused mainly by a sharp drop in purchases of petroleum products.</br></br>ÛÏThis deterioration in exports took place across most of the indus- I trial spectrum and tends to confirm ' -a trend that has occurred over the -" last five months. The isolated 1 -growth in exports that occurred in Û¢ . January was an exception to that . Û¢ trend,Û said Jerry Jasinowski, chief ? economist for the National Associ- * * ation of Manufacturers. I</br></br>FebruaryÛªs splash of red ink was . ÐÊ $1.2 billion higher than the January - ' trade deficit and is running "well above the $9.3 billion average monthly shortfall during 1984Ûªs final quarter,Û Commerce Secretary. Malcolm Baldrige said.</br></br>He had predicted a $140 billion trade deficit for the year. Last year the deficit hit a record $123.3 billion. | no | 0 |
Slow Job Growth Said to Foreshadow Rate Cut: Many Analysts Expect... | The economy is adding jobs so slowly, according to a report issued yesterday by tire Labor Department, that many financial analysts believe the Federal Reserve likely will soon decide to cut short-term interest rates.</br></br>The report said payrolls rose by 166,000 last month, but officials at the Labor Department said that except for a couple of statistical quirks the number would have been below 100,000. Private and government employers have been adding just over 100,000 workers a month to their payrolls since August, a Wring pace less than overall growth of the labor force.</br></br>Meanwhile, the nationÛªs unemployment rate ticked up to 5,6 percent last month from 5.5 percent in October, as the monthly survey of American households found fewer people with jobs and more looking but unable to find them.</br></br>"The November employment report confirms other data pointing to sluggish [economic] activity,Û said Bruce Steinberg, macroeconomics manager at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York. "We expect the Fed to ease policy at the Dec. 19 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.Û</br></br>That committee is the central bankÛªs top policymaking group. It last reduced its target for overnight interest rates, to 5.75 percent from 6 percent, in July. | no | 0 |
Mortgage Rates Rise After Jobs Report | Dow Jones Newswires</br></br>NEW YORK -- Mortgage rates rose in the past week after Friday's employment report reinforced the perception that the economy is on solid ground, said Freddie Mac in its weekly survey.</br></br>The average for 30-year fixed mortgage rates for the week ended yesterday, rose to 5.85% from 5.79% a week earlier and 5.41% a year ago.</br></br>The average for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages this week was 5.38%, up from 5.33% a week ago and the year-ago 4.69%.</br></br>The rate for five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages, was 5.22%, up from the previous week's average of 5.17%. There is no historical information for last year since Freddie Mac began tracking this mortgage rate at the start of 2005. | no | 0 |
Why China Is a Financial Midget; Beijing's economic model will prevent the yuan from replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency. | The title says it all: "Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance." Arvind Subramanian's new book is a good example of a more aggressive line of argument regarding China--that it's a matter of whether, not when, China will take over economic leadership of the world. But China's road to real financial influence promises to be far longer and rockier than the GDP numbers would suggest.</br></br>The argument for dominance has two prongs. The first is that China's economy will very soon be larger than either the U.S. or the EU. And second, as this happens the yuan will also naturally replace the dollar as the global reserve currency, with profound consequences for international markets.</br></br>On the first issue, there is little debate. China already has a $7 trillion economy, roughly half the size of the U.S. or the EU. If it can continue to grow even at 6% to 7% a year, not even at 10% or 11% as it did through much of the 2000s, then in five years the Chinese economy could easily pass the $15 trillion mark, where the U.S. is today. By the end of this decade, China should already be larger than the U.S. and equal to Europe.</br></br>The future of China's financial role is murkier. Within 10 years the yuan will probably play only a marginally more important global role than it does today. It won't replace the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, and it may not even challenge the Japanese yen or the pound sterling.</br></br>Why? It's one thing to hold the yuan for trade invoicing, but if you're going to hold it as a liquid "safe haven" portfolio investment choice, you need free and unfettered access to deep domestic fixed-income markets. This is what the dollar and euro offer, and essentially so do the yen and other G-10 major currencies. | no | 0 |
Goods Orders, Home Sales Dip in August | The muted nature of the economic recovery was underscored yesterday by reports that new orders for long-lasting manufactured goods such as cars, refrigerators, steel and machine tools fell 3.8 percent last month, while sales of existing homes dipped 2.1 percent.</br></br>The drop in new orders for durable goods, however, was smaller than most analysts had expected, following an increase in July that was the largest in history.</br></br>Moreover, the July gain, originally put at 11.2 percent, was revised upward in yesterdayÛªs report from the Commerce Department to 11.7 percent.</br></br>Gordon Richards, an economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, called the August drop in orders essentially a one-month aberration.</br></br>orders figures needed to be averaged over several months to see the trend, which is still upward, the August dip notwithstanding. | no | 0 |
Industrials Decline 4.19 as Signals On Interest Rates, Oil Are Mixed | The stock market received mixed signals on oil prices, interest rates and corporate earnings yesterday as it continued to digest last week's sharp gains.</br></br>Despite two feeble rally attempts yesterday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 4.19 points lower at 1213.01. Volume rose to 92,260,000 shares from 81,020,000 Monday.</br></br>The transportation index fell 4.51 points to 537.16, and the utilities average closed 0.11 point lower at 143.36. Airline, railroad and automotive stocks showed slight losses.</br></br>"It was more of a drifting market than a sell-off," said Peter Da Puzzo, director of equity trading at Shearson Lehman/American Express. Volume on rising and falling issues was about evenly matched, he said.</br></br>Advancing issues on the New York Stock Exchange were slightly ahead of declining stocks at the closing bell. | yes | 1 |
UAL Expects Profit to Top Wall Street Expectations | CHICAGO -- United Airlines parent UAL Corp., in a surprise for Wall Street, said it expects to post second-quarter net income of $119 million, its first profit since 2000, reflecting improving industry conditions and cost-control efforts.</br></br>Shares of the nation's second-largest airline by traffic, behind AMR Corp., rose on the news, rising $1.25, or 4.6%, to $28.20 in 4 p.m. composite trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. UAL said it announced preliminary results yesterday to guide investors ahead of the issuance to employees of $726 million of convertible notes, a requirement of its plan of reorganization.</br></br>The expected profit is more than twice the estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. The company said its revenue rose 16% to $5.1 billion from a year earlier. Revenue from each mainline jet seat flown a mile increased 12%. UAL said it generated $500 million in cash since March 31, boosting its unrestricted cash balance to $4.2 billion, despite higher fuel expenses.</br></br>On the expense site, United said it intends to lop $300 million from its costs this year and hopes to achieve a portion of its 2007 cost- reduction target of $400 million in 2006. Part of the savings will come from cutting at least 1,000 salaried and management jobs this year. UAL said its unit cost, or the cost to fly a mainline seat a mile, increased 9%. Excluding fuel and special items in both quarters, unit cost declined by 1.6%. The company said it expects its unit cost, excluding fuel and one-time items, to decline in the third and fourth quarters as well.</br></br>The preliminary results "represent a considerable improvement," Standard & Poor's Corp. airline analyst Philip Baggaley said in a research note. He said United's unit costs remain "materially higher" than those at AMR's American Airlines. United expects to announce final second-quarter results Monday. | no | 0 |
Business World: What Do Shmoes Know That Wall Street Doesn't? | Stock prices having more than bounced back from their post-Russia lows, we are being told once more by various authorities that the market is "wrong."</br></br>Maybe the hordes of small investors are simply processing the available information better than the pros. What might the non-chumps who have started putting money into stock funds again know?</br></br>Their jobs are secure, wages are rising, and their employers are doing well. Heading out to do their shopping, they experience the joy of finding that prices, if anything, are a bit lower than last time. Harder to put a finger on but palpable nonetheless, there is something distinctly less crappy about the goods for sale. The clothes are made from natural fabrics, the appliances have computer chips in them, the cars never seem to break down.</br></br>What else does our shmoe know? Downsizing gave him a rough ride, and wisecracks about the boss's stock options are a standard water-cooler hors d'oeurve. But somehow the company does seem more focused and disciplined: No more drifting in the clouds of wishful thinking, executive vanity and bureaucratic inertia.</br></br>So his boss is keener on earning a profit, and his dollars are worth more down at the Wal-Mart, Home Depot or Price Chopper. What does this mean for the shmoe's stock funds? | no | 0 |
Japanese GNP Declined 0.5% In First Quarter --- Contraction, at Annual Pace Of 2.1%, Raises Pressure For Cut in Discount Rate | TOKYO -- Japan's economic output declined in the first quarter -- the first contraction in 11 years -- increasing pressure on the central bank to again reduce the discount rate.</br></br>The Economic Planning Agency said gross national product, the nation's output of goods and services, contracted an inflation-adjusted 0.5% in the first quarter from the prior three months, or at a 2.1% annual rate. The last previous Japanese GNP decline was in 1975's first quarter, when rising oil prices caused a 0.8% contraction.</br></br>In the most-recent Japanese fiscal year, which ended March 31, the economy grew 4.2%. But officials attributed the growth to the economy's performance in the first three fiscal quarters.</br></br>Economists attributed the calendar first quarter's contraction, which was slightly larger than most of them had expected, primarily to the strong yen. The Japanese currency has risen 43.5% against the U.S. dollar since last September, when the U.S. and the four other largest industrial democracies launched an effort to lower the American currency's value in order to narrow the U.S. trade deficit.</br></br>The strong yen, which makes Japanese products more expensive overseas, has cut into Japanese exports, which fell 4.9% in the first quarter from 1985's fourth period. | no | 0 |
For the Record | Here's how some major bills fared recently in Congress and how local congressional members voted, as provided by Thomas's Roll Call Report Syndicate. NV means Not Voting.</br></br>The House approved a motion that had the effect of giving members of Congress a 2.7 percent pay increase, raising their salary to about $145,100 in January 2001.</br></br>Had opponents of the pay raise won this vote, they would have offered a motion to kill the automatic cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). They mounted this procedural attack after House leaders denied them debate and a direct, up- or-down vote on the merits of raising congressional pay. The vote occurred during debate on a Treasury Department funding bill for fiscal 2001 (HR 4871).</br></br>The House approved tax breaks to help individuals invest more of their earnings in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), 401(k) plans and other retirement vehicles. The bill (HR 1102) is projected to cost the Treasury $52.2 billion over 10 years.</br></br>It would raise the IRA contribution limit for individuals from $2,000 today to $3,000 in 2001, $4,000 in 2002 and $5,000 in 2003, and begin adjusting IRA contribution limits for inflation. For individuals older than 50, the new $5,000 limit would take effect as soon as the bill became law. | no | 0 |
Ahead of the Tape | Can Techs</br></br>Pick Up Slack</br></br>In Stock Market?</br></br>Big tech stocks are shooting up like bottle rockets, leading to oohs and ahhs on Wall Street.</br></br>Since early March, the Nasdaq 100 index, which tracks large technology stocks like Google and International Business Machines, is up 15%, compared with an 11% gain by the S&P 500. | no | 0 |
Abreast of the market: Industrials fell 11.35 to 3518.85 as poor economic performance data end rally | NEW YORK -- A flurry of weak economic data helped to end a three-day stock market rally that had taken its cue from sharply lower interest rates.</br></br>Nearly every sector came under pressure as a series of economic reports reignited worries that the economy continues to falter. The reports showed a decrease in new home sales last month, a downturn in consumer confidence, and a drop in the index of May's leading economic indicators. Economists had expected higher readings for all of the figures.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to make a slight comeback near the close, which traders attributed to endof-the-quarter mark ups. The industrials fell 11.35 points, or 0.32%, to 3518.85, after sliding about 24 points to their lowest levels of the day in late trading.</br></br>Retreating Big Board stocks edged out advancers, 979 to 970, on hefty volume of 272,987,540, up from the 240,434,910 shares that changed hands Monday.</br></br>"The economic numbers have been showing sluggish growth, and that's a concern," said David Butler, head of equity trading at Kemper Financial Services. "But lower interest rates are still a factor, which basically means there's no place else to go except for equities." | yes | 1 |
Obama's Factory Factor | Just as the ghost dance of the Sioux failed to bring back the buffalo, so the declining dollar and the high price of gas have failed to bring back American manufacturing. To be sure, with the dollar down, exports are up, and with the price of shipping goods from Shenzhen to Los Angeles rising with the cost of oil, Chinese imports have slowed. Nonetheless, as the New York Times' Louis Uchitelle reported Monday, most of the rise in U.S. exports has come in corn, wheat and other agricultural commodities, not in aircraft or machinery.</br></br>Will America ever get its manufacturing back? Not unless we move to level a steeply tilted playing field: China and a host of other nations offer generous subsidies to companies locating their plants there, while the United States shuns such mercantilist strategies. But even if we moved toward mercantilism, we'd still have to confront the global economic order of the past quarter-century. American banks and corporations have already made immense capital investments, bringing their technology and expertise to nations with far cheaper workforces. There's no evidence that they've hedged their bets with contingency plans to reinvest in Ohio.</br></br>Besides, once you shutter enough factories, reopening or rebuilding them -- and their equivalently shuttered supplier and transportation networks -- is no simple matter. Nor is reacquiring skilled crafts workers in industries such as precision machine tool manufacturing, which have largely been offshored. Two years ago, I interviewed J. Bradford DeLong, a Berkeley economist who had served in the Clinton Treasury Department, for the American Prospect (a magazine of which I'm an editor). He expressed concern that American manufacturing had a tipping point after which, if it were cut back far enough, it might not be capable of again becoming an export engine that fueled national prosperity. "I worry that a lot of manufacturing capacity we could get back now we may not be able to get back in a couple of years," he said. It's looking now as if he was right.</br></br>The problem with the decline in manufacturing isn't simply that it has helped turn us from an exporting, creditor nation to an importing, debtor nation. It's also that manufacturing jobs tend to pay more than the service and retail jobs that have replaced them. The loss of several million manufacturing jobs during the Bush presidency coincides with the first economic recovery in American history in which the average family's income actually declined.</br></br>As it happens, the Americans most affected by these changes are the Americans most able to sway the outcome of the presidential election: the beleaguered workers of our onetime industrial heartland. Barack Obama can claim the allegiance of the black workers so affected, but it's the white workers clustered in these swing states who will determine our next president. | no | 0 |
How Big Government Hurts the Average Joe | During the debt-ceiling debate, President Obama characterized his push for higher taxes and less aggressive budget cuts as being helpful to the middle class. The claim was that failing to raise taxes on high-income earners would place a disproportionate share of the pain on the rest. But it is our record-high government spending, not the failure to raise taxes on the rich, that is the typical American's largest long-term problem.</br></br>Workers do well only when the economy grows at a healthy and consistent pace. The biggest threat to long-term economic growth is government growth of the magnitude that characterized the past two years and that is forecast for our future.</br></br>Our current problems are not a result of acts of nature. They stem from policy choices that dramatically increased the size of the government. In the past two years, the federal budget has grown by a whopping 16%. Importantly, growth in agency budgets other than Defense exceeded that in Defense, despite the surge in Afghanistan. The budget for Health and Human Services, for example, home to Medicare and Medicaid, rose a hefty 22%, as compared with 12% for Defense.</br></br>The sum of 11 other agencies, such as the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Labor, which combined account for more annual spending than Defense, experienced an increase of more than 50% over the two-year period. Some of the budget increases, like those associated with unemployment insurance, should disappear when the economy rebounds, but much of the addition is permanent and is reflected in the president's projected future budget numbers.</br></br>What has the increase bought us? The president would have us believe that but for the stimulus, the economy would have sunk into the next Great Depression. The numbers tell a different story. Estimates of the effect of the stimulus on gross domestic product (GDP) range from zero to three percentage points of GDP. The current recession set GDP back by nine percentage points relative to where it would have been had times been normal. | yes | 1 |
Rains Says FH A Raised Interest Rate | A House Democratic housing expert charged yesterday that the Administration-*^hasj raised^ FHA interest rates by subterfuge although' Ûª ÛÏlacking the courageÛ to do it directly.</br></br>The accusation* was made by Rep.'. Albert Rains' (D-Ala.), chairman of .a Banking Sul>J committee oA Housing. He hinted that his subcommittee will investigate the alleged cost-boosting action. *</br></br>Rains, in a statement, said the Federal Housing Administration without " public announcement recently amended its regulattions .to let .lenders discount loans to some-home-buyers by as much as 6 per cent.</br></br>He said the effect of this.,is to increase the allowable FH(A interest rate,Û÷/including an insurance premium /of one-half of 1 per cent, from 5 to almost 6 per cent*.</br></br>He accused the EHA of a ^callous disregardÛ for the interests of^ the home-buyer in this and other actions. | no | 0 |
World Wire | ROLLS-ROYCE UNIT, EDS SET DEAL</br></br>The industrial power unit of Rolls-Royce PLC of Britain, an aircraft-engine maker, signed a 10-year alliance with Electronic Data Systems Corp. of the U.S. EDS will buy Rolls-Royce computing and information-technology equipment for an undisclosed price. Rolls-Royce in turn will pay EDS #300 million ($506 million) to develop technical business applications to help improve Industrial Power Group results, initially at U.S. and Canadian operations and later world-wide.</br></br>VENDEX TO BECOME TEMP GIANT</br></br>Vendex International NV of the Netherlands agreed to acquire BIS SA of France, a temporary-employment company, for 2.5 billion francs ($472.3 million). Vendex will become the world's No. 3 temporary-help concern by buying 60% of BIS from its late founder's family for 490 francs ($92.56) a share. It will offer to buy the rest at the same price on the Paris stock market, where suspended BIS shares last traded at 533 francs. Vendex also plans to split its retail and business-services lines.</br></br>VEBACOM TO BUY CABLE FIRM | no | 0 |
volume Rises as List Reaches New Peak: But Rail Issues Decline | NEW YORK, Jan. 21 (APIÛÓTh# stock market gathered atrength after an uncertain start today and carted out another historic peak.</br></br>Steels, oils, aircraft! and airlines put on a sturdy performance. Rubbers, tobaccos, chemicals, drugs and assorted issues joined them on the upside.</br></br>Trading interest picked up as prices strengthened. Volume was 3,940.000 shares compared with 3,680.000 yesterday.</br></br>An ultra-blue chip, Superior Oil of California made a new high as it soared 105 points, closing with a net gain of 85 at 2020.</br></br>The market was hesitant and mixed in early dealings. A gradual improvement got under way. Once the ball got rolling, turnover increased and slocks staged a lively rally in late dealings. | no | 0 |
Bush's Plans for More Privatization Prompt Rally in Opposition | A coalition of labor and civil rights leaders gathered at Freedom Plaza yesterday to denounce the Bush administration's efforts to turn more federal work over to the private sector.</br></br>Between chants of "No privatization!" by members of federal unions, speakers contended that the administration's competitive sourcing initiative would take federal jobs away from minorities, women and veterans and weaken a civil service that protects the integrity of federal programs for all Americans.</br></br>"We perform our jobs in the public interest, not in the interest of profits or to promote any political agenda," Leora Rosen, a social science analyst at the Justice Department, told the crowd.</br></br>President Bush has said agencies should compete with companies for as many as 850,000 government jobs that are considered commercial in nature. The administration says it does not care who wins the right to perform the jobs because the competition will drive agencies to become more efficient and lower costs.</br></br>Directives from the Office of Management and Budget for agencies to put up half of their commercial jobs for bid over the next few years have roiled the federal workforce and created morale problems in some agencies. OMB hopes to issue streamlined rules for job competitions in the next few weeks, but the new procedures seem unlikely to ease employee concerns. | no | 0 |
Producer Prices Fell Surprising 0.2 Pet. In October, U.S. Says: Inflation Negligible Over Past 12. | Inflation of the price of goods produced in the United States has ail but disappeared, according to a Labor Department report issued yesterday.</br></br>Prices charged by producers when they first sell a completed item, whether a new car or a bunch of carrots, fell 0.2 percent last month, the department said.</br></br>That decline left the departmentÛªs producer price index up a scant 0.2 percent over the past 12 months. Excluding the volatile food and energy goods, the so-called core index was up only 0.1 percent for the year.</br></br>The report was much better than many investors and analysts had expected and set off a strong rally in bond prices, which had slumped badly over the past two weeks.</br></br>As prices rose, yields on 30-year Treasury bonds fell to 6.14 percent from 6.20 percent while rates on securities with shorter maturities fell by lesser amounts. | no | 0 |
Economists Cut Back Forecasts for Growth; Waning Business Outlays And Housing Market Woes Add to Gloomier Portrait | A string of downbeat economic reports, including evidence that companies are paring back investment spending and signs that housing is taking another hit, have prompted economists to reduce their forecasts for economic growth in the first half of 2007.</br></br>Since late last year, forecasters have warned that economic growth in 2007 would be weaker than in 2006, due to a slump in housing construction and reduced production by American auto makers. Last year, gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at an inflation-adjusted 3.3%.</br></br>However, as the housing and auto slumps have deepened while business spending has started to wane, economists are taking another whack at their GDP forecasts. Earlier this month, the consensus estimate of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal called for GDP to grow about 2.3% in the first quarter, down from an estimate of 2.5% a month earlier. The forecast for the second quarter was unchanged at 2.4%. One-tenth of a percentage point in GDP amounts to about $13.5 billion.</br></br>"The housing recession is likely to be a little deeper and much more prolonged than any of us have been thinking, and capital spending will be considerably weaker," said Nariman Behravesh, chief U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight, which lowered its forecast of first-quarter GDP growth to 1.6% from 2.2%.</br></br>Macroeconomic Advisers, an economic consulting firm based in St. Louis, lowered its forecast to 1.4% from 1.7%. Economists at Morgan Stanley reduced their tracking of first-quarter GDP growth to 1.4% from 1.6% growth; the firm's estimate was as high as 2.2% in mid- March. | yes | 1 |
Dow Gains 14, Ignoring 5th Anniversary of Crash | NEW YORK, Oct. 19ÛÓWall Street avoided the ghosts of the Oct. 19, 1987, stock market crash today and rose moderately by staying focused on corporate earnings.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 14.04 points, at 3188.45. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones by nearly 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, with volume an estimated 218.73 million shares, compared with 234.48 million in the previous session.</br></br>Traders said the fifth anniversary of the marketÛªs 508-point plunge, its worst day ever, was a relatively tame event. Investors focused on earnings and on politics ahead of the third and final presidential debate tonight.</br></br>ÛÏWhatever buying that has been done was selective,Û said Alice Sadlo, a first vice president at McDonald & Co. "The market is hanging in here fairly well. The fifth-year anniversary had some people spooked just because of the date. ThereÛªs been a lot of press on it.Û</br></br>Over the past several weeks, the stock market has grown more comfortable with the prospect of a presidential election win by Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, analysts said. | no | 0 |
Short Selling: Short Interest At Nasdaq Hits 4-Month High --- Data Indicate Higher Level Of Investor Skepticism, Suggesting Index Drop | Short interest at the Nasdaq Stock Market reached its highest point in four months, as the market's composite index dropped.</br></br>The number of short-selling positions not yet closed out edged up 1% to 4,124,763,193 shares in the month through April 15 -- up from 4,085,825,647 shares on March 15.</br></br>Investors who sell securities "short" borrow stock and sell it, betting the stock's price will fall, and they will be able to buy the shares back later at a lower price for return to the lender. Short interest often is considered an indication of the level of skepticism in the market. Short interest reflects the number of shares that have yet to be repurchased to give back to lenders. In general, the higher the short interest, the more people are expecting a downturn.</br></br>Some investors will allocate part of their portfolio to a professional short seller to hedge, or protect, their assets in case the market falls. Investors also may rely on short selling for other purposes, including a hedging strategy related to corporate mergers and acquisitions, hedging convertible securities and options, or tax-related reasons.</br></br>The next Nasdaq short-selling report will be published in The Wall Street Journal on May 27. | yes | 1 |
$251-Million idle-Aid Bill Is Sent to Ike: Election-year Veto Dared by Congress; Senate Vote 45 | Congress dared an election-year veto yesterday by send ing President Eisenhower a bill calling for a 231-million-dollar program of loans and grants to help areas with chronic unemployment.</br></br>By a 45-to-32 rollcall vote, the Senate completed congressional action on the measure and sent it to the White House.</br></br>Nixon backs Administration health-aid-to-aged bill; Democratic candidates join in sponsorship of rival measure. Pape Aid- hot West Virginia primary contest to return to Washington to vote for the bill. The aid plan is viewed as an important issue'in that State.</br></br>The vote on passage was seven short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, which GOP Senators said was cer tain. The House also fell con siderably short of the two See DEVELOP, All, Col. 4</br></br>I Tex. I and other Democrats charged that the Administration helps foreigners with its big foreign-aid program hut neglects tile needy at home. | no | 0 |
D.C. Area S&Ls Again Hit By Soaring Interest Rates | M aHiinglmi area savings and loan associations are lerling the pinch oi rising f mterc'l talcs for the -ccoiid ' 11 me in lo's t lian a y car a</br></br>J yielding Treasury lulls and large-size ftÛ÷ft i I ionics of de IHijjit ollcred In inator money ntarkel hanks while</br></br>Burkes told a '.'mpi'Mitm '''here yesterday that on 'I tics-day the federal home loan hanksÛª ai'aMe lUttds p-li below Û¢Û÷'1 billion ;i level he * lid "doi a Û¢ åÇi:i( Û¢a'll ns 'Û¢ÐÊÐÊi f n mi a ui inalids toi an to meet demand for ID more heavy days of savings out-Hows. Member S&Ls bur-row from regional home loan banks in tight money periods like the present.</br></br>However, a huge $2 billion offering of securities on Friday will replenish the systemÛªs coffers and provide funds for lending to member SikEs over the next three months. Mnounts and maturities of the I1HLBI1 issues will be set this afternoon.</br></br>National Permanent Savin.'' and Loon Association, i It*Ûª Did riel's second Utf-'esl f.'vL had a S(> million net ÐÊaving- .nit flow in April with the rale continuin', so lar in May. secretary and v ice president Edgar !Û¢' Iv lersoii said. | no | 0 |
Greenspan: Pace of LBOs May Be Reaching Peak | HOT SPRINGS, Va.. May 13ÛÓ Federal Reserve Board Chairman . Alan Greenspan told business lead-,en that be believed leveraged buyouts may: be peaking, according to executive* who attended a meeting . of the Business Council here today. -< Û÷He generally talked about what is : happening in the recapitalization of ' Industry,* said William L. Weiss,</br></br>HOT SPRINGS, Va.. May 13ÛÓ Federal Reserve Board Chairman . Alan Greenspan told business lead-,en that be believed leveraged buyouts may: be peaking, according to executive* who attended a meeting . of the Business Council here today. -< Û÷He generally talked about what is : happening in the recapitalization of ' Industry,* said William L. Weiss, (ÐÊ Many executives who heard : GreenspanÛªs speech said they hoped he waa right, but said they believed .'that leveraged buyouts (LBOs) ÛÏThere are tremendous amounts of cash out there to keep this LBO ... situation going for some period of time,Û said David M. Roderick, chairman and chief executive of USX Corp. "Hopefully, Alan is right. But I think that when you look back you see that money markets do not tend to act that rationally.Û</br></br>Robert Kirby, chairman of Capital Guardian Trust Co., which manages pension funds, also expressed doubts about Greenspan's observation, saying that though the easiest, most obvious deals have been done, there still were undervalued companies that are tempting takeover targets.</br></br>Roderick and Kirby were part of a panel discussion on the impact of increasing levels of corporate debt on the economy. The discussion followed a speech Greenspan gave to the Business Council.</br></br>Greenspan's speech, which dealt with the broader issue of worldwide corporate downsizing, was dosed to the press, as are all the business sessions of the Business Council during the two-day, semiannual meeting. | no | 0 |
History 101: Past Is Imperfect Guide | Past performance is a rotten guide to future results. But that hasn't deterred investors.</br></br>Folks love to pore over stock-market data, hoping to divine the future. But unfortunately, while the past gives credence to certain investment principles, it doesn't offer much help to those looking to beat the market.</br></br>History Lessons. We have U.S. stock data going back two centuries. What can we learn? Three lessons stand out.</br></br>First, it pays to take risk. "The longer we go out, the more pronounced the risk-reward trade-off becomes," says Scott Lummer, chief investment officer of mPower, a San Francisco online investment adviser. "Bonds beat cash, stocks beat bonds, small stocks beat large stocks."</br></br>Second, unlike bonds or Treasury bills, stocks have proven to be a wonderful long-run defense against rising consumer prices, outpacing inflation by an average seven percentage points a year. | no | 0 |
A Weaker Dollar Helps Gold Top $1,700 Mark | NEW YORK -- Gold futures locked in their second day of gains Thursday, spurred on by a weaker dollar and investors cheering the Federal Reserve's expectations of a protracted period of low interest rates.</br></br>The most actively traded contract, for February delivery, gained $26.60, or 1.6%, to settle at $1,726.70 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the highest settlement price in seven weeks.</br></br>Front-month January-delivery gold ended $26.50, or 1.6%, higher at $1,726.30 a troy ounce, its first settlement above $1,700 since Dec. 9.</br></br>Fed officials said in a statement Wednesday they expected short-term interest rates to remain near zero until late 2014, citing a slow recovery in the labor market and moderating inflation.</br></br>"Even though this was well-anticipated by a large quarter of the market, it still had quite a notable impact" on gold, said James Steel, precious-metals analyst with HSBC. | yes | 1 |
Is Obama Abandoning Young Voters?; The latest fundraising pitch from the President's former campaign organization aims at a new target. | The emerging split between President Obama and young voters may be occurring more quickly than anyone predicted, judging by a Wednesday email from Mr. Obama's former presidential campaign.</br></br>This report has previously noted how difficult the Obama era has been for the young people who helped to elect him. The left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research reports that among recent college graduates age 22-27, a full 45% were underemployed in 2013, meaning they were either unemployed or doing jobs that typically don't require a four-year college degree. And the Pew Research Center says that the so-called millennial generation is "the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations (Gen Xers and Boomers) had at the same stage of their life cycles."</br></br>Looking at recent survey data, former Obama pollster Sergio Bendixen recently told the New York Times that Mr. Obama's onetime core supporters among the young "went on to the next website and then the next click on their computer."</br></br>Now it appears that Mr. Obama is also moving on--to the next generation willing to click the donation button on barackobama.com. And the speed of Mr. Obama's generational pivot appears stunning. As recently as February of this year, an Obama fundraising pitch made one wonder if its intended recipients were even old enough to vote. "Warning: Cute animals inside," announced the subject line. The text of the email then urged Obama supporters to send Affordable Care Act valentines. "Choose your favorite -- we've got kittens, pandas, badgers, and more. Then click to share it with your special Facebook friends," it helpfully suggested.</br></br>Just three months later, a message from Organizing for Action to Obama supporters emailed yesterday announces that "When James Taylor plays an outdoor concert in Chicago next month, two VIP backstage tickets will be reserved for OFA supporters like you." | no | 0 |
Refinancing Rocks Bond Market --- Homeowners Hunting for Deals On Mortgage Rates Unleash Era Of Volatility and Trading Losses | Corrections & Amplifications</br></br>THE SIZE OF THE U.S. BOND market is $19 trillion. The figure used in yesterday's Credit Markets column was $16 trillion.</br></br>(WSJ Aug. 9, 2002)</br></br>LIKE MANY HOMEOWNERS, Bill Kwitman spends his days looking for a cheaper mortgage. And that is keeping some of the biggest financial companies in the country up at night.</br></br>Five times in the past year, Mr. Kwitman, an attorney in Portland, Ore., has refinanced mortgages on different rental properties he owns, saving hundreds of dollars in monthly interest payments. He checks in with an online mortgage lender as often as twice a day, eyeing his next refinancing. With rates tumbling again close to their lowest levels in decades, homeowners such as Mr. Kwitman are gearing up for a new wave of refinancings. | no | 0 |
Limited Seeks to Buy Remaining 16% Of Intimate Brands in Plan to Reunite | Limited Inc., reversing a seven-year-old decision to separate Intimate Brands Inc., said it is offering nearly $1.5 billion in stock to buy back the 16% it doesn't already own in the company.</br></br>Limited, based in Columbus, Ohio, offered part of Intimate Brands, parent of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, to the public in 1995 in a move designed to highlight the value of the businesses. At the time, Intimate Brands accounted for 70% of Limited's operating income but less than 60% of the company's stock-market valuation. Today, the two measures are more in line. Limited gets more than 90% of its operating income from Intimate Brands and about 95% of its market capitalization.</br></br>"The most significant factor in the Board's decision to take this action is the belief that a recombination of the businesses at this point will allow us to achieve greater growth," Leslie Wexner, chief executive of both companies, said in a statement. "This clearer, simpler structure will allow us to fully develop the potential of our best brands across merchandise categories and distribution channels."</br></br>Under terms of the proposal, Limited is offering 1.046 Limited shares for each Class A share of Intimate Brands. In 4 p.m. composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Limited were down 70 cents at $17.75, while Intimate Brands slipped 40 cents to $17.50. The exchange offer values Intimate Brands at $18.57 a share, only a 6.1% premium to Intimate's current trading price. Intimate Brands hit a 52-week-high of $19 about one year ago today.</br></br>The stock price of Limited, whose brands include Limited stores, Express, Structure and Lerner New York, closely tracks that of Intimate Brands. | no | 0 |
NPA Releases Steel For Unfinished Jobs | The Government took a second major step yesterday to ease nondefense construction controls and curb growing unemployment in the building industry.</br></br>Commercial buildings and public works structures less than 20 percent completedÛÓ frozen since last OctoberÛÓwill be permitted to obtain enough steel to proceed with the projects beginning April.</br></br>Effect of this' order by the National Production Authority will be to bring some relief to New York, Washington, and other cities which have been hard hit by the stringent construction controls for the lack of military and defense projects. Over-all Construction Down</br></br>Last week NPA announced it will authorize, beginning July* 1, the construction of 645 community . buildings, churches, police stations, jails, and public institutions.</br></br>The newest order does not remove the building ban on construction projects which have not reached the foundation stage; nor does it bring any easing of the prohibitions, against building for recreational or amusement purposes. | no | 0 |
Board of Contributors: Don't Waste the Budget Surplus | The federal budget surpluses now projected for the coming years provide an unprecedented political opportunity for fundamental reform of Social Security. That reform would cut taxes now for every working person while laying the foundation for a more secure retirement.</br></br>First some budget facts. Lower defense spending, limits on the growth of nondefense outlays, and the surging tax revenue that has resulted from strong economic growth have combined to cut the budget deficit for the 1997 fiscal year, which ended in September, to only $22 billion -- about 0.25% of gross domestic product. The Congressional Budget Office projected earlier this year that the budget would be in surplus by 2002 and would remain there for the rest of the decade. The strong growth and high tax receipts of the past few months are now likely to require a revised budget forecast that accelerates the surplus, probably to the current fiscal year.</br></br>A decade of budget surpluses would be a welcome change after decades of budget deficits. Surpluses would automatically shrink the national debt, which has grown to nearly $4 trillion. A smaller national debt would mean lower future taxes to meet government interest payments. Budget surpluses would also automatically raise the national saving rate. That would finance increased investment in plant and equipment, raising productivity and real wages. And the higher national saving rate would make the U.S. less dependent on capital inflows from abroad.</br></br>But despite these desirable effects of potential budget surpluses, Congress and the Clinton administration are unlikely to let them last very long. That's because while there is broad public support for the goal of a balanced budget, there isn't broad support for running budget surpluses in order to shrink the national debt. So Washington is already talking about new spending initiatives and special-interest tax breaks that would eliminate those surpluses.</br></br>Fortunately, there is a better alternative that should have enough popular support to make it politically viable: using the projected surpluses to fund a system of mandatory Personal Retirement Accounts modeled on the very successful and widely used 401(k) plans. A system of PRAs would achieve the same gain in national saving that budget surpluses would. It would also have the popular appeal of a personal tax cut and yet the long-term benefit of more reliable retirement income with lower future taxes. | no | 0 |
California Legislature Closes In on Budget Deficit: Wilson Threatens ... | SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 3ÛÓ Under prodding from Gov. Pete Wilson (R), a legislative conference committee tonight approved a new tax package that would take the final steps in closing a $14.3 billion budget deficit, largest in the history of any state.</br></br>The Senate approved the package late tonight, but the bill's fate in the Assembly remained uncertain.</br></br>With a midnight deadline approaching, Wilson called legislative leaders into a closed-door session to work on a deal intended to solve</br></br>California's fiscal crisis. Wilson warned the leaders that he would veto a $56.4 billion budget approved last week after protracted controversy unless the Legislature raised the taxes to pay for it, as the state Constitution requires.</br></br>Wilson told reporters after the meeting that the only obstacle remaining to resolution of the fiscal crisis was passage of a measure demanded by business interests that would make it more difficult for workers to obtain workersÛª compensation for loss of income due to stress. | no | 0 |
How to Challenge Yellen -- and Big Government | 'I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody." That was James Carville, President Clinton's chief political consultant, talking to this newspaper in February 1993.</br></br>When President Clinton backed away from HillaryCare and the rest of his big-government agenda, it wasn't just Democratic losses in the 1994 midterm elections that forced his hand. It was the power of the bond market, a point Mr. Carville understood but Republicans seem to have forgotten.</br></br>If today's Republicans are going to roll back President Obama's massive expansion of government, they will need the muscle of a bond market free from the Federal Reserve's manipulation. History suggests that only the prospect of higher and increasingly painful financing costs chastens committed big spenders. A liberated, and consequently less docile, bond market would not only restrain Washington's profligacy, it would also free the Republican Party to refocus on the big ideas and positive vision that made it a global force in the 1980s.</br></br>No cause unites the Republican Party like the battle for limited government. From Ted Cruz's government shutdown to Paul Ryan's budget compromise with Patty Murray, the political tactics have varied but the goal of limited government has remained the same. The push for limited government even polls well. According to a recent Gallup poll, an overwhelming majority of Republicans, 81%, and a solid majority of Americans, 60%, think the federal government has too much power.</br></br>But despite the public's support and Republicans' herculean efforts, the campaign to pare back government has failed both politically and substantively. The federal government continues to grow while Republicans are increasingly derided for their obsession with spending cuts. Far too many Americans now see the GOP as opposing everything and favoring nothing. | no | 0 |
U.S. News: South Korea Agrees to Lift Ban on U.S. Beef Exports | WASHINGTON -- The U.S. and South Korea agreed on a plan to lift the Asian nation's ban on American beef exports, removing a major impediment to action in Congress on a free-trade deal with South Korea, though significant hurdles remain.</br></br>The agreement came amid South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's first formal visit to Washington since taking office two months ago and was the result of a furious round of negotiations this week among trade officials for both countries. Seizing on the breakthrough, the White House vowed to press anew for action on the landmark trade deal.</br></br>U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the new protocol providing for renewal of beef trade will take effect in mid-May and will allow for "a full reopening of the market." Under the agreement, all U.S. beef and beef products from cattle of all ages will be allowed to be exported to South Korea. Before the ban, South Korea was the third-biggest importer of U.S. beef, buying $790 million worth in 2003. Since then, it has relied on Australia as its main supplier.</br></br>For cattle ranchers and beef producers, the reopening of the South Korean beef market "is a very good shot in the arm," said feedlot operator J.D. Alexander, based in Pilger, Neb. American beef producers are struggling to remain profitable as prices for corn feed and fuel continue to soar, causing cattle ranchers to liquidate their herds at a rapid clip to keep costs under control.</br></br>Gregg Doud, chief economist at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, says South Korea's market could become the top beef customer for the U.S., potentially amounting to $1 billion annually. | no | 0 |
Volcker Predicts Adoption of Banking Pact: Outgoing Fed Chairman ... | Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker yesterday predicted that a major international banking agreement among the leading industrial countries would be signed by the end of the year.</br></br>ÛÏI think it will be done,Û said Volcker in his farewell appearance before the House Banking Committee. Tm sorry I won't be here to see it.Û</br></br>Such an agreement ÛÏwould be a big step forwardÛ toward reducing competitive pressure between banking systems, Volcker said. Foreign banks now often have lower capital requirements than U.S. banks, enabling them to offer better rates to borrowers.</br></br>Appearing relaxed and jovial, Volcker listened to a slew of tributes from the unusually large number of members of the subcommittee on financial institutions supervision, regulation and insurance who showed up for what was billed as a hearing on globalization of financial markets.</br></br>D.C. Del. Walter Fauntroy declared, ÛÏWhen the history of the fourth quarter of the 20th century is written, your name will be [remembered as] one who made the most important contribution to the economic recovery of this nation and the economic stability of the world.Û And committee chairman Fernand St Germain (D-R.I.) closed the session with an emotional ÛÏthank youÛ to Volcker. | no | 0 |
Fed Unlikely to Trim Bond Buying in October; Shutdown Upends Timing, Though Officials Could Act in December or January | The government shutdown might be over, but the long-running drama about when the Federal Reserve will start scaling back its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program might now last longer.</br></br>Just a few months ago, the Fed seemed to be on track to start pulling the program back by September in response to an improving economy. Now, it isn't clear when the first move will occur.</br></br>The Fed is unlikely to start curtailing its bond buying at its next policy meeting Oct. 29-30. Fed officials have said the decision depends on how the economic data evolve, but the data won't be very illuminating into November because the partial government shutdown closed the agencies that collect them.</br></br>"For those who really look at the data, it is going to basically delay thought of changing course," Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said Thursday in an interview.</br></br>Mr. Fisher doesn't think the bond-buying program is working very well, so he is ready to end it. But he thinks the economic landscape will be too unsettled at the October meeting to make a judgment. "I personally will not support any action at this next meeting because we have so much confusion about what just happened," he said. | no | 0 |
B 4 Thursday. February | 1 he U.S. Postal Service yesterday reported that for the fourth straight four-week period this fiscal year, its finances are in the black.</br></br>Postmaster General William F*. Bol-ger, speaking before the monthly meeting of the postal service board of governors, said that for the last four-week period he had expected a $3.2 million loss instead of the $1.7 million profit. The postal service accounting procedures use four-week periods.</br></br>During the first, quarter of this year, the postal service had profits of $163 million compared with $367 million last year. Blamed for the lower earnings were a 6.8 percent increase in personnel costs and 24.3 percent rise in transportation charges, which was higher than postal officials had expected, they said.</br></br>Last year the postal service earned $470 million, the first profit earned by the postal system since the end of .World War II. Bolger said yesterday, however, that he still expects the postal service to have a deficit by the end of the year.</br></br>The board of governors was expected to discuss yesterday whether to implement the proposed electronic mail system, but the governors recessed until Feb. 22 when the subject will be taken up again, postal officials said. | no | 0 |
Bond prices climb on weak retail sales report; Chrysler issues rebound on takeover bid doubts | NEW YORK -- Bonds posted solid price gains, as investors departed for the long holiday weekend with evidence that consumer spending ended the first quarter on a weak note.</br></br>Meanwhile, Chrysler Corp. bonds rebounded. Prices of the auto maker's bonds had fallen Wednesday on news of financier Kirk Kerkorian's takeover bid. But bond traders yesterday cited growing skepticism in the market that Mr. Kerkorian's bid for Chrysler would succeed.</br></br>Trading ended early ahead of the Easter and Passover holiday. In late activity, the price of the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond was up nearly 1/4 point, or nearly $2.50 for a bond with $1,000 face value, at 103 14/32. Its yield stood at 7.33%.</br></br>The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 0.2% in March, well below the 0.5% increase many economists had expected. Also, the department revised February retail sales to a decline of 1% from an initially reported drop of 0.4%.</br></br>Investors embraced the news as further evidence that the economy continues to lose steam and that inflation will remain well-contained, so that the Federal Reserve isn't as likely to raise interest rates in the near future. "More and more people are becoming convinced that inflation isn't a threat and that the economy is slowing," said James K. Ho, portfolio manager for John Hancock Mutual Funds, Boston. | no | 0 |
Working Families Party Nominates New York Gov. Cuomo for Re-Election; Endorsement Follows Divisive Battle Over Party's Nominee | ALBANY, N.Y.--In a raucous and divisive 11th-hour decision, the left-leaning Working Families Party late Saturday voted to nominate Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for re-election despite a swell of discontent among many party members with the governor's record during his first term in office.</br></br>At a day-long convention laced with suspense, the WFP, composed of labor unions and liberal activists, nominated Mr. Cuomo with 59% of the vote after an intense ideological and tactical struggle within the state's leading left-wing faction.</br></br>Mr. Cuomo's nomination came at the conclusion of nearly three hours of vigorous debate that at times included chanting, stomping and references to everyone from the rapper Drake to country singer Kenny Rogers.</br></br>The New York governor's appearance at the party's convention, albeit via video and phone, and his pledge to return Democrats in the state Senate to power, were conditions of WFP leaders before they would deliver the nod to him, according to a person familiar with the matter.</br></br>"Let's unify around this simple goal: taking back the Senate," Mr. Cuomo said in a video. | no | 0 |
Dow Rises 52 Points to Close at Record 7976: Late Surge Lifts Stock ... | NEW YORK, July 15ÛÓA late surge carried the Dow Jones industrial average within 25 points of the 8000 mark today, and the Nasdaq Stock MarketÛªs rally continued after another strong profit report from a leading technology company.</br></br>The 30-stock Dow average rose 52.73 points to close at 7975.71, erasing a 44-pt)lnt afternoon deficit to beat last TuesdayÛªs record finish of 7962.31.</br></br>The Nasdaq composite index closed at-a'record high for the ninth consecu-thie'session as bellwether technology shares surged again after a stronger-than-'expectcd second-quarter earnings statement by Texas Instruments.</br></br>Despite the daylong strength in technology shares, stocks were mostly lower until midaltemoon, when bond market interest rates eased after a report alleviated mild concerns that consumer activity was picking up at an inflationary pace. The recovery in bonds was far less pronounced, however, than the ensuing rebound in the stock market ÛÏI would have drought [investorsl would wait until after eamings-reporting season to see what happens and react accordingly. But itÛªs off to the races again," said Robert Streed, senior investment adviser at Northern Trust in Chicago. ÛÏThe stock market has a positive bias."</br></br>Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones by a lO-to-9 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where vol- | no | 0 |
Vietnam Pullout: This Time, Investors Pack Up Gear, Stymied by Bureaucracy, Lack of Reforms | HANOI, Vietnam -- In a further sign of the grim business climate here, some of Vietnam's early-bird investors are flocking home.</br></br>These investors represent that first wave of daring foreigners who jumped in when Vietnam first began opening its market in the early 1990s. They were once willing to spend the most money and take the biggest risks in the fledgling market, but after three or more years of losses, many are running out of patience.</br></br>"People are tired of waiting for economic reforms that come too little, too late," said Fred Burke, an investment lawyer at U.S. law firm Baker & McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City.</br></br>The first investors' departure spells yet another setback for Vietnam's economic development. Vietnam depends heavily on foreign venture capital to support a current account strained by hefty trade deficits. With very few resources of its own, the country depends heavily on foreign capital to fuel growth.</br></br>According to ING Baring Securities Ltd.'s May report, foreign direct investment accounts for 8% to 9% of gross domestic product, and 17% to 18% of total export earnings. For the first six months of this year, however, total foreign investment dropped 20% in pledged capital, compared with the year-earlier period, according to government figures. Last year, foreign-direct-investment pledges dropped more than 50% from 1996. Economists fear the decline may be even more dramatic than the official numbers suggest. | no | 0 |
The Border Boondoggle | The U.S. Border Patrol has just unveiled a total makeover of its traditional uniform. Shiny badges and other emblems of law enforcement are out. Our frontier troops will now have a look more in keeping with their role as frontier troops, with lightweight fatigues and better weapons. Agent Ramon Ramirez told the Associated Press that the new garb looks more military, "like you mean business."</br></br>In Stafford County, Va., a 50-man company called McQ has started work on a $100,000 contract to develop a "smart rock" for the Department of Homeland Security. McQ, whose motto is "Tough sensors for an insensitive planet," says that its rocks, embedded with acoustic and motion sensors, will be able to detect illegal immigrants and other miscreants sneaking across our borders.</br></br>The firm expects its contract for developing the rocks to grow to $1 million by fall -- a sure sign that while immigration "reform" bills may come and go, the threat of illegal immigration will continue to expand. This is a certainty not because of the state of the Mexican economy or because of government laxity here, but because border control is now an integral part of the military-industrial national security system, which has a long history of profiteering from purported dangers to our safety.</br></br>These are that system's immutable laws: 1) The "threat," as portrayed to the public, always increases in direct proportion to the amount of money lavished on confronting it, and 2) every extra dollar appropriated for this purpose brings a progressively less effective counter to the threat, thus requiring that even more money be spent. Meanwhile, reality -- the scope and shape of whatever threat is being pressed into service -- is usually at sharp variance with the official picture, which leads to: 3) The "other side" can usually be maneuvered to react in a way that justifies further efforts on our part.</br></br>This system evolved, and reached its most perfect form, during the Cold War. Decade after decade, the American taxpayer was presented with a Soviet military machine that allegedly far outclassed our own puny efforts at military buildup and would shortly be in a position to have its way with us -- unless we invested the requisite treasure in various systems to counter the threat. Yet despite the billions lavished on our defenses, we never seemed to be able to match the foe's advertised military might. | no | 0 |
I Photos by Margaret Thomas, left, and Fred SweetsÛÓThe Washington Post | Barry Covington in front of Covington Buick in Silver Spring, and Steven Brodoll, right, helping A1 Showalter at Anacostia Chrysler Plymouth.</br></br>Citizens & Southern National Bank in Atlanta, one of the SouthÛªs biggest banks, secretly financed the acquis-tion of 25 Georgia banks by officers, directors and friendly associates of the bank, according to a civil suit filed yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commissions.</br></br>The SEC accused the bank of violating federal securities laws by failing to make full disclosure to its stockholders of the terms of the acquisitions.</br></br>The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, said that six of those 25 banks, located near Atlanta, were acquired by C&S in 1975 and that the terms were negotiated by bank officials who were shareholders of the ac-quired bflnks</br></br>The C&S officials and friends of the bank were financed in the acquisition of the so-called ÛÏcorrespondent associate banksÛ by C&S loans featuring preferential interest rates and non-payment of principal, the SEC said. | no | 0 |
Home Sales Up 3.3% in July, but Gulf-Related Slowdown Expected: EXISTING HOME SALES | Existing home sales rose for a second straight month in July, a real estate trade group said yesterday, hut analysts predicted a slowdown because of rising mortgage rates linked to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.</br></br>"Iraq's craziness will be felt in U.S. housing markets," said Norman D. Flynn, president of the National Association of Realtors. He said mortgage rates reversed a downward course after the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and jumped back into double digits.</br></br>In addition to the discouraging higher rates, "a war situation causes consumer confidence to fall,Û said</br></br>Richard Peach, deputy chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. "People become unwilling to take on major responsibilities like buying a new house."</br></br>The Realtors association said house resales rose 3.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.44 million units in July following a 0.9 percent gain in June. The June advance was the first in seven months. | no | 0 |
Business World: Credit Crunch? Let's Sue Visa and MasterCard | Last year was a year of record profits for Criimi Mae, a business whose name no poet will ever make a sonnet of. Everything was going fine and then it collapsed on the same heap as hedge-fund guru John Meriwether.</br></br>Criimi Mae managed a portfolio of commercial mortgages, buying half of all such securities underwritten by Wall Street. The strip malls, apartment buildings and supermarkets behind the mortgages did not all become delinquent. They're doing fine -- rents have held up, consumers continue to consume. The underwriters did not all flee to the Bahamas, leaving a wake of disorderly paperwork.</br></br>What dropped dead was demand for mortgage-backed securities. This is what a bank run looks like in a world where banks are no longer the most important lenders. Superficially everything seems fine in the economy, but beneath the surface there has been a sudden withdrawal of liquidity from various markets that you didn't even know existed.</br></br>This might seem a bad moment to be attacking the consumer credit industry. Yet the Justice Department last week filed an antitrust case against Visa and MasterCard. Let's see, the vital sectors of the economy now under assault include Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems and 30 or 40 industries subject to grand-jury investigation. In a world ravaged by deflation, where the uniform wail of CEOs is that "we have no power to raise prices," Justice believes now is a good time to go hunting cartels.</br></br>The latest complaint is the usual quizzical piece of work. The credit card business is wildly competitive, with every mail bringing come-ons for lower rates, bonus points and higher credit limits. Some 6,000 banks issue Visa and MasterCard in ferocious rivalry with each other. | no | 0 |
Large Stock Focus: Microsoft, Cisco, H-P Intel Gain | NEW YORK -- A strong earnings report from Intel boosted U.S. blue-chip stocks Wednesday, extending the Dow Jones Industrial Average's winning streak to seven sessions.</br></br>Still, the Dow's gain was slim and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index snapped a six-day streak as optimism over the pace of corporate earnings gave way to a chilly economic forecast from the Federal Reserve.</br></br>Intel's results were seen as proof that businesses have joined consumers in snapping up new computers, and the numbers provided a big boost to other technology stocks. Intel (Nasdaq) climbed 35 cents, or 1.7%, to $21.36; Cisco Systems (Nasdaq) advanced 65 cents, or 2.8%, to 23.74; Microsoft (Nasdaq) advanced 31 cents, or 1.2%, to 25.44; and Hewlett-Packard rose 57 cents, or 1.2%, to 47.34.</br></br>"What the Intel report tells you is that the world really wants technology. We've had 10 years of business either moderately [investing] or underinvesting in technology, and now we're in a refresh cycle," said Morris Mark, president Mark Asset Management.</br></br>Still, he added, "that's not enough to get employment and housing where it ought to be." | no | 0 |
Rubber, Rail Stocks in Van Of Sharp Drop | NEW YORK. March 12 <&).ÛÓ [ The stock market took a tumble today with prices down fractions to $1 a share. In a few instances issues lost as much as SI-2.</br></br>There was a brief spurt during the last minutes of trading but there wasn't enough vim behind it to boost prices into the gaining side of the ledger.</br></br>The Associated Press 60-stock average dropped eight-tenths of a point to 94.4, one of the sharper 1951 setbacks.</br></br>There was little volume attending the declineÛÓ1,640.000 shares compared with 1,610.000 on the previous full trading day last | Friday.</br></br>market has been hitting during the past week, which went down in the books as the slowest in six months. | yes | 1 |
Bank of America Profit Rises 5.2% On Fees and Gains | Bank of America Corp. said its second-quarter profit rose 5.2%, but the Charlotte, N.C., banking giant is finding it harder to overcome an interest-rate squeeze and higher loan costs, relying instead on fees and big investment gains.</br></br>Like other banks reporting results this week, Bank of America said it is putting aside more money for loans expected to go sour. The bank said its credit quality remains "sound." But it is clear that more borrowers are struggling to make payments as the housing market continues to slump.</br></br>The bank nearly doubled its provision for expected credit losses to $1.81 billion from $1.01 billion a year earlier, citing probable losses in growth areas such as home-equity and small-business lending.</br></br>"Nothing in our credit-quality numbers is a surprise," said Kenneth D. Lewis, the bank's chairman and chief executive, noting that the increased costs are coming off historic lows. He said Bank of America, the nation's second-largest bank by stock-market value after Citigroup Inc., is "well positioned" going into the second half of the year.</br></br>Other banks reporting earnings yesterday also made provisions for worsening credit conditions. SunTrust Banks Inc., Atlanta, the eighth- largest U.S. bank, posted a 25% increase in net income thanks to an after-tax gain of $146 million on the sale of Coca-Cola Co. stock. Net income soared to $681 million, or $1.89 a share, from $544 million, or $1.49 per share, a year earlier. Excluding the gain from the Coke stock, quarterly net income would have fallen as the bank doubled its provision for loan losses to $105 million. | no | 0 |
County Faces $15.7 Million Budget Gap; To Maintain Services, Arlington May Raise Property Tax Again | In the early 1990s, as a decade of prosperity gave way to tighter budgets and revenue shortfalls, Arlington officials reacted like well-honed athletes caught off guard by a mild touch of the flu.</br></br>The economy might be under the weather, they acknowledged, but the prospects of a swift and total recovery were excellent. As one of the region's most prosperous jurisdictions, Arlington was well positioned to ride out the recession, they said.</br></br>But with the county entering a fifth consecutive budget season facing a large revenue shortfall, that brand of optimism has begun to wane. Increasingly, county officials are acknowledging that they face a long-term case of the fiscal blahs, in which annual increases in the property tax rate and mild program cuts will continue to be the rule.</br></br>"There is going to be no great recovery from the recession, which we've been counting on for several years," said Mark Jinks, the county's director of management and finance. "There's a recognition on the board's part that things have to get in line."</br></br>On Saturday, Arlington County Board members received a continuing run of gloomy fiscal news that began in 1990, after a regional real estate boom came to an abrupt halt. After hearing that land values would continue to stagnate, the board approved a budget guideline of $432.1 million for the 1996 general fund budget - leaving a projected $15.7 million shortfall. | no | 0 |
Benefits No Longer Paid To Majority of Jobless: Gaps Have Grown Since Mid-'70s Recession | Almost two-thirds of the country's unemployed receive no unemployment compensation benefits, largely because they have exhausted their 26-week allotment or because of cutbacks by the^Reagan administration and the states.</br></br>The shrinking proportion of benefit recipients, a dramatic change over the last decade, indicates that despite a shrinking unemployment rateÛÓ7 percent in AugustÛÓthe number of hard-core long-term unemployed remains high.</br></br>According to federal statistics and unemployment specialists, the gaps in the unemployment compensation system have grown significantly since the 1975-76 recession, when more than 65 percent of the jobless received benefits for up to 65 weeks.</br></br>A fairly steady decline in unemployment insurance coverageÛÓand the virtual dismantling of extended benefit programsÛÓhave left only 34 percent of the unemployed collecting benefits.</br></br>Of the 8.1 million unemployed in August, 2.4 million were collecting benefits averaging $120.60 per week from the state unemployment systems, according to the Labor Department. More than 2.5 million jobless have exhausted benefits in the past year, according to the department, while the remainder include new entrants and re-entrants to the work force who are ineligible and others disqualified by the stricter eligibility requirements imposed by more than 40 states since 1980. | no | 0 |
Carter's Freeze on Federal Jobs Irks Environmentalists | The Environmental Defense Fund has complained to President Carter that one aspect of the administrationÛªs anti-inflation effort could cripple several new programs administered by the Environmental Protection Agency.</br></br>In a letter to Carter last week. Arlie Schardt. executive director of the lobbying group, said that the administrationÛªs plan to freeze existing vacancies in the federal workforce1 could leave as many as 1,200 budget* ; ed jobs in EPA unfilled.</br></br>ÛÏWe fully suport your efforts to curb inflation, but do not believe that the achievement of this goal requires the gutting of environmental and other health and safety programs," Schardt said.</br></br>In his anti-inflation speech to the nation last week the president announced that he was immediately ordering that federal agencies fill only one of every two vacancies as they occur. He said this would reduce the federal workforce by about 20,000 jobs, further cutting the budget deficit.</br></br>It was not clear at the time what would be done about vacancies that already exist in the government. But yesterday Bob Dietsch. a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, confirmed that these vacanciesÛÓwhich numbered 20.000 jobs at the end of August and probably fewer at the time of the presidentÛªs announcementÛÓhave been frozen. | no | 0 |
Fed Not Likely To Tinker With Monetary Dials: Fed Not Expected to Tinker With Monetary Policy | The Federal Reserve has not changed the settings of its monetary policy dials since last December and is not expected to do so this week when its policymaking group meets, according to Federal Reserve officials.</br></br>With the economic recovery looking stronger every day, and with most measures of the money supply within or above their target ranges, there is little immediate reason for the central bank to actively try to reduce interest rates at the moment.</br></br>Similarly, there is little pressure to tighten policy, either. Officials at the Fed expect inflation to remain low this year even with a healthy recovery, and the explosive growth of the money supply in the first three months of 1983 has slowed.</br></br>The Fed has the luxury of not having to make any policy shifts right now partly because the big increase in U.S. Treasury borrowing in recent months has not, as many analysts feared, produced a surge in interest rates. Rates have not moved upward because business borrowing has gone down and consumer demand has risen only slowly as the Treasury has jumped into the market with both feet.</br></br>Commercial and industrial loans at commercial banks were no higher in April than they were last October, while the amount of commercial paper outstandingÛÓan alternative source of short-term business creditÛÓplummeted at a 42.5 percent annual rate between November and February, the latest month for which figures are available. | no | 0 |
Quarterly Monitor; A Periodic Look at Performance And Where Investor Money is Moving | Giving Back Gains</br></br>In the latest quarter, U.S.-stock funds gave back part, but not all, of the gains they rang up in the first three months of 2012.</br></br>The average diversified U.S.-stock fund posted a negative 4.6% return for the three months through June, as investors fretted about the strength of the U.S. recovery and about the debt crisis in Europe. That left the funds up an average of 7% so far this year, after a 12.3% advance in the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters Corp.'s Lipper unit.</br></br>Dividend-focused equity-income funds had some of the smallest losses, returning an average of negative 2.2%. Many investors have turned to income-oriented stock funds as a relatively conservative stock-market play and, in some cases, as an alternative to bond funds in an era of ultralow interest rates.</br></br>Diversified international-stock funds fell harder than U.S.-focused funds, returning a negative 7.1% in the second quarter, according to Lipper. That leaves them with an average gain of 3.8% for the first six months of 2012. Emerging-markets funds fell 8.5%, leaving them up 4.3% for the year to date. | no | 0 |
The 'Credit Gap' and Ability to Repay | The article "Fed Wrestles With How Best to Bridge U.S. Credit Divide" (page one, June 19) seems to indicate that a bank not lending to people with bad credit is somehow a bad thing and that the key to reducing unemployment and expanding the economy lies with the Federal Reserve. It is as if the free market has absolutely nothing to do with it, as if small businesses aren't the most important engine for economic growth in this country and never have been.</br></br>The "credit gap" has very little to do with why our economy isn't recovering. To focus so heavily on this as the cause of our economic troubles is to admit to not knowing what is going on at all.</br></br>Steven Jones</br></br>Oakland, Tenn.</br></br>--- | yes | 1 |
Dollar Declines, Dropping 1.1% Against Yen --- Most Other Units Also Gain Against U.S. Currency As Interest Rates Rise | The dollar fell 1.1% against the Japanese yen and posted smaller declines against major European currencies in activity dominated by cross-trading and technical moves.</br></br>The U.S. currency also was undercut by interest-rate increases in West Germany and rumors of a rise in the Japanese central bank's key rate. After major U.S. banks raised their prime lending rates half a point to 9 1/4% yesterday, speculation also heated up about a discount-rate increase by the Federal Reserve Board.</br></br>Rate increases overseas would tend to make dollar-denominated investments less attractive and decrease demand for the U.S. currency. Although the boost in U.S. prime rates provided some support for the dollar, traders expressed fears that higher U.S. rates will only constrain an already troubled economy and fail to help the currency.</br></br>"If the economy isn't doing well and the interest rate goes up, that is only going to hurt the economy more," Yani M.A. Budiman, vice president, corporate foreign exchange, at Chemical Bank, New York, said.</br></br>In late New York trading, the dollar stood at 145.20 yen, compared with 146.78 late Tuesday. The dollar was down 0.5% against the West German currency at 1.8231 marks, compared with 1.8328. | yes | 1 |
Dow Rises 152.25 as Oil Falls, Fed Calms; Financials Pace Gains as BofA, Citi Jump; 'Too Soon to Say We're Out of the Woods' | Stocks pushed higher Tuesday, as crude oil sold off for a second straight day and comments from government officials eased investors' worries about financial stocks.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 152.25 points, or 1.4%, higher at 11384.21, helped by sizable gains in all its financial components. Bank of America jumped 9.3%, Citigroup rose more than 6% and J.P. Morgan Chase was up more than 5%.</br></br>In separate speeches, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spoke about plans to resolve the broader economic and financial woes that helped drive major market indexes to bear-market levels and damaged the earnings of many financial institutions.</br></br>James Lockhart, head of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said it is unlikely that government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be forced to raise more capital due to an impending change in accounting rules. Fannie shares gained 12%, and Freddie was up 13%.</br></br>Shares of bond insurers and regional banks rose strongly. MBIA shot up 22%, and Ambac Financial Group soared 53%. First Horizon National rose 14% and SunTrust Banks rallied 11%. | no | 0 |
Politics & Economics: With New Rules, Weapons Projects Set Higher Costs | The Pentagon said the costs for 36 big weapons systems -- including marquee warplane, submarine and ground-vehicle programs -- have jumped by at least 30% and some by more than 50%, but officials attributed the growth in cost to new reporting rules, not mismanagement.</br></br>A report released Friday was the first review of major weapons programs since Congress tightened terms for calculating cost increases. The new law requires the Pentagon to compare current unit prices with original cost estimates, in addition to more recent revised projections. The Pentagon found that 25 programs had grown by at least 50% over original costs, while 11 programs were between 30% and 50% more expensive.</br></br>"It's not fair to say that this reflects on how we are doing in the past few years, given the broad time span" under consideration, said Cheryl Irwin, a Pentagon spokeswoman.</br></br>For example, the prices of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 stealth fighter and Boeing Co.'s C-17 cargo jet rose more than 50%, but their original baseline costs were set years ago. The majority of affected programs date from the 1980s and 1990s, Pentagon officials said.</br></br>Legislators say the new law brings transparency to congressional oversight of the Pentagon. Defense contractors complain it fails to take into account inflation or technological and program changes that inevitably occur in long-term weapons development. Even younger programs, such as Boeing's $165-billion Future Combat Systems modernization project for the Army and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Global Hawk unmanned spy plane, surpassed the law's 50% cost-growth threshold because of program restructurings and delays. | no | 0 |
Calpers Looks Close To Home as Place For New Investment --- Proposals From DreamWorks And `Magic' Johnson Seen As Bid to Boost California | Is the $78 billion California Public Employees Retirement System, the nation's largest public retirement fund and best-known keeper of corporate rectitude, on a fling?</br></br>In recent weeks, the huge pension fund has been weighing an investment in DreamWorks SKG, an entertainment venture that at the moment is composed of little more than the minds and egos of three of Hollywood's best-known moguls.</br></br>Now the retirement fund, known as Calpers, says it's strongly considering a $50 million real-estate venture in California with one of America's best-known basketball stars: Earvin "Magic" Johnson.</br></br>It's pretty high-leaping stuff for the once-staid keeper of police and tax collectors' pensions, whose formidable public presence to date has focused on chiding corporate chieftains for poor performance and salary grabs.</br></br>Insiders at the giant retirement pool say the two proposed ventures, neither of which has been finalized, do indeed signal a change in strategy. Other investments soon will surface that will be far more centered on California than in the past, according to these people. And the lineup at Calpers itself has shifted, with new appointments to almost every top staff position. | no | 0 |
Market Suffers Second Decline | The Dow .Jones average of 3) industrials lost 6.22 to 9 72.61 on the heels of a 15.74 c rop Thursday. That left the a /erage with net declines of 15.19 for the week and 2.67 f ir February.</br></br>Turnover in NYSE-listed issues, including activity in t i o s e stocks on other n arkels around the country, tt taled 31.19 million shares.</br></br>The dayÛªs damage would h[ive been considerably worse had it not been for some late buying that s lowed up with the Dow d iwn more th,an 12 points lnlf an hour before the c osc.</br></br>Brokers said some traders e 'idently decided to cover s lort positions taken earlier a id do a little bargain hunt-ii g before the market closed f >r the weekend.</br></br>The selling that domi-n ited most of the session was attributed partly to the psychological letdown that ri suited from the DowÛªs in,a-b iity to break through the -rOOO level in several tries earlier in the week. | no | 0 |
Modish Vivendi; Can a French entrepreneur run an American film business? | How do you translate "synergy" into French? It's a nonsense word, and maybe it's a nonsense concept, too. But Jean-Marie Messier, chief executive of Vivendi, is betting his company on the dicey prospect that a transatlantic hodgepodge of European and American assets can indeed produce synergy--and make real money.</br></br>Messier yesterday delivered the formal announcement of his $34 billion mega-deal to buy the Canadian drinks and entertainment company Seagram, which owns Universal studios and Polygram records. His hope is to make the merged "Vivendi Universal" into a Paris- based media company that will play in the same monster league with AOL-Time Warner.</br></br>A comment by Messier at yesterday's press conference made it clear that one factor behind this deal is France's decades-old insecurity about the reach of America's cultural imperialism. "For the first time in Europe, there is a communication group of a size that will be able to rival all the American giants," Messier boasted. Maybe so. But many a would-be entertainment baron has stumbled in the pursuit of Hollywood's irresistibly glamorous assets. Just ask the Japanese company Matsushita, which a decade ago was seduced into buying MCA, which it later sold in frustration to Seagram, which Seagram is now selling in frustration to Vivendi. When it comes to the entertainment business, it seems, there always is one more sucker.</br></br>Even by recent standards of the merger-crazed business world, this one is a high-risk combination. It's premised on the belief that immense "scale" is essential to compete in today's economy. That remains a shaky proposition, in my book. Insiders say that even before the planned merger with AOL, Time Warner was an almost unmanageable collection of rival princes running their own fiefdoms. Add to that the difficulty of combining Paris and Hollywood--Gerard Depardieu and Julia Roberts--and you have a truly daunting challenge.</br></br>"The chance of the French succeeding in running a U.S. music and film business properly is about zero," one analyst told Reuters news service yesterday. The stock market certainly agrees with that gloomy assessment. Since news of the deal leaked last week, Vivendi's stock has fallen about 22 percent, including a 7 percent drop yesterday, according to the Associated Press. That drop reflects investors' doubts that Vivendi can make enough money from the deal to recover the premium it paid for Seagram, headed by Edgar Bronfman Jr. | no | 0 |
Woodies, Giant Food Inc. Report Sharp Profit Rise: Pahco. Baltimore ... | New Giant Food O Street Market store in the District, a night scene at Woodies and Ginn delivery truck.</br></br>The biggest supermarket and department store chains in the Washington area yesterday reported sharp increases in both sales and profits for the third quarter of 1979, indicating that local retail trade is flourishing despite the recession.</br></br>Giant Food Inc. posted a 27 percent increase in profits and reported that sales for the late.st three-month period were continuing to run 15 percent ahead of a'year ago.</br></br>' Woodward & Lothrop reported a 32 percent jump in profits and said a soft sales trend shown earlier in the year has ended. Third-quarter;volume was up more than 15 percent.</br></br>. Improved sales and_-.profits were also reported yesterday-by M.S.. Ginn, the largest office Û÷supply dealer in Washington and by Pubco, a major printing company. 'Lower earnings were posted by /Owens, Minor & Bo-deker, a Richmond" medical supply firm, and by Federal Real Estate Investment Trust. | no | 0 |
U.S. News: Groundhog Day for Bernanke --- Once Again, Fed Chief to Focus on the Sluggish Economy in Jackson Hole Speech | JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wasn't expecting he would have to make another speech like the one he will deliver here Friday.</br></br>A few months ago, the Fed seemed to be on cruise control as the economy healed. Many officials at the central bank hoped they were done with launching complicated programs to spur a sluggish economy. But Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues, once again disappointed by slow growth and small employment gains this year, are formulating another dose of monetary stimulus to be considered at their next policy meeting in mid-September.</br></br>So when the chairman speaks Friday morning at the central bank's annual retreat here, he must once again address whether there is more the Fed can do to get the economy going and whether it is worth taking chances on controversial new programs. All along he has argued these efforts are worth it and appears likely to stick to that line in his speech.</br></br>Beyond big issues of the moment -- such as whether the Fed will launch a new bond-buying program -- a broader question looms in Jackson Hole about Mr. Bernanke's legacy. Long after his term as chairman ends in 17 months, will he be remembered as the Fed chief who did too little to combat high unemployment or the one who did too much and unleashed inflation and financial instability with the actions he took? Critics make both arguments.</br></br>How Mr. Bernanke acts now depends in part on which he sees as the stronger critique. As an academic before joining the Fed, Mr. Bernanke often criticized central bankers for dealing too passively with financial crises and economic malaise. As Fed chief, he has confronted many limitations to the policies he controls. | yes | 1 |
The American Way of Death Evolves | The number of cremations in the U.S. has tripled in the past generation. The cremation rate is now about 17% -- though the rate varies widely from state to state. In Hawaii cremation already has surpassed burial, but in West Virginia cremation accounts for only 2% of the total. Americans are following the lead of Britain, where cremation has increased from less than 3% in 1936 to more than 70% now.</br></br>Heating technology is a primary cause for the gradual change of attitude toward cremation in the West. If the bonfires used in ancient cultures had continued to be the only means of cremation, the spade would continue to triumph over the torch in Western cultures. But contemporary cremations are neither a public spectacle nor a private repulsion.</br></br>Crematoria used to be located only in cemeteries away from heavily populated areas, due to public concern about smoke from cremations. Today, the smoke is recycled so that the carbon particles are completely burned. Only odorless vapors escape through a flue from the afterburner chamber. Most units in the U.S. are fired by natural gas. About 500 cubic feet of gas is used in a single cremation, costing several dollars.</br></br>Although death customs are usually the slowest of all customs to change, Americans are experiencing an increasing amount of dissatisfaction with conventional funeral practices. Funeral costs are a major factor in the decline of burials. Since 1984, funeral costs have risen almost twice as fast as the consumer price index; today an average burial costs $5,000, while the average cost of a cremation is a small fraction of this amount. Telophase, which claims to be the country's fastest growing cremation society, has an inclusive charge of $500.</br></br>Public policy encourages the cremation option. Social Security death benefits of $255 are available to most survivors of covered workers. Also, the Veterans Administration provides a $300 funeral allowance. For welfare recipients, the benefits vary from state to state. Economic considerations should not be overestimated, however, since cremation accounts for the majority of body disposals in Marin County, Calif. -- one of America's most affluent areas. | no | 0 |
Analysts Seek Motives of Central Banks --- With Fed Inactive, Europe, Japan Aid Dollar | After weeks of sitting on the sidelines, European central banks intervened in foreign exchange markets Friday to slow the dollar's decline.</br></br>Now, traders and economists are trying to figure out what kind of message the central banks were attempting to send. And they're still asking themselves: Where's the U.S. Federal Reserve?</br></br>Suspicion is growing that major central banks are resigned to a continuing decline of the dollar but are reluctant to acknowledge it. Their major task now, in the view of several analysts, is to see that the U.S. currency's retreat stays orderly.</br></br>"Without some sign of a really determined, concerted effort to hold it, (the dollar) is going to go to new lows," the head of foreign exchange operations for a major U.S. bank said. "The Bank of Japan must accept the inevitability of a stronger yen. The Fed's interest . . . is just to make sure (the dollar) doesn't drop so fast that nobody buys their bonds."</br></br>Friday, the Bank of Japan sold yen to buy dollars in Tokyo trading, as it had been doing all week. Then during European activity, traders said, the West German Bundesbank, Banque de France and Swiss National Bank all intervened to support the dollar when it was trading at 1.8110 to 1.8130 West German marks. Market estimates were that the four central banks combined spent a moderate $400 million to $500 million. | no | 0 |
THE WEEK AHEAD: Greenspan to Report On Fed's Policy Plans | Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will disclose the central bankÛªs monetary policy for the year in his semiannual report to Congress Tuesday before the House Banking Committee. HeÛªll make a similar appearance the next day before the Senate Banking Committee.</br></br>Investors in financial markets will be watching closely, although no major changes in policy are expected.</br></br>The Senate Banking Committee spent the weekend trying to work out a final version of a bill to repeal the 55-year-old law that separates securities activities from commercial banking. [Details on Page H8.]</br></br>Lawmakers last summer passed a law to temporarily prevent regulators from giving banks any new powers to sell securities. The freeze expires March 1. By then Congress was to have passed a permanent banking law defining how far commercial banking and securities underwriting could mingle.</br></br>The freeze is expected to expire uneventfully, with no major push by the securities industry to try to extend it But lobbyists and congressional aides were skeptical late last week that Congress will be able to pass a new banking bill any time soon. | no | 0 |
Debt Crunch: A Memo to My Banker | There's an old truism on Wall Street, though often forgotten, that for every buyer there's a seller. And vice versa.</br></br>I first learned it many years ago when as a young reporter on The Wall Street Journal I got up enough nerve (and enough money) to make my first stock purchase. Having done so, I sidled up to Oliver Gingold, our longtime stock-market watcher who dated back to Charles Dow, and announced I had bought some General Motors. Oliver looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and remarked, "Maybe you're dumber than the fellow who sold it."</br></br>There's a like truism in the banking world, though hardly anybody remembers it. For every borrower there's also a lender. It always takes two to tango.</br></br>I'm reminded of that by all I read in the papers about the troubles bankers have lately got into by lending so much money to borrowers who can't repay. Sometimes it's hard to figure out which one is dumber, borrower or lender.</br></br>Take all those farm loans. All over the country farmers are going broke and having their farms auctioned off at bankruptcy sales because a few years back they borrowed too much money for tractors, combines and other machinery. So now the banks are in trouble, too. A lot of them have even gone belly up. Just the other day the Journal had a front-page story about how the banks' current ills are resisting the usual "cures." The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is itself running low on money. | no | 0 |
FOR THE RECORD | The following is a report of how some major bills fared recently in Congress and a record of how local members of Congress voted.</br></br>The House sent the Senate a bill (HR 743) giving companies leeway under federal labor law to operate employer-employee groups for addressing workplace issues and increasing productivity. The bill was supported by the Chamber of Commerce and opposed by the AFL-CIO. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice for companies to financially support or dominate employee organizations. This bill eases that ban so that management and workers in non-union shops can participate in Japanese-style problem-solving teams set up and administered by management. Critics say such teams easily can become illegal company unions. A yes vote was to pass the bill.</br></br>The House rejected an amendment requiring secret-ballot elections to pick employee representatives who sit with management on workplace teams authorized by HR 743 (above) within the framework of the National Labor Relations Act. The elections were to replace management selection of worker representatives. The amendment was backed by labor groups and opposed by business organizations. A yes vote supported the labor-backed amendment.</br></br>The House sent the Senate a bill (HR 1170) making it more difficult for the federal judiciary to block a referendum approved by the voters of a state. The bill requires appeals on constitutional grounds to be heard by three U.S. judges rather than one, to prevent plaintiffs from "judge shopping" to find a sympathetic jurist. The bill was prompted by events in California, where Proposition 187 denying social services to illegal immigrants was approved by voters but found unconstitutional by state and federal courts and not implemented. A yes vote was to pass the bill.</br></br>The Senate sent to conference with the House a bill (HR 2099) appropriating $80.9 billion in fiscal 1996 for a variety of departments and agencies. The bill cuts the Environmental Protection Agency budget by 22 percent, the Department of Housing and Urban Development by 19 percent and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by 4 percent. Among major agencies funded by the bill, only the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Science Foundation escape major cuts. Senators preserved the space station (below) but killed the administration's AmeriCorps program (below). A yes vote was to pass the bill. | no | 0 |
Long-Term Funds Lure $1.4 Billion in Inflows | Long-term mutual funds had estimated inflows of $1.4 billion in the latest week, as investors added more money to bond funds than they withdrew from equities and hybrid funds, according to the Investment Company Institute.</br></br>The latest week marks the sixth consecutive week of inflows reported by ICI. The funds saw steep outflows over the summer when investors retreated from a volatile stock market amid concerns about an uncertain economic outlook and the debt load in the U.S. and Europe, though investors have continued to consistently pull money from U.S. equities since August. Bonds and hybrid funds have seen mostly inflows so far this year.</br></br>For the week ended Nov. 22, equity funds had outflows of $3.74 billion, compared with outflows of $1.26 billion in the prior week. Investors withdrew $3.72 billion from U.S. equities and pulled $23 million to foreign funds.</br></br>Meanwhile, ICI said bond funds had inflows of $6.57 billion, compared with prior week inflows of $6.47 billion. Investors added $6.24 billion to taxable funds, while inflows to municipal funds totaled $333 million.</br></br>Investors pulled $1.42 billion from hybrid funds after prior-week outflows of $4.59 billion. Such funds can invest in both stocks and fixed-income assets. | no | 0 |
f*'Dll'r11"1,1 } Cf r S Lo,vs: ou Shares Depressed Turnover Slackens | NEW YORK, June 16ÛÓThe stock marketÛªs technical rebound gave out with a thud Monday as prices turned away from early gains and slumped to new lows for the year. Trading volume trailed the Friday rate by 23'per cent.</br></br>The carryover of FridayÛªs upturn lasted just over an hour and pusfoed the Dow Jones industrial average ahead more than four points. From there on, though, it was downhill all the way, with prices finishing the session at their lowest levels of the day.</br></br>The Dow industrials once again failed to hold over the 895 level, closing at 891.16. It was the lowest final reading for the Dow since last Aug. 22, when it closed at 888.30.</br></br>13.47 million on Friday. About half the difference came in the first hour, when turnover trailed the previous session by nearly 1.5 million shares.</br></br>The losers held firm command of the overall box score. Even on Friday, when market averages were higher, declining stocks held their lead over advances. Today, the count was 819 down and 532 up, compared with 708 losers and 628 gainers on Friday. There were nine new 1969 highs, up from three, and 257 new lows, down from 353. | no | 0 |
The Dawn of a New Night; Why Do We, Our Companies and Our Society Let Half of Our Time Go to Waste? | The soft blue glow of the computer screen, the tapping on the keyboard and the accompanying hardware hum will be my world for the next several hours - a world of self-imposed isolation and silence. Phones will not ring, nor doorbells chime. Kids will not interrupt. There's no laughter from a distant television or pounding beat from a stereo. The first intrusion I can expect will be the sound of a van pulling away from the mailbox after delivering my Washington Post at 5:10.</br></br>But by then I will have taken advantage of one of the most valuable untapped resources we have as a species: time. Specifically, nighttime.</br></br>To those who know my early morning ways, I am abnormal. Not in a deranged way, but in the "major percentile group" sense. And they are right. To them, I appear to have a sleeping disorder because my day begins between 3 and 4 a.m. and ends around 9 p.m. I readily acknowledge that I'm nowhere near the bulge in the bell curve of sleeping habits.</br></br>Despite the apparent eccentricity of it, there is great potential value in these predawn hours: value to the individual, to our companies and to our society. And yet, with all of our new technology and our burning desire to reinvent and reengineer our lives and our world, we seem to be letting our most precious resource - time - slip through our fingers.</br></br>Expensive revenue-producing, life-enhancing resources sit idle or near-idle in the darkness. Office buildings, computers, medical facilities, power plants, libraries, research centers, telecommunications networks, airplanes, trucks, educational facilities, golf courses, retail shops - almost everything - go from assets to liabilities as we, ironically, search for ways to do more with less and become more competitive. | no | 0 |
13.8% FIXED TERM* from $187,750 to $196,950 | 36 Condominium Townhomes (28 Remaining). Brick fire places & wrought iron railings, some with decks or patios.</br></br>west. Turn right on Û¢ Energy efficient construction Û¢ Û÷ Dn Monroe St. Proceed to Veitch Street. Proceed Û¢ Private brick courtyard Û¢ Maywood on Right,</br></br>Seller-assisted financing of mortgages ÛÓ the mainstay of the home real estate market in 1981 ÛÓ will come under national ÛÏtruth-in-lendingÛ consumer protection safeguards for the first time ever, if the Federal Reserve Board gets its way.</br></br>brokers to spell out key details of ÛÏcreatively financedÛ mortgages to prospective home buyers, before they sign binding sales contracts.</br></br>The proposal attempts to remedy a major consumer problem in real estate: buyersÛª unfamiliarity with the risks involved in ÛÏballoonÛ financing, ÛÏinterest-onlyÛ second mortgages, and other non-traditional techniques. | yes | 1 |
Fed Aids Stock Prices With 'Operation Twist' | DECEMBER declines in the stock market are frequently due to tax-loss selling and therefore are as m e aningiess as gruff husbandly responses a t the breakfast table.</br></br>This could be the case now. But we wonÛªt know till we get the answer from the market, itselfÛÓin January. Will it bounce back? Will it show resilience?</br></br>The yield statistics are reassuring. They do not suggest that President JohnsonÛªs rollback of interest rates will provoke a crash in 1965 comparable to President KennedyÛªs rollback of steel prices in 1962.</br></br>Circumstances are different. Before the Ûª62 break, stocks had rollicked well ahead of improvement in corporate profits and dividends. In December, 1961, industrial shares offered the meager yield of</br></br>In contrast, returns today are 3 per cent, 3.2 per cent and 4.3 per cent respectively. Only the rails offer less. And their economic condition, as a group, has improved markedly since. | no | 0 |
Consumer Confidence Reaches a 28-Year High | NEW YORK, Dec. 30ÛÓA vibrant economy and plentiful jobs boosted Americans' confidence in their financial situation to a 28-year high this month despite the volatile stock market, a New York business research group said today.</br></br>The Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence jumped to 134.5 for December from a revised 128.1 in November. It was the highest reading since June 1969, when the index stood at 137.9.</br></br>ÛÏConsumers expect... favorable conditions to continue, and they're not picking up anything in the work force or in their communities or in business conditions that's signaling anything negative is in the works,Û said Lynn Franco, associate director of the Conference Buard's Consumer Research Center.</br></br>ÐÊNearly 41 percent of the 5,000 households surveyed rated jobs as ÛÏplentiful'Ûª this month, up from 36.4 percent last month. In addition, fewer respondents said jobs had become more difficult to obtain.</br></br>That positive sentiment lifted consumersÛª appraisals of both their current situation and their expectations for the future, Franco said. The present-conditions index climbed to 161.7 from 156.8, while the expectations measure rose to | no | 0 |
Corporate Profit Growth Slowed in First Quarter --- Bottom Line at Many Firms Could Begin to Get Hit; Inflation Pressures Rise | WASHINGTON -- Growth in corporate profits slowed in the first months of the year, while profit margins improved only slightly, suggesting that the bottom line at many firms may begin to suffer in the months ahead.</br></br>In its first look at first-quarter corporate results, the Commerce Department said that profits, adjusted for the impact of inflation on inventories and depreciation, rose 3.8%, slightly slower than the 4% gain recorded in the last months of 1999. Profits were 7.6% higher than they were a year earlier, down from a 9.6% year-over-year change in the fourth quarter of last year. Profit margins, meanwhile, inched up 0.1% to 9.8% for the quarter, but have been relatively flat for the past two years.</br></br>"The peak rate of profit growth is behind us," said David Orr, chief economist with First Union Bank Corp. in Charlotte, N.C. "There will still be growth, but at a decelerating rate."</br></br>The numbers were included in the department's revised first-quarter gross-domestic-product report. In the first three months of the year, GDP -- the broadest measure of goods and services produced by the U.S. economy -- surged ahead at a brisk 5.4% annual rate, confirming the department's earlier estimate. Many analysts had expected the GDP numbers -- which came on the heels of a torrid 7.3% pace in the fourth quarter of last year -- to be revised downward slightly.</br></br>As in the preliminary report, the data suggest that inflationary pressures continue to build in the economy. The gross- domestic-purchases portion of the GDP figures, which Commerce officials point to as the broadest gauge of inflation in the report, rose 3.2% for the quarter, its sharpest gain in more then ten years. The increase, the same as in the department's earlier estimate, follows a 2.3% gain in the fourth quarter of 1999. The measure tracks increases in the prices paid by companies and individuals. | no | 0 |
Higher Fares at Hubs: Two Studies, Two Views | Passengers at some airports where one or two airlines provide the bulk of the service are paying significantly higher prices for travel. But two studies out this week-one by the government, another by the airline industry-give different perspectives on how often this happens and why.</br></br>The studies by the General Accounting Office and the Air Transport Association both tackle what has become one of the hottest issues in the debate over how airline deregulation is working-whether passengers who live near an airport dominated by one or two airlines are paying a price in higher fares. The ATA, which represents the airline industry, says no.</br></br>Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner considers competition at airline hubs a critical issue, and the Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing today to examine whether airlines that have staked out a huge presence at airports such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and St. Louis have created what amounts to a captive market.</br></br>"While there continues to be vigorous competition on the most heavily traveled routes, growing concentration, especially at hub airports, has led to less competition on many routes," concluded the GAO in a study to be released at today's hearing.</br></br>The GAO study, requested by Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) of the Senate Commerce Committee's aviation subcommittee, found that passengers at 15 airports dominated by one or two carriers paid 27 percent more per passenger mile of travel than travelers at airports where more competition exists. | no | 0 |
BUSINESS: Dow Average Falls 52 On Inflation Worries MarketsÛª Slide to Some Signals Big Correction | Heavy selling in European financial markets and renewed worries about potentially resurgent U.S. inflation battered U.S. stocks and bonds yesterday.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 51.78 points in heavy trading, closing at 3839.90. Other market indexes also dropped sharply.</br></br>Some Wall Street analysts saw the stock market slide as a signal that a deeper decline was beginning.</br></br>ÛÏTodayÛªs action is the correction IÛªve been looking for for two months,Û said Byron Wien, U.S. stock market strategist for the Wall Street investment firm Morgan Stanley & Co. He said he expects the Dow Jones aver-age to fall to 3500.</br></br>ÛÏInvestors have learned since 1987 to buy the dips in the market," he said. ÛÏToday people realized that the market is not going to recover immediately from the 96-point decline in the Dow on Feb. 4.Û Stocks fell that day after the Federal Reserve announced a small rise in short-term interest rates. | no | 0 |
Taylor Admits To a Weakness In Policing BCCI | WASHINGTON -- William Taylor, President Bush's nominee to run the nation's deposit insurance system, said bank regulators could have done a better job policing the Bank of Credit & Commerce International.</br></br>"I think we have learned a series of things," Mr. Taylor, currently the head of bank supervision at the Federal Reserve, told the Senate Banking Committee at his confirmation hearing.</br></br>"You shouldn't allow someone in the country that doesn't have supervision from a strong home-country supervisor," he said. BCCI, with operations in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the U.S., fraudulently hid huge losses for months from regulators around the world. No U.S. depositors lost money.</br></br>Questions about BCCI's actions during Mr. Taylor's tenure at the Federal Reserve were expected to be the only serious hurdle to his confirmation. But committee members seemed satisfied with his remarks. Sen. Donald Riegle (D., Mich.), chairman of the committee, said that he expects the committee will recommend the confirmation and that the Senate will vote within a few weeks. If confirmed as expected, Mr. Taylor would succeed William Seidman, whose term expires next month.</br></br>In his testimony, Mr. Taylor said he remains troubled by lingering questions involving BCCI. In the U.S., BCCI was able to evade government prohibitions from purchasing stock in First American Bankshares Inc. by using frontmen. "I really have difficulty in knowing how we're going to uncover (such) arrangements anywhere," he said. "I really think it's difficult to determine when two people conspire to change the control of an organization." | no | 0 |
Economist Sees Interest Rates Rising | While Treasury Secretary John B. Connally was telling a Senate subcommittee yesterday the worst thing that could happen to the economy was a rise in interest rates, the top economist for one of the nationÛªs largest stock brokerage houses was predicting an increase in both long and shortterm rates.</br></br>Henry Kaufman, of Salomon Brothers, said that by this summer short-term Treasury bill rates should be up to 5% per cent, with longer term corporate securities up to IVz to 8V2 per cent. Weekly Treasury bill rates yesterday jumped</br></br>Bond prices, though, closed at near their lows for the day in very quiet trading. Fixed income securities have been declining for the last seven or eight weeks. Corporate bond prices were marked down about $1 from Friday.</br></br>Meanwhile, the dollar came under renewed pressures in Germany yesterday after reports that West German central bank president Karl Kla-sen had resigned.</br></br>The dollar closed at 3.542 marks to the dollar, roughly unchanged from its opening position. After rumors of Kia- senÛªs resignation emerged, it had slipped to 3.536 marks to the dollar. When the Bundesbank denied the rumor later, the dollar moved back up. | no | 0 |
Rush to Buy Bonds Sends Rates Down; Clinton Plan, Fall in Consumer Confidence Also Hurt Stocks, Dollar | Panic buying hit the bond market yesterday as investors, apparently convinced that interest rates are down to stay, scrambled to purchase bonds before yields fell any further.</br></br>In the process, rates on intermediate- and long-term U.S. Treasury securities were driven down one-tenth to two-tenths of a percentage point in a single day.</br></br>"It is just breathtaking," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at CRT Government Securities Ltd. in New York. "The whole fixed-income market has appreciated dramatically."</br></br>Levy said most financial market participants seem convinced that inflation will stay low and, perversely, that President Clinton's deficit reduction proposals will dampen rather than spur economic growth.</br></br>"Actually, the package does nothing to harm the economy in the short run," Levy said. "It is clear sailing for economic growth." | no | 0 |
S&P to Introduce New Market Index of Midsized Stocks | NEW YORK -- Standard & Poor's Corp. said it will introduce a stock-market index for medium-sized companies smaller than most of those contained in the S&P 500 stock index.</br></br>The new S&P Midcap Index will contain at least 300 stocks and perhaps as many as 500, each with stock-market capitalization (stock-market values) of between $500 million and $2 billion, S&P said. The number and names of the middle-capitalization stocks in the index will be disclosed in about a month, when S&P plans to begin computing the new index daily.</br></br>The idea of a mid-cap index isn't new; several money-management firms already offer investment products designed to track the performance of medium-sized stocks. Chicago-based ANB Investment Management Co., for example, introduced its MidCap Fund in 1985 and manages $1 billion for clients using its index.</br></br>But S&P's success in establishing the 34-year-old S&P 500 as a benchmark index for larger stocks may spill over to the midcap sector with the introduction of an index bearing S&P's name. "In terms of significant investor interest, what people said they would love to see us do is a mid-cap index," said Elliott Shurgin, an S&P vice president.</br></br>An estimated $250 billion currently is invested in so-called index funds designed to mimic the performance of a basket of stocks, most often the S&P 500. But the very popularity of S&P 500 indexing has led some investors to pay greater attention to other segments of the stock market, including medium-sized stocks, and more recently, small stocks. | no | 0 |
Strike Forecast: 'Absolutely Awful' | j Local government, the one thatÛªs closest to the people, is becoming a depressed industry in many large American cities as municipalities and their workers compete for dollars beset by double-digit inflation.</br></br>J Both city- find labor officials say that ore sign oiTthe decline is the increasing number of public employe-strikes. such as the 1-1-day walkoutÛÓ the first in 14 yearsÛÓby 33,600 New York City transit workers that ended Ppday night. They also predict troubled municipal labor relations for to come.</br></br>Sffiough reasons vary from place lo place, moneyÛÓor the lack of itÛÓrap-iclly is becoming the dominant factor.</br></br>Many urban observers think that as cjtics and their workers fight to keep up with double-digit inflation, they ajre ^destroying one another in the process.</br></br>ÛÏItÛªs an absolutely awful situation.ÛªÛª said Michael Grace, spokesman for tfie Public Employe Department of the AFk-ClO. | no | 0 |
At CBS, Another Black Eye Blurs Vision of Future | How's this for high-concept television: A great network lifts itself out of the ratings cellar and rides high for three years. Then, all at once, things get rocky. The network loses its top programming executive, its high-profile sports shows, even some of its affiliates. As executives search desperately for a new hit, the ratings start to look shaky again.</br></br>This scenario, as they say on TV, is based on a true story. CBS, the dominant television network of the early '90s, appears headed for a fall. Despite winning a ratings triple crown during the last television season - taking the top spot in the prime time, daytime and late night Nielsens - in recent months the network of "Murphy Brown" and "Late Night With David Letterman" has been showing clear signs of deterioration.</br></br>Last week, Black Rock, as CBS's New York headquarters is known, was shaken anew. New World Communications Group Inc., which owns eight TV stations affiliated with CBS, said it was shifting its loyalties to Rupert Murdoch's Fox network. The move was widely read as a coup for Fox, which paid $500 million for the stations' affiliation, and as a major defeat for CBS. Indeed, the stock market's judgment was swift and harsh: Investors rushed to sell their CBS shares, knocking nearly $520 million off the company's value on paper in two days (the stock recovered slightly later in the week).</br></br>CBS executives argue that the reaction to the New World-Fox deal was overblown. After all, they said, with its powerful prime time lineup, CBS should have no trouble persuading other stations in the eight markets to sign up to carry "60 Minutes," "Murder, She Wrote" and other CBS fare. Fox, sniffed CBS Broadcasting Group President Howard Stringer last week, is a network of "downscale sitcoms and titillating soap operas."</br></br>In fact, Fox - whose ratings have declined 10 percent in the past two years - needs the soon-to-be former CBS affiliates more than CBS. Once it finds stations to replace those it has lost, CBS's "worst case" internal projections call for it to lose about 15 percent of its current audience in the eight cities. | no | 0 |
Central Fidelity Wants to Switch Its Regulator: Fed Report on Lending Record Spurs Charter C | The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond has written a rey port criticizing one of Virginia's largest and most successful-: banks for allegedly discriminating against some customers,-and the bank has reacted by deciding to apply for a new.fr charter that would remove it from the Fed's oversight. ;.jåÈ:</br></br>The Fed report was issued confidentially last month to Richmond-based Central Fidelity Bank. It gives Central Fir. delity a "needs to improve" rating on its record of meeting community credit needs. The report, a copy of which was >;ÐÊ obtained by The Washington Post, says the bank discrimir. nated in lending on the basis of age and marital status, and defined certain neighborhoods served by its offices in a way that excluded neighboring low- and moderate-income areas.</br></br>Carroll L. Same, chairman of the board of Central Fideli-\;åÇ ty, delivered a bankerÛªs version of a broadside against the Fed at yesterdayÛªs annual shareholders meeting. ,.</br></br>In a highly unusual move, Saine said the bank would seek -to replace its current state charter with a national one, un- Û_ der which it would be regulated by the Office of the Compt; trailer of the Currency rather than by the Fed.</br></br>"In my opinion, the Office of the Comptroller of the CurrencyÛÓwhile harsh in their examinationsÛÓis logical, objective, basically nonpolitical and more fairly represents the high standards of our bank, its stockholders, customers and employees," Saine told the annual meeting in Richmond. | no | 0 |
J obless Rate Appraised | WHEN IT COMES to economic issues, nothing sticks in the public mind like the monthly unemployment number. ThatÛªs why Mr. NixonÛªs men lie awake nights wondering what to do about the jobless rate, which has persistently hovered around 6 per cent for about a year.</br></br>Increasingly, they are beginning to suggest that the longtime goal of 4 per cent unemployment will have to be abandoned for a higher rateÛÓmaybe 5 per centÛÓbecause trying for 4 per cent is bound to create too much inflation.</br></br>Democratic or RepublicanÛÓ would disagree that the overriding economic dilemma of our times is how to achieve full employment with reasonable price stability.</br></br>So far as the PresidentÛªs chief advisers are concerned, they accept 4 per cent as a socially desirable target. But' they point to shifts in the composition of the labor force (mostly more women and youngsters looking for jobs), as explained best by George Perry of the Brookings Institution, to show that the goal is unrealistic.</br></br>Economic Council Chairman Herbert Stein discussed the problem frankly in an interview recently with The Washington Post. Asked if he viewed a 5 per cent unemployment rate as ÛÏmore normalÛ for these times, he responded; ÛÏWell, I donÛªt quarrel with that. I did make the point and to some length about the fact that . . . the composition of the population would make you think that if 4 per cent was a natural rate earlier it would now be higher. . . . Maybe it (the number) is five. I donÛªt regard five as a target, but a lower rate probably will have to be achieved by methods other than pumping up the economy.Û | no | 0 |
Wonderland: The Motorbike Economy | Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- The TV screen in a hotel room in Singapore a fortnight ago poured out awful images from New Zealand's Christchurch earthquake. A week later, in Saigon, the earthquake had given way in the news to images of fighting in the streets of Libya. So this, too, is the global village, the whole world watching the same disasters and dramas over dinner.</br></br>But a "Libya" isn't quite the same story in Vietnam as in the U.S. America's great-power status obliges that the center of concern is "the U.S. response." In emergent Vietnam, whose 89 million people make it the world's 13th largest nation, the bigger concern is whether its rapidly inflating currency, the dong, at about 20,000 dong to the dollar, will slow this nation's march to economic power.</br></br>Don't count on it. No one in Vietnam is "marching" to the future. "There's nowhere to walk here," explained a waitress in a Saigon restaurant. "The sidewalks are covered with motorbikes." Saigon has been described as a city of nine million people and 30 million motorbikes. That's an understatement. It is an infinity of motorbikes. Imagine an entire city population riding atop a 100cc Honda or Yamaha. It's impossible to imagine unless you see it.</br></br>One is engulfed by motorbikes seconds away from Ho Chi Minh City airport (HCMC is the city's official name, and though busts and portraits of Uncle Ho abound in public buildings, I never heard anyone in Saigon call it Ho Chi Minh City). Saigon sprawls, like Los Angeles, and virtually every street, from end to end, from morning into the night, is filled with someone on a bike, often with baby sitting in front, holding the handlebars, faces wrapped in large pollution masks, going somewhere, at 35 mph.</br></br>There are cars and trucks, but they look like whales surrounded by schools of fast fish. Welcome to Vietnam, the motorbike economy -- adept, efficient, always in forward gear. | no | 0 |
Low-Cost Clinics: Best Way to Treat Substance Abuse | If sensible treatment for drug abuse and alcoholism were to be offered in every U.S. neighborhood, it also could improve the health of some people who have never touched drugs or taken a drink, and do this more dramatically than any research now in progress. It also could lower medical-care costs more effectively than will all the arbitrary cost-cutting that is now shaving most everyone's medical care down to the grimly skinny. The overdue task is to properly define what sensible substance-abuse treatment is.</br></br>Given the current obsession with controlling medical-care costs, what's sensible should bear some relation to what's affordable. Yet at the most publicized of alcohol- and drug-abuse treatment centers, the Fair Oaks hospital group (which sponsors the famous 800-COCAINE hotline), the current cost of a hospital day is $1,000, which exceeds the price of a day in the coronary-care unit of Massachusetts General Hospital. The cost of a full inpatient term of treatment at these centers -- four weeks to six months -- ranges from $28,000 to $160,000, with an average of $56,000. This is a spread whose lower end is higher than the cost of bypass surgery and all its attendant expense and whose upper end is more than double the average cost -- $70,000 -- of treating an AIDS patient. Most other middle-class centers cost $10,000 per term of inpatient treatment, while the Betty Ford Center charges $5,000, and Hazelden in Minnesota charges $4,000.</br></br>The reason no one questions these prices, not even the insurance companies who pay them, is that the alternative expense in addiction-related disease, lost productivity and crime is reckoned at $170 billion a year. With treatment success rates reported as high as 85% to 92% at (for instance) the Fair Oaks hospital group, the treatment prices have appeared eminently cost-effective, and the success rates miles ahead of those recorded over the past 50 years by public substance-abuse programs. The hitch, according to Dr. Chad Emrick of the University of Colorado (the only researcher to review all the literature on this subject), is that those success rates are more fantasy than fact. Both Dr. Emrick and Dr. George Vaillant, professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School, say that, even when addressed in these same expensive treatment centers, alcoholism and drug abuse remain notoriously prone to relapse -- which confuses the meaning of "success." Many of those treated need retreatment two or three or more times.</br></br>Given prices of $160,000 or $56,000 or even $4,000 per term of treatment, how can we afford care for those who are habitual and excessive users of drugs and/or alcohol? There are an estimated 40 million people who regularly abuse these substances. Were all of them to be treated only once at even the lowest-priced outpatient center (Hazelden, at $1,800 per term of treatment) the cost would be on the order of $72 billion. That's one-fifth of annual current medical expenses in the U.S. If, against high odds, half of these heavy users could break their habits by themselves, the remainder would still cost some $36 billion to treat -- once. What is the answer?</br></br>To begin with, Drs. Emrick and Vaillant and others have not found a scintilla of evidence to show that expensive treatment works any more effectively than less expensive kinds. Mr. Vaillant, author of the classic book "The Natural History of Alcoholism," says, "What's important is that treatment be available for everyone as often as they need it." On just this precept, the Cambridge and Somerville Program for Alcohol Recovery in Massachusetts, developed by Harvard Medical School physicians, has for the past 16 years treated about 20,000 patients a year at an annual cost of $1 million. Its bywords are easy accessibility and versatility of approach. The program includes a 24-hour walk-in clinic, outpatient groups, groups for families, women's groups, a detoxification unit and three halfway houses. It boasts no amazing statistics or new wonder therapies, but in its humdrum and unpretentious way it weans a great many people from their injurious addictions, some permanently, others only for a while at a time. Its "success" rate, in short, is as good as any. | no | 0 |
WEEKEND JOURNAL; TV Review: America Unguarded | DON'T BE DAUNTED by the portentous title of the Court TV film "On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission" (Aug. 21, 10 p.m. to midnight). With some exceptions, particularly its heavy-handed portrayals of some of the bereaved (Susan Rescorla, widow of Rick Rescorla, the heroic Morgan Stanley vice president for security, would certainly have cause for complaint), the documentary succeeds in making sense out of an impossibly complicated network of themes.</br></br>The main one -- the work of the 9/11 Commission -- has, it should be said, been cleaned up significantly. There are no pictures here of the political grandstanding that marred that event, nothing of the semihysterical accusations of former Sen. Bob Kerrey, among others. Though we do get a telling moment in which former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, in full prosecutorial mode once more, refuses -- as though he were grilling an opponent before a jury -- to allow then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to finish her answer. The bullying effort didn't prevent the witness from shutting Mr. Ben- Veniste up long enough to finish her answer -- one of her better public moments.</br></br>It is wonderful, too, to hear former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta declaiming against failures to strengthen airport security: Norman Mineta, militant foe of any special scrutiny of, say, passengers whose appearance and background fit the known profile of potential hijackers -- i.e., young Middle Eastern males. Especially those with odd omissions in their credentials.</br></br>There's little doubt that Secretary Mineta's high-minded refusal to allow such passengers to be inconvenienced by extra questioning raised fears of giving offense among airport security staffers -- and gave rise to inhibitions that played their part in certain peculiar, and deadly, oversights. One such traveler who arrived at an airport without a photo ID was, as one of the film's commentators acidly points out, nevertheless allowed to proceed. The day was 9/11, that passenger one of the hijackers. Two other hijackers set off metal detectors and were allowed to proceed, without further search.</br></br>Interwoven with the story of the hearings are the memories of survivors and of the bereaved, some of them never before heard, all of them haunting. | no | 0 |
Few Good Scenarios in View as Crisis Spreads | The Wall Street turmoil is shaking an already-weakened U.S. economy and could hit households and businesses in the form of fewer loans and higher interest rates in the months ahead -- in turn sending unemployment higher and corporate profits lower.</br></br>Economic data released Thursday show the stress in the economy leading up to the crisis and hint at how it may have gotten worse since. Demand for manufactured goods fell sharply in August as new- home sales slid to their lowest monthly level in 17 years. And in the week ended Sept. 20, new unemployment filings hit the highest level since just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.</br></br>U.S. leaders hope the government's massive interventions, plus plans for a big bailout now being negotiated, will soften the blow. The economy also is running on a reassuring quarter-century path of mostly sustained growth that could reassert itself.</br></br>But ripple effects from a worsening credit crunch are already making their way from Wall Street to Main Street. General Electric Co. kicked off what could be a parade of profit warnings on Thursday. Many companies have seen their borrowing costs rise in the short-term commercial-paper market.</br></br>History, and a close look at recent data, suggest the economy could travel any of four possible routes through the financial crunch. The most likely scenario is a recession marked by a protracted period of tight credit. But three other scenarios -- a dangerous run on the dollar, Japan-style deflation or surprising economic resilience -- are also within the realm of possibility. | yes | 1 |
The 1.5% Presidency | President Obama didn't comment on Friday's report of declining growth in the second quarter, and that's no surprise. The economic story of his Presidency is by now familiar: a plodding recovery that has taken its third dip in three years and is barely raising incomes for most Americans.</br></br>"We're still in a position where we are pulling ourselves out of the very deep hole caused by the Great Recession, and there is still -- of course -- a great deal of anxiety in the country about the economy,"" said White House press secretary Jay Carney. He's right about the anxiety, but if only we were "pulling ourselves out."</br></br>The reality is that the Great Recession ended three long years ago. In this Less Than Great Recovery, the economy shows promise for one good quarter then slows back down. As the nearby chart shows, this is the third straight year of sputtering recovery. Growth of 4.1% in the fourth quarter declined to 2% in the first and now 1.5% in the second. The stock market rose as investors bet that the lousy growth will inspire more Federal Reserve easing.</br></br>The sliver of good news is that private growth, which is what really matters, was up a slightly less anemic 1.8%, and government spending fell by a minus-1.4% from the first quarter. Housing is also now less of a drag on GDP. But this makes the paltry 1.5% growth more disconcerting, because it means that other parts of the economy are growing less rapidly than they ought to be.</br></br>Consumption ticked up only 1.5%, for example, down from 2.4% in the first quarter. This may reflect that wages and salaries are barely keeping pace with inflation. Another negative is that business inventories climbed unexpectedly in the second quarter, which often presages a decline in business spending in the next quarter to clear the shelves. | yes | 1 |
Virginia's Jobless Rate Reaches 8.4%: Unemployment Hits New Post-WWII High As Recession | Unemployment in Virginia rose to a new post-World War II high of 8.4 percent last month, the Virginia Employment Commission reported yesterday.</br></br>The jobless level in January on the same unadjusted basis was 7.8 percent, which, until the February figures were reported, was the highest since the war. The sharp jump in unemployment last month was because of layoffs in the auto component, furniture and textile industries, the VEC said.</br></br>In addition, there was a rise in the number of people looking for work, and who were therefore counted in the labor force, VEC analyst William Mezger said. There were 220,200 Virginians out of work in February, compared with 203,200 in January, he reported. Meanwhile, the labor force expanded by 16,600 people during the month, a large increase for the time of year.</br></br>The comparable national rate of unemployment in February was 9.6 percent. After seasonal adjustment, the national rate was 8.8 percent. Most economists expect the underlying jobless level nationwide to rise even further in coming months. However, as the weather improves there is usually a seasonal decline in the numbers out of work in the spring and summer months. The VEC predicts that the jobless rate for March will stay at about the February level.</br></br>Unemployment varies widely across the state, although there were increases last month in five of the six major urban areas. YesterdayÛªs figures showed: Û¢ Richmond unemployment rose from 5.4 percent in January to 6.1 percent in February, a post-war high. | no | 0 |
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