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Final Tractorcade Brings Harmony | Harmony and good-feeling predominated yesterday as a tractorcade billed as the last that will burden WashingtonÛªs streets took the American Agriculture MovementÛªs protest to the Federal Reserve Building.</br></br>School children and government workers waved and some even cheered in contrast to last FridayÛªs traflic-snarling tractor parade to the White House that enraged many home-bound commuters and resulted in the arrest of four farmers.</br></br>YesterdayÛªs demonstration had 119 tractorsÛÓabout half the number used last Friday. It began at 10 a.m. and ended about 1 p.m., making relatively little impact on midday traffic.</br></br>After it was over. Police Chief Bur-tell M. Jefferson, smiling, nodded approvingly in the farmersÛª direction and said, ÛÏThey did a good job.Û</br></br>As the tractors were ringing the Federal Reserve Building at 20th Street and Constitution Avenue to protest high interest rates, a large part of the Mall was reclaimed for public use. Police dismantled much of the barricade of buses and tracks that has impounded the tractors on the Mall since Feb. 5. The barricade remained in place only east of Seventh Street. | no | 0 |
the WASHINGTON POST riinr.ulny, April 12. I<>114 | NEW YORK, April 11ÛÓThe stock market moved broadly lower today, its retreat accelerating during the day as skeptical investors questioned whether interest rates were headed lower.</br></br>Retail stocks fell in advance of ThursdayÛªs government report on March sales, and drug and technology issues were prominent among the losers. Some auto and brokerage stocks rose.</br></br>The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials fell 7.33 points to 1,130.97, ending a string of three consecutive rises. The blue-chip index is only slightly higher than last ThursdayÛªs closing of 1,130.55, which had been the lowest since April 8, 1983.</br></br>Analysts said investors were skeptical that interest rates were generally headed lower, despite a return to single digits of a key short-term interest rate.</br></br>The federal funds rate, the interest on interbank loans, slipped below 10 percent earlier this week, raising hopes that interest rates have leveled off following a three-month rise. The funds rate was trading at 9 percent as the stock exchanges closed today, up from 8% percent Tuesday. | no | 0 |
New York City Gets a Boost As Moody's Upgrades Debt | New York City, which has spent most of the past decade in the rating-agency doghouse, received a big boost as a major credit-rating company upgraded nearly $28 billion of city debt.</br></br>The upgrade to A3 from Baa1 by Moody's Investors Service Inc. was certainly good news for scores of investors who own city debt, either through mutual funds or by holding individual bonds. Both the current rating and the old one are "investment grade," but the one-notch upgrade could mean that more mutual funds and other institutional investors will buy city debt. Many institutions are restricted by their own rules in the amount of debt they can own in the B-rated category, where New York City had been.</br></br>Moody's action, which applied to the city's general-obligation bond, was the first upgrade for such bonds since 1988, during former Mayor Edward Koch's administration and just before the city entered a deep recession. In fact, less than three years ago Standard & Poor's Ratings Group, the other big ratings house, downgraded city bonds to BBB-plus from A-minus.</br></br>Market analysts said that city debt prices were largely unchanged by the news, but could improve in the days and weeks to come as more investors decide to buy New York debt again. Like Moody's, Standard & Poor's is seeing the city in a different light, and officials there said they are considering an upgrade of city bonds after New York releases its new budget.</br></br>Can investors sleep tight knowing the rating agencies are keeping close tabs on the city's fiscal health? If you own city debt, you may want to study up on the last time bond raters said the city's finances were improving. In November 1987, Standard & Poor's upgraded city bonds just weeks after the stock market's crash; the market's tailspin caused massive layoffs on Wall Street, a citywide recession and, eventually, lower bond prices. Market participants said S&P didn't anticipate then how seriously New York City would be hurt by the crash. | yes | 1 |
Not So Special: `Specialist' IPO Fails to Impress | A piece of the New York Stock Exchange went public yesterday; the bulls didn't stampede.</br></br>In fact, investors looking to the possible IPO of the entire Big Board itself hope it will make a bigger splash than yesterday's debut by LaBranche & Co., one of the pre-eminent Big Board floor-trading firms-so-called specialists -- and the first to complete an initial public stock offering.</br></br>LaBranche, the third-largest specialist firm, offered its shares Wednesday night at $14 each, below the expected price range of $15 to $17. The company had filed 11.5 million shares, but sold just 10.5 million. Not only is LaBranche the specialist firm in charge of trading such blue chips as AT&T and Exxon, it is a firm that is an integral part of the world's most-famous trading floor.</br></br>Specialists stand on the exchange's floor and match buyers and sellers of particular stocks and put up their own capital when necessary to ensure smooth trading.</br></br>But the small-capitalization LaBranche IPO finished its first day of Big Board trading yesterday up just 3.5% over the offering price at $14.50 -- not exactly a big splash in an era of skyrocketing "dot-com" issues. | no | 0 |
Share Ownership Grows in Brazil | Dow Jones Newswires</br></br>SAO PAULO, Brazil -- You have to be an optimist to sell stock to the general public in Brazil.</br></br>A half century of rampant inflation, ending in 1994, meant that middle class Brazilians put their meager savings into U.S. dollars, often placed literally under the mattress, or invested in real estate or telephone lines. Starting in the 1970s, banks offered at least some protection through daily interest accretions, but that did nothing to create a culture of investment in stocks.</br></br>The tide is beginning to turn -- individual investors now account for about a quarter of the trading volume on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, up from less than 10% a decade ago -- thanks in large part to the efforts of stock exchange officials and the local unit of Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano.</br></br>"Brazilians know they will need investment alternatives, ideally with a high degree of liquidity," says Joao Carlos Pimenta, executive- director of the Santander-Banespa brokerage, which is widely recognized as the leading promoter among local banks of individual investment. "Stocks fit the bill." | no | 0 |
Dow Eases 30.84 as Investors Await New Economic Signals From Jobs Data | STOCKS SLIPPED for a second straight day as investors continued to fret -- and disagree -- over where the U.S. economy is headed.</br></br>Many held off on placing big bets ahead of the release of jobs data due out today. The result was another lackluster finish for key stock- market measures, punctuated by moves reflecting news that affected a few big-name companies.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 50 points in the first half hour of trading, briefly crossing its Nov. 17 record close. But by the end of the day, the blue-chip average was down 30.84 points, or 0.3%, at 12278.41 points, up 15% on the year and 64.15 points away from the record set last month.</br></br>Shares in Home Depot, a Dow component, tumbled 2.5% after it disclosed late Wednesday that it had backdated executives' stock options, making the home-improvement giant one of the largest firms to have admitted engaging in the controversial practice.</br></br>Throughout the day, the Dow fluctuated in the opposite direction of crude oil, which opened lower but finished up to snap a three-day losing streak. The stock market often moves inversely to oil prices because higher energy costs can sap consumers' purchasing power, threatening corporate profits. | yes | 1 |
The Washington Post Wednesday, December 11, 1985 D3 | NKW YORK. Dec. 10ÛÓStock prices edged higher in active trading today as the Dow Jones industrial average made another unsuccessful run to crack the 1,500 level and optimism continued over lower interest rates and inflation.</br></br>The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks rose 2.18 points to close at 1,499.20. The close topped the record 1,497.02 reached on Monday, setting a new high for the 33rd time this year.</br></br>over the 1,500 mark it had flirted with for the second straight trading session. The blue-chip index rode a roller coaster throughout the day, rising over the 1,500 level in opening trading before retreating. It then staged a series of narrow advances and declines straddling the 1,500 mark and rising as high as 1,514 before ending only slightly higher at the close.</br></br>As on Monday, the market was spurred by expectations of lower inflation stemming from dropping oil prices and by the bond market rally, which pushed interest rates lower in response to progress by</br></br>Monte Gordon, a vice president and director of research for Dreyfus Corp., said 1,500 on the Dow remained a psychological barrier because the stock market had ÛÏused a lot of money to get thereÛ and many investors might view the strength of the recent rally with trepidation. | yes | 1 |
Big Role for Tax Increases Fuels Criticism From Business Groups | Author: John D. McKinnon</br></br>Proposed tax increases for businesses and high earners that play a big role in the president's budget outline have a slender chance of passing Congress this year.</br></br>But some business and anti-tax groups worry the measures could re-emerge as presidential bargaining chips in an eventual budget deal with Republicans.</br></br>President Barack Obama's budget largely restates proposals he has pushed since taking office that have troubled many in the business community. The plan comes after several months of administration efforts to mend relations with business and the president's call last month for a corporate-tax overhaul.</br></br>Rather than offer a tax-overhaul plan, the budget includes numerous measures that, on net, would raise taxes on businesses and high-income individuals by about $327 billion during the next decade. | no | 0 |
The Bad News -- And the Good News -- for Your Finances --- Higher Capital Gains Mean Hefty Tax Bills For Fund Investors | Corrections & Amplifications</br></br>FIDELITY INVESTMENTS' Contrafund estimates it will declare a capital-gains distribution equal to 9% of the portfolio's net-asset value on Dec. 29. Friday's Fund Track included Contrafund in a group of funds expected to have a distribution in the 20% range. (WSJ Dec. 18, 2000)</br></br>Ouch!</br></br>It is bad enough that lots of stock funds have negative returns this year. But many of those money-losing funds are about to sock shareholders with a big tax bill, too.</br></br>Expect the worst of this one-two punch to hit investors in the coming two weeks. That is when perhaps as many as half of all funds finally make the capital-gains distributions required by the end of the calendar year, just as shareholders will see what year-end investment returns from their fund holdings will be. | no | 0 |
Long-Term Care Plans Aimed At the Elderly Series: FINANCIAL PLANNING | HMOs and PPOs, move over-the hottest phrase in the insurance industry these days is "long-term care" coverage.</br></br>In what experts say is a long-overdue development, private insurers are moving to fill the largest remaining hole in the health care system for the elderly: inadequate coverage for the often-catastrophic expenses of nursing home care.</br></br>More than 70 companies offer some sort of long-term care coverage, up from 16 just three years ago, according to a recent survey for the federal government. As of last April, the study found, about 423,000 people were covered by such policies, or twice the number experts believed were covered a year before.</br></br>For consumers, though, the emergence of the fledgling long-term care market can best be described as a mixed blessing.</br></br>No one can argue with the basic thrust of the insurance: to protect the elderly from draining away their life savings because of a long stay in a nursing home. | no | 0 |
Readers of Post Find No News Is Bad News | Washington-area residents ranging from stock market watchers to horse racing fans found their daily routines temporarily jarred by the absence of The Washington Post on their doorsteps yesterday morning.</br></br>Readers of stock quotations in the financial section of the paper quickly snapped up limited supplies of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times or called their local broker for information.</br></br>Racing fans resorted to the race charts and odds published in the Baltimore papers and the Washington Star to pick their favorites at Bowie, Belmont and other tracks.</br></br>ÛÏI know my day started wrong without Andy Capp," said a worker at the Woodward & Lothrop department store downtown.</br></br>ÛÏA lot of people didnÛªt even know The Post wasnÛªt out today until they tried to buy one,Û said a Solar NewsStand employee who identified herself only as Lois. "I was really surprised by how many people didnÛªt know.Û | no | 0 |
The Germans Hang Tight | FRANKFURT -- Karl Otto Poehl presides over the West German Bundesbank from a sleek office graced by a stark impressionist painting of a seated figure titled "The Interpreter." Lately Mr. Poehl himself has been the focus of intense interpretation.</br></br>On the eve of the meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the world's finance ministers, international bankers and big currency speculators are seeking to divine what Germany's central bank will do in the coming days and weeks. Mr. Poehl has been under political pressure from the U.S. to lower the West German discount rate, so as to stimulate domestic demand.</br></br>At least so far, Mr. Poehl has been resisting. On Wednesday, London's Financial Times published an interview with Mr. Poehl under a headline that said: "Poehl explains refusal to boost West German economy." Thursday morning the Bonn daily Die Welt hit the streets with a story quoting Mr. Poehl as saying the Bundesbank wouldn't cut its interest rates just because the U.S. and other foreign officials demanded a greater German contribution to strengthen the world economy. And on Thursday afternoon, as the dollar was falling below two marks for the first time in five years, Mr. Poehl was asked in an interview with reporters of The Wall Street Journal whether the Bundesbank might act for reasons other than American pressure.</br></br>Thus commenced an hour's conversation during which Mr. Poehl, clearly uncomfortable with the way international monetary matters were becoming a public spectacle, sought to put his position "in context." With the afternoon sun glinting from an abstract brass sculpture behind him, Mr. Poehl did not rule out a cut in the discount rate. But he did argue that at the moment, the West German economy is doing all it should be expected to do. He suggested, in regard to exchange-rate concerns, that some other actions could be brought into play.</br></br>Thus commenced an hour's conversation during which Mr. Poehl, clearly uncomfortable with the way international monetary matters were becoming a public spectacle, sought to put his position "in context." With the afternoon sun glinting from an abstract brass sculpture behind him, Mr. Poehl did not rule out a cut in the discount rate. But he did argue that at the moment, the West German economy is doing all it should be expected to do. He suggested, in regard to exchange-rate concerns, that some other actions could be brought into play. | no | 0 |
Wasteful Waste Disposal? | Hazardous waste cleanup has expanded beyond recognition to those who adopted the $1.5 billion, five-year Superfund that launched it a little over a decade ago.</br></br>Estimates just completed show that expenditures for cleanups will mount to about $750 billion (in undiscounted dollars) over the next 30 years under current practice. That sum could go above $1 trillion if the legacy of contamination is as great as some believe.</br></br>At $750 billion, the cleanup commits the country to three decades of spending amounts equal to about 0.5 percent of present GNP each year. After taking basic personal consumption, capital replacement and core government expenditures out of the total, the proportion is much larger.</br></br>Viewed this way, a series of sometimes little-noticed actions has quietly mortgaged a significant share of both the private and public sectors' future ability to take new initiatives - including new environmental initiatives - over the next three decades. The effects on investment decisions and the drains on scientific and technical manpower magnify the impacts of the expenditures themselves. This is where long-term economic performance is affected.</br></br>The sheer size of this commitment suggests that we should mine the experience of the past decade to seek cost-cutting improvements. Far more important, we need to examine how well the fragmented cleanup effort, taken as a whole, is meeting overall social and environmental goals. | no | 0 |
Philips Sees 2002 as a Turnaround Year --- CEO Says Restructuring May Save Three Times Firm's Early Projection | EINDHOVEN, the Netherlands -- The head of Philips Electronics NV is aiming to make 2002 a lot better than 2001.</br></br>Europe's largest consumer-electronics company suffered like many others from the global economic downturn and a plunge in consumer spending that worsened after the terrorist attacks in the U.S. Next month, the company is expected to report its first full-year loss in nearly a decade. Its stock has lost 15% of its value over the past 52 weeks, closing yesterday at 33.60 euros.</br></br>But Chief Executive Gerard Kleisterlee intends to revive Philips, partly with a restructuring that he says will save the company several times what it expected to save when announcing the plan in November.</br></br>"Philips has not grown in the past 10 years," he said in an interview, "and my aim in the New Year is to stop this decline."</br></br>For starters, he said, the restructuring planned for this year -- which aims to curb costs and cut about 12,000 jobs -- could save the company as much as one billion euros ($895 million) a year, compared with the 300 million euros initially projected. Mr. Kleisterlee said additional job reductions are in the works, and that Philips is looking for a buyer for its contract-manufacturing services business, which analysts figure could fetch as much as 800 million euros. | no | 0 |
Deficits And Economic Priorities | The administration's budget update, released yesterday, shows the economic recovery is picking up steam. It also shows a budget deficit for 2004 of $475 billion. The budget deficit is a concern, and the president is determined to see that it comes down as forecast in the mid-session review. Even so, the current deficit must be kept in proper perspective. Three points are salient.</br></br>First, it is a textbook principle of prudent fiscal policy that budget deficits are appropriate in times of war and recession. Without doubt, the war on terrorism and the lingering effects of the recession continue to exert a large influence on the federal budget. To insist on budget balance in difficult times would mistakenly sacrifice the greater goals of economic growth and full employment.</br></br>Second, the deficit must be evaluated relative to the size of the economy. The federal budget deficit represents 4.2 percent of the nation's $11 trillion economy. Such a deficit is very manageable. The economy handled larger deficits in six of the past 20 years -- all in the aftermath of recessions.</br></br>Third, under the president's proposals, the deficit will shrink from 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2004 to 1.7 percent in 2008. The key to achieving this is more-rapid economic growth, which will bring in more tax revenue, together with restraint in the growth of government spending. Because the deficit is shrinking, the accumulated level of national debt is not expected to become problematic: In 2008 it will represent 40 percent of annual GDP, which is almost exactly the average since 1950.</br></br>Like most private forecasters, the administration expects the economy to improve. With the Jobs and Growth Economic Bill now taking effect and workers keeping more of what they earn, we project that the pace of economic growth will accelerate from approximately 2.2 percent over the past four quarters to 3.9 percent over the next four. Faster growth will translate into more jobs. | no | 0 |
Bond Prices Surge Amid Expectations Of Oil-Price Cut by Producer Countries | NEW YORK -- The bond market rallied strongly yesterday amid growing speculation that petroleum-producing nations may cut oil prices soon.</br></br>Prices of some Treasury bonds surged more than a point, or more than $10 for each $1,000 face amount. Most short-term interest rates declined. Traders were "almost euphoric" as rumors of an impending oil-price reduction swirled through the credit markets, said Donald E. Maude, chief economist at Refco Partners.</br></br>Another cut in oil prices would give the Federal Reserve System additional latitude to ease credit conditions, paving the way for further declines in U.S. interest rates, according to many investment managers. They say an oil-price cut would enhance the prospects for continued low inflation.</br></br>After surveying oil-company executives, Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, an industry newsletter, concluded that oil prices "will remain weak or continue to slide" unless the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries takes "strong corrective action." A majority of executives surveyed said they expect a "virtually uninterrupted period of depressed demand" for oil over the next 18 months or more.</br></br>Even without a reduction in oil prices, many analysts expect lower interest rates. They say that the economy is picking up only moderately from its sluggish first-quarter performance and that the Fed will ease its credit policy further in an effort to stimulate business activity. | yes | 1 |
BUSINESS BRIEFS | The General Services Administration awarded RTKL Associates Inc., an architectural and engineering firm based in Baltimore, a contract to develop and update criteria related to the design, construction and renovation of GSA buildings nationwide.</br></br>The $800,000 annual contract with the GSA's Public Building Service is renewable for two additional option years for a potential total of $2.4 million.</br></br>Design and daily management services will be conducted from RTKL's Washington office and will be headed by Bernard Wulff.</br></br>Under the contract, RTKL will perform an array of services, including investigative work, field inspection, surveys, examinations, and feasibility and economic analyses.</br></br>Computer Data Systems Inc. of Rockville said it has been awarded a contract by the Navy's Information Technology Acquisition Center, with an estimated total value of more than $32 million over a five- year period. | no | 0 |
Blue Chips Fall; Bond Prices Up; Dollar Gains | Profit-takers knocked the Dow Jones Industrial Average lower in nervous trading ahead of today's employment report. Bond prices rose, and the dollar strengthened.</br></br>The industrial average slid 8.58 points to 3544.87. Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 1.36 to 452.49, but the Nasdaq Composite Index edged up 0.36 to 706.22.</br></br>Analysts said stock market investors took the opportunity to sell some shares at a profit after the surge in prices earlier this week. The analysts added that investors are strikingly fickle lately as they await clearer signs on the economy and inflation. As a result, individual stocks, and even entire groups, quickly fall in and out of favor.</br></br>"People are chasing butterflies," said Michael Metz, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer & Co. "When lightning strikes, everyone jumps to where it is, and when it calms down they go somewhere else."</br></br>Investors will scrutinize today's employment report for a hint of the economy's health. But Mr. Metz argued that signs of an improving labor picture may not lift stock prices significantly. "The stock market has already priced in a strong earnings outlook for the balance of the year," he said. | no | 0 |
The Eroding American Middle Class; In 1971, 61% of adults lived in middle-income households. By 2011, the share had dropped to 51%. | The publication of Josef Joffe's "The Myth of America's Decline" marks the latest skirmish in the war of words over declinism that has raged off and on since the early 1970s. Unlike Great Britain at the end of the 19th century, Mr. Joffe argues, the United States is still leagues ahead of its major competitors. Besides, generations of skeptics have gone broke betting against us.</br></br>But anti-declinism easily shades over into complacency, a sentiment we cannot afford. Especially now, as the basis of our society, and of stable and decent political communities generally--a thriving and self-confident middle class--is eroding. Worse, either we don't know what to do about it, or we don't care enough to try.</br></br>Getty Images Robert Reich</br></br>In 1971, according to the Pew Research Center, 61% of all adults lived in middle-income households. By 2011, the middle-income share had fallen to 51%, while the lower- and upper-income sectors grew. Median household income in 2011 was not significantly higher than it had been in 1989. Because upper-income households fared much better during those four decades, their share of total household income increased by 17 percentage points--to 46% from 29%--while the middle-income share fell by 17 points, to 45% from 62%. No wonder Neiman-Marcus and Wal-Mart are doing well while J.C. Penney and Sears are nearing collapse.</br></br>These economic trends have social consequences. A recent study by Cornell University researcher Kendra Bischoff and Stanford's Sean Reardon finds that the share of families living in middle-income neighborhoods declined to 42% from 65% between 1970 and 2009. At the same time, the shares of families living in affluent neighborhoods and in poor neighborhoods more than doubled. Segregation along lines of income grew in each of the past decades, with the fastest growth coming between 2000 and 2009. This trend is not restricted to white Americans. In fact, segregation by income among black families grew four times as much as for whites, and Latino income segregation also increased more sharply. | no | 0 |
Lockheed, Some Workers Agree; Accord Reached at 2 Plants; Pact Opposed at 3rd Facility | Lockheed Martin Corp. has reached a tentative contract agreement with workers at two of three factories that had threatened to strike, but the local union at the company's plant in Marietta, Ga., recommended rejecting the settlement offer.</br></br>Union officials at two plants in California -- an airplane development center in Palmdale and a missiles and space facility in Sunnyvale -- have expressed support for the package. The company's final offer was announced yesterday after nearly 36 hours of negotiations with the aid of federal mediators.</br></br>Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at all three of the plants are to vote on the offer Sunday. Earlier this week, about 6,000 of the workers voted to strike on Monday if there was no agreement.</br></br>Strikes now appear unlikely in California, but Jim Carroll, president of the union's Local 709 in Marietta, said the contract for the Georgia workers contains different language. Among other concerns, Carroll said the proposed contract would let Lockheed Martin outsource work now being done by employees.</br></br>Outsourcing and job security have been particular concerns in Marietta, where the company builds the F-22 fighter jet and the C- 130J military transport -- aircraft with relatively high price tags and low production runs. The local union's membership has dropped from 7,000 workers in 1990 to about 2,700 now. | no | 0 |
U.S. Banks Hope Money Transfers Attract Hispanics | Mexican immigrants living in the United States have less expensive ways to send money to relatives in Mexico, using private and government money-transfer programs aimed at encouraging immigrants to join the U.S. banking system.</br></br>Bank of America Corp. last week announced the launch of SafeSend, a free money-transfer service between the bank's branches in the United States and several Mexican financial institutions.</br></br>The Federal Reserve and the Central Bank of Mexico are promoting a joint program called Directo a Mexico, under which participating U.S. banks charge low fees to send money to Mexico by using the central banks as intermediaries.</br></br>People sending money to Mexico pay as much as $15 per transaction -- known as a remittance -- to companies such as First Data Corp.'s Western Union Financial Services Inc. and MoneyGram International Inc. Those companies handle most of the estimated $20 billion a year sent between the United States and Mexico. Banks account for only about 5 percent of that amount.</br></br>"The end goal is to get a banking relationship started," said Diane Wagner, a Bank of America spokeswoman. | no | 0 |
Interest Rates Are Seen Pushing Higher Even When Economic Slowdown Appears | NEW YORK -- Interest rates are likely to push higher even when the long-awaited slowdown in the economy finally appears, according to many bankers and economists.</br></br>The Federal Reserve System will keep a tight grip on credit in coming months to underscore its determination to hold the line on inflation, these analysts said. Furthermore, they said, businesses will borrow heavily to finance new equipment and the construction of new plants.</br></br>"We can't see a fundamental turn in interest rates without an abatement in the explosion" of business borrowing, said Wayne Lyski, a vice president of Alliance Capital Management Co., an investment manager. And that isn't likely, he contended. "The single biggest negative in the bond market continues to be an escalation in credit demands."</br></br>Many investors have been hoping that slower economic growth will lead to less borrowing and lower interest rates. But those hopes are misplaced, argued Edward Yardeni, senior vice president and economist of Prudential-Bache Securities Inc.</br></br>"History shows that slower economic growth is associated with rising credit demands, not falling credit demands," Mr. Yardeni said. Yields on long-term Treasury bonds, currently at about 12 3/4%, are likely to surge to 14% by January, he predicted. | yes | 1 |
Team Spirit; Reviewed by Jay R. Mandle | Franklin Foer, armed with a terrific idea, took six months off from his job as a staff writer at the New Republic to tour the soccer capitals of the world. He set out to observe soccer as a way to understand the consequences of globalization -- the increasing interdependence of the world's nations -- by studying a sport in which "national borders and national identities had been swept into the dustbin of soccer history." The result is a travelogue full of important insights into both cultural change and persistence.</br></br>Foer returned from this global tour convinced that globalization has not and will not soon wipe away local institutions and cultures. On the contrary, he suspects that the opposite has happened: In response to the threat of global integration, local entities have launched counterattacks that are successful but "not always in such a good way." Local blood feuds and corruption have proved to be remarkably persistent. So persistent, in fact, that Foer believes that globalization is not likely to deliver on the promise of a more humane world order that some of its proponents anticipate. That would require a liberal nationalism, a development necessary "to blunt the return of tribalism." Soccer, at its best, shows how this might work. For Foer, the sport demonstrates that "you could love your country -- even consider it a superior group -- without desiring to dominate other groups or closing yourself off to foreign impulses."</br></br>Regarding the "not so good ways" that locals respond to globalism, Foer found much to worry about. The world of soccer can be quite ugly. In Serbia, fans of Red Star Belgrade became, as he puts it, "Milosevic's shock troops, the most active agents of ethnic cleansing, highly efficient practitioners of genocide." The "unfinished fight over the Protestant Reformation" is kept alive in the stands in Glasgow. And, at least as he reports it, Margaret Thatcher was not far off the mark when she said that the hooliganism that emerged in soccer during the 1980s was "a disgrace to civilized society."</br></br>Foer argues that the gruesome antisocial fan behavior that occurs when soccer is at its worst is counterbalanced in other places where the sport plays a role in creating a more humane order. The most interesting and unlikely of these is Iran. During the Islamic Revolution of 1979, women were prohibited from attending soccer games at Tehran's 120,000-seat stadium. But, as Foer tells it, this banning never fully took effect, with some women sneaking into the facility dressed in men's clothes. Pressed by female soccer fans, the ruling Iranian clergy issued a new fatwa in 1987 that allowed women to watch games on television, though the ban on attendance remained in place.</br></br>This compromise could not survive the jubilation that followed the Iranian national team's successful capture of a World Cup berth in 1997. The team itself was at least to some extent a participant in the liberal global order: Its coach was a Brazilian who wore a necktie, an accessory that the ruling clergy considered a European imposition. But the victory celebration and its aftermath were even more important. Foer reports that many of the younger celebrants were women, some of whom danced with uncovered heads. Further, at the official celebration at the stadium, when women were denied entrance they mounted a demonstration. They shouted, "Aren't we part of this nation? We want to celebrate too. We aren't ants." Ultimately they broke through the police barriers and joined the mass victory party. Foer compares this "football revolution" to the Boston Tea Party. He notes that the event will "go down as the moment when the people first realized that they could challenge their tyrannical rulers." As the United States looks for ways to encourage liberalism within Islam, an event such as this deserves attention. Its impact suggests that Paul Wolfowitz, if no one else, should read this account. | no | 0 |
And Just Wait Until They Get the Bill from the Five Justices | How many lawyers does it take to run a bar association? Five, provided they are Utah Supreme Court Justices.</br></br>In an unprecedented ruling, the Utah Supreme Court put the 5,000-member Utah State Bar in what amounts to a kind of receivership after finding the bar was mired in a growing budget deficit with no clear plan to extricate itself.</br></br>An audit found that in each of the past five fiscal years, the bar spent as much as 30% more money than it received in dues -- which have been increased by about 90% over the past four years.</br></br>Petitioned by angry lawyers, the state Supreme Court ordered the bar to cut its expenses by about 15%, and forever desist from deficit spending and short-term borrowing against dues revenue.</br></br>"It's about time," says Brian M. Barnard, a Salt Lake City lawyer who is something of a bar gadfly. Two years ago, Mr. Barnard filed suit against the bar in federal court, claiming his mandatory dues were being spent on "frivolous things that are nonessential to the practice of law." | no | 0 |
Virginia Braces for Shortfall;Pension Tax Relief May Be Reviewed | A slowdown in Virginia's economy could create a revenue shortfall of between $130 million and $160 million by June 1 and may cause the state to seek additional funds by taking a second look at pension tax relief adopted this year.</br></br>Outgoing Gov. Gerald L. Baliles is scheduled to tell the legislature's money committees on Monday what the latest revenue forecasts are and make recommendations on how to deal with the shortfall.</br></br>A delay in granting pension tax relief is just one possibility the General Assembly may consider when it convenes in January, according to legislators and other officials. Several legislators said the state may have to impose a hiring freeze and withhold pay raises for its workers until the economy turns around.</br></br>Adding to the economic gloom, total revenue for the two-year budget cycle beginning July 1 could be as much as $800 million below earlier estimates, according to several state government sources.</br></br>Baliles said in an interview this week that his successor, Gov.-elect L. Douglas Wilder, will not enjoy the prosperity that greeted Baliles's administration four years ago, but that Virginia will continue to outperform the national economy. | no | 0 |
Martin Sees Peril In Interest Curbs | The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board yesterday said that Democratic proposals for holding down interest rates by-creating more money would turn the Federal Reserve System into -an engine of infla lion "</br></br>William Mi-Chesney Martin told the ilou-e Ways and Means Committee the propos als actually would force an increase in intere-t rates and could lead to a severe collapse of the economic system.</br></br>Martin urged approval of President K i s e n bower's requests for authority to raise the public debt ceiling, eliminate the ceiling on savings bond interc-t and wipe out the 4Ûª4-per-eent limit on big long term (ioveriiment bonds.</br></br>The President offered the plan to open up the market for Government bonds, which have found few buyers recently. 11c said the Government financing maneuver was reeded to help Federal securities compete witii those now-paying rnrire interest.</br></br>| Some Democrats contend :that interest rates in the open -market have climbed because the Federal Reserve Board ha-.followed a lightmoney policy They maintain the rates could lie belli steady if the Federal Reserve pumped more money into the economy, j Martin testified that thi-could not be done without promoting more inflation. Hr said the Government's expen ence during and after World War II showed that ÛÏinflation follows any effort to keep interest rates low through money creation as night follows the day.Û | no | 0 |
Consumer Confidence Sank in February; 2 Other Reports Show Less Weakness | Consumer confidence fell this month to a level usually seen only during recessions as American households' expectations about their economic future plunged, according to a report released yesterday.</br></br>Two other reports on last month's new orders for durable goods -- such as cars, appliances, computers and machinery -- and sales of new homes, showed much less weakness and were not nearly as disturbing to analysts as what has been happening to consumer attitudes.</br></br>Falling stock prices, high heating bills, worries about job prospects and a drumbeat of gloomy statements about the economy from Wall Street analysts, company executives and the White House have taken a big toll on consumers' expectations. If they were to pull back on their spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the nation's economic output, the already weak economy could slide into a recession.</br></br>The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said its monthly index of consumer confidence fell to 106.8, down 25 percent from its level of five months ago. But the overall index is a composite of two measures of how consumers regard their present economic situation and what they expect it to be like six months from now. The present-situation index has declined 10 percent since September, while the expectations reading has plunged 40 percent.</br></br>"The erosion in consumer confidence continues to be fueled by weakening expectations regarding business and employment conditions," said Lynn Franco, director of the board's Consumer Research Center. "While the short-term outlook continues to signal a severe economic downturn, consumers' appraisal of current economic conditions suggests we are still undergoing moderate economic growth and not a recession." | no | 0 |
THE WASHINGTON POST Thursduy, March 15, i !7 7 V | NEW YORK, March 14ÛÓThe stock market was mixed in slackened trading today, registering little response to prospects of a Mideast peace treaty.</br></br>One of the few pockets of strength was the American Stock Exchange, where the market value index peached a five-month high.</br></br>The Dow Jones average of 30 blue-chip industrials listed on the / New York*Stock Exchange slipped 1.56 points^to 845.37, erasing some of its modest 4.07 gain on Monday and Tuesday. . \\</br></br>But the Amex index chalked up a 0.68-point advance to 170.83, continuing its recent strong advance. The index has climbed'20.25 points, or about 13 percent, since the start of 1979, moving- withinChailing distance of its peak to l|6.87 last Sept. 13.</br></br>exchange have been oil and gas issues, as well as some of the gambling stocks, which have heated up again lately after last yearÛªs feverish speculation and subsequent selloff. | no | 0 |
Fed Officials Agreed in May Not to Alter Rates amid Signs of Economic Recovery | WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve policy makers unanimously decided in mid-May to hold interest rates steady amid signs that the recession was ending, the central bank disclosed.</br></br>The Fed hasn't made a move to alter rates since the end of April, and wasn't expected to change that stance at a closed-door meeting last Tuesday and Wednesday.</br></br>A summary of the May 14 meeting of the Fed's Open Market Committee noted that some policy makers wanted to leave the door open for another round of rate reductions. These officials, unsure that the economy was recovering, argued that the risks of keeping too tight a grip on credit exceeded the risks of being too generous.</br></br>No one formally dissented from the consensus, so the officials' identities weren't disclosed. The summary was released Friday after the customary six-week delay.</br></br>Several Fed policy makers stressed the importance of maintaining a steadily growing money supply in order to fuel an economic recovery, the summary said. The issue was revisited last week when the committee was to set money-supply growth targets for 1992. The targets will be disclosed when Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan testifies before Congress next week. | no | 0 |
Charitable Giving Drops Sharply Amid Recession, United Way Scandal; Poll Finds Donors' Confidence in Nonprofit Groups Is Slipping | The amount of money Americans gave to charities in 1991 plunged to its lowest level in at least five years, as the recession squeezed household budgets and confidence in the United Way and other nonprofits sagged, according to a new national survey.</br></br>Billed as the most comprehensive look at charitable-giving patterns to date, the survey for a Washington-based group of charitable organizations said the typical U.S. household gave $649 to charities, churches and other nonprofit groups last year, down from the average $806 donation in 1990.</br></br>The 1991 figure, which was adjusted for inflation, marked the smallest average giving amount since the Gallup polling organization began surveying households for the Independent Sector, an umbrella group serving nonprofit groups nationwide.</br></br>The latest poll of 2,600 people, which surveyed giving on the basis of age, race and income, seemed to confirm what many charities in the Washington area and elsewhere already have experienced: Meager increases or declines in giving, as the lean economy has pushed demand for food, shelter and other services to record levels.</br></br>This year, the picture has grown even more bleak because thousands of charities receive most of their funds through the auspices of United Way, whose national organization was rocked by scandal. | no | 0 |
Jardine Matheson's Unit Prepares Defense In Bear Stearns Suit | HONG KONG -- Jardine Strategic Holdings Ltd., having lost a bid to have a lawsuit by Bear, Stearns & Co. dismissed, is hiring an additional New York law firm so its current legal counselors can participate in Jardine's defense as witnesses.</br></br>Bear Stearns filed the suit, which seeks unspecified damages for its shareholders, in a Manhattan U.S. district court last December after Jardine Strategic withdrew from an agreement to purchase a 20% stake in the big U.S. investment house for $390 million. Jardine Strategic scrapped the offer, which began on Oct. 6, 1987, shortly after the stock market crash.</br></br>A Jardine Strategic official in Hong Kong said the New York law firm of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle has been retained because attorneys ordinarily can't appear as witnesses in cases they are litigating.</br></br>Debevoise & Plimpton, the law firm that handled the negotiations leading to the Bear Stearns agreement, will continue to work on the case in an advisory capacity, the official said.</br></br>Jardine Strategic is a 46%-owned affiliate of Hong Kong-based Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd., which has interests in financial services, engineering and construction. | no | 0 |
May Statistics Ease Fears About Inflation: Wholesale Prices Steady; Sales Up Slightly | Wholesale pikes held steady last month, the Labor Department reported yesterday, easing fears about inflation and lessening the likelihood that the Federal Resave would boost interest rates to fight it.</br></br>The report, combined with another showing consumer spending increasing less than expected in May, sent interest rates on bonds down and stock prices up. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 13.29 to 3505.01 in moderate trading.</br></br>It was the first time since December that the overall producer price index failed to rise, and a sharp drop from the 0.6 percent increase reported for April, the biggest one-month gain in 2& years. Many economists had expected an increase in wholesale prices, and greeted yesterdayÛªs numbers with reM.</br></br>"This is certainly a good sign that we have an uptick" in die economy, Laura DÛªAndrea Tyson, chairman of the presidentÛªs Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters yesterday. "There's nothing in the fundamental [economic indicators] that would be evidence for sustained growth in the inflation rate."</br></br>Brace Steinberg, manager of micro-economic analysis at Merrill Lynch-& Co., called the unchanged price index ÛÏextremely constructive." Since May 1992 the core PPI, winch excludes food and energy, has gone up only L7 percent Sternberg said that is ÛÏas low as weÛªve seen wholesale inflation in a quarter-century.Û | no | 0 |
The Best Oil Policy Is No Oil Policy | After lying low for a couple of decades, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is back with a vengeance. The cartel has rediscovered its economic muscle and driven up oil prices to more than $30 a barrel. Democrats and Republicans alike are demanding that government bring down prices. But before we dust off the policy playbook of the Carter era, we should recall some lessons learned.</br></br>First, begging OPEC heads of state to increase production -- as Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is now doing -- is a waste of time. Production decisions are determined by financial considerations. Nothing will change that. Trying to convince OPEC that it's in the cartel's best interest to head off a global recession -- thus, that it should increase oil production -- is naive. OPEC members are almost entirely dependent on the oil trade. So long as oil profits remain robust, global recession need not concern them. The recessions of 1974 and 1979 demonstrated that OPEC can make a lot of money during hard times.</br></br>Second, investigating "big oil" for price gouging is counterproductive. In the 1970s those suspicions were stoked by stories of oil tankers lingering offshore, supposedly waiting for prices to go up before they unloaded their cargo. Tankers were indeed lingering, but it was because docks were overloaded and ships had to wait to unload. Big oil -- then and now -- is guilty only of passing on its increased costs to consumers instead of selling at a loss.</br></br>Political saber rattling about alleged corporate profiteering makes the crisis worse. The only hedge against supply disruptions in the near term is inventories. But inventories are costly to maintain. If companies can't cash them out at a profit during price spikes because they fear criminal investigation or the imposition of windfall-profit taxes, they won't bother maintaining inventories.</br></br>Ironically, that is the upshot of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Politicians, alarmed that oil companies don't keep stockpiles, decided that the government must do so. Yet the existence of the reserve makes it certain that companies won't stockpile. Oil companies don't know if or when government might flood the market, dropping prices and preventing them from profiting from their inventories. | no | 0 |
Venture Capital Forced to Perform Triage | OAKLAND, Calif. -- Claremont Creek Ventures recently had to decide which of its young to forsake.</br></br>The venture-capital firm had invested in such companies as online travel site cFares Inc. and genetic-technology start-up Gene Security Network Inc., with cash from a $130 million venture fund it launched in 2005.</br></br>Amid the financial crisis and the plunging stock market, Claremont Creek decided to focus on the fund's best investments and stop backing the less-promising start-ups. It wanted to be sure it had enough cash for the next few years for the winners. The venture firm ranked the start-ups in the fund's 16-company portfolio with an A, B or C grade.</br></br>"We're doubling down on the As and likely won't invest any more capital in the C companies," says John Steuart, a Claremont Creek managing director. "The portfolio is competing against itself and it's survival of the fittest. It's brutal."</br></br>Gene Security, a fast-growing maker of genetic tests to identify potential abnormalities in embryos, got an A. Last month, Claremont Creek poured $3 million into the company on top of $2.7 million it has already invested. | yes | 1 |
Leaders Weigh Tactics to Gain Increase in House Salaries Without Vote | House leaders are weighing a plan to raise lawmakers' salaries without a direct vote on the politically sensitive question when the House considers the spending bill covering congressional pay in the next two weeks, according to congressional officials familiar with the matter.</br></br>The leaders also would like to find a way to ease the House ban on all gifts to lawmakers and their aides, but have yet to settle on a plan, the officials said.</br></br>Lawmakers have not had a raise in their salaries -- which now stand at $133,600 for a rank-and-file member -- since 1993 and have voted annually to cancel the cost-of-living adjustment to which they are entitled under the law. Congressional leaders have higher salaries, with House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) getting $171,500.</br></br>The House version of the bill funding the Treasury Department and general government operations is headed to the House floor without any provision exempting lawmakers from the automatic 2.8 percent inflation adjustment that is to go to federal employees in the spending year beginning Oct. 1. Under a plan receiving serious consideration, House leaders would use a routine parliamentary procedure to block -- without a vote -- any attempt to add an exemption for lawmakers, the officials said.</br></br>That would avoid lawmakers having to go on record as making a politically difficult vote on the question, although they still would have to vote to pass the overall bill. | no | 0 |
Service Sector Grows | Activity in the service sector increased at a slightly stronger pace in January than in December, the Institute for Supply Management said. The group reported that its non-manufacturing index rose to 54.5, from the downwardly revised 54.2 in December. Index readings above 50 indicate expansion of activity and prices. The non- manufacturing employment index rose for the first time since February 2001, to 50.3, from 46.9 in December.</br></br>After suspending the sale of dollars for two weeks because of a crippling general strike, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced a new fixed currency exchange rate to help bolster the country's flagging foreign reserves. The new policy fixes the currency rate at 1,596 bolivars to the dollar, Chavez said. Chavez said the freeze on foreign currency trading would end with the establishment of the new system. The bolivar closed at a record low of 1,853 on Jan. 21, the last day of currency trading, and trades for 2,500 per dollar on the black market. The decline, in turn, sent inflation past 30 percent, and many economists forecast a 25 percent recession this year.</br></br>Federal safety regulators ordered new inspections of Boeing 747 fuselages as a result of the investigation into the China Airlines crash in the Taiwan Strait in May. The plane broke into four pieces in flight, killing all 225 aboard. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. operators of 747s to check to see whether a metal repair patch, or doubler, was used to cover scratches or cracks on the underside of the fuselage near the aircraft's tail. Investigators found scratches and a 15-inch crack under a doubler that had been attached to the China Airlines plane after the tail hit a runway in 1980, according to the FAA.</br></br>Delta Air Lines said it will reduce the pay of most executives by 8 percent and the wages of chief executive Leo F. Mullin and President Frederick W. Reid by 10 percent on March 1. Delta also may lower employee pay to keep pace with wage cuts at airlines that have filed for bankruptcy protection, Mullin said.</br></br>Bank of America said it is slashing about 1,000 jobs in technology and operations during the first quarter amid a continued economic slump. The cuts follow the elimination of about 900 jobs in technology and operations in November and December. After the job reductions are complete, the total number of workers in those areas will be 20,000. | no | 0 |
The Tax Compromise Doesn't Please the Left or Right | Your editorial "Obamanomics Takes a Holiday" (Dec. 8) makes two important points in showing that the Obama-Republican tax compromise will not be a stimulative panacea. The two-year extension limit leaves in place the policy uncertainty that has burdened our economy to date -- i.e., nothing here has materially changed. Also, the essentials of the Bush income tax structure now existing will mostly remain in place, hardly reasons to celebrate a supply-side stimulative victory.</br></br>Yet many economists and politicos who should know better are touting the compromise as a supply-side victory that will lift the economy and employment permanently toward prosperity, much as the Reagan tax cuts did in the 1980s. Those same politicos, I think, should think twice before they uncork the champagne.</br></br>George Launey</br></br>Lakeway, Texas</br></br>--- | no | 0 |
In the Fray: The Mystery of the Missing Moviegoers | With all the gratitude and acclaim surrounding Jack Valenti's recently announced retirement, no one dares confront the long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America over the chief mystery of his 38-year reign: What happened, Jack, to all those missing moviegoers?</br></br>Despite his unquestioned eloquence, elegance and charm, Mr. Valenti presided over history's most disastrous decline in the audience for feature films. In 1965, the year before he left the Johnson administration to assume his plush position as chief mouthpiece for the entertainment industry, 44 million Americans went out to the movies every week. A mere four years later, that number had collapsed to 17.5 million.</br></br>In other words, some potent, puzzling force drove more than half of the nation's film fans to break the habit of movie going. That same mystical power served to suppress attendance for the next 20 years, with figures on ticket sales remaining flat until they began to rise moderately in the 1990s, reflecting the construction of thousands of new movie screens at multiplex theaters. Most recent figures (from 2003) show weekly attendance today at just over 30 million. As a percentage of the nation's population, however, the numbers on movie attendance remain only slightly improved from the devastating trough of 1970 (10.3% vs. 8.6%) and still vastly lower than the robust box- office years of 1965 (44%) or 1960 (45%).</br></br>It's amazing how many movie professionals remain altogether unaware of this long-term decline in film going -- or, when informed about the depressing but undeniable figures, wrongly attribute them to the advent of television. TV sets began appearing in living rooms in the late 1940s, of course, and by the time the audience for feature films started its sharpest slump in 1966, the tube had already arrived in nearly all American homes.</br></br>Hollywood originally panicked that television would destroy its business by offering for free the sort of entertainment that cost money at the local Bijou, but during the fateful 10 years of the primary TV invasion (1950-60) the audience actually declined 34%, compared with a 60% decline in those nightmarish four years of the late '60s. In later decades, the arrival of the VCR, cable TV and DVD actually corresponded to modest increases in the motion-picture audience, so no theory centered on technological alternatives can solve the mystery of the missing moviegoers. | no | 0 |
Anemic Earnings Reports Cost Dow Almost 43 Points | NEW YORK, Oct. 9ÛÓStocks feU shaiply today as the corporate earnings outlook weakened and the dollar declined. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Stock Market index tumbled 2.7 percent, falling to its lowest closing level since Aug. 2.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average slid 42.99 points to close at 4726.22. The blue-chip barometer dropped more than 50 points early, prompting the New York Stock Exchange to re- strict program trading. The Dow pared its losses by about 20 points, but fell as much as 58 points in the afternoon before recovering somewhat.</br></br>Declining issues outnumbered advancing, ones by about 13 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was relatively light because of the Columbus Day holiday, with 275.29 million shares changing hands on the NYSE, down from 313.63 million on Friday.</br></br>Investors continued a strategy established last week of selling technology and cyclical shares and buying consumer stocks, such as those of drug companies, that could be expected to perform well even in a recession. But today, the selling extended to consumer stocks.</br></br>Broad market indexes suffered more than their blue-chip counterparts. The Nasdaq index slid 27.30 to 984.74. The NYSE composite index fell 2.03 to 310.35, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 4.12 to 578.37 and the American Stock Exchange index declined 6.06 to 527.48. | yes | 1 |
Abreast of the market: Stocks retreat on drop in dollar, unease before Friday's price data | NEW YORK -- Worries about inflation and the continued slide in the value of the dollar sent stocks into a retreat.</br></br>The scheduled release of government data on producer prices Friday and on consumer prices next Tuesday has left investors on edge the past two sessions.</br></br>Those fears were heightened yesterday by another move in the dollar this morning to post-World War II lows. The slide prompted intervention by the Federal Reserve in the foreign exchange markets.</br></br>Both of the issues could spur the Fed to push up short-term interest rates. Low rates have been one of the most important props for the stock market for months.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which lost 13.01 Monday, skidded 21.59, or 0.61%, to 3510.54, ending the day near its session low. Declining issues swamped advancers, 1,334 to 621, on the Big Board and volume totaled 238,090,000 shares, compared with 235,580,000 shares Monday. | yes | 1 |
India Shares Fall | MUMBAI - Indian shares fell Friday, ending four weeks of gains, led by declines in blue chips Reliance Industries and Hindustan Unilever even as official data showed domestic economic growth accelerated slightly in the April-June period.</br></br>The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index fell 112.08 points, or 0.6%, to 17429.56 points, ahead of U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's much-awaited speech at Jackson Hole.</br></br>The National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty fell 56.55 points, or 1.1%, to 5258.50 points.</br></br>For the month, the Sensex gained about 1.1%, while the Nifty added 0.6%.</br></br>This was in line with other markets in Asia, as earlier expectations for action from central bankers kept most markets buoyant, although a gloomy outlook on China's economy held back Chinese indexes. | no | 0 |
Central Maine Plans to Buy $15 Billion Of Electricity From Quebec-Owned Firm | Central Maine Power Co. said it signed a letter of intent to buy substantial amounts of electricity from Hydro-Quebec beginning in 1992, both for its own use and for resale to other utilities.</br></br>Hydro-Quebec estimated the total value of the proposed sale at $15 billion (Canadian) over its 29-year duration. It said the proposal calls for the delivery of a total of 122 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.</br></br>If completed, the contract would be among the largest power-sales agreements negotiated by the provincially owned electric company, which has been aggressively marketing its electricity for export.</br></br>Under the proposal, Hydro-Quebec would deliver 400,000 kilowatts of power to Central Maine beginning in 1992, and Central Maine would sell half of that to other utilities. Deliveries would increase to 600,000 kilowatts in 1995 and to 900,000 in 2000.</br></br>Central Maine said the average price of the electricity will be about 9.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, subject to adjustments for inflation. Unlike the terms of some earlier Hydro-Quebec sales, the price of the power won't vary directly with changes in the price of oil. The agreement anticipates firm supplies of power as opposed to power supplies that might be cut off if Quebec needed them. | no | 0 |
MarketBeat / Market Insight From WSJ.com | Options Action? Go With Gossip</br></br>---</br></br>August's Slow Time Awards Extra Torque to Rumors,</br></br>But Choppy Trading Can Mean Rallies Just Stall Out</br></br>Regulators have plunged headlong into battling rumor-mongering in the markets. But in the dog days of August, when trading activity is scant and news flow is thin, few things can make the options market hum like a little corporate gossip. | no | 0 |
Why Icahn Is Betting on WCI's Florida Condos | Amid softening home prices, rising foreclosures and turmoil in the mortgage industry, billionaire financier Carl Icahn is making a contrarian bet on a troubled pocket of the U.S. housing market: high- end Florida condominiums.</br></br>How Mr. Icahn fares with his wager could help answer whether this state's housing downturn is a cloud that will soon blow over or a storm that will linger for years. The board of WCI Communities Inc., a home builder that has erected hundreds of high-rise condos along the Florida coast, could decide today whether to accept Mr. Icahn's tender offer of $22 a share for the builder that many consider a good barometer for the state's priciest real estate. That offer, which totals about $920 million, is slightly higher than WCI's $21.45 price yesterday in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading.</br></br>Mr. Icahn's pursuit of WCI has puzzled many on Wall Street who believe the Bonita Springs, Fla., company is highly exposed to the swelling glut of condos dotting Florida beaches and golf courses. In the fourth quarter, WCI, which has a market value of about $909 million, had more defaults on condos and cancellations of typical single-family homes, which it also builds, than it received orders for new homes.</br></br>Mr. Icahn appears to be counting on Florida real estate to make a comeback. "My investment philosophy, generally, with exceptions, is to buy something when no one wants it," he said yesterday. "We made a fairly large investment and took control of several energy companies seven or eight years ago when they were way down. Housing is somewhat analogous."</br></br>Mr. Icahn, who has put up a slate of nominees for the WCI board, declines to comment on what, if any, plans he has for the company. In a Jan. 16 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Mr. Icahn said he beneficially held 14.5%, or 6.1 million shares, in WCI and that he intended to contact the company to discuss how to "unlock the inherent value" of its shares. His tender offer is conditioned on the WCI board pulling its recently enacted poison-pill provision intended to ward off hostile takeovers. WCI declined to comment, citing a "quiet period" after the tender offer. | no | 0 |
DIGEST | DuPont, the biggest U.S. chemical company, said it expects to announce a pharmaceutical alliance this year and plans to issue stock to track the performance of its life-sciences businesses. DuPont, still a relatively small player in drugs, said it's in discussions with unspecified companies to help bulk up its pharmaceuticals business and help the company reach "critical mass" in the industry. The creation of two classes of common shares will allow investors to separate DuPont's life sciences, which are considered to be growing faster than its traditional chemical business.</br></br>Journalists should shun the role of "Chicken Little" in reporting year 2000 computer problems and avoid undermining Americans' confidence in the banking system, a senior regulator said. "If glitches occur or problems loom, report fully on them, of course, but make sure to place the problem in an appropriate context," Federal Reserve Board member Edward W. Kelley Jr. said during a panel discussion at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center. "Balance and perspective are key." Kelley said the Federal Reserve was conducting "extensive advance planning" to ensure that banks and savings institutions have cash on hand to meet any surge in demand late in the year from Americans nervous about losing access to their money if computers misread the year "00."</br></br>The Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill that would restore network TV signals to about 750,000 satellite-dish customers who lost the signals two weeks ago because of a court order. The measure, introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), would place a moratorium on cuts until the end of the year, aiding more than 2 million dish owners who have lost signals or are scheduled to lose them. The broadcast industry opposes the bill.</br></br>General Motors agreed to buy more than $1 billion in recycled aluminum over 13 years from Imco Recycling, to lock in supplies for lighter cars that meet new pollution standards. Imco, based in Irving, Tex., the world's largest recycler of aluminum and zinc, will build a $22 million plant in Zilwaukee, Mich., as part of the deal. As automakers strive to use more aluminum in place of steel, still the dominant metal in the industry, they are seeking supply and price guarantees.</br></br>The Today Sponge, the most popular over-the-counter contraceptive for women before it was pulled off the market in 1995, is headed back to U.S. drugstores. A newly founded New Jersey company, Allendale Pharmaceuticals, said it has bought the sponge from its previous manufacturer and hopes to begin selling it again by fall. The Food and Drug Administration said there was never any problem with the product's safety. Instead, then-manufacturer Whitehall- Robins Healthcare decided it would cost too much to upgrade the old manufacturing plant where it made the sponge to meet stringent government safety rules. | no | 0 |
In Facebook IPO, Frenzy, Skepticism | Facebook Inc.'s coming initial public offering has set off a frenzy of anticipation among Main Street and Wall Street investors desperate to get their hands on the stock.</br></br>Late Monday, the social network raised the price range for its IPO to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35 a share, in a sign of investor appetite for the offering. The Menlo Park, Calif., company's initial price range put Facebook's valuation at $77 billion to $96 billion, but that rises to $93 billion to $104 billion under the new price range as investor interest ramps up.</br></br>Those numbers have created high hopes for both individual and professional investors. The excitement has drawn in fledgling stock buyers such as 11-year-old Jade Supple of Rockville Centre, N.Y., whose father plans to bet money saved to put his daughter through college on Facebook shares, although he has doubts about the price.</br></br>In Berwyn, Pa., hedge-fund manager and mutual-fund manager Chris Baggini of Turner Investment Partners says he tracked Facebook closely and repeatedly called executives at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, which are helping to lead the IPO, to snag a spot in the social network's roadshow stop in Philadelphia last Wednesday.</br></br>Across the nation in El Cajon, Calif., technology teacher and investment-club supervisor Todd Benrud is trying to get his club at Grossmont High School into Facebook stock. "They use Facebook every day," Mr. Benrud said. Some students think it is "guaranteed to make money." | no | 0 |
Stocks Rally, But Dollar, Bonds Slide | Stocks finally managed a mild recovery after four weak days, but bonds and the dollar kept falling.</br></br>After declining every trading day since hitting a record on Aug. 25, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finally rose 108.60 points, or 1.00%, to 10937.88. That leaves the industrials still 3.43% short of last week's 11326.04 record, although up 19.13% for 1999.</br></br>Other stock indexes also managed small advances. But the dollar fell to yet another low since Jan. 11 in late New York trading.</br></br>Bond and stock investors went in opposite directions. Bond investors worried that August payroll and unemployment data due tomorrow could signal a strong economy, pushing the Federal Reserve toward raising interest-rate guidelines again next month. Stock investors bet that interest-rate boosts are about done with, Ned Riley, chief investment officer at BankBoston, said.</br></br>The stock gains were "a precelebration" of Friday's news, he said, adding "people are expecting that the payroll number will be weaker than forecast. They think that the markets will see a better interest-rate environment as we go into the fourth quarter." | yes | 1 |
Al 8 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1979 | \ A YATOLLAH KHOMEINI spoke a message of defi-ance to Americans on television yesterday. But, ^nonetheless, a certain impression is being conveyed 3 from Tehran of a revolution becoming aware by ^stages that it is riding a tiger. It was easy enough to Û¢; seize the U.S. Embassy 15 days ago and demand that | the cancer-stricken shah be removed from his hospital bed in New York to Iran. But the steadfast refusal \ot the Carter administration to make that deal and > the near-unanimous support of the administration by ;the American people and the international commu-; nity have put the Iranians in a bind. How can they 1 cut short the losses they have incurred by grabbing "the American diplomats without losing face? How ? can they get off the tiger?</br></br>\ A YATOLLAH KHOMEINI spoke a message of defi-ance to Americans on television yesterday. But, ^nonetheless, a certain impression is being conveyed 3 from Tehran of a revolution becoming aware by ^stages that it is riding a tiger. It was easy enough to Û¢; seize the U.S. Embassy 15 days ago and demand that | the cancer-stricken shah be removed from his hospital bed in New York to Iran. But the steadfast refusal \ot the Carter administration to make that deal and > the near-unanimous support of the administration by ;the American people and the international commu-; nity have put the Iranians in a bind. How can they 1 cut short the losses they have incurred by grabbing "the American diplomats without losing face? How ? can they get off the tiger? Û¢ A partial answer is suggested by their announced decision to free at least some women and non-whites among the Americans held at the embassy. This is said to reflect the special respect jn which Islam holds women, and the oppressed condition of blacks. ThatÛªs just fine. Some of the most telling reproaches leveled against the ayatollah in this crisis have come from Moslems and non-whites. It is good that he feels it necessary to make gestures to them. It is quite another mat-ter, however, if he or other Iranians think that by re- * / leasing blacks and women they can peel those elements I off the body of American opinion backing President ^CarterÛªs demand for an immediate release of all the å£ hostages. We hope IranÛªs diplomats in Washington can | help set their countrymen straight on that score.</br></br>The ayatollah insists that the remaining hostages will be screened and that those found to he spies will be tried and punished under Islamic law. There is a welcome hint here that hostages found not to be spies may be eligible to have their diplomatic immunity restored, and perhaps to be released. That would be one additional way to get off the tiger. But that would still leave the ÛÏspies,Û who, the ayatollah claims,- ÛÏare no longer diplomatsÛ and therefore are not protected by immunity. It is important to note here that this is a totally specious distinction. Under the law and practice respected everywhere else, all people with diplomatic status enjoy immunity, regardless of their embassy function. That he reaches to the realm of ÛÏIslamic lawÛ to justify this outrageous prospect suggests he realizes how weak his position is. If the ayatollah goes ahead with trials, he will make Iran even more an international pariah than it already is.</br></br>The suggestion is heard from Iran that the revolution may stage such trials to make a symbolic demonstration of the reversal of IranÛªs earlier status as a dependency of foreign powers. But Americans cannot conceivably accept any effort to satisfy the ÛÏinner needsÛ of the Iranian revolution at the expense of the hostages. The United States has offered the ayatollah a full international hearing, at the United Nations, for any arguments he may wish to presentÛÓas soon as all the hostages are freed. Until then, he is completely responsible for their well-being.</br></br>THE STORY of the Û÷MayorÛªs Summer Jobs for Youth ProgramÛÓ1979Û is one of good intentions - unfulfilled. According to a report by the investiga-: tions staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee, ; the extra money and effort that went into the sum-; mer program were casualties of bad management. The program, according to the investigatorsÛª report, | no | 0 |
Economy's Growth Outstrips Estimate | The economy grew at a faster rate than originally estimated in the first three months of this year as the nationÛªs output of goods and services topped its pre-recession peak, the government said yesterday.</br></br>The Commerce Department said the gross national product grew at an annual rate of 8.5 per cent during the quarter, up from an April estimate of 7.5 per cent.</br></br>The revision pushed the GNP, as measured in inflation-adjusted 1972 dollars, to $1,241,2 billion at an annual rale, surpassing the $1,240.9 billion peak in the third quarter of 1973.</br></br>At the White House, press secretary Ron Nessen said, ÛÏThe PresidentÛªs econmists feel this revision is consistent with other upward trends and other upward revisions." the December projections" and perhaps even faster than estimates made at the end of the first quarter.</br></br>The quarterÛªs increase was the biggest since a surge at an annual rate of 12 per cent during the early stages of economic recovery in the third quarter of 1975. It means economic growth for 1976 is likely to exceed original estimates. | no | 0 |
U.S. News --- THE NUMBERS GUY: Flawed Math Seen in Unemployment Tied to China | Millions of jobs are the cost of doing business with China, according to dozens of members of Congress seeking re-election.</br></br>Representatives from both major parties signed a letter last month asking the House leadership to pressure China to allow its currency to appreciate against the dollar. The letter cited a think tank study finding that trade with China reduces U.S. employment by 2.4 million jobs.</br></br>But several economists say the estimate congressional members relied on vastly overstated trade's impact on employment. A major flaw, they say, was that the study assumed every dollar spent on Chinese goods displaces a dollar that would be spent on U.S.-made products, when in fact products made in other low-cost manufacturing nations might fill the void. Also, cheap imports might even help fuel the U.S. economy and spur employment.</br></br>Other economists offer lower estimates for job losses, while some say that despite the heated rhetoric of the currency debate, it simply isn't possible to connect employment to trade deficits.</br></br>The dispute has played out against the backdrop of the midterm elections, where many campaigns have blamed China for U.S. economic problems. | no | 0 |
Stock Prices Move Up With Bonds On Talk of Lower Interest Rates | Still taking cues from the bond market, stock prices moved higher in active trading as visions of lower interest rates danced once again in investors' heads.</br></br>The session started off sluggishly, but activity picked up as the bond market caught fire. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed more than eight points before midday and held much of that gain throughout the session. The industrial index closed up 8.25 at 1527.29.</br></br>Just a week earlier, the index registered a historic plunge on fears that interest rates could move higher. The reason for the bond market's excitement yesterday was rather slim, based on reports that the West German economics minister expects the U.S. to seek a coordinated interest-rate reduction plan when it meets with finance ministers of its four major allies this weekend. The minister was expressing his opinions, not official policy, and the reports were later denied.</br></br>The stock market was just "looking for an excuse to rally," said Hildegarde Zagorski, a market strategist at Prudential-Bache Securities in New York. She added that a small rebound after last week's fall wasn't surprising.</br></br>Yesterday's rally was broad based, however. Gaining issues had a better than 2-to-1 lead over decliners on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume rose to 122.4 million shares from 113.9 million shares Tuesday. | no | 0 |
Citicorp Plan for Bank In Towson Is Approved | The Federal Reserve Board yesterday approved CiticorpÛªs application to establish a limited-purpose bank in Towson, Md., while Chase Manhattan Bank announced that it filed an application to set up a so-called nonbank bank at Tysons Comer.</br></br>Citicorp, the nationÛªs largest bank company, filed the application for the Towson bank last year under a Maryland law that permits out-of-state banks to set up facilities that are restricted from competing with Maryland banks. The bank will offer consumer credit products and credit cards on a nationwide basis and also will accept checking accounts and make commercial loans.</br></br>The proposed Chase facility in Virginia was one of nine applications New YorkÛªs second-biggest bank company filed with the comptroller of the currency to set up banking facilities. Earlier, Chase had filed applications for 16 other nonbank banks.</br></br>The nonbank banks are designed to get around federal laws that prohibit banks from setting up operations in other states. To be a bank under that law, an institution must offer checking accounts and make commercial loans. While most banks are trying to set up consumer institutions that make no commercial loans, Chase wants to establish facilities that make business loans but do not accept checking accounts.</br></br>The number of jobless Virginians dropped by 14,800 in March as the stateÛªs unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent, down six-tenths of a percentage point from February, the Virginia Employment Commission said in Richmond yesterday. | yes | 1 |
WASHINGTON; Numbers Total 5 Also-Rans To the Nation's Capital | Now approaching is that day, and that defining moment, when the National League Expansion Committee will cast its this-is-it, apocalyptic vote revealing which two of the six aspirant cities have been favored with expansion franchises.</br></br>So, time to play hardball. No More Nice Guy. If, in this essay, the other cities are bruised a bit, sorry.</br></br>But Washington's stake is a big one. It will tell us whether the nation's capital has been returned to the big league company we knew for 70 years, or condemned again to baseball's nowhere.</br></br>Time to grab some lapels and shake the expansion committee into recognition of all the realities - of the clear logic, the massive advantages of putting a team in Washington.</br></br>And time, if necessary, to bash those other presumptuous municipalities and expose their papered-over weaknesses. Those other places - Miami; Tampa-St. Petersburg; Orlando, Fla.; Buffalo; Denver - truthfully they've all got nice people, but not enough of them. | no | 0 |
Bush's Tax Panel Has a Crazy Idea. Let's Go For It; Why This Reform Should Begin at Home | Pity the poor McMansion owner. If the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform gets its way, those folks with the three-car garages, grand entryways, mega-kitchens and spacious bedrooms will lose the tax break they get for any portion of their mortgage over $312,000. In a place like Potomac, where the median sales price for a house is more than twice that amount, that could tear a hole in some fancy pocketbooks, depending on how much their owners have borrowed for their dream houses.</br></br>Oh, and that little summer cottage at the beach in Rehoboth or the lakefront place at Deep Creek or Lake Anna? That might cost a bit extra too. The panel wants to eliminate the mortgage deduction for vacation homes.</br></br>Planning on a home equity loan to consolidate credit card debt or cover your kid's college tuition? Think it through again. The president's advisory panel is expected to propose taking away the federal tax deduction for payments on that loan, too.</br></br>These are still just proposals cooked up by a bipartisan panel, and who can count how many similar proposals have gone nowhere? But it is a panel established by President Bush and charged with making the tax code simpler, fairer and more conducive to economic growth. For it to even consider going after the home mortgage deduction is a gutsy move -- even if the president recoils at the very idea.</br></br>The home mortgage interest deduction is known as the third rail of tax politics for good reason. It's loved by the people and criticized mostly by academics. It is credited with creating a nation of homeowners, spawning social stability and entire industries designed to cater to everything from financing to construction to furnishing knickknacks and beyond. Tens of millions of Americans have come to rely on the generous tax benefit -- and with home prices soaring, they aren't all McMansion owners either. In the District last year, the average house cost $415,178, according to the city's figures. | no | 0 |
Last month's sales of existing homes increased by 1.9% | Sales of previously owned homes rose 1.9% in June as the national housing recovery maintained a slow but steady momentum, fueled by low interest rates and pent-up consumer demand.</br></br>Existing-home sales rose to 3,690,000 on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, from a revised pace of 3,620,000 in May, according to the National Association of Realtors. Regional performance was mixed, with the West and Midwest posting slight decreases in sales while the South gained modestly and the long-suffering Northeast snapped back with a 14% gain.</br></br>The results come after a disappointing report by the Commerce Department showing housing starts flat in June from the previous month. The new-home market isn't performing as well as the one for existing homes, analysts say, because some builders still have a tough time getting credit to build, and bad weather earlier this year delayed construction. The flooding in the Midwest won't help starts this month, and could channel more demand into the resale market.</br></br>"If you have softness on new homes, that puts additional pressure for consumers to buy existing homes," added Daryl Jesperson, executive vice president of Re/Max International Inc., a national broker based in Englewood, Colo.</br></br>Though slowed from May's increase of 4.9%, the June resale numbers mark the third consecutive month of gains for nationwide resales following three consecutive down months that were attributable to bad weather. Compared with a year ago, the June resales were up a vibrant 11.1%, with double-digit growth in the South and Midwest. | no | 0 |
A Cautious Look at Electric Utilities; Once Safe and Dependable, They Are Now Hotbeds of Turmoil and Uncertainty | If you picked `c' you are right. One of the oddities of investing is that as the price of a stock goes down, the yield on the stock gets better.</br></br>For example, if Zilch Power & Light Co. pays a $1 a year dividend, and the stock sells for $25, you are getting a yield of 4 percent. But let the stock sink to $12.50 a share and you are getting an 8 percent yield.</br></br>Now, an 8 percent yield looks pretty good these days and, indeed, so does any stock that is selling for half the price of only 11 months ago. Thus, a lot of investors must be looking at the recent carnage in utility stocks and utility funds and wondering if it is time to go bargain hunting.</br></br>Unfortunately, there's no easy answer. Electric utility stocks, once safe, dependable and boring, have become hotbeds of turmoil and uncertainty. Their sensitivity to changes in interest rates is only part of the story.</br></br>Vast changes are taking place in the electricity business and the utilities, which once enjoyed a monopoly status, apparently will be forced to compete for business in a free-wheeling competitive environment that could hurt the value of their generating plants, their companies and their stock prices. | no | 0 |
The Surplus in Perspective | American politics has undergone a revolution in its view of public finance. Thirty years ago, a Republican president said, "We are all Keynesians now." Economic textbooks of that time discussed the automatic "fiscal drag" of a progressive income tax, and the need for a continuous fiscal stimulus to offset it.</br></br>Today, a full year into an economic slowdown, there is virtually unanimous political agreement on the need to maintain a federal surplus of at least $160 billion. Some politicians even argue that this sum is insufficient, that a surplus in excess of $190 billion -- 9% of federal revenue -- is needed.</br></br>One senator, Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), took to the Senate floor to announce that risking a surplus of a mere $160 billion, the second largest in American history, was an indication that we were driving "right into the fiscal ditch." Sen. Fritz Hollings (D., S.C.) introduced legislation to repeal the first year of the recently enacted tax cut, arguing that the foregone revenue was needed for other purposes in Washington.</br></br>By contrast, 38 years ago, President Kennedy proposed a tax cut twice as big a share of gross domestic product as the one just passed. The government was running a budget deficit of 1.3% of GDP at the time, not a huge surplus as today. Saying, in his 1963 State of the Union address, that enacting the tax cut "overshadows all other domestic problems in this Congress," Kennedy argued that the tax cut "will increase the purchasing power of American families and business enterprises . . . encourage the initiative and risk taking on which our free system depends, induce more investments, production, and capacity use . . . and reinforce the American principle of additional reward for additional effort."</br></br>Today, by contrast, with a surplus of 1.5% of GDP, Democratic senators warn of "driving into a fiscal ditch" and seek to recapture the $600 tax-cut checks that American families are about to receive. It is hard to imagine a more extraordinary turn of political perspective. | no | 0 |
Late Holiday Shopping Puts Retailers Ahead | Retailers won the closely watched holiday skirmish with shoppers, who opened their wallets a little bit despite a still struggling economy, fewer discounts than last year and limited variety on store shelves, according to newly released data.</br></br>A late boost from procrastinating consumers and an extra day of shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas helped to lift total retail sales, excluding automobiles and gas, by 3.6% over the year-earlier period through Christmas Eve, according to MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse unit.</br></br>Excluding the extra shopping day, the sales increase would have been closer to 1%, MasterCard said.</br></br>While some retail sectors fared better than others, overall "I'd call it a good season because the profits will be good," said Maggie Gilliam, president of Gilliam & Co., an independent retail research and advisory firm in New York.</br></br>Retailers are increasingly confident that the shopping season this year performed substantially better than last year's, when consumer appetites for anything but essentials were minimal and stores cut their prices to the bone to try to lure customers. Despite these efforts, the 2008 holiday season was the worst in decades. | no | 0 |
HI)eU)asfiingtonJ)ost | PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti t- In ;the midst of a serious political and economic crisis, HaitiÛªs authoritarian1 government is using foreign aid to' tighten its hold on this country, despite the efforts of its most important donor, the United States.</br></br>At a recent meeting of Western nations and agencies financing HaitiÛªs survival, the donors pledged a record' amount of aid to President-for-Life Û¢ Jean Claude Duvalier. But while the donors had been unwilling to play politics with their assistance, the Haitian government, much to the chagrin of U.S. and other diplomats, widely advertised the aid increase as a broad endorsement of its policies.</br></br>Foreign missions here, which had welcomed a somewhat greater political freedom during the past year, were infuriated when the Duvalier government jailed almost all its prominent critics just days before the aid talks.</br></br>Then, during the donor meeting, Haiti engaged in an unusual test o/ Û÷wills with the United States by censuring the American delegate. When, U.S. representative Allan Furman began to express concern about the ÛÏrecent deterioration in HaitiÛªs human rights environment,Û Haitian Planning Minister Edouard Berrouet immediately cut him short.</br></br>Human rights remarks were ÛÏnot acceptable,Û said Berrouet, loudly ringing a bell. ÛÏPlease pass to the technical part of your statement.Û Rather than walk out, the U.S. dele--gate obeyed. | no | 0 |
A More Severe Recession Seen Taking Hold Early in 1980: Prime Rate Drop Surest Sign Yet Of Fed's ... | Analysts generally donÛªt mark turning points in the economic cycle anywhere near that precisely, but to some onlookers 12:15 p.m. last Monday may serve symbolically as the time the 1979-80 recession began to show up in earnest.</br></br>ThatÛªs when Bankers Trust Co., followed by several other large banks, announced it was trimming its prime lending rate for large corporations to 15V2 percent from the record 15% percent that had prevailed before.</br></br>The move, which reversed four months of steady and sharp increases, was of course merely a symptom, not a cause, of the newest shift. Analysts may be debating for</br></br>There also were warnings from several economists' that the turnaround might prove to be a false peak and that interest rates might turn up again. That happened several times earlier this year, and rates later climbed further.</br></br>But at the least, the drop in the prime marked the surest sign yet that the steps taken by the Federal Reserve Board last Oct. 6 to spur interest rates and tighten credit sharply finally are beginning to show results. There were these developments: Û¢ The runaway growth in the nationÛªs money supply, which had concerned Fed officials only a few weeks ago, | no | 0 |
WEEKEND INVESTOR --- Should Small Investors Jump Into Stocks? | Since hitting a low in February, the stock market has roared higher in almost-uninterrupted fashion. The Standard & Poor's 500 has racked up a good year's gain -- nearly 13% -- in just two months' time, and now, near 1200, sits at levels not seen since September 2008. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, has turned back its clock to June of that same year -- three months before Lehman Brothers collapsed.</br></br>Yet many small investors are still watching the rally from the sidelines. Through mid-April, investors have put about $6 billion of new money into domestic stock funds so far this year, according to Lipper data. By contrast, they've invested just over $101 billion in taxable and municipal bonds.</br></br>So is now the time to wade back into stocks?</br></br>Perhaps -- if you're looking to put a little money to work in well-run, large companies with strong balance sheets. But many pros say investors who've sat out the rally should continue to husband their cash. With the market up so strongly, and with underlying economic fundamentals still sketchy -- foreclosure just surged again, underemployment remains rife and consumer sentiment has fallen again -- the balance has shifted toward risk and away from return.</br></br>Even the pros seem to be getting twitchy. News Friday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs with fraud tied to subprime mortgages helped push the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a quick 126-point selloff. | no | 0 |
Democrats on the Air, Bush in the Pulpit | In a day dominated by the Super Bowl and a make-or-break television interview by Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, two other Democrats seeking the presidential nomination also took their campaigns to the airwaves as President Bush worshiped and preached in a black Arlington church.</br></br>In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin defended his proposals to slash the defense budget and to reduce U.S. investments abroad in favor of increased spending at home.</br></br>He proposes cutting $420 billion from the defense budget over 10 years, "investing" $280 billion of that amount in the U.S. economy, and using the other $200 billion to reduce the federal deficit, now estimated at $350 billion. The plan would result in cutting U.S. troop strength by half and would mean closing most U.S. military bases in Europe, according to Harkin.</br></br>With the New Hampshire primary three weeks away, Harkin trails in opinion polls all but former California governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr., who yesterday continued his campaign effort on the airwaves with an interview on WCB-TV in Massachusetts.</br></br>On NBC, Harkin was asked if it was a mistake for him to have taken a two-week break from campaigning for a vacation in the Bahamas over Christmas. | no | 0 |
Stocks Gain, But Caution Rules Day --- Inflation Fears Ease Yet Questions Remain On Resolve of the Fed | Investors tentatively overcame their fear of inflation and pushed stocks, bonds and the dollar modestly higher.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.82, to 2250.36, following last week's drop of nearly 80 points on inflation worries. Bond prices rose a bit and the dollar strengthened against the mark and yen, mostly for technical reasons.</br></br>Analysts said investors approached financial markets cautiously, still uncertain about how serious the nation's inflation problem is and how resolved the Federal Reserve is to slow the economy.</br></br>"People are arguing whether the Fed is killing the market by raising rates or whether the Fed is killing the market by not raising rates enough," said Philip Roth, a market analyst at Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc.</br></br>Stock investors were particularly wary. The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung into and out of negative territory several times before rising decisively late in the afternoon, mostly on the strength of rising bond prices and a firming dollar. Activity might pick up this week as various economic reports come out. Among the most important indicators will be reports on personal income, the index of leading economic indicators and revised figures on fourth-quarter gross national product. | yes | 1 |
Monday, March 5, 1984 | By Tom Shales As tantalizing prospects go, about the only way to improve on casting Jane Seymour in a TV movie is to cast two Jane Seymours in a TV movie, which is precisely what the producers of ABCÛªs ÛÏDark MirrorÛ'have done, and to captivating effect. The film, at 9 tonight on'Channel 7, is sumptuously updated film noir that can be taken as low drama or high comedy, or as a little bit of each.</br></br>twins, one as nice as pie and the other as mean as dirt. Seymour is witty, sly and wildly watchable as both, and the special effects boys occasionally put them on screen together in such niftily seamless ways that the trickery boggles the eye. In one shot, one sister Seymour not only sits beside herself on the couch but actually puts her head on the other sister SeymourÛªs lap.</br></br>More than one trend-watcher in recent months has declared the TV movie to have ÛÏcome of ageÛ because subjects tackled this season have included the end of the world and incest. All very well, but TV movies have always had a pretty good record on grappling with dicey topics. ItÛªs more a sign of coming of age that a film with only trifling ambitions like ÛÏDark MirrorÛ can fulfil them with such rich character and that director Richard Lang, also the producer, got to flex his stylistic muscles and give the film a distinctively velvety texture, not just the usual assembly-line gloss.</br></br>ÛÏDark MirrorÛ is more fun and more competently brought off than all five hours of ÛÏLaceÛ put together, which they werenÛªt.</br></br>The story is elegant hokum. It opens with a deftly shot murder sequence that might be called ÛÏDonÛªt shoot the piano playerÛÓnot when thereÛªs a knife handy.Û From there we are drawn into a serviceable semi-psychological mystery. Tracy, the bad twin, and Lee, the nice twin, are bound by inscrutable ties, ties that blind in LeeÛªs case, because she doesnÛªt manage to notice that her sister tries to kill her with an overdose of sleeping pills and, when that fails, tries to drive her insane by turning on MTV in the middle of the night (and thatÛªll do it, yes sir). | no | 0 |
Year of the Downhill Racers; In `Tough, Tough' 1994, Local Stocks Produced Few Success Stories | In 1994, the good times for Washington area stocks were short-lived. They lasted only until Feb. 4, the day that the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates. After that, and for the next 11 months, it was all downhill.</br></br>By the time the turbulent year was over, almost two-thirds of Washington area stocks had lost money. The losses cut across a wide band and hurt financial, retail, biotech, telecommunications and transportation stocks.</br></br>It also was the kind of year in which the relatively few winners fell into two categories: companies with products or services that were in high demand; and companies that, having faltered financially, were in a turnaround mode.</br></br>As often happens in periods of market turmoil, the big blue-chip stocks listed in the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index fared somewhat better than the stocks of the hundreds of smaller companies in a business community that extends from Baltimore to Richmond.</br></br>"It was a bear market and if you look at the Dow and the S&P, it doesn't reflect what happened in the broad market," said Prabha S. Carpenter, portfolio manager of the Growth Fund of Washington, a $33 million fund that invests in three dozen local stocks. Carpenter's fund was down 9.3 percent for the year. | yes | 1 |
Germany's Rejuvenation | Mr. Davison, a social scientist specialism* in German affairs, wriÛªta from Berlin He is author of "The Berlin Blockade.ÛªÛª Rand Corn study</br></br>THIS VOI.UME is of eon-siderably wider scope than its subtitle would indicate. It touches on the occupation policies of the British. French and Soviets, the formation of the West German constitution. German economic recovery. rearmament ana much more.</br></br>One of its outstanding chapters describes the Soviet zone uprising of .June 17, 1953. At some points, the author's approach is Inward a general history of postwar Germany, at others he focuses more directly on United States occupation policy. The most extensively documented chapter is on the Nuremberg trials.</br></br>Particular attention is given to the contradictions in Allied postwar policies toward Germany: for instance, factories were being dismantled while American funds were being provided to build new ones; disarmament and rearmament were for a time pursued simultaneously.</br></br>lemic quality, emphasizing Communist influences on the New Deal, Roosevelt's Ger-manaphobia and Morgen-thau's proposals. At the same time, they place less stress on other factors which help to explain why history took the course it did: United | no | 0 |
Bond Prices Surge, Stocks Slump on Jobs Data --- Gloomy Report About Payrolls Batters DJIA | A gloomy employment report sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling 23.81 points to 3330.29, even though the bad economic news led the Federal Reserve to slash short-term interest rates. The dollar fell.</br></br>Rapid-fire events before the stock market opened for trading forced investors to quickly weigh a downbeat employment report against the potential stimulus of the Fed's move. An hour before stock market trading began, the Labor Department disclosed that the nation's struggling economy lost 117,000 jobs last month, instead of generating the 100,000 or so that most economists and analysts had expected.</br></br>The report touched off an immediate bond market rally, followed within minutes by the Fed's decision to cut the discount rate -- the rate the central bank charges member institutions for short-term loans -- to 3% from 3.5%.</br></br>Arthur Micheletti, chief market strategist at Bailard, Biehl & Kaiser, said the employment report yesterday may be a prelude to more bad news on the earnings front.</br></br>"The Fed's move is confirmation that the economic data are weaker than had been expected," he said. "That means that corporate profits will probably be worse than expected." But he added that if stock prices fall sharply in response to weak earnings, the decline could set up a trading opportunity for nimble investors. | yes | 1 |
Canadian Dollar Surges Ahead of Labor Data; | TORONTO--The Canadian dollar surged Thursday, making its biggest one-day gain in nearly a month, as traders took profits ahead of a domestic labor report on Friday.</br></br>The U.S. dollar was at C$1.0319 Thursday, from C$1.0424 late Wednesday, according to data provider CQG. The greenback moved as low as C$1.0304 during intraday trading, the lowest level in more than a week.</br></br>The Canadian dollar was on solid footing early on Thursday after strong Chinese trade figures for July. Chinese exports were up 5.1% on the year, while imports rose 11%, a sign that suggests both global and domestic Chinese demand may be picking up.</br></br>Commodity currencies, including the Australian and Canadian dollars, reacted strongly to the Chinese data, which "was surprising given the progressively more sour views on Chinese growth lately," said Greg Moore, currency strategist at TD Securities in Toronto.</br></br>Mr. Moore said the current focus on foreign exchange markets remains on the U.S. dollar, and any other piece of information that could signal what the Federal Reserve's next move will be. | no | 0 |
Letters to the Editor: Can the Mails Be Letter Perfect? | To borrow a phrase from James Bovard's blatanty distorted Aug. 6 editorial-page commentary on the Postal Service, "Getting the Mail to Sail," the author has ". . . yet to corner the market on veracity." It simply does not stand to reason that demand for a service as poor and as expensive as claimed by Mr. Bovard, and in an extremely competitive environment, would continue to grow by 4%, 5% or 10% a year. Yet this is, in fact, what has happened over the last three years.</br></br>Equally ridiculous is Mr. Bovard's contention that the present system is a failure because postage rates have not stood still over the last 20 years. Even the most cursory historical survey reveals "price stability" is generally alien to the private sector during periods of high inflation.</br></br>Mr. Bovard's statement that the Postal Service has proposed dropping rates for selected second-, third- and fourth-class mail is seriously misleading. Increases of 11.7% for most second-class, 21.9% for most third-class and 11.7% for most fourth-class mail have been proposed.</br></br>Nor is it true, as Mr. Bovard says, that Congress considers ZIP plus 4 a "twice-fizzled panacea." Studies by Congressional committees and the General Accounting Office have concluded that ZIP plus 4 and accompanying automation will more than pay their way while substantially improving postal efficiency and service.</br></br>In his desire to criticize Postal management for overstating productivity gains, Mr. Bovard missed a key point -- the changing mix of mail is a direct result of a program begun several years ago to grant mailers rate discounts in return for greater preparation of the mail. This kind of "contracting" of postal work to the private sector is significant progress in the direction so fervently championed by Mr. Bovard -- without jeapardizing the universality of the present system, a result which would certainly follow from his heavyhanded and poorly thought-out proposal. | no | 0 |
Nonfarm Worker Output Rose at 0.1% Annual Rate | WASHINGTON -- Worker productivity in nonfarm businesses edged up at a 0.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Labor Department said in revisions of an earlier report that said the figure was unchanged.</br></br>Productivity, or output for each hour of work, climbed at an annual rate of 2% in the third quarter and dropped at a 2.4% rate in the second.</br></br>The department estimated that productivity for all businesses, including farms, declined at a 2% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the same as originally reported. A drop in farm output stemming from last summer's drought was largely responsible.</br></br>Growth in productivity is critical to the economy if it is to continue expanding without inflation.</br></br>Unit labor costs increased at an annual rate of 5.6% in the fourth quarter, as the department initially calculated, after increasing at a 3.7% annual rate in the third quarter and a 6.8% annual rate in the second. | yes | 1 |
To Weight or Not to Weight?: An Index by Any Other Name | During calendar year 1970 the stock market was up 4.8 per cent. Or was it up only 1 per cent? Or was it down 2,5 per cent? Or did it get clipped for a 13.4 per cent loss? The answers are: yes, yes and yesÛÓand the numbers represent, respectively, the changes in I he Dow Jones 30 industrials average, the Standard and PoorÛªs 500-stock index, the New York Stock Exchange index and the American Stock Exchange index. Why donÛªt they agree? Which one is most revealing? Or are there other measures which can give us a better gauge of stock market behavior?</br></br>During calendar year 1970 the stock market was up 4.8 per cent. Or was it up only 1 per cent? Or was it down 2,5 per cent? Or did it get clipped for a 13.4 per cent loss? The answers are: yes, yes and yesÛÓand the numbers represent, respectively, the changes in I he Dow Jones 30 industrials average, the Standard and PoorÛªs 500-stock index, the New York Stock Exchange index and the American Stock Exchange index. Why donÛªt they agree? Which one is most revealing? Or are there other measures which can give us a better gauge of stock market behavior? 'Flic Dow Jones industrial average is computed by adding together the prices of 30 large blue-chip companies and dividing by a figure which was originally 30, but has since changed by formula because of splits and stock dividends. One obvious criticism is that the coverage on only 30 securities is inadequate. An often overlooked though equally important objection is</br></br>As a result, at the end of last month, General Electric had about the same importance in the Dow as AT&T and General Motors combined: and Dupont had greater weight than the sum total of Allied Chemical, Anaconda, Bethlehem Steel, Chrysler and U.S. Steel.</br></br>In some respects, the American Stock Exchange index (covering all Amex stocks and warrants) is similar to the Dow. Each security is weighted by price change. In other words, any stock that goes up $5 will have five times the clout of a stock up $1. It works in reverse on the way down. However, the lower priced more speculative issuesÛÓwhich experience smaller dollar changes but larger percentage movesÛÓdonÛªt have enough impact to materially affect the index.</br></br>A different and better weighting scheme is used in both the Standard and PoorÛªs and New York Stock Exchange measures. Companies are assigned weights in accordance with the market value of their outstanding shares. Unfortunately, a small handful of the largest companies are of overwhelming influence. At the end of "May of this year, there were about 1,360 common stocks on the Big Board; only 67 of these were given the same total weight as all remaining 1,293 companies. The top 136 stocks (10 per cent of those listed) accounted for nearly 62 per cent of the NYSE index, whereas the bottom 136 stocks accounted for less than one-half of 1 per cent. | no | 0 |
Shifting Everglades Cost Abroad Intrigues U.S. | A proposal to make some foreign sugar producers chip in for the cost of Everglades restoration is drawing interest from officials in the Clinton administration.</br></br>Under the plan, rights to sell cheap, tariff-exempt sugar to the U.S. would be auctioned to foreign sugar producers. Currently, those rights are granted free to some 40 nations. Boosters say the auction proposal could sharply reduce the taxpayers' burden for the wilderness restoration in the Everglades, which some say may cost $3 billion to $5 billion over the next two decades.</br></br>A draft report done in May 1996 by the President's Council of Economic Advisers estimates that such auctions could have raised $300 million to $400 million since 1990 at the rate of sugar imports during that period. "It's something we're taking seriously and plan to discuss with others in the administration," says one White House environmental official, who asked not to be identified.</br></br>Administration officials say the auctions could be authorized by an order from President Clinton, without a congressional vote. Nevertheless, they're hoping that some key legislators, such as Florida's Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, will give their support.</br></br>Sen. Graham, who has backed the idea of Everglades restoration, but not at the expense of domestic cane growers, couldn't be reached to comment. However, an aide says the senator's staff has been studying the plan and submitted a list of 20 questions about the auction idea to lobbyists in Washington representing the Orlando-based Everglades Trust, an environmental group. Its politcal arm, Save Our Everglades, led last year's unsuccessful fight for an amendment to the Florida Constitution that would have put a tax of one penny a pound on sugar produced in this state, in order to pay for the South Florida wilderness project. | no | 0 |
Jobless Total Greatly Exceeds Prior Estimates --- Survey Change Shows Level Of Unemployed People Is About 600,000 Higher | WASHINGTON -- There are roughly 600,000 more Americans out of work and looking for jobs than previously believed, the Labor Department said.</br></br>Major changes in the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics tallies the number of jobless workers have given department officials a better handle of how many people are unemployed, and there appears to be several hundred thousand more of them.</br></br>The result is that the high-profile unemployment rate will very likely bump up by half a percentage point when the changes -- which involve asking better-crafted questions and using a computer instead of a pad of paper to record survey answers -- take effect in January. The first employment report under the new system will be issued Feb. 4.</br></br>If a higher unemployment rate is reported as a result of the agency's changes, it wouldn't mean the economy has suddenly gotten worse. It would indicate, however, that the department has been consistently underestimating the number of unemployed people. October's unemployment rate, the latest figure available, rose to 6.8% of the work force, putting the jobless total at about 8.8 million people.</br></br>Such reworking of statistics, though, often confounds policy makers who find they have been making decisions based on one set of assumptions, only to find that a different picture is more accurate. | yes | 1 |
Jobs Data Show Hopeful Sign, Though Economy Still Ails; Employment Falls, But Not as Quickly; Mr. Crooks's Hunt | Employers cut jobs in April for the fourth month in a row, but the small size of the drop -- 20,000 jobs -- and a dip in the unemployment rate offered a tentative sign that the U.S. economy might be escaping a deep recession.</br></br>Despite the better-than-expected news, the economy is not healthy. Car sales hit their lowest level in nearly a decade in April, while the fall in home prices is accelerating and consumers are feeling the pain of higher food and energy bills. The decline in the unemployment rate to 5% from 5.1% reflects an increase in part-time jobs. The number of workers with full-time jobs declined.</br></br>The U.S. economy needs to add 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth. "You can't lose jobs on a continual basis and have the kind of growth in the economy that you want," said Lehman Brothers economist Drew Matus. He predicted shrinking payrolls for the rest of this year.</br></br>Still, the decline in payrolls in April -- Wall Street forecasters had anticipated an 85,000 drop -- suggests the economic fallout from the housing bust and credit crunch that began last year may be less severe than had been widely assumed as recently as last week.</br></br>The jobs report buoyed an already-rising stock market and strengthened the dollar. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell below 12,000 in March, rose 48.20 points Friday, or 0.37%, to close at 13,058.20. | no | 0 |
It's Time to Shake Out the Dust From Your Portfolio and Improve Its Efficiency | If your mutual fund portfolio hasn't been performing as well as you think it should and you're not sure why, it may be time for a bit of spring cleaning.</br></br>A cluttered investment lineup is inefficient at best and costly at worst. By identifying overlapping holdings and gaps in your asset- allocation plan, you may be able to cut your expenses and boost your total return. If your mutual fund garage needs a clean sweep, here is a checklist of 10 things to consider:</br></br>What's your goal, and are you on track to reach it? Everybody's got dreams, but we don't always articulate them when we're investing, which financial planners say is a big mistake. Identify your goals -- saving for retirement, a college education or your dream home -- figure out how long it will take and how much you'll need to achieve them and set up individual accounts for each. Keep your eyes on the prize by regularly checking your progress. If you're not on target, you may have to invest more or take on more risk.</br></br>Too often people invest first and think about why later, or not at all, said Percy E. Bolton, a financial planner in Pasadena, Calif. "Sometimes it's like you have to be a psychologist . . . you have to discover people's goals," Bolton said. "If an account has no goal, you don't know what you're working toward. So when you go to invest, anything will do, and you're left just hoping it will do okay."</br></br>Is your portfolio diversified? You may hold a lot of funds, but that doesn't mean all your eggs aren't in one basket. Planners say people often pile into the types of funds that have worked well for them in the past or whatever they think will bring the highest return and wind up short in other areas, such as fixed income, which can provide important protection in down markets. A better strategy is to own a bit of everything. | no | 0 |
Border Patrol suicides cause alarm; Professional, personal reasons cited for more agents killing selves | After a bad day on the job as a Border Patrol agent, Eddie DeLaCruz went home and began discussing with his wife how to celebrate her upcoming birthday. Then he casually pressed his government-issued handgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.</br></br>"It was the ugliest sound I ever heard in my life," his widow, Toni DeLaCruz, recalled of that day last November. "He just collapsed." A month later, one of DeLaCruz's colleagues at the Fort Hancock border post shot himself, too.</br></br>Suicides such as these have set off alarms throughout the agency responsible for policing the nation's borders. After nearly four years without a single suicide in its ranks, the Border Patrol has had at least 15 agents take their own lives since February 2008.</br></br>It's unclear why the agents killed themselves. Few of them left notes. And the agency seems somewhat at odds with itself over the issue.</br></br>Federal officials insist that the deaths have nothing to do with the Border Patrol, which has doubled in size since 2004, or the increasingly volatile U.S.-Mexican border. But administrators have quietly undertaken urgent suicide-prevention initiatives, including special training for supervisors, videos about warning signs and educational programs for 22,000 agents nationwide. | no | 0 |
Poland's Determination for Reform May Be a Model for the Rest of Europe | Author: Irwin Stelzer</br></br>America was a big loser in the recent Polish presidential election. The Law and Justice Party's pro-American Jaroslaw Kaczynski lost his presidential bid to more Europe-oriented Bronislaw Komorowski's Civic Platform.</br></br>Mr. Komorowski knows that Barack Obama sacrificed the missile defense system he had promised Poland in pursuit his goal of a "reset" to U.S. relations with Russia. And that Mr. Obama failed to visit NATO-ally Poland on his trips to Europe.</br></br>Which explains the desire of Poland's new president to improve his nation's ties to Europe rather than maintain the rigidly Atlanticist policy of his predecessor, and to improve relations with his Russian neighbor. Despite the made-in-Greece upset to the euro, Mr. Komorowski holds to his plan to trade in Poland's zloty for the euro, although not immediately.</br></br>America's president has invited his new Polish counterpart to him to visit the White House, to discuss Mr. Komorowski's plan to withdraw Poland's troops, the seventh-largest contingent, from Afghanistan. Both men will welcome the traditional photo-op such visits produce. Especially Mr. Obama. After all, congressional elections are looming, and a significant number of Polish voters are concentrated in several key congressional districts, not least among them several in Mr. Obama's home town of Chicago, which has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. | no | 0 |
Bernanke Criticizes Fannie, Freddie Bill | In his first appearance before Congress as Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke picked up where Alan Greenspan left off, criticizing a House bill that would strengthen oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for not going far enough to rein in the companies' investment portfolios.</br></br>Bernanke said the House bill would not give a new regulator for the two companies "sufficiently strong guidance" on how to regulate the portfolios, which he and others think have grown so large that they threaten the stability of the financial system.</br></br>"I understand the good intentions underlying the House bill, but I feel it does not solve the problems and therefore if we were to go with that bill, we would be missing the last opportunity we will have in many years to really address these problems," Bernanke said.</br></br>Congress is considering legislation to tighten oversight of the two companies after multibillion-dollar accounting scandals.</br></br>The bill Bernanke took issue with yesterday passed the House last fall. Critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including Greenspan, prefer a Senate bill that would force the companies to sell much of their investment holdings. | no | 0 |
J.P. Morgan to Take a Pretax Charge Of $100 Million in 4th Period Due to Cuts | J.P. Morgan & Co., still buffeted by this fall's tumultuous markets, said it would take a pretax charge of $100 million in the fourth quarter because of cost-cutting, and warned that operating earnings for the quarter would be weaker than those of the third quarter.</br></br>The forecast of weaker earnings is another sign that global markets are still a drag on corporate performance despite the resurgence of the stock market. The nation's fourth-largest bank attributed the expected quarterly shortfall to reduced revenue in its proprietary equity investments and trading, activities which were slammed during the roller-coaster markets of September and October.</br></br>The disclosure hit the company's shares, which dropped $2.375 to close at $104.1875 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.</br></br>But J.P. Morgan said both the number of clients and revenue from many investment-banking activities had picked up during the quarter. J.P. Morgan recently has been an agent or adviser on several high-profile deals, including the advice it provided in the $75.3 billion merger of Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp. "Our position is strong going into the new year as markets recover," said a company spokesman.</br></br>The charge relates to J.P. Morgan's continuing cost-cutting plan. The company previously said it planned to cut about 5% of its employees, or roughly 740 people, during the fourth quarter in piecemeal fashion. J.P. Morgan, which has been hampered by high costs in recent years, has said it plans to cut $400 million in core expenses in 1999, while reinvesting at least $100 million in additional savings it expects from cost cuts. | no | 0 |
Deals & Deal Makers: E*Trade's Switch to Big Board Leaves Nasdaq With Bad Taste | Corrections & Amplifications</br></br>THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE asks that issuers wanting to list on the exchange have three years of profits, which add up to at least $6.5 million in total. A Deals & Deal Makers article yesterday incorrectly said the exchange asks for market capitalizations of that amount. The required market cap for companies that are joining the exchange from other markets is $100 million. (WSJ Feb. 14, 2001)</br></br>The stock of E*Trade Group Inc. goes to its new home this week, and its former stock-market landlord is still steaming.</br></br>As announced last month, shares of the Menlo Park, Calif., online brokerage firm will leave the Nasdaq Stock Market on Thursday and start trading on the rival New York Stock Exchange. Many companies have left Nasdaq for the NYSE over the years, of course, but this defection is particularly sensitive -- and not just because it's the first one of 2001 or because E*Trade has been a Nasdaq stalwart since its initial public offering of stock in 1996.</br></br>Why does it grate on Nasdaq? Officials at the electronic marketplace say they're still irked at how E*Trade chose to break the news to them. | no | 0 |
Downturn Made States and Cities More Dependent on Property Taxes | A new analysis shows that cash-strapped state and local governments have increasingly come to depend on property taxes to fill revenue shortfalls as other sources of income soured.</br></br>Though not an unexpected trend during economic downturns, the reliance on property taxes has lasted well beyond the end of the recession of 2001. Economists say it is has been of greater depth, and likely will have more lasting consequences, than it did during prior downturns.</br></br>In good part, that's because the soaring housing market has lifted the median price of single-family homes by 15%, making property taxes attractive to state and municipal governments facing spending increases. Meanwhile, states have grown more reluctant to lift income or sales taxes in recent years for fear of political retribution, economists say. In some cases, they are even prevented from doing so by laws passed during the 1990s boom.</br></br>"The local property tax is one tax the local [authorities] can use to offset declines in state money," says William Fischel, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College. "To some extent, if the state is sending municipalities or even school districts less money because they're in fiscally difficult times, the one tax the local [authorities] have some discretion over raising is the property tax."</br></br>Though municipalities can offset rising property values by changing their millage rates, or the rates at which taxes are levied on properties, many strapped municipalities chose not to do so in recent years. "Ultimately, what determines whether property taxes go up is the overall budget for the taxing district," says Matt Gardner, state- tax-policy director with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C. | yes | 1 |
The Tsunami Aftermath: Next Challenge For Survivors: Stress Disorder | Long after acute needs for food, water, shelter and medicine are met, survivors of the Asian tsunami may suffer an invisible but disabling illness -- post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD -- that could complicate physical and economic recovery in the stricken regions.</br></br>Millions now are suffering acute shock and depression after witnessing the sea swallow their relatives and homes. For some -- estimates range widely from 10% to 50% of survivors -- traumatic stress and major depression could last months or years, preventing the return to work, school or family duties.</br></br>Watching a mate or child drown while being helpless to save them "can haunt a person for the rest of their life," says Ronald Kessler, professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and director of the World Health Organization's World Mental Health surveys.</br></br>"Mental disorders of the sort that are likely to occur as a result of the tsunami can lead to averages of 20 days or more of lost productivity per year among working people," says Dr. Kessler, extrapolating from U.S. studies. Others won't be able to return to work for longer periods, he adds, with still graver impact on a developing-country economy.</br></br>The WHO is offering quick courses in disaster mental-health training to Sri Lankan medical students, he adds. | no | 0 |
Civil Servants: Underpaid and Unloved | I've been following the recent revelation that federal employees are underpaid by 28.6 percent {"Federal Workers Underpaid by 28.6 Percent, Panel Says," Aug. 23}. Let me tell you, it's true. I know because I work for the government. But I'm not the president, so there's not really a whole lot I can do about it.</br></br>However, I've come up with a solution to the problem that won't infringe on President Bush's promise not to raise taxes, won't increase the budget deficit and won't make a difference in foreign affairs. The answer is simple. Instead of increasing salaries a certain percentage, the difference can be reconciled by decreasing the hours in the work week.</br></br>For example, let's say I make $24,000 a year (I don't, but let's say I do). I work eight hours a day, five days a week. I get half an hour for lunch, so I'm "at work" 8.5 hours a day. Now, in January, with my puny little 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment, I'll be earning $25,000. In all fairness, it should be raised to $31,250 to match the same job in the private sector.</br></br>We all know the chances of that happening are nil. That's why we should simply add another day to federal employees' weekends. The figures justify the action. You take 25 percent from the 40-hour work week, and you're left with 30 hours. You divide that by four days and you have a 7.5 hour day. Now, you add an hour for lunch and you have 8.5 hours "at work." The only difference is the three-day weekend. The salaries stay the same, and the increase in the deficit can be blamed on something else. The workers will be happier, better rested and more productive. All at no extra cost to the taxpayers. Who could complain? ERIC B. FERIS Fairfax</br></br>Federal civil servants have no natural constituency and are, therefore, less worthy of a pay raise than retired federal civil servants. Civil servants may expect a 3.6 percent pay increase, while their retired brethren may expect a pay increase well over 4 percent. It all makes perfect nonsense and will be, as it has been heretofore, rationalized to death. | no | 0 |
Basic Factors Point to More Inflation | InflationÛÓthatÛªs the new mood. The steel strike, the drought, and Government pronouncements are conspiring to produce it.</br></br>Iron Age magazine says the scramble for steel will be like a three-ring circus, with everyone trying to get into the act. Not only that, but the 21-cent-an-hour wage package is an inspiration, a target, for the labor unions, such as the electrical workers and the coal miners.</br></br>Finally, Price Administrator Ellis Arnall has suggested to President Truman that a special session of Congress be called to halt inflationary price advances. Neither his control powers nor his budget are sufficient to stem the incoming tide. Thus, Arnall puts householders on notice that higher prices are on the way.. I</br></br>All the fundamentalsÛÓthe basic business factorsÛÓpoint to | inflation. Standard & PoorÛªs Corp. expects a ÛÏnew boom through | early 1953.Û Fortune magazine feels that the steel strike has i created shortages which ÛÏthreaten substantial advances in heavy-' goods prices.Û |</br></br>Of far greater significance, the Federal Reserve Board is i sitting tight on bank credit. You can judge that from the : Government bond market. ItÛªs so weak that the Treasury I has. just had to offer one-year paper at a 2 percent rate. Two ! years ago, one-year paper was quoted around 1 1/4 percent. j | no | 0 |
Bush Adviser Says That U.S. Punishment Of Trade Partners Could Cause Recession | WASHINGTON -- Michael Boskin, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, warned that U.S. efforts to retaliate against its trading partners could cause a "world-wide recession."</br></br>Mr. Boskin's strong comments, coming in the midst of an administration debate over trade policy, seemed to be aimed at other administration officials as well as at members of Congress and business groups pushing for tough trade action.</br></br>"While there are some unfair trading practices out there and those need to be rooted out," Mr. Boskin said, "they are not the cause of our trade deficit, other than a small part of it. And it is my view that if we wind up with a series of these retaliatory measures with our trade partners . . . it will not only cause a recession in the United States, it will cause a world-wide recession."</br></br>Trade Representative Carla Hills announced on Friday that the U.S. may retaliate against Japan for limiting U.S. access to its telecommunications market. In addition, taking the first step in a new trade process that eventually could lead to retaliatory action against a number of major U.S. trading partners, the trade representative released a review of foreign trade barriers.</br></br>Mr. Boskin has argued within the administration to tone down attacks against foreign trading practices. "I think we are starting to see an immense amount of bashing of our allies and trade partners," he said yesterday. "I think far and away the biggest danger to the economy is the incredible gathering momentum that could well produce a trade war," he said. | no | 0 |
Fed Leaves Interest Rates Unchanged --- Policy Makers Don't Fear Threat From Inflation; Factory Orders Increase | WASHINGTON -- Despite continuing signs of economic momentum, the Federal Reserve still isn't convinced that growth is so strong that it is straining capacity and threatening higher inflation.</br></br>After a two-day meeting that ended Wednesday, the Fed's policy-making committee voted to leave short-term interest rates unchanged. Whether it tightens rates at its next policy session Aug. 20 -- as many economists expect -- depends on what signals the economy sends on prices and growth in the next few weeks.</br></br>"There just wasn't enough evidence yet," said Chris Varvares, an economist with Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis forecasting firm. "Core prices are still decelerating, and there are clear signs that the burst of strength in the second quarter will slow to a more sustainable level during the second half."</br></br>Over the next six weeks, the Fed will get critical new economic data, beginning this morning with new payroll and unemployment numbers. Also due soon are consumer and wholesale prices, retail sales, wages and the first estimate of total second-quarter growth. Many economists expect that number to exceed a 4% annual rate, compared with 2.2% in the first quarter -- well above the level thought to be sustainable without higher inflation, given today's tight labor markets.</br></br>In their deliberations, Fed policy makers had to look ahead into next year and would have tightened rates if they saw a clear threat of unsustainable growth leading to rising inflation. One factor that may have helped forestall a rate increase was the rising value of the dollar compared with the yen and mark, a rise that will brake the economy by cooling the booming export sector. | yes | 1 |
U.S. Industrial Output Rises | Output of American factories, mines and utilities showed a small increase last month, the Federal Reserve</br></br>The FedÛªs index of in-' dustrial production edged up from 164.1 per cent of the 1957-59 average in May to 164.4 after seasonal adjustment with consumer goods and defense equipment rising and business equipment and materials unchanged.</br></br>Most of this advance came in the second half of 1967, however. Despite concern of Administration analysts that the economy has become overheated, the increase in industrial output over the past six months has been only IV2 per cent (an annual rate of 3 per cent).</br></br>Department reported that manufacturing and trade inventories rose $650 million in May on a seasonally-adjusted basisÛÓabout half the April total but nearly twice the $350 million monthly average of the first quarter.</br></br>But since factory and trade sales rose 2 per cent in May to a record $95.2 billion, the inventory-sales ratio fell from 1.54 in April to 1.51. This compared to 1.57 in May of last year. This is reassuring to economists who fear an economic slowdown if inventories should become excessive. | yes | 1 |
Corporate News: Rite Aid's Loss Widens as Revenue Declines | NEW YORK-- Rite Aid Corp. posted a wider fiscal second-quarter loss as revenue fell amid store closures and fewer prescription sales. The drugstore chain also forecast a wider loss for the year.</br></br>The Camp Hill, Pa., company now expects a loss for the current fiscal year of 46 cents to 67 cents a share. In March, the company forecast a full-year loss of 41 cents to 65 cents a share.</br></br>Rite Aid also Thursday cut its revenue forecast by $200 million, and is now expected to post between $25 billion and $25.4 billion.</br></br>In 4 p.m. composite trading, Rite Aid shares were down 14% to 95 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.</br></br>The drugstore chain's cost-cutting and refinancing have failed to lift results since its 2007 acquisition of Brooks Eckerd, which saddled the company with debt just before a pullback in consumer spending. Sales have remained weak and have been especially sluggish at the pharmacy as consumers are using fewer medical services. | yes | 1 |
Dollar Is Poised for a Leap If Trade Data Are Positive, Analysts and Traders Say | NEW YORK -- The dollar is flirting with what are believed to be the upper limits set for its trading range by the Group of Seven nations, and it could try to go past them if tomorrow's trade report is bullish.</br></br>And if the trade news is less positive, currency analysts and traders say, the past week's rises in U.S. interest rates will probably limit the currency's fall.</br></br>If the June U.S. merchandise trade deficit is substantially narrower than May's seasonally adjusted $10.93 billion, "there's no way they'll be able to hold (the dollar) at 1.90 marks," says Thomas Benfer, a foreign exchange marketing representative for Bank of Montreal's New York branch.</br></br>He says major central banks are apparently comfortable with a dollar range of about 1.80 to 1.90 marks at this time. But he says the U.S. currency could be pushed to 1.95 marks by favorable trade data.</br></br>However, many economists and currency traders seem to have doubts that the trade data will be that positive, and West German Finance Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg said Thursday that a dollar higher than 1.90 marks could have a negative impact on the West German economy. | no | 0 |
Dollar Gains on Rise In Key Indicator; Gold Declines 50 Cents --- A Wall Street Journal News Roundup | The U.S. dollar strengthened against major foreign currencies yesterday, partly in response to the larger-than-expected rise of 0.7% in February's U.S. leading indicators.</br></br>Gold declined 50 cents an ounce in trading that was cut short by a New York snowstorm.</br></br>Foreign-exchange traders said the February rise in U.S. leading indicators -- which suggest rapid economic growth in the months ahead -- more than offset the almost simultaneous announcement that the U.S. merchandise trade deficit last month widened to a record $10.09 billion. "The fact that the leading indicators figure came out at about the same time as the trade deficit tended to blunt the effect of the latter," said Barry M. Wainstein, a vice president of BankAmerica International, New York.</br></br>Although the foreign-exchange market had generally been expecting a smaller February trade deficit, said Bruce Pflaum, an assistant vice president and principal dealer of First National Bank of Chicago, "a few people had warned that the deficit could reach to between $10 billion and $11 billion, so the market wasn't all that surprised by the number. But the rise in February's leading indicators was more than almost anyone had expected." The general market expectation had been that the February U.S. leading indicators would advance by 0.2% to 0.4%.</br></br>Both Mr. Pflaum and Mr. Wainstein also said traders purchased dollars yesterday to cover short positions. Those short positions stemmed from dollar sales on Wednesday that brought the U.S. currency down to 2.5713 West German marks in late New York trading that day. | no | 0 |
Inflation in January Rose Scant 0.1%, As Clothing Prices Continued to Drop | WASHINGTON -- Consumer prices increased a scant 0.1% last month, as prices for certain consumer goods -- notably clothing -- continued to fall.</br></br>January's meager inflation rate was the same as December's, and over the past year consumer prices have climbed just 1.7%, the Labor Department said Friday. Excluding food and energy prices, considered to be volatile sectors, consumer prices rose a similar 0.1% in January, following a 0.3% increase in December.</br></br>To better understand just how well-behaved inflation is, it helps to look at particular sectors. For example, while prices overall crept up, apparel prices plunged in January by 1.1%, after a 0.6% drop in December. Over the past year, clothing prices fell 1.4% compared to a 0.4% increase the previous year.</br></br>Women's apparel fell 1.9% last month compared to a 0.6% drop in December, while footwear dropped 0.9% following a 0.6% decline. Energy prices, which fell 0.2% in January, helped to keep the overall transportation figure down, despite a 0.1% rise in gasoline prices.</br></br>Tobacco prices jumped 6.6% after a 18.5% spike in December, and air fares rose 1.8%, following recent announcements by major airlines of across-the-board fare increases. | no | 0 |
Dealers Vie for Securities Linked to AIG Rescue | NEW YORK -- At least six Wall Street banks are preparing bids for more than $7 billion in complex commercial-mortgage securities tied to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's 2008 bailout of American International Group Inc., according to investors briefed by dealers.</br></br>Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays PLC are preparing bids for the debt securities, the investors said.</br></br>The dealers are focused on so-called commercial-real-estate collateralized-debt obligations, which are part of the $47 billion of debt held by the New York Fed portfolio known as Maiden Lane III. The dealers are primarily focused on dismantling the instruments because the underlying commercial mortgage-backed securities are worth more as individual pieces and could likely generate more trading revenue, the investors said.</br></br>The liquidation rests on the elimination of an interest-rate swap with Barclays, the counterparty in the derivative transaction. As the swap was arranged when interest rates were higher, the contract has risen in value and would require a payment of more than $1 billion to Barclays if the CDO was unwound, two of the investors said.</br></br>Spokesmen for Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and the New York Fed declined to comment. | no | 0 |
The Chairman's Mystique | The paradox of Alan Greenspan's achievement as he leaves office today after 18 years as Chairman of the Federal Reserve is that nearly everyone is praising his performance but no one seems to know exactly how he did it. He bequeaths to successor Ben Bernanke a record but not a method -- which means we all have to see if the new guy has the same juggling skills.</br></br>As no less an authority than Milton Friedman notes nearby, this monetary eclecticism hasn't detracted from Mr. Greenspan's historical accomplishment. With a blip or two along the way, he has continued the progress toward price stability begun at the Fed under Paul Volcker. He also steered the economy through or around more than one major crisis, including the stock market crash of 1987 and the savings and loan debacle of a couple of years later.</br></br>We'd give Mr. Greenspan less credit than the conventional wisdom does for his handling of the foreign-exchange crises of the 1990s. His willingness to join Robert Rubin in bailing out Mexico's foreign-debt holders in 1994 accentuated the moral hazard that led to the Asian and Russian crises later that decade. The Bush Administration's change of policy in refusing to bail out such global deadbeats as Argentina has done more to limit currency crises than those episodes did.</br></br>On the other hand, Mr. Greenspan deserves more praise than he typically receives for his stewardship over financial markets. He has tried to demystify the widespread use of credit derivatives, which have helped financial institutions diversify their risk. One happy result is fewer bank failures than in previous recessions or periods of rising interest rates. This Greenspan contribution will be especially missed, since no one else has the same stature to counter the misguided fears tossed around by Warren Buffett and other media favorites.</br></br>Another misguided critique of the Greenspan era is the recent preoccupation with "global imbalances." This is an updated version of the 1980s' alarums over the U.S. "twin deficits," in the trade account and federal budget. The fear now as then is that the trade deficit in particular is "unsustainable," and that it will lead to a crash in the dollar and thus in the global economy. The conventional wisdom's proffered cure, now as then, is a major U.S. tax increase. | no | 0 |
Arthur G. Purves (R) Age: 58 ... | Education: BA, natural science, MS, systems engineering, MBA, decision science, University of Pennsylvania.</br></br>Elected offices/civic activities: President, Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance; member, Fairfax Committee of 100; past member, Fairfax County schools family life education advisory committee, professional and technical studies advisory committee, superintendent's advisory committee for the Fairfax Framework for Student Success; past president, Thomas Jefferson High School crew boosters; former Scoutmaster.</br></br>"Runaway taxes and government spending. Real estate taxes doubled between 2000 and 2007. The state raised taxes for transportation and imposed abusive-driver fees even though the state was running billion-dollar surpluses. Public school staff, statewide and in Fairfax County, is increasing two to three times faster than enrollment. Inflation-adjusted Medicaid spending is increasing five times faster than population. Government employees get generous pensions while the taxpayers are losing theirs. Also, between 2000 and 2007, county employees got 5 percent annual raises while taxpayer incomes were increasing 2 percent annually." "My opponent voted for abusive-driver fees and higher taxes while soaring school and Medicaid spending were perpetuating the problems they were supposed to solve."</br></br>Education: BA, Fairfield University; MA, public policy, Georgetown University; JD, University of Virginia.</br></br>Elected offices/civic activities: Member, Virginia House of Delegates, 2004-present; co-founder, Metropolitan Washington Amber Alert system; member, Lions International, Governor's Commission on Sexual Violence, Legislative Commission on Fuel Efficiency. | no | 0 |
Off Welfare and on to Work | Squeezed by the recession, states are under great pressure to cut spending, and many have responded in part by reducing or proposing to reduce welfare benefits. This movement threatens to obscure the nascent effort, just entering its third year, to help mothers break their complete dependency on welfare through work. It is an effort that could also save money, though that isnÛªt its major purpose.</br></br>Because welfare developments donÛªt get much public attention, many people may have missed or forgotten the striking series of changes in federal policy designed to reduce welfare rolls by encouraging work.</br></br>The seminal legislation was the bipartisan Family Support Act of 1988. This legislation provided states with several billion dollars over five years to pay for education, training, child care and other services intended to help mothers leave welfare for workÛÓincluding one year of health benefits and day care after leaving welfare.</br></br>Congress and Presidents Reagan and Bush have collaborated on several other pieces of legislation designed to help promote work. The 1986 tax reform bill eliminated or dramatically reduced federal taxes for low-income workers. The bill also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, an earnings subsidy paid by the federal government to low-income working families with children. In 1990 Congress and President Bush expanded the EITC even more. By 1994, many working families will be eligible for up to $2,400 in cash wage supplements.</br></br>We have also strengthened the nationÛªs child support enforcement program, expanded federal support for day care and broadened government support for health insurance, all on a bipartisan basis. | yes | 1 |
JOBS Plan Criticized By the GAO | The governmentÛªs joint effort with business to hire and train the poor ÛÏmay simply be shifting the burden of unemployment from the disadvantaged to other persons not so categorized,Û the General Accounting Office said yesterday.</br></br>The GAO, the governmentÛªs watchdog over its own spending, also cited ÛÏstrong indications" that the Labor Department is not monitoring Job Opportunities in tlie Business Sector (JOBS) adequately.</br></br>It said some JOBS contracts between the department and private employers appear to' contain unreasonably high costs, to be subject to errors of billing, to commit the companies to hire more persons : than needed, to fail to supply trainees with required serv-i ices and to enlist some work-i ers well above poverty levels.</br></br>In presenting testimony for i the GAO, associate director i Henry Eschwege of the civil I division said ÛÏwe are not sur-i prised that it (JOBS) is experi-Ûª encing the problems and grow-i ing pains that typically go with a new program.Û</br></br>GAOÛªs general impression is that the program ÛÏhas served jto focus the attention of businessmen on the need to hire and train the disadvantaged and that it has undoubtedly helped some disadvantaged persons obtain gainful employment,Û Eschwege said. ÛÏWe would hope that the results of our review efforts currently under way will serve to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the JOBS program.Û ÐÊ cials of the business arm of the JOBS program charged that a subcommittee staff and the handling of it in the press had done their efforts irreparable harm. | no | 0 |
Bush Accepts Some Blame for Economy in a New Hampshire Campaign Stop | PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- A penitent George Bush made his first re-election campaign appearance in New Hampshire and accepted part of the blame for the "free fall" in the nation's economy.</br></br>"I think I've known this economy is in free fall," President Bush told New Hampshire business and community leaders assembled in a drafty hangar at an abandoned Air Force base here. "Maybe I have not conveyed it as well as I should," he said, "but I do understand it."</br></br>The president also said that while interest rates are "at a wonderful level, I'd like to see them down further, frankly." He added that he believed the lower rates "will kick in and will stimulate investment."</br></br>Voters in recession-ravaged New Hampshire are angry, and many of them are paying heed to conservative columnist and commentator Patrick Buchanan, Mr. Bush's Republican rival in the U.S.'s first presidential primary Feb. 18. "New Hampshire," the president conceded, "has gone through hell."</br></br>Mr. Bush spent 12 hours in the state, making six appearances, trying to convince New Hampshire voters that he understands their problems, cares about their welfare, and is planning programs he will outline in his State of the Union address Jan. 28 to alleviate their burdens. | yes | 1 |
Credit Control Program End Is Predicted | The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said yesterday the credit controls program was having little effect on consumer spending and predicted the program would be phased out gradually.</br></br>Frank Morris told a meeting of state treasurers from the Northeast that ÛÏif it werenÛªt for the psychological aspect of it we would chuck it overnight.Û</br></br>The Federal Reserve Board, in coordination with the Carter administration, already has phased out part of the controls program, and sources close to the central bank had indicated fur- ÐÊÐÊ ther abandonment of the program later this month after Fed Chairman Paul A. Volcker returned from a visit to China. Volcker returned to Washington yesterday.</br></br>Morris told the Saratoga Springs, N.Y., gathering that the current restraint in consumer spending was the result of the recession and not the credit controls program. ÛÏI donÛªt think removal of the program is going to produce a big upsurge in consumer spend-, ing,Û Morris said.</br></br>He said consumers were not spending because many of them already were carrying a large debt load and were afraid of losing their jobs in the recession. | no | 0 |
Soft Selling: Advertisers Make Their Pitches on Floppy Disks | LATER THIS MONTH, Buick will run magazine ads encouraging consumers to write in for a copy of its 1987 sales brochure. But not just anyone will qualify for one, and it will hardly be your run-of-the-mill auto catalog. What the General Motors division plans to do is mail 20,000 floppy disks to users of Apple personal computers. The strategy: Create a high-tech image for Buick while also making car shopping easier and more fun.</br></br>When people pop the software into a computer, the screen will light up with animated drawings of pistons and crankshafts chugging away and shock absorbers bouncing up and down. By pressing a few buttons, computer users can load the trunk with luggage and place stick-figure drawings of Mom, Dad, Junior and the family dog into the car's seats. Getting down to more serious business, they will be able to compare the standard equipment and mileage of a Buick with such competitive makes as Nissan and BMW, and calculate their monthly payments for different Buick models. "Our disk allows people to ask questions at their leisure without all the sales pressure of a dealer showroom," says Patrick Harrison, a Buick marketing manager.</br></br>Buick is on the inside track of a brand new advertising medium. As personal computers spread to more homes and offices, a growing number of direct marketers are putting their sales spiels on software which they believe will get lots more attention than yet another glossy catalog. "Most brochures end up in the garbage, but a computer diskette will at least arouse people's curiosity to take a look," says Jeff Einstein, president of Einstein Automation Solutions Inc., a New York company that puts ads on floppy disks.</br></br>SO FAR, floppy disks are being tested mainly by marketers of automobiles and financial services, including Chase Manhattan Bank, GM's Chevrolet division and Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln-Mercury division. Equitable Life Assurance Society is developing a disk for its insurance agents to hand out, and Merrill Lynch & Co. is considering disks as a new method for selling brokerage services. "Floppy disks reach only a small audience, but the people who work with computers are an excellent demographic target for us," says Mary Rudie, director of marketing services at Merrill Lynch. SoftAd Group, the Sausalito, Calif., firm that designed the Buick floppy disk, notes that about 75% of PC users are college graduates with a median household income of more than $45,000.</br></br>"Software certainly isn't the right medium for selling toothpaste," says Paula George, president of SoftAd. "But it would work for electronic equipment like VCRs and other expensive products that involve a complex selling message." | no | 0 |
MARYLAND; Campaign Notebook | Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening has been almost invisible while his fellow Democrat and political partner of eight years, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, has campaigned to succeed him.</br></br>But starting this week, he will be reappear, courtesy of Townsend's Republican opponent, Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Ehrlich unveiled a television ad yesterday that prominently features Glendening, a move clearly intended to exploit the governor's eroding popularity.</br></br>The spot opens with Glendening saying: "Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and I are proud of our record. We're very proud of our record." A voice-over follows, describing the state's $1.7 billion budget deficit, its troubled criminal justice system, and a recent failure to complete background checks for some gun owners.</br></br>"Bob Ehrlich is a candidate who started his campaign on a negative note, who has stayed negative the entire campaign and who is getting nastier and nastier as we get close to Election Day," said Peter Hamm, a Townsend spokesman.</br></br>Hamm added, "If Bob Ehrlich thinks he's running against Parris Glendening, he's going to be very surprised when he loses to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend next Tuesday." | no | 0 |
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