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Pastimes : The Justa & Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wally Mastroly who wrote (8713)	9/21/1999 12:15:00 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 15132

Don't know if anyone here is following the PEI/Martin Armstrong scandal, but here is PEI's initial statement of defense, if interested: Message 11314172 (Details of the charges against Armstrong are a few posts earlier on the same thread.)

To: Wally Mastroly who wrote (8713)	9/21/1999 1:29:00 PM
From: Wally Mastroly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15132

* FED Watch * Here's Fergy - full speech at bottom link: Fed's Ferguson-low inflation spurs US productivity- WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - A scarce supply of workers and low inflation are purring companies to become more productive, Federal Reserve Governor Roger Ferguson said on Tuesday. ''With new workers increasingly difficult to hire in a tight labor market, firms have an increased incentive to find new and more efficient ways to use existing labor resources,'' Ferguson said in prepared remarks for delivery to a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Bosch Institute in Pittsburgh, Pa. A text was issued in advance in Washington. He said that low inflation was a second factor helping to foster more production. ''In the presence of subdued inflation expectations, the first inclination of firms in the face of rising demand for their output, thus far at least, appears not to have been to raise prices but rather to find ways to expand output via more efficient means of production,'' Ferguson said. He noted that there has been an ''explosion'' in the uses of information technology in recent years, corresponding with a surge in U.S. productivity growth to its highest rate since the 1970s. Ferguson said there were special features of the U.S. economy that helped translate potential gains from information technology into actual productivity growth. They included cost-cutting measures that are driven by efforts to increase shareholder value and a willingness by employees to acquire new technical skills to remain efficient in a computer-driven society. Ferguson cautioned that the United States could not expect to see technology-driven productivity gains continue indefinitely at their current pace. ''It is clear that other countries, many of which are less far along in reaping the benefits associated with the revolution in information technology, have the potential to gain more over the period ahead,'' he said. Ferguson noted that on one measure alone -- managing cash flow in American versus European firms -- European companies had costs that were about 30 percent above those of U.S. firms at this point because they have been slow to adopt information and other computer-based technologies. biz.yahoo.com - Full prepared speech: Is Information Technology the Key to Higher Productivity Growth in the United States and Abroad? bog.frb.fed.us