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To: Giraffe who wrote (26029)	1/12/1999 4:01:00 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116897

OK, "These are the best of times" Right? look at these numbers: TYPE AND CHAPTER 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total, filed 725,484 972,490 918,734 845,257 858,104 1,042,110 1,316,999 Business \1 64,688 72,650 66,428 56,748 51,288 52,938 53,993 Nonbusiness \2 660,796 899,840 852,306 788,509 806,816 989,172 1,263,006 OK, everyone tells us we should forget about the non-business numbers - forgotten. Why are there still +50k business failures each year?

To: Giraffe who wrote (26029)	1/12/1999 4:30:00 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116897

At last,here is something we can do better than anyone else in the world: bos.business.uab.edu spend! sorry,. we can also print some money: bos.business.uab.edu

To: Giraffe who wrote (26029)	1/12/1999 7:06:00 PM
From: Zardoz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116897

"Not a very cheerful day on GPM" Speak for yourself, I'm holding back the laughter, I thought the day was fine. Now you can buy some more gold stocks if you're a believer. I still would've like to seen the Gold Stocks climb, though... so I could short them at a higher price. PS: I neither made, nor lost anything today. AKA the laughter.

To: Giraffe who wrote (26029)	1/12/1999 9:25:00 PM
From: Giraffe	Respond to of 116897

Key U.S. senator calls Fed econ reports low priority By Joanne Morrison WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve chairman's twice-yearly report to Congress, a two-decade-old practice, is a low priority for the Senate Banking Committee and could come to an end this year, the panel's new chairman said Tuesday. But his counterpart in the House of Representatives said he wanted Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to continue to give the regular economic reports before his committee. The so-called Humphrey-Hawkins hearings, held by the banking committees in both chambers of Congress, are a key event in the financial calendar. Financial market players watch live television coverage of the hearings closely to hear the world's most powerful central banker give his detailed views and answer lawmakers' questions about the economy and monetary policy. But Sen. Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican who wants to focus on financial services reform this year, said the hearings had outlived their usefulness and would be phased out under a law passed four years ago. ''This could be the last one that we have,'' Gramm told a news conference at which he outlined his agenda for 1999. ''It has had its day.'' The hearings, established to make the central bank more accountable, are to be scrapped by the end of this year under the 1995 Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act. The law set a four-year target for a series of government reports to be phased out. ''We have come to the end of the process,'' Gramm said. But House Banking Committee Chairman James Leach said later that ''it would be, from the House's perspective, unthinkable not to hold the Fed precisely and regularly accountable for its conduct of monetary policy.'' Leach, a Republican congressman from Iowa, vowed that regardless of any legislative mandate, he would still expect the Federal Reserve chairman to report to the House panel twice a year. Gramm said the hearings -- known officially as the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 -- may survive in the Senate as well, if members of the committee decide they still want them. "If some of them feel strongly about it we will look at it. But we've had it at a period when Congress felt it was important ... I don't see it on the agenda now. ''As I look at things we ought to do and work we've got to do, I don't see this as being very high on my priority list,'' Gramm added. The Senate Banking Committee's ranking Democratic member, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, could not be reached for comment on the potential closure of the hearings. Former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley said there is ''no urgency'' in setting such congressionally mandated hearings. ''I do think it has been useful over the years for the Fed to communicate to the Congress and to the public, but there are other ways to do this,'' Gramley said. Former Fed Governor Susan Phillips noted that the economic report presented by Greenspan is prepared collectively by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed's policy making arm that includes all Federal Reserve governors. ''I thought it was a good communication device between the FOMC and Congress, and that then makes a natural public forum,'' Phillips said. ''There is a lot of care given in the writing of that report. The FOMC members take it really quite seriously.'' ''In the absence of those hearings, if the Fed has a message to communicate, it can do so in other ways,'' Gramley, who now advises the Mortgage Bankers Association, added. The Federal Reserve said the expiration of the authorization for the Humphrey-Hawkins hearings would necessitate talks between Congress and the central bank. There has been a feeling in Congress that Humphrey-Hawkins is outdated because of its focus on the supply of money in the economy, a preoccupation of policymakers at the end of the 1970s. The Fed has since abandoned money supply targets. ''Obviously there will need to be discussions about the act in which we will participate,'' a Fed spokeswoman said. ''In the meantime, Chairman Greenspan is preparing for February's report.'' The hearings are usually held in February and July but Gramm said a date for next month's testimony had not been set yet.

To: Giraffe who wrote (26029)	1/12/1999 9:27:00 PM
From: Giraffe	Respond to of 116897

Brazil's state debt debacle jolts global markets (updates with market closings and reactions, Menem remarks, governors' statement) By Mary Milliken SAO PAULO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso tried to soothe jittery investors on Tuesday as the decision by the country's third-largest state to suspend debt payments to the government threatened financial havoc. ''The market can calm down, the government knows what it's doing, what it's going to do,'' Cardoso told reporters in Rio de Janeiro before leaving for a short seaside vacation. ''We will pay our debts, all will honor their debts.'' Brazil was plunged into chaos last week when Minas Gerais, its third-biggest state, declared a 90-day moratorium on debt payments to the federal government. Cardoso's confident words, as well as a declaration of support from the United States, appeared to fall on deaf ears, both at home and abroad. Worries that Latin America's giants may be dragged again towards devaluation translated into heavy capital flight, estimated at a net $935 million on Tuesday -- or the same level posted at the height of Brazil's turmoil last September. If Tuesday's capital outflow is confirmed, $2 billion will have left the country since the beginning of the month. That compares with reserves two weeks ago of $38 billion, excluding a $9 billion installment payment for international loans. Traders also reported that Brazil's Central Bank had to support the real by selling dollars to keep the currency in its crawling band. The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange's losses deepened in the afternoon, pushing the key index dangerously close to the 10 percent level at which a circuit-breaker would have been activated. It crawled back a bit, but still closed with a 7.6 percent drop. European stock markets, worried about the fate of the world's eighth largest economy, also fell. Spain's blue-chip companies with heavy investments in Brazil led the Spanish stock market down 2.3 percent at closing. Other Latin exchanges were dragged down by the region's kingpin. Argentina's MerVal index .was down 3.5 percent in late trade, while Mexico's IPC index slumped 3 percent. As Brazil turned bleaker, the benchmark 30-year U.S. Treasury bond gained ground as investors fled to safer investments than the fragile emerging markets. Allies rushed to support Cardoso on Tuesday, beginning with U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who said the Brazilian leader had the support of the global community in his economic reform program. But Rubin added later that there were ''no certainties'' of success. On the basis of the reform pledge, the United States and the International Monetary Fund led the effort to assemble a $41.5 billion line of credit for Brazil in November to help it stave off a crisis while implementing a fiscal clampdown. Argentine President Carlos Menem, whose country's livelihood is strongly linked to Brazil's economy, said he does not expect his neighbor to face devaluation. ''With Brazilian reserves as they are at present, they can face any sort of crisis or run in Brazil,'' Menem told a business group in Washington. Back in Brazil, 17 pro-Cardoso governors, meeting in the northeastern coastal city of Sao Luis, jointly condemned Minas Gerais state Gov. Itamar Franco's moratorium and the damage it inflicted upon the country's credibility. The governors urged Brazil's Congress to vote quickly on final points of the fiscal austerity plan to show markets and international creditors that the country can dig its way out of crisis. ''The credibility of the Brazilian government is not very big right now and something needs to be done to stem this crisis,'' Jeff Bryk, Mexican peso trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, told Reuters Financial TV. ''I think people are waiting for something from Brazil that would change sentiment.'' While the amount of cash involved in the moratorium -- about $200 million -- is tiny compared with Brazil's $23.5 billion fiscal savings targets for 1999, the political tension it unleashed has threatened to upset voting in Congress on key cost-cutting measures. Congress was due to vote on Wednesday on corporate tax increases worth at least $2 billion. While the government was expected to win, a defeat would be devastating.