Banner Graphic, Volume 18, Number 286, Greencastle, Putnam County, 11 August 1988 — Page 3

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Four Soviet missiles explode at a test range Monday on the steppes of Central Asia as the Soviet Union began destroying more than 1,700 missiles banned by a superpower treaty, Tass

Drought bill helps but is not enough for some farmers

WASHINGTON (AP) Farmers say the $3.9 billion droughtrelief package ready for President Reagan’s signature today is “better than nothing,” but it won’t stop the drought from driving some farm families off the land. The measure provides aid for farmers suffering crop losses of more than 35 percent of their expected harvest because of the drought or other calamities such as hail, insect damage or excessive rain. The payments would be equal to 65 per cent of the lost income. FARMERS WHOSE crop losses exceeded 75 per cent of the expected yield would receive payments equal to 90 per cent of lost income. “It’s a good buffer, and it’s probably enough to get most people over the hump this year,” said Keith Salter, who figures he will get $12,000 because the drought baked all 420 acres of wheat, barley and oats on his farm near Menoken, N.D. “It won’t be like a crop, but it’s better than nothing,” said the 53-year-old farmer. The White House said Reagan would sign the bill in the White House Rose Garden today. His signature already had been assured. FARM ORGANIZATION leaders said the bill the most expensive disaster relief measure ever enacted for agriculture won’t be enough to keep all financially

Japanese-American reparation bill is end of stigma for some

WASHINGTON (AP) A new law authorizing reparations for Japanese-Americans interned during World War II helps lift “an unjust burden of shame” borne by 120,000 loyal citizens for four decades, says a congressman who was among those incarcerated. “Today is a moment of great emotion for me, a day when hopes and dreams have become reality,” said Rep. Norman Mineta, D-Calif., as President Reagan signed the bill Wednesday. THE BILL AUTHORIZES taxfree payments of $20,000 to each of the approximately 60,000 surviving veterans of wartime camps, many of whom spent three years in internment. The Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to the camps under an order issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, plunged the United States into World War 11. Many Japanese-Americans lobbied for the legislation for years. It finally cleared Congress by a 257156 vote in the House on Aug. 4. Reagan originally objected to some features of the bill, saying it would be too costly, but he backed the final version which calls for a fund of $1.2 billion, with appropriations in any one year limited to SSOO million. Legislation providing the actual money must still be

Congress ponders reversing Canal treaty

WASHINGTON (AP) Congressional conservatives are asking fellow lawmakers to void the treaty that shifts ownership of the Panama Canal from the United States to the Panamanian government Under the agreement ratified by the Senate in 1979, the United

said. Tass said that the four short-range missies known in the West as SS-12s were destroyed in the presence of U.S. inspectors. (AP photo)

Safe w 111

RONALD REAGAN His signiture is secured

squeezed farmers in business. “If a farmer has been struggling these past few years ... this will not allow him income to pay down debt and interest,” said John Leininger, spokesman for the 33,000-member North Dakota Farmers Union. “We are definitely going to see some farmers leave, I am sure.” According to the Farmers Union, a farmer with an average wheat yield of 30 bushels an acre who harvested nothing this year should receive at least $42 an acre in disaster aid. The payment would go up to about $92 an acre if the farmer had federal crop insurance.

enacted. IN SIGNING THE bill, Reagan said, “What is most important in this bill has less to do with property than with honor. For here we admit a wrong. Here we reaffirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law.” Mineta, who as a child of 10 was taken to an internment camp in Wyoming, said, “Today the unjust burden of shame which 120,000 loyal Americans have carried for 46 painful years has at long last been lifted.” Many of the 250 JapaneseAmericans who attended the signing ceremony said it is the principle of the bill, not the money, that matters. Among them were six members of one family now scattered in California, Georgia and Oregon who were taken from a farm near Stockton, Calif., to an internment camp at Rohr, Ark DR. WALTER EMORI, now 47 and an arthritis specialist in Medford, Ore., was 3 when the family was interned. “We see this as a healing process which says the country recognizes that a wrong was being done and in one small way perhaps is trying to make amends for this,” Emori said. “In general, the JapaneseAmerican people who went to camp recognize that it was an aw-

States would abandon all rights to the Canal Zone and it would become a part of Panama on Dec. 31, 1999. But a resolution introduced Wednesday contends the treaty is invalid because the Constitution requires both the House and Senate to

THE SAME FARMER harvesting a normal crop would earn about sll4 per acre, based on market prices this spring, Leininger said. Money for the payments is expected to come from savings that the government will realize as a result of the drought, since incomesupport payments are based in part on how much individual farmers produce. With crops down because of the drought, the amount the government-owned Commodity Credit Corp. must put out in such payments is also down. Under the bill, farmers will not have to repay such payments that they have received already if their payment amount is lowered because of production losses resulting from the drought. They may not, however, retain such payments for lost crops and still receive disaster aid money for the same crops. FARMERS WILL HAVE to purchase federal crop insurance for 1989 to be eligible for disaster payments. Livestock owners who have to buy feed because of the drought, instead of growing it as usual, also would receive assistance. The bill places a limit of SIOO,OOO on payments to any one farmer. It prohibits payments to any producer whose “qualifying gross revenues,” as set by a congressional formula, exceed $2 million.

ful, hysterical, grim time in American history, and although we all feel badly that we had to go and that we were rounded up and not only had our personal belongings but our civil liberties taken away from us, it’s kind of understandable as to why this should happen,” he said. Emori noted that his family has prospered since the war, as have many other Japanese-Americans. “WE AS A FAMILY would like to take this gesture the next step further and say we’d like to give this back to the country for the good that came out of the awful,” he said. He said the family plans to use its total payments of $120,000 for such a gesture, possibly to an endowed professorship at Loma Linda University in California, where his parents worked for years and where all four of the children went to school. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the president always endorsed the purpose of the bill, even though he balked at the price tag. When asked whether the large number of Japanese-American voters in California, a crucial state in the coming presidential election, influenced Reagan’s decision to sign the measure, Fitzwater said: “No. That was not a factor.”

approve the transfer of U.S. property. “We did not participate on the House side,” said Rep. Philip Crane, R-111. “It was a flawed treaty in terms of our constitutional obligations.”

Shock waves

World markets reel after fed raises interest

NEW YORK (AP) Shock waves reverberating through world financial markets in recent days reflect fears that the Federal Reserve may have set off spiraling interest-rate increases that will circulate around the globe. “Until there is a clear-cut signal that the economies of the world are growing at a slower pace, the bias is going to be toward higher (interest) rates,” says David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. But he doesn’t expect an all-out rate war. IN THE LONG TERM, higher interest rates can work to stabilize stock and bond prices by calming inflation worries. But in the immediate aftermath of the Fed’s increase in its key lending rate Tuesday, many traders remained skittish. On Wednesday in Tokyo, the already volatile Nikkei Index of 225 selected issues plummeted 615.49 points closed at 27,554.87, its biggest oneday loss since November, in the wake of October’s Black Monday. But the Tokyo exchange bounced back in morning trading today, with the Nikkei gaining 127.52 points as the dollar weakened and investors snapped up suddenly cheaper shares. In London, the Financial Times-

Retail sales rise .5 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) Retail sales, led by gains at auto showrooms and clothing stores, rose a moderate 0.5 percent in July, the government said today. The Commerce Department said that sales increased $632 million last month to a seasonally adjusted but not inflation adjusted $134.0 billion. THE INCREASE WAS about in line with the expectations of economists, who watch retail sales closely for early indications of the strength of consumer demand. Most analysts have been saying the economy has been expanding too rapidly to sustain growth without inflation. They believe consumer demand must moderate for manufacturers to have enough capacity to meet overseas demand for U.S. exports, spurred by the devalued dollar. Sales for the first seven months of the year were 6.5 percent greater than the same period in 1987. The July increase followed a 0.4 percent climb in June and an 0.8 percent rise in May. SALES LAST MONTH were led by a 1.9 percent jump at automotive dealers to $30.1 billion, the biggest climb since February, when auto sales shot up 2.0 percent. Automotive sales had climbed a modest 0.4 percent in June.

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Stock Exchange 100-share index fell 22.7 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,839.90 on Wednesday. AND ON WALL STREET, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials fell 44.99 points Wednesday to close at 2,034.14 after losing more than 28 points the previous day. Government bond prices dropped while their yields soared to rates not seen since December. The markets began reeling Tuesday after the Fed unexpectedly announced a half-percentage-point increase in the discount rate. That put the fee the Fed charges member banks for short-term loans at 6.5 percent, its highest level in more than two years. Some said markets overseas were caught by surprise and overreacted. Many investors around the world had assumed the Fed would refrain from taking any interest-rate action until after November’s presidential election. BUT WITH THE Fed’s decisive, anti-inflation move, “there’s worry on a worldwide basis that everybody is competing, with interest rates as their weapon,” said Hugh Johnson, senior vice president at First Albany Corp. Many of the nation’s major trading partners have taken action recently to push up short-term in-

Excluding autos, sales were up a scant 0.1 percent in July. Sales at department and other general merchandise stores, helped by hot weather related buying, were up 0.2 percent to $15.2 billion in July after a strong 1.4 percent increase a month earlier. Sales of durable goods, “big ticket” items expected to last three or more years, were up 0.7 percent, solely on the strength of autos. Hardware and building supply stores reported a 1.8 percent drop in sales last month, on top of a 0.9 percent decline in June.

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August 11,1988 THE BANNERGRAPHIC

terest rates, albeit for different reasons. West Germany is concerned that its currency has been losing value, while Britain is working to hold down inflation. Rate hikes, for whatever reason, “make markets fairly nervous even though cooperation among the major Western trading nations hasn’t broken down,” Johnson said. “There’s nervousness that it could break down.” INTEREST RATE coordination typically is uncertain. “It’s an uneasy alliance,” said Ronald Solberg, a vice president and senior international economist at Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles. “The coordinated moves over the last two years were more the result of individual vested interest rather than a gracious contribution toward coordination,” he said. If interest rates become a drawing card for U.S. securities, some of the money siphoned out of Japan’s stock market could find its way into American markets. “There’s no doubt that Japanese portfolio managers have an ongoing appetite for U.S.-dollar assets, and this increased rate differential makes them attractive,” Solberg said.

SALES AT FURNITURE stores were off 1.0 percent following a 1.9 percent increase in June. Sales of non-durable goods, led by a 1.6 percent jump in sales at specialty clothing stores, were up 0.4 percent There were gains of 0.6 percent at food and grocery stores, caused mostly by price increases rather than a gain in sales volume, and 0.2 percent at restaurants and bars. Drug stores reported a 1.0 percent drop in July sales while gasoline stations reported a 0.2 percent decline.

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