Word: rating
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...most vulnerable on this issue. Nonetheless, except for a slight thickening around his middle since 1976, he looks as fit as ever. His aides released a report of his last physical examination, in April, which showed no signs of coronary disease and a blood pressure of 120/80-a rate physicians consider excellent. He has a touch of arthritis in his right thumb and a minor respiratory allergy to pollen. Reagan's aides contend that the age issue has been exaggerated by the press, yet polls repeatedly show that it concerns many voters. Reagan has faced the problem mostly by joking...
...draconian measures have first hit the housing industry. Last week the National Association of Home Builders called an emergency meeting in Washington to bewail the high mortgage rates. The group's economist, Michael Sumichrast, darkly predicted that housing starts, which ran at a 1.9 million annual rate in September, will soon be cut in half. The soaring cost of money, he claimed, has already forced 10 million Americans to abandon temporarily plans for that dream house...
Despite the distress, Volcker's interest rate policy continues to win support from bankers, businessmen and politicians. The U.S. League of Savings Associations unanimously approved the Fed's actions, and the group's chief economist, Ken Thygerson, admits that it "was necessary to deal a lethal blow to speculation in the housing market." Ben Heineman, president of Northwest Industries, calls the program a "sensible way of checking inflation." Even Senate Banking Chairman William Proxmire, normally the central bank's most vociferous critic, endorses the program, saying it has had an important "psychological effect." The battle against...
...precipitated the action, has been at least temporarily checked. Despite nervousness in world financial markets caused by events in Iran, the dollar has been strong for the past month. Typically, one Frankfurt banker says with a sigh of relief: "For the first time I can confidently see a stable rate for the dollar." Silver, platinum and copper markets, which had soared like comets in early October, have returned to some calm...
Policymakers are radically changing their views about unemployment. Even liberal economists no longer consider "full employment" to be a 4% rate of unemployment, but a 5.5% rate. That means, compared with the past, the U.S. is prepared to accept 1.5 million more Americans out of work before Washington policymakers start pumping up the economy in an inflationary way to fight unemployment. A higher level of joblessness is tolerable today because so many more people are at work, and thus, if one family member loses his or her job, there is a better than 50% chance that another family member...