Word: bonding
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Local Government Financing. States, cities and counties traditionally raise much money for public works by selling bonds. The costs of doing so are becoming staggering. One index of interest rates on such municipal bonds shows them averaging around 13%, almost exactly double the rate in 1979. That is a truly astonishing rate, because the interest on these bonds is exempt from federal income taxes; for a buyer in the 50% tax bracket, a 13% municipal-bond yield is equivalent to a 26% yield on a corporate bond. Moreover, states and cities are incurring these costs at a time when...
Unwilling, or even unable, to pay the towering bond market rates, many localities, like corporations, have begun borrowing in the short-term market. Now, however, some are reaching the limit of their ability to do so. Bade County, Fla., which encompasses Miami, has run up $200 million in short-term debt, and county commissioners believe that is about as much as the county's taxpayers can afford. As a result, if rates do not ease back to more tolerable levels, the commissioners may wind up having to pick and choose among a long list of public projects, from seaport...
...rancher shakes his head. "A cattleman's word is as good as his bond. But the oilman thinks that breaking his word is smart business. He even admires it." One catches, yet again, a faintly elegiac note, the hint of mourning for a more chivalrous, manly order that is collapsing. Raising beef in a nation terrified of cholesterol does not always retain either its profit or its romance. The rancher wonders (as he has for a generation or two) if the endangered species is not the man who rides the horse. -By Lance Morrow
...heart of the Vice President's staff problems is a longtime Bush associate, Jennifer A. Fitzgerald, technically Bush's assistant for scheduling but in reality a dominant figure who has much to say about where Bush goes, what he does and whom he sees. Bond, Thompson and other staff members say Fitzgerald summarily overrules their recommendations about political events Bush should attend and the Governors, Congressmen or even old friends Bush should...
...past. In the past few years the German film industry has become what Variety calls "one of the healthiest box offices in Europe," with annual ticket sales of about $450 million. Much of that business, as in any other European country, went to Hollywood entertainment, especially Disney and James Bond. But in 1981 there were significant local advances. A low-budget expose of youthful degeneracy in Berlin, Christiane F., became the biggest German moneymaker in the nation's history; and right behind Christiane F. was Das Boot (The Boat), a $12 million U-boat melodrama. Now, these two films...