Word: costs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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SUPPORT THE DOLLAR. Everyone from Swiss gnomes to Brooklyn cabbies agrees that the dollar is grossly undervalued. It can buy much more at home than abroad. Says Yale Economist Robert Triffin: "I used to buy all my suits in Europe because they cost half as much as in America. Now the situation is exactly reversed, and I buy my clothes...
Daniel Brill, chief economist at the Treasury Department, was startled when his son phoned to say that he had lined up financing for his first house, which is in the Boston area. The cost: 9.75% mortgage interest-plus 2.5 points (a one-time finance charge). Admits Brill: "I gulped. I remember bitching when I had to give up my 4% G.I. mortgage...
Though lots of Americans are gulping at the high cost of mortgage money, housing remains one of the brightest spots in the economy. Earlier this year, the Administration privately forecast about 1.8 million "starts" in 1978. So far, construction is not only hovering above 2 million houses and apartments a year, but it is defying the long established principle that housing is always hit hardest when interest rates climb. Says Brill: "The old rules no longer hold. Housing is no longer the first area of the economy to boom or the first to bust...
...more competitive in world markets, and of policy directives intended to alleviate Government obstacles to trade. On the practical side, the President ordered a modest expansion of the federal machinery that helps American businessmen sell their goods abroad. For example, the Export-Import Bank, which provides low-cost loans to foreign buyers of American goods, will be given more generous financing. Also, the Small Business Administration has been authorized to advance as much as $100 million in loan guarantees to little firms that engage in exports...
...Even as Carter was outlining his export program, he reaffirmed his commitment to his human rights crusade. Whatever its moral and political merits, the program has hurt exports. Given the generally accepted rule of thumb that every $1 billion in exports supports 30,000 to 40,000 jobs, the cost of the various official "disincentives" to trade is high. Treasury officials reckon that the U.S. loses up to $10 billion a year in sales because of various foreign policy considerations. The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, for example, denies the most-favored-nation status to the Soviet...