Word: low-interest
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...with headquarters in Merriam, Kans., and controlled out of Chestnut Hill, Mass. Seaboard officials announced that they would restart the shuttered pork-processing plant that had once been the town's largest employer--if the city offered a little help. Albert Lea responded by giving Seaboard a $2.9 million low-interest loan and a special deal on its sewer bill and grading and paving parking lots for employees. And before long, the plant reopened, and several hundred workers were back...
...left and the right, there is no uniform definition. By TIME's definition, it is this: any action by local, state or federal government that gives a corporation or an entire industry a benefit not offered to others. It can be an outright subsidy, a grant, real estate, a low-interest loan or a government service. It can also be a tax break--a credit, exemption, deferral or deduction, or a tax rate lower than the one others...
...result is the same. Some companies receive public services at reduced rates, while all others pay the full cost. Some companies are excused from paying all or a portion of their taxes due, while all others must pay the full amount imposed by law. Some companies receive grants, low-interest loans and other subsidies, while all others must fend for themselves...
...problem is Glass-Steagall, a Depression-era law that bars U.S. banks from uniting with brokerages and vice versa. In Congress the quid pro quo for knocking it down is expanding the mandated banking welfare program known as the Community Reinvestment Act, which mandates low-interest loans in high-risk inner cities. The banks are willing to go along -- "they know that they won't get deregulation without a compromise," says TIME senior economics reporter Bernard Baumohl -- but Gramm...
...there's no comfort in South Asia, whose leaders already know how domino-like recessions can be. First to tumble will likely be Malaysia, which was hoping for a low-interest $1 billion or $2 billion loan from its Far East financier. Fat chance of that now. And Japan itself? Prime Minister Hashimoto easily survived a no-confidence vote Friday -- but when it comes to the elections next month, all bets...