Word: signed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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After the initial celebration, the Yanks were subdued, almost fatigued, it seemed, in the clubhouse. A few players downed beers as reporters crowded around, but there was no sign of champagne or wild carousing anywhere...
Officials at the National Security Agency were so impressed that they offered the inventors research contracts. When the foursome declined, the agency asked them to sign on as consultants. They refused again. But then the U.S. Patent Office rejected their application for a patent. Reason: NSA had decided that the sale of phasorphones might endanger national security. The agency was willing to reconsider, however, if the inventors would explain how the scrambler works...
...point on most borrowing rates, and a half-point or more on mortgage loans, which now cost home buyers an average 9.7%. Meanwhile, the economy seems to be developing a surprising immunity to high interest rates. Housing has often led the nation into recession by collapsing at the first sign of tight money, but in August new-home starts still ran at a fast annual rate of more than 2 million. One reason: many buyers consider a new house the best investment they can make in a time of high inflation...
...price guidelines?7% for wages and 6% for prices are the most widely rumored figures?that would be technically "voluntary" but nonetheless backed by a threat of federal penalties against violators. Okun speculates that the Government might require the 100,000 or so firms doing business with it to sign binding pledges to observe the guidelines before they are allowed to bid on the $80 billion worth of federal contracts awarded each year. Such a proposal is in fact on Carter's desk...
Okun concedes that a binding-pledge policy would be a "do-or-die, make-or-break" gamble. If so many businessmen refused to sign that the Government was forced to buy from non-pledgers?or, worse, if the Administration winked at violations as the price of avoiding crippling strikes?President Carter would lose all chance of winning wage-price restraint. In Okun's view, the risk in not adopting a tough guidelines policy is worse: negotiations next year in the construction, auto and trucking industries could result in a wage explosion that would push inflation firmly back to double-digit...