Word: term
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Murray Weidenbaum, 52, economist, St. Louis. He has been putting his money into short-term securities like Treasury bills. When interest rates peak and start declining, he plans to shift into three-to-five year Treasury notes and perhaps municipal bonds to lock in the higher rates. Less than one-quarter of his assets are in stocks. Says Weidenbaum: "I have been the typical small investor who gets burned repeatedly. I have had a diversified portfolio of lemons...
...industry is suffering because the Carter Administration's coal policy was never fully thought out. The idea was that increased output would enable utilities and factories to switch from oil and gas to coal for generating electricity and for heating. In terms of energy content, coal is indeed a bargain compared with other fossil fuels. A ton of coal contains about the same amount of energy as 4 bbls. of crude oil, but at the going rate of about $25 a ton for most existing long-term delivery contracts, coal is only half as costly as OPEC crude. Unfortunately...
During the winter, Energy Secretary James Schlesinger began urging oil-fired utilities and factories to convert not to coal but to natural gas. This was to have been only a short-term move to help soak up the gas glut, but it created the misleading impression that coal was not the Administration's favorite fuel after all. Asserts Jim Larson, president of Energy Fuels Corp., Colorado's largest coal producer: "There is a simple lack of leadership. From where I sit, you just have to wonder what in hell is going on back there in Washington." The industry...
...coal companies are faring well in spite of the industry's travail. In the West, strip-mine operations have benefited from low labor costs and long-term contracts at profitable rates. But other companies have wound up merely digging up the coal and dumping it on the ground. Utility companies have stockpiled so much that many now have no more room to store the fuel. Meanwhile, the surplus is forcing down contract prices for single shipments, which have tumbled from about $31 a ton a year ago to as little...
Prices will not stabilize until demand catches up with supply, and that could take months and even years if the Administration does not act effectively to make the fuel more attractive. In the long term, nothing is more important than enacting legislation to curb the regulatory rampages of the EPA, which in most cases is answerable to nobody. Right now, the most effective step the President can take is to free the price of domestic crude oil. As it floats up to world levels, bargain-basement coal will look more and more like the attractive alternative the White House keeps...