Word: wheats
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ALAN WHEAT. Asked for a self-appraisal, Wheat hesitantly responds, "I'm not an expert on everything, but I'm able to understand most things once I get the information." The freshman Congressman from Missouri's Fifth District, which embraces most of Kansas City, is unduly modest. His colleagues laud him as bright and able. His sense of humor is self-deprecatory, but Wheat, 31, a member of the powerful Rules Committee, takes his job seriously. Says an aide to House Speaker Tip O'Neill: "He worries about things like industrial policy...
...Wheat soldered together a biracial coalition that helped him to beat seven white Democrats in last year's primary and win the general election in a district that is almost 80% white. In Congress, the well-tailored bachelor is careful to serve the needs of his white constituents but, notes a colleague, "I've never seen him cop out on issues of concern to blacks...
After growing up as an Air Force brat, Wheat graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa. He settled in Kansas City in 1972 to take a job as an economist for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1976 Wheat was elected to the Missouri general assembly. During his six-year tenure, he was elected chairman of the 19-member black caucus and pushed legislation benefiting his inner-city constituents, including a tax-abatement plan to spur rehabilitation of substandard housing. Says he: "I had a lot of frustrations and disappointments, but my idealism survived...
...turning an esoteric-sounding new way of investing money into one of the hottest and fastest-growing ways to cash in on the bull market: stock index futures contracts. They are akin to commodities contracts, but on nothing so tangible as pork bellies or bushels of wheat. More than 1 million of the contracts changed hands in July, and their daily value at times reached $5 billion. Stock index futures, introduced in February 1982 and now traded on exchanges in Chicago, Kansas City and New York, are basically bets on whether the entire stock market will rise or fall. Each...
...week U.S. and Chinese negotiators finally reached a compromise. Under the plan, which covers 33 types of products ranging from shirts to printed cloth, Chinese imports will be allowed to grow about 3% annually. After the agreement was signed, Chinese grain dealers were back in the market for U.S. wheat...