Can the U.S. remain an economic oasis?
By Jonathan Peterson
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ Like a gigantic,
multilingual flea market, the nations
of the world are blending inexorably
into a single, global economy. At
least, that is what we are often told.
Yet the striking contrast between
boom times in America and hard
times in much of the world underlines
a different, less-discussed reality: In
vital ways, the United States remains
a nation apart, its prosperity based
more on consumers in California than
manufacturers in Malaysia, its
financial health affected more by
decisions in Washington than
turbulence overseas.
Even last year’s financial disaster
in Asia boomeranged into a benefit
for most Americans, who were
enjoying a seemingly invulnerable
economic upturn. Worried about the
far-flung perils, the Federal Reserve
cut interest rates three times, and
consumers responded with a euphoric
“Can the U.S. economy prosper
just on internal, yuppie
consumption?" asks Edward E.
Yardeni, chief economist and global
investment strategist of Deutsche
Bank Securities in New York. “The
answer, so far. is absolutely."
No one doubts that America's links
to the global marketplace are
important and growing. Yet
mantralike chants of "globalization"
obscure the fact that most people's
‘Star Wars’ fans lining up for ‘Phantom Menace’ debut
By Sharon Waxman,
The Washington Post
LOS ANGELES _ The line for the
first showing of "Star Wars Episode
One: The Phantom Menace" starts
behind Daniel Alter, age 17. who set
up a folding chair April 7 in front of
the Mann Village Theater in
Westwood. By now there are a half
do/.en people behind him.
But that's not the only line going
more than a month before the May
19 opening of the most anticipated
movie of the year. A kind of cyber-
Woodstock atmosphere has
descended on a rival line on
Hollywood Boulevard, beside the
entrance to Mann's Chinese Theater,
where 30 people have set up pup tents
and laptops in a steadily growing
queue for the first screening.
"Just wait until Sunday when the
international crowd starts coming.”
promises Lincoln Gasking, the 22-
year-old Australian organizer of this
line. Already director George Lucas’s
“Phantom Menace”, the first of three
planned "prequels" to his blockbuster
Terror catches up with family in form of land mine
By Marc Lacey,
Los Angeles Times
MOLINA, Albania _ They escaped
a burning village in central Kosovo.
They endured a two-day trek to the
border. But terror caught up with
seven members of the Berisha
family, cold and hungry and
crammed into a tiny car, 20 feet from
the safety of Albania.
In the early morning darkness
Sunday, their white Opel
subcompact drove over a Serb-laid
land mine just outside the Albanian
line, killing five family members,
injuring numerous other refugees in
the same convoy, and highlighting
the extreme danger confronting the
uprooted ethnic Albanians in flight
from Kosovo.
The death toll from the accident
was minor compared with the mass
killings reported elsewhere in the
war-torn province of Serbia,
Yugoslavia's dominant republic. But
this was a family who had made it
out of the battle zone along one of
the main escape routes from Serbian
aggression. Just ahead of them, in a
muddy clearing on the Albanian side,
were relief workers with blankets,
cold water and food.
“We almost made it to Albania,”
said a grim-faced Rexhep Berisha,
38, who lost his mother, Nazmia, and
other relatives in the explosion and
survived only because he had
traveled in a wagon instead of the car.
Refugees from Kosovo encounter a
host of perils from the time they flee
their villages to their arrival in the
livelihood still depends on the
domestic economy, a colossal, $8.5
trillion web of commerce in which the
world’s richest consumers lavish
much of their money on homes,
services and other things that never
will be traded overseas.
Exports, meanwhile, an important
gauge of this country’s links to the
global economy, accounted for just
11.3 percent of U.S. economic activity
last year, according to the Commerce
Department. That figure has crept up
only a few percentage points since the
early 1980 s and remains only a
fraction of the share in Germany,
Canada, Mexico and many other
countries
Economists have torn up their
gloomy forecasts repeatedly, as
evidence piled up that foreign woes
were having surprisingly little impact
on most of this country. Ross C.
DeVol, U.S. economist at the Milken
Institute think tank in Santa Monica,
Calif., puts it this way: “Globalization
hasn’t gone quite as far as many of us
like to espouse, including myself."
Few would take issue with that at
USG Corp., a producer of wallboard
that is scrambling around the clock to
keep up with the fierce demand.
Although Asia and other regions have
been a growing market for its
products, USG still makes about 90
percent of its sales inside the United
States. This country’s boom in home
buying and renovating has set off a
free-for-all for scarce wallboard, and
the Chicago company is hurrying to
"Star Wars" trilogy, appears poised to
become a pop culture leviathan,
rivaling the box office records of his
grand opus about space, evil and the
mysterious workings of "the Force.”
The first three films, “Star Wars,”
"The Empire Strikes Back" and
“Return of the Jedi," have grossed a
staggering $l.B billion since the
release of the first film in 1977. All
three were re-released in 1997 as a
big-screen refresher course on the
exploits of Luke Sky walker and guru
Obi-Wan Kenobi, priming a massive
fan base for this year's installment.
On Hollywood Boulevard, the line
for the series’ most avid fans has
become a happening of sorts, with
participants logging in their hours lor
a charily (they’re calling it a “stand
a-thon") and the whole thing
broadcast online, 24 hours a day, at a
Web site, countingdown.com. Lines
will be springing up all over the
country starting next week.
Sci-fi nerds'? Video geeks'? Obi-
Wan oddballs'? Not Gasking, a
sunburned, dark-haired real estate
rental broker with a winning smile and
ever-expanding refugee camps inside
Albania and Macedonia. Along the
way, there are uniformed thieves,
rapists and thugs; the possibility of
starvation; and war breaking out all
around.
"Once they get here, we can feed
them," said Angela Walker, a
spokeswoman for the United Nations
World Food Program, which is
passing out water, soup and high
energy biscuits to new arrivers. “Our
concern is that they make it here.”
The Berishas, whose journey began
Friday in the tiny Kosovo village of
Bardhi, almost did.
Chased out of their home by Serbs
and told to get out of the country,
family members grabbed what they
could and piled into their car. Nazmia
Berisha, 64, traveled with another
son, his wife and the couple’s four
children. About 3 a.m. Sunday, the
Berishas had reached the Serbian
border station. Ahead of them was a
line of wagons proceeding in
darkness.
To illuminate the roadway for the
wagons, according to some of those
on the scene, the Berishas pulled their
car to the left side of the road. That
was their fatal mistake. In veering to
the edge of the roadway, the car
struck one of the mines that Serbian
authorities have been observed laying
on the Kosovo side of the border in
recent days.
“For a moment, we thought
something was falling from the sky,”
said Rexhep Berisha. “‘We saw
flames, and then bodies were
everywhere.”
World and Nation
complete five new plants
“We’re running our plants now
seven days a week, 24 hours a day,"
said Richard H. Fleming, the
company’s executive vice president
and chief financial officer. Even when
global forces obviously are at play,
America’s uniqueness stands out. Just
last September, Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan uttered his
now famous caution that the United
States could not remain an “oasis ot
prosperity" in a world plagued by
financial turmoil.
The warning seemed timely,
coming as overseas financial shocks
were threatening a credit crunch in
this country. Forecasters warned of a
sharp U.S. slowdown in 1999. The
stock market looked shaky. Highly
publicized corporate layoffs seemed
to signal trouble on the horizon.
Consumer confidence was starting to
slip from its lofty heights.
Moreover, the overseas problems
were hammering certain U.S.
industries, notably in manufacturing,
agriculture and energy production,
along with particular regions. But
concerns that foreign travails would
spread broadly into this country
proved unwarranted. In part,
Greenspan helped keep the United
States an oasis by promoting three
interest-rate cuts in the next few
months, a development that delighted
investors and sparked a surge in
housing and other industries.
The Fed’s widely welcomed moves
were a tacit recognition of America’s
an entrepreneurial eye. He’s been
planning this event for a year, and if
all goes well, may never go back to
Melbourne. Truth be told, he’s only
seen "Star Wars" "20 or 30 times,"
he says. “I love movies. I love
excitement. It’s about getting fans
together.”
Then there’s Stevie Otis, a 22-year
old biochemistry major at Cal Tech,
who can only be described as a "Star
Wars" babe, Cindy Crawford looks
and ambitions to become a "space
doctor," a hitherto-unknown career
charted squarely in the future. She
rediscovered the Lucas trilogy in
junior high school, and “for the next
few years I watched it as often as I
could. There’s a lot in there
philosophically, about the Force, and
Yoda and dark and light and conflict."
There are also the classic science
fiction devotees such as baby-faced
Scott McAfee, 18, who is anchoring
the countingdown.com chat room,
and who claims to have watched "Star
Wars” about 500 times. A reporter
inquires: Just “Star Wars,” or “The
Empire Strikes Back” and "Return of
The blast wiped out the carload of
Berishas, except for an 11 -year-old
girl who was hanging tenuously on
to life Sunday and her 33-year-old
father, who escaped with minor
injuries. "I was feeling very bad
before this accident," said Nusret
Gerguri, 37, a neighbor of the
Berishas who was in a wagon just
ahead of the blast. "Now everything
is doubled. I feel terrible.”
The two women’s bodies were
recovered, but authorities said three
of the young victims’ remains could
not be found. Rexhep Berisha
marched back across the border in
search of the other bodies, but the
Serbian border guards were of no
help, he said.
The border closed temporarily, but
soon the procession of wooden
wagons pulled by farm tractors, of
crowded cars, horse-drawn carriages
and rain-soaked pedestrians, started
anew. By day’s end, the already
crowded refugee camps in the border
town of Kukes had nearly 10,000
new ethnic Albanian arrivals from
Kosovo, authorities said.
As they crossed a narrow bridge
into Albanian territory, refugees
seemed to ignore the twisted
wreckage of the exploded car, which
had come so close to its destination.
“Such explosions, you can see every
day on the roads of Kosovo,”
explained Haxhi Nimani, 50, who
fled Mitrovica for Albania. "We have
seen so much along the way.”
exceptional role in the global
economy. They signaled U.S.
vigilance to foreign countries, and
bucked up American lenders,
investors and consumers who were
worried about new-s from overseas.
Yet there is another reason why the
much-heralded slowdown proved a
no-show on U.S. shores, a reason that
goes to the heart of America's unique
status in the world.
Throughout the global crisis, and
especially after Russia's ruble default
ignited a financial panic last summer,
much of the world steered
investments into the safer haven of
U.S. financial markets. In addition,
struggling nations in Asia and South
America flooded this country with
cheap imports, aimed directly at the
wallets of wealthv American
consumers
These twin waves of capital and
inexpensive imports helped push up
the U.S. stock market and keep dow n
inflation, no small feat for a hot
economy with an aging upturn.
DeVol estimates, for example, that
a tidal wave of $230 billion in capital
flooded this country last year for
stocks and corporate bonds, a
development that stimulated the
financial markets, enriched U.S.
investors and bolstered consumer
confidence. But across the country
signs of trouble in the global
economy were triggering alarms.
Ingersoll-Rand. manufacturer of
assorted industrial equipment and
components, relics on loreign
the Jedi" too? He squints, horror
struck at the very suggestion. "Oh no.
I always watch it as a trilogy." he
The line-sitters take turns talking
to fans who watch the (in)action via
the countingdown.com Web camera,
perched atop the computer under a
plastic tarp on the Hollywood
Boulevard sidewalk. That, and a
laptop donated by Dell, are used lor
tinkering with the Web site and near
constant replaying of the "Phantom
Menace" trailer and a "South Park"-
style spool' made by Gasking and a
couple of other countingdovvn.com
fans. Gasking’s selling online ads.
Traffic'.’ About 1 ()(),()()() people
regularly visit the site.
Dave May, 21. who leaves the line
every day to work at Blockbuster,
remembers seeing "Return ol the
Jedi" when he was 5. "I remember,
ooooh yeah, I remember," he
breathes. He soon launches into a
discussion of the religious roots ol the
"Star Wars" canon, how creator
George Lucas took "Hinduism and
Christianity and rolled it into one" but
McDonald’s
meals
By Bill Glauber,
The Baltimore Sun
BELGRADE:, Yugoslavia _ It's not
every McDonald's that features
Serbian folk music, a target symbol
in its advertising and a bomb shelter.
But then, selling American fast food
while NATO war planes loom
overhead can be a risky business.
Saturday, Big Macs returned to
Belgrade's menu, as McDonald's
reopened three restaurants some
three weeks after 15 of its Yugoslav
franchises were attacked by angry
Belgrade citizens in the wake of
NATO’s bombing campaign. There
was a time when the main
McDonald's in Belgrade racked up
as many as 17,000 customers in a
single day, 2 million customers a
year in two separate years, according
to the director of the Yugoslav
franchise.
"This is how America is
conquering the world, by food and
McDonald’s," said Dcjan Vladovic,
a 36-ycar-old who was among the
customers at the grand reopening of
a cavernous, two-floor restaurant in
Belgrade’s city center. It was a day
for burgers and fries, milk shakes and
Cokes, as people sought a sense of
normalcy despite nightly air raids.
Besides the McDonald’s
reopening, thousands turned out for
the start of the Belgrade Marathon.
In a show of sportsmanship, 39 elite
markets for roughly 40 percent of
sales: Asia alone accounted for 10
percent of the total. "We were all
concerned." recalled David W.
Devonshire, senior vice president and
chief financial officer at Ingersoll-
Rand in Woodcliff Lake. N.J. “We
spent quite a bit of time talking about
it and looking at it."
Yet overall sales last year shot up
17 percent. On top of all that,
Ingersoll-Rand saved money by
picking up unexpectedly cheap
engines from Japan that it uses in
construction machinery. As
Devonshire sees it, successful eflo'rts
by corporate America to boost
productivity with the help of new
technology were a key reason the
national economy has performed so
strongly. He also cited the Fed's
interest-rate cuts, and enduring
strength of the domestic economy.
If overseas distress ended up
helping the U.S. economy last year,
will overseas recovery end up hurting
it in the future? Recovery abroad, after
all, could spark a homecoming of
investment capital out of this country,
with potentially negative effects for
interest rates and the stock market.
The paradox is taken seriously by
some economists who note that the
United States this year is not likely to
gain the "perverse benefits" of loreign
turmoil, such as cheaper loreign
"Quite likely, as Asia begins to
recover, the most severe eflects will
be fell in the United States," said
also "took King Arthur and the
'Odvssey' and combined it into one
talc"
May is joined by 30-year-old Mike
Harris of West Los Angeles, a part
time actor and bartender who explains
that most people don't realize that the
word "Jedi" is rooted in an ancient
Hebrew caste of religious knights,
called the "Jcdiah." (Most people
don't realize this because there was
no such thing. But maybe he's
retell ing to the tribe ot "Judah' ?)
The line is a curious combination
of cutting-edge technology and
caveman-level subsistence. I he only
protection from a recent downpour or
the brutal sun is a swath ot blue plastic
tied w ith twine. Energy lines are being
supplied by Hollywood Souvenirs, a
store across the street that has cables
snaking up the boulevard to the
sidewalk encampment. Pup tents go
up in the evening and stretch around
the block. There are cases ot bottled
water, boxes ot Nutri-Grain bars and
leftover bags from McDonald's.
There's a life-size Darth Vader and
storm trooper cutout next to a public
in sad
athletes chose to run together on the
26-mile, 385-yard journey, crossing
the finish line in a pack beneath a
banner that read "Run for Fun Not
from Bombs."
"This wasn't to make a political
point, it was just to celebrate
friendship, people to people,’’ said
/.ane Branson. 41, ol Moneta. Va.,
the lone American in the field.
"People here aren't angry with
Americans, just American policy.
When the first bombs fell last month,
some Serbs vented their anger on
Western symbols, trashing airplane
offices and cultural centers and
spraying graffiti on the walls ot some
of the more prominent NATO
country embassies.
With its American roots and tood,
McDonald's became a prime target
of vandals. Two days after the lirst
bombs fell on Belgrade, the main
store was attacked by a mob that
smashed windows and damaged cash
registers and an orange juice
dispenser. McDonald's Managing
Director Draglijub Lakic said the
local McDonald's franchise is a
Yugoslav registered company, that it
employs up to 1,000 people and that
75 percent of the raw materials are
produced locally.
Signs were posted on the
restaurant's smashed windows: "All
of us are targets if the restaurant has
to be broken, let NATO do it."
Patrons who arrived Saturday were
Thursday, April 22, 1999 - The Behrend College Beacon - page 7
still serving happy
times
DeVol. Beyond that, there are signs
that Japan's need to finance its own
record-high budget deficit will be a big
lure for foreign capital. That could
pressure U.S. interest rates upward in
order to keep funds in this country.
"We're seeing (higher rates) already
in the bond market." said Lawrence
B. Lindsey, a former governor on the
U.S. Federal Reserve and resident
scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute think tank. If it continues,
such a trend could have far-reaching
implications for Americans, who have
engaged in a buy ing spree of homes
and other big-ticket items financed
with low interest rates, and the overall
national economy.
“If interest rates go up, and 1 think
they're going to. how much longer can
the stock market stay at these lofty
levels?" Lindsey asked. When the
U.S. expansion ultimately falters,
perhaps this country will bring the rest
of the world down with it. including
large regions still trying to claw their
wav out of the ditch.
Just recently, the World Bank
lamented in a report that global
prosperity "has become extremely
dependent" on the U.S. economic
engine. It is "not a healthy situation,
worried Uri Daduslt. a semoi ollicial
with the World Bank. Still, lew
forecasters are betting on the negative
outcome Most expect the United
St,lies to enjoy another year of strong
erowth. even w ith assorted problems
continuum ovetseas
phoiu' that lias been commandeered
for the cause, marked with a sign.
"Inbound Calls.”
It rings constantly. Someone has
fiddled with a no jaywalking sign so
that it reads "Use the borce.”
Meanwhile up at l.ucaslilm in
Northern California, where the pre
opening fren/v rises on a daily basis,
there is cheery surprise at the intensity
of the line sitters' devotion. "It is
insane, and 1 just line it.” says
■‘Phantom" producer Kick Mc( allum.
"I didn't think it'd ever go this berserk.
I think the real reason behind it is that
kids can have that experience at a rock
concert, hut they've never had that
experience at a movie. I really do think
that it is part of the phenomenon, it's
a collective fun thing to do"
McCallum said he planned to v isit the
line, incognito, this v\cckcnd. but .lake
l.lovd. the I O-y ear-old who play s
Anakin Skvwalker in "Phantom." beat
him to it. making a surprise visit on
Wednesday with his family. He
distributed lollipops.
greeted by the usual McDonald's
paraphernalia ot Golden Aichcs and
Happy Meals. But there were a lew
w rinkles. The in-store advertisement
included the ever-present target
symbol that has become a local sign
of survival.
No air raid sirens were sounded
Saturday afternoon, hut it they had.
the patrons could still would have
eaten in style in the lower lloor
seating area, which doubles as a
shelter. Irena Milenkov ic. 23. said she
was heartbroken when the windows
were smashed. And she also fell lor
the kids who wouldn't be able to
celebrate their birthday parties at the
restaurant.
"We realized the restaurant was a
part ol us.' she said. "And it was like
a part of me was broken. 1 tell very
sad." Milka Scekic. 38. a store
manauer. wascontident that when the
store reopened, the customers would
come back.
People like our tood." site said
"They like what young people all over
the world like. It was important for
us It) open and start working again.
A woman and her young son were the
first customers to arrive at 9 a.m.
sharp. Others filtered m throughout
the day before the 5 p.m. closing,
hours earlier than usual. But it was a
far cry from the throngs that normally
assemble in one of the busier
franchises in Europe.