Econ Games
Different leads all around. The Washington Post leads with the dramatic rebound Thursday in
the Asian financial markets off Wednesday's U.S.-Japan coordinated yen buy. The
Los
Angeles Times goes with the U.S.' widening monthly trade deficit for
April--attributable, says the paper, to a much-reduced demand for U.S. exports
among the crisis-stricken Asian economies. The LAT says the April
deficit is a record, whereas the Wall Street Journal says it's the worst since 1992. But
both papers indicate it's widely believed the numbers mean the Asian economic
crisis will soon enough affect U.S. productivity and employment. The New York Times
goes with word that Iraq is violating post-Gulf War U.N. sanctions on its oil
trade by smuggling large quantities of oil into Turkey. The smuggling involves
thousands of tanker trucks openly transporting millions of tons of fuel along
roads in northern Iraq that are under U.S and allied air surveillance. Even
though the U.S. has lobbied hard to keep the sanctions in place and these
shipments are enriching Saddam's government and his family, officials tell the
paper that the U.S. has chosen to look the other way because the illicit trade
also benefits American ally Turkey as well as the Kurds who keep Saddam Hussein
from controlling Northern Iraq. USA Today leads with the aftermath of the tobacco
bill's defeat: A scaled-down Republican-sponsored House measure that neither
raises cigarette prices nor offers tobacco companies legal indemnification but
which would take aim at teen smoking by revoking the drivers' licenses of
teenagers caught with tobacco, as well as the determination of numerous state
attorneys general to pursue their individual lawsuits.
The WP lead reports that at a Thursday news conference
Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto appeared delighted with the success of that
U.S.-Japan yen buy and pledged himself ready to "do my best to help write off
bad loans, achieve growth driven by domestic demand, open Japanese markets
further and promote deregulation." The paper notes that the government has
provided no further details of a course of action. The Post also notes
that a deputy treasury secretary and the president of the New York Federal
Reserve are in Tokyo to meet with senior Japanese government officials. The
main issue they confront is what to do with all the country's banks, which are
saddled with billions in bad loans. The less ambitious plan being discussed
focuses mainly on ways to help the banks resolve bad loans, the more ambitious,
which the Post says the U.S. is pushing, focuses on closing failing
banks. Things "Today's Papers" finds missing from the coverage: any mention or
explanation of whether or not Japan has, like the United States, any sort of
government-supported system of loan insurance. As well as
references/analogies/disanalogies to the U.S. savings and loan crisis of the
1980s.
USAT 's front section "cover story" addresses a fact that may soon
become a big issue in health care policy debates, but which is still fairly
unknown to most patients and voters: in general you can't sue your
HMO for medical malpractice. The piece tells how under such an armored
shield, HMOs have quite widely refused payment for second opinions and
specialists. Bills changing the situation are working their way through the
House and Senate. Critics, who include in their number House Majority Leader
Dick Armey, argue that the change would raise health care premiums and lower
coverage. The argument figures, says the story, to get louder during the fall
elections.
A WP front-page story reports that the tobacco companies spent nearly
three times as much on their anti-tobacco bill TV ad campaign as the health
insurance companies did on their "Harry and Louise" spots.
The WSJ "Washington Wire" reports that Sen. John McCain thinks being
vilified in that ad campaign may have helped his White House chances. "They've
made me a household word," the paper quotes McCain.
The NYT and WP report that the Boston Globe (which is
owned by the NYT ) has asked for the resignation of a columnist, Patricia
Smith, a Pulitzer finalist last year, because a routine internal review
determined that she had fabricated people and quotations in four of her columns
this year. According to the Globe , the transgressions included an
entirely made-up column purportedly about a woman dying of cancer. Smith
acknowledges her "misdeeds" in her farewell column today. The Post
account says that some Globe staffers are worried that the dismissal of Smith,
a black woman, might have racial repercussions. Question: Do such worries have
anything to do with the fact that although both stories mention the recently
outed white male Stephen Glass, neither mentions black female Janet Cooke, the
WP fabricator who cost her paper a Pulitzer?
