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The

er

of

Economic Education Newsletter
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Vol. 19, No. 1 Spring 1993

Economic Highlights
of 1992

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The 1992
Presidential Election:
"It's the economy, stupid!"

he U.S. pres idential election has
o be th e top economic news story
of 1992. Foreign affairs, Murphy
Brown, and family valu es garnered
their share of headlin es during the
ca mpaign , but co ncern over the
economy decided the outcome. Rightly
or w rongly, voters held the Bush Admini stration res ponsible for fo ur yea rs
of slu ggish economi c activity.
After the poll s closed on November 3,
1992, Bill Cl inton was on his way to
the White House, and George Bush
was preparing for a return to private
li fe. Eighteen months earlier hardly
anyone wou ld have thought thi s outco me possi ble. Victory in the Gulf W ar
had propelled George Bush's approval
rating to 91 perce nt, and a second
Bush Administration seemed all but
guaranteed. The 1992 presidential election was shaping up to be little more
than a fo rm ality.
Never mind that the economy showed
persistent signs of weakness. The Bush


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But instead of falling into place, everything seemed to fa ll apa rt. After a brief
sp urt, consum er confidence retreated,
and th e robust recovery fai led to materialize. In fact, th ere was co nsiderab le
disagreement as to w hether or not even
a modest recovery was in th e offi ng.
A se ri es of high-profi le lay-offs at major
U.S. co rporation s added to th e overall
sense of gloo m and uncertainty. People
w ho were fortunate enough to still
have jobs were more in cl in ed to reduce old debts rath er than to make
major new purchases.
Th e economi c uncertainty mad e fo r an
unusual presidentia l ca mpa ign. After
the Gul f War, big-name Democrats
had all but co nceded the 1992 race to
George Bush , but by late 1991 they
were ki ck ing themse lves for being so
hasty. Less fa mili ar Democrats, w ho
for th e most part viewed the 1992 race
as a tun e-up for 1996, scrambl ed to
establi sh themselves after they rea lized
that the President was vul nerable on
domestic issues. To make matters even
more interesting, third-party ca ndidate
Ross Perot declared ·hi s ca ndid acy,
dropped out of the race, and then
made a surpri se reentry in th e fa ll .
By th e time of the televised debates in
October, all three ca ndidates realized
th at the economy was the number one
issue in voters' min ds, and all three
ca mpaigned accordingly. Clinton emphasized " hope" and "change" and

released a "detai led " economi c plan.
(A now-fa mous sign that hung in his
ca mpai gn headq uarter.s was less detai led bu t to th e po int: " It's th e
economy, stupid! "). Perot bought halfhour blocks of time on national television and used pie charts to talk about
the defici t. (To the surprise of man y,
Perot and hi s pie charts drew a sizab le
audience.)
On Nove mber 3, Bill Clinton won the
presidency by a comfortable margin,
and, fo r whatever reaso n, the Consumer Co nfidence Index, wh ich had
stood at 54.6 in October, jumped to
78. 1 in December. Where it wi ll be in
December 1993 is anyone 's guess.

Talking Points
In recent yea rs, Americans have begun to focus mo re closely on the
notion of consumer confidence as
reflected in a monthly survey known
as the Consumer Confidence Index.
How important a factor is consumer
confidence? Can low consumer confiden ce send the economy into recess ion ? Can high co nsum e r
confidence propel the economy into
recovery ? Or might other factors be
more significant?

-~

Twentieth-century presidents have
often tried to spur economic growth
by making "upbeat " speeches. Much
of the time their rhetorical efforts
have fallen short. What ca n a president actually do to stimu late economic growth?

L.A. Riots:
Can't we all get along?

l

he incident had taken place on
March 3, 1991 just before one
o'clock in the morning. A bystander
had captured it all on videotape. The
chi lling 81-second segment showed
four white Los Angeles police officers
delivering 56 blows to African-American motorist Rodney King following a
high-speed car chase .
Just over a year later, on April 28, 1992,
a jury in Simi Valley, California found
the four office rs " not gu ilty" of assau lt.
(The tr ial had been moved to suburban
Simi Val ley after the defense o ntended
that a fair tria l would not have bee n
possible in Los Angel es County.) The
verd ict triggered an outbreak of looting, rioting, and violence, the likes of
which had not been seen in the United
States sin ce the late 1960s.
Looters trashed stores and carried
off armloads of consume r goods and
groce ri es. Businesses in the city's
Koreatown section were especia ll y
hard-hit, but the violence was not
limited to a particular neighborhood.
Fires blazed from South-Central Los
Angeles to Beverly Hills. Thick clouds
of smoke made it necessary to re-route
planes approaching Los Angeles International Airport.
The violence and the looting eventually subsided, but the 72 hours of civil
unrest had exacted a staggering cost:
58 dead, more than 4,000 injured,
ove r 12,000 arrests, and upwards of $1
billion in prope rty damage. Even as
firefighters we re still hosin g down
smo ldering ru ins, po liti cians, so ial
scienti sts, columni sts, and comme ntators were trying to co me up with
explanations fo r what had happened.
Some pointed to the poverty rate, which
had jumped from 11 p rcent during
the 1970s to almost 15 p rcent in
1992. Others blamed cu tbacks in federal aid to cities.
Another often-cited factor was the dramatic loss of manufacturing jobs in
urban areas. For decades, the promise
of steady work in urban factories
had lured migrants to American
cities. People with little education and
few skills were able to improve their
fortu nes by landing a factory job .
Although the work may not always
have been pleasant, the pay wasn 't
bad. But during the 1980s, fa tory jobs
began to disappear at an alarming rate.
In recent yea rs, South-Central Los


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Angeles had experienced the loss of
auto assembly, aircraft assembly, and
tire manufacturing plants.
Other explanation for the L.A. ri ots,
and the plight of U.S. cities in general,
have focused on th widesp read
avai labi lity of era k coca ine and handguns, the perceived weaknesses of
urban school systems, and the entrenched strength of street gangs. But
whatever the reason, there seemed to
be general agreement on the need to
encourage economic development
efforts in Los Angeles and other cities.

Talking Points
What factors have been responsible
for the loss of manufacturing jobs in
U.S. cities?

·t
What ca n be done to foster economic growth in U.S. urban areas?

Stress Test:
Unrest in Germany and
the Financial Strain of
Reunification

G

ermans have had to face the fact
that getting back together can be
difficult. The spontaneous celebrations that accompanied reunification
in 1990 gave way to viol nt attacks on
fo reigners in 1992.
Last year, violence by extrem ist groups
in Germany claimed th e lives of 18
victims. One of the most tragic in cidents occ urred in late November
w hen sk inh eads chanting neo-Nazi
slogans firebombed a dormitory housing fore igners in the northe rn German city of M oe lln . A grand moth er,
her grandda ughter, and a niece died
in the flames; all three were members
of Germany's Turkish community.
The Moelln attack prompted an outpouring of concern o n the part of
Germans ap palled by the esca latin g
violence. More than 10,000 people
attended funeral ceremonies, and well
ove r 150,000 marchers took to the
streets of Munich to oppose neoNazi extremism.
There seems to be general agreement
that the rapid pace of reunification
is largely responsible for Germany's
econom ic and socia l turmoil. The cost
of reuniti ng east and west is currently
pegged at $100 billion a year and is
ce rta in to go hi gher. Much of the

money is being used to soften the
impact of immediately adopting a
single German currency and to cushion the blow of closing so many
uncompetitive factories in the former
East Germany. (More than three million East Germans are now out of work.
That's app rox imately 15 percent of the
workforce. )
Initially, the German government was
reluctant to pay fo r reunification by
raising taxes, preferring instead to rely
on increased borrowing. Th at, coupled
with pressure from labo r uni ons to
adopt a policy of wage parity between
east and west, created inflati ona ry
pressures that prompted Germany's
centra l bank to push for higher interest
rates. At the sa me time, the government moved to cut socia l programs
and industrial subsidi es in the west
in order to free up funds to aid the
east. To compli cate matters, the German economy slipped into recession
during 1992, and the future looked fa r
less rosy than it had in 1990.
Naturally, when things get bad, people
look around for someone to blame,
and in Germany some began to take
out their frustrations on the country's
sizable fo reign population. During the
1950s and 1960s, in an effort to fill
many of the jobs that Germans were
reluctant to accept, West Germany
encouraged the immigration -but not
the assimilation or naturalization - of
"guest workers" from cou ntries such
as Turkey. For more than 40 years,
Germany also has had an extra ordina rily liberal asylum poli cy that granted
automatic haven to "victims of persecution." Ever sin ce the fa ll of Communist regimes throughout Eastern Eu rope,
migrants have taken advantage of the
policy and flocked to Germany in sea rch
of eco no mi c op portunity. When the
hard realities of reunification set in, a
number of disaffected Germans lashed
out at the foreigners. Fortunately, a
much larger number of Germans turned
out for massive demonstrations to express their outrage over the actions of
neo-Naz i extrem ists.

Talking Points
Why do you think factories in East
Germany were less competitive than
tho e in West Germany?
'i'

Why do hate crimes seem to in crease when economic conditions
worsen?

how the agree ment might affect the
American bi otec hnology indu stry .
And U.S. negotiato rs fought long and
hard to soften th e cl imate treaty so as
to have no firm targets or tim etab les
for red ucing emissions of carbon d iox ide and other heat trapp ing gases
thought to cause global wa rmin g.
There we re also substantial areas of
disagreement between the relatively
sma ll number of wealthy industrialized cou ntries and the mu ch larger
number of poo rer co untri es. M ost of
the disagreement was ove r mo ney.
The poorer nations sought greater contributions fro m the wea lthy in ord er to
offset the cost of switching to form s of
eco nomi c develo pment th at wou ld
not pollute the air or destroy large
tracts of fo restland . Fro m their perspective, enviro nmentally sound deve lopme nt benefitted everyo ne, but
the econo mi c costs were borne almost entirely by the poor nati ons. In
effect, the poorer nations were saying
to the industrialized world , "W e may
be w illing to go slow on clearing o ur

forests and to adopt stri cter enviro nmental sta ndard s, but it w ill cost you
because polluti o n co ntro ls are ex pensive and fa ilure to ex ploit our natura l
resources costs us jobs and ex port
doll ars." Th ere were also issues of
sove reignty and natio nal prid e. The
poorer natio ns see med to resent the
fact th at wea lthy nations were aski ng
them to forgo develop ment options
that, not so long ago, had been standard practice in t he industrialized
wo rld .
Yet for all the disagree ment, th e Earth
Su mmi t produced tangibl e res ults that
could serve as the basis for slowing
environm enta l deteri oratio n worldwide. Before the summi t adjourn ed,
wea lthy nati ons agreed to work toward an increase in aid for environmen tallysound development in poorer
cou ntries; the United States ultim ate ly
signed a wate red-down versio n of the
cli mate treaty; and delegates voted to
fo rm the Sustainable Develop ment
Co mmission, an international watchdog group modeled after the United

Nati ons Human Rights Co mmission.
Its mission would be to foster policies co mpatibl e w ith environm enta l preservati on by issuing reports
and co mplaints against the worst
offenders.
Perhaps most important of all, the
fi rst Earth Summit focused worldwide attenti on on globa l environmental concerns and establi shed
international mechanisms for dealing with the complexities su rrounding those concerns. Other summ its
have accomplished far less.

Talking Points

Wh y have the less developed
countries lagged behind the richer
industrialized countries in taking
steps to protect the environment?
~

Why are the richer nations concerned over environmental condition s in less developed
countries?

Multi-Media
Banking Basics , booklet, published
by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston , 32 pages.

Banking Basics, a
co l o rful new
publi catio n
from th e Federal Rese rve
Bank of Boston, is intended to help middl e
school and high schoo l students gai n
a better understa nding of banki ng.
A lth ough it isn 't meant to cover everything there is to know, it answers
many of the most commonl y asked
questions about banks and banking;
questions that range from "Wh at is a
bank?" to "Why do banks fa il, and
what happens whe n they do? ".

eve nts that ca me to be known as the
Bank Panic of 1907.

and will be distributed free to teachers
and admi ni strators.

By most measures it was not the worst
bank pani c in U.S. hi story. But in
retrospect, it was a watershed event
that had a lasting impact on the America n fin ancia l syste m beca use it provided th e impetus fo r creation of the
Federal Rese rve .

Entries in the new publication list
resources from agenc i es and
nonprofit organizations,
as we ll as samp le
programs offered by th e
private secto r to partnership schools. Each
entry describ es basic features of the
program(s) and includes co ntact in formatio n.

Panic of 1907 is intended prim aril y for
high school and general adu lta ud iences.
Educators Resource Guide, reference
booklet, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 135 pages.

Panic of 7907, book let, Federal Rese rve Bank o f Bosto n, 17 pages.

In recent yea rs, governm ent fu nds have
bee n scarce and ma ny school systems
have felt the pin ch. Yet all too ofte n a
va lu ab le edu ca ti o nal resou rce may be
underutilized simp ly because peo ple
aren't awa re of its ex istence.

Fin ancial pani cs and bank run s were
all too co mmon during the 19th and
earl y 20th ce nturi es. Some were more
seve re than others, but even in a
relatively mild panic, fortunes evaporated and lives ended in ruin . A new
publicatio n fro m the Fede ral Reserve
Ba nk of Boston recaps the chain of

To help remedy th at situation , the
Pub li c & Co mmunity Affairs Depa rtment of the Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston has just published the Educators Resource Guide, a li sting of public,
no nprofit, and private programs ava il ab le to Massachusetts schoo ls (grades
K-12). The Guide includes 180 entri es


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For more information abo ut the

Guide, contact Angelo Veneziano of
the Bank 's Publi c & Commun ity Affa irs D epartment at (6 1 7) 973-3456.

For free cop ies of Banking Basics,
Panic of 190 7, and th e Educators
Resource Guide, write to:
Publications
Public & Community
Affairs Department T-6
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
P .O . Box 2076
Boston, MA 02106-2076
or call (617) 973-3459,

International Trade:
Maastricht and NAFTA
uropeans began last year with
hi gh hopes for ratification of the
Maastricht Treaty. If approved,
the 1991 treaty would go a long
way toward creating econom ic and
political union among the twelve
member nations of the European
Community (Belgium, Britain,
Denmark, France, Germany, Greece,
Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain).
The treaty elimin ates virtually al l barriers to the free movement of goods,
se rvi ces, labor, and capital between
EC members, and it co ntains provisio ns for European monetary union
(a co mm on currency for members of
the Europea n Community), a European central bank, ad ditional powers for th e European Parliament, and
a co mm on defense arrangement.

E

But ratifi catio n of the treaty proved
to be far more problematic than its
backers had originally predi cted.
Trouble developed when Danish
voters, fearful of rising unemployment (and possibly motivated by a
dislike for EC bureaucrats and a fea r
of German dominance), rej ected
the agreement on June 2nd by a vote
of 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent.
Although Irish voters backed the
agreement by a wide margin on June
16, the governments of other EC
nations began to waffle. France,
which had been one of the treaty's
strongest advocates, scheduled a
referendum after French far mers
mounted a strong cam paign of res istance. Voters approved the agreement, 51 percent to 49 percent,
but the narrowness of th e margin
indicated widespread misgivings over
the Maastricht Treaty.
Th e treaty's chan ces for ratification
suffered ye t another bl ow when
the British withdrew th e pound
from Europe's exc hange- rate
mechanism (ERM), the vehicle for
establi shing exchange rate parity
between the currencies of EC members. To a certain extent, currency
specu lators had created the pressure
that drove the pound from the ERM
after they recognized the dilemma
facing the British government: High
interest rates might be necessary
in order to mai ntain the pound 's link
to the ERM, but at the same time
Britain 's sagging economy might
require a policy leading to lower
rates.

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To comp li cate matters further, Germans expressed increasing concern
ove r ceding control of the German
mark to a European central bank.
These developments in Germany and
Britain highlighted Lhe difficulties of
linking curre ncies together whe n underlying fu ndamentals don't necessa ril y support such action. And even
if the currency issue were resolved,
the re were still a number of other
thorny problems to be faced. By the
end of 1992, the fate of the Maastricht
Treaty was in doubt.

freer trade cou ld be nefit consumers
throughout North America by making high-quality goods and services
available at competitive prices. Moreover, all three governments seem to
realize how much is at stake if the
agreement fa ll s apart. Mexico, for
example, is now the third largest
export market for U.S. goods and
services. (Last year, U.S. exports to
Mexico exceeded 1991 levels by 20
percent.)
Talking Points

The other major trade story of 1992
was NAFTA, the North American Free
Trade Agreement. On December 17,
th e leaders of Canada, Mexico, and
the United States signed an agreement to elimin ate virtually all tariffs
and restrictions on trade among the
three countri es. (Some trade barriers
would fall as soon as the agreement
was ratified, others would be phased
out over the next 15 yea rs.) Although
the agreement must still be ratified by
all three co untries, the mere fact that
it was signed represented a major
accomplishment for NAFTA proponents.
Powerful interests in all three countries had opposed NAFTA. Canadians, experiencing nearly 12 percent
unemployment, voiced concerns that
NAFTA wou Id lead tofu rther job losses
and an even greater intrusion of American culture across the Canad ian
border. In the United States, organized labor and envi ronmenta l organizations, two groups that have often
found themselves at odds over
domestic issues, greeted NAFTA with
reactions that ranged from outright
oppos iti on to wary skepticism . Labor
feared that American compa ni es
would close up shop and move south
of th e border to Mexico, where unskilled laborers ea rn $5-$7 a day.
Environm entali sts worried that companies wou ld ru sh to take advantage
of M exico's more cas ual attitu de
toward environm ental regu lations.
NAFTA also became a campa ign issue during the 1992 U.S. presidential
race when Ross Perot said the agreement would lead to the who lesale
export of American jobs, and Bill
Clinton hinted that he, too, had a
number of reservations about it. But
many observers are predicting that
NAFTA ultimately wi ll be ratified because the governments of all three
cou ntri es seem eager to make the
agreement work, and because the

Generally speaking, who benefits
and who loses from the easing of
trade restrictions?
'1
Under what circumstances, if any,
might a government be justified in
establishing trade restrictions to
"protect " a domestic industry?

The Earth Summit in Rio:
Green is Also the Color
of Money

I

In June, delegates from 178 nations (114 heads of state, including George Bush), accompanied
by a press corps that numbered more
than 7,000, flew down to Rio for the
first Earth Summit. The United Nations-sponsored meeting could not
have been held in a more appropriate spot. Rio de Janeiro, the seaside
Brazilian city that boasts one of the
world's most breathtaking natural
settings, is plagued by environmental
problems. Untreated sewage washes
up on the fabled beaches oflpan ema
and Copacabana. Trash collection
and sewage services are virtua lly nonexistent in the sprawling hillside slums
(fave/a ) that ring the city. Traffi c
jams and choki ng air pollution make
Ri o "breathtaking" in a most und esirable way.
Th e Earth Summit, which attempted
to tackle such issues as climate change
(globa l warming), biological diversity
(preservation of plant, an imal, and
microbial species), and global conservation of fo rests (sa ve the
rainforest) , generated considerable
controversy. Throughout most of the
12-day proceedings, the United
States found itself at odds with a
majority of the nations in attendance.
For example, President Bush refused
to sign a treaty on biological diversity, largely because of concern over

The Russian Economy:
Wait 'til next year
woyearsago, Boris Yeltsin climbed
atop a tank and helped head off
a coup attempt by hard-lin e Communists against Mikhail Gorbachev.
Last year, as president of the Russian
Federation, he undertook a task that
made sta nding up to ta nks see m easy
by co mparison: Russ ia's transition from
Com munism to a market eco nomy.

T:

The job of actually implementing new
policies went to Yeltsin 's 35-year-old
minister of finance (later to becom e
acting prime minister), Yegor Gaidar,
and a team of young reformers. From
the outset, Gaidar knew his task would
not be easy. Communist dictators had
spent 70 years doing eve rything in thei r
power to ensure that the Soviet system
would never be und one. Under the
Communists, farms and banks had been
nationa li zed, co mm ercial law had
been aboli shed, and private eco nomic
activity had been considered a crim e.
In effect, Yeltsin and Gaidar were
attempting to introduce free market
economics to a natio n whose people
had no tradition of private enterprise
and little fam ili arity w ith the notion of
private property. What's more, the
break with Co mmunist pol icies was to
be immediate and co mplete.
In early January, consumer prices skyrocketed after Gaidar abolished price
contro ls on vi rtu ally all goods. Gaidar's
econom ic team also moved aggressively to cut the government deficit
by slashing defense spe nding and ending subsidies to government-owned
industries. But with the demise of
Russia's centrall y planned eco nomy
came a sharp decline in industrial
outpu t and a near-total collapse of
the distribution syste m for goods and
agricu ltural products.
The ab rupt changes imposed a heavy
burden on ordi nary Russians, and many
angrily expressed their displeasure
with the new policies. But Gaidar's
most intractaole foes proved to be
entrenched Communist functionaries
- Party officia ls, bureaucrats, factory
managers, and others who had a vested
interest in maintaining the status quo.
Tensions between reforme rs and
hardliners reached the ir peak in Decembe r when fisticuffs erupted over
a procedural question during t he
Congress of People 's Deputies. Two
weeks later, growing dissatisfaction


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with the eco no mi c reform program
forced Yegor Gaidar to step down as
acting prime minister. He was replaced by a longtime Communist functionary from the government-owned
energy industry. As the year drew to a
close, Yeltsin clung to power, but the
future pace of economi c and political
reform appea red less certai n than it
had six months ea rli er.

In 1992, even high-profile corporate
giants faltered. General Motors (as in
"What's good for the country is good for
General Motors, and vice versa.")
announced the biggest loss in U.S. corporate history - $4.5 billion. Not long
afterward, GM chairma n Robert Stempel
was pressured into stepping down. And
Stempel wasn't alone. Kenneth Olsen,
the founder of Digital Equipment
Corpo rati on, announced his retirement.

Talking Points

Later in the year, Olympia & York
made head lin es when it filed for bankruptcy. During the 1980s, 0 & Y had
been one of the biggest names in commercial real estate development.

Why would some Russians oppose
the transition from Communism to a
market economy?
~

Why do you think the economic
reformers believed they had to remove price controls all at once?

Wang Laboratories, a once high-flying
name in high-tech, had yet another bad
year in what has been a longstringofbad
years. In August, the Massachusettsbased compa ny filed for bankruptcy.

The Continued Shake-out
in Corporate America

In December, came an unmistakable
sign that co rpo rate America was in the
midst of a major shakeout; IBM
annou nced that it wou ld cut 25,000
jobs (out of 340,000). Most of the jobs
wou ld be eliminated through attrition
or by not filling vaca ncies, but IBM
also hinted that it might be forced to
abandon its longstanding " no layoff"
policy. (The co mputer giant had failed
to recognize the market's growing preference for PCs over the mainframe
co mputers that had been IBM 's traditional strength.)

here was a t im e when many
Americans, blue-collar and whitecoll ar workers alike, shared a similar employment goal: Land a job with
a "good compa ny" - one that offered
decent pay, generous benefits, and
long-term job secu rity-and then stay
there until retirement. But that vision
of the way life ought to be started to
fadeduringthe 1970sand 1980swhen,
one after another, America's stee l mills
banked their bl ast fu rn aces and other
manufacturing industries locked their
gates. Lots of "good jobs" with "good
compa ni es" disappeared forever.
At first, white-collar workers in hightech, financial services, and other service sector industries paid little heed
to the wave of job losses. Sure it was
sad to see people lose their jobs, but
the prevai ling se ntim ent see med to be
that old, " uncompetitive" indu stries
wou ld fade wh ile new industries would
fl ouris h and provide jobs for the future.
Th en, one by one, the high-flying
industries ran into difficulties of their
own. The first signs of trouble appeared
in 1985 when high-tech experienced
a downturn. Th en came 1986 changes
in the tax laws that undercut the
commercial real estate market, followed
by the October 1987 stock market
"correction" in which the market lost
more than 500 points in a single day.
Things changed drastica ll y fo r workers
in the high-tech and se rvice secto rs.
Companies that had been expa nding
rap idl y began to shed workers.

The events of last year were remarkable for two reasons. First, many of the
job losses were among middle managers and white-collar workers, two groups
that for the most part had escaped the
ill effects of earlier recessions. The other
remarkable and troubling aspect of the
1992 shakeout in corporate America
was the fact that job losses and financial
reversals hit such high ly visibl e corporations as General M otors and IBM,
which were once thought to be synonymous w ith Amer ican eco nom ic
strength. Even as the economy began
to show signs of recove ry, concern over
jobs continued to weigh heavily upon
the minds of many.
Talking Points
Even some profitable companies are
looking for ways to cut jobs. Why?

·i
A number of companies are relying
more and more on part-time and temporary workers. What are the positive
and negative effects of this trend?

New England Update
11

Maine Event

Think globally.
Act locally."

S

o uth Bosto n Hi gh
Schoo l and th e Federal Rese rve Bank of
Boston have bee n invo lved
in a highly successful partnership program fo r more
than 1 5 yea rs, and rece ntly th e
Bank's Publi c & Co mmunity Affairs
Department hosted a lun cheon meetingto help promote South Boston High's
innovative Enviro nm ental Techni cian
Training Program. M ore than 50 represe ntatives from Boston-area co rpo rations and public secto r orga nizati ons
attended.
The tra ining program, which bega n last
year, iscomprised ofthree segmentsand
is designed to prepare students for entrylevel positions in environmental servi ces
and resources preservation. Segment one
includes an environmentally-ori ented
chemistry course, an English course th at
emphasizes effecti ve co mmunicati on
and technical writing, and a statistics
course that provides the opportuni ty to
und erstand and perfo rm sta ti sti ca l

analysis as applied to envi ronmental problems.
The second component is a
laborato ry course. Stud ents
spend six hours per week in the
lab learning appropri ate use and
maintenance of materi als and equipment, proper techniqu e, and laboratory
etiquette. Regular fi eld trips offer an
opportuni ty for students to see practical
applications of lab skills.
Th e third, and most cru cial, part of
the program involves helping students
gain hand s-o n ex peri ence. South Boston High Schoo l is establi shing relation ships with local compani es and
agen cies that ca n lead to job shadowing, work intern ships, summ er jobs,
and perm anent empl oyment upo n
gradu ati o n fo r the program's stud ents.
For more in fo rm ati on on the Enviro nmental Technicia n Training Program,
co ntact Assistant Headmaster David
White at (6 17) 268-652 1 or 268-2928.
0

C)

he M aine Co un cil o n Eco no mi c
Edu ca ti on rece ntly ann oun ced the
]
orm ati o n of a major partnership
agree ment w ith the M aine Credi t Uni on
League, th e trade associati o n for the
state's 105 credit uni ons. Under the
part nership agree ment, th e M ain e
Co un cil rece ived $7,5 00 in partial
program fundin g as well as th e assistance and avai lab ility of credit union
staff and fa ciliti es in th e impl ementati on of a statewid e program o n high
schoo l fin ancial pl ann ing. Th e program
was deve lo ped by th e Nati onal College
fo r Fin ancial Pl anning and is ava il abl e
in M ain e thro ugh the University of
M aine Coo perative Extensio n Service
in co njun cti o n with the Maine Coun cil and its network of bu siness, econo mi cs , math , and soc ial studi es
teachers.
Th e M ain e Coun cil, the Extension Service, and th e Main e Credit Unio n
League will work with Extension Service edu cators, high school teac hers,
and others interested in ass isting M ain e
students to lea rn abo ut basic mo ney
management and setting finan cial goals.
Students w ill develop fin ancial plans
and w ill di scove r how fin ancial planning can be used in making ca reer and
edu cation cho ices.

C

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The service is offered free of charge to
M aine teachers and schools. For more
in formation, contact Robert Mitchell,
M aine Council on Economi c Education
at (20 7) 780-592 6 or (20 7) 581 -1464.

0

0

.=.

Cl.

Copies of this newsletter and a catalogue of other educational materials
and research publications may be
obtained free of charge by writing:

South Boston High School Headmaster Lorraine Hamilton is joined by Max
Corbett (I) and Thomas Giachetto (r), both of the Boston School Department
Vocational-Technical Education Office. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
recently hosted a luncheon to help promote South Boston High School's
innovative Environmental Technician Training Program .


https://fraser.stlouisfed.org
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Public and Community Affairs
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
P.O . Box 2076
Boston, Massachusetts 02106-2076
or by calling (617) 9 73-3459