Marketplace: News Archives

Tuesday, November 14, 2000
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It's Tuesday, November 14. I'm David Brancaccio.

The deadline for certifying all the domestic votes for President in Florida has past, but with legal wrangling and overseas votes in the mail, it's still not clear exactly who will next occupy the White House. It was a day in which the state of the financial markets became explicit issue in the Presidential contest, after the man leading Republican George W. Bush's efforts to sort out the vote in Florida, former Treasury Secretary James Baker, was asked if he's worried about the effect of the political spectacle on Wall Street and beyond.

Baker: "More and more we see uncertainty in financial markets and we see uncertainty abroad. I believe that most observers, whether at home or abroad, are troubled by the seemingly endless counts and recounts until a candidate achieves the result he seeks."

Brier: "This is Michelle Brier in New York. There was evidence of a direct market reaction to the events in Florida today, but it wasn't negative, as baker predicted. Stock prices jumped when a Florida judge ruled the five o'clock deadline for certifying the vote recount would stand."

Rhodes: "The markets don't care which one of these gentlemen wins the election. The markets just want one of them to win and be in charge."

Brier: "Bill Rhodes, chief investment strategist at Williams Capital, says the judge's announcement gave investors hope."

Rhodes: "The markets are certianly reacting to the news - they don't' like the uncertainty. It's not that they're rooting for one side or the other, they just want it to end."

Brier: "There have been other times in the last week when the markets seemed to be moving in direct reaction to election news. One election night, the Euro rose and fell alongside Al Gore who is generally believe d to be more likely than George W. Bush to help prop up that ailing currency. And last Thursday, stocks sand when Gore vowed to fight the Florida vote in court. But political economist Tom Gallagher think the link between the market's doing and the election drama is being overstated."

Gallagher: " I think the big market moves late last week had more to do with weakness in the economy and weakness in certain company earnings. That's what the markets are always most concerned with and I think it's a reasonable view that in the election someone will be the winner by January 20 and whoever he is, he wont be able to implement major changes in policy."

Brier: "Going by the numbers, it has been a hard seven days for the Dow and Nasdaq - each index lost about three hundred points since last Wednesday's open. But in the current market climate, those figures are hardly unusual and you don't have to search hard to find similar data: the week of October 2, the Nasdaq dropped 350 points. The following week the Dow lost 400. In New York, I'm Michelle Brier for Marketplace."

Businesses and Congressional Republicans are vigorously protesting new government proposals to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries on the job. The rules proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration amid the election purgatory leave the lame-duck Clinton Administration open to criticism that the rules are being rushed into place to beat the arrival of the next administration. Marketplace's John Dimsdale reports businesses are complaining the government is wildly underestimating the cost of the new regulations.

Dimsdale: "OSHA and labor unions, which have long lobbied for stronger protections from ergonomic-related injuries, say businesses will benefit from fewer sick days, lower workers' compensation costs and greater productivity. According to the government, 600,000 employees miss work each year because of on-the-job stress to muscles and bones. But at Universal Dynamics in Woodbridge, Virginia where 220 workers build machinery for the plastics industry, President Don Rainville calls the cost to comply with the new regulations astronomical."

Rainville: "We're going to have to employ somebody to implement the new regulations because it's going to require an expert to write programs and understand what's required. Secondly we might actually have to move to a new facility because we don't' have the ceiling height, to install overhead cranes for example, in our current facility."

Dimsdale: "Rainville figures the rules could cost his company $12 million. OSHA says the cost should not exceed $150 per workstation for a total of $4.5 billion a year - about half the benefits. Industry groups complain the real cost will be $90 billion a year. Employers are also concerned they'll be liable for injuries that have nothing to do with the workplace."

Rainville: "They can actually come in and say 'I hurt my back playing golf yesterday but it hurst me to sit at my desk.' So they would then qualify for an ergonomic injury and can go home with full pay."

Dimsdale: "Several business groups have filed suit to stop the regulations which are to take effect January 16th. The AFL-CIO calls them the most important safety and health protections that have ever been issued by OSHA. In Washington, I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace."

A prominent Time Warner property is coming under fire in the Middle East. Cable News Network broadcasts worldwide and as one Israeli official put it, has a "tremendous impact" on World opinion. The Israeli Government has reportedly complained to the networks top brass for favoring the Palestinians in its coverage of seven weeks of violence that has claimed more than 200 lives, most of them Palestinian. Steve McNally reports from Jerusalem.

McNally: "A senior Israeli official, who refused to be named, says they made it clear to CNN that they find the tone of the network's coverage is "anti-Israeli" and, in part, blamed its use of some Palestinian reporters. Prime Minister Ehud Barak was to meet with CNN's editorial board while in the States last weekend but ran out of time. Jerusalem Bureau Chief Mike Hannah says Barak wanted to talk, not to complain."

Hannah: "The meeting was at our instigation and there was no suggestion at any stage, according to Larry register the person who set the meeting up, that any complaints were going to be laid at that meeting."

McNally: "CNN says its committed to balanced coverage and said as long as that standard is met by its reporters it doesn't matter whether they're Israeli, Palestinian, or otherwise."

David: "I'm talking about from the Israeli governmental side or from a Labour-led government, I've never heard of complaints against CNN."

McNally: "Kalev Ben David is TV critic for the Jerusalem Post newspaper. He believes the Israelis are upset that the violence is being portrayed as a popular uprising and not as an armed conflict. He says the network reports Palestinians being shot but doesn't say what they did to cause the Israelis to shoot. But if CNN is pro-Palestinian, that's news to the Palestinians."

Ashrawi: "They have been so entirely pro-Israeli they have adopted the Israeli terminology."

McNally: "Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi says CNN, and other media, are accepting so much spin doctoring from the Israeli side that they've started a write in campaign to pressure them to change their tone. In Jerusalem, this is Steve McNally for Marketplace."

As we reported, there was very strong surge in stock prices today, with the Dow going up 1.6 percent, 163 points, and the Nasdaq rising 5.8 percent, to way back above 3100 after a grim night below the surface. It was the tenth largest percentage gain ever. More details when we do the numbers.