Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Digest< Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 08:40:52 EST Message-ID: <43.1992Nov7.084053@AmeriCast.com> Digest< Consumer credit purchases increased in September for the first time in eight months, the Federal Reserve Board said, a sign that optimism about the economy's direction may be improving. The Fed said consumer installment credit - purchases that require monthly payments - rose by $1.61 billion, or at an annual rate of 2.7 percent, in September.< Mortgage rates rose this week. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 8.29 percent, up from 8.21 percent the week before, and the highest since July 2, said the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. One-year adjustable-rate mortgages had an average initial rate of 5.17 percent, up from 5.12 percent last week and the highest in two months.< BellSouth plans to cut its work force by 8,000 jobs, or about 8 percent, within four years to streamline its telecommunications business in nine southern states. < Saturn plans to open 80 new dealerships during the next year, and its assembly plant will start 'round-the-clock production in January to supply them, a GM spokesman said.< The United Mine Workers and the Bituminous Coal Operators' Asso- ciation opened what the union said would be tough negotiations on a contract covering 210,000 active and retired miners. Both sides expressed cautious hope that an agreement could be reached before the current one expires Feb. 1.< McDonnell Douglas is laying off another 650 workers in St. Louis and southern California as part of its restructuring efforts. < Unilever's third-quarter earnings rose 6 percent.< Martin Marietta Manned Space Systems will lay off 500 employees, most of them in New Orleans, on Jan. 1.< Schwinn Bicycle, under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, will lay off 160 employees, half its U.S. work force, by February.< Trustees for two Baltimore-based profit-sharing plans filed suit against Marriott's plan to divide into two separately traded com- panies. The suit is the fourth filed by Marriott bondholders, who are seeking to block the restructuring Marriott announced Oct. 5.< Singer-Link laid off 27 engineers and technicians at its Silver Spring facility because of cancellation of a Navy contract for simulators to be used by pilots of a new antisubmarine plane, the P-3. Congress recently canceled the P-3's development.< L.L. Bean will open a store in Tokyo Sunday, the first of five planned for Japan. The new store is the first Bean has located outside the United States.<02:31 11-07C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)