News stories from Thursday January 3, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Nixon signed a bill that will increase Social Security benefits by 11 percent for 30 million Americans and increase the Social Security taxes for everyone earning more than $10,800 a year. The bill, which replaces a 5.9 percent benefit rise authorized last year, calls for a 7 percent increase in checks received next April and a 4 percent increase in checks received next July. To pay for the added benefits, Social Security taxes will be paid on the first $13,200 of a wage earner's annual income, raising the ceiling from $10,800. [New York Times]
- The federal government asked stations to limit gasoline sales to 10 gallons per customer. Energy czar William Simon estimates that gasoline prices will increase 8-11 cents per gallon in the next two months, but stated that he foresees no further price increases after March. Major league baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced a cut in team charter flights to conserve energy. [CBS]
- William Simon, the federal energy administrator, said that most major oil companies had agreed to encourage service stations to limit sales to 10 gallons a customer, but it was unclear just how effective their efforts might be. The 23 major companies own only about 10 percent of the nation's service stations and have no influence over policies of the others. [New York Times]
- The government hopes to change America's attitude toward car pools. Transportation Secretary Claude Brinegar stated that car pools must be instituted or the U.S. faces gasoline rationing. The federal highway administration has worked out a car pooling computer program. [CBS]
- Warning that the oil shortage could lead to a worldwide depression, Secretary of State Kissinger said that President Nixon would make a personal effort to persuade major oil-producing and oil-consuming nations to band together to ease the crisis. Mr. Kissinger, who said that individual efforts would inevitably lead to economic suicide, disclosed that President Nixon would begin his efforts, aimed at about 20 countries, next week. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Henry Kissinger held a news conference at the Western White House concerning the Mideast peace talks and Arab oil embargo. Kissinger claimed to be optimistic about the prospects for peace, and he doesn't believe that the Israeli elections will affect the peace talks regarding disengagement. Kissinger will meet with Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan in Washington tomorrow. Dayan is bringing Israel's plans for troop disengagement to that meeting. [CBS]
- The oil crisis has begun to have serious effects in the Far East, where Japan is cutting its enormous exports by 15 to 25 percent, thus imperiling the economies of half a dozen Asian nations heavily dependent on Japanese supplies. Japanese officials fear the export cut will intensify growing resentment of Japan's economic dominance in Southeast Asia and endanger Japan's delicate relations with China. [New York Times]
- The miners' dispute is at the heart of Britain's economic troubles. Negotiations in London continue to go badly. Prime Minister Heath blames the coal miners entirely; miners' feelings for an all-out strike have increased. The coal shortage has set off a deadly economic chain reaction, as steel companies suffer badly from the coal shortage. The government and workers are at odds. [CBS]
- Canada indicated plans to increase her export tax on oil shipments to the United States by almost 200 percent, a move that would cost American importers nearly $120 million a month. The stated purpose of the tax, now $2.20 a barrel, is to shield Canada, the United States' largest foreign oil supplier, from soaring world oil prices. [New York Times]
- The arrest in England of three American sympathizers with Palestinian terrorists has caused problems. The British government will set free and then deport one American girl and her two male companions rather than punish them for criminal offenses. Reports differ regarding their mission in London, but they were supposedly smuggling arms into Britain for the terrorists. The men who were arrested were a Moroccan and a Pakistani who were students at a college in Santa Barbara, California. Student body president Sultan Aziz said that the campus was amazed and shocked to hear of their involvement. The other American who was arrested, Allison Thompson, lived close to the campus. [CBS]
- Israeli troops have blocked a delivery of nonmilitary supplies to elements of Egypt's Third Army in the Sinai. A United Nations spokesman said that the Israelis told him they had prevented the trucks from unloading in retaliation for an Egyptian attack on an Israeli bulldozer nearby. Egyptian officers reportedly said the cut-off army did not really need the supplies, possibly because Egypt has opened some other supply line to the troops. [New York Times]
- The General Accounting Office reported that U.S. military troops were used to build a private golf course in West Germany two years ago. [CBS]
- Two weeks after the assassination of the Spanish Premier, Luis Carrero Blanco, his successor, Carlos Arias Navarro, formed a new cabinet reflecting his own conservative political views and devotion to authority and order. In a major realignment, Mr. Arias eliminated the influence of figures associated with the Catholic lay movement, Opus Dei, who had led Spain's economic upsurge for 15 years. [New York Times]
- A Gallup poll revealed that 85% of Americans expect economic difficulties in 1974. [CBS]
- The House Judiciary Committee and most major news organizations generally agree on compromise legislation to protect a reporter's confidential sources and information. The bill will be brought before Congress during the next session. [CBS]
- The leaders of last year's Wounded Knee confrontation will go on trial next week in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wounded Knee, South Dakota, had been the scene of outrages for American Indians for generations, including the 1890 massacre which occurred there. Last spring, militant Indians revisited Wounded Knee to make Americans aware of the Indians' problems. Navajo babies' chances of survival are extremely low. Indians desire return to the time before the white man's interference. Indians are bilingual and bicultural only because of the white man's forced influence on his society. Indian children often lag behind white children when they begin school, and some believe that Indian children would benefit by being removed from the Indian environment. [CBS]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 880.69 (+25.37, +2.97%)
Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish. | |||||||||||||||
| Market Index Trends | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | DJIA | S&P | Volume* |
| January 2, 1974 | 855.32 | 97.68 | 12.06 |
| December 31, 1973 | 850.86 | 97.55 | 23.47 |
| December 28, 1973 | 848.02 | 97.54 | 21.31 |
| December 27, 1973 | 851.01 | 97.74 | 22.72 |
| December 26, 1973 | 837.56 | 95.74 | 18.62 |
| December 24, 1973 | 814.81 | 92.90 | 11.54 |
| December 21, 1973 | 818.73 | 93.54 | 18.68 |
| December 20, 1973 | 828.11 | 94.55 | 17.43 |
| December 19, 1973 | 829.57 | 94.82 | 20.67 |
| December 18, 1973 | 829.49 | 94.74 | 19.49 |