News stories from Monday December 9, 1974

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Government officials said that President Ford, concerned about the rapidly growing unemployment rate, had agreed to abandon his proposal for a public service employment program and accept a broader, more accelerated congressional program. The President was said to be willing to go along with a House bill that would authorize $2 billion for public service jobs right away and would scrap the "trigger" system proposed by Mr. Ford, which would create public service employment only after unemployment reached a high level in a specific area over a prolonged period. [New York Times] Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, said that President Ford must quickly develop a decisive, "substantive" program of action to avert a prolonged and deepening national economic crisis. He gave a gloomy, impatient assessment of the national economic climate in a speech to a group of newspaper executives, and among his suggestions was a temporary loosening of the federal monetary policy. [New York Times] John Ehrlichman began to give in his own words his defense to the charges at the Watergate cover-up trial -- a defense that sought to shift the blame to former President Richard Nixon. [New York Times] The Senate began its formal debate on the confirmation of Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President, taking less than the time allotted for debate before the line vote, which is scheduled tomorrow afternoon. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a conservative Republican, informed President Ford in a letter that he would not vote to confirm Mr. Rockefeller. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate majority whip, said he believed that the former New York Governor would be confirmed by an overwhelming margin. [New York Times] The administration, concerned that some oil-rich countries might try to take over financial control of critical defense industries, has begun a study into whether present security safeguards are adequate to detect and prevent foreign financial infiltration of defense contractors. [New York Times] The British government announced a broadly-based mandatory energy-saving program, including lower speed limits on many highways and a maximum temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit in most buildings except homes and hospitals. The government is seeking to reduce energy consumption by 10 percent, and to reduce Britain's expenditures for imported oil, which have been totaling more than $8 billion annually. [New York Times] Final steps were taken by Pope Paul VI that clear the way for the formal announcement Thursday of the first American-born saint, Blessed Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, who was born in 1774 to a prominent New York family that was Episcopalian. The canonization procedure was completed when the Vatican officially approved the legitimacy of a miracle attributed to Mother Seton. [New York Times] A breath of liberty and exciting hopes of a democratic future that were felt briefly in Ethiopia earlier this year have nearly disappeared as an almost anonymous and hard-fisted military junta has replaced centuries of absolute monarchy. "The chance we had is probably gone for good," an Ethiopian said, "even if we do get a civilian government now, it will probably be an extreme left-wing and authoritarian one." [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 579.94 (+2.34, +0.41%)
S&P Composite: 65.60 (+0.59, +0.91%)
Arms Index: 0.61

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	530	6.05
Declines	826	5.75
Unchanged	465	2.86
Total Volume		14.66

* in millions of shares

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*
December 6, 1974	577.60	65.01	15.50
December 5, 1974	587.11	66.13	12.89
December 4, 1974	598.64	67.41	12.58
December 3, 1974	596.61	67.17	13.62
December 2, 1974	603.02	68.11	11.14
November 29, 1974	618.66	69.97	7.40
November 27, 1974	619.29	69.94	14.81
November 26, 1974	617.26	69.47	13.60
November 25, 1974	611.94	68.83	11.30
November 22, 1974	615.30	68.90	13.02