News stories from Saturday April 24, 1982
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A decline in interest rates is indicated by certain harbingers around the country, including sharply higher car sales when banks lowered loan rates, President Reagan said in his fourth weekly radio address. He said that because inflation had declined sharply in recent months "interest rates shouldn't be higher than 10 percent." They are remaining high, he said, because the money markets are afraid "inflation will take off again." [New York Times]
- Inflation wiped out gains that American families achieved through higher earnings in the 1970's, according to the Census Bureau. Real family income, excluding the effects of inflation, rose rapidly from 1960 to 1970, but was virtually unchanged from 1970 to 1980. Income distribution appears to have become slightly more unequal in the last decade, the report said. [New York Times]
- A fundamental power shift in union-management relations is expected as the union movement accedes in industry after industry to employers' demands for wage, benefit and workrule concessions, labor experts said. Union concessions have resulted in the transfer of billions of dollars in income from workers to employers, union officials say. [New York Times]
- Foreign-born people outnumber New York City metropolitan area residents who were born in another state, according to figures based on the 1980 census. This, according to the Census Bureau, reflects both the large increase nationwide in immigration during the 1970's, and the slowdown in the migration of workers to the New York area from other Northern cities. The special census report also found that the New York area has an exceptionally high poverty rate. [New York Times]
- Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan formally announced that he will seek a second term. He said in an address to a gathering of Democrats in Suffolk County that his polls indicate he is the "most approved-of public figure in the state of New York." [New York Times]
- The British cabinet was summoned to an urgent meeting by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after the return of Foreign Secretary Francis Pym from talks in Washington with Secretary of State Alexander Haig over the Falkland Islands. Despite Mr. Pym's report of a "bit of progress," British officials cautioned that Britain and Argentina were still far apart from a negotiated solution to the crisis. A warning, which was communicated privately to Argentine officials through the Swiss Embassy in Buenos Aires, was issued to all Argentine ships and planes by the British Defense Ministry to stay away from the British fleet in the South Atlantic or risk an "appropriate response." [New York Times]
- U.S. failure in mediating the crisis over the Falklands would result in American support of Britain, Reagan administration officials said. They stressed that this was the consensus in the White House and State Department, but that President Reagan had made no formal decision and had set no time limit for breaking the deadlock. Officials said the support would include United States participation in an embargo on Argentine goods, but would not include use of American military forces. [New York Times]
- Arms sales to Guatemala will be resumed by the United States after a four-year freeze. The Reagan administraion has decided that last month's military coup has brought an improvement in Guatemala's human rights conditions, officials said. They said the administration planned to approve the sale of $4 million worth of spare parts for American-made helicopters being used by the Guatemalan army against leftist insurgents. [New York Times]