Corsicana Daily Sun from Corsicana, Texas • Page 11

Feed Lot Investors See Shares Falling Dll IIM IIADKVII) By JIM BARLOW Associated Press Writer HOUSTON (AP) Seventeen months ago, the chief executive officer of the largest custom cattle feeding operation said the cattle business was equal to the value of the crude oil business in the United States. But while oil companies have seen their profits zoom, Stratford of Texas saw stockholder equity drop from $22 million to $10 million in the past year. Robert H. Gow, chairman of Stratford, pioneered the selling of joint venture participations to investors looking for profits and tax advantages in the feeding of beef cattle in giant feed lots. In March of 1973, Gow said participations in the joint ran from three to five be maturing this year.

of those people have made, or will make, a lot of money on rising beef Gow observed, adding that Stratford would be getting 15 per cent of those profits. But this week when Stratford released its third quarter report, it revealed losses of $13,697,000 for the nine months ending Aug. 31. Losses per common share were $3.91 for the three quarters. The company has lured investors in the past with a promise to limit their downside risks, with the limits varying on each of the 87 different joint venture plans the company has in effect, said President Todd John siness Mirror Simpson.

The company now has a total reserve of $15,650,000 to cover those losses. Stratford, like many cattle operators, has seen prices drop in the face of stiff customer reactions to high beef prices. At the same time, the cost of feed grains has skyrocketed, sparked by a bad growing season. Some cattle ranchers have reacted to the squeeze with well-publicized killings of calves. Stratford officials say they are still hopeful.

are still selling Simpson said, while adding it was too early to say anything about success in attracting investors. feel cattle feeding can be a profitable market. We give any assurances that this is the best time to feed Stratford had 180,000 head of cattle on feed 13 months ago, Simpson said. Now they are downto 100,000 head at their three feedlots in the Texas Panhandle. Feeder calves are being slaughtered at prices which bring the producer less money than it will cost him to replace the animals, Simpson said.

near time future of the cattle business is he said. very likely by the end of 1975, markedly higher beef prices are inevitable. And that is irregardless of what happens to grain prices, because of the liquidation of stock which is now occurring. liquidation is not only happening in beef but in chicken and Simpson said. More and more supplies of grass fed beef, usually younger slaughter calves, are being sold in supermarkets now.

Corsicana Daily Sun, Fridayy Oct. 18, More People Feel Depression Coming PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) More than half of the citizens believe the U. S. economy is heading toward a style depression, and nearly 70 per cent believe the economic situation will worsen in the next six months, according to the latest Gallup Poll.

Gallup surveyed 1,527 persons aged 18 and older Sept. 27-30, nine days before President Ford said that the country was not in a recession and called on the public to help fight inflation. Responding to a question about a possible major depression, 51 per cent of those polled said they thought one was coming, 41 per cent said they did not and 8 per cent had no opinion. Four Return to U.S. From Cuban Prison The weekend ill soon be over but ill YOU be over the weekend? MIAMI (AP) He had just been freed on $25,000 bond and still faced charges of stealing an airplane, but after four years in a Cuban jail Richard Peter Johnson stood on U.S.

soil and said, a free man Johnson was one of four Americans returned to this country from Cuban prisons as a good will gesture following a recent visit to Cuba by two U.S. senators. good to be back in the greatest country in the Johnson said Thursday as he hugged his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Johnson of Walnut Creek, Calif.

got four years to catch up reunion with his parents at the federal courthouse followed a scene at the airport in which he was arrested by waiting FBI agents and his father engaged in a brief scuffle with the agents. Clifford Johnson was physically restrained by the FBI agents and prevented from reaching his son. four years in hell making me go through the father shouted. a vicious, wicked thing for our government to do to these two individuals who have already suffered four years of hell in a Cuban Kenneth Whittaker, special agent in charge of the Miami FBI office, said of the incident, even know the parents were going to be here. I blame Johnson, 25, and Philip Fred Burris, 32, of Oakland, were jailed on drug smuggling charges after their light plane ran out of fuel over Cuba in November 1970.

They were to be arraigned today on U.S. charges of stealing the airplane. Along with David of Upper Sagon, and Susan Brown of South Royalton, they were released Wednesday as a goodwill gesture from the Cuban government to Sens. Claiborne Pell, and Jacob Javits, who visited Cuba last month. Johnson and Burris were greeted by FBI agents who arrested them on the airplane theft charges and led them away in handcuffs.

Miss Brown and Niremburg were whisked away in a taxi. They were jailed in Cuba on drug possession charges in September 1973 when their yacht was boarded off the Cuban coast. FBI agents said no U.S. charges were pending against them. If you imagine the troubles some folk have, thev'll tell vou in detail.

Price of Silver Leads to of Color Film Utilities in Need of Sympathy NEW YORK (AP) Few people waste any sympathy on electric utilities. Utilities always are big and impersonal, and often they are over-computerized and unresponsive. Many critics claim they are poorly managed. The product they supply is taken for granted, and their bills therefore usually seem excessive. They are unwelcome neighbors too, accused of erecting ugly, even dangerous plants, and of polluting the air and water.

Their image often is that of self-interest and arrogance, a perception sometimes reinforced by appearances and actions. They often are nepotistic. It is assumed by cynics that they have compromised the power regulators. Even their investors seldom have anything nice to say to them, at least of a personal nature. Occasionally they are complimented on the regularity and size of their dividends, but usually that is expected of utilities.

But now the utilities need sympathy. The mighty masta- dons of industry have fallen into a trap that seems to get deeper the harder they try to escape. See if you can solve the puzzle: 1. Because of the expensive equipment needed to operate utilities, they are very heavy borrowers. Interest rates have risen sharply, greatly adding to their costs.

In some instances this forces them to borrow even more. 2. Their credit rating falls, forcing them to pay more. 3. They consider cutting dividends, but this would lead inevitably to lower stock prices, thus eliminating or reducing that source of capital.

4. Having no choice, the utility skips the dividend, which automatically forecloses the likelihood that it can offer a new issue of stok. If customers like the existing stock and some analysts why should investors be interested in more shares? 5. Meanwhile, the price of fuel continues rising. Switch to other cheaper fuels? The environmentalists won't like that.

Raise prices? Yes, even if it offends customers. 6. The customers cut back on their usage. Financing is further disrupted. 7.

Burdened with ill will, insufficient revenues, an unsympathetic bond market and a disinterested stock market, the utilities postpone construction. 8. In so doing they generate great problems for the future. Utility plants become worn out and outmoded. Old plants use new fuels.

They are costly to operate and maintain. They break down. If you believe there is no resolution of the scenario, you might add these possibilities: 1. Shrinking profits look increasingly unattractive to investors. Brownouts demonstrate to millions of people that utilities are The public demands nationalization or municipal expropriation.

2. Utility managers agree. Faced with bankruptcy, they find their only source of funds is the government. Nobody can demonstrate that the latter two possibilities will occur, and among stock market analysts a preponderance agrees a solution will be found in time through tax changes, most likely. But nobody can deny, either, that much of the preceding scenario is being enacted right now.

On the stock market, to use one illustration, utility shares are selling far below book value. One analyst observes that at current prices investors have even discounted nationalization. Presumably, the government would pay book value, he said. New York Silver Mine Silver is mined in the strangest places New York City for instance where Honeywell photographic laboratories recover about four ounces of silver from every 1,000 rolls of color film they process. With silver's price climbing from $1.28 an ounce three years ago to the current $6.50, the photographic industry is especially interested in developing new methods of recycling this precious metal since photo companies are the world's largest consumer of silver 45 million ounces a year.

The two most common recovery methods are the wool system and electrolytic installation In the former, containing silver particles accumulated from photo processing, is strained through cans filled with steel wool, top right The recovered silver is then sent on to a refinery for finishing and eventual resale. In the electrolytic installation method, workers utilize an electrolytic recovery chamber, top left, where regenerated chemicals rotate around stainless steel plates on which the silver collects. The plates are removed from the chamber and left to dry before workers chip off the hardened silver, bottom left The dried silver chips, bottom right, are then sent to the refinery. I CALL US For Plumbing Repairs Prompt Courteous Service Ellington Plumbing Co. 874-8342 Study Sho ws Conservation Can Beat Energy Crisis WASHINGTON (AP) A two-year study says the energy crisis can be beaten by all-out conservation instead of all-out fuel production, avoiding the need to strip-mine the West or to drill for oil off Atlantic beaches.

The report, issued Thursday by the Ford Energy Policy Project, sharply challenged the present government inclination toward energy development. It was attacked immediately by the oil industry. The American Petroleum Institute said reliance on energy conservation would be a reckless gamble. The president of Mobil Oil Corp. called it formula for perpetual economic However, the report anticipated and rejected such charges.

It urged cutting the growth rate of U.S. energy consumption in half, from the historic 4 per cent to about 2 per cent a year. This could be done by more efficient use of energy, it said. Even at the lower growth rate, U.S. energy supply in 1985 would have to increase 28 per cent above last level, the report said.

But it added that low growth make unnecessary additional developments which threaten serious environmental damage or increased oil imports which pose foreign policy The report said energy cuts need not lead to economic stagnation. It claimed the nation could even adopt a policy of zero energy growth beyond 1985 without harming standards of living. can level off energy consumption and continue with an economy in which consumer well-being continues to it said. A major government study of energy policy is due for delivery in early November. But federal agencies already aie deep in preparations to lease areas off the Atlantic, Pacific and Alaskan coasts for petroleum drilling, to strip-mine coal and oil shale in the West, and to speed development and construction of atomic power plants.

The report described these energy sources as charging they present serious environmental and safety problems. It said the nation could meet its needs without them, partly by developing present energy sources and partly through conservation. Navarro County Livestock Commission Jess Young, Manager Total cattle 552 head Wednesday. Killing cows were $1 higher selling up to $18.50 with slaughter fat calves selling up to $30.60 All classes of stocker and feeder calves and yearlings were 50 cents to $1 higher with the advancement of last week. Heavy killing bulls $24 to $27 50 Commercial slaughter cows $15 to $18.50 Cutter cows $13.50 to $17 Canner cows $12 to $14 Slaughter fat calves $25 to $30.60 Good stocker steer calves $26 to $31 Good stocker heifer calves $22 $25 Good stocker steer yearlings $24.50 to $29.50 Good stocker heifer yearlings $19 to $22 Good young springer cows $160 to $215 head Good young cows and calves $200 to $294 pair.

(7 O' 3 -c vO VO vO VO Family Finds Economy in Electric Car 6666 rt C-J 1 ANNIVERSARY SALE WE THANK YOU FOR OUR FIRST BIG YEAR RESIT0L TEX TAN OFF ENTIRE STORE STOCK N0C0NA ANNIVERSARY HAT SPECIAL $Q00 0 TRADE IN ON ANY FELT HAT FREE HAT TO THE DIRTIEST HAT TRADED IN THE DIRTIER THE BETTER TO BE JUDGED SAT. OCT. 19. By TOM FENTON Associated Press Writer AIJJUQUERQUE.N.M. (AP) Dick Bassett says he took a basket of surplus military electrical parts and a junk auto body and turned them into a little electric car that hums along at 40 miles an hour for up to 50 miles.

wife and daughters drive it he said. an awful lot cheaper than a gasoline-driven car. idea of an electric car anything new, but putting one together and driving it around town sure said Bassett, 48, an engineer at Sandia Laboratories. Bassett said the car costs a little over half-a-penny per mile to operate, based on the current price of electricity. He said he has about $1,000 invested in the car.

Nearly three- fourths of the cost is in the 10 lead-acid storage batteries, five each in what had been the engine and trunk spaces. a weird feeling, sitting at a stoplight in the car. When the accelerator depressed, no sound. No power is consumed. You always wonder if really going to move when you hit the Bassett said.

wife has a problem with it while shopping. People in parking lots constantly walk in front of the car, because they hear it coming. also have trouble getting service at drive-in bank windows, because tellers depend on an intercom to alert them that a customer is coming. We usually wind up blowing the The idea of the car, he said, had been in the back of his mind a long time. really decided to do something about it when the energy crisis came.

The car body had to be light and boxy, so I bought a 1963, four door foreign compact sedan. I began by stripping everything out of the radiator heater, hoses, the works. weighed about 1,595 pounds to begin with. I stripped about 300 pounds off of Bassett said. He acquired a surplus aircraft generator from a California firm a 28 volt, 300-amp generator that weighed about 80 pounds and delivers about 36 mechanical horsepower.

Bassett discarded the clutch assembly and bolted the generator directly to a four- speed transmission he rebuilt. rigged a flexible coupling, but I was counting on the syncromesh in the transmission to let me shift gears without a clutch. It worked out real fine, but we never use first gear. Mildred FFA to Meet MILDRED The Mildred High School Future Farmers of America will meet at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Vocational Agriculture Building to discuss the Safety Award Program, according to Becky Boyd, FFA reporter.

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SADDLE SPECIAL HAND MADE TEX-TAN SADDLES REG. UP. NOW TEX TAN SADDLES THREE TO CHOOSE FROM REG. SALE 195 00 GN O' cv ORLD WESTERN WEAR, RIDING andler FENTON.